Episode 262 - Fred Willard
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Marc Maron.
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fuck, Kentuckyans?
Marc:What the fuckasotans, of course, from Minnesota, which is where I just was last week.
Marc:It's been sort of a whirlwind few days.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for tuning in.
Marc:Thank you for dumping me into your head.
Marc:I'll try to be proactive in what I say, because if you're going to put me into your head, I will try to give you something to work on up there.
Marc:Not like homework, but just something nice.
Marc:I'm going to deliver something nice into your brain.
Marc:I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Marc:Fred Willard on the show today.
Marc:What an amazing comedic talent that guy is.
Marc:I mean, do you remember the first time you saw Fred Willard?
Marc:He's always there.
Marc:And whenever he's there, it's always funny and it's always very uniquely his.
Marc:Whether it be any of the Christopher Guest movies, always hilarious.
Marc:So it goes so far back.
Marc:He's just one of those guys that effortlessly is funny.
Marc:And we had a great conversation.
Marc:I want to preface that conversation now with the fact that it was raining, I believe.
Marc:And there was a gutter runoff just outside the garage door, which you don't hear very often because it doesn't rain that much here.
Marc:But when you're listening to Fred, it's not your brain leaking.
Marc:It's actually outside here.
Marc:So before I get into the chat, because I did have a good time in Minnesota, it was my return to the Acme Comedy Club for the first time in 12 years.
Marc:Finally, Lewis let me back into the Acme Comedy Club, and it is one of the best comedy clubs in the country, and that is no bullshit.
Marc:And the Minneapolis audiences are some of the best audiences I've ever played for.
Marc:I think the Thursday night show is one of the best shows I ever had in my life.
Marc:And that's a fairly long life.
Marc:That's a lot of shows over a life.
Marc:Oh, and also, speaking of Acme Comedy Club, I want to thank the wonderful Amber Preston for featuring for me.
Marc:She will also be with me tonight in Grand Rapids.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:She's funny.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Oh, and also thank you to Nate Abshire for emceeing.
Marc:Good job.
Marc:Good times.
Marc:All right, here we go.
Marc:Moving on.
Marc:Can I just plug some gigs?
Marc:Because if you go to WTFPod.com and go under the calendar there, you will know that tonight I'm doing stand-up live at Gilda's Laugh Fest in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 10 p.m.
Marc:show.
Marc:You can get the link through wtfpod.com.
Marc:On March 17th, that's Saturday, we've got the WTF Live at Gilda's Laugh Fest in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the Wealthy Theater, both of these shows.
Marc:You can go to my website and get the info.
Marc:I believe there are tickets.
Marc:I don't know if there are tickets.
Marc:I think there are tickets.
Marc:Let's say there are.
Marc:Next week, March 23rd and 24th, Bloomington, Indiana at the Comedy Addict.
Marc:March 27th, live WTF here in Los Angeles at the Tripany House, previously the Steve Allen Theater.
Marc:March 29th, I will be at the Ice House in Pasadena.
Marc:for you LA folks.
Marc:April 6th and 7th, Denver Comedy Works.
Marc:April 13th and 14th, The Stress Factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Marc:And April 19th through 21, I will be at Helium Comedy Club in Portland, Oregon again.
Marc:Portland, Oregon.
Marc:Oregon.
Marc:Again, go to WTFPod.com and get links to all that.
Marc:Look under the calendar section.
Marc:Hey, let's not get too crazy.
Marc:Let's not get too lost.
Marc:One of our sponsors today is Comedy Central.
Marc:Catch up with all your favorite Comedy Central shows by subscribing to the Comedy Central YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash Comedy Central for that, for the Comedy Central stuff.
Marc:Let's get to it.
Marc:Minnesota, great.
Marc:I it's been crazy, though.
Marc:I was in Minnesota Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Marc:Sunday morning, I got up at like four in the morning after pushing the clock back an hour to fly from Minneapolis to Austin, Texas, to be there for a four o'clock live WTF taping.
Marc:I got to the hotel.
Marc:They put me up at the nicest hotel in Austin, which I certainly can't complain about, but I can complain about the fact that I got there at about one.
Marc:I needed to prep for the show.
Marc:I needed to shower the day off of me.
Marc:I didn't shower the night before, flew in.
Marc:My room's not going to be ready till three, an hour before the show, which meant that I had to stand there at the check-in area of the fanciest hotel in Austin, the Driscoll, gorgeous hotel.
Marc:And they told me,
Marc:You can't check until three.
Marc:So I said, really, is there any way I can check in?
Marc:And then the manager told me, no, there's really nothing we can do.
Marc:So I, as an adult said, fuck, fuck.
Marc:Are you fucking serious?
Marc:I've got, I've got shit to do.
Marc:That was a proud moment.
Marc:And then they gave me a key to the fitness room, which is where I showered.
Marc:And then they gave me another key to the business center, which is where I prep for the show.
Marc:And then at about two 30, they let me check into the LBJ suite.
Marc:Man, that was something I wish I could have stayed there a couple more days just to explore the rooms, high ceilings, fireplace, leather covered furniture.
Marc:Beautiful.
Marc:I was there for four hours.
Marc:And then as I walked out of the hotel, I looked at the woman who I said fuck to in a general way and the manager.
Marc:And I just said, sorry for being a dick.
Marc:And the woman at the counter said, oh, you're cool.
Marc:You're cool.
Marc:Which led me to believe that there were much bigger dicks in town than me.
Marc:And there were on a lot of levels, on a career level and clearly on an attitude level.
Marc:And then I went on Monday.
Marc:I flew out of Austin the next day to New York to take the John Oliver stand up show, which went great.
Marc:But let's talk about Minnesota for a minute, because, wow.
Marc:I've learned something about boutique hotels or hotels that consider themselves boutique hotels.
Marc:Cause I stayed at a place that was really, it was a, it was a boutique hotel, but it was of a large chain.
Marc:And it was sort of like, it was as if an Ikea had fucked a halfway house.
Marc:And this was the offspring that there are some things you just can't paint over with a modern design or catalog sculptures or arty sensibility in a sort of a
Marc:b-level way i'm not complaining about the hotel but there when you're dealing with a hotel you don't know what that place was before and i don't know what it was but it was obviously some sort of residential hotel in the low budget realm of residential hotels and you just can't erase the sadness in those rooms with a coat of paint and a new uh new rug and
Marc:You can't get the karma out of those rooms.
Marc:And sometimes I think they should honor that.
Marc:Maybe some of them do, but they should have maybe left the payphone in the hallway.
Marc:There had to have been a payphone in the hallway at this hotel where calls were made to drug dealers or to angry spouses.
Marc:Hey, baby, when can I come back home?
Marc:I can't live here.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I miss your cooking.
Marc:They've only got a hot plate and one pan here.
Marc:Please.
Marc:I don't know why that accent I saw as appropriate for Minnesota, but I can't do a Minnesotan accent.
Marc:But I'm just saying that the sadness was there.
Marc:And I don't know who I am to talk because I'm sitting there.
Marc:And what I'm saying is maybe the sadness never leaves.
Marc:It's just a hotel thing in general.
Marc:I mean, I was in Minnesota a few days.
Marc:I immediately had been there a lot.
Marc:I was banned from that club for 12 years, and I thought it was for a reason that turned out not to be true.
Marc:I had this weekend that I thought had buried me at that hotel.
Marc:It was before I cleaned up.
Marc:It was over 12 years ago, and I thought, Louis Lee...
Marc:Had heard about what I had done in his condominium.
Marc:But it turns out it was just he thought I was a dick.
Marc:Some guy wrote an article on me in the paper up there and he asked Lewis and Lewis just thought I was a dick.
Marc:And I was.
Marc:But that story just stuck in my head.
Marc:I'll tell you that on Monday because I got a lot of Fred Willard here and I don't want to.
Marc:I don't want to spend too much time gabbing.
Marc:But in terms of sadness in residential hotels, I did go across the bridge.
Marc:I took a walk over the bridge on Hennepin Street, and I went to, I don't even know how to pronounce it, Kramarchuk's, which is a Ukrainian sausage joint.
Marc:Picked myself up a big old container of sauerkraut, a couple of undui sausages, a couple of kielbasas, brought them back.
Marc:So I don't know that the sadness ever leaves because is there really a difference between whatever went on there?
Marc:Whenever it was a broke down residential hotel or furnished apartment and me sitting there at two thirty in the morning after my shows, not being able to sleep, eating a sausage with a mound of sauerkraut and no mustard.
Marc:On the pans that they made available for me in that room.
Marc:Me calling my girlfriend.
Marc:2.30 in the morning.
Marc:11.30 in LA saying, yeah, the shows were great.
Marc:No, I'm good.
Marc:I'm just having a sausage that cooked up myself here in the room.
Marc:Yeah, it smells like sauerkraut in here.
Marc:But I got some peanut butter bars that someone brought me in the freezer.
Marc:So I'm good.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:Is there a difference?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:Let's do this.
Marc:What?
Marc:I'll be in in a second.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Whoa.
Marc:Wait for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:That's JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get that WTF blend and I get a little bit of a percentage on that.
Marc:Alright, enough of that.
Guest:Have you done many podcasts, Fred?
Guest:I have done a few, yeah.
Guest:It's always a little strange.
Guest:You never know, are you being heard, or when are you being heard, or what, going into space?
Marc:Well, we're recording it, but it must be fascinating that this is part of show business now.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:This is not streaming.
Guest:I remember I did something with it.
Guest:Streaming means it's going out live.
Guest:No, this is not streaming.
Guest:But it's pretty close to it.
Marc:So...
Marc:You're one of the funniest people alive.
Guest:That's what I tell people.
Guest:And people kind of look at me funny.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:There's a lot of funny.
Marc:But was this always the direction?
Marc:Was this always the big plan?
Guest:You know, I was kind of the class clown, as most comics were, as a kid, kind of grown up.
Guest:And for some reason, I guess, I don't know if they'd make kind of funny remarks in school.
Guest:But...
Guest:I didn't know what I wanted to be.
Guest:I always loved comedy.
Guest:I think it's just nice to release, to hear a comic and go someplace and laugh.
Guest:Where'd you come from now?
Guest:Well, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio.
Guest:When Cleveland was great?
Guest:It was, at the time, called the best location in the nation.
Guest:They had steamships coming in, and it was a steel town.
Marc:Because I was just there, and I'll tell you,
Marc:It's a little sad.
Marc:It seems to be bouncing back a bit.
Marc:There's a couple good restaurants, but I could tell it was a great city.
Marc:At one time, it was pretty booming.
Guest:I think it was like the fourth or fifth largest city in the country.
Guest:It was right on the Great Lakes.
Guest:We had the Indians, and we had the Browns.
Guest:We had...
Guest:big, vibrant downtown, and I don't know what happened.
Guest:I think all the industries kind of folded, and everyone moved to the suburbs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now downtown, there's the center, which used to be called the Terminal Tower.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's now Tower City.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you go about 18 blocks east, and there's a lot of theaters.
