Episode 1156 - Martin Short
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening my name is mark maron this is wtf my podcast i couldn't get why couldn't i just launch there what happened all right look at what's going on all right let's do this like all of a sudden i don't know how to say that all right let's do this let's do this wow
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:Is it the time of day?
Marc:It can't be the time of day.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:What is happening?
Marc:Nothing good.
Marc:Nothing fucking good.
Marc:What are you going to do with that?
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:You know, I don't want to say that I told you so, because I'm not really an I told you so kind of guy.
Marc:But I got to be honest, man.
Marc:Looking back at my last special, which I recorded ago, like in October...
Marc:where I said, what has to happen?
Marc:Does the sky have to catch fire?
Marc:Does the sky have to catch fire?
Marc:The sky is on fire.
Marc:I'm not happy that I told you so, but I guess it did have to catch fire.
Marc:I don't know what's going to happen with that in the special.
Marc:There's a lot of different angles on it.
Marc:There should only be one.
Marc:But people are fucking incomprehensible.
Marc:People are fucking incomprehensible.
Marc:It's not my line.
Marc:It's from Michael Clayton, Sidney Pollack.
Marc:People are fucking incomprehensible.
Marc:Use whatever options at your disposal that you have to maintain your sanity.
Marc:Not that I think that clarity is that necessary because it's pretty fucking daunting, the clarity.
Marc:I don't think being dumb or shallow or ignorant or detached is, I don't think that's good either.
Marc:You're going to have to shoulder the clarity.
Marc:How do you shoulder that if you have it?
Marc:I mean, shit is fucked up.
Marc:And yet we knew that he knew.
Marc:Woodward's book comes out.
Marc:We knew.
Marc:I mean, I knew that he knew.
Marc:But now it becomes painfully clear that this kind of mass murder through negligence to meet political means is what's happening.
Marc:And no matter how many people cry for justice, the system and the state and the entire country is unfixably broken.
Marc:We live in a failed state.
Marc:Now, however your life is or whatever is okay or whatever you're scraping together for yourself, I mean, that's what's happening.
Marc:I just want to make sure we all acknowledge that.
Marc:Now, what can you do?
Marc:Do you feel powerless?
Marc:Yeah, we can vote.
Marc:Hope the voting works.
Marc:If you want to watch my special for a little painful relief, get giddy, people.
Marc:Get ready, get active, get laughing.
Marc:It's gotten to the point where I've pushed through to the other side.
Marc:It is so fucking apocalyptic, so fucking dystopian, so insane, this goddamn evil clown show that we're living through that I've gotten to the point where I'm like, oh, my God, it's fucking terrible.
Marc:And there's seemingly no way out.
Marc:Your brain hits a wall.
Marc:You can't speculate.
Marc:It's only going to go in the burning garbage.
Marc:There's no speculating.
Marc:There's no hope.
Marc:No matter what happens, it's fucked up.
Marc:And at some point, you're just like, oh, man.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:This is fucking crazy.
Marc:It's really happening.
Marc:Apocalyptic giddiness.
Marc:That is anger mixed with fear, mixed with hopelessness, mixed with sadness.
Marc:And you just kind of let it press down on you until your heart feels the weight.
Marc:And all you can do is kind of go, oh, shit.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:I hope you're managing okay.
Marc:I hope you're using every option at your disposal to maintain your sanity.
Marc:And someone added this, and I think it's true, unless it's at the expense of someone else's sanity.
Marc:I mean, let's not drain the people we love to the point where they don't know what's up.
Marc:You can't just use someone.
Marc:You can't just sit there and be like, oh, this is fucked.
Marc:This is fucked.
Marc:This is fucked.
Marc:We're fucked.
Marc:And they go, no, it's going to be okay.
Marc:It's not going to be okay.
Marc:No one can tell me it's going to be okay.
Marc:No, it'll be okay.
Marc:We'll get through it.
Marc:I don't know if we're going to get through it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know if we're going to get through it.
Marc:We're fucked.
Marc:We're not fucked.
Marc:We have today and we have now and we have this and we have all the love and everything.
Marc:It doesn't fucking matter, man.
Marc:It doesn't fucking matter.
Marc:It's fucking over.
Marc:No, I mean, just take it easy.
Marc:It's going to be okay today.
Marc:Let's just stay in the day.
Marc:Fuck the day.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:We're fucked.
Marc:What?
Marc:We're fucked.
Marc:I just, it's over.
Marc:What?
Marc:No, you can't say that.
Marc:You're the one that doesn't say that.
Marc:No, I'm done.
Marc:I can't hold it up anymore.
Marc:It's fucking over.
Marc:Then if you're not, if you think it's over, then it's really over.
Marc:Like, well, you should have fucking hung your hope on something bigger instead of draining me and using me like some sort of spiritual and emotional battery person.
Marc:So I can't take it anymore.
Marc:And I've got no, no fucking fire left.
Marc:Hey, come on.
Marc:Take it easy.
Marc:Fuck you.
Marc:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:What do we do now?
Marc:Hey, no, no, no.
Marc:You can't be the.
Marc:So.
Marc:Keep your sanity, but don't drain the other person.
Marc:That was just a conversation I have with myself, you know, on most mornings.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:Look.
Marc:I didn't even mention this.
Marc:Martin Short is on the show today.
Marc:I talked to Martin, and he is actually, you know Martin Short.
Marc:He's from SCTV, SNL, Three Amigos.
Marc:He did that live thing with Steve Martin.
Marc:Everybody loves Martin Short, and he's actually nominated.
Marc:He is nominated for an Emmy this year as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his guest role on The Morning Show.
Marc:which you can watch on Apple TV+.
Marc:He was very good in it.
Marc:It was a very kind of disturbing role for Martin Short, but he was very good in it.
Marc:So I woke up to the smell of raw sewage.
Marc:What does my mother... No, that was from fucking an hour ago.
Marc:My mother wants me to tell her...
Marc:When I'm going on Instagram Live.
Marc:And I did.
Marc:And now at 2.13, she goes, okay, gives me the emoji, the customized Toby emoji with the thumbs up.
Marc:And I had to tell her that you fucking missed it.
Marc:I didn't say that though.
Marc:Smell of raw sewage.
Marc:Not great.
Marc:Not a great smell.
Marc:Just wafting through the air outside.
Marc:That's a bad, I don't know what neighborhood you live in or where your brain goes, but the sewage smells bad when it's just going through the air and you're like, where's that coming from?
Marc:Is that my house?
Marc:Is my house about to explode and be lifted up on the blast of a shit geyser?
Marc:Is it going to be some bad effect where I, we're just out of nowhere, just there's a rumbling and then like, and just this furious shit geyser with my house sitting on top of it and Buster in there going, scoped it out.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know where it's coming from.
Marc:I don't, I don't know what's happening.
Marc:I really don't know what's happening.
Marc:I know the sky is red.
Marc:And it's like, it's weird, right, that everyone just, if you're out here in the West Coast, you wake up to this fucking, it's a hellscape.
Marc:But there's weird part of the human brain that just sort of like, well, this is kind of bad, right?
Marc:Does this happen?
Marc:No.
Marc:Did this happen last year?
Marc:No.
Marc:Were there fire tornadoes ever?
Marc:No.
Marc:Did it rain fire before?
Marc:No.
Marc:No.
Marc:Then there are these weird dates where it's like, this is the second hottest day on record.
Marc:It's like, what was the first when the earth was cooling?
Marc:Jesus, fuck.
Marc:So look, I don't want to be a bummer.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:It's over, man.
Marc:It's fucking happening.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm crying and laughing at the same time.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:You're okay.
Marc:That's the weird thing is that craving, you know, weird craving where it's like, who's going to make it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:There's nobody alive that, you know, that can confidently tell you everything's going to be all right.
Marc:Even in that passive way where they don't really know, but you trust them enough because of love that,
Marc:or connection that you will be calmed by it.
Marc:But that's the fucking hardest thing.
Marc:It's like, are we going to be okay?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:No one knows.
Marc:And when people go like, it's going to be okay.
Marc:They don't know.
Marc:And you know, they don't know.
Marc:And when you try to think of the future, you're like, fuck, who knows what's going to happen in an hour?
Marc:Tough place to be.
Marc:And we're all there.
Marc:And we're doing it, folks.
Marc:We're doing it.
Marc:Change where you can.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:Help out.
Marc:Be a decent human.
Marc:Try to do that.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Why do I feel like there needs to be a message?
Marc:We're fucked.
Marc:We're fucked, dude.
