Episode 740 - Billy Crystal

Episode 740 • Released September 8, 2016 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucker weekends what the fucksters what the fuck nicks yeah what the fuck nicks how about that old school

00:00:23Marc:Hey, it's me, Mark Maron.

00:00:25Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:26Marc:This is my podcast.

00:00:28Marc:I'm in New York City.

00:00:29Marc:I'm here for an opening of a famous artist, Sarah Kane.

00:00:35Marc:The Sarah Kane.

00:00:36Marc:Her show, Dark Matter, opens tonight, Thursday night, September 8th, here in New York City at the Gallery Le Long.

00:00:48Marc:That's gallery with an I-E at the end because it's fucking fancy.

00:00:52Marc:Some fancy business.

00:00:55Marc:I went over there and looked at my partner's girlfriend.

00:01:00Marc:I don't know.

00:01:02Marc:Lady friend.

00:01:05Marc:Person I'm seeing.

00:01:07Marc:I still don't, partner just doesn't, it doesn't work for me.

00:01:11Marc:I know that's everybody, you know, partner, partner.

00:01:13Marc:What does that mean?

00:01:14Marc:I got to call Brendan, my producer and business partner, my partner, but then I have to qualify it with like business partner.

00:01:21Marc:So obviously I know that the word has implications, but maybe my chick, is that still, does that not kosher?

00:01:28Marc:No, no good.

00:01:32Marc:I'll go with the lady I'm seeing.

00:01:35Marc:The woman.

00:01:36Marc:The woman in my life.

00:01:39Marc:Oh, boy.

00:01:40Marc:She's giving me the thumbs up in her bathrobe on the bed.

00:01:44Marc:So I went over there and looked at the show.

00:01:46Marc:And I got to say, it's pretty spectacular.

00:01:48Marc:It's like going to an abstract theme park.

00:01:53Marc:Very full-body experience, full-body immersion in the art of Sarah Kane.

00:01:59Marc:If you want to go to the opening, it's open to the public tonight here in New York City, 6 to 8 at Gallery La Longa.

00:02:08Marc:So what else?

00:02:09Marc:On the show today, Billy Crystal.

00:02:12Marc:The Billy Crystal, the great one of the great Jewish funny men.

00:02:17Marc:Can I call him that?

00:02:18Marc:Sure.

00:02:19Marc:Why not?

00:02:20Marc:Oh, before you fast forward to Billy, new WTF cat mugs are available from Brian Jones up in Portland.

00:02:28Marc:These are the same mugs I give to my guests.

00:02:31Marc:They go on sale at 12 noon Eastern, 9 a.m.

00:02:34Marc:Pacific.

00:02:35Marc:Go to BrianRJones.com to get yours.

00:02:40Marc:I'm in a motel room.

00:02:41Marc:I'm not drinking just coffee.

00:02:42Marc:I'm drinking tea.

00:02:43Marc:It's kind of cold.

00:02:45Marc:I just spent an hour and a half with Tom Sharpling.

00:02:48Marc:We just recorded another Mark and Tom show.

00:02:51Marc:That should be forthcoming.

00:02:53Marc:We'll get that out to you soon.

00:02:54Marc:We had our standard...

00:02:58Marc:somewhat midlife chats about this and that.

00:03:01Marc:But very few people make me laugh as much as Tom Sharpling.

00:03:05Marc:I don't know if you listen to the best show, but you should listen to it.

00:03:09Marc:He's one of the great broadcasters, very funny, and we have fun together.

00:03:14Marc:So look forward to that.

00:03:16Marc:I just got here yesterday to New York City from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I spent a few days

00:03:22Marc:I'd like to thank everyone who came out to the big benefit for Endorphin Power Company at the Hispanic Cultural Center at the Albuquerque Journal Theater there in my hometown.

00:03:33Marc:It was a spectacular show.

00:03:35Marc:I had a great time for a good cause.

00:03:38Marc:Saw a lot of people that I haven't seen in a while.

00:03:41Marc:very it's very wild man it's very wild to not be part of people's lives for decades but having had them in your life at a for a short period of time and another point in your history and i've always had a hard time wrapping my brain around that around you know seeing people because you have these very strong connections like i saw right when i got to albuquerque

00:04:05Marc:And I went to Duran's Pharmacy for some carne ad ovata.

00:04:12Marc:And I was just sitting there at the counter, and there's some middle-aged dude at the other end of the counter, just this stout little dude, and he's looking at me, and I got no idea.

00:04:25Marc:I'm not connecting it.

00:04:27Marc:I'm not seeing nothing.

00:04:28Marc:I thought maybe he recognized me or whatever, so I'm sitting there.

00:04:30Marc:He gets up, walks over, and he's like,

00:04:32Marc:Hey, Mark, man, you remember me?

00:04:34Marc:It's me, John.

00:04:35Marc:And I'm like, what?

00:04:36Marc:And I'm like, holy shit.

00:04:38Marc:It's John, the guy who lived across the street from me, whose house, you know, I got stoned with him in his tree house.

00:04:45Marc:One of the first times I got really stoned.

00:04:47Marc:And I've told this story before, but it was one of those great moments of bad parenting that probably led me to where I am now.

00:04:54Marc:But nonetheless, I couldn't, I could barely see John in this guy.

00:04:58Marc:Because a lot of times people put it different ways.

00:05:01Marc:Like, I mean, Tom Schiller used to do a bit about seeing the person that you used to know inside the person you're talking to.

00:05:06Marc:They're just surrounded by more face.

00:05:09Marc:But it almost looks like these people have eaten the person you knew in high school and they've grown from within them, inside of them.

00:05:15Marc:Whatever the case, you kind of see who the person was.

00:05:19Marc:And I recognized him once he said who it was.

00:05:21Marc:But, you know, he did have this awkward sort of stonery laugh.

00:05:25Marc:That, you know, he kind of interjected nervously after almost each sentence.

00:05:29Marc:And I'm like, that's the John I know.

00:05:31Marc:There's that.

00:05:32Marc:Hey, man, it's me, John.

00:05:35Marc:And I'm like, oh, yeah, there you are.

00:05:38Marc:There you are.

00:05:40Marc:But yeah, he was the guy.

00:05:42Marc:I went over to his house and we went up his tree house, got really stoned.

00:05:45Marc:I freaked out.

00:05:46Marc:I went home to my house.

00:05:48Marc:I walked in.

00:05:49Marc:My mother was on to it.

00:05:50Marc:She said, are you stoned?

00:05:51Marc:And I go, yes, I'm stoned.

00:05:53Marc:And she goes, well, why don't you go to your room and play guitar?

00:05:57Marc:They say you play better when you're like that.

00:06:00Marc:She didn't really have the hang of punishing.

00:06:02Marc:But I appreciate that.

00:06:04Marc:Because, I mean, that kind of creative support is what sent me wandering throughout the world aimlessly to define myself in a creative way.

00:06:12Marc:And that's why I ended up here.

00:06:14Marc:Because my mom sent me to my room high to play guitar.

00:06:18Marc:Carnegie Hall, November 4th.

00:06:20Marc:That's happening.

00:06:21Marc:Tickets are going fast.

00:06:23Marc:I would get them if I were you.

00:06:24Marc:I will be in Rochester, New York, at the Comedy Club tomorrow night and Saturday night, 9th and 10th, four shows.

00:06:34Marc:I think one or two is sold out, but I think there's still tickets available.

00:06:38Marc:The Wilbur, September 24th, two shows.

00:06:41Marc:That's happening.

00:06:42Marc:There might be some tickets for that second show.

00:06:44Marc:I believe there are.

00:06:45Marc:Largo in Los Angeles, October 22nd.

00:06:48Marc:uh, Carnegie Hall already mentioned that.

00:06:51Marc:Anyway, Billy Crystal is here today.

00:06:53Marc:And the reason I, I didn't know if I could get Billy Crystal on the show, I didn't know that Billy Crystal would want to be on the show necessarily.

00:06:59Marc:And I was at the very sad, but very uplifting and provocative, uh, memorial service for Gary Shandling.

00:07:06Marc:And I was talking to, uh, Rob Reiner who I'd had on the show and he was standing there with Billy Crystal.

00:07:13Marc:And, uh,

00:07:14Marc:And we were talking about Rob doing the show.

00:07:17Marc:And I look at Billy Crystal and I'm like, would you ever do the show?

00:07:19Marc:And he was sort of like, yeah, of course I would do the show.

00:07:23Marc:He just kind of had that vibe of sort of like, why am I not on the show?

00:07:27Marc:Why are you talking to Rob about the show?

00:07:29Marc:Why are you asking Rob Reiner to do the show and not me?

00:07:31Marc:And it was one of those moments like, I just never thought you would do this.

00:07:34Marc:And he's like, yes, of course, I'd love to do the show.

00:07:37Marc:So that's how that happened.

00:07:39Marc:So that's what Billy Crystal, that's how it happened.

00:07:43Marc:I didn't think he would do it, and then he said he would want to do it.

00:07:46Marc:God, it's so pretty in New York right now.

00:07:49Marc:I used to live here, but now I just like being here for maybe three or four days.

00:07:52Marc:You get grimy, you eat good food, you get exhausted, and then you go away.

00:07:58Marc:Back to the cat ranch.

00:08:01Marc:All right.

00:08:02Marc:What do you say we spend some time with Billy Crystal, who just got back from a big tour of Australia and New Zealand and

00:08:10Marc:And he's in the process of bringing that show that he did there to America.

00:08:14Marc:So look out for that in the near future.

00:08:16Marc:This is me and Billy Crystal in the garage back in L.A.

00:08:28Guest:I sort of fall in and out of love with stand-up.

00:08:31Marc:Well, that's weird because when you were at Tisch was where you went, right?

00:08:35Marc:Yeah.

00:08:36Marc:When did you start stand-up?

00:08:37Marc:Was it your first passion?

00:08:39Guest:Always was.

00:08:40Guest:It was?

00:08:40Guest:Yeah, it always was.

00:08:41Guest:I was from junior high school, high school, even earlier than that.

00:08:45Guest:I was always the guy, elementary school, off book.

00:08:49Guest:I was always able to improvise in front of people and

00:08:54Marc:Who were your comics that when you were a kid you were listening to?

00:08:56Marc:Because in my mind, you're part of a very important tradition.

00:08:59Guest:Well, because we had great television comics, the real kind of heavy lifters, Phil Silver, Sid Caesar.

00:09:11Guest:Yeah, right.

00:09:11Guest:But Sid's voice was really the voice of Neil Simon and Mel.

00:09:17Guest:Yeah, and Danny Simon.

00:09:19Guest:And Larry Gelbart, rest his soul, amazing guy.

00:09:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:09:22Guest:So, that filtered through.

00:09:24Guest:There was an ethnicity to what Sid did in a very kind of subtle way that was fantastic to latch onto.

00:09:33Guest:Yeah.

00:09:34Guest:Ethnicity being Jewish?

00:09:35Guest:Yeah, but it wasn't overt.

00:09:37Guest:It wasn't the Borscht Belt.

00:09:38Guest:I was not a Borscht Belt guy at all.

00:09:40Guest:Right.

00:09:41Guest:More physical.

00:09:42Guest:Yeah.

00:09:42Guest:And sketches and character.

00:09:44Guest:Right.

00:09:46Guest:The guys that Sid did were like, you know, Progress Hornsby was a stone jazz musician and my...

00:09:51Guest:I knew the real guys because my dad was in the music business.

00:09:54Marc:What was he in the music business?

00:09:56Marc:Because he was a real guy, right?

00:09:58Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:09:59Guest:Yeah.

00:09:59Guest:What did he do?

00:10:00Guest:My family owned a little record store on 42nd Street, New York, between Lexington and 3rd, called the Commodore Music Shop.

00:10:06Guest:And it was the center of jazz from the late 30s all the way up to when it closed in the late 50s.

00:10:11Marc:So, important time.

00:10:13Guest:Yeah.

00:10:13Marc:Coming out of swing into the new jazz.

00:10:16Guest:Yeah.

00:10:17Guest:And new jazz was really created on record by my uncle, who's a legendary producer named Milt Gabler.

00:10:22Guest:Uh-huh.

00:10:23Guest:Now, Milt turned my grandfather into a sort of an entrepreneur.

00:10:28Guest:It was a music store where they sold radios and light bulbs and cranky people would come in.

00:10:33Guest:Yeah.

00:10:33Guest:What aisle are the socks in?

00:10:35Guest:Are there socks?

00:10:35Guest:Where are the whisk brooms?

00:10:37Guest:And so then he said, Dad, he was like working there after high school.

00:10:41Guest:So he took one of the speakers of the radio and put it over the transom of the door right on 42nd Street and tuned it into this jazz station that plays a lot of big Spiderman stuff.

00:10:50Guest:And so the jazz was blasting out in the street.

00:10:52Guest:People come in going, do you sell records here too?

00:10:54Guest:And they didn't.

00:10:55Guest:And my uncle said, well, we should sell records.

00:10:57Guest:Right.

00:10:57Guest:So they started buying up old records from like, it was OK, OK, EH records.

00:11:03Guest:OK, yeah, EH, yeah.

00:11:04Guest:And reissuing them.

00:11:05Guest:Uh-huh.

00:11:06Guest:So then they created their own little label called the Commodore Jazz Label.

00:11:09Guest:Of course, it was right down the street from the Commodore Hotel.

00:11:11Guest:OK.

00:11:12Guest:On 42nd Street.

00:11:12Guest:Yeah.

00:11:13Guest:Which is now, I think, the Grand Hyatt or something.

00:11:15Guest:Right.

00:11:15Guest:Right near Grand Central Station.

00:11:16Guest:I remember Colony Records.

00:11:17Guest:Yeah, that was a big music center too.

00:11:19Guest:On Broadway, yeah.

00:11:20Guest:But this little hole in the wall was like nine feet wide.

00:11:22Guest:Right.

00:11:23Yeah.

00:11:23Guest:Now, everyone wants these records.

00:11:26Guest:So then my uncle says to his father, why are we selling other people's records?

00:11:31Guest:Let's make our own.

00:11:32Guest:Right.

00:11:33Guest:And he starts producing jazz records and jazz concerts all over the state.

00:11:37Guest:Like, who are the guys?

00:11:38Guest:Oh, my God.

00:11:39Guest:There is Eddie Condon, who was one of the great jazz guitar players of all time, Pee Wee Russell.

00:11:44Guest:Yeah.

00:11:45Guest:And that later evolved into Billie Holiday, and Billie did all of her original great records on the Commodore Jazz Lab.

00:11:50Guest:With your uncle.

00:11:51Guest:Yeah, which included Strange Fruit.

00:11:53Guest:And how old were you with this?

00:11:55Guest:I was not thought of until, I come along in 1948.

00:11:59Guest:Right.

00:12:00Guest:Or my MD page, 1957.

00:12:03Guest:Yeah.

00:12:03Guest:And yeah, so my dad then marries into the family and takes over the store.

00:12:10Guest:Milt splits, goes to Decca Records.

00:12:12Marc:Oh, this is your mother's side of the family?

00:12:13Guest:Yeah.

00:12:13Guest:Okay, okay, okay.

00:12:15Guest:So my mother's big brother was Milt.

00:12:16Guest:Right, right.

00:12:17Guest:Milt splits to Decca Records.

00:12:18Guest:He has a 35 gold record career, including Rock Around the Clock, Red Roses for Blue Lady, Volare.

00:12:24Marc:Were you close with him?

00:12:25Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:12:25Guest:Yeah.

00:12:25Guest:He was a mentor to me.

00:12:26Marc:So he was around.

00:12:27Marc:Oh, God, they all were.

00:12:28Marc:In New York.

00:12:29Guest:Yeah.

00:12:29Marc:He only worked from New York.

00:12:31Guest:Yeah.

00:12:31Marc:So he was producing all that stuff, rocking around the club.

00:12:33Guest:Yeah, but then he'd fly to Germany.

00:12:35Guest:He was like the celebrity.

00:12:36Guest:Yeah.

00:12:36Guest:And I would sit at his feet, because he did Sammy Davis' first gold record, which was amazing.

00:12:40Guest:Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes.

00:12:44Guest:That was from Pajama Game.

00:12:45Guest:So he talked to me about Sammy and said, watch him.

00:12:48Guest:He does a lot of things.

00:12:50Guest:Do a lot of things.

00:12:51Guest:Because he knew I had The Shining.

00:12:52Guest:Right, right.

00:12:53Marc:He wanted to be show business.

00:12:54Marc:So you're a kid, like what, 12, 11?

00:12:56Marc:Oh, younger than that.

00:12:57Guest:Five, six.

00:12:57Marc:And you're going to shows.

00:12:59Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:12:59Marc:And you're meeting everybody.

00:13:00Marc:So you feel that show business thing, like the backstage thing.

00:13:04Guest:Well, then my dad's producing jazz.

00:13:05Guest:concerts all over new york besides running the store yeah so now in order to be with them and this is sort of was the basis of 700 sundays was we'd go to the clubs with them to just to you know be with them right because weekends you know it was friday saturday night till three o'clock in the morning and he's hanging out with these these are heavy cats amazing the greatest guys fats waller uh woolly the lion smith jack teagarden uh peewee russell oh yeah did your dad drink

00:13:31Guest:No, no.

00:13:32Guest:So he was just a witness.

00:13:33Guest:Yeah, well, he also emceed the shows.

00:13:35Guest:Okay.

00:13:36Guest:And that was another thrill, because my dad's on stage behind a microphone and a spotlight.

00:13:41Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:13:42Guest:In a shiny suit.

00:13:43Guest:Was he funny?

00:13:44Guest:Yeah, very witty guy.

00:13:45Guest:He was?

00:13:46Guest:Yeah, very witty guy.

00:13:47Marc:And your mom?

00:13:48Guest:My mom was the lifeblood of the family in that...

00:13:54Guest:They were a remarkable pair.

00:13:55Guest:He was quiet and really witty.

00:13:57Guest:Great sense of humor.

00:13:58Guest:Turned us on to television.

00:14:00Guest:It was not the Three Stooges.

00:14:01Guest:It was Laurel and Hardy.

00:14:02Guest:Right.

00:14:02Guest:It was Ernie Kovacs.

00:14:04Guest:It's okay if you stay up late.

00:14:05Guest:I know you've got a fourth grade test tomorrow.

00:14:08Guest:Right.

00:14:08Guest:Watch Kovacs.

00:14:08Guest:Just watch the highbrow shit.

00:14:10Guest:Watch what Phil Silvers does.

00:14:11Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:12Guest:Big Phil Silvers fan.

00:14:14Guest:And it was a great influence.

00:14:16Guest:I had two older brothers, all very funny.

00:14:18Guest:They around?

00:14:19Guest:Yeah.

00:14:20Guest:That's good.

00:14:24Guest:We would steal from everybody.

00:14:25Guest:Sure.

00:14:26Guest:So we were the Nairobi trio.

00:14:27Guest:Do impressions.

00:14:27Guest:Yeah, we were the Nairobi trio.

00:14:29Guest:From Ernie Kovacs?

00:14:30Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:14:31Guest:And we were the 2,000-year-old.

00:14:32Guest:When that album came out, forget about it.

00:14:34Guest:How old were you when that came out?

00:14:36Guest:I was 12.

00:14:37Guest:Those were my baseball cards, Mark.

00:14:38Guest:Mel Brooks, that album came out when you were 12?

00:14:40Guest:1960.

00:14:41Guest:No kidding.

00:14:42Guest:Those were my baseball cards.

00:14:43Guest:Right.

00:14:44Guest:Those were, you know, I loved the music.

00:14:47Guest:I still love the jazz.

