WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 725 - James L. Brooks

Episode Date: July 18, 2016

James L. Brooks is responsible for something you love. Probably many things. Marc talks with the prolific writer-director-producer about all of it - The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Taxi, Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, As Good As It Gets, The Simpsons, and more. They also talk about how Jim dealt with writer's block, what he considers his worst professional experience, and why he and Jack Nicholson had to send the crew home one day to make things right. 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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Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckocrats? What the fub-publicans? How's it going with you guys? I got back from Salt Lake City this morning and I had a great time.

Had great shows. Wise Guys is a good club. Keith, the guy who runs and owns the place, a good guy, is all solid. Crowds are great. I've been to Utah many times. I like Utah. I don't know why. There's no place like Utah.

There's no place like Salt Lake. And every time I'm captivated and mystified because it's very pleasant, but very weird. Like when people ask, what's it like? What's Salt Lake City like? I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. No place to compare it to. Very pleasant and very odd and we all know why it was a city built by a relatively new religion

religiously speaking it's a new one new franchise exciting new offshoot joe smith went up into the mountains came came back with some ideas, some visions to make Jesus American, to Americanize the Jesus. And it took. Who knows? So they set up shop in Utah and they built their little cozy theocracy there. And I like it. I like it. I'm a bit fascinated i'm a bit fascinated and who am i necessarily to judge the faithful and those with hope when i don't have anything in place but hopefully coffee works in the morning hopefully something will keep me afloat

good sense of uh being grounded in my body and in my jobs in my creativity that's what i'm banking on i got no big system that cost me 10 of my jack on a yearly basis. Something's costing me money, but it ain't that. But anyway, did I mention James Brooks is on the show today? The Honorable James L. Brooks, amazing creator, career in show business. He created the Mary Tyler Moore show, Taxi, The Simpsons, directed and wrote Terms of Endearment broadcast news, as good as it gets. The guy is an innovator in television, a mold breaker. One of the greats. Also did some great cameo in Modern Romance with Albert Brooks. I cannot say enough about James L. Brooks.

I had a wonderful conversation with him. I do want to tell you the tale, the tale of the baby, the baby tale from Marin. And thank you so much for all the amazing, positive feedback on the uh the last season of Marin and the finale of the season and finale of uh of the uh the show itself just really people are really getting it and we I put a lot of effort into you know balancing that last episode I did write that one I didn't direct it but I was certainly up the director's ass a bit specifically about that last shot.

Well, here's the deal. In the finale, I have to tell you that there were three babies, and he only needed two, and it was not a comfortable situation. It was not what happened. Here's what happens. We needed a baby, and I needed the baby to at least pass as something that could come out of a union between me and the woman in the show anna kunkle who did a great job but so it had to look like our baby had to so you end up during casting you know like you know you i go through stuff and then the

casting agent sends us stuff when you're dealing with an eight-month-old, it doesn't need to be that specific. You just need to get babies. You need babies. And, well, I had other things going on, so I left it to my showrunners. They showed me a few pictures of babies that were on the computer, on the site, babies that had dark hair and look like they might be me or might be my kid.

And I let them cast a baby. I okayed a bunch of possibilities. And that was that. The day we're shooting the finale. And look, man, that shooting schedule, it is tough yeah i mean it's quick you don't have time for rehearsals you got to just shoot shoot shoot to make your day and get everything in without going overtime too much we rarely went overtime but i'm in every scene i'm i'm preparing and i i'm i'm off set and i'm on uh i'm in my trailer i'm getting makeup and going

over the lines and they take me to set and And the first scene that we shot, if you watch the finale was me in my trailer with binoculars, looking at Shay played by Anna Conkle and her mom, uh, and the baby, you know, Shay is leaving, giving the baby to her mother. And there's that scene where she's getting in the truck in the van with her friends that's the first time i see the baby literally through binoculars that we cast and i felt like something was up i wasn't sure you know i'm like could that be my baby i don't know it's still pretty far away and uh and and i don't meet the baby i don't meet the mother i just go start rehearsing for my next shit because i'm not you know i'm not in a scene with them and then the next scene

that we shoot is the scene where i'm having the conversation with shay at the table and her mother walks in with the baby and i have that exchange with the baby. And it's a pretty powerful scene. It's an important scene. Now, Rob Cohen's directing. Showrunner Siva Glarum is out at the Video Village. Everyone's around watching this, writers. And then they bring the baby in. And, you know, I'm doing the scene. And the grandmother walks in holding the baby.

And this is the first time I'm seeing the baby up close and uh and it's a it's it's a little awkward because the the baby is is definitely not white and i was like because i don't want to be inappropriate i don't want to feel you know like i'm you know racist i guess in this way but i i went up to rob cohen the director i said is that baby reading correctly and he's like yeah yeah i mean the baby's dark but i mean you're jewish and that happens a lot of jewish babies you know are dark when they're born and i'm like but you know i don't know is it okay all right and then i go out to to sievert and uh and i say is that baby i mean does it look all right and sievert's like yeah yeah don't worry about it'll be fine be fine and i'm like okay and it's just and i'm not a

prima donna and i'm not you know i don't put my foot down much but you know something wasn't quite right with me you know and then we do this scene again and you know i a prima donna and I'm not, you know, I don't put my foot down much, but you know, something wasn't quite right with me, you know? And then we do the scene again and, you know, I'm holding the baby and I'm like, you know, this baby is, it's a, the baby has black features and, you know, it's not, it's just, it doesn't, it was a very difficult thing for me because, because I knew, look, I don don't want to i want people to work i certainly want babies to work and you know i don't want to be weird but this baby looked

ethnic looked black looked light-skinned black and i and i and i just was because i thought to myself, well, that's OK. But then it would imply a completely different thing. There would be another layer of mystery or meaning to it or something arty. And that was not what I wanted out of the finale of my show. This is my script. It's my decision. It's my show, ultimately. And I went up to Rob again, I think.

And I said, I don't know, man, that baby. It doesn't look black to you. I mean, I don't know, man, that baby, it doesn't look black to you. I mean, you know, I don't want to be a dick here, but I mean, this baby's got to look a little like my baby. And the funny thing was, is that they knew, but they just kept trying to rationalize because they didn't, you know, we didn't want to lose the day of shooting. We didn't want, there was a lot at risk.

So they were willing on some level, if I would just go along with it to just kind of like, yeah, be all right. And it's a very awkward situation. But, you know, come take three. And I'm holding this baby. And I'm like, dude, you know, you got to do something. This is the finale of the show. This is not supposed to be an art film. This is supposed to be pretty specific.

One of the parts of the narrative is not for people to go like, wait a minute. Where's that baby from? So I went out and I said, see, but we can't do it. I can't do it. And I felt bad. But it was a casting decision and we had to, we had to get another baby. I mean, that baby got paid for the work that it was contracted to do.

And the mother, I don't know what she was told, but apparently after the fact, they told me that, um, they, these two babies, you have to have twins were,

uh, 50% Latino, 25% black and 25% white. And the thing said that it, that they could play white on their resume and uh and and that was that was it so we we had to um i guess fire a baby for for somewhat racial reasons from just a miss uh yeah maybe it was misrepresentation but i will say this that if you do look at the baby in the finale when i'm in the um in the the rv uh with the binoculars and

shay's handing that baby to the to the mother that is that baby so that baby made it in and then we had to find other babies but it was hard to find babies that you know would maybe look like my kid because you need two babies if you're lucky you can get twins we couldn't get twins so in this weird frantic clusterfuck of a casting call we had to you know find some babies there were no twins available so we had to find two different babies that look kind of alike because they can only work a few hours a day, so we somehow managed to find a couple of babies that were a few months apart that looked enough alike.

There's three babies in that show, but it was kind of an embarrassing and difficult day. Firing a baby is not easy, especially for somewhat racial reasons moving on now to mr james l brooks um look this guy is one of the greats and it's very interesting there's a lot of talk about luck and you know a lot of people don't necessarily factor in or some of you know that but you know this is a great you know very prolific creator and and writer and he mentions luck a lot and

and luck is definitely a factor uh most of the time in uh getting success and holding on to it i got you know this you know my timing for the first time in my life when I started this podcast just happened to be cosmically in line. My timing was lucky. I didn't have any real forethought about it. It came when it did, but everything synced up and I got lucky. I think I can deliver the goods, but sometimes that initial push is just a combination of forces that you had no control over. So please enjoy me and James. 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 corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air.

This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive.

FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Bucks. apply. Brooks. Nice to see you, Mr. Brooks. Good to see you. It feels like it's been a long time coming for some reason.

What swayed you? What swayed you this way? You know, they always say indigenous people. There was a certain time when they felt cameras captured their soul. And, you know, I think they were absolutely right. So I'm not, you know, I'm not. But I just love your show so much that I thought, you know, it was almost like a responsibility to show up.

You had to come do it? Yeah, he began to be too self-conscious not to. Well, I think the first time I reached out to you was because judd tried to put us together right a few years ago i remember that man really yeah what what was that for well no it was uh he said that you should do the show apatow said you should talk to james l brooks and i'm like all right and then i emailed you and then uh you were like oh okay maybe we'll do it or something that sounds like yeah it's a few years ago you were writing something i still am still on it still on it always writing jesus yeah but uh still writing that no really do you know what it is oh yeah yeah oh really yeah is it a never-ending thing no i hopefully not yeah though there are days when it seems like that

what is it it's uh that. What is it? It's screenplay, I think is the technical term. Uh-huh. Yeah. And you've been writing it for a couple of years? Yeah. Does it generally take that long? Yeah.

Really? Yeah. This is stretching. If I kept records like this, which I don't, this might be a record setter. Really? Yeah. How long has it been? But it's in this groove. It's been that kind of rhythm forter. Really? Yeah. But it's in this groove.

It's been that kind of rhythm for me. Uh-huh. And what does that entail every day with that? I mean, you have a story, obviously, in your head. So I mean... Now, see, that's great that you think that and you'd assume that. And the way I'm flattered by your having that belief. I sort of found it.