Marc:It's over, man.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So let me just share this with you, this Martin Short business.
Marc:As I said before, he's a, you know, Martin Short.
Marc:But he's up for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor on a Drama Series for The Morning Show.
Marc:which is on Apple TV+.
Marc:And this is me talking to Martin Short.
Guest:Coming up.
Guest:.
Marc:That's an empty chair.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:Hello.
Marc:I thought you were going to just be off camera.
Marc:That'd be it.
Marc:There we go.
Marc:Is that your doorbell?
Guest:It's my clock.
Marc:Oh, you have a clock?
Marc:How often is it going to do that?
Marc:That's great sound.
Marc:That's very nice.
Marc:What a nice room you have.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:It's once an hour.
Guest:You can live with it.
Marc:I can, sure.
Marc:Now the wall, the pictures, that's the life behind you?
Guest:This is this is the life behind me.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:I was at Jonathan Winter's house.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he had a wall of photographs from like 100 years of life.
Marc:And there was one picture, just this old, very old picture of a boy and a dog.
Marc:And we're standing there looking at 100 pictures of his entire life and career.
Marc:And he just goes, I miss that dog.
Yeah.
Guest:Wasn't he like the greatest genius ever?
Marc:It was something else, man.
Marc:You know, I went to his house to talk to him before he died.
Marc:And obviously, after we got done talking, he says, I want to show you the planes.
Marc:And that's where we were heading when he showed me the pictures.
Marc:We walked to his bedroom, which they had moved because he couldn't get around as well.
Marc:And he had this four-poster bed.
Marc:And on the ceiling, there was like 100 different model planes suspended from little pieces of string.
Marc:And that was him.
Marc:And then we went to lunch and he wore a Civil War hat.
Marc:He wore a Civil War hat.
Marc:He did.
Marc:The correct side.
Marc:It was a Union colonel's hat, I believe.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:For lunch.
Marc:You know, when you're Jonathan Winters and you go to lunch in the little town you live in, it's a spectacle.
Marc:You need to show up for the people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I did an animated cartoon show with him once.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I want to say 88, 89.
Guest:And he was simply hysterical.
Guest:It's too much.
Guest:And for me and my brother, Michael, we wrote the show together.
Guest:It was so surreal because, you know, I always feel like it doesn't matter who's famous now.
Guest:It's who was famous when you were 12.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they're the ones who can't believe you're meeting.
Marc:He got me once.
Marc:Winters did when I was interviewing years ago for Comedy Central.
Marc:I was the Montreal Comedy Festival running around like an idiot with a microphone.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Ninety five.
Marc:And I get him, and I'm standing there with a mic.
Marc:He doesn't know me.
Marc:I don't know him.
Marc:I'm a kid.
Marc:And I'm like, so how's it going, Jonathan?
Marc:Are you seeing any performers you like up here this year?
Marc:And he goes, well, I haven't really gotten out much.
Marc:My wife's ill, and she's in the room.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, geez, I'm sorry to hear that.
Marc:He goes, I shouldn't have put her in air cargo.
Marc:It wasn't the right thing to do.
Yeah.
Marc:And I didn't see it coming.
Marc:I did not see it coming.
Guest:No, he was amazing.
Guest:Those guys like Rickles and those people that you were so thrilled to meet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you couldn't believe how funny they still were.
Marc:It is kind of amazing that they still got that... There's an engine to it.
Guest:I remember I was at a dinner.
Guest:I have a pseudo...
Guest:weird memory for dates and things.
Guest:I once said someone once said to me, oh, you have that H. Sam thing.
Guest:And I said, yeah, yeah, I've heard of that.
Guest:That's that Mary Lou.
Guest:And I couldn't remember Henner.
Guest:So I realized I didn't have it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I couldn't remember Henner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I remember being at a dinner with Don Rickles.
Guest:It was at David Steinberg and Robin Steinberg's house, and they were throwing a party for Jill Lederman, executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel's show, who was about to have a baby.
Guest:And Rickles was there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they put, you know, all the funny guys at Rickles' table.
Guest:And he was just hilarious and performing and performing.
Guest:And Jimmy Kimmel and I were there, and we were laughing so hard.
Guest:And then at one point, his wife, Barbara, hadn't spoken for about 15 minutes.
Uh-huh.
Guest:And then she finally went, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.
Guest:And he goes, oh, talk, talk, talk, talk.
Guest:Let's put it this way.
Guest:If it wasn't for the talk, talk, talk, talk, you'd be a derelict.
Guest:It's just the word derelict.
Guest:Derelict.
Guest:I haven't heard that word for a while.
Marc:It's like degenerate gambler.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:You don't hear certain things anymore.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:You know, you and I have met.
Marc:Do you know that?
Marc:Yes, I know we met.
Marc:We I wouldn't expect you to remember now that I've been in show business for a relatively long time.
Marc:It was one of those forgettable things that probably that was just something you did during a junket.
Marc:But I used to host a thing called short attention span theater.
Marc:I remember this.
Marc:And the conceit was a basement, a vault.
Marc:And we did a whole show built around you.
Marc:We did like four or five segments interviewing.
Marc:It was probably to promote Clifford.
Marc:I imagine it was probably... Something like that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:92, 93, something like that.
Marc:It was probably put together by Nancy Geller.
Marc:Do you remember Nancy Geller?
Marc:Of course.
Guest:Nancy Geller was an executive producer of SCTV one year.
Marc:Oh, see, she probably she probably called in a favor because she was at HBO downtown then, which is who was producing it.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And we did a we did a long form interview.
Marc:I'll try not to cover any of those questions because I know that.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:It's been it's only been 25 years.
Guest:I'm sure there'll be some people who forget.
Marc:No, no answer.
Marc:Nobody watched it.
Marc:Nobody saw that interview, Martin.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, they were free.
Guest:We can cover it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I enjoyed the thing you did with Steve Martin.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Now, when you do something like that, when you and Steve do that, what is the creative process?
Marc:Do you just say, like, do you want to what are you doing next month?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How does that how does a show like that come together?
Guest:Well, I remember it was the spring of 2011, 2011.
Guest:And that's my Rain Man.
Guest:Very good.
Guest:And we had been asked to interview each other on stage to close the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Chicago.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it was successful.
Guest:But it was also, we had really...
Guest:You know, we're close friends, but we hadn't done anything like this.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the agent said, do you want to book a couple more?
Guest:We said, sure.
Guest:Just interview shows.
Guest:The night before you drinks afterwards.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we kind of and at that time, Steve didn't have a show and I did have a show.
Guest:He had his banjo show, but he didn't have like other than his musical show.
Guest:And so I said, well, why don't we take elements of my show?
Guest:And that's how we kept expanding it into a real show.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And then we just kept working on it.
Guest:And the more we did it, the more we'd add different things, you know.
Guest:And it is as much fun as you can have.
Guest:Because...
Guest:everyone is nice everyone is cool right there are no pricks yeah allowed you know and you don't have to do it i mean it's one of these things you don't have to you know you guys you don't have to do it chose you know what i mean we're doing this because we want to do it but you know the instinct to make it good and to work on it is literally no difference than if i was on sctv in 82 right right yeah that same um
Guest:you know, nerves and focus and, and I don't think that ever changes.
Guest:I think it changes if you stop being in show business for a while and then you come back and, and,
Guest:you're a little off right i can understand that but i i i and steve we never really have stopped doing any of this right until now it's just and then after you have a few under your belt it's just fun and yeah and then there's you know there's the wine afterwards yeah how does it feel to be like not doing anything right now
Guest:I feel like I'm Michael Cohen.
Guest:I'm in house arrest.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This is what house arrest would be.
Marc:But have you ever gone this long?
Marc:I have never gone this long without doing standup.
Guest:It's very hard to break away from a work ethic schedule.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it takes a while for you to go.
Guest:Wow, I have literally nothing on the schedule till August 21.
Guest:And then I'm supposed to see an eye doctor.
Guest:I mean, that's it.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:So it's very, it is very, it's very weird.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:What have you been doing?
Guest:Well, um, uh, at one point I decided, uh, that every time there was a fire or an earthquake in LA, I'm never in LA.
Guest:One of my kids would be at the house and they said, dad, we're loading the car.
Guest:What should we put in?
Guest:And I'd always start with, Oh, the old photo albums.
Guest:Like, I mean, of my parents and grandparents and going back, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And then I thought, I know what I'll do.
Guest:I will get a photocopier machine.
Guest:I'm going to transfer all the old pictures from 1913 on.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Transfer them to my thing.
