Episode 327 - Jimmie Walker

Episode 327 • Released October 23, 2012 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Alright, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuckineers?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuckstables?

00:00:14Marc:What the fuckaholics?

00:00:14Marc:What the fuckadelics?

00:00:16Marc:What the fucknavians?

00:00:19Marc:Yes, this is Mark Maron.

00:00:20Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:21Marc:How are you?

00:00:22Marc:How are you?

00:00:23Marc:I am okay.

00:00:25Marc:My life is limited right now.

00:00:28Marc:Before I forget, Jimmy Walker is on the show.

00:00:32Marc:Very limited to shooting my TV show.

00:00:35Marc:It's a good limitation.

00:00:36Marc:It's a good context.

00:00:37Marc:It's a good feeling.

00:00:39Marc:I think it's going well.

00:00:40Marc:I did watch a couple of rough edits of the first two episodes.

00:00:45Marc:I'm happy.

00:00:46Marc:I'm a little self-conscious.

00:00:47Marc:It's weird.

00:00:48Marc:It's a very definition of self-consciousness.

00:00:51Marc:I'm already...

00:00:52Marc:a bit self-conscious around some things but then to watch yourself be portraying you uh in a show about you i mean there's some sort of meta narcissistic self-centered business going on there but i'm actually you know able to sort of watch myself work and then put myself back in that position and then reassess the feelings i might not have had while doing it how do you like that how do you like that charlie kaufman

00:01:19Marc:I know I've been on a quest for stereo equipment, and it turns out I really don't know what... I never knew what it was that I wanted.

00:01:25Marc:I just wanted something with tubes.

00:01:27Marc:I had this obsession with tubes.

00:01:31Marc:And I dropped the coin.

00:01:32Marc:I told him I already had a turntable, and I dropped the coin, brought the thing home.

00:01:35Marc:The thing weighs... It's heavy.

00:01:38Marc:It doesn't even have tone knobs, man.

00:01:40Marc:It just has a volume, a selector, a balance, and that's it.

00:01:45Marc:Fucking...

00:01:47Marc:Turntable goes right into that.

00:01:49Marc:Rolls around the tubes.

00:01:51Marc:Pops through the wires of sound.

00:01:52Marc:Boom.

00:01:53Marc:Out of these beautiful speakers.

00:01:55Marc:Spectacular.

00:01:58Marc:Love it.

00:01:59Marc:I'm in love with it.

00:02:00Marc:But it turns out my turntable is fucked up.

00:02:02Marc:The first thing I did was start playing my old crappy records.

00:02:04Marc:I threw on a lot of things.

00:02:06Marc:Some Velvet Underground.

00:02:08Marc:Just listened to some Ray Charles.

00:02:13Marc:And then I popped in...

00:02:16Marc:I popped in Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde.

00:02:20Marc:You know why?

00:02:20Marc:Because I've come to believe that all of the answers, let me just get this up here.

00:02:28Marc:All of the answers.

00:02:30Marc:There's a few things.

00:02:31Marc:There's a few works of art that I think somewhere in them all the answers are there.

00:02:36Marc:Sometimes they're cryptic.

00:02:37Marc:Sometimes they're difficult.

00:02:39Marc:Bob Dylan's got a couple of those.

00:02:42Marc:It's alright mom only bleeding.

00:02:44Marc:I think everything you need to know is there.

00:02:46Marc:About almost everything.

00:02:48Marc:And I also think visions of Joanna.

00:02:51Marc:I'm blonde.

00:02:52Marc:I think all the answers are there.

00:02:53Marc:I'm not sure what those answers are or why I think that.

00:02:55Marc:But I think everything you need to know is in there.

00:02:58Marc:And it's just I've decided that.

00:03:00Marc:I mean, come on.

00:03:03Marc:Listen to it.

00:03:04Marc:Right out of the gate.

00:03:07Marc:And it's just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet.

00:03:10Marc:We sit here stranded, though we're all doing our best to deny it.

00:03:15Marc:Yep.

00:03:16Marc:Check.

00:03:18Marc:Then he goes on about Louise a little bit.

00:03:21Marc:Some pretty stuff.

00:03:23Marc:And then the one thing that kills me, man.

00:03:26Marc:I don't even know what it's about.

00:03:28Marc:I can't tell whether he's looking out the window at other people.

00:03:31Marc:He's hearing things through the wall at other people.

00:03:33Marc:He's got this woman, Joanna, on his mind.

00:03:35Marc:And either he's watching someone named Louise across the way or he's with someone named Louise.

00:03:40Marc:It doesn't matter.

00:03:42Marc:There's a couple of moments, man.

00:03:45Marc:There's a couple of moments in here that kills me.

00:03:48Marc:You know, she's so delicate and seems like a mirror, but she just makes it all too concise and too clear that Joanna is not here.

00:03:53Marc:The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face where these visions of Joanna have now taken my place.

00:04:01Marc:What is that?

00:04:03Marc:The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.

00:04:06Marc:Is that like a silent film?

00:04:07Marc:Is that your brain just tries to wrap around that?

00:04:13Marc:Little boy lost.

00:04:14Marc:He takes himself so seriously.

00:04:15Marc:Brags of his misery.

00:04:16Marc:He likes to live dangerously.

00:04:18Marc:And when bringing her name up, he speaks of a farewell kiss to me.

00:04:20Marc:He sure got a lot of gall to be so useless and all.

00:04:24Marc:Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall.

00:04:29Marc:Oh, I relate to that.

00:04:31Marc:I'm not sure even in a good way.

00:04:32Marc:It's just the venom, the clarity, the poetic attack on everything, the turned phrase that just twists your mind into that timeless drive for meaning and definition, that feeling of almost getting it.

00:04:47Marc:That's what I feel like, you know, like you listen to some poetry, you listen to Bob Dylan.

00:04:51Marc:It's like, I don't know what's happening, but I feel a surge of almost getting it.

00:04:56Marc:And I'm locked in this, this eternal grayness.

00:04:59Marc:I'm almost getting it.

00:05:00Marc:And that's okay.

00:05:02Marc:That's exactly it.

00:05:03Marc:You almost get it.

00:05:05Marc:You almost get it.

00:05:06Marc:That is the definition of desire.

00:05:08Marc:You're almost getting it.

00:05:12Marc:So that was great to hear that through tubes because that added a whole other meaning because I saw the ghost of electricity.

00:05:20Marc:I saw the actual electricity dancing in my tubes.

00:05:23Marc:Did some time travel.

00:05:24Marc:That's what a fucking tube amp is.

00:05:27Marc:You need tubes to time travel.

00:05:29Marc:Everyone's going all high tech with that shit.

00:05:31Marc:The idea we're going to get there through the technology evolving.

00:05:35Marc:No.

00:05:36Marc:You time travel with tubes.

00:05:40Marc:Vacuum tubes.

00:05:42Marc:Plugged into an amp of some kind.

00:05:45Marc:That's the closest you're going to get to time travel.

00:05:48Marc:Tubes and poetry.

00:05:50Marc:And a set of good speakers.

00:05:52Marc:All right, let's talk to Jimmy Walker.

00:05:54Marc:This is a long chat.

00:05:55Marc:Jimmy is, as some of you may remember, maybe not, was J.J.

00:05:59Marc:on Good Times.

00:06:02Marc:He was one of the great, he was one of the first national comedy stars.

00:06:05Marc:He was like his early 20s.

00:06:09Marc:And it's a very amazing story, his story.

00:06:12Marc:You can sort of run the history of modern comedy through Jimmy Walker, as you can from a few of my guests.

00:06:17Marc:But this is his take on the move of modern comedy from New York, the improv to the comedy store and the L.A.

00:06:25Marc:improv.

00:06:26Marc:And he's not afraid to dish.

00:06:27Marc:And it's pretty amazing stuff, the people that he was running with and his role in it that you may not know.

00:06:35Marc:You may not have even thought about Jimmy Walker for a long time.

00:06:38Marc:But I'm going to talk to him right now.

00:06:42Marc:You know, it's funny.

00:06:47Marc:Jimmy Walker is here in the garage.

00:06:49Marc:And I became a doorman at the comedy store in 1987.

00:06:57Marc:And you weren't around much.

00:07:01Marc:But I remember seeing a sign in the back of the store that said that you were paying for jokes.

00:07:07Marc:All the time.

00:07:08Marc:Yeah.

00:07:09Marc:And you go back in that place, right?

00:07:11Marc:In the store?

00:07:11Marc:I have not been in the store in about 15 years.

00:07:14Marc:Out of disgust or fear?

00:07:16Marc:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:07:18Guest:It's just that I've been out of town.

00:07:19Guest:Luckily enough, I've been on the road.

00:07:22Guest:That's a good thing.

00:07:23Guest:Yeah.

00:07:23Guest:And then it got a little dark in there for me.

00:07:27Guest:It did, right?

00:07:28Guest:Like what years?

00:07:30Yeah.

00:07:30Guest:I'm not sure when that happened, but it happened, and I was like, I guess I wasn't black enough to be in there.

00:07:39Guest:Really?

00:07:40Guest:No, I was not one of those down ghetto cats, man.

00:07:43Marc:I couldn't do it.

00:07:45Marc:And you felt some stink eye coming from those guys?

00:07:48Marc:No,

00:07:48Guest:no stink eye at all it's just that the audience got you know crazier and I'm really very commercial I'm like boringly unbelievably commercial as straight as an arrow you know I'm not any religious thing or anything like that but I'm kind of really because I come from that era it's another you know I talk about it sometimes when I do college lectures but I

00:08:14Guest:There's eras of comedy and my era was the last era of that really straight ahead kind of clean cut stuff.

00:08:25Guest:How old were you when he started?

00:08:26Marc:17.

00:08:28Marc:And what year is that?

00:08:30Marc:68, 9, 7.

00:08:35Marc:I had no idea.

00:08:37Marc:So you were doing comedy in the late 60s.

00:08:39Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:08:39Marc:And you started where?

00:08:41Guest:I started in Harlem, really in... This is the era before your guys came around, but there was a minorities program, not for comedy, but for...

00:08:56Guest:I don't know what you want to call it.

00:08:57Guest:The arts?

00:08:58Guest:Arts, I guess.

00:08:59Guest:Ed Bradley was in it.

00:09:01Guest:Geraldo was in it.

00:09:03Guest:And you're all around the same age?

00:09:04Guest:So your kids?

00:09:06Guest:Yeah.

00:09:07Guest:Well, those guys had actually gone to college.

00:09:09Guest:I was a high school dropout.

00:09:11Guest:So it was a whole different deal.

00:09:13Guest:But then I started doing a thing called seek evaluation for knowledge.

00:09:18Guest:And I did it there.

00:09:19Guest:And then there was a group.

00:09:21Guest:All the guys there, I would do it in school, oral interpretation class.

00:09:25Guest:And then they said, there's a group called The Last Poets.

00:09:28Guest:You should be with these guys.

00:09:30Guest:I remember hearing about those guys.

00:09:32Guest:And I went, and I never thought that I would be in any poetry group or anything.

00:09:38Guest:But these guys were a little different.

00:09:40Marc:So it was the mid-60s.

00:09:41Marc:Is it just post-Beatnik kind of stuff?

00:09:43Guest:No, no.

00:09:43Guest:No?

00:09:44Guest:Much more hardcore.

00:09:45Guest:Really?

00:09:46Guest:Much more hardcore.

00:09:47Marc:What would be an evening?

00:09:48Guest:An evening would be some speakers, maybe an H-Rap Brown or somebody like that.

00:09:54Guest:But he wouldn't be first.

00:09:55Guest:He'd be either next to last or the highlight or an Eldridge Cleaver or his wife Kathleen Cleaver.

00:10:01Guest:And there would be somebody speaking about Malcolm.

00:10:05Guest:There'd be somebody speaking about black history, that kind of stuff like that.

00:10:10Guest:And it was a dashiki pick thing era.

00:10:15Guest:A different kind of thing.

00:10:17Guest:So it was a very dark but moving evening.

00:10:21Marc:Well, that was like probably towards what?

00:10:24Marc:The middle or the end of the Black Power movement era?

00:10:26Guest:Yeah, it was in the middle of the Black Power Movement.

00:10:28Guest:Matter of fact, I tell a story in a book.

00:10:30Guest:We went to, in 68, we went to Chicago.

00:10:35Guest:And I was there with the Black Panthers.

00:10:37Guest:Before the convention or during the convention?

00:10:39Guest:Before the convention.

00:10:40Guest:And there was a guy, we went to see this guy.

00:10:43Guest:And it was like a little place like this.

00:10:46Guest:Like my garage?

00:10:47Guest:Like your garage.

00:10:48Guest:Literally like your garage.

00:10:49Guest:Yeah.

00:10:50Guest:And he had a couple of tables in there, and he's a young cat.

00:10:54Guest:And we had like eight people with us, and he was like, hey, man, glad to see you guys.

00:10:59Guest:And he knew some of the guys.

00:11:00Guest:I didn't know the guy.

00:11:01Guest:I was just a stand-up trying to get time somewhere.

00:11:03Marc:And he was 18 years old?

00:11:04Guest:Yeah, something like that.

00:11:05Guest:Yeah.

00:11:06Guest:And maybe 20.

00:11:07Guest:Yeah.

00:11:07Guest:And the guy says...

00:11:10Guest:And people always talk like this.

00:11:12Guest:If you deal with any Panthers, any SNCC, any Stokely Carmichael, any of that, it's like they're trying to get me, man.

00:11:19Guest:The FBI, that's it.

00:11:21Guest:They've been tracking me.

00:11:23Guest:They've been tapping my phone.

00:11:24Guest:They've been doing this.

00:11:25Guest:And you just go, wow, man, what's up with this?

00:11:30Guest:Yeah.

00:11:30Guest:So, all right.

00:11:31Guest:So we smash cut to after the convention, like in probably October of that year.

00:11:39Guest:And I look at the news and Cronkite's on the news.

00:11:42Guest:He says, and today in Chicago, Fred Hampton was shot 64 times in his bed.

00:11:50Guest:And it's him.

00:11:51Marc:That was the guy.

00:11:52Guest:That was the guy.

00:11:53Marc:Oh, my God.

00:11:54Guest:And I went, oh.

00:11:56Marc:They were after him.

00:11:57Guest:I guess they were kind of after this guy.

00:12:00Guest:Wow.

00:12:01Guest:Wee.

00:12:03Guest:Man.

00:12:04Guest:So it's that kind of stuff like that.

00:12:06Guest:And in those days, we did a ton of shows.

00:12:08Guest:Not like you guys do now.

00:12:10Guest:We did from 10 to 12 shows a night.

00:12:13Marc:The last poets?

00:12:15Guest:No, in terms of comedy.

00:12:16Guest:And the last poets were a different kind of thing.

00:12:19Guest:They spoke of black pride.

00:12:22Guest:kind of maybe anti-whitey stuff.

00:12:26Marc:But did that... It seems that it must have informed you somehow.

00:12:29Guest:It informed me, definitely.

00:12:31Guest:I never was involved in anything like that.

00:12:34Marc:No, not at all.

00:12:36Marc:But you were taking it in.

00:12:37Marc:I mean, it was part of the...

00:12:38Guest:Yeah, you sit there and listen.

00:12:39Guest:I always said this when we had the Black Panther rallies.

00:12:44Guest:William Kunstler was their lawyer.

00:12:46Guest:Sure.

00:12:48Guest:And he's a white guy.

00:12:49Guest:And he would always have his tam on and everything and his outfit and everything.

00:12:54Guest:And somebody would get up and go, well, you know, whitey sucks.

00:12:58Guest:And it's like Black Panther time and white power.

00:13:01Guest:White power, no good.

00:13:03Guest:Black power is the thing.

00:13:04Guest:That's the thing.

00:13:05Guest:And William Kunstler would already stand up and go...

00:13:07Guest:Yeah, black power.

00:13:09Guest:And I go, what's this guy doing?

00:13:11Guest:Except for William Cunsworth.

00:13:13Marc:What are you doing?

00:13:14Marc:Sit down.

00:13:15Marc:You got to have the liberal lawyer to take care of things.

00:13:17Marc:Sit down.

00:13:19Marc:Shut up, Cunsworth.

00:13:20Marc:It's not about you.

00:13:21Marc:Your time will come with the Chicago 7.

00:13:24Marc:Get out of here, man.

00:13:25Marc:But in terms of, I know you've said a couple times already that it's not your bag to be controversial or to push the envelope, but I mean, you being there and the evolution of the black community at that time certainly played a part in developing your sensibility.

00:13:41Guest:It was a divide in the black community.

00:13:44Guest:Like my mother, she was a Martin Luther King type of girl.

00:13:47Guest:Right.

00:13:47Guest:You know, it's that kind of thing like that.

00:13:49Guest:And what is wrong with these crazy kids with these Tams and these hats?