Guest:Some of them that I used to go to as a kid, they'd have live shows.
Guest:They'd have a movie, and then Danny Kaye would be there, or Bob Hope.
Guest:You saw Bob Hope?
Guest:I did see Baba.
Guest:I remember I saw Jack Benny, Danny Kay.
Guest:Really?
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I was just a little kid, just old enough to go downtown.
Guest:I'd always have to have a friend take me.
Guest:My mother would say, you're not going downtown by yourself.
Guest:Parents never realized these great moments.
Guest:And I'd hang out by the Cleveland Stadium if I go to a ballgame.
Guest:Even if I didn't go to the ballgame, I'd hang out by the visitor's exit, get all the visiting players autographs.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:A lot of great...
Marc:Do you remember seeing comedy?
Marc:I can't imagine.
Marc:So they'd have a movie and a comedian or shorts?
Guest:Well, it wasn't even the comedians.
Guest:Well, Danny Kaye, Jack Benny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I don't remember seeing stand-up comics.
Marc:Was there even that a form yet?
Guest:I think it was for the older crowd.
Guest:If you go to Miami or Grossinger's, these older comics, always with the tux, had a lot of jewelry on their hands.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was going to dinner or going to Miami.
Guest:I was just in Miami.
Guest:But I remember what impressed me the most, I don't know if you remember, Spike Jones, the musical act.
Guest:Well, he was huge.
Guest:He was huge and very good musically.
Guest:And I went, I'd heard his records and his show came through Cleveland.
Guest:And I went down to see it and I'd never seen, it was a comedy review before.
Guest:But it was based on music, and he did takeoffs on songs, cocktails for two with sound effects.
Guest:And he had funny characters, Frederick Gass, and he had a harpist who just sat on the stage.
Guest:And they made a big thing after you noticed that the harpist, the woman, had never played the harp.
Guest:She just sat there.
Guest:And I was just amazed.
Guest:This is comedy I'd never seen before.
Marc:And they were doing it for radio, so you were watching a stage play almost?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I think he was doing his radio show, but I think he also did a stage performance.
Guest:Because I remember he had a joke.
Guest:He had a dwarf who came running across the stage pulling a rope.
Guest:And you watched the dwarf pull the rope, and you kept watching.
Guest:The rope kept moving, and here comes the dwarf picking in the back end.
Guest:And as a kid, you'd never seen it.
Guest:It was like another dimension of comedy.
Guest:Was that your first dwarf experience?
Guest:Yeah, well, in Cleveland, you didn't know dwarves.
Guest:You didn't know what.
Guest:But up until then, the jokes were my mother-in-law drove my Cadillac off a cliff, mixed emotions, which was funny to me.
Guest:It's all mixed emotions.
Marc:That's clever.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's not a dwarf.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I always liked comedy.
Guest:It's kind of a release.
Guest:I guess I was always kind of a worried kid, and I still worry a lot about things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it gave you some relief.
Guest:Relief.
Guest:And my parents were not very – it was not a laugh-filled household.
Guest:No.
Guest:But I had aunts and uncles who were funny.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:They'd come over and, you know, my mother was very – calm down.
Guest:My father, what did you mean?
Guest:I heard from school today that you had a –
Guest:There was a lot of panic around that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I had these wonderful aunts and uncles that would come over.
Guest:My one uncle would pretend to steal silverware.
Guest:So I've always laughed at that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What kind of racket was your father in?
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:He worked for something called Morris Plan Bank.
Guest:It was something about automobile financing.
Guest:But he passed away when I was fairly young, which is always very emotional.
Guest:I was like 11 or 12 years old, and he died.
Guest:And that's really...
Guest:Tough age.
Guest:It's like a big dose of reality.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Because you don't know.
Guest:No one's going to die.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Great-grandma died.
Guest:She was almost, you know, she was really old.
Guest:She was 75.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Nowadays, 75 doesn't seem that old.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, she's a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was a big void.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I wanted even more laughs than anything that would be funny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So when you left Cleveland, I mean, you grew up there.
Guest:And then what was the next step for you?
Guest:Next step, let's see.
Guest:I went off to... I was sent away.
Guest:My mother remarried to the wicked stepfather.
Guest:And they decided to send me away to a prep school, a military school.
Guest:And I went away to a little one my last two years in high school, which turned out to be a lot of fun.
Guest:It was in Kentucky.
Guest:It's no longer there.
Guest:But in the winter, the selling point is they moved the whole school down to Venice, Florida for three months.
Guest:And that was so great to be in Florida.
Guest:So then I decided to go.
Guest:I said, this is kind of fun.
Guest:And I took some kind of IQ test, or some test.
Guest:I had the highest...
Guest:Grades are the highest IQ of anyone in the school because these were a lot of times the kind of kids that are sent there because they're not doing well.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I'd go into a very tough high school in Cleveland.
Guest:Keep them out of jail.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think they were quite on the brink of jail, but this is either that or go in the army or go get a job delivering groceries.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was one of the brightest students.
Guest:So I went to a place called Virginia Military Institute.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Which was a lot tougher than I thought it would be.
Marc:Was that like West Point?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So everyone was in uniform?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I played sports there.
Guest:Which sport?
Guest:Baseball.
Guest:And I got into cross country, which is a tough sport.
Guest:Running?
Guest:Running.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:About five miles.
Guest:That was a tough sport.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:indoor tracks well you look like you're in pretty good shape now i still am i still i try to be and i'm still hoping to maybe if they uh you know have a little expand a couple of more expansion teams i've given up hopes of playing in the big leagues but a couple of years in the minors maybe why not it's never too uh too late for that kind of thing double a or something live that dream yeah i don't want to be a dh but the first base maybe play five or six innings and take the rest of the day off that'd be fun but then you know i always want to be a baseball player but then you go out first you see all these terrible injuries yeah
Guest:Then you realize there's guys that aren't on the first string, and they come out to the ballpark every day and sit on that bench for nine innings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they're going to be sent down.
Guest:Then they're sent down.
Guest:Then they're hitting 170.
Guest:I said, I don't know.
Guest:That wouldn't have been – I don't think I would have liked to have done that.
Guest:I'm kind of glad I never got – you know, as a kid, you always think you'll hit 350 and be a big star.
Guest:Be a hero.
Guest:How hard can it be?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Throw the ball over the plate.
Guest:Focus, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did you end up going in the military, or how did that happen?
Marc:I did.
Guest:Which branch?
Guest:Army?
Marc:Navy?
Guest:It was the Army, and I think it was artillery, because at the time there was a draft.
Marc:So I'm taking it you didn't have to do anything if you think it was artillery.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:There was no firing guns or anything.
Guest:I got in some special thing, but I got to play.
Guest:I was sent to Germany, and I went out for the baseball team, and I made the baseball team, so it paid off.
Guest:And the good thing is we were stationed in Germany and went all around all these different cities playing baseball, you know, Berlin and Hamburg.
Guest:What year was that, you think?
Guest:Oh, I was in the early 60s, and I don't think there's any military in Germany anymore.
Marc:I'm sure the Germans hated us.
Marc:Well, they all used to be.
Marc:It seemed like a lot of people spent time there.
Marc:Elvis was there.
Marc:Germany was a big base for us, right?
Guest:Yeah, we occupied Germany.
Marc:So it was a little pre-Vietnam.
Marc:You didn't end up going anywhere?
Guest:No, I didn't go.
Guest:And then I came back, and I said, now what will I do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I'll be an actor.
Guest:That can't be too hard.
Guest:Because you'll see him in the movies.
Guest:I can act.
Guest:And I went to an acting school.
Guest:You did?
Guest:I did an acting school.
Guest:And when you go around to New York at the time, everyone had scene study.
Guest:We're going to do scene study and mime.
Guest:And I said, do you ever put on a show and invite agents?
Guest:Oh, no, no, no.
Guest:We just study.
Guest:So I finally found a place called Showcase Theater.
Guest:And I said, what do you do?
Guest:Well, every 10 weeks, they were very theatrical.
Guest:And we put on a show.
Guest:The show was in their apartment.
Guest:They had a stage in their living room.
Marc:A salon.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was like a salon.
Guest:And we invite professional people.
Guest:So I said, this is for me.
Guest:So I got in there.
Guest:And I find you can't really teach acting.
Guest:Well, the best tool is to just get up and do scenes.
Guest:And you can kind of tell.
Guest:if you're doing good or not.
Guest:Our acting teacher would drive me nuts.
Guest:You'd get up, you'd memorize a scene, and you'd get up on stage, and you'd get one line out, and he'd stop you.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:All right, now I want some business.
Guest:And I want to say, Jesus, let me just go through the scene once.
Guest:and um business twitching what are you doing what is your intent here um so but i i met another guy who had a good sense of humor we started joking around and we saw an ad in in the trade paper you know the trades and the new uh off-broadway show uh is in development like backstage or something like that yeah the casting office says please do not come in person do not send pictures do not phone it's why do they why are they what's what he's supposed to do
Guest:Yeah, there was a ad.
Guest:We're doing a show, Comedy Actors Wanted.
Guest:So we went in.
Guest:It was on 45th Street.
Guest:Rehearsal Hall, no longer there.
Guest:And the guy said, do you have your own material?
Guest:We said, no.
Guest:He said, well, come back with a sketch.
Guest:So every week, we'd write a sketch and come back.
Guest:And they never put on the show.
Guest:But finally, we had so many sketches, the guy said, let's put on a show with just you guys.
Guest:So we did a show.
Guest:Who was the other guy?
Guest:His name was Vic Greco.
Guest:Still in the game?
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Guest:He's in New Jersey or New York.
Guest:But a very funny man, and he made me laugh.
Guest:They said he was like Ned Sparks, if you remember that, a guy with a cigar.
Guest:He was a very sour face.
Guest:And he made me laugh.
Guest:Eventually, we got an agent, and it just developed from there.
Guest:Did you do the show?
Guest:the show they never did it we did our own show yeah and then we started working the coffee houses in the village which was the big thing yeah we'd get up and do we just do sketches which was i guess it was unusual we never talked to the audience so like the bottom line and uh the uh what else was down the village uh uh the the village gate or anything like the village gate we played uh the gaslight oh yeah sure dylan played yeah yeah
Marc:Who was around the scene then?
Guest:So we thought Bob Dylan was working there, Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Guest:You saw them?
Guest:No.
Guest:Who did I see?
Guest:A lot of folk singers.
Marc:Not many comedians?
Marc:Was Woody Allen walking?
Marc:I'm trying to think.
Guest:He was, but I think we were a little after him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So was this like 69 or something?
Guest:oh no no earlier than that it was the early uh wait middle 60s so it must have been pretty crazy down there it was great it was just a great time we played in a little club called the cafe chino which i thought was named after cappuccino or something the guy's name was joe chino and every week he'd do an original little one-act play it's a tiny and now it's a restaurant you go and it's a little tiny place but we did they did a one-act one-act plays or we do our sketches and
Guest:Get a good response?
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:You know, we had very kind of offbeat stuff, new stuff.