I sort of started with some characters on this, and it became a story I never would have imagined at the beginning. So I wrote it with a great deal of freedom, which I'm now paying for. Oh, yeah? Yeah. What do you mean? What kind of freedom? Just as, you know, a scene doesn't have to go this way to match an outline.

Okay. You can, surprises can happen to you. Right. And they did. Yeah. And, you know, I'm going to sound more positive than I feel. Oh, good. We'll see if it sticks.

But it was exciting in a certain way, doing it that way, roughly knowing what I wanted to address. Based on characters. But not having a story. Yeah, based on characters and seeing where they went. And a lot of unexpected things happened. Now I'm going through and giving everything a purpose. So it's a little, you know. That's interesting.

And trying to make it adhere to a spine. Right. Like trying to answer the question, the reason I have called you here today is. Right, yeah. The reason I've summoned you characters to move through this. And hopefully the audience, yeah. Oh, that's interesting that you start with characters. I mean, there's been some pretty strong characters that you've created,

so that makes sense that you would start with characters as opposed to what? I mean, you know who I just saw yesterday because he's on my TV show occasionally is Judd Hirsch. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I said I was talking to you today and he's like, oh, yeah, Jim Brooks is great. You know, all the funniest stuff in Taxi was him. He said that.

Not so. But he had one example, which is weird. And I'm trying to remember what it was. It was a tag where Christopher Lloyd, the tag was, could you slow it down or something, and then he said it slower. Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, no, that's a classic.

That's a classic joke. It's not a tag. It's a classic joke. We believe it rivals that jack benny you know your money or your life that legendary laugh on radio right right uh because jimmy burroughs who directed the episode it was it was it was you know a burnt out you know drug casualty which the reverend jim was on taxi yeah and um and and chris lloyd great and funny and he and he wanted to be a taxi driver. Right, right.

And so he had to take a driving test, and it was, what do you do at a flashing yellow light? The answer was slow down. And what do you do on a passing? Well, it kept on going. What do you? And Jimmy Burroughs, and the laugh kept on getting bigger each time. And Jimmy Burroughs just arbitrarily at one point said that's it you know and just did cut we i and it would have been great to see when we started to go down the mountain the laugh became less

but that was yeah that's the biggest joke i've ever been around really i don't know who wrote it but that's oh really you don't have any i really don't know you don't because i heard that about someone else said that i heard another rumor that that even with the simpsons to this day if they're stuck they'll they'll call you and you'll deliver a tag well you know when they're stuck we we sort of all live on this little conclave yeah doing the simpsons so i'm around and it's great yeah you're there every day or i mean like for a lot of it? I'm there three days a week, yeah. So you love to work? I love that work.

I love that job. I love that every week, you know, I'm in a room with writers I respect and you're pitching jokes and it keeps you. It's exciting, right? It keeps you level. It keeps you good. And in the freedom that you were able to sort of,

you know, get from animation, I mean, I think we're sort of going backwards but but let's let's not do that let's let's start oh let's go backwards let's go back go all the way come on man well wait when i was looking when i was doing my minor bit of research on you like i i realized that my mother uh was like i remember room 222 because my mother watched it regularly. And like it's in my mind. Karen Valentine is in my mind. And the other guy, the guy who played the principal, what was his name?

Michael Constantine. Michael Constantine. And then like Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda. You know, these were my mother's shows. I used to sit at the base of the bed and watch these shows with her. And they're all your shows. And I guess maybe, obviously it wasn't just my mother.

It wasn't a small audience. These were huge shows. But how did you start? Because your reverence for writing and for the writer is deep, and you put the writer at the top of the sort of artistic pay scale in a way. Where did that, you know, when did you start writing officially in your mind? What was the drive?

I, you know, I don't think I have an honest answer for that. I always read plays. You know, when I was a kid, I read plays. I read plays more than books for some reason. Really? And I read books, yeah. But I never imagined that anybody could actually become a writer. And then I took some courses, some good ones, just some courses in writing. So it always was a great thing to me,

but I don't think I'm alone in that, you know, because when I talk to other writers and maybe you have it in your way and that it takes about 20 years of working as a writer before if somebody says, what do you do for a living? You can just say, I'm a writer instead of I'm a writer. But even, even even you know you know what i'm talking about sure yeah sure well there's a confidence element to it but there's

also like whether or not you've been paid to do the job i mean on some level if you're paid to do the job well i mean even after you're paid to do the job because it's every you know people who do it love it wanted it you know it's just you know for everything it is it's so that so that you can't believe that it's your profession for a long time right right it doesn't you think you're getting away with something uh yeah yeah well that's generally true in hollywood can i ask can i ask you a question because it was on my mind from before you know when you're talking about freedom and stuff like do you feel very free in your work now do you feel yeah do you feel like yeah i feel like what's happened for me is that you know i found this weird little uh niche that that that enables me to do pretty much whatever i want i'm i'm relatively hard on myself

about you know conversations in in retrospect and i'm still pretty hard on myself about my comedy and stuff but the freedom that the one thing that I think about constantly is, you know, how much money does anybody need? So like, you know, and I'm not really driven by that. And I, sometimes I'm worried about that. Does that make sense? Yes. Like I can do whatever I want.

I don't know if I'm utilizing it the best I can. So there's that. So whatever freedom I have, it's not allowing me peace of mind, but maybe it will. I think you have to get to a point where you honestly don't give a shit on some level. And also it comes down to me as sort of like,

well, what do I, do you ever ask yourself, what do I really want to do? Or are you doing exactly what you want to do? No, I never ask myself, I never question what, I never question what I do for a living. But no, for your fun and for your heart.

That I find like I'm sort of, I never, you know, my thing, people's joke about me for so long was that I'd always turn good fortune into misfortune and talk about it that way. And people, and you know, I have decades of people doing those kind of jokes off me that I'm always worried about something. And for a while now, I've been quite the reverse. And that's disorienting and a little weird for me. Well, I think that's freedom, right? That is freedom of mind. It's peace of mind.

It's okay. Things are okay. And you're very lucky when you can, you know, like there used to be a time in movies where, you know, if you went in and said, you know, I have a crazy idea, people would lean forward. Right. I don't think they're leaning forward anymore. I think if you come in and say, you know, you describe your movie as another movie that's been made or something like that that's and i'm not putting it down and i'm not saying things are bad because great movies always happen somehow yeah so any bitching about it is erroneous but uh but but it's it's becomes everybody has to

talk business talk in a certain way right now. The conversation is... Well, there's a lot of panic, isn't there? I mean, it seems to be that because the media landscape is so vast and the possibilities to really make money with something unique and original has become less and less and things get lost very easily. I would imagine most executives you're talking to are 75% thinking whether or not they're willing to take a risk or whether or not they're-

Well, no, the answer in movies is pretty much, no, I'm not. I'd rather not. They don't seem to want that out of me. But what they wanted out of he, she, them was to make it a business. And that was always impossible. Now it's been done. It was always crazy to try and predict what a movie would do. Right. Come on, are you kidding? And now it's been done right you know you know it was always crazy to try and predict what a movie would do right you know come on are you kidding and now it's a science now it's a science but it doesn't mean we're getting quality movies but we always do still get quality

sometimes despite it used to be because it was nurtured television today is like that television this you know the search for originality is commercial right you know the pursuit of excellence is commercial wasn't it always uh in television well i mean wasn't always the the drive to hold sponsors i mean from the very beginning from when uncle milty was you know holding a box of soap there was a time there was a time when sameness was very much in television and you know the the the situation comedy right meaning that was a kind of comedy that everybody did where something happened. And rather than the people involved

or somebody's quirky idea or writer-producers sort of look at the world. So that used to have a same, but now television is exciting. But when did you, like, what was the beginning? How did you get from Jersey and whatever you grew up in? What was the beginning how did you get from jersey and whatever you grew up in what was the path i i got very lucky and got a job as a page at cbs after i messed up college where'd you go to college uh briefly nyu and what were you studying uh you don't remember that's all right

long time ago i i was no i i i think i think it was public relations i think it was as close as I could think of coming to writing. I didn't know quite what it was. That's one of those great vague majors. Yes, yes. PR. Yeah. And were you writing in college? No, it was the first time in my life that I was having any fun at all.

So I sort of messed things up. What style? What year was that? I don't know. I don't know years. What was the type of fun things up. What style? What year was that? What was the... I don't know. I don't know years. What was the type of fun that was messing you up? No, it wasn't. It was...

I actually was in a fraternity. Oh, yeah? Yes. And I had a good time there. Yeah, yeah. And there were women in the world. Yeah, yeah the world, which I hadn't allowed myself to consider in high school. Were you sort of withdrawn in high school? Were you like a bookie guy?

Were you heavy hearted? I was a class clown, but not a beloved class clown. Not where they'd say class clown in the yearbook and I'd be smiling and I'd be with a girl with the same smile. Not like that at all. No, the troubled kid with the rage in his eyes. You know, there were beatings after school. It was their form of applause.

So you had an effect. That's the one. Yeah. that's the one yeah yeah I you know I I would I would act out in class a lot and try and do bits and stuff oh yeah yeah well who were your inspirations when you were a kid were you always a comedy fan always a comedy fan yeah yeah yeah always a comedy fan and like what did you who did you gravitate towards early on um let's see. There were some people who wrote books funny.

I read plays. I read comedy plays. Your Show of Shows was like a miracle. It was like a miracle. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was really the first freedom of situation comedy, right? And Sid Caesar was an original talent. Yeah.

Never anybody like him did you get did you ever have uh uh get build the relationship with him did you get to know him I never knew him I I knew Mel I I know Mel Brooks everybody knows Mel Brooks right yeah yeah there was a time yeah in the at the Fox studios yeah every once in a while when it's supposed to be like you dreamed it would be yeah you know which know, which every once in a while, like my fantasy is in front of me. Yeah. You'd go to the commissary to eat. Yeah.