00:13:53Guest:And the guns.

00:13:54Guest:Guns marching around.

00:13:56Guest:What is going on?

00:13:58Guest:These are crazy people.

00:13:59Guest:And then the young people, because and I've always felt because they had uniforms and they were organized.

00:14:05Guest:They said, this is for me.

00:14:06Guest:Yeah.

00:14:07Guest:So there was always that divide.

00:14:09Guest:You know, they always felt that way.

00:14:10Guest:And what was it?

00:14:11Marc:The basic argument was that Martin Luther King didn't go far enough.

00:14:14Guest:He didn't go far enough.

00:14:16Guest:And he kowtowed to white people.

00:14:18Guest:Mm hmm.

00:14:19Guest:And this was by any means necessary.

00:14:22Guest:We didn't care.

00:14:23Marc:The evolution of the Malcolm.

00:14:24Marc:If it was a shootout, then there be it.

00:14:27Marc:That's it.

00:14:28Marc:Right, but in the big picture, it turns out that some of those dudes were not good dudes.

00:14:33Guest:No, we had good dudes and bad dudes.

00:14:35Guest:We had a lot of guys money grabbing.

00:14:37Guest:We had a lot of kids.

00:14:38Guest:Tupac, and I used to do a joke about it,

00:14:41Guest:the big thing with women was to have as many kids as you could for the revolution.

00:14:46Guest:Right.

00:14:46Guest:So women were having kids for the revolution.

00:14:48Guest:And I always said, when I try to get a girl, she goes, I'm not that revolutionary.

00:14:54Guest:Sorry.

00:14:55Guest:None, none for you.

00:14:57Guest:What about Tupac?

00:14:58Guest:Tupac.

00:14:59Guest:He was born out of that.

00:15:00Guest:Right.

00:15:01Guest:And his mother, uh,

00:15:02Guest:had kids because she was part of the San Francisco movement.

00:15:07Guest:That was her deal.

00:15:08Guest:Now, I got to be in a strange title, Comedian for Black Panthers in the East.

00:15:14Guest:I don't know what that means, but I had that title.

00:15:16Marc:But were you performing for them?

00:15:18Guest:All the time.

00:15:19Guest:Constantly.

00:15:19Marc:All the time.

00:15:21Marc:And what was your material then?

00:15:22Marc:I mean, you consider yourself mainstream now.

00:15:25Marc:I have to assume that... I had black stuff then.

00:15:27Guest:But see, they were still, no matter how...

00:15:31Guest:you know, black and this and that, they were still ghetto cats.

00:15:36Guest:They still laughed at the same ghetto Red Fox jokes that everybody... You could only go so far.

00:15:43Guest:Sure, I mean, they probably appreciated it.

00:15:45Guest:And there would be that sect of them to go, why is this guy relevant to this meeting?

00:15:51Guest:Why are we having this guy here?

00:15:52Guest:This kid.

00:15:53Guest:Yeah, and then people would go, we love this.

00:15:56Marc:This is great.

00:15:57Marc:This is fabulous.

00:15:57Guest:This is what we come from.

00:15:59Guest:Yeah.

00:15:59Guest:Did you know Red Fox?

00:16:01Guest:Very well.

00:16:02Guest:Yeah.

00:16:02Guest:Very, very well.

00:16:03Marc:Is there a funnier fucking guy?

00:16:05Guest:Red was... And see, Red wasn't funny telling jokes.

00:16:08Guest:Forget about that.

00:16:09Guest:Just in walking around.

00:16:10Marc:Right, right, right.

00:16:11Guest:Just walking around, you know.

00:16:13Guest:He would play Keno and he would lose hundreds of dollars playing Keno.

00:16:18Guest:And he'd go, fucking Japanese bastards.

00:16:21Guest:Kill him, man.

00:16:22Yeah.

00:16:22Guest:He would always have a problem.

00:16:24Guest:Red was always upset about something.

00:16:27Guest:And he just went on and on.

00:16:29Guest:And if you listen to him, it's so funny.

00:16:31Guest:I mean, he's just the greatest cat, man.

00:16:33Guest:Did you grow up on his records?

00:16:35Guest:No.

00:16:36Guest:I grew up, and maybe people don't remember, I grew up on Dick Gregory.

00:16:41Guest:Sure.

00:16:42Guest:And Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, Godfrey Cambridge, those are my guys.

00:16:47Guest:My mother borrowed Red Fox albums.

00:16:50Guest:Yeah.

00:16:50Marc:You couldn't have him in the house.

00:16:51Guest:You couldn't have him in the house.

00:16:52Guest:So that was that.

00:16:54Guest:Even though one time we went to see Red Fox at the Apollo.

00:16:58Guest:With your mother?

00:16:59Guest:Yes.

00:16:59Guest:My mother went with me.

00:17:01Guest:And he told a joke.

00:17:02Guest:And I remember the joke.

00:17:04Guest:She says, you know, you have fingers and the bones bend and they do this.

00:17:08Guest:And you have bones in your toes and they bend.

00:17:11Guest:And you have bones in your ear.

00:17:13Guest:And these bones, no matter what you do, they always bounce back and they're stiff.

00:17:17Guest:Yeah.

00:17:17Guest:That's the kind of bone I need.

00:17:20Guest:And my mother howled at that joke.

00:17:22Guest:And I was like, really?

00:17:26Guest:You just learned something about your mother.

00:17:28Marc:Yes.

00:17:28Guest:Wow.

00:17:31Marc:Okay.

00:17:31Marc:Now we're starting to get to it.

00:17:33Marc:Now, I'm just trying to picture, so Dick Gregory, Godfrey Cambridge, those guys had point of view and evolved into political comics.

00:17:42Guest:Well, see, Dick Gregory especially was my idol because of his book.

00:17:45Guest:He wrote a book called Nigger.

00:17:46Guest:Yeah.

00:17:47Guest:And that was a great book.

00:17:49Guest:And Godfrey Cambridge, I almost have paralleled, I think, his career where he never quite...

00:17:55Guest:got to the thing that he was supposed to, and he didn't really, I mean, I wanted to do stand-up.

00:18:01Guest:He didn't really want to do stand-up.

00:18:03Guest:He wanted to act.

00:18:03Guest:He died fairly young, too.

00:18:04Guest:He died young acting, doing Idi Amin.

00:18:07Guest:He was doing an Idi Amin movie.

00:18:08Marc:And what was that one, the weird movie it did?

00:18:11Guest:Was it Watermelon?

00:18:12Guest:he did watermelon man he did a ton of stuff but he never felt because he studied at the london academy people don't realize that uh-huh and so he was a legit actor right but everybody knew him from being a comedian because he did a lot of uh griffin shows a lot of frost shows a lot of that kind of stuff like that that was a whole different thing so they were always sending him out and he was working in vegas and he was an opening act and that kind of stuff like that and you had to be in those days different than now and i always say this and i i don't know if i said it in a book but

00:18:42Guest:Comedy used to be Freddie Roman and Alan King.

00:18:46Guest:And if you look at Richard Pryor and George Carlin, you will see that they were in suits and ties.

00:18:51Guest:Early on, sure.

00:18:53Guest:And then the thing that changed comedy forever and made it, you know, nuclear was Cheech and Chong.

00:18:59Guest:People think it was Richard Pryor.

00:19:00Guest:It wasn't Richard Pryor.

00:19:01Guest:Really?

00:19:01Guest:Cheech and Chong were the guys who changed comedy.

00:19:05Guest:What, 1970?

00:19:06Guest:Probably 70, 69.

00:19:08Guest:Because I remember being at the improv...

00:19:10Guest:In New York?

00:19:10Guest:Yeah.

00:19:11Guest:And somebody said, because if you watch the Laker games and you watch Jack Nicholson, there's a guy sitting next to him in every shot.

00:19:20Guest:That is Lou Adler.

00:19:22Guest:Lou Adler was the head of A&M Records.

00:19:25Guest:He also did Woodstock.

00:19:27Guest:He did a couple of other big, giant movies, Monterey, stuff like that.

00:19:31Marc:The guy who co-opted the revolution for capitalistic gain.

00:19:35Guest:Right.

00:19:36Guest:Yeah.

00:19:36Guest:That guy.

00:19:38Guest:And what he did was he saw Cheech and Chong in Vancouver in San Francisco.

00:19:42Guest:And he said, you know what?

00:19:44Guest:Because kids, when they watched comedy, they would watch Ed Sullivan.

00:19:48Guest:This is way back when.

00:19:50Guest:The guys now would not even understand this.

00:19:53Guest:Right.

00:19:54Guest:This is unusual to most people.

00:19:56Guest:The whole family would sit down and watch TV together.

00:20:00Guest:Now, that would never happen now.

00:20:01Guest:Everybody's got their own iPod, their own this, their own that, they're going here, they're going there, this and that.

00:20:06Guest:The whole family would sit down.

00:20:07Guest:And you would see Freddie Roman or Flip Wilson or those kind of people, Mal Z, Lawrence, those kind of people, London Lee.

00:20:14Marc:It was sort of the extension of gathering around the radio.

00:20:16Marc:It had the same sort of focus.

00:20:18Marc:Yeah, those guys.

00:20:18Guest:And the kids would go, you know, okay.

00:20:21Guest:So then...

00:20:23Guest:Cheech and Chong, Lou Adler heard him.

00:20:25Guest:He had the vision to say, this is something the kids would like.

00:20:30Guest:Because kids didn't have comedy.

00:20:32Guest:There was no kid comedy.

00:20:33Guest:And plus, there were two new things coming out then.

00:20:37Guest:And you guys wouldn't know about this, but it's just the way it is.

00:20:40Guest:Now you laugh at it.

00:20:41Guest:There was a new thing coming out called College Radio, which is his big day.

00:20:45Guest:and fm radio fm let's take our time and so they said they can play cheech and chong on fm yeah and they can play them on college right so lou adler went out and he recorded an album which was like having an hbo special right and if you look at the charts in the 70s in early 70s you will see cheech and chong albums right there with led zeppelin the beatles whoever yeah and

00:21:13Marc:And they were fucking funny, man.

00:21:14Guest:Yeah, they were very... You know, people think, oh, these guys were just screw-offs.

00:21:17Marc:No, they were funny.

00:21:18Guest:And plus, they were organized.

00:21:20Guest:It was legit stuff.

00:21:22Guest:Now, what would happen is we were at the improv and people came back and they said, there's a comedy team in San Francisco...

00:21:31Guest:that have long hair and they wear jeans and they curse.

00:21:36Guest:And you went, get the hell out of here.

00:21:40Guest:Who are they?

00:21:41Guest:Come on.

00:21:42Guest:No, man, they're picking up the kids, the young people love these guys.

00:21:47Guest:You go, well, they haven't been on TV.

00:21:48Guest:They're not going to be on TV, man.

00:21:50Guest:These are guys, they're just for the kids.

00:21:53Guest:They're going to be on this new FM radio thing, and they're going to play them there.

00:21:57Guest:And heck, darn it, if they didn't.

00:21:59Guest:And what happened was it gave flight to George Carlin to grow his hair and do Freak Out.

00:22:06Guest:It gave lengths to Richard to go to San Francisco with the legendary Paul Mooney and do his thing.

00:22:13Guest:It gave lengths to...

00:22:14Guest:Steve Martin to say, hey, I can do this now.

00:22:17Guest:Because if you look at Steve Martin in the old days, he was in a black suit.

00:22:21Guest:And he actually played banjo and stuff like that.

00:22:23Guest:Did you see him then?

00:22:25Guest:I saw him all the time.

00:22:26Guest:He was part of our crowd.

00:22:28Marc:In LA when he came out here.

00:22:30Guest:And I always tell the story about Steve Martin.

00:22:32Guest:Steve Martin used to write for the Smothers Brothers.

00:22:35Guest:Right.

00:22:36Guest:And he was making $17.50 a week, which is cool.

00:22:39Guest:Nothing wrong with that.

00:22:41Guest:And he was still doing stand-up.

00:22:43Guest:And it was him and a guy named Fred Smoot.

00:22:45Guest:Fred Smoot was a wild guy who did the physical kind of stuff.

00:22:49Guest:And those two guys would be battling, doing a lot of shows.

00:22:52Guest:And in those days, they were summer replacement shows.

00:22:54Guest:So they would do all those shows.

00:22:55Guest:And Steve Martin had the arrow and the banjo and everything like that.

00:23:00Guest:But he really didn't do well.

00:23:02Guest:He did OK, because he always had the banjo to save you.

00:23:06Guest:When you have music, no matter what happens, you're saved.

00:23:10Marc:And where are you watching him at this time?

00:23:11Marc:It's like the what?

00:23:12Guest:The store, the troubadour, the ice house.

00:23:14Guest:Early 70s.

00:23:15Guest:Yeah.

00:23:15Guest:So he's doing his thing.

00:23:17Guest:So there was a singer named Phoebe Snow.

00:23:20Guest:Phoebe Snow had a thing called Poetry Man, which was a monster hit.

00:23:23Guest:And she was a great singer.

00:23:24Guest:Unfortunately, she passed away.

00:23:26Guest:And this is the days before videos.

00:23:28Guest:So nobody had seen Phoebe Snow.

00:23:29Guest:They just heard the Poetry Man song.

00:23:31Guest:The Poetry Man.

00:23:32Guest:Right.

00:23:33Guest:And so the record companies, this is the days when record companies had clout.

00:23:37Guest:Sure.

00:23:38Guest:They said, we're flying her out.

00:23:39Guest:We're doing a big showcase for Phoebe Snow.

00:23:42Guest:We're going to have her.

00:23:43Guest:And Steve Martin's going to open.

00:23:44Guest:So it was kind of a big deal is that the true yeah, and we all went down This is the days when comics were friends and everything we all went down who was in that crew who was in that crew in your crew at that time We have people like the great Marvin Braverman who you probably don't remember I know I know his picture

00:24:01Guest:Yeah.

00:24:03Guest:We had people like that.

00:24:04Guest:We had not Gallagher, but he was in our crew, but whatever.

00:24:07Guest:And all those kind of people.

00:24:09Guest:We had a lot of people.

00:24:10Marc:Leno, Letterman?

00:24:11Guest:No, they weren't even started yet.

00:24:13Marc:They weren't even.

00:24:13Marc:It was probably 71, 72.

00:24:15Guest:70s, yeah.

00:24:16Guest:So we all went down there, and Steve Martin goes on in front of an industry crowd.

00:24:20Guest:Yeah.

00:24:21Guest:And just, it's.

00:24:23Guest:He eats it?

00:24:24Guest:Oh, God.

00:24:26Guest:He eats it.

00:24:26Guest:It's the kind of thing you could hear the air conditioner blowing.

00:24:30Guest:It was just awful.

00:24:32Guest:And he's got the arrow and he's got the wild and crazy guy and he's doing the dance.

00:24:38Marc:And he's over the top and there's no... He only operates at one speed.

00:24:42Guest:And it was just not horrendous, horrendous.

00:24:47Guest:So we go back there and we see Steve and I say, hey, Steve.

00:24:51Guest:This stand-up comedy thing, man, it's not going to work.

00:24:58Guest:I said, you know, look, look what happened, man.

00:25:01Guest:I mean, this is a big showcase thing.

00:25:04Guest:Come on, man.

00:25:06Guest:I said, you know, you got the writing thing.

00:25:08Guest:These people hire writers.

00:25:09Guest:They see this.

00:25:10Guest:They're not going to hire you.

00:25:11Guest:You walk in, they go, ain't that the guy who had, like, the guitar and the water and the...

00:25:16Guest:I said, Steve, let it go, man.

00:25:19Guest:It's not going to happen.

00:25:21Guest:And he says, well, I got a couple of gigs with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and then I'm going out to New York because a friend of mine wants me to do this late night TV show.

00:25:32Guest:And then I'm going to really think about it, man, see what's happening.

00:25:35Guest:So that's good.

00:25:36Guest:Get the hell out of this, man.

00:25:38Guest:You'll never get there this way.

00:25:40Marc:And you were friendly enough with him that he could hear that from you?

00:25:42Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:25:43Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:25:43Guest:Yeah, we were friends.

00:25:44Guest:We talked.

00:25:44Guest:I mean, friends, you know, guys in those days, I know this is different now.

00:25:49Guest:They contributed to your act.

00:25:51Guest:They helped you out.

00:25:52Marc:It's still the same.

00:25:53Marc:I mean, you're getting this cliques of people.

00:25:57Marc:There's more of them.

00:25:58Marc:You were at sort of ground zero of that.

00:26:01Marc:So there was literally the guys you were hanging out with, that was all of them.

00:26:05Guest:Yeah.

00:26:05Guest:That was them.

00:26:07Guest:So he says he's gonna go to the show in New York, and I said, all right, fine.

00:26:12Guest:And the show he did in New York, Saturday Night Live.

00:26:14Guest:And that did it.

