WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1156 - Martin Short

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Even in the face this year, Martin Short remains an optimistic guy. Maybe it's because he's had a career he loves, or maybe it's his mild-mannered Canadian disposition, or maybe it's because he suffered through a lot of tragedy as a kid. Martin and Marc try to figure it out, and they also talk about his live shows with Steve Martin, the difference between doing SCTV and SNL, why Martin considers 80% of his career to be a failure, and why believes that a 20% success rate is high for a career in show business.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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customized business insurance policies starting at just $19 per month. Visit Zensurance today to get a free quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Lock the gate! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening my name is mark maron this is wtf my podcast i couldn't get why couldn't i just launch there? What happened? All right, look at, what's going on?

All right, let's do this. Like all of a sudden I don't know how to say that. All right, let's do this. Let's do this. Wow. I don't know, man. Is it the time of day? It can't be the time of day.

How are you? What's going on? What is happening? Nothing good. Nothing fucking good. What are you going to do with that? Holy shit. You know, I don't want to say that I told you so because I'm not really an I told you so kind of guy. which I recorded ago, like in October, where I said, what has to happen? Does the sky have to catch fire?

Does the sky have to catch fire? The sky is on fire. I'm not happy that I told you so, but I guess it did have to catch fire. I don't know what's going to happen with that in the special. There's a lot of different angles on it. There should only be one. But people are fucking incomprehensible.

People are fucking incomprehensible. It's not my line. It's from Michael Clayton. Sidney Pollack. People are fucking incomprehensible. Use whatever options at your disposal that you have to maintain your sanity. Not that I think that clarity is that necessary because it's pretty fucking daunting, the clarity. I don't think being dumb or shallow or ignorant or detached is, I don't think that's good either. You're going to have to shoulder the clarity.

How do you shoulder that if you have it? I mean, shit is fucked up. And yet we knew that he knew, you know, Woodward's book comes out. We knew, I mean, I knew that he knew, We knew. I mean, I knew that he knew. But now it becomes painfully clear that this kind of mass murder through negligence to meet political means is what's happening. And no matter how many people cry for justice, the system and the state and the entire country is unfixably broken we live in a failed state now however your life is or whatever is okay or whatever you're scraping together for yourself i mean that's what's happening i just want to make sure we all acknowledge that now what can you do do you feel powerless yeah we can vote hope the voting works if you want to watch my special for a little painful relief, get giddy, people. Get ready, get active, get laughing. It's gotten to the point where I've pushed through to the other side.

It is so fucking apocalyptic, so fucking dystopian, so insane, this goddamn evil clown show that we're living through that i've gotten to the point where i'm like oh my god it's it's fucking terrible it's and there's no seemingly no way out your brain hits a wall you can't speculate it's only going to go in the burning garbage there's no speculating there's no hope no matter what happens we're it's fucked up and at some point you're just like oh oh man oh man this is fucking crazy it's really happening apocalyptic giddiness that is anger mixed with fear, mixed with hopelessness, mixed with sadness. And you just kind of let it press down on you until your heart feels the weight. And all you can do is kind of go, oh, shit. Fuck.

I hope you're managing okay. I hope you're using every option at your disposal to maintain your sanity. And someone added this, and I think it's true. Unless it's at the expense of someone else's sanity. I mean, let's not drain the people we love to the point where they don't know what's up. You can't just use someone. You can't just sit there and be like, oh, this is fucked. This is fucked.

This is fucked. We're fucked. And they go, no, it's going to be okay. It's not going to be okay. No one can tell me it's going to be okay. It's not going to be okay. No one can tell me it's going to be okay. No, it'll be okay. We'll get through it. I don't know if we're going to get through it.

I don't know. I don't know if we're going to get through it. We're fucked. We're not fucked. We have today and we have now and we have this and we have all the love and everything. It's like, it doesn't fucking matter, man. It doesn't fucking matter. It's fucking over.

No, I mean, just take it easy. It's going to be okay today. Let's just stay in the day. Fuck the day. You're right. You're right. We're fucked. What?

We're fucked. I just, it's over. What? No, you can't say that. You're the one that doesn't say that. No, I'm done. I can't hold it up anymore. It's fucking over.

Then if you're not, if you think't hold it up anymore it's fucking over then if you're not if you think it's over then what's what's really it's really over like well you should have fucking hung your hope on something bigger instead of draining me and using me like some sort of spiritual and emotional battery until i can't take it anymore and i've got no no fucking fire left hey come on take it easy fuck you no no no no no no fuck what do we do now hey no no no you can't be the so keep your sanity but don't drain the other person that was just a conversation I have with myself on most mornings. Seriously. Look, I didn't even mention this. Martin Short is on the show today.

I talked to Martin. And he is actually, you know Martin Short. He's from SCTV, SNL, Three Amigos. He did that live thing with Steve Martin. Everybody loves Martin Short, and he's actually nominated. He is nominated for an Emmy this year as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his guest role on The Morning Show,

which you can watch on Apple TV+. He was very good in it. It was a very kind of disturbing role for Martin Short, but he was very good in it. So I woke up to the smell of raw sewage. What is my mother? No, that was from fucking an hour ago. My mother wants me to tell her when I'm going on Instagram Live. And I did.

And now at 2.13, she goes, okay, gives me the emoji, the customized Toby emoji with the thumbs up. And I had to tell her that you fucking missed it. I didn't say that, though. Smell of raw sewage. Not great. Not a great smell. Just wafting through the air outside.

That's a bad, I don't know what neighborhood you live in or where your brain goes, but the sewage smells bad when it's just going through the air and you're like, where's that coming from? Is that my house?

Is my house about to explode and be lifted up on the blast of a shit geyser? Is it going to be some bad effect where I, we're just out of nowhere? Just there's a rumbling and then like, and just this furious shit geyser with my house sitting on top of it. And Buster in there going... Scoped it out. I don't know. I don't know where it's coming from.

I don't know what's happening. I really don't know what's happening. I know the sky is red. And it's like, it's weird, right? That everyone just... If you're out here in the West Coast, you wake up to this fucking it's a hellscape but there's weird part of the human brain that just sort of like well this is kind of bad right does this happen no this looks did this happen last year no were there fire tornadoes ever no did. Did it rain fire before? No.

Then there are these weird dates where it's like, this is the second hottest day on record. It's like, what was the first when the earth was cooling? Jesus, fuck. So look, I don't want to be a bummer. I'm okay. It's over, man. It's fucking happening. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm crying and laughing at the same time. I'm okay. You're okay. That's the weird thing is that craving, you know, weird craving where it's like, who's going to make it okay? There's nobody alive that you know that can confidently tell you everything's going to be all right. Even in that passive way where

they don't really know, but you trust them enough because of love or connection that you will be calmed by it. But that's the fucking hardest thing. It's like, are we going to be okay? I don't know. No one knows. And when people go like, it's going to be okay, they don't know. And you know they don't know. And when you try to think of the future, you're like, fuck, who knows? What's going to happen in an hour? Tough place to be. And we're all there. And we're doing it, folks.

