WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 578 - Harry Shearer

Episode Date: February 18, 2015

Harry Shearer always leaves his mark, whether it's on The Simpsons or in Spinal Tap or in Christopher Guest's movies or on his long-running radio show or in his latest performance as Richard Nixon. Harry and Marc talk about those career touchstones as well as his deep connection to New Orleans and the struggles he experienced in two different incarnations of SNL. 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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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucksters? What the fuckadelics? I am Mark Maron. This is WTF. How are you? am Mark Maron. This is WTF.

How are you? Welcome to the show. This is my show. This is my garage. These are my pants that I'm wearing. All right? My shoes. Today, my guest is Harry Shearer. If you don't know who Harry Shearer is, I don't know what to tell you. You might know him from The Simpsons, Spinal Tap, SNL, the Christopher Guest movies, and his long-running radio show, Le Show. His most recent project is a YouTube series called Nixon, The One, Harry Shearer. Brilliant man. And it's interesting. It was one of those situations where, it's not that I'd heard weird things about him,

but I heard he might be a little cantankerous. But I had a great conversation with Mr. Shearer. Much respect. Went both ways. And I think you'll enjoy it. So what am I going to tell you about? What's going on? How'd the show go since I last talked to you?

Well, it was mostly a three-day weekend. Worked again with Rick Shapiro and Bobby Kelly was on set yesterday. Patton Oswalt was on the show. I worked with him today. Very interesting to work with a dude like Shapiro, Rick Shapiro, who I've known for years. Some of you may know from comedy. You might know him from the first Louis C.K. show that was on HBO. He's in some of Louis' movies. But Rick is this incredible force of nature. He's done my show before. But I just love the guy, and I've known him for 25 years, and now he's suffering a bit from the Parkinson's, but he's fighting it, and it's pretty amazing what that kind of fight will do to a person in the

sense of of connecting them to their heart and slowing them down a bit but also making them focus and and uh and and sort of adjust in ways that that really weren't there before he's a very very beautiful guy beautiful actor beautiful things going on for mr shapiro and just when i work with rick it's just exhausting and engaging and and exciting and uh i'm just thrilled that he's on the show but he's another guy that you know not unlike me we've been sort of pushed aside or pigeonholed at different points in our careers for our intensity or our attitudes or and i'm not comparing my talent to his by any means but just in the way that we're sort of outsiders, you know? And I guess what I'm getting at is

I watched the 40th anniversary of SNL, and before I watched it, I just watched half of it yesterday and half of it today, so not the day it went up, but I tweeted something because I saw people starting to live tweet it, and in of it today so not the day it went up but i i tweeted something because i saw people starting to live tweet it and i was in my mind i was like really you're gonna live tweet that television show so i said live tweet hashtag snl 40 i don't think so and then i got a little flack from people that you know or like they they took it as like who are

you mr condescending mr mr uh hipster Guy, Too Good For It, or whatever. I was being kind of a dick, but it was really about hashtagging a TV show. But I'm not backpedaling. But there were some accusations that I may still be bitter about what happened at SNL. And because I have this known kind of mild obsession with Lorne Michaels and my meeting with him, people think that I'm bitter about it. i gotta be honest with you i watched the show and i you know i didn't know what to expect and uh and you sort of get tired over the years of how snl repackages itself or how it's constantly presented i mean for years when you know when there was a dvd market when

there was a vhs market you when there was a VHS market, there were clips of different versions of clip shows being sold all the time. And the repackaging and sort of reselling of SNL has just been with us almost as long as SNL has. So I was a little bit, I guess, resistant. But I do want to address the idea of bitterness around that meeting. I don't think I am bitter about that meeting. I do think it was an important juncture in my life and I think I was disappointed for a couple of years, but in reality, there was no way I was ready to handle the responsibility of that show at the time. I'm not sure I can handle it now. So there's this idea that certain people are delivered to a type of success, a type of mainstream success, a type of power over millions of people because of their talent and what they've done with it. I don't know that I've ever been one

of those guys, and I don't know that my insecurity enables me to do that it's it's uh it's a liability on some level but i seem to have found my niche but i'm not bitter about it and i don't know if you people know this but i feel like i must have talked about it before the first two seasons of snl were incredibly important to me i was it was it was just i was obsessed with it uh you know i knew i used to do chevy chevy chase impressions i used to do you know john belushi impressions i used to do impressions from the show i had the snl book you know two or three years in when they released that book i had the album i was completely obsessed with the idea of snl and i was sort of obsessed with lauren michaels at an early age it was a very important thing to me that show mid 70s 76 77 13 and 14 years old but as time went on i i knew i didn't

do characters i knew i wasn't a sketch guy i knew i wasn't really the guy for that show but of course in my heart i always wanted to be on that show and just and then there was that weird meeting when my grandmother took me up to the studio because some kid I knew from camp, his father worked at NBC and set me up. I was supposed to meet Belushi. I ended up meeting what looked to be a fairly high Franken and Davis. But the thing was is that in retrospect, I'm not really bitter. But the thing was is that, you know, in retrospect, you know, I'm not really bitter. I just there there there's something I may need to know about that meeting. But whether or not I talk to to Lorne Michaels or not ever, I mean, I could sit down with Lorne Michaels and he could have no recollection of it all of even talking to me.

And that would be sort of devastating and heartbreaking. And why do I make it such a big deal? Because it was that show was so important to me. And I remember even when I was talking to Lauren, I was like, that first year, right, buddy? And he's like, there's been a lot of good people. And I was so sort of like the mythology of those first couple of years. And that was what was fascinating about watching the 40th anniversary. Because I, look, man, my guilty pleasure is schmaltzy entertainment and when Fallon and Justin Timberlake did the musical opening loved it the the I I liked a lot of it I I liked Miley Cyrus's uh singing it's nice like it was kind of interesting to realize that she you know she is

sort of this country singer when she wants to be and that was pretty amazing and the the Sandler and Sandberg thing with the people laughing and there was a reminiscing there and seeing the old clips was great seeing Louis on the show was great I thought Seinfeld and Larry were Larry David were great together that was hilarious I love comedy and I and I just found myself despite whatever bitterness you may think I have or whatever however resistant I am or haven't really engaged in the show for so many years. I watched the whole thing and I had, there was a lot of good, there was a lot of great things about it, but it's really kind of heartbreaking, I guess, because I'm not married, because I don't have children. I don't

know that I'm always aware that I'm aging. I think that if you have people around you who are aging with you, you have some sort of sense of it but but seeing some of my heroes you know on television that you know seeing them at different points in their career through clips and then seeing them on tv and seeing them in high definition it's it's a little beautiful and a little heartbreaking simultaneously my point is is that a lot of that was part of my childhood you know that first couple seasons of the snl and seeing those people was great. And my obsession with Lauren is not because I was bitter about what happened. I would have had a different life, I'm sure, if I'd gotten the show.

But the one thing you got from watching SNL 40 is that a lot of people went on to nothing, and you don't know where they are. And then there was the weirdness with Eddie Murphy coming out, and you have these expectations. What is he battling with? I mean, what struggle does he have with the shadow that a younger him casts on him? I don't know. Steve Martin was funny.

Alec Baldwin was funny. It was great to see Norm and Will Ferrell. You know, look, what can I tell you? Don't misunderstand my obsession with Norton Michaels or with early SNL or with that fact that I didn't get on as bitterness. Look, I'm happy I'm making a living. Do you dig? All right. Oh, it was also good seeing Colin.

It was good seeing a lot of people on there. I enjoyed SNL 40. I enjoyed it. I got some good laughs. I was happy to see some people, happy to see some friends, happy to see that audience of actors and stuff. Looked like a fun place to hang out. Was I jealous I wasn't there? No, because I don't know. I like to be involved in things. Maybe I would have liked to have been there, but again, not bitter. Not bitter that I didn't get on snl okay i'm just gonna keep repeating it to myself

i had a cup of coffee today the first one in almost three months and uh it punched my face from the inside good good okay let's talk to harry shearer folks and the bumper music here comes from our sponsor the loop Loop Loft, featuring Charlie Hunter on guitar and Eric Harland on drum. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on 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 company competes with big

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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. It's a very odd thing because I watched a couple of the Nixons. Yeah. And it's not a comedy.

Well, it is and it isn't. No, I get... Okay. Well, these are... I call it a very dark comedy. But it's taken from the actual transcript. Yeah, it's not made up. Right.

Yeah. It's just been selected for comic value. Right. Yeah. But you're drawing from the exact transcripts and the tapes. Yeah. And you're reenacting scenes of Nixon in certain situations. Yes.

And the makeup is Nixon makeup. Yes. And you look like Nixon. Yeah. You're acting like Nixon. Dressed like Nixon. And so the idea is if you contextualize by choosing these segments that they will read, you will see something.

It actually serves to humanize him a bit more than I thought it would i'm not saying he's a good human well yeah right exactly exactly right you got it uh i mean you can't if you listen to the tapes yeah and you try to perform them precisely i mean we literally were listening to them and you did perform him precisely yes i mean you can you can compare our performances to the tapes and it's pretty eerie yeah they have to come out as human beings yeah you know right willy-nilly they have to i mean it's not a it's not even a choice it's just so even the comedy of of what he was doing before the resignation speech yeah was like i get how you I get how you're cutting it and the choices you're making,

but the comedy was is that, you know, he was sort of trying to distract everybody and himself from what was about to happen. Well, yes, although I thought, while we were rehearsing it, I thought of what else was going on. Because that scene, I'd watched that scene forever. It had been bootlegged around.

It was a videotape. It was the only thing in the series that was not from his. From one of the cameras that were on before he went, before the cameras. Yeah, the CBS engineer hit the record button when he saw that. And so I memorized that scene, and I got stoned and watched it with friends. I mean, it was like part of my DNA. And it always just struck me okay this is goofy this guy who has no gift for small talk no affection for being around strangers uh-huh

matter of fact people creep him out yeah ironically since the name of his committee to re-elect was the committee to re-elect the president creep yeah um and now in his final moments as president what does he choose to do chit chat chit chat with the crew it just seemed fucking goofy and then while we're rehearsing because you can't help it when you're acting you have to figure out what the fuck is going on right it it dawns on the the door was opened by the tape stopped when the speech ended. But while we were doing the show, I ran across a memoir online by a Nixon White House staffer who had been in the room that night. And he said what the last words Nixon spoke before he walks out the door, which is on August 8th. He says to the crew, have a Merry Christmas, fellas.

And it suddenly clicked because that's the goofiest thing in the world. Right. And I realized what was going on. He's starting his next campaign. Right. And the next campaign is all those guys go home and they say, he wasn't upset. He wasn't mad. He was joking with us.