00:26:15Guest:That did it.

00:26:16Guest:He was gone forever, unbelievable.

00:26:18Guest:And I remember not following, but being in this town with him,

00:26:23Guest:In Toronto, I opened Yuck Yucks for Mark Breslin.

00:26:27Guest:I opened it, and at the stadium was Steve Martin.

00:26:33Guest:I'm at Yucks, and he's at the stadium.

00:26:35Marc:The guy you told to give it up.

00:26:37Marc:Maybe this ain't going to work out for you.

00:26:40Marc:Did you get bitter?

00:26:42Guest:Oh, no.

00:26:42Guest:Oh, no, not at all.

00:26:43Guest:Because I think because you're friends and you're doing whatever, everybody takes to different levels, you know?

00:26:50Marc:But you were huge.

00:26:51Marc:I mean, I want to go back to, okay, so you come from New York City.

00:26:54Marc:You started in Harlem.

00:26:55Marc:You did The Last Poets.

00:26:56Marc:You were entertaining the Black Panthers.

00:26:58Marc:And then the improv must have come on.

00:27:01Guest:The improv came later.

00:27:03Guest:I went down to a place and people said when I was working with the Black Panthers and doing other things in Harlem, I was working with the Black Panthers, they went to the Apollo Theater.

00:27:12Marc:Right, and you did the Apollo before you were 20 or so?

00:27:15Marc:Yeah, I did the Apollo.

00:27:16Marc:And what was the vibe like that then?

00:27:19Marc:It's a little harsh.

00:27:20Guest:So it was the same?

00:27:22Guest:It's a little harsh, much harsher than it is now.

00:27:24Guest:Really?

00:27:24Guest:In what way?

00:27:25Guest:People would, they would get on you really tough.

00:27:31Guest:We had two guys shot on stage.

00:27:33Guest:On stage?

00:27:34Guest:On stage as with a gun.

00:27:38Guest:Live lead.

00:27:39Guest:Danny Rogers.

00:27:42Guest:I'll never forget it.

00:27:43Guest:Dead?

00:27:43Guest:Shot dead?

00:27:43Guest:Dead.

00:27:44Guest:Gone.

00:27:46Guest:Over.

00:27:46Guest:Sireenara.

00:27:48Guest:Ciao.

00:27:48Guest:They didn't close that place down?

00:27:50Guest:Oh, no.

00:27:51Guest:That was just a Saturday night?

00:27:52Guest:That's just the way it goes.

00:27:54Guest:Because the guys now could never work like this.

00:27:56Guest:Here's what we used to do at the Apollo.

00:27:57Guest:Yeah.

00:27:58Guest:And I worked on the chitlin circuit.

00:28:00Guest:And it was everywhere on the chitlin circuit the way it worked.

00:28:03Guest:We had shows at noon.

00:28:05Guest:3, 6, 9, midnight, and on Friday and Saturday, 2 o'clock in the morning.

00:28:12Guest:Now, what were those cities?

00:28:14Guest:The Chitlin Circuit?

00:28:15Guest:Yeah.

00:28:15Guest:All the major cities.

00:28:17Guest:Chicago, Philly.

00:28:18Guest:Chicago, we had the Regal.

00:28:20Guest:In Philly, we had the Uptown.

00:28:22Guest:Detroit, we had the Uptown.

00:28:23Guest:New Orleans, we had the Peacock.

00:28:25Guest:We had a place out in Oakland.

00:28:27Guest:Not we, they.

00:28:28Guest:Yeah.

00:28:28Guest:And it wasn't one person.

00:28:29Guest:Everybody had the different things.

00:28:31Guest:We had the Howard in D.C.,

00:28:33Guest:We had a lot of places.

00:28:34Guest:And these were just black rooms?

00:28:36Guest:No.

00:28:36Guest:What happened was, and this, again, nobody wants to remember this, black people couldn't go where white people could go.

00:28:43Marc:In the late 60s?

00:28:44Marc:Yeah.

00:28:45Guest:Couldn't go.

00:28:46Guest:They could go legally, but they couldn't go in any comfort.

00:28:48Marc:You could not go.

00:28:49Guest:Okay.

00:28:49Guest:And that's it.

00:28:51Guest:So this happened back in the turn of the century where black people just made their own clubs and they had their own place.

00:28:59Guest:A cotton club in Harlem, which many people have heard about.

00:29:02Guest:No black people allowed, only dancers.

00:29:04Marc:But at that time when you were doing the Chitlin circuit in the late 60s, early 70s, or late 60s I guess it would be, so you're like 20 years old.

00:29:10Marc:Now who are the cats that you're working with?

00:29:12Guest:I worked many shows.

00:29:13Guest:I did the Motown show with the Temps, Edwin Starr, Tammy Terrell, Marvin Gaye, little Stevie Wonder.

00:29:22Guest:He was little then.

00:29:23Guest:Yeah.

00:29:24Guest:And you were little, too.

00:29:25Guest:I was little, too.

00:29:27Guest:If you saw, there was a movie called The Funk Brothers.

00:29:30Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:29:30Guest:Those guys were with us because they were the house band.

00:29:32Guest:Right.

00:29:33Guest:They were there.

00:29:33Guest:So that was the Motown review, and we actually left from the 20 Grand Club in Detroit.

00:29:39Guest:So it was a variety show.

00:29:41Guest:Yeah, I guess you could call it that.

00:29:43Guest:There was no other comics on it?

00:29:44Guest:No, no.

00:29:45Guest:You're the comic emcee, and the comic emcee...

00:29:47Guest:There were big comics that would go out and do shows.

00:29:50Guest:Like who were they?

00:29:51Guest:Red Foxx.

00:29:52Guest:Yeah.

00:29:52Guest:Moms Mabley.

00:29:53Guest:Yeah.

00:29:54Guest:Flip Wilson.

00:29:55Guest:Yeah.

00:29:55Guest:Timmy Rogers.

00:29:57Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:29:57Guest:Those kind of people like Stu Gillum.

00:29:58Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:29:59Guest:Those were the, Scoey Mitchell.

00:30:00Guest:Those were the big comics.

00:30:02Guest:The biggest one was Red Foxx and then Moms Mabley.

00:30:05Guest:And those were the guys.

00:30:06Marc:Pygmy Markham.

00:30:07Marc:Pygmy Markham was still working?

00:30:09Guest:Without a doubt.

00:30:09Marc:Pygmy Markham worked until he dropped.

00:30:11Yeah.

00:30:11Marc:And what was it like to, I mean, because nobody has those guys in perspective.

00:30:16Marc:I don't.

00:30:17Marc:I mean, I've listened to Flip Wilson.

00:30:18Marc:I've listened to you.

00:30:19Marc:I've listened.

00:30:19Marc:I know Cambridge.

00:30:20Marc:I know Cosby.

00:30:21Marc:But Moms Mabley, I've listened to her stuff.

00:30:23Marc:She got pretty dirty, too, didn't she, on stage?

00:30:26Marc:Different dirty.

00:30:26Guest:Not like these guys.

00:30:27Guest:These guys now.

00:30:29Guest:No, but I mean she was a little racy.

00:30:31Guest:What she was was double entendre.

00:30:34Guest:That was what it really went with.

00:30:35Guest:And that's the way we went in those days, heavy double entendre.

00:30:38Marc:And Pygmy had to be convinced not to wear makeup.

00:30:41Guest:After a certain point.

00:30:42Guest:Because that came in the Black Panther era when you didn't do white face, black face, that kind of stuff.

00:30:49Guest:Because that was all before.

00:30:50Guest:That came from the Burt Williams era.

00:30:53Guest:So that was a whole nother thing.

00:30:55Marc:But it was interesting that I don't think a lot of people realize that black performers wore black face.

00:30:59Marc:Right.

00:30:59Marc:Exactly.

00:31:00Marc:And he couldn't let it go, I heard.

00:31:01Guest:Right, no, no, no.

00:31:02Guest:And they said the Black Panthers are going to come in here or SNCC or NAACP and burn this place down.

00:31:09Guest:Oh, really?

00:31:10Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:31:10Guest:There's no playing around.

00:31:12Guest:Please, stop.

00:31:13Marc:So it was that kind of stuff.

00:31:14Guest:We're past that.

00:31:15Guest:And I worked, like I said, when I did the Motown review, perfect example, went out with the Funk Brothers and all these other people, and the guy, the manager, the road manager, gathers in the two big buses.

00:31:27Guest:He said, look...

00:31:28Guest:We're going to the Southern tour, people.

00:31:31Guest:And we have Martin and Vandellas, too.

00:31:33Guest:And they said, it's going to be a room's going to be roped off.

00:31:37Guest:In the middle, it's going to be the white people.

00:31:40Guest:And either end, it's going to be minorities.

00:31:42Guest:We don't know what black, Hispanic, Asian, whatever the hell it is.

00:31:47Guest:The middle, there's going to be white people.

00:31:49Guest:And you know what, guys and girls, if white girls come to the front of the stage, do not touch them.

00:31:57Guest:Do not stay with them.

00:31:58Guest:Move to the other side of the stage.

00:32:01Guest:Do not bring any white girls backstage to the bus.

00:32:06Guest:Nothing.

00:32:07Guest:Do not touch the white girls.

00:32:09Guest:And the temptations and those kind of acts, they would invoke that because they're moving and grooving and singing.

00:32:17Guest:And people are screaming and yelling.

00:32:20Guest:So they had the toughest time.

00:32:22Marc:So this is the late 60s because there was still the threat of reprisal.

00:32:26Marc:There was violence.

00:32:27Marc:Big time.

00:32:28Marc:Big time.

00:32:29Guest:It was the kind of thing we had the white water fountains.

00:32:32Guest:We couldn't go to certain restaurants.

00:32:33Guest:I mean, I'm from New York, so we never had that.

00:32:36Guest:Yeah.

00:32:36Guest:But you couldn't drink out of water fountains at night when the show was over unless you can go to a boarding house where somebody would cook chicken for you or something like that.

00:32:44Guest:We just had to get on the bus with our clothes and go.

00:32:47Marc:There was no place where you could eat or stay or anything.

00:32:49Marc:That's it.

00:32:50Marc:Move on.

00:32:51Marc:And as somebody from New York, had you put that in perspective before?

00:32:55Marc:I mean, if you're 20 years old.

00:32:56Guest:I never thought about it because it never was even like in my reality.

00:32:59Guest:So what was your reaction to it?

00:33:01Guest:I was a little shocked.

00:33:02Guest:Was this ridiculous or were you terrified?

00:33:04Guest:I was shocked.

00:33:05Guest:Shock more than anything.

00:33:06Guest:That it actually existed.

00:33:07Guest:Yeah, that it actually existed.

00:33:08Guest:I was like, really?

00:33:10Guest:But I got used to it.

00:33:11Guest:You learn.

00:33:11Guest:When you go through Meridian, Mississippi, and you go through Jackson, Tennessee, you go, oh.

00:33:17Guest:You felt the hate?

00:33:17Marc:Did it come at you in any way?

00:33:19Guest:No, they didn't do anything.

00:33:21Guest:We just realized what it was.

00:33:23Guest:Those guys knew.

00:33:24Guest:I didn't really know.

00:33:25Guest:They'd experienced it.

00:33:26Guest:They'd experienced it.

00:33:27Guest:And then when we came back,

00:33:30Guest:On tour from that show, the city of Detroit was burning.

00:33:35Guest:Yeah.

00:33:36Guest:And that was a strange thing because Barry Gordy and those guys were so happy about their whatever success they've had up until then.

00:33:44Guest:They weren't thinking about that.

00:33:45Guest:And those were the first big riots?

00:33:47Guest:Yeah, those were the first big riots.

00:33:48Guest:So that happened then.

00:33:50Guest:And then we moved on.

00:33:51Guest:And then the other shows I did, and I still do them now.

00:33:54Guest:You know, we were at the Greek just a little while ago.

00:33:56Guest:You do cities.

00:33:57Guest:You do, like, Philadelphia sound.

00:33:59Guest:So you have the stylistics, the Delphonics, Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, the emotion.

00:34:05Guest:You have that kind of thing.

00:34:06Guest:Then you have the Chicago show, the Chi-Lite, G. McDaniels, this and that.

00:34:10Guest:So you'd be on the Chicago show.

00:34:11Guest:You know, that's the way it works.

00:34:13Guest:And you'd be on a New York show with the main ingredient and it'd be like eight acts.

00:34:17Guest:And the thing was not to do comedy.

00:34:19Guest:They didn't want comedy.

00:34:21Guest:And I had the big beef with, not a beef.

00:34:23Guest:But you were doing comedy.

00:34:24Guest:I was doing comedy, but they couldn't tell you.

00:34:28Guest:If you talk to the band and you talk to the groups, they just go, go out there, talk for three minutes and then bring us on.

00:34:36Guest:So you didn't do any jokes?

00:34:37Guest:I did jokes.

00:34:38Guest:Yeah.

00:34:39Guest:Perfect example.

00:34:40Guest:I'll give you a thing.

00:34:41Guest:Wilson Pickett.

00:34:42Guest:Great singer.

00:34:42Guest:One of my first shows I did.

00:34:44Guest:Did you love these people?

00:34:45Guest:Yeah, they're great.

00:34:46Guest:They're just BS artists.

00:34:49Marc:They're just that kind of thing.

00:34:50Marc:But I mean, were you fans of- Oh, yeah.

00:34:51Marc:Was there a moment where you're on the road and you're like, holy shit.

00:34:54Guest:No, no, never that way because you see them at the most vulnerable moments.

00:34:58Marc:They're just people.

00:34:59Guest:Yeah, just people.

00:35:00Guest:It's like when people say to me now, because I started with Bette Midler, and Bette Midler was a waitress.

00:35:05Guest:And you'd see her every day, and she'd go up and take her apron off and go up and sing.

00:35:09Guest:At the improv.

00:35:10Guest:At the improv.

00:35:11Guest:And you'd go, oh, okay.

00:35:12Guest:Or Al Jarreau.

00:35:13Guest:You'd see him with his little tchotchkes in the back getting his little thing.

00:35:17Guest:You'd see him doing his thing.

00:35:21Guest:And now people go, Al Jarreau, man, he's unbelievable.

00:35:24Guest:I saw him in France.

00:35:25Guest:He was doing it.

00:35:26Guest:You'd go...

00:35:26Guest:Really?

00:35:28Guest:Yeah.

00:35:28Marc:Okay.

00:35:28Guest:I saw him in the kitchen of the improv making funny noises.

00:35:32Guest:And you'd see like, and you'd see like Bette and she would break plate glass windows and she'd be pissed about this and that and that and this.

00:35:39Marc:But there was that, was there like a, at least like a comic or a moment where you were like, holy shit, that guy's amazing.

00:35:46Guest:The closest we got to that was Klein.

00:35:48Guest:Robert Klein.

00:35:49Guest:Yeah.

00:35:50Guest:But see, you never.

00:35:51Guest:I mean, Klein was very good and he worked hard.

00:35:53Guest:He helped me not personally, but just my work ethic in terms of listening to tapes, editing tapes, doing that whole thing.

00:36:01Guest:But the thing, you know, always because Klein was always Klein.

00:36:04Guest:He was always I'm Klein.

00:36:06Guest:You're not.

00:36:06Guest:He doesn't get the respect that he deserves.

00:36:09Guest:But he gives himself the respect.

00:36:12Guest:He takes it.

00:36:14Guest:It's like I always say about Dom Herrera.

00:36:16Guest:Dom Herrera says, Dom Herrera is the best comic in the world.

00:36:20Guest:Just ask him.

00:36:21Guest:Right.

00:36:22Guest:So you're opening for Wilson Pickett.

00:36:24Guest:I'm open for Pickett, and I go, you know, I'm doing like five minutes of humor.

00:36:28Guest:We're supposed to do three.

00:36:29Guest:Yeah.

00:36:29Guest:And they're all waiting to hear Wait Till the Midnight Hour.

00:36:32Guest:And so I said, hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome.

00:36:36Guest:Great singing Wait Till the Midnight Hour.

00:36:37Guest:You know, just that, that.

00:36:39Guest:Mr. Wilson Pickett.

00:36:40Guest:And he comes on, and he does his stuff.

00:36:42Guest:And they said, Mr. Pickett wants to see you backstage.

00:36:44Guest:And they go, oh, he probably saw me do some, you know, sensational humor.

00:36:48Guest:He probably wants to talk to me about it.

00:36:50Guest:So he comes back and he says, hey, man, what's your gig here?

00:36:56Guest:And I go, I'm the emcee comic.

00:36:58Guest:He says, no, man.

00:36:59Guest:I says, you're the fucking emcee.

00:37:01Guest:I said, your job is to bring me on.

00:37:03Guest:What was that introduction?

00:37:05Guest:I said, you know, Mr. Wilson Pickett.

00:37:06Guest:He said, no.

