Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff - Paul Provenza

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Paul Provenza returns to discuss almost replacing David Letterman on NBC, working with Steve Martin, his Showtime series “The Green Room”, Jonathan Winters, & Bo Burnham. Subscribe to Paul’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@provenz7846

Hi, I am Mark Malkoff and welcome to Inside Late Night, presented by latenighter.com. Today, we continue our conversation with Paul Prevenza. He returns to the podcast. We discuss him almost replacing David Letterman on NBC, working with Steve Martin and his Showtime series, The Green Room, featuring guests such as Jonathan Winters and Gary Shanling. Now, it's time to go inside late night. who was your manager at the time uh eric gold he was with ellen he was ellen he was ellen's person for a while wasn't he yes yeah he's the one made the deal for her talk show yeah he uh eric gold handled uh aside from myself he handled ellen he handled keenan and ivory way king and ivy wayans

damon waynes he handled jim carrie basically all of the uh breakouts of uh in living color and what have you what was it like and 1998 going on the Keenan Ivory Wayan show. I know you started with him. Yeah. Keenan and I go way back. In fact, again, I was there maybe a year before Keenan showed up at the improv in New York. And Keenan became the doorman. And in fact, he was so, he was doing so well. He actually dropped out of, he was going to Tuskegee. And he dropped out to go full time into comedy. He didn't have a car. And like I said, sometimes the club closed at 4 a.m. Most of the time, the club closed at 4 a.m. I had a car and I lived in the Bronx and so I would take him home.

I would drop him off at home and we'd sit in a car in front of the projects he lived in talking comedy, talking about his dreams and talking about each other's, you know, fantasies of what we want to do and everything. There'd be gunshots going off right and left. I'd be ducking down. He was like, yeah, so we were pretty close at that time. I thought we were pretty close at that time. And then when we both moved out to Los Angeles, which was around the same time, there was a showcase for Saturday Night Live,

a recast of Saturday Night Live. And Keenan and I were both on this showcase. And I don't remember if I followed him or he followed me, and I don't remember who did this bit, but it was something that a lot of people used to do at the improv, bringing up. or the guest. And if you were hosting at the infrive, you would do this for a friend. It was kind of a stock gag for somebody emceeing.

And I don't remember, again, whether I did it to Keenan or Keenan did it to me. But he finished, whoever went first, finished the set and said, ladies gentlemen, are you ready for your next performance? Yes. And he'd introduce me or I'd introduce him. Again, I forget. So the first person goes, are you ready for this crowd? Yeah, I'm ready for this crowd. This is, this crowd wants, like, real, are you ready to give this crowd as they want? This crowd is incredible. And the crowd's going, yeah, yeah, I'm ready. Are you ready?

I'm ready. No, no, no. Are you ready? Show me you are. Ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. Are you a man?

Are you going to take this crowd by the throat and destroy this crowd? Are you a man? Yes. Are you a man? Yes. And then you kiss me on the cheek and go, oh, okay, back, have a good set. And that was it. It was just a silly little setup and switch.

So, the next day, after this audition, We both managed for Eric Gold, and Eric Gold calls us and says, listen, they don't think you're right for Saturday Night Live, but they love the chemistry you guys have together and to take this good-looking young black comedy rising star and you know, you, a comedy rising star to put you together, they're really excited about it. They want to make a development deal with YouTube guys.

So we're like, this is amazing. So I get together with Keenan. They're like, what do you want to do? And we both talked about how much we loved. We thought about, like, what a young white guy, a young black guy. What's the angle here? And we both talked about how much we loved I spy. And we came up with this idea to do like son of I spy, where I'm the son of Bill Culp and he's the son of Bill Culp and he's the son of Bill Cosby.

And he's actually a tennis pro and I'm actually his business manager, which was the, what's the word, the cover that Culp and Cosby had on I Spy. in our version, he's actually really just the tennis pro, and I'm really just his business manager. But all the nefarious, they figure, oh, they're doing this again. So we end up in all of this, you know, all this criminal investigation stuff against our will. And I happened to do a gig in Palm Springs, and Robert Cope was in the audience. So I talked to him afterwards. He was a big fan of I spy. And we talked to him, and he was there. And so I called him. And he said, love the idea because we wanted them to be in the pilot to launch us and maybe even, you know, do recurring things. Who knew?

So he said, I'm down with it. And then Keenan went on the Tonight Show with Bill Cosby as a host. And Cosby loved him. So he called Cosby. And Cosby said, we're in. So we went to NBC and we said we got Colt and Cosby on board. And this is our premise. They loved it.

