- 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 you, welcome. It's Wednesday, it's time for TV Guidance Counselor, and it's time for an all new episode of TV Guidance Counselor. And I guess this week is the one and only Mr. Alan Havy. Now Alan is a stand up comedian and an actor, and somebody that I've talked about on the show frequently, he did a show called Night After Night on the original comedy channel. That was a huge, huge influence to me. We talked to Paul Provenza a couple weeks back, and he was also sort of in that group, and along with Mr. Science Theater 3000, and a lot of stuff, we talk about it with Alan in here, but this was a very important show to me, and he was an important stand up and still is to me, and was seminal in developing sort of the things that I like doing as a performer, and the things that I love watching, and he couldn't have been a nicer guy. If you're unfamiliar with him as a stand up, you probably saw him most recently in Mad Men. He had a pretty big role there, and we talk about that as well. So he was nice enough to sit down with me the last time I was out in Los Angeles, and I think you will enjoy our conversation. I certainly enjoyed having it. So please welcome my guest this week, Mr. Alan Havy. ♪ It's like TV moves ♪ ♪ Pretty soon you won't be able to turn it off at all ♪ ♪ All you do ♪ - Mr. Alan Havy, thank you so much for doing this. - Oh, sure, my pleasure, thanks for coming out. - Absolutely, and I need no excuse to come out to a beautiful part of the country. - Yeah, Santa Monica. Nobody found out about it till about 15, 20 years ago. I mean, people have discovered it, but it's really exploded. - Yeah, people live here now, they're not just like making a day trip. - Yeah, well, I mean, it was like after World War II, at McDonald Douglas, it was basically a community of aviation workers, mostly out here. And then it turned into like people kind of got it. - Yeah, that's amazing. It's nice, yeah. - It is, it's great. - Yeah, for me as a comedian, it's close to the airport. So when I do have to travel, it's never a hassle. - Yeah, and a friend of mine, a couple trips here ago, I stayed in his place in Malibu, and he was like, yeah, and it's also among the roads so much that when I'm home, it's like I'm on vacation. - Yeah, that's pretty good. - But Malibu to me is like, if the PCH, somebody drops a pencil on the PCH, you're screwed. - Right, right. - You want a little thing shut down. - It's like, and I love the Hollywood Hills, they're beautiful, but once you get up there, if you want to get a stick of gum, you gotta wind down a damn road. - Oh yeah, we're staying up there now, and it's, I can't get the New England out of me. So every time we're up there, I'm like, this is pretty nice, but in the winter, you're going to be screwed with these hills. I'm like, oh, it doesn't, I can never get that out of my head. So you grew up in Missouri, is that right? - No, it was born in St. Louis. - Oh, it was in Louis, okay. - But I was raised in Miami. - Oh, got one in Miami, okay. - On the 850s, I was born in '54, I think we moved down there in '57. - And was that your dad's work or something? - No, he just decided he wanted to get an out of St. Louis. He was born and raised there, he didn't like the winners. Yes, I sometimes. - And so in Miami was a, you know, burgeoning city in the late '50s. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. - So he went down there and got into the moving business, and then that didn't work out, so he got in the car rental and truck business and-- - And a huge comedy talent that time too, right? There was like a lot of like, hold over comics from the '30s and '40s. - Never was exposed to that. - Right, right. - I mean, you had the hotels on the beach where Sinatra came down at Dean Martin and, you know, I guess they had the lounge comics there. - Yeah, yeah. - My mom worked at a switchboard at the Thunderbird Hotel. - Okay, yeah. - And later she told me about some comedians that were there. Guys had never heard of. - Right, right, right. - But he was funny, she said, "Well, that guy will never make it 'cause he's too blue." He works blue. And so that was true even back in the '60s. - Yeah, and then we're just doing niche sort of blue stuff down there for those, for people on vacation, that was like, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I didn't, you know, I saw the ads in the paper. - Right. - And only, like, you know, maybe five, six miles away. - Right, it never appealed. - No, well, we'd have a lot of money growing up. We're Catholics, four kids, private school. That's where the money went. - Yes, absolutely. It's like, we're having leftovers again so you can go to school. - Yeah, exactly, you know, enjoy your butter sandwich. - Right, how many kids were in the family? It was four. - Okay, so it's still a small Catholic family for the first party. - Yeah, I guess, so that, but it was fun growing up in Miami. I mean, 'cause they grew up there, it was fun. - It's weird how many comics I know, actually, who are from Florida, and people don't associate them with Florida at all. Like, Todd Barry's from Florida. And, you know, people always, especially New York comics, they're like, that person from Florida? - Once you get to New York, you become a New Yorker, or you get out, you know, you adapt to it. So, I think my brother told me, even when I was a kid, I was more of a New Yorker. - You just had that old soul New Yorker kind of thing going on? - Yeah, it was just that, well, my father used to wake me up when I was eight years old to watch Johnny Carson with him. He was into entertainment, and he knew I loved it, and that's something he shared. So, to me, the appeal of, okay, the Johnny Carson show when I was in New York, where the world's fair, '64, and then the New York Yankees. - It had that magic of a city. - Yeah, it was just like, that was place to eat. Jackie Gleason, before he moved down to Miami. Kind of almost devalued him when he came to my hometown. And no, this isn't where you wanna be in New York. - You wanna be in the only mooders. This is not Miami. - And, you know, he would always say, "New York audiences are the greatest phonemes in the world." And when he came down to Miami Beach audiences are the greatest audiences in the world. - Right. - I got bullshit. - Yeah. - No way. - This is the art of this. I understand now. - Yeah. - So when you were interested in entertainment and comedy and that sort of thing, was that mostly from your dad, it sounds like he explains to that every kind of-- - That was the first exposure, but in kindergarten, I was cast as a priest in the graduation ceremony. And we had to speak into a giant tape recorder. We had to say our names. Which in 1960, it might as well have been a Saturn rocket. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. - The technology, how can our voices fit on that brown tape? - And having access to that, you would need to be some sort of, it would have to be an institution that on that thing. People didn't own record. - No, the school. - Yeah, yeah. - You know, the parish. So we all spoke our names into it and I was really into it in my voice when it came on, was loud and queer and everybody just kind of looked at me. So I nailed my first audition. - Excellent, excellent. - And in the ceremony, adults were smiling and laughing. I'm like, "Wow." At the time, I didn't know it, but when I look back and go, "That had to be it." - Right, that's when you discovered the thing you like. - The value of laughter, the value of the attention, especially from adults who were in that era, children were seen and not heard. - Oh, absolutely, absolutely. - I mean, way back burner. You know, they liked kids, they looked out for us, but we were not part of the-- - They did not speak to you like a peer at all, right? - No, not today. - I'm your parent, I'm your friend, was not a thing. - You know, I remember when kids started speaking up at the dinner table and talking and going on and on about things and I look at the parents and the tolerating-- - What'd you do wrong? - No, no, like, modern day. - Why are you letting your kid talk so much? - Right. - This is not right. I don't want to hear about his day. - They're supposed to save this up and do it in college. What do you think was it right then? - Or go in the room and write it in the journal. - Yes, I don't hear your crap, you know. - So what other shows you watch in the Tonight Show but I imagine some kid stuff too at that time? - Oh yeah, well, the Three Stooges saw a lot of Buster Keaton, Joy Champ on those early silent comedies. Twilight Zone was huge. - Yeah, which, weirdly, I've found that almost all the comedians I know, Twilight Zone resonated and it seems like a disconnect 'cause although Twilight Zone did have some comedy episodes, they also, their structure was pure comedy in the punchlines of those shows. - Yeah. - It's like learning how structure works that can easily be applied to comedy and you can figure it out. You can see it comin'. - But some people couldn't, which is interesting and I always had that reaction too. If I do a joke that I'm like oh come on, you guys didn't know that that's what was coming. - Right. - But it's almost the same way. There was like some of the kids that watched Twilight Zone were like yeah, that's what's gonna happen and people were like how did you know? It's like it's obvious. It's definitely been telegraphing it. So it's almost like-- - Like you're finding people, my age, whatever they're doing, Twilight Zone was huge. - Oh yeah. - Television was bigger than because you had three, maybe four channels. - Right. - You had no choice, really. You had to watch what was on. - Right. If my parents watched something, I would watch as long as I was quiet because it was on TV. Anything on TV had value. Everything. Even a problem you didn't understand, you knew these guys were gonna get done talking and eventually something was gonna come on. - You would watch things you didn't necessarily like hoping that the thing you would like would come on eventually. - Or something would come on. - Yeah. - Just the fact that was on television. A gatekeeper had said, "This is good." - Oh, it just, it's just interesting 'cause it was on television that had to be important. It's not like, you know, certainly not like today or even once cable access started in the eighties. - It's sort of the best of times and worst of times with things now because since everyone has access to everything, there are people who might have been marginalized before who could have done amazing things on television just didn't have access, but that's few and far between everyone who just goes, "I could be on this." - Well, there was a period in the eighties where you would literally go through 60 channels and nothing captured you. So that's what you did, but now you have no excuse. There's always something out there. - You just have to, it's, you know, get to this in a moment too, talking about now after night, which is specifically was a huge show for me. There was sort of 57 channels and nothing on in the eighties and now it's almost the opposite where you've gotten so many things. It's all great stuff is available to you, but at the same time people-- - And I include Netflix and Amazon and Hulu. - Yeah, and YouTube and you have Yahoo jumping in and Amazon-- - And sing all these things in Amazon where it reminds me of sort of the golden age of some of the eighties cable networks where they just needed content. And so you would get two things. You would get exposed to great old things like the Marx Brothers and 1930s serials and all kinds of amazing things that they were just getting 'cause it was cheap, but great. And people who necessarily wouldn't have gotten, you know, a network television show are now kind of getting to run free and do weird stuff because no one's kind of watching and they kind of just need stuff on. And so you're getting some interesting things being made. - Absolutely, you know, I mean, with some Louis CK found