Guest:And then I would spend a little time
Guest:You know, making people look a little better.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Guest:Well, Photoshop.
Guest:Grandma's looking a little tired.
Guest:I'll take that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So suddenly I'm making people who have been dead for 50 years look hotter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I have three kids in L.A.
Guest:I have a son and daughter-in-law who live with me here.
Guest:He's starting to be a vet.
Marc:You're here, right?
Marc:You're in L.A.
Guest:In L.A., yeah.
Guest:And then I have my daughter lives, you know, over there, and I spend a couple days with her, and then my son lives in Sherman Oaks, and I'll stop in and visit him.
Guest:You know, so I'm kind of between the three houses, but that's it.
Guest:I haven't been at Gelson's, a store.
Guest:I haven't been at anything.
Marc:When our country is like this, I mean, I talked to a Canadian yesterday.
Marc:Maybe I'm a bad American, but my thought is if you could live in Canada, why the fuck wouldn't you right now?
Guest:Well, it is startling to see the level of flatlining in Canada.
Guest:I mean, it's but, you know, Canada is very they they're not kidding around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I were to go, I have a cottage in Canada.
Guest:Right.
Guest:North of Toronto.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I were to go there at customs, I'd have to say, this is my address.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have to give them my cell phone number and you have to go there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you have to be there for 14 days.
Guest:And if you decide I'm bored, I'm going to go to Toronto.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can be fined $750,000.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It's not kidding around.
Guest:And the Canadian sensibility is a little more like it's it's different.
Guest:You know, obviously, we're very similar to Americans, although Lorne Michaels once said to me, I did a special in 85 on Showtime and I did in Toronto and they cut to the audience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Lorne, Lorne looked at it and said, Canadian audiences always look like Russian spies who are dressed up as Americans.
Guest:There's a beard that's too bushy.
Guest:There's something off, you know.
Guest:But anyway, the Canadians kind of they have great trust in the government.
Guest:You know, a friend of mine, I was talking this morning, British Columbia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said they have the daily briefings, but there's not a politician involved.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It's all just doctors.
Guest:They're the only ones who speak.
Marc:Yeah, they're grown up people.
Marc:They trust science and they have health care that's reasonable for humans.
Marc:And there's a lot less.
Guest:You have someone who has an 80 million person Twitter and he's saying, oh, you're being politically correct with that mask or talking about it's a witch hunt, all these things.
Guest:There are people who are going to be influenced.
Guest:It's terrible.
Marc:That's why that's why I wouldn't stay.
Marc:It's like like, you know, the disease is a disease, but it's like it's a frightening time.
Marc:It seems, you know, with the divisiveness.
Marc:And I fantasize about just, you know, I think it's going to be OK.
Guest:OK, I knew I think it's going to be OK, because I think 2016 was a typo.
Guest:And I think people didn't want to hire another Clinton, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:But and a woman and all this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, all the things that scared people.
Guest:But the reality and intellect that scared them, you know, for some.
Guest:But but the reality is that in 2018, people were tired of it.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'll go with you.
Marc:I'll stay with the optimism.
Marc:I mean, I will.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you're generally an optimistic guy, it seems.
Marc:I am.
Marc:Where does that come from?
Marc:Is that Canadian?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:That is a weird question.
Guest:I mean, a good question and a weird.
Guest:Do you remember when it happened?
Marc:Was there ever a time in your life where you were like, I think I think it's DNA and I think it's the way you're raised.
Guest:I think, you know, I'm the youngest of five and all my siblings are funny and loose and sweet and happy and optimistic.
Marc:Let's talk about Hamilton for a minute, because I spent some time there recently and I got into a little bit of trouble because because I I was I kind of brought to light the fact that it's seen better days, that it's that there was I was poetic about it.
Marc:I said there's a parade of pain of some kind, like.
Marc:I was there for two weeks and it was jarring.
Marc:The sort of type of kind of it wasn't so much being destitute.
Marc:There was just sort of there was something going on on the streets that represented trouble.
Marc:I know.
Guest:You know what happened to Hamilton?
Guest:They had they had major international harbester, a big company, and that went bankrupt.
Marc:You grew up there, right?
Marc:You grew up in Hamilton.
Guest:I grew up there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went to university there.
Guest:McMaster University.
Marc:So what was it like when you were a kid?
Guest:It was, I'm telling you, it was elegante.
Guest:It was, you see pictures of, you know, from the Canard Hotel and people are dressed in fabulous clothes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it just hit in the 70s and 80s hard times with closing big companies like steel companies.
Guest:And so, but now they've reinvented it and now it is going up.
Marc:No, it was just I had never seen more like and I don't even know what to make of it.
Marc:I was shooting a movie up there and we were driving around and every day there was just like people.
Marc:There was always this weirdness on the streets and it just looked like a little chaotic, a little druggie, a little.
Marc:Yeah, it looked like a Detroit ish kind of situation.
Guest:Well, I can't imagine why if you brought this up, you weren't embraced by the city.
Marc:I was trying to be honest.
Marc:But you can't.
Marc:It's not my place.
Guest:No one wants honesty in show business.
Guest:You know that.
Guest:When you see a horrible play on Broadway, you don't go backstage and say, wow, was this horrible.
Marc:Yeah, you guys.
Marc:No one wants to hear that.
Marc:Throw the towel in now.
Guest:This was fantastic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Great.
Marc:So good.
Marc:Or you focus on the things that were good.
Marc:You know, those shoes were.
Marc:What are those shoes?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, are you going to like to do this every night?
Guest:What an accomplishment.
Marc:So there were five kids in the family?
Guest:Five.
Marc:And you guys were and did your dad work for one of the big companies that went out of business?
Guest:My father was a vice president of Canadian Steel.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And my mother was the concert master of the Hamilton Philharmonic.
Marc:And that was a big deal then?
Guest:That was a big deal.
Guest:And she would rehearse five hours a day.
Guest:And my father was an executive.
Guest:And yeah, I had a great, happy-go-lucky childhood.
Marc:What did she play?
Marc:What was the intro?
Guest:Violent.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:When you were the concert master of a symphony, you are the first violinist.
Marc:Oh, that's always the way it is.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And so you had art in the house.
Marc:You had expression.
Marc:You had music.
Marc:You had people who embraced your creativity, I imagine.
Guest:My father would give my mother an opera every Christmas and on Boxing Day, which is the 26th, the next day, we would read the libretto and hear it.
Guest:I mean, I tell people that and they go, what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What?
Guest:I said, you didn't have that?
Guest:No, I didn't have that.
Yeah.
Marc:Do you still enjoy opera?
Marc:No, not really.
Guest:And there's some I like.
Guest:I love hearing the three tenors and stuff like that, but I'm not obsessed.
Guest:I do like classical music, though.
Guest:Especially the older I get, I find myself gravitating toward that, especially during pandemic times where you just can't hear it anymore.
Guest:You're done for the day.
Marc:You don't want to get worked up on bebop.
Guest:No.
Guest:So sometimes a little, you know, Mozart can just be the perfect combo.
Marc:But do you like, were you educated with it?
Marc:So like every year, oh, it was just once a year you get the opera, but you didn't.
Guest:No, but there was a, there was a, you know, I would go to the symphonies.
Guest:My father was also the president of the symphony.
Guest:So I remember being five and like not figuring out how can this sound not be coming on a speakers?
Guest:Like I'd be in the second row.
Guest:It was very surreal.
Marc:It's wild, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To be in a symphony hall that you've played them too.
Marc:Isn't it a trip when you perform on the stage of a symphony hall?
Guest:It's insane.
Guest:And I've done shows with symphonies and that's also really.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you can just talk and you can hear it.
Marc:And then it's such a well-designed acoustic place.
Marc:It's, it fascinates me.
Guest:It's spectacular.
Guest:Carnegie hall.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:It's crazy.
Yeah.
Marc:So why didn't you become a musician?
Guest:Well, you know, we had to play piano.
Guest:All of us had to play piano from age five on, take piano lessons.
Guest:But then at 13, you could quit.
Marc:Oh, that was the rule?
Guest:I quit.
Guest:I mean, I think, you know, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in the 60s, when I was a teenager,
Guest:you'd look at American television, that's all you looked at, through Buffalo.
Guest:You never looked at Canadian television.
Guest:And it didn't seem like it was real.
Guest:It didn't seem like it was a real opportunity for someone in Hamilton to tear a can.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I'd be in my attic pretending to do shows and
Guest:I had a laugh applause record, and I had a gooseneck lamp because even then I knew I needed lighting.
