WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 541 - Larry Wilmore

Episode Date: October 12, 2014

Many people know Larry Wilmore from The Daily Show. Many more will soon know him as the heir to Stephen Colbert's late night slot. But throughout his life, Larry wanted to be known as many things: an athlete, a magician, an actor, a comic, a writer, a producer, a showrunner and more. And along the way, he had to fight Hollywood's notion of what a black entertainer should be. 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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How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucksters? What the fuckabillies? What the fuckadelics? What the fuckminsterfull. What the Fucksters. What the Fuckabillies. What the Fuckadelics. What the Fuckminster Fullers. All right, man.

Women. I'm Mark Maron. This is WTF. Larry Wilmore is on the show today from The Daily Show and also the designated heir to The Colbert Show. A year. How long before? How does that feel to get a gig that you got to wait like a year to step into I mean the excitement of knowing it's like all right you're the guy

all right the buzz goes down all right you just wait it out I don't know if I think I would go crazy I don't know if that's the best situation it seems like the best way to do it is just hold on to the information until a few weeks before a month before just uh to keep the juice going and i don't know if that if they can over think it i look he's a he's a great guy he's he's a smart guy he's a funny guy i was happy to talk to him but uh he he's a bigger man than me not shredding himself knowing that that's going to happen i mean conan i mean conan you had that tonight show gig you've got six years out that didn't pan out well i'm not trying to be negative i just don't know how i would handle that hey we got a gig for you in about five years i

mean holy shit so much could happen i could be a rabbi by then who that i i may be living in the mountains i may have gnawed my arm off in my bed just because i had a bad dream i don't know i don't know where that came from man i'm operating on full cortisol almost all the time i did a little uh i i was uh researching uh stress with this video i'll talk about another time about the difference between you know stress's effect on the body oh my god sorry no cough button here stress's effect on the body like you know most of what we activate all the time was put in place for our survival to uh to run away from lions and tigers and and dinosaurs depending if you know if you believe that if you believe that perhaps uh people

were around with dinosaurs that there was probably a lot of stress in those times almost always dinosaurs depending if you know if you believe that if you believe that perhaps uh people were around with dinosaurs that there was probably a lot of stress in those times almost always and a a lot of the the sort of stress reaction amped up ex accelerated heart rate all the stuff that that comes with the panic and anxiety and and getting jacked up uh anger just all that fuel and and getting jacked up uh anger just all that fuel was really designed to uh to get us the hell out of bad situations and in the world we live in there's not a lot of those situations necessarily in your day-to-day life but man isn't your head full of them i got a head full of bad situations i got a head full of panic and worry why because i can't fucking turn it off i'm not taking care of myself in the right

way i'm doing the therapy thing i'm trying to stay like a recovered person but man my cat gets sick and i'm out i'm beside myself i don't know what the hell i'm gonna do i don't know what the hell i'm gonna do without him if that happens look my my heart and my my uh respect goes out to you those you can handle children. I really think I don't have children because I, I am not, I am not designated to have children. I think I'd be a good father. There's no doubt about that, but I think I'd be a panicky, worried father that would drive everybody or my wife and my child. When it became conscious, fucking crazy.

I would just be consumed with panic. I believe my parents were i believe that what they really did instead of love uh was um extreme worry extreme concern because i just had this weird realization about this not that any of this psychobabble matters to anybody but maybe it does you know because monkey got sick i told you about that last week and then you know when cause monkey got sick. I told you about that last week. And then, you know, when I got him back from the vet, I was waiting on the urinalysis results because everybody assumed, well, it's a urinary tract thing.

It's a, it's a, those fucking crystals or whatever. So they got to put poor monkey under to take pee out of him. Cause he's a nut bag and he's, he's full of stress. I don't know if that, if I'm causing that,

I, maybe I've made uh my my cats not unlike me maybe my cats are prone to panic maybe they're you know maybe i'm sitting around panicking about them and they're sitting around going like oh god there he is oh he's gonna clank that thing not the guitar not the oh god here we go with the guitar who's that person in the house what's happening why is there a group of oh that's a publicist cat's no publicist uh they come sometimes with the guests occasionally i don't let them in the garage so don't worry still just me one-on-one in here man no publicist allowed in the garage occasionally a friend will

be in the garage uh occasionally i interviewed melissa atheridge not too long ago and her her wife was in the garage and that turned out to be very charming you'll you'll enjoy that uh when it happens what was i talking about though all right so we get the urinalysis back and the doc is like and this is they put him on antibiotics again he'd just been through a 10-day antibiotic and they make him sick so i get him back from the vet and in the day in the day you know, he's fucking sick. You know, he's throwing up. He's not eating. He's lethargic.

He was just getting his spirit back when I brought him back in because he was licking his dick. He was just getting his moxie back. I think the antibiotics fuck him up. So then, like, you know, now I'm dealing with this sickly cat again. He's not licking his dick. He's not doing nothing. Just sitting on the couch. You know, he's not eating.

It makes me scared. He's got undefined inflammation of the bladder. Like, I don't know what the docs like. His bladder is really hard and it's inflamed. It's probably a chronic condition. We don't know really what the source of that is. And he's like, bring him back in two weeks. We'll take a blood test.

Like, do it all now. I'm not one of these people that's sort of like i don't want to pay for the blood test if we figure like just do it all now i gotta put that poor little fucker back in the cage if he survives two weeks and i had to go out of town so then i start thinking about it you know what is this about you know pets, pets die. He's 10 years old. I thought he'd live longer. And I'm not saying he's going to die. I have a tremendous hope in his ability to survive. But and that, you know, he's not really ill.

He was fine before I brought him to the vet. But I'm just mad. I'm mad. And I started thinking about love. And I started thinking about loss. And I started thinking about, you know, why am I such a panicky fuck? You know, like, why is a full day for me? Like, I don't know what I did today. I don't, you know, but I know that I had no time to do anything. I know I did some laundry. I know

I categorized some records. I know I prepared some food. I know I did some writing for a couple hours. I know I did an interview. Uh know that uh that i responded some emails i know i swept the kitchen twice i know i cleaned emptied a cat box i know i fed the cats i know i put washed some dishes and felt bad about washing dishes because there's a water shortage and then i wanted to can i do a load of laundry do i put all the load of laundry in now should i wash everything at once is it on me to save la from this drought kind of is a little bit but what about the sprinklers do i want my grass to die or should it? Look, it was a full day.

What I realized about myself is that there's a lot of activities going on in my brain. Then there's actual activities going on in real life. Thank God I'm not just sitting on a couch with just mental activities. Because then I would be, I've been that guy before. Then you're sort of like, man, I've been through a lot today. But I got, I watched some television, but it didn't really stop what I was going through in my head, unfortunately. So I got the mental agenda and I got the actual agenda,

and that's a lot of work. And in the mental agenda, I think a lot of it is primarily to keep myself from reacting to what's really going on. What's really going on is I've got to write another season of my show. We've got to break 13 episodes. We've got to break 13 stories, figure out what the themes are. We've started to sort of do that. We're really not on the books until the 27th of this month.

So I've got all this stuff going on, and my relationships haven't been working out. And, you know, I become cynical about that. I'm afraid to open my heart. My trust is down. So I got my cats. I know I'm a 51-year-old man with two cats. And I know I'm a 51-year-old man that talks about his cats.

And I know that in some ways that's very sweet that, you know, he likes his cats. But it's a very fine line between sweet and like, oh, that's a little sad already. And I know that. You know? But I love these guys. So I love these cats. And the truth of the matter is, you know, cats don't last forever. People don't last forever.