00:14:48Guest:But the comedy albums that Dad would bring home from the store...

00:14:52Guest:That was on my baseball cards.

00:14:53Guest:Right.

00:14:53Guest:That was amazing albums.

00:14:57Guest:It felt like Jonathan Winters had an album out every month.

00:14:59Guest:Shelley Berman.

00:15:00Guest:Yeah, and Nichols and May, Live on Broadway.

00:15:03Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:15:04Marc:Did he like any of those Yiddish guys, like Myron Cohen or any of those?

00:15:07Guest:He always laughed at Myron Cohen, because Myron Cohen, all of those guys.

00:15:10Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:15:11Guest:Were really artists.

00:15:12Guest:Right.

00:15:13Guest:They were so, so specific in who they were and who they played to.

00:15:18Guest:Yeah.

00:15:19Guest:And that's when the Catskills was at its height.

00:15:21Guest:Yeah.

00:15:21Guest:Did you guys go up there?

00:15:22Guest:Only once.

00:15:24Guest:Only once.

00:15:24Guest:That was enough?

00:15:25Guest:That was enough.

00:15:25Guest:Well, we didn't have any money.

00:15:26Guest:We're in the jazz business.

00:15:27Guest:Right.

00:15:31Guest:And that's where I saw my first comedian, which, you know, watching this guy's act.

00:15:35Guest:Who?

00:15:36Guest:I think his name was Pat Henry.

00:15:37Guest:Uh-huh.

00:15:39Guest:And he was a bald guy, and he said, I grew my eyebrows really long so I could sweep them back over my head.

00:15:46Guest:It was stuff like that.

00:15:48Guest:And then, of course, every Sunday night, in addition to the guys during the week, was Ed Sullivan.

00:15:54Guest:Sullivan had a comic on every Sunday night.

00:15:56Guest:Did you ever go to the show?

00:15:57Guest:No, but the comics were the heavy hitter guys.

00:16:02Guest:And the novelty acts.

00:16:04Guest:Yeah.

00:16:04Guest:I loved the novelty acts.

00:16:05Guest:Plate spinners?

00:16:06Guest:Yeah, but there was- There's usually nine of them, weren't there, the novelty acts?

00:16:10Guest:Yeah, the lady of Spain guy.

00:16:11Guest:Yeah.

00:16:12Guest:And the Weir brothers were- You should watch them.

00:16:15Guest:Yeah.

00:16:16Guest:Google the Weir brothers, folks, who never listen.

00:16:19Guest:I think they were Swedish or Norwegian.

00:16:22Guest:Yeah.

00:16:22Guest:Three guys-

00:16:23Guest:One had to play clarinet, one played guitar, one played violin or bass, and they were hilarious, physical.

00:16:30Guest:These were musical performers.

00:16:31Marc:Well, that's interesting.

00:16:32Marc:I was talking to a friend of mine about you and your style, that your physicality and your sense of physical timing is so right on.

00:16:41Marc:It's a natural thing, but you're aware of it.

00:16:43Marc:Yeah.

00:16:44Marc:And I've always envied it because it is a natural thing.

00:16:49Marc:And once you learn how to do it, I imagine it's sort of addictive.

00:16:52Marc:But there is a moment where to do takes, to do beats, to do physical stuff, it's a choice, right?

00:16:58Guest:Yeah.

00:16:59Guest:And also, when you're in front of an audience, it helps them see the joke if they don't hear it.

00:17:03Guest:Right, right, right.

00:17:04Marc:You know what I mean?

00:17:05Marc:Yeah, but there's also that amazing beats that those guys took, like those pauses and the takes.

00:17:10Marc:And not many guys do it anymore.

00:17:13Marc:No.

00:17:14Marc:It's a lost art, but when I watch, analyze this, I guess I'm getting off the narrative.

00:17:19Marc:It's okay.

00:17:21Marc:It's the narrative.

00:17:24Marc:when uh because like there's this there's a few scenes in analyze this where i can watch them over and over again and your reaction is so fucking classic it's so hilarious that i like that scene where the the him i don't know that with the hugging hey him i don't know oh yeah

00:17:43Marc:I laugh thinking about it, but you were on to that, but it didn't come unresearched in a way.

00:17:51Guest:No, no, but also it was a pretty natural thing for me.

00:17:54Guest:Yeah.

00:17:55Guest:It was a pretty natural thing for me.

00:17:57Guest:When you grow up with aunts and uncles who were very animated,

00:18:02Guest:And in a very Jewish ethnic way.

00:18:03Guest:Yes.

00:18:04Guest:Very specific.

00:18:05Guest:Yeah, but it wasn't this kind of way.

00:18:07Guest:It wasn't that.

00:18:08Marc:There must have been one of those.

00:18:09Guest:There were 12 of them.

00:18:11Guest:But my apostles.

00:18:12Guest:Yeah.

00:18:12Guest:But everyone was very adamant.

00:18:14Guest:They speak with their hands.

00:18:15Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:16Guest:Sure.

00:18:16Guest:A lot of times their hands were covered with salad dressing or macaroni salad or something, which is not attractive when they speak Yiddish.

00:18:25Guest:Right.

00:18:26Guest:Did you grow a Yiddish?

00:18:27Guest:Russian.

00:18:28Guest:Really?

00:18:29Guest:Russian.

00:18:29Guest:From who, your grandmother?

00:18:30Guest:Yeah, yeah, both of them Russian.

00:18:32Guest:And a lot of Yiddish after a while when they didn't want us to know what they were talking about.

00:18:36Guest:Exactly, that's what my grandparents did.

00:18:37Marc:Like, what are they doing?

00:18:38Guest:What's this gibberish?

00:18:39Guest:Oh, they're going to the movies.

00:18:40Guest:They catch you out of the corner of their eye.

00:18:43Guest:So Max said to me...

00:18:45Guest:And you knew that there was something they didn't want you to hear.

00:18:51Marc:Yeah.

00:18:52Marc:Did you really just say something?

00:18:53Guest:No.

00:18:55Guest:I was hoping you did.

00:18:55Guest:You know what's so funny about, you know, listen, I love my religion.

00:19:01Guest:I love the world I was born into.

00:19:04Guest:I'm not the most religious guy in the world, but I love the heritage of it.

00:19:07Guest:I love the things that it stands for.

00:19:11Guest:And I've been very open about it.

00:19:13Guest:People will come up to me.

00:19:15Guest:Yeah.

00:19:16Guest:And it always makes me either laugh or get annoyed.

00:19:19Guest:Yeah.

00:19:20Guest:When they'll go, a total stranger.

00:19:21Guest:Yeah.

00:19:22Guest:So, Billy, how are you?

00:19:24Guest:What are you doing?

00:19:25Guest:And I'll go, why are you talking like that?

00:19:28Guest:The guy goes, well, I thought you might like that.

00:19:31Guest:No, I don't.

00:19:32Guest:It's almost anti-Semitic.

00:19:34Marc:They see you as a cultural representative of the Jewish type.

00:19:39Guest:They see me and suddenly I'm in like a tallis and a yarmulke and a black hat.

00:19:44Guest:Billy's so much.

00:19:45Guest:The Yankees got enough pitching?

00:19:48Marc:Well, I think they're trying to connect.

00:19:50Guest:Yes, they are.

00:19:52Guest:I get it.

00:19:53Guest:It just always baffles me.

00:19:54Marc:But the funny thing is, is you're familiar with that character.

00:19:57Guest:Yeah.

00:19:57Guest:Oh, sure.

00:19:57Marc:You know, you grew up with that.

00:19:59Marc:Because, like, I didn't, you know, like, my grandparents were from Jersey and everything, and I grew up with that Jewish thing, and I've always been a fan of that comedy, and it's definitely in me.

00:20:08Guest:Yeah.

00:20:08Marc:You know, I somehow, like, for years, I fought against it.

00:20:11Marc:Yeah.

00:20:11Marc:So, like, I wouldn't even mention I was a Jew on stage, because I, like, I didn't know how to do it without going, you know, how do you do it?

00:20:18Yeah.

00:20:18Marc:Is there another way to do the Jew thing?

00:20:20Guest:No.

00:20:21Guest:And I wasn't doing it.

00:20:22Guest:No.

00:20:23Guest:In my early stuff, I didn't do it.

00:20:25Guest:I started doing it on soap.

00:20:28Guest:The last year of soap.

00:20:31Guest:Susan Harrison, who's an amazing writer who created the show, brought on a young writer named Stu Silver.

00:20:40Guest:Did you ever know Stu?

00:20:40Guest:No.

00:20:41Guest:Stu was a great comedy writer.

00:20:43Guest:A fascinating story.

00:20:44Guest:As stereotypical Jewish comedy writer as you can imagine, except he was a young guy.

00:20:51Marc:Right.

00:20:51Marc:I know guys like that.

00:20:52Marc:They're guys that are just born old men.

00:20:54Guest:Yes.

00:20:55Guest:They're born old Jews.

00:20:55Guest:And he was a delightful guy.

00:20:57Guest:Yeah.

00:20:58Guest:And we came up with a storyline that my character Jody goes into hypnotherapy to figure out why he's attracted to women and so on.

00:21:07Guest:And he's confused.

00:21:08Guest:I kind of remember this.

00:21:09Guest:Yeah.

00:21:10Guest:And he takes me back in time.

00:21:12Guest:It was sort of like the search for Bridie Murphy.

00:21:13Guest:I remember this.

00:21:14Guest:And I become this old Jewish guy in my past.

00:21:18Guest:And I'm stuck.

00:21:19Guest:I can't get out of this guy.

00:21:21Guest:So here I am looking like I look back in 1980.

00:21:24Guest:Yeah.

00:21:24Guest:But I talk like this, and I'm talking to my mother, Mary Campbell, and I'm teaching her about how God tests.

00:21:34Guest:God will test people.

00:21:35Guest:My first wife, I remember the lines.

00:21:38Guest:Yeah.

00:21:38Guest:Franya, a redhead.

00:21:40Guest:Yeah.

00:21:40Guest:She was raped by the Cossacks repeatedly.

00:21:44Guest:But since she looked like a pumpernickel bread, it was more of a test for the Cossacks.

00:21:49Guest:Yeah.

00:21:50Guest:And then I started doing it.

00:21:52Guest:I started filtering into my stand-up, which I was doing a lot of them.

00:21:56Guest:So that's where it sort of started.

00:21:59Marc:But it's so funny because it's somehow ingrained in us.

00:22:04Marc:I talked to Jeff Goldboom the other day, and it's somewhere in us.

00:22:10Marc:It's our history.

00:22:11Marc:And those people are stereotypical or their characters.

00:22:14Marc:But I had one.

00:22:15Marc:There was a woman, my grandmother's aunt,

00:22:18Marc:She didn't speak any English, and they had to make her kosher food.

00:22:21Marc:And she would sit on a plastic-covered sofa and eat by herself at family events.

00:22:26Marc:I mean, it's just part of the thing.

00:22:28Guest:Yeah.

00:22:29Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:22:29Marc:The Eastern European Jew thing.

00:22:31Guest:Yeah.

00:22:31Guest:It's a brushstroke, and it shouldn't be denied because they're really kind of amazing people.

00:22:37Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:22:38Marc:And the language of comedy for years.

00:22:40Marc:Yeah.

00:22:40Guest:Oh, for sure.

00:22:41Guest:The timing of it.

00:22:42Guest:The timing, the emphasis, the lean-in.

00:22:47Yeah.

00:22:47Guest:I adored Alan King.

00:22:51Guest:Did you?

00:22:51Guest:Yeah.

00:22:51Guest:We became great friends.

00:22:53Guest:We did a movie together where we played father and son.

00:22:56Guest:A very sweet movie called Memories of Me.

00:22:58Guest:And we became very close.

00:23:01Guest:And I would imitate him to him.

00:23:04Guest:Uh-huh.

00:23:05Guest:Not doing his voice, but just the lean in.

00:23:07Guest:Yeah.

00:23:08Guest:Because they want to make sure you hear them.

00:23:10Guest:Yeah.

00:23:11Guest:But he did it on the Sullivan Show.

00:23:12Guest:Yeah.

00:23:13Guest:Folks, you can't see me, but I'm going to lean into the mic.

00:23:15Guest:It may get a little loud.

00:23:16Guest:Yeah.

00:23:17Guest:So this is no punchline.

00:23:18Guest:This is just, so what am I doing about that crabgrass?

00:23:22Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:23:23Guest:And they lean toward you.

00:23:24Guest:Yeah.

00:23:25Guest:If you're in the first row, you just want to like settle back just a little bit.

00:23:28Marc:It's almost like a 3D movie.

00:23:30Marc:Well, it's interesting that it's Crabgrass because he was really the first of the Jewish comics to do the middle class Jewish thing that we're not shtetl people.

00:23:39Marc:We're not pushing racks of clothes now.

00:23:42Marc:We're on Long Island.

00:23:43Guest:And he was very wealthy.

00:23:45Guest:Yeah.

00:23:45Guest:Alan was...

00:23:46Guest:Different than the other comics of that time, he produced Broadway plays, movies, The Line in Winter.

00:23:56Guest:He had great taste.

00:23:57Guest:He was on the board of directors of Shenley, and he had this house that was Oscar Hammerstein's house in Great Neck.

00:24:05Guest:Yeah, Great Neck.

00:24:06Guest:And it was beautiful.

00:24:07Guest:It's right on the Long Island Sound.

00:24:09Guest:Yeah.

00:24:10Guest:And I know he had a huge ego.

00:24:12Guest:He bought it because it was on King's Point.

00:24:16Guest:That's what it was called, King's Point.

00:24:17Guest:And he was Alan King.

00:24:19Guest:And we, when my friends, I was the youngest of my graduating class.

00:24:23Guest:I didn't have a driver's license.

00:24:24Guest:From where?

00:24:25Guest:High school?

00:24:25Guest:Yeah.

00:24:25Guest:We would drive to Alan King's house in Great Neck and look over the fence and see the Rolls Royce, the beautiful Tudor house.

00:24:36Guest:And it was like, I would love to have that someday.

00:24:40Guest:We would whisper, he's a comedian.

00:24:42Guest:Look what he has.

00:24:43Guest:He can have a house like that.

00:24:44Guest:And then when I was little, he came into an Italian restaurant in my hometown.

00:24:52Guest:Yeah.

00:24:53Guest:Which was?

00:24:53Guest:Long Beach, Long Island.

00:24:55Guest:And there was a hotel.

00:24:56Guest:It had this big showroom.

00:24:57Guest:And everybody worked there.

00:24:58Guest:I saw Sammy Davis Jr.

00:25:00Guest:there.

00:25:01Guest:The dinner club, right?

00:25:02Guest:Yeah.

00:25:02Guest:It was a big hotel and a big supper club.

00:25:04Guest:Yeah.

00:25:04Guest:And Alan came into this little restaurant and we actually wrote this into Mr. Saturday Night where Ron Silver playing the director tells me of the entrance he saw me make in a restaurant.

00:25:19Guest:Right.

00:25:20Guest:And Alan, he had just come from the show.

00:25:22Guest:He had a mohair suit on, a white shirt, beautiful white tie, like white on white.

00:25:28Guest:I must have been nine.

00:25:30Guest:And he came in and everybody applauded.

00:25:32Guest:And he glided into the room.

00:25:36Guest:And I had recognized him from the Sullivan Show.

00:25:39Guest:And we were very modest people.

00:25:41Guest:Sunday night was the one that we could eat out.

00:25:43Guest:And I saw him and I ran up to him and I said, Mr. King, I think you're fantastic.

00:25:47Guest:And he looked at me and he said, whoa, look what just fell out of my nose.

00:25:52Guest:And I thought it was like getting an autograph from Mickey Mantle.

00:25:58Guest:It was like he insulted me.

00:25:59Guest:It was like so great.

00:26:00Guest:And we put that into the movie.

00:26:04Marc:With no malice.

00:26:05Guest:No, no, no.

00:26:07Guest:Alan was amazing.

00:26:08Guest:I'm so blessed to... That's one of the fringe benefits, Mark, of what we do.

00:26:13Guest:Yeah.

00:26:13Guest:My grandfather used to say, if you hang around long enough, sooner or later they'll give you stuff.

00:26:18Guest:The people we get to meet and end up with and become part of their lives is for me at this point in my life and my career, I look back and smile going, holy shit.

00:26:30Guest:Right.

00:26:30Guest:Holy shit.

00:26:32Guest:Yeah.

00:26:33Marc:It's wild.

00:26:35Marc:When did you like, so you're nine, you're watching Sullivan, you're doing all this stuff, you're doing schtick in school and your brothers.

00:26:42Marc:Did they end up in show business in any way?

00:26:44Guest:My middle brother, I'm the youngest.

00:26:46Guest:He's two years older.

00:26:47Guest:My brother Rip has been a producer, a television producer for years out here.

00:26:51Guest:Yeah.

00:26:53Guest:And my older brother, Joel, was our teacher for 36 years.

00:26:58Guest:Really funny.

00:26:59Guest:Great witty guy.

00:27:00Guest:And he's retired now.

00:27:02Marc:Uh-huh.

00:27:03Marc:So you have a creative family.

00:27:05Marc:You have a family that's open-minded at least.

00:27:07Marc:Enjoy show business.

00:27:08Guest:Oh, big time.

00:27:08Guest:And big civil rights people.

00:27:09Guest:And on top of that, my mom was a great tap dancer.

00:27:13Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:27:13Guest:And she was the voice of Minnie Mouse in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parades in the late 30s.

00:27:21Guest:She would sit in the float as it came down and would sing.

00:27:25Guest:Usually, I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.

00:27:29Guest:Yeah.

00:27:29Guest:Uh-huh.

00:27:31Guest:To this huge float.

00:27:32Guest:Yeah.

00:27:32Guest:Coming down.

00:27:33Guest:Inside the float.

00:27:34Guest:Yeah, inside the float.

00:27:35Guest:There was like a little cabin or whatever at the base of Minnie's feet, and no one would see her, and there'd be a piano, a little piano, and she'd sing.

00:27:43Marc:I think that's so funny, because there's something that keeps sticking with me, is that even in Mr. Saturday Night, and because of the way you were brought up, that weird difference between the showperson and backstage.

00:27:54Marc:Yeah.

00:27:54Marc:Or in the float.

00:27:56Marc:To really appreciate that, which it sounds like you must have, because you're sitting there, you're going to these gigs with your father, and you're seeing these jazz guys, and they're just sitting around smoking before the show or doing whatever, and then they go on.

00:28:09Marc:It's like, all right, I'm on.

00:28:12Marc:There's a weird kind of appreciation for show business when you feel that.

00:28:17Guest:Yes, and not only that, there's a...

00:28:20Guest:The word destiny is different than fate.

00:28:24Guest:Right.

00:28:24Guest:Destiny is more important.

00:28:29Guest:Fate is like by chance.

00:28:30Guest:Right, right.

00:28:30Guest:Destiny means it was meant to be.

00:28:33Guest:Sure.

00:28:33Guest:And when I think about getting up on stage in front of 700 people when I was five years old and tap dancing to Conrad Janis and the Tailgaters, a great Dixieland band.

00:28:45Guest:And not having any fear, just wanting to be up there, moth to the flame, and being endorsed and supported by my folks.

00:28:58Guest:It wasn't like, why did you go up there for?

00:29:01Guest:You're not supposed to do that.

00:29:02Guest:they loved it yeah and nobody pushed me they just knew that I had to sort of do this I was sort of like I was a rain Jew yeah I was a rain Jew in the back in my house writing jokes watching comics loving it couldn't wait to get up on stage you love it loved it I still do

00:29:21Marc:But I like that.