He's a nice guy. He even wished us a Merry Christmas. So he thought he was coming back. Of course he did. He's plotting the next campaign. That's who he was. Hmm. That didn't pan out it did he became you know this respected foreign policy alonso greece among people who believe in

that shit but that wasn't that because they let him off i mean in a sense that even though he made this grand gesture that the that that the uh you mean the pardon you mean the pardon the pardon and the political associates he had and framing him that way uh there were plenty of of right-wing ideologues in colleges and and to start framing him as a public uh international policy mastermind yeah well he it was because of those unreadable books he wrote but uh but yeah the but i i think he knew the pardon was in the works right i think he i think he sucks are you was in the works. Right. I think he sussed out. Are you obsessed with Nixon at all? Fascinated. Yeah.

I wouldn't say, you know, I don't dream about him. Well, but what's interesting is knowing that the age difference between us, I'm 53, you're what, 70? Yeah. Is that, you know, you live through it. I mean, I've talked to some people recently. I've talked to peers of yours. I've talked to- I have no peers, sir.

Yes, you do. I talked to Mr. yours i've talked to i have no peers sir yes you do i talked to mr mckean okay but that you know that i always had a certain envy of of of you guys who actually were were uh you envy people who live through nixon yeah okay well i envy people that were there you know when everything turned yeah in the mid to late 60s where you were at an age where it meant something to you yeah that like you could actually feel everything changing around you and you kind of had to decide where you were going to fall and what you were going to do and there was some weird wide open playing field in terms of what you could get away with yes and and you did get faced with

those choices i mean i i uh literally sat in an office in the federal building in downtown Los Angeles across from a lieutenant in the Army. It was a yellow stripe painted on the floor between us. And he invited me three times to walk across that stripe and accept induction into the United States Army. And three times I refused. And he said, okay, you can go home. But were you drafted? No. They were asking you. They were trying to draft me. Volunteered. And I said, okay, you can go home. But were you drafted? No. They were asking you.

They were trying to draft me. Volunteer. And I was refusing induction. Okay. You could just do that. Yeah. You could do that. You faced, of course, the fearsome prospect of federal prosecution.

But I had a lawyer who had gotten all the Beach Boys off. You got a Beach Boy lawyer. Yeah, I got the Beach Boys lawyer. Not that Brian needed a lot of help in staying out of the Army, but the other guys might have. Brian was a self-saver. But he said, you know, your file is so full of mistakes that the draft board made because they were basically volunteers

trying to enforce law and they didn't know anything about the law. Right. He said, no prosecutor will prosecute you. Yeah. He said, you're good. So in some ways, the draft was for suckers. No. No.

The draft was for people who couldn't find- The Beach Boys lawyer. The Beach Boys lawyer, or who couldn't fake a certain kind of mental illness credibly, couldn't fake you know a certain kind of mental illness credibly right or you know who couldn't stay up for 72 hours and and and not pee for that length of time and screw up their body i mean there were all sorts of ways out but you did face those choices you know and it it was a meaningful time and of course you had something then as a result that we didn't have uh during iraq and we're not having now which was you had professors coming out of their uh little uh little offices and people who understood the history of southeast asia and having these odd things called teach-ins where they actually

explained what the fuck was going on. Teachers who could speak their minds. Teachers who could speak their minds and could talk to crowds and could say, here's where we are. Here's what we've gotten into. Here's how this started. Here's what we've picked up the French colonial mantle in our walking. And perhaps here's why it's wrong.

Yeah. They didn't really load that. Right. It was basically just explanatory for kids who had never heard of this place before they got a draft notice. Would that we had that in Iraq, would that we had that now, but of course the urgency of the draft is gone. And so the kids would rather just, you know, text each other.

Everything's so compartmentalized. It's not even, it's weird. It's not even a matter of preference of texting. it just seems like some things happen in a different world well if your ass isn't on the line you don't need to you're not as curious about that's right you know i mean it's it's as simple as that when you were when when you were almost drafted was what was that 67 it was 68 were you in show business still i was i was on the radio with the credibility gap as a matter of 68 yeah yeah i just started and i i took a cassette machine in to record my i refused induction thing induction they took my my tape machine away from me they did oh yeah

give it back to you uh you don't know no i don't remember but but it was weird oddly enough that wasn't what was primary in my mind at that moment whether you're gonna get the tape yeah no it was whether i was gonna stay out of the army yeah live yeah live but it's interesting because there was a shift in in from what i could see to uh uh your later show business career or or your re-entry as an adult and what you went through as a child there was a gap there now you started very young seven seven and you've was that a choice of yours? Is it something you always wanted to do? I mean, I don't know what kind of choices you make at seven or why it

happened. Yeah. It was laid before our family by this woman who'd become a children's agent. We had known her because she was my piano teacher from the age of four and she said she's changing where'd you grow up down in la in what part in uh in uh west adams uh-huh which is uh you know yeah it's right by it's sort of by downtown so it's a it's a community that's being gentrified at this point it has been being gentrified since you were as i've known it uh but it was uh these aside from South Pasadena, it's the largest collection of, or has been the largest extant collection

of original California bungalows. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And beautiful neighborhood, 80 foot tall palms. My house is now the number two westbound lane of the 10. No, it's gone? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, so she said, I i'm gonna be a children's agent can i try to get harry some work and my parents were both european immigrants and they thought this was some kind of joke but they said okay and she and they knew i was so they were first you're first generation and they knew i loved radio and television i was like i have my dad's friend made home phonograph records yeah he had a lathe at home and so there's a phonograph record of me when i was three years old and he was asking me what what are my favorite shows and i tell him what nights they were on what networks they were on who sponsored them what cities they originated in i mean radio radio at that time three yeah so

yeah uh so when she calls up she has has an audition for the Jack Benny program. So you knew Jack from the radio? Oh, my God, yeah. The best, right? Yeah, the best. Yeah. And you get the gig. Aced it, baby.

Yeah. Aced it, baby. And you meet Jack? Yes. Do you have actual memories of him? Oh, yeah, yeah. The key ones were third show I did for him. He comes out afterwards, radio show.

Yeah. Hugs me and gives me, he's had a transcription made of the show while we were performing it and gives it to me, which was basically saying, you're in. Oh, wow. You're in. And then a couple shows later, the first time we're doing a read-through of the script and i do a little ad-lib a little nuance in the line and uh it's the first time i made him laugh and he just slams his hand on the table and throws his head back and cackles and i mean it's that was it mind-blowing oh i want more of that but more of that please do you think that because

of those experiences and because of that early uh more of that. More of that, please. Do you think that because of those experiences and because of that early connection to radio that you find you love radio? Because you obviously love radio. I love radio. So, partly from, that's where I started, but partly from... It's cost-efficient.

It is. It's erg-efficient. Yeah, it's very erg efficient yeah I remember on the on the morning David Letterman show yeah

he had a band leader this was before he ran into Schaefer and he had a black band leader named Frank Owens and Schaefer and I always used to joke about this

yeah always remember this line and just one morning to make conversation Letterman says Frank if you could live anywhere you wanted to where would you live?

And Frank Owen says, Las Vegas, Dave. And Dave says, really? Why? The E's. The E's? And that's my answer about radio. The E's. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So me and Frank Owens. So, but you were in movies and television shows shows for you know throughout your childhood yeah yeah that was what you were doing yeah i was in the robe i was the first cinemascope child wow did you have other friends who were actors no as a child the way you were just still like at home with your folks home with my folks what'd your dad do my dad had trained as an opera singer in vienna and then you know came over here and ran a gas station at jefferson and figueroa

in downtown los angeles right across from giant felix chevrolet could he sing yeah and your mom was what my mom had trained had gone to college originally to be a paleontologist then came over here studied accounting and bookkeeping and was a bookkeeper for a small oil company and were they running from hitler they were running towards him but is that why they yeah yeah the rest of their give me some hitler they yelled as they this guy doesn't seem like a good fella yeah i know i like i like the cut of his jib uh yeah they were the only survivors of oh really their mutual family their respective families really got out and so you grew up with that that way the weight of that the weight and and just the teeniness of the family yeah and did where you've brought up religious in a way uh i was made to go to uh

temple sure me too yeah uh friday nights at bar mitzvahed uh-huh high holidays and then at 15 my mom my dad had passed away by then my at 15 my mom admitted she didn't believe in god and i said well why did you put me through all that well i wanted to know what it was like to be a jew it's important isn't it's important but is it important well i don't know i mean it's i can't really make up my mind about that because uh when you're in a tribe it feels good yeah but when you look at tribalism as an overall human phenomenon it may not be the best of things it's unavoidable but there's a sense of community a sense of shared uh i was i was talking to a friend yesterday uh who is a non-practicing jew and his wife is an atheist and he said he was

trying to figure out why she loves to go to a temple and he said i forget whom he was quoting but he said uh uh somebody had said i don't go to temple to be with god i go to temple to be with jews exactly in this town though i mean it's not hard to find jews no so all right so you do this you do the show businessing throughout all your entire childhood yeah you're good at it yeah right yeah you're a good actor i'm working i'm a working actor working child making money yeah and putting it away are you as per the jackie cooper law that was the law yeah Yeah. It is a real law? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Come on, really? Yeah, because he was a child actor and the parents frittered away his money. So there was a law passed to prevent that from happening. I didn't know that.

Oh, yeah. So did you put it in bonds? Do you still have any of that money? That money got me through my 20s. Some of it. But when did you get disillusioned or or sort of like decide about show business

yeah every day every fucking morning when I woke what time is it yeah when the eyes open no as a kid

it was great yeah it was absolutely brilliant I had my if you have sane parents yeah it's the most fun way to spend a childhood.

But being on movie sets and going on TV studios. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hanging out with great grownups. You know, I didn't like the child thing anyway. Yeah. I thought it was lame. I did too. Yeah.

And it was like, what? I'm supposed to care about this shit? You know? Yeah. These little critters and student government and all that crap. Nah. Oh. So it was an answer to a prayer.

This was an opportunity to hang out with grownups in a, shall we say, in light of what we know now, a more wholesome way than other kids had. Sure. And other than Jack Benny, who were some of the heroes that you were able to spend time with? I was on the Ann Southern Show, who was a great comic actress of that era. I was on the Ann Southern show. Yeah. Who was a great comic actress of that era. I was on the Hitchcock show. So you worked with Alfred Hitchcock? You know, he would come in and bank his stuff long.

Right, right. He'd come standing sideways. Standing sideways, yeah. And walk away. In the shadow. Yeah. So I didn't actually work with him. But Benny was the one that, you know, really, I mean, I worked for him for eight years, so.