But there's, you know, there's a good chance you're going to outlive your pet unless it's a fucking tortoise. Or a parrot look i'm not saying monkeys deathly ill what i'm saying is that i just i i wonder about the idea of of of loss or change you know versus the idea of of love you know obviously i love these cats but you take a lot of things for granted like i don't think i'm that much different than a cat in a lot of ways like pretty much a cat just needs the the objects to remain relatively where they remember them being that from what i understand you know a cat sort of gets to know something by you know the compartments of their life like okay that's always there that's always there that smells like that that smells like that all right i know where i am i'm home i don't know that i'm not i don't know that i'm that different like the idea of of like there's

part of me it says look you know i can always get another cat i can always take care of cats and again i don't want to hex anything or jinx anything but i'm just talking about about loss you know that i think a lot of my panic like my brain seeking to get worried and overreact about things is primarily just to avoid this well of sadness and loss that i will not i just don't want to deal with that's why you know that's why i've had you know like a string of relationships that don't work out that's why i'm overly obsessed with my cats uh that's why i'm categorizing records you know that's why i'm moving shelves out for no reason i'm building things because i i just don't want to sit with myself you know but it's not i don't think it's self-pity to sort of, you know, sit, you know,

sit down in your midlife, whatever it is. I think that's being optimistic, but maybe a lot of this stuff is just weighing down on me and, and realize what, not even being nostalgic, just sort of like, there's a lot of people in my life that I miss. There's a lot of relationships that didn't go well. And even if I chose to get out of them that, you know, there's a lot of people in my life that I miss. There's a lot of relationships that didn't go well. And even if I chose to get out of them, you know, there's a sadness to it. There's, you know, there's relationships I have now that I wish were better, you know, and I can do all that stuff and I feel my ability to do it. Like I know I can show up for my cat, but then I get frustrated with him. Like he's, he's obviously not feeling well. He's lethargic. He's not eating. And I go over there and I pat him and I rub his stomach.

He's receptive. And I'm like, okay. And then I walk back in the house. He's still on the couch. I'm like, come on, come on. What's going on? And I wouldn't do that to a person that didn't feel well. Again, maybe another reason why perhaps children are not the best thing for me.

If I got a kid who's in bed with the flu or something, come day three walk in i'm like all right enough already enough already and oddly that's i that's what my mother did so there we go we're learning things i guess the message of today's podcast is i think what i'm going to do if you don't mind is try to experience some grief for uh for for my losses uh emotionally it's very specific again i'm not complaining i'm very grateful to be where mind is try to experience some grief for, uh, for, for my losses, uh, emotionally. It's very specific. Again, I'm not complaining. I'm very grateful to be where I am today, but I have to process some of that stuff. And I think what I'm talking about with the cat is like, I love that cat, but the idea

of not having him around is devastating to me. Uh, you know, I know that I'll eventually get over it but like you know your heart gets heavy and i know after you know we had you know miss pat on last week and all of you were just blown away by that tale of survival and by you know having a window into a life that many of us don't live thank god but but but understanding that there there's hope and there there's humor and there's uh there's transcendence you know that uh you know, that what I'm talking about is very minimal. I know, I know that. I know that's true and I know that like if I,

and I do have gratitude, but I tell you, man, when it comes down to like moving a piece of furniture out, I can let that go. Like maybe that's reminding me of somebody. But the idea of a cat or a person in my life that just goes away or or i push away it's just it's it's horrible because it just sticks in your heart for a while like i'm still not over boomer i still hope that he comes back and when monkey's sick i i get very uh scared that that that he won't be around and that I'll have a void as opposed to a solid, lovable little guy.

And, you know, I don't have, I haven't dealt with a lot of that in my life. And whatever. It's not self-pity. It's just a little sadness. It's okay. It's okay. All right? Because he's going to be okay.

And I'll be okay. And everything is good. Right? Exactly. You know, I, I know I have a propensity to be stuck in it and I'm not going to do it because there's a lot of great things happening. I know a lot of you like the show and I'm very excited to be working. It's just my cat's sick. That's all. It's my cat's sick. But you'll enjoy Larry Millmore.

Had a good chat with him. Let's do that now. Enough of me talking about my sick cat. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m.

in Rock City at torontorock.com. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges

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each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. Damn it. So I appreciate you have the time. Is that Jeff Marder? That's me, man. It looks like Marder, doesn't it? Well, yeah, I mean, Marder, yeah, it does look like Marder, actually.

I had the Marder hair. That look with the glasses. That is my first headshot. Wow. That is my first headshot, and I... Very Marder-esque. Well, yeah, I saw him not too long ago. He's all right.

He's a good dude. I haven't seen him in years, but I remember he was so, God, I thought his standup was so funny. It was funny. He was a Baltimore guy. Yeah. He was a good guy. Right?

I think so. Yeah. But I knew him when he was out here. Well, I didn't even realize that you were actively standup for a while. Long time. That's how I started. Yeah. I don't know how I missed you.

How did I miss you? Why is that? It feels like we were starting... Well, where did you start? On the East Coast? Yeah, I basically... Well, I was out here in LA in the late 80s. I was a doorman at the comedy store.

Then I went back east to Boston, and then I ended up in New York, probably in the late 80s. Right. See, I started in stand-up in the early 80s, and just dabbled a little bit while I was in college. But by 84, I was doing it full time pretty much. But I was more of a, I'm from here, so I never wanted to do improv or comedy store until I felt like I was ready. You know, so I kind of worked an act out on the road.

Well, I mean, so, okay, you grew up in Los Angeles? Yeah, exactly. Where? In Pomona. I don't even know Pomona. Is that a nice place? Yeah, it's all right. It was like Orange Groves when I grew up.

Oh, so it was, yeah. So it was, yeah. It's down in the suburbs. Yeah, yeah. It's like the Midwest, basically. And as soon as you go east of Los Angeles, people are like, what? Oh, I know. Yeah, it's either.

Is it near Kansas? No, it's 30 minutes away. Looks like Kansas. Yeah. You know, you go a little ways outside LA, you're like, where the fuck am I? Well, my parents are from the Midwest. They're from Chicago. Oh, really?

Yeah. And they moved out here right before I was born. What brought them out here? My father wanted to live in Los Angeles, because his parents were divorced, and his father moved to Pasadena. So he was here, your grandfather. Yeah, he loved Pasadena, even though he moved to Pomona. And different people have lived in Pasadena at different times. I live in Pasadena now, actually.

You're down the street. Yeah, I'm not too far. Yeah, just right around the corner. Yeah, you are actually down the street. I think there's a Tommy's Burgers right in between us. Yeah, on Colorado. Exactly. That's all you need to know.

That's how I measure things, by where the Tommy's Burgers are. Which side of the Tommy's Burgers are the In-N-Out it is. Yeah, so on the east side of the Tommy's and the west side of the In-N-Out. So what kind of business was your dad in? When I was growing up, he was a probation officer. He worked for L.A. County Sheriff's. And then when I was starting college, he went back to school and became a doctor, actually. Really?

Yeah. That's a big time investment. So he put another six years in? Yeah, exactly. Got his pre-med stuff. In fact, I went to Mt. SAC Junior College. And we have the same name. Yeah.

And I was a theater student. Right. Which means, exactly. It means everything that laugh and tell, right? So, but my father was serious. You know, he was going back to school. So he was on the dean's list. But, you know, we had the same name.

So I'm the third, actually. So people would be like, hey, Larry, man, congrats. You make the Dean's List sound just like things, man. So you're at the same school? Exactly. Because he got some of his pre-med stuff, some of his undergrad stuff, because he got a sociology major when he was first in college. So he had to go back and take all this pre-med stuff.

Oh, for the probation officer stuff. Exactly. So he wanted to be in the therapeutic community one way or the other. Yeah, and he ended up staying, working with the county and ended up getting like two like pensions or something like that, something ridiculous. And he ended up working at LA County Jail when OJ was there. How cool is that? As a doctor.

Yeah, exactly. He was like the- Like I have to go check up on OJ. The internist in the house. Is that what he was? A general practitioner? Yeah, pretty much. So he was doing the prison thing crazy yeah so he had a compulsion to uh to work within you know helping prisoners hey i wouldn't use the word helping uh-huh well i mean he cared

but it seems like there's other avenues to go as a doctor yes but i think it's because he stayed within the la county system oh not because he's like these guys need love too no no no no no he's that your dad no no no no no he's no bedside manner at all you know you got no it's the complete opposite you're from a big family pretty much six kids um a couple of outside kids oh really that kind of situation who had those uh my dad uh but it was in the transition period let's call it so it was was legit. It was off the board. Exactly, yeah. Right, it's one of those, hey, you can't be mad at that. Come on, man.

