Episode 324 - Tom Kenny
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:And just starting to do comedy in Boston.
Marc:The Tomcat, they called him.
Marc:He was Bobby Goldthwait's best friend.
Marc:Of course, that's where you get the Bobcat and the Tomcat.
Marc:I also mentioned that Bobby Goldthwaite is directing four episodes of my show.
Marc:I was just at the vet with Monkey.
Marc:You know, the cat situation here is unraveling.
Marc:When it rains, it pours, I guess.
Marc:Poor guy's been vomiting for the last three days.
Marc:God, I hope he's okay.
Marc:Still no sign of Boomer.
Marc:But Boomer lives in my heart and my mind and the heart and minds of many.
Marc:But I can't handle if monkey's sick, too.
Marc:Jesus, I just left him at the vet because he's so freaked out.
Marc:You put him in the cage, he freaks out.
Marc:He peed in his cage, so now he's covered in pee.
Marc:He doesn't like being out of the house.
Marc:And I had to leave him over there to get x-rays to make sure he didn't eat something, like a cap or a twisty or those things that cats play with.
Marc:No matter how many toys you buy a cat, the amount of joy they get from that thing you pull off the top of a lid that needs to be unscrewed is baffling.
Marc:You're surrounded by catnip toys, but you're going to play with garbage.
Marc:Hopefully there's nothing in him, but we had to give him a little, we had to get him high first over there at the vet just so he'll lay down for an x-ray.
Marc:So that's what's happening.
Marc:It's been a little, you know, I get only two days off a week now like everybody else in the world because I'm working and I wanted to relax this weekend and it hasn't panned out that way.
Marc:Yesterday, I drove my car because I've become obsessed with getting a stereo system that will play vinyl appropriately.
Marc:So in my mind, appropriately means the way I heard it in high school.
Marc:And in my mind, that means I should get roughly the same equipment that I had in high school in 1976 or 77 or whenever the hell it was.
Marc:So it just happens there's a store here in not far from me that deals in stereo merchandise from the 70s.
Marc:So I drive over there.
Marc:Look, I was under the illusion that the equipment I had was good equipment.
Marc:Now I find out that it's not good equipment at all.
Marc:It was shitty equipment.
Marc:I think I brought this up already.
Marc:So I go over to this place and I'm thinking about spending $300 on a Marantz receiver and some speakers that are 30 years old.
Marc:But in the back of my mind, I'm thinking...
Marc:They have to have updated the technology in a positive way.
Marc:Maybe you don't want to get 30-year-old speakers for $90.
Marc:Maybe you should go get something else.
Marc:Go get some nice stereo equipment.
Marc:You got a couple bucks saved up.
Marc:Go pick yourself up some high-end stereo equipment.
Marc:So then I go back out to my car after sitting in the in the stereo store with this guy trying to figure out what was wrong with my speakers, which one of them is fucked up.
Marc:And my car won't start.
Marc:I drove it down.
Marc:It won't start.
Marc:So I don't know what to do.
Marc:But I'm a grown up.
Marc:I don't freak out.
Marc:That's that's where I'm at in my life now, where I was proud of myself that when the car didn't turn over, I didn't destroy my day, my girlfriend's day, everybody around me's day.
Marc:I didn't lose it.
Marc:I was going to call AAA, decided not to call my friend Ryan Singer, who came down with his beat up Camry and jumped me, got it jumped.
Marc:And then we went out and had some lunch.
Marc:It definitely reminded me of how I lived my life when I had nothing to do, say, in high school, early on in my comedy career, that that my debt, my battery dying was almost a gift in the sense that it enabled me to spend time with my buddy Ryan, who I haven't been spending time with.
Marc:So I kind of looked at it like that.
Marc:It reminds me of that bit of business in that Ian Frazier book on the res about the Indian reservations and and how they how certain people pace out their day.
Marc:Like there was this one bit in there that I never really forgotten that they don't really have alarm clocks.
Marc:But what what they would do is they would drink a lot of water the night before if they needed to wake up early because they needed to have to wake up to pee.
Marc:And really an entire day could have been, you know, just going and getting a car part in an hour away and just build your day around that.
Marc:So me and Ryan had a fairly lovely day around the battery.
Marc:Great day with Ryan Singer all around something that could have been very upsetting.
Marc:Well, not, you know, it's not that upsetting, but fuck it.
Marc:It was like high school, man.
Marc:Just hang out.
Marc:We'll deal with it.
Marc:So after me and Ryan have our day around the failed battery and we bond and we eat and he goes his way and I go mine, I decide to go to a high end stereo store because I'm thinking like, how much could it cost to get a really good stereo?
Marc:And I'll tell you how much.
Marc:And this is on the low end side.
Marc:Ten thousand fucking dollars.
Marc:When did that happen?
Marc:I just want I don't even need a record player.
Marc:I just need an amplifier and some speakers.
Marc:And I went to this place and I've been obsessed with Macintosh equipment, not Apple Macintosh, but MAC, you know, the American made amplifiers and they do speakers and stuff.
Marc:Since I interviewed Jack White, because he had just, of course, he had Macintosh amplifiers everywhere around him.
Marc:Beautiful new ones.
Marc:And I'm like, he's got like 20 of them.
Marc:What does it cost to get one of those?
Marc:I'll tell you what it costs.
Marc:$4,000 for an amplifier.
Marc:And then there's the whole selling angle on it.
Marc:It's like, well, this is something you'll have for the rest of your life.
Marc:I would hope so.
Marc:I hope it would exist after me.
Marc:But, you know, you leave thinking like, well, I guess maybe that would be great because even if I eventually move to a different house or if all else fails, I'll have this investment.
Marc:I'll have this amplifier.
Marc:I'll be on the street with my amplifier, perhaps trying to sell it.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:I should just go to like Best Buy or something.
Marc:I mean, I've never listened to records through anything other than apparently shitty equipment.
Marc:So maybe I should just go get some new shitty equipment.
Marc:Yeah, that's what I'll do.
Marc:My girlfriend, Jessica, has been doing these.
Marc:I think she should open up some sort of holistic skin care operation out of the house.
Marc:I think we're very we're just short of the point where we're going to have the Jessica brand facial products.
Marc:And the newest one that she's been working on is an activated charcoal facial mask, which is supposed to be good for the face.
Marc:I guess that activated charcoal is one of those miracle things.
Marc:Put it in your face.
Marc:You can eat it.
Marc:You can put it on your teeth.
Marc:You can throw it in the air.
Marc:You can snort it.
Marc:I don't know what.
Marc:But she whipped it up.
Marc:She puts it on the first time on her face, and she comes out of the bathroom, and she's in blackface.
Marc:There's no other way to describe it other than she's in blackface.
Marc:Now, obviously, that wasn't the intention, but that was the effect.
Marc:I was glad it was healthy for her face.
Marc:But now I'm in a situation because part of me thinks like there's something cute about it.
Marc:Maybe we should have sex with that on.
Marc:And then I thought, well, would that be politically incorrect?
Marc:Would that be racially inappropriate?
Marc:It just made everything racially charged in my house.
Marc:And I had a slight bit of guilt about all of it.
Marc:And she's been doing it regularly.
Marc:And I have not asked her to sing.
Marc:So I guess I'm still, you know, within the boundaries of this is clinical.
Marc:It's not racist.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Hamika tea.
Marc:Make it outside.
Marc:Let's talk to Tom Kenny.
Marc:Tom Kenny, approaching the mic here in the garage.
Marc:You want earphones?
Marc:Don't you use cans?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
Guest:Wow, cans.
Guest:You are a heppin' in the know.
Guest:You know all the lingo.
Guest:I got cans if you need them.
Marc:so tom kenny with his spongebob scripts those are those how many scripts you got there well this is just a storyboard this is an 11 minute but it's uh you know like 200 do you find my pages do you find because i thought that you would have another comedian i know doing a thing i know and then i'd have to do homework no no i'm multitasking i'm trying to we're talking about time management uh i want to type chip here you're it today damn all right i've been you know you i've been pursuing you as a guest is that right sure wow i'm a big tom kenny fan i don't i've been scared to come on i don't know
Marc:Why?
Guest:Well, because I feel, you know, I called Bobcat yesterday and I said, I don't know.
Guest:I don't know if I'm going to be interesting enough.
Guest:I don't have any conflict.
Guest:You know, I can't come out like Todd Glass.
Guest:I'm not going to fight him like Gallagher.
Guest:I'm not a provocateur like you, Bob.
Guest:You know, it's like I'm like a reasonably contented guy with a wife and kids.
Guest:You know, what's that?
Guest:That's good for 30 seconds.
Guest:No, you're a monster talent.
Yeah.
Marc:I'm a monster.
Marc:You are a huge star of the voice.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:But I just did my first real animation voice, and I had no idea that I was in the studio.
Marc:I did a squirrel.
Marc:I was a squirrel.
Guest:Oh, I've been squirrels.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But they seem to hire me specifically.
Marc:I'm like, what voice do you want me to do?
Marc:And they're like, no, no, just be you.
Marc:So you want a cranky, neurotic squirrel?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Perfect.
Marc:Perfect.
Guest:Well, exactly.
Guest:Well, that's because you have an actual product that you sell.
Guest:You have a vehicle, a character, a Marc Maron that you inhabit.
Guest:Yeah, they wanted me- And they want that.
Marc:I worked hard on that.
Marc:I took years.
Marc:I don't have that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm like chameleon guy.
Guest:So it's just like, you know, I'm like white bread, you know-
Marc:Are you, though?
Marc:Well, I mean, listen to my voice.
Marc:You're a riff monster.
Marc:I mean, you are a comedic mind.
Marc:You have a great style and pace.
Marc:I know you as a stand-up.
Marc:But what I was going to say is that they put the storyboards, which are very rough, up on a screen.
Marc:What show is it?