his niche in Louis on FX where they kind of let him alone. That would have never happened on a network. - Absolutely not because you have like a-- - And still doesn't. - No, it absolutely still doesn't. Which is why they didn't win anything this year in the Golden Globe. - Is that true? - They didn't win a, it was the first time in history a network show did not win a single award. - Wow. - Which is-- - But that's a change in the guard. - Absolutely. - You know, you wanna watch House of Cards or Transparent? I caught up with Breaking Bad on Netflix. I hadn't been watching for four years and then I started watching and I was addicted. And it's changing the way people watch things as well because most people marathon these shows. So House of Cards, it's like, we released all the episodes at once. And could you imagine if a network was like, we're gonna show all 13 episodes of the show in one day at once for this time? - It's even better than that 'cause you watch it when you can. - Exactly. - So watch three episodes a day. I mean, Netflix, I remember when the second season started, I said, okay, I'm gonna pace myself. I'm gonna be disciplined. I'm gonna watch each episode and then I'll let it soak in my head and give myself time, four days later. - You don't, you just go, yeah. And it's such a strange, I mean, if you could imagine being a kid and you're watching "Kana Whatever" is on and waiting for whatever's next, it's a million years away from that. - Yeah, when you're a kid, it's one. But even now, like Mad Men are what's-- - Yes. - And then when I cut up the Breaking Bad, my wife and I watched "Downton Abbey" together, it's like, we have a show on Sundays. It's Mad Men when it's on and now it's "Downton Abbey." And-- - This is still that sort of family appointment television time. - Yeah, and I kinda like that too. - Yeah. - You know, so I have the best of both worlds. - But it's in your hands, you can kind of make that family appointment television time, kind of whatever you want. - Once it, yeah, once it airs. - Yeah. - Like on, once it's broadcast and you DVR it. - You have the power now, which is crazy. - Yeah, so when I was watching football, I kind of took a year off football this year 'cause of the concussion stuff. I would tape a game, stay away from the computer and just go about my day and then watch speed football, which as soon as the play's over, zip it up until the quarterback's over the ball. - I would watch football if it was like that. - It is, it is, it's like that if you want it to be. It's an hour, maybe an hour, 15 minutes to watch a football game. And you see the patterns of the play. So I kinda like that, although life sports, you know, baseball I watch, but I can't step through baseball. - Right, right, right. It depends on the sport and stuff as well. I think, but they're changing the way that they air them and it's kind of the way the games are as well. It's sort of changed, since people are sort of fueling the way that things are made now because of the way they watch it, which is interesting to me. And I don't know. - Yeah, but you can't watch a baseball game. - No. - Zip through, or you're not gonna save the World Series. - Right, absolutely. - And then zip through it. - Yeah, absolutely. - That would be almost criminal. - So you mentioned Mad Men, and I know that you were in several episodes of Mad Men. Was that a show that you watched before you were on it? - Oh yeah. So that was it. - It was at my absolute favorite show. - So that must have been nuts. - Yeah, that happened with Letterman and Carson. - Right, right. - But no, not in-- - A fictional show is different though. - Yeah, and I guess there was a show of Louie. - Yes. - You know, I wanted to be on Louie, but it wasn't. But I see I knew Louie, and I knew there might be a possibility. - And you're also playing like a fictionalized version of yourself, or being yourself from things like Letterman and-- - I played myself on Louie too, so. But that was kind of nice when I got the call from Louie, "Hey, do you want to do this?" - Right. - And that was just as exciting as doing Letterman. - But Madman was kind of a world that I wanted to get in. - Right, you're like time traveling almost too. - Yeah, and I mean, I knew that Eric growing up, I would be Sally Draper's age. - Right. - She would have been a pair of mine when I was a kid. - It was just a thrill, a surreal situation, not only to be on the show, but the character took over for Draper. - Right. - So that was something I could never dream of. - Did you and your wife watch it when it aired? Like, you watched it normally anyway? - Well, we, no, we went to the premiere. We got to go to the premiere if they aren't. - That's crazy. - You know, and then go to the party and hang out, drink, and yeah, it is probably the greatest thing that's happened in my career. - 'Cause you're such a fan of it. - Yeah, it's that little, this is why we're in the business, you know? You know, I'd never really been jaded too much about that stuff, but this is like, this is like, little Jimmy hits the home run. - Yeah. - But for the team, that's never happened to me. - And you always have it too. Like, you can always pull that up and relive it whenever you want. - Yeah. - But, I don't know if you would, but-- - Well, Mad Men, 'cause I like the show. And I still got into the show this year, even though I was in it, which was weird. - That kind of points to how good a show can be, though, if you can even lose yourself in it. - Absolutely, yeah. - Yeah, that's, it's a great show. So, I will re-watch Mad Men episodes just to watch a show, that I never re-watched my old night after night shows. - Yeah. - You know, at one time, a comedy special came up, I was staying at a friend's house, and I was doing a weatherman the next day. - Right. - So I kind of watched that, you know, 'cause you just popped up on HBO. - Right, right. - But I don't sit around and watch what I've done. - Right. - It's not healthy. - Right, especially I think for comedians where you're doing things that you generate as well. Like, Mad Men, you're playing with someone else's, you know, tools, and so it's easier to re-watch because it's not, "Oh, I should have done this," or, "Oh, why didn't I say this instead," or that sort of stuff. - Exactly, or, "Gee, why did they take that take?" - Right. - I had no problem. - I, you know, it's their show. - Right. - It's their train. I'm hopping on board and chugging along with them. - Right, so that was fun. - Right. - Not having to worry about, you know, the writing was perfect, the direction was clear, the acting is solid. - Right. - So there's no, the crew is great, so there was no problems. - So you moved to New York to pursue stand-up? Was it the first sort of stand-up? - It was mostly pursue acting. - Okay, so you want to be an actor first? - I was a theater major for Otis State. I had a partner, John McFarland. We got a comedy team going in Tallahassee. I didn't want to do stand-ups. - Right. - Too intimidating. So we get to New York and I, a buddy of mine was there and he has some extra rooms. We became roommates. - Right. - Happened to be right by the improv in Hell's Kitchen. So I'd walk by there and knowing I should be in there but being afraid of that. And my partner and I went to smaller bee clubs to do our thing. And then after a year or two, I decided to go off my own and do stand-up. - Just 'cause you're like, you got less intimidated or you kind of got the someone you're built and you're like, "All right, I think I can do it." - Well, I'd see other comedians - Right. Open mics. - Yes. - And my partner and I had to rehearse and write and perform and get that together. And John and I had different sensibilities which made it work and then didn't make it. - It's more work though. I mean, I-- - Much more work when you're working with someone else. - Yeah. And I was in a band for years before it had stand-up and it's almost a similar thing where you go, if I have to do this thing, I have to convince these three other people to go this way and it might not come out how I was thinking and then we have to practice it and get our equipment. But with stand-up, although we have our material and we have our stuff, you are just, you step on a stage and you can do whatever you want. - That's what appealed to me. - Yeah. - I control everything except what happens in the quad. - Right, right. - You know. So you're there and then the first TV thing I remember seeing you on was probably Letterman. Was that your first time? - No, '84. Lauren Michaels had a show on prime time. - The new show. - The new show. I got cast in that. - And that was a weird show. That's kind of people don't appreciate how cool that show was. - Yeah, I think at the time they saw it as a rehash of what he did on Saturday Night Live but there was a lot of very interesting skits, some great writers. - Amazing, Jeff Goldblum was on it for a lot of TV people. - Goldblum, John Candy. - Catherine O'Hara. - Catherine O'Hara, Gilda Ratner, Steve Martin a couple times. I got to meet and watch Randy Newman work, Paul Simon. So it was all of a sudden you're working the clubs and nope, here you are. - And did you audition for that? Or Lauren Michaels, okay. So, and I imagine you watched SNL. - Oh yeah. - Yeah. - When that came on when I was in college, it was like, what is this? - Oh, you're a prime audience for it. - What is this going on? Oh my God. - It was mind-blowing. - Yeah, SNL first came on. Now it's been on what, 40 years? - 40 years, it's the man now. - Yeah, it's all interchanging, new cast, everything. Back then, it was like, you really got to know each one of these players and then, you know, Chevy left early, like, what's he doing? But then Bill Murray comes along, whole, you know, look at this guy and he hasn't, once he started doing his own thing, you didn't miss Saturday Night Live. - You were at a party Saturday. - Everyone shot. - You put the TV on. - And if they ain't shut up, you ask them to step outside and go to another room. - Right, yeah, and people, I think people don't understand that that's literally how people would watch these things. It was like, it's on now, not only that, but it's actually live, which was a novelty at the time. So, we really do have to watch it right now. - Even if it wasn't live, if something aired, you had to be there. - Yeah, absolutely. - Absolutely. - We didn't know about VCR. So, it wasn't anything convenient. That's the way television worked. - So, the new show was fairly short-lived. That was only about 10 episodes before? - 12, yeah. - 12, 12, yeah. - And was a big deal at the time, because Lauren Michaels had stepped away from SNL for probably three or four years. - Five years. - He had come back for that. - Yeah, five years. So, that was a huge get and a huge boost in my career. And then, as the show went on, I realized it's not gonna last. So, I had to adjust my mind to, this is a great opportunity as much as you can. I got on, I called Lauren later and got on as kind of an extra on SNL with no lines, but my stand-up was taking off then, and I figured my Saturdays would be better off if I did stand-up. - Yeah, because when you were on SNL, you have no life outside of SNL. - Well, it didn't get to that point. I guess I could have ingratiated myself in a row, but it's not ironic, and I know people listening to what, you pass this up, but no, stand-up was more important at the time, because I can control the content. - Absolutely. - And I could travel. - And the path was more clear, I think, then, too, because for SNL, which at that point, so that was probably about $5.86 when Lauren Michaels came back. - $84. - $84. So, this was the, when you had that first return cast was like Anthony Michael Hall and Terry Sweeney. - Yeah, and. - Jump love it, it's, yeah. - And outside of love, it's made for the people. Didn't seem that exciting. - Right, right. - And I felt no go this way. - Yeah. - You know, you have a choice to make here. - Yeah, and I think people, you know, it wasn't the institution that it is now. It was year 10, but it could evolve. - I think it almost ran off the air. - It did several times. In '85, they basically brought, Lauren Michaels back, they said, this is the last try, and they had prepped three or four of the shows to replace it, which included Mike Nesmith's TV parts, which he was doing. - Right. - And Nesmith didn't end up wanting to do it, but Jack Handy ended up jumping from that to SNL. - Right. - And then you had- - And Jack Handy was with us in the new show. - Yes, yes. So he went from new show to this, Mike Nesmith produced television parts show and then back over SNL in a weird way. And then they also did a pilot, a 90 minute sketch show pilot with Leno in the SNL slot. - I didn't know they were gonna try to replace SNL with. Because before that, they had been grooming SCTV to replace SNL in the early '80s, the first time Lauren Michaels left. 