Did you have a relationship throughout his life? You know, I didn't see him for a long time, and then Albert Brooks and I were working on a record together. Which record? It was the second one. It was called A Star Is Bought. Yeah, yeah.

And the premise of it was that every track on the record was aimed at a different radio format. Uh-huh. So that, then and still now, there were radio stations

that played old radio shows. Right. So we made an old radio show, you know, supposedly Albert's prenatal work. Uh-huh. And so following the format of the old comedy shows,

you know, Benny would do reciprocal guest appearances with hope and Fred Allen and all that. So, and Albert's dad had been a second banana for Eddie Cantor. So he knew that world. So we wrote a show where Benny was paying a reciprocal. Albert had been on Benny show the week before and Benny was paying a reciprocal visit. And we thought, well, come on, who better? I was a kid on his show. Albert was Parkia Carcass' kid.

Come on. So we called up Benny's manager, Irving Fine, and said we wanted to talk to Jack Benny about it. And he made an appointment. It was right around the corner from Nibbler's. Do you remember Nibbler's? No. It was on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

And so we had a little coffee in Nibbler's to rehearse our pitch. And we went in and we described it to Benny. And he said, look, fellas, I've been on television. I've been in movies. I've been on stage. Why would I go back to radio? I said, no, Mr. Penny, it's not a radio show.

And we went through the expressing. I know, but fellas, why would I do radio? And clearly his manager had gotten the idea wrong. Right. And that was it. He'd locked in. He'd been briefed and locked in. And you never saw two more disappointed people standing in front of Nibbler's than Albert and me.

You couldn't explain to him. Couldn't get through. How old was he at that time? Well, he was up in his 80s. And his manager was probably what? Oh, God, yeah. Well, his manager was around for a long time more because I hired him as an actor much later. Oh, really?

Yeah. For which movie? For a show for HBO called Viva Shea Vegas. He played Paul Schaefer's manager. Okay. But I heard Irving, this is a lesson. Don't let your representatives live longer than you. Yeah.

Because Irving had lived longer than Benny, had written a book about Benny, and I heard him driving up the coast of California. I was listening to a radio show out of San Francisco, and the host said, what was one of Jack Benny's great uh great great comedy bits and now i'm hearing irving fine doing jack benny's material you don't want your material your manager doing your material no they're not supposed to know in front of the microphone all right so so after you

go through this whole childhood day was there a time where you're like uh like my my image of it is that once the 60s hit there was some was there ever a higher calling was there an time where you're like, like my image of it is that once the 60s hit, there was some, was there ever a higher calling? Was there an idea that like, you know, maybe show business is like not the thing? No, this had nothing to do with the 60s. This was earlier than that. I just thought this was a nice thing to do as a kid.

Yeah. But, you know, I was expecting to be like a serious person when I grew up, you know. A grown-up. A grown-up. Yeah. I was highly educated. I was very smart. Where'd you person when I grew up, you know. A grown-up. A grown-up. I was highly educated. I was very smart. Where did you go to school?

I went to UCLA. Yeah. LA High before that. John Burroughs Junior High before that. But, I mean, I zipped through school. I really did. I just, I got Phi Beta fucking Kappa for that matter, you know. I don't think it's normally referred to in that.

No, that's, people who actually get it can refer to it like that. Can refer to that. Yeah. It's of a piece with when Derek Smalls played in New York at a very revered venue, the first words out of his mouth were, Carnegie fucking hole. Yeah, exactly. Same thing. So I was expecting to be either in teaching or in journalism or in government, and I actually dabbled in all three of them.

I worked for a year at the state legislature in Sacramento. I taught school for two years in Compton. They happened to be draft dodges, but they also happened to be what I was interested in doing. And I wrote journalism. I worked for Newsweek, covered the first moonshot out of JPL in Pasadena, covered the Watts Riot. You did? Yeah, so I tried all that stuff.

You've had like nine lives, it seems. Yeah. In a way. Kind of. When did the music, were you playing music all the way through? Well, I'd been taking piano lessons. I know, but sometimes that drifts.

And I went back to piano lessons. My mom found me a really serious piano teacher who could trace her lineage through Czerny back to Beethoven. And I was the only one. Yeah, and I was the only one of her students who was not being groomed for a concert career. They're all practicing eight hours a day. She was lucky to get one out of me.

And did you stick with it? Eight years. But I mean, can you play now? I can play. I ran fleeing from it for years and that's why I took up the bass. The terror. The terror of having to read.

Yeah. I picked up the bass and learned to play it by ear. But now I've gone back to piano and I can play it kind of. I mean, I have a friend who's a composer and I've learned one of his pieces and, you know, so I can do that kind of. And you like to play? I do like to play, yeah.

It's nice, right? It's great. It's a wonderful instrument, as is the bass. I fell in love with the upright bass. Yeah, I love to play, too. Just in general, having that ability to do that is very meditative. Calming, calming.

Definitely. And, you know, when I was on tour with this play in England for the month of September, and I got to re-experience what it's like being in a life without a musical instrument nearby, and it's not fun. Yeah, you just need it just to grab it. Yeah.

Hang out. And then my wife, who is a proper piano player, always raved about the difference between, she'd play a keyboard, but the difference with having a big resonant piece of wood vibrating next to you. So when I discovered the upright bass,

it was the same thing except that big resonant piece of wood was right here, right on the thigh. And so that was later in life? Yeah, that was when we

started doing the Folksman. It was? That was the first time you started playing the upright bass? Yeah. The first time you even tried it? Yeah,

it was Saturday Night Live and we made up this bit about the Folksman, which came... Which became the first time he even tried it yeah when it was saturday night live and we made up the this bit about the folksman uh which came which became the mighty wind guy yeah yeah yeah but it was it came out of an interview that we had done for rolling stone when spinal tap came out right and the writer said what are you guys going to do next and michael just was bullshitting and said i don't know maybe we'll do a folk trio and so when he chris and i were on saturday night live and michael guest hosted yeah and uh this was like four or five months later and we were you know searching for something to do so how about that folk trio thing and that's how and

then so i had to pick up the bass to to play it to be able to be in that trio and the guy who had taught me bass originally jim fielder of blood sweat and tears uh had taught me left-hand technique of an upright player so how do you know that guy my through my first wife who was also a singer um so he had taught me left-hand upright technique so i had to change that for for the electric guitar to right like guitar technique and then change it back yeah but now i at least knew what it was. It's interesting how long you've fucking known these guys, though. Like, you know, like the fact that you go back that far

with Guest and Albert Brooks and how, well, when you did the credibility gap, how did you get involved with that? I talked to him about, he met. David. Yeah, back east. Yeah. And they went to school together, right?

In Pennsylvania somewhere. Yeah, Pittsburgh, Carnegie Tech. Yeah. And they went to school together, right? In Pennsylvania somewhere. Yeah, Carnegie Tech. Yeah. And then where do you meet up with these guys? I joined the credibility gap. It had started as this renegade group of straight news guys, except they weren't straight. They were, you know. Clowns.

They were vipers. And this was a radio station that was always second in the market, the second-rated top 40 station, which is like, that'll get you a ride on the bus. Right. So the news director convinced the management to let it go a little kind of, you know, this was the 60s. Right.

The magical thing about that time was, and why it was exciting to be part of it, is that it's that magical moment when the guys in charge don't know what the formula is right they don't know how to who the audience is and they don't know what the formula is and change quickly and yeah and then you can get some shit done right so that was when he could pitch management on the idea of letting the news kind of morph into this comedy thing yeah and then the comedy guys did it for a while and but got a little you know too crazy blasted out by well it

was just it was a three shows a day it was a really hard gig yeah so they were looking for somebody to kind of come in and i'd been doing radio commercials for this rock venue which was also a movie venue in hollywood um across the street from the palladium you know that building on sunset it was called the kaleidoscope it became the aquarius theater but and it was run by the two guys who later ran the la the original la film festival and uh so i couldn't afford to buy time for the for the rock and roll shows on the on the top on the number one top 40 right and so i was buying time on kRLA and the salesman who was selling me the time said hey they're looking for somebody to do this show so i sent in a i made a tape at home drove to pasadena dropped it on the desk of the receptionist ran out the front door drove home

by the time i got home there was a message on my on my answering machine saying you're hired can you start tomorrow who was that who called you? The assistant of Lou Irwin, a woman named Stephanie Greenblatt. And you'd not done any comedy other than TV parts and this and that here and there? I had been an editor of the humor magazine at UCLA. So I edited like six or seven issues of a humor magazine and written a lot of the stuff for the magazine.

In the 60s, late 60s? No, in like 64. Oh, so early. But every university had their humor magazine that's how i met terry gilliam as he was editing a fang which was the humor magazine over at occidental right oh really he was right here yeah and he grew up in panorama city oh my god yeah and uh so he had to get out and uh so we would send each other you know you'd see other campuses. And The Realist was around, right? The Realist was around. My God was The Realist around, yeah.

Was that something that was on your radar when you were in college? Oh, my God. I remember having these impassioned arguments with people. There was this legendary piece in The Realist, the parts left out of the William Manchester book. Do you know that? Is that the LBJ thing? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Need we say on that? Do we want to say? I talked to krasner on the show i went up and saw him yeah i spent two hours with him oh my god what a guy yeah but have you discussed no i don't think i've discussed that that it was lbj all right well let's set this let's set the stage okay eight months after the assassination this guy william manchester writes this very ponderous tome death of a president and uh and so krassner apes this style perfectly

to write the chapter that was left out and the chapter that was left out supposedly was on the flight back from dallas to washington on air force one there's jackie there's lbj and there's the body yeah and jackie's back in the passenger compartment. LBJ is up with the body. And actually, at the time, I don't know if Krasner knew how dick proud LBJ was. It turns out LBJ was as dick proud as Milton Berle. Uh-huh. Yeah. But he has LBJ stick his dick in the neck wound.

Yeah. And fuck it. Yeah, exactly. And as outrageous as that sounds. It's still outrageous. It's still outrageous. I'm outraged that I said it. No, but what were the arguments you had about that?

Whether it was appropriate satire? No, whether it was true. Whether it was true. Whether it was real because. It seemed plausible. Because, no, it didn't seem plausible, but Krasner's mastery of the style was so supreme that he had convinced me that somehow this was a shockingly real scene that, of course, had to be left out of the book. Was that one of those moments where, because, like, I mean, you're sort of considered a satirist as that goes, you know, like, because it's hard to define that word really yeah but

certainly with the with your history in terms of political satire and satirizing in general was that was that one of the moments where you realize that it can run it can cut this close and it can be this real and it can be that satire is powerful because it's that provocative oh my god yes and that the the getting the style of your target, of your intended, or of the frame that you're using exactly right is so powerful. It's important. That's very important. Very, very, very.

