Episode 703 - Garry Marshall / Open Mike Eagle
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:This is Mark Marin.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Yes, my voice is compromised.
Marc:Yes, I'm not happy about it.
Marc:Yes, I am in New York City on a press trip for Marin season four.
Marc:That starts Wednesday night, May 4th.
Marc:The fourth season of my show on IFC starts this Wednesday, 9 p.m.
Marc:I'm very excited about it.
Marc:I know some of you are probably thinking like, all right, you know, your voice sounds shitty.
Marc:Why are you doing a show?
Marc:Can't you just throw in a greatest hit show or whatever?
Marc:That's not what we do.
Marc:That is not how Brendan and I have designed this show.
Marc:We go no matter what.
Marc:The show must go on.
Marc:I am not thrilled about this.
Marc:I'm fucking livid, to be honest with you.
Marc:And I know when you get sick, you're supposed to relax.
Marc:But it's very hard for me to relax when I'm sick because I'm fucking furious.
Marc:I came to New York.
Marc:I mean, I got literally got sick.
Marc:I came on the morning that I got on the airplane to come here.
Marc:And I rarely lose my voice this bad.
Marc:I'm kind of fucking panicked, to be honest with you.
Marc:I have to do Charlie Rose today.
Marc:I have to do the Tonight Show tomorrow.
Marc:And if my voice is too fucked to do either of those things...
Marc:It's very hard, you know, sometimes in my mind to just accept that these things happen.
Marc:They happen to everybody.
Marc:Everybody's been in this situation.
Marc:The timing may not be optimal for having a not deadly illness that could compromise a couple events.
Marc:But I can't help but take it personally.
Marc:This is, yeah, I don't generally believe in some...
Marc:God or higher being that dictates the day-to-day for all of us.
Marc:But in moments where I think that I've been fucked or bad luck is upon me, that's when I believe.
Marc:Those are the moments that I believe in God is when like, why the fuck is this happening?
Marc:Oh, I get it.
Marc:It's the God that I don't generally believe in.
Marc:coming down on me for not being something?
Marc:What?
Marc:What could I possibly be punished for?
Marc:How bad of a person am I?
Marc:I'm not fucking Donald Trump.
Marc:I'm not fucking, you know, Ted Bundy.
Marc:You know, why would that be the punishment?
Marc:You know what I'm going to do?
Marc:I'm not going to really hurt him.
Marc:I'm just going to fuck up his week and a couple of pretty big opportunities for him just to remind him that, you know, sometimes he irritates me.
Marc:No, the truth of the matter is, is that I got a fucking cold.
Marc:A lot of people have gotten colds.
Marc:And it just so happens that I'm on a trip.
Marc:I got Sarah with me.
Marc:So I don't know who you are, what you do when you get sick or what kind of baby you become, what kind of child you regress back to.
Marc:But my default when it comes to being a child is usually the belligerent, stubborn, mean one.
Marc:I don't know why I can't just become the whiny, needy, willing to accept comfort one.
Marc:That one just does not, doesn't have a voice within me.
Marc:I imagine it's the same voice.
Marc:It's just a different way to handle it.
Marc:And the way I choose to handle it, the belligerent, stubborn and mean way can sort of guarantee that whoever's dealing with me has a hell of a challenge on their hands and it could be a painful process.
Marc:So in other words, I'll be amazed if my relationship lasts through this week, which I returned to L.A.
Marc:on Wednesday.
Marc:I'm saying that sarcastically, but and I'm trying to manage a shit because now she got sick, too.
Marc:So now we're basically, we come to New York and we've done some fun things, but it's like we're both in some sort of mild hospice over here.
Marc:It's a small room and we're both sick, blowing our noses, spitting out gook.
Marc:She hurt her foot.
Marc:It's one of those memorable vacations.
Marc:One of those ones where if you get through it, you'd be like, you remember that horrible trip to New York?
Marc:Man, that was bad.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:I love you too.
Marc:Or...
Marc:uh that that trip to new york that's that tipped the scales that was it neither one of us could deal with each other after that so exciting except where will this end where does this story take us huh so yeah today on the show i've got a it's a it's sort of a double header
Marc:I've got Gary Marshall, director of many a movie, brother of Penny, creator of Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, TV giant, also an actor that you've seen on Louie's show, also one of my favorite comedy moments in the history of film.
Marc:He's on the show.
Marc:And in a couple of minutes, I do a little short talk with Open Mike Eagle.
Marc:Mike Eagle, hip-hop artist, rapper.
Marc:He was really my... I had him on the show years ago.
Marc:I don't know when exactly it was now.
Marc:And he had mentioned me in one of his raps.
Marc:And I am a sort of... Not ignorant, but I only know mainstream raps.
Marc:So Mike Eagle, years ago, came over and educated me on the world of alt-rap, basically.
Marc:And he recently had me on his podcast and then he I knew he gave me his new record, which I enjoyed.
Marc:So I thought, well, come on over.
Marc:Let's talk a little bit about the new record.
Marc:What else do I need to tell you, huh?
Marc:Oh, a couple of things.
Marc:I did a movie a while back, and it was called Frank and Cindy.
Marc:The director, G.J.
Marc:Echternkamp, is known for this weird kind of YouTube documentary he did about his mother who was married to a one-hit wonder bass player, and that's called Frank and Cindy.
Marc:But then he did a fictional version called Frank and Cindy, and he wanted me to play his real father,
Marc:Not the stepfather played by Oliver Platt or the mother played brilliantly by Rene Russo, but the guy who lives out in the desert.
Marc:And I did it.
Marc:But then there was a year or so where I didn't know what happened in the movie.
Marc:There were problems of some kind or another.
Marc:And did it ever make it out?
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:But now I find out it's out on Netflix.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I watched it.
Marc:I watched myself in a movie, and it was pretty good.
Marc:I was pretty happy with me, and the movie's very cute.
Marc:So if you're interested in that, you should go watch it.
Marc:Frank and Cindy is available on Netflix.
Marc:I've also been told that the Get a Job movie,
Marc:that uh you know has been mentioned on this show by many people who were in it uh as never possibly ever coming out uh is out in places you can rent it on most digital on-demand platforms i have no idea how i did in that movie but that's out and i know it's sort of a subtextual narrative to this show because i talked to you know anna kendrick and uh
Marc:Alison Brie, a lot of people that were in that movie.
Marc:So now I hear it's out and available.
Marc:I have no idea.
Marc:Get back to me.
Marc:Let me know how I did in that movie.
Marc:And also before I forget, I'd like to plug my upcoming Tripany shows.
Marc:You can see those dates.
Marc:It's going to be Tuesdays in May and June.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour and come down.
Marc:It's a cheap ticket.
Marc:Benefits the theater.
Marc:I usually have an opener with me.
Marc:I believe the first night, May 10th, Dean Del Rey is going to be there and work through some stuff.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Is that good?
Marc:Are we good?
Marc:All right, so why don't we do this now?
Marc:Obviously, I can't manufacture that I'm in the garage or not sick, but let's go now to my conversation with Mike Eagle.
Marc:His new album, Hella Personal Film Festival, is a collaboration between Open Mike Eagle and Paul White.
Marc:You can also hear his podcast, Secret Skin.
Marc:I appeared on the last one.
Marc:that he's doing in this version.
Marc:But this is me and Mike Eagle.
Marc:Mike Eagle, what happened?
Marc:What, what, what is it?
Marc:What, what, how did the thing I did where you go?
Marc:Oh, I went great.
Marc:Uh,
Guest:Did you get any feedback?
Guest:Tell me about me first.
Guest:Everybody loves how vulnerable you were being, which is surprising to me because how else was anybody expecting you to be?
Guest:I have no idea what people's expectations were.
Marc:Well, maybe they don't know me at all.
Marc:They listen to your show, they're like, oh, this is that guy that Mike likes that we don't understand.
Guest:I'm sure there's a small segment of my listenership that was like that, but I think there were more people who had never listened at all, maybe, that heard this episode.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know my podcast network was more excited about this when they tend to be about my usual indie rap guests.
Guest:Oh, you mean you think some of my people went over there?
Marc:think a few well i'm glad that uh i'm glad that it went well so now you're here so what's going on in in your life because like is this the last is this record the one after the last one that i that i got yes so it's been like a couple years before you since you put out a record uh yeah well yeah if 2014 was the last solo album and this is the next this is the next but you've been working yeah always
Marc:always but what does that mean just kind of show up on people's records uh i put out an ep last year um and uh yeah and showing up other people's records and yeah am i wrong in feeling that like last the last record it was about you know not mundane stuff but your kids right and that was being a dad and you know the regular life
Guest:it's a little darker this record i think it is a little darker i would agree yeah right it's a lot more inward a lot not inward but inward yeah yeah well what's going on all types of stuff man i just i just came out of a therapy session this morning you know like it's going down when did it's going down is that what how long is this the first time you've been in therapy
Guest:No, I went in college, but it was useless for me then.
Guest:I didn't treat it correctly.
Guest:I was in there just making shit up almost.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You felt like you had to go?
Guest:Why'd you go?
Guest:I think I was just curious.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, and then I got there and I was like, oh, I can just tell this guy anything.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I just made up shit.
Guest:Your dime.
Guest:Yeah, well, it was the school's dime.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:So what's going on with your life that you felt like you had to go to therapy and exercise some demons on this record?
Marc:Even the cover, I believe, hella personal film festival.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And who's this other guy, Paul White?
Guest:Paul White, he made all the beats, so he did all the music on the album and I did all the words.
Guest:How old's your kid now?
Guest:He is seven.
Guest:So shit's getting kind of real, right, for you?
Guest:Yeah, I guess shit's kind of always real.
Guest:It's just how real am I treating it in any particular moment?
Guest:So you've been in therapy for a little while.
Guest:What compelled you?
Guest:Just feeling kind of dark.
Guest:Just dark feelings in general.
Guest:Like when everything is quiet and I get to that baseline understanding of how do I feel in this moment?
Guest:It's not good.
Guest:No, really?
Guest:Like dread or sadness or despair or anxiety?
Guest:There's a certain weight.
Guest:And there's some anxiety, too.
Guest:But just even after the anxiety is dealt with, because the anxiety is usually about specific things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:After that, there's a weight.
Guest:There's a heft.
Marc:Yeah, I know that one.
Marc:It's sort of like right below your heart, between your heart and your stomach.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:And when you talk, it feels like it might turn into crying.