Marc:Adventure Time.
Guest:I do it all the time.
Guest:I did it yesterday.
Guest:I'm the ice king.
Guest:I'm the main bad guy on that show.
Guest:I kidnapped princesses in order for them to hang out with me.
Marc:But the storyboards are rough and they're just sketches and that was supposed to help me.
Marc:It didn't really help me.
Marc:It was just like an outline of a squirrel.
Marc:I never really watched the show, but I didn't pay attention to the storyboard.
Marc:And you have storyboards.
Marc:Does that help you?
Marc:It helps me with Adventure Time or a show like SpongeBob.
Guest:Because you need to know, like, okay, I'm underwater.
Guest:Yeah, and, you know, these are pretty, I mean, you know.
Guest:Those are detailed.
Guest:Visual aids work really great on a podcast, but, you know, these are pretty.
Guest:Oh, those are detailed.
Marc:These are pretty detailed.
Marc:Those are like graphic novels.
Guest:So a lot of it is looking at the.
Guest:.
Guest:.
Marc:The situation.
Guest:The expression on his face and, you know, how loud is he screaming?
Guest:How far is he falling?
Guest:And really, you could probably figure some of that stuff out or just have it told to you at the session without looking at the storyboard.
Guest:But it's the shortest distance between two points.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Give me that.
Marc:Can I get rid of the bags?
Marc:I heard they were going to ban these.
Marc:Yeah, no, I use these as mic covers.
Marc:It doesn't scare you.
Marc:Plastic bags.
Marc:But I swear, Tom, I mean, the reason that I wanted to talk to you is that I remember you.
Marc:We go actually further.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:We go further back than I remember you from Play It Again, Sam's in the basement in that comedy room in Alston, Massachusetts.
Marc:in Boston.
Marc:I remember your stand-up.
Marc:I remember all of that.
Guest:Yes, I lived right around the corner from there.
Marc:But a lot of people, I don't know if people know this, and I don't really know the whole story of it, that you sort of came down from the north
Marc:With Bobcat and you were the Tomcat.
Guest:It was Bobcat and Tomcat.
Guest:Yeah, from Syracuse, New York.
Guest:I came down to Boston in, I don't know, 82, 83 after Bob was kind of vacating it already.
Guest:Bob had put his first feelers out into San Francisco and said, wow, this is for me.
Guest:I remember he had a garage sale on stage.
Guest:I went to it.
Guest:at stitches do you remember that i i i wasn't there yet i don't think but bobcat basically set me up in boston he said you know you're funny syracuse you can't do it were you guys friends there though oh lifelong really literally lifelong friends like from childhood from childhood since uh first grade so you knew his weird family and everything big time
Guest:We knew each other's families.
Guest:We hung out at each other's houses.
Guest:And yeah, I think my family was maybe not quite as kooky as Bob's.
Guest:They're all kooky in their own way.
Guest:But Bob and I met in first grade, and he's told this story many times where...
Guest:Not to me.
Guest:There were two different first grades.
Guest:We went to Catholic school in East Syracuse, New York.
Guest:And a nun, there were two different first grades.
Guest:Each of them was taught by a nun.
Guest:He was in one class.
Guest:I was in the other.
Guest:We didn't really know each other.
Guest:But then one day, his nun came dragging him in by the ear, like Curly from the three, two, three.
Guest:And just drags him in, and the nun is crying, and Bob is crying.
Guest:And she said, you know, Sister Margareta, I just can't take the Goldthwait toy anymore.
Guest:I don't know what to do.
Guest:He has to be crazy.
Guest:You need to take him for a while.
Guest:And she walked out, and I just went, wow, I think I need to get to know this kid.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because he wasn't, you know...
Guest:He didn't mean to make that uncry.
Guest:He felt bad, too, and he was crying.
Guest:I don't know what's wrong with me.
Guest:He's an empathetic, beautiful person, and he was at six years old.
Guest:So then we become lifelong friends.
Guest:How did the nicknames come?
Guest:You know, punk rock, Ramones.
Marc:So you guys would sit around as kids and watch the comedy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And fantasize about what would it be like to do it.
Guest:Did you do sketches and shit?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's kind of how the part of the story of how the Bobcat and Tomcat names came along was that we were still in high school and we answered an ad.
Guest:Hey, have you ever wanted to do comedy?
Guest:We're starting a comedy night at this.
Guest:bar in skinny atlas new york that was probably a 45 minute drive from from where we live yeah called the old stone mill and contacted this person and that was kind of before the comedy boom you know a couple years later a zillion people would have answered that ad right well in 1978 or 79 it was only like four right and two of them were bob and i and the person who took out the ad was barry crimmins oh barry barry
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You know, political satirist and, you know, great comic.
Guest:Respected.
Guest:Great comic.
Guest:Really iconic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we answered the ad and he was just like, oh, brother, kids.
Guest:You know, he was just he used to call us a fucking kiddie core.
Guest:Great.
Guest:You know, but he really grew to like us or respect us because he said we were trying to do our own thing.
Guest:We didn't know what we were doing.
Guest:We were doing a team thing.
Guest:You know, sometimes we were, and then sometimes we would go up separately.
Guest:You know, we didn't know what we were doing.
Guest:But we're trying to kind of channel the stuff that we liked, which was everything from Woody Allen, like I said, to Kaufman and everything.
Marc:And you're so different stylistically.
Marc:You're like sort of, you operated a very fast, you know, intellectual clip, and Bobby just sort of like, yeah, I...
Guest:Well, I think the main difference between Bob and I was that he was very into getting a reaction and pushing buttons, which he still is to this day.
Guest:He would rather make an audience squirm and be uncomfortable than make them go, wow, that was the tightest, most explosive 55-minute set I've ever seen.
Guest:He'd rather have them leaving going, fuck.
Guest:fuck, that was really weird.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:It wasn't bad, but I'm going to be thinking about that for two years.
Guest:And he goes, yes, that's what he likes.
Guest:But Barry Crimmins was nicknamed Bearcat.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And everybody called him Bearcat around this bar.
Guest:And then we sort of making fun of that started calling ourselves Bobcat and Tomcat.
Guest:And
Guest:It just kind of stuck.
Guest:Everybody in our hometowns in my hometown still calls me Tomcat because it became our.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's just how everybody knows you.
Guest:It's like Beaver.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was it?
Marc:What was the first intention, though?
Marc:Like, I mean, did you always think it was going to be comedy?
Marc:I mean, like, did you have like with your career when I really think about it and knowing you as a stand up?
Marc:I mean, could you have ever imagined that you would be the most sought after voice guy in Hollywood?
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Well, I don't know about most sought after in Hollywood, but I definitely thought about being a voice guy all the time.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Back then, yes.
Marc:Because I remember, didn't you do weird impressions?
Marc:Didn't you do Mr. Haney?
Guest:Yeah, I was never really good at impressions, and I wasn't really interested in doing impressions.
Guest:When we came up, impressions was like the province of hacks.
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I don't want to see a guy do Johnny Carson or something.
Marc:You did some abstract Mr. Haney impression.
Guest:Yeah, just weird.
Guest:Yeah, just weird sort of just outside the box.
Guest:Like character actors that I was obsessed with.
Guest:Like kind of in a Josh and Drew Friedman kind of a way.
Guest:Like me, you know...
Guest:and bob too but me especially we're like obsessed with with character actors like i love those guys that's who i wanted to be i don't want to be james franciscus you know what i mean first of all i can't be james franciscus look at me i'm not going to be the good-looking leading guy that's the weirdest reference in the world well i was thinking of somebody who was big back then he's starring in the second planet of the apes movie he's going to be a huge star the world blows up at the end but uh uh
Marc:But like the second, like Ned Beatty's of the world.
Marc:Like that, or even weirder.
Marc:Of the older ones, yeah.
Guest:Like I would look at Mr. Whipple squeezing the Charmin and go, hey, that's a pretty goddamn good career.
Guest:He's been squeezing the Charmin for 50 years.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:I want to, you know, Franklin Pangborn, you know, and those old- Who's that?
Guest:Maybe I can be the guy who plays the fussy hotel clerk for 80 years, you know?
Guest:I didn't see your name in the register here, sir, you know?
Guest:It's like, and you get paid and you go home and you have a functional life.
Guest:Like, you know, another story that-
Guest:Bob and I have talked about is that I remember a conversation where we were just hanging out in our small town, thought like a small town, and just going, if you could have anybody's career in show business, whose would you take?
Guest:If you could just right now just appropriate someone's career.
Guest:We were 16, 17 years old, and Bob said John Belushi, who is not dead yet, and I said Mel Blanc.
Guest:Really?
Marc:So you knew?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, ironically, Bob, I haven't done as well as Mel Blanc, and Bob has done way better than John Belushi.
Guest:Just by virtue of still being vertical.
Guest:But I mean, come on, you've done as well as Mel Blanc.
Guest:Well, you know, the thing that I liked about his career, even as a youngster.
Marc:Spongebob is like, I mean, Bugs Bunny, Spongebob.
Marc:I mean, there's going to be a generation.
Marc:Like, I mean, animation lives forever and eternity because you can always watch those things.
Marc:But, I mean, Spongebob is pretty fucking important.
Marc:And the characters don't age.
Marc:Right, of course.
Marc:That's most importantly.
Marc:Radio and animation.
Guest:Speaking of Beaver, you know, there's those weird like sixth season leave it to beavers where he's like 15 years old and still wearing the backwards baseball cap.
Yeah.
Guest:Gee Wally, his voice sounds all weird.
Guest:It's like, yeah, so the cartoons aren't like that.
Guest:Bart Simpson is always going to be 10 years old.
Guest:And SpongeBob is always going to be whatever age he is.
Guest:Oh, you picked the right racket, Kenny.
Guest:You know, I sort of... Part of it is just personality, what you're drawn to.