Three verys. No, because that's sort of what you did, you know, and Guest as well and McKean and those movies certainly. Yeah. It carries right through. But a lot of the stuff that albert brooks uh uh real life was which you co-wrote co-wrote so that was always sort and and then even the credibility gap was doing something that could not could have been

misunderstood as real news for a little while oh my god yes yes and you know uh it it was sort of, we evolved. Certainly meeting Albert helped me evolve what my part was in that show. In the credibility? In the credibility, yeah. How was Albert involved? Well, he wasn't. He just was around and a friend of David's. So now I join. Now it's me and the newsmen.

He's a real newsman. Real newsman. They were the guys who used to say, Carolee News at 5 o'clock. Do-do-do-do-do-do. Flash. And Carolee Weather right ahead of much more music. They all had the big voices.

Sure. And so now one of the guys who's been doing the comedy, he'd been doing LBJ's voice on the shows, and he's now paranoid. He thinks he smokes a lot of dope, and he thinks the FBI's after him, and he thinks the fbi is after him and he doesn't want to do this anymore so now we're looking for another guy yeah of course now we realized years later he wasn't paranoid they were after him but were they no they were

after other people but they so they weren't keeping an eye on people some one of the people who would come in and do female voices occasionally a wonderful actress named sally smaller still around lovely woman she said when when she found out that we were looking for somebody she said well i have an answering service she didn't have a machine she had an answering service which was people at a switchboard would take your calls and take your messages yeah immortalized in the movie bells are ringing yeah uh she said there's this guy who takes my messages and gives them to me and he's really funny yeah so we said okay well tell him to come in we'll meet him it was david lander really yeah that's how he got the job he was a funny message giver on on the answering machine but but was it was he trying to be funny yeah of course he was it was

hollywood yeah he was everybody's auditioning all the time right and then he after we hire him he says oh you got to meet my friend mckean oh you got to meet my friend mckean always talking about my friend mckean i didn't even know michael's first name for two years yeah it's my friend mckean yeah and michael finally comes out and he comes into play and we just oh okay then yeah yeah and that was it yeah and uh so you guys were on the radio for a while yeah we were on two years yeah uh three shows a day and then we got fired and then we moved to another station and we were on one show one 15 minute show a day for another year and then that whole station was cleaned out and you started doing it live a bit started doing live shows because like i can't imagine like when i talked

to mckean and i talked to Ed Begley Jr., and I talked to guys who were doing radical stuff around that time, it feels like LA, for that type of comedy, was a very small town. It sort of seemed like everybody kind of knew each other, and they were sort of running in the same circles. Is that possible? Yes and no. It's not like it is today.

It's all blown out and blown up, and nothing seems to be that relevant unless larger powers declare it relevant. Was it... Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, in that sense. Well, it was easier to make a little mark. I mean, we were on the radio.

We were on the radio on a second-ranked rock and roll station, and we were getting more mail than the rest of the station, the DJs or were into it people were into it uh had it been had there been satellite distribution in those days we would have been nationwide we might have been uh you know but you were also on the pulse of what was happening oh my god yeah we were doing real newscasts that started out as real newscasts and then you know some story that we decided would was fodder for a sketch would veer off and suddenly it would be you're in this thing and what i was saying before is as time went on i certainly and i think the other guys got more interested in making this

stuff sound realer right it sounded like comedy sketches originally after originally right well i got that album woodstick yeah that was that was sort of a emblematic of our comedy sketch days well you had a premise yeah yeah yeah and we were trying to by that time it was a record we were trying to make it sound a little realer but the the sketches on our first station were really sounded like comedy sketches so you're looking to be like orson welles war a little more a little more trying to get a little more you know uh uh into into stylistic stuff and and fool the listener a little bit so people wouldn't yeah exactly so they wouldn't give them a little jolt you know but you guys were sort of at the cutting edge of that

well we in the fire sign theater right sort of a you know pursuing pursuing the same kind of sonic adventures with different different kind of comedy but you were actually on the radio were they on the radio yeah yeah they had a show on kpfk so there was four guys on on doing a comedy show on kpfk i don't know a lot about them yeah they were they they were i know i know they're funny and they're respected but i never listened to their records the records are interesting to listen to i don't think they're laugh out loud funny often they're very clever yeah uh they're almost like linear descendants in a way of the goons uh-huh uh in terms of sort of uh uh surrealism right uh surrealism is not my bad comedy surrealism yeah um but they were i think uh lauded and deservedly so for their adventurousness in the audio production of those records.

They were brilliant. They were really brilliant. So you're hanging out with Gaston and Lander and Albert Brooks, and these are hilarious guys. Yeah. And are you still friends with Albert? No. That end badly? Yeah. You've got a reputation harry me

yeah a little bit yeah you want me to talk about it yeah we can talk about but let's get to the well let's let's put it in context you want to go outside and talk about it i do maybe at the end of this i'm gonna have to bring the mics out yeah all right yeah uh i don't have any beef with you you said you said a thing that I quote constantly. What's that? I don't know if you even remember. I interviewed you when I was on Air America, and I'm not sure. I don't remember what it was for.

Yeah. But it was a phone interview. Yeah. And you said that stand-up comedy is controlling the reason why people laugh at you. Oh, why people go into comedy. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Is to control why people laugh at you. Yeah. why people go into comedy. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Is to control why people laugh at you.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, you know, it made me think of that. I was, my third or fourth Jack Benny show, my parents used to sit in this booth above the stage, which was called the client's booth where the advertisers sat. Right.

And they said, one day, we just want to sit in the audience and see the show from that side yeah so don't look for us up there we won't be there this time but you'll be fine and uh okay so now the the uh before the show we're always introduced to the audience by don wilson the announcer of the show we're standing in the in the corridor between two studios and the door is open and we hear Don call our names, and we walk out and take a bow and sit down and get ready to do the show. So I'm talking to somebody, probably, no, I don't know who it was,

eight, eight years old, schmoozing, and I hear, Harry, Harry, and I walk out to take my bow, and instead of applause, I get a huge laugh and of course, I look down to see if my zipper is undone and no, it's not

and I, fuck. Bad feeling. Bad feeling and I sit down, Mel Blanc, the great Mel Blanc is sitting down already

and I can't see my parents so I'm just like, I can't see them in the audience so I'm just feeling very lost and he said, he was announcing Mary Livingston. He was calling Mary, not Harry. So you want to control the laugh.

Mel Blanc, you had a relationship with that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He had a 12-year-old. He had a kid who was the same age as me. So, you know. That one's been fascinating. Yeah, I think he just took a fatherly interest in me. I don't mean in the Catholic sense. I know. Yeah, but it was very, you know that one's been fascinating yeah i think he just took a fatherly interest in me i don't mean in the catholic sense i know yeah it was but it was very you know did you get to see him work i didn't get to see him work he gave me two cells of looney tunes cartoons two

original cells and i'm mortified to say that we didn't know how to take care of them and i just would watch over the years as the they as the paint would flake off them. Did he do voices around you, though? Just on the show. Oh, yeah? Just the stuff for the Benny show. Oh, but you saw him work? Oh, God, yeah.

Oh, he was brilliant and effortless. It seemed effortless. He did this guy who was like a—well, he did the sound of Jack Benny's old car. He did? Yeah. See, I don't. Really? No, I can't even do it.

Yeah, of the car starting and did all that stuff with his mouth. Oh, my God. And did this Spanish-speaking assistant to Benny who was a character. We did a bunch of them, did a bunch of characters. But at that time, wasn't it on television yet? He did that on radio. On television, he would play like one guy. Like Frank Nelson would, the guy who always bothered.

Are you trying to drive me crazy? Ooh, am I? But it strikes me as odd that later in your career that you are somewhat defined by the Simpsons voices and you have this amazing pedigree. It's lunatic, isn't it? And if you were writing it, you'd think there's a straight line between them, but there isn't. Or at least something planted.

I mean, like, you know, but you don't know. No. And I mean, I was doing, you know, little sketches with my friends into a tape recorder. Right. Even, well, probably right around the same time that I was working in the business. So it was in me. Right. But to sit there and watch Mel Blanc, who defined the voice.

But he never said, here's how you do it. Right. But you could watch. You could watch it. Yeah. You watch how people, especially in the Benny show, you watched how people carried themselves as professionals. It's amazing, right? Yeah.

I mean, I get so whacked out by it. Like if I do a live WT, if I do a live podcast, and I got four guys, Bill Hader, whoever, sitting there. And I'm just sitting there being a host. And I'm watching that person. I'm watching the side of their head just talk to five, six hundred people. And then I hear the laughter. And I'm just seeing this guy who's just a guy. And there's this thing. There's this magic you can't explain. And it's like that

show business. Like when you're standing backstage and you're about to go on to the stage, that moment where you're like, I'm just going to go out there and do this. Like I don't ever think like, it's show showtime but there's something so amazingly magic about it yeah there is it's i mean i just did this play for almost two years and uh stan you know i had my little routine of what i would do in the in the dark before i went out you did what'd you do uh i i did exercises and oh yeah yeah get the blood going going? Well, I had to dance. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

So I had to do ballroom. My character did ballroom dancing. Did you have to learn how to do that? Did I ever? Yeah. And was I an unwilling pupil? But it's fun, though. Once you figure out the steps, right?

Everything's fun once you figure it out. I know, but it's the dread of getting to the fun. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. A lot of dread getting to the fun. A lot of dread. What do you mean? I got to go to the place? Yeah. I got to go to the place and do the thing the fun. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. A lot of dread getting to the fun. A lot of dread. What do you mean?

I got to go to the place? Yeah, I got to go to the place and do the thing? Yeah. Yeah. But this guy, this wonderful kid, he was like in his mid-20s, and he's a dance coach on the English equivalent of Dancing with the Stars.

It's called Strictly Come Dancing over there. And he said, it's almost like a threat. He said, and he's just got this love of this stuff. He really just oozes it, and he said, you're not going to just dance. You're going to enjoy it. And about four weeks in, I said, fucking Matt Flint. It was right.

It would have made me cry if he said that. I don't enjoy, don't push me. I don't enjoy anything. Yeah, don't push me to enjoy. I haven't enjoy don't push me I don't enjoy anything yeah don't push me to enjoy I haven't enjoyed life and you know okay so we're we're okay so now let's get from the credibility gap because we're like we have it's not that we have a lot to cover but you want to talk about being a notoriously difficult person and you know and I'm glad you want to talk about that well I'm willing to talk about I don't yearn to talk about it.

I don't wake up in the morning saying, gee, I hope he asked me about being a notoriously difficult person today. Well, you've alienated some pretty seemingly talented and at one time or another close friends. I believe they've alienated me. Of course you do, Harry. What is that, Dr. Marin's voice Of course you do, Harry. What is that? Dr. Marin's voice there? It is?