'Cause they had that as the 90 minute show on Friday nights and they were like, we'll just slot it right over to Saturday, but that didn't work out. - No. - So it could have been like live comedy. - Yes, it could have easily fallen apart. So it makes perfect sense that you would be like, "Hmm, I don't know." - Well, yeah, it was just like, no, the stand up was so rich, and I got so much out of it at the time. And then I wound up getting in a letterman in '86. That was my first appearance. - And that was the height of Letterman's, it started kind of culty, but by '86, people were really like letters of thing. - Yeah, that was, it surpassed as far as comedians' desires. Everyone wanted to get on the tonight show, 'cause it was Johnny and it was Yankee Stadium. But the hip or show, and the more desirable show, at least to the comedians I knew in New York, was Letterman. - Yeah, well, I think you were more likely to get an audience that saw you on Letterman and was now a rabid fan of you. Whereas people watched Carson probably more passively at that time, because it was such an institution. - Maybe, no, I think that came a little later. That came like in the late '80s. I think people still liked, and up 'til he went off the air, loved Carson, so that was still the main show. But there was a hit-ness and a future to Letterman. - It was new, it was doing things that, not necessarily that people hadn't seen before, but that people hadn't seen in that way. - They hadn't seen it before, believe me. They hadn't seen this, when the show wraps and Letterman and Paul go up to a bunk bed, like they were in a dormitory, and they extend the show and you're watching, "What the hell are they doing?" That was new. - Just playing with the format stuff, and almost taking things like Ernie Kovacs and the sort of-- - Steve Allen. - Steve Allen, but giving it this edge and presenting it to, it was what SNL appealed to when you were in college, the kids who were in college when that Letterman was on probably, that was there at an all at that point. It was sort of supplanted. - Yeah, it's a good parallel. - So I remember seeing you on Letterman at the time, and enjoying your stand. There was still a point you made, and it might have been in your first or second while I remember about cleaning the arm before you easily inject somebody with the-- - Right, that was like four, my focus fit. - Okay, okay. - And then for anything about that, Larry Bubbles Brown, terrific comedian lives in San Francisco. We had the exact same joke about Swam. We feel injection, did they swam the arm of alcohol? 'Cause if anyone infects you, we just wanna kill you. I did it the week before, or maybe a couple days before, he was gonna be on. And he did the second week when you can't do that joke. Maybe he just did it. Now, six months later, three months later, Letterman did it in his monologue. - Really? - Yeah. - And I guess it came from one of the writers, but no one remembered that I had done it. And someone said, "Well, should you call me on up?" "You know, I still wanna do the show." He did the joke. - Yeah, you know, I make a point. - Nobody stole it, somebody just came up with it. - Yeah, it's parallel thinking. I mean, it's logically, it makes perfect sense to have that joke, so it makes sense. - And Larry didn't get it from me, and I didn't get it from Larry. - Right, right. - And Letterman didn't say, "Hey, let's do Havey's joke." - Right, right. - One of the writers probably wrote it. No, yeah, this is funny. - Yeah, and they're not gonna have an encyclopedic knowledge of every bit everyone's done on the show, ever. It's not like they could start-- - 15 years later, Robin Williams did the joke in one of his specials, "My brother calls me," "Hey, aren't you gonna call Robin Williams?" No, it's, I've done the joke, it's there. - I was on Letterman already. - Yeah. - I didn't really deal with it. - Yeah, and he probably hadn't even done that bit and God knows how long. - Yeah, I hadn't done it in a while. - Yeah. - You know. - So you're doing these spots on Letterman, and you were on, what, six or seven times? - I've done 10. - 10, okay. - And I'd like to get my 11th and before he waves. - Yes. - I've gotta call in, but the producers are young and they're going after young people, but I feel I would like to get here one more time. - Was that the time that you, well, so the new show, was that the thing that your parents were like, you're doing it now? - Well, I'm on television. - Yeah, they're like, you're making it. - Yeah, in their eyes, that's the only thing, by the way, that people, and it's so frustrating, 'cause I know so many successful comedians, but they haven't done sitcom, they haven't done Letterman or, and they're not legitimate in some people's eyes, and it's such garbage. - Yeah, because it's this old institution, like I have not had a TV spot, and, but I've been on some podcasts that actually get twice or three times the amount of listeners that we're watching Ferguson, or that we're watching, you know, that watch that Myers, but at the same time, you're like, oh, but it would be, people would be like, well, you did that. - Yeah. - So it's not even a volume thing, it's sort of the esteem of television still, because it's the institutional media. - It's being on television. - Yeah. - It's not having a podcast, it's not getting on YouTube, or I'm on a web series, which is now much more prestigious. - Right. - But yeah, people from your hometown, they, unless you're on television, you're not successful. - Right, right. - Which is garbage. - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you're making a living at a thing that you like doing, and you're good at, you're successful. - Yeah, hey, you're a lawyer, but you're not arguing a case before the Supreme Court. - Yeah. - Then you're not a real lawyer. - Right. - You know. - Or you have a TV show like Nancy Grace. - Right, you know. - Or I didn't see your personal injury at during the soap, so you must not be doing being a lawyer. - But if they see your personal injury, hey, you're on television. - Right, you're really good at it. - You're really good at it. - Yeah, it's such an odd thing, that it would culturally, that it really should put TV on that aspect. - And the sad thing is a lot of comedians buy that. - Oh, absolutely. - And it's easy for me to say, 'cause I've had television exposure for 30 years here and there, but I'm not that well-known. I'm not a star, I'm not like, you know. But then people say, oh, you, you know, mad men, people were so happy for you. Oh, finally you made it. It looks like, yeah, it's good. - But I've been making it, huh? - Yeah, I've been doing it and popping up on TV now and then, you know, traveling and playing nice rooms and it's like, don't feel sorry for me. - Yeah, yeah, it's a very weird, it's a very, very weird thing people have with how they judge your success. - In anything. - Yeah, yeah. - Probably, you know, if you're a registered nurse, that's successful, you probably have a career, but people say, oh, that's nice. - Couldn't be a doctor. - Yeah. - Or how much money do you make? - Right, right. - It's really sad. - Right. - And this wasn't happening when I was a kid. - Right, coming up in the '60s, we were gonna get rid of all that, what success is and how we're all gonna live in a brotherhood and, like, even with a black president, it ain't happening. - No, did you buy a new lot of that stuff in the '60s in Europe? - I bought into it all until Kennedy got shot. My brother and I, my dad took us from grade school in the middle of the day, pulled us out. We thought our mom was sick now. Mom's mind took us out to the airport and JFK and Jackie came out, this is November 18th, '63. - Yeah. - Just later, he was assassinated. - So you started-- - My brother shook his hand. - That's crazy. - It was, and as a Catholic kid, this is the closest thing to Jesus. - Yeah, oh yeah. - He's a superhero. - Because he was Kennedy, he had kids and-- - Yeah. - It wasn't like the Pope, which it kind of-- - Yeah, I got, but-- - But he was like a real guy that was like you. - And we prayed that he would be elected, and he was, so he felt a part of it. - Yeah, I mean, coming from Boston, literally to this day, you go into people's, you know, older people more now, but you go into their house and they have a picture of Kennedy before they have a picture of Jesus or anyone else. - Right. - It'll be, they all have shrines to Kennedy there still. I mean, it was-- - And a lot of black people would have Martin with a king in Kennedy. - Yeah, oh, absolutely. - In their house, along with Jesus, you know. - It was like, there's the Trinity. - Up until, and I didn't know this then, but as I look back at my wife, as soon as Kennedy was shot and no one could explain it, and of course I heard about Santa Claus a year before. - Yeah. - I bought it, pray. - Who's still living has not been shot yet? - Yeah, pray. - Yeah, Santa's fine. - He's at this point. - But I thought, oh, this is, no adults could explain it. - Yeah. - This is bullshit. - Bad things happened, and it just happened. - My great slid, apathy grew, just became a class clown. - Yeah. - Just, my attitude was bad. And for after that, I struggled through school and really didn't trust authority. - Yeah, because they're, you're gonna be safe, everything's okay, now has no way behind it. - If God can't protect the most powerful Catholic in the world, who can he protect? - Right. - That was, now again, in fourth grade, where I was nine years old, I, you know, I didn't know this was going on, but as an adult, as I look back at the trajectory of my wife and what things were, and what things meant to me, well, that's when it happened. - Right. - That makes total sense, it's pretty clear. - And do you think that is a key aspect of being a comedian, because now you're questioning things more than your average person. It's, clearly everyone didn't react that way. I mean, definitely as a society, we were split into before or after that. And in America, kind of, I always say that 50s went till Kennedy got shot. They're like, post the 50s lasted about 15 years. It was like, after World War II, up until Kennedy shot, was that what people think of as the idyllic 50s. - Yeah, I guess that was a demarcation. And then of course, you had the civil rights, right, for that, you had the Cuban Missile Crisis, and then you had the Generation Gap, which was not just, hey, cut your hair, those guys getting the crap beat out of 'em. - Yeah, because you didn't have teenagers before that. You had kids, and then you were an adult. You moved up when you were 17, you got a job and got married, for the most part. So, kids couldn't have this. You've got longer and longer at that time. - Yeah, I think that started in the 50s. - Yeah. - Like, I wrote an interview with Jack Nicholson. He said, "We were the first generation that didn't buy it." You know, like, he was, I guess, a young man in the 50s. - Yeah. - And we just didn't buy Korea. - Right. - You know, the whole bomb thing, the Cold War. And then the commie hunt. - Right. - You know, but through the 60s, I think what it did was with all this