We weren't together. Come on, yeah, you can't be mad at that. But does everyone get along? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean, as far as families go. So wait, so your dad had two wives? No, he never got remarried. In fact, my parents got divorced early 70s,

and they had issues like about four years before that. They never got divorced. My mom almost kind of, I call it she fake married a guy. I shouldn't really talk about this here. But it was very bizarre. But she got close to marrying somebody, but never did. My father never did. And now they spend more time with each other than they ever have.

Really? Which just freaks all of us out. Yeah, it's weird how that happens. It's just not right. But your dad had the other two kids after the divorce. No, no, no. He had one. He had one in that transition period.

The transition baby. Yeah, exactly. So what, did everyone, are you the only one that ended up in show business? No, my brother Mark is a writer for The Simpsons. Right now? Yeah, and he did stand-up as well. And he wrote for Jay Leno for a long time, wrote on The Tonight Show. Mark Wilmore?

I don't know him either. I always think I know all the comics. We've been hiding in plain sight. How long has he been writing for The Simpsons? About 10 years now. Oh, so he's doing good. Yeah, he's doing all right. It's a good racket.

He's a very funny young man. Yeah, writing's a good racket, man. It is a good racket. It's a lot better than stand-up. At some point, you knew that. I did. I figured that out. How'd you figure that out? Well, I'll tell you what it was mark seriously i mean it's

funny how like you say we never crossed paths but what happens is that uh like you get on the radar screen for different reasons you know and i was the type of comic i did political comedy i did um you know offbeat humor, observational stuff. But as... I watched your tape. Yeah, but I wasn't... Comic Strip Live. Really? You saw one of those.

But you saw... I wasn't your typical urban comic. No, you were sort of dealing with the sort of highbrow approach to race. Exactly. Right. Which is... That became my name and trade now. Yeah, yeah.

But at the time, unless you were the Def Jam type of comic... You fell through the cracks. Right, unless you were discussing how brothers are going to gorilla the pussy as opposed to white people just have sex. Right, right. But you were more the guy that's like, let's deconstruct this gorilla the pussy idea. Why does it have to be gorillas? Why can't it be orangutan?

If the pussy's going to be primated in some way. Well, why do you think that is? Is that because then you have an unidentifiable audience i imagine the struggle at that level of doing highbrow race humor uh as a black comic it becomes sort of like well who am i performing for well wasn't that quantified in the beginning i just made people laugh and close right you know that's how i view it that was just my sense of humor but actually the notion what it really is is hollywood's notion of what a black comic should be really was what it was about is hollywood's notion of what a black comic should be really was what it was about and hollywood shuffle dealt with some of that too

yeah with that that was townsend's movie that was the first one that was like the first real first commentary and the indie movie though that like you know this big deal was made in the promotion of that movie that he did it by by burning through all his credit cards exactly the whole movie dom irera was in it yeah it was all about that there was a big jerry calls the jerry curl sequence exactly right and you have to be murphy-esque those types of things but here's what it was when i was a kid i mean i grew up in the 60s right and and there wasn't any one notion of a black comic there were many different types of black comics you know you had dick gregory who's a smart political comic still is he'd be yeah he still is he will conspiracy

ridden but yeah yeah now you know once he did that bohemian diet and all that crap yeah yeah but uh but he was a political comic you know bill cosby was a storyteller right you know flip wilson was a vaudevillian type comic he told jokes you know old style jokes godfrey cambridge would have been considered a hipster yeah yeah you know he was on the college circuit that sort of thing you know red fox was more of your blue comic he was a party records they called him yeah i got him i got some of them yeah right those are and those are great he's hilarious but there was no one type prior to yeah prior it was an extension of both the cosby form you saw him in that form and then in the when you old enough to have seen him absolutely started in the cosby form first and then he morphed

he took went to berkeley exactly started hanging out with the panthers and everything changed Were you old enough to have seen him? Absolutely. He started in the Cosby form first, and then he morphed. He took more. Went to Berkeley. Exactly. Started hanging out with the Panthers, and everything changed. Exactly. He got some awareness. Yeah. A lot of awareness. Yeah.

I'm black. He brought the awareness to everybody. Exactly. So those were the- There was no notion of one type of black cop. That's right. You could fit in any type, and then sometime in the 80s, it became one type of thing. How did that happen? Was that Def Jam?

Well, I think it started with Richard Pryor to be honest with you. He was so wildly successful and Hollywood capitalized on that. You know, and Eddie Murphy was kind of the part of that id version of Pryor without all the nasty raunchiness. Right. I mean, all the messiness

of growing up in a whorehouse and that kind of stuff. Here was a nice middle-class kid, but had the same type of appeal. Yeah, yeah. So Murphy was the real glossy Hollywood version of Pryor. Right, right, without the menace. Exactly, it's true.

He was not a threat. No, but it was interesting. Murphy was not a threat, but Pryor was. Right, and he was the first threat in that way. He was a big threat. Mark, I mean, there are some tapes, I don't know if you've seen these, where Pryor is on Right. And he was the first threat in that way. He was a big threat. Mark, I mean, there are some tapes. I don't know if you've seen these, where Pryor is on the set of a movie. With Gene Wilder?

Those tapes? I think it was that. Where he's all jacked up? Exactly. He's on cocaine or something like that. I mean, if you're a movie maker, that's a fucking threat to your ability to finish that film. Right.

Pryor, who doesn't give a fuck about you, does not give a fuck about anybody because he gave that up years ago. He knows he's the number one attraction in the world at that time right that is a problem that's it but that's a threat on a on an executive level for a film executive but i but i think culturally and culturally he's like fuck you white mother that's right in that length and but white people were like oh yeah that was the difference he just said fuck us and we love him exactly and so that

that became the model correct if somehow and you had to be come from a poor background from the ghetto that sort of thing but it's weird

you had to speak in that language oh yeah but I mean even the people that took the the prior model right

which defined what you're saying is the modern black comic right a lot of them don't cross over correct and prior was the guy that did cross over right so how did that you know how did that set well i mean i'm all of us i'm going to ask you questions but i i know cultural questions no i get asked these a lot because i do but i understand that model

you know but it's weird that that it became isolated it became insulated that that what you're talking about the type of comedy you didn't do, was based on a model that really facilitated the first real crossover act, which was Richard, and then it insulated the rest. Except for Eddie. Right. Well, Eddie did a lot of things. Yeah, a few others.

Right. So you did comedy for how long, stand-up? I did stand-up for about full-time about 10 years 10 or 12 years maybe and when did you realize that writing was an option well the reason why i talked about all this was i realized that hollywood wasn't going to find me you know that i had to create my own space you know and i realized that if i learned how to write and produce i could just write something for myself i mean i really was inspired by what Townsend and Keenan later did. And I just decided like around 90, 91,

that, I mean, it crystallized itself when I couldn't get an audition for In Living Color. But I ended up writing on that show. You couldn't get an audition? No, because I wasn't right for it. You weren't black enough? Whatever you want to call it. But is that along the lines of like you did?

It's possible. I mean, who knows? But I wasn't the right type, let's just say. Okay. But I mean, I'm not going to get in people's heads. But for me, I was like, okay, I just need to define who I am out there myself. I can't try to fit into somebody else's box. And for good or for bad, whether it works or not,

I just got to learn how to do that. So I got into writing and producing really to know how to do that. So how did you get the job with Kenan on In Living Color? I just interviewed for it. But did you give him a package? Yeah, just at that time I had been working on a show called Into the Night with Rick Dees. So that was my first job. But were you give them a package? Yeah, just at that time, I had been working on a show called Into the Night with Rick Dees. So that was my first job.