We're doing it. Change where you can. Do what you got to do. Help out. Be a decent human. Try to do that. I don't know. Why do I feel like there needs out be a decent human try to do that i don't know why do i feel like there needs to be a message we're fucked we're fucked dude it's over man all right so let me just share this with you this martin short business um as i said before he's a you know

martin short but he's up for an emmy Outstanding Guest Actor on a Drama Series for The Morning Show, which is on Apple TV+. And this is me talking to Martin Short, coming up. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need We'll see you next time. Those goaltenders. No, but chicken tenders. Yes, because those are groceries and we deliver those to along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol and other everyday essentials. Order Uber eats. Now for alcohol, you must be legal drinking age.

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Heavy hit. There we go. Is that your doorbell? It's my clock. Oh, you have a clock? How often is it going to do that? That's a great sound. That's very nice.

What a nice room you have. Thank you. It's once an hour. You can live with it. I can, sure. Now, the wall, the pictures, that's the life behind you? This is the life behind me, absolutely. I was at Jonathan Winter's house.

Yeah. And he had a wall of photographs from like 100 years of life. And he had a wall of photographs from like 100 years of life. And there was one picture, just this old, very old picture of a boy and a dog. And we're standing there looking at 100 pictures of his entire life and career. And he just goes, I miss that dog. Wasn't he like the greatest genius ever he was something else man i you know i i went to his house to talk to him before he died and obviously and yeah after we got done talking he says i want to show you the planes and that's where we were heading when he showed me the pictures we walked

to his uh his bedroom uh which they had moved because he couldn't get around as well and he had this four poster bed and on the ceiling, there was like a hundred different model planes suspended from little pieces of string. And he says, and that was, that was him. And he,

and then we went to lunch and he wore a, a civil war hat. He wore a civil war hat. He did the correct side. It was a union colonel's hat, I believe. Oh, okay. For lunch. You know, when you're Jonathan Winters and you go to lunch in the little town you live in, it's a spectacle.

You need to show up for the people. Yeah. No, no. I did an animated cartoon show with him once. Oh, really? Yeah. I want to say 88, 89. And he was simply hysterical it's too much and for me and my brother michael we wrote the show together it was so surreal

because you know i always feel like it doesn't matter who's famous now it's who's fame who was famous when you were 12 for sure yeah yeah and they're the ones who can't believe you're meeting he got me once winters did when i was interviewing years ago for comedy central i was the montreal comedy festival running around like an idiot with a microphone yeah 95 and i you know i get him and i'm standing there with a mic he doesn't know me i don't know him i'm a kid and'm like, so how's it going, Jonathan? Are you seeing any performers you like up here this year? And he goes, well, I haven't really gotten out much.

My wife's ill, and she's in the room. And I'm like, oh, jeez, I'm sorry to hear that. He goes, I shouldn't have put her in air cargo. It wasn't the right thing to do. And I didn't see it coming. I did not see it coming. No, he was amazing. Those guys like Rickles and those people that you were so thrilled to meet.

Yeah. And then you couldn't believe how funny they still were. It is kind of amazing that they still got that. There's an engine to it. I remember I was at a dinner i have a pseudo weird memory for dates and things i once said someone once said to me oh you have that h sam thing and i said yeah i yeah i've heard of that that's that mary lou and i couldn't remember henner so i realized i didn't have it right you know i mean i couldn't remember Henner. So I realized I didn't have it. I couldn't remember Henner. But I remember being at a dinner

with Don Rickles. It was at David Steinberg and Robin Steinberg's house and they were throwing a party for Jill Liederman, executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel's show, who was about to have a baby. And Rickles was there. And they put all the funny guys at Rickles' table. Yeah. And they put all the funny guys at Rickles' table. And he was just hilarious and performing and performing. And Jimmy Kimmel and I were there, and we were laughing so hard. And then at one point, his wife, Barbara, hadn't spoken for about 15 minutes. And then she finally went, talk, talk, talk talk talk and he goes oh talk talk talk

talk let's put it this way if it wasn't for the talk talk talk talk you'd be a derelict it's just a word derelict derelict i haven't heard that word for a while. It's like degenerate gambler. Exactly. You don't hear certain things anymore. No, no, no. You and I have met. Do you know that? Yes, I know we met.

I wouldn't expect you to remember now that I've been in show business for a relatively long time. It was one of those forgettable things that probably that was just something you did during a junket but uh i used to host a thing called short attention span theater i remember this and the conceit was a basement a vault and we did a whole show built around you we did like four or five segments interviewing it was probably to promote clifford i I imagine. It was probably 92, 93, something like that. It was probably put together by Nancy Geller. Do you remember Nancy Geller? Of course. Nancy Geller was an executive producer of SCTV one year. Oh, see.

She probably called in a favor because she was at HBO Downtown then, which is who was producing it. There you go. Yeah. And we did a long-form interview. I'll try not to cover any of those questions because I know that. Go ahead.

It's only been 25 years. I'm sure there'll be some people who will forget. No. Nobody watched it. Nobody saw that interview, Martin. All right. Well, they were free. We can cover it. Yeah. So I enjoyed the thing you did with interview, Martin. All right. Well, they were free. We can cover.

Yeah. So I enjoyed the thing you did with Steve, Martin. Yes. Now, when you do something like that, when you and Steve do that, what is the creative process? Do you just say like, do you want to, what are you doing next month? Yeah. How does that, how does a show like that come together? Well, it was uh i i remember it was um the spring of 2011 2011 and uh that's my rain man very good and i uh we had been asked to interview each other uh-huh on stage to close the just for laughs comedy festival in chicago okay and it was successful but it was also we had really you know we're close friends but we hadn't done anything like this. It was fun.

Right, right. And the agent said, do you want to book a couple more? We said, sure. Just interview shows. Now you had dinner the night before, you had drinks afterwards. It's fun. Yeah. And then we kind of, and at that time, Steve didn't have a show and I did have a show.

He had his banjo show, but he didn't have like other than his musical show. And so I said, why don't we take elements of my show? And we just and that's how we kept expanding it into a real show. Right. Right. And then we just kept working on it. And the more we did it, the more we'd add different things, you know. it and the more we did it the more we'd add different things you know and and it it it is as much fun as you can have because everyone is nice everyone is cool right there are no pricks yeah allowed you know and you don't have to do it i mean it's one of these things you don't have to you know you guys you don't have to do it chose you know what i mean we're doing this because we want to do it but you know the the instinct to make it good and to work on it is literally no

difference than if i was on sctv in 82 right right yeah that same um you know nerves and focus and and i don't think that ever changes. I think it changes if you stop being in show business for a while and then you come back and you're a little off. Right. I can understand that. But I, and Steve, we never really have stopped doing any of this. Right. Until now. So it's just, and then after you have a few under your belt, it's just fun.

Yeah. And then there's, you And then there's the wine afterwards. Yeah. How does it feel to be like not doing anything right now? I feel like I'm Michael Cohen. I'm in house arrest. Yeah. This is what house arrest would be. But have you ever gone this long?

I have never gone this long without doing standup. It's very hard to break away from a work ethic schedule i find yeah and it takes a while for you to go wow i have literally nothing on the schedule till august 21 and then i'm supposed to see an eye doctor i mean that's it that's it. That's it. So it's very, it is very, it's very weird. I don't know. What have you been doing? Well, at one point, I decided that every time there was a fire or an earthquake in LA, I'm never in LA, one of my kids would be at the house. And they said, Dad, we're loading the car, what should we put in? And I'd always start with, Oh,

the old photo albums. Like, I mean, of my parents and grandparents and going back, you know? Yeah. And then I thought, I know what I'll do. I will get a photocopier machine. I'm going to transfer all the old pictures from 1913 on. Wow. Transfer them to my thing. And then I would spend a little time, you know, making people look a little better.

