- Wait, you have a TV? - No, I just like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide, you don't need a TV. (rock music) - Hello and welcome. It is Wednesday, it is time for a brand new episode of the TV Guidance Counselor podcast. My guest this week is Tom Rhodes, who is a fantastic standup comedian. He was also the main guy in "Mr. Rhodes." Sitcom that has come up many times on the show if you are a frequent listener, if you are not just trust me, it has come up several times. He is a super great guy. I always enjoyed his standup when I was seeing him on television. We talk about it a little bit here, but I distinctly remember seeing him on the MTV half hour comedy hour and on his interstitials on Comedy Central and kind of following his career after that. He has a pretty fascinating career. We talk a lot about "Mr. Rhodes" and Barney Miller and a lot of things that I have frequently discussed on the show and it's a fascinating conversation. He's a really smart guy. I will put up all of the social media information for him 'cause he has a great podcast himself that you will like if you haven't listened to it. So I was glad that he was in town. He was doing "Laugh Boston" here and I was lucky enough to grab some of his time and he was very gracious with that. And I really enjoyed talking to him. So I think you will really enjoy listening to this episode. And if you have not heard the show before and you're checking it out because you are a fan of "Tom's", generally the way the show works is someone picks a specific issue of TV Guide. They go through what they would watch that week and then we kind of discuss it. Occasionally we just kind of discuss freestyle, what they watch growing up in their experiences with television and that's what we do here with "Tom". So please enjoy this week's episode of TV Guidance Counselor with my guest, Tom Rhodes. (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (crowd cheering) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Mr. Tom Rhodes. - Hello. - Hey Ken, how are you brother? - Good, what a welcome, what a Boston welcome we're hearing with you. - Sirens in the background. - Yes, this is a perfect way. - Some human heads are rolling down the street. - Yeah, what happens? That's what we do here. Thank you so much for doing the show. I specifically wanted to talk to you. - I wanted to meet anybody who's got a library of Congress of TV guides. - Of Congress of TV guides. - Picture like, you know, bookshelves of TV guides and you got like a bust of Gary Coleman. - Yeah. - A bust of Emmanuel Lovers. - It's actually just a mummified Gary Coleman and like a sarcophagus like King Tut. I have them in a spinning rack in my living room. And that's about it, I kind of swap them out. There's like archives in the basement 'cause there's, you know, there's just too many to have on display with this. - I've got thousands of Jet Magazine. - Yes, well, you see like you digested. Let me see the evolution of the Jerry Carol in photos. - The fade. - So the fun thing about them for me is that, I mean, I used to pay for my own subscription when I was a kid 'cause it was like the one highlight of my week if I would wait for it and then sit down and write what I was gonna watch down that week. But it was the number one highest published magazine in the world. So there's so many of them you can get them for nothing. And they're the best snapshots of popular culture because they weren't making them to be timeless at all. And so as a result, like they tell you way more than things that were made to be snapshots of a time, to me. I have to get off. - I don't know what your family dynamic was like, but my father, we had the Archie Bunker chair that only the dad could sit in. - Did he have a remote caddy? - Well, not a caddy, but it was, and I used to do a joke about Star Trek that Star Trek is like the American family because the coolest guy sits in the biggest chair in front of a big screen TV telling everybody else what to do. Basically, my dad had the chair. You couldn't sit in the chair. But like if the TV guide was missing, we were all grounded. - Oh yes. - No one can leave the house until the TV guide was found. You know, there was four kids in our family and then it would be this big like, you know, hunked in the house for the TV guide. And he was usually sitting on it. - Right. It was his misposition. Like squirreling it away in their bedroom. - No, right. - Come on to read what I can't watch. - Right. - Did you, so you had one TV in the house. - Yeah. - In the living room, I assume, the furniture TV. - Yeah. - You have siblings? - I had two older brothers in the younger system. - Okay, so you're right in the middle. When you got, when you would, when your dad would sort of allow you to control the television, I assume like off-prem time hours, what was the negotiations like with the kids? Was it all this picked? Or did you have to make your case for something you wanted to watch? - No, I remember, you know, when cable came to the neighborhood. - Yeah. - And it kind of hit our neighborhood street by street. Like, there were two streets over that got cable before we-- - You knew the talk of cable. - So we would go to the kids' house down the street and watch cable and stuff. But I remember when it came, we had the cable box with the dial on it. And when my parents went to bed, if you put a butter knife, you put a butter knife in the top and you wiggled it around, you could get Cinemax and the channels that showed-- - Yes, the Playboy Channel. - It wasn't a Playboy Channel then, but they would show like really soft, core porn things like-- - Emmanuelle. - Emmanuelle, Lady Chatter, Lady Lover. - Yeah. - You know, for the longest time when I was growing up, I wanted to be a gardener. - Yes, they got the most action. - They got all the action. - Yes. Yeah, there was a weird thing where all those channels, so Playboy Channel used to rent, it wasn't Cinemax, it was one of the other channels. They used to like rent their signal at night, it would flip to Playboy Channel, but you weren't allowed to show hardcore pornography over the air cable, even if it was paid until 2006. So it was all soft core stuff, even if you were buying like a pornographic channel. - Well, like there's a menu on movies where great, because she was traveling all over the world. - Yes, you got to see-- - You got to see like Indonesia, and you know-- - It's educational. - Kuala Lumpur, different places like that. I mean, you know-- - She eventually had sex with some of wherever she went, but they were great travel logs. - It's not that different from the travel logs now, or instead of having sex, they'd just eat a meal. - Eat a big family channel or something, which is in some ways more pornographic, depending on who's hosting. Andrew's a merit for a stomach training on that. So the other thing about that is, I don't know if kids have that MacGyverish technical innovation skill now, or if it's even possible in the digital age, you can't really, can't really Jerry rig anything now. - Yeah, I think everything is just easily, well, I mean, God, you can look up any kind of-- - That's true, you don't really need to do that. - So this is the activity on the internet, so-- - I wonder if that makes kids less skilled generally, or have worse coping skills, 'cause it'd be like, my car broke down, but I remember the butternaf trick from the cable box, and I was able to fix it. Like, I built a black box when I was a kid with plans that I ordered in Maximum Rock and Roll magazine, and parts I bought at Radio Shack for like $8. - A black box for cable? - A black box for cable, yeah. I got a soldering iron and everything, it worked, yeah. I built two of them, and I don't know if I could do that now, but I felt like I had a skill at that point. It was pretty exciting. So you're going to other kids' house watching cable, was there like a cable channel that was mythical? I imagine this was-- - Well, I know it was like when MTV came out, I think this is like 84, you know, when cable started coming to a Vito, Florida. - Okay, so you're three years into MTV, so it was well established by this point. - Yeah, maybe it was 83, 82, I'm not exactly sure, but I remember that was a big deal. So like, after school, we would go watch MTV, and then I hung out with a lot of girls in my neighborhood, and they liked General Hospital. - Okay. - So we would watch General Hospital, and General Hospital was riveting, back then. - It is weird how-- - It had Rick Springfield-- - Rick Springfield was on it. - Michael Dany, and he was having a love affair with Bobby, the sexy redhead girl, and Luke and Laura was a bizarre. - Rick Springfield was, I don't think people who weren't around at the time can really understand how amazingly huge Rick Springfield was, where he was on a major network television show that was huge, and also like in the top five in the charts at the same time. - His songs, yeah. - You would never have that. - And actually, pretty good Power Pop songwriter. - Yeah. - Surprisingly. He's in Boston now this week. - I wish that I had Jesse's girl, classic. - Yeah, Jesse's girl, he has very, very good songs. - But the point is probably moot. - Yeah, you don't have moot in very much. - You don't have moot ever used. - Both lyrics don't have the same vocabulary as Jesse Jackson, I found. (laughing) And usually it doesn't happen. There's not a lot of overlap. So I used to work at a local television station here when I was in college, and we used to have to watch the station all day, including the soaps, and it is super, like people who make fun of people into soaps, I'm like, you watch three days of that soap, even against your will, and you will be into it. - Right. - You can't not, it just, it's so perfectly, they get the formula down, or even if you're fighting it after three episodes, you're like, what's going on, what's happening? - Well, there's been a big transformation in Brazil, and a lot of Latin American countries in the last few years, because of the soap operas that they showed women using contraceptives and being sexually independent, controlling their own bodies. So I read a big piece, Somewhere Wall Street Journal, or something about how women have reclaimed their bodies, and gotten a lot of personal power, and freedom from watching the soap operas, and then in the Middle East, they, you know, as women stand up for themselves. - I think there's something to be said for shows that are written off as complete pablon garbage, because they're able to get under the radar, and don't have the scrutiny, and probably it's much easier for them to just put that stuff in, because it's not like the patriarchal people who are controlling things, they're gonna watch it. So it's like, yeah, whatever, I'm not even paying attention. - Yeah, right, right, right. - It's a