We go to get the rights from Sheldon Leonard. And he says, no, can't have the rights. I'm going to make a movie. the i spy movie didn't come out for another 30 years yeah i was gonna say decades and decades yeah but that was our premise and we worked it for basically the duration of our entire uh development deal and then it just went i'm so that did come out though right eventually did it come out i spy movie yeah yeah yeah an ice spy movie came out i think with ben stiller oh okay yeah yeah or i spy 2002 edy murphy and owen wilson

Dave Letterman leaves NBC. They need a replacement. He's going to CBS. Lauren Michaels is going to decide who is going to replace Dave Letterman. There weren't a lot of people being considered. I know it was you, John Stewart, Drew Carey, I think auditioned as well. And then you had this guy Conan O'Brien. Clearly you had the most hosting experience.

I would think maybe John from he added the MTV show and stuff at that point. But did you, how far did it get? Yeah, did you meet with Rick Ludwin? Did you meet with Lauren Michaels? Well, I got to tell you. This story, I hope this doesn't undermine my affection for Jay that I mentioned previously, which is really neutral just as a comedian watching another brilliant comedian. But Jay was really responsible for all that.

And I didn't even know this. Jay, here's the story, as I understand it. The Letterman show was not contractual for any of the affiliates. only prime time. In other words, if you're a local NBC station, you had to buy the primetime line. But late night, you didn't have to buy, right? So they had to seduce all the affiliates whose contracts were coming up to sign on to whatever this late night talk show was going to be. They couldn't say, oh, you know, Gary Shanley's going to do the show. So they're like, oh, yeah, we'll sign on for a Gary Shanley show. They didn't have talent on deck yet. So in order to keep the

affiliates on board for this non-required time slot, they brought in Lorne Michaels. So they could say to the affiliates, we don't know what it's going to be. We don't know who's going to be the host of it. But it's Lauren Michaels, who's made you all a gazillion dollars? So back this. They signed on all the things. So they had made this deal with Lorne Michaels, and part of that deal was complete creative control for Lauren. So as they were going through the process, and Lauren was bringing the talent that he wanted to host the show, the various people, you know, for NBC to sign off on, NBC was like, he's just bringing us everybody who's in front of him every day. He's bringing us all the people that he's worked with on Saturday Night Live. He's not expanding the horizon at all here,

and we're getting a little nervous. So they call Jay, who they know is in clubs every night. They know Jay knows exactly who's out there and who's good and who knows how to host the show. so they make this sort of side deal with Jay as a consultant and one of the first things that Jay does is send them a whole bunch of VHS tapes of comics only and he says

you want a guy who knows how to do the show he's doing it already take a look at these I had no idea that this was going on but Jay used to do that Jay used to sit there and watch comedy switch channels to find the stand-up who's doing something on somewhere and watch

it or tape it or whatever that's jing's you know that's jay so he sent them all these tapes and he got them on board with me and um they were really you know they were talking to my manager a lot about this and then lorne michael's finds out that there's this alternate list of potential hosts and as a story was told to me he goes through the roof he's pissed off that NBC is overriding his creative control or that they would even doubt that he could do it who knows but he gets pissed off and he says i'm not going to consider anybody until i at least see them live so they put together this showcase in los angeles at the l a improv and lord flies in for this showcase now i'm doing a gig in

boston this weekend and i get a call from my manager saying here's you know you're not going to be considered unless he sees you and i'm like i feel like there's really no shot at this i don't want to cancel again. I'm already in Boston. Like, you know, what am I going to do? Maybe it'll come around again, whatever. So I called Jay. And I said, Jay, here's the deal. I'm in Boston. I know he's, he's a Boston guy. So he would really get, you know, the thing you're in a club in Boston. You don't just walk away. That's a thing to do. So I called him and I said, you know, here's a situation, whatever. Is this something I really need to do? Or, you know, is it going to make a difference? And he said, I got to tell you, he goes, you really, you really get kind of in the pocket here.

think you really need to do this because you got NBC in your corner and you just got to win over Lorne and NBC can't fight for you if you don't at least do this showcase. I said, okay, so I canceled my gig that night. I find another friend of mine who was a comic who was nearby. Oh, can you do this gig for me, Ty? I make amends with the club. I fly out to L.A. I do the showcase the next night. I fly back to Boston the day, the next morning to do. So basically, I missed one night. Now, I get to the L.A. Improv for this showcase, and I see the lineup, and I see John Stewart in the middle lineup, and I go, well, that's the clue they should choose.

He's no doubt about that. That's the winner right there. I mean, I don't even know what. This seems like a waste of time for everybody, because if you don't go with John Stewart, you're a media. Rick Reynolds was on the lineup. He was a kind of very early, I think he was one of the earliest comedians that I knew of doing, like, solo shows, like a one-man show, a very, very confessional, which is a very popular thing now. He was doing that back then. And Drew Carey was on the lineup, John Stewart, myself. I think, oh, boy, I can't remember.