Yeah. No, but when did you, what is the timeline? So before you do, obviously before you do Spinal Tap, you wrote with Albert, you wrote Real Life.

Well, Real Life wrote, worked with him on all those short films he did for Saturday Night Live. Oh, right. You were in some of them, no? Yeah. Yeah.

And now I'm kind of remembering. Yeah. And so you guys were buddies and he's sort of a genius and you're your own genius so working with him on real life which i think is one of his best movies yeah i do too personally yeah what was that what was the process um was it mostly improvised was that no that was totally scripted it was yes uh and uh albert had an office on the, what is now the Warner Brothers lot. And we'd go into his office every day. And normally I'd been the typist in every collaboration because that's the one thing I learned. When you were with The Gap? school was how to type so i could just type very fast yeah yeah and not look and just stuff would get down on paper very quickly but albert found it distracting typewriters are noisy yeah uh we

didn't yet have the wonderful world we have today with the silent keyboard of the computer and all the wonderful magic amazing the future the future is just fabulous so he's uh so i wrote longhand yeah i'm right this down the script longhand. And it was him and me batting stuff around. And then he'd stick around at night, and this other writer would come in, Monica Johnson, and they'd do some stuff. And we'd sort of meld what they came up with into what we were doing.

And it was an interesting... Was Rob Reiner hanging around? Rob was around, not while we were writing real life so much. But Rob was a friend of David Lander's again, so he'd come to see the Credibility Gap shows that we would do.

And he was a friend of Albert's from childhood. And he was a friend of Albert's from childhood, yeah. So you write that with Albert, and then when does SNL start? When do you have the falling out with Albert?

Is it after real life or later? Yeah, it kind of began after real life. Yeah. It's just I was led to expect that I'd be playing a part in the movie, and then Albert said, well, I can't act with, I can't convince myself that you're another guy. And that was it.

That began, that was the. Yeah, and I had a girlfriend at the time who knew Albert really well, and she would see the problems I was having with Albert and she said at one point you know you do realize he doesn't get that you're a separate person right yeah you're just an extension of Albert yeah yeah yeah yeah I got a dad like that. Yeah, so that kind of went in. But then Lorne had, I'd gone with my buddies in the credibility gap to 30 Rock.

We'd been asked to do a sketch that was a takeoff on the Tom Snyder Tonight Show, Tomorrow Show, on the Tomorrow Show. Mid-70s? Yeah, as in the summer, as Saturday Night Live was getting ready to go on the air. 75. Yeah. So Franken was there.

Franken and Davis. Franken and Davis were both there. So we come in to do the Snyder bit and we're hanging around 30 Rock. And so we go see O'Donoghue and go see Al and Tom. You know Michael O'Donoghue. Yeah, I knew Michael O'Donoghue and go see Al and Tom. You know Michael O'Donoghue. Yeah, I knew Michael O'Donoghue a little bit. And so... And they were just trying to put that first show together.

They were just trying to figure out anything. And so a couple years later, Lorne offered me a job writing on the show, and I was writing out here. I said, I can write on television out here i'm a writer performer so it's like 78 79 yeah but 77 oh yeah yeah so i'm working at that time with martin mullen for with tonight and i'm right that was an amazing show that i barely remember wonderful show i was a young man yeah i remember staying up for it that was a it was like there

was that there was from with tonight and there was a mary hartman mary hartman yeah mary hartman came first right and that was the spin-off yeah kind of yeah and then there was then another show spun off from firmwood tonight called america tonight which was basically the same show but it would have celebrity guests but that was a that was one of those ones where you know that thing that you were doing with the credibility gap or the idea of cutting it close to the bone or presenting it as real as possible was sort of taking hold a bit a little bit there was a wonderful moment. The first, we're getting away

from Saturday Night Live. I'll get back there. I love talking about Lorne. First week of shows is in the bank at Fernwood Tonight. And Fernwood Tonight was the weirdest

collection of people. I mean, you had Fred Willard. It was the first time I had a chance to watch Freddie work at great length and just be in stunned awe of his ridiculous moronic talent.

It just defies any explanation or understanding. I can't imagine seeing him as that young a man. Oh, his energy level was furious. And he come from that, what was his group called? Ace Trucking Company. Yeah, up in San Francisco, right? Yeah, he came from, I don't know where they founded. He was from Chicago.

Oh, right. But yeah, and they did very, very broad material. And I looked down on it a little bit. And then Credibility Gap. Lowbrow. Lowbrow. Yeah. And then Credibility Gap actually toured with Ace Trucking Company.

And I became an admirer because I got. Isn't it funny how karma works, Harry? Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. Yeah. So Freddie is on the show. Yeah.

Martin Mull. Norman Lear produces it or executive produces it. And he hires some good writers. And then he hires to produce the show as the showrunner. Yeah. Alan Thicke. What, Alan Thicke. What? Alan Thicke.

Not known for humor. Not really known for humor. Not known for much. Well, he's known for a few things behind the scenes. And he's Robin Thicke's dad, of course, for the kids who are listening. Yeah, sure. And Alan had been producing this show by this 18-year-old singing sensation in French Canada, René Simard. So he would commute between Montreal where he produced the René Simard show and Hollywood where he produced Firmwood Tonight, this hip thing.

Anyway, it's about a week of shows under our belt. And we have a meeting and all hands are there to talk about, you know, which way the show is going. Because Martin and I think it's going a little kind of broad. And we want it to be, this is because you're saying close to the line. And a guy named Ben Stein. Do you know who Ben Stein is? The speech writer? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, the guy who became famous from Ferris Bueller. The speechwriter? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the guy who became famous from Ferris Bueller.

He had gotten hired by Norman Lear as a creative vice president. That's how goofy Norman Lear was. Well, he'd written a praising review of Mary Hartman in the Wall Street Journal, and Norman Lear went, I love this guy. Let's hire him. The guy, he likes me. He likes my shows. So Ben is sitting here in this meeting, and Martin and I are saying, you know, Jesus, you know, there's this guy. Let's hire him. The guy, he likes me. He likes my shows. So Ben is sitting here in this meeting, and Martin and I are saying, you know, Jesus, you know,

there's this guy, there's this bit in an iron lung, and it's just, we're going a little bit far down the road here towards broad. And what's funny about this show is there's this small town attempt to do a Tonight Show.

Just the effort and the failure of the effort, but this earnestness of this effort to put a tonight show just the the effort and the failure of the effort but this earnestness of this effort to put on a show without any of the wherewithal that would you know and the reality of that is what's funny and nobody says a word and then ben pipes up and says you know this reality is okay for improv but we're doing tv and And that was it? And that killed it. So I've always remembered Ben fondly for that moment. Close. Yeah. And another obstacle to the realization of your vision.

Just another one. Yeah, hey. And then what happens with Lorne? So another couple years goes by. A couple years. John and Danny are leaving. And I guess- Are you friends with them?

I did not know them. Yeah. And I guess. Are you friends with them? I did not know them. Yeah. I met John a couple times. One time he kept trying to force me to drink something that I didn't want to drink. Yeah. And got, I mean, tried to force me. Held you. Yes.

Yeah. Almost sitting on me. So I was aware of his power. Yeah. Not of anything else. Anyway. His strength and also the power that he turned on himself. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So I had gotten two phone calls that summer. Yeah. And so I made a trip to follow up on both phone calls. One was to Washington, D.C., where I was being interviewed for the possibility of hosting Morning Edition, which was then starting on NPR. And I said, well, I'll see. But I have this other meeting in New York. Did you want to do comedy?

Yeah. All right. But it was radio. Yeah. And then I meet with Lorne. And he offers me the slot in the cast that is going to be vacated by either John or Danny. He wasn't going to fill both of them.

He just was going to fill one. So I said, okay. And then the next time I came up to New York, I cleaned up my affairs in L.A., got prepared to move to New York, and I meet Lorne in the auditorium of the Winter Garden Theater where he's producing Gilda Live, which is a series of sketches that started on Saturday Night Live,

later to be a movie, the slogan of which was, things like this only happen in the movies. And I'm thinking, no, it happened on stage and it happened on television. Why are you lying? And Lorne sits in the audience and the very first thing he says to me is,

and I'm hired. This is my welcome yeah i've never hired a male jew for the company before i've kind of gone with the chicago catholic thing up to now that's fair warning sure that's a nice how do you do that is kind of bizarre it's peculiar yeah that's a good one it is it is a wonderful one it's a good nugget yeah uh then we had a a little retreat they had scheduled a retreat at this place called mohunk so before the season started we all got together and went up to this retreat on the hudson at mohunk and it was basically they all knew each other and it was i was the new guy uh it was bill It was Bill Murray, Garrett Morris, Lorraine Newman, Jane Curtin, and me. And Al and Tom were featured players.

How so fucking funny? And Tom Schiller was making films, who was a very funny guy. And then Andy Kaufman was doing guest appearances that year, a lot of guest appearances with the wrestling stuff. So you're at this retreat, and what happens? Nothing much. I mean, I'm just trying to make some kind of... Lauren's up there? Lauren's, of course, Lauren's up there.

And he's walking around like what? Like the Prince of... Plantation owner? Yeah, the Prince of Tides. And I just make a little kind of here's who I am speech and say, you know, I come from this show business background. And I think the wonderfulness of this show is its liveness. And I've been living on the West Coast all these years. And there was a tradition in the old days of network broadcasting that before tape and everything,

they would do a show for the East Coast and then wait three hours and do the show again for the West Coast. I just think the West Coast is being deprived of this excitement, and I think we should come back at 2.30 in the morning and do it again. That was your bit?

That was my bit. Did you get a laugh? Yes. Good. The last laugh I got there for a while. It got so grim. Well, so, okay, you're back in New York. You're doing a show.

What happened? What the hell went so wrong? Some games started being played. I wasn't, although I was hired as a member of the cast, I did not appear in the opening credits. You wanted to keep that Catholic, I guess. And so three weeks in, I'm writing stuff every week.