really good subversive thing to do. - I'm not watching that crap. - So you travel all over the world frequently. Do you watch TV when you go there, as do you make a-- - Yeah, and I'll tell you, Steve McQueen, what was that show he was in, The Rifleman? - Oh, no, The Rifleman was Chuck Connors. - What was the Steve McQueen cowboy? - The Rifleman was, I can't think of it. - I caught that in Paris once, and as cool as Steve McQueen is regularly, Steve McQueen in French is very, very cool. - He's very cool, 'cause he probably has a smoothness that he just did not have in her life. Do you know that Americans find it bizarre that French people think that Jerry Lewis is hilarious? I've spent a lot of time in France that the French people know that we know this, and what I've been told is that the guy who did the voiceovers for Jerry Lewis was hilarious. - I bet he probably-- - So it was the guy, it wasn't Jerry Lewis per se, as much as the guy who dubbed his voice. - It's weird too that there are people who their career is dubbing a specific actor in a country, like that he is known, if Tom Cruise is in a movie in Ecuador, they get the Ecuador Tom Cruise guy. It's not a different person in a movie. - If they dubbed someone in a different voice every time you saw them on screen in your country, it would be sort of weird. So it makes sense, but people are always kind of shocked that it's like, I wonder if the guy who did Jerry Lewis ever tried to branch out on his own. - I don't know, I wonder if he did cartoons and things. - The Jerry Lewis cartoon. - But, you know, speaking of the power of television, I just want to say that, you know, looking through these TV guides, 85, WGN would rerun The Barney Miller Show at 7 p.m. - And, you know, people always talked about, you know, television is the great wasteland, and it's, you know, it's maggots for the human mind, and it doesn't do anything good. But my parents had a very tumultuous relationship, and they ended up getting divorced. And my mom and my sister and I, we watched Barney Miller every day, the reruns at 7 p.m. on WGN in the mid-80s, and we could be in different corners of the house. And the television, when it would come on, we, I guess, we left the TV on or whatever, leading up to it, when The Barney Miller theme song started, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We would come running from every corner of the house, and my mom and my sister and I would dance together in the living room, because we loved that show. And it was our thing that we watched together. And it was just this beautiful moment that I'll never forget. My sister passed away from breast cancer. But it was such a beautiful, happy family moment. Yeah, and I don't know if people watch television like that now as a family. Part of it is because it's not appointment TV anymore. You guys had to hear that music and run in and watch it, because that's when it was on. You couldn't go, oh, I'll watch it later on the DVR after they watch it or whatever. And that was important. And the one thing that I've learned from talking to people last year on the show, and many of us who do comedy, had a tumultuous family situation. That's why we're comedians. That's why we're comedians. But that was the thing they did together. It was like, I don't ever get to get all my dad. We always sat and watched whatever together or anything. And I wonder if the world is missing that two a degree now, because I don't think parents and children watch the same thing. And it's not like-- Yeah, no, this is a forgotten era. I mean, that's why your podcast is preserving a human memory that's not talked about very often, because everything is watch on demand, you know, binge viewing with Netflix has taken over. But the thing about TV Guide, specifically for me that was important, was I wanted to be a stand-up comedian. So when the TV Guide would arrive, I would sit there with a highlighter. And I would go through, and I would highlight those late-night talk shows when they had comedians. You know, Letterman and Carson. And would you stay up? I would stay up. So I'd look through the TV Guide. Oh, yeah, oh, my God. Emo Phillips is giving me a Letterman tonight. Or, you know-- Because you started early. You were like 17 when you started. Yeah, I started-- Because I was on this time. It was February 4, 1984, was my first open mic night. OK, yeah. So you must-- I imagine you are the youngest person there by a long shot at the time. Was everyone-- Oh, yeah, no, I had a fake ID. I was a kid, everyone else was in their 20s. Did you ever work with anyone around that time that you had seen on the late night shows? Well, this club that I started at did not have touring comedians until '85. It was just all local comedians when I started there. And one of the first guys that they brought through was Rich Hall. OK, yeah. And Rich Hall did Snigletz. News on a Snigletz on an SNL. Yeah, and I didn't bond with him then. It wasn't until years later that I became friends with him. And he's one of my oldest friends in comedy. And he lives in London. Yeah, I was going to say, as a similar career path to kind of what you did when you moved throughout the country and had your own show there. When I lived in the UK, actually, Rich Hall had a talk show. When we went in the boat-- Yes. Yes, that show was brilliant. Yeah, but Mike Wilmot is in a trench coat with sunglasses. And then he doesn't say anything the whole interview. And then they filmed it in the Great Lakes up in Scotland. And each guest at the end of the interview, they just kind of go-- the boat goes behind some reeds. And you see Mike Wilmot stand up. And then you hear a gunshot. Yes. Every guest was murdered, and their body was dumped in the water. Because you would have people that were universally bad people like Bernard Mann, like old men, racist comics, because I went to every taping of that show. Because when I was going to school, I basically called the BBC. And I was like, ah, I'm a student, whatever, media. You went up to the lakes? And I didn't go to the lakes, but they did studio versions. Because they aired on BBC 4, I think. And then they would show the lake segments in between. And I went to every taping. I think it was only about six episodes. His-- Rich Hall's doing his last specials for the BBC. He's done about four of them. Those documentaries. And they're brilliant. The first one was how the West was lost. Yes. And he takes clips from old movies. Yes. And then he did one on southern movies. Yeah, but on Hollywood. And just in Texas, generally. He did another one on road trip movies. Yeah. And those are absolutely brilliant. And they're so candid in the sort of lies that people believe about American culture based on movies. Yeah. And I watched them like you would never ever this year. People would be outraged. But it's not wrong. It's a completely interesting outlook on this stuff. And you would never get that on TV here. So that's always eye opening. When I go to another country, especially in English, speaking country where I actually understand what they're saying. But how different the focus is on things and how a comic like Rich Hall, who'd been working here for years, in "Ununion World" was kind of like that in the early days of the comedy channel, which I think was probably a little bit before you were kind of doing stuff with him. He had that onion world, which was sort of that sort of thing that he's doing now. But on an American TV show, but again, was just probably still under the radar because nobody was watching it and people didn't have it. So Rich Hall came through. Did you talk to him at all? Or did you-- I did a little bit. But I mean, I was-- geez, I was a year into comedy. I met him a few years after that. I became friends with him. And then he went with me. I did a special for Comedy Central called Viva Vietnam, where I went to Vietnam. We filmed it in September '94. Bill Clinton had just made it OK for Americans to travel to Vietnam. They had lifted the travel ban like Obama just did with Cuba. My father had fought in the Vietnam War. He was a helicopter pilot. He was shot down. And Vietnam was a very close topic to my family. And I was Comedy Central's boy. At the time, I was like the face of the network. And they let me do anything. So I said, why not let me go to Vietnam? And so we filmed this thing for the 20th anniversary of the end of the war. And then it came on April '95, because the war ended April '75. And how was that received? I remember watching it. But I remember it's sort of standing out on Comedy Central. It was unlike any of the other programming that we're running through. They didn't really have any programming. And so that show was a critical success. And it really kind of put me on the map for American television. So that came on April '95. And then July '95, I did the Montreal Comedy Festival. And I was the bell of the ball. So there was a bidding war between NBC, Fox, and HBO. Which NBC won? And I went with NBC. HBO was just offering a special. NBC and Fox were like, you know, it was really kind of exciting. It was like, OK, no, NBC's offering this. Fox is offering this. And those days don't happen in Montreal anymore. No, no. So but I mean, it was an exciting month afterwards. Yes. And Fox at the time really had silly, goofy programming. And it was a no-brainer in my mind. Because even if NBC had been offering less money-- and I think I did take less money to go with NBC-- I had grown up watching NBC. And to me, NBC was the home of American comedy. Because the cheers, SNL, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Barney Miller, all these favorite shows of mine had been on NBC. Taxi. Taxi. Yeah. So I mean, it was like, oh my god, I'm going to the night. It's like, you know, you want to sign with-- I was going to say the Yankees, but I'm in Boston, I shouldn't. That's fine. No, I think we're high enough off the ground that people can't hear you. Soulmaster will say fucking Yankees up there. Some guy's going to climb up with Spider-Man suction cups to the window. Don't even mention them. Yeah, I mean, it would make perfect sense to go with NBC. And NBC was sort of just reinventing themselves a little bit at that time. They had the must-C, TV, they had friends, they had Seinfeld at the time, and they were the hottest network. Ultimate Mr. Rhodes trivia, my show took the time slot of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Will Smith had gone on to movies. And so it was the next year that that opened up. So how much input did you have into the concept of that show? So for Bel-Air don't know, we have discussed the show before, but you're at a private school, and you're sort of the new young teacher. It was a dead poet society, you know? It's the rebel English teacher in the stuffy rich kid prep school, you know? I mean, there was