Guest:You know, like I think...
Marc:you know but you tried i mean you did stand up i did and you had some gigs didn't you hosted something i remember flying out here and doing it uh and didn't you host a a regular stand-up showcase show at one point in time i think i you know i hosted some of those uh mtv type showcases wall the occasional brick wall so nothing regular but i would be one of the rotating yeah yeah yeah uh mcs yeah i mean you know
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, Bobcat kicked my ass into it.
Guest:You know, Bobcat is very take charge and always had, even at an incredibly young age, had a really clear sense of self and self-purpose.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like a little more, I don't know.
Guest:You know, I was like the safe, like, I'm not sure guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I guess I'll go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I don't think...
Guest:I don't know that I would have embarked on this career that I'm in that I happen to really like.
Guest:And it's nice to have a job that you don't loathe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like most people do load their jobs.
Guest:You find out when you talk to people.
Guest:But I don't know that I think I owe that to Bob.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think I would have done it without him.
Guest:He totally would have done whatever he's done without me.
Guest:Because, you know, we sort of enabled each other and it was nice to have that one other kid who shared your obsessions and had like the secret handshake, you know, and it was pre-internet, obviously, and all that.
Guest:So it was like you couldn't connect with a zillion like-minded people.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:People, you know, at the drop, at the touch of a button.
Marc:Not then.
Marc:You had to find the one weird kid.
Guest:You had to find the one weird kid.
Guest:It's like, okay, I got Bobcat.
Guest:Then there's another kid who collects Big Joe Turner 78s, you know, in my high school.
Guest:I'll bond with that kid.
Guest:And those are still the guys in the world that I'm closest to.
Guest:Really?
Marc:The big Joe Turner guy?
Marc:Yeah, the record collector guy.
Marc:Those guys change your life, don't they?
Marc:You meet that one dude, there's this portal into music, and you right away walk into my house, and you're like, oh my god, there's that I. Turner, and you tell me something I didn't fucking know.
Marc:This guy, because there's that moment where you meet Bobcat, but then there must have been the moment where, I mean, you didn't know who fucking Joe Turner was.
Marc:So these guys, these wizards, these record collectors who somehow had this information from their father and older brother...
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's usually the, the, the afternoon where you go to their house and you're like, where am I?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're just, for me, a lot of the gateway to that stuff was punk rock and like, you know, the Ramones who would cover old garage rock.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you'd find the original or, or, you know, some rockabilly revival band would cover a song and then you go, you'd find out who did the original and then you'd try to track it down.
Guest:It was, it was fun.
Guest:It was like spelunking.
Guest:It was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then like, if you really get into it, you're like, well, what made rockabilly?
Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you're in Appalachian dance music and gospel.
Guest:Next thing you know, you're like hanging out with some guy beating on a log.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is where it all started.
Guest:The source.
Guest:I met the source.
Guest:And that's where rock and roll began.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:It's the greatest.
Guest:And you played, too, didn't you?
Guest:I sang in bands, as did Bobcat.
Guest:So for a while, we were in a band together, like teenage, underage, playing gigs, opening for other bands.
Marc:And what were you playing?
Guest:What were you covering?
Guest:We would cover, you know, we would do Ramones covers and Who covers and, you know, sometimes old 50s songs and stuff like that, punk them up.
Guest:But one image I have of Bob is him with his hair like in these buckwheat little rubber bands, like all kinds of little rubber bands.
Guest:And he was wearing like cutoff shorts that said, here come the judge on him.
Guest:And he had a cheese curl like a Cheeto up each nostril.
Guest:just like playing his bass like because we you know that's one thing we liked about that music was that it made rock and roll kind of stupid again yeah yeah after all this like genesis and yes and the disco speed wagon and all this stuff it was like where's the fun where's the fun in this and i would wear bathing like a flowered uh bathing cap uh rubber bathing cap on stage and did you have a good drummer
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's all you need for punk, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just a guy who can go that fast.
Marc:But I think that's interesting because I don't know how many people I've really spoke to as comics that because you can see with certainly with Bobby that, you know, the punk rock thing completely influenced his style, that there was a sensibility there where, you know, it's just going to fuck shit up.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:Keith Moon was his idol when we were growing up.
Guest:And I mean, that's his thing.
Guest:He goes on Tonight Show.
Guest:He lights a couch on fire.
Guest:He goes to do a Q&A session about his latest movie.
Guest:He'll talk about everything but the movie.
Marc:But what about you?
Marc:How were you thinking about comedy at that point?
Marc:I mean, I know you were in his shadow a little bit, apparently, and he was dragging you along.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:But, like, when you started doing stand-up, because I remember your style.
Marc:I remember I had a moment, weird moment, because, like, having known you, and we'll get to San Francisco later, but I was in New York City.
Marc:I was at the Improv, the original Improv before it closed, and I was at the Westway Diner with Dan Vitale and a couple other guys, and Greg Proops was in town.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And I'd never met him before.
Marc:And he was in from San Francisco.
Marc:And we were sitting in this booth.
Marc:And I'm looking at Proops.
Marc:And he's looking at me.
Marc:I'm like, you're doing Tom Kenny's glasses and hair.
Guest:Well, there was a period where Proops and I and Jake Johansson were frequently mistaken for each other just by virtue of being sort of dorky dudes with astigmatism.
Marc:I wouldn't let him go.
Marc:He was like, I know Tom.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, obviously you know Tom.
Marc:I was in that mindset.
Marc:It's like, why are you stealing his shit?
Marc:Why are you hacking his look?
Marc:You want to hear something weird?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Not even 24 hours ago, yesterday, I was in the supermarket and this old British woman in line behind me said, excuse me, is your name Greg?
Guest:It still happens.
Guest:And I said, no.
Guest:And I said, what Greg do you think I am?
Guest:And she said, Greg Proust?
Guest:And I said, Greg Proops?
Guest:And she goes, yes.
Guest:And I go, do you know Greg Proops?
Guest:And she goes, I think I worked with him on a television show.
Guest:And she was British.
Guest:So I said, whose line is it anyway?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she said, no, it was on Fox.
Guest:It was called The Edge.
Guest:And I said, that was me.
Guest:That was me.
Guest:Oh, Jennifer Aniston was on the show.
Guest:Yeah, that was me.
Guest:And she goes, oh, I think I worked with him.
Guest:Like she had totally conflated us.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And then she was kind of half right and half wrong.
Marc:But she refused to give in.
Guest:No, no, she was just, oh, the years, you know, that was a lot of hot toddies, a lot of hot toddies since then.
Guest:What was that show?
Guest:The Edge?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Edge was a short-lived Fox series back in the day when Fox was only on the air like three nights a week.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was the same season that the Ben Stiller show was on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was a show starring Julie Brown.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Produced and created by David Merkin after Get a Life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was an ensemble cast.
Guest:Julie Brown.
Guest:A sketch show?
Marc:It was a sketch show.
Marc:Wayne Knight.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Newman.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Jennifer Aniston, just off of Leprechaun 2.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And not quite at Friends yet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Myself.
Guest:A very talented Second City...
Marc:a female named jill talley who i wound up i met on that show and wound up married to and i remember that was that period james stephens the third everybody has to have a sketch show like there's always this what the fuck is that like every every year they're they're throwing money at sketch shows and not
Marc:of them ever make it on the air for any any amount of time but you still always hear about it's like it's a sketch show it's like when is one every year there's like sketch shows in development and none of them fucking surface right what what is it about sketch shows that is so appealing that they think they need to get it right i don't know whether they just they're just looking for that perfect wave and uh you know i think it works you know like primetime animation i think it works just often enough
Marc:to keep the hook in these people's mouth you know okay so now you're in a punk band with with bobby and you're fucking you know pushing the envelope you're you're having a good time you're rocking out did you also working at a supermarket uh you know so it was total like kevin smith clerks but that's just small town shit right absolutely yeah so at the same time you're doing the punk rock but you're doing comedy at the same time
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And Goldthwait and I going up in between doing kind of a punk Smothers Brothers musical duo called the Squished Worms in between local punk bands.
Guest:Excuse me.
Guest:There's a band.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I'm a voiceover guy that lives in the most polluted city in America.
Guest:Do you need water or something?
Guest:It's stupid.
Guest:I don't have any.
Guest:No.
Guest:What do you got in there?
Guest:I've got this daddy's special medicine, as I like to call it.
Guest:A little Bloody Mary.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:No, it's the same cappuccino that I brought you.
Marc:Yeah, it's very good.
Marc:I have water in the house if you need it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now, you know, you know what Bobby's doing.
Marc:But like when you started doing comedy, I mean, how that evolved, because you were like, I'm like some sort of fragmented historian of stand up because I've been in all these different cities.
Marc:And to me.
Marc:Like there, there, there was this, there's a line.
Marc:I think there's, there's something that starts, I can't quite trace where it starts, but now that I'm talking to you, like there's a, there's a Steve Pearl type of rhythm that infected, you know, Warren Thomas and infected Greg Proops and infected Robin Williams.
Marc:But it seems to me that you were sort of doing that, you know, on your own, that kind of like not, not necessarily full riffage, but that pace, there's a manic pace.
Guest:I'm a fast, like, I mean, you can, you can hear it right here, but you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, no, I was a motor mouth guy for, you know, kind of free associative pop.
Guest:You know, when I moved, you know, then I moved to Boston.
Guest:And like I said, Bob totally enabled that.
Guest:I've got an apartment.
Guest:I've got a roommate who's a good guy.
Guest:I'm going to San Francisco.
Guest:You can scooch right in there.
Guest:I've got a bunch of phone numbers.
Guest:Crimmins is here now.
Guest:He loves you.
Guest:Get out of town.
Guest:Get out of Hooterville.
Guest:Get out of Hooterville.
Guest:You know, get out of Smallville and come to Metropolis.