Nothing gets on. And Al is not writing for me. He's writing for Al. So, you know, Al's the only one who knows me. So Bill Murray and I go to a Knicks game. Because he's a friendly guy yeah and now we're walking back from the from madison square garden uh to 30 rock yeah so we're rocking about the 30 40 blocks and we have a chance to talk and i say billy uh what's going on it feels like uh something very strange is going

on here he says well you know we're we're we're members of this cast we're looking at this guy and this new guy who comes in and writing stuff for himself and we're going why is he doing that i said because i was hired as a writer performer he said well lauren didn't tell us that he just said he was hiring you as a writer so that's what he told the rest of the cast and i'm not in the credits right so i've signed a deal to be something that nobody else knows at the show is it on paper that you're a writer performer yeah of course it is of course it is so he's fucking with you yeah from from the get-go from from the jump so and then billy tells me about how rough a time he had when he started he says

you know it'll get better so he's trying to be helpful um you like him i like billy yeah yeah i've always liked him and he was he's he's been a mensch when i've needed him a couple times so that's good yeah yeah even though he doesn't know what the word mensch means because he's catholic but you know he knows he knows no he's he's a good guy. And it just goes on like this. And Paul Schaefer and I write a piece, a really abstruse piece called Backer's Audition on a week that Bea Arthur is the guest host. And the premise is it's a backer's audition

for a Broadway rock musical about Charles Manson and one of the people he killed, Hollywood hairdresser Jay Sebring, and it's called Two Men. Yeah. And Paul and I write the lyrics and music, and we're the guys presenting the show. Bea is the hostess with a room full of angels

who might invest in it, and all the cast are singing. And at the party, so-called, I prefer to think of it as something more funereal but that follows every show. Lorne says from his throne on high, the moment at the end of that sketch, that's the moment you became a star.

I wasn't on the air for the next four weeks. I mean, it's just a little game going on. One more story. Late in the season. I'm saying to myself, I'm smart. I can figure this guy out. I can play this game. I can game him.

So every week I come in with a new strategy that I've devised and every week it just fails because he's... But in your mind it's you and Lorne. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, he's told me that. Yeah. I don't hire people like you. Yeah. Plus, he's hired... I produced a TV show. I produced this pilot with Rob Reiner,

the TV show where Spinal Tap came from. Yeah. I've done it. I know how to do this. Right. His mistake to hire somebody who knows how to produce television shows. Right.

Because I'm looking at this thing and going, you know, so much time and effort is wasted. The other thing I did is I read Max Liebman's book. Max Liebman had produced a television show. Tell me if this format sounds familiar. 90 minutes, Saturday night, comedy sketches from Studio 8H in New York City with musical numbers in between. Live. Yeah. On NBC.

Yeah, it sounds familiar. Duh! Wow! Yeah. How did anybody think of that? Yeah. It was called Your Show of Shows. It starred Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner.

It had been done in the 50s. Yeah. And Max Liebman was the producer and he wrote a book about it. Uh-huh. They started writing their sketches first thing Monday. Oh, by the way, the writing staff included Mel Brooks and Neil Simon and Woody Allen. Right. That was a help.

Hell of a show. Yeah. Hell of a show. They started writing that show first thing Monday morning. End of Monday, they got a script. Rest of the week, that's the show they rehearse they learn it saturday night live you're a sucker if you even come in on monday writing begins late night tuesday night it's a dorm sick kind of it's kind of kind of a dorm vibe yeah don't you like a dorm

vibe right you know so it's like i came i'd come in at 10 tuesday evening people would look at me like i was nuts you know too early you're supposed to be staying up it's you I come in at 10 Tuesday evening. People would look at me like I was nuts, you know? Too early. You're supposed to be staying up. It's Saturday Night Live. Read-through isn't until Wednesday afternoon because people have to sleep most of Wednesday because they were up all night.

Yeah. Camera blocking starts Thursday, Friday. There's no time to rehearse. And by the way, Lorne puts into production a third more sketches than are going to survive and doesn't choose which ones are going to survive and doesn't choose which ones are going to survive until 11 20 saturday night so there's no commitment all the way down

the line people don't bother to learn lines because why would you for a sketch that there's a one in three chance won't make air and by the way you know the best way to make sure that nobody second guesses you or argues with you is to not make decisions until panic sets in at 1120. And what the fuck are we doing? What show? Why is the show we're doing tonight? Yeah. And, you know, the crew was waiting.

They have to figure out what camera blocking to do. Right. Because they've camera blocked everything. And they've, you know, now have to figure out all these logistical things in the space of. I wonder if he still does it. I don't know. I mean, the crew did an amazing job every week just pulling that off. Because this was like a crazy time.

Like, I mean... This was Coke time, as they say. Yeah. So the last story was Lorne invites me to take a sauna with him. Oh, this is a good story already. And I figure, fuck, okay.

You're on. We're going to do a schvitz. We're going to have, you're on. We're going to do a Schvitz. We're going to have a Schvitz. We're going to do a Schvitz. With the emperor. Like the Jews do. Yeah. And he says, you know, what's on your mind?

I said, well. So you're in the Schvitz talking. I'm in the Schvitz talking. And I say, you know, there's a sketch this week featuring Sadat, who was then the president of Egypt. Yeah. And I said, you know, you've seen this piece from the TV show, the show that I produced. Billy Crystal did Menachem Begin and I did Anmar Sadat.

We were doing a light beer commercial arguing about whether the beer was better because it was less filling or more yellow. And you've seen that piece. You know I do a great Sadat. Garrett Morris is doing it because he's dark-skinned and Sadat is about eight shades lighter than him anyway. But, you know, it just stuff like that drives me crazy. He said, I'll take care of that.

I'll make a phone call. I'll call Al. Al was at that point head writer. This is Friday night. So I walk in Saturday at noon. It never happened. And the denouement of it is, so I'm sitting, I'm an extra in this sketch,

and I'm waiting with Garrett to go on 20 seconds before live air, and he turns to me and says, you do Sadat? How does he sound again? So not a good experience for you, that first round. But those stories, like, I mean, no one is willing to sort of... Everyone's very diplomatic within the last 15 years of those casts.

And I've talked to a lot of people. Well, because Lorne has just gotten more and more powerful. Why wouldn't you be? I guess that's true. You know, he controls New York show business at this point. He controls a good chunk of, you know, national show business. No, no. And he's got The chunk of national show business. No, no. And he's got The Tonight Show.

He's got The Tonight Show. He's got The Tonight Show, yeah. All right. But the thing is is that I always assumed that I would have done exactly what you did, which is take it personally.

How can you not take it personally? How can you not take it personally? Well, a lot of people seem to play along with the craziness. They just become codependent to the situation. I know.

I never understood, for example, how Phil Hartman could take eight years of that. I just, of course, you have a wife with a gun at your head. But seriously, I loved Phil and I thought he was a huge talent. I never understood how he could put up with that for eight years. Well, then how did you come back

to the show? Spinal Tap was invited on as a musical guest when the the movie came out and by this time lauren was gone we come on so now you've had you've made your own success yeah this was a this just changed the game of everything spinal tap changed culture it becomes an identifier yeah everybody knows it yeah turn it to 11 guys whatever it is guys decide on on whether they're they're going to continue dating their girlfriend by whether she gets spinal tap.

Yeah. I mean, it really is deep. It goes deep into the American psyche. So you're a guy now. And the English psyche, by the way. Yeah. Oh, I bet. Of course.

So now you're a guy. Yeah. So Dick Ebersole took over. He's producing the show. And we're treated really well. We're the musical guests, you know? We're treated really well. But you're also comedians.

You're all genius comedians. Yeah, but we're just treated nicely. And so I figure, God, things must have changed. Although there was one little moment that should have tipped me off. We're doing one of their endless backstage sketches where they're around lockers you know off stage and uh we're we're watching it being camera blocked so we're not on stage yet we're behind the cameras and uh

julie louis julie louis dreyfus and she's funny she is funny she's great and I guess Mary Gross we're we're doing a scene we're doing the front part of the scene and they're dressed in bathrobes because they're not you know they're supposed to be backstage and suddenly Dick is is out there on on the floor and he puts a $50 bill on top of the lens of the a camera and says this is for the first one whose tits fall out of their robe during the blocking uh-huh fair enough okay yeah he comes from abc sports you know yeah it's gonna happen with those sports guys those sports guys they've been in the truck too long you know just trapped in the truck for too many years uh the truck being their brain yeah yeah so i dick invites chris michael and me to join the cast michael passes chris and i say yes uh i figure based on this final tap experience it's going to be different uh billy comes in because he'd been a regular guest yeah and marty short uh who was a friend of paul's and and you go back with

him so you know i but paul had just told me how great marty was and i'd watched him on tv of course and uh and there was this really bizarre kabuki that happened when we all assembled except for jim belushi i'm sorry, except for Jim Belushi. Dick said, I'm keeping Mary Gross and Julia, but I want another female member of the cast. So you guys get to help me choose. What? So now we're having this bizarre set of meetings with women.

Gina Davis among them, the wonderful Gina Davis, who was put through this embarrassing ritual. And it comes down to, you know, two people and we get to vote. And it's really like, oh, really? This is different?

And we think it's really different, so we take advantage of the situation, say, you know what? This show's got its audience now. We don't need to have these stupid guest hosts for ratings every week who can't do comedy, and most of whom are politicians just trying to humanize their image. Why are we serving that?

Why don't we just be a really great comedy show? You've got all the talent you need here to fill 90 minutes. Let's kick ass. And so the first week of that season there was no guest host and we figure and that was the week that we did uh synchronized swimming legendary yeah and we figure all right we're in clover yeah and by week three we're back to guest hosts and jesse jackson is the guest host and half of operation push is taking our desks because they figured out they can make free long distance calls

from NBC. Yeah. So, and, you know, Dick had said to me when he hired me, I know you're going to do

most of the political comedy here. So, I'm really going to depend on you for that. And so, I write these Reagan sketches and week after week

after week, I get into Reagan makeup and the sketch is put into the production and it never makes air. And it just gets more and more depressing. And we do one more.

Why do you think that was? I have no idea. I have no clue. There was no conspiracy? I have no, I don't think, conspiracy to keep Reagan material

off the air? I don't know. No, no. This is show business. Nobody cares about show business. Saturday Night Live? Who gives a fuck about show business. Saturday Night Live? Who gives a fuck what Sketch appears

on Saturday Night Live? Except the idiots at Saturday Night Live. So, I just, it was getting me down. And, Chris and I,

and Marty and Billy did one more really good piece, which was the 60 Minutes. I like that. Make My Novelties with Marty Thurm. And, you know, it was clear that what we loved to do was film pieces on a live show.

We were absolutely in tension with the format, you know. But we were getting away with it for a little while. And then, you know, Dick was walking around saying, you know how much that synchronized swimming piece cost? I'm thinking, I didn't produce it. Don't blame me. I just wrote it. Go blame the producer. She rented the pool. Rented the pool. That was the big cost. I don't know what the cost was. Anyway, so at about about 143 on the morning of june january 13th which was the first night of the first batch of shows after christmas vacation dick called me into his office and he said uh you're not happy here and uh and we're not happy either. And I said, okay, well, just let me go and pay me the money you owe me.