And Mel Brooks would make a round of tables. Uh-huh. Making everybody laugh hilariously. Yeah. Including you each day in a certain way, very generous. Yeah. And it would be amazing. This is what show business is.

Yeah. I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. And you'd hear the pockets of laughter follow him around. Yeah. He made the rounds. It was amazing. He's an astounding force of nature, that guy. is yeah i'm here yeah yeah and you'd hear the pockets of laughter follow him around yeah made the rounds it was amazing he's an astounding force of uh of nature that guy of i he did the tracy

oman show uh once which was which you know gave birth to the simpsons right nobody was watching we were on a brand new fox network tracy brilliant crazy brilliant and and the show's so tough. And the one time that he did the show as a guest star. Yeah. And I was literally on the floor laughing. It was just so exquisite to be on the, you know. It's amazing. Yeah. He still has that too.

Yeah. I mean, it's really astounding. Yeah. All right. So you get a job as a page at CBS. You like comedy. You don't know what you're going to do. You screwed up college, and you get this gig.

How did you get that gig? My sister's best friend was the secretary to the person hard pages. It was just that because everybody else had a fancier background than me. And then we all, it was amazing because I was a kid. And, you know, I was 18 or something. Yeah. And we all, there were like 12 of us on staff. And I was from New Jersey, and I didn't know anything.

And I think like seven were gay, and it was my first time and I'd hear glamorous stories I'd hear people having these social lives were all in a lounge all day together bullshitting all day everybody was little like taxi somebody wanted to be an actor somebody wanted to be this yeah and and you and you wore a uniform and you were assigned like sort of to receptionist duties and everybody got promoted and I was still there and everybody went on and I was still there and it's and and and you're 18 and you put on that that that cape that you wear when it's cold and you have to stand outside right it's because you have doorman duties as well oh

really yeah and now you've been doing it for two years, and now the faces in the lounge are different, man. And you start to, and a kind of terror starts to grip you. You're like, am I ever going to get out of here? And it was really like, yeah, what did they do? At what age did they call you in instead? You've seen two turnovers of the pages? You know, as your back hunches under the... You might have been that guy.

You know, the guy that, you know, in 1980, that's like, he's been a page for 40 years. God bless him. And they just keep you on out of charity, and then you... Oh, boy. Well, you avoided that. I called the executives by their first name.

Exactly, exactly. Anyway, faced with that, I got a vacation relief job. A copy boy at CBS News went away for two weeks. I went in, and CBS News, you needed Ivy League. You needed to get in that door. But for vacation replacement, you just filled in. And that was editing copy?

No. No. Copy boy is get me coffee, get me the copy from the wire machines. Right, right. And he didn't come back. So I stayed. And that was my break. So you did a good job and they're like, the kid's gone?

I didn't do such a good job. You know, I didn't, it wasn't, I mean, there's no good way to get people. I guess, I guess, I don't even think I spilled less than the next guy. And that was a break in the sense that you were afforded the education of what that position offered you? It was, I have always been a news buff in some way for some reason. You know, I'm a crazy news buff. What does that mean exactly? That you just like current events or that you appreciate?

Well, right now, I mean, my, you know, I try and read two newspapers cover to cover, you know. Oh, every day? Yeah. I can't always do it. It's not consuming. What are your papers? New York Times and LA Times.

Yeah. LA Times, not cover to cover. And this is an area of expertise and necessary responsibility to the culture at large that is deteriorating. Reporting. So that must be frustrating on some level. That's a common complaint around writing is that what's the integrity of anyone's story? And we live in a culture where anybody can pick whatever truth they want from every source that they want, and there's no bearing on the truth.

If the New York Times falls for any reason... We're all in trouble? Really, we are. Really, we are. And, you know, and that's not... absolutely not going to happen, I guess. Yeah. You know, it's. And it's a scary thought. So this commitment to the news, where did that lead you early on? I was a news writer.

I got a job as a news writer. How did you learn how to do that? Just by reading copy? I auditioned for the local radio station that was also a CBS station. In Jersey? No, in New York. Okay. In New York City.

And it was a union job. It was a Writers Guild of America East job. And I did that job. And then somebody I worked with came out to California and became a big shot at Walper Productions, which was an independent documentary house. There were a lot of people coming from all over there. And they did syndicated series. TV. TV, yeah.

And they called me out, and I came out here, and I was uprooted. I was newly married. And I think I wouldn't have had the guts to leave a union job, but God bless my wife at the time. She said do it. She was very supportive, and she supported us when I was laid off six months after I got here, which I was.

So what was that gig out here? What did you do? I was unemployed for a while. Did you do documentaries? I did do documentaries. I did do documentaries. Did you do documentaries? I did do documentaries. I did do documentaries. I got rid of my phobia of insects doing documentaries because I had a real phobia of it.

You know, like I'd make female sounds when I saw a bug. Was that a thing that happened often? And then the only job I could get after I was laid off, they called me back to do a National Geographic, to write a National Geographic where you looked at a small screen moviola all day long with the most massive shots of bugs you ever saw. And it was the war against wasps and bees.

And it would be, I'd look at the screen, I'd shudder, I'd write, I'd shudder. And then it was like aversion therapy. I got rid of that. So you're writing the narrative, the narration? Yes, yes. In the world of bees and wasps. Did you have to later edit it?

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This is horrible. The horrible wasp. If you can read this, please. Just help, help. So in looking at where your career went from there, what were you collecting intellectually or skill-wise during that time?

Bill Friedkin came through there as a young director. I just talked to him. Really? Yeah, you got to listen to that one. He was amazing. So, okay, this is interesting, because you are a contemporary of those guys, and he came out of Chicago with that documentary about the prison.

Huge out of Chicago. I mean, glittering as a star out of Chicago. Because of that documentary about the inmate. Yes. And that's what delivered him out here. Yeah. So you met up with him somehow? He was way ahead of me on the pecking order.

I mean, I was like a... In the documentary world. Well, he was a star. He came here as a star director. In the documentary world. Right, right. That's what I mean. But with all the ambitions to direct.

Right. You know, and he was the first one to bust out and do, because everybody, I think, wanted to do that. We all did. Yeah. And he busted out and he did the Sonny and Cher movie. Yeah, right. And I remember, I wish I could. We didn't talk about that too much.

And I can't get it out of my mind then because I talked to him about it. He was a godlike presence, you know, and still is to me. What was your first encounter with Bill Friedkin? I talked to him about it. He was a godlike presence, you know, and still is to me. Yeah. What was your first encounter with Bill Friedkin? He was, he had a personality a little like Quentin Tarantino. Oh, really? A little like that. It was just, you know, just a big human being.

Or it was great to be around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And with his first movie movie he was giving script revision notes to whoever was writing it and his one rule was you gotta put him on the high dive that was his line that was his yes for script revision?

for audience oh really? with the Sonny and Cher movie? with the Sonny and Cher movie so imagine when he did French Connection Oh, really? Yeah. With the Sonny and Cher movie? With the Sonny and Cher movie. So imagine when he did French Connection. Did you spend a lot of time with him? Did you? Some.

He was, I mean, I guess we all looked up to him. He really was charismatic. Who were the other we all? The other guys. Other producers, other people who aspired to this. There was Wallen Green, who became a really prominent screenwriter. But these were all in the documentary field at this time. We were all in the documentary field. And Friedkin was the guy that broke out with the Sonny and Cher movie.

And then when he made French Connection, were you like, holy shit, he did it. But you knew he was gonna. Oh, yeah, he's one of those guys. I think so. He had that shine to him. Yeah. He was the one who said i'm gonna that just that confidence as a writer and documentarian yes yes made all you

wish i could say that where does he get the balls to say he's gonna do it so what so when did you what was your uh move out of documentary i mean how did that happen i was unemployed and um for six months and and i try to write spec scripts for dick van dyke everybody wrote a spec script there's sure for dick van dyke at the time and nice guy and friends and i actually had a friend who came from new york who was actually making it as a comedy writer. Who's that? Her name was Treva Silverman. And she was writing The Monkees. Sure.

When they had all fresh, edgy writers, she was one of them. And then I went to a party one night, a New Year's Eve party. I'm unemployed. My wife is working. And I couldn't get any action. I couldn't find a job. I had that standard thing in my head that I'd have to, you know, somehow, somehow the only, to me at the time, in all reality to show, you know, in all reality, if I couldn't get a job writing in some way, I would get a job selling ladies' shoes. I had no, I know there are more choices. That was your backup plan? I know those aren't the

only two jobs in the country, but that was my reality for some reason. It was women's shoes or job in entertainment? Yes, yes. But there were no other retail jobs that came to mind? I know, and I had done some selling. I don't know whether that was a self-motivational thing or not. It wasn't a fetish. It was just... No, no, no, no, no, no. Either I'm going to be in television or I'm going to be on my knees.

You're going to draw psychological implications from me thinking I wanted to be on my knees to women. No, I mean, crazy of me that that would be the only plan B. That's a weird place to go. That James Brooks' only plan B at the beginning was women's shoes. Yeah. So, all right. More shoe stores and studios.

That's for sure. Back then there were. So, anyway, I went to that New Year's Eve party, and we're all mutts, and a couple walks in from another party, and the guy said, thank God, finally real people, and they're dressed formally, and we're the mutts, and that was Alan Burns, who is one of the greatest guy, pillar of the community, talented, you know. And I was in a conversation.