Guest:And there we were in that basement in Alston.
Guest:Yeah, I lived right across the street from Play It Against Sam's in this apartment house with Dan Spencer.
Marc:Yeah, Dan Spencer for Robin.
Guest:Works for Robin.
Marc:Yeah, and he was just in Bobby's movie, as were you.
Guest:Yes, I got gunned down.
Guest:I don't know if it was cathartic for Bob to have his best friend and his wife blown away in the first five minutes of the movie.
Marc:We die real good.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, you were funny.
Marc:But that, yeah.
Marc:And do I remember you properly, like, you know, before you did the full-on rockabilly that you had almost like a mullet-y thing going and occasionally wore a headband?
Marc:Well, I guess I was.
Guest:You wore a headband?
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:I never wore a headband.
Marc:Are you sure?
Marc:I never wore the Richard Simmons headband.
Guest:All right.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Sweating to the oldies.
Guest:No.
Guest:I was...
Guest:No, but I guess I did hedge my bets.
Guest:Yeah, it was kind of like half rockabilly and half kind of rat tail.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah, I remember.
Guest:For which I would like to apologize to everyone who saw me during the 1980s with that hair.
Guest:I think I'm the only one who remembers.
Marc:Thanks for outing me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sorry, buddy.
Marc:So the move to San Francisco, I remember when Bobby left, but there was this weird migration from Boston because Dana went, Paula Poundstone went, Bobby went, Meany went, and then you went.
Marc:So there was this invasion of San Francisco.
Guest:Yeah, and I mean, for me, it was just like, I came out, you know, I formed with Dan Spencer, the aforementioned, and Paul Kozlowski, who runs the fake gallery here in Los Angeles now.
Guest:We had a three-person trio, like, well, those are the best kind of trios, don't you think?
Guest:Yeah, three people in general.
Guest:If you're going to do a trio, get three people, it's the best.
Guest:Yeah, don't want to confuse people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was it called again?
Guest:It was called Uncle Stinky's Dipsy Doodle Review.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was created in San Francisco?
Guest:So even then I was trying to get away from stand-up a little bit, I think, or kind of do different things.
Guest:That was in San Francisco, though.
Guest:That was in Boston.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then we were there and Bobcat said, hey, come on out.
Guest:I'm kind of blowing up out here.
Guest:You guys can open for me.
Guest:I'm doing some shows.
Guest:And I came out to San Francisco and just instantly said, this is it.
Guest:This is it for me.
Guest:I just felt better, which is probably why you moved there.
Marc:You're not fighting drunk Irish people every night.
Guest:Yeah, Boston was a bit of a disappointment for me because being kind of a small town person, I was like, man, I can't wait.
Guest:I'm moving to Boston where there's like a revival cinema and a used bookstore on every corner and the people are smart and you can do these esoteric references and everybody will love it.
Guest:And then you go there and there's a pretty high jarhead quotient.
Marc:No, you're talking about two blocks of that.
Marc:Of what you just described.
Marc:It's like two blocks of what you just described, which is Cambridge.
Marc:And then the surrounding area is just a very difficult, sweaty, drunk town-y element.
Guest:Which, you know, I just had this dumb, naive preconception of somebody who had never really been anywhere.
Guest:But in fact, I remember one of the great crushing moments of my life was when I had only been there a couple of days and I was just checking out the comedy clubs and figuring out the lay of the land.
Guest:And I heard two guys arguing.
Guest:heatedly, comedians, over a piece of material.
Guest:The piece of material that they were arguing over was, hey, that thing that you just did where you said, doesn't E.T.
Guest:look like a piece of shit?
Guest:That's mine, man.
Guest:I did that.
Guest:You saw me do that last night.
Guest:Well, I know, but I added the thing.
Guest:I know, but when I said ET go home and I flush and I flush, that was mine.
Guest:That was mine.
Guest:So, you know, and they were having this heated argument over the, like, doesn't ET look like a piece of shit?
Guest:Is it me or does ET look like a piece of shit?
Guest:You know, and it was just, I was just not what I was expecting.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Boy, George, do you really want to hurt me?
Guest:Yeah, I want to punch your face in, you faggot.
Marc:I remember that guy.
Marc:Who's with me?
Marc:I know that comic.
Guest:There were a bunch of guys doing that bit.
Guest:John Toomey.
Guest:Is that right?
Guest:I remember that, too.
Guest:Hi, John, if you're out there.
Guest:Well, there was a lot of great stuff in Boston, too.
Guest:I mean, there were people that were kind of fighting that...
Guest:Jughead, Lenny Clack.
Marc:Yeah, there was a few, but they left.
Marc:They literally, like, I think that Boston, not to judge, I just went back there and there's obviously, you know, we came up with some great comics, but of that era, in that generation, a lot of the people that had a more difficult time or wanted to do a different type of comedy just fucking left.
Marc:But there was a lot of great stuff.
Guest:And even, you know, a lot of, there were, you know, real working class guys like Lenny Clark, Steve Sweeney, and Tony V that were, you know, a zillion cuts above Don Gavin, what I'm talking about.
Guest:They were great.
Guest:And that, you know, they were really being who they were.
Guest:I always felt like there was something wrong with me.
Guest:It's not like, oh, I'm so much better than this or, or I need, I need...
Marc:a place where i can spread my wings and be free with my creativity i always felt like god i don't think i'm getting this you know what i mean i don't think i know that's the feeling is that like you know like it does there's no fault on anybody on anybody in that like you know it's a it's a regional scene in a lot of ways and there is a point of view that that the area has and if you can't you know kind of you know binge yours into theirs you know it's not gonna you know you're not gonna be happy
Guest:And when I went to San Fran, that was different.
Guest:It's just a feel.
Guest:It just felt like a better fit.
Marc:Well, yeah, because they encourage self-indulgence in San Francisco.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's like, oh, sure, go ahead and talk about yourself for an hour and just improvise on bullshit.
Marc:And we'll be very patient with you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I know.
Marc:They were like total enablers.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:amazing like I don't you know I was in San Francisco for two years and I don't think I would have evolved as a comic hadn't I been there because you know when you spend time in New York you're like I gotta yeah I gotta keep low and tight and I gotta slug and then you get to San Francisco and you can sort of like you know think out loud on stage and people are like very supportive and you're like where am I they're kind of following the process you know what I mean like it's almost like they like
Guest:seeing the inside of your notebook yeah so to speak right i mean like watching you connect the dots on the way to something that will become a more polished piece of material in your act later but they sort of dig like being there at ground zero when i was there that night that he wrote that yeah yeah you know whereas that's awesome new york it was just like yeah do the job show me the yeah yeah yeah show me this i don't get it yeah yeah try again next yeah yeah when's the show start yeah
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, what do you think that is about San Francisco?
Marc:Because I've always associated it with this, like kind of this weird oddball legacy that it's always had, that it's always been a place where whack jobs, you know, can go like oddballs.
Marc:Come on down.
Marc:Like 200 years ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Whatever you're into, you know, find gold.
Marc:If you don't find gold, just talk on a street corner.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Emperor Norton and all that crazy, crazy.
Guest:Crazy historical figures.
Guest:And my home, you know, I went to the Holy City Zoo and enjoyed that scene.
Guest:And, you know, again, just dropping names.
Guest:I mean, people that were around back then, you know, I mean, Bob Rubin, Stephen Pearl blew my mind.
Guest:Another music guy, you know, and I.
Marc:interviewed him you know i i went and found him and he's back you know he's sort of like i had him on a show and you know he's uh he's he's back among the uh the the sane and he's not angry and he's back doing his thing and he's like it's amazing to sit with him still because he's got that you know almost uh savant kind of uh ability absolutely and a lot of people you know do you know i know you know we know a lot of people who make a living with their art or creativity writers are uh artists uh sure voiceover people comedians yeah you know writers
Marc:and there is a certain savantish sometimes to all of them and i have that too and i and you do too right i think i don't know like i'm dating a woman who works with autistic kids and and and there's a like it's a real question about like you know how many how many of us are on the spectrum you know where does that spectrum go you know how many of us in terms of people we know in terms of like 99.9 percent right absolutely
Guest:Because, you know, absolutely.
Guest:And it's funny, like, you know, this is just, this is really free form, right?
Guest:Like, we can just jump around.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:I don't need to, like, do, like, a timeline.
Guest:No, don't do anything.
Guest:That's what Bob told me.
Guest:No, what?
Guest:Because I was so nervous that Bob said, Maren will do the show that it is meant to be.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's not like he's trying to fit you into a type of show that he does.
Guest:He will just do the show.
Marc:Well, honestly.
Guest:That makes sense to do.
Marc:And he'll lead and you dance with him.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, the only thing with timelines is that for a guy like you, who I knew as a stand-up and who I don't know that a lot of people know as a stand-up and who actually paid some serious dues as a stand-up, I would like them to get credit for being a stand-up.
Guest:thank you well i did i did i you know i made my living as a stand-up 100 of my living uh you know would know you know day job free yeah from 84 to 92 so that was you know that was my living i made a living as a stand-up comedian and that is something that i'm really proud of yeah i mean you were the real deal but now let's get back to autism oh yeah sorry and now back to autism thank you i uh
Guest:I hear so much from parents of autistic kids and caretakers of autistic kids, and this happens so often and comes up so often that somebody should write a term paper on it, that SpongeBob in particular is something that speaks to them.
Guest:It's the thing that they laugh at, the thing they obsess at, the thing they talk about and know every word.
Guest:Oh, so they catalog it.
Guest:And I don't know Jenny McCarthy at all, but somebody sent me an article where she talks about her autistic kid and the thing that broke through to him where she knew that there was something behind the wall was when he was sitting watching SpongeBob and he started laughing.
Guest:That's got to feel good.
Guest:It's kind of popular.
Guest:It's kind of like a Sullivan's Travels moment.