Marc:You had a laugh record?
Guest:I had a applause record from Sinatra at the Sands.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:I looped it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I'd reel to reel, and I'd hold my mic up, and I had a- What were you doing up there?
Marc:So you looped the applause.
Guest:At the DeMartin Short Show.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:And it was on Tuesdays at 8 o'clock on NBC, but every other Tuesday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because that left room for my movie career.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I was 14, 15.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you think if that's your kid, you go, well, then he's got to go to a national art school or something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But to me, there was not a hint of really doing this.
Right.
Guest:It was fantasy.
Guest:It was unrealistic.
Guest:You know, I'd watch television.
Guest:I'd watch, I don't know, something from Disneyland.
Guest:It might as well have been on Neptune.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So I was going to be a doctor.
Guest:Really?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I went into pre-meds, not because I liked science.
Guest:I was a fan of Chad Everett's work on Medical Center, and I thought, you know, the idea of being a doctor was not... I didn't want to have to study anything, but I liked the idea of... Because I would say of all professions, I admire that the most.
Marc:Right, because it looks authoritative, and you help people, and you...
Guest:You can help them die.
Guest:You can give birth to a baby.
Guest:You can make them feel better.
Guest:No, I admire that.
Guest:But no, then I switched to social work.
Guest:And then so that my four years at university were pre-meds and social work.
Guest:And then I left an actor.
Marc:So you went to school in Hamilton.
Marc:There was a big college there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did not leave home.
Marc:Now, like in my recollection now, I've talked to a few others.
Marc:There was some sort of comedy magic in Hamilton, right?
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:I mean, Eugene Levy was at university.
Guest:He was a few years older.
Guest:Dave Thomas.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:um ivan reitman the director yeah yeah i've talked to uh i've talked to eugene i've talked to ivan graduates from mcmaster university in hamilton ontario but you didn't know any of them i knew eugene i knew eugene at school and i met ivan i met ivan yeah but he was the head of the film board and he was you know i was younger than those guys right
Guest:a few years so uh but like i think my first year eugene was it was his last and stuff like that and but i knew ivan and i remember ivan will still say to me we'll be at like the afi awards yeah someone right and he'll always stand beside me say can you believe the two of us from hamilton you know yeah
Guest:Not losing the perspective of what are the odds?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then, and then, so I was there for four years.
Guest:And then in 72, there was this amazing scene in Toronto.
Guest:That's where I went to be, try to be an actor.
Marc:So that's where you went to live.
Marc:You went up there and got an apartment.
Guest:I got, well, when I was still in university, I got the show Godspell.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:See, this is the famous Godspell production.
Guest:That's the famous Godspell.
Guest:And, but hanging around that time in, in, um,
Guest:Toronto were people like Danny Aykroyd who wanted to be a cop at that point.
Marc:You knew him?
Guest:John Candy.
Guest:Yes, I met them all.
Guest:I met Danny Aykroyd on June 28th, 1972.
Guest:And the reason I know it's that it was because it was Gilda's birthday, Radnor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was a big party for her at this place called Global Village in Toronto Club.
Guest:And Danny and his then comedy partner, Valerie Bromfield, stayed in character as Gilda's parents from Detroit.
Guest:And I just I had never met someone so original and funny.
Marc:And you and you at that time had already done Godspell?
Guest:No, we were doing it.
Guest:I did gospel for a year.
Guest:So this would be, we had probably just opened and I did it for a year.
Marc:And where'd all your siblings end up?
Guest:My brother, Michael, is a very successful comedy writer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Wrote on SCTV, one of the head writers of Schitt's Creek.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Still doing it.
Guest:A million Emmys and a million successes.
Guest:My brother, Brian, vice president of Dover Industries, a company that makes paper products.
Guest:And my sister, Nora, is a nurse anesthetist.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:And they're all older.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I'm the youngest.
Marc:And you were the last one to leave the house.
Guest:The big mistake, yeah.
Guest:You were the accident?
Guest:I was the accident, yeah.
Guest:But when there's a 14-year difference, you know you're an accident.
Marc:Oh, that's crazy.
Marc:So they were gone most of your life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, you know, I had a lot of and it goes back to optimism.
Guest:I had a lot of, you know, sadness as a young guy growing up in that house.
Guest:It was a fabulous house.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yet when I was 12, my brother David, the eldest, died in a car accident.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:My mother immediately got cancer.
Guest:She would die in 67 when I was 17.
Guest:And then my father died a year later when I was 19.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I actually for a year got orphan relief checks from the Ontario government.
Marc:And all the siblings were gone.
Guest:And out of deference to my father, I would just use that money to buy alcohol.
Marc:Did he enjoy the alcohol?
Guest:He, a gin and ginger, no ice, dear.
Guest:He's Irish.
Guest:You know, the Irish feel that ice is addictive, so he wouldn't go near ice.
Marc:Was he, like, real Irish?
Marc:Should I talk with an accent, Irish?
Guest:Yes, you're born and raised across McGlain County, Emma.
Guest:Marty, get down here.
Guest:uh i i love ireland oh it's so fabulous do you go great my yes my well my father was born and raised in uh at shorts bar in cross mcgland county armagh which is just over the border from dundalk and it is still in operation run by my 95 year old aunt really and roseline yes
Guest:that's amazing and cousins and cousins so you have a real family there absolutely you go there shorts bar we can go right now you can you know you can be a citizen there too if you want i know i i have three passports yeah and i'm going oh really what's the fourth one i have uk i have canada u.s and then um i could republic of ireland
Marc:I would love to live in Ireland.
Marc:And I'm a Jew.
Marc:I've got no connection.
Marc:But for some reason, it resonates with me.
Marc:I don't know why.
Guest:The people are really spectacular.
Guest:They are, man.
Guest:And sarcastic and funny and loose.
Guest:Yeah, I love it.
Guest:One time spending, I was at Shorts Bar.
Guest:This is like 98.
Guest:And I'm staying up all night with my two cousins, Oliver and Patrick.
Guest:And we're drinking.
Guest:And when you are publicans, as they call it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They you don't drink from the bar.
Guest:You put money into the till and then you take a drink.
Guest:OK, it's a sin to not do it that way.
Guest:Anyway, I came down first around nine in the morning and there were glasses and I saw my uncle Patty cleaning the glasses out.
Guest:He looked at me and said, so how did the character assassination go last night, Marty?
Yeah.
Guest:They knew.
Guest:We were talking about all of them.
Marc:That's beautiful.
Marc:So when you left for Toronto, what happened to the house and stuff?
Guest:I still had a fourth year university.
Guest:And by the end of that year, we sold the house.
Guest:And I had an apartment in Hamilton.
Guest:And then I got Godspell.
Guest:And now I moved into a house with Eugene Levy and another guy, John Yaffe.
Guest:Yaffe.
Yeah.
Guest:And we had this big house in Avenue Road, which is in Toronto.
Guest:Tom Hanks always loves it.
Guest:It's called Avenue Road.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He brings that up.
Guest:It never seemed odd.
Marc:I wouldn't have thought of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I did gospel.
Guest:And then I started going out with Gilda and I kind of lived with her.
Marc:So was this your first immersion in Jews?
Guest:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Guest:I am 10 percent Jewish on my agent side.
Guest:Jewish is very important to me.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I'll tell you exactly what it is.
Guest:I grew up in a very Jewish section of Hamilton, Westdale.
Guest:So all my friends were Jewish.
Guest:And there was something else.
Guest:I was, you know, not the tallest kid in the class.
Guest:So I wasn't it wasn't about, you know, the football player and I are going to hang.
Guest:I was drawn toward the smartest.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:People in the class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a class of 38.
Guest:I swear all the smartest people were Jewish.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:It's just a fact.
Guest:And so then my best friends were Mitchell Rosenblatt, Alex Stiglick and Sheldon Bechalter.
Marc:Bechalter.
Guest:Bechalter.
Marc:So because I know that, you know, you do have a sensitivity to the timing and to, you know, I think a few of your characters are Jewish, whether you'd say they're Jewish or not.
Guest:I'm not aware of that, except and many, many people from my life think I'm Jewish.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:Well, I mean, you're in show business and you have a very good, you have the innate shtick timing.
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:But so does John Mulaney, doesn't he?
Marc:No, he doesn't.
Marc:He's he's got a thing that he does.
Marc:But I mean, I'm now I guess.
Marc:Well, listen, I don't know what it is.