What was he doing at the time he he had three series on the air at a very you know young age what were they the i don't know okay but they were like it was that time and he had just late 50s what are we talking no we're in the early 60s mid 60s late 60s mid 60s all right because of the monkeys mid 60s yeah i'm trying it's funny to me that like you know she this person that you knew the woman who was you know writing for the monkeys when they had edgy writers that there wasn't this weird you know the no none of you ever thought like it's the fucking monkeys it was a gig right it was a good gig it was a funny show yes it was it was a show that wanted to break break barriers okay it was a show that wanted to screw around

okay right so very much so that was a that was a show that wanted to screw around. Okay, right. Very much so. That was a rebellious show. Absolutely. And she later won Emmys writing for Mary Tyler Moore. For you? Sometime later, yeah. You gave her that gig? She, yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she was very important to the Mary Tyler Moore show. Sure. And so Alan had created My Mother the Car. Not familiar. The show was a network show about a man whose mother came back as an automobile. Yeah. And you heard a woman's voice. You didn't see anything move. You didn't see any mouth move, but you heard a woman's voice. And it was the car voice and it was the car but it was yeah it was and and and it hit show no it lasted a season he had done a number of hit shows yeah but he had created he was

no longer with it he was yeah he had a partner and they were creating other shows what they were in on he and she which was an amazing show and he got me a chance he got me a chance to write a script. I mean, just being a nice guy, he just did it. That's how it happens. You know, and then we ended up, then that got me into freelance writing, and the freelance writing got me a chance to do my first pilot, which was Room 222. And then he came in and began producing the series that I had created. And then the head of the studio where we did that show was Mary Tyler Moore's husband, the much beloved Grant Tinker. And he put us together as a writing team.

You and Alan. And Alan Burns. Yeah. And now Room 222. At that time, like, see, I kind of, I'm not nostalgic, but I have to assume, it seemed to me

that at that time, Hollywood television business to movie business was a more intimate business. It was a smaller business. And, you know, there were three major networks. Once you were in,

did you all kind of know each other? That was the time where I really felt what you're talking about and the way that you read books and the movies in the 30s and 40s like this was television in the 70s at Paramount Studios, where it was exactly everything you dreamed of. There were a bunch of us. First of all, there was an absolute wall, a literal wall and a figurative wall against people in television going into the movie side. Literally, we drove in through a

separate gate. Literally, all our space was on one side of the studio. The movies were on the other side of the studio. And so that everybody was doing great. It was Tom Hanks and Robin Williams and Rob Reiner and Ron Howard and Penny Marshall. And we were all of us there. And we did Taxi there. And we all did go to each other's shows. By the way, it was the 70s with everything that was and behavior and everything else. we all partied huh yeah tax taxi had a really good party yeah that you had fun at every week but getting there I mean you

know from room 222 getting the taxi mean, there's also other credits. I mean, it's interesting to me, you know, talking to you now, that, you know, you did these other shows. I mean, you wrote a little bit for The Andy Griffith Show. You wrote a little bit for My Three Sons, right? So you were sort of on set. That girl, yeah. Yeah, you were on set for that stuff, right? No, no.

The writer didn't go to set. I never saw an actor until I opened the wrong door one day and went, huh, yeah. Really? Yeah, yeah. You were kept separate. Yeah kept separate yeah because now you know the writers are on set and you you know absolutely absolutely absolutely we did it that way on on on we did it that way on every show that i was um part of creating but that was a big change was it not i mean it seems to me that like you know me that writing, in going with the theme of the writer is of utmost importance, that during that earlier television, you delivered the script and that was it. Well, you got notes and you did a draft and then it was rewritten.

There was a show called Hey Landlord, which was Jerry Bellson and Gary Marshall were a fantastic comedy writing team. And they did Hey Landlord, and I got an assignment on Hey Landlord, which was my first audience show. And it was very early on. I mean, it was, I think, the second or third thing I did. And they had a staff that I would have given anything to be on, but I wasn't up to that stage. did. And they had a staff that I would have given anything to be on, but I wasn't up to that stage. And I wrote a script, and they gave me notes, and I gave it back. And my sister and I went to see the show. We got to see the show. That you wrote. Yes. And we're online. And then somebody realized that I was a writer, and he said,

no, this is the audience line. And I came in, and the show started started and my sister would say, is that yours? No. Is that yours? No. And then somebody comes in a bear suit. Somebody came into the scene in a bear suit. I think a woman in a bear suit that was clearly going to be there for the whole show and was not in my script at all. And I don't think I had a line in.

And they were very kind to me afterwards, but it was just i didn't see it coming i didn't see being completely rewritten coming like that oh my god and that uh was that must have been scarring on some level uh one of the lighter ones the first one it was the first one so they're lighter only retroactively yes yes more time to fade right if that one was your last experience in television, that would have been the biggest scar. Yes, yes. I'd be the guy in a bar. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you a story.

Remember the bear episode of Hey Land? I remember this. Can I show you this script? The original script, there was no fucking bear. Tell me what you think. Yeah. The point is that from Room 222 and your meeting or becoming part of Grant Tinker's thing,

that it seems to me that Grant Tinker is very revered for giving the writer a certain legitimacy and the executive position he deserves. Like going back to our conversation earlier about not having, you don't have a boss, right? Right, I don't. Okay. No. Okay, I've had bosses all my life.

Right. I'm saying there's one thing better than not having a boss, that's having Grant Tinker as a boss. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And when did that start? Because was he there for-

It started, We started it. Alan and I started it because Grant, Mary Tyler Moore, his wife, had an on-the-air commitment from CBS. Yeah. He gave us the opportunity to do that. Yeah. And he couldn't be part of it because he was still an executive at Fox. Right. So it would be conflict of interest.

So he had to keep sort of hands as much off as possible. Yeah. And we went into an office not having ever done this together before. would be conflict of interest. So he had to keep sort of hands as much off as possible. And we went into an office, not having ever done this together before. And we hired the show accountant for some reason. It was like crazy. It was really as close to inmates running the asylum.

So he basically gave you a producer's job. Oh yeah, we were the showrunners. Right, but at that time, the showrunner- But there was no company. There was no production company so we had a so something what we did sort of form the production company which we had that became mtm yes and and he he recognized that i mean he did he set up the company before he hired you or well there was a company there was his there was a mary's manager was part of it and the lawyer and there was us and that was it so mary tyler moore so now you're in the position you hire the accountant you've got all this freedom you got this amazing talent who was from the dick van dyke show and how did you you guys

develop that show i mean what was the pitch who was involved with that just the two of us just the two of us and we and we started out with a bad idea which which we went to new york to pitch to cbs which was so much the top network then yeah and um and it was a bad idea and and uh and we pitched it and they asked us to step outside and what was the bad idea she was divorced yeah and and the guy it's it's it's um this really happened in the meeting the meeting, the guy in charge, and there were all these vice presidents around, the guy in charge explained to us that there are three things

that the American public doesn't want. Divorced woman, men with mustaches, and Jews. Seriously, he said this. And nobody's going to mistake me for anything but, you know. All of them? Yeah. Other than divorced woman well you're two out of three we might have a problem and they told they told grant to fire us

and he didn't and then we came up with the idea that became the show and grants who later became the chairman but she was divorced wasn't she no she was uh no she she she? No, she was. No, she, in the pilot episode, she moved to Minneapolis because the guy she put through medical school dumped her when he became a doctor. Okay. Yeah. Right, so never married. Right.

Yeah, never married. So when you started doing this show, how long did it take for it to become a hit, and what was? We handed in, we did the show we had a very bad run through with an audience that was i mean you want to die like like alan it was the only time my life i tried to do a warm-up alan and i were going to do the warm-up to the audience right and i did like that classic jackie gleason when he was on top you know yeah I couldn't utter a word right I I was paralyzed right and and Alan had to carry me and stuff and um and the show you two went out there together to what yeah and it was and it was

it was it was your first time doing stand-up and I the only time yeah only time and I just don't know what possessed me because i choked right away and stayed choked yeah there was never a moment when i could and that get words out that didn't instill comfort in your live audience and alan had poor alan soldiered on uh you know every once in a while turning to me and it really was like a sketch but it happened it happened in life yeah and then we did a rewrite that uh where i it just, well, we didn't know what was wrong. And the script supervisor, Marge Mullen, suddenly we had everybody who represented Mary, everybody around Grant, we had 14 stricken people staring at us in our office after this

disastrous run through. And Marge Mullins said, what if the kid, because one of the characters had a kid, said she liked Rhoda? What if we did that? And we did that, and we cut. We were long, and we cut. Those are really basically the changes we made,

and it went from Z to A. You know, it's because they didn't, Rhoda didn't get one laugh in the run through and we were long and those are the two things but I don't think we would have I think it needed both fixes I think we needed

to tell the audience it's okay to like Rhoda who was being nasty to Mary right and then they gave us a disastrous time period where we couldn't succeed and then this thing

in television history the business like president of CBS just took over as president yeah disastrous time period where we couldn't succeed. And then this thing in television history, the business-like president of CBS just took over as president. And he was the only one ever in the history of television to cancel top-rated shows, really top-rated, top 10 shows, because he thought their time had passed and they were bucolic and he wanted to have a new kind of comedy. Changed our time period. All in the family, went in at about the same time, just a little ahead of us, and changed television for the seven days. That one guy. Yeah, yeah.

Who had the courage. Yeah. And a very Republican American businessman who did this thing that nobody has ever done before or since. I don't think it ever will happen again. And changed the face of television. He noticed that things were changing. And he said the business has to change.

I guess so. Well, thank God for that guy, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so he gave you a new time slot and everything took off. Yeah. We followed along the family, which was amazing.

Did you have a relationship with Norman? A little bit. A little bit. We were competitors in a way. Yeah. Because we were doing shows and we were always up against each other for awards and stuff like that. But we'd sit there on Saturday night always watching All in the Family and saying, oh, shit, we're no good, you know, because it was so great, you know. Really? Yeah, really. I mean, All in the Family was just a revolutionary show.

We were an evolutionary show. Uh-huh. Interesting. But the thing is, is that you were fairly revolutionary. I mean, you know, to have, you know, Mary as a central character, a career woman. Our timing was very fortunate because it was exactly that the feminine revolution was starting, you know,

so suddenly just what was happening around us gave us stories and put meat on our bones. Well, it's the same with All in the Family. I think it's an equally revolutionary show because it was maybe, like they seem to be good companion pieces, really. I mean, at the time, both politically and otherwise. I guess I'm just, I'm trying to make you feel better.