00:37:08Guest:No, man.

00:37:10Guest:It's the wicked Mr. Pickett.

00:37:13Guest:And you got to elongate that.

00:37:16Guest:And you got to go to either side of the stage.

00:37:19Guest:You got to get the crowd up clapping.

00:37:22Guest:You got to work with an overture.

00:37:25Guest:You got to bring me on.

00:37:27Guest:That was bullshit.

00:37:29Guest:I said, well, I was just doing a little, you know, a little comedy, getting ready.

00:37:32Guest:He said, fuck that comedy.

00:37:34Guest:This is what we got to do.

00:37:36Guest:He went over it.

00:37:38Guest:He said, this is what we're going to do.

00:37:40Guest:And it helped me become a good MC.

00:37:44Guest:Because you did it.

00:37:45Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:37:46Guest:He said, I don't give a shit about those stupid, lame ass jokes.

00:37:50Guest:Get out there and bring me on.

00:37:53Guest:Yeah.

00:37:53Guest:That's the way it worked with the picket, man.

00:37:56Guest:So every group, they'll tell you.

00:37:59Guest:On the Chitlin circuit, there's people who are on the Chitlin circuit who are just MCs.

00:38:04Guest:Nothing else.

00:38:06Marc:No comedy, no nothing.

00:38:07Marc:But didn't a comedy-specific Chitlin circuit evolve?

00:38:12Marc:I mean, wasn't there comedy shows?

00:38:14Marc:Or were you gone by then?

00:38:15Guest:Like I said, when you had Mom's name, that was like the big deal.

00:38:21Marc:And watching Pygmy Markham or Red Foxx work, did it inspire you or anything?

00:38:26Guest:A different deal.

00:38:28Guest:It wasn't what I was doing.

00:38:30Guest:My thing was more Dick Gregory, Godfrey Cambridge, that kind of thing.

00:38:33Marc:You were talking about family?

00:38:35Guest:Yeah, they were in silliness.

00:38:38Guest:You know, crazy dolomite, those kind of people.

00:38:41Guest:Different deal.

00:38:42Guest:You just go, well, a perfect example.

00:38:45Guest:Dolomite.

00:38:46Guest:Dolomite, that was a guy.

00:38:47Guest:I know he's a guy.

00:38:49Guest:I worked with Dolomite down in Santa Monica.

00:38:51Guest:I think he's still around.

00:38:52Guest:No, he died.

00:38:53Guest:Oh, did he?

00:38:53Guest:He died.

00:38:54Guest:And then I worked with him in New York in some club.

00:38:56Guest:But I was working with the last poets, and then we worked the Apollo, so I got into the Apollo.

00:39:02Guest:And you didn't get shot.

00:39:03Guest:I didn't get shot.

00:39:04Guest:But see, this could happen because here's what... When someone gets shot, do they stop the show?

00:39:09Guest:What happens?

00:39:10Guest:Is the show over?

00:39:11Guest:No, show's not over.

00:39:12Guest:No, come on, Jimmy.

00:39:14Guest:No, no, no, no.

00:39:15Guest:Show's not over.

00:39:15Guest:Here's the way it works at the Apollo.

00:39:17Guest:In the old days, not now.

00:39:19Guest:This is the old day.

00:39:20Guest:You come in at 12 o'clock.

00:39:22Guest:Yeah.

00:39:22Guest:Pay your seven bucks.

00:39:23Guest:Yeah.

00:39:24Guest:You're there for the rest of the day.

00:39:26Guest:You can stay every show.

00:39:28Guest:Yeah.

00:39:28Guest:If you don't ever want to leave, you can stay until midnight.

00:39:32Guest:Whatever you want to do, you're in.

00:39:34Guest:No one's going to tell you to go there.

00:39:35Guest:No, you're in.

00:39:36Guest:There's no like, all right, we're turning the crowd over.

00:39:38Guest:Let's go, people.

00:39:40Guest:Out.

00:39:40Guest:No, no.

00:39:41Guest:And people use it as their babysitter.

00:39:43Guest:They would go to work, leave the kids there, come back.

00:39:45Guest:No, come on.

00:39:46Guest:I kid you not.

00:39:47Guest:This is what would happen.

00:39:49Guest:So what would happen is you come out there the first show and do your little skit.

00:39:55Guest:So okay, the people saw that little skit.

00:39:57Guest:Second show, you may change up your skit.

00:40:00Guest:But the third show, you're back to the first show stuff.

00:40:04Guest:They've seen the first show stuff.

00:40:06Guest:So they're done with the first show stuff.

00:40:09Guest:No more first show.

00:40:10Guest:So now they start rushing the stage, attacking, talking.

00:40:14Guest:Really?

00:40:15Marc:Yes!

00:40:16Yes!

00:40:16Marc:Yes!

00:40:17Marc:I mean, I know they boo people, but you're saying they would come physically?

00:40:20Marc:Oh, yeah!

00:40:21Guest:Little kids would come with jujubes and say, get up!

00:40:25Guest:And throw something?

00:40:27Guest:Yeah!

00:40:27Guest:Jerry Butler, the Iceman, that's what you call him, Jerry Butler.

00:40:30Guest:He came on one time, and he's very icy.

00:40:34Guest:That's his big thing, the Iceman.

00:40:36Guest:And this is Apollo.

00:40:38Guest:He has the music vamping in the background.

00:40:40Guest:He says, here's a song I've been singing for a long time.

00:40:44Guest:Somebody already yelled out, you're goddamn right.

00:40:48Guest:It's enough of that.

00:40:50Marc:Get off.

00:40:52Marc:But the guy who got shot, what, they just come out, they get him, and what happened?

00:40:55Marc:He's gone.

00:40:55Marc:And then they move on with the show?

00:40:57Guest:Move on with the show.

00:40:58Guest:This shit happens.

00:41:00Guest:No, they just say, you know, people, please.

00:41:02Guest:Put the guns away.

00:41:04Guest:People, please.

00:41:05Guest:Be polite.

00:41:06Guest:Come on.

00:41:07Guest:These people are working here.

00:41:08Guest:Club Baron was right next to the Apollo, not far down.

00:41:12Guest:I had only worked the Apollo once with the last poets, and that was a little crazy.

00:41:16Guest:So I said, I want to work the Club Baron.

00:41:18Guest:So I went in there.

00:41:19Guest:Just a nightclub.

00:41:20Guest:Yeah, it's a hardcore, pimp, hustler, misogyny, crazy, mother, lickers, killer club.

00:41:29Guest:I said, I want to get there.

00:41:30Guest:Yeah.

00:41:31Guest:Sounds like a good gig.

00:41:33Yeah.

00:41:33Guest:So I went in there, and I was, like, really young then, and I said, hey, you know, I'm the guy from the Apollo.

00:41:40Guest:I'm an emcee, and I do comedy, too.

00:41:42Guest:And the guy said, yeah, what about it?

00:41:45Guest:I said, I want to be on the show.

00:41:46Guest:I see you got Joe Williams.

00:41:47Guest:Joe Williams is a good friend of mine.

00:41:49Guest:He wants me.

00:41:49Marc:The singer?

00:41:50Marc:Yeah.

00:41:50Guest:Yeah.

00:41:51Guest:He says, I want to be with Joe Williams because he's a friend of mine, and he's going to come from Chicago, and he's got to have me on the show.

00:41:57Guest:I work with the Count Basie.

00:41:58Guest:And he said...

00:41:59Guest:Really?

00:42:01Guest:I said, yeah, yeah.

00:42:03Guest:I said, Bobby Shiffman, who's the owner of the Apollo.

00:42:05Guest:I knew his name.

00:42:06Guest:He sent me over.

00:42:07Guest:He says, Bobby Shiffman sent you over here.

00:42:12Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:42:12Guest:I was at the Apollo last week.

00:42:13Guest:Are you bullshitting?

00:42:14Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:42:15Guest:Yeah.

00:42:16Guest:now now in these days somebody just pick up a cell phone or not even just get out of my office get out yeah so I said Bobby Shiffman said he says really okay well we'll see if you know Joe Williams gonna be here this Friday come on in and see what happens give you let me see we do two shows you get 25 bucks for two shows all right cool yeah so I get there about 80 o'clock ran the roll yeah

00:42:45Guest:And he says, we do two shows.

00:42:47Guest:So I said, I get there at 8.

00:42:49Guest:And he says, all right, what time does first show start?

00:42:51Guest:8.30?

00:42:51Guest:He says, now.

00:42:53Guest:First show starts at 1.

00:42:55Guest:I said, 1?

00:42:57Guest:In the afternoon?

00:42:58Guest:Tomorrow?

00:42:59Guest:He says, tonight.

00:43:01Guest:Yeah.

00:43:02Guest:One.

00:43:02Guest:Yeah.

00:43:03Guest:And this is a place where the stage is over the bar.

00:43:06Guest:Right.

00:43:07Guest:Okay.

00:43:08Guest:So the people, if they're sitting at the bar, they can just look up at you and see what's going on.

00:43:12Guest:Yeah.

00:43:12Guest:So he says, are you old enough to drink?

00:43:15Guest:I go, no.

00:43:16Guest:He says, well, go back in the manager's office and just hang in there.

00:43:19Guest:Yeah.

00:43:20Guest:So I was there at 8 o'clock.

00:43:22Guest:I see Joe Williams about midnight.

00:43:24Guest:He comes in, he's got a tam on, and he's got his ascot, and he's cruising around, getting free drinks and everything.

00:43:31Guest:And I see him sitting at a bar.

00:43:34Guest:I say, hey, Mr. Williams, I'm Jimmy Walker.

00:43:35Guest:I'm opening for you.

00:43:36Guest:He didn't even look up.

00:43:38Guest:He said...

00:43:38Guest:good all right so now one o'clock comes and they got a band there's a house man yeah and these days old house man's the band and and the cat gets on he says uh we got a comedian he's from the apollo and people go yeah yeah uh jimmy walker's with us ladies and gentlemen let's see so you got to walk up the stairs turn on the stage and then the people are like right like this they're looking at you yeah

00:44:06Guest:So I started out with a couple of what I thought was pretty good.

00:44:11Guest:Like what?

00:44:12Guest:My first joke, this is the first joke I ever told, and I use it all the time.

00:44:15Guest:It still works today.

00:44:18Guest:Yeah.

00:44:18Guest:It said, it's raining so hard out, I saw Superman riding a cab.

00:44:24Guest:That was my first joke.

00:44:27Marc:That's probably seen a resurgence, that joke, with the popularity of the movies.

00:44:31Guest:So I did that joke, and then you could hear the glasses starting to clink.

00:44:37Guest:People go, yeah, double me up, man.

00:44:41Guest:So I go on for like three minutes, and the noise is overwhelming.

00:44:47Guest:And I say, well, you guys have been great.

00:44:52Guest:I've been Jimmy Walker.

00:44:52Guest:I'm over to Apollo.

00:44:54Guest:Come see me there any time.

00:44:55Guest:Good night.

00:44:57Guest:So the owner's sitting there on his stool, and he's having drinks, not even looking at me.

00:45:01Guest:I said, you know, got off to a little bad start, but we'll be ready.

00:45:05Guest:You know, we'll be better the next show.

00:45:07Guest:And he said, yeah, we will be better the next show, because you won't be on it.

00:45:12Guest:And that was it.

00:45:14Guest:And then I said to the guy, I says,

00:45:16Guest:You know, there's a small matter of 25 bucks you owe me for the show.

00:45:21Guest:And he just picked up his drink.

00:45:24Guest:Really?

00:45:25Guest:Right.

00:45:27Guest:Nothing.

00:45:27Guest:Yeah.

00:45:28Guest:And then you had to walk to the subway.

00:45:30Guest:Yeah.

00:45:31Guest:From the Apollo.

00:45:32Guest:Yeah.

00:45:32Guest:And you're walking there, there's lonely, I got my recorder, my stuff, and you're

00:45:37Guest:little wind blowing outside and it's just like oh god yeah and you use your token and you're sitting there at 125th street there's nobody there oh lord is this worth it yeah and you and you were living where i was living in the bronx with your mom's though

00:45:56Guest:No.

00:45:57Guest:I had my own place because I was in radio at the time.

00:45:59Guest:So I just went home and that was it, man.

00:46:04Guest:And went back to work with... And when you work with The Last Poets, this is the code word they'd tell you.

00:46:09Guest:They'd call you, they'd go, hey, man, we got three shows.

00:46:12Guest:They're coming on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

00:46:16Guest:It's a benefit for Al-Hasan.

00:46:18Guest:He's in jail, the man.

00:46:20Guest:So whenever they said benefit, no dough.

00:46:22Guest:Yeah, right.

00:46:23Guest:Sure, yeah.

00:46:24Guest:We got a benefit, man.

00:46:25Guest:We want you to open it up.

00:46:27Guest:So you were getting paid on radio, though?

00:46:30Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:46:30Guest:I was legit.

00:46:31Guest:I was legit on radio because I was an engineer.

00:46:33Guest:I was a real guy.

00:46:35Marc:Oh, so that was your thing.

00:46:35Guest:Yeah, that was my job.

00:46:36Guest:So I did that.

00:46:38Marc:Watching the levels.

00:46:39Guest:Yes, watching the levels, doing the things.

00:46:41Guest:So I did that.

00:46:42Guest:Then when I was working at the Apollo, somebody said, you need to go downtown.

00:46:46Guest:You could be a commercial act.

00:46:48Guest:So he sent me to a place downtown called the African Room.

00:46:52Yeah.

00:46:52Guest:of all places.

00:46:55Guest:What was that?

00:46:56Guest:This was a great showcase.

00:46:58Guest:Frankie Darrow used to run it, this guy Frankie Darrow.

00:47:01Guest:And that's where I met Bette Midler and David Brenner and all these people.

00:47:05Guest:Richard Pryor was there.

00:47:06Guest:A lot of people were there, man.

00:47:08Guest:Irene Cara.

00:47:09Guest:1970?

00:47:10Guest:1970, definitely.

00:47:12Guest:And I went in there and it was just this room where they had different black people.

00:47:18Guest:Not angry black people, happy black people.

00:47:21Guest:Who had jobs and they were all happy.

00:47:24Guest:They weren't angry about anything.

00:47:26Guest:They were having pina coladas and things and whatever.

00:47:29Guest:It was all good.

00:47:31Guest:And they had an African boutique and white people in there.

00:47:35Guest:So I got up and I started doing my stuff late, like 1 o'clock in the morning.

00:47:40Guest:And my stuff was Black Panther stuff.

00:47:44Guest:Give me an example of that.

00:47:45Guest:I can't even remember it.

00:47:47Guest:But it was Black Panther stuff.

00:47:48Guest:And people would go, damn.

00:47:50Guest:Damn.

00:47:50Guest:This guy's a little angry.

00:47:52Guest:What's up?

00:47:53Guest:What's the problem?

00:47:53Guest:We're happy.

00:47:54Guest:We got drinks.

00:47:55Guest:We got elephants over here, stuffed elephants.

00:47:59Guest:We got a rotating gorilla.

00:48:00Guest:What's the problem?

00:48:02Guest:Easy.

00:48:03Guest:That was the decor?

00:48:04Guest:Yeah, it's the African room.

00:48:06Guest:You had a big stuffed elephant and then right by the stage, like you'd be by the stage and you're on the stage, and the gorilla would be like right here.

00:48:15Guest:Right in front of you?

00:48:16Guest:Right on the side of you.

00:48:17Guest:And he'd be like...

00:48:18Guest:and then it would have eyes that would rotate it would be green and yellow yeah and i and that was going on while you were performing yes yes and if you were a star performer right they would turn off the the gorilla right if you're a big performer who was a big performer big performer would be like there's a girl named uh susan geppinger uh-huh

00:48:43Guest:She was a big performer.

00:48:44Guest:She would sing On a Carousel, whatever.

00:48:47Guest:That's from a big play.

00:48:48Marc:And Pryor was down there, too?

00:48:49Marc:Pryor was down there, too.

00:48:50Marc:Everybody was there.

00:48:51Marc:Where was he at?

00:48:52Marc:Transitioning into what we knew him as?

00:48:54Guest:No, no, no.

00:48:55Guest:He was commercial.

00:48:55Guest:He was a commercial guy.

00:48:56Guest:He was doing the creation of the earth and running fast from getting beat up and all that stuff like that.

00:49:02Guest:He was doing his stuff, man.

00:49:04Guest:He was doing Ed Sullivan.

00:49:05Guest:He was doing everything.

00:49:06Guest:Was he great?

00:49:07Guest:He was okay.

00:49:09Guest:I mean, you know, not anything spectacular.

00:49:11Guest:He was doing The Village, The Wah.

00:49:13Guest:We worked The Wah together all the time.

00:49:15Guest:He actually got me on at The Wah.

00:49:17Guest:We worked The Wah.