Guest:It's also probably, you know, as a kid, I'm watching television and I'm responding to.
Guest:Yeah, I was going to say Jerry Lewis, but I'm also responding to Jonathan Winters and Dick Van Dyke.
Marc:Yes, I can see that.
Guest:So, you know, when Stan Laurel, Stan Laurel.
Marc:Oh, he's great.
Marc:Did you see that movie with Coogan and genius?
Marc:It was such a great fucking movie.
Guest:And how great are they?
Marc:Unbelievable.
Marc:Unbelievable.
Marc:How I know the work they put into that fucking thing.
Marc:Have you played Stan Laurel?
Marc:Why do I feel like you've played him?
Marc:No, never.
Marc:No, never tried to do it as a character.
Guest:Well, I mean, I could I could do that.
Guest:I certainly do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you move in with Gilda.
Marc:You guys are.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now, like, what was this?
Marc:The Godspell thing.
Marc:I mean, was this the beginning of sketch comedy in Canada after Godspell?
Marc:Because it seemed like the people that were in it all kind of started to do that.
Guest:No, I think it was just, you know, it was a smaller pond.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I will tell you, the Godspell editions were like out of, you know, reality show that you'd see now.
Guest:It was like, it was already a hit in New York, and everyone, everyone who was an actor wanted it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So everyone auditioned, and the final callback of the Masonic Temple in Toronto was, I don't know, 500 people.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So the rest of the...
Guest:temple, Masonic temple was loaded with supporters and fans.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then that, you know, you start off, you'd sing and then they in groups of five and they call back one person of the five and you had to come back an hour later and do it again.
Guest:And then an hour later, if you made that cut off, you had to do an improv sketch.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:You know, so they were looking for people that could were talented, but it was a raw talent.
Guest:But that day they cast Eugene Levy.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:And Victor Garber as Jesus and Andrea Martin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And myself and Paul Schaefer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They made him the musical director.
Guest:So it was kind of an amazing.
Marc:Was Dave Thomas in it, too?
Guest:Dave Thomas would come a little bit later.
Guest:Oh, OK.
Guest:Not that day.
Guest:And so it was a surreal thing.
Guest:And then a year later, Second City came to town.
Marc:OK.
Guest:From Chicago.
Marc:And set up shop.
Guest:And that they were doing a sister company and Joe Flaherty and Brian Doyle Murray were going to direct the first show.
Guest:And they everyone auditioned for it.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:Oddly enough, you know, I think it was I was afraid of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everyone else wanted it so badly.
Guest:So and they got it.
Guest:Gilda got it.
Guest:And John Candy got it.
Guest:And Eugene.
Marc:Uh huh.
Guest:of my group.
Marc:And what was the show?
Marc:It was just a sketch show?
Guest:That was a best of Second City show.
Guest:And then they developed material.
Marc:Okay, so all those people had had experience improvising.
Guest:You know, you learn quickly at Second City.
Guest:You learn things like
Guest:Like the things that I was afraid of was I'd always been the funny guy at parties and I was funny on stage.
Guest:I hated the pressure of being funny now.
Guest:That's what Second City represented to me.
Guest:Until I realized that, no, you just go out and keep talking in the character.
Guest:And sometimes a reaction would be a bigger laugh than an action or a word.
Guest:right and um so you you learned to calm down right and just inhabit at the same time learning how to improvise right but you could also like i would imagine you're you can sing and stuff too which is a nice thing right not that you need it for improvising but you know you could i mean you've done musicals it's exciting yeah it well i think you know a canadian career is more um
Guest:You know, there's not, certainly when I was there, just living there as a Canadian actor, there wasn't so much a star system, but you could have 12 different jobs in the course of a month, where if you were an American actor in Hollywood, you would never get that kind of practical experience.
Marc:Yeah, I've noticed that about Canada, and I've said it to other Canadians, that if you hang around Canadian show business long enough, you'll get your show.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you'll get something.
Guest:But you'll also have had hours, logged hours of things that maybe no one saw.
Guest:Like what?
Marc:What did you do that no one saw?
Guest:I, at 22, was the host of my own show on CBC called Right On.
Guest:And it was live at 5 p.m.
Yeah.
Guest:And I would sing the songs of the week, but I had no funk.
Guest:So it was, I shot the sheriff.
Guest:And then they'd also feature young Canadian talent.
Guest:And there was no cue cards, and I would just forget lyrics.
Guest:That was on and off quickly.
Guest:We had one half season.
Marc:Well, it's kind of funny, because that's how Dan Eugene's son kind of started.
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:Well, he was that was MTV.
Guest:That was hipper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you know who is the announcer on Right On?
Marc:Who?
Guest:And now the host of your show, Martin Short, Alex Trebek.
Marc:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So he was doing that stuff, too.
Guest:Well, he did it once, you know, he was like the big voice guy then.
Guest:And he just popped in high, did the little thing.
Marc:And that was that was who he was.
Marc:He was the Canadian Don Pardo.
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:No, he was hipper than that.
Guest:But he was certainly if you were going to have an announcer do that, you got Alex to back.
Marc:He's your guy.
Guest:yeah were you guys friends no but i i've met him through the years and i've done uh i did celebrity jeopardy once how'd you do not well yeah i did better during the practice round there was something i kept saying my buzzer was off you know sure and then i was doing so badly i decided to do jokes and that kind of pissed people off i think yeah when yeah when uh when you're when you're failing it's always good to be funny
Guest:Yeah, as if you're not really drunk.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't know what's happening.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what was the roots of SCTV, though?
Marc:You were there at the beginning of that, right?
Guest:No, not really, no.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, because I didn't join Second City.
Guest:Again, I had a thing of I'll join it when I really want to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That makes more sense.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so SCTV started, Second City TV started in 76.
Guest:So I wasn't in...
Guest:that i hadn't even joined the stage show yet huh oh really that was that was joe flarity and dave and katherine and eugene and uh andrea and katherine and that was the original crew yeah and then um then you know it faltered and then it didn't have its financing it was off a year and then they got financing in edmonton and that's when rick moranis joined edmonton still not me and then i joined in 82
Guest:They were already a hit when I joined.
Marc:And they were in Edmonton?
Guest:They did in Edmonton, and then they moved back to Toronto, and that's when I joined.
Marc:Is Flaherty still around, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You guys talk?
Guest:We talked two weeks ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Everyone kind of stays in touch?
Guest:Yeah, well, you know, we're working on this documentary that Scorsese's doing on SCTV.
Guest:And so we had a Zoom about that and everyone was involved.
Marc:That must have been fun.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:And I see Eugene lives two blocks down.
Guest:He pops over.
Guest:Catherine O'Hara lives five blocks down and she has a cottage near me.
Guest:She's up there now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Andrea is my former sister-in-law.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So she's the aunt to my children.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I speak to her all the time.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:I like hearing that.
Marc:Dave, I love.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Talked to him two days ago.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Now, it is an odd group that stayed...
Marc:close like i remember like when i was watching sctv i i can't even remember if it was actually it was on a weekend night and it was like this unique thing and i didn't understand where it was coming from or it was friday uh friday night yeah what year like in this well there were different incarnations the 90 minute show yeah that i was on to would have been um 12 30 right to two in the morning friday night right and what year was that
Guest:82, 83, 84.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And I remember you doing Robin on a ladder.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:It's for Tang.
Guest:Oh, Tang you.
Marc:And you're just up on the ladder.
Guest:Oh, beam me down, Scotty.
Marc:You did a good Robin.
Marc:I think you might do the best Robin.
Guest:Well, certainly not a lot of people were doing it at the time.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:He wasn't that big a star yet?
Guest:Oh, he was a big star, but it was just like no one had jumped on that.
Marc:Figured out the pace.
Guest:But the way you do SCTV is that, let's say a writer wrote a piece, or Eugene wrote it, I think.
Guest:It was the idea that Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer had a famous fight at a party, and evidently Mailer threw a glass of wine in Gore Vidal's face.
Guest:And so the piece was reenactment of the fight.
Guest:I play Gore Vidal, Eugene's Norman Mailer.
Guest:And then it becomes a Tide commercial as they try to get the stain out of my shirt.
Guest:And it ultimately is a Tide commercial that they've done.
Guest:So someone said, you read it, it's funny.
Guest:And someone says, hey, can you do Gore Vidal?
Guest:And you go...
Guest:sure you have no idea then you go home yeah what i used to do is i'd get a recording of gore vidal and i'd type it up transcribe his like two minutes of gore vidal yeah in an interview right and then i juxtapose it with the script for the piece but i if you notice like from the transcription of gore vidal
Guest:everyone speaks in a certain pattern, certain words they use a lot, certain ahs.