You probably know better than I did. But anyway, so I did the showcase and then, you know, it went okay. I didn't do badly. I didn't, I don't feel like I blew the roof off the place. So I get back to Boston the next day, and I'm fried from flying, you know, over two days. And I'm sleeping before the show. It's probably about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. and I got to get ready for an 8 o'clock show.

And I get this phone call, waking me up from a nap. And it's some reporter from some TV guide or something like that and wanting to talk about this showcase. And, you know, am I in the running? And blah, blah, that. I go, hey, I really don't know. I just did a showcase and go, I do these things all the time. I either find out I got something or I didn't.

You know more than I do at this point, you know? And they were like, well, can we talk about this? And I said, well, look, I got to go do a show in a couple hours. And they go, what time are you leaving for the show? They go, where are you? He goes, we're in the lobby. I come down to do the show, and it was like this phalanx or reporters. I'm like, I can't believe anybody's interested in any of this.

This is crazy. So there was all of that buzz around it and everything. And ultimately, I got down to the point where, you know, my career was in such a place where I was getting opportunities to do a lot of very different things. And I was really excited about that. I liked that. And if I did a show like that, if I did a talk to a late-night talk show, that's a full-time job. That's it.

That's your career for as long. as you can make it last, that's all you can do. And so I was in this weird place of, wow, it would be really great to get a show like that, but that's all I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I don't think I'm that guy. And it got to the point where I was like, man, I hope I get it offered so I could turn it down. There was so much press around it. It was so much, it was crazy. You know, a whole book, it generated Bill Carter's whole book, you know, the whole phenomenon of recasting all of that. And I was like, if I get the offer and I turn it down, it probably will raise my profile so much that people will go, you're crazy

for turning this down, but it would kind of put me in another place, and I wouldn't be stuck doing one show for the rest of my life. So I actually really was only marginally invested. But anyway, after it all comes down, and it goes to Conan, I call Jay. And I said, Jay, listen, I'm just calling to say, now that the dust is settled, I'm just going to say thank you. because nobody has ever put themselves out for my career the way you have. I go, you know, we're not real close. We're not, you know, pals. I'm just so blown away by how generous you are and how much you believed in me for this.

And I wanted to thank you for that. And he goes, yeah, boy, you couldn't have gotten any closer. Wow, it was right down to the wire. I was like, well, thank you. And I hang up, I call my manager right away. But Jay said it was right down to the wire. Well, what do you know about this? My man, he goes, hold. Let me call you back in five. He makes a few calls. He calls me back and pick up the phone. I go, hello. He just goes, not want to know. I see what are you talking about? It really, truly was an 11th hour decision. Like, you know, 12 hours in the conference room with everybody's tied, pull down Chinese food, you know, spread around the table. He goes, they were really, really pushing for you. And ultimately, Lauren wouldn't back down. And they're going with Conan. But they were in your corner.

Dewey. Lauren, for the most part, always in-house. I mean, he picked Tina Faye and Jeff, Jeff Ross, I know, killed it in his audition for update. And it's like, they're not going to bring it. They don't bring in outsiders very much unless it's like somebody like that Lauren's worked with previously or he discovered it himself. But it's nice that NBC went for you and stuff.

I mean, now that's the story as I heard from Jay and some people at NBC. I'm not surprised. I'm sure every individual involved, if they heard any of this story, they'll have a different story, who knows. But having said that, I knew of Conan as a writer. I knew that he was really,

really hot as a writer, and I knew about Lookwell. Oh, yeah, Adam West. That was hilarious, sure. Here's my headshot. Which was hilarious. Yeah. And I knew that Conan had a tremendous amount of respect

from other writers. You know, Fred Wolf knew Conan's work, and he was like, he's great. But he didn't have any, on-camera experience, but it didn't have known that if I stick with him long enough, it's my time slot. I do whatever I want with it, you know, I don't know how long he would have had to prove something to NBC, but he knew that he could turn Conan into the Conan.

We know now that if he gave him this opportunity, he would become owner O'Brien. He was zero performing experience. It took him about two years or a year and a half on camera, but it's pretty amazing. What was it like working with Steve Martin? I've ran in a book a few times. He's always been really nice to me, but there's something, you know, I just, I think I know from just reading about him and that he's very shy and to himself a lot, which is totally understandable. A lot of comedians are, but what was that like working with him? And he chose you out of anybody to be his play.

It was out in Broadway, right? It was technically off-broadway. It was the promenade in New York, which is about as Broadway as off-Broadway can get. And yeah, and I did it for about a year in New York. And then about six months later, they announced a national tour and asked me to do that. And yeah, that was really, that was a great experience. First of all, I love doing theater. And so that was great.