Guest:Do you remember any of it?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I'm still pulling some of it out and doing it places.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, one that's easy to describe.
Guest:I would come out and say to the audience, or I'd just say, I've put my wristwatch on my ankle.
Guest:And I'm going to wait to have someone come by and get them to ask me what time it is.
Guest:So I'll pull up my pant leg and say, oh, look, it's 4.30.
Guest:And here comes a guy now.
Guest:And the guy came by.
Guest:He's waiting for a bus.
Guest:I'd say, gee, it's a nice time of day.
Guest:It's getting darker.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I said, I'm waiting for this bus.
Guest:Is it late?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:What time is the bus supposed to come?
Guest:It's supposed to be here at 5.
Guest:And finally I said, look, do you have any idea what time it is now?
Guest:And he pulled up his pant leg and his watch was, it's 4.15.
Guest:And that was the blackout.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we did some stuff in clubs.
Guest:I remember one club we auditioned.
Guest:And afterwards he said to our manager, it's obscure humor.
Guest:They're doing obscure humor.
Guest:Because also, at the time, popular was after Martin and Lewis.
Guest:So there were a lot of acts where the guy played a trumpet, and then the other guy did the comedy.
Guest:Hey, hold on there.
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:So you've got a wacky guy and a straight guy.
Guest:So I think one of our problems was
Guest:Neither one of us was the wacky guy.
Guest:They're just little sketches.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:It wasn't a team dynamic.
Marc:It was just a vignette.
Marc:In one sketch, I'd be the dumb guy and the other sketch.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So it was hard to sell that act as a nightclub act in some way.
Guest:It was.
Guest:And we would...
Guest:go into a club and bomb and go to the next club and just be great.
Guest:We went into the old Hungry Eye in San Francisco.
Marc:So you really toured with this?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And at the time, there were only about six comedy clubs.
Guest:It was the Hungry Eye in San Francisco, the Gate of Horn in Chicago.
Guest:All these places are gone now.
Guest:The Bitter End in New York, which is still there.
Guest:Still there, kind of.
Guest:And there are five or six others, and we'd make that tour.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:and the two of you yeah you did what you you had what you had like about an hour or what yeah and we didn't improvise at all we we'd open for some acts other times other acts would open for us huh and you you don't remember who like who was around or any of those opening acts or miriam makiba does that mean yeah yeah sure very pretty kind of african yeah she's a folk singer right yeah yeah yeah she passed away yeah
Guest:And one day, this is not a censored show.
Guest:I just want to tell you.
Guest:We were in Washington, D.C.
Guest:in a club.
Guest:We were rehearsing, and we were very ambitious.
Guest:We'd go into a club, and we opened one night.
Guest:And the next day, we're in the club coming up with new material.
Guest:And a guy came in, and he was watching us.
Guest:He kept watching us.
Guest:And he said, I loved your show last night.
Guest:I said, oh, yeah, it was pretty funny.
Guest:He said, I love that Miriam Makiba.
Guest:I said, oh, yeah, she was good.
Guest:He said, I'd really like to fuck her.
Guest:We said, oh, yeah, well, she was very good.
Guest:We thought he was there to watch our show.
Marc:So anyway... Like you were going to say, like, okay, let me go get her.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, we'll put in a word for you.
Guest:But we'd go in a club that the Smothers Brothers had played in.
Guest:And I'd seen their act, and they were so good with music.
Guest:And I told them, geez, all we did is these sketches.
Guest:But people still will come up to me and remember...
Guest:We had a sketch where two mathematicians were having coffee and talking about Bernoulli's theory of physics and talking about the big convention of mathematicians.
Guest:And the last year was wonderful because Professor So-and-so requested once, twice, three times a lady.
Guest:But then it turns out we're time to pay the check.
Guest:Let's split the check.
Guest:And it was $24.50, and we couldn't figure out what half of $24.50 was.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we left a tip.
Guest:We'll leave 10%.
Guest:And we walked out.
Guest:And the waitress comes out and says, professors.
Guest:Oh, dear.
Guest:They left me $100.
Guest:Yeah, dumb guys.
Guest:And I'd forgotten that.
Guest:But someone reminded me of it.
Guest:And I'm still part of a sketch troupe.
Guest:My wife and I run it.
Guest:We just did a show last night at the Second City Theater in Hollywood.
Guest:And about once a month, we have a group of about 40 people.
Guest:And at any one time, there's 15, 20.
Guest:And we do an evening of sketches.
Guest:And every once in a while, someone will remind me to say, you know, I saw you in the village.
Guest:Remember that thing you did about the mathematicians?
Guest:Really?
Guest:No, I don't remember.
Guest:Then I think about it.
Guest:And then I'd rewrite it and we'll do it.
Guest:And then they go over very well.
Guest:We did one last night that I pulled out of the thing.
Guest:It's a ship, you know, one of those ships where they're all rowing, heaving.
Guest:There's a guy whipping them.
Marc:Yeah, it's a slave ship, I think.
Guest:A slave ship.
Guest:And the guy's like, hee, hee.
Guest:So we say, it's time to mutiny.
Guest:Are you ready?
Guest:Are you with me?
Guest:We're going to take over the ship.
Guest:So mutiny, we grab the slave driver.
Guest:We tie him up, and we get back to the oars, and everyone's out of focus.
Guest:No, you've got to pull together.
Guest:Land is one mile north by northeast.
Guest:So I said, well, look, we need someone to lead us.
Guest:I cannot do it.
Guest:Who can?
Guest:And someone says, let's set him to it, the guy who was whipping us.
Guest:So I let him free, and he starts whipping us.
Guest:And I say, ah, free.
Guest:We're free at last.
Guest:But it's a good audience.
Guest:It's a strong piece.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:And that was something you wrote with Greco?
Guest:Actually, it was something I did in the next group.
Guest:I went to Second City in Chicago for a year.
Marc:So you toured when you started New York.
Guest:We toured for a couple of years.
Guest:And it's tough when you're working with one guy.
Guest:Now, you work alone.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So when you go off the stage, if you bomb, you probably very seldom bomb.
Guest:But if you do, you probably hopefully say, oh, it was the audience.
Guest:Or screw it, you have friends.
Guest:If it's a two-man team, you kind of think the other guy screwed up.
Marc:Why did you screw up?
Marc:So it gets tense.
Marc:So you needed more people to blame.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So eventually, we broke up.
Guest:Now, I wrote all the material.
Guest:Oh, there you go.
Guest:I wrote all the material.
Guest:And we never wrote it down.
Guest:And we did it.
Guest:But he was unhappy.
Guest:He had a wife and kids.
Guest:And he had a lot of responsibilities.
Guest:We broke up.
Guest:I got hired to go to Second City.
Guest:It's a long story.
Guest:I went in an audition with Robert Klein.
Marc:How big was Second City then?
Guest:It wasn't as big as it is today.
Guest:It had opened on Broadway.
Guest:It got a big acclaim.
Guest:Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, Severin Darden.
Marc:Was Ed Asner involved?
Guest:Ed was before that.
Guest:Shelley Berman and Ed Asner were called the Compass Players.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I did not know them.
Guest:But in the early 60s, they came to Broadway.
Guest:With a review.
Guest:With a review.
Guest:And it was the smartest stuff you'd ever seen.
Marc:You saw it?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Alan Arkin was in it?
Guest:Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris.
Guest:Smart.
Guest:They all had beards, and they were talking about... But it was all comedy.
Guest:All comedy.
Guest:Because Alan Arkin is hilarious.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And, um, so eventually they were casting one, and one year they, uh, I teamed up with another guy and another guy to try to get the old act going.
Guest:It just, it wasn't working the same.
Marc:Same bits?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they'd, um... Was there moments where you're like, I miss Greco?
Guest:Oh my God, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No one else was, uh, is funny.
Marc:Because you kind of built the groove with him.
Guest:He just didn't want to work with him.
Um...
Guest:uh so i got i went down to audition for for second city they'd seen us when we'd been in chicago yeah so they went and i said i told my agent i can't do that stuff it's very bright it's talking about kirkegaard and so i went down luckily i i just hit a vein there where i got up they get two of us up we improvised and they offered me a job and of course well i'm not sure i don't know i'm doing something else so they gave me a week to think about it and i went begrudgingly
Guest:I had the greatest time of my life.
Guest:I went for six months, and then they extended me for another six months with Robert Klein.
Marc:So this was the crew?
Guest:Bob Klein, yeah.
Guest:David Steinberg.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:From Canada?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a director now.
Guest:He's a director, yeah.
Guest:And Bob Klein's still doing comedy.
Guest:You talk to Robert Klein still?
Guest:Not as much as I like to.
Guest:He lives in New York.
Guest:I'm a big fan.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:Who else was in that crew?
Guest:No one you'd know of, Sandra Caron, who's living in England.
Guest:Judy Grobart, wonderful.
Guest:She was like an Elaine May, very goofy, funny.
Guest:And she married a guy named Bob Dishy, a former Second City guy.
Guest:Then I went back to New York.
Marc:What year was that now?
Marc:Where were we at?
Marc:70?
Marc:70.
Marc:Okay, so Klein had not done stand-up yet.
Guest:No, and I influenced him.
Guest:In the dressing room, he would do these funny bits.
Guest:He'd always do it get to be Christmas.
Guest:And he'd lean up against the wall and say, what is Christmas to me?
Guest:I got no mother.
Guest:I got no father.
Guest:You know, do James Dean.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd make me laugh.
Guest:And every night I'd come in and, Bob, it's Christmas.
Guest:Are you looking forward to Christmas?
Guest:Yeah, you're setting him up.
Guest:Christmas, what is Christmas to me?
Guest:And then he'd expand it.
Guest:So one day I said, Bob.
Guest:He was Bob then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He I guess it was another Bob Klein.
Guest:Oh, so he had to change his name eventually to Robert.
Guest:He told a very funny story.
Guest:He was an actor's struggling actor story.
Guest:Got a call.
Guest:Bob, you've got to come in.
Guest:I've been looking for it.
Guest:Where are you?
Guest:Where have you been?
Guest:So he said, oh, OK.
Guest:So he went to the agent's office.
Guest:She looked at me.
Guest:She's.
Guest:Oh, no, I meant Bob Klein.
Guest:Yeah, the other Bob Klein.
Guest:And I would say, Bob, you must do this on stage, because I couldn't do stand-up.
Guest:I'm very easy in sketch.
Guest:I'm awkward in stand-up.
Guest:I said, you've got to do stand-up.
Guest:He says, I tried it.
Guest:So about a year or two later, I went back, and he was in a play called The Apple Tree.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I went out with him to the stage deli.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, Bob, what have you ever done about your stand up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Funny you ask.
Guest:Jack Rollins, the manager, is managing me and he wants me to do stand up.
Guest:In fact, I'm going down to the improv tonight to do it.
Guest:Come on down.
Marc:44th Street.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Original improv.
Guest:Bud Friedman.