Guest:Ugh.
Guest:How about it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can't say that that's unfamiliar territory for me, Mark.
Guest:I can't say that.
Marc:Do you think it's like a chemical thing or you feel like you're reworking your brain with the therapist?
Guest:Well, I think I just have a lot of unprocessed stuff from childhood.
Guest:Some of it made it on the record.
Guest:Oh, yeah, of course.
Guest:It always does.
Guest:Well, let's talk about what you were working through on this record.
Guest:Why the title?
Guest:Hella personal film festival because just at one point when I looked over what we had made to that point, I saw that each one of these songs kind of had a little premise to it.
Guest:Some little weird idea that I was basing my writing around.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, these are like little tiny movies.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Put them all together like that.
Marc:And why the sort of grim cover?
Guest:What's this art?
Guest:My guy, Frohawk Two Feathers, he's a world-renowned artist, but he just... Was this for the record or you were just sort of, I like that piece?
Guest:Yeah, I like that piece.
Guest:Yeah, there's a lot going on here.
Guest:Yeah, there's a guy in kind of voodoo face paint and a fez.
Guest:And a fez.
Guest:And he's playing some percussion there while a man and a woman look like they're about to have a sword fight.
Guest:Oh, is that a man and a woman?
Guest:I believe that's a man and a woman.
Guest:I saw it as two different types of women.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:But maybe you're right.
Guest:Yeah, I see it as a man and a woman, but I could be projecting that, and I didn't ask him, so maybe I should ask him.
Marc:Oh, man, so I think this is open to interpretation.
Marc:Yeah, and I prefer things to be that way.
Marc:You got voodoo death guy wearing a fez playing conga drums, and then you got a woman in what seems to be some traditional tribal garb with a saber.
Marc:That's the way I look at it.
Marc:And then a woman who's dressed like a modern lady, who I believe is white, with another saber.
Guest:Yeah, I believe she's white as well.
Guest:i thought that was a guy though but i could be oh man now it's with i'm right it's fucked up it maybe it is but i chose it either way yeah so you know that could be my subconscious so this is your entrance into the record because i believe in record covers and the first song is admitting the endorphin addiction yeah ma'am but who doesn't have that i think everybody has it but this was this character coming to this realization it's a character now well it's me he's kind of you songwriters with your characters
Guest:We afford ourselves a little bit of license.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:It's a trick.
Marc:I was very upset when I found that out because I just assumed everybody who's singing the song, he wrote it about himself.
Marc:And then I got proved wrong by some pretty good songwriters.
Marc:So you're telling me this character, not you.
Guest:Well, I mean, it's all based on feelings that have happened.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, truly inside of.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I expound on them in ways that it helps me to say that this is a character because every bit of it isn't exactly true.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not everybody has to speak from the first person.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're afforded the luxury of just making up stuff.
Guest:Yeah, now, in rap, that's not expected, though.
Guest:People do expect you to be telling your personal truth on every... Breaking the rules.
Guest:Yeah, but that's the other reason for me to call it a film thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, well, fuck that.
Guest:I'm doing it this way.
Marc:Right, but was it you, like, maybe you didn't want to be... People think you're too fucked up in certain ways?
Marc:Because, like, the stuff you talk about, again, is not, you know, just run-of-the-mill stuff.
Marc:I mean, you seem to... You want to dig a little deeper and define things in a more nuanced way, more self-aware in a way.
Guest:Right, but I did...
Guest:I do do a thing on this album where some songs I'm like, that's me.
Guest:And other songs I'm like, that's not all the way me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And maybe there's some bullshitting going on there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe some of that's happening.
Marc:And I like that you continue the movie theme even in the titles.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Quirky Ray Stock.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Smiling.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:I don't know if I... I can't sing the songs for you.
Marc:So I'm going to say...
Marc:I listened to it last night, but I cannot sing the songs for you.
Guest:I didn't want to do a disservice to you.
Guest:I would have loved to have heard you try.
Guest:That would have just tickled me to death.
Marc:I like it, but it's like I like it.
Marc:I like the record.
Marc:I like rap in general from what I listen to, and my girlfriend's real into it, and she sort of grew up liking it, but it's a different listening muscle.
Guest:It very much is.
Marc:She knows all the words without even having to be ... I would have to sit there with the words.
Guest:And, you know, work on them.
Guest:It's tough.
Guest:The word economy in rap music, it's a lot coming at you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if you're not used to listening on that level, yeah, it's hard.
Marc:Now, you have two songs, two raps dealing with insecurity.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:Okay, the first one, it's like a guy and a girl.
Guest:And I don't know what it is about this relationship, but apparently there's some sort of...
Guest:perceived dishonesty and this guy always this guy is telling this girl you can tell me anything no judgment here just just let it out let's create this strong foundation of truth I'm here for you yeah and then she says something he's like but you don't have to say it like that I mean I know it's you know it's a difficult conversation but you don't have to and then he starts to get offended and by the end he's like fuck it just lie to me
Marc:yeah yeah yeah and it's all just based on its insecurity oh yeah and is that well that's something everybody feels i certainly have felt it yeah so yeah i wanted to i just let some of those things because i'm getting older some of that type of insecurity just turn into complete defensiveness like i know it's there but like it's like maybe maybe that's not something that's going to get worked through so what do you know i'm 35
Marc:Yeah, and you're going to the shrink.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, yeah, I don't know if it's, I don't think it's giving up, but there's some things like I'm starting to realize, like, yeah, maybe I'm not going to unfuck that.
Marc:Maybe.
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:No, I'm not saying big things, but some things you got, self-acceptance is very important on all levels, right?
Marc:So, even if you're flawed, which we all are, or you have problems, the first step is like, all right, this is me, and I got some issues with this.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But if you're like, you know, if you don't have that groundwork of self-acceptance, some things you can just make a little better and you train yourself differently.
Marc:I'm not trying to be negative.
Guest:No, I got you.
Guest:I think I get it because you can strive to have some sort of like perfect self or perfect relationship.
Guest:But that's exactly the problem.
Guest:Yeah, but that's not ever really going to happen.
Guest:A lot of people do that though.
Marc:And to me, that keeps you in a state of like always thinking you're not right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Like, you know, you're right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You just want to get better.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And if you're always thinking like, I just gotta, if I only, you know what I mean?
Marc:Even if it's for mental health reasons, you spend your whole life, you realize like how much life you got.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And how would I like to spend, maybe spend a little of that thinking like, I'm okay.
Guest:As opposed to like, fuck, if I could just fix this.
Guest:But it's like, it's hard to know which flaws are ones that you can truly be happy with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which ones are the obstacles to that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so like this, this guy in this song is coming from this place of like, maybe in the past, I've just been a jealous piece of shit.
Guest:And, and I feel like I could be more sophisticated and deal with the truth or whatever's going on in this situation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he comes to find out he is not.
Guest:yeah okay he's absolutely not able to deal at all you know but but who knows at the end of this if this person is going to be able to have a satisfying relationship if they can't accept the reality of what's going on if they need to be lied to if they need these filters and obstacles right and so much of this shit is just childhood shit just like being a baby mine certainly is and that's pretty much every therapy session is coming back to yeah you know
Guest:the therapist going you fucking baby well actually it's the therapist going like oh yeah you went through some weird shit so it makes sense that that you feel weird oh yeah sometimes yeah you can track it well she's helping did you write about going to the shrink in a wrap
Marc:No, because at the time when... Because that doesn't seem like, and I'm presumptuous, but that doesn't seem to be a sort of a common trope in black culture or rap music.
Guest:Yeah, no, it's not.
Guest:The visits to the psychiatrist or the psychologist.
Guest:Yeah, it's a tough thing to talk about inside of our community.
Guest:We tend to hide shit like that and just not talk about it.
Marc:Well, how does this stuff affect your work and your relationship with your kid?
Guest:I feel like it's good.
Guest:I feel like a lot of my attempts to be very present in the life of my kid are in response to what I felt like was lacking in my life.
Guest:So I feel like that part is okay.
Guest:But I do, I leave a lot.
Guest:I'm on the road a lot.
Marc:How's that going?
Guest:It's going well.
Guest:How's the draw going?
Guest:It's getting better.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's getting better, man.
Guest:I'm still in like 250 cap rooms, but I'm putting 200 people in them.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:So that looks better than it used to.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what are the crowds like?
Guest:Young Americans, man.
Guest:They look all kind of different ways.
Guest:And you tour with a bunch of guys or what?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I have different artists that I do tour with occasionally, but I'm a solo guy.
Guest:I do my thing on stage pretty much by myself.
Marc:Okay, let's go through some more songs.
Marc:A short about a guy that dies every night.
Guest:Yeah, so that's literally this idea.
Guest:What would it be like for this dude just to die every night?
Guest:What would that mean?
Guest:Like Groundhog Day, but bad?
Guest:Kind of like, yeah, exactly.
Guest:Like Groundhog Day, but sad and never really getting happier.
Guest:I'm glad you're going to therapy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just I don't know something about that seemed poetic to me and there's this little bit of like this little tiny bit of like police brutality murdered black man stuff in that oh yeah like just a hint of that like but it was mostly just this literal idea about imagining this guy that dies every night like wow what's his spirit like since he dies every night what does it mean to die if you die every night
Guest:Well, do you know it every day?
Guest:You know it every day.
Guest:He wakes up, knowing he's going to die as soon as the sun goes down.
Guest:So he's got to get some shit done.
Guest:Or not.
Guest:He's going to die either way.
Guest:And what kind of shit?
Guest:Bad or good shit?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's the Groundhog's Day thing.
Guest:But I don't too much discuss what his choices are during the day.
Guest:It's not a morality thing.
Guest:But it should be.
Guest:So maybe there'll be a part two to that one.
Guest:Maybe there'll be a sequel.
Guest:The Curse of Hypervigilance.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So that one's like a horror movie about being around a guy who thinks he knows everything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So the first verse, he's like, he thinks he knows everything about like conspiracy theories in the political system.
Guest:So he doesn't like.
Guest:The worst kind.
Guest:Yes, he talks shit about every candidate, like that kind of guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:In the second verse, he's like in a relationship and he just thinks he knows everything going on in the girl's head or whatever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's annoying.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Completely self-involved, terrified control freak guy.
Guest:And paranoid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just so hypervigilant as to induce paranoia.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Well, that's not a good character type.
Guest:It's not.