nothing new about the premise. When I first got the development deal, Mark Brazil was a good friend of mine. And we came up with this idea where I would be a public defender lawyer. One of my favorite shows of all time was Barney Miller. And I liked the grittiness of Barney Miller, and that they dealt with adult themes. And the fact that they had great celebrity cameos with people getting arrested and coming in. And there's constant traffic in and out of the jail room because of crimes that were committed or happening. One of the things that I always tell people that if they want to write television, watch Barney Miller, because that is the purest writers show I've ever seen. Because it's literally one room, except for one episode. They go to a different location, but it's one room. That's it, or two if you count Barney's office. But it's basically one room and just people talking. And it manages to get that grit and do with tough things, like rape and murder and these things, but not in like a snarky belittling way like you would get on TV now. - So absolutely, I would be 100% on board with that. So you wanted to do-- - So I wanted to be a public defender, the voice of the voiceless, and thought that that would be my performance space in front of the courtroom, trying to sway the jury and things like that, or the judge. And somewhere about, I don't know, four or five months before we were gonna do the pilot, NBC said we just had a lawyer show fail. - Right. - Can you make Tom a teacher? And it seemed like kind of a take it or leave a deal. And youth and arrogance and Mark Brazil and I thought, well, we can, yeah, this would be great, we can do this. And so he wrote another pilot and NBC had bought his pilot for the public defender show. And then we go with this teacher idea. And we filmed the pilot, they took four of my jokes for the pilot, everybody loved the pilot, and they green-lighted it into be a series. - That makes a lot of sense that the public defender thing was the start, because I remember that show, and it may just be the few episodes that I have a vivid memory of, but there was always sort of an end scene with you sort of making a case. Was it like the dean or the school? Your adversary was kind of like the stuffiest guy. It was like the principal or something. - No, no, no, Stephen Topolowski played the principal, and he was very much my advocate. He was always on my side. My nemesis on the show was Ron Glass. - Yes, that's when we played Mr. Feltzer. He was always busting my balls. Now, I had never acted a day in my life. I learned how to act on national television. - Which is a weird situation for me. - Weird situation to be in, but, well, the joke I always say is the first four episodes I didn't know you could use your hands. - Right. - You know, I'd walk in, hey, everybody, let's go. - Should we get taxed if I use my hands? - The funny thing is, is Ron Glass. - Of Barney Miller fame. - Such a wonderful, magnanimous, loving man. And he and I could not have been closer friends while we were filming that series. And so it was funny to be all palsy, palsy, and laughing and joking all day. And then we go onto the set and then he's like, but he's such a great actor. - Yeah. - You watch those episodes and like, you know, he does come off as this really stuffy, snobby, intellectual guy. And the power of what a brilliant actor he is. I mean, every voice is incredible, every movement, every word of his mouth. He is completely believable as that character. And it reminded me of that old cartoon where like the wolf and the coyote or the sheepdog. - Yeah, the sheepdog. - And the coyote. They're buddies and then they clock in and then the sheepdog's parking. - It'll work, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And so you obviously were probably incredibly pleased to have him on the show as-- - Yeah, well, I remember when we were casting the show, I said I would love to have Ron Glass come in. And I didn't have any input on, like they let me, I got to choose the title. They did, it was, you know, it was like the Tom Rhodes Project or something when it started. And then at one point I said, why not call it Mr. Rhodes. So I got that, but you know, they took four of my jokes for the pilot and then it was very difficult. I had no input on the writing whatsoever. - Which has to be such a weird experience. - Which is frustrating. - Used to being a comic where you're in control of everything you do. - Yeah, it was frustrating. We can get to that in a minute. - Sure. - So when they were casting the parts, Ron Glass came in for the Mr. Filter thing. And it was, he could have, he didn't screw it up. - Right. - But he could have. - He had the part anyway. - He had the part in my mind and because Barney Miller had meant so much to me that, you know, I wanted to work with him to met what. - Was he the only Barney Miller, a person that you had ever met and commented, did you ever meet any of the writers or? - No, I never met anyone else. Yeah. - Well, we had a, we had Hal Linden. - Oh, he was, he guessed it on, on, on one episode towards the end and I got to meet him. But he's, I think he's an amazing guy, it's just. - Well, you know, he didn't, I mean, he, I don't know. - He was, he was there. - He was there. - He showed up, he did his thing. - He took his hand. - Yeah, yeah. - He would intimidate the halotomy, mostly from Black's Magic. Did you ever see that show? His follow-up show to Barney Miller, which is such a great comedic sort of heavy show, was an hour-long dramedy where he and Harry Morgan play father-in-son magicians who solve crimes. - Oh my God. - Wow. - Yeah, created by the guy who did Murder She Road. Yeah, it was not a hit. - It's a hit. - It's not a hit. - Not a hit show. - As soon as I unhook these rings. - Yes. Oh, there's a similar trick to get me out of this. Yeah, he was always conveniently and somehow locked up by a villain with, you know, handcuffs or something. He was able to escape out of, it's not, not the best use of halving, it's talents. So you're doing this show, it have run glass on and are you like, I'm making my Barney Miller? Or as it went along, where you kind of like, this is not what I wanted this to be. - I never for one second thought I was making Barney Miller. - Right, right. - I mean, that's pretty, or striving to do that kind of thing. - Well, I mean, the show really changed because obviously, it was never supposed to be about the kids. - Right. - It was the kids were supposed to be secondary and in the background. And it was supposed to be, the focus was gonna be all on the adult teachers. And the pilot is kind of like that, but they were, I'm supposed to be from this little town and I wrote one book that sold 68 copies, but whatever. So I come back, get the job as the English teacher, but I was supposed to have a cousin who was a bartender in a bar and I would go and have a drink and I would talk to him. They cut that out, like right at the beginning, they cut that out. And then the joke that I always say is, I had no adult relationships on the show. I'm just hanging out with these kids. And in real life, I think people like that should be closely monitored. - That is a little weird, yes. 'Cause that was always the strange thing about the comedic teacher genre, sub-genre. Welcome back, Carter. You have the Drexel's class was sort of a contemporary to Mr. Rhodes where you had Danny Coleman as a teacher in these kids. - I love Danny Coleman. - He's great. - What was that Buffalo Bill? - Buffalo Bill. - The great deal. - Great deal. - Great deal. - That was the first show I can remember where the lead character was unlikable intentionally. Like he was an asshole and it was enjoyable to watch. 'Cause he's so great at that. - I always say that about that Alan Partridge show in England. - Yeah, well, Cooper's great at that. - The lead character is unlikable. And then in America it would be impossible to celebrate that. - You couldn't do that. I've found that in the last few years, since sort of British television has been influencing US television a little more for better and worse, where Alan Partridge is a subtle character in a lot of ways, which sounds a little bit ridiculous, but he's unlikable, but he's also sad. Like you feel bad for him. - Yeah, he's so clueless. But here, when they try to make these shows with the unlikable character, they sort of remove the pathos and the empathy piece. So it's like, this guy's a sociopath asshole. Don't you like him? It's like, no, he kind of also have to make him broken and sad, and you're laughing at him. And I'm not normally one for laugh at, but like, Coogan does it so great with all his characters. And like Saxon Dale, if you saw that follow-up show that he did, he's a 70s, filled 70s rock musician, who was like a famous roadie, and he basically lives in his small town and is just like this 60 year old dude with beard and long hair who, you know, is talking about Zeff a lot of the time, but it's similar to, in a similar style of the Coogan thing. Yeah, so Dabney Coleman was the closest we had to that, but he was still in Coogan. - But the show, talking about the teacher thing, somebody knew that that year, there was gonna be four or five other teacher shows on. I didn't know. - That must've been tough. - Had I known. So like, when the show started, it was like, oh my God. - Right. - It was like, there was Nick Frino, there was all these other teacher shows, like I think there was like four of them. - I think there was four of them. - That same year. - Yeah. - And I was like, fuck, somebody must've known. - Yeah. - And so that was pungent to digest. - Yeah. - And then the thing about having your own sitcom, I've been working on a book for the last few years, and I'm getting closer to the end, and I've finally got to write about this experience that I went through. And the thing when you have your own television show that you don't realize is the critics. Imagine a periodical that you have loved since its inception. - Yes, yep. - Says something negative about you. Entertainment Weekly, I had a subscription to from the beginning. - As did I '89. - I loved Entertainment Weekly. And you know what, it's really bitchy queer humor. - Yeah. - The way that they ripped things to shreds. - Yeah. - And I love gay people, and I personally find bitchy queer humor is at the top of my list. - Oh, absolutely, yeah. - I love it. But they were really cruel. They had a hair chart, and it was one through five. Best hair on television. David Dikovny, and they had a little cut out of his head, and then it was worst hair on television, Tom Rhodes, and it had a little cut out of my head. - They forget that you're a person, I think, with a lot of that stuff, too, you know? It's like, I'm not the character in the show. I'm like a real guy, and this is my actual hair. Like, you