But were you acting as well? Yeah. Now, I hadn't quite given up stand-up or performing at that point because I was still making a transition. But once I had decided that I was going to do that, I found out a friend of mine was working on that Rick Dees show. And I sent in some jokes and stuff. And they happened to be looking for a writer. And I got in. So it happened within a couple of weeks of when I decided to do that was the first writing

gig that's my first writing but the acting is that what you studied in college you studied theater in college but did you go for what four years and do the uh I didn't finish I was at Cal Poly after I did Mount Sac and uh Cal Poly in St. Louis Obispo no Cal Poly Pomona okay agricultural engineering school which is why I was a theater hell of a theater program I guess it actually was pretty good. Yeah? Forrest Whitaker went there for a while. Oh, really?

We were friends back in the day, yeah. You guys around the same age? Oh, we were the exact same age, yeah. Really? Yeah, we went to, at the time, we did the summer thing together. It's even hard to explain what it was,

and that's how I first met him. And he was at Cal Poly. I was at Mt. SAC, and then he transferred to SC, and I went to Cal Poly, but we were good friends back then, yeah. Wow. Yeah, he's an interesting actor. Yeah.

So you guys are, so you wanna be a serious actor? I did, I studied, I actually was nominated for the Irene Ryan Acting Award when I was in college for doing Oedipus. I mean, so that was the level of seriousness that I had. I studied playwriting, all that kind of stuff. So I was forming that type of background in the beginning. My first professional gig was I got my equity card.

You know, that was like in 82. Yeah, at the Mark Taper Forum. Doing what? It was their improvisational theater project, and we wrote a play through improvisation. It wasn't the Groundlings type of improv. No, no, like, yeah, like heavy stuff. Yeah, to write a play.

And theater was, I had a very strong theater background. You know, I worked in high school and college. So, but to do a... I thought I would be a serious actor. Well, right, but the improvisational theater that isn't identified with comedy is, it can be pretty heavy. Absolutely. It started with Stanislavski. Yeah.

And, you know, Boleslavski and that whole movement and Adler and Meisner and, you know, that whole... So, you were in. You were a highbrow actor. Well, I wouldn't say I had that talent, you know, but I certainly had that interest. Right, you were going to do the real shit. Correct, right. So you come to LA. But I was interested in comedy too.

And I was, I mean, in 79, I auditioned, I did my first audition at the comedy store, you know, and I killed. You were still in college? I was still, I did my first audition at the comedy store, you know, and I killed- You were still in college? I was still, I was my first year in college. I just got out of high school. In fact, a couple years before that, I auditioned for the Gong Show, actually. Really?

The original Gong Show. Didn't get on as a comic? No, didn't get on, yeah. So that was, so you had- Clearly, I wanted to do that, too. You had it in you. Exactly. That was like, it sounds like that was the childhood dream.

Definitely. Based on which comics? The guys you mentioned, which was the first it sounds like that was the childhood dream. Definitely. Based on which comics? The guys you mentioned? Which was the first comic? Flip Wilson was the first big one. Yeah. He was the first big one. On the TV show?

He had his own show, Mark. Yeah. I mean, this was a brother on TV who was the funniest person in the world as far as I was concerned. Right, right, right. I couldn't believe how funny Flip Wilson was. Yeah. I mean, Geraldine was the funniest character, and he had funny people on, and he was always

funny, and I just couldn't on, and he was always funny. And I just couldn't believe how funny he was. Yeah, yeah. That and Get Smart, I remember, were the two funniest things. And it's funny because my sense of humor are both of those things kind of combined. That's the yin and the yang there. Yeah, exactly. You know, that kind of smart, satirical take on the world, and then just bold, just funny.

Yeah, just over-the-top burlesque. Yeah, it's completely burlesque. That's exactly what it was. That's hilarious. So did you think that as you got older, like, you know, that, okay, so you tried comedy in high school. Well, yeah, I mean. And you nailed it?

No, not really. I mean, you know, I was in, let me put it like this. I've always been in many different compartments. I always didn't know if it was a schizophrenia issue or just not fitting in. I was a smart kid, so I was in the smart group. But I was also kind of a misfit, so I was in the theater group. And I was also really good in sports, too. So I was a jock.

I mean, I was really good in sports. I was in a sports neighborhood. Like three people on our block played pro sports i mean that's the level of competition you know it must have been the weird that jocks must have not known what to do with you it was huge you know but but here's the other thing because you had people of that caliber you knew very early on whether you had what it took sure for sports i'm not six six i'm not that size i'm not gonna play pro basketball i mean there were no false illusions. Right, right. And that was a good thing, actually.

So like in my first year in college, I had to make a hard decision. Not hard now, but I mean, I was really good in that time in basketball. I could have played probably at some colleges. Yeah. But I had gone to school with Bill Duffy, who played. He was an All-American in the same year as Magic Johnson. Uh-huh. And I'm like, I'm not at that level.

It's hard. My brother was a tennis player. That moment where you realize that I just don't have the genetics or the physicality for it, the gifts. 90% genetics. Right. 90% genetics. Right. I mean, you could be a good player and just say, like, well, I can enjoy this on my own time.

Exactly. I don't have to destroy my life chasing this dream. Mark, biggest lesson of my life, one that when I talk to kids, I say, you don't have to destroy my life chasing this dream mark biggest lesson of my life and one that when i talk to kids i say you don't have to uh do for a living what your passion and dream is that's right you can just have a job and keep that as your hobby and keep enjoying it why ruin it exactly because i'm actually a sleight of hand i'm a sleight of hand magician oh that too huh but but i do that in my spare time never wanted to be it was my first real love and passion you know never wanted to do it for a living always wanted to keep it in a box and it's still there you know i still there's a big drop-off between pro ball

player exactly exactly that was the old joke what's the what's the difference between a pizza and a magician a pizza can feed a family but you still enjoy doing both oh absolutely yeah you know all right so you do the acting thing and you're doing heavy shit you're doing Oedipus and you're doing uh all that stuff right and uh when did when did you realize like that ain't gonna be the thing well there it was never that so much I mean it was I I didn't compartmentalize that. It was showbiz was one whole thing. It was showbiz or not showbiz, as opposed to this part of showbiz or this part of showbiz. Right.

When I made the decision, because I dropped out of school to join the tapers thing full time and to do stand-up. And I thought, I'm just going to dedicate myself to it. Because I had tried it a few years earlier, and I got kind of scared, you know. I mean, that was the Comedy Store's heyday when i was going up an open mic night i mean people like you know what year this is uh 80 you know so right so it was after the original heyday with

richard and everybody and when the comedy business is when people like letterman were going up regularly like right i'm seeing in the in room. Maybe Jim Carrey was there almost. Jim Carrey was just about to break out. Right. But that was in his early days and people were like, who is this guy? Right, right.

People like Howie Mandel were huge in the comedy store at that time. Those are the big people. Jay was big time. Jay was big time. Jimmy Walker. Big time. Well, Jimmy not so much

because he was already a star. He was gone by that time. But Jim J. Bullock, I remember, was one of the big time. Jimmy Walker. Big time. Well, Jimmy not so much because he was already a star. He was gone by that time. But Jim J. Bullock, I remember, was one of the big guys. Alan Stevens was a big comedy star guy. I interviewed him. Remember Alan? Yeah, I interviewed him. Carol Leifer.

She was on East Coast, but I remember people like that. But yeah, so it was very intimidating. And was Richard coming in as well? Richard would come in and work on stuff. Yeah, yeah. And so I remember seeing him there in the original room. It's mind-blowing, right? Isn't that fucking amazing?

To see him in the original room? I remember standing in the back just like, what? And I would sneak in because I was too young to be there. Right, but you were a comic. Yeah, exactly. Trying to do it, you know. So the door guy let you in. Yeah, that kind of thing.

You're sneaking through the back. Somebody let you in. First time I saw him there. I mean, I was there in 87. Yeah. And he had already been on fire and everything else, and it was a little bit heartbreaking, but to see him around 80 when he was still like this.