I'm good, I'm good. I'm good. It was not a failure. Mary Tyler Moore was a fine show. I accept that. So, okay. So now. No, they were decided. They wanted to go.

Everybody had a meeting one day where they wanted to go off high. So they said, let's leave after six seasons. Yeah. And I was seeing this thing swirl around me, this meeting about, we decide when we get off. We wouldn't get kicked off. Let's go after six. And I said, seven. And everybody said, OK.

So I got an extra year doing it. Seven seasons you did. Yeah. And then you did the spinoffs. I did Rhoda. Yeah. And that went well. My mother loved that show, too.

Yes. We were hoping she did. Yeah. Yeah. She loved it. Yeah. Yeah. And that was Val. And she went well. My mother loved that show, too. Yes. Yes, we were hoping she did. Yeah, yeah. She loved it. Yeah. Yeah. And that was Val, and she was great. And we did a crazy thing there because we divorced her in the second year of the show.

And it turns out that guy from CBS was right. Oh, really? I remember the husband kind of. What was that? Yeah. Kind of a lunky guy? And it just, you i just we were just stifled on on it was hard to come up with stories it was hard to come up with stories with rhoda

married you know the quintessential because it wasn't necessarily a romantic comedy yeah it was we were having a tough time with stories really that was sort of it but not with uh mary tyra moore because he had so many characters right yeah yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was, yeah. And Ted was like, where'd you find that guy? How did that, I mean, how did you develop it? Ted, God bless him, man. It was, he was like a spirit. He was so intrinsically funny. That's an amazing thing to be intrinsically,

to be a comic spirit inside yourself. Yeah. And he was almost like, and that's why the show was great for me because, I mean, Cloris was a method actress. She goes back to the group theater. Brando had called her the best actor to come out of the same discipline he did. Cloris Leachman.

Also inherently funny, though, right? She's a glorious actress who can do anything. She's a glorious actress. And then there. Yeah. She's a glorious actress. Right. And then there was Val, who was from Second City. Mary, who was from television comedy. Ed was Second City. Second City, yeah.

Ed was Second City as well. And then Betty White came in. Hilarious. Who was just, and talking to them about their backgrounds and their training was my college. That was like, and I ate it up. I loved talking about it. And Val was story theater as well. And she would get her old acting teacher out and they'd do exercises.

And sometimes we'd join the acting exercises. It was fantastic. So that was your whole education about how to work with actors and cast and see how things fit together. Yes, yes, yes. And see what they could bring to characters. Yes. And Ed Asner is fundamentally funny. He's one of those guys that you could just watch breathe to be funny.

Yeah, yeah. But he also can do heavy stuff. Yes, absolutely. But Ted was just a comic spirit, huh? A comic spirit, and yes, yes. Where did he come from he and georgia angles who came in oh i just saw her she's she's she she is screamingly funny anytime she wants to be so so the ensemble so imagine what it was like yeah yeah yeah so you get it yeah and but you

know in working through the scripts how many were on staff for m Tower Moore? It was you and Alan and... Ed Weinberger, Stan Daniels. And then I think that was... When did you bring the woman in? David Lloyd did a lot of scripts every year. And what was the woman's name from The Monkees? Freva Silverman. She came in? But I think everybody was freelance except for a handful of us.

Yeah. Yeah, very different on The Simpsons now. Yeah. And did you guys write by, you know, just committee? Did you sit in a room and pitch? Because I know, I've only worked on one TV show, and, you know, how it seems to work, I'm just wondering how long that was in place,

where you got a writer's room, and you get it up on the board, and everybody pitches, and then people go write their scripts off of outlines. How did it work then? and then people go write their scripts off outlines? How did it work then? There we put enormous work compared to what we do now into the story conference, what the story was,

key jokes, bits, act breaks. It would be a very thorough, and then we'd get it in, and Alan and I or Ed and Stan would do a rewrite, and then we had a run-through, and then we'd either have an easy rewrite night or be there until 3 in the morning rewriting, sometimes throwing out, you know. Really, yeah.

Yeah, but, you know, but... And what determines that? I mean, like, you know, is it just your sensibility in terms of, you know, the comedy or how a story balances? You know, what determines, like, you know is it just your sensibility what in terms of you know the comedy or how a story balances you know what determines like you know staying there all night to fix something our feeling yeah Jay Sandrich who directed almost all the shows he would he would give his input but basically we were it was up to us and and and the good thing we didn't do it for that reason but yeah when you attack your script,

it just makes everybody else feel secure because you're not blaming everything on the actors, you're not blaming, you know, you're taking your responsibility, but then if you believe in a script that's not happening on the stage, then instead of going to the rewrite room, you stay on the stage and try and make it work.

And that's the other thing, that it was all live audience, right? Yeah. So you knew when things were tanking. Yeah, and every once in a while, there's the other thing that was all live audience right yeah so you you knew when things were taking yeah and every once in a while there's an easy laugh that you know ted mispronouncing we stopped doing at a certain point even though there was it was like if you go slowly you that could go on forever right right yeah yeah yeah grace dictates that you take another step you know because you thought that it was cheap after a point. After a certain point. Too easy.

And then you did the Lou Grant show for a little while. That went for a while. Which was amazing because that was a comedy character spun off into a drama. And that was the easiest thing to get stories for. Interesting that he could evolve that. That's a testament to his amazing chops. Yes, yes. That he could tweak it like that.

Whose idea was that? I think it was you know mine and alan's to to take off the comedy to make that character have more depth around we've done a spin-off and we said to ourselves when is a spin-off not a spin-off and then when you spin off into another form uh-huh yeah so that was a big experiment in a way it felt like a good idea at the time. It worked for a while, right? Oh, Emmys, yeah. Now Taxi I think is a whole other generation of people that came to that show. I've been writing women's issues for seven years

and I wanted a show which was primarily a male show just for that reason. And how did the magic of that creative process and how did that how did how did the magic of that creative process how did you come up with taxi uh there was an article in new york magazine about a cab company where everybody wanted to be something else and this is how great grant tinker is man um he owned the article and he bought it he optioned the article i think he and

and now four of us who were very important to the company left to form our own little group, right? Myself. Which was MTM? Myself. We left MTM. To do? To form a company of ourselves. Gracie?

We had a few on-the-air commitments from different networks, and we went over to Paramount. We went over to Paramount. We were hoping that with television we could make a contract that if we did a television series, they would give us a chance to do movies. Of course. Was this a unique thing? Was this a revolutionary thing to create what would be a production company of your own that actually functioned as a production company? Was this Gracie Films? No, this was John Charles Walters.

Okay. That was the name of it? Yeah, we wanted it to sound like a great Protestant guy. So that's that company. We wanted it to be formidable, have a British ring to it. It was based on nobody's name? No, we made up the name, and then somebody found a sign, a big wooden sign that said John C. Walters someplace, and we hung it up. And this was your production shingle for Taxi?

For Taxi and the Associates, which we did there. And the contract to make pictures was never fulfilled by Paramount. There were all sorts of gizmos in it that because we were supposed to be able to make very small movies as uh as part of it and somehow there was a flaw in the contract where we never got that um you didn't know that going in yeah no no we thought did you yell at the lawyer no it you know it's not the sun moment it's it's the attrition as you realize you know right right right conditions that have to be there and yeah and so tinker was like he and so we called tinker yeah we're four people who have left his employee right

and it was a jolt to the company at the time and and I said can we buy it back for you he says I'm giving it to you so that's who this guy was yeah that's that's that's heavy yeah and and then so you had this proper you had this article and and and how did uh did you start thinking in character first we had here's how lucky we were i'm this is this just i'm sounding like somebody's just making a list of breaks but i mean i guess no but this it's true. But it's breaks filled in with process, filled in with the creative thing. It's all good. We went to do research in New York. We went to the company the article had been written about.

We're in the cab company. Yeah. We stay in the cab company all night. And we're overnight from like midnight to whatever it was. And then we wanted to have breakfast with a group of cab drivers in the morning. And that was going to be basically our research. During that time, we saw the dispatcher being given a bribe for a clean cab from a driver.

We saw that surreptitiously, and he knew we were watching, and he's waving the guy who's offering the bribe away. Just for a clean cab? What does that mean? That's not a filthy cab. It's not banged up. It works. Right. A good cab.

Right. And that was the birth of the Danny DeVito character. Just seeing that. Just seeing that created that character. Yeah. And now our problem was, how do you make a hero for, how do you make Judd Hirsch a hero? What delineates him?

And the article was about everybody wanting to be, you know, something else, a boxer, an actor. Yeah. And now we're there. And all the cab drivers that we're going to have breakfast with say, let's wait for whatever his name was to come in. And now this really solid, sort of clearly charismatic young guy comes in with his cab. And you can tell he's a hero to everybody there, and everybody wants to be everything else. So we asked him the question about what do you want to be?

He says, me, I'm a cab driver. And then immediately we knew that's what made him a hero. And that was the basis for Judd's character. And where'd you get Reverend Jim? This was so great. Danny, of course, you know, legendary. I mean, you can't talk enough about it. He had just been in Cuckoo's Nest.

Sure. And slowly but surely, all the character actors from the Cuckoo's Nest therapy group started to come on the show, Chris being one of them. Oh, really? Yeah. So it was a guest spot that evolved into. It was one episode that went through where Reverend Jim was born. And we wanted to do a drug casualty. And we wanted to do somebody whose brain was fried.

But not menacing. But it's always like, I can't imagine anybody else who could have done that part. Danny, I can't imagine anybody else who could have done that part. Danny, I can't imagine anybody else who could have done that part. I remember I went into ABC with 103 fever when Judd Hirsch's contract was falling apart because I knew he needed an actor as great as he was or else it wasn't going to work. I mean this is this is what's so you know this is I guess the thing that you can't face day in and day out. That's so many things have to walk in the door to you for something to really work.