going on, and then the National Lampoon first came out. - Right. - He was like, "Goodbye, Mad Magazine." - Yeah. - So, I can enjoy Alan King, but I also could enjoy, Richard Pryor, then in Carlin. - Right. - And so, I could enjoy a standard comedy, old-timey comedy. - Which was almost comfortable, 'cause you kind of grew up with it. - Yeah, and it was still funny. - Yeah. - You look at Alan King today, it's hysterical. - But you enjoyed it, and Wendy Bruce, and, you know, and I'm glad I had that change, because I might have not watched Pryor with the same passion. - Right. - The records with that kind of freedom of listening, open mind, I think my mind opened up. - Yeah, absolutely, and I think that that partly, not completely specifically because of Kennedy, but I think partly that is one of the things that spawned a boom of comedians who were your age, who, in the late '70s, early '80s, now have this particular outlook that wasn't around before, necessarily. - As the excitement of life, I think what really helped the comedy boom in the early '80s was Carlin, Pryor, and Saturday Night Live. And, of course, the ascension of Steve Martin into stadiums. - Yeah, which is insane. I mean, that people don't understand how that was not something. Comedy was part of other shows before that kind of. - Right. - You wouldn't go see just a comedian. - Before you'd go see Alan King. - Right, there was a few that could do it, but for the most part it'd be like, comedian opening for a musician, or as part of a review, or, you know, prior touring with Motown Review, or, you know, that kind of stuff. - Right. - But you're seeing a headline and comedian in an arena. That's the whole show. - Yeah. - Was completely new, for the most part, on that level. - Absolutely. And here's the talent of Steve Martin. I saw him in Tallahassee, you know, like '77. He played in a auditorium of like three or 4,000. Had us laughing for an hour and 20 minutes. And then I never experienced that. And then I saw a priors movie. And then he had me laughing constantly. So much so I had to run out to the bathroom and pee, and run back in. - Was that Sunset Strip, or? - No, that was Richard Pryor Live. That was the first-- - Okay, Richard Pryor Live. Yeah, much better concert. - Yeah, I agree. I agree. He was in a totally different place. - So those guys helped comedy clubs. - Where I said, wow, comedians are funny. - That's a thing. You can go see it, and it's good. - Right. - You move to New York to pursue acting. You start doing stand up. You get the new show a couple of years into-- - Right, we'll stand up. - Pretty quick. - You know, I think about it now. Things happen pretty quick for me as compared to today. - Right. - But back then, I went in with a mindset of I'm going to stop working as a bartender. I'm gonna make, within five years, I'm gonna be making a living or close to making a living and stand up, and it happened like right before the five-year mark. - But you have to have that in your head. You have to have a time. You know, a lot of guys going on, I'll try this or try to give yourself five years. - You gotta put a fire under yourself or else you're not gonna work as hard or you're not gonna, yeah. - There's no way you're gonna work as hard. - And I did other things. I started running merit training and running marathon just to get myself disciplined just to work on something individually that I controlled. - Which is a very similar, like the way people trained for marathons is actually very similar to training doing stand-up. - Or anything. - Or any of those sets or anything, yeah. It's incremental work to get better at a thing and build up stamina. - And no one called me and said, "Hey, did you run today?" No one called me and said, "Did you write any new jokes today?" - You're only disappointing yourself if you don't do it. - Yeah, it's all about you. It's all what you put into it. - And so I remember seeing there was a news magazine show in '88 or '89, I think called The Reporters, and they did a big story about the Montreal Festival that year. - West '57. - West '57, that was it. - And you were the person they were like, "This is the guy this year." - Yeah, I really, for some reason, in Montreal, when I came on the industry outside of '10, it was a time where they just happened to be watching. Sheer luck, and I had a good set, so we got a lot of attention from that. - Yeah, and it was nice. - And was it '88, probably? - Yeah, I would say '87, '88. - So the comedy channel, which is the precursor to Comedy Central, started in '89. - '89, November '89. - So did that lead to night after night almost directly? - No, it was, people wanted me for certain deals, and then it certainly raised my profile. But I think what got me into the TV show is the audition every comedian in the free world. LA, New York, Boston, I mean, they saw a lot of people. Actors, some comedic actors were seen for that. But Michael Fuchs, at the time of HBO, 'cause I didn't want the show. I went into audition, like I don't give a grab, I smoked. I pretended to call, I set up a woman who was my mistress. I said, I have a girlfriend who does my mistress, and she did some stuff over the phone, and from that, Michael Fuchs wanted to go, that's the late night guy, grab him. And there were only one other, really one other stand-up comedian at the time. They got Rich Hall, but first-- - Onion World, which is his show, right? Yeah. - God, I forgot that. - Such a great show, but really weird, and the stuff that he got away with on that show. - Oh, brilliant, brilliant comedian. Tommy Sledge, effective. - He was a character comic, though. - Yeah, and then it was Rachel Sweet, that was the singer. - The Higgins Boys and Gruber were more of a team. - Yeah, yeah. - All everyone's gone on to great success. - Absolutely, and that channel was huge for me. So, the way people talk about when MTV came on in '81, as sort of exposing them to all this stuff they never had any idea about, Comedy Channel was my MTV, because, and that was actually kind of the foreword. - What about Ha? - Did you watch Ha? - I watched some Ha, but I love comics only on Ha, which was the show that kind of fit better with the-- - Well, that, I think that started on when they merged. - When they merged, it was a Ha Show originally which didn't start airing until the merger. So, it was commissioned by Ha, but was more in line with the stuff that made more sense with the Comedy Channel stuff. But, Ha was a lot of reruns. It was a lot of classic SNL and a lot of that kind of stuff, and it was-- - Right. - It was enjoyable, it was stuff I had seen, whereas the Comedy Channel was comedy MTV. It was short clips, it was almost like a crash course in the history of comedy, showing Ernie Kovacs, showing, you know, clips from all these things. - And producers, comic films. - Yeah, it was really interesting, and I got the impression that, you know, I don't think anyone's in charge there, which is-- - They were, but it was fun. We could do whatever we wanted to do. They were so supportive. - Which just generated some amazing, amazing things. - Absolutely, well, you have Mystery Science Theater. - Absolutely, that they were making in Minnesota and not even watching, and they would just basically mail them the tapes and go, "Here's the show," and they'd go, "Great." - Thank you. - Yeah, if you get just innovative, interesting, crazy stuff. - And then Nick Bikai came along, and I hired him for the show, and then John Stewart. And a lot of people were just kind of getting their fingers in the business, and still, to the stand, I just talked to Nick Bikai recently. That was as much fun as all of us had, and much freedom as we had in television was that period. - And it's kind of your first gig where you're more or less in charge. You know, it's not, you're not working for someone else's show, basically. Like a new show, the writers kind of say, "Here's what you're doing in this sketch." It's your first time that you kind of have this freedom, so you don't know that that's unusual probably, or most people don't. - Well, I kind of took it for granted. Oh, great, my show, thank you. And then I was able to hire the writers and hire producers I wanted and be able to do a bid, or if I thought of something on the flight, just put the camera on me, and I'm gonna do something, and I'll let my finger get me an out. Well, if we had to fill in two minutes, I'd grab an intern or something, and we'd do a segment with them. If I had an interesting guest on, I kept them on for another segment, 'cause I wanted them to. - Which is something that seems so natural and really resonated with me, because it was, for everyone that talks about Carson, it seems so establishment to me at that age. - And what were you born? - It was born in 1980. - Yeah, well, you missed the '70s of Carson. - I missed the '70s of Carson. - And that was a little more, it was freer. It was like more spontaneous. - Yeah, it was kind of like people hanging out. And by the time I started watching it in the '80s, it was your grandfather's friends promoting a thing, entertaining, but it wasn't mine. And even Letterman, which was doing some great fun stuff, and I did really love. - But you were still too young. - I would watch it, though. I'd stay up five, six years old, and I'd watch Letterman in '85, '86. And Chris Elliott's stuff on that show was always resonating with me. But when the comedy channel came around, it was the prime. I mean, I'm 10 to 14 and-- - Yeah, so you're just digging that. - Yeah, that's when you see this stuff that you're like, I don't think anyone else is washing this. This is just for me in the best possible way. - Well, like when Carlin changed prior and National Lampoon came out? - Yes. - Oh, this is for me. - Absolutely. - This is my parents aren't gonna dig this. - Yeah, they will get it. - So that was, yeah. - And Lampoon, I think, doesn't get enough credit, 'cause the names kind of been sullied in the last decade or whatever, because they buy these Canadian comedy movies and threats, slap the name on it, people go, "Oh, that's a new Lampoon." - Right. - But that-- - The magazine. - The magazine, in the radio hour, you would not have had SNL without those. I mean, that's where 80% of the talent pool from SNL and 75 were writing in on air, came from either the National Lampoon magazine or the radio show. - If you go back now, the fans listening to this podcast go back to 1970, National Lampoon, the magazine, just the magazine and start reading the articles and it's brilliant mind blowing. And of course, Monty Python came around at the same time. Who the hell are these guys? This is bizarre, this is fantastic. - It's smart, it's smart, guys. - It was all smart. When I found out the National Lampoon writers were Ivy League, I went, "Adults are doing this, this is wonderful." - College educated people can do this, yeah. - Someone went to Yale or Harvard and now they're doing this, this is great. And it had boobs. - Yeah, which is fine, but you've got a playboy for that. - And then after night, you did three years? - Yeah, just over three years. - Just over three years and it was a daily show. - Yeah, it was a strip show at night. - I imagine the way I hear people talk about Russian home and watching Murph or something is how I watched then after night. And I've come to find when I talk to other comics from my sort of peer group, it's the same thing. - Yeah, every now and then I'll run into a young comic or a person watching as young as six, or I'll get something on Facebook. - It's very gratifying, you know, the finding that people were watching and getting it. - 'Cause a lot of people didn't have comments channeled then too, so you probably, you know, for a while and you did it in New York? - Yeah, it was in New York. - Even New York, Manhattan didn't have it when it first started. - No, no, they didn't get it until like a year later. Maybe at a party, someone was, "What do you do?" I go in the comedian and then they come, "Well someone said you're on a TV show, yeah, I do that." And