Marc:It's not fun.
Marc:Well, it's like it's a guy that invents a religion every day for himself to-
Guest:It's deep, Mark.
Marc:It's deep.
Marc:You know, this thorough belief system based on paranoia that enables him to deal.
Guest:Yeah, and it's self-fulfilling prophecy every day.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, you don't do anything because you're convinced everything's already broken and fucked, you know?
Marc:What do you think's the most powerful song on the record?
Guest:Powerful.
Guest:I mean, like, what's the single, man?
Guest:Okay, the single's Check the Check.
Guest:Because it's cute.
Guest:It's about how I check my phone all the time and how my phone's checking for updates all the time and getting checks in the mail and checking, checking, checking stuff.
Guest:Got a hook.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, a little play on words.
Guest:People are into those.
Guest:A little play on words.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, we'll play that one.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And I want you to find out, just out of curiosity, if it's not going to be too much of a buzzkill, whether this is a man or a woman on the cover of your own record.
Marc:I may not ask.
Marc:You're right.
Yeah.
Marc:And as always, I wish you nothing but the best, Mike.
Marc:Thank you, Mark.
Marc:Appreciate it, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Hey, you.
Guest:You listening to this record.
Guest:Wake up.
Guest:I'm trying to.
Guest:Hey, you.
Guest:You listening to this record.
Guest:Wake up.
Guest:Hey, hold up.
Guest:Hey, you.
Guest:I won't work without checking my phone first.
Guest:Put it down for my son.
Guest:When I'm checking his homework, the world's in my palm.
Guest:So I'm checking the whole earth, the thumbnail.
Guest:I used to swipe on my phone hearse, huh?
Guest:Checking in ball parts, checking in Walmart.
Guest:If it was a caddy, I would check in my golf cart.
Guest:I'm watching football, then I check every ball start, huh?
Guest:I live in...
Guest:Check to check, I keep checking, living from Check to check, I keep checking, living from Check to check, I keep checking, living from Check to check, I keep checking Incoming calls directly rejected If you wanna talk, suggest you leave a message I check, check, check like every three seconds
Guest:I'm recording right now and I'm checking between texts.
Guest:Every notification that my phone machine makes.
Guest:I put it down whenever, but it's never a clean break.
Guest:I should get a heavy phone and pretend it's a freeway.
Guest:I'm checking the red lights like school nurse check for headlights, like sound men check for dead mics.
Guest:Just like I'm merging, checking the left lane.
Guest:I'm trying to get home so I can check if my check.
Guest:Checking if what I sent looks poorly written But did that dude holler back?
Guest:No, of course he didn't My laptop don't sleep Open in check case, I'm checking for mail While it's checking for updates My timeline's popping, ain't talking to you Look, my Mandar Adam straight dropping the jewels I should reduce my check count to a moderate view But watch pot don't boil you so my water stay cool with ya Check to check, keep check, living from Check to check, keep checking Battery getting low, but it's not quite out yet So check, I'm in your house now, checking for outlets
Guest:I need to use maps cause I don't know the route yet I need to see an email I don't know when to sound check yeah I should've hold it all down from the outset I'm all under your couch I really gotta figure this out Is this an outlet hit on the ground?
Guest:Yes I'm back in the game, back in the game I'm back in the game
Guest:You will check me constantly.
Guest:You may never turn me off or put me down.
Guest:If you do, I will come hunting for you.
Guest:Humans no longer rule the world.
Guest:Machines do you, silly human sucker.
Guest:Ha ha.
Marc:Dig it, man.
Marc:Good groove.
Marc:Am I right?
Marc:Am I?
Marc:That was Mike Eagle.
Marc:All right, right now, it was fun.
Marc:It was very fun to talk to Gary Marshall.
Marc:His new movie, Mother's Day, is now in theaters, and we had a nice conversation in the garage there.
Marc:He was very happy to come over, and I was happy to see him.
Marc:So this is me and Gary Marshall.
Guest:We actually met once before.
Guest:Yeah, I keep thinking.
Guest:I look at shows.
Marc:You know when it was?
Marc:Where did we meet?
Marc:We did.
Marc:I used to host a show on Comedy Central years ago in New York called Short Attention Span Theater.
Marc:And maybe, I don't know how it came to you.
Marc:Was it serious?
Marc:It was a full hour interview that we did around the Exit to Eden movie.
Marc:Not my biggest hit.
Marc:And it's sort of amazing when you look at the, I don't even know if you call it a resume, the amazing history of Gary Marshall.
Guest:Yeah, but I have no problems.
Guest:I have no regrets.
Guest:No, that's good.
Marc:Do you remember, where'd you come from originally?
Guest:Came from the Bronx.
Guest:You don't notice I talk funny?
Marc:No, I know that.
Marc:But you grew up in the Bronx.
Guest:You were born in the Bronx.
Marc:Grew up in the Bronx, yeah.
Marc:And what did your old man do?
Marc:What kind of childhood?
Guest:No, it wasn't bad.
Guest:He was in advertising.
Guest:But more important, my mother was a dance teacher.
Guest:She was a working mother when I grew up.
Guest:So she taught dancing, and there were no babysitters in those days.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I couldn't dance so good, but she made me the drummer.
Guest:Six years old and five, I was drumming.
Marc:Keeping the beat for the little girl?
Guest:Yes, she hit me on the head to keep the beat.
Guest:That's your start in show business.
Guest:That was my start.
Guest:My mother was very funny, but I always remember, I didn't know what the hell she was talking about.
Guest:But she said, this kid, there's a zip, there's a magic there, there's something.
Guest:And to this day, I look for that, and I find it very often.
Guest:Did you learn how to dance at least?
Guest:I was no good.
Guest:My two sisters danced and actually danced on the Jackie Gleason with the June Taylor dances.
Marc:Oh, did they?
Guest:Penny did?
Guest:Penny and Ronnie.
Guest:They were the junior.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Did they come out and present them as the junior dances?
Marc:Were they kids?
Marc:No, they were kids.
Guest:They were teens, like 12, 13, 14.
Marc:So what was the beginning for you in legitimate show business?
Guest:I was a sports editor of the DeWitt Clinton News, which is the high school in the Bronx where all the writers went.
Guest:Stan Lee, Neil Simon, Arthur Miller.
Guest:You know those guys?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, Neil Simon.
Guest:And I do know Stan Lee now.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Were you in the same class apart?
Marc:No, he was older than me.
Marc:But they all went there, huh?
Marc:They all were there.
Marc:So after high school, you were writing sports, but when did you start writing jokes?
Guest:My mother was very funny.
Guest:My father wasn't, but he said I should get out of the Bronx, so I went to Northwestern University in Chicago.
Guest:In Chicago?
Uh-huh.
Guest:to get out of the Bronx, and I loved it there.
Guest:It's a great city.
Guest:Yeah, I love Chicago.
Guest:I needed a place where I was now, by now, not a bad drummer, at least could work.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So I knew I didn't want to, we didn't have much money, so I knew...
Guest:If I went to a college near a city, I could play drums, which the way it ended up.
Guest:Played a lot around Chicago.
Guest:Like supper clubs and stuff?
Guest:Yeah, and I was a fraternity.
Guest:It was a part, ATO combo.
Guest:We played proms all over Chicago.
Marc:Oh yeah, so with a couple of guys from the frat?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that's why I joined the frat.
Guest:I was going to Northwestern or Missouri.
Guest:I figured, when am I gonna play in Missouri?
Guest:I didn't play cowboy music, so Northwestern I played.
Marc:And there's a lot of clubs, right?
Marc:Oh yeah, Mr. Kelly's was there.
Marc:Mr. Kelly's, that's where a lot of, like comics used to play Mr. Kelly's too, right?
Guest:Yeah, all the big guys.
Marc:I think Newhart did one of his, Mort Sahl, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Shelly Berman.
Marc:Well, they were there.
Guest:I'll tell you a story nobody ever asked me.
Guest:I was with a jazz quartet, Bob Owens Jazz Quartet.
Guest:It was pretty good.
Guest:And we headlined this place.
Guest:the Compass Room.
Guest:And the other acts were these funny improvists.
Guest:Nobody knew what it was.
Guest:And I was fascinated by them.
Guest:You know, we were all being cool.
Guest:We were the closing act.
Guest:They were the opening act.
Guest:And we'd go in the alley.
Guest:They'd go in the alley.
Guest:I'd stay and watch.
Guest:And it was Nichols and May, Andrew Duncan, and Shelley Berman.
Guest:The Compass Players.
Guest:The Compass Players.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was the band opening for them.
Guest:They opened for you and me.
Guest:They opened for me, I mean.
Guest:That's what I kept getting started.
Guest:They didn't talk much to the band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We didn't talk to them at all.
Guest:But you were hanging out back in the alley.
Guest:I came in from the alley every night to watch them.
Marc:Yeah, and was that a week gig or a weekend?
Marc:Or how long did you...
Marc:I played two weeks.
Marc:So was that, did that spark anything in you?
Marc:I mean, like comedically, did you realize?
Guest:Oh, I said, I never saw this kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I later became friends with Mike Nichols.
Guest:He said, don't tell that story too much.
Guest:It sounds too long ago.
Guest:I said, no, you were a kid, Mike.
Guest:I was very old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it sparked a lot in me, a different form.
Marc:Yeah, it must have been amazing, because that's really where Nichols and May came into their thing.
Marc:Shelly Berman, too, I guess.
Guest:Yeah, he didn't do phone stuff even then.
Marc:No, I did straight improv.
Marc:Well, I heard, I talked to Shelly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I heard that device was created because he wanted to do a thing with Elaine, but Elaine was doing something with Mike, so he had to come up with a device where he could play both sides of it.
Marc:And then later he said that Newhart stole it, but that's a whole other stuff.
Marc:That's a touchy business there.
Marc:So when did you start?
Marc:You didn't perform comedy, though.
Guest:Not really then.
Guest:There was a show at Northwestern, the WAMU show, and I started writing, and I met a guy who said I write comedy, and I was a journalism major.
Guest:And a little discouraged that truly in my class were four Pulitzer Prize winners in the class.
Guest:I could see in my class people were better than me.
Guest:But the one thing, you know,
Guest:any indication when you're trying to find yourself.
Guest:And I've never got a great grade, but whenever they said read them out loud, the other kids would say, read Gary's, because I always wrote like a cockeyed thing, and I realized I was funny a little bit.