wouldn't do that to just, like, worst hair. The guy who's down the street. - I'm a real guy who holds a grudge, seeks revenge, and never forgets. - Well, being too fast by you is a pretty good look. That's what Dik wakes me up in the morning, must do. - So those kind of things were, you know, and then it was frustrating because the show had nothing to do with who I was as a person, and I could never get any jokes in after that. - Right, and your name's on it. - And my name is on it, so I felt like, you know, these experts who are writing about comedy are writing about television. I mean, aren't they smart enough to see? - It's not me. - That a show has been dumped on top of me. - Right, right. - That I'm not writing the show. - Right. - So, I mean, it was frustrating in that I would go talk to the executive producer and say, so there was all these hair jokes because I had the long hair, and every episode, it's like, you know, and I grew my hair because I wanted to be Jim Morrison, and I loved Native Americans. - Right. - So, I mean, like, I wanted to be crazy horse, and sitting bull, and so it's like, the show is like, hey, Kenny G, hey, Fabio. Oh, why so sad today, Tom? Is your blow dryer broken? - Good class, and high humor. - And so, I would read these scripts, and I would get so pissed off, and I would go talk to the exec, and then I wouldn't retort, and I would go talk to the executive producer and say, look, man, I'm a comedian. You know, anyone I ever considered a hero never let anybody get the last word above them or over them. And then, the job of the comedian is to outwit some goon statement. - You know, the reason why we script it. - Yeah, exactly. So, every script, there would be these barbs thrown at me, and in the script, it would just say, Tom reacts. And I would say, so how many times can I just shrug? - Right. - What do you mean, Tom react grimace? - Do I have a knife on me? - Right, I mean, it was Ron Glass' character. Then there was like a movie, a adversarial romantic lead. - There are four, yes. Who went up to Nicki's, I think, after-- - She was on wings before that, okay. That must have been endlessly frustrating. - Yeah, so I had no jokes. I just gave nice advice to the kids, and I never got another joke in Edgewood. - Which is so weird, because, all right, they see you do comedy. They like you, your personality, your comedy. That's what the state of community is. It's a heightened sense of you. They go, we want that. And then they go, but not anything that. They just want you to be an actor, which you're not at the time. They want you to not say the words you come up with, which is what you've gotten their attention for in the first place. So you have to wonder, what is it that they want from you? - Well, in NBC's defense, NBC was on my side, and the woman who brought me to the network, Shelly McCrory, who discovered me in Montreal. You know, NBC, the show was filmed at Universal. Now Universal NBC are one. At the time, they were not married yet. So the show was made at Universal, and NBC, through Shelly McCrory, every week, was just as frustrated as I was. - So it was almost like independent. - And that made me feel good, you know, she would say, every week, the notes from the network would be more Tom. - We want more Tom. - It's called Mr. Rhodes. - We, you know, we love this guy, we secured him to make the show, and it's, his personality is not in this. - Did you, so you must have been somewhat relieved when an end did I imagine? - Well, I wouldn't say relieved. I, well, I mean, it kinda, you know, there were really great moments. There was, you know, the adult themed shows were great. Like, I was an English teacher. I, they wanna have an artist in residence, and I invite Charles Bukowski to come talk to my class. In the show, the character is named Buck Pulaski, but it's supposed to be Charles Bukowski, and played brilliantly by Brian Doyle Murray. - Yes. - So he shows up drunk, he's hitting on the kids, I get in trouble. - Is there anything not played brilliantly by Brian Doyle? - Brian Doyle Murray is one of the greatest comedic actors in American history. As is Steven Pulaski, you know, I just recently digitized the Mr. Rhodes episodes and put a bunch of 'em on YouTube. And, and Jessica Stone, also, who played Amanda, the math teacher, what they did with their hands and facial expressions, and they invented comedy where it did not exist in the script, where they're just talking, and they're doing things and movements that are just, just chaplain-esque are so brilliant. And that was the thing about, but I'll, let me, I'll come back to the, the brilliance of that cast in a minute. The, the point I was gonna make was, so after the Buk Pulaski episode, there was an episode where I accidentally have sex with a student's mother. - Right. - The Friday before parent teacher's weekend, and the, the, the woman was played by Wendy Malick. - Yes. - And that was before she went on to-- - She was just, she was just doing dream on at that point, I think. - Yeah. - You've been on Kate Malick. - So I mean, that was the adult theme. - Right. - I mean, still, you know, I'm, I'm kind of like this Candid character. - Right. - I love Voltaire, and Candid's character is just this, you know, Voltaire wrote this, Russo had criticized this poem that Voltaire wrote about the Lisbon earthquake in 1755, that, that there is no God. And, and Russo criticized Voltaire saying that, you know, if there's no God, we have no hope. - Right. - And that's so Candid was Voltaire's response to that, that you can't go through life as just this eternally optimistic, everything's gonna be okay kind of guy. And, and, and I'm looking back on that series, my character was like, kind of Candid. I'm just this like-- - Right. - Now I say, goof who's just, oh, you can say any shitty comment to me, and I shrug, and every day, day, day, day, day, day. And life is happy, you know. - Again, not stand-up comedy at all. - Yeah. - Which is, there was a big movement to, especially between like late 80s to the mid 90s to give as many stand-up comedians sort of sick date. For some reason the networks are like, this is the formula. It's to give them the show, we get a stand-up on the show and then that gold. - Yeah. - And so, why didn't, so I didn't realize that, I mean, you know, it became a children's show. You know, Sean Weiss, who played the goalie on the Mighty Ducks' Muddies. - Right. - He's been fricking geeks later. - He was also just fantastic with the dances and the silliness that he got to do. So, they wrote all these great funny things for everyone else to do. - Right. - And I carried the plot, like an albatross from scene to scene. And, you know, it was funny, they would say, "You know, you're a fish out of water. "You're the cool, long-haired teacher "in the stuff he prepsical you." - In terms of doing the culture of water. - You're a fish out of water. And my advice to any young comedian who's about to have his own television show is to remember that fish out of water die. - Yes. And no one likes to watch a fish out of water. - Yeah. - Let's just watch it unless it's a funny woman. - So, all these other, you know, they were really, I really liked the Italian episode, which this Italian teacher comes. And so, he turned, the kids fall in love with Italy and everything Italian. And then we have this Italian festival and they actually set up an opera karaoke. And that was really cool. On the set, we had an opera teacher come and he taught everybody to sing operas. So, there was this great scene and the kids are all singing in this opera karaoke, but not me. - Right, no, you're this guy. - Not me, no. I'm the straight man. - No, no, I'm having fun like that. So, I was the straight man on everything. And so, I'm carrying the plot. I have no jokes. And then I'm just supposed to shrug when a hair joke is thrown my way. But the kids on the show, the whole cast, you know, it's like Seinfeld is a very wooden actor. And Seinfeld is not what made Seinfeld a great show. - It's topped up by the ensemble. - It's the ensemble around him. We're absolutely brilliant. And that's the thing about my show. - It could've, it didn't matter that it was a teacher show. It didn't matter if it was in a transmission repair shop. The fact that the actors were blindingly talented, man. Tobelowski, Ron Glass, Jessica Stone, Sean Weiss, Alexandra Holden, who's just absolutely glows on camera. She's like a movie star. - Was that intimidating? - No, no, because my, once I got the, I never, it was never my dream to have a sitcom. I just wanted to be the greatest stand of comedian alive. But once it happened, I never doubted it. And like people were always like, you know, don't get excited because most comedians, you know, you never get to pile it. You never get to pile it. Well, I got to pile it. And then once we got to pile it. - It never goes to series. - It never goes to series, never, and I never doubted it for a second. So it wasn't until the very end of the series that I started to like, well, shit, this might not work out. Because the cast was so amazing. Travis Wester, Lindsey Sloan, who on the show, she plays this nerdy girl. She's supposed to be the unattractive girl. - Right. - But, and that just, that's the illusion of television. Because in my mind, Lindsey Sloan was the most penetratingly beautiful person on that set. And just, I just thought she was captivating. And it was, it was episode number two when we come back from when it gets made into a series is the crush episode. And she has a crush on me. So she's prominent in that episode. And you know, even her thick glasses that they made her wear could not subdue her natural beauty. I mean, she, even then as a young actor, was a movie star. - She was one of the people that I felt really close with her and Ron Glass, Sean Weiss, Travis Wester, who was also brilliant as one of the students. I mean, like, I hung out with them. And we talked, you know. - 'Cause this is new for you. You're not, you're not. - I believe, you know what, what I thought, you know, like Barney Miller in Cheers. I'm like, these people are gonna be my family for the next 10 years. - Yeah. So let's hang out. - So, you know, Lindsey Sloan's parents hung around the set. Her father loved the blues. I loved the blues. - Right. - Like, traded CDs. Alexandra Holden had just moved there from Minnesota. And I loved the fact she drove this big pickup truck, with these big fat, like a real truck. - Not a regular pickup truck. - Not like a four-on pickup. - Jacked-up redneck. - A mud flap car. - Well, didn't have mud flaps, but she said, she saw a Minnesota license plates on it. And I just thought, she was the coolest human being in the world. - That's a fish out a lot. - And so she's driving in. So, like, there was no, like, Hollywood protection about her. She still