00:29:22Marc:I like the idea of that loving it, you know, because I just personally and obviously we're different people and have different careers.

00:29:29Marc:But, you know, I sort of like I needed to be a comic because I had something to say.

00:29:32Marc:That's what I thought.

00:29:33Marc:So so taking the love, I would fight it.

00:29:36Marc:You know, I was that kind of comic where, you know, I'm going to it's going to be a little tough at first for us.

00:29:43Marc:You may not love me right away.

00:29:45Guest:Exactly.

00:29:46Guest:But you just took it and you felt it and it was great.

00:29:51Guest:Yes.

00:29:52Guest:But I also had a little mantra.

00:29:56Guest:Yeah.

00:29:57Guest:Which was, don't settle in.

00:29:58Guest:Right.

00:30:00Guest:right right stay vigilant yes yes don't get too relaxed man it's uh mine used to be hide the hate well that's a little more it is dramatic similar i think no no

00:30:15Guest:No.

00:30:16Guest:Hey, that's a great album title.

00:30:18Guest:Yeah.

00:30:19Guest:Or a book title.

00:30:19Marc:Yeah.

00:30:20Marc:All right.

00:30:21Marc:I'll make note of it.

00:30:22Marc:Yeah.

00:30:23Marc:But yeah, because I realized that in the last few years, I miss you as the host of the Oscars because you love show business.

00:30:31Marc:I do.

00:30:32Marc:You know, it's like, this is a night for show business.

00:30:35Marc:Celebrate show business, you fuck.

00:30:37Guest:Yeah.

00:30:37Marc:Whoever you fuck is.

00:30:39Marc:Yeah.

00:30:39Marc:I never thought I'd have a moment where I'm like, I miss Billy dancing.

00:30:44Yeah.

00:30:44Guest:But the thing is, I didn't really dance.

00:30:47Guest:No, but you did.

00:30:48Guest:You moved.

00:30:49Guest:Oh, I moved, for sure.

00:30:51Guest:And we entertained.

00:30:52Guest:Right.

00:30:52Guest:You entertained.

00:30:53Guest:That's what it was about.

00:30:54Marc:Yeah, because that's what it is about.

00:30:56Marc:It is about that.

00:30:57Marc:Everybody knows too much now.

00:30:58Marc:And I'm not even that old to say that.

00:31:00Guest:No, it's true.

00:31:01Guest:And social media really hurts that a lot.

00:31:04Marc:Sometimes, yeah.

00:31:05Marc:It's like everybody's on this equal playing field.

00:31:07Marc:It's like, no, no.

00:31:09Marc:I want some privacy.

00:31:10Marc:I'd like the mystery to be maintained a bit if possible.

00:31:13Guest:Yes, and I don't need to hear from Jack 59 in whatever town it is that he hates me.

00:31:19Guest:Yeah.

00:31:19Guest:Because Alan King had a great line about that, which was surrounded by assassins.

00:31:27Oh, yeah.

00:31:27Guest:But he was talking about other comics.

00:31:29Guest:Maybe.

00:31:30Guest:Maybe.

00:31:31Marc:So when did you decide to sort of pursue it in earnest?

00:31:36Marc:When I got out of the draft.

00:31:38Marc:Uh-huh.

00:31:39Marc:69?

00:31:40Marc:Yeah, the first draft.

00:31:41Guest:First televised draft.

00:31:43Guest:Uh-huh.

00:31:43Guest:I was a film, I was a directing major at NYU, studying film direct.

00:31:50Guest:Really?

00:31:50Guest:I still don't know why I did that.

00:31:52Guest:I swear to God.

00:31:53Guest:I had been in nothing but musicals and plays.

00:31:56Guest:In high school?

00:31:57Guest:In high school and college.

00:31:59Guest:Oh, you went to college.

00:32:00Guest:This is the graduate school you're talking about?

00:32:02Guest:No, I went two years.

00:32:03Guest:I went to a school in West Virginia first called Marshall University.

00:32:07Guest:How was that?

00:32:08Guest:It was, well, I went one year.

00:32:09Guest:Yeah.

00:32:09Guest:I had a good time.

00:32:11Guest:I was a baseball player and it didn't work out for me there.

00:32:15Guest:Is that what you wanted to do?

00:32:16Guest:Yeah.

00:32:17Guest:And I came home.

00:32:18Guest:My father just passed away.

00:32:20Guest:Young, huh?

00:32:23Guest:Yeah, 54.

00:32:25Guest:I was 15.

00:32:26Guest:So I was really depressed.

00:32:28Guest:And I go away and West Virginia was a little too off-Broadway for me.

00:32:34Guest:Yeah.

00:32:34Guest:And I was lonely.

00:32:36Guest:You're a city kid.

00:32:37Guest:Yeah, and I didn't give it the best chance I could give it, I think.

00:32:40Marc:And you're in grief, and you're alone now.

00:32:42Guest:Yeah, and it was the first time away from home, and I was 17.

00:32:45Guest:It must have been horrible.

00:32:46Guest:I couldn't even drink.

00:32:47Guest:I couldn't even drink with the guys and do any stuff like that.

00:32:49Guest:So I came home that summer, and I had a job in a day camp.

00:32:54Marc:Jewish day camp?

00:32:56Marc:No.

00:32:56Marc:Regular.

00:32:57Guest:Yeah.

00:32:57Guest:And this girl walks by.

00:33:00Guest:I'm on the beach playing ball with this good friend, Stevie Kohut.

00:33:05Guest:Yeah.

00:33:06Guest:And I'm getting ready for go back to school.

00:33:09Guest:And she walks by and I said, I'm going to marry her.

00:33:13Guest:And I did.

00:33:14Yeah.

00:33:14Guest:so four years later and so i didn't go back to school i transferred to this junior college to be around her yeah i knew if it was i loved her so much right away yeah that you know i don't know if you've ever been in like a long distance relationship they don't work out no it's easier now with skype but no but back then difficult yeah

00:33:36Guest:And so I said, not going to go back.

00:33:39Guest:And I got into, I transferred to this great junior college called Nassau Community College and had one elective, which was an acting 101 program.

00:33:48Guest:And I walked in there and it was like, I'm home.

00:33:53Guest:No kidding.

00:33:53Guest:Yeah, great teacher.

00:33:55Guest:You remember the guy?

00:33:56Guest:His name was George Oliver.

00:33:57Guest:Uh-huh.

00:33:58Guest:Interesting man.

00:33:59Guest:I loved the students, started doing stuff, started doing scenes, started doing, and I just gave it for two years.

00:34:08Guest:That's all I did.

00:34:09Marc:Yeah.

00:34:09Marc:Then I transferred.

00:34:10Marc:No stand-up yet?

00:34:12Guest:No.

00:34:12Marc:Yeah.

00:34:13Guest:But I met these two guys who were actors, and we started doing improvs together.

00:34:18Uh-huh.

00:34:18Guest:I would have just done stand-up, but I was terrified.

00:34:21Guest:Right.

00:34:21Guest:So I had these two guys, and we had this really fun act.

00:34:25Guest:Who were those guys?

00:34:25Guest:Dave Hawthorne and Al Finelli, and we became known as We the People, and then we became known as Three's Company.

00:34:32Guest:We had more names than really good routines, which was two.

00:34:36Guest:So now I transfer to NYU, and I get in.

00:34:40Guest:I don't know why, Mark.

00:34:41Guest:I applied as a directing major.

00:34:43Guest:I didn't go into the acting program.

00:34:44Guest:You don't know why.

00:34:45Guest:I still don't know why.

00:34:47Guest:I used to make little home movies and stuff, and I liked being- Did you think maybe it was a better job?

00:34:53Guest:I thought maybe I was very practical.

00:34:55Guest:Right.

00:34:56Guest:That if the acting thing didn't work out, I had something solid like directing to fall back on.

00:35:02Guest:Yeah.

00:35:03Guest:So I get to NYU, and who's my film professor of the production class?

00:35:11Guest:A graduate student named Martin Scorsese.

00:35:13Guest:No kidding.

00:35:13Guest:Yeah.

00:35:14Guest:So this is what, 70 what?

00:35:15Guest:This is 68.

00:35:15Guest:68.

00:35:16Guest:68.

00:35:17Guest:I'm living in the East Village with my best friend, David Sherman.

00:35:20Guest:We're still the closest of friends.

00:35:22Guest:And we had this little apartment on East 5th Street next to the police station.

00:35:27Guest:And the reason the police station is as important, it was on the wide shot of the police station on Kojak, you can see my apartment.

00:35:34Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:35:35Marc:And he pointed to that a lot.

00:35:36Guest:Yeah.

00:35:36Guest:Right here.

00:35:37Guest:Yeah.

00:35:37Guest:And you show me your Miles Davis records.

00:35:40Guest:Miles would get busted-

00:35:41Guest:Every week.

00:35:43Guest:Because he'd be coming down to the Lower East Side to look for drugs.

00:35:47Guest:To score, yeah.

00:35:47Guest:Yeah, and his red Ferrari would be out front of our apartment building, and he'd be yelling at this red-haired detective named Sergeant Fink, and he'd be yelling at him, motherfucker, why'd you keep fucking fucked?

00:35:59Guest:Give me the fuck.

00:36:00Guest:Miles, don't be coming down here no more.

00:36:02Guest:Don't be coming down looking for drugs.

00:36:04Guest:What are you, stupid?

00:36:05Guest:What are you, stupid?

00:36:05Guest:You saw this?

00:36:06Guest:Oh, yeah, we'd see him all the time.

00:36:08Ha, ha, ha, ha.

00:36:09Guest:Yeah, so that was 68, 9, and 70.

00:36:14Guest:6th Street.

00:36:17Guest:East 5th.

00:36:17Guest:East 5th between... 325 East 5th Street.

00:36:20Guest:Between 1st and 2nd?

00:36:21Guest:1st and 2nd, yeah.

00:36:23Guest:And now...

00:36:24Guest:Vietnam's raging.

00:36:26Guest:It was the greatest place to live was East Village then.

00:36:29Guest:It was so extraordinary.

00:36:30Guest:The Fillmore East was there.

00:36:34Guest:Was that 3rd?

00:36:35Guest:No, that's right on 6th Street and 2nd Avenue.

00:36:37Marc:I lived on 2nd between A and B in the 80s.

00:36:39Guest:Right.

00:36:39Guest:Yeah.

00:36:40Guest:And it was right next door.

00:36:42Guest:That's where I saw my first movie, was that theater.

00:36:45Guest:My dad did these concerts at a place called the Central Plaza, which was 111 2nd Avenue, which is now an NYU building.

00:36:51Marc:Right, right.

00:36:52Marc:Is that the film archive?

00:36:54Marc:It was a movie theater?

00:36:55Guest:It was a movie theater called, yeah, originally it was called the Lowe's Commodore.

00:36:59Guest:Ironically, it had the Commodore name in it.

00:37:01Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:02Guest:And it became the Fillmore East.

00:37:03Marc:Okay.

00:37:04Guest:Yeah.

00:37:04Guest:And that's where everybody played.

00:37:07Marc:Oh, everybody.

00:37:07Guest:Oh, it was amazing.

00:37:09Marc:For Great Hendrix, the Band of Gypsies record.

00:37:11Guest:Yeah, Zappa, everybody played.

00:37:14Guest:Yeah.

00:37:15Guest:East Village then was so exciting to be part of, but our country at that point was in the middle of natural childbirth.

00:37:26Guest:Yeah.

00:37:27Guest:It was all this screaming, all this yelling.

00:37:29Guest:Yeah.

00:37:30Guest:We hated this war.

00:37:31Guest:We hated Nixon.

00:37:33Guest:We hated what was happening.

00:37:35Guest:And, I mean, LBJ knew what he was doing.

00:37:39Guest:Yeah.

00:37:40Guest:I will not seek nor will I accept a nomination.

00:37:43Guest:I'm getting the fuck out of here.

00:37:45Guest:Yeah.

00:37:45Guest:Because he could see what was happening.

00:37:47Guest:Uh-huh.

00:37:47Guest:And now we're faced with this.

00:37:49Guest:And suddenly, you know, kids today have no, and I always sound like Alan.

00:37:53Guest:And you're like 20?

00:37:55Guest:Let's see.

00:37:56Guest:Yeah, I was, yeah, 20.

00:37:58Guest:Yeah.

00:38:00Marc:Sound like Alan King, yeah.

00:38:02Guest:Yeah, this kid.

00:38:03Guest:But nobody today, were you exposed to the draft?

00:38:07Marc:No, no, I'm 52.

00:38:08Guest:Oh, so you got a selective service card.

00:38:11Guest:Yeah.

00:38:16Guest:They're going to have, as the war was heating up, that we're having this televised draft, which was a Powerball, basically.

00:38:25Guest:365 birthdays, ping pong balls.

00:38:29Guest:Really?

00:38:29Guest:Put into a machine, live on television.

00:38:32Guest:And as they came out, if you were in the first 200, you had a report right away and you more than likely were going to go to Vietnam.

00:38:43Guest:And listen, for those of us who didn't believe in the war, this was a terrifying thing.

00:38:47Guest:For those who made their choice, I totally respect that.

00:38:51Guest:I was...

00:38:52Guest:I had no idea why I cared about the M. Van Foo.

00:39:00Guest:If they were in Jersey, then okay, sign me up.

00:39:03Guest:Or if they were bombing Jersey.

00:39:05Guest:Yeah, then sign me up.

00:39:07Guest:But what did we care about that?

00:39:09Guest:It made no sense to us.

00:39:11Guest:Much like this ward that we've been in for 12 years now doesn't make any sense either, 15 years.

00:39:18Guest:So it was on television.

00:39:19Marc:Sure.

00:39:20Marc:It was like the anti-lottery.

00:39:22Marc:Yeah.

00:39:22Marc:You didn't want to win.

00:39:23Marc:No.

00:39:24Guest:Right.

00:39:24Guest:First 200, you're gone.

00:39:26Guest:Yeah.

00:39:26Guest:So I had this production class, right, this television production class, right, at NYU.

00:39:31Guest:Yeah.

00:39:32Guest:So I think it came on at 7 or 8 o'clock, whatever it was.

00:39:35Guest:And we were able to watch like the first 50 names.

00:39:39Guest:I'm not in the first 50 balls.

00:39:41Guest:The tension, you know, it spins, spins, the ball comes out.

00:39:46Guest:April 3rd.

00:39:47Guest:So it was just birthdays.

00:39:48Guest:Just birthdays.

00:39:49Guest:April 3rd.

00:39:51Guest:Next one, you know, March 2nd.

00:39:55Guest:Can you imagine?

00:39:56Guest:Your life is being decided by some guy in a uniform pulling his balls out of a machine.

00:40:01Guest:No music to this.

00:40:02Guest:No.

00:40:03No.

00:40:03Guest:We'll be right back with the draft.

00:40:06Guest:It was terrifying.

00:40:08Guest:Yeah.

00:40:08Guest:So now I'm not in the first 50.

00:40:09Guest:All right.

00:40:10Guest:I got a chance here.

00:40:11Guest:Yeah.

00:40:12Guest:And I run home and I run to the place on 8th Street called the Gem Spa.

00:40:18Guest:Remember the Gem Spa on 2nd Avenue?

00:40:19Guest:Yeah.

00:40:19Marc:Oh, wait, they have the egg creams?

00:40:21Guest:Yeah, and those little chocolate raspberry things.

00:40:24Guest:Well, anyway.

00:40:25Guest:Look, when you were stoned, that's where you wanted to go.

00:40:27Marc:I think it's still there.

00:40:28Marc:Yeah, it is there.

00:40:29Marc:Yeah, they make the egg creams.

00:40:30Guest:Yeah, so I run up there.

00:40:32Guest:I run across town from Washington Square Park thinking I'm not in the first 50.

00:40:37Guest:I'm not in the first 50.

00:40:38Guest:How many balls have been pulled since that?

00:40:40Guest:I left, you know.

00:40:41Guest:The New York Times hits the pavement.

00:40:43Guest:I mean, it was like a Scorsese cut of a movie.

00:40:46Guest:Boom.

00:40:46Guest:I'm like, and up to 112.

00:40:49Guest:Still not by the time they went to print.

00:40:51Guest:No.

00:40:52Guest:I run back to my apartment, run up the stairs, and I call my mother.

00:40:57Guest:Mom, are you watching the lottery?

00:40:58Guest:No, dear.

00:40:59Guest:Bonanza has a two-hour special.

00:41:02Guest:Hoss got bit by a snake, and he has it.

00:41:05Guest:Good.

00:41:05Guest:Boom.

00:41:06Guest:Now I'm watching the Joe Franklin show, a guy I would end up imitating on SNL.

00:41:12Guest:And one of the most, I think it was one of the first ticker tapes on television, came through at the bottom with the numbers.

00:41:19Guest:So now I see I'm not in 112 to 175.

00:41:22Guest:Right.

00:41:23Guest:I'm not in 175 to 220.

00:41:25Guest:I don't get called until 354.

00:41:30Right.

00:41:30Guest:And that's how I got out of going into the army.

00:41:33Marc:So they literally went through the whole year?

00:41:35Guest:Yeah, 365 days.

00:41:37Marc:And it was just the order?

00:41:38Guest:Yeah.

00:41:38Guest:So I was 354.

00:41:39Guest:I never had to take a physical.

00:41:41Guest:I never had anything like that.

00:41:42Guest:I was out.

00:41:43Guest:So- You won the lottery.

00:41:45Guest:I won the lottery and went into show business with my two friends, Al and Dave.

00:41:49Guest:We formed this act.

00:41:50Guest:Yeah.

00:41:50Guest:And we started doing improvs and fake improvs and sketches and stuff.

00:41:55Guest:At places?

00:41:56Guest:Yeah.

00:41:57Guest:We started on a- It was our vaudeville.

00:41:59Guest:Yeah.

00:42:00Yeah.

00:42:00Guest:It was called the Coffeehouse Circuit.

00:42:02Guest:Yeah.

00:42:03Guest:And we would get $150 each, but you'd be there three days.

00:42:10Guest:Yeah.

00:42:10Guest:And you'd live in a dorm.

00:42:12Marc:No kidding.

00:42:13Guest:So you were traveling.

00:42:13Guest:You were traveling, yeah.

00:42:14Guest:So we were on the road, and my little Volkswagen usually, not that it's a big Volkswagen, but it was my Volkswagen with Dave and Al.

00:42:23Guest:And we had a great time.

00:42:24Marc:What were those rooms?

00:42:25Marc:What were the rooms in New York that you would play?

00:42:27Guest:Well, we ended up at the bitter end, which was great.

00:42:32Marc:In the context at that time, so you had the committee was around.

00:42:34Marc:There was a precedent for improv.

00:42:36Guest:Ace Trunky Company.

00:42:38Guest:Ace Trucking was really good.

00:42:40Guest:Fred Willard was in Ace Trucking.

00:42:43Guest:The committee, that was more of a West Coast thing.

00:42:46Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:42:48Guest:And we were really funny.

00:42:49Guest:We did it like a Mike Douglas show, and we did...

00:42:51Guest:You did?

00:42:52Guest:Yeah, but it was hard to break through with three guys, and I was there four and a half years with them.

00:42:58Marc:Really?

00:42:59Marc:So you were in show business?

00:43:01Guest:I was in show business, yeah, and not making any money.

00:43:03Guest:I mean, the most I made was four grand a year.

00:43:06Marc:Were you the feature actor, the headline actor?

00:43:08Guest:We'd be the opening actor, and sometimes we would headline, but at the colleges,

00:43:12Guest:We were always the featured actor.

00:43:14Guest:And there'd always be a folk singer and us.

00:43:16Guest:It was called the coffee house circuit.