Oh, nice. A little Photoshop. Grandma's looking a little tired. I'll take that. So suddenly I'm making people who have been dead for 50 years look hotter. Yeah. And then I have three kids in LA.

I have a son and daughter-in-law who live with me here he's starting to be a vet you're here right you're in la in la yeah and then i have my daughter lives you know over there and i spend a couple days with her and then my son lives in cherman oaks and i'll stop in and visit you know so i kind of between the three houses but that's it i haven't been to gelson's a store i haven't been anything when our country is like this i mean i talked to a canadian yesterday like you know like i maybe i'm a bad american but my my thought is if like if you could live in canada why the fuck wouldn't you right now well um it is startling to see the level of flatlining in Canada.

Uh-huh. I mean, it's, but you know, Canada is very, they're not kidding around. Yeah. If I were to go, I have a cottage in Canada. Right. North of Toronto. Yeah. If I were to go there at customs, I'd have to say, this is my address.

Yeah. I have to give them my cell phone number and you have to go there. Right. And you have to be there is my address yeah i have to give them my cell phone number and you have to go there right and you have to be there for 14 days and if you decide i'm bored i'm going to go to toronto yeah yeah you can be fined 750 000 wow it's not kidding around and the canadian sensibility is a little more like it it's it's different know, obviously we're very similar to Americans. Although Lorne Michaels once said to me, I did a special in 85 on Showtime, and I did it in Toronto, and they cut to the audience.

Yeah. And Lorne looked at it and said, Canadian audiences always look like Russian spies who are dressed up as Americans. There's a beard that's too bushy there's something off you know but anyway the canadians kind of um they have great trust in the government you know in a friend of mine i was talking this morning british columbia yeah he said they have the daily briefings but there's not a politician involved right it's all just doctors

they're the only ones who speak yeah they're grown-up people they're they trust science and uh they have a health care that's reasonable for humans and uh there's a lot less you have someone who has an 80 million person twitter and he's saying oh you're being politically uh correct with that mask huh we're talking about it's a witch hunt all these things there are people who are going to be influenced there are terrible that's why that's why i wouldn't stay it's like like you know the disease is a disease but it's like it's a frightening time it seems you know with the divisiveness and i fantasize about just you know i think it's going to be okay okay i knew i think it's going to be okay because i think 2016 was a typo and i think people

didn't want to hire another clinton blah blah blah but and a woman and all this yeah you know all the things that scared people but the reality and intellect that scared them you know for some but but the reality is that in 2018 people were tired of it. Okay. All right. I'll go with you. I'll stay with the optimism. Stay with optimism. Yeah. I mean, you're generally an optimistic guy, it seems. I am. Where does that come from? Is that Canadian? I don't know. That is a weird question. I mean, a good question and a weird-

Do you remember when it happened? I don't know. Was there ever a time in your life where you were like, oh, this is. I think it's DNA and I think it's the way you're raised. I think, you know, I'm the youngest of five and all my siblings are funny and loose and sweet and happy and optimistic. Let's talk about Hamilton for a minute because I spent some time there recently and I got into a little bit of trouble because I was, I kind of brought to light the fact that it's seen better days. I was poetic about it. I said there's a parade of pain of some kind.

Like I was there for two weeks and it was jarring. The sort of type of kind of, it wasn't so much being destitute there was just sort of a there was something going on on the streets that represented trouble i don't know you know what happened to hamilton they had they had major um international harvester a big company and that went bankrupt you grew up there right you grew up in hamilton i grew up there yeah and i went to university there mcmaster university So what was it like when you were a kid? Wasn't there a big... It was, I'm telling you, it was elegante.

You see pictures from the Connaught Hotel and people are dressed in fabulous clothes. Yeah. I think it just hit in the 70s and 80s hard times with closing big companies like steel companies. But now they've reinvented it and now it is going up no it was just i had never seen more like and i don't even know what to make of it i was shooting a movie up there and we were driving around and every day there was just

like people there was always this weirdness on the streets and it just looked like um a little chaotic a little druggie a little yeah it looked like um a little chaotic a little druggy a little yeah it looked like a detroitish kind of situation well i can't imagine why if you brought this up you weren't embraced by the city i i didn't i was trying to be honest and now i wasn't but you can't it's not my place no No one wants honesty in show business. I know. You know that. You see a horrible play on Broadway, you don't go backstage and say, wow, was this horrible. Yeah, you guys, you should just throw the towel in now. This was fantastic. Yeah.

Okay. Great. So good. Or you focus on the things that were good. You know, those shoes were were what are those shoes yeah yeah and how like are you gonna like to do this every night is what an accomplishment so there were five kids in the family five and you guys were and you did your dad work for one of the big companies that went out of my

father was a vice president of Canadian Steel. Wow. And my mother was the concert master of the Hamilton Philharmonic. And that was a big deal then. That was a big deal. And she would rehearse five hours a day, and my father was an executive. And yeah, I had a great, happy-go-lucky childhood. What did she play? What the what was the intro violent oh when you were the concert master of a symphony you are the first violinist oh that's that's always the way it is yes and uh so you you had art in the house you had expression you had music you had people who did embrace your creativity i. My father would give my mother an opera every Christmas and on Boxing Day, which is the 26th, the next day, we would like read the libretto and hear it. I mean, I tell people that and they go, what?

Yeah. What? I said, you didn't have that? No, I didn't have that. Do you still enjoy opera? No, not really. And there's some i like i love you know hearing the three tenors and the stuff like that but i'm not obsessed i do like classical music though i do especially the older i get i i find myself gravitating toward that especially during pandemic times where you just can't hear it anymore yeah for the day you're done for the day you don't want to you don't want to get

worked up on bebop no so sometimes a little uh you know mozart can just be the perfect combo but do you like were you educated with so like every year oh it was just once a year you get the opera but you didn't were you no but there was a there was a you know i would go to the symphonies my father was also the president of the symphony. So I remember being five and not figuring out, how can this sound not be coming out of speakers? Like I'd be in the second row. It was very surreal. It's wild, right?

Yeah. To be in a symphony hall. You've played them too. Isn't it a trip when you perform on the stage of a symphony hall? It's insane. And I've done shows with symphonies, and that's also. Really? Yeah.

But you can just talk, and you can hear it, and it's such a well-designed acoustic place. It fascinates me. No, it's spectacular. Carnegie Hall. Oh, my God. It's crazy. So why didn't you become a musician?

Well, you know, I, I, we had to play piano. All of us had to play piano from age five on take piano lessons. But then at 13, you could quit. Oh, that was the rule. I quit.

I mean, I think, you know, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in the sixties, when I was a teenager, you,

you'd look at American television. That's all you looked at through Buffalo. You never looked at Canadian television. And it didn't seem like it was real. It didn't seem like it was a real opportunity for someone in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Right. So I'd be in my attic pretending to do shows,

and I had a Laugh-Applause record, and I had a gooseneck lamp, because even then I knew I needed lighting. You had a laugh applause record and i had a gooseneck lamp because even then i knew i needed lighting you had a laugh record and a laugh applause record from snot or the sands i looped it okay and i'd reel to reel and i'd hold my mic up and i had a um what were you doing up there so you looped the the martin short show okay and it was on uh a Tuesdays at eight o'clock on NBC, but every other Tuesday, because that left room for my movie. Sure.