I mean, you've won awards. Leno made fun of you because you won some sort of Drama Desk Award. You had been on Broadway. This was, I think, 96, 97 with Steve Martin. What was the play? And what was it like working with him? The play was Picasso at the La Pana Gilles, which was just this fantastic little confection, you know, about a fictitious meeting of Picasso at the age of 23 or four and Einstein around the same age, right before each of them make their huge breakthrough, Picasso painting Damoiselle d'Avignon, which basically changed modern art, and Einstein coming up with this theory of relativity. And it was, this is weird little invention, but based on a lot of true things,

the characters in the bar were, the La Panagio is a real bar, means the agile rabbit or the nimble rabbit is a bar in Montmartre in Paris where at the turn of the century, all the impressionist painters used to hang out. So there's some real truth behind this fictitious notion. And it was just a great little play that had some hilarious, silly, comedy, also some beautiful poetry, great, great ideas in it. And it was exciting and fun to do. Steve was, the place started in Chicago. By the time it came to New York, Steve redeveloped it and worked with the cast. And I actually replaced the original actor playing Picasso from Chicago, waited for the first few months in New York. And then he left the show, and that's when I came in.

And Steve was still doing rewrites and stuff. And he would sit in the back of the theater when we were rehearsing. I was getting put in rehearsals. Everybody else had been doing the show. And he would make changes and he would see what I brought to it and make a little change here or there, see what didn't work or can work better than had worked before. So he was in a very collaborative place, but also stayed away from anything that the director wanted to do. He deferred completely to people who knew how to do theater.

you know so he was very very collaborative very supportive he was so encouraging he would come back and talk to us after rehearsals or after shows and just say you know oh my god you're all bringing so much more to this than i ever imagined and and he couldn't have been more generous and supportive to work with i loved it and then when he did a national tour there were a handful of markets where they needed to juice ticket sales so they asked steve martin to come and do press conferences in those cities, right? And he's notoriously shy. He's uncomfortable in a situation with more than four people. He much prefer being, you know, in a small group, but he doesn't like, didn't like any of that stuff. So he said, I will do the press conferences. If you get

for Venzup, who plays Picasso, and Mark Nelson, who plays Einstein, if they'll do the conferences with me, I'll do those conferences. So we ended up doing all these press conferences together. Mark Nelson, by the way, who played Einstein, a genius, one of the most exciting actors I've ever worked with, absolutely brilliant. He was the center of the play for me. I mean, he was the focus of the play for me. Everything that I did was because of how he was playing Einstein. He was just great. I love him, one of the greatest actors I've ever seen. Anyway, so we would do these press conferences, and there were often people, who were at these press conferences were often radio people who I had worked with, who I had done

their radio shows when I was touring at the end. They knew every time I was in St. Louis, I would do this radio show. So a lot of the people that were at these press conferences in some of these cities knew me. Steve didn't really know me. He didn't know me as a stand-up. He didn't know anything about me. He knew I was a stand-up. I think we talked a little bit about stand-up, but he wasn't familiar with me at all. But we started doing these press conferences. All of a sudden, I'm getting a lot of these questions from all these people that have known me over years. I've on their shows. At one point, I don't remember what the question was, but I interjected the answer was a small, hairless Filipino boy. I don't remember what the setup was, but I gave that

answer, and Steve was drinking water at the moment and snorffed it through his nose. Another little mini Oscar. Another little mini Oscar for me. That's to make him laugh. I'm in such a genius. but you know it's pathetic i don't remember any of the details it just remember that that happened i don't remember the joke long time ago what wrong with me anyway here's here's me to see at one of the press conferences oh that's a great pick is that a great picture i love that i really like that so those were really fun to do and he was really again cordial and and it was a small group of us and so we'd be in limos going to various press things or whatever and then we did a preview of the road company in Providence, Rhode Island. And he had come up for it in a limo. And we were all

going back to the city. And he said, why don't you guys come and ride with me in the limo? So Mark Nelson and I rode in this limo for, I don't know how many hours from Providence, Rhode Island, back to Manhattan. And he had a few drinks and really got loosened up. And it was, it was hilarious. And he was like, you know, hey, when we get out, why don't you guys come and hang out my place for a little while let's let's you know hang out a little bit at my place he goes i said it's like you know two o'clock in the morning what about your neighbors he goes my neighbor is my ex-wife we had to put a wall in between the condos so she has half and i have half and she's on the other side of that wall and i'd like her to hear me having a good time for once so you did you went to

his place you went to hang no we were exhausted and we had to go back up to do a show Yeah, you had to do it, show. So we didn't go and hang out with him. But at one point when we were in Los Angeles, he invited us all over to his Los Angeles home. And we had a little get-together. And he was very aloof there because, like I said, at that point, they were probably like a dozen people.