And he said, okay. And that was it. That was it. And I cleared out of New York. Nobody has ever, no mafiosi on the run has cleared out of New York City faster than I did. So I was sitting in my sublet in Tribeca on the floor because all the furniture

had gone already and I got a call from AP that Monday morning saying we have word that according to NBC you've left the show because of creative differences. Do you have any comment?

It's true, I think they asked me and I blurted it out. Yeah, it's true true i was creative and they were different that was that was the joke that was the joke what's the problem with a joke so you and chris are okay yeah you he understands you i understand him i it took me a long time and you and mich Michael are okay. Hmm. Oh. It's so funny because as the bass player in two movies.

I know. I'm supposed to get along with everybody? Yeah. Listen, sometimes you're that, sometimes you're Python. Okay. You know? Sure. I mean, the only reason the Pythons got together was because they'd lost a million-pound lawsuit.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have gotten it. I think John needed money. They all needed money. They had lost a million-pound lawsuit. You mean just the recent live shows? Yeah. Uh-huh. That's the only reason they did that. Two of the guys told me that.

Ugh. Because they don't like each other. Right. It's weird when show business gets ugly, isn't it? But, I mean, okay. I don't know. What's the matter? I'm not going to discuss it on the air. Okay. But with Lorne...

Yeah. Oh, I'll discuss it until the cows come home. But you're done with that. Oh, long since. I don't talk about it unless somebody brings it up. I have no interest in propagating... I like SNL stories, but when he came back, you never heard from him again, and that was that, right?

Who, Lorne? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, nor would I expect to. You know, somebody came out with a list when this season began of 10 people that SNL should have back as guest hosts because the show's in trouble, and they put my name on the list, and I resisted the temptation to write back and say, the good Lord hasn't made enough wild horses. But now you, like, it's sort of interesting.

And Bob Balaban, he's a friend of yours? I know him. I'm like him. You just work with him? Yeah. Yeah, he's great, isn't he? He's wonderful. He's so funny.

Wonderful. Because I always assume everybody's buddies. I have friends in English comedy too because I've been working in England. This guy, Harry Enfield, is one of the funniest people I've ever met. A lovely guy. Does the most amazing characters.

He and his partner did this great thing. I've got to look him up. I feel like I met him maybe. Harry and Paul. They do wonderful stuff. And BBC's Channel 2 celebrated its 50th anniversary and they got to do a joke tribute show with joke clips of the history of a television network which is just like what a great wow gig and it's it and Harry just did the lion's share of piss takes of all

these iconic British television characters so you're making new friends in Britain. Yeah. Yeah. And you've got some friends. Yeah, I do. All right. I got a lot of friends in New Orleans. Don't happen. More music friends than.

Right. I have more music friends than comedy friends. And the Simpsons did you very well financially? You know, I have to say about this something that i learned from uh my six years of uh analysis of psychoanalysis which is one mark of of adulthood is that you can hold two conflicting emotions about the same thing at the same time uh two things can be true at the same time of course so uh it is true that as an actor on an insanely successful TV series, I am, by any standards of the human species, obscenely overpaid. Yes. It is also true that as an actor on one of the most insanely successful television series of all time, I am getting royally screwed.

Both things are true. But you're in good living i make yeah i'm comfortable yeah to turn the joke around but but you've got you've got a bit of a reputation for being difficult there but it seems to me that a lot of that was righteous it was a righteous fight um you know i happen to be the guy who uh sort of was in the lead uh in uh when negotiating time came i i i don't necessarily enjoy fights but i don't shrink from them right and uh when you're negotiating uh money with rupert murdoch and a couple other extremely lucre-oriented people, you're in a fight. You're in a bar fight, if not a bum fight. Right.

But the truth that you were, the idea, I don't know what really happened, but it seems with any of those things. Read my book. Okay. No, I'm kidding. What's the book called? No, I don't even know. I'm just it seems with any of those things. Read my book. Okay. No, I'm kidding. What's the book called? No, I don't even know.

I'm just writing pages right now. I have no idea. You haven't written a book yet. I'm writing pages right now. As we speak? No, as we speak. I'm talking to you, but yeah. So you're saying that, is it everybody's fault?

It's not your fault? Why do you think you get that? It's nobody's fault. it's not your fault why why do you think you get it's nobody's fault it's it's it's what happens if you think you know what you want and you are determined to get it uh in terms of how something looks or how something is performed or how something is staged or how something is framed uh and yeah you have to earn your spurs to be in a position to say that. But I'll give you, and you also have an aesthetic case to make. So if you have a point of view and you have a way you think it should be, that's how you get a reputation as being a difficult person.

Yeah, because you want it done that way. Right. I'll give you a great example. Okay. Also from Saturday Night Live. There was a sketch that I did with howard hessman i wrote it for him uh where he's uh visiting actor plugging the fact that the wkrp in cincinnati is changing his time slot uh and i'm a morning dj character i later reprised in wayne's world too Actually, that was based on this sketch.

And I'm the morning DJ who's got a million things to do and is paying no attention to the guests. That's the basic idea. So I come onto the stage where we're camera blocking this and they have a table and a mic on a little circular stand

sitting on the table. And I said, that's a temp, right? They have a table and a mic on a little circular stand sitting on the table. And I said, that's a temp, right? He said, no, that's the mic for the sketch. I said, but this is a radio studio. Mics hang down. They're not on a desk because people put their hands on the desk. You do.

Yeah. I say, we're at 30 Rock. There are four radio stations, two floors above us. Go get a boom. Take an elevator ride. Go look. Do that. Okay.

And I don't even raise my voice. I don't even. But for the rest of the week, if there's any delay in any camera blocking, what is it attributed to? Oh, it's Harry's mic. We're waiting on Harry's mic. It's a joke now. Yeah, it Harry's mic. It's a joke now. Yeah, it's a joke. It's a joke that I want it to look right.

And that's, I understand that. And I think that that's an interesting, it's a difficult situation in that somebody who's stubborn because of their vision, you know, really has to get that vision through to where they win. Yeah. And they're like, so enough people behind you can go he was right yeah yeah and uh and and by the way i'm doing it in a in a in a forum that i don't control where the dominant aesthetic is not let's make it look

real where the dominant aesthetic is hey you can look like uh yeah president President Ford with a mustache or President Nixon with a mustache. Who cares? Yeah. You know, that's the aesthetic of that show. He's building stars. He's not making credible sketches. Yeah. That's certainly what seems to be happening now.

Yeah. On the other hand. For the last 20 years. On the other hand, again, with this Nixon show, you know, everybody got it. Everybody got that. That thing is beautiful. That's David Frost on there, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I didn't really you know, everybody got it. Everybody got that. That thing is beautiful. That's David Frost on there, right? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like, I didn't really know what to expect from it. And it looks great. And it's meticulous. And you're, like, what I like about the way you're doing it is that it's not an impression. No. Yeah. It's a piece of acting. It is.

It is. And everybody got, top to bottom on that crew, nobody had to be brought aside and told, you know, it has to look real, don't you think? They all got it immediately. They went and researched how the Oval Office looked during Nixon's administration. Here's how far it went. I called a friend of mine at CBS in Washington. I said, what were the cameras that they were using to shoot the resignation speech? He said they were Norelco

or whatever they were. My crew goes and finds the one guy in England who has two working copies of the camera. Harry needs a Norelco. Flies,

two Norelcos please. Two Norelco cameras this guy. A and a backup and they fly him down, they bring him down to London with his cameras.

He operates one of the cameras. They're still working so you can still see the gray, the black and white image of the eyepiece. Yeah. It's like time travel. Yeah. And then I said to the guy at CBS,

and what was the logo that they had on the, the version of the CBS logo they had on the cameras and those, so it's, and they all got that that was. That's the vision.

That's worth doing. Yeah. That it was worth doing. It looks great. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's the fight, endless fight against nobody will notice.

Yeah, I'll notice. Yeah. I'm not nobody. But it does make a difference. It does make a difference. When the actors walked on that set, it was a 360 set, they all said, ooh, I feel different now just being here. Really?

Yeah. That's great, man. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that your vision is being respected and honored. In England. Yes. Some people got to go to England. Yeah.

If you're difficult, go to England. So what brought you to New Orleans? I went to the Jazz Fest one spring. What year is that? 1988. Okay. And fell in love with the city. Uh-huh.

was that 1988 okay and uh fell in love with the city uh-huh literally it was like the city whispered uh a message in my ear and i understood the language and you're like fuck it i'm moving yeah well i took me it took me a while but i'm coming here as often as possible was the first thing i decided uh it's like oh my god this is the real deal now um there are some personal reasons why that may be um i'm an only child of a tiny little family in an in the most atomized city on the planet los angeles you know it's the city of individualism writ large writ on billboards on sunset boulevard uh and new or Orleans is a tightly knit community, not a virtual community, a real community where strangers talk to each other

and people, you know, when you're in the market or in the drugstore, you've got to bargain for about three times as long to get your business done because people are going to be talking to you and visiting with you. It's like small town. Yeah, except it's a a city right um and then there's all the other stuff but i mean so it it spoke to me on a lot of levels it spoke to me on the level of people pursue their their chosen um art there not to get rich not to get famous but because that's what they have to do

that's why they play music that's why they because that's what they have to do that's why they play music that's why they paint that's why they write it's it's a lot of heart a lot of soul a lot of heart a lot of soul so for people who've been in the hollywood machine a lot uh it's it's almost soul restoring to be there and to be back in touch with that reality uh after all this you know the thing that we you saw the documentary uh that joan rivers uh did the joan rivers documentary a piece of work you didn't oh my god it's it's fantastic and the thing that she had the balls to show in that film was what all of us spend most of our time keeping the public from seeing, which is the fucking desperation.

Yeah. She put it out there. And that's the desperation not of, oh, God, it's hard to do this work. It's the desperation of this fucking business. Yeah. And so when you go to someplace where people aren't filled with that, aren't having to surmount that to get the work done, they're just getting the work done.

They may never be famous. They may never be known outside of the city, but that to get the work done. They're just getting the work done. They may never be famous. They may never be known outside of the city, but they're getting their work done, and that's what they live for. That's very moving and very restorative. And how is the community around you and the city itself recovering from Katrina even now? It's a work in progress.