Guest:You're just like, wow, it's cool to be a part of that.
Guest:Not to be cornball or whatever, but it's like, and I don't know what there is in that show that talks to kids that are, to quote you, on the spectrum.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But more than other cartoons, that one, maybe because SpongeBob as a character is a little autistic, obsessed with his job, very hardworking.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:you know gets really really deep into something but that i mean that's got to feel gratifying i mean because this is uh you know spongebob was birthed out of your brain right well not my brain no i i'm not the creator of spongebob you were there at the beginning though i was there at the pitch stage yeah yeah uh cast before the pitch yeah and um yeah i mean just to tie it or attempt to tie it back into the the stand-up timeline yeah
Marc:That's a good noise to have, by the way, in the background.
Guest:Just drilling?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's just a guy with a jackhammer.
Guest:Literally a jackhammer outside.
Marc:We're in the country here.
Guest:My fucking neighbor.
Guest:Hold on a minute.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:This is going to be ugly.
Guest:This is going to be a hate crime.
Guest:I was there the night that Mark got shot by his neighbor.
Guest:Stand your ground.
Guest:Stand your ground, Law.
Guest:Hey, Dennis.
Guest:Oh, it's Dennis.
Guest:Can you give me 15 minutes?
Guest:Thanks, buddy.
Guest:Well, Dennis seems like a nice neighbor.
Guest:Like, you handled that very nicely and friendily.
Guest:Like, if you ever needed to borrow that jackhammer, he'd probably give it to you, no problem.
Marc:He would probably come over and do it for me.
Marc:This is his retirement project, is that house over there.
Marc:Okay, so you- We've only got 15 minutes left?
Marc:No, he said- That's just you're just throwing him a bone.
Marc:Yeah, I was throwing him a bone.
Marc:But, okay, so you- So when Uncle Stinkies broke up, yeah.
Guest:Okay, I get where we were now.
Guest:You know, when Uncle Stinkies broke up, it was just like, stand-up was kind of like-
Guest:just logistically easier for me at that point yeah there's three guys you got to rehearse yeah you know some guys are more into it than others you know get it's like being in a band like getting people with the same level yeah of commitment all at the same time is hard just you describing that makes me anxious and overwhelmed okay fighting for bits and you know thinking about doing stand-up makes me anxious and overwhelmed
Guest:I'm serious.
Guest:So I did it, you know, and I was good enough at it.
Guest:And there was, you know, I was lucky enough to be right place, right time.
Guest:And there's a boom going on and they need, you know, I always say, you know, you know, I don't know if I was.
Marc:But it was a harder act, a book, you know, a teen.
Marc:I mean, like that was always like in my mind, the groups at that time where you couldn't all go out and do it was a big deal to go out and do a night.
Marc:It was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was.
Marc:So it wasn't really practical in terms of making week-to-week money.
Guest:So it's just like you just show up.
Guest:It's like being a one-man band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I enjoyed it.
Guest:I learned how to do it.
Guest:I mean, granted, during that 80s comedy boom, this is also something that the current crop would probably find hard to believe or identify with anyway, is that just by not sucking... Yeah.
Guest:You can make a living wage as a stand-up comedian.
Guest:All you have to do is not absolutely blow.
Marc:Yeah, because there were three spots or two at least.
Marc:That's how it happened.
Marc:And there were so many rooms, right?
Guest:All these outlying rooms.
Guest:There was fish restaurants and discos and bowling alleys that were doing comedy night and comedy clubs and places that were trying to be comedy clubs and supermarkets that were out of business that had failed as a rock club and were now trying- Franks and Franklin.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:banditos in fall river like it was a mexican restaurant and you had to deal with these restaurant owners who was like you know all of a sudden you're you're in their place saying fuck and they're in control of your life in control of your destiny you're like oh my god yeah and they would and they were not shy about telling you uh opinions about your act you know i think uh you know you were doing a little too much of uh and you're going
Guest:Wait a minute.
Guest:Like how much.
Marc:These free enchiladas aren't worth your criticism.
Guest:Like how many cans of Rosarita refried beans to be ordering is what you were concentrating on an hour ago.
Guest:And now you're now suddenly you're in our you're you're Colonel Tom Parker.
Marc:Give me a freaking break.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Give me 50 percent.
Marc:But but there was that thing like how much time you got 20 minutes.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You're opening.
Marc:And that was it.
Marc:But you're right.
Guest:And all you had to do was not suck.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And if you were pretty good, even better.
Guest:And, you know, I did okay.
Guest:I did Conan.
Guest:I did Letterman.
Guest:I did, you know, all them things and work.
Guest:But there was kind of a growing, you know, really the direct opposite of your feeling where I just felt like I like being a cog in a machine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like being, I don't know what this says about me, but I like being like,
Guest:a person who just has his own little bailiwick and you work on that and you get really good at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like a woodworking craftsman-y thing.
Guest:And, you know, to me that was really appealing.
Guest:You know, I didn't really have that drive.
Guest:Basically, I'm a pussy.
Guest:I didn't want to fight all those fights and, you know, like...
Guest:I don't know if it's being a pussy, though.
Guest:Well, you're pitching shows right now.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, no.
Marc:I mean, I've got a deal to do a show on IFC.
Marc:And after I did radio, I really sort of the joy of working with other people, especially if they're good and you're clicking.
Marc:I mean, it's great.
Marc:It feels great.
Marc:Are we clicking?
Marc:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I don't think it's being a pussy.
Marc:See, the one thing that I didn't really realize was because my stand-up, I was always so immediate.
Marc:I was living in the present.
Marc:I never thought about a career.
Marc:I was just sort of like, I'm just going to be a stand-up comic and everything will follow.
Marc:But there were guys that at some point said, there's a lot of other things you can do in show business.
Marc:And there's a lot of other things I can do with my talent.
Marc:And I almost envy those guys because I never even thought about writing for somebody else.
Guest:It's like, what am I going to do that for?
Guest:What do I got to be that?
Guest:Well, who else?
Guest:I'd have to find the person that has my exact comedic voice.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:What are the odds of finding that soulmate?
Guest:I'm going to be somebody's Joe Ansis.
Guest:Give me a break.
Guest:I need a Lenny.
Guest:I'm looking for a Lenny.
Guest:Ansis seeks a Lenny.
Yeah.
Guest:Are you comedy curious?
Guest:But for me, that was kind of a slowly dawning thing where I was like, wow, I made a living at it.
Guest:And I always felt... But did you see that there was something wrong with me?
Marc:No, but did you see that at some point, I didn't see it until too late on some level that like, holy shit, there's only 10 guys at any time that really make money doing this.
Marc:And if they're making money, they can't have a family life.
Marc:They can't have friends.
Marc:You got to live in hotels.
Marc:You got to say things like, hey, this is a pretty good breakfast buffet.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:every fucking week like you know the life of a comic is is not to be envy necessarily no no it's it takes a special breed of person yeah it's a gypsy mentality and i'm not saying it's a a bad life or a dumb decision no no but it's it's it's pretty but it's all at a cost that's right as does huge fame right and uh that's why i avoid that at all costs
Guest:Well, you know, this all gets into like so many wormholes of conversation that we can spend hours.
Marc:Well, your best friend, you know, went through that.
Marc:At a really young age.
Marc:At a really young age.
Marc:And I've talked to him about it and that, you know, that there were decisions made and things happened that were out of his control that, you know, that the burden...
Marc:Of being at the level he was at and then taking that.
Marc:That must have been a fucking life lesson on some level.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It was.
Guest:You know, having that ringside seat and object lesson.
Marc:And also you must have been there to support him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Of your best friend taking the fame ride.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's like you strap in and here we go.
Guest:And...
Guest:Then not so up, up, up.
Guest:You know, and Bob's, you know, had a great had a great path by virtue of being super creative guy and a fighter.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:You know, son of a sheet metal worker, all that stuff that he's managed to reinvent himself as a whole different.
Marc:different thing but also the really hard right and the beauty of him is is that like you know it there's a weird juncture in people's lives who go through it doesn't have to be fame but when you are are humbled one way or the other you know either you're going to accept that and and and it's going to make you grow as a person or you're going to be the fuck everything guy
Marc:Like there's that real crossroads where you've had your ass handed to you and either you're going to be like, you know, bitter dude who everyone's sort of like, yeah, he's not the same anymore.
Marc:Or you're going to be like, wow, I just grew as a person.
Marc:And now, you know, I found cause he's a very, you know, you're on the oldies circuit.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But he's like, he's got this humility to him and, and this sort of focused creativity.
Marc:Now what, what'd your dad do?
Um,
Guest:My dad was an accountant for Carrier Air Conditioning Company.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Not a sheet metal worker?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:But like I said, our families hung out like Bob was always at our house.
Guest:Just to get out of his house?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How long is he going to stay?
Marc:And then it was funny because my mom was like, where are my clothes?
Guest:We had five kids and Bob had, let's see, Bob had one, two, three, four, five as well.
Guest:Catholics.
Guest:Catholics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And
Guest:My house was a little different in that it was a little more, there was a little more structure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Less alcohol.
Guest:He liked that.
Guest:He liked that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Bob's house, I remember going over there after school one day and he goes, hey, you want something to eat?
Guest:What?
Guest:I don't know, like a Hostess Cupcakes or Twinkie or something like that?
Guest:I go, yeah, sure.
Guest:He goes, it's in the dishwasher.
Yeah.
Guest:What?
Guest:It's in the dishwasher.
Guest:Open the dishwasher.
Guest:And I opened the dishwasher, and the family dishwasher had been out of service for a long time, and they just used it for food storage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like their dishwasher was full of food.
Guest:It was like a cupboard.
Guest:And there, you know, the cats walking around.
Guest:There's all kinds of cats walking around on the tables and stuff like that.