had this, like... And Minnesota is one of my favorite places in America because the people are so kind and down-to-earth. - And then- - And it's a place that I think doesn't get enough credit for producing just a huge number of amazing artists. - Bob Dylan, Prince. - Bob Dylan, Prince, yeah. - The Replacements. - Yeah, the Replacements. - The Replacements, Prince could do it, but like, all over the map, from Minnesota. And it gets, it's like, what's going on there? - Yeah. So, and then also, and then Jensen Ackles. - Right. - They introduced him. He comes onto the show, like episode number three, and he had just moved out from Dallas, Texas. - Yeah. - And I really thought, he plays this really goofy character named Malcolm. And, you know, he was this muscular, handsome, all-American boy. - It's like David Hasselhoff. - He was gorgeous, man. Do you talk about also jumping off the screen? - Yeah. - I mean, I thought that, you know, so I really believed that, that these people are gonna be my family. And so, I thought he was also cheated because he got to play this. But I mean, I guess, you know, as in a young actor, I guess he don't really, he'd probably to hear his version. He'd probably- - It's just a job. - He'd just a job. - Yeah. - He didn't mind, but it kind of pissed me off. Oh, we have this new student character. And then, why make him this goofy airhead? When he was not like that in real life at all. And then, you know, we had the sound stages they did to Sabrina, this teenage witch right next to us. And so you got these really thin spaces between these massive airplane hanger sound stages. And, you know, in breaks, you know, these gents and acals is out there telling the football. I mean, he was the All-American boy quarterback. But I couldn't understand, you know, why they wouldn't let me be me, why they wouldn't, why they chose to make his character kind of an airhead. But still, you know, I had faith in the show until about halfway through, they started doing all these holiday episodes. We did a Christmas episode where I take all my students on a skiing trip for the Christmas break. - Why is it, 'cause that happens all the time? - How many people spend their Christmas break with their teacher? - In a cabin, if TV would have been in a cabin, and then we'd get snowed in. - Well, I wouldn't have seen that coming. - And it was just so cheesy, it was painful. - Although I enjoy the Halloween episode. - That was cute at the end of all the students come and dress like me. - That was probably annoying. - They have long hair, that was cute. - But then we did a Thanksgiving episode. There was a Quentin Tarantino pilgrim play that I wrote fictionally in the thing. - So we do a Halloween episode, a Thanksgiving episode, a Christmas episode, and a Valentine's episode. And if, in your first season-- - You bust it all inside. - You're doing that many holiday episodes, then the writers have clearly run out of ideas. - That seems to be, and so you kinda saw the writing on the wall at that point, I imagine. - Yeah. - So after that, did you, we kind of jaded on watching TV after a while? Were you like, I don't want anything to do with it for a bit? - Yeah, well, the canned laughter sitcoms, I could not watch. - 'Cause you watched those growing up, other than Barney Miller, did you watch it? Were there any other three cameras that got me a taxi? - No, a taxi? I mean, yeah, but, you know, let's not forget that Lucille Ball invented the four camera shoot. - Yeah, the sitcoms are, yeah, the sitcoms are still shot to this day. Lucille Ball is such a, you know, and her story's incredible, man. They had no faith in her or Desi Arnaz, her husband, because he was Cuban. They didn't think America would wanna watch a dirty corner. - Yeah. - So she had, they put their own house up. They mortgaged their own house to make the first Lucille Ball show. - And it's a mixed race marriage, which is kind of insane at the time. And she was considered kind of at the end of her career when she started that, 'cause she was a Hollywood star, then went through the studio system. And then it's doing this comedy, and they were like, ah, this old lady, which is probably 30, you know, and the fact that that show became the show that's, you know, they're still running marathons of it to this day. - And it's the paradigm of how shows are shown? - Absolutely. - And it's also odd that shows haven't changed that much. Although I found that people tend to write off the three cameras to come completely now as the realm of children's shows, and part of that was in the '90s, it did move that way, which you probably suffered from a little bit with your show, 'cause I think that was kind of happening in the culture with television, with that format. But to me, that's the hardest kind of TV show to do well. And so when those shows are quality, like, like Roseanne, like Taxi Cheers, it's so much more impressive than a single camera sitcom that can use cinematic cheats to sort of make the show, you can make good quality shows, but it seems a little easier. It's not, you know, we're just in front of an audience and it's just the actors and the words. But that must have been ridiculously intimidating to have to act live in front of an audience with all these people kind of waiting around and you can't just-- - Well, I tell you, I mean, I have always had a lot of self-confidence. - Okay. - And I really-- - See, I can do it. - You know, the great thing that I'll never forget about doing the pilot, I felt, I knew my lines inside and out. - Right. - So, you know, when you do the four camera shoot and you got the set, it's all in front of a studio audience, you know, it breaks from scenes, the actors all usually go backstage. I was so pumped for the pilot. The best words, when they got the scene and nothing needs to be re-shot, the assistant director on the floor heels, moving on, greatest words in television. That's like first down, and I did feel like, you know, the star quarterback. I would walk, I would beat the cameras to the next scene and when we shot the pilot, I didn't go in the back. - 'Cause you're like, unless I was entering the scene from the back. - Right, right, right. - I was just so pumped and I moved on to the next scene. - You never questioned your ability to do it. Sounds like you just jumped in. - No, and, you know, I think my acting got better as it went on, and like I said, you know, you look at Jerry Seinfeld and it's like, you don't have to be a great actor to star in a sitcom. - You're a character and they prop you up with great actors who've been around for, I mean, on Seinfeld, people talk with that ensemble cast, but all those people have been around for years. - Right. - And a ton of things. I mean, I was always, you ever seen movie Jacob's Ladder, really great, actually about Vietnam, in a lot of ways, chilling kind of harm movie that Adrian Line did, but Jason Alexander's in it, and it's from like '86, and doing a dramatic role, and it's really, actually Lewis Black, isn't it, too. - Well. - It's really weird seeing, when you see these people there and you go, oh, these guys have been around forever. Michael Richards on Fridays in 1980, and all this stuff. But people go, "Oh, there's brand new on TV." Do you ever see people that you worked with on Mr. Rhodes and things now? Like I'm at Jensen's on Supernatural, obviously for like 12 years. Have you ever flipped him through and you're like-- - I've never seen it. - It's pretty decent shit. Pretty decent shit. - Yeah, I've never seen it. - I mean, you know, there was no doubt that he was a superstar. Lindsey Sloan, Alexander Holden, you know, Travis Wester. - Does it take you out of-- - Sean Weiss. - Sean Weiss. I'm still friends with Sean Weiss. - Yeah. - I just saw him a few weeks ago. He's actually, he's lost a lot of weight. It's kind of skinny now. And he's doing stand-up comedy. He's a great guy. - I'm still friends with Ron Glass. I haven't seen him in a few years, but usually I would see him every couple of years. - Right. - And I'm still very good friends with Steven Tillbalski. - Yeah. - Went to dinner at his house a few weeks ago when I was in Los Angeles. And I cherish those friendships. - And I think that's unusual. Like most people are thrown in one season show who've been, who aren't sort of from the outside, who are in that world. - Yeah. - You know, it's just people they worked with. But because for you, this was the family you were planning on having. It's, you know, you have these long lasting relationships, which is pretty great. - Well, I had Steven Tillbalski on my podcast and he said that there was a great book, How Green Was My Valley. - Yeah. - And he said that it, he compared our cast to How Green Was My Valley. - Okay. - That we were a family and that we were all busted up and had to go find jobs in different places. - Yeah, not inaccurate. - But Tillbalski, you know, he's come to shows of mine. I'm great friends with he and his wife and. - It's less what people used to work with and more like people you wanted to camp with or that you wanted to college with or something. - It seems instead of just like a guy who worked with that in office. - Yeah, I mean, you know, and you know, Ron Glass, I, you know, I feel like I should call him right now. I miss the guy and, you know, you talk about just beautiful human beings, you know? And I'm surprised Ron Glass didn't star in more shows, have his own show. - I was always surprised with that too. - One of the greatest American actors and, you know, Barney Miller, man, that character he played and he's working on his novel. - Yeah, he doesn't want to be there. - Blood on the bed. - Yeah, he doesn't want to be there. - He wants to be a writer. And then, you know, his character, I think the writing was great for his character because he was the history teacher. - Right. - So there was one scene where there's a school dance and he's dancing and Travis Wester comes up to, I keep saying Wester because I lived in Holland and that's how you pronounce W's. Travis Wester comes up to him and says, "Hey, Mr. Feltzer, you used to teach dance classes." And Ron Glass says to him, "If you can't grasp the implications "of the dread Scott decision, "you can't possibly ever be able to do this." And he like, you know, busts an ass wiggly dance move. So I mean, like, so there was some great historical things written for his history teacher. - I always loved his interaction with Dietrich on Barney Miller 'cause I love Steve Laddisburg too. And it was weird that those-- - Comedian, yeah. - You can stand a comic. And they always paired them together. And then there was the whole plot line where they were living together, which was really weird. - I don't know where that was. - Dietrich lost his apartment. And so, Ron Glass had to live with. No, the other way around, he