00:43:19Guest:So every campus had a thing after eight o'clock.

00:43:24Guest:The cafeteria became the nightclub.

00:43:27Marc:The beatniks.

00:43:27Guest:Yeah, and that's where we worked.

00:43:30Guest:But I was already married in 1970.

00:43:33Guest:So for me it was- You gotta make a living.

00:43:38Guest:Yeah, and so I was substitute teaching.

00:43:40Guest:Yeah?

00:43:41Guest:At the school I went to, which was weird.

00:43:45Guest:On Long Island?

00:43:46Guest:Yeah, in Long Beach, in the junior high.

00:43:48Marc:That's where you were living?

00:43:49Guest:Yeah, I was living in the house I grew up in.

00:43:52Guest:Upstairs, there was like a separate- After the low east side.

00:43:55Marc:Yeah.

00:43:56Marc:So wait, we didn't linger on Scorsese.

00:43:58Marc:So you got this hyperactive graduate student teacher?

00:44:03Marc:Oh, my God.

00:44:04Guest:He would stand behind you.

00:44:05Guest:And we were working.

00:44:07Guest:There was film then.

00:44:08Guest:Yeah.

00:44:09Guest:So you got white gloves on.

00:44:10Guest:There was a machine called the Moviola.

00:44:12Guest:Yeah.

00:44:13Guest:Right.

00:44:13Guest:The Moviola had the film on one spool and your sound on the other spool.

00:44:17Guest:And you synced them up.

00:44:18Guest:and they'd run through a machine, and you couldn't touch it.

00:44:21Guest:You had white gloves, and if you wanted to make an edit, you'd stop with the brakes, put a grease mark on your cut, take a razor blade, make the cut, take the tape, make the edit, go to the sound, hear the sound.

00:44:41Guest:Make the edit, and he'd stand behind you.

00:44:44Guest:Yeah.

00:44:45Guest:And he had this big beard.

00:44:47Guest:Yeah.

00:44:48Guest:And why did you make that cut?

00:44:49Guest:I don't understand.

00:44:50Guest:Why would you do that?

00:44:51Guest:Why would you make that cut?

00:44:52Guest:Howard Hawks would make that cut.

00:44:53Guest:I said, Howard Hawks isn't a student here.

00:44:56Guest:And every time I see him, I ask him the same question, why did you give me a C?

00:45:05Guest:We're making little movies.

00:45:07Guest:But he was amazing.

00:45:09Marc:Do you have any of those movies?

00:45:11Marc:I have them.

00:45:13Guest:How are they?

00:45:13Guest:They're basically silly.

00:45:17Marc:Yeah.

00:45:18Marc:But did you feel like you learned something there?

00:45:20Guest:I did.

00:45:20Guest:I learned basics of staging, you know, the camera dictionary.

00:45:27Marc:Of actually directing.

00:45:28Guest:Yeah.

00:45:29Guest:Of who stands where and how.

00:45:30Guest:You'd come around the side.

00:45:31Guest:Right, right, right.

00:45:32Guest:That basic stuff.

00:45:33Guest:Coverage.

00:45:34Guest:Yeah.

00:45:34Guest:That kind of stuff.

00:45:35Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:45:36Marc:So you're living on Long Island.

00:45:37Marc:You substitute teaching.

00:45:38Marc:Yeah.

00:45:38Marc:You're in a...

00:45:40Marc:Three guy act.

00:45:41Guest:Right.

00:45:41Guest:And I'm getting- You have a kid yet?

00:45:44Guest:1973.

00:45:45Guest:Okay.

00:45:45Guest:So I'm getting weary.

00:45:46Guest:Yeah.

00:45:47Guest:And I'm getting anxious.

00:45:48Guest:Yeah.

00:45:48Guest:Because I know I'm hiding.

00:45:49Marc:Yeah.

00:45:50Marc:Hiding.

00:45:52Marc:So I- What do you mean?

00:45:53Marc:Like you just, you're protected by the other guy.

00:45:56Marc:Yeah.

00:45:57Marc:And you're not really going in for the big game.

00:45:59Guest:And we're, you know, it's lonely at the middle.

00:46:01Marc:Yeah.

00:46:02Guest:And we get noticed just by chance.

00:46:07Guest:Yeah.

00:46:09Guest:We're up at a record company called Buddha Records.

00:46:12Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:46:13Marc:Cat Stevens, I think.

00:46:14Guest:Yeah.

00:46:15Guest:And we were trying to do an album.

00:46:18Marc:We were going to do a very- That's why Cheech and Chong's made a record already and it's big on college radio.

00:46:23Marc:Right.

00:46:23Yeah.

00:46:23Guest:Uncle Dirty.

00:46:25Guest:We're working.

00:46:27Guest:Remember that guy?

00:46:28Guest:Bob Altman.

00:46:28Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:46:28Guest:And we were working on this album with his two young producers there.

00:46:33Guest:And the act was good.

00:46:36Guest:Yeah.

00:46:37Guest:And we were auditioning to open for Sha Na Na.

00:46:42Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:46:43Guest:And we're doing our act, I swear, in a conference room, the three of us doing our bids for one guy.

00:46:48Guest:Yeah.

00:46:48Guest:And Ed Somerville, I think his name is.

00:46:52Guest:Uh-huh.

00:46:53Guest:And he says, do you guys know who Buddy Mora is?

00:46:56Guest:I go, no.

00:46:57Guest:He said, he's Robert Klein's manager.

00:46:59Guest:Uh-huh.

00:46:59Guest:And they were the Jack Rollins, Charlie Jaffe office, which was the best office.

00:47:04Guest:Sure.

00:47:04Guest:Because they had Woody Allen, Dick Cavett.

00:47:08Yeah.

00:47:08Guest:And we say, I'm going to bring him in.

00:47:10Guest:Buddy Mora.

00:47:11Guest:Yeah.

00:47:11Guest:So he brings him Buddy and we do our stuff for him all alone in this room.

00:47:15Guest:And he doesn't laugh.

00:47:16Guest:He smiles a couple of times and says, okay, let me see what we can do.

00:47:21Guest:So he gets us in a couple little rooms in New York, so and so forth.

00:47:25Guest:And I know it's not happening, but we're in the mix in this office a little bit.

00:47:32Guest:Yeah, right.

00:47:34Right.

00:47:34Guest:He then, with a great man who just sadly passed away, Larry Bresner, come to me and they said, have you ever thought about doing stand-up?

00:47:47Guest:And I said, yes.

00:47:51Guest:And I said, because the act isn't going anywhere.

00:47:55Guest:They pulled you aside.

00:47:57Guest:Yeah.

00:47:57Guest:Right.

00:47:58Guest:Right.

00:47:58Guest:It's not going to happen.

00:48:00Guest:Yeah.

00:48:01Guest:But we'll be there for you and we'll work with you right from the beginning if this is what you want to do because we think you could be a stand-up comic.

00:48:10Guest:So I went, oh, my God.

00:48:11Guest:Yeah.

00:48:12Guest:I said, let me think about this.

00:48:14Guest:Yeah.

00:48:15Guest:Now I know I have a support group.

00:48:17Guest:right a big one yeah so i'm a home and i was a i was mr mom yeah janice went back to work yeah um she's now working at the college that i went to she's assistant dean of theater at nassau community college how'd you feel about that i was well listen it was what you had to do sure and you know she had faith in you though

00:48:38Guest:Yes, because this is one who said to me, you can do this.

00:48:44Guest:I'm going to go back to work.

00:48:44Guest:You figure this out, and I'm there for you.

00:48:47Guest:And we had a baby who was six months old, and she said, this is important for you.

00:48:51Guest:So this is 73.

00:48:52Guest:Yeah.

00:48:53Guest:So I get a call from a friend at NYU.

00:48:56Guest:His name is Iris Sardi.

00:49:00Guest:And he said, hey, listen, do you know a comedian who could do like 15 minutes in front of the folk singer at the ZBT house on Friday?

00:49:09Guest:We're having a party.

00:49:10Marc:It's my dad's Friday.

00:49:11Guest:So I said, yeah, I'll do it.

00:49:12Guest:Yeah.

00:49:13Guest:First gig.

00:49:14Guest:He said, well, when did you start doing stand-up?

00:49:16Guest:Oh, no, I've been doing it for a while.

00:49:18Guest:Lying my ass off as I'm feeding my baby.

00:49:21Guest:Yeah.

00:49:22Guest:And he said, well, yeah, great.

00:49:24Guest:It's Friday night.

00:49:27Guest:If you get there like at 7, go on at 8, 8.15, 8.20, you're done.

00:49:31Guest:And then the folks are like, great.

00:49:34Guest:And it's like 25 bucks.

00:49:35Guest:I went great.

00:49:36Guest:You know, like boom.

00:49:37Marc:Yeah.

00:49:38Guest:I hung up and I went, what the hell did I just do?

00:49:41Guest:Yeah.

00:49:42Guest:So I called up Buddy Moore.

00:49:43Guest:I said, buddy, listen, I booked myself into a fraternity party.

00:49:48Guest:It's Friday night.

00:49:49Guest:Yeah.

00:49:49Guest:It's 25 bucks and I don't think I should pay you commission.

00:49:56Guest:He said, great, give me the information.

00:49:58Guest:So I said where it was, it was on Mercer Street and...

00:50:01Guest:So now I start putting together stuff.

00:50:03Guest:Yeah.

00:50:04Guest:And I threw this in, I threw that in.

00:50:06Guest:So I was doing Cosell and Ali a little bit with the act.

00:50:11Guest:We used to do this Wide World of Sports thing.

00:50:13Guest:So I had that.

00:50:14Guest:I had about two minutes, maybe three.

00:50:18Guest:It's a couple other things I threw together.

00:50:19Guest:I did The Wizard of Oz in a minute.

00:50:22Guest:The premise was the film's been on so much.

00:50:24Guest:Television, it's all spliced up.

00:50:26Guest:Did you do that bit for years?

00:50:27Guest:Yeah.

00:50:28Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:29Guest:So, I get to the fraternity.

00:50:31Guest:It's pouring rain.

00:50:32Guest:It's like horrible out.

00:50:33Guest:Yeah.

00:50:34Guest:I get to the fraternity house.

00:50:35Guest:They're all sitting there and smoking pot and all this stuff.

00:50:38Guest:Yeah.

00:50:39Guest:And I see the stage and I'm like panicked.

00:50:41Guest:I think, how much time can I really do here?

00:50:45Guest:Right.

00:50:46Guest:And Ira comes over and goes, listen, can you stretch?

00:50:52Yeah.

00:50:52Guest:What do you mean?

00:50:54Guest:He said, well, because the folk singer just called.

00:50:56Guest:He's stuck in traffic with this rain.

00:50:57Guest:Yeah.

00:50:58Guest:Can you stretch?

00:51:00Guest:I said, you mean to go from like three to three and a half minutes?

00:51:03Guest:I said, well, I don't know.

00:51:04Guest:I'll do it.

00:51:06Guest:As we're talking about this and I'm getting more worried, in walks Buddy Mora, Larry Bresner, Jack Rollins himself.

00:51:13Guest:Holy shit.

00:51:13Guest:Yeah.

00:51:14Guest:They all come to this place.

00:51:16Marc:Right.

00:51:16Guest:stand in the back of their suits yeah with the wet raincoats and umbrellas and stuff hats yeah and they introduced me i go on mark i don't know where it came from i did an hour and 20.

00:51:32Guest:Come on.

00:51:32Guest:I swear.

00:51:33Guest:I still don't even remember what I did.

00:51:35Guest:I just went.

00:51:37Guest:It was a belch.

00:51:38Guest:It was a vomit of epic comic proportions because it was all of those frustrated time with the group just came out.

00:51:47Guest:Right.

00:51:48Marc:And Rollins loves that, right?

00:51:49Marc:He likes when you push it out there.

00:51:50Marc:I just went.

00:51:51Guest:I just went.

00:51:52Guest:Yeah.

00:51:53Guest:And they stood up.

00:51:55Guest:And the folk singer then arrived.

00:51:57Guest:And he sang, May the Circle Be Unbroken.

00:51:59Guest:And it was a nice night.

00:52:01Guest:And they came up to me afterwards.

00:52:03Guest:I couldn't believe it.

00:52:06Guest:Janice is crying.

00:52:07Guest:And Buddy says to me, all right, listen, that stunk, so let's go to work.

00:52:14Marc:Did he say that?

00:52:15Guest:Yeah.

00:52:15Guest:But you were getting laughed?

00:52:17Guest:I was killing.

00:52:18Guest:Yeah.

00:52:19Guest:I swear I don't remember what I did.

00:52:22Marc:Right, but eventually at that time, they were sort of seeing the new comics come out, and I imagine that you were probably doing some crowd work and stuff, right?

00:52:29Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:52:30Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:32Guest:But it was like a miracle.

00:52:35Guest:It was beautiful.

00:52:36Guest:It was great.

00:52:36Marc:Yeah.

00:52:37Marc:You knew you could do it.

00:52:38Marc:Yes.

00:52:39Marc:Your first weird gig out, you somehow did an hour and a half, you're like, okay.

00:52:43Yeah.

00:52:43Marc:It's just trimming now.

00:52:46Guest:Yeah.

00:52:47Guest:And now I go, oh man, I cheated on my friends.

00:52:53Guest:They had no idea.

00:52:54Guest:Right, right, right.

00:52:54Guest:And now I know I don't want to do that anymore with them.

00:52:58Guest:Oh, you got to do that talk.

00:52:59Guest:And now I got to tell them what I did.

00:53:02Guest:And they were my best friends and it was four and a half years of stuff together.

00:53:06Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:53:07Guest:And living on the road in dorms together and all that stuff.

00:53:10Guest:It was more than just being an act together.

00:53:12Guest:No, sure.

00:53:13Guest:And I told them.

00:53:14Guest:And they were shocked that I did it.

00:53:17Guest:But they went, good for you.

00:53:19Guest:No kidding.

00:53:20Guest:I said, guys, I love you.

00:53:22Guest:Yeah.

00:53:23Guest:I really do.

00:53:23Guest:I got an 18-month-old baby that's sleeping in there.

00:53:27Guest:I got to do this.

00:53:28Guest:And I'm going to do it.

00:53:29Guest:Yeah.

00:53:30Guest:And we had one gig coming up.

00:53:34Guest:Right.

00:53:35Guest:Opening for Melissa Manchester at the bitter end.

00:53:37Guest:Uh-huh.

00:53:37Guest:And she was hot like crazy.

00:53:38Guest:Yeah.

00:53:39Guest:Coming from the rain and she had good songs.

00:53:42Guest:Yeah.

00:53:42Guest:And a great performer.

00:53:44Guest:If nothing comes from that, I'll give you that last, it's already booked and I want to do that with you, then I'm gone.

00:53:50Guest:Yeah.

00:53:51Guest:and now we get it sold out it's like a perfect setup for us yeah everybody's coming record people right right it's it's tv people coming to see her and so and we were killing and i'm saying to myself please nobody buy us yeah nobody book us for anything please no don't don't don't and they didn't and then that was it and i just

00:54:14Guest:Did those two guys stay in show business?

00:54:16Guest:David did.

00:54:17Guest:David is still really funny.

00:54:20Guest:I saw him pretty recently.

00:54:22Guest:I hadn't seen him for years and years and years.

00:54:24Guest:And I still love the guys.

00:54:25Guest:And Al lives in New Mexico.

00:54:28Guest:Really?

00:54:28Guest:What's his name?

00:54:29Guest:Al Finelli.

00:54:30Guest:And he's a playwright now and a photographer.

00:54:34Guest:Stayed in the arts.

00:54:35Guest:Yeah.

00:54:36Guest:And I just went.

00:54:38Guest:I left them that night.

00:54:40Guest:The next night, I'm at Catch Rising Star.

00:54:42Guest:At the beginning.

00:54:43Marc:So it was 74?

00:54:44Guest:Yeah.

00:54:45Guest:No kidding.

00:54:46Guest:Hoping to get on.

00:54:47Guest:Hoping to get on.

00:54:47Marc:Just waiting?

00:54:48Guest:Yeah.

00:54:49Guest:Was Rick Newman there?

00:54:50Guest:Rick was great to me because he knew that I lived over an hour outside of Manhattan and that I had a baby.

00:54:55Guest:And so he knew my gig.

00:54:57Guest:Yeah.

00:54:57Guest:So he tried to get me better times.

00:54:59Guest:But I was so...

00:55:02Guest:Fertile.

00:55:03Guest:Yeah.

00:55:04Guest:I just wrote my ass off and very quickly I had a really good 20 minutes to begin with.

00:55:10Marc:Mostly impression driven?

00:55:11Guest:Some a little bit, but it's an interesting story that I'll get to in a second.

00:55:19Guest:Because I'd come to catch, and I'd get on at maybe one, and I'd be done 120, and then you'd hang out for a second.

00:55:28Marc:Who the hell was going on before you at that time?

00:55:30Guest:Eddie Bluestone, Richard Lewis, Andy Kaufman, Belzer was the emcee, Freddie Prinze, Leno.

00:55:43Guest:Yeah.

00:55:43Guest:And then David Brennan would come in and do an hour.

00:55:46Guest:Right.

00:55:47Guest:Wait.

00:55:47Guest:Yeah.

00:55:48Marc:Were you going over to Bud's place too?

00:55:50Guest:No, because it was too far west for me.

00:55:52Guest:Right.

00:55:52Guest:So I, because catch was on the east side, I could get out of Manhattan fast.

00:55:56Marc:In the 70s, right?

00:55:56Marc:78th or something.

00:55:57Marc:And then, yeah, 44th and like 8th and 9th.

00:56:00Guest:Yeah.

00:56:00Guest:So I could get out of town fast.

00:56:01Guest:Right, right, right.

00:56:02Guest:Yeah.

00:56:02Guest:It was really about that.

00:56:03Marc:Yeah.

00:56:03Guest:I didn't become a devoted improv guy until I moved to California.

00:56:08Guest:Right.

00:56:08Guest:Because to me, it was just a great room, the improv on Melrose.

00:56:11Guest:The original one, yeah.

00:56:11Guest:Yeah, it was great.

00:56:12Guest:In here, yeah.

00:56:13Guest:So then I'd get home by three, up at six.

00:56:17Guest:Janice had to leave for work at seven.

00:56:19Guest:Got the baby.

00:56:20Guest:Then I got the baby.

00:56:20Guest:So that was my life.

00:56:22Guest:I did that for two years.

00:56:24Marc:Every night at Catch.

00:56:26Marc:Every night.

00:56:26Marc:Did he eventually move down on the roster a bit?

00:56:28Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:30Guest:Pretty quickly.

00:56:30Guest:I started working pretty quickly, which was great.

00:56:32Guest:And my first big gig, well, I should back up.

00:56:37Guest:Yeah.

00:56:38Guest:I'm doing really good, and I'm feeling like my purpose in life is being fulfilled.

00:56:43Guest:Right.

00:56:43Guest:It was a really romantic, fantastic time for all of us.

00:56:49Yeah.

00:56:49Guest:Rollins comes to see me for the first time since... The frat house.

00:56:54Guest:The frat house.

00:56:55Guest:Yeah.

00:56:56Guest:And he wanted to wait till I had marinated a little bit.

00:56:59Guest:Yeah.

00:56:59Guest:And he was hearing all of this stuff, you know, and I was really doing good stuff.

00:57:05Guest:Yeah.

00:57:06Guest:And I know he's coming and we're going to talk afterwards.

00:57:11Guest:So Jack...

00:57:13Guest:Jack was... He looked like the Jewish Duke Ellington.

00:57:18Guest:Had the big eyebrows.

00:57:19Guest:Yeah, but the big bags under his eyes.