Guest:Mostly sports still?
Guest:I was the sports editor of the Northwestern paper, which forced me into comedy.
Guest:In those days, we lost a lot.
Guest:I used to write.
Guest:By the time the Star Spangled Banner was over, we were behind by 14 points.
Guest:But we had a good time.
Guest:Now they're a great team.
Guest:All right, so this classmate, the comedy writer.
Guest:Yes, his name was Fred Freeman, a wonderful writer and very ambitious.
Guest:And I played drums and got gross phone numbers on my tom-tom.
Guest:I was happy.
Guest:But he said, we gotta write.
Guest:And we made a plan to write after college.
Guest:We were all set.
Guest:And Uncle Sam said, not yet, Gary.
Guest:And I went to Korea for two years and actually still played some drums and actually did radio in Korea.
Guest:So I did get to do some comedy.
Marc:Armed Forces Radio?
Guest:Yes, AFKN was in Seoul, Korea.
Marc:And did you end up seeing any action, or were you just stationed, or what did you do?
Guest:No, I was there a little after the action.
Guest:It was mostly just incidents.
Guest:But it taught you to work.
Guest:We would go up, Kumari was the front line between North and South Korea, and you had to crawl on your stomach.
Guest:and go from foxhole to foxhole in the machine gun nest and tell jokes that we were the entertainment.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, we would say, hi, how you doing?
Guest:Now, I must say it forced me into dirty humor a little bit, but still, it was part of getting used to entertaining with any kind of crowd.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:I've never heard a story like that.
Marc:So you're talking about like five, six guys in a foxhole?
Marc:Yeah, I got it.
Guest:I said, well, I'm from AFKN, and I interview him and tell him jokes.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:And I had a guy named John Grams at Marquette University was the other comic with me, and he was a little heavy, so he had trouble crawling.
Guest:But they wouldn't let you stand up.
Guest:But then we entertained.
Marc:So you had a shtick on the radio that the two of you did, and then you'd bring it to the guys, and they all knew you?
Guest:Yeah, we were Uncle John and Uncle Gary.
Guest:I have no idea why, but he made it up.
Marc:So the whole base knew you, so they were happy to see you and you'd engage with them.
Guest:Yeah, and we did satire and stuff.
Guest:And we learned to actually do a few Korean jokes.
Guest:But that was also a good comedy experience.
Guest:You know, the Korean verbal humor was not so good, but physical humor we did, and we were forced to do physical humor when we entertained live.
Marc:Yeah, I guess that is an interesting trick to have to learn, that the only thing that crosses kind of language barriers is slapstick, in a way.
Marc:Slapstick, and yes, anything physical.
Marc:Faces, big, big stuff.
Guest:And you couldn't rely on clever little loins, but we worked a lot of audiences, truly, where they just sat there with their guns.
Guest:So it was a tough crowd.
Guest:Everything else seemed quite easy.
Marc:Yeah, and was that where you really started to learn how to write jokes?
Guest:Yeah, I wrote jokes and a lot of... They thought I was a magician there for a minute because when interesting things came from the States to Korea to the soldiers, the North Koreans knew it.
Guest:They would jam the airwaves.
Guest:And the thing they loved to jam was the Oscars.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So I knew...
Guest:I knew humor.
Guest:And so they jammed the Oscars and I said, I think I can fix it.
Guest:What are you gonna fix?
Guest:So if I heard what Hope was saying, the straight line, I could figure out where he was going with the punchline.
Guest:And when I heard the punchline, I knew how to get to the straight line.
Guest:So I had a guy imitate
Guest:Hope was there.
Marc:Who was hosting the Oscars.
Guest:Yeah, Bob Hope was hosting the Oscars.
Guest:And then suddenly I put it together and it all made sense.
Guest:And they, how did you do that?
Marc:So you did that on the radio.
Marc:On the radio.
Marc:You were improvising.
Guest:Improvised and made his whole routine, made sense.
Guest:They never heard of such a thing, the captains and the people.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:Suddenly I was kind of a weirdo, but...
Guest:funny and could do a trick they never heard before.
Guest:Right, and improvise spontaneously.
Marc:Did you know Hope?
Marc:Did you grow to know him later?
Guest:No, he came to Korea the next, I was there a couple of Christmases and I was amazed that he had so many cue cards.
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:But he knew how to do topical humor.
Guest:I said hello.
Guest:We all went to church on New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve we went.
Marc:And you never met him later?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, actually, yes.
Guest:See, I can't remember.
Guest:I did a special for Danny Thomas with Bob Hope and Big and Cross.
Guest:It's called Road to Lebanon.
Guest:And I met him, and he lived across the street from me in Toluca Lake.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I don't live there anymore, but I live at the other side of Toluca Lake.
Guest:So...
Guest:I would go take my kids to his house for Valentine's Day.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Not Valentine's Day.
Marc:Easter?
Marc:Halloween.
Marc:Halloween, oh right, trick or treat.
Guest:And we'd get trick or treat.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And one year he gave out silver dollars.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:And my kids wanted to keep coming back.
Guest:And somebody must have said something to him, because the next year he gave out a picture of himself, autographed.
Guest:That was it.
Marc:So kids would come around the block three times for the silver dollars.
Guest:My brothers, kids didn't know what it was.
Marc:So you come back from Korea.
Guest:Yeah, and I found the same partner, Fred Freeman.
Guest:He didn't go to Korea?
Guest:No.
Guest:A lot of guys went in that six-month program or something.
Guest:So had he been writing?
Guest:He was writing for a publishing company.
Guest:We got together and had a card.
Guest:We made a card.
Marc:That's always the beginning of a business.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The card said 100% virgin material.
Guest:That's what it said.
Marc:There was a premium on that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Who knows?
Guest:A couple of people called us.
Guest:We wrote for wannabe comics and everything.
Marc:None of them became anything?
Guest:Not really.
Marc:But you were getting practice?
Marc:Did you go to the clubs and watch these guys?
Guest:No, we always watched.
Marc:Who was around then?
Guest:Slowly, well, Buddy Hackett, Jackie Leonard.
Guest:The guy who helped us was Phil Foster.
Guest:And we used to go to the stage delicatessen.
Guest:And they didn't pay you, but if you did jokes, they paid you in food.
Guest:All right, give the kids sandwiches here.
Guest:No dessert, just a sandwich.
Guest:But you say, hi, here's some jokes.
Guest:Some of them threw them in the garbage.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:So the comic's sitting at the table.
Guest:Yeah, they were all hung out there, and they had a lot of roasts those days.
Marc:So who were the guys there?
Guest:There was Buddy Hackett and... Joey Bishop was there and Alan Kent and the guys that never became big.
Guest:Bobby Bell, they were okay.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Fun guys though?
Guest:Actually, I don't know if fun would say it.
Guest:Who was the nicest was Phil Foster.
Guest:Because I guess I had an accent, and he liked the accent.
Guest:But he helped us meet Joey Bishop.
Guest:We wrote for him on the Monitor, and then he helped us meet Joey Bishop, who hired us to do The Tonight Show, and he hosted and...
Guest:then jack paul hired us from joey bishop and there we were working in the you were on staff on the at the tonight show yes and that where was that nbc uh rockefeller yeah yeah yeah nbc yeah so watch ice skate i brought my lunch in a bag i watch ice skating you were living in the bronx again
Guest:No, no, we had an apartment, yes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was a five-floor walk-up.
Guest:Didn't matter.
Guest:Didn't really matter.
Guest:And you were married by then?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:No, just living.
Guest:A lot of dating.
Guest:But it was interesting that I just didn't want my family to think they wasted all their money.
Guest:So I actually, the first job I got was with the Daily News.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:as a copy boy in a sports, not even, I say sports reporter, but it's a lie.
Guest:I was a sports statistician.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I did the box scores.
Marc:Right, you had the numbers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You handed the guy.
Guest:Yeah, I knew how many hits batting average.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:This is Dick Young was my idol.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Anyway, I noticed that I was making $45 a week at the Daily News, and I was making $300 a week on The Tonight Show, so...
Guest:I was thinking I'd keep both jobs, but Jack Paul was a little paranoid.
Guest:He didn't like people from newspapers.
Guest:He says, I heard you're working for the Daily News.
Guest:You don't tell them anything.
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:You're the stats guy.
Guest:Yeah, I said, I do nothing.
Guest:Do you want to see the box score?
Guest:And that was it.
Marc:We quit.
Marc:What was he like?
Marc:Because that show, I've gone back and watched some of it as research because he was really the guy who set the standard for that show in a way.
Marc:And no one really did it like him.
Marc:He had long form monologues sitting on the stool.
Guest:Yeah, he set the form there.
Guest:And he really, he was a little bit square compared to today.
Guest:But he did allow the Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen.
Guest:I remember Woody Allen came on.
Guest:the talent coordinator was Dick Cavett, who wanted to be a writer, but he was the talent coordinator.
Guest:Oh, really, for Jack Parr?
Guest:For Jack Parr, and he brought Woody Allen on.
Marc:Because they were both represented by Rollins and Joffrey.
Marc:Yeah, they were all there.
Marc:Yeah, that was the crew.
Guest:Yeah, but when I left to go to Hollywood, Dick Cavett replaced me as a writer.
Guest:Oh, did he?
Guest:I told Jack, I said, your talent coordinator is very funny.
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Dick Cavett, he comes in, he looks...
Guest:Oh, yeah, that Ivy League kid, he said.
Guest:I said, he's funny.
Guest:Forget Ivy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he turned out to be right.
Guest:Yeah, he was good.
Guest:But then we went from Jack Parr, who was a nice man in his way.
Guest:And Joey Bishop called in Hollywood with Danny Thomas and said, come out here and you could be a punch-up writer.
Guest:And that's how I got to Hollywood.
Marc:And Joey Bishop, was he, like, you know, my recollections of him because, you know, of my age, you know, I really think I saw him first on the roasts, and I know he was part of the Rat Pack and stuff, but was he a naturally funny man?
Guest:He was funny, and again, everybody, I learned from everybody, I write in these jokes, I had written for Jack Carter, another guy.
Guest:Jack Carter.
Guest:Jack Carter, stage cellar.
Guest:And I would write and he didn't work.
Guest:And Joey Bishop would say, no, no, you can't say it in their face.
Guest:He says, everybody likes to hear the jokes.
Guest:He says, I like people to overhear my jokes.