they go, "I don't get cable." And I say, "I don't care, I don't care if you're watching." And someone's watching it. I really, you know, I have friends who don't watch Mad Men, but they congratulated me because I don't watch Mad Men. - That's okay. - You know, my friends, people, if I meet someone, they go, "What do you want?" And they go, "Well, I don't know your viewing habit." You know, I don't, I really kind of separate being on TV to living my life, you know. - Yeah, absolutely. Especially as a comic where it's a live thing that's you, which is mostly your life, probably, and you probably look at the TV stuff as like an adjunct. - Yeah, well, I don't know about it. - Well, no. - 'Cause the thing, if I had started acting early in my career, along with stand-up, then I think I'd look at it differently. - Right. - Because it's kind of been slow, a pop here, a pop there. - Right. - Being unpumped. - Yes, yeah. - People probably recognized me more from that during those years and anything. And now that I'm older, it doesn't, it's kind of, I have this nice separation, you know, where I have my life and, oh yeah, I do television, but it's not all I do. I do stand-up, but it's not all I do. So it's nice to have like diversified. - Yeah, and it's not like I planned it like here. About four or five years ago, I go, I want to be able to cancel world work 'cause I'm getting acting work. And I have a really good manager now who's connected and getting me in and because of the appearance of Mad Men and getting another work or getting auditions. - It's still a ball. - Yeah, it's nice. It's not snowballing as much as I like it. You know, it's weird, it's like you get greedy. - Yeah. - Want more. - Oh yeah, you get a taste of it and you go, it's almost like, sometimes you go, I wish I didn't have any of it 'cause now I know what it's like a little bit. - No, I'll take what I can get. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So I've never, and I'm enjoying it. - Yeah. - Probably more than I would have as a young man. - Right, 'cause you can appreciate it more now. Like back to the new show, you know, you kind of didn't realize, or back to New York. Now you didn't realize that this was extremely unique that you're running this whole thing and air in charge, you can kind of do whatever you want. - Well, I knew that was unique, and I appreciated that, but the new show, I thought, oh man, this is gonna explode and I'm gonna work. - It's like this forever. - Oh no, no, it's canceled, it's not SNL. - Which is probably ridiculously humbling, and probably really hard to bounce back from, but it sounds like you, as you said, you kind of saw the writing on the wall. By putting it in two about, now, after night, not airing in New York, I assume probably led to it having that sort of laid-back sort of freewheeling style, because the stakes seem low, because you're not seeing the immediate bounce. - Well, see, I didn't care whether it was in New York, it really didn't, I mean, eventually I wanted it to. I had the job, I was on the air, I was getting paid well, I was working with great people, I was having fun, there was some tension because I think my producers weren't as aggressive as I was, so I didn't have a buffer, but we managed to put on a good show, and while a lot of other shows along us were getting canceled, kept us going for just over three years. - Yeah, and that show, aside from MST, was the one sort of original comedy channel, and sort of tension spent here, but that show went through a bunch of iterations, it wasn't the same show, it originally was, was the one holdover that really lasted the longest out of that original line of shows. - And even in our, the viewing was going up, the ratings were going up, it was a political move. - A new guy came in, I was working with the producer, and I was kind of burned out too. - Right, it's every day, I mean, you five days a week you're doing the show. - Yeah, the show was in my head, but every weekend I would go do stand up, that's the smart thing I did, I didn't give up doing stand up, and I know a lot of guys who got gigs in the 80s, couple guys, where I got a writing gig, and they stopped doing stand up, and today, they said you should have kept that going, 'cause they could still be working, and it's not just working and making a living, it's also thinking of something, and then doing it that night, or that weekend. - Which you had on the TV show too, in a unique way, it was as close to sort of standing up as a TV show to get where you go, I thought of something today, and I wanna just talk about it right, direct camera now. - Right, or during the commercial, we'd have audience of one, like four guys drove up, drove from Ohio or something, so I said, well let's have them all on, just one guy, and at the end we'll do something with them, where they threw themselves against the glass, and I thought of something, and we didn't, it was fun. - Can we talk about the audience of one for a moment? - Sure. - 'Cause that thing, whenever, if I'm explaining this to other people, it sounds like I'm just talking to everyone about it, but if I'm like, we've written that after night, if they don't, when I mention audience of one, they go, "Oh yes, I know that show." - Right. - Because that was just such a funny, weird thing to do. - It was either Mike Rowe or Pat Whitney, who was her, they came up with that idea. I think it might have been Mike Rowe, but I could be wrong, but it wasn't my idea. - But I heard about it, and I loved it, right? 'Cause then we have, not only do you wanna watch the show, but then, "Oh, I can be on the show." - Right, it was like a contest. It was like that interactive thing. - And sometimes we didn't have something, so someone would call someone, Pete Slack, who was one of our producers, and put a lot of reels together, "Great guy." He would do anything to get a warm butt in that chair, because you had to fly yourself in, and travel, and then we did the audience of one show reunion, practically all of them, on their own nickel. - Yeah. - And got their own hotel came, and I heard about this, and so many people showed up, that I threw a party at the improv waiter, the pizza party, and they got to hang out with the whole cast and crew, and it was-- - It was almost like the way that people had sort of internet fan groups before that. - Right. - It was a way for people, because I think the way that show aired, and it were resonated with people, and probably because of the spotty coverage at first of Comedy Central, people were like, "I'm the only person on Earth "watching this show." And then you would find out that you weren't, and there were these other people who were so into it, and wanted to be the audience of one people, that they really stuck with it. They were really engaged, it wasn't as passive. - Well, that's why I did the "Hey, you" thing at the end of the show, where I was talking to one person, and whatever that my take on it was, but I visualized one person in this kind of weird thing. And I think that connected people to it. And it was never water core, because not everyone you knew watched it, but you would find one freaky kid, a guy or someone, "Oh, I watch that show." - Not to completely overstate it, but I look at it in the same category as there's a famous quote about the Velvet Underground, where they say, "Not a lot of people bought that record, "but everyone that did started a band." It was kind of that thing, you know, where it was like, "No, maybe not a lot of people watched, "but everyone that did" kind of was a creative person or went out and to kind of pursue something or was that sort of, you know, different person. And you seem to get, whether it was by design or not, the unique things about having the television format, being able to talk to someone individually, directly through a screen and having that power, people didn't always take advantage of, especially at that point. - Well, I wanted to do something that Letterman Carson or Cineo at the time, I think there was a couple other talks shows on. - Yeah, Pat St. Jack, Pat St. Jack. What was the-- - So that's why I put the chair in front of the desk. And that's why did we, eventually did the audience, and then the hey you thing. And we didn't have a band. We had, or the Uptown Horns recorded the theme song, we'd come in and out with that, but they weren't in the studio except for a special show. - It was a very quiet, intimate show. And I think that that was made to stand out and really appeal in the celebrity interviews you gotta get, 'cause you would get people that were on the same promo circuit that were doing all the other shows. - We got, well, Charles Compliment, who was at the time president of the EMI, got on the show, and a lot of rappers heard about that. - Yes. - And said, "Well, Compliments." And I'm like, "Russell Simmons." Said, "Kopplements on the show, I'm getting on the show." And I really wanted Charles to come on, I was friends with the sun, and then we had become friends, and I knew his family well, and they'd been very supportive of me. So Charles Compliments and Parents open up the plug gate for Tupac Shakur, Russell Simmons, and we had a bunch of musicians on the show. - Yeah. - The Chieftons came on the show. - Yeah, getting mainstream, although, you know, obviously, as you said, it wasn't a network show, but mainstream exposure. - Yeah. - And it's for some of them, especially to a pretty white audience on a comedy show is crazy. - Warren Zevon was supposed to come on, and he had just done a letterman. He was gonna do our show after a letterman, which is fine. Dave went up to Warren Zevon, I heard this later. We got, Warren has a call, we can't make it, okay, fine. Dave said Warren Zevon, I'm glad you just do my show. He didn't say don't do anything, I'm glad you just do my show. And Zevon said, I better not do this other show. - Right. - And remember if you were getting pissed off. - Right. - I go, no, no, no, it's a compliment. This makes us legitimate. - Yeah. - Get ill. - It's on the front. - Yeah, if anyone's threatened by the show, which I don't think what it was, but he didn't mention the show 'til I came on the show after the show was canceled. - Right. - Like, hey, I heard you had a talk show. And I had been on the show when I had the talk show, but he didn't bring up and I didn't blame him. I said, no, this is, you know, if we take a thousand people away from him, that's good. - It's satisfying and they're rabid too. They're not, they have to seek the show out to a degree, probably. But I would also see people who would do, you know, I'd see on the "Tonight Show," I was promoting whenever movie and they'd do their "Tonight Show" interview and here's my movie and here's what it is. And then they would come on your show and it would be, oh, here's the real person. - You would see, it was much more conversational. - Yeah, we didn't have a live audience, we just had one. So we didn't, it didn't have to be funny. It could be interesting and I knew a lot about them. I was more excited probably than Johnny was. - Right. 