00:57:21Guest:Always a little stub of a cigar.

00:57:23Guest:Yeah.

00:57:24Guest:And tons of dandruff.

00:57:25Guest:They're almost like epaulets on his suit.

00:57:27Guest:He looked like a...

00:57:29Guest:a brooklyn college english professor yeah yeah i met him once when he's very old yeah yeah and he lived to 100. yeah and i just destroyed i had 20 minutes of just boom and i was you know i was i was doing i was doing only then i was doing a bunch of other stuff that were more bits yeah

00:57:51Guest:And I just, I crunched.

00:57:53Guest:Yeah.

00:57:53Guest:So we go out afterwards and I sit down and I'm like, I'm full of myself.

00:57:59Guest:Yeah.

00:57:59Guest:But you know that feeling when you just had just a beauty.

00:58:02Guest:Yeah.

00:58:02Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:58:03Guest:It's like you can walk on your own sweat for a while.

00:58:05Guest:It's good.

00:58:06Guest:Can't sleep.

00:58:07Guest:Yeah.

00:58:07Guest:It's like so exciting.

00:58:08Guest:Let's eat.

00:58:08Guest:Yeah.

00:58:09Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:58:09Guest:So Jack's looking at me and he spits a little bit of the cigar thing.

00:58:15Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:58:16Guest:How did you think you did tonight?

00:58:17Guest:No, I know I'm fucked.

00:58:19Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:20Guest:And I go, well, the audience was great.

00:58:23Guest:Yeah.

00:58:23Guest:And he says, yeah.

00:58:25Guest:And now I feel like I want to stab him.

00:58:27Marc:Yeah, because he's just not saying anything.

00:58:30Guest:And he goes, yeah, you know, Bill, I didn't care for it.

00:58:36Guest:And I'm going, why?

00:58:37Guest:Really, why?

00:58:39Guest:And I'm trying so hard not to leap across the table.

00:58:43Yeah.

00:58:44Guest:You didn't leave a tip.

00:58:46Guest:I go, what do you mean?

00:58:49Guest:You did a lot of bits.

00:58:53Guest:I call them toys and games.

00:58:55Guest:It was all bits, but the audience had no idea about who you were when you left the stage.

00:59:03Guest:You didn't leave a tip.

00:59:04Guest:A tip, that little extra something that you leave because it was good.

00:59:09Guest:I like the guy who did the thing.

00:59:13Guest:He's a nice man.

00:59:14Guest:That's important.

00:59:15Guest:You didn't leave a tip.

00:59:16Guest:You never once said, I think, I feel.

00:59:20Guest:You know what bothers me?

00:59:22Guest:You never said that.

00:59:24Guest:I know what Ali thinks.

00:59:26Guest:I know what this guy thinks.

00:59:27Guest:I know what Mr. Rogers does.

00:59:29Guest:He's a bit...

00:59:34Guest:You're working too safe.

00:59:36Guest:Huh.

00:59:37Guest:You have to be ready and be prepared to bomb.

00:59:40Guest:You have to know what that feels like in order to grow.

00:59:45Guest:These are like Talmudic, huge things to lay on a 25-year-old.

00:59:51Guest:Stand up who just killed.

00:59:53Guest:And who's six months just past substitute teaching, who's feeling like, oh my God, my future's happening.

00:59:58Guest:And it was gigantic.

00:59:59Guest:But it totally changed my perception about what I was going to do.

01:00:05Guest:He said, so come back tomorrow.

01:00:06Guest:Yeah.

01:00:07Guest:You know these things can work, and we can sprinkle them in as we go.

01:00:11Guest:Right, right.

01:00:12Guest:But for your own personal welfare on stage, don't do any of this tomorrow.

01:00:22Guest:You're married, right?

01:00:23Guest:Yes.

01:00:24Guest:Talk about that.

01:00:25Guest:You're a young man, you're married.

01:00:26Guest:That's unusual.

01:00:28Guest:You have a baby?

01:00:29Guest:Yes, talk about that.

01:00:31Guest:Look at you.

01:00:31Guest:Who else has a baby?

01:00:32Guest:Eddie Bluestone doesn't have a baby.

01:00:35Guest:Belzer will never have a baby.

01:00:36Guest:Well, look at that.

01:00:39Guest:Talk about that.

01:00:41Guest:And I went home.

01:00:42Guest:I didn't sleep.

01:00:43Guest:I'm up all day with Jenny the next day, who's now the mother of two herself, and I'm writing stuff about being the only man in the playgroup.

01:00:53Guest:And it gave me an identity.

01:00:56Guest:Talk about how she was born.

01:00:57Guest:I did a piece about natural childbirth in 1974.

01:01:00Guest:Yeah.

01:01:00Guest:You know, so that's what I was... And he pointed me in the right direction, and any comic who... Young person who comes up to me and asks me about that, I tell them that story.

01:01:10Guest:Yeah.

01:01:10Guest:Be prepared to bomb.

01:01:11Guest:Yeah.

01:01:12Guest:We're so... And did you?

01:01:13Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:01:14Guest:But till you find your way.

01:01:15Guest:Right.

01:01:16Guest:Till you find your way.

01:01:17Guest:Right.

01:01:17Guest:And then I learned, oh, if I could experiment with that...

01:01:21Guest:But I need that thing to end with.

01:01:22Guest:Yeah.

01:01:23Guest:So then an act starts to develop.

01:01:24Guest:Sure, sure.

01:01:25Guest:Always got Ali.

01:01:26Guest:Yeah.

01:01:27Guest:I got that and then you throw in this and throw in that and then suddenly you... Yeah.

01:01:31Guest:But it was the approach.

01:01:32Guest:Right.

01:01:32Guest:It was the approach that was so amazing.

01:01:34Guest:And when Jack was 100, this was last year.

01:01:40Guest:He died shortly after, and I hadn't seen him in years.

01:01:44Guest:And I always kept in touch with him.

01:01:46Guest:I always called him.

01:01:48Guest:He was such a wisdom-filled, menschy man.

01:01:52Guest:So wise.

01:01:53Guest:He was my Yoda that way.

01:01:55Guest:And the company had fallen apart, had broken up, and I wasn't with him anymore.

01:02:01Guest:And Robin, rest his soul, and I were like the children of the divorce when Rollins and Jaffe broke up.

01:02:10Guest:yeah well who do we go with we love Jack but we love Buddy and we also love David Steinberg the manager that's who you end up with right yeah and Larry yeah so I didn't get Jack right as much as I wanted to I go to see him in New York

01:02:26Guest:And he's 100 years old.

01:02:28Guest:And we're sitting there.

01:02:29Guest:And my series, The Comedians, was going to debut that night.

01:02:34Guest:And I was in town doing press and stuff like that.

01:02:37Guest:So I programmed his VCR with his helper, his caregiver.

01:02:43Guest:And he was in and out.

01:02:49Guest:And I knew I had to get out of there.

01:02:51Guest:It was getting emotional for me.

01:02:52Guest:And we both knew it was the last time we were probably going to see each other.

01:02:57Guest:And I said, so Jack, 10 o'clock tonight, it's all set up.

01:03:01Guest:If you miss it, you'll see it in the morning.

01:03:03Guest:So don't worry, it's all done.

01:03:05Guest:And I love seeing you and I love you.

01:03:07Guest:He grabbed my hand and he says, are you happy with your work on this show?

01:03:13Guest:Do you feel good about what you did on this show?

01:03:16Guest:I said, yes, very much so.

01:03:18Guest:He says, that's most important because they can never take that away from you.

01:03:24Guest:oh my god it was like so amazing yeah you know and i and i and i carried that around with me you know i've been fortunate to to have had good guidance yeah that's amazing it's amazing stuff it's really amazing jack was amazing he was amazing and and and uh beautiful moment yeah yeah great stuff and so so when does uh you know how does soap happen how does the first break happen

01:03:50Guest:i come out here and uh you move here uh did not move here originally right away we had a night at the this was interesting a night at the comedy store um i was traveling on the road with melissa manchester was her opening act and that was a great gig for a comic at that time it's fantastic yeah but it was it was kind of cool you lived on the bus and

01:04:12Guest:Do 20 minutes, right?

01:04:14Guest:Yeah.

01:04:14Guest:Sold out crowds.

01:04:15Guest:Yeah.

01:04:15Guest:You know, nothing on my head.

01:04:17Guest:Yeah.

01:04:17Guest:And came down to LA, which was intoxicating.

01:04:22Guest:Mm-hmm.

01:04:22Guest:LA back in the 70s was like amazing.

01:04:25Guest:Mm-hmm.

01:04:25Guest:You know, you could be on Sunset Boulevard and smell the orange blossoms in the valley.

01:04:29Guest:Mm-hmm.

01:04:29Guest:I mean, it was like really, it was different.

01:04:31Marc:More intimate business.

01:04:32Guest:Yeah, it was really cool.

01:04:33Marc:Yeah.

01:04:33Guest:And exciting and stuff was happening.

01:04:35Guest:Yeah.

01:04:36Guest:So they have a night, the office sets up a night for me at the comedy store.

01:04:41Guest:Everybody comes.

01:04:41Guest:Yeah.

01:04:42Guest:I mean, it was insane.

01:04:43Guest:In the main room, the big room.

01:04:46Guest:No.

01:04:46Guest:In the original room?

01:04:47Guest:I don't think there wasn't, they didn't have the main room yet.

01:04:48Guest:Oh, it wasn't open yet.

01:04:49Guest:Yeah.

01:04:49Guest:So it was their little box room.

01:04:51Guest:Yeah.

01:04:53Yeah.

01:04:54Guest:I look out and there's Jim Brooks and there's Carl Reiner and there's Norman Lear and it went really well.

01:05:01Guest:Yeah.

01:05:01Guest:It went really well.

01:05:02Guest:Yeah.

01:05:03Guest:And now I'm meeting all of these guys.

01:05:04Guest:It's like being in a Yankee locker room.

01:05:07Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:05:10Guest:And I go home to New York.

01:05:14Guest:Norman Lear calls me at home himself.

01:05:18Uh-huh.

01:05:20Guest:I so enjoyed you the other night.

01:05:23Guest:I'm like, yeah.

01:05:26Guest:We have a part on All in the Family.

01:05:30Guest:You play Mike's best friend.

01:05:34Guest:He's going to get married on the show at Mike's house.

01:05:37Guest:It's a pretty good episode.

01:05:38Guest:And I thought, would you come out?

01:05:41Guest:Would you think about doing this?

01:05:42Guest:Would I come out?

01:05:43Guest:Would I think about doing this?

01:05:44Guest:Yes, Mr. Lear, of course.

01:05:46Guest:And then Norman, just Norman.

01:05:48Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:05:49Guest:Next day, I'm on a plane.

01:05:50Guest:I'm coming out.

01:05:51Guest:I'm doing All in the Family.

01:05:52Guest:Is that the first time you met Rob?

01:05:54Guest:Yeah.

01:05:54Guest:So now I'm cast as his best friend.

01:05:56Guest:It was the week after the stific baby had been seen on All in the Family.

01:06:02Guest:Okay.

01:06:03Guest:Right?

01:06:03Guest:Sally and Mike's baby.

01:06:06Guest:So it was a huge audience.

01:06:09Guest:Like 49 million people saw like a medium show.

01:06:13Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:06:14Guest:No Archie, no Edith.

01:06:17Guest:It was me and Rob and Sally and I ended up getting married on the show.

01:06:21Guest:But it's a funny episode, but we had to play Best Friends and it sort of stuck right away.

01:06:28Guest:Yeah.

01:06:28Guest:And we said, listen, it was good on the show, so let's just keep going with this.

01:06:31Guest:Yeah.

01:06:32Guest:And it's remained to this day.

01:06:33Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:06:34Marc:I saw you with him.

01:06:35Marc:That's when I last saw you at the Shandling Memorial Club.

01:06:38Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:06:38Guest:So that was a big break.

01:06:41Guest:And then Paul Witt, Tony Thomas, Susan Harris call us.

01:06:48Guest:They saw me in The Tonight Show.

01:06:49Guest:Yeah.

01:06:50Guest:And they were doing the series and they offered me this part to play Jody Dallas, this gay director of commercials, as part of this big ensemble.

01:07:03Guest:I had one line.

01:07:04Guest:The pilot was an hour.

01:07:06Guest:There were two half hours put together as a pilot.

01:07:09Guest:i had one line in the pilot but the second episode i had this great episode with my mother where i'm in her clothes and she catches me and we talk about she sees me and she goes why get out of my oh you wear it belted and it was smart and i and i met with them and it was a great pedigree it was jay sandrich who was one of the best television directors mary tyler moore show um

01:07:32Guest:And Susan, I just thought she was a genius and amazing writer.

01:07:36Guest:Yeah.

01:07:37Guest:And so I said, okay.

01:07:39Marc:And it was a groundbreaking show.

01:07:40Guest:Groundbreaking show.

01:07:41Guest:And I thought, all right, well, but wait a second.

01:07:44Guest:This is 1976 when the pilot was.

01:07:47Guest:America was a lot different.

01:07:48Guest:It wasn't as tolerant.

01:07:50Guest:I said, you know, but I have my stand-up.

01:07:52Guest:Yeah.

01:07:52Guest:And you'll always have that.

01:07:55Guest:So I didn't want to be the gay guy from Soap.

01:07:59Guest:I still wanted my own identity.

01:08:00Guest:Yeah, Billy Crystal.

01:08:01Guest:I just was starting to really get what's being on stage.

01:08:04Guest:It was getting better and better.

01:08:05Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:08:06Marc:Was SNL happening yet?

01:08:07Guest:No.

01:08:07Guest:Uh-huh.

01:08:09Guest:Well, yeah, the show had been on.

01:08:10Guest:Yeah.

01:08:12Guest:Were you up for that?

01:08:13Guest:I was bumped from the very first show.

01:08:16Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:08:17Marc:You were bumped from the first, but how long were you mad at Lorne Michaels?

01:08:21Guest:A long time, but I understood it at the same time.

01:08:26Guest:At that time you understood it?

01:08:27Guest:I didn't understand it because of how it was told to me about what went down.

01:08:33Guest:The Friday night before was a dress rehearsal.

01:08:35Guest:I'm sorry.

01:08:36Guest:No, I don't.

01:08:37Guest:Friday night was a dress rehearsal and I, you know, Lauren had been all, had been coming to the clubs and he loved what I did and he liked what I did and he signed me to the first show and we had this deal in NBC with like six appearances on SNL over, you know, and then I'd become like the first non-celebrity host, which is what he was talking about at the time.

01:09:02Marc:This is all on paper.

01:09:03Guest:Yeah, so we come to the first show, and George Carlin is the host, and there's two musical guests, Billy Preston, Janice Ian, and I knew everybody in the cast, because they were coming to see me at the Bitter End and stuff, John and Gilda and everybody.

01:09:22Guest:Friday night we had the run through for the network and a full audience and my thing, it just killed.

01:09:27Guest:Yeah.

01:09:27Guest:But it ran like five and a half, six minutes.

01:09:30Guest:Yeah.

01:09:30Guest:So now we have notes afterwards.

01:09:32Guest:And Lauren says, and Billy, I need two minutes.

01:09:35Guest:I said, do you need me to take out two minutes?

01:09:37Guest:No, I need two minutes.

01:09:39Guest:Total.

01:09:40Guest:We're running very long.

01:09:42Guest:And I didn't understand that.

01:09:45Guest:And throw in a fact, I'm 25 years old, 26 years old.

01:09:50Guest:How could... My thing killed.

01:09:52Guest:It really was one of the stronger pieces in the show, if not the strongest piece.

01:09:57Guest:Wow.

01:09:57Guest:Now, I got to call everybody.

01:09:59Guest:I got to call Buddy.

01:10:01Guest:I got to call Jack.

01:10:02Guest:And I'm on at five to one.

01:10:04Guest:I'm in the dungeon spot.

01:10:07Guest:And more than likely, I'm going to get dropped.

01:10:10Guest:Yeah.

01:10:11Guest:Because the show was running long.

01:10:13Guest:Anyway, so- And it's live, so you're waiting.

01:10:15Guest:Yeah.

01:10:15Guest:So now, they're in the room with Lorne.

01:10:18Guest:They're going back.

01:10:18Guest:Lorne had other things to worry about.

01:10:20Guest:He's got the premiere of a network show.

01:10:21Guest:Yeah.

01:10:23Guest:I understood that.

01:10:25Guest:And-

01:10:27Guest:Belzer's doing a warm up and Buddy and Jack come out and says, come on, we're going.

01:10:32Guest:What happened?

01:10:33Guest:Well, he won't do what we want him to do.

01:10:34Guest:I didn't have any other material to do.

01:10:37Guest:Right.

01:10:38Guest:I didn't have a two minute hunk.

01:10:39Guest:Yeah.

01:10:39Guest:Andy had Mighty Mouse.

01:10:41Guest:Yeah.

01:10:42Guest:So he had this amazing little piece.

01:10:45Guest:Yeah.

01:10:45Guest:I didn't have, I was too new.

01:10:47Guest:Right.

01:10:48Guest:So I think the office asked for five minutes in the first hour.

01:10:52Guest:Yeah.

01:10:53Guest:At least have us in the first hour and he'll take out whatever he has to take out.

01:10:56Guest:And he couldn't guarantee it.

01:10:58Guest:Yeah.

01:10:58Guest:And so we ended up leaving.

01:11:03Guest:Right.

01:11:03Guest:And it was horrible.

01:11:06Guest:Yeah.

01:11:06Guest:Feeling, because I knew that it was going to be groundbreaking.

01:11:11Guest:Right.

01:11:11Guest:It had to be.

01:11:12Guest:Right.

01:11:13Guest:And so that was bad.

01:11:16Guest:Yeah.

01:11:17Guest:I came back the next year.

01:11:19Guest:Lauren brought me back.

01:11:20Guest:I was on the show that Ron Nesson hosted, who was Gerald Ford's press secretary.

01:11:24Guest:Yeah, right.

01:11:26Guest:Funny guy.

01:11:27Guest:Yeah.

01:11:28Guest:And I was on that show.

01:11:31Guest:Yeah.

01:11:31Guest:And then I didn't do it again for eight years until I hosted it when Dick Ebersole was the producer.

01:11:36Marc:And then you became a cast member for a little while.

01:11:37Guest:Yeah.

01:11:38Guest:I hosted it twice that season.

01:11:39Guest:Yeah.

01:11:41Guest:And then that summer, Dick called me and said, listen, I got a crazy idea.

01:11:45Guest:Yeah.

01:11:46Guest:If I could get Chris Guest and Marty Short and Harry Shearer to come, would you come as a cast member?

01:11:53Guest:And I thought about it for like six seconds and said yes.

01:11:56Guest:I just knew it was the right move.

01:11:58Guest:It's funny because you guys did some great stuff.

01:12:00Guest:Great stuff.

01:12:01Guest:And people think that we were there for years.

01:12:02Guest:We were there one year.

01:12:03Guest:Yeah.

01:12:04Guest:We were all there one year.

01:12:05Guest:But out of that one year came...

01:12:06Guest:Ed Grimley came synchronized swimming.

01:12:09Guest:Yeah.

01:12:10Guest:Became Fernando.

01:12:11Guest:You had no idea.

01:12:12Guest:What was the other?

01:12:12Guest:Yeah, the I hate when that happens, guys.

01:12:14Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:15Guest:Ball players, which was a piece I did with Chris, where we played two Negro League baseball players, a film that was-

01:12:21Guest:So my favorite thing that we did that year.

01:12:27Guest:Chris and I were always together doing stuff.

01:12:28Marc:And that was the first time you worked with him?

