Michael McKean says Fred Willard would disable elevator bells in the middle of the night

Michael McKean is revealing the deeply personal toll elevator bells had on late comedian Fred Willard. 

The Spinal Tap star, who toured with Willard as part of the Ace Trucking Company comedy troupe in the 1970s, revealed on a recent episode of Dana Carvey and David Spade's Fly on the Wall podcast that the Anchorman actor would carry around "a little toolkit" to disable any bells that were keeping him up at night while on the road.

"Fred, he’s not like any other guy," McKean said. "One time, we were checking into this hotel in Chicago, and he said to the guy, 'Yeah, it’s not near the elevator is it?' And the guy says, 'No, no.'"

McKean said he asked Willard, who died at 86 in 2020, why he made it a point to specifically request that his room is as far away from the elevator as possible.

"'Oh, it’s the bell,'" Willard replied. "'When the bell goes off when the elevator hits on the floor, I can’t stand that. I have really good hearing. I can’t sleep with that bell going every night,'" McKean recalled Willard telling him.

Willard was willing to make the bells stop by any means necessary, too. "He said, 'Well, sometimes, if I get a room near the elevator, I will go and disable the bell,'" McKean recalled, noting that Willard then told him that he carries around "a little toolkit" at all times just in case there's a badly bellowing bell somewhere nearby.

Willard didn't permanently destroy any elevators though. After a good night's rest, McKean added that the Modern Family actor "would hook [the bell] up again when we left in the morning."

"I said, 'Do you really do that every time?'" McKean continued. "He said, 'One time, I had to disable the one on the floor above and the floor below because I could still hear those.'"

McKean went on to describe Willard as "a man in control of his own life" no matter what. "He also had a window on a whole other world that we just can’t see from here," he said. "He was really f---ing awesome.”

Listen to McKean talk about Willard's bell obsession in the podcast above.

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