Guest:So where not Ethel Merman, Bette Midler was a waitress.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And Andy Kaufman was probably there at that time or maybe a little before him.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:Because they still had a cabaret sort of feel, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:At that time, were there singers still?
Guest:Yeah, waitresses would get up and sing.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Guest:And I don't know if Andy... I think it was before his time.
Guest:I'm more aware of Andy Kaufman in L.A.
Guest:at the improv.
Marc:It's amazing how much you've seen.
Marc:So you sort of influenced Robert Klein a little bit to do stand-up?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And at Second City, now, before you went to Second City, you were primarily working from script to material.
Marc:And now, you know, you're sort of known as one of the great improvisers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where did that happen?
Guest:Well, at Second City, everyone, you know, improvised.
Guest:So then I got a call.
Guest:They were putting together a comedy group.
Guest:And I was in an off-Broadway play now in the village, Little Murders, which was directed by Alan Arkin.
Guest:So you worked with him.
Guest:I worked with him as a director.
Guest:He was such a great director.
Guest:He'd sit there.
Guest:He's very noncommittal.
Guest:He'd look at the stuff.
Guest:He said, this is a great show.
Guest:He said, I don't care what the... He says, fuck the critics.
Guest:It's a great show.
Guest:And about three weeks in rehearsal, he said, I don't know what to do.
Guest:We're ready to open.
Guest:And someone had to leave to do something.
Guest:Go, go.
Guest:We're all ready.
Guest:And I loved him.
Guest:He was so supportive.
Guest:And one night, at a preview, Mike Nichols came in.
Guest:Now, this was the peak of Mike Nichols.
Guest:It was now directing.
Guest:Oh, so The Graduate?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think he'd just done Catch-22.
Marc:So it was like 1971 or something?
Guest:71 is when it was.
Guest:And he came to see it.
Guest:And we were at a party afterwards.
Guest:And Mike Nichols came up to me.
Guest:And I said, hey, I really, really enjoyed your stuff.
Guest:Where have you been?
Guest:And I said, well, I've been doing sketch stuff.
Guest:He says, yeah, I really enjoyed your performance.
Guest:In this one scene, have you thought of being more something like concise?
Guest:And I said, that's a good, good idea.
Guest:I'll think about it.
Guest:I didn't know what he meant.
LAUGHTER
Guest:So the next day, I said to Alan, as a rehearsal, I said, Mike Nichols said, should I be more concise?
Guest:Thinking Alan would say, oh, of course.
Guest:He said, how dare Mike Nichols give you a direction?
Guest:I'm the director.
Guest:You're doing it just right.
Guest:So I said, boy, does he have confidence.
Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, I got into a group call.
Guest:They were getting together down at the Bitter End called the Ace Trucking Company.
Guest:I said, yeah, that'll be fun.
Guest:We're going to do sketches after the show at midnight.
Guest:I said, that's great because I'm doing this play right down the street.
Guest:I still have some sketch ideas from Second City.
Guest:So we get up and we do these sketches that I would come up with as sketches.
Guest:But the guys in the group were so funny, they'd flesh them out.
Guest:And then we'd improvise.
Guest:And I guess that's how... But then we started getting jobs.
Guest:And the guy who... I'm failing with names here.
Guest:Dave Fry.
Guest:Remember Dave Fry?
Guest:I don't know if I... He was great for Nixon.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was famous for the Nixon.
Guest:Right.
Guest:His manager came to see us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were thrilled.
Guest:And he took us over and managed us.
Guest:Got us on The Sullivan Show.
Guest:We didn't even have a name.
Marc:How many were there of you?
Marc:There were four guys and a girl.
Marc:Isn't that amazing that that happened on late night television?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah because you would never see that now that that ed sullivan would say now here's a group of kids yeah they're doing a little thing and whatever they yeah there were no then but we started then there were a whole bunch of improv sketch groups i know with funny names oh my god new york stickball coming uh outer space baseball i had no idea yeah and we did it we did very well we got where did sullivan we got on the tom jones show
Guest:And this went on for several.
Guest:We would do a show.
Guest:It would be like 40 minutes of set material.
Guest:Then we'd open up for improvs.
Guest:We'd ask for, we'd find the best thing.
Guest:What are your pet peeves?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people are, my pet peeves are so-and-so.
Guest:We'd do a little improv about it.
Guest:And it was a fail-safe thing because if the improv wasn't going well, one of the guys put on a little tiara and he had a wand and he walked out.
Guest:He said, I'm the bad improv fairy.
Guest:And I claim this improv is over.
Guest:And I get a huge laugh.
Guest:And then we close with a set piece.
Guest:And the next thing I know I was being asked, I did a lot of things.
Guest:I got a call from Christopher Guest once to come down.
Guest:And my manager, you've got to go down right away.
Guest:I said, well, I'm doing something.
Guest:Well, he wants to put you in a movie.
Guest:I said, well, what's the hurry?
Guest:Well, no, he wants to see you today.
Guest:So I knew Christopher Guest.
Guest:I knew who he was.
Guest:I'd been in Spinal Tap with Christopher Guest.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But what happened to Fernwood Tonight in that period?
Guest:That was late 70s, so that must have come later.
Guest:Yeah, Fernwood Tonight.
Guest:Martin Mull.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:I skipped about six years there.
Marc:Yeah, but that's like- The prison years.
Marc:Because that sort of set a new standard for television comedy.
Marc:Because I have vague memories of that because I was about 13 or 14, and it was on late, right?
Marc:Wasn't it?
Marc:Yes, it was.
Marc:It was syndicated.
Marc:So it was on 11 o'clock here, 7 o'clock somewhere else.
Marc:And I was still a kid.
Marc:But I just remembered that there was this buzz around something different, that something different was happening.
Marc:And it was, what was the premise of it?
Marc:It was, if you remember-
Guest:A local show in a little town called Fernwood, which was the home of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
Guest:And that became a spinoff, correct?
Guest:Someone said, wouldn't it be funny if they had a cable TV show in this town?
Guest:What would it be like?
Guest:Now, three or four people have talked to me and said it was their idea.
Guest:I don't know whose idea it was, but they called me to come in and do it.
Marc:And you were the sidekick to Martin Mull.
Marc:I was the sidekick.
Guest:Who was a hilarious guy.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I didn't know him, but I'd gone to see him in a club.
Guest:And I said, boy, this guy is very sharp.
Guest:You know, he didn't make easy references.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they said, you'll be the Ed McMahon.
Guest:I said, well, I don't want that to be a cliche.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I went in.
Guest:I said, you know, I started naming people that would do better than me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they said, no, no, everyone says you'll be right.
Guest:Look, if you don't want to do it, just come in for a week during the rehearsals, the warm-up rehearsals, till we get someone else.
Guest:I said, OK.
Guest:So sit in.
Guest:So I sat in, and we laughed so hard, and it was so funny.
Guest:At the end of the week, I said, you know,
Guest:One time, again, Martin Mull, we were having callbacks for people who would come into audition.
Guest:And some girl was doing a call, kind of a pretty girl.
Guest:And she was coming.
Guest:She was in the callback.
Guest:And he leaned over to me and he says, this is the point where I thought we would be getting blowjobs.
Guest:And I almost fell off my... Because I'm kind of a proper guy.
Guest:I said, what?
Guest:You're talking like this in front of this girl?
Guest:She didn't hear it.
Guest:But I said, this guy is sharp.
Guest:This is before comedy really went that blue.
Marc:But you don't have a problem with blue comedy.
Guest:Oh, no, I love it.
Guest:If it's funny.
Marc:If it's blue comedy, if it's funny, I'll go out of my way.
Marc:Because I always assume, like, one time you were at the Comedy Cellar and I was on stage, and you probably don't remember it, but you were sitting in the audience.
Marc:And, like, I only knew you from television and from movies.
Marc:And I decided that, you know, he's a pretty proper guy.
Marc:And I remember that, like, I was filthy.
Marc:Like a prude.
Marc:I'm a prude, Mr. Willis.
Marc:I knew you probably couldn't be because you've been in comedy.
Marc:You're not in comedy this long and working in nightclubs that you're going to be easily offended.
Marc:But I remember I was aggravated.
Marc:I didn't have a great set, and I was like...
Guest:and like and then i got off and you were there and you're like that was great i liked everybody that night i went to see the one night i was there my friend t sean shannon yeah yeah from texas couldn't believe couldn't be bluer he's part of our sketch group he comes in with the bluest sketches but they're always funny yeah always someone getting anally uh raped or but it's we went to see him and it's it's the happening club there and yeah so i i remember yeah yeah everyone was good that night but uh
Guest:He didn't know we were coming, so I was nervous that he might have been nervous.
Guest:Oh, God, they walked in.
Marc:Yeah, and you were with your wife, right?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Spending some time in the city.
Marc:So when you go back to that area, does it bring back memories?
Marc:Oh, sure, yeah.
Marc:You walk around?
Guest:Oh, I always go around, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, this used to be something.
Marc:Now look at it.
Guest:Yeah, but the bitter end is still there.
Guest:The comedy cellar.
Guest:There used to be places across the street.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Marc:I have to look.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:How did you develop that character?
Marc:Because with Fernwood Tonight, I mean, at some point, like this always fascinates me with improv actors and guys who do character work, is that there's some...
Marc:I don't know if I've been able to get anyone to really define it, but there's something you do that you know is funny.
Marc:I mean, I guess it's just something happens from... But when you improvise, you've just got this tone.
Marc:Like, I think in Ferdinand Tonight, you kind of played it a little, like, dumber than you are.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I play a clueless...
Guest:kind of a clueless guy who has no it's like almost like the what me worry guy right which i love to do because i'm just the opposite i worry about everything right things are you know oh god what happened like today i just had such a day i've i've changed my accountant my first accountant retired unexpectedly tax period last year was a nightmare the new people there's just yeah i got a new account i'm suddenly getting a call from some
Guest:some company that I've got to have some kind of tax thing in by October 16th.
Guest:So I had to rush in.
Guest:I got this new accountant.
Guest:I said, what?
Guest:We're just going to leave to go out of town for three weeks.
Guest:I said, what's the worst if I don't get this thing in?
Guest:There's no tax owed.
Guest:He said, well, the penalty is $100 a day.
Guest:I said, oh, God, we're going to be gone 21 days.
Guest:I don't want to pay $2,100.
Guest:So I had to rush over to that.
Guest:I got home.
Guest:My wife can't find her passport.
Guest:Oh, geez, no.
Guest:What did you do with my passport?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:So then I came here.
Guest:I got lost coming here.
Guest:So I worry about everything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I'd love to be the kind of guy who just, you know, I don't have a passport.
Guest:I'll go through customs and I'll tell them who I am.
Guest:I don't have a driver's license.
Guest:Hi, I'm Fred.
Guest:I'd love to be that kind of guy.
Guest:You're not.
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:So I just hide it very well.
Guest:I would never have assumed that about you, that you're just toiling in panic all the time.
Guest:I'm constantly expected to be T-boned.
Guest:I was coming over.