01:12:31Guest:Yeah, but we were good friends.

01:12:32Guest:It was the first time we really got the gym.

01:12:34Guest:Right, right.

01:12:34Guest:Oh, that must have been great.

01:12:36Guest:Oh, it was great.

01:12:37Guest:And it was a fantastic time.

01:12:38Marc:Can I just tell you how much I enjoyed the moment where you went, all right.

01:12:42Guest:It's just that I've told the story before.

01:12:46Marc:That was a great, honest moment.

01:12:48Marc:Yeah.

01:12:50Marc:So then, you know, after Soap, you know, you're kind of, you're doing the standup and you get this, I guess, what happens though?

01:12:59Marc:You're a guy, you can act.

01:13:01Guest:Oh, I get a variety show at NBC.

01:13:04Guest:Right.

01:13:04Guest:I get my own variety show.

01:13:05Guest:Brandon Tartikoff gives me my own show.

01:13:09Guest:How long did that run?

01:13:11Guest:Two episodes.

01:13:12Guest:Great.

01:13:13Guest:Good run.

01:13:13Guest:We did six.

01:13:14Guest:Yeah.

01:13:15Guest:It was supposed to be a summer replacement.

01:13:17Guest:Yeah.

01:13:17Marc:When that meant something.

01:13:18Guest:Yeah.

01:13:19Guest:Yeah.

01:13:19Guest:Rock Hudson was on, I don't know, McMillan and Wife or whatever, has a heart attack.

01:13:27Guest:He can't do a show.

01:13:29Guest:Yeah.

01:13:29Guest:We had already taped a show.

01:13:32Guest:Yeah.

01:13:33Guest:And he said, you're on this week.

01:13:35Guest:We had no promotion.

01:13:36Guest:We're up against Fantasy Island and Love Boat on ABC, which was gigantic.

01:13:42Guest:I'm on NBC.

01:13:43Guest:Yeah.

01:13:44Guest:10 o'clock.

01:13:45Guest:Uh-huh.

01:13:45Guest:And it was just starting to find itself.

01:13:50Guest:Yeah.

01:13:50Guest:The ratings weren't good.

01:13:51Guest:Nobody knew who the fuck I was.

01:13:53Guest:You know, as far as that went, I was the guy from Soap.

01:13:55Marc:And you were doing a monologue.

01:13:56Marc:You were doing a song and dancing.

01:13:58Marc:It was a big variety show.

01:13:59Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:14:00Guest:No song and dance.

01:14:00Guest:I had a monologue.

01:14:01Guest:My first guests were John Candy, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas from- Doing sketches.

01:14:06Guest:Doing sketches, yeah.

01:14:07Guest:And that's where Fernando got born.

01:14:10Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:14:11Guest:Yeah.

01:14:13Guest:So-

01:14:13Guest:So the first two aired.

01:14:15Guest:We didn't do any ratings.

01:14:19Guest:But the show was starting to find itself.

01:14:21Guest:These shows need time.

01:14:23Guest:Sure.

01:14:23Guest:Everything needs time.

01:14:24Guest:And we were coming in to do the fifth episode.

01:14:28Guest:Two had aired.

01:14:29Guest:And I go to the office and I was like...

01:14:33Guest:Always fried.

01:14:34Guest:Yeah.

01:14:35Guest:Because I could feel it wasn't quite working.

01:14:37Guest:You know the ratings weren't good.

01:14:39Guest:Right, right.

01:14:40Guest:And on the way in, a friend had called and said, you okay?

01:14:47Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:14:47Guest:We're doing a good show tonight.

01:14:49Guest:It's really good.

01:14:50Guest:We got Shelley Duvall and Manhattan Transfer.

01:14:53Guest:And it's a good show.

01:14:56Guest:We're doing some better stuff.

01:14:57Guest:Yeah.

01:14:58Guest:And I hung up.

01:14:58Guest:I go, what?

01:14:59Guest:Yes, I was okay.

01:15:00Okay.

01:15:04Guest:Trades are on the table.

01:15:06Guest:Trades are on my desk.

01:15:09Guest:And it says, NBC cancels Billy Crystal comedy on it.

01:15:14Guest:Nobody told me.

01:15:15Guest:Right.

01:15:16Guest:The fuck is wrong with show business?

01:15:18Guest:Can you imagine that?

01:15:19Guest:Nobody told me.

01:15:20Guest:Yeah.

01:15:21Guest:And then I had to go out and do the show.

01:15:24Guest:For some reason, because the pressure was off, the shows got better.

01:15:28Guest:I didn't give a shit anymore.

01:15:31Guest:I knew we were done, but the shows got really good.

01:15:36Guest:But that was a terrible, terrible thing to do.

01:15:40Guest:You all right?

01:15:41Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:15:43Marc:Jesus.

01:15:43Marc:That phone call, you hang up, you're like, what?

01:15:47Guest:Yeah, it's the guy who ruins the surprise party.

01:15:49Yeah.

01:15:49Guest:So have a good time tonight at the party.

01:15:51Guest:The Yankees.

01:15:53Guest:The Yankees.

01:15:55Guest:Yeah.

01:15:56Guest:Yeah.

01:15:58Guest:Oh, God.

01:15:59Guest:So it isn't easy.

01:16:00Guest:So then, you know, I was back on the road.

01:16:02Guest:I was playing Vegas and doing all kinds of places.

01:16:04Guest:And it was, you know, because even if you fail, you were there.

01:16:09Guest:Yeah.

01:16:09Guest:So, you know, you could make a little bit more money and play a little bit bigger places.

01:16:12Marc:And had Jack Rollins told you what he told you when he was 100, maybe you would have been able to not take it so hard.

01:16:18Guest:Oh, but you can't.

01:16:19Guest:No, when you get canceled like that.

01:16:20Guest:No, it's embarrassing.

01:16:21Guest:It's like everybody in the country looks at you and goes, no.

01:16:25Guest:No.

01:16:26Guest:That's right.

01:16:27Guest:It's a terrible rejection.

01:16:28Marc:And also in the business, you know, like it's literally maybe they ruin the surprise party, but you're still the assholes going to go out there.

01:16:35Marc:You got to do a show and everyone around you is like, poor guy.

01:16:38Guest:How's that?

01:16:41Guest:is that and i was like oh man you didn't sign up to be the victim of anything you were doing a show no and so then then i did my second hbo special which was a really good show i've done six yeah second one was called the comics line and it was a the opening was a parody of a chorus line yeah so i played all of these people auditioning for this special oh yeah it was really fun i can't remember that yeah yeah it's good and that was when michael fuchs was there

01:17:09Guest:Yeah.

01:17:10Guest:And it got really strong reviews and so on and so forth.

01:17:17Guest:And Dick Ebersole called me and said, we'd like you to host the show.

01:17:23Guest:So now I was- Hosting SNL.

01:17:25Guest:Yeah.

01:17:25Marc:You're a big comic now.

01:17:28Marc:no no no i mean you're one of the guys because that's when like i think the nation started to recognize it you were the guy that did all the stuff you did the impressions you did the great comedy you had the hbo specials like you were you know a top comic yeah yeah it was a it was a really good time yeah it was a really good time but but when did the movies come

01:17:47Guest:Movies come at the end of Saturday Night Live.

01:17:49Guest:Because when Harry met Sally is- That's later.

01:17:51Guest:The first movie was Running Scared.

01:17:53Guest:Yeah.

01:17:54Guest:With Gregory Hines.

01:17:54Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

01:17:56Guest:Yeah.

01:17:57Guest:That was right after SNL.

01:17:59Guest:And so I was there for a year, you know?

01:18:04Guest:Yeah.

01:18:04Guest:And then that, and then comes Throw Mama from the Train.

01:18:08Guest:Funny.

01:18:09Guest:Princess Bride.

01:18:10Marc:Oh, that was all before Harry and Miss Sally?

01:18:12Guest:Harry and Miss Sally.

01:18:12Marc:Princess Bride with Carole Kane.

01:18:14Guest:Yeah.

01:18:14Guest:You played a little old guy.

01:18:15Guest:Yeah, Miracle Man.

01:18:16Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:18:17Guest:Great.

01:18:17Guest:Have fun, Storm of the Castle, that thing.

01:18:19Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:18:20Guest:And I'm actually in Spinal Tap, too.

01:18:22Marc:No, I know, they're mine.

01:18:23Marc:Yeah.

01:18:23Guest:Yeah, great.

01:18:24Guest:And then Harry and Sally, and then City Slickers, and then, yeah, so it was a great, plus, you know,

01:18:31Guest:I was hosting, in 86 we started Comic Relief.

01:18:35Guest:Yeah.

01:18:36Guest:So that was a great thing, to be able to be with Robin and Whoopi and all the other comics.

01:18:41Marc:Now, were you friends with Robin all the way through?

01:18:43Marc:Did you guys work together?

01:18:44Guest:Was it really that that brought you guys close?

01:18:47Guest:That got us closer.

01:18:48Guest:Yeah.

01:18:48Guest:We knew each other.

01:18:49Guest:Right.

01:18:50Guest:But he traveled in a different world in the late 70s than I did.

01:18:56Marc:Mm-hmm.

01:18:56Marc:And then- Slightly more dangerous world.

01:18:58Guest:Yeah.

01:18:59Guest:Yeah.

01:18:59Guest:But we always had fun times together.

01:19:01Guest:Yeah.

01:19:02Guest:But when we started to get thrown together in 86, it deepened.

01:19:07Marc:Yeah.

01:19:08Marc:And he was a very sweet man.

01:19:10Marc:Yeah.

01:19:11Marc:Yeah.

01:19:12Marc:Sad thing.

01:19:13Marc:And Whoopi, did you know her before?

01:19:15Marc:Yeah.

01:19:15Marc:No.

01:19:17Guest:I had met her backstage at her one-person show.

01:19:20Marc:So whose big idea was it?

01:19:21Marc:Was it Zamuda's idea?

01:19:23Marc:Chris Albrecht.

01:19:23Guest:It was Albrecht.

01:19:24Guest:Yeah, Zamuda and Albrecht.

01:19:25Guest:But Chris is the one who brought us.

01:19:27Guest:To bring you guys together.

01:19:28Guest:Yeah.

01:19:28Guest:Huh.

01:19:29Guest:And it was great.

01:19:30Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:19:30Guest:It was history-making.

01:19:31Guest:It was fantastic times.

01:19:32Guest:And to be with all the other comics, it was terrific.

01:19:34Guest:Great.

01:19:35Marc:And you meet all the new comics every year.

01:19:38Marc:Oh, it's beautiful.

01:19:40Guest:You know, when I was in Louisville for Ali's funeral, and I was... He had asked... We had... Oh, God.

01:19:53Guest:I've got to go back and change the narrative.

01:19:56Guest:I had done my first television show with him just by chance.

01:20:02Guest:So I could imitate him, and he loved it, and...

01:20:05Guest:You loved it, right?

01:20:06Guest:Loved it.

01:20:07Guest:And we became really good friends.

01:20:09Guest:It's so weird.

01:20:10Guest:It's so weird.

01:20:10Guest:It's one of those things.

01:20:11Guest:It's one of those.

01:20:12Guest:I had it with my two heroes, Mickey Mantle and Ali.

01:20:15Guest:I end up being big parts of their lives at a time and their deaths.

01:20:20Marc:Mickey too?

01:20:21Guest:Yeah.

01:20:22Guest:Yeah.

01:20:23Guest:He was a hard character, huh?

01:20:25Guest:Yeah, fantastic, interesting, sad, ultimately.

01:20:29Guest:Yeah.

01:20:29Guest:But I ended up helping Costas write the eulogy that he gave for Mickey and Dallas.

01:20:36Guest:Yeah.

01:20:37Guest:And Ali and I became great friends and important friends, and at his request, I was one of the eulogists.

01:20:44Guest:So backstage, Whoopi was there.

01:20:49Guest:They had like a green room.

01:20:51Guest:And I see Dave Chappelle.

01:20:56Guest:And Robin and I, when the first comic, I think it was the first comic, got Chris to put him on.

01:21:05Marc:When he was like 17 or 18?

01:21:07Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:21:08Guest:And we fought for him to be on.

01:21:11Guest:And when I saw him, he just ran over and grabbed me and talked about that.

01:21:18Guest:And got very emotional talking about that.

01:21:22Guest:He never forgot that.

01:21:24Marc:At Ali's funeral.

01:21:24Guest:Yeah.

01:21:25Guest:It was really sweet.

01:21:26Guest:It was really sweet.

01:21:27Marc:He's become very sort of like he's a grown man now.

01:21:29Marc:Yeah.

01:21:30Marc:And he's got a lot of feelings and it's nice.

01:21:32Marc:Yeah, it was terrific.

01:21:33Marc:Yeah.

01:21:34Marc:And when you eulogized Ali, what was the experience?

01:21:39Guest:It was awesome because...

01:21:44Guest:No, I was sitting there.

01:21:45Guest:I first met him in 74.

01:21:46Guest:Yeah.

01:21:49Guest:Just starting out, I had this voice.

01:21:51Guest:I'd do this voice for him at this big dinner that had become a television special.

01:21:57Marc:It wasn't a roast?

01:21:59Guest:No.

01:22:00Guest:Until I got up and did him, and nobody knew who I was.

01:22:05Guest:Yeah.

01:22:05Guest:I told the story at the eulogy that Dick Schaap, who was the emcee and editor of Sport Magazine.

01:22:12Guest:Yeah.

01:22:13Guest:They had made Ali the Sport Magazine Man of the Year for beating Foreman, getting the title back.

01:22:19Guest:And he had called my agent looking for Robert Klein because Bob did a lot of sports stuff.

01:22:26Guest:And he said, well, you could do five minutes on the dais with him.

01:22:29Guest:And they said, Bob's out of town.

01:22:30Guest:He's not available.

01:22:31Guest:And she said, but I got this new kid, and he does this great imitation of Ali and Cosell.

01:22:36Guest:It's three minutes long.

01:22:37Guest:Dick said, sounds perfect.

01:22:38Guest:Just have him show up.

01:22:40Guest:So, I get to the Plaza Hotel and I loved Ali.

01:22:48Guest:I so respected him.

01:22:51Guest:There were two things you look forward to at a certain point for us, a Woody Allen movie and an Ali fight.

01:22:58Guest:Those are two huge events.

01:22:59Guest:Right, right.

01:23:00Guest:And sometimes you couldn't tell what was more important to us.

01:23:02Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:23:03Guest:And Dick said, how do I introduce you?

01:23:08Guest:So I said, just say I'm one of Ali's closest and dearest friends.

01:23:11Guest:Thinking I'll go into the Cosell and that'll make sense and I won't have to talk.

01:23:16Guest:I won't have to introduce it.

01:23:17Guest:I'll just boom, bang right in there.

01:23:19Guest:Another Scorsese kind of edit.

01:23:22Guest:And I walk into the ballroom with Janice and I'm like, oh my God, look who's here.

01:23:27Guest:That's Franco Harris from the Steelers and there's Gino Marchetti from the Colts.

01:23:32Guest:Archie Griffin, Heisman Trophy winner.

01:23:34Guest:It's everybody is here.

01:23:37Guest:There's Neil Simon and George Plimpton.

01:23:39Guest:Oh, my God.

01:23:40Guest:And I bled up to the dais.

01:23:42Guest:I'm sitting three seats from Ali.

01:23:45Guest:And I told the stories.

01:23:46Guest:And he's looking at everybody.

01:23:47Guest:And seeing Ali in person for the first time, oh, my God.

01:23:52Guest:I mean, he was 33.

01:23:53Guest:Yeah.

01:23:54Guest:He was the king of the world.

01:23:55Guest:He just defeated Foreman who people thought was going to kill him.

01:23:59Guest:Yeah.

01:24:00Guest:And he was a float.

01:24:03Guest:Yeah.

01:24:04Guest:He was just an ice capades float.

01:24:06Guest:Yeah.

01:24:06Guest:He was like a big, his head was enormous because it was shining and it was like, oh my, there he is.

01:24:12Guest:Yeah.

01:24:12Guest:There he is.

01:24:13Guest:Yeah.

01:24:14Guest:And he's like, look, and he knows everybody but me.

01:24:16Guest:Right.

01:24:17Guest:And he looks at me, and with a look that I described as him thinking, what is Joel Grey doing here?

01:24:24Guest:And Dick introduced me after Neil Simon spoke and Plimpton spoke, and the room was electric.

01:24:31Guest:It was electric because of Ali.

01:24:33Guest:And now one of Ali's closest and dearest friends.

01:24:35Guest:And I get up.

01:24:36Guest:Yeah.

01:24:37Guest:Two people clap, my wife and the agent.

01:24:39Guest:Yeah.

01:24:41Guest:And I go into this, I go into Cosell.

01:24:43Guest:Yeah.

01:24:44Guest:Now someone's yelling at me in the audience.

01:24:46Guest:I'm getting heckled.

01:24:47Guest:Yeah.

01:24:48Guest:You remember Bundini Brown?

01:24:51Guest:Oh, he's a trainer?

01:24:52Guest:Yeah.

01:24:53Guest:Drew Bundini Brown.

01:24:54Guest:Yeah.

01:24:54Guest:He started Rumble, Young Man Rumble, Float Like a Butterfly, and he was a loudmouth guy.

01:25:00Guest:Yeah.

01:25:01Guest:And he's yelling at me as I'm doing my thing.

01:25:03Guest:Cosell.

01:25:04Guest:Yeah.

01:25:05Guest:We're here in Zaire.

01:25:06Guest:It's spelled Z-A-I-R-E.

01:25:08Guest:Someone pronounce it Zaire.

01:25:10Guest:They're wrong.

01:25:11Guest:Mohammed, come over.

01:25:12Guest:And this starts, someone's yelling at me.

01:25:15Guest:And I realized what he was saying was, you got him, man.

01:25:19Guest:You got him, man.

01:25:20Guest:Be doing that, man.

01:25:22Guest:Be doing that, man.

01:25:24Guest:And I had to shut him up.

01:25:25Guest:I'm literally 30 seconds into my career, and I'm dealing with a heckler.

01:25:30Guest:Right.

01:25:31Guest:how do you shut him up bundini i'll handle this i'll handle this bring the champ over just bring the champ so now i'm getting big laughs yeah and i could see ali's like laughing right and then i go right into the ali yeah

01:25:47Guest:Everybody's talking about George Foreman.

01:25:48Guest:I'll talk about George Foreman.

01:25:50Guest:They say he's going to kill me.

01:25:51Guest:George couldn't kill anybody.

01:25:52Guest:Big laser punches.

01:25:53Guest:I rope the dope was in.

01:25:54Guest:And I'm announcing tonight I'm changing my name again.

01:25:57Guest:I got new religious beliefs from now on.

01:26:00Guest:I want to be known as Izzy Yiskiewicz.

01:26:02Guest:Izzy Chaim Yiskiewicz because Chaim the greatest of all time.

01:26:05Guest:It's Jewish boxing, Howard.

01:26:07Guest:You don't hit the man.

01:26:08Guest:You just make him feel guilty.

01:26:10Guest:Killing?

01:26:10Guest:Yeah, killing.

01:26:11Guest:Killing.

01:26:12Guest:Killing beyond killing.

01:26:14Guest:He is next to me.

01:26:16Guest:And he's now a big St.

01:26:17Guest:Bernard puppy.

01:26:18Guest:He's putting his napkin over his head.

01:26:21Guest:He's getting up throwing punches at me.

01:26:24Guest:It was delightful.

01:26:26Guest:I mean, beyond belief.

01:26:28Guest:Get huge ovation.

01:26:30Guest:He hugs me and whispers in my ear, you're now my little brother.