And that's way much for him. Too many people. It's like Johnny Carson. Johnny was the same way. I liked it just a few people. Yeah. I think, I forget who said it. Maybe Dick Hattvitt said that Carson was incapable of chit-chat,

just, you know, just making regular conversation that didn't really have anything to do with anything. Yeah, very, very close to the vest, very personal, I mean, very private. It's just not really outgoing. Again, just, you know, didn't really like socializing with more than a handful of people. I get that introverts. I'm an introvert, believe it. Yeah, a little bit intro, and you know, Steve is so in his head. I mean, you look at his stuff, even a stand-up, Even the stupidest, silliest, goofiest stand-up is so thoughtful. Yeah, he's incredible. One of the greatest ever.

I can imagine that, you know, a large group of people, especially showbiz, you know, it was hard to him. But since we worked together, he was hosting one of the gala's at the Just for Last Festival one year. I forget who it was, but a friend of mine was writing for him, writing bits, you know, he'd come out in intro, the next guest, whatever. And he had somebody there. Oh, I know who it was. It was David Feldman. somehow David Feldman ended up writing for him in real time you know like something somebody would be on and he would go

give Steve a joke to use at this next break you know and I wanted backstage saw David and he said yeah once you come and hang out write some jokes and Steve came back and well yeah yeah you want to write some jokes write some jokes so David and I right I think a row maybe one or two little gags that Steve ended up using on that gala thing whatever but it was nice it was nice to be in a room with Steve Martin and he knew who you were and he respected you and he did your joke I may not have fame and riches in my time and showb is this, but I got a lot of many Oscars. You've done so many incredible things and met so many people.

I want to talk about your YouTube channel, Paul Provenza, and you're also on social media as well. We can get to that, but not really. I am on, there was a page on Facebook, and there's a Twitter feed, and that's about it, but I'm not really participating. I decided a long ago that that was going to be a horrific and affordable thing to do. So I just backed off them all of it. Okay, well, we have your YouTube channel. You have some amazing clips of people.

And I know, yeah, comics only Fred Wolf and, you know, Tishon, Shannon was a writer. That must have just been such an amazing experience just to have that. Oh, it was great. You know, Fred didn't tell you this story. And I'm going to ask him about that. But Fred didn't tell you the story. But I worked with Fred, a road gig. I don't remember where it was.

But we were on the road together. And at one point during our week of shows, I said to him, man, if I'm ever in a position to hire a writer or have like a, you know, a sidekick on a talk show, I go, I'm calling you. Yeah, he's so funny. I love Fred. Well, sure enough. I mean, we're talking like 10 years later out of the blue. I call him and I go, Fred, you know, I believe this actually happened. You know, obviously his career was moving.

His career as a writer was moving. He wasn't as invested in his career as his stand up. was a great Santa. It was really fun. He did really inventive things. He did a thing where he would run a phone line onto the stage and he would call to order a pizza and you know, and he'd say, so if it's less than 30 minutes, I get free and all that stuff. And then he would play these audio tapes of like being surrounded by a SWAT team and keep the conversation going with the pizza guy. And it was all legitimate. You know, it was a local pizza guy that he called every night, different one, you know, from wherever he was. And it was always hilarious. And it was such an inventive

crazy thing to do. And I just thought he was brilliant. So when this came up, I called him and I wanted to think. And his thing was, he said, I would be happy to do this, but what will really make me happy is if I can be on camera. And I said, fine, great. And then Tishon, you know, I was introduced to Tishon, but Mike Armstrong was one of the first writers we hired who had not long before this had won an Oscar for writing the appointments of Dennis Jennings with co-writing with Stephen Wright. And so I just wanted to get these writers who were so interesting and smart and funny. And I was so happy to put all of them on camera. I was so happy because I wanted to create this. It's kind of like we all loved Letterman and we ended

of doing a lot of Letterman-like bits, but actually pointing to the fact that we're ripping this off from Letterman, and we would do versions of them, you know, those guys, what we did was created this on-camera family, that the writing staff was in all of these sketches. The writing staff was, we did stuff in the writer's room, you know, that ended up being roll-ins on the show and stuff like that. And I just wanted this family of just funny people, all of the, so even though I was quote unquote the star of the show. You know, it was my show. I was more than happy to have funny people around me and they never disappointed.

And we started to do really wacky things because the whole thing was it's supposed to be this talk show, right? So these guys would come up with like hilarious sketches that had nothing to do with a talk show. So we had to like shoe worn like what goofy, obvious way can we come up with that's so bad that it's funny to make this in a talk show format. So we did things like this running gag where I'm a film buff and I go to these film buff conventions and I buy this footage. And so it was a chance to do these little roll-ins as these like really, really overwrought, jerry-rigged ways to fit everything into a talk show format. But here's the great thing about the shit, okay? We started doing all of this dark stuff. We were blowing people's brains out.