'Cause you're a fan or something like that. - Yeah, I'm a fan and this is a new show for me, I get to talk to you. This is fan, I get to talk to Nipsey Russell, the author Gay Talies, who I admired. I wanted Bobby Short on the show. And the producer's, no, it's too old school. He never does talk shows. He can come in with a piano and we can find out about his life. - That's the one guest I had on. Besides Jilly Rizzo, who would've not come on the show. Sinatra's henchmen, I guess. I really wanted to interview Jilly Rizzo. - Right. - So that must've been great to be able to do this wish list of people that you kind of want to meet, let alone talk. I mean, that's what I'm doing with this thing. They're getting to meet guys like you. - Alan King, well, let's get him on to Carlin. And even though he was at the time of contemporary, I've always admired Jerry Seinfeld, even before the TV show. So once the show was in the second year, we were able to get him on the show and he was great. And I had a few friends on the show. And a few comedians I know we didn't have on and then after the show was canceled, I shouldn't, you know, I should've had them on, but there was so much stuff in your head. - And you also don't go, it's gonna be a three-year show. You go, we're gonna be doing the show so long, I'll get to it, we'll get to 'em. - Well, at the beginning, I thought, six months, so I went out of it. And so after three years, I thought, well, I got enough out of this, I really wanna get back into the standup and I wanted to be an actor. - But it's almost like giving yourself five years where you go, six months, so let's do it good. - Yeah, let's do whatever we want. - Yeah. - If they kick us off, they kick us off. - I don't care. - If they make sure we do whatever we want. - I can watch, see, that's a thing. I walk out that door, I have a career. - I have standup. I always have standup. This isn't your great hope. - No, I did a sitcom almost 10 years ago on Fox. - Yes. - Free ride. - You were like, dad? - Yeah, dad, six weeks, and out. - No, if it got picked up, great. If it doesn't, it sucks, I still have standup. It's like Jimi Hendrix in Red House. - Yes. - The key doesn't know what up the door is girlfriend split. That's all right, I still got my guitar. - Right. - You know, I mean, the standup is my guitar. - And so you'd never stop doing standup. - No. - No matter what you got, even if all of a sudden, let's say Mad Men leads to a film career that you're getting tons and tons of roles, you would still do standup. - Absolutely. Well, listen, tons and tons of roles, that's what every actor wants. But even if it get a role here, role there, but let's say I got on another sitcom, or I got a lead where I really had to be there every day, I would still make time for standup. - On the weekend, if you can do it, you're still doing it. - Yeah. - Because I'm gonna retire from standup eventually. - Right, right. - I'm not gonna fade out. - Yeah. - I think people forget that it's pretty physical. Like it's a lot of travel, and-- - I don't travel that much, I've kept it down. When I made that decision in New York, when I was a young comic, when I used to go, if when I do the road, I'm not gonna go out 40 weeks a year. I'm not gonna, and I've always kept the road on a short leash. - Which is? - Very smart. It's just the way I wanted it. I've made less money. - It's not a better quality of life. - For me, I still enjoy doing it. It's been doing up to three years now. So, you know, I'm 60. So I figured I'm 65, 67, 68. Might be time just to put it away. - Like any job people would be doing for 35 years at that age, do you retire? - I'd like to leave, have a great set. - Yeah. - And just say, that's it. - I don't wanna go on cruise ships as an old guy. I don't wanna like kind of, all right, let's give them a spot. - You don't wanna be doing lounges in Miami. - No, or even one, like at the Comedy Cell in New York, which as long as you deliver, they'll put you on. And I started there, so they treat me like a king. And I love them. They're like my comedy family. And the comedians that work there and the wait staff and the managers, everyone, have a great relationship. That will continue 'til the day I die. Like if I went on like on a Sunday and did one spot and I'm 75, if I'm lucky enough to live that long, I don't wanna do that. Acting fine, I'll act 'til the day I die. - Who are some of your favorite, I guess, career-wise for actors or what kind of roles do you go? That's the kind of thing I wanna do. Or are you just open to whatever? - I'm open to whatever, well, like on Mad Menaker, I wanna get on that show. - Right, whatever role you have for me. - Yeah, or Breaking Bad or whatever's on now. I like House of Cards, I'd love to be on that. They're directors I wanna work with. And I have a wish list of that. - And you were never drawn to wanting to do behind-the-camera stuff, like writing, directing that kind of stuff. - Well, I've written a couple of screenplays. I've always wanted to direct the processes long. And that still, that still could happen. See, once Mad Men happens, there's nothing I can fantasize that is ridiculous. Which is kind of delusional, but it's-- - Not that delicious. - But how can I say, oh, that's too big of a dream. One of my dreams came true. - Yeah. - Couple, Letterman, Carson, being a professional stand-up. Mad Men comes along, it was all Lily, I really wanted to get on Louis, I got on Louis. So I don't see anything that's impossible. - And you knew Louis from the New York days and the salary on this one? - Yeah. - And he told me, he saw me as a young man in Cambridge. - Okay, that I didn't know about it. - Did you catch a rising star? - Yeah. - Yeah, but catch a rising star. Which was probably one of the greatest clubs in America. - People don't, there hasn't been, not credit, but the sort of mythology of that club. If you look at all the people that are, who people consider the big names in comedy now, they either started there or came through that club in the '80s. - Or anybody that performed there, wherever they are today, remembers that club because they got everything. They, and they listened. - And all kinds of weird stuff would happen. So I was-- - What happened to that room? - It's a burger place now. - Okay, well go in, buy them out. - Or have a burger place, open it up on the weekends to stand up. - It was, the audience is there. - Yeah, so the weird thing with that club is, it was, it's an Harvard Square and they used to have a speaker on the sidewalk. And it was an 18 plus or 20 plus club, so I couldn't get in. But in the early '90s, you know, when I was watching Comedy Channel, I would go and I would stand under the speaker and listen to the shows. - Yeah. - And you know, that's when Cross was doing Cross Comedy there, with all those people in Sarah Silverman and Marin was there and Laura Keitlinger and Janie Garafola. - And that's when they were just coming up. - They were just coming up. And those were the people that started from that club and it closed in '95. And they just couldn't make it work there. And there's been, you know, the comedy-- - Couldn't make it work. They were packed all the time. - I don't know what was, I don't know if there was some political, or what going on there, but it just went away. And then, and then-- - We should have opened up a burger place. - Yeah, more money. - More money in burgers. - Yeah. - And they've tried to do shows at this burger place and it hasn't worked. It's really weird. I think a lot of that room might have been right place, right time as well. - Well, if it's a seller, right? - Yeah, yeah. - If they've gotten on the open of a comedy seller there, that would bring them in. - Yeah, exactly. - Because Catch was a good brand name. - Right, it was a franchise. - Or an improv. - Yeah. - Oh, okay, this is, we're gonna see good comedian. - Boston's a weird town too, where all of those sort of national branding clubs, it's like the one major city that they haven't been able to come back to. And it's weird. - I don't think they have homegrown clubs out. - There's homegrown clubs. So, like, rich and-- - And there's a whole culture there. - Yeah, did you see the documentary? - Yes, one stand up stood out. - Yeah. - Which is still scarily accurate today. - Yeah. - Well, Francis Alameda really did a great job with it. - Really did. And he summed up the sort of strange story of Boston specifically. - Yeah. - And it's weird being in that scene and seeing the echoes and the direct results of kind of what's going on now. - Is it a good scene? - It's intermittent. So, I've been doing it 12 years. And when I started, we had sort of that second wave of Altboom after the catch group. So, what happened was Rick Jenkins, who was one of the guys who used to perform at Catch a Lot. When that closed, he started a room with John Rogers, who does such a librarians now and was doing a bunch of other stuff. It called the Comedy Studio. They were doing like once a night for basically all the guys who didn't move to New York or LA after Catch closed, who were still there. - Right. - And that room grew. And that's where people like Eugene Merman and Jen Kirkman and Brendan Small and all those people started there. And that was a huge boom. And I came in just at the tail end of that when all those guys were leaving. - Right. And it hasn't, we haven't really had another movement since then. - I know. Well, you know, that's another thing. If this business, whether you're an actor, musician, comedian, it's work perseverance, luck, and then talent. So I got very lucky when the comedy boom was starting in the early '80s in New York. Then when the comedy channel, I was very lucky that I was able to get on that. And now the whole Mad Men thing, I auditioned in season two for a small part. - Right. - And I would have loved to have gotten it, but I didn't get it. Thank God. 'Cause then I got it. So I was very lucky to audition for him at the right time. - Yeah, sometimes things, I'm not a spiritual person at all. I do not believe in fate or that kind of stuff. - Really? - I really don't. It's weird, but at the same time, I'm constantly questioned by that sort of thing because these things do just constantly end up working out of the timing is perfect and it is odd how that stuff. - Well, you have to say yes. - Yeah. - You are part of that equation. 'Cause there's an old saying, I was talking about Charles Copeland earlier. His mother, my friend Brian Copeland, his grandmother, she said, "What comes to visit? "It doesn't come to stay." And I remembered that. And Dylan, in the Chronicles, Bob Dylan said, his grandmother said, "There is no road to happiness. "Happiness is a road." And that is, it's very simple and I know people are rolling their eyes. - It's true though. - But that will keep you so sane because there's so many comedians and I know you know 'em and I know 'em are actors and it's all about work and when am I gonna make it and they're obsessed, they have fang fever, which is great. - Right. - You can't let it blind you. I always say this to comics in Boston. I say, "Look, this is a business "where it literally is all road, no destination." And as long as you like the road trip, it's Route 66. You're gonna pull over, sometimes do something cool and enjoy that. You're not like, "Why don't we just gonna get there?" 