Guest:You'd eat dinner over there, and his dad would just, like, be, you know...
Guest:You know, throwing the cats off the table.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So you were the kid that went home to your house and, like, out of nowhere said to your parents, I really love you guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, in a way, you're jealous.
Guest:You're like, ah, that's good.
Guest:I kind of like that, like, kind of, like, beatnik-y.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But they weren't beatniks, you know?
Guest:Chaos.
Guest:There wasn't, like, a hipster-ness about it.
Guest:It's just... But, yeah, and I remember you'd go over there and eat dinner.
Guest:My family was always very... Everybody sits at the table, you eat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, Bob's family would do that, but his dad would have, like...
Guest:game shows on in the other room that he was kind of half listening to but nobody else was so you would be eating and he would just bark out the name or bark out the answer to a question that only he was paying attention to yeah yeah alpine lace alpine lace
Guest:What?
Guest:Does your dad have Tourette's?
Guest:No, he's playing a game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, it's pretty funny.
Guest:I mean, the crucible that you're forged.
Guest:And I'm sure you got.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, I think it's interesting that, like, you know, he comes from this chaos and you come from this organized sort of situation.
Marc:My dad's an accountant.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And both of you have an envy of the other that, you know, like, oh, wow, man.
Guest:Grass is always green.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like that's freedom land over there.
Guest:Twinkies are always creamier.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On the other side of the fence.
Marc:But Bobby was like, I like sitting down at a table.
Marc:Your parents are.
Guest:Yeah, your parents are kind of with it and stuff, you know.
Marc:His parents were great too, but it was funny.
Marc:Yeah, but seeing that fame thing.
Marc:I saw that.
Marc:Yeah, and you were sort of evolving into this sort of like, how can I fit into show business where I just work and I can have a life.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And I was able to look at him and not necessarily say...
Marc:uh i don't want that as much as i don't think i have the intestinal fortitude to take that ride but you know i vomit on roller coasters but you knew you had talent though see that's the other thing is that you don't seem to suffer where i think that bobby probably had it more than you and i probably have it more than you but there are people that there's there's a a line you cross where you're like well i have this talent
Marc:And I'd like to own it somehow and apply it to something that I can do and earn a living doing that.
Guest:There has to be something that uses this skill set that I have, that I've amassed through a misspent youth of playing in bands, doing stand-up, liking sketch comedy, writing sketch comedy, loving cartoons, loving animation, worshipping Mel Blanc.
Guest:Where's the nexus of where all that...
Guest:comes together and I did start to think like that as I was doing more stand-up and feeling that there was something wrong with me that I didn't love stand-up as much as I could I felt almost churlish you know I'd go because the guys that I knew that made a living is stand-up you have to love the art form right you know what I mean Stephen Wright right people like that uh Robin yeah they they loved doing stand-up and they worked really hard on it I was happy when a gig got canceled yeah
Guest:I would.
Guest:And then I would go, what's wrong with me?
Guest:I shouldn't be feeling like this.
Guest:And I was doing well enough that your agents are going, we're going to hook you up with some writers.
Guest:It's time to think up a sitcom for you.
Guest:That's the next step.
Guest:And I'm going, I hate sitcoms.
Guest:i i don't even like sitcoms like the last sitcom i liked was like you know green acres of the adams family like like that are just so stupid and retarded that's what i liked about them yeah and then they're like well what do you like to do you like comic books you know this is before the whole big nerd yeah uh thing where nerds are i like you old style nerds that was of no interest to me but they would go hey you like how about you run a comic book shop you know what i mean and and i remember sitting there in a pitch and i was
Guest:You just... I've heard other guests on your show talk about this, where you just think that the people in charge of you know better than you and know what you're doing and that there's something weird that you're not feeling.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's something wrong with me.
Guest:Like you're sitting in church and everybody else is dancing around and you're just going, this seems like bullshit to me.
Guest:But...
Guest:you know for me it was that when they pitched me you you would own a comic book shop but it's all you know it's also built on an indian burial ground like poltergeist so occasionally the there's like the ghost of like the indian like comes into your comic book shop and you're all like what and that's the pitch yeah that was one of the many aspects of the pitch and i was just going oh yeah
Guest:That could work.
Guest:That sounds good.
Marc:But I didn't think it could work.
Marc:I was going, this is fucking horrible.
Marc:But the weird thing is, not even the comic book's coming to life.
Marc:That would seem to be the logical thing to go.
Marc:You're built on Indian burial ground, and all of a sudden, Casper's in the room.
Marc:Or whatever.
Marc:They're Superman.
Marc:No, it's just an Indian guy.
Marc:That you could pitch.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Do you ever think of ideas so terrible that you go, that's so bad that you could pitch it?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So how did Mr. Show fit into it?
Guest:Well...
Guest:You know, I knew David from Boston stand-up.
Guest:My wife, Jill, who was in Second City with Bob Odenkirk and, you know, Chris Farley and Timmy Meadows and all those guys.
Guest:You know, so I came at it from the cross side.
Guest:She came at it from the Odenkirk side.
Guest:And we both got hired on this show.
Guest:And they were working on Ben Stewart at that time that we were doing The Edge, too.
Guest:So, you know, we knew each other.
Guest:And I started, you know, I had one foot in kind of the nascent burgeoning
Guest:alternative sure scene that was just starting here in la dana and uh yeah lapidus and we were kind of weird because you know dana because we were you know we were slick enough to make a living as comedians out in the heartland you know doing clubs but you also had but it was also a little outside the mainstream enough that you could you're kind of neither fish nor foul you know but you and dana are also like somewhere in that you you're both you're efficient comics but you're highly intelligent
Marc:And there's that struggle of realizing that, well, I'm not presenting myself as snobbery or anything else, but these people are missing a lot of this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's kind of a shitty feeling.
Guest:I guess I just care about different things.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That was always kind of like the sinking feeling of a comedian, too, before you find your...
Marc:audience like now mark maron you can find you yeah you can go out and there's everybody there is there to see mark maron they're not at a comedy club to see a comic i still get some of that though i get about two thirds i still like it's weird with me because you know after so long of being marginalized and not being able to really work clubs because i didn't draw now i do draw and i'm not one of these people i'm like i want to do theaters i'm like no i earned clubs i will go to comedy clubs like and people like what and i'm like no i want and sometimes a third of the house will be like regular people i'm like that's part of my job they're part of my job yeah
Marc:And I'll say that on stage.
Marc:I'm like, we're going to bridge this gap.
Marc:You people know me.
Marc:Those people don't.
Marc:But this is my job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to win them over.
Guest:Getting the approbation of these complete and total strangers is part of the con of stand-up.
Guest:That's the grift.
Guest:Well, some of this I do look at is an art, Tom.
Guest:Well, it's an art, too.
Marc:A grift is fine.
Guest:I think grift and con and art are all one and the same, as Jackson Pollock can tell you.
Guest:So that's how Mr. Show happened.
Guest:We got cast.
Marc:Did that change the game for you at all?
Marc:In terms of what?
Marc:Well, I mean, did that bring you a... Because that seems to be the first... Because that was a cult hit and people loved it.
Marc:And you were part of this crew that was sort of like redefining comedy in Hollywood at that time.
Marc:I mean...
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I feel like, yeah, I was definitely a passenger on that train driven by super driven others.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Again, I guess the through line of this conversation is that- But you prefer that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fortunately for me, guys like Steve Hillenburg that created Spudgebob, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, people who have employed me over the years, I guess they need-
Marc:a guy like me on their show yeah so that's good you know you need a third baseman on your team so you know luckily i'm an okay third baseman but but but you're not i mean in the sense that spongebob you're you're the star you know whether you like it or not yeah but so was it was that nominally was that the first what do you mean nominally you're spongebob
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, I'm the voice of this character, yeah.
Guest:I feel like part of the gig that I do now... He's the star of the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's the titular... Can I say that?
Guest:He's the titular character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And part of, you know, I think the job that I do now, and it's a lesson that I really learned from all those years of stand-up that stands me in good stead with the VO thing, is inhabiting...
Guest:That character, you know, you work on all the I worked on, you know, my IMDb is crazy when you look at it.
Guest:You've done every voice.
Guest:It's it's it's pretty somewhere right now.
Marc:You're talking for an animated character.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right now you're talking on a television.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Usually I'm basic cable, unfortunately.
Guest:So I got to keep out there hustling.
Guest:But but every hour, though.
Marc:Every hour, somewhere in this world... I make of those Simpson Network bucks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Tom's voice is coming at your kid's face.
Marc:Somewhere.
Marc:Right now.
Guest:Somewhere... In an SUV.
Guest:Kids are watching something and the parents have a headache because of me.
Marc:But it's just so funny to think that somewhere in this great country of ours, in the back of an SUV, some kids are being kept quiet by your soothing voice.
Guest:Or there's parents up in the bedroom going at it because they know they've got 11 minutes.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, her kid watches an episode of this cartoon.
Guest:Hurry up.
Guest:Go, go.
Guest:He loves it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was that was it?
Marc:But SpongeBob was the first one, though, right?
Guest:I mean, well, no, I had done a show called Rocco's Modern Life.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:Early 90s.
Guest:And Carlos Alice Rocky.
Guest:You see, this is also Carlos was in here.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Guest:I forgot about Rocco's.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was my first cartoon.
Guest:Steve Hillenburg.
Guest:that created spongebob later was artistic director on that show and uh creative director i can't remember what his title was but it wasn't his show and he was you know a couple years later when it came time for him to pitch his own animated show he remembered me well and remember remembered a voice that i had done in
Guest:a rocko's modern life episode that was almost like a throwaway like two line really voice yeah and he remembered it and said what was this guy well it was based on and nickelodeon does not like it when i tell the story so here's the story it was uh i was in an audition and i was auditioning for uh on camera commercial stuff did you ever do any of that very little horrible never really got the hang of that
Guest:No, it's the worst.