Guest:So I'd apply that to the script kind of overlapping to try to figure out how to do Gore Vidal.
Guest:Sometimes you'd have someone down like, I did Paul Anka once and I was good for three takes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:And then it was gone.
Guest:I'd have the Walkman on, I'd throw it down.
Guest:Let's go.
Guest:yeah for 23 years you made us laugh and cry and think and you did it your way and then if i tried to do it two weeks later i couldn't do it right oh it was or just ran right now i can't do it right yeah so it would just stick for right we right when you heard it you're like i'm in let's do it and that's it yes exactly but robin sticks well robin i knew robin yeah you know yeah and uh you know he had that kind of irish little tune he did yeah
Guest:Odd that his parents weren't Irish and he grew up in San Francisco.
Guest:But, oh, that's incredible.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Wonderful.
Marc:It is kind of.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did you guys ever.
Marc:So you've done your impression of him to him.
Marc:And he probably got it.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He did SCTV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We did Bowery Boys in the Band.
Guest:the bowery boys and boys in the band and i played um hunts hall and he was leo gorcy it was fantastic oh that's great i used to watch that at my grandparents house bowery boys no one i love the bowery boys they were great well you know they started off in a movie like a 1938 movie as real teenagers and then they just kept doing it they were like 52 still doing it weren't they the dead-end kids too
Guest:That's where they started off.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then they became the Bowery Boys.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So from SCTV, I don't know how everybody becomes... Eventually, everyone ended up here.
Marc:When did that sort of happen?
Marc:When did the migration happen?
Guest:Back to Canada, I remember there was this moment that Paul Schaefer was the first person in our group to be...
Guest:work in the States.
Guest:He was working on the magic show, the Doug Henning show.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And Stephen Schwartz who wrote Godspell was also, that was his show.
Guest:So he asked Paul to be keyboard for that show.
Guest:So now Paul's in New York.
Guest:And I remember Gilda and I phoning him one day.
Guest:We were both in the same extension.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Gilda said, Paul, what are New York actors like?
Guest:And Paul said, well...
Guest:I don't know, maybe because you're my friends.
Guest:I think you guys are just as talented.
Guest:And we went, oh, that's so sweet.
Guest:We didn't believe it.
Guest:So there was this tendency to, before I die...
Guest:I have to give the states a shot.
Guest:Or I always used to say, I want to look in the mirror and say, maybe you should have tried going to New York for a bit.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:You did.
Guest:And you failed.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You want to, you know, cross it off your should have done it list.
Marc:But so you went down there once before and then you left.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:What happened was that I went down to try to, I don't know, get work or so.
Guest:Oh, I know what it was.
Guest:Lorne Michaels was,
Guest:Was now, well, he was SNL and Gilda got me an interview with Lauren.
Guest:And I had now been, you know, I'd been successful in Second City Stage.
Guest:I hadn't been in SCTV, but I, you know, I didn't have, people knew it wasn't like a total unknown.
Guest:So anyway, Lauren offered me a holding deal.
Guest:This would be early, like January 79.
Guest:And he said, you know, Danny or John might leave.
Guest:And I could see you were going in to the show for the fifth season.
Guest:And so now I'm in New York.
Guest:That's exciting.
Guest:It wasn't, you know...
Guest:much money holding, but it was exciting and complimentary.
Guest:But then at the same time, I auditioned for James L. Brooks, who had a new series called The Associates on ABC.
Guest:And he was so powerful.
Guest:He'd done all the Mary Tyler Moore shows and Phyllis.
Guest:And also he'd just signed a big deal with Paramount.
Guest:Now he adjusted there.
Guest:His first show was Taxi.
Guest:And that was a massive hit.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Now this is the next year.
Guest:And he had a 13 on the air, no pilot order.
Guest:It's very cool.
Guest:And I auditioned for him and I got, you know, one of the leads in the show.
Guest:And so now I had planned to go to New York and now we were moving to California.
Marc:You and your wife or who?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:That's where my girlfriend at the time who would become my wife.
Guest:And that was 79, summer of 70.
Marc:And that's what got you out here.
Guest:That's what first got me out here.
Guest:And then I ended up going back to do, of course, we owned a house in Toronto.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And going back in 82 to do SCTV.
Marc:So that's like because it's like it's interesting how many like you did a lot of stuff on television.
Marc:You did that thing, which didn't take off, I guess.
Marc:You did 13, though.
Guest:We did 13.
Guest:And then the next year I did another show called I'm a Big Girl Now with Diana Canova and Danny Thomas.
Guest:And that went off.
Marc:But but this was that.
Marc:But this was the year.
Marc:These were the years of 13, 14 episode commitments.
Marc:So it wasn't.
Guest:Yeah, we did.
Guest:We did 19.
Guest:I'm a big girl now.
Marc:And what went wrong with that show?
Guest:Well, it wasn't, I played Neil Stryker, the office boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't, you know, I don't think, I don't think it was the, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't all in the family.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But did you see yourself like, you saw yourself as just an actor or you saw yourself as a comedian, a comic actor?
Guest:I think I saw myself as an actor.
Marc:Hmm.
Yeah.
Guest:And I think, you know, I also thought before I die, I want to do a Broadway show.
Guest:I want to act.
Guest:You know, obviously, SCTV, Second City Stage was two years, 70, 70, 79 of improvising.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:You know, to me, it was just like.
Guest:It wasn't so much, where's my career headed?
Guest:What's my seven-year plan?
Guest:I was just trying to figure out rent and everything.
Guest:In Canada, in those days, if you got a job, you didn't say, I wonder, should I run it past my manager to see if this is the right thing?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You just say, do I bring a suit?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I need my own wardrobe.
Marc:Is there going to be a hair and makeup person there or no?
Guest:No, there won't be.
Marc:And what do you, what launched?
Marc:Cause like, it seemed like there was a time there where, you know, you were definitely in the mix with the big things, the movies, like, you know, when you did three amigos and inner space and well, the big picture, that's a great movie, but I mean, how did that, how did, what, what caused that leap to happen when you went like three amigos?
Marc:Well, I think that you, you know, um, or was that for, you had already done SNL by that time?
Guest:Yeah, I did SNL, and I was successful in that, and that made me now a name that you would pitch for Three Amigos.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So the SNL experience, that was a very unique, wild season.
Guest:Yeah, we all had one-year contracts, because Eddie Murphy had left the year before.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Guest:And Joe Piscopo had left.
Marc:That's probably better.
Guest:And now there was a feeling that the show might be canceled.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because Lauren was gone too, right?
Guest:And Lauren was gone.
Guest:It was Dick Ebersole.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so there was a real sense, should it be canceled?
Guest:So Dick, he called it the George Steinbrenner year, where he...
Guest:offered a one-year contract with a lot more money than ever been paid a cast member to Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Martin Short, and Rich Hall.
Marc:Did you know those guys?
Marc:Did you know Chris Guest before?
Marc:No.
Marc:That was when you met him, huh?
Guest:I met Chris.
Guest:I'd met Billy because my wife was on the TV show Soap with Billy.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I'd met him briefly.
Guest:And we had the same manager, Rollins and Jaffe.
Guest:And Harry, I knew, he was friends with Paul Schaefer.
Marc:OK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I didn't know Rich.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's so you're all coming into it.
Marc:You're all unique pros with real comedic personalities defined.
Guest:I remember I remember I just finished SCTV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I really wanted a break from this kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I actually still have it a pro and con list.
Guest:Should I do SNL or not?
Guest:Because we had just rented a new house out in LA and I had a new baby.
Guest:And I thought, oh my God, this is so much work.
Guest:And what if I'm no good?
Guest:And what if I stink?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was all that stuff.
Guest:But then I aired, and then Dick Abbersaw had asked me to be, and he said, you know, we're also going after Billy Crystal, Christopher Gassner, and I said, well, yeah, okay, let me know when you get them.
Guest:And then he phoned me up and said, we have them.
Guest:Hey, you do?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Because Spinal Tap was out that summer, and it was, you know, the hottest, hippest, most brilliant thing imagined.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And then you were working with all those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was intimidating.
Marc:Was that a great experience for you, though?
Guest:You know,
Guest:As Cher would say, if I could turn back time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Having a one-year contract made you feel like, oh, I can get out of this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it also put pressure on you.
Guest:You felt like you were doing a special a week.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like there wasn't this sense of, I'm going to be here for seven years.