I was 14, 15. Yeah. So you think if that's your kid, you go, well, then I got us, he's got to go to national art school or something.

Right. But to me, there was not a hint of really doing this. It was fantasy. It was unrealistic. I'd watch television. I'd watch, I don't know, something from Disneyland. It might as well have been on Neptune. So I was going to be a doctor. Really? Yeah. I went into pre-meds, not because I liked science. I liked, I was a fan of Chad Everett's work on medical center. And I thought, you know, the idea of being a doctor

was not, I didn't want to have to study anything, but I liked the idea of, because I would say of all professions, I admire that the most. Right. Because it looks authoritative and you can help people and you. You can help them die. You can help give birth to a baby. Yeah. Yeah. Make them feel better. Sure.

No, I admire that. Yeah. But no, then I switched to social work. And then so that my four years at university were premeds and social work. And then I left an actor. So you went to you went to school in Hamilton. There was a big college there. Yeah.

Did not leave home. Now, like in my recollection now, I've talked to a few others, there was some sort of comedy magic in Hamilton, right? I mean... Well, I don't know. I mean, Eugene Levy was at university. He was a few years older.

Dave Thomas. Yeah. Ivan Reitman, the director. Yeah, yeah. I've talked to Eugene. I've talked to Ivan. Graduates from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. But you didn't know any of them.

I knew Eugene. I knew Eugene. At school. And I met Ivan. I met Ivan. Yeah. But he was the head of the film board, and he was, you know, I was younger than those guys. Right.

A few years. was the head of the film board and he was you know i i was younger than those guys right a few years so uh but like i think my first year eugene was it was his last and stuff like that and but i knew ivan and i remember ivan will still say to me we'll be at like the afi awards yeah someone right and he'll always stand beside me say can you believe the two of us from hamilton ontario you know yeah not losing the perspective of what are the odds yeah but then and then so i was there for four years and then in 72 there was this amazing scene in toronto that's where i went to be try to be an actor so that's where you went to live you went up there and got an apartment i i got well when i was still in university i got this show godspell yesll. Yes. It was the famous Godspell production. That's the famous Godspell.

And, but hanging around that time in, in, um, Toronto where people like Danny Aykroyd who wanted to be a cop at that point. And you knew him John Candy. Yes. That's I met them all. I met Danny Aykroyd on June 28, 1972. And the reason I know it's that, it was because it was Gilda's birthday, Radner. Yeah. And there was a big party for her

at this place called Global Village in Toronto, Club. And Danny and his then-comedy partner, Valerie Bromfield, stayed in character as Gilda's parents from Detroit. And I just, I had never met someone so original and funny. And you at that time had already done Godspell? No, we were doing it. I did Godspell for a year. So this would be, we had probably just opened and i did it for a year and where'd y'all

all your siblings end up uh my brother michael is a very successful comedy writer yeah wrote on sctv uh one of the head writers of schitt's creek oh yeah it's still doing it you know a million emmys and a million successes my brother brian vice president of Dover Industries, a company that makes paper products. And my sister, Nora, is a nurse anesthetist. Huh. And they're all older. Yeah. I'm the youngest. And you were the last one to leave the house. The big mistake, yeah.

You were the accident? I was the accident, yeah. But when there's a 14-year difference, you know you're an accident. Oh, that's crazy. So they were gone most of your life. Right. Well, I had a lot of, and it goes back to optimism, I had a lot of sadness as a young guy growing up in that house. It was a fabulous house. And yet when I was 12, my brother David, the eldest, died in a car accident. My mother immediately got cancer. She would die in 67 when I was 17. And then my father died a year later when I was 19. So I actually for a year got orphan relief checks from the Ontario government. And all the siblings were gone.

And out of deference to my father, I would just use that money to buy alcohol. Did he enjoy the alcohol? He, a gin and ginger, no ice there. He's Irish. You know, the Irish feel that ice is addictive, so he wouldn't go near ice. Was he like real Irish?

Like talk with an accent irish yes you're born and raised cross mcglenn county armoire margie get down here uh i i love ireland oh it's so fabulous do you go great my yes my well my father was born and raised in uh at shorts bar in cross mlenn County, Armagh, which is just over the border from Dundalk. And it is still in operation, run by my 95-year-old aunt. Really? Aunt Rosaline, yes. That's amazing.

And cousins, and cousins. So you have a real family there. Absolutely. Still there, Shorts Bar. We can go right now. You can be a citizen there, too, if you want real family there. Absolutely. You go there, Shorts Bar. We can go right now. You can be a citizen there too if you want. I know. I have three passports.

Yeah. And I'm going to go to the fourth. Oh, really? What's the fourth one? I have UK. I have Canada, US. And then I could Republic of Ireland. I would love to live in Ireland.

And I'm a Jew. I've got no connection. But for some reason it resonates with me. I don't know why. The people are really spectacular. They are, man. And sarcastic and funny and loose. Yeah, I love it. One time spending, I was at Shorts Bar.

This is like 98, and I'm staying up all night with my two cousins, Oliver and Patrick, and we're drinking. And when you are publicans, as they call it, you don't drink from the bar. You put money into the till, and then you take a drink. Okay. It's a sin to not do it that way. Anyway, I came down first around 9 in the morning,

and there were glasses, and I saw my uncle Patty cleaning the glasses out and he looked at me and said, so how did the character assassination go last night, Marty? They knew we were talking about all of them. That's beautiful. So you, when you left for Toronto, like you, what, you, what happened to the house and stuff? I still had a fourth-year university, and by the end of that year, we sold the house, and I had an apartment in Hamilton. And then I got Godspell, and now I moved into a house with Eugene Levy and another guy,

John Yaffe. Yaffe. Yaffe. And we had this big house on Avenue Road, which is in Toronto. Tom Hanks always loves it. It's called Avenue Road. Yeah. He brings that up every time.

To me, it never seemed odd. I wouldn't have thought of it. Yeah. And then I did God's Will. And then I started going out with Gilda, and I kind of lived with her. So was this your first immersion in Jews? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am 10% Jewish on my agent side.

Jewish is very important to me. No, no, no. I'll tell you exactly what it is. I grew up in a very Jewish section of Hamilton, Westdale. So all my friends were Jewish. And there was something else. I was, you know, not the tallest kid in the class. So I wasn't, it wasn't about, you know,

the football player and I are going to hang. I was drawn toward the smartest people in the class. And there were a class of 38. I swear all the smartest people were jewish yeah it's just a fact and so uh then my best friends were mitchell rosenblatt alex diglick and sheldon buchhalter buchhalter buchhalter so because like i know that you know you do have a sensitivity to the timing and to you know i think a few of your characters are Jewish, whether you'd say they're Jewish or not. I'm not aware of that, except, and many, many people through my life think I'm Jewish.