Guest:It was quite a rainy day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:constantly expecting a truck to come out and get people.
Marc:I worry about that.
Marc:But I worry about that when I walk into my house.
Marc:For some reason, I have this concern that I'm going to walk into my house, I'm going to open the door, and someone's just going to push me or just run into it.
Marc:But it's crazy.
Marc:Do you ever have that panic where you're sleeping and you're going to get hit in the head?
Guest:sleeping yeah there's a new one for you i'm just laying in bed and someone's gonna come and hit me in the head now you put that in my mind no but you know what i'm nervous when when my wife is is away yeah i'm never nervous at home but when your wife is gone it's just me and i'll then i'll start locking the front door yeah
Marc:And one night- Isn't that weird that she's the one that's making you feel safe?
Marc:I get that too.
Marc:As long as there's two of us in the house, we're going to be okay.
Guest:Well, I'll be brave around her.
Guest:I'll handle this.
Guest:But if it's just me- Well, this was about three months ago.
Guest:She was staying with friends at the beach or something.
Guest:And I assumed I was alone.
Guest:I was lying in bed and I heard a noise.
Guest:And I heard the front door open.
Guest:And there's someone walking.
Guest:And so I opened the door and she was standing there.
Guest:She'd come home.
Guest:And I told her, I said, oh, my God, I thought you were going to be gone overnight.
Guest:But my first image that I told her was short, white, short and white.
Guest:And she laughed about it.
Guest:I said, no, your first image, what you don't want to see is three big, dark guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I think I'd probably try to reason with them.
Guest:Hey, look, what do you want?
Guest:I'll give you some money.
Guest:You don't want to see a gun.
Guest:You don't want to see a gun or a knife or a motherfucker.
Guest:But I said, my first image was short and white.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what you were hoping for?
Marc:So you could maybe get a- Maybe a struggle.
Guest:I wouldn't give her- Get the upper hand.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But she still says, I still laugh about you, short and white.
Guest:No guns in the house.
Guest:No guns.
Guest:No, no, no guns.
Guest:No, I got a knife.
Guest:What am I going to do?
Guest:Or a bat?
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:And I don't think I'd use it on something.
Guest:I think I'd reason with it.
Guest:Look, I could never be a cop, I don't think.
Guest:I watch these cop shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the poor guys, you know, they're always finding someone with a little marijuana.
Guest:And the poor guy's saying, oh, man.
Guest:I think I'd say, oh, go ahead.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, when they beg the cop, no, no, please.
Guest:I say, oh, go ahead.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:I think what I'd arrest are the guys that don't signal.
Guest:I'll give them a ticket to the guys that don't.
Guest:I hate that way.
Guest:They don't signal a turn.
Guest:And you're sitting behind them.
Guest:And then they put on the turn.
Guest:Then I might give him a ticket.
Guest:But the poor guy with that little marijuana.
Guest:Is marijuana legal?
Guest:It seems to be legal.
Guest:It's not legal.
Marc:You can buy some down the street.
Marc:You need some?
Guest:No, no, thanks.
Marc:That was never your bag?
Guest:But they're always arresting someone for marijuana.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know if it happens as much as it used to, not with these dispensaries everywhere.
Marc:But like back in the 60s, it wasn't your thing either, hanging around.
Guest:No, I never really did.
Guest:No, I took marijuana.
Guest:I was not...
Guest:I took marijuana once.
Guest:I didn't like inhaling because I'm not a smoker.
Guest:I'll smoke an occasional cigar.
Guest:But inhaling marijuana, it hurt my lungs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I took Coke once.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doc Severinsen, we were doing The Tonight Show.
Guest:He came home.
Guest:He gave us a little bit, everyone a little bit of Coke in the hallway.
Guest:And I sniffed it up my nose and everything swelled up.
Guest:And it felt like I get a lot of respiratory problems.
Guest:I said, no, I don't need this.
Guest:You didn't get the good part.
Marc:I did not like it.
Yeah.
Marc:That's so funny.
Marc:So back in the day, in the 70s, everyone was hopped up, huh?
Marc:Everyone was hopped up but me.
Guest:How many situations were you in where everybody was just... And a lot of times I didn't know it.
Guest:I thought everyone was having a good time and having fun.
Guest:I was having a good time.
Guest:I'll have a drink or two.
Guest:I like a drink and occasional cigar.
Guest:Now, what concerns me, because we're flying.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Where are you going?
Guest:Well, we're actually going... I'm doing a job in London, which should be very exciting.
Guest:It's... The people who did Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Guest:What it is, they're going to have a celebrity.
Guest:I'm going to be the host interviewing the celebrity.
Guest:And there's going to be four or five improvisers.
Guest:And, you know, while I went to... My first day, I went to high school, and I forgot.
Guest:My pants fell down.
Guest:I'd say, hey, guys, let's reenact that scene where Tom Hanks walked into high school.
Guest:He didn't have a...
Guest:Oh, I get it.
Marc:And then they'd act it out.
Marc:It's like what they call ASCAD over at the UCB is where they have somebody do a short monologue and then the improvisers sort of take off from there.
Marc:It's like that, yes.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:And I hope they don't hear about that because then they'll get... I'm so surprised they asked me and I said, gee, this is great.
Guest:I did a show like it a couple of years ago in New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the improvisers, you have such respect for the guys.
Guest:I mean, they just get up and improvise.
Guest:Some of them are very quick.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So anyway, we're going over to do, I'll be there two weeks, but my wife, we're going to go to Berlin for a few days beforehand because we were there a year ago, two years ago, and we're only there a couple of days and really loved it.
Guest:It's a very unique city.
Guest:It's almost all demolished.
Guest:I'm a big fan of World War II.
Guest:I love all the history of World War II.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And there's a few buildings left and the Brandenburg Gate is there.
Marc:And now you can go to both sides without any problem.
Guest:You can, yeah.
Guest:And all they talk about now is where the wall used to be, the wall.
Guest:And I think that's so known as, well, where was Hitler?
Marc:They don't want to talk about Hitler.
Marc:They'll talk about the wall.
Marc:Oh, so look at that.
Marc:The wall coming down and raised Hitler.
Guest:But I've got to go by, and I didn't get the chance to see where his bunker used to be.
Guest:They built apartments over it.
Marc:Really, that's got to be a weird place to live.
Marc:It must be.
Marc:If you believe in that kind of stuff.
Guest:I think, I have a feeling that people who live there know, and it's kind of weird.
Marc:It would have been better if it was like a Jewish retirement hospital.
Guest:Something with some significance.
Guest:Look, there's some history to this.
Guest:A lot.
Guest:I'll give you a good price.
Guest:Well, what could possibly be?
Guest:No.
Guest:The bunker was right.
Marc:Well, if that's where he ended, then this is where we start.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's where they won.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So Fernwood Tonight was really... Because I remember that it just felt like at that time, things were changing in comedy.
Marc:There's a little more freedom.
Marc:It was a little weirder.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And there seemed to be a new crew in town because SNL started not long after that.
Marc:Right about that time, yes.
Marc:And it just seemed like the whole thing was busting open in the mid to late 70s.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you were part of that crew.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And then along came Monty Python.
Guest:We were in London.
Guest:We got to go to London to do the Tom Jones show.
Guest:And one night, we're all sitting around.
Guest:We had a dinner party.
Guest:What was he like?
Guest:Tom Jones could have been greater.
Guest:I loved his voice.
Guest:I love his music.
Guest:He loves these old 50s songs.
Guest:He picks these old songs.
Guest:And they'd bring him over.
Guest:He's just a blue-collar guy.
Guest:And they'd put him in one of our sketches, and he'd stand there, and we'd do it for him once.
Guest:He'd get in, and he'd play along.
Guest:He knew his lines.
Guest:Complete gentleman.
Guest:I just love him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm always a big fan.
Guest:We were on the show once.
Guest:Little Richard was on the show.
Guest:And there we were, five Americans sitting in this rehearsal room.
Guest:There's Little Richard, and we were all trying to be cool.
Guest:And Little Richard is up playing, Please send me some lovin'.
Guest:And Tom Jones gets up to sing a duet with him.
Guest:The only one I could think of who could hold his own next to Little Richard.
Guest:And at the end of the rehearsal, Richard, could we have a photo with you?
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Everyone won't want to have a photo with me.
Guest:He was just a great guy.
Guest:And then a funny story.
Guest:My wife and I went out for dinner, and I'm still kicking myself.
Guest:The next day they said, you should have stuck around.
Guest:Little Richard invited us up to his hotel room.
Guest:I said, I can't believe it.
Guest:We were up there.
Guest:We had drinks.
Guest:Little Richard went into the other room and brought out a book of just pictures of women's vaginas.
Guest:Can you imagine Little Richard?
Guest:Huh.
Guest:They said it was so weird, and he showed us these pictures.
Huh.
Marc:So then he said, maybe I shouldn't have been there.
Marc:But just to sit in a room with Little Richard.
Marc:Little Richard looking at vaginas.
Marc:With him probably saying, like, why can't I like these?
Marc:Trying to get myself to like these.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's not what you assumed about him, but maybe he had a fascination.
Marc:But it's just weird when they're just separate from the body, perhaps, just vaginas.
Guest:Yeah, that was the weird thing.
Yeah.
Marc:It's quite a party.
Guest:That little Richard, huh?
Guest:He throws a party.
Guest:And then the guys, then we were coming back to L.A., and the guys were going to Stockholm.
Guest:And I couldn't go.
Guest:My wife wanted me to come home.
Guest:We just had a baby.
Guest:So I flew home.
Guest:And I said, give me some of that pornography.
Guest:Is it Stockholm or Sweden?
Marc:Sweden.
Marc:Yeah, the Swedish.
Guest:So they brought me a pornographic magazine.
Guest:My wife didn't like that.
Guest:The next day I said, what happened to it?
Guest:I threw it out the window.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I said, oh, no, my pornography.
Marc:One pornography I had, I should have gone to Little Richard's room.
Marc:So at that time, so Monty Python was popular?
Marc:Well, oh, we tuned on and he says, Monty Python.
Marc:We'd never seen anything like it.
Marc:Because they were only in England at that time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then we decided, we said, you know what we should do?
Guest:we should get hold of their material and do some of their material and our material on an American TV show.
Guest:So we got our agent, we tried to talk an American, and then we took it down to some network to buy it, and we showed them a Monty Python...
Guest:And they looked at it, and they didn't laugh.
Guest:They said, oh, it's like Laugh-In.
Guest:And they said, oh, they just didn't get Monty Python.
Guest:How could they compare Monty Python to Laugh-In?
Guest:So a year later, we heard that Time Life bought Monty Python, and then the rest is history.
Guest:Did you ever meet those guys?
Guest:I met Eric Idle through doing Best in Show.
Guest:I worked at my partner in that show, judging the dog show, was Jim Piddick, a wonderful English actor.
Marc:You were hilarious in that.
Guest:Thanks, yeah.
Guest:And we were at a party, and he knows Eric Idle.
Guest:He knows all these guys.