It's just you need the right action. How big was the casting process, though, ultimately? Long. We go long casting process. Yeah? Unusually long. Unusually long. We need somebody to hold them back, you know, yeah. I still do that. Yeah, and DeVito was was was was just part of

a process or you were DeVito we were trying to find the character trying to find the character he Danny came in one day to audition and he said which are you guys wrote this shit and he was hired immediately and that's that's a true story we just all fell down laughing and that was it. You're hired. Yeah. And the other ones, it took a while, huh? Mary Lugues had a lot of auditions. And Tony. Tony Danza had never acted before, but I don't even know how

he was a boxer. He was a boxer. Right. Yeah. And Kaufman? Oh, God. Andy Kaufman, man. We go to the comedy store. Was it here? Yeah, here. Okay.

And we're watching Andy, who was great. Right? We're there to see Andy. Yeah. And Tony Clifton is opening for him. Right. And we're seeing Tony Clifton was a comic who insulted the audience. He got booed.

People almost physically went to the stage. He was a slime ball. Yeah. yeah people almost physically went to the stage he was a slime ball yeah now um andy's manager uh comes over and whispers in our ears that's andy you know and it was a long time you don't know about tony clifton oh i do yeah sure you know you know andy did him sure of course yeah i've had zamuda in here oh yeah for three hours i i know the mythology of it, and I know the reality of it. And it was amazing.

You know, because, I mean, Andy was the father of performance on it, by the way. Sure, sure. And then he comes on and kills his Andy after being loathsome as Tony Clifton, and we couldn't get over it. I mean, you just, you can't get over it.

It was just, here's a unique talent. And then Andy, as a condition for doing the show, insisted that we hire Tony Clifton as well as a character. From the beginning? That was a prize from the beginning. What season did he come in on? First. Oh, he's there from the beginning? Yeah.

And what about the Latke character? I mean, how was that written? We had a foreign mechanic. That was it? Yeah. Foreign, generally speaking. Yeah, yeah. We didn't know what foreign meant?

Yes. Right. Yes. And so we gave him a dressing room. And what happened, he was there for seven shows. And Andy was brilliant. And he was always in character. When Carol Kane came in to play his wife, carol cain came in to play his wife

and yeah you know academy award nominee coming in to play his wife they went out one night and they talked the foreign language together and nothing else all night long you know because andy made up a language that we started to integrate with yeah work with and and it was the greatest thing to write because he came from a mythical country and we could make up religions. We could make up social mores. It was a treat to write. Yeah. But meanwhile, while Andy's character is working, Tony Clifton's in the show and he's shitting all over the actors. He's acting like a prick to all the actors, you know.

Off stage? During rehearsal. During, you know, where they were going to kill him. You didn't know when Tony was going to show up? And they knew who he was. So he would act like Tony Clifton. Right. He would, fuck you, Andy.

Yeah. No. And Tony Clifton went. So there was just no way it could continue. So we, and it was. Did you not know when he was going to show up, Tony? It was, you know, we wrote, he started to, it was like, Andy loved it because in his alter ego is Tony Clifton.

Yeah. He was starting to be written out of shows. He was given very small parts. It was a perfect Tony Clifton excursion into television, network television. It was perfect. But we couldn't do it anymore. It was just screwing up morale, a huge problem. Tony Clifton was. Tony Clifton was. So Ed Weinberger conducted the negotiation to ask Andy to accept that Tony Clifton be fired. And Andy said, and he was still very private about, I mean,

Andy would never talk to any of us about Tony. Andy wasn't Tony. And he said, if you do it this way, if you give me, and they set up a plan so that he wanted to be publicly fired. So Tony Clifton shows up with two prostitutes on his arm. And Ed comes down and fires him. And Tony Clifton starts to resist being fired so much that security guards at the studio who were not in on it had to be called. Tony Clifton was dragged out of the studio, thrown out of the studio physically. Yeah. And then Tony Clifton went to a phone and called Ed and said it was the best time of my life.

You guys just had to indulge this. You had no choice. I mean, even when you're saying that it was affecting the show negatively, you were all part of this. Yes. Yes. We did it to get Andy. And of course, it was just part of a talent negotiation.

These were the conditions by which we had to behave under to keep Andy. Yes. And did you ever feel like you got to know Andy at all? It was great giving him notes because when you gave him notes, he'd stay in character. So you'd walk over to Latka, Haraj's name, and you'd give him an acting note. And he'd look at you like, what was he doing here and what were you doing here? And then he'd do the note exactly. And then Andy also brought back pro wrestling.

I mean, single-handedly. He's the one who popularized it again. And then he had this match, this wrestling match he had. Yeah, the famous one with Lawler. What's that his name? Where he was taken to the hospital. Yeah. It made headlines all over the United States.

He was taken to the hospital, put in traction. He was almost paralyzed because of actually doing this wrestling match. And then we saw the tape from Saturday Night Live or something, and we slowed it down and we saw that it was a stunt, a brilliantly performed stunt. That wrestling is, yeah. When he dropped it on his head. It was a pile driver where he was putting down his head,

and you could see just how perfectly rehearsed it was so he was able to break the fall. And I called him up because I said, you know how shitty it was for us to think you were badly injured? He said, you know what it's like to be in traction for a week? Solid point. And is that where you met Sam Simon? Sam Simon was, yes, key to the show, yeah.

To Taxi. Yeah, he was a story editor and then a producer. He and Ken Estin, they were partners. And what did he bring to you? And the Charles brothers, who went on to do Cheers, were also on staff. It was a great writing staff. And David Lloyd came with us from Mary. It was a great writing staff.

How many were in there? More. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. And in the same... Bob Ellison. And the same sort of, the same kind of structure as Mary Tyler Moore, you guys would, you would be story heavy and then, you know,

just work it through, the two of you? Ultimately? Well, there were four of us then. And, you know, we each did our thing. But you know how you can tell a show with a great spirit? Because the producers for the run-through just before you do the show stand where the audience is behind a rail. Right. And after the actors do a scene in the final dress rehearsal, after the actors do a scene, an AD says, actors to the rail.

scene an ad says actors to the rail and you can tell a good show if the whole if every actor just rushes up to the rail to get notes to talk it over to think how to do something yeah yeah to rehearse a different and that's that's the spirit we had on that show and remember we're talking the 70s you know i mean the the great time for the yeah with paramount lot and everybody knew each other and it was fun yeah yeah and so when And so when Taxi ended, it ended on purpose and you were happy? No, we were canceled after, I think we won, I say this because

we all feel religious about, everybody on Taxi feels religious about the experience. You know how you look back and you say that was a great time? We knew every minute we were having a great time. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

It was amazing to know it as it's happening. And the show was canceled after we won the best comedy were having a great time. Yeah, yeah, it's great. It was amazing to know it as it's happening. And the show was canceled after we won the Best Comedy three years in a row. And the show was canceled by ABC, by a guy who was in there for one year in the job where he could cancel us. And I called up Grant,

who is now chairman of NBC, drunk, because I started, when we were canceled, it was, you know, I started to drink. Really? When we were canceled. Yeah, we were canceled in the morning, and I started to drink.

It was, you know, we loved this. Yeah. And then bit by bit, every actor drifted into my office without anybody calling anybody until everybody was there. And now we're all drinking, you know, and we, we, we, and I called Grant a little drunk and, um, just the great guy. And he said, I can't do anything for you. And I said, I'm not asking you to, I just want to just vent.

Yeah. And, and he was at NBC and they picked us up for a year. I mean, so it's Grant again, man. Grant to the rescue. And did you stay in touch with, are you still in touch with Grant? I haven't seen him in a long time. I haven't seen him in a long time. But the way I feel about him, everybody who worked for him feels about him.

He was sort of a champion of modern television. And he was a writer's friend, man. He was a writer's friend. And he was a writer's friend, man. He was a writer's friend. Well, yeah. It seems like he really gave the writer the position he deserved. Yeah.

Well, yeah. As a creator of shows and given the freedom necessary to do what they do. Which television does for writers. Oh, I know. Yeah. writers which I know yeah it's it's pretty amazing that that you know there are some pretty incredibly talented people that do very interesting things given the freedom to do it yeah and if they take it you know seriously and they're truly creative it's amazing so after taxi how long was it before you decided to do motion pictures uh let's see. Taxi took... How long

did you drink for? I think we all saw the Sun come up together. Yeah. I think so. So it was just a night. It wasn't an extent. No, no, no. I'm a disciplined guy. Yeah. um taxi we started taxi in the late 70s i i i did my first movie i took my first movie i think i did i took a break from mtm to write a movie which was starting over that i also produced. And then I went back. And then the director, Alan Pakula, of Starting Over, was offered a book, Terms of Endearment, to do. And he didn't want to do it, and he suggested me for the job. And so I read the book. And I think at the time, it's certainly—

Pakula did All the President's Men. All the President's Men, and he was my top choice. And I read this book, and Alan, who was terrific and really sort of mentored me, because I had written the picture, and I was its producer, and I was barred from the set the second day of shooting. Starting over. And rightfully so because of making faces while the actors

were working. I was the worst thing of the line. They wouldn't do the line right and my face would show it. And this was your first experience on a movie set. First experience on a movie set and Alan took it for two days and then he said, Jim, you can't come to this set anymore. It's not like a director knows everything

but he needs the illusion that he does. Noted. But then he let me in the editing room. And I was fully part of editing the picture, which was a great education. And then he recommended me for this job. And I read the book. And I think at that point, it was the second time in my life that I really cried when I read part of that book. I mean, it was the second time, I think,

when I, it wasn't, I was not, so it was an experience for me to cry. Yeah. And I said- Not a crier? I said, well, at that time. I think I've cheered up four times in this interview. I felt those. I felt it too. And so I did it. And it took me four years to raise the money after I had the script. It was very involved. Yeah. And Grant Tinker. I didn't have enough money to take. I felt it, I felt the picture would be bullshit unless you were on location. Yeah. And um. The college town you mean?