Oh, really? Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, you're in show business and you have a very good, you have the innate shtick timing. Yeah, I guess, but so does john mulaney doesn't he no he doesn't he's he's got a thing that he does but i mean i'm no i guess well listen i i don't know what it is it's also probably you know as a kid i'm watching television and i'm responding to yeah i was going to say jerry lewis but i'm also responding to jonathan winters and dick van dyke and yes i can see that so i you know when stan laurel stan laurel oh yeah he's great did you see that movie with coogan and uh genius it was such a great fucking

movie and how great are they unbelievable unbelievable know the work they put into that fucking thing have you have you played stan laurel why do i feel like you've played him no never no no never tried to do it as a character say ollie well i mean i could i could do that i certainly do yeah so you move in with gilda you guys are yeah and now like what was this what the godspell thing i mean did was this the beginning of sketch comedy in canada after godspell because it seemed like the people that were in it all kind of started to do that no i think it was just um you know it was a smaller pond yeah and and i tell you, the Godspell editions were like out of reality show that you'd see now. It was already a hit in New York, and everyone who was an actor wanted it.

Yeah. So everyone auditioned, and the final callback of the Masonic Temple in Toronto was, I don't know, 500 people. Oh, my God. So the rest of the Masonic Temple was loaded with supporters and fans. Right. And then you'd start off, you'd sing, and then in groups of five, and they'd call back one person of the five, and you had to come back an hour later and do it again. And then an hour later, if you made that cut off,

you had to do an improv sketch. Wow. So they were looking for people that were talented, but it was a raw talent. But that day they cast Eugene Levy and Victor Garber as Jesus and Andrea Martin and myself and Paul Schaefer. They made him the musical director. And myself and Paul Schaefer. Yeah. They made him the musical director.

So it was kind of an amazing. Was Dave Thomas in it too? Dave Thomas would come a little bit later. Oh, okay. Not that day. And so it was a surreal thing. And then a year later, Second City came to town. Okay.

From Chicago. And set up shop. And that they were doing a sister company and joe flaherty and brian doyle murray were going to direct the first show and they everyone auditioned for it i didn't oddly enough uh you know i think it was i was afraid of it yeah yeah and everyone else wanted it so badly so and they got it g Gilda got it. And John Candy got it. And Eugene of my group. And what was the show?

It was just a sketch show? That was a best of Second City show. And they developed material. Okay. So all those people had had experience improvising. You know, you learn quickly at Second City. You learn things like, like the things that I was afraid of was I'd always been the funny guy at parties and I was funny on stage. I hated the pressure of being funny now. That's what Second City

represented to me. Until I realized that, no, you just go out and keep talking in the character. And sometimes a reaction would be a bigger laugh than an action or a word. Right. And so you learned to calm down. Right. And just inhabit the guy. At the same time learning how to improvise. Right.

But you could also, like, I would imagine you can sing and stuff too, which is a nice thing. Right? Not that you need it for improvising, but, you know but you could – I mean, you've done musicals. It's exciting. Yeah. Well, I think a Canadian career is more eclectic. There's not – certainly when I was there, just living there as a Canadian actor, there wasn't so much a star system.

But you could have 12 different jobs in the course of a month. Or if you were an American actor in Hollywood, you would never get that kind of practical experience. Yeah. I've noticed that about Canada. And I've said it to other Canadians that if you hang around Canadian show business long enough, you'll get your show. Yeah, you'll get something. But you'll get something and and but you'll also have had hours logged hours of things that maybe no one saw like what what did you do that no one saw i at at at 20 um two was the host of my own show on cbc called right on yeah and um it was live yeah at 5 p.m yeah and uh i would sing the songs

of the week but i had no funk so it was i shot the sheriff you know that yeah and um and then they'd also feature canadian young canadian talent uh-huh and there was no cue cards and i would just forget lyrics uh-huh terrifying and they just went that was on on and off quickly we had one half season well it's kind of funny because that's how dan uh eugene's son kind of started yes absolutely well he was that was mtv that was hipper yeah but you know who is the announcer on right on who and now the host of your show Martin Short Alex Trebek no yeah so he was doing that stuff too well he did it once you know but he was like the big voice guy then and he just popped in hi did the little thing and that was

that was who he was he was the Canadianadian don pardo something like that oh no he was hipper than that but he was certainly if you were going to have an announcer do that you got alex to back he's your guy yeah were you guys friends no but i i've met him through the years and i've done uh i did celebrity jeopardy once how'd you do? Not well. Yeah. I did better during the practice round. There was something, I kept saying my buzzer was off, you know? Sure. And then I was doing so badly, I decided to do jokes and that kind of pissed people off, I think. Yeah. When you're failing, it's always good to be funny. Yeah. you're not really yeah right right i don't know what's happening yeah so well how did what was the roots of sctv though you were there at the

beginning of that right no not really no really um well because i didn't join second city again i had a thing of i'll join it when um i really want to do it. Yeah. That makes more sense. Right. And so SCTV started, Second City TV started in 76. So I wasn't in that. I hadn't even joined the stage show yet. Huh. Oh, really? That was Joe Flaherty and Dave and Catherine and Eugene and Andrea and Catherine. That was the original crew?

Yeah. And then it faltered, and then it didn't have its financing. It was off for a year. And then they got financing in Edmonton, and that's when Rick Moranis joined. Edmonton. Still not me. And then I joined in 82.

They were already a hit when I joined. And they were in Edmonton? They did in Edmonton, and then they moved back to Toronto, and that hit when i joined they'd won and they were in edmonton they did in edmonton and then they moved back to toronto and that's when i joined how is flarity he's still around right oh yeah you guys talk we talked uh two weeks ago yeah everyone's kind of stays in touch yeah well you know we're working on this documentary that scorsese's doing on SCTV. And so we had a Zoom about that. And everyone was involved. That must have been fun.

It's great. And I see Eugene lives two blocks down. He pops over. Catherine O'Hara lives five blocks down. And she has a cottage near me. She's up there now. Yeah. Andrea is my former sister-in-law.

Right. So she's the aunt to my children right so i speak to her all the time that's nice i like hearing that dave i love yeah talk to him two days ago great no it is an odd group that stayed um close like i remember like when i was watching sctv i i can't even remember if it was actually it it was on a weekend night, and it was like this unique thing, and I didn't understand where it was coming from. It was Friday night. Yeah. What year?

Well, there were different incarnations. The 90-minute show that I was on to would have been 1230 to 2 in the morning Friday night. Right. And what year was that? 82, morning Friday night. Right. And what year was that? 82, 83, 84. Right. And I remember you doing Robin on a ladder. That's right.

It's for Tang. Oh, Tang Yu. And you're just up on the ladder. Oh, beat me down, Scotty. You did a good Robin. I think you might do the best Robin. Well, certainly not a lot of people were doing it at the time. Oh, really?

He wasn't that big a star yet? He was a big star, but it was just like no one had jumped on that. Yeah, yeah. Figured out the pace. But the way you do SC at SCTV is that, let's say a writer wrote a piece, a member, or Eugene wrote it, I think. It was the idea that Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer

had a famous fight at a party, and evidently Mailer threw a glass of wine in Gore Vidal's face. And so the piece was reenactment of the fight. I play Gore Vidal, Eugene's Norman Mailer, and then it becomes a Tide commercial as they try to get the stain out of my shirt. And it ultimately is a Tide commercial they've done.

So someone said, you read it, it's funny. And someone says, hey, can you do Gore Vidal? And you go, sure. You have no idea if you can do Gore Vidal? And you go, sure. You have no idea if you can do Gore Vidal. Then you go home. What I used to do is I'd get a recording of Gore Vidal and I'd type it up, transcribe his, like two minutes of Gore Vidal in an interview.