Guest:Okay, so I'm not in this week.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So you could feel like a star Saturday night, but by...
Guest:and as a writer on the show too, by the Wednesday read-through, if you didn't have anything in that you really liked, you felt like the biggest failure in the world.
Guest:But I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to be good because I wasn't going to be there long.
Marc:But it seems like some of the characters that came out of that, you did forever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm no fool.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But...
Guest:Or people say to me, do you still do your characters from SNL?
Guest:And I say, sadly, yes.
Guest:But I went in after the fourth show and tried to quit.
Guest:I went to Ebersole's office and said, being Canadian and savvy, I said, you know, I haven't cashed any checks.
Guest:And he went, right.
Guest:Well, you have a very high Q rating.
Guest:I didn't know what that was.
Guest:And he said, well, he handled it like a champ.
Guest:He really did.
Guest:Because he said,
Guest:We were only in October or something.
Guest:And he said, if you leave now, because I had gotten some early attention on that show.
Guest:He said, if you leave now, it would be really bad for us, but it would be very bad for you.
Guest:And you'll also be breaking your contract.
Guest:But if at Christmas you still want to leave, I'll let you leave.
Guest:Because he knew that, he just later told me, he knew that by midway point, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Guest:And maybe I would have figured out to calm down a little bit, not be so worried about the quality of my work.
Guest:I remember the first show before we went on the air, I said, Harry Shearer and I are writing synchronized swimming together.
Marc:It's a great bit.
Guest:It was a good piece.
Guest:And I said, Harry, you know how I'm going to do this, this SNL experience?
Guest:I'm always going to be holding a piece back, a piece that I really believe in so that I can not feel pressured.
Guest:I can tinker with it for an extra week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:And he got a piece of paper, put it in his typewriter, typed it out.
Guest:and then put it on his wall.
Guest:He said, all right, I want to see how that piece is doing each week when you come in here without a fucking idea in your head.
Guest:I'll ask you, how's that piece you're holding back, the one you want your friends to see?
Guest:How's that piece?
Guest:There was no such piece.
Guest:It never would happen.
Marc:But it made sense to you in the moment.
Guest:Well, you know, that's how you could do SCTV.
Guest:You would write for six weeks.
Guest:And Eugene Levy, who is the most prolific writer,
Guest:One season, the Cinemax season, first couple weeks, he just didn't have anything.
Guest:Now, in SNL, you wouldn't be in the show for two weeks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He then, in the last four weeks of the writing, made up for the first two weeks and was the heaviest in every show, as always.
Marc:But you were denied that experience of SNL with Lorne at the helm.
Marc:But you know Lorne from other things.
Marc:You're friends with Lorne.
Guest:Then we did Three Amigos together.
Marc:Right.
Marc:How involved was he?
Guest:He was involved.
Guest:He's one of the three writers on that script.
Guest:Randy Newman, Steve, and Lorne.
Guest:And then I had met Lorne originally backstage of Godspell, I think.
Guest:But then I got to know him very well from Amigos on, mid-'80s on.
Marc:You just became friends because you guys were Canadians?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:But also, he's funny and charming and loves to laugh.
Guest:And we had a lot of mutual friends.
Guest:And then I started doing SNL.
Marc:So when you look back on it, like because you it's it's sort of like you've done so much work.
Marc:Everybody knows you.
Marc:You're an amazing performer.
Marc:You're hilarious.
Marc:But the question is, is like when you look back on the TV opportunities or like when you had yet several shows, do you wish that you would just landed one and stayed on it for your life?
Marc:Like a talk show?
Guest:Well, when you do things, like I would say my career has been...
Guest:you know, 80% in failure.
Guest:And I think those are pretty good odds.
Guest:You know, that's not bad.
Marc:But how do you, how do you determine failure really?
Guest:Well, I mean, failure, not in the artistic sense, but failure in the sense of you're not renewed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, your show gets canceled.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The thing that you, and then you go, huh,
Guest:Now what?
Guest:Oh, maybe Broadway once, and then you go there for a while.
Guest:Hey, have you heard?
Guest:You're hot in the movies again.
Guest:I am.
Guest:All right.
Guest:The movies didn't open.
Guest:What about TV?
Guest:You know?
Guest:And then there's the Palm Springs Follies.
Guest:I hear their audition.
Guest:You know, you just keep moving along.
Guest:And so in retrospect, as I look back at my career, I love that it was so eclectic and had so many things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wasn't on Cheers for 14 years.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But...
Guest:In the first season of had I been on the first season of, quote unquote, cheers and had been canceled, I would have been bummed.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, but the I think the amazing testament to to you as a as an entertainer and as an actor and everything else is that clearly your talent is boundless.
Marc:And, you know, anytime something didn't work out, someone said, well, he's Martin Short.
Marc:Let's give him this thing.
Guest:Well, there was an element of that.
Guest:I think that but I think that, you know, it's it's movies are flukes and.
Guest:Hey, it's three movies are flukes and and if you're in a successful movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's fantastic, but it happens not often.
Guest:I think that's... So I made Three Amigos, and that did okay, but at the time was considered a disappointment.
Guest:And then I did Inner Space, which was considered supposed to be... It's Spielberg and Joe Dante and Dennis Quaid and I, and it was supposed to be a massive hit, and no one saw it.
Guest:And sometimes these films become very popular in the other life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people are amazed that they weren't successful, but they weren't.
Guest:And so you have so many times at bat.
Marc:My friend, I have a friend who loves Clifford.
Guest:I love Clifford.
Guest:Clifford is one of the odder ones, but certainly that was, you know.
Marc:Fun to make.
Guest:Well, that was, it was hilarious to make.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Grodin.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Have you ever met Charles Grodin?
Marc:I fucking love Grodin.
Guest:Oh my God.
Marc:So funny, right?
Marc:I've never met him.
Guest:He's a genius.
Marc:I've never met him.
Guest:Well, he has a, so, you know, I remember when we were working together, he'd say, so, you know, I remember I was, well, it's in my book.
Guest:And I had to pretend I'd read his book.
Guest:And I had to go, oh yeah, of course, of course.
Marc:He's totally out of the racket.
Marc:I mean, he like just left.
Guest:Well, I think he, you know, I don't know how old Charles is.
Guest:At a certain point, you know, I do think the exit is as hip as the entrance.
Marc:Yeah, I think that's true.
Marc:He was so fucking funny.
Marc:What was it about him?
Marc:What would you call him?
Marc:He's a crank?
Guest:Well, it was put on, you know.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I remember in Clifford where he improvised this.
Guest:He would say, look at me like a human boy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and you go who says that charles does
Guest:Crodin would say.
Guest:Or Chuck, as everyone calls him.
Guest:Chuck Crodin.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He's done some funny shit, man.
Guest:Oh, hilarious.
Guest:The Heartbreak Kid is, if you haven't seen it for a while, just see it again.
Marc:It's hard to find.
Marc:It's not on iTunes.
Marc:It isn't?
Marc:No.
Marc:I wanted to watch it the other night, and it was not easy to find.
Marc:I couldn't find it.
Marc:Oh, it's so good.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:It's so annoying.
Marc:Jeannie Berlin and everybody.
Marc:Jeannie Berlin.
Marc:That moment where she goes, I put cream on.
Marc:It was just that was the moment where he's like.
Guest:And his line to her is just so endless.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:You didn't hear the news.
Guest:You know.
Marc:I remember Captain Ron.
Marc:I saw Inner Space.
Marc:I saw Three Amigos.
Marc:I saw a lot of these.
Marc:I liked the big picture.
Marc:That was a great movie.
Guest:Yes, but what fuels the next choices are, did those films do well at the box office?
Guest:If they did, get ready for Captain Ron 2.
Guest:If they didn't, what's Broadway doing?
Marc:Sure, but Father of the Bride was the big movie.
Guest:Those were big hits, yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, when that happens, are you like, I'm back, we're doing it, we're making money, it's great.
Guest:Let's see, the first one... No, then I went to Broadway.
Guest:You're on Broadway.
Guest:And then the second one... Well, you're back in that you get films, but those films have to be... It's really about, you know, how successful your last thing is.
Marc:But do you like doing Broadway?
Guest:I did.
Guest:It was fantastic.
Guest:I like the discipline of it.
Guest:I like the idea that you could...
Guest:Do opening night and people come back and say, oh, that's so good.
Guest:You're so good.
Guest:And you go come back in four months when I'm really good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that that level where you're saying lines and you're not thinking about them and you're as free as you can be because you now.