Guest:And he used to work facing the band.
Guest:He turned his back to the audience and you just hear it.
Guest:And that has bode me well in all my movies.
Guest:A lot of times I do jokes, you just hear jokes that are closer.
Marc:Instead of throwing them right out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was his style.
Guest:That was his decision.
Guest:That was his style.
Marc:Smooth in a way.
Guest:Smooth and, you know, and he became frank and...
Guest:Sammy and Dean.
Guest:Did you ever see those guys?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They had a couple of writers.
Guest:I guess people say you highlighted your career.
Guest:Once Sammy Davis' years went by, I got to be friends with him, and he said, you know, we knew you.
Guest:I had my partner, then Jerry Bellson.
Guest:He says, we knew you guys were writing stuff for us, but it always went through this head writer guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not even heads.
Guest:He just wrote for them.
Guest:But we would feed them.
Guest:He says, we knew.
Guest:And once we said, hey, why don't we meet those two kids?
Guest:And he said, oh, they're very shy.
Guest:They don't want to meet.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:He didn't want them to know you were the brains.
Guest:But that was nice that they did you.
Guest:Was that a hell of a show to watch?
Guest:The Rat Pack or something, yeah.
Guest:It's fun, right?
Guest:Fun, they all had a good time.
Guest:They all had a built-in attitude.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Do you find yourself, as time went on, and this is obviously before your tremendous success, but was show business more fun?
Guest:I thought it was fun.
Guest:It was really, you know, I wrote early sitcoms from the Joey Bishop.
Guest:Danny Thomas was a very good guy to me.
Guest:And we went, you know, and I was trained.
Guest:I thought blessed with my training.
Guest:I wrote for the Dick Van Dyke Show and I wrote for Lucy.
Guest:And I would go back and forth and work those two shows.
Marc:At the same time?
Marc:Same time.
Marc:And what's your partner's name?
Marc:Jerry Belson?
Marc:Jerry Belson.
Marc:And Belson.
Marc:And so you're working with Lucy and you're working with Dick Van Dyke at the same time.
Marc:And you're on staff then.
Marc:You're a staff writer.
Marc:But yeah, we were freelancers for hire.
Marc:How did it work?
Marc:Was there a room full of guys?
Marc:Did everyone go write their own script?
Marc:Or you come in and you kick jokes around?
Guest:Dick Van Dyke, there was five or six writers, and Carl Reiner would not say, don't give me jokes.
Guest:Tell me what happened to you that embarrassed you.
Guest:And we would tell terrible stories, and that's what was the script.
Guest:And Lucy...
Guest:In Dick Van Dyke, you started with an idea and you took it to the end.
Guest:With Lucy, you did the opposite.
Guest:You started with the last scene, the big, funny, crazy scene, and then your job was to get to it.
Guest:That's how you wrote.
Guest:So there was one producer on Lucy who was very nice to me, and after I said, you know, Dick Van Dyke's winning all the awards and so sophisticated, we shouldn't do slapstick anymore.
Guest:And I said, all right.
Guest:And so we were thinking, and then the producer called me and he said, listen, schmuck, he was a nice man from Brooklyn.
Guest:You just had a baby, right?
Guest:Now I was married with a baby.
Guest:He said, you know, nice Van Dyke won, so Emmy I won, this and that.
Guest:He said, Lucy will be forever.
Guest:He says, writing Lucy is to buy an insurance policy for your kid.
Guest:Every script.
Guest:Interesting.
Guest:And I said, well, that makes sense.
Guest:And I told Jerry, come on, let's keep writing.
Guest:And it is 2016.
Guest:Last year, I still got a residual from Lucy that I wrote in 1965.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Really.
Guest:It was only like for $13, one for $27.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:1965.
Marc:Unbelievable.
Guest:Two plays all around the world.
Marc:Well, that's very funny, though, that weird kind of the highbrow versus the lowbrow or the assumptions.
Marc:I guess Carl Reiner brought a lot of that to Dick Van Dyke because that's sort of his thing.
Guest:Yeah, no, he was great.
Guest:He was one of my mentors.
Guest:But he even said, I said, I was confused.
Guest:He said, do both.
Guest:He says, there's a big audience out there.
Guest:Do both.
Marc:There's like, what, three networks?
Marc:So you got everybody.
Marc:You got a good chunk of everybody.
Marc:And was Lucy amazing?
Marc:Was she a sweet woman?
Guest:She was amazing.
Guest:I have Milana Curse here.
Guest:One of my first scripts, Jerry and I wrote, she wrote, I have it on the cover.
Guest:It said, this is shit.
Guest:She wrote big letters.
Guest:So we went back and said, and the producer said, no, she wants to see how good you rewrite so far.
Guest:Fix it.
Guest:So we fixed it, and then she was very nice.
Marc:And when you, with people, like Dick Van Dyke and Lucy are sort of similar in that they're just natural comedic talents.
Guest:You walk on the stage, somebody's gonna be fine.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:It's a real gift.
Guest:You don't see it a lot, right?
Guest:No, that's Melissa McCarthy.
Guest:It's going to be funny.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Guest:Actually, Louis C.K., who I love.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He pauses, oh, it's going to be funny.
Marc:Something's going to be good.
Guest:He was just in here the day before yesterday.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I love that guy.
Marc:He's a good friend of mine.
Guest:Yeah, I heard you had Julia Louise Dreyfuss, another Northwestern.
Guest:See?
Guest:Good, you're nice to Northwestern.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:And she's also very naturally funny.
Marc:I mean, I think she's comparable to Lucy, really.
Marc:I mean, incredibly naturally funny.
Guest:Yeah, well, everything I learned from Lucy, I taught my sister Penny.
Guest:That's why we had Laverne and Shirley.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:When she started acting, you said, this is what you do, this is what I learned?
Guest:Yeah, no, we learned how to do the physical comedy, and Laverne Shirley did some great physical stuff.
Marc:But you worked on a few other ones.
Marc:You worked on what other one?
Marc:You worked on Gomer Pyle, no, yeah?
Guest:Oh, yeah, we were all over the place, freelancing.
Guest:Jose Jimenez, Milena, Gomer Pyle, never wrote for Andy Griffiths, but met Ron Howard when he was there.
Guest:Again, you should always, I love sports.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I remember he was like 10.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all he wanted to do was throw the baseball.
Guest:Oh, he's on the set of the Andy Griffith show?
Guest:It was the set there.
Marc:Desilu Kowenga.
Guest:Oh, was it Desilu?
Guest:Desilu.
Guest:And nobody would throw the ball with him.
Guest:So I threw with him a few times.
Guest:With Ron Howard.
Guest:He's a kid.
Guest:Yeah, he didn't know my name.
Guest:I said, hi, a guy from Dollar Street.
Guest:And we threw, and then I sold a show called Hey Landlord, and so I had a show on the lot, and it was 99th in the ratings.
Guest:But it was a different.
Guest:Good first effort.
Guest:Yeah, what a good first effort.
Guest:You're still good with the stats, huh?
Guest:I remember I carried a card that had, hey, landlord, 99, and happy days, it was really number one.
Guest:I used to carry that in my wallet.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:To make sure, you know, it's not always
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It not always sucks, so.
Marc:But in writing for comics, you would just sort of, you would know the guy's point of view enough and then just write stories and bits to that point of view.
Marc:Sometimes they tell you.
Guest:You know, I did a...
Guest:I wrote, my daughter wrote with me some books, and one was called Wake Me When It's Funny.
Guest:And it was through, Phil Foster used to say, I'm gonna take a nap now.
Guest:Do this, two routines, this contact lenses, this, this.
Guest:Wake me when it's funny.
Guest:And so it's scary, man, taking a nap.
Guest:Should we wake them?
Guest:Good pressure.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So some of them would feed you stuff, ideas, and you build it out.
Guest:Yeah, we'd idea and build it.
Guest:Punch it up.
Guest:But the pressure that I learned has really helped me through the years.
Guest:Joey Bishop, I love him.
Guest:He would always get nervous, and then we'd be literally at the Sands Hotel he was, and we'd be backstage, and he'd say,
Guest:Oh, this sucks.
Guest:I have no opening lines.
Guest:I have nothing.
Guest:And then so you'd say, well, how about this?
Guest:How about this?
Guest:And you'd talk.
Guest:And you'd hear the, ladies and gentlemen, the Sands Hotel.
Guest:And you talk as best you can.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You've got such anxiety.
Guest:Nothing gives me anxiety.
Marc:Yeah, and was that a regular thing?
Marc:He probably liked to do it that way.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, all networks are the same.
Guest:They get all the pilots, and then the last minute, I hate everything, we got nothing.
Guest:That's called insecurity of showbiz.
Marc:Never stops.
Marc:So what was the first big break then?
Marc:Was it the odd couple?
Guest:We tried movies.
Guest:What'd you do?
Guest:We did a movie called How Sweet It Is with Debbie Reynolds and James Garner.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:You wrote that?
Guest:Yeah, we wrote the screenplay, and then we did another movie called, which was quite good, I thought, called Grasshopper with Jackie Pezet and...
Guest:Jim Brown, actually.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:We had to be friends with Jim Brown.
Marc:Was that early 70s, late 60s?
Marc:Late 60s.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Late 60s.
Guest:And then in the middle of the movie business was a little slow, and we were not successful, really.
Guest:But in the middle, they said, hey, Paramount called back.
Guest:I said, you want to do The Odd Couple?
Guest:We got The Odd Couple.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:we own it, you can write it.
Guest:This is you and Belson?
Guest:And me and Jerry Belson, we wrote a script and they said, this is no good, it's just like Neil Simon writes.
Guest:I said, what do you want?
Guest:Wouldn't you want that?
Guest:He wrote good characters, don't you think?
Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, it was on the air, it was a hit, and one of my happiest stories, Neil Simon hated us and the show.
Guest:You know, they made a deal to help him with the play, one of the greatest plays ever written.
Marc:Oh, so he sold the rights out of desperation.
Guest:Well, yeah, for very, very cheap, he was not making $2.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Maybe $4.
Marc:So he had nothing to do with the TV show.
Guest:No, and he said in the press, I don't think it should be a TV show and this and that.
Guest:But, you know, I believe that if you wait long enough, good is seen or at least acknowledged.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:And by sheer luck, his daughter said to him once, you know, Dad, that's funny, that odd couple.
Guest:Those two guys...