We had all these things with like, you know, one of the running gags was security. cameras all around the building and Fred's dancing in women's underwear and the you know with a gun in the men's room all this weird and then he blows his brains out of course he comes back after commercial and he's got a little little ex bandaid there like very really

cartooning you know and we actually created this thing called the crew built this thing that we called the gut blow or 2000 because we were constantly blowing people's heads up and and eviscerating people and things like that really goofy cartoon

tuney stuff, but we committed. So we set the first batch of scripts to Ha, it was the Ha Network at the time before they had merged. We sent a bunch of scripts to them. And they were like, you can't do this. You can't do this. But we already did it. We already have 20 can. And Jerry Kramer, who sadly passed away not that long ago, he was the producer of the show

and we became producing partners on a number of other things over the years, but he was just like, he loved to laugh, and he didn't care about, he would say, we can't do that, and then I would make him laugh about it, and then he said, all right, let's do it. And all of a sudden, you know, we're doing a recreation of the Los Angeles riots, but with all clowns, you know, no gestures, no peace kind of, like over the top stuff that he would always figure out a way that we could do it, no matter how stupid it was, if it made him laugh enough. he and I go to New York when and the comedy channel merge

and form Comedy Central which didn't even have a name yet it was actually they were going with CTV which it turns out is the network in Canada so they had done all of this stuff with logo CTV or the time they couldn't use it didn't even have a name yet when they had gotten together

but we still had a contract to do another batch of shows so we both fly to New York and we go to their new offices and they had just moved in these these new offices, the merged offices. And we find this room, and in this room is a fax machine. It's a storage room. There's, you know, fax paper and printer paper and chairs that haven't been used

and stuff piled up in the corner, and they were moving in. So Jerry copies down the number of this fax machine. So every time we had to send them scripts, he would fax them to this number. They finally get to us, like the second batches. We did batches of shows that were like, we did, I think, 26 shows, and then we got an order for 20 shows, and then we got an order for 35 shows, and then we got another order for 35 shows. We ended up doing 165 shows, but in these little batches at a time. So we deliver another batch of shows, and they're like, you can't do this. You can't blow people's brains out.

You can't do this. And Jerry had been getting away with convincing them saying, look, you're a new network. You're not even on in New York City yet. to just put it on if you have problems we'll deal with the men but just put it on what difference does it make and he convinced them to just put it out you're like well what do you get you got to give us money

for more shows they go you never sent us to scripts we never signed off on these scripts and he said I faxed you every script and I never heard back from you so I assumed everything was okay and it wasn't until months later somebody went in that little storage closet and found the facts roll behind the table

with all our scripts and that's how we ended up getting away with a lot of because they were ultimately like smart producer i know it's such a bad problem solving 101 it's such a terrible thing to do but we did it and and then we started to get a little bit of a following and like i say it wasn't on in a lot in in every market yet it wasn't even on in in new york city yet and we started to get press and we started to get all these weird little write-ups and things and so they said are i guess it's okay, you know, keep doing what you're doing. There were a few things that they ultimately did make us cut, but I can't even remember what they might have been. Most of it, they let us get away with some really dark stuff. I hope you put more stuff on YouTube and

it's great to see Fred and all these amazing comics. Yeah, just, I'm trying to think of some of the other people that you had that I was looking at on YouTube, but it's kind of a time capsule of a comedy boom. It really is. It really, I think that's a good point. Yes, I think it's a good, it's a really good point. It's amazing to see everybody from a lot. It's so sad how many people aren't alive anymore that you had on. But I mean, it was a couple decades ago.

But yeah, to see people. Yeah, anything happened with the aristocrats. We have a 25% kill rate, the aristocrats. 25 out of 100 people are dead. Oh my gosh. I can't really. Yeah, so many of them too young. Was there anybody that asked that you filmed that,

Since it was such a filthy joke, for the most part, people's interpretation, was there anyone that asked to be cut out after they filmed? They agreed? One person. One person. Did they sign a release? Yeah. Oh, they asked us, you know, I mean, this performer said, look, I'm having second thoughts and I'm talking with my wife. And, you know, he was somebody who had a significant career in Vegas, you know, and he was like,

My wife made me really paranoid and worried about this, whatever. We had no issues at all. We took them right out because when we started this thing, we decided that Penn and I decided we don't want to have to convince anybody to do this. This is the stupidest thing ever, and it's the raunchiest joke ever, and if somebody doesn't really want to do it, we don't want to talk them into it. So that was, you know, it was real easy to cut them out right away. And I happened to, at that point, actually, I was able to bring somebody else into it that

I wanted to have into it, but it was too late. So I was able to bring somebody else into it to replace him. Is this person still alive? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm just not mentioning the name out because there's any reason. It's just it's not fair to tell the story without no, without him knowing that I'm telling the story. No, I totally get that. I think I know who it is, but it's all good. But that got so much press when that came out. And you've been so good in your career just like just kind of showing the public what comedians are like with the green room on showtime especially and with the aristocrats just kind of like oh you know the curtains parting a little bit and people see an inside view stuff and the fact that I can't I still can't believe the people

that you got in the green room like you got um Jonathan Winters and just so many amazing people Dan Pasternak amazing guy um that got he got Klein on as well right Robert Klein. Yeah, that was Pasternak. Dan Pasternak was one of the great comedy producers of our generation. I mean, he's behind or had his hands in some like real important things in comedy that have happened in our lifetimes. He was very good friends with Jonathan Winters. And he introduced me to John. He said, listen, Jonathan's living up there in Santa Barbara and he has nobody to play with. And so he would bring me up to play with him. Richard Lewis would go up and play with him. I brought with me one time to play with him. I brought Rick Overton up to play with him.