Guest:You know it so well.
Guest:And so this idea that maybe one night in that eight-month run you might be perfect or close to perfect was exciting to me.
Marc:Because could you feel it when it happened?
Guest:Yes, you could.
Guest:Yes, you could.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's so funny because that's one of those things where only you really know that.
Guest:Yeah, I remember when the New York Times, you know, they staggered the reviewers.
Guest:In the old days, they came opening night.
Guest:They don't do that anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And which is more pressure for the actors because you have to be great.
Guest:Not just like there's no such thing as Second Night Blues because the second night, you know, the New York Post is there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I remember Ben Brantley writing for the New York Times was in the audience.
Guest:They try to keep it from the star, but you find out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I was doing the show, Fame Becomes Me on Broadway.
Guest:2006.
Guest:And I thought at the end of that show, we had a whole cast.
Guest:It was a one man show with a cast, you know?
Guest:And at the end of that show, I thought, okay, I, it doesn't really matter what Ben writes.
Guest:Cause this was, we were just spectacular tonight.
Guest:We were,
Guest:Everyone knew he was out there, but no one faltered.
Guest:There was a higher power going on.
Guest:And so my thing on that is, like even with reviewers, if you know it's not very good and they say you're not very good, you go, ah, they caught me.
Guest:But if you know it's great,
Guest:and some idiot doesn't get it, that's not your problem.
Marc:Right, but it hurts a little.
Guest:Well, of course, but it doesn't hurt a lot because you know it's good.
Guest:It hurts a lot when you know it's not very good, and you're lost in the role, and they caught you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:What did Ben say about that night?
Guest:I can't even remember.
Guest:I think he was positive, but the point was that he was... Because I don't... I kind of think that we're...
Guest:you know, I'll read reviews on the road of a show.
Guest:Like if you're, we tried that out in San Francisco and Toronto and Chicago because I'm part of the writing thing.
Guest:So I'm trying to figure out what they say.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But once you open, you do have to protect your little emotional filament.
Guest:You can't be filling your head with, you know,
Guest:people's comments about you because you've got to do it the next night it's not finished how do you protect i try to avoid those reviews review review you mean you just don't read the shit tend not to know not if i'm running into something and i can't do anything is there some other tools you incorporate you you you utilize to protect the emotional filament
Guest:You try to keep away from negative energy.
Guest:I mean, you can learn.
Guest:If you didn't know hatred, you can learn it by doing a run on Broadway.
Guest:You know, people coming back.
Guest:Hi, that was fun.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's all you have to say.
Guest:You and your stupid actor's brain.
Guest:I remember one actress said, you know, um...
Guest:You were good, but the play, you know, my problem is I can't lie.
Guest:And I want to say, well, you can't act either.
Guest:I mean, if we're going by your last four things, you can't act.
Marc:Well, that's because she can't lie.
Marc:I mean, part of acting is lying.
Guest:Yeah, stop it.
Guest:You can't lie.
Guest:You can play a murderous, but you can't come back and say, you were fabulous and what a great show.
Guest:You can't say that.
Guest:Phony baloney.
Guest:So that's me.
Guest:You learn hatred.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yet you remain optimistic somehow.
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:Yes, I do.
Marc:And would you say you're a spiritual person?
Guest:I would say that I can go on a hike and look at the ocean and the mountains and say, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is overwhelming.
Guest:But organized religion or any kind of that, no.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So the optimism is just, it's a choice.
Guest:I mean, I look at Woody Allen.
Guest:I don't know Woody Allen, but you get the impression based on his movies and what he talks about himself, that he spends a lot of time in angst and despair.
Hmm.
Guest:I don't know if that's manufactured or if that's just, but the reality is I'm not like that.
Guest:I'm the opposite of that.
Guest:So it's, someone said of me that I was, I was also laughing on the inside.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Both.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I don't know why people are like that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I thought, I think it's lucky.
Guest:Lucky if you are.
Marc:What?
Marc:To be like you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First of all, you live in this great house.
Guest:And you get to know famous people like Chris Guest.
Marc:How close does Larry David live to you?
Guest:Four blocks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are you guys friends too?
Guest:Very close friends.
Guest:I played Larry on Primetime Glick.
Guest:Curb your capitalism.
Guest:It was me as Larry David in a curb, but I was playing Ken DeLay.
Guest:It was about politics.
Marc:Ken DeLay?
Guest:I did look like him.
Marc:The Texas congressman?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, he was a monster.
Marc:Monster.
Marc:What happened to that guy?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:What's going to happen to all these guys?
Marc:Probably nothing.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:So you think Lindsey Graham will be reelected and Mitch McConnell and everything will just continue?
Marc:I think some of them are going to lose their jobs.
Marc:I don't know exactly which ones.
Marc:I have no fucking idea.
Marc:I'm so bowled over every day by the amount of chaos created by this fucking monster.
Marc:that it's very hard for me to have any clarity.
Marc:Like I can't, I can't depend on old models anymore, Martin.
Marc:I can't, I can't just say like, well, you know, the election will come and things will turn around.
Marc:Like there is such a, a, a, a level of chaos and fear and, and, and weird tension that you're like, how do we, are we ever going to be released?
Marc:You know?
Guest:I think we, I think we will, you know, it's very interesting as a Canadian politics, uh,
Guest:it's much more, it became much more in the United States Hatfields and McCoys, you know, in the sense that in Canada, if I vote liberal and my friend votes conservative,
Guest:It's not a big deal.
Guest:It's just how come you're voting that way?
Marc:Well, it didn't used to be that way here either to this degree.
Guest:Yeah, but I will say that, and I'm not trying to be Pollyanna here.
Guest:I play all over the United States in every state, Steve and I now over the last few years.
Guest:And the audiences are fabulous and the people are fabulous.
Guest:And I believe in the positive spirit of Americans.
Guest:I think that this is a blip.
Guest:OK, I hope you're right.
Guest:And here's the other thing is very interesting.
Guest:I saw Fran Leibowitz talk about this on Bill Maher.
Guest:She said that nine out of 10 Manhattanites did not vote for Donald Trump because they knew who he was.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I think four years later, the United States knows who he is.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:We really learned our lesson.
Marc:Great.
Marc:I'm glad I'm glad they took their time processing.
Marc:Yeah, I agree with that.
Marc:I did want to tell you before before I go and before I forget that I thought you were great in the morning show.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:That's a cool series.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I kind of liked it.
Marc:And I had not seen you do something like that.
Marc:It's so funny because when you show up on screen, there's Martin Short, you have these expectations.
Marc:Then you're like, holy shit, this guy's a fucking monster.
Marc:Because a lifetime of watching Martin Short doesn't really prepare you for where you go with that guy.
Guest:Well, you know, it's tricky.
Guest:I remember I did a season of a series called Damages.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And at the very first show, I was playing a lawyer, kind of a Madoff-type lawyer.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And...
Guest:And I remember one of the producers came up to me and said, you know, they'd be watching the takes and we'd do another take.
Guest:Marty, can you not smile?
Guest:Because when you smile, it becomes Martin Short.
Guest:And I said, well, see, now we have a problem because Hitler smiled.
Guest:The devious are the biggest smilers.
Guest:And he went, you're right.
Guest:And that was the last concern about that.
Guest:In other words, we were stuck with the clown, and now you had to somehow forget that he was a clown.
Marc:Yeah, but that's not really your fault.
Guest:No, it's not my fault at all.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:It's not my fault.
Guest:I'm this beloved iconic person.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fuck that.
Guest:It's a burden.
Guest:It's a burden.
Marc:It was great talking to you, man.
Marc:Great talking to you, Mark.
Marc:It's nice.
Marc:We spent a nice hour plus during the pandemic where days get long.
Marc:And we had a nice conversation about your life.
Guest:lovely thanks man i know next time i want to hear all about you do you though not really yeah i'll do it you just tell me when yeah if i'm not here don't think i'm not recording it okay let's see you later man bye-bye
Marc:That was Martin Short.
Marc:The Emmy-nominated Martin Short for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in The Morning Show, which you can watch on Apple TV+.
Marc:And now I will play some guitar for you.
Marc:What are we going to do?
Marc:Fight!
Marc:We're going to fight with our hands and a bat.
Marc:The fire.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Relax.
Marc:Fold into the sounds of my guitar playing.
Guest:guitar solo
guitar solo
Thank you.
.
.
.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer.
Marc:Monkey.
Marc:La Fonda.
Marc:Live.
Marc:Flying Cats.