Marc:Yeah, I don't do that.
Guest:You think you have little control over your destiny in show business, like doing what we do.
Guest:When you're like the commercial guy and you show up trying to look like preppy dad or a priest or a chef.
Marc:Trying to look normal.
Guest:And you walk into a room and there's like 80 guys that sort of look vaguely like you.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's really horrible, debilitating.
Guest:And I finally told my agent, I can't do that anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:send me out for voiceovers i think maybe i have an aptitude for that i'd never really done much of it right and they said what makes you think you can do that and i go i just i don't have proof you know yeah but i will drive it a try i will drive anywhere i will do any voiceover audition for anything i think like that's a pretty good path for me and a good basket to put my eggs in and you know that turned out to be to be uh luckily for me true but
Guest:uh there was the same commercial on camera studio they were auditioning uh they were auditioning for a TV commercial that involved elves Christmas elves like a holiday commercial yeah so it was all these little people yeah uh uh hanging around a lot of them had their own elf costumes because that's what they do like if you're a
Guest:If you're a fat guy with a white beard, you go out for the Santa stuff.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:If you're a little person with curly-toed shoes, you go out for those auditions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Stop renting.
Guest:Buy the shoes.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there was one guy at the audition.
Guest:He was in a different part of the corridor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was hanging with a couple of his buds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just the most bitter...
Guest:ticked off a little person in an elf outfit you've ever seen.
Guest:So, you know, this is the only, you know, if it wasn't for the Christmas shit, I wouldn't fucking work.
Guest:This is the only time of the year that I fucking work.
Guest:It pisses me off.
Guest:It's like, you know, I'm glad to have it, knock on wood, but mother fucker, you know what I'm saying?
Guest:And I was just like, wow.
Guest:And I told Steve Hillibert that story years, years, years go by.
Guest:And he remembered that story.
Guest:I totally even forgot the story because it was something that happened to you on a day.
Guest:And then you tell people that you run into that day and then you kind of forget about it.
Guest:And he said, remember that guy?
Guest:So, you know, that's that's kind of where SpongeBob came from.
Guest:Sort of like a munchkin, like a without the negativity.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Angry little person.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Gave you the gift.
Marc:He did.
Marc:That turned your life around.
Guest:Someday I'm going to run into him, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's going to be standing outside my- You're doing my shit.
Guest:He's going to be standing outside my house like Mark David Chapman.
Guest:Hey, Kenny, I got a bone to pick with you.
Guest:I'm your Joe Antin.
Guest:It's one Bob's Joe answers.
Guest:Hey, Tom.
Guest:Tragedy struck Tom Kenny in.
Guest:He went that way.
Guest:He was in a really small car.
Guest:But it was a...
Marc:I have been reported.
Marc:Have you been reported dead yet?
Marc:No, I heard.
Marc:When I Googled your name, it said Tom Kenny dead.
Marc:Twice?
Marc:Who's doing that?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Pranksters?
Guest:I'd look for the angry little person.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:He is the prime suspect.
Guest:I never thought of that.
Guest:Why you, though?
Guest:That's bizarre.
Guest:I think I'm like, because SpongeBob is ubiquitous enough, but the guy behind SpongeBob is obscure enough that it takes a while.
Guest:The guy behind SpongeBob's voice, I mean, being me.
Guest:is that it takes you a while to verify it.
Guest:Like if you say George Clooney died, you know it immediately.
Marc:Right, so yours has got legs.
Guest:Yeah, if you say this Pete Best level showbiz guy died, it takes a while to figure it out.
Marc:I always thought that was interesting.
Marc:I always had this weird, and I just remembered it because we were talking about it.
Marc:I don't know if you knew Chris Collins well, but-
Marc:I knew him, you know, from that scene, yeah.
Marc:But he was like, you know, he was kind of out there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, he had his battles with substances and everything else.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it always, like, struck me as incredible that, you know, at a time there was all this, you know, concern about, like, satanic messages or whatever.
Marc:But, like, I always wondered, I always found it fascinating that how do you know who's doing the voice of that character your kid loves?
Marc:You know, because, like, when I picture...
Guest:when i picture like you know crazy chris collins you know and he's coming out of this character that kids i love that guy and chris is like i need to vet the voice actors that do my kids because he used to walk around in a black leather trench coat in new york and sweaty and kind of like what's going on with you and like every time you saw chris collins you're like oh my god it's the prince of darkness
Guest:Well, think of all the nuts that we met.
Guest:And I say that with total affection because maybe I'm wrong.
Guest:You're in the comedy world a little more than me.
Guest:But it's so much more of a career path for people now instead of just something you can't help, like an itch that needs to be scratched.
Guest:Maybe you're looking for therapy.
Guest:Maybe you're looking for appreciation.
Marc:Maybe you're looking for girls, whatever it is.
Marc:But that means there are fewer nuts.
Marc:Once comedy became like, I can do that.
Marc:I can do seven minutes.
Marc:There were guys like me.
Marc:And, you know, guys like, you know, from our generation who were like, you know, I'm just I can't I got to do this.
Marc:You know, it wasn't like, you know, do I have a career?
Marc:It was like, I got no choice.
Marc:What's my path?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like this is what I do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a slickness there.
Marc:You join up.
Guest:You join the groundlings.
Guest:You join up at UCB.
Marc:That didn't exist.
Guest:You go on at Largo.
Guest:Like, you know, I mean, we grew up.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:Bob and I were in Syracuse.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like we went into a disco with like two people in it because disco was over.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And said, it's Tuesday night.
Guest:There's one guy in here shooting pool.
Guest:Why don't you let us start a comedy sketch group?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:all right.
Guest:You know, we were like 16, you know, and it's like, you know, you were able, one of the virtues of being able to grow up in a place outside of show business is that there's that DIY, you know, do it yourself thing.
Marc:There's more of that now with comedy run, comic run shows.
Marc:Like there's a lot of sort of like occupying the coffee shop or the bookstore.
Marc:I mean, that still happens.
Marc:That's the equivalent of that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it happens because, you know, people are just making their own stage time.
Marc:There isn't like, but you know, it's hard for me to judge because this is one of those conversations where we could very easily be like, man,
Marc:Back when we were kids.
Marc:Yeah, an Irish party.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, it just seems like more of a career path now.
Guest:Yeah, there's a career, sure.
Guest:Whereas, I don't know.
Marc:Before it was like an obsession.
Guest:Yeah, and you didn't really know why you were doing it, but it just felt right.
Marc:Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Marc:It just felt good.
Marc:I don't know, you're right.
Marc:We're in cranky old man territory right now.
Marc:But let me ask you something practical.
Marc:For my own information, and I do have a lot of people who are in the biz who listen to this who are starting out and stuff.
Marc:When you're approaching voices, what do you run with?
Marc:Do you see a picture of the character?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you see a picture of the character.
Guest:It's all based on auditioning.
Guest:You see a picture of the character, they show it to you, they tell you what they're thinking about.
Guest:There's a little sheet with the breakdown of the personality.
Guest:It's really like an on-camera audition, but I felt like with voiceover, I cracked the code.
Guest:I never learned how to audition effectively as an on-camera actor, I didn't think.
Guest:I never had an audition where I went in there and they said...
Guest:Who is that man?
Guest:Get me that guy with the glasses.
Guest:He blew the room apart.
Guest:It was always people going, hey, yeah, hire Tom.
Guest:He's funny.
Guest:I know Tom.
Guest:He's dependable.
Guest:Whereas with the voiceover stuff, I felt like there was a... And I'm completely non-mechanical, technically moronic, but I feel like I can deconstruct a voiceover audition the way that somebody can look under the hood of a car and know...
Guest:how to get the engine running or take the back off of a watch or something.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And I can't do that with machinery, but I can do it with these.
Guest:And, you know, so... What does that entail, really?
Guest:And a lot of it, well, it's just... Is it just intuition?
Guest:It's intuition.
Guest:Well, half intuition and half...
Guest:science right brain left brain like making what's the best guess and also a lot of what's in your info system like you know obsessions with weird old character actors or some weird voice you heard a guy do on a bus 15 years ago right that suddenly you go great i got i know the guy yeah to plug into this yeah and so
Guest:That's the science.
Guest:That's the science.
Guest:Or in my case, melding, because I'm a fairly bad impressionist, like, you know, melding two unsuccessful impressions into a voice that sounds original.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And new.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, you go, okay, I'll take a little Helen Hayes and a little bit of The Wizard of Oz, you know, from that.
Guest:And that becomes like the mayor of Townsville in the Powerpuff Girls movie.
Marc:series for a long time and a little bit of Mr. Whoopi from Tennessee Tuxedo Steely Steely and there's going to be some 50 year old autistic guy who's going to be like he's just yeah he's doing all three he knows all the three people that you're drawing from that's a little Helen Hazen from this movie and also like we grew up you know one thing that's been really helpful
Guest:to me, is growing up in a time where there was only three channels in your hometown and your local station had to show a lot of weird old crap that was cheap.
Guest:Green Acres, Three Stooges.
Guest:Three Stooges.
Guest:Little Rascals.
Guest:Little Rascals.
Guest:Weird 30s Max Fleischer, Popeye cartoons with crazy syncopated jazz and odd stuff in it.
Guest:You know, cheapo sleazy exploitation movies from the 50s and 60s and stuff that...
Guest:I don't think is really on young people's radar now because- Well, they got TV land.
Guest:And there's 500 channels.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Exactly what you want to watch is on at that- Right.
Guest:Any given moment.
Guest:So you can watch the thing that's catered right to you.
Guest:You're not locked in, right.
Guest:Yeah, you're not locked into going, wow, who is this?
Guest:Edward G. Robinson?
Marc:You know, who is this guy?
Guest:Hey, I saw him in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Eating your sandwich after school, and that's black and white on the local TV station.