Guest:So I met Eric Idle, and I'll sit.
Guest:And I don't know whether it's more exciting to sit with Little Richard or Eric Idle.
Guest:When you realize what Eric Idle, he wrote not only was with Monty Python, but wrote the nudge, nudge, wink, wink, all these.
Guest:He was the guy who did it.
Guest:And he's just a regular, he's just a bridge.
Guest:We sit and talk for a long time, and he tried to get me to do...
Guest:spam a lot he wanted me to be spam a lot and i couldn't do it and uh i would not have been as good at who they used the guy from uh rocky horror show i could not tim curry was and then they wanted me to replace him and i said i thought i just can't i was so flattered they wanted me to do it i couldn't do that there tim curry had a great voice it's interesting that like you know throughout your career and as you talk about it that you you you always sort of uh they were like because in my mind you know working with alan arkin
Marc:yeah you know even for a little while yeah to me it's like that must have been fucking mind-blowing it was great yeah and and and then to see where he went and then where you went and you you both did all right you're both very respected but you still had this thing where it's like with comedians like someone like eric idol you're like oh my god it's eric idol and you feel that you're a fan of his work yeah and you don't want you try to you joke for a minute or two and he jokes and afterwards let me just have a serious conversation with this guy yeah yeah he's probably here to all the jokes
Guest:Nothing I can say can make him laugh.
Guest:He's very nice if I say something.
Guest:But then I get off on another subject.
Guest:We talk about people in England.
Marc:Now, was the real people thing?
Marc:Because I definitely have conscious memories from that.
Guest:Real people was interesting.
Guest:I got a call one day from George Schlatter.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Who had done, speaking of laughing.
Guest:Laughing and everything else.
Guest:George Schlatter.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm doing this show called Real People.
Guest:I saw you on Fernwood tonight.
Guest:And you talk to crazies like they're normal.
Guest:And that's what I want to do.
Guest:And I said, well...
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He wanted real crazies.
Guest:Yeah, he got real crazies.
Guest:And I've always wanted to talk.
Guest:If you find someone on the street who's nuts, I try to make a real conversation to see what they're... I always think they have something in their mind that they're trying to express.
Guest:I found out that most of them don't.
Guest:But he told me about the show.
Marc:If they had a little more focus, they probably wouldn't be talking to the wall.
Yeah.
Guest:So he told me about the show, and it was NBC, and it was going to be six, and I said, well, okay.
Guest:So I did six of them, and it wasn't quite as cutting edge as I thought.
Marc:Yeah, because it seemed like for you, you weren't able to use your chops.
Guest:Yeah, and then I found out I was doing a lot of stories, and he was editing.
Guest:I had a friend who was an editor on the show, and he said, I saw the funniest stories come in, and when they came out, they'd cut you so much.
Guest:And then the show would always end up with, it's time has come to say goodnight.
Guest:We want them to do, and God bless.
Guest:And it was a little too American Pie and American...
Guest:And my wife said, hey, you don't want to do that show.
Guest:Don't do that.
Guest:So you only did six?
Guest:No, I did six.
Guest:And after a couple of years, then, of course, the show skyrocketed.
Marc:It was you, Skip Stevenson, Byron Allen, and who else?
Guest:Wasn't Byron Allen?
Guest:I think Byron did come on.
Guest:Bill Rafferty.
Guest:Yeah, Bill Rafferty.
Guest:Bill Rafferty.
Guest:From San Francisco.
Guest:From San Francisco.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And you know who else was on?
Guest:The little guy.
Guest:Sarah Purcell.
Guest:Sarah Purcell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The little guy from The Christmas Story, who's now a big producer-director.
Guest:Peter Billingsley.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He's the cutest little kid, the most precocious little kid.
Guest:And, of course, I left it, and the show skyrocketed.
Marc:After you left?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:And about three years in, I'm a big baseball fan, and I read an article about this ball player.
Guest:He played in the major leagues with one arm.
Guest:His name was Pete Gray.
Guest:And I read a story that he still lived in this little town in Pennsylvania and played golf.
Guest:He was in his 70s.
Guest:I called George Schlatter.
Guest:I said, George, I would love to come back to just do a story on this guy.
Guest:He played for the St.
Guest:Louis Browns in 1945.
Guest:He's a one-armed player.
Guest:He played, he had like 240, 250.
Guest:But it was wartime, but he held his own.
Guest:And George said, that's a great story.
Guest:I used to be a member of the Nothole gang in St.
Guest:Louis.
Guest:He said, we'll line up the story.
Guest:So then he called me a few days later and he says, this guy doesn't want to do the story.
Guest:They're doing a story of his life.
Guest:He's a curmudgeon.
Guest:He hangs out in a bar.
Guest:But come on in.
Guest:I'd like to talk to you about doing a few shows.
Guest:So I went in and I did about 10 or 11 shows that year.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:For very good money.
Guest:And I didn't know what was wrong with me.
Guest:It was good money and I enjoyed myself.
Guest:And then the next year I said, you know, I'm going to do it the whole year.
Guest:Really make good money.
Guest:But good money, it was like, at the time, like $14,000 a week, which is probably like $30,000, $40,000 a week now.
Guest:Good money to me.
Guest:And I said, yeah, let me do it.
Guest:I'll do it every year.
Guest:I mean, I'll do the whole show.
Guest:And suddenly, when I wanted to do it, then he told my agent, he says, I want Fred to I want to sign a three year contract.
Guest:So I said to my agent, well, let's just do one year at a time.
Guest:Look, I've been doing my agent came back.
Guest:She says, no, George wants three years.
Guest:I said, well, I don't know.
Guest:What should I do?
Guest:Should I go back?
Guest:She said, no, no, he's withdrawn the offer.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think he wanted to teach me a lesson because I wanted to do a year, and he got some other guy.
Guest:Then he fired Bill Rafferty.
Guest:He fired everyone on the show at one time.
Guest:I was not aware of this except Sarah Purcell.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And NBC, she wanted more money, and NBC said you have to pay her more money because she was really great, very pretty.
Guest:And George says, if you want her, you pay her the extra money.
Right.
Marc:Now I'm assuming you don't have a relationship with him anymore.
Guest:I actually do.
Guest:Sarah Purcell and her husband invited me and my wife, George and his wife, down to their club in Santa Monica.
Guest:I said, what am I going to talk to about George with George Schlatter?
Guest:Did you ever ask him whether or not he screwed you?
Guest:To teach you a lesson?
Guest:I think he knows.
Guest:But to me, we went down and George had a drink or two.
Guest:Fred, you're my favorite comic.
Guest:This is my favorite guy.
Guest:And I think he sincerely means it.
Guest:Someone once described George as he says, he'll love you for six months and then turn on you and fire you.
Guest:But he's a big guy in the industry.
Guest:And we had dinner.
Guest:And his wife is so pretty, former showgirl.
Guest:And we had a nice evening.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:We've got to get together, Fred.
Guest:Yeah, damn.
Guest:We kept recalling one story I did for him, which was not the funniest story I did.
Guest:I used to laugh at that, a perpetual motion machine.
Guest:I said, well, I had funnier stories.
Guest:But he's a legendary guy, and he really started all this reality.
Guest:That was the first reality show.
Marc:sure now do you but like in talking about that i mean you've been in show business a long time and you've got you've done a lot of episodic work you've done hosting work you've done movie work now like in in talking about slaughtering and talking about these decisions that you made during your career is there part of you that thinks like ah fuck i should have done i always make the wrong i would never anytime i'm offered something i find a reason i i can't do it but uh um
Guest:I've done some things.
Guest:I fought to get on SCTV.
Guest:Remember that show?
Guest:There was Eugene Levy, Marty Short, John Candy.
Guest:I saw them in Canada.
Guest:Rick Moranis?
Guest:He joined it.
Guest:Those were later?
Guest:They came from the Second City stage.
Guest:Rick Moranis came in like a year or two into it.
Guest:I love the show, and I'd run into Joe Flaherty, and I'd say, Joe, I love that show.
Guest:You've got to get me on that show.
Guest:You've got to.
Guest:And I was on Real People at the time, so they thought I was the big, because I was on Real People.
Guest:So I did two or three of the shows, and it was great.
Guest:Most of them were Canadian?
Guest:I think they're all Canadian.
Guest:Catherine O'Hara, Eugene, Marty Short.
Guest:So funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just did Martin Short.
Guest:He just did a new special up in Toronto, and he had me do a part, and I went up to do that.
Guest:So that's how you got in with them?
Guest:Got in with that.
Guest:How much did you do on Second City?
Guest:I did two or three episodes.
Guest:And I really, but I sincerely loved it.
Guest:So it wasn't like, oh, hey, you're the greatest.
Guest:I really loved it, and I wanted to be on it.
Guest:I just loved every character, and I could quote their lines back to them.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You were a fan of this stuff.
Guest:No, I really was, and I still am.
Guest:I still have their two Christmas episodes, and I quote lines to Eugene Levy, and he doesn't know what I'm talking about.
Guest:I said, Eugene, you did that on the Christmas episode.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Is that where you met Christopher Guest?
Guest:Because it seems like he uses a lot of them, too.
Guest:Christopher I met.
Guest:When they did... Spinal Tap?
Guest:Spinal Tap.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'd known him.
Guest:I think he was an understudy when I did Little Murders in New York.
Guest:He was just probably a young actor.
Guest:And I didn't really know him, but I think Eugene Levy was more instrumental in getting me, because Eugene writes with Christopher.
Marc:Where did he come from, Christopher Guest?
Marc:I mean, like, what was his background?
Marc:He was an actor?
Marc:You knew him in New York?
Guest:As I found out, he was at a folk group in New York.
Guest:He was a folk singer.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:He was an actor.
Guest:He was in the... What's the thing they did down... Catch a Rising Star?
Guest:What are those animals that go off the runoff, follow each other?
Marc:Hamsters?
Marc:Oh, lemmings, right.
Marc:The lemmings, he was in that.
Marc:Lampoon's lemmings.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:So he was there with all those guys.
Marc:Belushi was in that.
Guest:So he was part of that crew.
Guest:I should have known that.
Guest:And Christopher Guest at Saturday Night Live.
Guest:And I always heard a rumor when we were doing Mighty Wind...
Guest:Someone told me that Christopher Gassman is very special about who he wants in his... And I heard that Mary Travers from Peter, Paul, and Mary had called him and wanted to be in it, and he said no.
Guest:So I asked him one time, I said, Christopher, I've got to ask you, did Mary Travers call you?
Guest:He says, no, that's not true.
Guest:He says, but she did babysit for me.
Guest:When he was a kid.
Guest:When he was a kid.
Guest:Isn't that interesting?
Marc:So he grew up in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because he's created this, I don't know what the word for it is, oeuvre, or like Christopher Guest has created this, he seems to have invented this modern, it's a mockumentary with Spinal Tap, but some sort of amazing cinematic space for genius improvisers.
Guest:Yeah, and I think he did his first one, Waiting for Guffman.