couldn't find an apartment and this had been going for like three seasons and then he had to live with Laddisburg. And it was such a good, not generic sort of odd couple. It was so well written. It's just, it's, when you go back and watch that show, it absolutely holds up with every single aspect of it. And you know, part of it is you have great guys like Ron Glass on it. But I always thought he would have his own show after that or any of those guys after. - He should have. - You know, I mean, until Belowski is one of the greatest character actors and comedic actors of all time, he's had a great, great career. - Yeah. - And, and, and, and, and, and Tobalowski, you know, he's, and, and the Tobalowski files, if you've ever heard his podcast. - Yes, it's brilliant. - One of my favorite podcasts. But, you know, he says that him going bald was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. - 'Cause now he's crazy. - 'Cause he wanted to be the leading man like everybody else. And then when he went bald in his early 20s, he had no choice but to be the, the- - That character found him. - Yeah. - But what I learned from the sitcom is, you know, it's almost better to be a secondary character because if you're the second banana on a show. - They don't blame you. - You walk in and it's joke, joke, joke, exit. - Yeah. - You know, when you're the, when you're the star, you have to, to carry the plot. - Right. - And be around the subject of jokes. - I had this love story with this character Nikki played by Farah Forky. So like, I thought that was tedious. - Yeah. - I just think that I- - She warned in. - It was shoe warned in and it took up too much of my activity. I never, I never got fun. - They were trying to do that. - I never got funny dialogue or funny actions. It was either given nice advice to the kids or- - Stammering around the way. - Just like the love story with this girl and the, the- - They were trying to salmon Diane, yeah. - Well, I just, I think that Peter Noah, who is the executive producer, I think, you know, his all-time hero is Woody Allen. I love Woody Allen, but he, I think he kind of, the, this, this kind of subservient, courtship, neurotic character to the woman, which is, it's not, I've never been like that. I've never been a hat in the hand guy. I've always been a very bold, you know, confident man. - Right. - And so like, even, even the love stories that I had to do with this girl is like, I'm hoping she, I'm hoping she just, you know, sprinkles me a little, you know, attention or something. And it's- - Is there a show that you've seen, either since Mr. Rhodes or before Mr. Rhodes, that you're like, that's the show that we should have. That kind of thing. That's the character. - No, you can't think in terms like that. But, I mean, there's a lot of great shows I admire and love. - Yeah. - Was there anything else that you watched with your family as a kid? What was your dad, what was your dad when he was controlling that television? What were the things that he wanted? - My dad loved the news. My dad loved 60 minutes. We always watched 60 minutes. - Did you watch it with him? - Oh God, I, I, I, one of my favorite shows of all time. Yeah. - 60 minutes, really. How old were you watching 60 minutes? - Since I was, since I wiped Placenta off. - Right, and you, oh, you were always into it, it wasn't like, oh no. - No, my family's from Washington DC, so we've always been very political and very aware. - Right. - So, we've always stayed on top of, of current events and, and very well informed. - So, would you watch say 60 minutes and then discuss it as a, 'cause I mentioned as a kid, there's a lot of stuff that probably you need to talk about to process after watching it. It wasn't just like, we're saying it. - And I think it really helped my comedy too. - Yeah. - And to know things that were happening in the world. - So that's interesting. You're not watching the sort of family fodder. You're watching the, sort of the real song. - My dad loves stand-up comedy. - Okay. - And my dad had comedy albums. So, we did always watch the HBO, one night stands, the young comedian specials. That we watched those together, always watched SNL. - I always say SNL to me, I follow SNL the way other people follow baseball stats. - Yeah. - So I'm like, oh, that year this person was on and, oh, if they could've done this, it would've, you know, that kind of thing. So, I imagine you'd probably watch that that sort of way with your debut. - You watched a lot of late night stuff as a kid. - Yeah. - Yeah, it was really great. You know, my parents would usually go to bed. - Right. - And so. - Would you have to sneak down? - No. - No, they just were like, "Hey, no." - They knew I wanted to be a comedian. They knew it was like. - They knew that age and they were supportive of it. - Yeah. - Was anyone else any of your siblings drawn towards performing or anything? - My sister wanted to be an actress. She went to Florida State to the drama school there. - Right. - So, you know, her and I, my two older brothers were like kind of jock-thub bullies. And so me and my sister, it was always me and her against them. - Right. - Whenever we played games or anything. And so, we rebelled against them by being artsy and sensitive. - And so far first, together. - Well, I mean, you know, not necessarily so far first, but going to plays, watching movies, talking about acting, you know. I got my sister a job as a writer's assistant on my sitcom. That was a thing that I wanted to tell you. That was a moment where I was really two moments that had happened. Where I was absolutely frustrated with the way things were gone. And I was getting pissed. And I always thought, you know, you read about actors and they throw these tantrums on the set of their sitcom and then they kick over the water cooler. And me and my sister always thought, you know, that was unnecessary and stupid. The actors would do this. And, you know, in retrospect, I wish I would have kicked over the cooler and thrown some tantrums. But she got to drive a golf cart around Universal. - That's pretty good. - And to run errands for the writers. - Yeah. - And there was twice where I was pissed, frustrated. And my sister said, jump on. - Yeah. - And she drove me to the back of the Universal lot. And there is a town square set. - The famous set. - And it's where they filmed back to the future. It's where Michael J. Fox, the, they harnessed the lightning, hitting the clock tower. - And his is there. - And his DeLorean gets to go back to the future. And my sister took me on her golf cart and we drove back there. And she goes, look where we're at, Tom. - From Florida. - We're in Hollywood, man. We're on the back to the future. We're at Universal. And you're making your own television show. - Did you see back to the future where Theroni came out? - No, of course. - Yeah. - So what a, you know, 10 years later, there it is. That's the kind of, you know, what strikes me when I'm out there is that everything's so familiar. And you're like, there's the thing. It's, that's the one we saw on the thing. - Yeah. - After that, you felt a little bit better. - Yeah, I mean, I was less pissed off. I mean, it's, you know, now that my sister is no longer of this earth, I think back. - That's a great memory to have. - Things like that. And it really makes it all worth it, you know? Even though it was frustrating, the show had nothing to do with me. - It's still a thing most people never get to experience. - And most comedians, you never have their own show and never have it named after them. - Yeah. - So I mean, like it took many years. I was angry at the missed chance. - Justifiable. - And the, you know, the way I, you know, I had to live under this promise that every next week, next week, the script will get better next week. - Yeah, it does. - And it's an abusive relationship. - Yeah. - I love you, baby. Next week, we'll do the fine. - But I really, really believed in my cast. And I thought the cast, I think the writers really had to work hard to fuck up that show. - Yeah, which makes it worse, because you thought that for everyone involved, who couldn't-- - Well, I think they've all gone on to have great careers. But I think if you look at that cast that I had, it was not-- - They blew it. - They blew it. - For them. - It wasn't just some scenario that was against all human odds, because we had everything. And even with the premise of it being a teacher show, and even though there were four teachers shows that year, and even though it was not an original premise for an American sitcom, the power and talent of that cast that I had, I think it should have gone longer. - I think it stood out. I remember enjoying it, and it definitely stood out among the other three shows, 'cause I think Nick Frino was-- - He was Dennis Frino, right? Was it Dennis Frino that was Nick Frino licensed teacher? - It was an actor that I really liked. And I remember being like, "I don't like the show." I remember a lot like it didn't seem cliched or trite, you show. It stood out. It wasn't the most groundbreaking thing on the air, but I was like, "Oh, this is different," you know? And there were some critics that enjoyed it. I remember reading some. - It was 50/50. I remember the New York Times like it, LA Times didn't. Entertainment Weekly did not like it, just let people magazine did. They did a little highlight of me that year. So it seemed to be right down the middle of 50/50. - So then you moved, when did you move to Holland? Was it early 2000s? - Well, then after that sitcom, I looked at my money as my NBC artist, Grant. - Right, and I moved to New York City. I had lived in New York when I was 20, like a dog. - Miserable. - And I was swore if I ever had any money, I would live in New York with style. So I got a rock star apartment in the Wall Street area. - Nice. - And then also-- - That sounds like a sitcom. (laughing) - Should have been. That's the book. And then I started making trips over to London. - Yeah. - So I just wanted to focus on being a stand up. So I was living in New York, still doing road stuff around America. And then I started taking trips over to London. - Before you went to London, when you were at Post's show doing roadworks, though, were people coming out 'cause of the show, or did they know you from the show, or is it in that show? - Well, that was the most difficult part because I had kind of rose to whatever notoriety I had from Comedy Central. - Yeah. - And those were all my jokes. - Yeah. - Those were all things I had written. - That's you, yeah. - And then Viva Vietnam was my idea. - Right. - And so I had been living in San Francisco, and my audience went from tattoo punk rock lesbians to couples in their thirties, thinking that they were gonna see this, you know. - Nevish guy. - They got it from the sitcom. So yeah, that was