No, it was amazing, Mark. And to sit back in the original room, because Paul Mooney would go up and do all the nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger stuff, and it was funny, but it wasn't Richard. And when Richard would go up, even when he, and to see him work on stuff that hadn't been, it's not a bit yet. Laid back. Exactly, and he's just working very deliberate oh yeah well yeah mooney was always this you know this bombastic thing exactly oh fuck you no no no oh oh because a nigga's on stage yeah i mean every comeback to the he's already defensive and no one's done anything

yeah before he even starts his act he's walking up up and going, oh, this nigga's not going to get a laugh. Yeah, well, I mean, it's weird. I middled for him once in Sacramento. And I used to watch him when I was a doorman at the store for a while. I never quite got it because I never quite understood the point. I understood the sentiment and the anger, and that obviously exists. But I never understood what made Mooney so great. So I'm middling for Mooney, and I don't know how he's gonna do and i'm just doing my time and you know he you know he wanted me to you know you get into that thing with mooney you know he had a guy traveling with him and he had one of the kids with him a younger kid and he's

like you want to take the kid to the mall and he's like no i don't yeah but uh but like here's a weird thing is that if the thing i found out about Mooney is that if you're a white person and you don't think you're racist, he'll find it in you. Absolutely. And the approach is, you know, I would sit there and he'd be going on two hours. Right. That's hilarious. And, like, at some point, some white guy's going to go, when is this guy going to shut the fuck up? You know what I mean?

He's going to test your patience. He's just waiting for it. Right. Test your patience. Right. Exactly yeah it's kind of brilliant oh he i think mooney is brilliant no he's definitely one of those geniuses that that's why it's hard for people like that to be mainstream because part of their appeal is that they are so individual and unique but he also set a precedent for a lot of black comics for for a lot of comics in general, that there was a courage there and a persistence that is unique and it's a courageous thing.

And a lot of people adopted that, but without the wit. That's right. And he would always do that late spot. Always. Kennison would sit there and watch him. Everybody would sit and watch him. Always, yep. So now you're going to be a comic.

Another question I had, though, because you do put yourself in the position to sort of address race almost constantly. Right. When you were in high school, when you're moving through all those different things, being a jock, being a theater guy, being a good student, how did people assess you as a black person? Well, I went to basically an all-white school. Right. Me and my friend were the only blacks in our senior class, I remember, I went to basically an all-white school. Right. Me and my friend were the only blacks in our senior class, I remember. Oh, really?

It was a Catholic school. And I always felt, part of how I always felt kind of growing up, I felt like I was at a family reunion and I wasn't in the family, right? Yeah. So you always felt like an outsider in a way. And I don't know, at the time, I didn't think about that too much. They were just things that I was interested in. But I would do things like I'd run for student office and I'd always win because I'd have the funniest speech.

Right. You know. Right. And people always called me Wilmore. No one ever called me Larry. I was always called by my last name. But I never really felt like a part of that group except with my buddy. And, you know, we used to make the jokes about all that stuff and everything because you know i've talked to to black guys who you know if they were there's that that idea or probably the reality of of being

judged by the black community as somebody who is playing the white man's game or no it wasn't so much that i mean kids would make fun of us because we were in catholic school we'd be walking oh you go to that catholic school yeah yeah you Right, right. And that kind of stuff. But I didn't worry about that too much because we were more the representatives at our school. That was our identity more than somebody looking at us as a certain thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we were keeping it real. Right, right. That's what we were there to do.

Right, right. You were representing black people at your school. Exactly. We were representing black. Yeah, yeah. It's like, no no motherfuckers you this is us right here so that was our point of view yeah yeah and remember i grew up in the 60s black power black identity that sort of thing and i and i lived through i don't remember when x when

my when malcolm x was killed but i remember martin luther king was killed you do how old are you um i'm 52 i'll be 53 in october i'm 50, yeah. I was born in 61, but I remember that. I remember my mother just unconsolable. And so I remember those moments. And so I had a strong identity of what that meant. Like I tell people, I'm not a researcher, I'm a witness. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now you get into comedy and you're going full time. So who are the guys around that you're running with in 80, 81 in uh 80 81 82 uh well 81 82 i was still in school i didn't start stand up full time

till about 84 yeah and so i started out at the laugh stop in newport beach and so the people that would come through there were kind of like george lopez was somebody i started with we used to do the open mic nights all the time um people like, I don't remember if you remember, Steve Odekirk. Yeah, sure. He did all those weird noises in the plane. He lived out there. The plane thing. Yeah, all that stuff. He was a big Comedy Store guy for a while.

Yeah, I used to see him when I was a doorman. Howard Trestman, I think, used to book the laugh stops. And he gave me some of my first road gigs. But at the same time, I still was acting and that kind of stuff. I had a small part in the facts of life. I got a recurring role. That's a big deal.

Yeah, it was huge at the time. But what's hilarious is that as I was starting out in stand-up, that was my credit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That credit would open. Facts of Life. Exactly. You may have seen him on the Facts of Life.

Oh, the Facts of Life. Because whenever you travel somewhere, the fact that you were from L.A. was a credit in and of itself. He's from Los Angeles. You'd You know, he's from Los Angeles. You'd be like, oh, from Los Angeles. Real show business. Well, yeah. So you do the 10 years there.

Right. How you grew up Catholic is interesting to me. Unending source of material. Yeah. But see, there were a lot of black Catholics, Washington, D.C. area, Chicago area. There's a lot of different areas in the country where black Catholics kind of congregated. Uh-huh. So my family is one of those from Chicago

so it goes back a few generations of Catholic interesting choice someone made the choice at some point but it is funny though but now when I look at it it's funny I don't have that black Baptist southern church tradition it's not in my comedy I'm not a preacher

in my stand up and that kind of thing. I've always been more laid back, dry and that, because that's more Catholic. It's interesting, right? You were denied the screaming background. Exactly. For silent suffering. There's no fainting or witnessing.

Exactly, so I've always had more in common with the Jewish sense of humor brand than with the traditional black preacher comedy brand sure which was predominant yeah like my heroes are groucho you know right right that kind of wit that made more sense yeah i mean that always appealed to me you know it still does that type of thing well that's interesting because like you know prior was all about you know screaming and you know and Pryor was all about, you know, screaming and, you know, and the preacher. Pryor was hilarious. But Cosby, not so much. Cosby was almost strictly family.

You didn't get any sense of that type of. You know, it's funny. Cosby was not one of my favorites growing up. And that sounds heretical. Right. But my tastes were like, even though Cosby was funny, like what really made me, like I was more intrigued by even Bob Newhart. Sure. You know, because there was something clever behind it.

There was something more than just funny. Constructed. He was taking an idea, that Abraham Lincoln idea, and that was a funny, clever take on that. The Gettysburg Address thing? Where he's coaching him. Yeah, yeah. His press agent or whatever. Sure.

That's almost like a Lenny Bruce riff of the Hitler thing. Exactly. And I loved impressions, too. I did impressions so you're more more like you like people that had something put together yeah exactly there's so cosby i thought was funny but i never sought him out as wow that's what i i like that that's why i like get smart it was satirical it was making a comment it was about was about beats. Yeah. I mean, Cosby was about feeling and about movement. Right. And obviously,

he has beats. Right. But stuff like that's written, Mel Brooks with Get Smart. Right. That they're, and Newhart as well, that these were structured jokes.

Exactly. Steve Martin, I could not get enough of Steve Martin when he came on the scene because there was thinking behind that persona. And you could see the thinking behind it. It wasn't just my family.

Exactly. It wasn't. People thought it was an arrow through the head that that was a joke. No, no, no, no, no. It was the fact that he put the arrow in his head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember he did something on The Tonight Show where he had like dogs where he was performing to the dogs. And it's like, who would do something like this?

That kind of outrageousness. Like, I love Monty Python. Yeah, the balls of absurdity. Yeah, Python were comedy gods to me. Yeah, yeah, right. That type of thing more than like straight improv or that sort of thing. So here you are, you're writing,

you've been given entree into the writer's room of what was a very important thing for television. Absolutely. That this was the first black sketch show. It's huge. It was phenomenal. Right. And what was, what'd you learn there?

What was the feeling there? Well, Living Color, man, that was a show, to me it was the show that really introduced hip hop to the television culture. So it was more than a black thing. It introduced the hip-hop culture with the clothing and the music, the language, the style of humor. That and Arsenio did it in a huge way, which is...