'Cause you're gonna miss all the stuff that you're supposed to have been enjoying it. - Or you're gonna have a crappy gig, you're gonna act or you're gonna book a stupid independent movie that is a total drag. That's just one more little speck of bullshit in your whole life. - Yeah. - So just get through that and keep going. - Yeah and that's an interesting thing too when I've only been doing this thing about eight months and I can't believe the people that I've gotten to speak to yourself included. But one of the things that-- - Well, you make it easy. - Oh, thank you. - You know, you're a nice guy. You have a good podcast. You come over to my house. - Oh, well that does make it easy. - Yeah, I don't have to go anywhere. - And for good and bad reasons, some of the things that people did that everybody knows them from was a two day gig. It's a three day gig from 20, 30 years ago that they never thought would be anything. And then at the same time, they have bad ones that were two or three day gigs that don't matter anymore. - Yeah. - And you can't tell. You know, it's just you never know what'll come back and usually it's the good stuff. So when you do these bad gigs there and that's what I love about stand up too is that because it's live, it's done. - Yeah. - You do it, it's bad, it's gone. - When I was a theater major in college, we'd rehearse for four to five weeks and then you'd put on six to eight shows and then it was over. And it was like so sad. - Oh, I was really good in that and it's gone. - Yeah. - It's gone. And that's when I kind of, I had to accept you, because originally one of the life in theater, my original goal was to get on Broadway. Still hasn't happened. So that's another dream I have out there. And I think that really helped me deal with it. You know, you go into a little depression, it sucks but then you get into a new play or your audition for a new play or work on whites or whatever. That really helped me with acceptance to stand up. - And being in the moment too, probably, where it's, I always say two things, really. One, it's when I, when I come up with a comic that's really agonizing over a bad set or whatever. I go, well, first of all, you are sitting in your way differently than everyone else's. But second of all, people only remember you if you're really good or really bad. Like you had to be-- - Well, there's some sets I've done that are really bad and they stay with me to this day. - I just saw Joan Nameth and Willis Reed and Eric Dickerson, these athletes way past their retirement from athletics in their heads. Yeah, they enjoyed winning the Super Bowl or getting an MVP or holding a record but it's the losses that stay with you more. And this is the way our brain works because it protects us. - Yeah. - You know, like you go into that cave and your buddy gets eaten, that's gonna stay with you more than if you go into the cave and find women. - The only thing gets eaten, you know. - I've been in this cave a hundred times though. You know, it's never gonna get eaten. Yeah, you remember the one bad thing or the one person in the audience is not enjoying it. That's what we focus on. - But, you know, that you can deal with a little better but when you have a bad set, it's just saturate your soul. - It does, it really does. - It sucks. - Yeah. - I often, I've had half ass sets and I just, or even sets it are okay. - Yeah. - All right, you got through it. You didn't go, but you didn't connect and the way you know you can. - Yeah, when it feels like work, you feel like you did something wrong. I've experienced. - Well, sometimes it feels like work but you succeed. I've been doing it 33 years. So, you know, and I'm still learning. - Right. - You're not gonna get it. You're not gonna go to a place and get there. - Right. - And then everything's gonna be fun. - Because it's a new workplace every time. It's a new set of co-workers every time basically. - We all know directors that we've admired their films when they come out with a really bad film. They miss the mark. They keep going, you know. Nobody gets out of here without the pain. Nobody gets out without failure. - But that's what makes good art in the world. - I guess eventually it does. But you know, as a stand up, you can feel the way a lot of people can. - I haven't heard anyone else make this equate stand up with this, but I'm sure someone smarter or more eloquent than he has. But I've thought about it a lot of what sort of art it's the most like. And to me, it's being a chef. Because you have these people who are very skilled, creative, highly trained. They spend a lot of time making a beautiful, amazing meal. Someone eats it and it's gone, and they start back over from square one again. They have to start all over again. - I think it's a good analogy. - Remaking the meal. - Percussionist? - Yeah. - Percussion has to be perfect. Whereas the only, you can hit a clam on a guitar, but then bend it. - Yeah. - And cover it up. - Right. - It's, you know, dancers, I think, have to be perfect all the time. - Yeah. - Percussionist. Any high-end, like, opera singer, you have to hit the note. Because everyone's gonna know. - Right, it's very technical. - Yeah, a solo musician like that. But yeah, chef is a great analogy. I've never heard that one. - Because it's, it used to bother me where, you know, you hear them talk about, how passionate they are about cooking this thing. And they talk about it the same way someone who's like made a beautiful oil painting that's now lasting forever. But then someone eats it. It's gone, you know, but they enjoyed it. - They remember the meal. - Yeah. And so when I was in a band, I would meet people who are successful musicians and a lot of them would be dickheads. Because they were able to sort of feign their way out of having to deal with real life or where they came from. And with comedy, you can't kind of do that. It's hard to do that because if you're building new stuff, you're right back with everyone who's just starting again to a degree. - Or you're stealing material. - Or you're stealing material. - Or you hire rikers, which is fine. But a lot of comedians can be dicks. - Yeah. - Oh no, I've definitely met comics. - I'm sure I'm sure there are comedians out there. I met Haby. He's a dick. - Well, it's weird too where you're, where your higher profile, you know, everyone has a bad day too. - Yeah. - Or I walked into a club and I'm just thinking about the set I'm doing. - Yeah. - Someone say, "Oh, thanks. "Nice to meet you." But I'm in my own head. - Yeah. - I'm not there to socialize. But listen, I know comedians who are just salted the Earth-grade people. - Right. - And they have their neuroses or their problems. And then other ones that you think, how do you survive? - Right, right. - How do you get through the day? - Right. - Without having someone kick your ass. - Yeah, you're just an annoying open wound all the time. - Yeah. - Just like stop with your desires. - Yeah. - You know, wearing your heart and you're like, "Don't wear your career and your desires." And if someone gets something, you can see that the pain in their face that someone got something, you weren't even up for that. - Yeah, it didn't take it from you 'cause they got it. - Yeah. - That's, once you understand as a comedian, as anybody in life, lawyer or anyone, that someone else's success has nothing to do with you. - Right. - Even if you wanna, even if you audition for it. - Right. - Guess what, they saw you, they liked you. They went with that guy. - Yeah. - For his time, for something, it's not because he's more talented than you. - Right. And if anything, and I've had a really hard time, for some reason, because I'm still in Boston and everyone I started with has left, when new comics come up, I'm the guy they ask stuff to. - Right. - Part of it will be like, "Hey, Ken, how do I get car insurance?" You're the only adult I know. But, you know, part of it will be that how do we battle, I do this kind of thing and that. And I try to convey that sort of thing to them. But one of the things that I did learn from music that I was shocked did not apply to the comedy world at least in Boston, was this sort of buying into the rising tide raises all boats thing. Because when I was in this comedy scene, we started with a music scene, we started with a band called Drop Kick Murphy's who elected music for like Scarsese, are very, very popular now. - And they came out of Boston? - Came out of Boston. We started at this shitty little club called The Round. - You were with that? - Yup. - Did the party. - I love that song. Lost my leg. - Yeah, those are, Tim Brennan's done this show as a good friend of mine. - Right. - Kenny. - Love those guys. - So they started with our bands and we were these little kids pump bands in this little club and when one of them does well, it was good for all of us because now they'll have us open or, you know, people are paying attention to the town because a band came from there. And comedy should work the same way. - You don't think it does? - I think it does. But most of the people coming up don't agree with me, at least in Boston, when they get mad at someone successful. - Right. - I go, that's good for you. - No, it's good for comedy. - I wonder why you think that's bad for you. - Louis C.K. doing that show. - Good for you. - First of all, he uses a lot of comedians on the show. - Yeah. - Comedians, some people would never get into the mainstream. - Yeah. - Same thing with Kurt. - Yeah. - You know, and Seinfeld, Larry and Jerry, you know, when they knew someone could fit the role, they'd come in on audition, they'd haven't come in. A lot of comedians got on that show. - Yeah. And that's great. Like, I don't know, if someone-- - You put Seinfeld and Kurt on your resume, that pops. - Absolutely. So it's so weird to me that people are like, oh, that guy got that gig or this guy got that part. I'm like, but you know him. And if he likes you and knows what you do, and that could only be good for you, I don't understand. - Well, it's not even that, oh, maybe I can get a job. He's like, no, that's good. Because eyeballs, bore eyeballs are in comedy. - And if it's comedy from weird, like the scene you're a part of, and people like a comic from that scene, they'll go, oh, maybe something's going on there. - What's going on there? - Yeah, let me check it out. - Yeah, let's go there. Or it's not unusual, oh, this comedian wants to do his own show. - Right. - Oh, that's great. So here's what you do, bitter head. Get your shit together, and write the show you want to be on. Now, if they say, no, at least you're doing something. You're promoting yourself. You're meeting other people. - You did something. And at the very least, you've created something that you're should be proud of. - Yeah. - You've been looking at something. Amy Schumer, Anthony Jezle. - Oh, Jezle, yeah. - They both have hired comedians to be on that show. Even Chelsea Handler, the comedians on her show, get great road money. - Chelsea Handler's show, which admittedly haven't really watched very much. - You mean either, but that show seems to be the only show in recent memory I can think of that built comedian's career as the way that Tonight Show kind of used to wear. - Absolutely. - They'll know you from that show and only from that show as a comedian, and they go see you. - And certain comedians are Letterman pop, but overall, it doesn't help you the way it did back in the day. - Right, right. - But Chelsea Handler's show did. - 'Cause they're building it in that familiar daily way, and they're kind of giving them the stamp of approval or like almost a brand of, you know, I like this show, I like that comedian, I'll go see them. - Right. - 'Cause they have a very specific point of view. - Yeah. - Which is interesting. So you clearly still watch a lot of stuff. - Yeah, I see a lot of younger comedians, mostly at the cellar when I go back. - Right. - And that's been interesting. 