Where was it? No just Texas. Oh in general. This was a book by one of the great Texas writers. Yeah. They're gonna do it on the back lot. You're starting like you're full of shit. Right. Yeah yeah yeah um and uh so we were we we were short of the amount of money needed to make it a location picture and um and grant bought it for nbc pre-bought it for television for nbc and that was the difference so we were able to it would do you think that was a did that strike you as a an actual business move or a friend oh no it was absolutely absolutely absolutely helping me out and did that's that's this guy's beautiful this guy so he's your angel this guy's beautiful tinker and best looking guy

in the world excellent tennis player you know just you know just golden yeah you know the opposite of a jewish witty no no he was we we i'm telling you anybody who you'll anybody ever interview work with this guy will talk just the way i'm talking oh yeah no no i i mean he's he's revered uh by yeah and nobody has anything bad to say about that guy but it's just interesting i just see all these sort of like you know strung out you know kind of neurotic jewish writers and he's like they champion. Yes, yes, yes. But so Larry McMurtry wrote it. Did you have a relationship with him?

Great, great brief relationship. Yeah. He's quirky. He's a quirky human being. He had written a brilliant screenplay himself. I felt totally humbled writing about a state that i've never been to before i started doing the research and i went to see him in washington dc where he ran a rare bookstore and by me and he's a very prominent writer yeah i run a bookstore i mean

he's at the cash last picture show too right too, right? Didn't he? Yes, Last Picture Show is his screenplay. Yeah. And he's at the cash register of the bookstore. And I come just to pay homage. I know, but if you, you know. And finally, he just said to me, look, I wrote the book. You write the movie. I did a Larry McMurtry impression. Wait a minute.

I felt pretty good doing that. It was good. It was good. It was solid. You were in it. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a great gift because I was too, what's the mental version of being tongue-tied? I was too caught up with his work and trying to do justice to it.

And it was a very difficult writing job. I remember it was perhaps one of my hardest because at a certain point, there was an option of the book and the studio had to buy it and they hadn't seen my script. And then they bought it. And I'm on page 80 of what would,

the first draft was probably 150 pages. And I didn't know where to go. I didn't know how to go forward. And now, you know, and that's what I felt throughout my life, that you never consciously burn a bridge, but some bastard is blowing up your bridges behind you as you move forward. And suddenly I couldn't not be doing Terms of Endearment as a script. And I couldn't figure out how to go forward. What were you stuck on?

I don't remember. I remember the feeling, and I remember the emotion, and I remember that I went around physically blushing a lot. Yeah. You know, really blushing, and I felt sort of crazy, you know, doing that. And then there was one night I was hanging out with some people, and one of them was a concert pianist who had never had the courage to play New York. He just didn't want to meet that test.

And I talked about this, and he said, oh, I do that. I know what it is. It's a state of shame. Oh, I do that. I know what it is. It's a state of shame. And suddenly him giving a name to this condition and for me not feeling like I was the only one who ever went around blushing

because they couldn't solve a script, I think that freed me up and that gave me the energy to keep... I think that was the kick somehow strangely. Did you at all in that moment, was it one of those sort of things where you were all of a sudden given a lens to look back at your entire life with that obstacle, that shame that you were so hard on yourself? What was it exactly? No, it's happened to me since.

Not very often, but it does happen to me. What is the shame, though, specifically? specifically well that's the name he gave and maybe there's a better name no no i like the name because it's like i think it's accurate i think it is accurate you know you're shamed you're you're shamed that you can't solve what's in front of you right right right yeah yeah yeah yeah it Yeah. Huh. Yeah. That's fucking heavy. Oh. No, because shame is a weird, paralyzing, almost nebulous thing that has many sources. It's usually wired deep into your being for some reason. And it's like it's stuck in your soul. You need to overcome it.

It's a powerful thing. Yeah. It's a heavy word. It is. Yeah. I guess that's what I'm getting at. Were you able to track it? a powerful thing yeah it's a it's a heavy word it is yeah i guess that's what i'm getting at were you able to track it uh no it wasn't it it it it was project specific once i heard i wasn't the only one to have it right right i'm i'm hoping you'll say me too at some point no of course yeah are you kidding i'm in my garage yeah this is the shame temple this is a shame temple this is the best i could do jim i'm gonna walk into it every day i live here but uh all right so you got through that and you executed the script and you did the movie and and

what was like because that was a pretty astounding ensemble and that movie was a devastating but uplifting movie somehow uh this is it that my take on the movie was that I was doing a comedy. And my definition of comedy is that people laugh frequently while watching it. And nobody remembers that's what the movie was. And I got it. But I was in the previews. I'm clocking laughs.

I mean, I was, you know i just that was that's your training and including i said to myself i had to get a because cancer was such a horrible word then when we made the movie that i just i just had this i got to get a laugh on the word cancer how do i do it and it's sort of built into the script it's you know and you do and people yeah yeah they're laughing at the word they're laughing at the word cancer and you're sort of on the side of the experience when you do it, the way it worked in the script. It was so amazing because Deborah Winger was the daughter. Shirley MacLaine was the mother.

It's basically a mother-daughter story. I created the character of Jack Nicholson for the movie. He wasn't in the book. He wasn't in the book. He wasn't in the book. And that was... What was the casting on this like? I mean, was it like television? Did you have to go through a lot of people?

Did you attach these people before? You know, it's like it was murder to get Jack. Deborah was very important to getting any financing at all. And she helped me get Jack. She was amazing at that point. And surely, I interviewed every actress of the right age, I think, that you could think of. Usually, we'd go out to lunch or something.

Because it was even more shameful then, you know, the parts for women, major roles for women. And then somebody called me and suggested Shirley. And I remember we were both, for some reason, we both stood when we had the discussion at the end, when we were, you know, just the kind of getting to know you conversation we had. Then we stood up, when we stood up at the end, instead of looking at each other

and standing looking at each other, we both stood side by side looking at the wall, not facing each other. And she said, this can be important. And it was like a strange, you know, woo-woo moment, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And surely God knows that's her woo-woo stuff. Yeah.

And then she killed. And when you say it was, I mean, because at that point, Jack, I mean, what year are we looking at? 1980. So he had done a lot of his major movies. And what makes it difficult to get somebody like him to embrace a role like that? Because it was a little against type for him at the time i think i think you know he's it's yeah it's uh it's an unknown person me right uh with a relatively small budget picture yeah uh though

healthy enough to go on location um you know it's just a supporting role right well it's just interesting because i don't remember if I read it. I assume I read it because I don't know that I could be this intuitive about that role as a former astronaut. Did you direct him to be sort of constantly looking up at the moon? It's so interesting. We're filming, and he's an astronaut in the picture. A retired astronaut.

Yes, a retired astronaut. And a plane's flying over. And everybody's waiting for me to say cut, but we had a very tight budget. Right, right, right. Sure. So it's like the sound man's looking and stuff like that

and Jack just plays an interest in planes and looks up at the plane and plays the moment, you know? Yeah. And I think that's what you're talking about. And, man, he was like, he'd come up to me at the end of the day, and so great. He'd say, you want to know the worst direction you gave today? And he'd tell me the worst direction I gave you.

He'd say, you want to know the best direction? It was like heaven. He's helping you out? It was just, it was fantastic,'s just it was fantastic man it was fantastic and you guys did three movie together three movies yeah i mean he's you know i once won an argument about at the time when when it was whether justin hoppin or jack nicholson was the best actor alive and i won the argument by saying that jack could do either role in the odd couple well it was like it was phenomenal for movie fans to see him do different things,

even when I was a kid and when that came out, that when you're a movie fan as a kid, you love these guys. You got your guys. And to see him in your movie or in Pritzy's Honor or anything that got him out of being Jack, where he would have to adjust his talent as an actor to do a role that wasn't, you know, McMurtry. Do you know what I mean?

Yes. Or The Shining. Yes. It was a fascinating thing for me. Yes. To see him really work as an actor. And his comic talent is, you know. It's great.

Yeah. Yeah. He's great. The balance that you were able to sort of do you know which i think you probably learned in your somebody because you know when you were doing television you didn't shy away from things so the balance of cancer and comedy and something as heartbreaking as somebody dying at the end of a movie who was your main character and having that still their strength there through your other characters i mean that you know that was a you know i guess i'm just

you know gonna blow and everybody's seeing it without an audience it's not a comedy everybody's through your other characters. I mean, that was a, I guess I'm just going to blow some milk at your ass. And everybody's seeing it without an audience. It's not a comedy. Everybody's seeing it without an audience. But with an audience, it was like, it played great. Well, no, you had to have the comedy to balance with that story. What's the story?

A young woman who's got a philandering, emotionally suppressed husband and an overly protective lunatic mother dies of cancer. If you were to pitch that it wasn't quite our log line but it's accurate but you know was it that that was a phenomenal uh event to make a mainstream it was a comedy and then again when you know when you did broadcast news i mean that's a romantic comedy as my friend lynn shelton says where where nobody

gets who they want yes yes yes you know know, that was another heavy-hearted process. But where did that movie come from? Was that something that just... Just, you know, just cooling out after Terms of Endearment and just traveling around and just saying, you know, I'll figure out what I want to do next. And, you know, you do have, have at that point you have the opportunity to get something done if you want to do it

because terms have been successful and a friend of mine got me into the political conventions and there I hung out with some reporters and that's where I got my story and the idea for it and I'd always been a news guy

and then it was trying to do a romantic my story and the idea for it. And I'd always been a... News guy, yeah. Yeah, I'd always been... And then it was trying to do a romantic comedy where you weren't stacking the deck so everybody was rooting for one guy or the other and you just saw what happened. And we shot it in continuity. And I did think that at the end of it I'd be able to resolve...

A romance? Yeah. Between Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks? Well, no, the only way you could go is with Bill Hurt. That's the only way you could go, I think. between Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks well no the only way you could go was with Bill Hurt that's the only way

you could go and then Holly Hunter yeah really yeah and I actually went back you know

because it was it was a perverse ending and I went back and shot oh this is I there was a French film

that at the end, the classic French successful film where the two star-crossed lovers, the guy gets off the train at the end and there she is waiting. Yeah. And that's the end. And they go to each other. And then I read that what the director had done is that the guy didn't know the group, the actress was going to be standing there and they improvised it. So it was genuine. So I went nuts. And I said, let's, and I said, let's do a reshoot where we do that. And I told Holly, Hunter, that we're going to put her in the cab. We had to redo the part where she leaves the airport. The last minute Bill Hurt was going to get in the cab. We were going to film it.