00:49:18Guest:For Manny Roth?

00:49:19Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:21Guest:And I worked for Phil Colby, Paul Colby down at the Bitter End.

00:49:26Guest:All those guys.

00:49:26Guest:Folk City, which is always a great place, Gertie's Folk City, where you go in there, and, you know, on Friday and Saturday they have, like, Dave Van Ronk,

00:49:36Marc:Sure.

00:49:36Marc:He's the guy that Dylan learned from.

00:49:38Guest:Right.

00:49:39Guest:All those kind of guys.

00:49:40Marc:House of the Rising Sun.

00:49:42Guest:Eric Anderson, Carla Bonhoff.

00:49:45Guest:Bonnie Raitt was a folk singer in those days.

00:49:49Guest:Was Woody Allen around?

00:49:50Guest:Woody Allen had long gone, but he was still working the store.

00:49:53Guest:Him and Liza Minnelli were still working the store.

00:49:55Guest:Working what store?

00:49:56Guest:Not the factory.

00:49:56Guest:I mean, not the factory.

00:49:58Guest:The improv.

00:49:59Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:49:59Guest:Yeah, without a doubt.

00:50:00Guest:Woody Allen was still doing sets?

00:50:02Guest:Oh, yeah, definitely.

00:50:03Guest:Because he had a ton of jokes.

00:50:06Guest:Yeah.

00:50:06Guest:And he was always adding jokes to his scripts.

00:50:09Guest:Right.

00:50:09Guest:So he wanted to hear if they worked.

00:50:11Guest:Really?

00:50:12Guest:I had no idea.

00:50:12Guest:Yeah, he would always break them in.

00:50:14Marc:Always.

00:50:14Marc:So before the improv sort of became specifically comedy, back when it was so like- It was never specifically comedy because Bud believed that you had to have a singer.

00:50:22Marc:And it was after hours still-ish.

00:50:24Guest:Yeah, well, we had Bette, we had Liz, we had Elaine Boosler was a singer in those days, Shelly Ackman, that was Kitty Bruce, Lenny Bruce's daughter.

00:50:35Guest:And then we had Buddy Hughes, Al Jarreau, we had Jose Feliciano would come in with his dog.

00:50:43Guest:Was it a planned thing or was it a stop-by thing?

00:50:44Guest:How did it usually work?

00:50:46Guest:This is what the kids nowadays would never understand.

00:50:48Guest:There was no lineup.

00:50:50Guest:You could be there at 7 o'clock.

00:50:52Guest:Yeah.

00:50:53Guest:If Bud said no, then it meant no.

00:50:56Guest:And you just sit there.

00:50:57Guest:You just be there.

00:50:58Guest:Like he would say maybe?

00:51:00Marc:Nothing.

00:51:02Guest:Nothing.

00:51:02Guest:You're just sitting there.

00:51:03Guest:In the bar, in the front bar.

00:51:05Guest:Hi, Bud.

00:51:06Guest:Waiting.

00:51:07Guest:Yeah, waiting.

00:51:08Guest:And our doorman was Danny Aiel.

00:51:09Guest:Yeah.

00:51:10Guest:And so Danny once in a while would come over and go, let me talk to him, man.

00:51:15Guest:Let me say something to him.

00:51:17Guest:I know he saw you, but let me put a word in for you, man.

00:51:20Guest:So when did Bud finally put you on?

00:51:23Guest:I finally got on and I still, to this day, there's still a revolution going on.

00:51:29Marc:Really?

00:51:29Guest:Yes.

00:51:30Guest:Danny got me on.

00:51:32Marc:Danny Aiello.

00:51:32Guest:Yeah, Danny got me on.

00:51:33Marc:Yeah.

00:51:34Guest:Because David Brenner couldn't get on.

00:51:36Guest:Right.

00:51:37Guest:Brenner went to the catch.

00:51:38Guest:He went up to catch.

00:51:40Guest:And Marvin Braverman was in Brenner's place.

00:51:43Guest:Right.

00:51:44Guest:And Marvin was still like the best comic I've ever seen.

00:51:46Guest:He could do everything.

00:51:47Guest:But anyway, so I got on.

00:51:50Guest:to do my thing.

00:51:52Guest:Now, smash cut to what happened.

00:51:54Guest:I had to tell the story.

00:51:55Guest:Smash cut, we move out here to the left coast.

00:51:59Guest:And I'm working the store.

00:52:01Guest:So Bud was not here yet.

00:52:03Guest:You come out alone?

00:52:04Guest:No, I came out with a whole bunch of people.

00:52:06Guest:Steve Landisberg from Barney Miller was here.

00:52:08Guest:A lot of people were here.

00:52:10Guest:So I come out and I'm working the store.

00:52:12Guest:Yeah.

00:52:13Guest:bud loses the improv to silver right so okay i was there when she had it right towards the end yeah well i i you know i wasn't there but i didn't hear good reports yeah but because she because it used to be in the old days she was one of the singers too and it would be like you know we'd have like four comics in a row and then she'd be like 10 o'clock good time yeah and she'd say

00:52:37Guest:I think I want to sing a couple of songs now.

00:52:40Guest:Really?

00:52:43Guest:And Bud would say, well, go right on on.

00:52:45Guest:And Bud would bring her on and do her thing.

00:52:48Guest:So anyway, Bud comes out to the left coast after about two years of Mitzi being open.

00:52:53Yeah.

00:52:53Guest:Bud says, I need you guys to come and help me, man.

00:52:56Guest:You got to get started.

00:52:56Guest:I need you, Richard.

00:52:58Guest:I need Brenner.

00:52:59Guest:I need Freddie.

00:53:00Guest:I need everybody.

00:53:01Guest:All right.

00:53:02Guest:Freddie Prince.

00:53:03Guest:Right.

00:53:03Guest:So everybody goes down there and does their thing.

00:53:06Guest:Mitzi says...

00:53:08Guest:hey, what is this?

00:53:10Guest:I heard you guys are working in that other club, the improv.

00:53:14Guest:Yeah, but she's a friend of ours.

00:53:15Guest:She's going, no.

00:53:17Guest:You're either a comedy store guy or a other club guy.

00:53:22Guest:She wouldn't even say the name.

00:53:24Guest:She said the other club.

00:53:25Guest:Was she terrifying at that point?

00:53:27Guest:She was tough.

00:53:29Guest:She was tough.

00:53:30Guest:Well, you know, and we would say, no, Mitzi's just bud, because in New York, you could work wherever you wanted to work.

00:53:36Marc:No problem.

00:53:36Marc:Right, and all you guys came out from there, and you built your acts there.

00:53:41Guest:Yeah, you could work the improv.

00:53:43Guest:You could go up to the apartment, go to any way, go to the African room, whatever you want to do.

00:53:48Guest:But Mitzi said, no work in the other clubs.

00:53:52Guest:Right.

00:53:52Guest:That's it.

00:53:53Guest:So people still said, eh, what the hell, we go down there.

00:53:56Guest:Mitzi...

00:53:58Guest:would call the improv as a customer.

00:53:59Guest:She had somebody call.

00:54:00Guest:Hi, who's on the show tonight?

00:54:02Guest:And go, you know, Mark's on the show.

00:54:05Guest:You get a call.

00:54:06Guest:Mark, this is Billy over at the comedy store.

00:54:11Guest:Can't work tonight.

00:54:12Guest:We'll see you on the improv show.

00:54:13Guest:Sorry, goodbye.

00:54:14Guest:Yeah.

00:54:14Guest:And you go, what is it?

00:54:15Guest:So what happened was we were forced to make a choice.

00:54:19Guest:Yeah.

00:54:19Guest:So Bud gets all pissed at me.

00:54:21Guest:He says, hey, you know, you're an improv guy.

00:54:23Guest:I said, Bud, I'm already at the store.

00:54:25Guest:I'm in.

00:54:26Guest:I'm established.

00:54:27Marc:You came out before he actually opened up.

00:54:29Guest:Right, right.

00:54:29Guest:I was here.

00:54:30Marc:And you liked it.

00:54:31Guest:It was fine.

00:54:32Guest:I had nothing against Bud.

00:54:33Guest:I never said I wasn't an improv guy.

00:54:35Guest:So Bud says, I need some money.

00:54:38Guest:To help us, you know, continue on.

00:54:40Guest:And you can become a partner in the club.

00:54:43Guest:Yeah.

00:54:44Guest:So me and Freddie and Fred Willard and a few others, we put up two grand.

00:54:50Guest:Yeah.

00:54:50Guest:And we gave it to him.

00:54:51Guest:And I think we never expected to get it back.

00:54:53Guest:I will say this because Bud brings it up every time.

00:54:56Guest:We've been repaid like 100 times.

00:54:58Guest:Yeah.

00:54:58Guest:There's no doubt about it.

00:54:59Guest:So now when I call in, even though I'm still a stockholder, I call in and say, hey, you know, I want to work Reno.

00:55:05Guest:I want to go to my... No.

00:55:07Guest:You're the comedy store guy.

00:55:11Guest:And I go, bud, what?

00:55:14Guest:He says, no, that really hurt.

00:55:17Guest:I said, bud, that was like 25 years ago.

00:55:19Guest:Mitzi put us up against a wall.

00:55:23Guest:Because everybody didn't go.

00:55:25Guest:Boozla and Leno left.

00:55:26Guest:They went to the improv.

00:55:28Guest:Guy stayed.

00:55:29Guest:Richard stayed.

00:55:30Guest:He had big shows at the store.

00:55:32Marc:Comedy store?

00:55:33Guest:Pryor?

00:55:34Guest:Yeah.

00:55:34Guest:And Letterman, too?

00:55:36Guest:Letterman's different.

00:55:36Guest:Letterman started with me, as you know.

00:55:38Guest:Where?

00:55:39Guest:Here.

00:55:40Guest:The first day he ever came out here, he started working for me.

00:55:43Guest:What do you mean?

00:55:44Guest:When I had my writing staff.

00:55:45Guest:This is a whole other thing to the whole interview.

00:55:47Guest:When I hire writers...

00:55:49Marc:So you came out here.

00:55:50Marc:You had already been doing the Chitlin Circuit, doing the Apollo, doing the improv in New York.

00:55:54Marc:So you're pretty seasoned.

00:55:55Marc:You come out here in what, 72?

00:55:56Marc:74.

00:55:58Marc:So you'd already been doing it six, seven years.

00:56:02Marc:Yeah.

00:56:02Marc:You were in.

00:56:03Marc:You had your chops.

00:56:04Marc:Yeah.

00:56:04Marc:Before you got good times.

00:56:06Marc:Right.

00:56:06Guest:No, no.

00:56:07Guest:As soon as I got good times.

00:56:08Guest:That's the only reason I came here.

00:56:10Guest:The first time I came here was for laughing.

00:56:12Guest:I was on Laughing.

00:56:13Guest:Okay.

00:56:14Guest:In the last year or so.

00:56:15Guest:Yeah.

00:56:16Guest:Because I had done some TV.

00:56:17Guest:As a comic.

00:56:19Guest:Hopefully as a comic.

00:56:21Guest:Yeah.

00:56:21Guest:And they saw me.

00:56:22Guest:Dan Rowan, for some reason, thought I was hysterical.

00:56:25Guest:Yeah.

00:56:25Guest:And they flew me out, and I did like the last six of them.

00:56:28Guest:Right.

00:56:29Guest:Because they got banned and kicked out because they were too controversial.

00:56:32Guest:Right.

00:56:32Guest:And then you got seen?

00:56:34Guest:And then I got, you being the comic, no, I got the warm-ups.

00:56:39Guest:Right.

00:56:40Guest:for a show called Colucci's Department.

00:56:42Guest:So you were warming up the audience before the taping?

00:56:44Guest:Yeah, I was warming up.

00:56:46Guest:And Pat Kirkland, who was the head casting person at Tandem, she saw me and she said, you're very funny.

00:56:53Guest:I said, thank you.

00:56:54Guest:And people, you can't even pay attention.

00:56:57Guest:Enough.

00:56:58Guest:And so she says, we're doing a show on the left coast called Good Times.

00:57:03Guest:Would you like to be on the show?

00:57:04Guest:This industry, as you know, people lie, lie, lie.

00:57:10Guest:And people always say, I'm this, I'm that.

00:57:12Guest:I do this story.

00:57:13Guest:I always say, I was coming in today and this guy walked with me and said, hi, I'm Steven Spielberg.

00:57:18Guest:Would you like to be my next movie?

00:57:20Guest:And I looked at the guy and he was an Asian guy.

00:57:23Yeah.

00:57:23Guest:So there's always people telling you stuff.

00:57:27Guest:So I said, she said, do you want to be in this next movie?

00:57:29Guest:I said, sure.

00:57:30Guest:I mean, this TV show.

00:57:32Guest:I said, yeah, let me know.

00:57:34Guest:So the next week, she comes back with Norman Lear.

00:57:37Guest:And Norman Lear says, congratulations, you're on our show.

00:57:39Guest:I didn't know who Norman Lear was.

00:57:41Marc:I'd never seen him.

00:57:42Guest:No, no, never seen him.

00:57:43Guest:I'm in clubs when his stuff is on.

00:57:44Marc:All in the family's been on a while, right?

00:57:46Guest:Yeah.

00:57:46Guest:But I never, I was in working.

00:57:49Guest:Yeah, and Maud has been on.

00:57:50Guest:Yeah, working.

00:57:51Guest:Okay.

00:57:51Guest:Never seen it.

00:57:55Guest:So he says, we need to send you a contract.

00:57:58Guest:So I figure the guy's full of shit.

00:58:00Guest:So I said, all right, send it to the improv.

00:58:03Guest:Because I didn't want to give him my address.

00:58:04Guest:Yeah.

00:58:05Guest:So I get in in two days, and Louis the Cook's there.

00:58:08Guest:Yeah.

00:58:08Guest:And he says, hey, man, you got some mail here.

00:58:12Guest:I go, really?

00:58:13Guest:What the hell is this?

00:58:14Guest:So I look and it's like a contract and I just like don't even pay attention to it.

00:58:19Guest:Really?

00:58:19Guest:So I go to do the warmth the next week and she comes and she says, hey, did you get the contract we sent?

00:58:27Guest:I said, no.

00:58:28Guest:You got no rep, no nothing?

00:58:29Guest:No, nothing.

00:58:31Guest:So he says, I still don't have any.

00:58:36Guest:No rap, nothing.

00:58:37Guest:People don't find it hard to believe.

00:58:38Guest:I've never had representation, ever.

00:58:42Guest:So the next week they sent me the thing again.

00:58:44Guest:So I said, it looks kind of like a contract.

00:58:46Guest:We had a lawyer in the place, Kenny the Drunk.

00:58:49Guest:Kenny the Drunk.

00:58:50Guest:I said, hey, Kenny the Drunk, put your head up for a minute.

00:58:53Guest:Take a look at this.

00:58:53Guest:What is this?

00:58:54Guest:He says, it looks like a contract to me.

00:58:57Yeah.

00:58:57Guest:I said, is it any good?

00:58:59Guest:He says, I guess so.

00:59:02Guest:So I just took it and put it away, and that's it.

00:59:05Guest:So now I go to a napty thing where you go to audition for colleges.

00:59:12Guest:Yeah.

00:59:13Guest:And I came in second in the block booking.

00:59:16Guest:Yeah.

00:59:16Guest:So I got 60 shows.

00:59:17Guest:60 colleges.

00:59:18Guest:Yeah.

00:59:18Guest:That's a lot of bread for you, right?

00:59:21Guest:Yeah.

00:59:21Guest:But I wanted to do it anyway.

00:59:22Guest:So I'm out there doing these colleges.

00:59:24Guest:It's all good.

00:59:25Guest:And I'm in Fargo, North Dakota.

00:59:28Guest:I get a call.

00:59:29Guest:They go, hi, this is Tandem Productions.

00:59:31Guest:They go, yeah?

00:59:32Guest:I said, is this Jimmy Walker?

00:59:33Guest:I said, yeah.

00:59:34Guest:He said, you're supposed to be in Los Angeles.

00:59:37Guest:I said, what?

00:59:38Yeah.

00:59:38Guest:I said, you're supposed to be in Los Angeles.

00:59:39Guest:We sent you tickets to the improv that, you know, we had first class tickets for you to fly.

00:59:44Guest:I said, oh, I never got those tickets.

00:59:48Guest:He says, well, where are you now?

00:59:50Guest:And I go, I'm in Fargo, North Dakota.

00:59:52Guest:He says, go to the Fargo, North Dakota airport.

00:59:55Guest:There'll be a ticket waiting for you to go to Los Angeles.

00:59:58Guest:Yeah.

00:59:59Guest:So me and my closer, I was the opener.

01:00:02Guest:So we're working colleges.

01:00:04Guest:We're doing nooners and afternoon shows.

01:00:06Marc:At the Student Union building.