And before, no one had really... This culture hadn't really been on television. It had been in videos and that kind of stuff, but not on television. It was one- really, this culture hadn't really been on television. It had been in videos and that kind of stuff, but not on television. It was one dimensional. Previous. Yeah, exactly. Right.

If anything, you know, people just didn't really know what it was. What are they doing? I know, right? Like, that was a reaction. Like, they're, I don't. Why don't they pull their pants up? What's going on? Yeah.

Even, so that was, it was the, I always tell people it was the worst of times of the worst of times from a writer's point of view, only because it was so difficult. But you learned everything. In what way? Well, you're, someone got fired every week on that show. Uh-huh. You know, it was, Keenan was very demanding. The writer's room was very challenging. But it was the smartest people I'd ever been around who were funny too.

To see Damon and Jim Carrey at the top of their game. Damon's amazing. Damon was fucking amazing. I used to see him at the comedy store, I used to say, what are you gonna do tonight? You gonna do your set? You gonna do your act? He's like, no, I think we're gonna do the jazz set.

That's hilarious. But he could do that then, because they loved him so much. Yeah, well he'd go out there too, I mean with characters and he'd just push it, man. Yeah, he was amazing. To be up close to it was amazing. Was everybody involved in the writing?

A little bit, Jim Carrey used to come to the offices. I used to write with Jamie Foxx sometimes, he would come around. Sometimes David Alan Grier, for the most part, not that much of course Keenan ran the show so he was involved all the time how's he doing Keenan

you in touch with him Keenan's always been doing great I see him now and then and I mean Keenan is a mogul yeah well I used to get very Keenan figured it out

yeah it was very interesting to me because I saw him because I was at the store in 86 so you know he'd already done Living Color but he would still show up and do comedy

very rarely but occasionally and it always sort of fascinated me, the different... Because he's more like you, stand-up. Right. And Damon's this other thing. Absolutely. You know, there's like night and day, man. You're absolutely right. Kenan, my stand-up was very close to what

Kenan was doing back then, too. Yeah. So there were really... It's funny, Kenan had to create that show to create a space for himself. Right. You know, That space was not there. And let go of the stand-up. Exactly. His role as host of that show and bringing that was more important than him doing an hour stand-up special. Right.

That was Damon's. Damon could have that space, but not Kenan. So you were on Living Color for the whole run? No, I was just there for a couple of years. keenan so you're on living color for the whole run no i was just there for a couple of years um i came on in the third season and did a couple of seasons and then i started in sitcoms after that just doing so you learned the ropes living color i learned everything about how to keep a job i mean you have to pitch so much by the time i got to sitcoms it was easy you know because you had to pitch every day at in living color you know for

oh to bits yeah and it was like so you had to come up with with unique ideas all the time and on a sitcom you have a group of characters and scenarios you don't have to invent that every week you're just inventing new scenarios right living color you had to think of new characters all the time new bits new ideas based on pop culture, on the news, on this, on that. So your brain was maxed all the time trying to think of this. So a sitcom is just refillable in a way. Easy. So what'd you go to from there?

I did a show called Sister Sister. It was my first show. Who was in that? Tia and Tamara Mowry. Did that last a while? It was on for a few years. It was on ABC and then the WB, but they're big reality stars now.

They've been around for a while they have you're just staff writer uh started a story editor moved up the ranks pretty quick on that yeah and then what happens then uh i did a few shows when i was on fresh prints for a while i did a show called the show and then uh wait the show with sam cedar yeah sam cedar yeah right yeah that was before he became a pundit. Yeah, no, I worked with Sam Seder. Yeah. We did a streaming video show, and he's a friend of mine.

Oh, Sam's awesome. He was great on that. We were on Air America. I thought it was a good idea. It was a very good idea, and here's a great story about that. So John Bowman, who created it, he worked on Martin and on The Living Color. So he had this crazy character on the show and he was trying to cast it. And he found this guy who was perfect for it.

He was out of New York and Fox did not like him. But the Fox executive at the time, who I don't even know he's even in the business anymore, thought he was too ugly. He wasn't good looking enough. So John's so frustrated because he knows this guy is perfect for it. So they made him keep looking for someone.

And eventually the holding deal expired for this guy, you know, and he still hadn't found anyone. And so then in frustration, he said, look, I have to let me just hire this guy. You know, I can't find anybody. They said, OK, you can hire him. So he went back to him and asked if he'd do the choices. All right, fine. But I'll only do the pilot now. I won't do the series because I guess I guess his feelings were hurt or whatever, you know? Yeah. And he went back to him and asked if he'd do the show. He says, all right, fine, but I'll only do the pilot now. I won't do the series because I guess his feelings were hurt or whatever.

And he says, okay, great. And so he did the pilot and he killed. He was the funniest thing on the show. Funniest thing on the show. And then after the pilot, he was like, sorry. About? Peace. And that guy was Paul Giamatti.

Really? Paul Giamatti. He was hilarious. And he didn't do the series. He stuck to his word. And Fox could have had him on a series. And the show was never the same without him. Never the same.

What was he? He was one of the writers on the show? Yeah. He played one of the white writers. Right. He was hilarious. Oh my God. Ask Sam.

I will ask Sam. He'll tell you how frustrating that was. We could not replace him. Sam's whole experience with TV was frustrating. The number of opportunities he had, either blue on purpose or not on purpose, was fascinating. I thought he was good on that part, though. No, he's very funny. He did a good job. Yeah, and I thought the premise was great. Yeah, it was. Sometimes it's timing with TV shows. Sometimes it just comes on at the wrong time, just doesn't quite do it. So out of that, I decided I wanted to be a showrunner. I wanted

to do my own thing. I had worked on the Jamie Foxx show after that, I think. And I ended up getting a deal with Disney, an overall deal, to develop shows. I had done a pilot with a couple of guys from The Simpsons, but it didn't go. And I was contacted by Imagine, someone at Imagine, that Eddie Murphy wanted to do an animated show. Uh-huh. And so I met with them, and that turned into the PJs. Yeah.

And that was the first show that I was able to create. That was successful. Yeah, it did pretty well. It's actually, it has like a cult status now, which is kind of cool. Did you work with Eddie directly? Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

So you guys are okay? Oh, yeah, we just talked a few days ago. He wants to do a movie. Oh, really? Yeah, Eddie was cool during that process, man. He was very cool. And here's the thing, Mark mark until you actually work with eddie you don't appreciate how funny he is why you appreciate how funny he is but you know it's like he i think it's because of the movies he's done it's kind of but also just because of like when someone reaches a certain

level of celebrity everyone makes assumptions and it becomes a mysterious character but you know people will know him it's like they just a guy you know with a lot of fucking money you know what i mean but he's still just a dude no he's hilarious yeah no he's always hilarious so you did that with him and then what happened uh after that um i created the bernie mack show now bernie that he was something else man bernie was a huge talent so dude i tell you man it's like back in 95 did you ever work with bernie i'm here's a weird thing i met him i met him like um they i was at the aspen comedy festival right and i don't think the show been on yet so they decided they're gonna have a black showcase up there right so there's so it's bernie this is 95 maybe yeah yeah this is way before yeah left. Yeah, right.

So it's Cedric and Bernie, and I can't remember the other guys. And they're the only five black dudes in Aspen ever. Right, exactly. They're walking around going like, what the fuck are we doing? You can't breathe up there. And Bernie, back then, was bringing a version of the black experience that was so uniquely, it was so insular. I ain't afraid of you motherfuckers yeah like it was like you know this is the real deal this is it was almost like you're like we're not even supposed to be seeing this no that's called keeping it a hundred that's what that's called right and it was mind-blowing to me because

like he was so huge and it always pisses me off that there is a strange detachment between the comedy communities. Right. That they're, like, I feel like for some reason, and I've been criticized on some level, because I'm like, I don't have a lot of black acts on the show because I don't see them around. Right. You know, and they're like, well, then go. A lot of it is in different worlds. That's right.

Right. And it's annoying, but I understand it. Right. You know, it's not, like, imposed. It's a decision. Right. Your market's your market. Right. And there's guys who are like, well, I want to do both markets. Right. And there, it's, it's not like imposed. It's a decision. Your market's your market. Right.