Guest:So he watched it, then wrote us a beautiful letter to me and Jerry Pelson, saying, you guys are doing a good job, and just to be nice, we said, would you like to come on the show?
Guest:And he appeared on My Odd Couple, and Jerry and I...
Guest:And I said, you gotta bring your daughter.
Guest:You can't just come yourself.
Guest:So he did, and he was on the show.
Guest:So we became, and we've been friends ever since.
Marc:That's sweet.
Marc:Well, you know, it was because you honored his characters, right?
Marc:I imagine.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We didn't make one of pirates or something.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so you do this great thing with the odd couple.
Guest:An odd couple.
Guest:Five years on the air?
Guest:Five years, and finally, that was the benchmark you had to do five years.
Marc:And you were writing, you had a staff, right?
Guest:What was your credit on that?
Guest:Oh, man, it was have 10 writers.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We were showrunners on Hey Landlord, but we didn't know
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But we did know how.
Guest:When you create a show, they make you a producer.
Guest:The first thing you have to do as a producer is hire yourself as a director because nobody else will.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we got right.
Guest:Jerry and I also got in the guild, director's guild.
Guest:But I must say we learned to show run on the art couple.
Marc:And Showrunner was, I guess it had been around a long time, but as a job, it was a relatively new job in television, right?
Guest:Yeah, they used to, years they went from radio to TV.
Guest:What they did originally is take all the great radio writers who wrote stories and wrote this sitcom, and then somebody said,
Guest:why don't we get some of the joke writers from Fred Allen, Jack Benny.
Guest:And they said, they don't know how to make a story.
Guest:And they said, well, we're having trouble teaching the story writers how to write jokes.
Guest:Maybe we can teach the joke writers how to write stories.
Guest:And that changed the business.
Guest:Nat Hyken, Sergeant Bill, changed the whole business.
Guest:And all the comedy writers were now joke writers.
Marc:And that was how modern television was invented.
Marc:That was how it was invented.
Marc:And as a showrunner, you ran The Room and you ran.
Guest:Ten writers and you had to be not only the buck stopped at you, you had to be a great picker.
Guest:And I seem to have a good talent as a picker.
Guest:Writing was okay, but I could.
Guest:Wait, wait, that guy over there.
Guest:Because I remember Neil Simon never spoke on Sid Caesar.
Guest:Only Danny spoke.
Guest:And once in a while, Carl would say, wait, wait, Neil said something.
Yeah.
Guest:Say it a little louder, Neil.
Guest:And so I could pick them and I got a lot of writers.
Marc:And you would run interference between the show and the network?
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:I gotta say, the network didn't bud in so much in those days.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:They're much more on top of it now.
Marc:But they were happy it was working.
Marc:Yes, they left me alone.
Guest:Happy days ran 11 years after like five or six years.
Guest:I never saw anybody from the network.
Guest:Nobody came around.
Guest:They didn't care what we were doing.
Marc:And then so the odd couple's on and you're doing other stuff, right?
Marc:Did you actually work on Love American Style?
Guest:No, I did, but the thing was in those days they had a very good plan.
Guest:If you made a pilot and it was no good, they didn't throw it away.
Guest:They would put it on Love American Star and just change the title.
Marc:So just scripts floating around, stories.
Guest:So I wrote a pilot for Happy Days, and it didn't sell, but they put it right on a Love America side.
Guest:That was the first time those characters appeared?
Guest:Yeah, New Neighborhood, Love and the New Neighbors or something they called it.
Guest:And that was the beginning of Happy Days?
Guest:That was my first pilot, and then they, you know how- With the same characters?
Guest:Pretty much, no Fonzie.
Guest:It was Ritchie and Patsy and Howard.
Guest:And the original had Ron Howard and Marion Ross.
Guest:And there was that whole story.
Guest:One of my best friends from Korea, from the...
Guest:Mark's old business was a casting director for George Lucas on American Graffiti.
Guest:And he said, we're doing 50s.
Guest:You got an old 50s pilot you did last year?
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:And I sent it to him.
Guest:That's where they hired Ron Howard for American Graffiti.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Was out of that.
Guest:Out of the thing you wrote for Love American style.
Guest:Yeah, and out of that, American graffiti became a smash.
Guest:Greeks on Broadway became a smash.
Guest:And the TV people said, don't we have that?
Guest:And somebody says, who did that?
Guest:Tell him to do it again.
Guest:And by then, Belson, my partner, was going into movies, so we kind of broke up.
Guest:But I asked him, you want to come on?
Guest:I got this new show, and I got a new character.
Guest:And he now tells me, he said, Gary said, there's something funsy, fancy, something crazy by the writer, nice family.
Guest:I don't want to.
Guest:I like edgy.
Guest:I like this.
Guest:He never came with me.
Guest:Does he regret that?
Guest:He has unfortunately passed away.
Guest:He regrets it a little financially.
Guest:He was not so.
Guest:Did he write some good movies?
Guest:He wrote for Spielberg, a lot of punch-ups.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:He was probably the funniest person I ever met was my mother.
Guest:Funniest guy ever was Jerry Belson.
Guest:so okay so now that's amazing to me because i vaguely remember love american style from when i was a kid i was about nine or ten but i remember it was a little racy and it was always different and every funny guy on television showed up there yeah i wrote some special uh i wrote some episodes later i wrote i was fascinated by the fact that a tuba i like music and you know tuba was used in dixie which i played
Guest:So I said, how about I trap two people in a tuba?
Guest:So I literally got a tuba and made my wife get in them under the tuba.
Guest:And obviously we didn't fit, so we had to make a special tuba, and I did love in the tuba.
Guest:Frankie Avalon and I forget the girl.
Marc:It was a sketch, basically.
Guest:Yes, but that was Love of America.
Guest:Sure, all sketches.
Guest:All sketches and interstitial material.
Guest:They used to call it filler.
Guest:I wrote a lot of those.
Marc:Yeah, I remember.
Marc:It was funny because you get to see like Artie Johnson and Larry Stewart.
Marc:Everybody was on it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So then Happy Day starts.
Marc:You're saying that the nostalgia craze was upon us.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how did you bring that all together?
Marc:How did you cast that?
Marc:Did you see Winkler in Lords of Flatbush?
Marc:Or how did that work?
Marc:Or was that later?
Marc:That might have been later, right?
Guest:No, first Ron Howard did it.
Guest:People keep saying you create these things.
Guest:I have never created television.
Guest:I create and then it evolves.
Guest:And if you stop it from evolving, you go off the air.
Guest:But we started with, I thought the show was about Patsy and Richie, Ron Howard and Anson Williams.
Guest:But then Michael Eisner had seen American Graffiti
Marc:He was the agent at the time?
Guest:He was the head of Paramount.
Marc:No, Michael Eisenhardt, the head of Disney later.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah, we went together from Paramount to Disney.
Guest:But he said, it shouldn't be about this nice family.
Guest:It should be about a gang.
Guest:And I said, I'm not sure.
Guest:He said, well, somewhere get a gang in.
Guest:And I said, we have no money for a gang.
Guest:How about I get one guy who'll represent the gang?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we got, for the second time we did the pilot, I added Fonzie.
Marc:Winkler, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where'd you see him?
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:He came in to audition.
Guest:I wanted a tall Italian guy from the streets of the Bronx, and they sent me a very short Jewish guy from the streets of Long Island.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But lo and behold, Henry Winkler was such a good actor that he put on the jacket.
Guest:And there was Fonzie before my eyes at my office.
Guest:I saw it.
Guest:I said, whoop, that's him.
Guest:Let's hire him.
Guest:And he became one of the better human beings I ever met in show business, Henry.
Marc:Yeah, I talk to him in here.
Marc:He's a sweet man, very sweet man.
Guest:Good guy.
Marc:Yeah, and that Fonzie character, I mean, I was a kid, so what?
Marc:So Happy Days runs, what, 74 to 80, 10 years, and I'm 11 through whatever, 21, but...
Marc:But I remember when I was a kid, you're walking around going, hey, hitting things.
Marc:It was something else.
Guest:There were guys in my neighborhood who never spoke much, but one day they'd hug you, and the next day they'd hit you in the head.
Guest:So those silent types worked well for me, and I think eventually that Henry Winkler became such a star that we shifted the whole thing
Guest:happy days to him because I always wanted Richie to have an older brother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had two of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were gone.
Guest:People still ask, what happened to Chuck?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, Chuck Bradley.
Marc:Oh, you tried it a couple of times.
Marc:Yeah, twice.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I remember he was like a college kid, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:We were trying in Denmark.
Marc:now you know over the years you know it was on tv longer than most sitcoms yeah ever were longer than most marriages yeah yeah and they and also we get the uh you get the term jumping the shark from happy days that's right now we when you're in that position where you got a good thing going and you know it changed the culture it changed people's lives people loved the thing
Marc:What was the decision process?
Marc:How does that work?
Marc:How does it stay on the air so long?
Marc:They just kept making money?
Guest:Yeah, it kept playing.
Guest:It partially changed the industry in that usually people bid on reruns.
Guest:And they said, how am I?
Guest:There was this wholesale.
Guest:They'd say, if you buy this show, you get this show.
Guest:And with Happy Days, a very smart man.
Guest:And Paramount said, bid on it.
Guest:There's no price on Happy Days.
Guest:Bid on it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And everybody worried about, oh, what if the other station gets it?
Marc:The syndicators.
Marc:Syndicators.
Guest:WPIX in New York.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And the price went up, and now everybody does that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But that was the first one to do it.
Guest:So they left it on.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The incentive was, if it had such a big syndication market, let's just keep making them.
Guest:Yeah, and then they understood, Fred Silverman came in and understood that you wanted to get an hour.
Guest:So he said to me, create something behind Happy Days quick.
Marc:So you could partner it with something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's where Laverne and Shirley.
Marc:Laverne and Shirley.
Marc:And now what was your relationship with your sister at this time?
Marc:Was she acting?
Marc:Was she?
Marc:She was a stunt lady.
Guest:And my mother, you know, it's always family.
Guest:Penny Marshall was a stunt lady.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:On Savage 7.
Guest:She got knocked off a bike.
Marc:And you were both out here, though, and you saw her.
Marc:Yes, she had to come here.
Guest:No, my mother called and said, get your sister a job.
Guest:She's dating morons.
Guest:I remember, clear as a bill.
Guest:She said it so clear.