01:00:07Guest:Student Union building.

01:00:09Guest:And we're opening for, this is a true story, we're opening for a nationwide pong tournament.

01:00:16Guest:And at noon or 1130, you go on, you do your little thing.

01:00:23Guest:And then at 1230, they link these Pong tournaments up.

01:00:27Guest:And there's a championship thing going on.

01:00:29Guest:People are fighting throughout the country in these colleges for the Pong championship.

01:00:33Guest:It's important.

01:00:34Guest:It's very important.

01:00:35Guest:So, like, you're doing the Pong thing, and if you stay on too long, like past 1230, you'll hear from the crowd, Pong, Pong, Pong, Pong, Pong.

01:00:46Guest:So you have to finish up.

01:00:47Guest:Well, this is the first video game.

01:00:48Guest:They were very excited.

01:00:50Guest:People were, I mean, it was a major thing.

01:00:52Guest:People, I mean, lined up.

01:00:53Guest:People got on, like, scarves and hats and hand things, and they're ready to do it.

01:00:59Guest:So I said to them, we're leaving Fergal about 1 o'clock.

01:01:03Guest:I said, hey, do me a favor.

01:01:05Guest:Pull into the airport here and see if there's any airline.

01:01:09Guest:You thought someone was fucking with you?

01:01:11Guest:This is a lying business.

01:01:13Guest:People lie all the time.

01:01:16Guest:Lie, lie, liars.

01:01:18Guest:If I had half the gigs that I was promised, I would have no time to talk to you.

01:01:23Guest:Every day, someone, hey, I produce and I shut up.

01:01:27Guest:So you just didn't buy it.

01:01:28Guest:So I go there and say, is there a ticket for Jimmy Walker?

01:01:33Guest:Yes, first class ticket.

01:01:34Guest:We have a flight leaving at 4 o'clock.

01:01:36Guest:So I said to Michael, Michael, I'm taking my bags, and I won't be on the next gig.

01:01:42Guest:I'm going to L.A.

01:01:44Guest:I said, really?

01:01:45Guest:What are you going there for?

01:01:46Guest:I said, I got tickets.

01:01:48Guest:You know, whatever.

01:01:51Guest:Seriously?

01:01:53Guest:Yeah.

01:01:54Guest:Okay.

01:01:54Guest:So I called my man, Steve Lannisberg, and he's doing the Bobby Darin show at the time.

01:01:58Guest:He's not even on Barney Miller yet.

01:02:00Guest:No, oh no, oh no.

01:02:01Guest:Funny stand-up.

01:02:02Guest:Yeah, oh, he's a great guy, finest human being around.

01:02:05Guest:He passed, didn't he?

01:02:07Guest:Yeah, oh, definitely.

01:02:09Guest:And so I call Landsberg and I say, hey, Landsberg, Chalkman, I should call him Chalkman.

01:02:14Guest:Chalkman, I'm coming into La La Land, pick me up at the airport.

01:02:19Guest:He says, really?

01:02:20Guest:I said, yeah, just drive out and pick me up.

01:02:23Guest:Now, none of us knew how to drive.

01:02:25Guest:Steve was just learning how to drive.

01:02:27Guest:The unfortunate thing.

01:02:28Guest:Because you're all from New York.

01:02:29Guest:No reason to drive.

01:02:29Guest:You don't have to drive anywhere.

01:02:31Guest:Steve, the first car he got, he didn't know how to drive.

01:02:34Guest:It was a stick shift.

01:02:35Guest:Yeah.

01:02:35Guest:Instead of it getting automatic, which would be the way to go.

01:02:38Guest:Yeah.

01:02:38Guest:But no.

01:02:39Guest:So he picks me up, and we're bumping down La Ciena.

01:02:44Guest:Yeah.

01:02:44Guest:Doesn't know how to use the clutch.

01:02:46Guest:Doesn't know how to use anything.

01:02:48Guest:So we get to the farmer's daughter motel.

01:02:50Guest:That's where they told me to go.

01:02:52Guest:Over on Fairfax.

01:02:53Guest:Yeah.

01:02:55Guest:By CBS.

01:02:55Guest:Right.

01:02:56Guest:So I said, hey, Landsberg, where is the comedy place around here so we can work out?

01:02:59Guest:Because I don't know what the hell these people will call me eventually.

01:03:02Guest:I don't know.

01:03:02Marc:So he said, come on, you flew out.

01:03:05Marc:You're like, I don't know what, I just need to work, do some standup.

01:03:07Marc:That's exactly what happened.

01:03:09Guest:Not like, where are these people that flew here?

01:03:10Guest:Oh, I didn't care about it.

01:03:11Guest:Come on.

01:03:12Guest:No, this is true.

01:03:13Guest:Nowadays, you know, now it's a big deal.

01:03:15Guest:It wasn't a big, see, because you got to remember, our thing was Carson.

01:03:18Guest:Okay.

01:03:19Guest:So if Carson had said he'd fly me out, I would say, whoa, let's get ready for it.

01:03:23Marc:But this was just some crack.

01:03:24Marc:You don't know who Norman Lear is.

01:03:25Marc:I don't know anything.

01:03:26Marc:You didn't think to call anybody or ask anybody or anything.

01:03:29Marc:No.

01:03:29Guest:No, nothing.

01:03:30Guest:I had tickets and, you know, I had a couple of checks from the colleges, so I was cool.

01:03:35Guest:I had a little dough, and I had a paid-for hotel room, so I was good.

01:03:39Guest:So we go over to the store, and I'm meeting all the guys from the left coast and this and that and that, Paul Mooney and all these, Charlie Flesher and all these guys, and we're hanging out doing it.

01:03:49Guest:So we go down to Cantor's, have some food.

01:03:54Guest:We're talking there until about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning.

01:03:57Guest:I walk on over to the farmer's door to the motel.

01:03:59Guest:So I'm in bed sleeping about 9 o'clock.

01:04:02Guest:Call, production guy.

01:04:04Guest:Hi, this is production assistant in Good Times.

01:04:07Guest:Yeah, what do you want?

01:04:08Guest:He says, we have a call time of 9 o'clock.

01:04:11Guest:It's 9.15.

01:04:13Guest:Could you come across the street, please?

01:04:15Guest:He said, come across the street for what?

01:04:17Guest:He says, you're on the show, and we're kind of doing the show here.

01:04:21Guest:And I said, oh, okay.

01:04:24Guest:So I walk over there and I said, hi, I'm Jimmy Walker, supposed to be on the show.

01:04:28Guest:And they go, oh yes, they're waiting for you.

01:04:31Guest:So I go up there and they say, did you look at your script?

01:04:34Guest:And they said, what script?

01:04:35Guest:I don't have a script.

01:04:36Guest:So we left it at the hotel.

01:04:39Guest:They must have thought you were retarded.

01:04:41Guest:So I go in there, and they give me a script, and I'm reading the script, and the network is there, the Lear is there, everybody's there, a whole big table thing.

01:04:53Marc:The original cast.

01:04:54Marc:So you've already made the cast on the first episode wait for you, and you walk in, and you're like, I kind of got an idea what this is about.

01:05:02Marc:So what, John Amos, that's his name, right?

01:05:03Marc:Everybody's there.

01:05:04Marc:Everyone, Esther Roll, the whole cast.

01:05:06Guest:Everybody's there.

01:05:07Guest:And you're late.

01:05:08Guest:You're late.

01:05:09Guest:I didn't think it was happening.

01:05:10Guest:But anyway...

01:05:11Guest:But you were late, right?

01:05:12Guest:I was late.

01:05:13Guest:I was late.

01:05:14Guest:So then we're reading the script, and somebody would say, yeah, we're going to the house.

01:05:19Guest:And you would hear, ha, ha, ha.

01:05:23Guest:And I go, the hell is he laughing at?

01:05:25Guest:There's nothing funny in here.

01:05:27Guest:So we're reading it, reading it.

01:05:28Guest:And I'm sitting next to Norman Lear, because I knew Norman Lear from New York.

01:05:31Guest:I saw him.

01:05:32Guest:You met him briefly.

01:05:33Guest:Yeah, I met him.

01:05:34Guest:So I say to Lear,

01:05:36Guest:This line sucks.

01:05:38Guest:Why are people laughing at this?

01:05:39Guest:This is not funny.

01:05:41Guest:What is this show?

01:05:42Guest:What's happening here?

01:05:43Guest:And he didn't say anything.

01:05:45Guest:So we finished reading it and everybody applauded.

01:05:47Guest:They said, what are we applauding about?

01:05:49Guest:There's nothing here.

01:05:50Guest:What is this?

01:05:51Guest:So then Alan Manning, our executive producer, came over and he says,

01:05:54Guest:Look, we're doing a show here and people work very hard on the show to write it and direct it and produce it.

01:06:04Guest:And if you have a problem with anything, I keep it to yourself.

01:06:10Guest:Bring it to the producers and stuff like that.

01:06:13Guest:But don't.

01:06:14Guest:bring it around the table and say it out loud to everyone.

01:06:19Guest:Because you're, you know, it's very bad, you're embarrassing the people and everything.

01:06:23Guest:So really, a little decorum please.

01:06:27Guest:So I went, oh, okay.

01:06:28Guest:So then I went home and the guy calls me and says, have you learned the script?

01:06:34Guest:I said, I haven't even looked at the script other than what I saw.

01:06:36Guest:He says, it would behoove you to learn the script.

01:06:40Guest:So me and Landsberg, we rolled the script, we went over it, I got it.

01:06:44Guest:So the next day I had the script down, and I was still saying to people, I don't get any of this, none of this shit's funny.

01:06:50Guest:And they go, I got called into the office again.

01:06:54Guest:And Norman Learnell, man, he said,

01:06:56Guest:This really is not going to be the way we're going to do this.

01:07:01Guest:You're going to have to really conform to what we're doing here, you know, because we think it's good and we're going to go with it.

01:07:07Guest:We don't mind changes, but please.

01:07:11Guest:Play along.

01:07:13Guest:So I didn't say anything about anything.

01:07:18Guest:So occasionally I would throw stuff in and they would say, where'd that come from?

01:07:24Guest:And go, I thought that'd be funnier.

01:07:26Guest:And they'd say, well, let's go upstairs and see what they say.

01:07:29Guest:And they'd say, no, not funny.

01:07:31Guest:Our stuff is good.

01:07:32Guest:So then after a while, they went with a little bit of my stuff.

01:07:36Guest:Yeah.

01:07:37Guest:so then i realized it was hard to get stuff in yeah so what i would do is wait till tape day yeah and i go to the camera guys and i just go is this funny and they go yeah that's great man throw it i said i'm gonna do that give me camera four yeah and let's do it so i would throw it in and people would go what the what what while it's taping yeah and it kills the only that's the only way you could do it did it kill

01:08:00Guest:Here's what happened some stuff would kill yeah, and you and people would say where did that come from?

01:08:08Guest:I go, you know this cool, but what it didn't work.

01:08:11Guest:Holy shit.

01:08:14Guest:Yeah, I heard about it.

01:08:16Guest:My ass was red and

01:08:18Guest:I mean, it was, oh, it's like a dildo in your butt.

01:08:22Marc:But it sounds like from the get-go, you weren't really a team player.

01:08:26Marc:So what was going on with the rest of the cast?

01:08:28Marc:I was a team player, but I didn't know what game we were playing.

01:08:31Marc:But fairly quickly, you surfaced as the star of the show.

01:08:36Marc:Well, whatever.

01:08:37Marc:What do you mean?

01:08:38Marc:Where did Dynamite come from?

01:08:40Guest:Well, Dynamite came from our director-producer who took over later on, John Rich.

01:08:47Guest:And I did it, just a little one, right?

01:08:50Guest:And John Rich says, that's great.

01:08:53Guest:Leave that in.

01:08:54Guest:And I go...

01:08:55Guest:What?

01:08:55Guest:He says, that dynamite thing.

01:08:57Guest:And he set up an ISO cam.

01:08:58Guest:He did it the way he thought I should do it.

01:09:01Guest:And I expanded on it.

01:09:02Guest:And I said, John, this is stupid.

01:09:05Guest:In the middle of a show, you're going to have a guy just stand there and say dynamite for no reason?

01:09:10Guest:He said, yeah.

01:09:11Guest:I said, John, people are not that stupid.

01:09:15Guest:He said, yes, they are.

01:09:19Guest:And that was your hook.

01:09:21Guest:That was the hook to the whole deal.

01:09:23Guest:And then, as Lear would say, because Lear left us, because Lear did like 10 shows.

01:09:28Guest:And since you know about doing sitcoms, Lear was actively involved in every sitcom.

01:09:33Guest:I'm talking about three shows in, knowing what this next thing, who's doing what.

01:09:39Guest:We were the only show he left.

01:09:41Guest:And he said it.

01:09:42Guest:He said, even when he does the retrospective on PBS, he'll say,

01:09:46Guest:You know, we just got dynamited out.

01:09:49Guest:It was just bigger than everybody.

01:09:51Guest:We couldn't do anything about it because he hated it.

01:09:53Guest:He just absolutely hated it.

01:09:56Marc:So it didn't serve the purpose of his other shows, which was challenge the status quo and make the message.

01:10:03Marc:You just sort of transcended.

01:10:05Guest:It became like Michael Buffer's let's get ready to rumble.

01:10:08Guest:No matter who's fighting, you know that that phrase is coming sometime.

01:10:14Guest:But did it bother you?

01:10:15Guest:No, because I'm a comic, so I'm used to agita.

01:10:19Guest:I'm used to hatred.

01:10:20Marc:Yeah, but I mean, ultimately, it must have, fairly overnight, you got more of an audience.

01:10:27Marc:Not really, because I was at the store.

01:10:29Guest:So the store was different.

01:10:30Marc:And you didn't have a booking agent.

01:10:31Guest:I didn't have an agent.

01:10:32Guest:It didn't bother me.

01:10:33Guest:But what do you mean, didn't bother you?

01:10:34Guest:You didn't think to get a fucking agent so you could go make a- There was nobody who wanted to handle me.

01:10:38Guest:How is that possible, Jimmy?

01:10:39Guest:People say it all the time.

01:10:40Guest:How is that possible?

01:10:43Guest:There was no agent.

01:10:44Guest:You must have been a real pain in the ass.

01:10:46Guest:Not at all.

01:10:47Guest:Not at all.

01:10:48Guest:Nobody wanted to handle me.

01:10:49Guest:I'm talking about Norman Brokaw.

01:10:51Marc:I'm talking about... But they didn't see dollar signs with the dynamite kid going out.

01:10:57Guest:Here's the way agents felt.

01:11:00Guest:I'll tell you exactly the way they felt.

01:11:01Guest:Because they've all seen me because I was at the store.

01:11:03Guest:They go, Jimmy Walker?

01:11:05Guest:Really?

01:11:06Yeah.

01:11:06Guest:Wow.

01:11:08Marc:But the show was number one, right?

01:11:11Marc:We were in the top 10.

01:11:12Marc:Okay.

01:11:13Marc:All right.

01:11:13Marc:So that sounds ridiculous to me.

01:11:15Guest:I know people say it all the time.

01:11:17Guest:Absolutely no agency, no nothing.

01:11:20Guest:Nothing.

01:11:20Guest:All I had was a lawyer.

01:11:22Guest:And I had a lawyer and I said, since I can't get an agency, maybe I should start my own management company.

01:11:29Guest:Okay.

01:11:29Guest:Which I did.

01:11:31Guest:Ebony Genius.

01:11:32Guest:Yeah.

01:11:33Guest:And the people I signed, I signed David Letterman.

01:11:36Guest:I signed Jay Leno.

01:11:37Guest:I signed Elaine Boosler.

01:11:39Guest:I signed Shirley Hemphill.

01:11:41Guest:I signed a writer named April Kelly who did Barney Miller.

01:11:44Guest:And the list goes on.

01:11:46Guest:I signed Jack Handy from Saturday Night Live.

01:11:50Guest:What year?

01:11:50Guest:75, 76.

01:11:53Marc:You signed them.

01:11:54Marc:You represented all of them.

01:11:56Guest:I had my lawyer.

01:11:57Guest:My lawyer was with me.

01:11:57Guest:He did the footwork.

01:12:00Guest:And all those guys were with me.

01:12:03Guest:And they were on my writing staff, too.

01:12:05Guest:I had Wayne Klein, who produced Married with Children.

01:12:09Guest:Larry Jacobson, who's still on the Leno show and produced Married with Children.

01:12:12Guest:Mulholland and Barry, who produced the Johnny Carson show.

01:12:15Guest:They were just starting out.

01:12:16Guest:I had Byron Allen who worked with me through all his high school years and he was signed with me.

01:12:23Guest:I had Ashton Curtis who did Shelly Duvall's Fairytale Theater.

01:12:26Guest:They didn't want to sign them.

01:12:27Guest:So what happened to this agency?