And there's guys who are like, well, I want to do both markets. And then there are other guys like, fuck that. Right. I'm okay. Well,

and you go to where your audience is. That's right. Right. To me, the whole thing about things being separated, I always had an issue with, because like I said, I grew up,

it wasn't like that. yeah. You know, even the way TV kind of segregated itself. Yeah. To having, you know, what I call niggat night. Yeah. When all the black shows have to be on one night, you know, that kind of thing. You know, I'm like, why is that? You know, I mean, I mean, the Jeffersons.

Someone somewhere is saying we know where they're all are right now. Yeah, exactly. We're all watching tonight. Yes. It's like the back page of Jet Magazine. It would tell you where all the black people were that week. It's like if the back page of jet magazine it would tell you where all the black people were that week it's like it was like if the police ever needed to know you know this is where the black people are in showbiz you know what's all it all becomes you know uh indicating

of something dubious right but yeah but not as necessarily as as profoundly intentional as some people would suggest but definitely institutionalized. Right. Yeah. So, all right, so working with Bernie, though, that must have been mind-blowing. You co-created that thing, and that was a big show. I created it. I didn't co-create it. You were the guy. Yeah.

So I always have to make that distinction. No, I did create that show. In fact, I won an Emmy for the pilot script. And that's amazing. And it went the full ride, right? It went about five seasons. Fox fired me after the second season. Didn't matter.

You created it. Yeah, exactly. We never got along with the head of fox at the time who was another guy who's now out of showbiz what happened with that what was the issue oh he was just out of his mind he was just you know he was a real control freak and had a real horrible attitude but uh at the time i had deconstructed this the sitcom in order to write Bernie. I mean, remember, I have a theater background. I studied Ibsen and Shakespeare and all that stuff. So I had a strong writing background and all that stuff. And at the time, every sitcom was kind of the multi-camera, which is really based in farce and kind of based in burlesque almost.

And it's a filmed version of almost a burlesque show in some ways you know vaudeville anyway yeah vaudeville all that kind of stuff you know which is great it's a great forum but it's um it's based on something different and i wanted i was taking a cue from the reality world when i created bernie i said there's something different going on here the act breaks are different and all that kind of stuff so i had to construct it in a different way and it was single camera yeah the only other single camera in the show was malcolm malcolm in the middle at the time and so based on that they would give me notes on this other thing and i was trying to write something different so we always had a conflict right and they they called me incompetent and thought i didn't know what i was doing meanwhile i kept winning awards we won a p-body

humanitas emmy you know tv critics award and that made them more angry like so they were trying to do the old paradigm which was three camera and give you notes on what they thought it should be well they were giving me notes based on that yeah and acting as if i was the dumb one right you know right whereas i had deconstructed all that was doing something different yeah and it started with the monologue and the the voice talking to the camera. And some of that's taken from old cues, even from the old George Burns, Jack Benny, and as recently as Gary Shandling,

doing that kind of stuff. But in a different way, making a different experience. And now you're the guy running it, so you gotta hire writers. Exactly. And you're running the room. Right. What do you look for in a TV writer, man?

What do I look for? Yeah. It really depends on the project to be honest with you because because i've worked on so many different shows yeah like at the moment i'm doing a show for abc yes sitcom but then i'm also going to be doing my own um late night show so you're filling in for you're taking over for colbert's spot right what's that gonna be called uh the minority report with larry Wilmore. You decided that. That's the name. That is the name.

And who's producing that? John? John and myself and his Busboy Productions. But hiring writers for that is a complete different experience than hiring writers for a half-hour sitcom. Right. So in half-hour, you're looking for, depending on what type of show, also makes it more specific. See what their pedigree is. Yeah, and their storytelling ability. Right. You know, how funny they are on the page their ability with characters all kinds of

different issues whereas late night it's more it's a little narrower yeah it's just how how funny are they how insightful are they with taking a topic yeah because it's a different context you're dealing with they don't have to tell a story yeah you're dealing with commentary exactly and not story exactly so if it's the tonight it would be more monologue-based. Right, right. I get it. Or bit-based. So it depends what kind of show you're running or what you look for in a writer.

And you also did The Office. You worked on The Office as well. Right. I was a producer and a show writer. Now, The Office is notoriously kind of like known for being sort of a, you know, is a repository of the right word for Harvard alum. Right. Yeah, but, you know But there's this idea,

and I know you've commented about it publicly, I think, a bit. Yeah, I think, yeah. The way that I talked about it, it's a little unfair, I think, what I was saying in that respect. I was making a different comment. I kind of used the Harvard alums

as an unfair punching bag. No, it's always a fair punching bag. Right, exactly. But go ahead. What was your question? use the harvard alums as as an unfair punching bag and it's always a fair punching bag right exactly but uh oh but go ahead what was your question i mean there's there is really no easy way i mean it just seems to me that anybody who thinks that anybody got anything easy in show business if they can't do the job they won't they won't have the job that's correct is that correct that is correct like there's this idea it's like different with you know unfortunately some glaring uh exceptions yeah right like uh some people that are running networks some people i'm not talking about networks let's keep it on the creative some

network executives are a whole other breed yes some people get into you know they get to fail forward sometimes and right but there are some examples of those in the writing world yes oh okay okay all right and yeah i can tell by your face yes you know exactly yes exactly i know a few people like that right are they harvard people no they're not harvard well they got figured the harvard people know how to work yeah you know you can't sweep through harvard really no and i think a lot of your Harvard people really, I mean, they're smart. That's why they went to Harvard, you know? Sure.

So, you know, you're starting with that. Yeah, and it's all, you know, if you know what you want to do and that's how you're going to do it, I mean, it's the way it is. All right, so let's talk about this amazing opportunity. You've obviously done literally hundreds of panel pieces with John. You defined your tone you know this is like it seems to be you know that that experience on The Daily Show was a very specific re-entry into performing correct that you know utilizes stand-up chops and commentary chops absolutely right so when when the gig came how did it like just for my own knowledge how did the desk pieces start?

How did you get with John? Well, you're right. It was my re-entry. I had been show running and writing and that kind of stuff. And after getting fired from Fox, I realized now was the time to get back into performing. You had some passive income as well. Yeah. I mean, with Bernie running, you're the creator.

Well, sure. I mean, from a comfortable standpoint. Right. But, you know, certainly when you're at a crossroads, that's not the issue. Yeah, money's not the issue. Yeah, it's like, what do you really want to do with your life? I'm in my 40s. Is it over?

It's never over, but, yeah. But, you know, I had to say, look, am I going to do this or not? You know, am I going to, this was not? You know, am I going to... This was the whole reason why I was writing was so I could do something for myself. Now's the time to start doing that. So I had to come up with a plan of how I wanted to attack that. One of the plans was to write a show for myself and be in it. The other plan was to get back to my stand-up comedy roots and do like the talk show type of thing.

But I knew I had been separated from an audience for so long, I to get back in touch with an audience get your chops exactly and find out even if i'm even still funny in that yeah in that way yeah because you never know sometimes the audience moves on and you don't line up yeah yeah like i always say people it's not that they stop being funny it's that they line up with what the audience considers yeah i know but you're not like the guy who wore the hat there was no identifying thing like oh the guy with the hat's back i think that hat's out luckily i never got famous enough to be dismissed by the audience right right i was always under the radar you know so that was that turned out to be a good thing for me actually so i was able to kind of splash on the scene with all this experience you know in front of people

and they didn't even realize i was in front of them the whole time you know which in front of people. And they didn't even realize I was in front of them the whole time, you know, which is kind of cool. It is cool. But the guy behind the scenes. I know. The wizard. I mean, and I had done all these stand-up shows. Sure. But nobody remembered that stuff.

Yeah. I mean, I won a couple of star searches back in the day. Nobody remembered that crap. Right. You went through the whole star search process? Oh, yeah. And the original one. Yeah.