'Cause I've been out in New York for 20 years. So over the last 20 years, I go back three to four times a year, sometimes twice a year. And I'll watch young comedians who were kind of hot in the mid 90s kind of grow, and then they didn't get that fame. So how they're going, they go through a period of disappointment. And but now they're getting other stuff. So you kind of watch comedians go through what I did as a young man. - What do you think is the best example of a stand up comedian translating something to television that you enjoyed the most that was? - Probably Louis. - I would say, definitely Jerry. And definitely, definitely Larry. You know, their personalities, their point of view came with him. They didn't mess with him. - Right. - Before they would grab, let's say Jerry Seinfeld and put them in a situation that these writers, he didn't know would come up with. - Right. - I had to deal with, I think it was WB or somebody where they assigned two writers to me, and I told them, okay, I'm on Letterman this Friday. They didn't watch it. I was performing at the improv. They didn't come by to watch it. And then they came up with this sitcom. I was like, this is not me at all. - Anyone could be in this. You've had this on the shelf. - I don't want to watch this. - Yeah. - I've had the experiences like that where, yeah, a bunch of my friends have had development deals and the scripts they've thrown at them have been terrible. So they've been like, can't we just write a thing with me that we want and we do. And I really like it. And then the network is like, this is too complicated. Oh, they're just like, no, it's like a few. - They don't get it. After this success of Seinfeld, of Kerb, of Louis, they still try to drop comedians into a situation. - Or Raymond, which is built totally on his act. - Yeah, well, that was Letterman. We're giving him, and Letterman's not gonna let them screw with, you know, Raymond, no. Do this, do his life, this guy's life. - Did you ever see Bonnie Hunt's shows that Letterman produced? - No. - He produced the building and the Bonnie Hunt show in the mid 90s, and they were fascinating. And that was when I realized, I'm like, anything he produces, I'm gonna watch. Because he's getting, he's put this person in 'cause he wants to see what they do. And it happened to be their flavor. And sadly, I think that's kind of rare. - It is, it is, but I think it's getting better now. - Yeah, absolutely. - I think, certainly, Crustella Alonzo hired the writer she wanted to use, she's close to doing what she wants to do. And I really hope that flies. - Yeah, it's exciting times because I think that too, because there's an arms race going with the web, all these web producers, they wanna have the best possible things they can have so that they can make a splash. And so, they're really green lighting, a lot of interesting stuff. - Absolutely. And, you know, what do you alleners get into it? - Right, right. That's legitimizing this. It's not like internet dating or something. - No, well, it's just more, it's more icing on the cake. Well, I think once House of Cards exploded, and certainly you just mentioned that the Golden Globes, you know, none of the awards went to establish network shows, even though there's some really good network shows out there, the Good Wife, you know, why that was nominated to be on May. Certainly, Mad Men didn't get nominated to share. I thought it was a good season, but there's so many shows. They can't nominate 20 shows. There's so many really good shows out there, which is weird because I don't have time. I mean, back in my day, it was never like, hey, there's so much, you know, you had all in the family in the Mary Tyler Moore Show, but I went to a 10-year period where I didn't really watch any TV. - When you were doing stand-up or as a kid? - No, college. - Okay. - 74 to 84. 74, I started college, and I was a young man in New York in '84, and when I was on the new show, they were doing a Where's the Beef? - Yeah, no, I didn't know what it was. Because I was so busy doing stand-up, and I had a little TV, a little black and white TV. I really didn't watch it that much, so I missed Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere, so when LA Law came along, I go, okay, I'm gonna watch this show, and I really got into it. - Did you ever go back and revisit some of the shows that you've missed now that you are able to with Netflix and YouTube? - No, not really. You know, I mean, I saw a couple of Hill Street Blues. I liked, I've never been into hospital shows. I saw a couple live episodes of ER, that kind of got me into it. Never watch Grey's Anatomy, and it's not, I just don't have the time, you know? - And you have to be very selective about what you choose to enjoy, 'cause your time's valuable. - Yeah, I mean, you don't grab me the first two episodes, I'm gone, black mirror, just got into it, holy shit. - Everyone's on, so here's where I started doing stand-up in England, my wife's English, and so I've been watching all these British shows for years and years, and black mirror is this guy, Charlie Brooker, who worked with a gun in Chris Morris on this really grim dark sketch show. That was one of the best things I've ever seen called Blue Jam. - I've heard of it, I haven't seen it. - Basically, their premise was, you know how a lot of comedy sketch premises are pretty sick, but they're presented in a wacky way, but if you presented them realistically, it would be a horror movie, basically. - Right. - They did that, so the example I always use is they do a sketch about a guy who wants to kill himself, but instead of jumping off of a 10-story building, he jumps off of one-story building 10 times in case he changes his mind, which is like a almost cat-skill-type joke, but when they film it, it's horrific. It's a guy like a crumpled guy. - Crawling up the stairs. - Crawling up the stairs and people helping him, 'cause they're like, "You can do this and cheer in him on." - Interesting. - And it's really interesting, so black mirror is like the next step of him taking that sort of thing. - Yeah, well, it's, yeah, I really loved it, you know. - Yeah, and I love that these British shows are being broadcast here, certainly on this, we have a channel for them now, 'cause I used to have to, like, import them. - BBC America? - BBC America, or Netflix is buying them, Hulu buys them, they're rich, it's called Moon Boy. - Finished the first season of "Pinky Blinders." A friend of mine calls it "Pinky Binders," and I still have that in my head. - It's like "Pinky Dusted Show." - So these are top shows. - Yeah. - It really was enjoyable. That we didn't necessarily have access to. You got Lonnie Python, you got a couple shows here and there, but you can find this. - Poor masterpiece theater. - Yeah. - Remember when "Down Nabi," I read about it before, and I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna check this out," 'cause I missed upstairs downstairs. When it first came out, I heard about it and "Rich Man, Poor Man," the only series, which you can't find now. - No. - And I'm like, "Fuck." - Yeah. - 'Cause everybody talked about it. I did see roots, so I'm glad I grabbed that. - Events, event television is kind of-- - I wish my poor man, still you can't get it on DVD. What's going on? Do you know? - There was three production companies involved with that, and one of them was international. - And they're not signing off on it? - 'Cause one of the things that's happened is because of all the deregulation, and people can own so many companies, these companies bought places as an investment, and they don't even know what they own. So they actually are hiring archivists to basically go in and be like, "Tell us what we even own." - Well, "Rich Man, Poor Man," it's not like getting it nullting in there with a fucking some machine gun. - Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. - And just figure it out. - Yeah. - But there's some huge things that they're like, we have 60% of this, and we had to find who owns the other one before we hit it when it's signed off, and no one wants to take a risk of getting sued these days. So that's what's holding up a lot of these things. That and music rights, which isn't the issue with "Rich Man, Poor Man," but that's what's held up so many shows. - But that's the only show from the past. - But I did revisit a couple mini series, and that was fun, but I don't like to revisit a lot because I know guys who get on YouTube and they watch "Pericomo," and the watch all these old shows, and they're like, "Yeah, that's great, but there's new stuff coming out." - Yeah. - You've already seen it. See something new. Back in the day in the '80s, early '80s, friend of mine would call me, "Hey, I'm TBSA. "I have the Andy Griffith Show." Then they got all the shows who watch this kids, and I go, "You know, and then if you do that," and listen to oldies radio, you don't even have to leave the '60s. - Right, right. - I don't wanna, you know, it's great. - It's in here, I don't necessarily need one. - Yeah, I mean, we need to move ahead. - Right, right. - I mean, listen, with your computer, with your $2,000 high-end computer, you can literally go back in time and stay there if you want. - Yeah, it's like being on that bed all the time. (laughs) - Except without anyone seeing it. - Yeah, that would be a dream. But I'm glad I got on the last season. See, all these people have been at seven, eight years, and most of them, and I was very sensitive to that fact, so I didn't try to ingratiate myself. - Right, right, right. - I just kinda hung out. They were so nice and so welcoming. But I knew it was bittersweet for them. And for me, it was all sweet. 'Cause I knew it was gonna end. I was on the last season, and so I don't think I've gone near to, you know, I was not even depressed. I was like, "Great, I did it, it's over." - But it's so refreshing for you to say the theme of all the things that we've been talking about that you've worked on is really, and it's sad that this is unusual, being aware at the time of kind of what you have. Even though, you know, you say, "Oh, some of the things you're like, "I wish I would." But you, more than many people that I've talked to, are like, "Yeah, I knew it was a thing "that I really should sit and just take in and go, "Yeah, this is--" - Oh, I enjoy every second of that. - Yeah. - And thank God, I've been meditating the last five years, which will really help with acceptance and with enjoying the moment. And the cast, even in their seventh season, they were excited, there's no hubris, there's no, "Yeah, we've done this before." - They're not falling in, they're on board. - No, they are, they are there 110%. Everyone's on board on the show, and that's great to see. Because I haven't really experienced that much, but I've heard of people who go on a sitcom that's running, and everyone's kind of, "All right, they're used to it." - Don't make the donuts. - I didn't get that feeling from working on "Mad Men." - And that's what makes great stuff, I think, when people are, it doesn't get old. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, they all, I think they all broke on that show together and that was helped. - Yeah, there was no big stars on that. I have heard that as well, where you have these ensemble casts that a show wasn't built around a star. And so, they were all kind of just as surprised by the success as anyone else, and it just makes them much more appreciative. - Oh, yeah, yeah. - And the more familiar. - Yeah, absolutely. What I experienced it to, my experience of "Mad Men," you're in college, it's Thanksgiving weekend, you're not going home. - Right. - Some kid from downstairs, you don't even know what comes up, "What are you doing?" "Well, I just got my family, come up with this Thanksgiving." And you sit down, and after 20 minutes, you feel like a member of the family. - Right, absolutely. - That's what it was. That's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing. - I'm very grateful. - Thank you so much for doing this. I really love talking to you. - Hey, thank you, Ken. This has been great. - Oh, you're welcome. - And continued success. - Oh, thank you. - And you tell those Boston comics. - Yes. - To open up catchurizing stuff. - I was, we should just do, like, pirate shows in there. Just all go in, order burgers, and start doing stuff. - No, I don't wanna, I wanna end up all full shit. I wanna go in there, and do legitimate comedy stuff. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - There you go. That was Alan Haby. You've seen him in Mad Men, Louis. You've seen him in a lot of things. He does do some touring and headlining still, so if he comes anywhere near where you live within, let's say, what's reasonable, within 200 miles. You should go and see him because he is great. And you can email me as well. If you like the show, didn't like show, wanna ask questions, wanna request guests, anything like that at candidatescanread.com or at tvguidenscounselor@gmail.com. You can find us at tvguidenscounselor, you can read the show and review the show on iTunes, anything you wanna do, or if you don't wanna do it, that's fine as well. And we will see you again next Wednesday for another brand new episode. Who knows who my guests will be? I know, but I'm not gonna tell you. But we'll have a new guest on next Wednesday. And so we'll see you then on TV Guidenscounselor. (upbeat music) - Enjoy your butter sandwich. - Why are you letting your kid talk so much? - This is not right. I don't wanna hear about his day. - I don't wanna infect you, we just wanna kill you. It wasn't like the Pope, which is kind of a, yeah, I got. He had me laughing constantly. Somebody said I had to run out to the bathroom and pee and run back in. Adults are doing this?