01:12:29Guest:Here's what happened.

01:12:32Guest:Helen Kushnick

01:12:33Guest:came in and she married Jerry Kushnick, my lawyer.

01:12:38Guest:And they became my quasi-partners.

01:12:42Guest:And Helen says, you know what, this Ebony Genius thing, because I would bring people in like I would have Leno.

01:12:49Guest:And at that time Leno was the hottest stand-up.

01:12:53Guest:pure stand-up.

01:12:55Guest:And people loved Leno.

01:12:57Guest:And this is just way before all this stuff was happening.

01:13:01Guest:So they'd have to send pictures out of Leno, faxes, this, that, that, this.

01:13:05Guest:And they would go, this sucks, man.

01:13:08Guest:We're sending all this stuff out about Leno.

01:13:10Guest:We're sending all this stuff out about Letterman.

01:13:12Guest:I was the one who got Letterman on the Mary Tyler Moore show.

01:13:15Guest:He did the Mary Tyler Moore summer show and he did the Starland Vocal Bands show.

01:13:19Guest:That's why I do Letterman because he's paying me back, I guess, for whatever, otherwise he doesn't need me.

01:13:25Guest:But it's that kind of stuff like that.

01:13:27Guest:And so I had these people.

01:13:28Guest:So Helen said, look, why don't you let us handle the management stuff?

01:13:33Guest:We'll give you some money and buy you out, and we'll just deal with it from here.

01:13:38Guest:So I was a little reluctant, but I said, okay.

01:13:44Guest:So I let them handle it.

01:13:46Guest:They gave me 10 grand, and they later sold the management company for seven mil.

01:13:53Guest:And they had everybody.

01:13:55Guest:I mean, because that's all the people I brought.

01:13:56Guest:What was the name of the agency?

01:13:57Guest:management consultants.

01:14:00Guest:And I had all the guys, all the writers, because when you start, and see, I'm a guy who deals with people when they first come.

01:14:09Guest:When you start, nobody will talk to you.

01:14:11Guest:No one.

01:14:12Guest:And what happens is guys write great material.

01:14:15Guest:But nobody's listening because the first thing people say to you, what have you done?

01:14:20Guest:They haven't done anything.

01:14:21Guest:They just are funny.

01:14:23Guest:That's it.

01:14:24Guest:That's all they do.

01:14:24Guest:They're funny.

01:14:25Guest:That's it.

01:14:26Guest:They just get it.

01:14:28Guest:And they don't want to do the work.

01:14:29Guest:You have to do the work.

01:14:30Guest:And plus, these guys are always bitching.

01:14:32Guest:They complain.

01:14:32Guest:I always say that's one of the reasons the show didn't bother me because I had 31 guys that worked with me.

01:14:39Guest:And I had to listen to everybody.

01:14:41Yeah.

01:14:41Guest:Everybody was bitching about something.

01:14:43Marc:Complaining comics.

01:14:43Marc:Everybody.

01:14:44Marc:What about that guy, LeBitkin?

01:14:47Marc:Steve LeBitkin.

01:14:48Marc:Wasn't he involved in the strike and stuff and that kind of stuff?

01:14:51Guest:The strike was a whole other thing.

01:14:53Guest:The strike was Mooney and Tom Dreesen and Jay Leno and Elaine Boosler.

01:15:01Guest:Those people were involved in the strike.

01:15:03Guest:I always said this when we had the strike.

01:15:05Marc:This was just to get paid $20?

01:15:07Marc:No.

01:15:08Guest:No.

01:15:08Guest:Here's what happened.

01:15:10Guest:Bob Shaw and Michael Rapport.

01:15:12Guest:You may know either one of them.

01:15:14Guest:I know Bob, yeah.

01:15:15Guest:We went to Cantor's or we went down to someplace.

01:15:19Guest:And we were ordering food.

01:15:21Guest:We just worked the main room, 600 people jam.

01:15:24Guest:And Bob didn't have any money.

01:15:26Guest:And we said, you know, we just worked the main room, 600 people.

01:15:29Guest:Shouldn't we be picking up a little coin?

01:15:32Marc:She wouldn't pay anybody.

01:15:32Marc:It was policy.

01:15:34Guest:This is the story.

01:15:35Guest:You got to hear this out.

01:15:37Guest:So she had so much power, so much this, nobody wanted to mess with her.

01:15:43Guest:And somebody said, you know, maybe we should get paid.

01:15:46Guest:And that's like somebody say, maybe we should bend your mother over.

01:15:49Guest:And you go, what?

01:15:52Guest:So finally, Mooney, of all people, Mooney said, we got to get paid.

01:15:57Guest:We got to get some money.

01:15:59Guest:And the people said, yeah, we need some money, but how much should we ask for?

01:16:03Guest:Yeah.

01:16:04Guest:The number was five bucks a show.

01:16:09Guest:So you go, well, it's almost like a Mikey thing.

01:16:11Guest:You said, well, who's going to go in and talk to her?

01:16:14Guest:I'm not going in and talk.

01:16:16Guest:Well, I'm not going in.

01:16:18Guest:Mooney says, I'll go in.

01:16:21Guest:So Mooney went in and said, Mitzi, you know, we're working here both rooms, the original and the big room, and the comics feel that we should get paid five bucks a show.

01:16:36Guest:And then she says, you ungrateful fucking bastards.

01:16:40Guest:How dare you?

01:16:42Guest:This is a showcase room.

01:16:43Guest:I've had people come out of this room from Jimmy Walker to this, to that, to Jay Leno.

01:16:49Guest:How dare you?

01:16:50Guest:I've been putting you guys on so you can be seen.

01:16:53Guest:And you sons of bitches come here to ask me for money.

01:16:57Guest:Get the fuck out of my office.

01:17:00Guest:And you go, it's the old joke.

01:17:02Guest:Well, I guess the fuck is out of the question.

01:17:06Guest:Maybe not with her.

01:17:08Guest:So Mooney comes back and I said, well, we say, how'd it go?

01:17:13Guest:And when Mooney says this, you know it's a problem.

01:17:16Guest:Mooney says, not too good.

01:17:17Guest:Yeah.

01:17:19Guest:I said, well, what'd she say?

01:17:21Guest:She just said she's not going to think about it, and it's not going to work.

01:17:26Guest:So then Gallagher and a few other people said, well, then we got to rally the troops, get the comics together, this and that, that, and this.

01:17:33Guest:Mitzi put up a sign in the waitress area.

01:17:35Guest:She says, if anybody brings up money, strike, union, you will never, ever be here again.

01:17:45Guest:I said, oh, OK.

01:17:47Guest:So Mooney, of course, brought it up because she loves Mooney.

01:17:50Guest:And Mooney went back in and said, Mitzi, the comics think we should do four to five bucks a show.

01:17:57Guest:And if we don't, we're going on strike.

01:18:02Guest:And she fucking fell out laughing.

01:18:04Guest:She said, really, you fucking asshole?

01:18:07Guest:Go on strike.

01:18:08Guest:Fuck you all.

01:18:10Guest:That's it.

01:18:10Guest:This is ridiculous.

01:18:12Guest:Get the fuck out of here.

01:18:14Guest:So now it's like three months after that meeting.

01:18:20Guest:And Gallagher and Boozland said, we can't keep saying we're going.

01:18:27Guest:We got to go.

01:18:30Guest:So one day we picked a day.

01:18:33Guest:We sent her a letter and told her whatever.

01:18:34Guest:She threw it out her window in pieces.

01:18:38Guest:So we said, okay.

01:18:41Okay.

01:18:41Guest:We're going, and everybody was scared shitless.

01:18:47Guest:So we went, and I never went on the thing, on the picket line.

01:18:53Guest:Yeah.

01:18:53Guest:But everybody else did.

01:18:54Guest:Yeah.

01:18:55Guest:And we're out there, and we're scared, and then the press started coming by.

01:19:00Guest:They go, what is this?

01:19:00Guest:And then we had our sides.

01:19:02Guest:No yucks, no bucks, no whatever.

01:19:04Guest:We had the whole thing.

01:19:05Guest:And people crossed the line.

01:19:07Guest:Gary Shanling.

01:19:09Guest:Mike.

01:19:11Guest:Mike Binder.

01:19:12Guest:Oh, Binder, sure.

01:19:13Guest:Yeah, Mike Binder crossed the line and a few other people crossed the line.

01:19:16Guest:And it really created a lot of tension with the comics.

01:19:21Guest:So we're out there for like three days.

01:19:23Guest:Mooney's leading the way.

01:19:25Guest:The press comes by.

01:19:26Guest:Dreesen happens to be standing there.

01:19:29Guest:They go, what's going on here?

01:19:30Guest:Tom Dreesen.

01:19:31Guest:Right.

01:19:32Guest:And Dreesen starts explaining what's going on.

01:19:34Guest:Not the leader, not involved.

01:19:36Guest:All of a sudden, Tom Dreesen's the leader.

01:19:39Guest:You go, what the hell?

01:19:41Guest:He just happened to be standing here.

01:19:44Guest:So he goes in there and he becomes a spokesman.

01:19:47Guest:He goes on all the shows.

01:19:48Guest:They fly him to New York.

01:19:50Guest:They do this.

01:19:50Guest:They do that.

01:19:52Guest:And then me and this other guy, Danny Mora, is coming.

01:19:55Guest:We become the neutral.

01:19:56Guest:We become like Switzerland.

01:19:57Guest:I understand both sides of the thing.

01:20:01Guest:So I'm staying out of the thing.

01:20:03Guest:So what I say is we go down to the Labor Relations Board.

01:20:08Guest:Actually, and federal court, this is like a major deal.

01:20:13Guest:Yeah.

01:20:13Guest:Put it in front of the thing.

01:20:14Guest:And Mitzi finally agrees when we get to the labor relations court, because it's like serious now.

01:20:21Guest:I mean, there's lawyers, there's real stuff involved.

01:20:24Guest:And she agrees to pay 25 bucks a show.

01:20:28Guest:And so then Bud says he'll do it retroactively.

01:20:31Guest:Whatever comes down, come to my place.

01:20:33Marc:I'll meet Mitzi.

01:20:34Marc:I don't want to get in trouble.

01:20:37Guest:I'm in.

01:20:37Guest:So then we said, you know what, Mitzi?

01:20:40Guest:We think that the main room should be more than 25 bucks.

01:20:46Guest:Because it's like a thing.

01:20:48Guest:Four or 500 people.

01:20:48Guest:Right.

01:20:49Guest:So she says, we'll make this the best of.

01:20:53Guest:And I'll take half.

01:20:55Guest:And then you guys will split the half between the six of you.

01:20:57Guest:Yeah, still like that.

01:20:58Guest:Right.

01:20:59Guest:Yeah, I set that up.

01:21:01Guest:I set that up.

01:21:01Guest:Yeah.

01:21:02Guest:But the one thing I set up that never got done was I said there can't be any retroactive abuse.

01:21:09Guest:And by that I meant we had a room in Westwood, which is a horrible room.

01:21:13Guest:The Comedy Store in Westwood.

01:21:14Guest:Right.

01:21:15Guest:And I said you can't send somebody who's getting 10 o'clock spots

01:21:20Guest:in the main room, down here, to Westwood.

01:21:23Guest:She says, okay, I won't do that.

01:21:25Guest:First week, Leno, Skip Stevenson, everybody, Westwood.

01:21:30Guest:You go, what the hell?

01:21:31Guest:Elaine Boozler, Westwood.

01:21:33Guest:What the hell is going on?

01:21:35Marc:That was your punishment.

01:21:36Marc:That's just a payback.

01:21:38Guest:It's like being a baseball player.

01:21:39Guest:You can sit down, not to triple A, double A. You got your money.

01:21:43Guest:Shut up.

01:21:43Guest:And you just go, oh, my God.

01:21:46Guest:So I went in and I said to Mitzi, hey, Mitzi, what's all this, you know, with guys going down to Westwood?

01:21:51Guest:She said, it just jammed up and I couldn't get anywhere.

01:21:54Guest:I said, these are 10 o'clock people.

01:21:56Guest:I'm going to get them back up.

01:21:57Guest:They're getting 10 o'clock in Westwood.

01:21:59Guest:I said, 10 o'clock in Westwood sucks.

01:22:00Marc:Yeah.

01:22:01Marc:And Kennison was managing that room?

01:22:03Marc:Kennison and Alan Stevens.

01:22:06Marc:So when you had the management agency, Leno and Letterman, all these guys were writing for you.

01:22:09Marc:Right.

01:22:10Marc:And you went on, unmanaged, unrepresented, and performed stand-up for 20, 30 years.

01:22:15Marc:Right.

01:22:16Marc:And now you wrote this amazing book.

01:22:19Marc:And a lot of the stuff we talked about is in it.

01:22:21Guest:Yeah.

01:22:21Guest:Now, see, the thing is, people don't realize.

01:22:23Guest:People say, well, you just got the book out and whatever.

01:22:26Guest:It's great.

01:22:27Guest:Well, the reality of the book is I wrote the book 30 years ago.

01:22:30Guest:Really?

01:22:31Guest:Yes.

01:22:31Guest:Couldn't get it done.

01:22:32Guest:Yeah.

01:22:33Guest:I could not get it done.

01:22:34Guest:Too busy.

01:22:34Guest:No.

01:22:35Guest:Nobody would buy it.

01:22:37Guest:That's the reality of it.

01:22:38Guest:People think, oh, of course they buy a book from you.

01:22:41Guest:No one would, I feel like the guy in Tootsie, when the guy says, no one will hire you.

01:22:49Guest:This is what happened here.

01:22:50Guest:Finally, I got an agent, the sixth agent that I had on this thing.

01:22:55Guest:And the agent called me and he said, look.

01:22:57Guest:I've taken this thing around, tried my best, man.

01:23:03Marc:I'm trying to figure out why the hell this happened to you.

01:23:06Guest:He says, we got two more spots.

01:23:09Guest:He says, if we don't get these two spots, one of them, we're done.

01:23:13Guest:Because I really busted my ass on this one.

01:23:16Guest:So the first guy came back, no.

01:23:20Guest:Yeah.

01:23:20Guest:Okay.

01:23:20Guest:Second guy, I'm in my kitchen having a chopped ham sandwich.

01:23:26Guest:Yeah.

01:23:26Guest:And I have my phone there.

01:23:27Guest:Yeah.

01:23:28Guest:And I see his number come up.

01:23:29Guest:And I go, fuck.

01:23:31Guest:turned down again yeah so I called him back because I wanted to finish my sandwich before the bad news yeah before the bad news I said Adam you tried your best man that's all you can do and I appreciate the effort and

01:23:49Guest:You know, we're going to forge on and see what we can do, see if we can get this thing done.

01:23:53Guest:He says, we sold it.

01:23:55Guest:And I said, just because we didn't sell it doesn't mean that you're not good or anything like that.

01:24:00Guest:He says, no, we sold it.

01:24:01Guest:And you put an all-out effort on it, man.

01:24:04Guest:You know, you tried all in all.

01:24:06Guest:And he says, we sold the book.

01:24:09Guest:And I said, what?

01:24:11Guest:I said, are you kidding?

01:24:13Guest:He said, no.

01:24:14Guest:I said, you know what?

01:24:16Guest:Call me tomorrow.

01:24:17Guest:And tell me it again, because I don't believe it.

01:24:22Guest:And he called me the next day.

01:24:23Guest:He says, no bullshit.

01:24:25Guest:I'm going to send you out a fax right now in an email.

01:24:29Guest:And a book is sold.

01:24:30Guest:And I couldn't believe it was.

01:24:33Guest:But the thing is.

01:24:34Guest:It was almost anticlimactic because everybody else I knew had a book and they sold their books.

01:24:41Guest:Mooney sold his book.

01:24:42Guest:Lewis sold his book.

01:24:44Guest:Brenner sold his book.

01:24:45Guest:Everybody sold the book.

01:24:46Guest:It was the same thing in stand-up.

01:24:47Guest:When I was doing television,

01:24:50Guest:I was the last guy of all of us to get on TV.

01:24:54Guest:So it was always Brennan's philosophy that you must be seasoned and ready for television.

01:24:59Guest:Not now.

01:25:00Guest:This has nothing to do with now.

01:25:02Guest:This is all different now.

01:25:04Guest:Everything's back then.

01:25:05Guest:Since when you do Johnny Carson, you got to have like six shots ready because he may call you back to next week and you got to have a shot ready.

01:25:11Guest:You can't have any bullshit because this is a philosophy that we always had the old guys like me.

01:25:16Guest:If they say, here's Mark, this is his first network TV appearance.

01:25:23Guest:Watch it.

01:25:24Guest:You know why?

01:25:25Guest:Because that's the best shit this guy's got.

01:25:28Guest:He has no better stuff than this.