Guest:Well, the first one he was in, but it was Rob Reiner's with Spinal Tap.
Guest:Then he did Waiting for Guffman.
Guest:You were in Spinal Tap.
Marc:I was in Spinal Tap.
Guest:You played the military guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was easy for you?
Guest:It was very easy because I had a military background.
Guest:And I thought, no one's going to watch this movie.
Guest:And I knew Michael McKean and Harry Shearer and Christopher.
Guest:And we took a few.
Guest:It was kind of we knew.
Guest:what the lines were.
Marc:So you guys are all friends too?
Guest:Harry and Michael McKee and I did know and David Lander, they were in a group called the Credibility Gap.
Guest:Right, that was a big one.
Guest:They played at the Improv and my group was the Ace Trucking Company and
Guest:And I thought their group, by our standards, they were so bright.
Guest:And we had a job in the Midwest, in Chicago and Indiana.
Guest:We had about 11 dates.
Guest:And two of our guys, one guy was off doing a movie and another guy was doing it.
Guest:And we needed replacements.
Guest:We had to cancel the group.
Guest:I said, why don't the two of us combine with Harry Shear, Michael McKeon, and David Lander, combine our material?
Guest:So I got to work with them and know them.
Guest:And that was in the 70s.
Guest:It was in the, let's see, 70s, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I've remained very good friends with all of them.
Marc:I had no idea that there was this big sort of sketch comedy improv scene that was really kind of thriving in a way in the 70s.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That there were several different groups.
Guest:Yeah, they didn't improvise.
Guest:They were very scripted, but they did very political stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They did a version of Who's On First that to me is so much funnier than Abbott and Costello because it's a promoter who comes into a newspaper to promote his rock.
Guest:He's doing a rock show down at an auditorium.
Guest:And the guy says, okay, let's start Who's On First.
Guest:And the guy says, oh, you already know because the first group was Who.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who's on first?
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:No, who?
Guest:Yeah, who?
Guest:Who's on first?
Guest:And they say, okay, who's the second group?
Guest:Guess who?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:No, guess who?
Guest:And the third group was yes.
Guest:Will you tell me the name of the closing act?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it's the brightest sketch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You always seem to think that your sketches were not as smart as these other guys.
Guest:No, not smart.
Guest:But strangely, when we combined our sketches, our sketches went funnier than theirs because theirs was a little more thoughtful than ours.
Guest:Ours were more cartoons, people running on and off the stage and silly stuff.
Guest:But I've remained very good friends with all of Michael McKeon, David Lander, Harry Shearer, and I'm such a fan of all of theirs.
Guest:So anyway, Christopher Guest started doing these movies, Waiting for Guffman.
Guest:The company, Castle Rock, wasn't quite sure what they had.
Guest:Then it got kind of an inside movie.
Guest:Then they did Best in Show, which was very...
Guest:popular and then mighty wind that you were hilarious in that now i gotta ask you i because to me like the there was a genius in the haircut yeah i mean was whose choice was that my wife said she showed me a group a picture of an old group i don't know if it's poison one of those 70s rock groups these guys that were a little too old to look like that like that right and he said you should she said you should dye your hair
Guest:blonde yeah with dark roots yeah so i said okay i think i'll ask chris and i said no i better not ask chris because if it's not his idea yeah he won't like it right so i got my hair dyed yeah my guy who does my hair yeah and i went in and chris oh god that's awful life yeah and the hair people were very supportive oh no we can bring the color down right and uh
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:I came in with some suits I'd bought, some zoot suits.
Guest:And you had that little faux hawk thing.
Guest:That was for the next movie, which was For Your Consideration.
Guest:At that time, in Mighty Wind, I said, you know, I'd like to wear a little earring.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:A little earring.
Guest:Yeah, I remember.
Guest:And he said, no, no, no earring.
Guest:So the next movie, the final movie, was For Your Consideration.
Guest:He said, I think I'd like to dye your hair blonde, give you a faux hawk.
Guest:And he said, I think he had a little earring.
Marc:Oh, that's funny.
Marc:Because then that was his idea.
Marc:But that was so hilarious because that character to me, the washed up comic element of him.
Guest:Yeah, that's what I thought.
Guest:My character was supposed to be just a manager of...
Guest:of a musical group.
Guest:I said, it might be funny if he had a sitcom.
Guest:He was an ex-comic.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Had one year on a sitcom 30 years ago and thought everyone remembered his catchphrases.
Guest:And that was all you?
Guest:Yeah, it was all, yeah.
Guest:You came up with that?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Like, no one remembered it.
Guest:But there was that time in that period with...
Guest:Everyone, all those catchphrases on the show.
Guest:I know, he was so genius.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:What happened?
Guest:And actually, I said, yeah.
Guest:Weird confidence of repeating it.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:No one had any idea.
Guest:And I think I started by saying, let's get it out of the way.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Like everyone, and everyone knew.
Guest:So guest creates an environment to where you can do that?
Guest:Yes, very much so.
Guest:And he's very, you know, he tells you exactly what you have to get out, what information.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He gives you your character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I added a little to it with a background.
Guest:And then the first scene, he sets the camera, and this is the interview.
Guest:And it went for 20 minutes.
Guest:And he just walked through the room.
Guest:He says, well, that's half our movie right there.
Guest:But he won't say it's funny.
Guest:Was that funny?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then he'll cut it down to maybe a minute.
Guest:But, you know, get what he wants.
Marc:And Bob Battleman's amazing.
Guest:Bob is so wonderful.
Guest:What a comedic wizard he is too, right?
Guest:Well, he is the perfection.
Guest:He fits everything of improv.
Guest:He doesn't try to top you.
Guest:He doesn't try to stay.
Guest:He just becomes the character.
Guest:And if he gets a laugh, if not, he just becomes that character.
Guest:And that's the perfect example of...
Marc:of improv is that the trick to it when you're doing like because you know i know that a lot of people a lot there's a lot of improv groups and this and that and even back in the day you guys were playing improv games but but but that's you know that stage that's club improv so when you do improvisational acting
Marc:What are some of the tools you bring to the table?
Guest:What you've got to do is... There's different times.
Guest:You say club.
Guest:And I cheat a little.
Guest:I try to be funny.
Guest:Hey, let's get a laugh here.
Guest:But the ideal is to get in the scene and listen to the partner.
Guest:Just like...
Guest:And I often tell people in improv, if you don't think you can improvise, if you're starting out, get into a scene and don't try to be funny.
Guest:Just talk to the person.
Guest:You're going to the grocery store.
Guest:Oh, I need milk.
Guest:Then if something funny happens, oh, by the way, the last time you brought milk, it was sour.
Guest:But actually, I liked it.
Guest:So see if they got sour milk.
Guest:But don't try to be funny.
Guest:Some people can take to it and be very funny.
Guest:Some people are just funny being serious.
Guest:So there's all different ways.
Guest:I don't know if you really can teach him.
Marc:Because you're the kind of guy, you've probably worked with a lot of cats in your life, where with improv actors, there's almost a different set of personalities for each one.
Marc:Like there's the brash guy.
Marc:But there's always the guy that underplays it.
Marc:And sort of is a little stilted and comes with his own timing.
Marc:This stuff in Best of Show, when you're sitting there, I was just talking about this with my friend.
Marc:That the whole like you seem to build a pretty solid sense of past for these guys.
Marc:Like, you know, you could just read into that guy that, you know, he was sort of, you know, a TV hack.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But but everyone's familiar with that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you have a very sort of familiar kind of uniquely American disposition.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:that when you see the the darker elements of this guy's character and he doesn't even know it's coming out yeah he's just trying to make conversation in an awkward situation it's it's fucking hilarious yeah but like you do you make certain choices about their life you just have a couple of things to hang it on
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think if someone asked me about them, you know, a lot of actors, you say they'll write a whole biopic.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I never did that.
Guest:But if someone asked me about my character, what did he do three years ago?
Guest:I could tell you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, was he married?
Guest:Yeah, he was married once and then he got a divorce.
Guest:It just it's kind of fits into the background.
Guest:You set yourself.
Guest:in this situation I guess that's how you do it and Christopher Guest will give you the you know here's what you did you did this you know that you're up against this guy and Bob Balaban is a perfect foil because he's so serious and I remember him from Seinfeld where he played the head of NBC and he scared me and when in Waiting for Guffman there was a scene where Catherine O'Hara and I had to come in the room and audition for the play and I didn't know Bob Balaban was going to be in the room and he has that look on his face like who the hell is this
Guest:So in, I think it was Best in Show, I had to go up and interview him.
Guest:So immediately I got a brass side to me.
Guest:He was Dr. So-and-so.
Guest:Doctor, listen, I got a little pain in my upper, up in the left hand side.
Guest:Is that bursitis?
Guest:Is it cold?
Guest:And he just looked at me and says, well, I'm not that kind of doctor.
Guest:Now, he could have tried to top me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He said, what have you been doing with you?
Guest:But I said, no, I'm just kidding with you here.
Guest:But he was so perfect.
Guest:He's a perfect foil.
Guest:Eugene Levy is that kind too.
Guest:Good foil?
Guest:Oh, he's like, you can just take advantage.
Guest:I said to him in the scene, you look like the kind of guy who spends a lot of time in the bathroom.
Guest:But it just led.
Guest:No, I wouldn't say that to Christopher Gass.
Guest:Say it to Eugene Levy's character.
Guest:Not to Eugene, but to his character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're fun people to work with.
Guest:It's so funny because Bob Balaban's been around since the late 60s, too.
Guest:And he does everything.
Guest:Man, you see movies.
Guest:He produces.
Guest:He's a terrific guy.
Guest:Well, it comes from the Balaban, the RKO or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, it's a theater family, right?
Guest:Yeah, that doesn't hurt.
Guest:My dad, I didn't know what he did.
Guest:He went away and came home at 5 o'clock in a tie and sat with his tie and jacket.
Marc:Dad, loosen your tie.
Marc:So in the big picture of things, like, you know, after you got back from the Army, you made this choice.
Marc:I mean, how did your family react to that?
Marc:I could not.
Marc:I didn't want to tell.
Marc:I got a job.
Guest:I had a stepfather.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you got to go into business.
Guest:Businesses.
Guest:So I got a job in New York in an office.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was the kind of job where it was a credit company.
Guest:You could go out on the street and go to different companies, get credit reports.
Guest:So if there was an audition, I could get up and leave.
Guest:But at night, we were doing this comedy act with my partner, and, you know, so it was really tough.
Guest:I couldn't do it.
Guest:Now, you'd leave a club at midnight, and you'd get home at 1.
Guest:You'd have to be up at 8 and be in work at 9, and my partner had lost his job, and I said, boy, you're lucky you can sleep late.
Guest:But he had a wife and a kid, and it was tough.
Guest:And I said, oh, you're lucky.
Guest:I envy you.
Guest:And I was making like $85 a week.
Guest:But we finally auditioned for a company upstate New York.
Guest:You heard about the Catskills.
Guest:This was not the Catskills.
Guest:This was like the Goy Catskills.