And then I'd juxtapose it with the script for the piece. But if you notice, like from the transcription of Gore Vidal, everyone speaks in a certain patterns, certain words they use a lot, certain ahs. So I'd apply that to the script kind of overlapping to try to figure out how to do Gore Vidal. And sometimes you'd have someone down like, I did Paul Anka once and I was good for

three takes. Do you know what I mean? And then it was gone. I'd have the Walkman on, I'd throw it down. Let's go. For 23 years, you made us laugh and cry and think, and you did it your way. And then if I tried to do it two weeks later, I couldn't do it. Or just ran. Right now, I can't do it. Right. So it would just stick for right when you heard it, you're like, I'm in. Let's do it. And that's it. Yes, exactly. But Robin sticks.

Well, Robin, I knew Robin. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And, you know, he had that kind of Irish look to him. He did. Yeah. Odd that his parents weren't Irish and he grew up in San Francisco.

But, oh, it was incredible. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. It is kind of. Yeah. So did It is kind of. Yeah. So did you guys ever, so you've done your impression of him to him, and he probably got a bit.

Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. He did SCTV. Yeah. We did Bowery Boys in the Band. The Bowery Boys and Boys in the Band. And I played Hunts Hall, and he was Leo Gorcey. It was fantastic.

Oh, that's great. I used to watch that at my grandparents' house. Bowery Boys. No one remembers them. I love the Bowery Boys. They were great. Well, you know, they started off in a movie, like a 1938 movie, as real teenagers. And then they just kept doing it.

They were like 52 still doing it. Weren't they the dead-end kids, too? That's where they started off, yeah. And then they became the Bowery Boys. Yeah. So from SCTV, I don't know how everybody becomes, eventually everyone ended up here. When did that sort of happen? When did the migration happen?

You know, back to Canada, I remember there was this moment that Paul Schaefer was the first person in our group to be working the States. He was working on the magic show, the Doug Henning show. And Stephen Schwartz, who wrote Godspell, that was his show. So he asked Paul to be keyboard for that show. So now Paul's in New York. And I remember Gilda and I phoning him one day. We were both in the same extension. And Gilda said, Paul, what are New York actors like? And Paul said, well, I don't know. Maybe because you're my friends. I think you guys are just as talented. And we went, aw, that's so sweet. We didn't believe it. So there was this tendency to, before I die, I have to give the states a shot. Or I always used to say, I want to look in the mirror and say, maybe you should have tried going to New York for a bit. Oh, that's

right. You did and you failed. Okay. You wanted to cross it off your should have done it list. So you went down there once before and then you left? No, no, no. What happened was that I went down to try to, I don't know, get work or something. Oh, I know what it was. Lorne Michaels was now, well, he was SNL. And Gilda got me an interview with Lauren. And I had now been, you know, I'd been successful in second city stage. I hadn't been in SCTV, but I,

you know, I didn't have, people knew it wasn't like a total unknown. So anyway, Lauren offered me a holding deal. This would be in 19, early, early January 79. And he said, Danny or John might leave. And I could see you going in to the show for the fifth season. And so now I'm in New York. That's exciting. It wasn't much money holding, but it was exciting and complimentary.

But then at the same time, I auditioned for James L. Brooks, who had a new series called The Associates on ABC. And he was so powerful. He'd done all the Mary Tyler Moore shows and Phyllis. And also he'd just signed a big deal with Paramount. Now he adjusted there. His first show was Taxi, and that was a massive hit.

Yes. Now this is the next year. And he had a 13 on the air-air, no-pilot order. It was very cool. And I auditioned for him, and I got one of the leads in the show. And so now I had planned to go to New York, and now we were moving to California. You and your wife, or who?

Yes. That's right. My girlfriend at the time, who would become my wife. And that was 79, summer of 79. And that's what what got you out here that's what first got me out here and then i ended up going back to do of course we owned a house in toronto right and going back in 82 to do um sctv so that's like because it's like it's interesting how many like you did a lot of stuff on television you did that thing which didn't take off i guess you did a lot of stuff on television. You did that thing, which didn't take off, I guess. You did 13, though.

We did 13. And then the next year I did another show called I'm a Big Girl Now with Diana Kanova and Danny Thomas. And that went off. But these were the years of 13, 14 episode commitments. Yeah, we did 19 of I'm a big girl now and what went wrong with that show well it wasn't uh i played neil striker the office boy yeah um it wasn't you know i don't think uh i i don't think it was the you know it wasn't uh it wasn't all in the family sure that way yeah yeah but did you see yourself like you saw

yourself as just an actor you saw yourself as a comedian a comic actor i think i saw myself as an actor yeah and and i think you know i also thought before i did i want to do a broadway show i want to act. You know, obviously, SCTV, Second City Stage was two years, 70, 70, 79, of improvising, but I don't know. You know, to me, it was just like, it wasn't so much, where's my

career headed? What's my seven-year plan? I was just trying to figure out rent and everything. You know, in Canada, you know, you don't, in those days, you didn't, if you got in canada you know you don't in those days you didn't if you got a job you didn't say i wonder should i run it past my manager to see if this is the right thing sure you just say do i bring a suit right well i need my own wardrobe is there going to be a hair and makeup person there or no no no there won't be and what do you what launched because like it seemed like there was a time there where you know you were definitely in the mix with the big things the movies like you

know when you did three amigos the inner space and well the big picture that's a great movie but i mean how did that how did what what caused that leap to happen when you went like three amigos well i think that you you know um or was that for you'd already done snl by that time yeah i did snl and and i was successful in that and that made me now a name that you would pitch that was it right three amigos yeah so the snl experience that like, that was a very unique, uh, wild season. Cause it was a, yeah, we all had one year contracts because, uh,

Eddie Murphy had left the year before. Yeah. And Joe Piscopo had left. That's probably, and now there was, there was a feeling that the show might be canceled. Right. Cause Lauren was gone too.

Right. And Lauren was gone. It was Dick Ebersole. And, um, so there was a real sense. Should it be canceled? So Dick, because lauren was gone too right and lauren was gone it was dick ebersole right and um so there was a real sense should it be canceled so dick he called it the george steinbrenner year where he um offered a one-year contract with a lot more money than it ever been paid a cast member yeah to billy crystal yeah christopher guest harry sheer martin short and rich hall Yeah. Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Martin Short, and Rich Hall.

And did you know those guys? Did you know Chris Guest before? No, no. That was when you met him, huh? I met Chris. I met Billy because my wife was on the TV show Soap with Billy. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. But I'd met him briefly, and we had the same manager, Rollins and Jaffe. And Harry, I knew he was friends with Paul Schaefer.

Okay. Yeah. And I didn't know Rich. Yeah. So you're all coming into it. You're all unique pros with real comedic personalities defined. Well, I remember I just finished SCTV. Yeah.

And I really wanted a break from this kind of thing. Yeah. And I actually still have it, a pro and con list. Should I do SNL or not? Because we had just rented a new house out in LA, and I had a new baby. And I thought, oh, my God, this is so much work. And what if I'm no good?

And what if I stink? Yeah. It was all that stuff. But then I aired. And then Dick Abersaw had asked me to be. And I said, he said, you know, we're also going after Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, and Eric Shearer. And I said, well, yeah. Okay, let me know when you get them.