01:25:32Guest:This is the shit that is going to Waterloo, Iowa, Davenport, Iowa, Altoona, Pennsylvania at 1 o'clock in the morning.

01:25:40Guest:This is the killer monster stuff.

01:25:44Guest:This is it.

01:25:45Guest:Yeah.

01:25:45Guest:So I always say, don't worry about the first shot.

01:25:49Guest:Watch the fourth shot.

01:25:51Guest:That's when shit starts getting weak.

01:25:55Guest:That's when it starts getting shaky after the fourth shot.

01:25:59Guest:Then it's, so, where you from?

01:26:03Guest:That's your opener.

01:26:05Guest:Well, shit, so you're doing all right?

01:26:07Guest:I'm in the battle, man.

01:26:09Guest:It's a fight, brother.

01:26:10Guest:I'm on that phone.

01:26:11Guest:I'm sending out 200 emails every day begging for work, begging, fighting, scratching, crawling.

01:26:18Guest:It's always a fight.

01:26:18Guest:I would love to say this is really easy.

01:26:22Guest:There's no problems.

01:26:23Guest:No!

01:26:25Guest:It's hard!

01:26:25Guest:But Letterman puts you on.

01:26:27Marc:Leno put you on?

01:26:27Guest:No.

01:26:28Guest:Me and Leno, you know, because Leno started with me.

01:26:31Guest:And Leno and me, we had the same management with Helen.

01:26:35Guest:And I don't know if you ever saw the movie Late Shift where Kathy Bates played Helen.

01:26:41Guest:Helen would always say, you know, I would say, let's get Leno this...

01:26:45Guest:Fuck Jay Leno.

01:26:46Guest:He's a piece of shit.

01:26:48Guest:I don't need him.

01:26:48Guest:You brought him here.

01:26:49Guest:I don't really want him here.

01:26:50Guest:And Leno had his hat and his belt and his jeans and his motorcycle.

01:26:55Guest:His pipe.

01:26:56Guest:Definitely his pipe where he would hold court and bullshit and tell you what you get.

01:27:00Guest:Because Leno always lies about this.

01:27:02Guest:He did a show in 77.

01:27:03Guest:He did the Carson show.

01:27:05Guest:He did fine.

01:27:06Guest:Yeah.

01:27:07Guest:Carson just didn't like him.

01:27:08Guest:Yeah.

01:27:08Guest:You know, that's just, you know, there's guys who do well and you see and you go, it's not my thing, you know, whatever.

01:27:13Guest:So Carson didn't like him.

01:27:14Guest:But Leno was acknowledged as the guy.

01:27:17Guest:Yeah.

01:27:17Guest:And Leno would say, well, why are all these guys getting shots and I'm not getting a shot?

01:27:21Guest:I'd say, Leno, I don't know.

01:27:22Guest:So I was a B comic on The Tonight Show.

01:27:25Guest:Yeah.

01:27:26Guest:But that, I mean...

01:27:27Guest:When I got out here, they knew I was on a show, but they still didn't like me because they saw me in New York, they didn't like me then.

01:27:34Guest:So they didn't like me now.

01:27:36Guest:So Carson was not the kind of guy that says, well, he's on the show, put him on.

01:27:39Guest:Carson didn't give a fuck.

01:27:41Guest:They didn't care.

01:27:42Guest:So what happened was when guest hosts came on, there's a B-list.

01:27:47Guest:And they put you on the B list.

01:27:48Guest:You'd be on that list.

01:27:49Guest:Albert Brooks got on there.

01:27:50Guest:Steve Martin got on there.

01:27:51Guest:Eventually, they worked their way up to the A list.

01:27:54Guest:So I never got off the B list.

01:27:56Guest:So Brenner was a host.

01:28:00Guest:So Brenner would bring me on all the time.

01:28:02Guest:So Leonard would say, call Brenner and tell him to get me on.

01:28:06Guest:I said, I'm fighting to get on my goddamn self.

01:28:09Guest:How can I get you on with Brennan?

01:28:11Guest:Because if Brennan's the host, I want to go on.

01:28:14Guest:So he can't bring everybody on.

01:28:15Guest:So finally, this is where this whole war started from.

01:28:20Guest:Letterman, thank you.

01:28:22Guest:Letterman, through his deal with Mary Tyler Moore, got a deal at ABC.

01:28:28Marc:For the afternoon show.

01:28:30Guest:Yeah, for the morning show.

01:28:31Guest:Him and Merrill Markle.

01:28:32Guest:Yeah.

01:28:33Guest:And my guys were on that show.

01:28:35Guest:I had four guys on that show as writers who worked with Letterman in the in my basement.

01:28:41Guest:So they wrote this show.

01:28:43Guest:And Merrill Markle and Ashton Curtis came up with the top 10 list.

01:28:46Guest:Merrill Markle takes complete control of it.

01:28:48Guest:And it's her thing.

01:28:49Guest:And she's completely the person, whatever.

01:28:51Guest:But I know Ashton Curtis has something to do with it because they told me about it.

01:28:54Guest:Anyway, so they thought the show was great.

01:28:56Guest:And every day they would come over my house after the show and tell me how great the show was.

01:29:00Guest:And he loved the show.

01:29:02Guest:The show got canceled.

01:29:04Guest:He was crushed, crushed because he thought they had put out an all out effort.

01:29:10Guest:They worked their asses off.

01:29:12Guest:And he was sitting in my basement, and he says, oh, my God, my life is over.

01:29:17Guest:I've had a show, and nobody's going to want to hire me.

01:29:20Guest:I'm dead.

01:29:22Guest:I have no career.

01:29:23Guest:I said, Dave, don't you worry.

01:29:24Guest:You're going to have a great career.

01:29:26Guest:And he left, and I said, this guy is done.

01:29:31Guest:I said, when they give you a show like that with that kind of hype, he is through.

01:29:37Marc:Wrong again.

01:29:40Yeah.

01:29:40Guest:You know how to call him, Jimmy.

01:29:43Guest:That's exactly what happened.

01:29:45Guest:That's exactly what happened.

01:29:46Guest:And I said, this guy, he has no chance of ever getting there.

01:29:49Guest:And I said it to Leno.

01:29:50Guest:I said, boy, look out for Letterman, man, because he's going to fucking kill himself because of this thing.

01:29:56Guest:So then Carson saw him.

01:30:00Guest:He saw Dave.

01:30:02Guest:Because I got him the spot at the store as the permanent host, him and Jimmy Brogan.

01:30:06Guest:They were the permanent emcees.

01:30:07Guest:Letterman is doing his show and he's putting Leno on every fifth week.

01:30:14Guest:All the time.

01:30:15Guest:What's my beef or what's my whatever the hell it was.

01:30:20Guest:Leno still says, I should be on Carson, man.

01:30:23Guest:Because him and Letterman were tight.

01:30:26Guest:I mean, they were like brothers.

01:30:27Guest:Leno was like the older brother and Letterman used to follow behind him.

01:30:32Guest:Letterman flew out to the Vatican.

01:30:35Guest:We used to call Carson's house the Vatican and said, Johnny, you gotta put this guy on.

01:30:40Guest:He's great, he's humble, he does great.

01:30:43Guest:And Carson just didn't like him.

01:30:45Guest:Letterman begged, begged,

01:30:48Guest:for Leno to get on.

01:30:51Guest:Leno got on, did his thing, whatever, whatever, and then when Joni left that Monday night spot,

01:31:00Guest:Leno was the third or fourth guy choice.

01:31:04Guest:He wasn't even a choice.

01:31:05Guest:Right, to host.

01:31:06Guest:To host.

01:31:06Guest:Yeah.

01:31:06Guest:The first guy, see, I was right involved in all of this because I was in the management and other things and walking with people and working with different guys and everything.

01:31:16Guest:The first choice was Gary Shanley.

01:31:17Guest:Yeah.

01:31:18Guest:They wanted Gary Shanley badly.

01:31:20Guest:Yeah.

01:31:20Guest:But Gary Shandling had a show called It's the Gary Shandling Show.

01:31:23Guest:And he loved that show because he was in charge of the whole thing and he had all his players, Ben Stiller and everybody like that.

01:31:30Guest:And he said, I want to do It's the Gary Shandling movie.

01:31:33Guest:So they went, Bernie Brillstein and those guys, they went to Paramount and they said, we got a shot to host the Monday Nights and we're going to do it if we don't get the It's the Gary Shandling movie.

01:31:45Guest:So...

01:31:46Guest:They got a deal from Paramount to do it.

01:31:49Guest:It never came out.

01:31:51Guest:So they left.

01:31:53Guest:Next choice was Pat Sajak.

01:31:55Guest:Right.

01:31:56Guest:They wanted Pat Sajak because he's from Nebraska.

01:31:58Guest:He's blonde.

01:31:59Guest:He's whatever.

01:31:59Guest:Host guy.

01:32:00Guest:Host guy.

01:32:01Guest:He was a weatherman here.

01:32:03Guest:Letterman flies out to the Vatican again.

01:32:06Guest:And he says, why don't you take a look at Leno, man?

01:32:09Guest:He'd be great.

01:32:10Guest:Carson said, he's too ugly.

01:32:12Guest:He's not a guy.

01:32:13Guest:He can do it.

01:32:14Guest:Letterman called, begged, cajoled.

01:32:17Guest:They finally got him in there.

01:32:19Guest:Did great.

01:32:19Guest:I mean, Leno's a funny comic.

01:32:22Guest:Leno's good.

01:32:23Guest:No, I have nothing against Leno.

01:32:26Guest:You know, he's very good.

01:32:27Guest:But he's done the rest of his comics by not bringing anybody on.

01:32:30Guest:I always say this about Leno.

01:32:32Guest:I say, you know, it's sad when a show like the Chelsea Handler show

01:32:37Guest:has developed more comics than you have.

01:32:40Guest:And she's only been on for about eight or nine years.

01:32:42Guest:Leno's been on for 30 years.

01:32:43Guest:There has not been one comic.

01:32:45Guest:I'm talking about one.

01:32:47Guest:I don't need the Carson type of record.

01:32:50Guest:One.

01:32:51Guest:And Leno said, well, you know, the network, they don't want any new people.

01:32:56Guest:They want Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks.

01:32:58Guest:Come on, Leno.

01:33:00Guest:Anyway, so he begged for Leno to get the show.

01:33:03Guest:And Leno was doing the show and they were lobbying from the Letterman show for him to get the show.

01:33:08Guest:Yeah.

01:33:09Guest:Finally, Helen pulls it off and she went the most underhanded, sneaky, low life way.

01:33:16Guest:But the bottom line is she got it.

01:33:19Guest:And that it's almost like what she did is almost like in 1939 being in Germany and listening to a speech by Hitler and going,

01:33:26Guest:This guy sucks, man.

01:33:28Guest:What is this guy doing?

01:33:29Guest:You go, hey, we haven't seen Mark in a couple of days.

01:33:33Guest:So Leno won't have you on still?

01:33:35Guest:No, we had a big beef, and it's not even a beef.

01:33:39Guest:It's like Leno, I hate to say it, Leno's just wrong.

01:33:43Guest:I mean, just wrong.

01:33:44Guest:I did the show once, once Helen did, and once Helen left, and we had an argument over a joke, me, Jimmy Brogan, and Leno.

01:33:51Guest:And I said, I got to do the joke.

01:33:54Guest:And the joke was this.

01:33:56Guest:It was around the time of Jeffrey Dahmer.

01:33:58Guest:Yeah.

01:33:59Guest:And, you know, it was a big deal, Jeffrey Dahmer.

01:34:01Guest:And I had this joke within contents of other jokes like it that I said, and this guy, Jeffrey Dahmer, my God, man.

01:34:09Guest:I said, you know what they should do to this guy?

01:34:11Guest:They should put some A1 sauce on him and put him in a cell with some pygmies or something like that, I said.

01:34:18Guest:I forgot exactly what it was, but it was something like putting him in a cell with these... Cannibals.

01:34:22Guest:Cannibals.

01:34:22Guest:Yeah.

01:34:23Guest:Joke used to kill.

01:34:25Guest:Yeah.

01:34:25Guest:Because everybody hated Jeffrey Dahmer.

01:34:26Guest:Yeah.

01:34:26Guest:Leonard says... Oh, I can't do that joke, you know, because... You don't want to offend the cannibals.

01:34:32Guest:No.

01:34:32Guest:He says... This is exactly what he said.

01:34:34Guest:I'm not kidding.

01:34:35Guest:He says...

01:34:35Guest:You know, the Dahmer people, they call and everything.

01:34:38Guest:And I said, really?

01:34:39Guest:I said, who are these Dahmer people?

01:34:41Guest:Put them through to me.

01:34:43Guest:I don't even take the call.

01:34:44Guest:Just put the Dahmer aficionados, put them to me.

01:34:47Guest:I'll talk to them.

01:34:49Guest:So I did the joke.

01:34:50Guest:It totally destroyed.

01:34:52Guest:Probably about a 20-second applause line.

01:34:54Guest:I see Leno steam and I said, I know you asked me not to do the joke, but fuck it, it worked.

01:34:58Guest:And he said, well, that's that.

01:34:59Guest:Now, smash cut to two weeks later, I'm reading Newsweek magazine.

01:35:03Guest:There's the joke in Newsweek magazine, Jay Leno.

01:35:08Guest:I called Jay.

01:35:09Guest:I said, Jay, I thought you said the Dahmer people would come.

01:35:12Guest:And he says, I don't know where they got that, man.

01:35:14Guest:I don't know.

01:35:15Guest:I think I did something like it, but I was not really talking about that.

01:35:18Guest:You go, oh, man.

01:35:19Guest:You kick him.

01:35:20Guest:And that was the last time I talked to Jay Leno.

01:35:23Guest:I mean, me and Jay, our girlfriends used to hang out.

01:35:26Guest:We went on trips together.

01:35:29Guest:I mean, come on, Jay.

01:35:31Marc:Over a fucking Dahmer joke.

01:35:32Guest:Over Dom and Joe, but other things.

01:35:34Guest:I think the Helen thing, too, because I was very much against Helen at the end.

01:35:37Guest:Jay was not against Helen because Jay gives Helen credit.

01:35:41Guest:She did.

01:35:42Guest:I mean, she did.

01:35:43Marc:She went and she went balls in.

01:35:45Marc:Well, you know, great stories, man.

01:35:47Marc:And I'm happy that you sold the book.

01:35:49Marc:And it was really fucking pleasure to talk to you.

01:35:52Guest:It's always a pleasure to be anywhere.

01:35:54Guest:God damn it.

01:35:54Guest:Anything I can get, I can do.

01:35:56Guest:Damn it.

01:35:57Guest:Put me in.

01:35:57Guest:All right.

01:35:58Marc:I'll call some people.

01:35:59Guest:Call some people.

01:35:59Guest:I can't even get a Showtime special.

01:36:01Guest:Okay, man.

01:36:02Guest:I'm trying to get a half hour.

01:36:03Guest:Okay, man.

01:36:03Guest:I call them over there.

01:36:04Guest:All right.

01:36:05Guest:They said, you know, hey, we kind of filled up right now.

01:36:07Guest:I'll talk to you later.

01:36:08Guest:Goodbye.

01:36:14Marc:That's it.

01:36:14Marc:That's our show.

01:36:15Marc:Thank you.

01:36:16Marc:I have to go study lines now.

01:36:19Marc:Hope you enjoyed that.

01:36:20Marc:That was a mammoth of a conversation.

01:36:22Marc:A monster.

01:36:24Marc:He could have kept talking, too.

01:36:25Marc:I had something I had to do.

01:36:28Marc:I felt bad.

01:36:29Marc:Go to WTFPod for all your WTFPod needs.

01:36:32Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:36:33Marc:Kick in a few shekels.

01:36:34Marc:Get some merch.

01:36:35Marc:I'm trying to fucking make a Boomer Lives t-shirt, but it's all very upsetting to me because Boomer's not back, and I don't think he's coming back, and I'm not going to get maudlin every show, but maybe after I grieve a little more, I'll put something together for Boomy.

01:36:53Marc:Yeah, get the app there.

01:36:54Marc:Get some justcoffee.coop at wtfpod.com.

01:36:58Marc:I'm going to be in Philadelphia at Helium, December 6th through 8th.

01:37:03Marc:So get tickets to that before they sell out.

01:37:05Marc:I'm looking forward to going back there.

01:37:06Marc:They got a good sandwich there.

01:37:08Marc:I got to go find that sandwich.

01:37:10Marc:Can't even remember the name of the place.

01:37:11Marc:It was like pork, pork loin and broccoli rabe and provolone cheese, some vinegar and oil.

01:37:18Marc:What's the name of that place?

01:37:20Marc:Damn it.

01:37:22Marc:It's like a guy.

01:37:22Marc:It's a name.

01:37:24Marc:So good.

01:37:26Marc:Boobie lives.

01:37:29Marc:So sad.