All that stuff, you know. I lost to Michael Collier. He was like that. The homeless comic at the time. I remember him. He was selling all that crap. know i lost to michael collier he was like that the homeless comic at the time he was selling all that sure man that was so funny and i was doing all this uh it's just you know the intelligent stuff he was doing like what are you all doing exactly moving around he was trying to pull a crowd in with a hat when he was doing a theater yeah exactly like i you know i'm doing jokes like uh you know if i was a beer you know a lot of people ask me what i mix with yeah i said look if i was a beer i'd be a negro light and i'm

a third less angry than the regular yeah yeah which is always a good joke but it's not that joke it's not the other well you know who else remind me of you that that i thought was a great comic but but in the exact same vein with john ridley oh i love ridley he's a good friend yeah he's great i'd love to talk to him i try to get him on here because I remember his jokes. I remember the joke about- He doesn't even remember his jokes, by the way. The Uptown Cigarette joke is, to me, one of the perfect jokes about race. Remember, Uptown Cigarette was the cigarette that came out.

It was manufactured to appeal to black people. And his joke was like, I would have liked to have been at that business meeting at the cigarette company. He goes, well, Bill, I can't help but notice there's still a lot of black people around that's hilarious yeah ridley's very smart he's one of those he's one of those uh true intellectuals yep yep well he does some you know great movie writing and you know he's doing american crime show at abc right now then yeah yeah i mean just like but you know he was in that area that you're talking about. Yeah. The sort of, not the common black act. Not the typical what was being sold at the time.

All right, so John, how you pitched John? What happens there? So I go and interview with the Daily Show. We thought it would be a good thing to do, possibly. And my managers at the time had a client who was a writer on the show, so that's how I got the meeting. And I think we pretty much talked about sports. I don't even remember talking about what I was going to do.

And John said, yeah, it sounds cool. Why don't we try it out? And they were changing over the show at the time. Colbert had left the year before. Corddry was just leaving. They just hired John Oliver, Rob Brick. I think also Monvy was just starting. So a lot of people were moving out and people were coming in.

And John wanted to, you know, open up the show a little bit. And so my first bit on The Daily Show, I remember, you know, when you're first writing it, you have Colbert and Carell in your head and they did it the best. They're that fake newsman. So you don't know your voices yet. Yeah. I'm trying to write something and wasn't sure what it was. And DJ Jabberwam, Steve Bodo, two of the writers

came up with the idea of the senior black correspondent, which was a funny joke. And that's all I really had. And I remember the first bit during the rehearsal, it really didn't go over well, because it's all those problems with voice and everything. The jokes weren't funny, just not comfortable with the voice. And I like the crew and stuff they're not wanting to

look at you you know you know they don't know how you're going to be around exactly it's like you don't name your farm animals because you might eat them that's right you know some some of the you know you don't want to get too close to them right it's that kind of thing exactly so i remember being very nervous and fuck man i'm gonna this is gonna be my first and only shot at this i'm gonna be gone like right after this. And we were going to do two. And after we rehearsed both of them, they both died. They said, somebody came to me and said, Larry, John said we're just going to do one.

And he wants to see you in a few minutes. We're just going to go through some rewriting. And I thought he wanted to see me to tell me it's not going to work out. Yeah. But I went in and John was very nice. And the process is right before air john goes through it with you line by line right and he just had me kind of put it in my own voice and we kind of talked it through so it wasn't so stilty right so stilted you know so he can

interact like natural yeah we became more natural right the same jokes were there but we were it was became more of a conversation yeah and that helped me a lot especially with my acting background acting and stand-up yeah and then right before we went on the air john did the best thing he could do especially for a stand-up yeah he just looked at me and said larry look just look in the camera and just fucking give it to america yeah and i'm like okay and my first joke killed right yeah and so now my stand-up comedy yeah i'm in yeah and i'm like all right motherfuckers you shouldn't have laughed now yeah so now i stand-up comedy yeah I'm in yeah and I'm like all right motherfuckers you shouldn't have laughed now I'm reeling him in and now the crew's like who's this motherfucker you know did they switch guys you know and it was the best feeling in the world

yeah and that's what that's what started it just all connected in that first one and we just took off from there and yeah the dynamic is great and you know John's a great straight man he really is yeah he's underrated is that no yeah well he's uh yeah he's very good at it he's unbelievable and like johnny carson he lets you be funny yeah you know he allowed he just lets that happen yeah and he's happy to yeah to be you know around it that's true john does not get enough credit for that and he really does and it is a big part of his job because people focus on the other part of it which is good the walter Cronkite part. Sure, yeah.

He's the Johnny Carson and Walter Cronkite. That's right. No, it's a very true thing that you're saying, because so much of that job is him providing a space for others. Absolutely. Look at the careers he's launched. That's right. So let's just talk quickly about the new show.

So it's going to be the minority part. Is it going to be somewhat structured like your Showtime special, or how are you going to do it? Thanks for mentioning that, man. Yeah. Not quite. I think it'll, you know, we haven't worked out the specifics yet. I'll start working on it in October.

But the main thing, I mean, there'll probably be a beginning where I'm weighing in on some of the issues of the day, kind of in a daily show way, possibly. But I think the main part of the show is going to be a real conversation with funny people, but not a scripted thing. A panel. Yeah. And I want to get people who are funny conversationalists more than setting somebody up so they can

do their own thing. I'm available. I appreciate you. You never know. up so they can do their one i'm available i appreciate you never know but uh so that's what that's what we want to do and have real conversations about some of these issues in a funny way right you know like almost like the old politically incorrect or something like that exactly all right now before you run off like what yeah that's a good example by the way okay uh so but you know in terms of like dealing with, how do you see yourself in differentiating from Chris

and finding yourself in the middle of that dialogue between the black community and the white community? What is the sort of the manifesto that you kind of stand by? Well, my thing is I am a contrarian. So I like to defy what you think I'm going to do. So I'm not like I never want to do the opposite of what you think. I'll always do the contrary.

That's your type. Exactly. Yeah. You know, so and like I say, my personal opinion on things, I tell people I'm a passionate centrist. And I say what that really means is half the time I disagree with myself. Right. Yeah. That's what it really means is half the time i disagree with myself right yeah yeah that's what it really means so i'm always on a search for the truth as opposed to i have an agenda that i'm trying to get across constantly right which is a different standpoint right so

that's why i may change my point of view on something based on the evidence so that's almost like uh what do you call it socratic yeah absolutely it's very socratic. And so my black point of view will always be surprising because it's not based on one notion of it all the time. Right. So like one of the first bits I did on The Daily Show was I was kind of slamming Black History Month. Right. But that's, I mean, like most of the times the joke on Black History Month is why we get February? Why is it the shortest month? Right.

So it's always defending Black History Month. And I was attacking it. Right. You you know which is a different point of view and to make a different point right and but yet i had a good point for why i was doing it and john's like well larry what do you have against i'm like john 28 days of trivia to make up for 400 years of slavery i'd rather we got casinos you know and that's like my take on that you know give me something i could really use. You're giving me like Trivial Pursuit for 28 days? I don't think so.

Right, right. How come the Indians got fucking casinos? Right, right. Where's our payback? Yeah, exactly. And so that's my point of view. I'm going to get to another truth in there that is not the general truth. And by being a contrarian, it supplies you with an almost unending capability to sort of turn it.

Exactly. Right. And I'm scooping out my truth on it. Right, right. Not what everybody else thinks. So I may defy the position you think I'm going to take, or I may be on the same side. Right. I may be on the left.

I may be on the right. But it's still going to be contrarian. It's still going to be contrarian, exactly. Well, good luck with the new show. I appreciate it, Mark. And it was great talking to you, man. Thanks. You too.

Well, good luck with the new show. I appreciate it, Mark. And it was great talking to you, man. Thanks. You too. Okay, that's it. That's our show. I hope you enjoyed that.

He's a good guy. He's a sharp guy. Wish him the best of luck with that new show. Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod needs. Yeah. Yeah, do that. Get the app. Got a hell of a catalog going. Got a hell of a catalog going. Got a hell of a catalog going.

Do what you got to do. Okay? Got an interesting episode on Thursday. Bob Rubin. Do a little research. Do a little research. Bob Rubin. Comedian.

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