And then he phoned me up and said, we have them. Hey, you do? Wow. Because Spinal Tap was out that summer. And it was, you know, the hottest, hottest hippest most brilliant thing imagine yeah sure and then you're working with all those guys yeah it was intimidating was that a great experience for you though you know as share would say if i could turn back time yeah having a one year contract made you feel like oh i can get out of this right but it also put pressure on you

you felt like you were doing a special a week. Right. Like there wasn't this sense of I'm going to be here for seven years. Okay. So I'm not in this week. Okay. So you could feel like a star Saturday night, but by, and as a writer on the show too, by the Wednesday read through, if you didn't have anything in that you would be liked, you felt like a biggest failure in the world. And it was, in the world. But I think I put a lot of pressure on myself to be good because I wasn't going to be there long. But it seems like some of the characters that came out of that, you did forever.

Yeah. I'm no fool. Right. Or people say to me, do you still do your characters from SNL? And I say, sadly, yes. But I went in after the fourth show and tried to quit I went to the Ebersole's office and said being Canadian and savvy yeah I said you know I haven't cashed any checks he went right well you have a very high Q rating I didn't know what that was yeah and he

said well and he handled it like a champ. He really did. Cause he said, we were only in October or something. And he said, if you leave now, cause I had gotten, you know, some early attention on that show. He said, if you leave now, it would be really bad for us, but it would be very bad for you. And you're also be breaking your contract. And you'll also be breaking your contract. But if at Christmas you still want to leave, I'll let you leave. Because he knew that, he just later told me, he knew that by midway point I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and maybe I would have figured out to calm down a little bit,

not be so worried about the quality of my work. I remember the first show before we went on the air, I said Harry Shearer and I are writing Synchronized Swimming together. It's a great bit. It was a good piece. And I said, Harry, you know how I'm going to do this, this SNL experience?

I'm always going to be holding a piece back, a piece that I really believe in, so that I cannot feel pressured. I can tinker with it for an extra week. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Then he got a piece of paper, put it in his typewriter, typed it out, and then put it on his wall. He said, all right, I want to see how that piece is doing each week when you come in here without a fucking idea in your head. I'll ask you, how's that piece you're holding back the one you want your friends to see how's that piece it was no such piece it never would happen you know but it made sense to you in the moment

well you know that's how you could do sctv you would write for six weeks and um eugene levy who is the most prolific writer at one season, the Cinemax season, the first couple of weeks, he just didn't have anything. Now, in SNL, you wouldn't be in the show for two weeks. Right. He then, in the last four weeks of the writing, made up for the first two weeks and was the heaviest in every show, as always. But you were denied that experience of snl with lauren at the

helm but you know yes from other things you're friends with then we did three amigos together right how involved was he he was involved he's one of the three writers oh okay on that script brandy newman steve and lauren uh and then um you. And then I had met Lorne originally backstage of Godspell, I think. Wow. Then I got to know him very well from Amigos on, mid-'80s on. You just became friends because you guys were Canadians? A little bit. But also, he's funny and charming and loves to laugh.

And we had a lot of mutual friends. And then I started doing snl so when you look back on it like because you it's it's sort of like you've done so much work everybody knows you you're an amazing performer you're hilarious but the question is is like when you look back on the tv opportunities or like when you had, you had several shows, um, do you wish that you would just landed one and stayed on it for your life? Like a talk show or. Well, when you do things like I would say my career has been, you know, 80% in failure.

And I think those are pretty good odds, you know. That's not bad. But how do you determine failure, really? Well, I mean, failure not in the artistic sense, but failure in the sense of you're not renewed. Right. You know, your show gets canceled. Right.

The thing that you, and then you go, huh, now what? Oh, maybe Broadway wants me. And then you go there for a while. Hey, have you heard? You're hot in the movies again. I am? All right. The movies didn't open.

What about TV? You know? You're hot in the movies again. I am. All right. The movies didn't open. What about TV? You know? And then there's the Palm Springs Follies. I hear their audition. You know, you just keep moving along. And so in retrospect, as I look back at my career, I love that it was so eclectic and had so many things.

Yeah. I wasn't on Cheers for 14 years. Right. But in the first season of, years right but in the first season of had i been on the first season of quote-unquote cheers and had been canceled i would have been bummed right well i mean the the what the i think the amazing testament to to you uh as a as an entertainer and as an actor and everything else is that clearly your talent is boundless. And, you know, anytime something didn't work out, someone said, well, he's Martin Short. Let's give him this thing. Well, there was an element of that.

I think that but I think that, you know, it's it's movies are flukes. And hey, it's three movies are flukes and hey it's three movies are flukes and and if you're in a successful movie yeah that's fantastic but it happens not often I think that's I made three amigos and that was did okay but at the time is

considered a disappointment you know yeah and then I did inner space which was considered supposed to be it's Spielberg and Joe Dante and Dennis Quaid. And I, and it was supposed to be a massive hit and no one saw. And sometimes these films become very popular in the other life.

Yeah. And people are amazed that they weren't successful, but they weren't. And so you have so many times at bat. My friend, I have a friend who loves Clifford. I love Clifford. Clifford isord is one of

the odder ones but certainly that was you know fun to make well that was it it was hilarious to make yeah and groden yeah have you ever met charles groden i fucking love groden oh my god so funny right i've never met him genius i've never met him well he has a so you know i remember when we were working together you'd say so you know i remember i was well it's in my book and i had to pretend i'd read his book and i had to go oh yeah of course of course he he's totally out of the racket i mean he like just left well i think he you know i don't know how old charles is at certain point yeah you know i do think the exit is as hip as the entrance yeah i think that's true he was so fucking funny what was it about him what did what would you call him he's a crank is he uh well it was put on

you know right um i remember in clifford where he he he improvised this he would say look at me like a human boy and you go who says that charles does grogan would say right or chuck as everyone calls him chuck road yeah he was he's done some funny shit man oh hilarious the good the um heartbreak kid is if you haven't seen it for a while, just see it again. It's hard to find. Like, it's not on Apple Music. It's not on iTunes. I tried to.

It isn't? No. I wanted to watch it the other night, and I couldn't find. It was not easy to find. I couldn't find it. Oh, it's so good. I don't know why. It's so annoying. Jeannie Berlin

and everybody. Jeannie Berlin. That moment where she goes, I put cream on. I like that. It's just that was the moment where he's like And his line to her is just so endless. Oh my God. You didn't hear the news?

So weird. Like after all God, you didn't hear the news. You know what? So we're like, after all that, like, I remember Captain Ron. I saw inner space. I saw three amigos. I saw a lot of these. I like the big picture. That was a great movie. But father of the. Yes, but what fuels the but fuels the next, you know, choices are.

Did those films do well at the box office? If they did, get ready for Captain Ron 2. If they didn't, what's Broadway doing? Sure. But Father of the Bride was the big movie. Those were big hits, yes. Yeah. Now, when that happens, are you like, I'm back.

We're doing it. We're making money. It's great. Let's see see the first one no then i went to broadway i did a year on broadway and then the second one well you're back in that you get films but those films have to be it just is it's really about you know how successful your last thing is yeah but you like do you like doing broadway i did it was fantastic i like the discipline of it i like the idea that you could

do opening night and people would come back and say oh that's so good you're so good and you go come back in four months when i'm really good. You know, that level where you're saying lines and you're not thinking about them and you're as free as you can be because you now, you know it so well. And so this idea that maybe one night in that eight-month run you might be perfect or close to perfect was exciting to me.