Guest:So you're absorbing all these old, and Billy West and I talk a lot about this, where just like all those old announcers and voices and flavors, you just kind of absorb it.
Guest:So you guys are buddies?
Marc:Oh, he was my idol, yeah.
Marc:When he was on WBCN?
Guest:Oh, I loved all that, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I listened to him on BCN, and then I didn't get to know him until I was out here, but no, he's, you know.
Guest:How's he doing?
Guest:He's doing great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and he works all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like a...
Guest:You know, he's a session, he's like a grade A session musician, so to speak.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he works all the time, all those guys, Maurice LaMarche, you know, Rob Paulson, you know, all those guys.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Jim Cummings, you know, there's people that are into voiceover.
Guest:And you hang out, y'all hang out together?
Guest:It's pretty, you know, it's almost like a comedian thing, but they're a little more, quite a bit more functional, I think.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You know, they're not... They have families and... Yeah, you have families, you live in a house, but you still have this dumb, weird thing that you do for a living.
Guest:So you feel like you dodged a bullet every day because you're not in a Dilbert cubicle doing insurance actuarial stuff.
Marc:But also, you know, outside of that, though, there must be the kind of like, you know, Hollywood is a company town.
Marc:It's a, you know, it's an industry town.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, and the industry has all these tiers of people that, that work every day.
Marc:And, and like, you know, like when you were saying, talking about character actors, there are guys that you see, you know, show up and things react, what the hell has that guy been doing?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he could have been doing a million things that there is a way that show business, you know, you have found a groove where you can, you can, but you're, you're a working guy, you know, it wouldn't be for everyone.
Guest:Cause if you, if you really care about being famous,
Guest:It's not for you.
Marc:Yeah, but this is the working side of show business.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's the non-glamorous side of being part of the industry in a way.
Guest:Yeah, it's more glamorous than bagging groceries, but it's not as glamorous as being Brad Pitt.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's also, it's interesting because you got all these unions, you got lighters, you got gaffers, you got, you know, you got food trucks, but then you got character actors and you got like, you know, like studio guys.
Marc:Like, like I think a lot of people forget that about show business is that this is a business that goes on every day.
Marc:You know, shit is churned out.
Marc:Things are being made.
Marc:And there are people that work every day in it.
Marc:You're a journeyman.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like a journeyman carpenter, you know, that's, you know, which is way more of how I look at.
Guest:myself and my job then being like an actor in the sense that tom cruise is an actor doing mission impossible 17 or whatever right you know i have way more in common with the guy who built yeah that yeah fake parthenon or whatever on that on that show right you know so it's yeah but it's great it's great i love it did you ever figure it but you you don't seem like the kind of guy that was like because there's a lot of dudes that i've talked to a few anyways where you know the voices were a way to get out of me i gotta get out of me
Marc:You don't seem like you're that guy.
Guest:No, I always knew that my own regular voice is so white bread, nasal, syracuse.
Guest:But you're not getting lost in characters to sort of ease the pain of existence.
Guest:No, not to ease the pain of existence, because knock on wood, my existence is not, thank goodness, painful, especially compared to a lot of people's.
Marc:But you don't have that wiring in your head that's sort of like, oh, I need to get off.
Guest:of myself self-loathing no no good for you no you dodged the bullet there too yeah yeah I get it I know a lot of people that have that and I get it but for me you know the voiceover thing it's just
Guest:It's just fun.
Guest:It's a fun thing to do every day.
Guest:Even the straightest job is really fun for me because I enjoy solving the puzzle.
Guest:Of the character.
Guest:Or the announcing, or the commercial.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Call 1-800-blah-blah-blah today to get your free...
Guest:Because that's so far from like what I do.
Guest:And the only reason that I know how to do it is from making fun of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My whole life.
Guest:But you wind up getting good at it by mistake.
Guest:And it's kind of like a weird kick for me to go, wow, people have no idea that when they see that commercial about that thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, the guy going, you know, it's on an all new Frasier Tuesday.
Guest:You know, they don't know that that's the SpongeBob guy who's also, you know, the Spanglish speaking monster on this other cartoon.
Guest:I kind of like that nobody connects the dots.
Guest:I kind of dig that.
Marc:And it's also cool that there is that moment where...
Marc:You do a bunch of reads, and everyone in the room is like, oh, that was it.
Marc:And it's so subtle that there is that type of work, especially with the throwing to shows or whatever.
Marc:It's a very specific, it has to have a resonance.
Marc:It's almost like music.
Marc:You hit the note.
Marc:But stand-up is like that, too.
Guest:And I feel like I never...
Guest:Cracked that code as applied to stand up.
Guest:I wanted to.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I just never figured it out for one reason or another.
Marc:And I, you know, I envied guys that that did, you know, I think that's there's an it's like in a it's a different set like that with stand up.
Marc:It's almost, you know, you have to arrive at yourself.
Marc:You know, some version of yourself where what you're doing is it's almost contrary to that, that, you know, you have to arrive at this this thing that that isn't really you, that it's another skill set.
Guest:Well, and there's also a level of remove for you.
Guest:That's kind of nice.
Guest:It's like being it's like being a puppeteer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, nobody sees me down behind this counter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I've got my hand up Kermit's, you know, whatever.
Marc:So it's like, you know, it's, but it's also like that the craft in that is, is almost more like it has to be more concise, you know, than, than, you know, putting yourself out there.
Marc:Cause it,
Marc:you can i don't know that it's more concise but it's it's but charm doesn't play into it i mean if you're fucking up on stage you know your your default is like hey come on people you know you can't be working a puppet you know who doesn't talk right that's funny yeah exactly but you can't be working a puppet whose mouth isn't going with the words and say like i'm sorry i'm having a problem with my mouth right now
Guest:Kermit has a total Charlie Sheen type meltdown right there in front of Miss Piggy.
Marc:What is one thing that you know you did that no one could possibly know that you're like, I did that?
Guest:I have actually received money to be the person who says side effects may include diarrhea.
Guest:You have?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:That whole list?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, I've done that because I can- How many of those?
Guest:As you can see, I can speak fairly quickly.
Guest:And then they compress the shit out of it anyway.
Guest:Yeah, so just- A few of those or one?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of stuff like that.
Guest:And I did do a bunch of the promos for syndicated Frasier packages.
Guest:And that's something you just sit there and you kind of reel them off, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You do a 30, a 15, a five, the different cuts, and you do it to the-
Guest:yeah film you do an hour of that and you yeah so i feel like i like that i know how like i feel like that's the only thing i know how to do like i didn't you know never went to college yeah never and bob didn't either you know i i took a year off after high school to try stand-up you know went to my dad and said i i have i have something in me and there's no uh there's no school that can teach it and what do you say all right well okay he's just puzzled
Guest:He was puzzled by a lot of the stuff that we did as kids, particularly the night that Bob and I and some of our friends decided on a like 30 below zero Syracuse night to hide in the bushes outside the local TV station where the weatherman did the weather out on the lawn.
Guest:And just while he was doing the live weather, just jumped out in our underwear and our BVDs and just danced around him like freaks.
Guest:Like, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then you get home and my dad is sitting there smoking a pipe and he just goes, I saw you on the news tonight.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, brother.
Marc:Is he still around?
Guest:No, he died about 10 years ago.
Guest:But was he happy with your success?
Guest:You know, he lived just long enough where SpongeBob was starting to get very popular.
Guest:He didn't get to see the full fruition of it.
Guest:But yeah, he got to see me have a house and stuff.
Guest:I think that's a good story.
Guest:It's nice.
Guest:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:So...
Guest:You know, there you go.
Guest:It's like, you know, if there's anything inspirational about us at all, it's just kind of let your freak flag fly.
Guest:There's no wasted time.
Guest:You know, every goofy thing that you learn how to do.
Guest:Actually, a lot of it winds up coming in handy in unforeseen odd ways.
Guest:As long as you survive those things.
Guest:As long as you survive those things.
Guest:And, you know.
Guest:yeah you'll survive you just got to find the like-minded uh the like-minded people that other freaks that that make it uh that make it fun and keep it uh keep it fun and luckily we know a lot of those those uh people yeah and we're all getting older now and we're doing okay i know i'm looking down the barrel of 50 i never think in terms of age yeah
Guest:Because, you know, we make our living basically acting the same way as we did when we were 22.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's a little weird.
Guest:So until I look at my driver's license or walk past a mirror.
Guest:And catch yourself.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:I'm an old guy.
Guest:I forgot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and kids kind of help because they're a daily reminder that the clock is running.
Guest:But I got to say, like, this is the first.
Guest:I never thought I'd give a crap about turning 50.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this is the first time where I'll have thoughts.
Guest:Like I'll look around my house and like your place here, it's just floor to ceiling books and records.
Guest:And I go, I better start reading faster.
Guest:I'm not going to get through all these.
Marc:I'm not going to get through all this shit.
Marc:That's better than what I do.
Marc:I look around and go like, what do I need this shit for?
Marc:Oh, I do that too.
Marc:Usually it's my wife saying, what do you need this shit for?
Guest:You're like, yeah, you're kind of right.
Guest:The minimalist and the pack rat.
Guest:All new Tuesday.
Guest:Well, thanks for talking, Tom.
Guest:Thanks so much.
Guest:And boy, did we talk.
Guest:We did.
Guest:It was good.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:I really had a great time.
Guest:Okay, man.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
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Marc:Get your JustCoffee.coop over there.
Marc:If you get the WTF blend, I get a little on the back end.
Marc:Oh, that rhymes.
Marc:That's going in.
Marc:That's part of the plug now.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I got to go get monkey.
Marc:And as always, Boomer lives.
Marc:Take care of yourself.
Marc:I hear a crying baby.
Marc:Do you hear a crying baby?
Marc:Maybe I should go to the doctor.
you