And he loved Rick Overton. So as I got to know Jonathan and he began to trust me and appreciate what I was doing, I invited to do the show. I wanted to do the show. And he agreed because I I reached out to Robert Klein. Dan had told me, he said, like, you don't feel good. If Robert Klein is on the show with him, he'll definitely do it. So I asked Robert Klein, he was like, oh my God, be on a show with my idol, Jonathan Winners?

Absolutely. So I got the two of them on the show, and then I wrote Rick Overton to be the other person on the panel because it seemed, Jonathan was watching Rick Overton do a riff, and he had this look on his face that was like an eight-year-old child discovering something. It was so beautiful.

He's like, do that John Connery. do that Sean Conner again. So I knew that he loved Rick. So that was the show I put together. And it's one of my favorites of all of them that I had done because it's John the winners. And it's Robert Klein, it was one of my idols. I mean, when I started doing stand-up, I wanted to be the bastard child of George Carlin and Robert Klein. I felt like if they, two, if they both their DNA were merged, that's what I want to be.

So to have Robert Klein on the show with Jonathan and my dear old genius friend, overton it was just heaven on earth me so this one of my favorite things and i thought it was so fascinating about jonathan was a he was really funny but b told really personal stories and he was like an 80-something year old guy who's telling stories about how he's up his father was he died never having resolved father issues and you know just i i just thought it was jonathan like he's never really presented himself before anyway i loved that show so much those combinations We're so interesting. I'm back around with Showtime.

Showtime's talking about renewing it for the second season. They go, we don't, you know, it was two old guys. It was two old guys. We don't want that anymore. And I said, are you serious? Because it's possible that I can get Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner on the show together. And are you telling me that that's not good for you? And then we had two old guys.

We don't want that. I'm so glad that you were able to at least do what you wanted. And I go back to that one where it was, Ray Romano, Gary Shanlin, I think Bo Burnham, I forget who else was on. But to have Bo Burnham, who is so young, keep up with those guys like Shanlin, was unbelievable to watch. I mean, he had that one thing. I forget what he said. There's a clip.

It's on YouTube and stuff. But that was, that's the other one that I think really stands out for me was that episode. Well, that's an interesting one because there were five people on that show. Normally it was four. But we have five on that show because I had the show lined up, right? And you got Ray Romano, I got Mark Maron, I got, who else was on this show? Shandling and Bo Burnham? Shandling and who else?

Who else was on that show? But I'm looking at the card on the board, and I'm like, something's not right. Something's not right. Like, what could possibly be wrong with a show that involves Gary Shandling, Ray Romano, Mark Merritt, talking off the cuff about whatever. Like, is this something, something's not right. I get a phone call. Somebody comes in and goes,

somebody on line two, who's it, Bo Burnham? And they went, that's it. Because I had called Bo, because I've known Bo since he was like 15. In fact, because of Dan Pasternak,

he was working at Super Deluxe at the time, creating online comedy. And he said to me, what do you want to do? Is there anything you want to do? I said, There's this kid that I've seen online. His name is Bo Burn.

He's really young. He'll be so brilliant. It's so interesting. And he does in his bedroom. And I go, I'd like to take some of his music and do like a full-blown, like big production budget music video of some of his stuff. The Bazanai goes, checks him out and goes, yeah, let's do it. So he wants to do that. So I reach out to Bo to try and make this happen.

and he was on like a class trip or something. I'm like, how old are you? He was 15. Like, oh, my God. Anyway, that never came to pass, but I knew. I want to interject because you were modest. I want to interject because you were very modest. He was a huge fan of years, and he was very star-struck.

Pasternak told me that he couldn't believe he was talking to you. Well, he didn't. I was surprised that he knew who I was. When I said, my name is Paul Provenza. He said, the Paul Perenza? And I was like, oh, this guy knows comedy. Because he knows who I am. He's 15 years old and he knows who I am.

This guy knows he's deep tracks, right? So that ultimately didn't come to pass. And then I hung out with him in Montreal at Just for Laf's, which I think was the first time he ever performed live. And at the time, I was curating the comedy program at the Lakeshore Theater, which is in Chicago, which is now The Laugh Factory. But at the time, it was a theater. I booked him into that.