Could you feel it when it happened yes you could yeah yes you could yeah and and it's so funny because that's one of those things where only you really know that you know yeah i remember um when the new york times you know they staggered the reviewers in the old days they came opening night they don't do that anymore yeah and which is more pressure for the actors because you have to be great not just like there's no such thing as second night blues because the second night you know the new york post is there right but i remember um ben brantley writing for the new york times was in the audience. They try to keep it

from the star, but you find out. Yeah. When I was doing this show, Fame Becomes Me on Broadway, 2006, and I thought

at the end of that show, we had a whole cast. It was a one-man show with a cast, you know. And at the end of that show, I thought, okay, it doesn't really matter what Ben writes

because this was, we were just spectacular tonight. We were, everyone knew he was out there, but no one faltered. Everyone was, there was a higher power going on. And so my thing on that is, like even with reviewers, if you know it's not very good and they say you're not very good, you go, ah, they caught me. Right. But if you know it's great and some idiot doesn't get it, that's not your problem. Right, but it hurts a little.

Well, of course, but it doesn't hurt a lot because you know it's good. It hurts a lot when you know it's not very good and you're lost in the role and they caught you right what did ben say about that night i can't even remember i think he was positive but the point was that he was because i don't i i kind of think that we're you know i'll read reviews on the road of a show like if you that out in San Francisco and Toronto and Chicago because I'm part of the writing thing, so I'm trying to figure out what they say.

But once you open, you do have to protect your little emotional filament. You can't be filling your head with people's comments about you because you've got to do it the next night. It's not finished. How do you protect it? I try to avoid those reviews, review,

review. You mean you just don't read the shit. Tend not to know. Not if I'm running into something and I can't do anything. Is there some other tools you incorporate, you, you, you utilize to protect the emotional filament.

You try to keep away from negative energy. I mean, you can learn if you didn't know hatred, you can learn it by doing a run negative energy. I mean, you can learn. If you didn't know hatred, you can learn it by doing a run on Broadway. You know, people coming back. Hi, that was fun. That's it. That's it.

That's all you have to say. You and your stupid actor's brain. I remember one actress said, you know, you were good, but the play, you know, my problem is I can't lie. And I want to say, well, you can't act either. I mean, if we're going by your last four things, you can't act. Well, that's because she can't lie. I mean, part of acting is lying. Yeah, stop it. You can play a murderess, but you can't come back and say,

you were fabulous and what a great show. You can't say that. Phony baloney. So that's me. You learn hatred. Yeah. But yet you remain optimistic somehow. Yes, I do.

Yes, I do. And would you say you're a spiritual person? I would say that I can go on a hike and look at the ocean and the mountains and say, wow, this is overwhelming. But organized religion or any kind of that, no. Right. So the optimism is just it's a choice. I mean, I look at Woody Allen. I don't know Woody Allen, but you get the impression based on his movies and what he talks about

himself, that he spends a lot of time in angst and despair. I don't know if that's manufactured or if that's just, but the reality is I'm not like that. I'm the opposite of that. So it's, someone said of me that I was also laughing on the inside. Yeah, both. You know? Yeah, yeah.

And so I don't know why people are like that. Right. Well, I thought. I think it's lucky, lucky if you are. What, to be like you? Yeah. First of all, you live in this great house yeah and uh you get to know famous people like chris guest how close is larry david live to you four blocks yeah are you guys

friends too very close friends i played larry um on uh primetime Glick. Curb your capitalism. It was me as Larry David in a curb. But I was playing Ken DeLay. It was about politics. It was Ken DeLay. I did look like him. The Texas congressman? Yeah.

Oh, he was a monster. Monster. What happened to that guy? I don't know. What's going to happen to all these guys? Probably nothing. I don't know. So you think Lindsey Graham will be reelected and Mitch McConnell and everything will just continue?

I think some of them are going to lose their jobs. I don't know exactly which ones. I have no fucking idea. I, you know, I'm so bowled over every day by the amount of chaos created by this fucking monster that it's very hard for me to have any clarity like i can't i can't depend on old models anymore martin i can't i can't just say like well you know the election will come and things will turn around like there is such a a a level of chaos and fear and and and weird tension that you're like how do we are we ever going to be released you know i i think we

i think we will you know it's very interesting as a canadian politics um it's much more it became much more in the united states hatfields and mccoys you know in the sense that in canada if i vote liberal and my friend votes conservative, it's not a big deal. It's just, how come you're voting that way? Well, it didn't used to be that way here either to this degree. Yeah, but I will say that, and I'm not trying to be Pollyanna here. I play all over the United States in every state, Steve and I now over the last few years.

And the audiences are fabulous and the people are fabulous. And I believe in the positive spirit of Americans. I think that this is a blip. Okay. I hope you're right. And here's the other thing. It's very interesting. I saw a friend, Lee Woods, talk about this on Bill Maher. She said that nine out of 10 Manhattanites did not vote for Donald Trump because they knew who he was. Exactly. And I think four years later, the United States knows who he is. Oh, good.

We really learned our lesson. Great. I'm glad they took their time processing. Yeah, I agree with that. I did want to tell you before I go and before I forget that I thought you were great in the morning show. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That was something I—

That's a cool series. I know. I really—I kind of liked it. And I had not seen you do something like that. I mean, like, because, you know, it's so funny because when I—when you show up on screen, there's Martin Short, you have these expectations. Then you're like, holy shit, this guy's a fucking monster. You know, like, holy shit, this guy's a fucking monster. You know, like it's not, you know, because like, you know, a lifetime of watching Martin Short doesn't really prepare you for where you go with that guy. Well, you know, it's tricky is I remember

I did a season of a series called Damages. Oh, yeah. And at the very first show, I was playing a lawyer, kind of a Madoff type lawyer. And I remember one of the producers came up to me and said, you know, they'd be watching the takes. We do another take. Marty, can you not smile? Because when you smile, it becomes Martin Short. And I said, well, you see, now we have a problem, because Hitler smiled. The devious are the biggest smilers. And he went, you're right.

And that was the last concern about that. In other words, you were stuck with the clown, and now you had to somehow forget that he was a clown yeah that's not really your fault no it's not my fault at all i can't it's not my fault i'm this beloved iconic person exactly yeah yeah yeah fuck that it's a burden it's a burden it was great talking to you man great talking to you, man. Great talking to you, Mark. It's nice we spent a nice hour plus during the pandemic where days get long. And we had a nice conversation about your life. Lovely.

Thanks, man. I know. Next time I want to hear all about you. Do you, though? Not really. Yeah. I'll do it. You just tell me when.

Yeah. If I'm not here, don't think I'm not recording it. Okay. See me when. Yeah. If I'm not here, don't think I'm not recording it. Okay. Let's see you later, man. Bye-bye. That was Martin short.

The Emmy nominated Martin short for outstanding guest actor in a drama series in the morning show, which you can watch on Apple TV+. And now I will play some guitar for you. What are we going to do? Fight? We're going to fight with our hands in a bat. The fire.

Oh, my God. Relax. Fold into the sounds of my guitar playing. Thank you. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Boomer. Monkey. La Fonda Live. Flying Cats. cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis

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