Guest:It was more white bread.
Guest:Dinner theater-ish?
Guest:It was dinner theater.
Guest:It was repertory.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we auditioned.
Guest:There was a first banana, a comic named Larry Wilde.
Guest:He wrote all these books about the Jewish joke book, the Polish joke book.
Guest:Oh, he did those?
Guest:Yeah, sure, I remember those.
Guest:Yeah, very, very funny man.
Guest:Not that funny on stage.
Guest:He was like Alan King, kind of that corny humor.
Guest:But in person, he was the funniest guy.
Guest:And he was the first banana, and they needed a second banana, so they hired my partner and I as second banana.
Guest:Well, the good thing, we got to get my partner job.
Guest:I got to quit my office job.
Guest:I had to go home and tell my parents, I'm going to be in show business.
Guest:And my stepfather, being very supportive, he says, there's a lot more unemployed actors than there are credit reporters.
Guest:Well, you know, I know that.
Guest:Did you never get along with that guy?
Guest:No.
Guest:I look back, he had a tough...
Guest:You know, your stepfather, your mother marries another guy.
Guest:And he didn't care for anything I did.
Guest:Anyway, it's a long story.
Guest:But he died.
Guest:And I look back and I said, maybe he was not that bad.
Marc:He had a tough... It was just a matter of their approval of it.
Guest:Your mom was okay?
Guest:She lived to be a good ripe age.
Guest:93.
Marc:So she was able to see some of your success?
Guest:She saw some of my stuff, yeah.
Guest:And she was amazed.
Guest:She'd come out and...
Guest:See the house we live in, which is not that great.
Guest:It's a nice house.
Guest:Oh, she had to take pictures and show her friends.
Guest:She was great.
Guest:She didn't quite get... I mean, she had a pretty good sense of humor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:From Cleveland, you have a good sense of humor in Cleveland, even though she was the least funny of all...
Guest:her brothers and sisters.
Guest:Well, you know, Jonathan Winters comes from Cleveland.
Guest:Dayton, Dayton, just a little less.
Guest:Yeah, there's that Ohio, Bob Hope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jack Riley, a lot of guys I've met out here.
Marc:There's a Cleveland, Drew Carey, I think is from Cleveland.
Marc:Yeah, Cleveland Rocks.
Marc:Have you spent time with Jonathan Winters?
Marc:A little bit.
Guest:He's a little tough to be with.
Guest:Yeah, a little.
Guest:How's this?
Guest:How about this hat?
Guest:And if you're with him long enough, he'll come down and just get a conversation.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I spent an hour talking to him.
Marc:Yeah, for a half hour of his characters, right?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:As he gets older, I think that he's right in there, but he's got a hell of a memory.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:He was in his 80s.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He can do his first radio bits.
Marc:Do you remember ever hearing him on the radio?
Marc:Because I think some of his first bits were on the radio in Cleveland.
Marc:No.
Marc:The first I saw him...
Guest:I was in a room and there was a Colgate comedy hour or something.
Guest:Ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Winters.
Guest:And he came out and he did a thing about a sword fight.
Guest:I don't know if he's making up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he went in the closing.
Guest:He put the sword in the sheath.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But oh, like he stabbed himself.
Guest:Bam, Jonathan Winters, and they went to commercial, and the audience laughed, and then they died down.
Guest:Then they started to laugh again.
Guest:I'd never seen a response.
Guest:And the laughter just built, and no one had ever seen anything like this.
Guest:And he came along in that same wave, Shelley Berman, Bob Newhart, Lenny Bruce.
Guest:Did you ever get to see any of those guys?
Guest:I saw Shelly Berman many times in person.
Guest:Mort Saul.
Guest:I tried to see Lenny Bruce.
Guest:I was at his famous Carnegie Hall concert.
Guest:And you couldn't wait.
Guest:Because he didn't show up until midnight, I think, right?
Guest:Well, it was a midnight show.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And it was a huge snowstorm.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he came out, and you could hardly...
Guest:Wouldn't it be wild if they didn't know we were in here?
Guest:But then people from the balcony started to yell, we can't hear you.
Guest:Where are you?
Guest:Well, screw you.
Guest:He should have got better seats.
Guest:So he was on a good long time, but it was very hard to hear him.
Guest:Then I came out to L.A., and he was appearing in the Hollywood Canteen, which is a little place that's no longer there.
Guest:And they reviewed his show, and I said, I'll go down to see him.
Guest:It was a small place.
Guest:There he came in late, walked in with a raincoat, walked up on stage, talked about 10 minutes.
Guest:He was mad about something.
Guest:He said, well, I've got to split.
Guest:And I went, whoa, wait a minute.
Guest:So we did another 10 minutes and split.
Guest:So I never got to really see his act, but I got a bunch of CDs.
Guest:That's interesting.
Marc:So you saw him, and you couldn't hear him at the peak of his career.
Marc:And then you saw him, and he was too fucked up to deal at the end of his career.
Guest:But there's a book of about six of his CDs, and he did some great.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Half of it was just genius.
Guest:The other half was just blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Who else?
Guest:Bob Newhart.
Guest:I've become a bit friendly with him.
Guest:I did his show.
Guest:Sweet guy, just a real- Oh, I'd love to talk to him.
Marc:Nice guy, huh?
Guest:Yeah, just the sweetest most- Still works, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Now, when you work with younger guys, like you did something with Tim and Eric, right?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I never saw what I did.
Guest:I'd never heard of their show, and young people would come up to me and say, man, you were on Tim and Eric.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, yes, I was.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I called my agent.
Guest:I said, if Tim and Eric ever call, tell them I'll be on their show because young people like it.
Guest:And I did a second and I did not understand what I was doing.
Guest:They pieced it together.
Guest:I was looking through a phone book for restaurants or doing something.
Guest:And they said, we'll piece it.
Guest:I said, but what's the point?
Guest:We'll piece it together.
Guest:And you never saw it?
Guest:I think I finally saw it.
Guest:I remember something I was feeding people out of a pig trough.
Uh-huh.
Guest:You just went along with it.
Guest:I went along with it, and I said, is this right?
Guest:Is this what you want?
Guest:But they're very popular.
Guest:I haven't really got into that.
Guest:But comedy has changed a lot.
Guest:It became very open with Lenny Bruce and them.
Guest:You can talk about more.
Guest:Monty Python came along and opened up sketch material, all comedy material, because someone could stand up in the middle of a sketch and say, oh, sorry, I'm in the wrong sketch.
Guest:I'd never seen that.
Guest:Can you do that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sorry, I'm in the wrong sketch.
Guest:Saturday Night Live has done that.
Guest:And then comedy got very blue, which I love.
Guest:Blue comedy, if it's funny, Dave Attell.
Guest:I've got a CD of Dave Attell that I listen to, and I won't let my wife listen to it because it's so graphic, but I'll listen to it every once in a while.
Guest:He's funny.
Guest:And very dirty and funny, but if it's dirty and funny.
Guest:And then now comedy seems to be a lot of it.
Guest:Dumb comedy.
Guest:There's no joke.
Guest:Well, that's the joke.
Guest:There's no joke.
Guest:Does that bother you?
Guest:I feel so old.
Guest:I said, I'm not getting this.
Guest:Sometimes on Saturday Night Live, I'll watch his sketches.
Guest:Where's the joke?
Guest:Other times they're so funny.
Guest:They're so bright.
Guest:I love Saturday Night Live.
Guest:I never miss it.
Guest:But we TiVo it.
Guest:And I love their cast.
Guest:They're just great, great Fred Armisen.
Guest:Sure, he's good, huh?
Guest:Yeah, and I love it when he does, they do a sketch like the old Halloween party, Vincent Price.
Guest:And you know, half the crowd doesn't know who the hell he's talking about.
Marc:Bill Hader was in that.
Guest:Yeah, Bill Hader.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I met him, I was on the Jimmy Fallon show with Bill Hader.
Guest:I met him, I said, Jesus, you're so young.
Guest:He looks like he's 14 years old and he plays these great characters.
Guest:He's a funny guy.
Guest:Yeah, they're all funny.
Marc:So how often do you do your improv stuff?
Marc:It's a sketch group.
Guest:We started doing it at a little theater on Fairfax called Bang.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we got this group of people write sketches, and we started doing these shows.
Guest:We did them for about six months, once every month, every two months.
Guest:Then Second City got in touch with us and said, why don't you do it at our theater?
Guest:It's on Hollywood Boulevard.
Guest:They have workshops there and a very nice theater.
Marc:And it's fun, you guys, every month you do a couple new sketches or what?
Guest:New sketches, it's just great.
Guest:They come in with new sketches, and we got some great people.
Guest:And it started out, I would write most of the sketches.
Guest:And now...
Guest:I'll do maybe one sketch, because everyone else is so funny.
Guest:And you'll act another one?
Marc:Yeah, I'll do in a couple of... Well, it was great talking to you, Fred.
Guest:Thank you for... Yeah, thank you.
Marc:And thanks for coming on.
Guest:Oh, it's a pleasure.
Guest:My wife said, boy, I'm glad you're doing Mark's show.
Guest:It's very hip.
Guest:Everyone on the internet, everyone's talking about... Yeah.
Guest:I said, well, yeah, this is great.
Guest:I know Mark.
Guest:For some reason, I thought I'd done your show, but I might have done it by phone a year or so ago.
Guest:Did you do some phoners?
Marc:I think we did maybe something for Air America.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, that might have been it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:For a minute or two.
Guest:Watch your latest project, Fred.
Guest:Well, right now, I'm in now.
Guest:Thank you so much.
Guest:And now let's go to... Wait, we have Tom Cruise.
Marc:That was Fred Willard.
Marc:Fred Willard.
Marc:And you're still sitting there going, did I do it?
Marc:Well, it's certainly great.
Marc:I'm a big fan, and it was a pleasure.
Marc:Thank you so much.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That was the amazing Fred Willard with a wonderful conversation.
Marc:Sweet guy.
Marc:Sweet guy.
Marc:All right.
Marc:As always, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:I do mail out something every week that I write to you.
Marc:You can get some merch.
Marc:You can get my schedule.
Marc:Go check those dates.
Marc:Got a lot of dates coming up in a lot of different places.
Marc:You can look at the episode guide to see who's been on and how to get that.
Marc:You can get hold of the app.
Marc:You can read the blog.
Marc:You can comment on things.
Marc:Try to be nice.
Marc:I understand you're a community of people that comment on things, but discuss in a nice way.
Marc:Sometimes it gets a little gnarly on there.
Marc:So go check that out.
Marc:And as always, why am I saying that like I always say thanks for listening?
Marc:I was just going to say, as always, thanks for listening.
Marc:I don't think I ever say that at the end, do I?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Okay, I'll tell you that story on Monday.
Marc:Okay, bye.
Marc:Bye?
Marc:What am I, on the phone?
Marc:Jesus Christ, you think I just started doing this?
Marc:All right, I'm leaving.
Marc:I'm going.
Marc:I'm going.
Marc:I'm going.
you