One mark of the success of the city is how many arguments are being had about gentrification now right uh you know they're not about mickey massification of the city anymore they're about god all these new people are moving in and uh jacking up the cost of property and they don't know our folkways, to which I say, let's make a video. When they get a house, here's what we do. So what ultimately ended up happening was not the weird sort of corporate annihilation, but sort of like piecemeal upscale people

moving into areas that were... Kids, kids feeling this is a place where there's a lot of opportunity, and there are these neighborhoods that are undiscovered, which means poor people were living there. And so, you know, what I tell my friends in New Orleans is I remind them that it's had a 300-year history as a port city, always welcoming all comers. welcoming all comers. Then we had about a 50 year history as a very self-protective city in decline where we got very, you know, kind of,

ooh, don't touch our thing. And now we're back to being kind of open again in a very true way. That's positive. I think overall it's positive. There are stresses in any situation where, you know, new people come into a community and a community as i say is a real community with real roots and real yeah interconnections

real history real history and real traditions yeah i mean the first time newcomers called the police to complain that there was a brass band in their street playing music outside and that's disturbing the peace that was sort of the alarm bell is oh we got to deal with this now yeah but that on the list of problems that that city could have had right in the wake of that flood that's so far down the line but it is bouncing back yeah oh it's great oh good it's great and how's your health i'm feeling good yeah yeah you look great thank you 70 thank you everything's like okay yeah good everything Good. Everything works. Good. Everything works so far. And what's your fascination with the Bohemian Grove?

Well, you know, when you find out that there's, growing up in Southern California, this was always someplace you heard about, this secretive retreat in Northern California. Were they the wealthy, did the rulers of the world go dressed like ladies? Yeah, and cavort and get naked and piss on redwood trees and and um but this came to me a couple filmmakers female filmmakers came to me with an idea of would i write a script about it so i did some research went up to san francisco got into the Bohemian Club's archives, and then wrote a script, and then had the good fortune to be invited. They were, I guess, trying to young up or Jew up their membership, and I got invited to a weekend there, so I actually got to go there and fact-check my script, and I made this little film. It's a self-financed,

incredibly independent film with some wonderful, you know, I was trying to be true to the concept so I had to basically cast with only funny goys. Yeah. So there's a marvelous gallery. What's it called?

It's called Teddy Bear's Picnic. Okay. Because I thought if you go out in the woods today, you're in for a big surprise. Yeah. But Kenny Mars, Fred Willard, Michael McKean,

just wonderful people. When you were at the Grove, though, were you sort of like let down? Was it sort of like, ugh? No, it was pretty much

what I had been led to believe by the research and pretty much what I had written. But it's not nefarious. It's, every once in a while, you know, the one that's always cited is the manhattan project was hatched there so once every 50 years they decide to build

an atomic bomb you know um but most mostly it's it's silly it's uh people who are rich and powerful uh basically deciding that they are going to spend a valuable week of their life reverting to the sophomore year of college, but the hijinks are at a much higher price point. So when they do their big shows, they have the San Francisco Symphony playing the orchestra, and those guys attend.

And, you know, it's just... And they get drunker than skunks. The head of one of the Fortune 500 companies was, you know, found face down on the golf course Saturday morning from having passed out the night before. I mean, they just loved it.

Get your face. And then they go across the river and hang with some hookers and it's just, you know. I'm pleased to say that the movie, while it didn't break box office records anywhere else, did break box office records at the little theater right across the river oh you mean grove because they all went that's good yeah i guess like well the last question or the last idea i had a window to

talk about the process of doing the christopher guest movies that you know in terms of doing those you know tremendous long improvised scenes in character i mean what would you say to somebody who wants to know oh let's say it's me so how did how does that go man you guys they just turn the cameras on and you usually you just you just start with something or or we do scenes chris has got an idea. Chris says almost nothing. Uh, the only direction I've ever gotten from Chris in the three of his movies I've been was in a four year consideration where I'm playing an actor who thinks he's, there may be some awards buzz about him.

And so he's got the big head and, uh, Fred Willard is the host of an entertainment tonight type show. And he's coming to interview me, uh, Willard is the host of an Entertainment Tonight type show. Yeah. And he's coming to interview me for promo about the film that we're making. And so I'm sitting across from Freddy. Yeah. And just before we start shooting, Chris puts his arm around me and says three words.

Don't even try. You're going to get run over by the Willard machine. Don't fight it. Don't fight it. Don't even try. That's what you go into a scene with. Otherwise, it's scary. You know, I'd never been in one of them from the beginning. For various reasons, my part would always start after production had begun.

So for your consideration, I'm there from the first day when everybody's in the makeup room yeah i'm going i'll get i'll get the teeth this time i'll get the mustache i'll get the funny hair i'll get the i'll get the ears and uh i'm listening to katherine o'hara and she's saying jesus i don't believe i'm doing this fucking thing again why am i doing this this scares the shit out of me and i'm thinking wow katherine o'hara is scared of this yeah that's a relief everybody's scared of it it's very scary um but you look around at chris there's no absolutely no pressure and absolutely 100 trust i think that's why chris isn't making these anymore is because he's not getting that level of trust from up above, so he can't transmit it to us.

He trusts in us. We trust each other. We all are in a conspiracy to trust the audience, so there's never any, you know, hey, we've been running for 20 seconds. I'm not hearing any jokes here, people. Right.

None of that. He's got a year to find the funny stuff. Right, and you just, you make your own character choices. just make your own character choices. You make your own character choices. Gene or whoever he's writing with give you certain parameters. You make your wardrobe. You make your makeup choices.

You can add to the backstory if you want. The more you bring in, the happier he is. Like in Mighty Wind, was the dressing, the woman. That was from Chris and Gene Levy. I came in for a meeting one day and Chris said, I got a little surprise for you. Look at the last card in the thing on the board. And it was just like a great gift.

It was just very funny because you played it so straight. Well, that's the only way I knew how to do it. You know? Yeah. It's, but you look around the room and there are these wizards, you know, there's Catherine, there's Fred,

there's, there's Higgins. There's all the, I don't want to slight anybody. You can go down the whole list. They're the A team. They are the A team of this, of this.

And so you realize, you know, you're, you only have one job as Chris presented to you. Tell the story of this scene. Yeah. He's hired funny people to do it. So something funny is going to happen, but your job is to tell the story of this scene. He's hired funny people to do it, so something funny is going to happen,

but your job is to tell the story of this scene. You don't have to say anything. If you can get happening what you want, what your character needs to have happen in that scene without saying it, you don't have to say a word. You can do funny reactions or real reactions, but that is to say the only pressure is self-applied.

Yeah. You know? Right. The only pressure is from within. Nobody is, it's such, it's the only way you could do that, I can imagine.

Well, it's the only place that happens so perfectly. A lot of people try it. A lot of people emulate it. And I don't think with a marked degree of success because you have to have a really carefully selected group of people.

Everybody thinks they can do it. The first thing that I always say to people is, you know, you have to understand there's a big difference between improv and ad-libbing. Ad-libbing is talking, improv is listening. Interesting, yeah. And if you're not prepared to spend a lot of your time on the set listening,

you know, don't do this this you're going to blow the scene well what comes out of your mouth is based on what goes into your ears right now with Spinal Tap though that was Rob but we had all decided that we were going to do the movie that way not because we sat down one day and said let's do an improv film

we were trying to figure out how to make this film look real who wanted that we all wanted it okay and and we all had tried writing a script and we looked at it after about three days and thought well a you know the studio isn't going to understand this anyway right look at this so b why don't we just go shoot it as a as a demo and how do we make this look real writing is not going to ever get the what the feeling that we want let's just go do it i hadn't come out of an improv experience the credibility gap wrote every sketch we ever wrote first time i improvised was in spinal tap and what about chris i don't know if chris had done improv before. Michael hadn't. And Rob was

at the helm. Was his idea? No. The four of us had been, the TV show that I mentioned that we did, a pilot. Spinal Tap had made a little brief appearance in that. Right. And we're supposed to be, at the end of our song, we're supposed to be

covered with smoke. And the Busby Berkeley sequence, we're relying on the floor shot from above. And instead of smoke, the prop guy fucks up and hot oil is coming down on us, drops of hot oil. And so we have two choices. We can either kill the prop guy or talk about what else do we do with these characters.

And since killing prop men is illegal in California, we decided to talk about what else we could do with these characters. We since killing prop men is illegal in California, we decided to talk about what else we could do with these characters. And we thought, well, let's see if we can make a... And Rob was part of that. Yeah, Rob was making that show. Oh, he was making the show. Yeah.

And because he went an entirely different direction, really. Yeah. With his directing. Yeah. But he was definitely part of the whole process. Absolutely. And out of that, because Chris had not been doing them previous to that.

I mean, that was sort of the first one, wasn't it? Of that type of movie, of the long form improv. Well, I mean, I think John Cassavetes' movies had been improvised. I mean, comedically. Comedically, yes. And then Mike Lee in England built... Those are great movies.

Great movies. And he built them on improv. They would do a year of improv. Right. And then he'd script... But specifically comedy. Yeah, specifically comedy and specifically that style.

Yeah. I guess we were the first. Good. Yeah. It's nice to be the first of something, right? It's good to be the first. Let me, before I go,

is the show is still on. The show is still on. Some outlets don't have it anymore. Oh, some outlets don't have it anymore, but it's a podcast. There you go. Podcast rule, baby. You're telling me. I'm telling you.

Save my life. Yeah. Well, good. I'm glad that's still going. Thank you. And I'm happy that you're not. Look, I didn't know what I was going to get when you're coming over here. What?

I don't know. People are like, that is difficult. I'm a sweetheart. That's a one guy I trust't know. People are like, that is difficult. I'm a sweetheart. That's what that, that's a one guy I trust said that. You know, you could talk to the people that,

at, in England where we did this Nixon show. Sure. This was the most, you know, arduous experience producing a show,

writing a show, starring in it, four hours of makeup every day, having this incredibly impenetrable dialogue to learn. You know, they all had a good time. Yeah, no, I know how these things get started. They're not based on anything,

maybe one or two people's experience, but I appreciate the fact that you were such an asshole you had to leave our country to get love. I appreciate that. Yeah. True that. True that, baby. Thanks, Harry.

Thank you. All right, that's it. Harry Shearer, the first one I've ever talked to to honestly, well, that's not true, Brewer too, who had some not necessarily completely upbeat things to say about SNL. And it was a great conversation. I was honored that he was here. He's done a lot of great work, Harry Shearer. Go to

WTFpod.com for all your WTF Pod needs. Get on the mailing list. Check the calendar for tour dates in your area. You can leave comments through Facebook on the site there. You can check the merch. We're going to have new posters. Posters are being made for every stop on my tour, so we'll stock up that stuff in the merch store once You can check the merch. We're going to have new posters. Posters are being made for every stop on my tour.

So we'll stock up that stuff in the merch store once we get done with that. What else, man? I can't get enough of this pedal. I'll tell you that. I'm going to piss my neighbors off. It's fucking 1039 at night.

Maybe I should pull back. Boomer Lives! and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No, but moose head? Yes, because that's alcohol and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

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