01:26:34Guest:And that's what he called me for 42 years until the last time I saw him.

01:26:38Guest:Yeah, that was pretty amazing.

01:26:41Marc:That's amazing.

01:26:43Marc:What a fucking beautiful thing.

01:26:45Marc:Yeah.

01:26:46Guest:And those are those weird things, man.

01:26:48Guest:Those are those weird things.

01:26:49Guest:I know when you get a chance

01:26:53Guest:I saw you on, I guess it was Letterman.

01:26:57Guest:Yeah.

01:26:58Guest:Talking about being with Mel and Carl.

01:26:59Guest:Yeah.

01:27:00Guest:And, you know, you get a chance to go to the museum.

01:27:04Guest:You get a chance to see the Ten Commandments.

01:27:09Guest:I mean, they're that.

01:27:11Marc:And I was talking about one of those moments, but being with Dave on panel, that was the first time I got to do that.

01:27:17Marc:I had done stand-up on his show a few times, but I never get the sense that he really knew who I was or anything.

01:27:22Marc:So that was the first time in my career, and that's only a couple years ago, where I was able to sit down as a guest with him.

01:27:28Marc:And I can't even...

01:27:31Marc:Because he was my guy.

01:27:32Marc:I love Dave.

01:27:33Marc:So just to have that and then to have it go well and to have him to sort of have that.

01:27:38Marc:You know, you only got that seven minutes.

01:27:40Marc:Yeah.

01:27:40Marc:Are you going to engage?

01:27:41Marc:Is this going to happen?

01:27:42Marc:Yeah.

01:27:42Marc:And you don't even remember that you're in it and then it's over.

01:27:45Marc:And it was like that happened.

01:27:46Marc:Yeah.

01:27:47Marc:But he was, you know, I felt him.

01:27:48Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:27:49Guest:That was the greatest thrill.

01:27:50Guest:Yeah.

01:27:53Guest:Was when I... You must end with Carson, right?

01:27:55Guest:Yeah.

01:27:56Guest:But Dave... Yeah.

01:27:58Guest:Dave was like a peer.

01:27:59Guest:Right.

01:27:59Guest:Johnny was a god.

01:28:01Guest:Right.

01:28:01Guest:It was different.

01:28:01Guest:Yeah.

01:28:02Guest:I was in a totally different place.

01:28:03Guest:Yeah.

01:28:04Guest:I loved coming on with Dave.

01:28:06Guest:Yeah.

01:28:08Guest:I loved making him laugh.

01:28:10Guest:Right.

01:28:10Guest:I, you know, I loved...

01:28:15Guest:Our relationship grew as a panelist.

01:28:19Guest:Right.

01:28:19Marc:That's what you want.

01:28:20Marc:Yeah.

01:28:21Marc:You want to be one of those guys.

01:28:22Guest:Yeah.

01:28:23Guest:And it got great.

01:28:24Guest:Right.

01:28:24Guest:It got great.

01:28:25Guest:I used to, the two, three times a year you would do the show, it was like, I so looked forward to making Dave laugh and hanging out with him for a while.

01:28:34Marc:Well, that's what I did with Conan because I wanted to be one of you guys.

01:28:37Marc:Right.

01:28:37Marc:Like I would see Richard and you and Leno on Dave and I'm like, that's the guy.

01:28:41Marc:I don't want to be a standing guy.

01:28:43Marc:I can do that.

01:28:44Marc:That's actually a pain in the ass.

01:28:45Marc:Yes, it is.

01:28:46Marc:So, you know, I can do it, but it doesn't represent me well.

01:28:49Marc:Why can't I be the guy like where they go like, oh, here comes.

01:28:52Marc:I want to be that guy.

01:28:53Yeah.

01:28:53Marc:Now, like, let's just go through the movies a bit because, you know, I would imagine that even though you did all those other films that when Harry Met Sally was such a comic masterpiece that, you know, that that changed the perception of the industry about you.

01:29:08Guest:Yeah.

01:29:09Guest:Yeah.

01:29:10Guest:I guess so.

01:29:11Guest:I think so.

01:29:12Guest:I don't know.

01:29:13Marc:I don't know what they thought about me.

01:29:14Marc:But like, I think people, what's amazing about you, and I mean this as a compliment,

01:29:18Marc:was that it's hard when you can carry as much comedy as you do to sort of like surrender the stage and be a straight guy in a comic situation.

01:29:28Marc:I don't think that people appreciate the significance and power of that.

01:29:32Guest:Oh, thanks, yeah.

01:29:33Guest:Do you know what I mean?

01:29:34Marc:You know when it's happening.

01:29:35Guest:Oh, for sure.

01:29:37Guest:Magic Johnson won championships because he passed.

01:29:42Guest:Right.

01:29:42Guest:And he was a great passer.

01:29:43Guest:Yeah.

01:29:43Guest:And he could score when he had to.

01:29:44Guest:Sure.

01:29:45Guest:But he made everybody else better.

01:29:47Guest:Yeah.

01:29:47Guest:I know who can do this alone.

01:29:51Guest:Right.

01:29:52Guest:And I've been fortunate to be paired with great funny or interesting or great dramatic people.

01:30:00Guest:Like with Bob, with De Niro,

01:30:04Guest:I was very much a straight man in that movie.

01:30:05Guest:Yeah, no, it was great.

01:30:07Guest:And I loved it.

01:30:08Guest:Yeah.

01:30:08Guest:Because I kept thinking about, listen, I love Laurel and Hardy.

01:30:11Guest:Yeah.

01:30:12Guest:Stan was hilarious.

01:30:13Guest:Yeah.

01:30:13Guest:Oliver was more interesting to me because he usually was the recipient of the unintentional hit in the face or whatever it may be.

01:30:22Guest:And he would just look at the camera.

01:30:24Guest:He would look at the camera and go, do you believe the shit I have to deal with?

01:30:29Guest:Yeah.

01:30:31Guest:And so with Bob, he was the funny guy.

01:30:35Guest:I developed that script and wrote the draft with Peter Tolan- For the first one?

01:30:42Guest:Yeah, for the first one, before Harold came on.

01:30:45Guest:He's a great screenwriter, that guy.

01:30:46Guest:And I would have to be Bob a lot in the writing sessions.

01:30:51Guest:I would do him the best I could.

01:30:53Guest:And then we got the script right.

01:30:54Guest:And I called De Niro.

01:30:55Guest:I did not know him very well.

01:30:58Guest:And I said, I have something.

01:31:00Guest:I think it'd be really, it's really funny.

01:31:03Guest:And he said, send it.

01:31:05Guest:So we send the script.

01:31:07Yeah.

01:31:07Guest:Two days later, he called me and says, I like this.

01:31:11Guest:I like this.

01:31:12Guest:Let's do a reading.

01:31:13Guest:I want to do a reading.

01:31:15Guest:So he flies out to California.

01:31:16Guest:And we cast the best we could.

01:31:20Guest:We got actors in.

01:31:20Guest:We go up to a boardroom at CAA.

01:31:25Guest:And now I'm sitting across from him.

01:31:27Guest:And he's hilarious.

01:31:31Guest:And right away, I know my job.

01:31:34Guest:I know it.

01:31:35Guest:I know what I do, and I'm doing it in the reading, and he's laughing at me not doing much.

01:31:43Guest:I'm just taking it.

01:31:46Guest:Of course, I played a guy who listened for a living.

01:31:48Guest:I played a shrink, and shrinks don't come right back at you.

01:31:53Guest:He listened, and I was intimidated by him, which I was.

01:31:57Guest:I was scared of him, which I was a little bit, but I also was loving the fact that Robert De Niro was having a good time

01:32:04Guest:And he's sitting across me and holy shit, this is going to work.

01:32:08Guest:Right.

01:32:08Guest:And that was fantastic.

01:32:10Guest:I love it.

01:32:11Guest:I love it.

01:32:12Guest:I love doing that.

01:32:13Guest:I'm a good listener.

01:32:14Marc:I'm a good listener.

01:32:15Marc:No, but it's like I think that you were equally as funny.

01:32:18Marc:I think that the dynamic is what it is in that the way you process things, you're like, okay.

01:32:26Guest:When he says, listen.

01:32:30Guest:If I talk to you and you turn me into a fag, I'm going to kill you.

01:32:36Guest:And I said, well, we should define what you mean by fag.

01:32:41Guest:Look, if I go fag, you die.

01:32:42Guest:You got it?

01:32:43Guest:And coming out of his mouth,

01:32:46Marc:was just it was genius you know it was just genius and you know nobody be offended it's lines from the movie right so you know that was it was it's fascinating though that like you know with like because i watch him now like you know even in that the last movie i talked about it recently the intern that you know he's a very amazing actor obviously but like he can just tweak that character the gangster character he's played over and over again yeah

01:33:10Marc:It's just one knob turn to menacing.

01:33:12Marc:Like how he does the comedy is kind of interesting.

01:33:15Guest:Well, this was his first real funny role.

01:33:17Guest:Right, right.

01:33:18Guest:And he was nervous about it.

01:33:19Guest:Oh, am I going to be able to play these guys again?

01:33:21Guest:Yeah.

01:33:22Guest:And it took him a long time to say, yeah.

01:33:24Guest:And I said, Bob, you're an icon.

01:33:27Guest:I'm just saying that to him.

01:33:28Guest:Yeah.

01:33:29Guest:You're different.

01:33:29Guest:You can always play those guys because you're so honest.

01:33:32Guest:It's so real.

01:33:33Guest:Yeah.

01:33:34Guest:That, you know, this guy needs to be real.

01:33:36Guest:Yeah.

01:33:36Guest:And my guy needs to be real.

01:33:38Guest:And we're going to... Our styles, people will go, what the hell are they doing together?

01:33:42Guest:Right.

01:33:43Guest:But it'll work.

01:33:44Guest:Yeah.

01:33:44Guest:Because we both are going to exist in our own realities the best we can do it.

01:33:48Marc:And he took that.

01:33:49Guest:Yeah.

01:33:49Guest:And it was great.

01:33:50Guest:Yeah.

01:33:50Guest:Both of them are funny.

01:33:51Guest:And the first one, you know, he...

01:33:55Guest:He says, this was, I think, pretty fantastic.

01:34:03Guest:He tells Harold, I want to change the shooting schedule.

01:34:09Guest:I don't want to see Billy until it's time to see Billy in the script.

01:34:14Guest:I want to do all my anxiety stuff, all my stuff first.

01:34:20Guest:So when I see him, I'm ready to see him.

01:34:22Guest:So they change the shooting schedule.

01:34:25Guest:And I was a producer of the movie, too, so he asked me not to come to the set.

01:34:30Guest:Also, he said, I just don't want to see you until... Please, under... And okay.

01:34:34Guest:Yeah.

01:34:34Guest:So Peter and I did a lot of rewrites and stuff and got stuff together in that time.

01:34:39Guest:So now we're going to shoot on the set, and it's my office, and it's Bob's entrance into my office with Jelly.

01:34:48Guest:So...

01:34:52Guest:We meet at 6 o'clock in the morning, whatever it is, and he's frumpy and he's unshaven, and we go preliminary blocking for the scene, and Harold's saying, so you move in here, and I think, let's just run it, and he's looking at the script, and he's just very sleepy-eyed.

01:35:07Yeah.

01:35:07Guest:All right, and then where do you want me to go?

01:35:09Guest:And Harold said, the shot's going to break down.

01:35:12Guest:Why don't you come in and say, do you know me?

01:35:14Guest:And Billy says, yes, I do.

01:35:17Guest:And then he goes, no, you don't.

01:35:19Guest:All right, no, I don't.

01:35:20Guest:You ever see me in the paper?

01:35:21Guest:I don't even get the paper.

01:35:24Guest:And then the shot would break up.

01:35:27Guest:And Harold would say, cut.

01:35:28Guest:So I said, all right, it's going to be about an hour and a half.

01:35:30Guest:So we'll go and get dressed.

01:35:34Guest:And I'm nervous.

01:35:36Guest:I'm a little nervous.

01:35:39Guest:Harold's on the set, and then Bob appears, and he's not Sleepy Bob.

01:35:46Guest:He's the guy.

01:35:47Guest:He's Paul Vitti.

01:35:49Guest:He's dyed his hair.

01:35:51Guest:He's shaved.

01:35:51Guest:He's in a Gotti-like suit.

01:35:53Guest:Uh-huh.

01:35:54Guest:and uh he's scary looking yeah it's that he it went to 11 really quickly yeah yeah and uh we do a quick little rehearsal and he doesn't say his lines he's just i'll be here okay

01:36:09Guest:And action.

01:36:11Guest:He walks in.

01:36:12Guest:You know me?

01:36:14Guest:Yes, I do.

01:36:15Guest:No, you don't.

01:36:15Guest:No, I don't.

01:36:16Guest:You ever seen my picture in the paper?

01:36:19Guest:I don't even get the paper.

01:36:21Guest:And cut.

01:36:22Guest:Cut.

01:36:23Guest:Whoa.

01:36:23Guest:He goes, come here.

01:36:25Guest:De Niro calls me over.

01:36:26Guest:Yeah.

01:36:27Guest:And I'm thinking he's going to say, is that how you act?

01:36:31Guest:Yeah, right.

01:36:33Guest:Yeah.

01:36:34Guest:Instead, he says to me, he started whispering on this.

01:36:40Guest:He makes you come to him.

01:36:41Guest:Yeah.

01:36:42Guest:If you see anything that could be funny or something, you think I could do better, just take me aside and tell me, all right?

01:36:49Guest:Don't say it.

01:36:50Guest:Of course, it's new for me.

01:36:53Guest:Yeah.

01:36:54Guest:Robert De Niro was saying to me, if I see anything, I'm his acting partner in this, co-star.

01:36:59Guest:If you see anything, help me.

01:37:01Guest:It was amazing.

01:37:03Guest:Next take, right?

01:37:06Guest:You know me?

01:37:07Guest:No, the same thing.

01:37:08Guest:And cut.

01:37:10Guest:I go.

01:37:11Guest:come here.

01:37:12Guest:He says, what?

01:37:13Guest:I said, is that how you're going to do it?

01:37:16Guest:That's it?

01:37:18Guest:And he starts to laugh so hard.

01:37:21Guest:Then we were great.

01:37:22Guest:Then we were just great.

01:37:23Guest:I said, that's it?

01:37:26Guest:And he loved it and he could take a joke.

01:37:29Guest:I took a chance and I won.

01:37:31Guest:I was saying to De Niro, that's the best you got?

01:37:34Guest:Yeah.

01:37:35Guest:Yeah, it was fantastic.

01:37:36Guest:That set the tone.

01:37:37Guest:Yeah, it was great.

01:37:38Guest:Great experience.

01:37:39Marc:But let's just talk about directing and a little bit about Mr. Saturday Night and also about Woody Allen.

01:37:45Marc:The Mr. Saturday Night, I loved that movie because I was thrilled that you had this horrible thing in you.

01:37:51Marc:yeah yeah like it was one of those movies like i was a i know that guy yeah there was a lot of alan in that there was a lot of buddy hackett in that there was a lot of these um did you have a relationship with buddy not really not i we knew each other pretty well but not not like i did with alan yeah i loved buddy hack yeah i thought he was hilarious it's so fun effortlessly hilarious so but like i was i was happy about that that take on show business

01:38:15Guest:Well, it was a take on the guys who don't make it.

01:38:18Guest:Yeah.

01:38:19Guest:Which is a possibility for anybody.

01:38:21Guest:Anybody.

01:38:21Guest:Any generation.

01:38:22Guest:This was not a success story.

01:38:24Guest:Yeah.

01:38:24Guest:This was a guy who was his own terrorist, who couldn't handle pressure, who screwed up big moments in his career.

01:38:32Guest:We made them as funny as we could make them.

01:38:34Guest:Yeah.

01:38:35Guest:He's the guy who followed the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

01:38:38Guest:You're excited?

01:38:39Guest:I just bought a house.

01:38:41Guest:Yeah.

01:38:42Guest:And it was a comics, comics movie.

01:38:44Guest:Yeah, and I felt that, and I respected that.

01:38:47Guest:And it was lonely, and he was edgy, and it was a risk because it was coming off two really big, well-received movies, Harry and City Slickers, and Oscars, and it was like a really good time.

01:39:06Guest:Yeah.

01:39:07Guest:And...

01:39:09Guest:The movie mostly got really great reviews and then no business.

01:39:13Guest:We didn't do any business.

01:39:14Guest:And that was hard to take.

01:39:16Guest:Because I directed the movie.

01:39:19Guest:I'm in the movie.

01:39:20Guest:I co-wrote the movie.

01:39:22Guest:I produced the movie.

01:39:23Guest:And we had a 72-day schedule.

01:39:26Guest:53 or 54 of those days, I was in severe old age makeup.

01:39:33Guest:It's a lot of work.

01:39:33Guest:It was exhausting.

01:39:35Marc:But I loved every second of it.

01:39:36Marc:And do you retroactively take Rollins' advice and appreciate the work you play?

01:39:44Guest:Oh, big time.

01:39:45Guest:It took a long time.

01:39:46Guest:Yeah.

01:39:48Guest:We had a screening of the movie two months ago or something.

01:39:53Guest:Malibu Film Societies, like 350 people came.

01:39:56Guest:Yeah.

01:39:56Guest:I hadn't seen the movie since the premiere.

01:39:58Guest:Yeah.

01:39:59Guest:And it played like a brand new movie.

01:40:01Guest:They loved it.

01:40:02Guest:And now we're...

01:40:04Guest:And we're making it a musical.

01:40:07Marc:Really?

01:40:07Guest:Yeah, for the Needlanders, who loved the movie, came to us and said, this could be a musical.

01:40:14Guest:And so Gans and Mandel and I, we've written the first draft.

01:40:17Guest:We had a reading the other day.

01:40:18Guest:And it's an edgy, it totally has the spirit of the film.

01:40:25Guest:And it could really be exciting.

01:40:27Guest:Are you going to do it?

01:40:28Guest:I probably will.

01:40:29Guest:That's exciting.

01:40:29Guest:I probably will.

01:40:30Guest:I haven't totally committed yet.

01:40:32Marc:We'll need as much makeup.

01:40:33Guest:No, I know.

01:40:35Guest:I had David Pamer who was nominated for an Academy Award for playing my brother in the movie.

01:40:42Guest:He came and he read Stan's part and I said, David, it'll be a lot easier.

01:40:47Guest:We don't have the five hours in makeup, man.

01:40:50Marc:And you directed one other feature?

01:40:53Guest:Yeah, Forget Paris, which I really liked that movie a lot.

01:40:57Guest:I got to see it.

01:40:57Guest:I'm sorry.

01:40:58Guest:And my favorite, I love Mr. Saturday Night.

01:41:00Guest:It's special to me.

01:41:01Guest:But 61 that I directed for HBO.

01:41:03Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:41:03Guest:About Madeline Maris.

01:41:05Guest:Yeah.

01:41:06Guest:That was a real passion project that I think to this day is like their highest rated movie made for HBO.

01:41:13Guest:Yeah?

01:41:14Guest:Yeah, I think so.

01:41:15Guest:Do you like directing?

01:41:16Guest:I love directing.

01:41:17Guest:To me, it's the best job.

01:41:18Marc:Are you going to do more of it?

01:41:20Guest:I wish I had done more up till now.

01:41:24Guest:So we've written two little movies that I hope to get made that I will direct.

01:41:29Guest:I really love it.

01:41:30Guest:And I see myself doing that more, hopefully, as time goes on.

01:41:34Marc:Yeah, why not?

01:41:34Marc:If you can.

01:41:35Marc:Yeah.

01:41:36Marc:And being that we sort of established it, Woody Allen was very important to us.