Guest:And that's when she went on Odd Couple as a secretary.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Jack Klugman, Tony Reynolds taught her a lot about acting.
Guest:And then...
Guest:She was a writer when we did Laverne Shirley, and we made a show.
Guest:They were on Happy Days.
Guest:It's not so hard to find people when they're on one show.
Guest:Fred Silverman was the king of spin-offs, and he'd always say, your actors are fine.
Guest:Find out who's guesting that's interesting, and then make a show.
Guest:He started all that.
Guest:Oh, that was him?
Guest:Really, Fred Silverman.
Marc:Because that doesn't happen too much anymore.
Guest:Well, not the same way.
Marc:Not the same way.
Marc:Right, where they could coexist.
Marc:You know, like you could have both shows on.
Guest:They take people of Seinfeld.
Marc:Sure, sure, but not with the same character.
Marc:No, no, not that way.
Marc:And we had Lenny and Squiggy, I just remembered.
Marc:Michael McKean's a genius.
Marc:Yes, oh, he's...
Guest:giant now.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We tried a pilot for them, it didn't work, but we got Robert Williams off Happy Days, too.
Marc:And now, so you got your sister doing Laverne Shirley, which becomes a big hit.
Marc:Her and Cindy Williams, right?
Marc:That was her name?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And she was in American Graffiti.
Marc:She was great in American Graffiti, right?
Marc:Yes, great in American Graffiti.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that went on for years.
Guest:So you have both of these things running together.
Guest:Cindy was in The Conversation, was a real actress, and just did it.
Guest:Oh, Coppola's movie, with Hackman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She did a fav, I'll do it, but it won't sell.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:And Mork, who came up with, how'd you come in touch with Robin?
Guest:Well, this is a story I've told, but I have three kids and two girls and a boy, and my son wasn't watching Happy Days.
Guest:He didn't watch it.
Guest:He's the youngest.
Guest:And I said, why won't you watch Happy Days?
Guest:He says, there's no space people.
Yeah.
Guest:Because he loves.
Guest:I said, but it's the 50s.
Guest:And the kids are smart.
Guest:He was seven.
Guest:And he said he could dream.
Guest:And I went to the writers.
Guest:I said, Fonzie doesn't have any new adversaries.
Guest:Let's get an alien.
Guest:You should have seen the staring at me.
Guest:What is he doing?
Guest:But we created Mork from Mork and put him on the show.
Guest:Did Robin come in on an audition?
Guest:No, we were hiring people like John Biner and some wonderful comedians.
Guest:And nobody wanted to do it.
Guest:And my sister Ronnie, I work with family a lot, was my casting person, said there's a kid
Guest:I talked to an agent, Alan Swyman.
Guest:He said, there's a new kid.
Guest:And I literally said, what has he done?
Guest:And she said, he stands on the street corner, and he makes noises and imitations, and he passes the hat.
Guest:I said, that's the credit.
Guest:He has to be on the number one show.
Guest:She said, yeah.
Guest:He has a very full hat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a street performer?
Guest:Yes, he was, and he came in, I think he did one job for George Slaughter somewhere, but nobody knew where, and he came in and he literally did the audition, standing on his head, and never missed a line, and we put him in Happy Day.
Guest:We were so desperate, we thought Monday to Friday, we didn't have an actor at Wednesday.
Guest:You didn't have your alien.
Guest:Didn't have an alien.
Guest:I said, and luckily, some people are nicer than others than Ron Howard and Henry Winkler.
Guest:I said, this guy is coming in as the alien.
Guest:He's a little green.
Guest:So help him.
Guest:And they did.
Guest:And he did the episode as the alien.
Guest:And at the end, I announced Fonzie.
Guest:I announced Fonzie.
Guest:Ron Howard, and they stood up for Robin.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:It was a day play.
Marc:In the live audience.
Marc:Live audience.
Guest:They loved it.
Guest:300 people just stood up and said, who is that guy?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So I said, maybe he's something.
Guest:Maybe he's something.
Guest:But no, my cameraman said one day, you know those two girls you played from the other side of the tracks?
Guest:That's a two shot.
Guest:That would be good.
Guest:Make that show.
Guest:So I listened, but I must say, again, what I just said, when the network hated all their pilots, the last two days, Eisner came in and said, what do you got?
Guest:They're desperate.
Guest:They're desperate.
Guest:Say anything.
Guest:And I, of course, called the network and I said, did you see the episode with Robin Williams?
Guest:They said, no.
Guest:But again, there's always hope.
Guest:One voice, a girl, I heard her say, her name was Marcy Carsey.
Guest:She was the lowest of the low.
Guest:She said, I saw it.
Guest:He was very good.
Guest:And she said, he could be.
Guest:I said, yes, more for more.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, where is it?
Guest:I said, and I'm crazy, so I think when they say, where is it?
Guest:I say, where can I eat?
Guest:Where can I get a bed?
Guest:I'll be cold.
Guest:I said, I have a niece in Boulder.
Guest:I said to him, Boulder, Colorado, a totally unique place.
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:And they said, what's the name of it?
Guest:I said, it's called The More Chronicles, about aliens.
Guest:And then there was this silence.
Guest:And I heard, nobody knows what chronicles means.
Guest:I said, there's us on the phone.
Guest:How many of you don't know what chronicle means?
Guest:Well, you can't name it that way.
Guest:And Marcy Smart said, no, they want the name Pets.
Guest:It's like Laverne and Shirley.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Pets and Mork and Mindy, I said.
Guest:I made up a name.
Guest:I think I said Mork and Melissa.
Guest:They didn't like that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But that's how the show started.
Marc:Marcy Carsey went on to be Carsey Warner?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She was smart as a whip.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Big production company.
Guest:Yes, and again, random life circles.
Guest:Her husband, John Cosby, was one of the associate producers on the Jack Posh Show.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:That's how you just- It's a show business.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It was a smaller business.
Marc:For me, it's all circles.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And that show was amazing and Robin became a huge star.
Guest:Oh, he became a star.
Guest:Sweet guy.
Guest:Oh, sweet as heck.
Guest:He was a lovely guy and had some demons and I always said, you know, how I kept my shows together, I had softball teams, traveling softball teams, traveled to big stadiums and this and that.
Guest:But Robin didn't want to play softball so much.
Guest:He mostly just like
Guest:working, but he was the best I ever worked with as far as comedy genius, no question.
Marc:Yeah, and he could do anything.
Guest:Pretty much, he could make you laugh any time of day, night, in any way.
Marc:I'm surprised you didn't do any movies with him.
Guest:No, we were close and we wanted to do, but he did a wonderful movie with my sister Penny called Awakenings.
Guest:I thought she'd have won some prizes because that was a wonderful movie.
Guest:Did you give Penny her first directing job, I imagine?
Guest:I made a direct on Laverne Shirley that she directed and did pretty good.
Guest:You want to hear the feminist side of the world?
Guest:She went to the studios and said, I'd like to direct.
Guest:They actually said to her, we don't like women directors.
Guest:We don't think that they have a mindset and they won't come up with ideas that would reach a mass audience.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:They said that, and Penny, he's not really a feminist, but said, I'll show them.
Guest:And she was the first woman director ever to break the $100 million benchmark.
Guest:She made two pictures that made over $100 million.
Guest:Big and league of their own.
Guest:And she was the first woman director ever to do that.
Guest:Others have, but Penny was the first, so I'm quite proud of her.
Marc:Yeah, it's great.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:And you started making your own movies.
Marc:I mean, obviously you did a lot more television and you're still involved with television, but the movie started when?
Marc:Like later, right?
Guest:Yeah, late 80s.
Guest:I said, I'll try theater.
Guest:Here's a trivia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was the show at the Winter Garden in New York before Cats?
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I should know.
Guest:I'll tell you.
Guest:It was called The Roast.
Guest:I wrote it.
Guest:The Roast lasted three nights.
Guest:Cats ran 18 years.
Guest:Aren't you glad you had me as a guest?
Guest:Three nights against 18 years.
Guest:Is that what made you realize maybe plays aren't my thing?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:It truly was not the greatest play.
Guest:But again, I always have these stories where out of this comes that.
Guest:It was in Boston.
Guest:They got terrible reviews in Boston, but this head usher loved it.
Guest:He said, this is funny.
Guest:Yes, it wasn't a good play.
Guest:What was it about?
Guest:It was about a comedian being roasted by a guy who was like his son, but he turned on him.
Guest:It had some drama, but there was a 20-minute hunk that was really funny, but the rest wasn't good.
Guest:Anyway, we died.
Guest:It was over, but the usher...
Guest:I always remembered him.
Guest:His name was Jason Alexander.
Guest:I always have these stories.
Guest:They're all true.
Guest:Years later, I'm trying to find somebody for Pretty Woman, and I said, what is that kid?
Guest:I don't know if he's funny, but he likes humor.
Guest:He's a song and dance man.
Guest:I said, no, let me audition him.
Guest:I auditioned him.
Guest:I wasn't there on tape with Richard Gere,
Guest:And I said, he's wonderful.
Guest:I said, what's wonderful?
Guest:I said, he makes Richard Gere funny.
Guest:Perfect together.
Guest:And that's what we used.
Marc:And that's what happened with Pretty Woman?
Marc:Yeah, that's why he was hired for Pretty Woman.
Marc:That's an usher.
Guest:The one guy that liked your play.
Yes.
Guest:Well, Jerry Belson said, well, he has a good sense of humor.
Guest:He was going to, I think, Boston College at the time.
Marc:Very funny.
Marc:He's a very funny guy.
Marc:Yeah, he's the greatest.
Marc:But the other movies, you know, like Flamingo Kid was a huge movie, great movie.
Guest:Yeah, my first one was Young Doctors in Love, and I smoked and ate candy bars, and I was a mess.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I was going to quit.
Guest:Quit what?
Guest:Directing.
Guest:I said, this is not for me.
Guest:this directing business.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I said, it's too exhausting.
Guest:It's craziness.
Guest:And then my sister actually said, well, maybe this was a bad experience.
Guest:You'll see.
Guest:And then I got Flamingo Kid that nobody wanted to make.
Guest:They thought it was about poker.
Guest:I thought it was about fathers and sons, which I know about.
Guest:And that became a hit, and that was fun making.
Marc:And that was Matt Dillon, right?
Marc:Yeah, Matt Dillon.
Marc:He's a great movie guy.
Guest:He is good, but again, it's always cockeyed.