strange and difficult. - But then you can go to London where they don't know the sitcom. - Exactly, it's your, they don't have any of that history. - Exactly. So I started making trips to London. I got in with London. - Yeah. - And then I was going to London a couple times a year, playing the comedy store, - Yeah. - Up the creek. And Camden junglers. - Yep. - And London was really, London completely opened up to me, and I got in with all the best clubs in London, and then that led to other gigs around Europe. - Right. - And I, you know, great gig in Paris, Amsterdam, everywhere. - Had you ever been to any of those places before this? - No. - So that's gonna be just a whole, I mean, taking that in must have been kind of crazy doing, especially doing comedy in-- - Yeah, I'd never been to Europe, but I mean, I always respect British comedians. - Right. - I mean, I love British comedies. So I thought, you know, if you're great, you know, it's like being in with New York, you know? And I had finally cracked New York, and I was living there and playing all the best clubs. And that was my intention. I kind of felt like TV didn't turn out the way I anticipated. - Did that, don't do it. - And the stand-up comedy was my first love, and so I wanted to get back to my first love. - And you can control it. - It's now all you. - Exactly. - You do the jokes you want to do. If someone says something about a hair and a crowd, you can respond. - Exactly. - You don't have all these people telling you what you can and can't do. - So, so I'm living in London. I got in, I'm living in New York, got in with London, and then I'm starting to take all these trips to Europe. The last year I was living in New York, I was going to London a lot, and then Europe, and then I played in Amsterdam, and I fell in love with a girl, and then I moved there on 2000. - Yeah, and then you had a talk show for what, four years, five years? - Then the relationship with a girl didn't work out, and I was just about to move back to the United States when these people from this Dutch television network saw me performing at Tumler, that's the best comedy club in Amsterdam, and they were looking for an American to notice the late night talk show like David Letterman. - So I ended up just starting to get a job. - Did you watch Letterman at the time, and when you were watching the late night shows to watch stand-ups, but Letterman in the mid-80s was like the youth standing up. - No, are you kidding me? I worshiped Letterman. What's funny is my wife doesn't like Letterman. And-- - She's only seen him now? - She's only seen him in the latter year. - It's very different. - And I've tried to explain to her how groundbreaking and how edgy he was, and you know, he used to do viewer mail on Thursdays, and I was such a fan. I would, in class I had, I worked in the library for one of my hours where I would check people's books out, put books back, do the Dewey Decimal System and all that stuff. And they had, you know, period. I looked up everything that had anything to do with comedy. And that was great about working in the library. That was before Google, you know, where you had to like consult the card catalog for anything to do with comedy. So I would sit there at the library checkout desk, and I would compose these letters to David Letterman trying to be funny because I wanted him to read it on viewer mail. - Did you ever get anything on? - No, yeah. - No. If I did, I wasn't watching. - Yeah. - But, so yeah, then I got to be a late night talk show guy in Amsterdam. So I did that for three years and then, and then it was mostly the Dutch celebrities, but we would have a few visiting Americans. Steve-o. - Tenacious D. - From Jackass. Tenacious D was on, that's on YouTube where I got to give him a tour of Amsterdam. - So people there though, finally, we're seeing you on TV as you. - More or less. - But it's in Amsterdam. - Yeah, and that's the funny thing is they, one of the called the show Kevin Masters because they bought the concept where we would find an American and he has this flashy show, his name, Kevin Masters. So the funny thing about the "Mr. Road" show was I played Tom Rhodes. But the character had nothing to do with me. And then finally, I'm on television in Holland and I get to completely be myself. But the, it's called Kevin Masters. - That's the, that's the unique, the universal director. - And I'm waiting for one day, I will have my porridge and it will be just right. - Would you ever do a sitcom again? - Yeah, sure, but I would want to be the second banana. - Yeah. - I wouldn't want the love story. - Right, right. - I wouldn't want to be in charge of the nice advice. The comedic character to come in and joke, joke, joke. That's what I've always admired. And like I said, the person who can't be out with it. And it's like when you're heckled in a club, you don't shrug. - Yeah, go, well, I guess you go. - You don't shrug. You fucking, you go for the juggler. - And that's why people trip their heart out. - So then after the late night talk show in Amsterdam, as if that was not fortuitous enough, when that ended, the same network, you're in, now they're called Veronica. They let me be a presenter on a travel program. - Brings us back to a manual. You got to travel the world like in the Emmanuel series. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. - Exactly, exactly, without the sexual exploitation. - I can't remember the thing. - And then that was great. So I got to do a highlight on St. Petersburg, Russia, on Peru, one of the greatest trips I ever took in my life. I went to Peru and I filmed it. The Champagne region of France, the Dutch Caribbean. So I really had this dream life on Dutch television. - Which is kind of coming back to the Vietnam special almost. Like the first thing you got to do that wasn't stand up on TV. And it ends up, I mean, I know they're not exactly the same, but it's kind of similar. - Well, and they, I mean, yeah, yeah, they wanted to, I mean, in retrospect, I should have stayed with Comedy Central and just tried to push that show. But that stand up comedy did not exist around the world the way it does now. I just went back to Vietnam last June to do shows. I met a Vietnamese comedian, Minha Pham, and she's from Hanoi. She does stand up. - They stand up. - There's comedy all over Asia now. There's comedy all over Europe, all over the world. And I've been trying to push this television show where I'm the Anthony Bourdain of comedy, where I get to go check out comedy scenes around the world and highlight comedians from those places. So I filmed a pilot on my own on Malaysia, 'cause it's a Muslim country. You got Malay Muslims, Indian Hindu, and then Chinese people, that's the populace of the country, and that's the populace of their stand up scene. And they all ruthlessly make fun of each other's ethnicities and religions, which we would never do. 'Cause like, we're so politically correct. Oh, you can't make fun of Asians, if you're not Asian or whatever. So I've been trying to make this show for the past few years and Comedy Central said no, the travel channel said no. It's been about three years since I pitched it, and I keep making these little videos, but that is the dream television show that I want to make. - This travel show about comedy and-- - Yeah, about worldwide comedy, and what are people making jokes about in other countries? What's their humor like? - 'Cause it doesn't translate necessarily. And so whenever I watch a lot of foreign movies, and especially like Hong Kong movies, and whenever you watch the comedies, they're like, oh, this is very local Hong Kong humor, and I'm like, I don't think this is funny, but I'm fascinated by it, because I want to know why this is funny there. You know, that kind of thing is pretty fascinating, because it is-- - There's a great stand-up scene in Hong Kong. I'm going back there in May. - My friend, Joe Wong-Hang, there's a great financial analyst for Chinese television, Tony Chu, who does comedy. You can name any city in the world, and I know-- - Someone who does comedy. - Someone who does stand-up comedy there. - It's like-- - Because I've spent my life, you know, and that's the great thing. - That's your new-- - That's the way that the Mr. Road Show did not work out. - 'Cause you never would've got to do that. - Because I would've stayed living in the Hollywood Hills, and I would not have been the stand-up comedian that I am today. I would not have traveled the world doing comedy the way I have, and you know, I don't live anywhere. I've had everything in storage for nine years. - You're okay with that? - I love it. My beautiful photographer wife travels with me, and you know, I love it. I think that's where I get my adrenaline rush. Some people like to jump out of airplanes, or rock climb, or whatever. For me, the adrenaline rush is to go to a different country and not know if certain jokes are gonna work, and then while you're up there, you have to make this mental adjustment in your brain, and that's frankly where I get my rocks off. - In a chess game, it's a cat and mouse of what can you-- I always think it's like when people watch a Sherlock Holmes thing, you know, and he's like deducting, and then it all works out. When you're on stage in that works that way, that's the kind of like sense of satisfaction you get. You're like, "Yes, I solved the mystery here." - Yeah, and just to stand on stage in a different country, gripping a microphone, making people laugh. I mean, I love it. - And trying to be universal without being stupid. - Yeah, well, stupid comedy won't work, and regional comedy won't work. You have to have some kind of intelligence for, I mean, to play in London, or a whole lot more Amsterdam, and then be invited back the year after here. - They expect more of you. You can't sort of rely on crutches that people come here when they travel just in the U.S. So what was the first, I think the first thing I remember you doing, I was like, maybe MTV Half-Hour, Kanye? Was it the first thing you did, or had you done a late night set before that? - I think I had done evening at the improv first, but I did two MTV comedy half-hour shows. - And you really stood out on me. - And I had the long hair, and I killed it, and then they actually had auditioned me to be a VJ. - But were you interested in doing that? - Well, I wanted to be funny. - So I remember, and they got typical cable television. Yeah, we've only got $20 to film something. - Right, right. - And so we filmed something on Hollywood Boulevard, where I was like, talking to people and stuff. Yeah, nine. - 'Cause they were for what, 1990, maybe '91? - Maybe '91, '92? - That's when they hired Ben Stiller, and he was a VJ for a while, and Alex Winter from Bill and Ted had a show on there. They were like really just kind of throwing all this weird