01:41:41Marc:And I know that feeling of the new Woody Allen movie.

01:41:44Guest:Yeah.

01:41:44Marc:Even as he just kept making movies.

01:41:45Marc:And you were even able to go like, well, that one, no.

01:41:49Yeah.

01:41:49Marc:Listen, I love Picasso.

01:41:50Marc:I don't love all of them.

01:41:51Marc:Yeah, right, right.

01:41:52Marc:But I remember seeing you in Deconstructing Harry, which I like that movie a lot.

01:41:56Guest:It's a very good movie.

01:41:57Marc:It's a very good movie.

01:41:58Marc:And when he cast you as Satan, I was like, oh my God.

01:42:04Marc:Wait, did he just offer that to you?

01:42:06Marc:Yes.

01:42:07Marc:Did you ask him why you?

01:42:09Marc:Yes.

01:42:10Marc:And what did he say?

01:42:11Guest:I think you'd be a very unlikely devil.

01:42:16Guest:And I think we have to understand that I see in the movie, you're my best friend, but I see you, I imagine you as this guy who's going to take this girl from me, so you're the devil.

01:42:32Guest:And I think you'd do very well in the part.

01:42:39Guest:So when you get a letter, you get a handwritten letter and just your pages.

01:42:45Guest:And I had known him on and off a little bit through Jack Rollins, who managed him.

01:42:53Guest:And we got along great because I just went out.

01:42:57Guest:People were afraid to talk to him.

01:42:59Guest:I just went and I talked jazz and I talked nicks.

01:43:02Guest:And it was great.

01:43:04Guest:He knew my family background.

01:43:06Guest:He actually knew my dad a little bit.

01:43:07Guest:Uh-huh.

01:43:08Guest:I used to go to that place on Second Avenue.

01:43:11Guest:Oh, the record store.

01:43:11Guest:Yeah, to listen to Sidney Bechet.

01:43:13Guest:Uh-huh.

01:43:14Guest:You know, and so I knew all of that stuff.

01:43:16Guest:Oh, that's sweet, huh?

01:43:17Guest:And I said, Woody, to me, the devil guy is Hugh Hefner.

01:43:25Yeah.

01:43:25Guest:I want to play him like Hugh Hefner.

01:43:27Guest:I think he's got the Playboy, remember the Playboy Penthouse TV show?

01:43:35Guest:Right, right, right.

01:43:37Guest:The show would come from the Playboy Club in Chicago.

01:43:40Marc:People sitting on the floor and on the sofas.

01:43:42Guest:Yeah, there'd be everybody from James Baldwin to Telly Savalas.

01:43:47Guest:And he loved that idea.

01:43:49Guest:It's a great cast, and it's a really good movie.

01:43:55Marc:I think so.

01:43:55Marc:And that was the only one you did with him, huh?

01:43:58Guest:Yeah.

01:43:58Guest:Sadly, I'd love to work with him at any time.

01:44:01Marc:How about hosting the Oscars?

01:44:02Marc:Is that done?

01:44:03Marc:Probably.

01:44:04Guest:There's so many other- No, do you like doing that?

01:44:09Guest:I had a great time doing it for the most part.

01:44:11Marc:When you're up there hosting the Oscars, do you look out at the people there and feel like, this is my community?

01:44:17Guest:Yeah, especially the earlier ones.

01:44:20Guest:When my film career was rising- Yeah.

01:44:25Guest:And the show needed a host.

01:44:28Guest:Uh-huh.

01:44:28Guest:They had had a couple of disastrous hosting experiences.

01:44:32Guest:Uh-huh.

01:44:33Guest:When I inherited the job.

01:44:35Guest:Yeah.

01:44:35Guest:And I was ready for it.

01:44:36Guest:I had done three Grammy Awards.

01:44:38Marc:Right.

01:44:39Guest:I did the Grammys three times.

01:44:40Marc:It seems like a harder gig.

01:44:41Marc:Yeah.

01:44:41Marc:It's a bigger room and it's weird.

01:44:43Guest:Yeah.

01:44:43Guest:Right?

01:44:44Guest:Well, now what?

01:44:44Guest:You mean the Grammys?

01:44:45Guest:Yeah.

01:44:45Guest:Yeah, now it's weird.

01:44:46Guest:Then it was Radio City.

01:44:48Guest:It was the shrine.

01:44:48Guest:Oh, right, right, right.

01:44:49Guest:It was smaller scale.

01:44:50Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:44:51Marc:Now I don't even know what's going on there.

01:44:52Guest:No, it's terrible.

01:44:53Marc:Basketball stadium or something.

01:44:54Guest:Yeah, it's terrible.

01:44:56Guest:The venue.

01:44:57Guest:Yeah.

01:44:58Guest:The music is always great, but it's... So when I... You know, I presented one year and then I hosted the first time...

01:45:09Guest:I felt part of the community.

01:45:10Guest:Yeah.

01:45:11Guest:I was never phased.

01:45:14Guest:I can't say I was nervous.

01:45:16Guest:Yeah.

01:45:17Guest:And I remember walking out and there's Gene Hackman and there's Coppola and there's Dustin and there's Jack and Warren.

01:45:26Guest:And the first night, the first hosting job.

01:45:29Guest:Yeah.

01:45:30Yeah.

01:45:30Guest:It was a complicated show, as I recall.

01:45:34Guest:They had satellite feeds from all over the world.

01:45:36Guest:Uh-huh.

01:45:36Guest:So, we had Sajit Rai from India.

01:45:40Guest:Yeah.

01:45:40Guest:We had guys on the space shuttle.

01:45:42Guest:Right, right.

01:45:43Guest:There's somebody from reading, opening an envelope in Paris.

01:45:45Guest:It was like a complicated thing, but I had one writer.

01:45:50Guest:Yeah.

01:45:51Guest:Who was that?

01:45:51Guest:Robert Wall.

01:45:52Guest:Robert.

01:45:53Guest:Yeah.

01:45:54Guest:Bob and I wrote the first, we did all the Grammys, just the two of us.

01:45:57Guest:Must have been frenetic.

01:45:59Guest:Yeah.

01:45:59Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:46:00Guest:Why would you say that?

01:46:00Guest:What do you think?

01:46:01Guest:He was very much like Scorsese, but a terrific guy and a good joke writer.

01:46:04Guest:He is a sweet guy, yeah.

01:46:05Guest:And we were a good team.

01:46:07Guest:And we had, Jack Nicholson had, the rumor was he made like, I don't know, 65 million for the first Batman.

01:46:15Guest:Yeah, the Joker.

01:46:16Guest:Yeah, some huge deal or something.

01:46:18Guest:So I came out and looked around and Jack Nicholson is doing Jack jokes.

01:46:23Guest:Yeah.

01:46:25Guest:Jack is so rich.

01:46:26Guest:Yeah.

01:46:27Guest:Morgan Freeman drove him here tonight.

01:46:29Guest:He was driving mistakes he was doing.

01:46:31Guest:Big laugh.

01:46:31Guest:Jack is so rich he bought land in Japan.

01:46:34Guest:Big laugh because Sony had just purchased Universal, whatever it was.

01:46:41Guest:Jack is so rich, John Peters still cuts his hair.

01:46:44Guest:John Peters was now the head of a studio and was a famous director.

01:46:48Guest:So it couldn't have gone better.

01:46:51Guest:Insight stuff.

01:46:51Guest:Insight stuff, but big jokes.

01:46:53Guest:He was laughing like crazy and so on and so forth.

01:46:56Guest:And I'm like, oh my God.

01:46:59Guest:Johnny stood here.

01:47:01Guest:Hope stood here.

01:47:02Guest:I'm doing this.

01:47:04Guest:So I'm in my dress room.

01:47:06Guest:There's an 18-minute break.

01:47:07Guest:Yeah.

01:47:08Guest:I have 18 minutes off while they do sound effects, editing, and shit.

01:47:12Guest:I'm in a dress room, and they're refreshing my makeup, and I take a leak and all this stuff, and I'm grabbing a sandwich, and

01:47:21Guest:Who is it?

01:47:23Guest:It's Jack and Warren.

01:47:27Guest:So I go, Jack and Warren who?

01:47:30Guest:Yeah, right.

01:47:31Guest:They're laughing.

01:47:32Guest:I open the door.

01:47:33Guest:It's Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty saying to me how great they loved the show so far.

01:47:40Guest:Thank you for doing it.

01:47:43Guest:Thanks for making fun of my money, Jack said to me.

01:47:48Guest:Big hugs all around.

01:47:49Guest:Keep going.

01:47:49Guest:Have a great show, and maybe we can hang out afterwards.

01:47:53Guest:Are you kidding me?

01:47:55Guest:Again.

01:47:57Guest:What a generous thing to do.

01:47:59Guest:Yeah.

01:47:59Guest:It was amazing.

01:48:01Guest:Yeah.

01:48:02Guest:It was amazing.

01:48:03Guest:It was truly amazing.

01:48:04Guest:That was fucking beautiful.

01:48:05Guest:So I've had, you know, I had very good times doing it.

01:48:10Guest:You know, it's nice, you know, every year that, where is he?

01:48:16Guest:Right, right, right.

01:48:17Guest:You get that, right?

01:48:17Guest:I do get that and that's nice and so on and so forth.

01:48:20Guest:We decided, you know, how can we, and we did it with the Grammys too, how can we change what the host does?

01:48:27Guest:Yeah.

01:48:29Guest:And we did it on the Grammys.

01:48:30Guest:We did a lot of funny, innovative things on the Grammys.

01:48:33Guest:Remember the Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concerts?

01:48:36Guest:Yeah.

01:48:38Guest:So you people listening, Leonard Bernstein was obviously a great composer and conductor.

01:48:46Guest:And he would have these specials with the orchestra and he'd pick out the instruments and do it for kids, young people.

01:48:54Guest:And he would teach you how an orchestra was put together and so on and the different sounds of the different instruments and so on and so forth.

01:49:02Guest:So, I always loved that.

01:49:04Guest:And I said to Robert Wall, I said, let's do a young people's concert, but the orchestra is Bobby McFerrin.

01:49:13Guest:And Bobby could do every instrument there was, vocally.

01:49:17Guest:Yeah.

01:49:18Guest:He could sing every sound like that.

01:49:21Guest:And so we did that.

01:49:23Guest:We did it as a piece that music started in caveman times.

01:49:28Guest:And now he's doing some sort of drum sound in his mouth.

01:49:33Guest:And the rhythms became infectious.

01:49:35Guest:And now music comes.

01:49:36Guest:And little did the caveman know that someday Michael Jackson would own their publishing.

01:49:41Guest:That was the joke.

01:49:42Guest:Yeah.

01:49:42Guest:And it went on and on and on, but it was different, you know, it was different.

01:49:45Guest:So then we came to the Oscars and I decided, you know, the year before was that horrendous musical moment when Rob Lowe sang Big Wheel Keep on Turning.

01:49:57Guest:Yeah, bad, yeah.

01:49:58Guest:So the Oscars announced there's no music, there'll be no music, right?

01:50:03Guest:So, I said to the audience, there'll be no music this year.

01:50:07Guest:On the show, they applaud.

01:50:09Guest:You won't hear stuff like, you won't hear those medleys about the nominating movies.

01:50:13Guest:Yeah.

01:50:13Guest:You won't hear this.

01:50:14Guest:And I did one.

01:50:15Guest:Right.

01:50:16Guest:And Mark Shaman, genius Mark Shaman, and Bruce Falanch and I and Bob, well, wrote the first medley.

01:50:23Guest:Yeah.

01:50:23Guest:Where we did songs about the nominating movies.

01:50:25Guest:Right.

01:50:25Guest:And it became like a big thing.

01:50:27Guest:Yeah.

01:50:27Guest:Then over time we created the movies.

01:50:29Guest:Now let's put me in the nominated movies.

01:50:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:50:32Guest:And so that became a thing.

01:50:33Guest:And then so we had different things to do.

01:50:36Marc:Yeah, you created your own sticks for it.

01:50:38Guest:Yeah, and then we did a very successful thing called What Are They Thinking?

01:50:41Guest:Where we put people on camera and I would say what they were thinking.

01:50:44Guest:I would improvise those things.

01:50:46Guest:And so that became great fun.

01:50:48Guest:You had a good time with it.

01:50:50Guest:Yeah, you had to.

01:50:51Guest:You felt it, yeah.

01:50:52Marc:Because it's sort of a thankless job.

01:50:55Marc:Yeah, and you can't look at it like that.

01:50:56Marc:No.

01:50:57Marc:that's a that's a professional thing and you have a lot of respect for jokes which is good yeah yeah jokes are always good how do you like all right let's let's talk about it for a second the comedians was a show you put a lot into your produced it you wrote it you starred in it you had josh gad with you yeah it was a funny premise yes it was something that was close to you and it did it did not take off right so how do you frame that in your head what do you think happened and what do you live with

01:51:19Guest:I live with disappointment that it didn't succeed the way we had hoped it would, of course.

01:51:26Guest:We were working with Larry Charles.

01:51:27Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:51:28Guest:It was a great pedigree, and Josh was great, and a fantastic cast.

01:51:32Guest:Stephanie Weir and Matt O'Berg and Megan Ferguson, great people.

01:51:38Guest:Mm-hmm.

01:51:39Guest:And I totally thought the shows were really good.

01:51:45Guest:Yeah.

01:51:45Guest:And they got better over the course of the time.

01:51:49Guest:And we were fighting for ratings.

01:51:52Guest:We were the lead in for Louis.

01:51:55Guest:And FX is a tough place to do comedy, I think.

01:52:00Guest:Yeah.

01:52:00Guest:And we had a very devoted, too small audience.

01:52:05Guest:Right, right, right.

01:52:07Guest:Which is not unusual for television now.

01:52:09Guest:No.

01:52:09Guest:You watch television in different ways.

01:52:11Guest:And FX wasn't streaming the show, which I think hurt us too.

01:52:15Marc:Do you feel like they hung you out to dry a little?

01:52:18Guest:Let's just say I'm disappointed that they didn't...

01:52:20Guest:give us a chance for a second season.

01:52:24Guest:Right.

01:52:24Guest:In that shows need to grow.

01:52:28Guest:Right.

01:52:28Guest:They need to develop.

01:52:29Guest:I think that's true from my own experience.

01:52:31Guest:Yeah, from the third episode on.

01:52:33Guest:The third episode, we had to lay pipe with the pilot and so on that Josh and I would team together.

01:52:39Guest:The third episode, there was a really funny scene where we're on our way to a Kids Critics Award show.

01:52:48Guest:Yeah.

01:52:49Guest:He and I have both been nominated for voiceover work.

01:52:52Guest:Right.

01:52:52Guest:Because he was Olaf.

01:52:53Guest:Right.

01:52:53Guest:And I'm Mike Wazowski from Monster Scene.

01:52:57Guest:And he gets me stoned.

01:52:58Guest:Yeah.

01:52:59Guest:And we stop off on a way because we're hungry.

01:53:02Guest:We stop off at a supermarket in the valley on our way to the Nokia Center, wherever it was.

01:53:13Guest:We just roamed the supermarket, ripped.

01:53:16Guest:Yeah.

01:53:17Guest:It was really funny.

01:53:19Guest:So now those who slammed us a little bit are writing, wait a second, folks, we were wrong.

01:53:25Guest:This show was hilarious and it's getting better and better and better and better.

01:53:29Guest:And that started to happen.

01:53:30Guest:Yeah.

01:53:30Guest:So now we have a little surge in ratings and so on and so forth and the shows are getting really good.

01:53:34Guest:It's on Hulu, folks, if you want to check it out for those who didn't see it.

01:53:37Guest:And then when we came up for Getting Picked Up, which I really wanted to do, because I felt we were just hitting our stride.

01:53:45Marc:Yeah, and you were in it and you liked it.

01:53:47Guest:Yeah, and I loved the people.

01:53:52Guest:It takes them like three weeks to decide what to do and I think, oh boy, we're in trouble.

01:53:57Guest:We're not going to get picked up, which we didn't.

01:54:00Guest:And I had a long talk with the head of the network about it who said, you know, it's very expensive.

01:54:04Guest:And I said, so let's do less.

01:54:09Guest:We'd have to do 13.

01:54:10Guest:Let's do eight.

01:54:11Guest:Louis does seven.

01:54:12Guest:Let's do eight.

01:54:13Guest:Let's do eight great ones.

01:54:14Marc:And he said, well, Louis does whatever he wants.

01:54:16Guest:Let's move past that.

01:54:18Guest:Yeah.

01:54:18Guest:And then it was, you know, so then they said, I feel terrible.

01:54:21Guest:And I, you know, but, and they didn't pick.

01:54:24Guest:And I'm, I'm,

01:54:26Marc:I'm over it now.

01:54:27Marc:Sensitive guy, though.

01:54:28Marc:This stuff hits you.

01:54:30Marc:It's very hard to... Wouldn't it hit you?

01:54:31Marc:Of course.

01:54:33Marc:But a lot of people, in retrospect, they get diplomatic.

01:54:36Marc:They say it's show business.

01:54:37Marc:But it seems to me that for you and for people like us...

01:54:42Guest:You know, this shit hurts.

01:54:44Guest:Of course it hurts.

01:54:44Guest:Yeah.

01:54:45Guest:Because, you know, you spend a year of your life with people developing, writing, working with them.

01:54:48Guest:You give your, you know, listen, I get it.

01:54:51Guest:It's part of it.

01:54:53Guest:The worst part.

01:54:54Guest:The reasons why they didn't pick us up pissed me off.

01:54:58Guest:Right.

01:54:59Guest:And I felt a little embarrassed about that and angry about it.

01:55:01Guest:What reasons?

01:55:02Guest:That they didn't have the money.

01:55:03Guest:Yeah.

01:55:04Guest:That the show was going to cost too much for the next season.

01:55:06Guest:Right.

01:55:06Guest:So I said, let's do less.

01:55:08Guest:Yeah.

01:55:08Guest:We'll do less shows.

01:55:09Guest:We have to do a full 13.

01:55:11Guest:So I'm mad that they didn't believe in- They're walking out of the office.

01:55:15Guest:You're going, one.

01:55:16Guest:Let's do one.

01:55:17Guest:One.

01:55:18Guest:One episode.

01:55:19Guest:One 13-hour show.

01:55:21Guest:You can break it up into the Nicholas Nickleby of comedy.

01:55:26Guest:So listen, that stuff happens.

01:55:28Guest:I'm glad it's out there.

01:55:29Guest:People can see it.

01:55:30Guest:It's on Hulu.

01:55:32Guest:But I was really proud of what we did.

01:55:34Marc:Oh, good.

01:55:34Marc:Well, again, that Rollins advice, I'm going to remember now.

01:55:38Guest:It's so important for anybody listening.

01:55:41Guest:But no matter what you do, if you feel good about what you do, no one can ever take that away from you.

01:55:48Guest:And try to make that enough.

01:55:50Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:55:51Guest:Right.

01:55:52Guest:Because you just please yourself.

01:55:53Marc:Well, look, I think you're one of the greats.

01:55:56Guest:Oh, God.

01:55:56Marc:It was very sweet that you came and did this, and I hope it was good for you.

01:56:03Marc:Let's smoke.

01:56:05Guest:Thanks, Bill.

01:56:06Guest:Thanks, man.

01:56:06Guest:I really enjoyed it.

01:56:09Marc:One of the greats, Mr. Billy Crystal and me.

01:56:16Marc:Hope you enjoyed that.

01:56:18Marc:Got no guitar.

01:56:20Marc:I could do some of my hotel room jazz that I've been known to do.

01:56:32Guest:Boomer lives!