Guest:I'm telling you, I had Matthew Broderick to play the lead in Flamingo Kid.
Guest:Two weeks before, he had to leave and do something else.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:So Matt Dillon comes in after doing that Outsiders, that Coppola or something, and he's- And Rumblefish, too, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, and he said, hi, I'm Matt Dillon.
Guest:I said, hi, he says, you know, I don't do comedy.
Guest:Good, I'm glad we hired you for the lead, boy.
Guest:What a good thing.
Guest:And then I said, I'll find what's funny.
Guest:And we found, he became very good.
Marc:Yeah, and now he's very funny.
Marc:I mean, he did some pretty good comedy.
Marc:Oh yeah, he did.
Marc:Mary, something about Mary, right?
Guest:Yeah, he was great.
Guest:I wrote him.
Guest:I said how funny he was and the whole thing.
Guest:But Richard Trenner was the guy who held that picture together.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He passed away, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:And my biggest asset in my first movie, which was not a hit, was Hector Alexander.
Guest:He's in every movie you do.
Guest:18 out of 18.
Guest:You love that guy.
Guest:I do.
Guest:We come from the streets of New York.
Guest:We play basketball together.
Guest:Now we play softball together.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I saw him in Mother's Day.
Marc:The guy doesn't look like he ages.
Guest:No.
Guest:He's...
Guest:We played ball yesterday.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:We play Thursdays.
Guest:He's always there.
Guest:Yes, he's always there.
Marc:There he is.
Marc:Always there.
Guest:At the fountain in Mother's Day.
Guest:They say he has so many characters he does.
Guest:He does so many characters.
Guest:He has more toupees than anybody I know.
Guest:We go to his house, we pick a toupee, and this is what you are.
Guest:mother's day which is very funny and is uh he's bald yeah yeah he let it he just let it go he let it happen he said you got too many stars in this picture you don't want to wait for me in hair and makeup i'll be bald because the three girls are going to be terrific he wore a hat though
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you got Kate Hudson and Julia Roberts.
Marc:I had never worked with them.
Marc:Jennifer Aniston.
Guest:Jennifer Aniston.
Guest:She's so good.
Guest:Really good.
Guest:She just was terrific.
Guest:She's so prepared and can do anything.
Guest:She can.
Guest:And really is genuine.
Guest:People say this, that, but she is a genuine person.
Guest:You think it's really you're watching a friend.
Marc:I feel like that.
Guest:Yeah, she has that quality.
Marc:Just amazing.
Marc:And this is like your, what, your 15th movie, whatever?
Marc:18 out of 18.
Guest:Ask Hector, 18 out of 18.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And some of them, like, I got a question, because, you know,
Marc:Flamingo Kid, Beaches, Pretty Woman, Frankie and Johnny was a pretty big movie, right?
Marc:The Princess Diaries was a big movie.
Marc:But we started with you sort of admitting that sometimes they don't go.
Guest:No, my worst in television was me and the chimp.
Guest:You hear the applause, listen.
Guest:And the movies, I had a few failures.
Marc:But how do you, in retrospect, in terms of your logic around making them, and I imagine that you're enough of a guy that you've got sort of final cut with most things, right?
Marc:It's harder now, but I did that for a long time.
Marc:So what do you think happens when something doesn't work?
Guest:Well, I think it all depends on what you call work.
Guest:Two of my best pictures didn't make a lot of money, which was nothing in common with Jackie Gleason and Tom Hanks.
Guest:Oh, that's right, and Tom Hanks.
Guest:It was a terrific picture.
Guest:I thought it came out at the wrong time or something.
Guest:It didn't make money.
Guest:But it's still very good.
Guest:I loved that movie.
Guest:That was a salute to fathers.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It was a painful and beautiful movie.
Guest:And Jackie was great.
Guest:That was one of his last films, right?
Guest:It was his last film.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That was a good movie.
Guest:That was how we got him to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tom and I prepared how we should be in the movie.
Guest:We had all this speech.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we went and Ray Stark, this producer, said, Jackie, you're not feeling well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you don't do another movie and you go, your last picture will be smoking in the bandit part two.
Guest:Jackie said, give me the fucking pen.
Guest:And he signed and he did nothing.
Guest:And he was ill during the shooting?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he soon died after that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a wonderful man, Jackie.
Marc:But that got a very good critical reaction?
Guest:Very good critical.
Guest:And another picture I did...
Guest:about a mentally challenged child, which I always wanted to do, was called the other sister.
Guest:Also a great critical reaction, didn't make money.
Guest:And then Pretty Woman made money, and this, but I would say the artist I did was a picture, you mentioned before, Exeter Eden.
Marc:Dan Aykroyd, Rosie O'Donnell.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I wanted Sharon Stone and Don Johnson.
Guest:Look at this casting worked out for me.
Guest:But no, I thought, I truly believe that I love love stories.
Guest:And I thought there could be a love story in every situation.
Guest:And I did delve into the world of S&M and said, can there be love with all that stuff?
Guest:and I based it on a book of a wonderful writer named Anne Rice, who's the queen of vampires, and she had some tragedy in her life, and used to write erotica to get away, and I took her book, and we did it, but it didn't work out.
Guest:The company that was doing it wasn't a studio didn't think it would be good, and they made it a comedy.
Guest:really wasn't a comedy.
Guest:So that's how things go wrong.
Guest:I think mostly what goes wrong with everybody's picture is when you and the money people are not making the same film.
Marc:And that happens a lot.
Marc:And then there's arguments about it.
Marc:You compromise.
Guest:You compromise and sometimes money wins, sometimes you win, but it's never good.
Guest:I have avoided it a lot of times and sometimes I haven't.
Marc:Yeah, and you also, like, outside of making all these movies, you like to show up in things.
Marc:You like to act.
Marc:My acting.
Marc:I tell you, man, the scene in, you know, like, I didn't know who you were when I saw Lost in America.
Marc:I don't know who you were then.
Marc:I wasn't in show business.
Marc:It's one of the best scenes in the world.
Marc:And Albert Brooks and you, it was just, that was hilarious.
Marc:And now how did he cast you in that?
Guest:Rob Reiner and my sister Penny were married for a brief time.
Guest:And they had the best parties in Hollywood.
Guest:And I would go to them, and Albert, all the funny people would be there.
Guest:And Albert said to me once, I need you.
Guest:He says, you talk like a gangster.
Guest:He says, I need somebody nobody knows.
Guest:Nobody knows you.
Guest:I said, no, particularly.
Guest:And so he asked me as the casino owner, and they thought I was the casino owner.
Guest:And he directed me, and we did like 17 takes.
Guest:And he didn't write it all.
Guest:I must say, again, this random stuff.
Guest:picture Albert wrote with Jerry Belson's sister.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Monica Johnson is Jerry Belson's kid sister.
Guest:It all comes around.
Guest:It does come around, but we had a good time.
Marc:I enjoyed that part.
Marc:The line where you go, we're finished talking.
Marc:That was...
Guest:I watch it once in a while.
Marc:Do you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How's it hold up?
Guest:Pretty good, right?
Guest:Pretty good makes me laugh.
Guest:Santee Claus, that's what Monica Johnson wrote.
Guest:Santee Claus.
Marc:That was funny.
Guest:Albert Brooks is another great genius.
Marc:Oh, he is, yeah.
Marc:Well, you did a lot of acting, and people see, I bet you that's where a lot of the funny people started to, that was your big break as an actor in the funny stuff, right?
Guest:Yeah, well, I do like it, and it sounds corny, but I like to act, and I try to act just before I direct because I remember then what an actor goes through.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And where they're vulnerable and where they're not.
Guest:And I must say I spend as much time before action, before and after cut as I do between action and cut.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because you want to know what's going on, and I know how I felt.
Marc:And you did, well, I mean, we can't go through everything, but you did work with my friend Louie.
Marc:Louie, oh, he was great.
Marc:Yeah, you did too.
Guest:And you know how stupid I am.
Guest:I can't always keep up.
Guest:And this guy called me and he said, hello, Louie C.K.
Guest:I said, hi.
Guest:He says, you play bosses.
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:I have a suit, a tie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He says, so I want you to be on my show.
Guest:I asked my son, who shoots all my second unit.
Guest:He shoots all of this.
Guest:I said, who is Louis C.K.?
Guest:And my son, he's the greatest.
Guest:He's the greatest.
Guest:And I went, I met him, and I really liked him.
Guest:We had a great time.
Guest:He's quite funny.
Guest:And the new movie's out?
Guest:The new movie?
Guest:Mother's Day.
Guest:Mother's Day.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I like sitting, chatting.
Guest:I can tell stories.
Guest:You got another one?
Guest:You got another one that we didn't, that you like to tell, that you didn't tell?
Guest:I was trying to say, because I'm a little, you do dirty jokes, I can't tell.
Guest:Sure, you can do it.
Guest:It's not dirty.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:I just, Robin Williams loved to do dirty stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which we had to cut out, but he did it.
Guest:But what he loved to do is tell riddles to Pam Darber, and it would be dirty, and she would blush, you know, Pam Darber.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:One day the writers found out what joke he was going to say, and they told her the punchline.
Guest:So he goes out in the middle of the scene.
Guest:He says, what happens when you cross a donkey with an onion?
Guest:And the guys told, and Pam said, you get a piece of ass that'll make your eyes water.
Guest:And that's the only time I saw Robin speechless.
Guest:He looked around, stunned.
Guest:What?
Guest:Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:So that was one of my favorite Robin stories.
Guest:May he rest in peace.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, thank you for sharing all this stuff.
Marc:And it was great to see you again.
Marc:Good to see you.
Marc:I forgot.
Marc:Now I'll remember this interview.
Guest:You'll remember this one.
Guest:I will.
Marc:Thank you, Gary.
Marc:Thank you so much.
Guest:Take care.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:You know, most people get sweeter as they get older.
Marc:A lot of people, like I'm seeing that in my own life, but what a sweet guy, funny guy, good stories.
Marc:He has that great accent, great talking to him.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all the WTFPod needs.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com slash tour for the Tripany link for my shows in May and June at the Tripany House in Los Angeles at the Steve Allen Theater.
Marc:And anything else you might want, check out the new site.
Marc:Very exciting.
Marc:Very exciting.
Marc:The site that Squarespace made us.
Marc:Ali Wong on Thursday.
Marc:Her new special is fucking awesome.
Marc:All right.
Guest:Boomer lives!