experimental stuff out at the time, and then MTV networks owned Comedy Central at the time, too, I think, right? Which that-- - Well, Viacom was a mall, right? But yeah, no, those MTV half-hour comedy hours were like, huge. And I got, you know, that a lot of people knew me from that before the, I think that helped with the Comedy Central. - Right, 'cause then you did the interstitial stuff on Comedy Central, which was very MTV-ish. I remember it seeming really-- - Yeah, they filmed my jokes like rock videos. - Right, you were like hanging from a-- - I was in a jail cell with a first set, and then the next set they did on the docks in New York City, those were great. - Yeah, I loved those, and they definitely stood out and made it, you know, to that point, when you were watching Comedy on TV, it was, even on the late night shows, it was an act that was unique. They still sort of had to fit into a late night show format, you know? If it was a guy that never wore a suit on stage when they were on "Let 'em in the Wearin' suit." You know, or they're-- - Yeah. - You know, Steve, so remember the Comedy Central? - I remember everybody, one of the best, one of those interstitial commercials I did was, at the time everybody was making fun of Chelsea Clinton-- - Right. - For being so ugly. - Well, ugly, right. - And I did this kind of love poem to her. - Right. - Where I think you're a sweet little biscuit, Chelsea Clinton, and I would love to braid your hair sometime. - Right. - And so I said, like, all these loving things about her, and I was kind of defending her. I thought it was really cruel. - Right. - And so like that was like-- - Oh man, I loved how you stood up for Chelsea, you know? - And I was living in San Francisco and like, you know, kind of just, you know, nerdy girls. - You're our voice. - Why? - Yeah. - You know, like, a lot of people thought it was really cool that I had done that. - Yeah, well, that stood out a ton because that was like, at the time the go to punchline, was like Chelsea Clinton. - Right. - It was like 13. - Yeah. - It was 12 or 13. - You mentioned me at 13 and not being able to turn on the television. - Just 'cause everyone's talking about how ugly you are. - Jesus. - That's Twilight Zone material right there. - Yeah. - I'm sure she, I wonder if that ever got back to her. As a nice thing, she's hosting the Today Show or why she's a correspondent on one of the TV stations now. So do you watch anything now? - Now when I watch things, it is, you know, 'cause I travel, it's always have to buy the season. - Right. - We watch Netflix a lot. My wife and I, we love documentaries. Documentaries are probably our number one thing. But, you know, we'll buy series and we'll watch the whole thing like Rome. - Louis. - I think the first three seasons of Louis were great. - Louis is great. I mean, that seems to capture a guy on a show. - Yeah. And that's great. You talk about the single camera shot versus the sitcom in front of a set shot. I think that, you know, that's the new paradigm on how. - Yeah. - But he's... - Comedy's are shot and not every comedy is gonna be that good, you know? - He's an interesting case too because you can actually look directly compared because he did that Lucky Louis Show, which was the three camera honeymooner show, but was still very him. And then Louis, which is the exact opposite, and they both work with him. It's weird. People hated Lucky Louis and I remember really liking it because I liked that someone was taking that format and doing something, then with it. Which people I don't think wanna take on. - Other than Barney Miller, what were some of the other shows that you absolutely loved as a kid? Was there anything else that you absolutely was appointment television that was your show? Or maybe your siblings didn't like and you always had to fight for? - Family ties was big. Me and my sister used to watch that. We loved the brother-sister relationship. And I thought it was funny that the parents were left-wing intellectuals and that he rebels by being a hardcore Republican. I thought that was a great premise. Taxi, cheers, SNL. - What was your favorite era from SNL? - I would say the Eddie Murphy years. - Okay, yeah. - The Lauren Michaels this year is the 80 to 85. - Was he not there? - He left in '79 in the first cast and then Dick Eversle, actually Jean Durranian, came in. She was there for the first half of 1980, which was the disaster when they had. - When I wasn't writing letters to David Letterman, I was writing letters to Eddie Murphy. - Yeah, yeah. - He was close to your age too. I mean, he was only 17 years on that show. - You know, you're a kid, you think. That's why when people send me fan emails, I always write them back. 'Cause I know-- - What it's like? - How much it would have meant if someone would have asked me back. And then I got whack-job fan letters when I did the "Mr. Rhodes" show. I remember some guy writing me saying that the Rockefeller's owned NBC. - Right, conspiracy. - And they were involved in a communist conspiracy to overthrow democracy in America. And because I now worked for NBC, I was implicated in their communist plot to overthrow America. And I wrote the guy back. - We read them back. - Yeah, fuck yeah, I did. I wrote him back a very short note. Dear Bob, whatever, I may be a communist, but it has nothing to do with the Rockefeller's. - That's amazing. - Sincerely, Tom Rhodes. - And then he didn't write you back. - No. - 'Cause normally they screen that stuff for a lot of them. - Yeah, no. - They just gave you everything. - No. - Yeah, that's great. When I worked at the local NBC affiliate, I was the person who screened the mail when I was in college. And I kept all the craziest shit. Like people, this guy sent us plans. He made for a time machine. There was a guy who had this utopian society design that we would live in domes. They would just send them. I still have a lot. - That's funny. This is the great thing about the Gerald Ford Museum and Grand Rapids, Michigan, is they have a display of all the whack job letters that were written to him. - You stole my patent for your hair, or like whatever bizarre things. - Yeah. - Yeah, there was all kinds. My favorite time was this guy sent in a package with individual letters to all the news anchors, but he yelled it in one big package. So the individual letters didn't have postage on them. So, and they were crazy. There was some crazy thing. It wasn't threatening, but it was something about like, I don't know, angels are actually time traveling demons from some craziness. And so the weather man comes and gets his mail and a minute later he comes running and he's waving this letter in my face. He goes, "Why did you write this to me? "Why did you write this to me?" I'm like, "What are you talking about? "I'm writing this to you." He goes, "You think I don't know? "I know this came from in here. "There's no postage on it." And I'm like, "It was in this package "with all the other ones." - Wow. - And then he was like, "Oh, sorry." I'm like, "You think I'm writing crazy letters?" - Back off, left in this one. - Were you a Bailey or were you a... - Bailey, the nerdy girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've never been, I've never like blonde women. - Yeah, I was gonna, I'm always like, I'm always like nerdy girls with glasses and dark hair. - This goes back to your show where you're saying that. - Maybe though, I think. - She was the Bailey. - Why I think Lindsey Sloan was so beautiful. - The Sloan was your Bailey. - She was my Bailey. - Yeah, there you go. - You have to do it, Bailey. (laughing) Thank you so much for doing the show. - I can have been an absolute pleasure, man. And, you know, gosh, thanks for having me on. Now I'm very proud of the "Mr. Road" show. - You should be. (laughing) There may be families that, that was their show. They heard the "Mr. Road" theme music. - And then they would have danced in front of the, now see that would make me very happy. - There you go. I'm sure that happened. We can't prove it didn't. - I was happy that, you know, it took many years to get over my frustrations and the things that I was unhappy about and the fact that I wouldn't get any jokes. But my wife has helped remind me that, you know, "Hey, man, you had your own sitcom." - Right. - And it lasted for an entire season. - Yeah. - It was not-- - One episode. - It was not dumped loudly, you know, after a few episodes, I got to do an entire season. And-- - There's not many people that are in that list. - Right. I mean, like the, I remember growing up with the baseball encyclopedia. And if you played in one inning in the Major Leagues, your name was in that book. - Yeah, you're in the book. - But, you know, I had a whole season with my name on the show. - Yeah. - And I'm still good friends with, you know, some of the people, my cast mates, that I never probably would have met otherwise. - And if there's a kid working-- - Steven Tobolowski is a good friend of mine. - Yeah. - You know? - Wrong glass from Barney Mudd. - Wrong glass. - You were watching with your mom and your sister. - How many people have that? - Yeah, that's amazing. And television was sort of able to give you that. - And like I was gonna say, that I never would have had that great life in Europe. - Right. - Having my own late night talk show in Amsterdam and doing the travel show, none of that would have happened. - If you were done five seasons. - If it wasn't from my NBC artist grant. And, you know, I still love NBC and I'm still grateful that I had that experience. - Yeah, sometimes things just end up working themselves out in a way that they're kind of supposed to work out, I think. - Mm. - Which is interesting. - Thank you so much. - Thanks Ken. (upbeat music) - And there we go, that was Tom Rhodes, really, really great guy. As I said, smart guy, interesting guy, really enjoyed spending some time with him and getting the chat. As always, you can find me at TVguidenscounselar@gmail.com. You can email me at canadaicandread.com. TV guidance on Twitter, our Facebook page. Make sure you like those. Also, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes because I do episodes not just on Wednesdays. I might do them on a Friday or a Saturday. Who knows? If you don't subscribe, you may miss out. And if you like the show, please rate and review the show. It really helps get up the iTunes charts and makes more people hear about the show, which is always very nice. So, once again, thank you for listening and we'll see you again next time on TV guidancecounselar. (upbeat music) - I wanted to be a gardener, but the point is probably moot. I love gay people and I personally find bitchy queer humor is at the top of my lips. - Oh, absolutely. - I think you're a sweet little biscuit, Chelsea Clinton, and I would love to braid your hair sometime.