And it was his first road gig. His first live performance was at Montreau just for last. And this was his first road gig. And he was father came with him. He was still really, he was still like maybe 16 or, I guess he was probably 17 at this point. Maybe 16, I don't know. Anyway, so I knew Beau. And we had spent a lot of time talking.

And he's absolutely brilliant. I mean, he's a really smart guy. And he's thoughtful. And my conversations with him were like more sophisticated, not only about comedy, but also about life and philosophy and art. more sophisticated than just about any, you know, anybody around my age. I just thought he was absolutely brilliant. And I was like nervous that he would be like eaten up and chewed up and spit out and everything. But after spending time in it, I was like, now you're going to be okay.

You can smell the bullshit a million miles away. There's something special about you. You could handle this, you know. So I had a call into him and he called back just as I was wondering what the fuck it's going on with this show. And I said, that's it. It's Bo. It's Bo. Beau is the missing ingredient.

So I added him to that show. And that was the thing that really, I think, makes that show special was because all of a sudden is Gary Shandling talking to a kid that he knows he is as smart as can be. And if Gary could talk to him about it, he knew how bright this kid was, right? Mark Marendon didn't know anything about him. Ray Romano didn't know anything about him. And so that turned out to be the really special. thing because I asked by what to do that song which I think is really powerful what's the name of that song we basically talks about selling out as a comedian how George Carlin is rolling over in his grave and all that you know art is dead is the name of the song and it opened up a lot of conversation and it took us down roads with Ray Romano who I knew I had seen the documentary that had been Tom Calta Biano had made about Ray Romano and I think it's so interesting to hear Ray in a limo coming back from a sold-out show talking about how their insecurity is and everything.

It felt like that's the missing ingredient, and it turned out to be again. One of my three favorite shows, The Jonathan Winner's show, that show with Gary and Bo and, at Al, and the Doug Stanhope Green Room show with Janine Garoflo and Richard Belser and Glenn Wool and Dave Patel.

Those are my favorite shows. That one, because that really did feel like a green room. I mean, at one point I even got up to go take a leak, because I didn't need to be there. I loved that that one is the one that feels the most like a real green room with those people. Because that's what you're going for. The missing person was Judd Apatow. I just looked it up.

Of course, Judd Attau. Thank you. We love Judd Apatow. Yeah. And Jud was actually, Judd was on the show. I mean, it wasn't like I wouldn't have had Joe, John on the show, but he was on that show in particular because that would give Gary a level of comfort. Oh, that makes sense.

And also Judd was on, is on your. your YouTube channel, I believe. I think one of his first TV appearances as a stand-up was on comics only. Yeah, that's unbelievable. Paul, thank you so much for doing this. Everybody check up Paul's YouTube channel and please put up more content. It was such a thrill to talk to you. And yeah, I'm glad we got to do this.

You were on the Carson podcast. I can't believe how long ago that was, but you were such so nice to have me over to your home. And it was a big thrill and it's a thrill to talk to you years later. so i love terby you first of all you go so you do such deep dives and you know minutia that is like oh wow that'll be fun to talk about nobody knows about that uh so i appreciate you and what you're doing and i get i'm just loving the podcast oh thanks so much yes i've listened to so many of them with people that i didn't even know writers or or you know people involved that i didn't even know that i'm just in love with now you know and uh the fact that you show love to fred wolf

of Tishon Shannon, and Hugh Think makes me love you even more. Those guys are funny. Oh, yeah. Those guys are amazing. They wrote some of my favorite Saturday Night Live sketches, and I remember Hugh Fink doing the, they would call it

the senile, any young men playing the violin, watching an evening at the improv. It always used to do with them. It was, like I said, we did 165 episodes in that show, right? And we had this thing of, we'll just shoe-a-worn stuff that doesn't really fit a talk show in

because that's stupid and we'll do that. But it got some point where it's like, I started sending them to prop houses and said, just come up with funny things to do. Just get stuff. Yeah. And so they would go to prop houses and play

and come back and say, okay, there's a thing. It's like an air traffic controller's thing. So we wrote a sketch. It was like, get the unit, let's do it.

It was so fun. It was so fun. I was down. I was up for just about anything. I wanted them to shine. I wanted them to be on camera as much. So they started to get these, you know, characters that people were starting to associate with, you know. Tishon was always getting slapped by women who worked on the show.

That became a running thing. And it was just so. I love to that, guys. Yeah, it's so much fun. Please put stuff about Paul Prevenza. Thank you so much. This was so much fun. And I'm glad we got to do this.

And best of luck. I'd love to have you back. Anytime, man. I can talk to you for hours. you like stuff that nobody else likes. Thank you, sir. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode.

On Apple Podcasts, please rate it and leave a review. Be sure to go to late-nighter.com for all your late-night TV news, and you can find my podcast at late-nighter.com forward-slash podcasts. Have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next Tuesday. Thank you. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you.