Right. We were going to film it. And I knew they were each good enough to whereurt was going to get in the cab. We were going to film it. Yeah. Right? We were going to film it, and I knew they were each good enough to where something was going to happen that would solve me not having a perverse ending for the movie. Yeah. And then just before he opened the door, somebody said,

hi, Bill, and blew it, and I went out of body. I mean, I don't know what happened for the next 10 minutes. People end. With rage? I don't know what happened for the next 10 minutes. People. With rage? I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know. It was inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. And then we talked and they did something and we put together a scene. And later on people told me I should end the movie with that scene. Who saw it?

But once I had that goal, you know how crazy you get get yeah um so it ended the way it ended yeah it's heavy it was out yeah it was a little painful because you know i believe it was truthful by the way i think no no i think that's true yeah yeah i think it was the the right emotional way to go yeah that's the thing about about the way you balance where the comedy becomes invisible because the the characters are so well formed and it's so interesting for the actors when they're not trying to stack the deck right when you can go into each scene and not try and reach some and that and i think that was a big sort of fairly serious the first one for albert right where he really had to you know carry a movie to some degree. Oh, man, he was great.

He's great. He was great. How far back does your relationship go? Because my only point of reference for you was his producer in Modern Romance. Was that role, didn't you play the producer? The director. The director, right, right.

That's right. So you were the director guy. He told me, so do this for me, it'll be fun. You were hilarious, though. It was a fourth billing, man. Yeah. You were hilarious. And I'd be the, I was the world's, I was a director's nightmare.

I'd say, let me do it again. I'd be at his trailer before he got there in the morning. Listen, I have this idea. But until you stand on that side of the camera, the vulnerability of that, you know, and you see why people have director approval in their contracts. I mean, you feel you haven't gotten in somebody saying move on. So I always consider it a blessing that I, you know. That you got to do that? Yeah, that I got to do that.

Because you learned the other side? Because I felt it. Yeah. Not learned it Because I felt it. Yeah. Not learned it, but felt it. Uh-huh. This sort of heartbreak of like, ah. I can't do exactly what I want to do.

Give me one more. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. And how did you? What if we did this and I was that guy? Right, right, right. Sure, sure. Following the director the days over.

The nuisance. You were the nuisance? Yeah, yeah. How did you get to know Albert? What was that? We always, in the early 70s, Rob Reiner and Penny Marshall were married and had a house in the valley. And like 15 or 20 of us got that, you know, single people.

Right. You know, we would always end up there. Hanging out. Like every night, you know, Albert, genius, you know, single people. Right. You know, we would always end up there. Hanging out. Like every night, you know, Albert, genius, you know, just doing. Amazing. And people, you know, people doing great stand-up in that living room. Harry Scherer would be playing straight. Yeah, yeah.

God, that must have been a blast, though. It was fun, right? People, when we did broadcast news, people always thought we were fighting, and we were just doing our friendship all the time. you know that's what it was yeah and then um well then like again with jack nicholson is a dan rather character right and then um and then you did uh i'll do anything was the next movie right but that was after the Simpsons. That was later. With Albert again, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And did you, because those terms in different broadcast names

were like huge movies. Now, as you make movies, when things don't go as well as you want box office-wise, how does that affect you? Deeply. Yeah. Deeply. And on I'll Do Anything, I did it as a musical and then we had i guess it was the worst professional experience of my life yeah um because on our first preview

i thought we were in because i never you know and i had i had made some critical mistakes i think like i thought you know i just love actors so much I'm not going to worry about their singing voices I'm going to the performances everything yeah and um and I work with Prince and I work with Sinead O'Connor and I work with Talia Tharpe it was amazing I worked with these amazing people on this musical and then when we previewed it the first number and I was sweating the first number and after the first number happens it's we them. And, you know, we're getting our laughs. And my editor and I give each other a thumbs up. And then it went so downhill. And then they were laughing, as your mother might have told you, at the movie instead of with it.

And then people started to leave. And this is a test screening? First test screening on the lot. You know, the end of privacy. And now, but it gets worse from here. And I called everybody in and I apologized to them. You know, all the people have been working in post-production that I had led them to this path. And let's get to work tomorrow and figure out what to do. Next day, LA Times writes about the screening I had. And they assign a reporter to go to every screening. So everything, all my attempts to pull the movie together

and screening it again, everything was written about like a series. And it was horrible. Talk about a state of shame. Talk about a state of shame. Oh my God. Yeah, it was brutal. Talk about a state of shame. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was brutal. And finally, everything public, and so we were notorious. We were the musical that had cut most of the music out. And, you know, there were clearly holes in the thing that was released.

I think the heart was true. I think there were performances there. But it was as bad as, it was, you know, you can have a failure and it opens and closes. Right. This was dragged out for months. Before it even got there. Before it even got there. And, you know, when it got there, it was an anti-climax.

Sure. I couldn't tell you anything. All people wrote about was the fact, you know, where's the music. And then, because I'd been through such a horrible experience, and I knew everybody, not everybody, but I'm not the only person who's had, you know, I mean, it's common to have great disappointment. It's a common experience. So I wanted to do a documentary about that experience. And I wanted to just, I thought it would be great for somebody to be able to see, okay, the guy's still walking

and he went through that. This is your way to overcome a shame that was not, that you couldn't contain it. And I started to get excited about it because I thought, I thought I'd, I do the story,

we do the documentary and I'd say, and here's the movie they saw that night and show the first thing I previewed. Present the film. And show the first,

yes. It can only be sold as a double feature the documentary would be a short documentary but i thought i'm excited now tell it i'm pitching you yeah i'm excited now that would have been the reasonable end for a story like james brooks has done an amazing thing he created a documentary disclaimer. Not even. No, I was totally responsible. It wasn't my responsibility. It was a claimer. Like you've been led wrong. You've been led to believe the

wrong things about this film. And that judge for yourself. And Prince, we couldn't clear the music rights with Prince and to the songs that he had done. For the film? Yeah, for the film. Let me just ask you a basic question.

I don't always understand. And I don't know if I've been in a position to ask it because I haven't talked to that many directors who have done this. What were you thinking by doing a musical at that time in the world? I mean, what was it? You know, you'd made two huge films. And I just don't, I wanted to do the truth about Hollywood. I wanted to do the truth about Hollywood. And I thought the best way to do the truth about Hollywood was to make it a musical. That was my thinking. I wanted to do the heroism of a workaday journeyman but talented character actor. I wanted to do, I mean, I had real reasons. I wanted to, movie testing was in there. I do

think I, I do think I, you know, in there is a real observation of the business at that time. Right, sure. I think that's still, if I went to look at it today, which I'm not doing, I would think that's in there. I would think a real honesty and reporting about Hollywood at that time. But were you a fan of musicals? I was a fan of theater. I'm not a musical

guy but was it was it something about the the history of hollywood and the popularity of musicals that led you to try to to do that form no i just thought since hollywood is larger than life i needed a larger than life form to do the truth that's what i mean that was my thinking i'm not defending it this that's interesting isn't it interesting to you in retrospect oh I mean because it's like it's such a challenging what's interesting to me yeah in retrospect I got one letter from somebody who'd seen it and who was the uh offspring of a famous Broadway composer and said my father always said the key to doing a musical was keep the plot as simple as possible, which I had not done, certainly.

And nor had I done, you know, nor, and I should have honored, I mean, I should have had, you know, I made key mistakes, clearly. Right. But, you know, you live and learn, right? You did all right. I did all right.

No, it's, no, you pay the dues. It's, you know, your question initially was there is a recovery process, absolutely. And we need to talk about The Simpsons because that's certainly the… No recovery needed yet there. No. Could you ever imagine? I mean, okay, so let's start with Tracy Ullman. So you find her as a talent? You wanted to work with her

somebody sent me her agent at the time Martha Luttrell sent me her tape and you're knocked out and people love that show you're knocked out I mean you know it's like you know a genius in the same way Andy was a genius nobody I mean very few people saw the show

I mean it's but I mean but it had a serious cult following in the sense that like you couldn't, she was undeniably unique. And we were doing a half, it was crazy. We screwed around. It was a brand new network. You know, we were doing a half hour variety show. We would have an audience there and it would take us three hours to do this half hour. So we'd have to keep on replacing the audience because her makeup and prosthetics took so much time between the sketches that we did

so it was brutally hard to do and she was one night while i'm doing the show i have a knock at the door and i open the door and there's an african-american guy standing there yeah and talking to me about being lost and stuff like that. It was a weird conversation. And the conversation keeps on going on. It was sort of bizarre. And then suddenly the guy says, Jim, it's Tracy. That's how great she is now.

That's how great she is. Amazing. Yeah, yeah. So the groaning had just done these, how did that relationship start? So when we did the Tracy Ullman show, we thought that we should try and cram entertainment every place. We were doing things with black and in space.

Yeah. Yeah. So we thought the bumpers that usually, you know, just before you go to commercial. I remember, yeah. We do these 30 second animations. From life and hell. And I, somebody had,

I got a great gift from Polly Platt, who worked with me on Terms of Endearment, after Terms of Endearment, of an original Matt Groening panel from Life and Hell, where the eight ways to die in Hollywood. One was freeway shootings or stuff like that. The last two were failure and success. You're right. And I had it up and I loved it. So I called him in when it came time when we called somebody else in he came to my office

not wanting to do life in hell as a as a as and he had not done any live animated stuff like any movie it was all panels not at all yeah and uh and he came in to see me and and he didn't want to do life in hell so in in my outer office, in minutes, he basically came up with The Simpsons. In like five minutes, he basically came up with them, basically came up with the thought. And we did it. What he just said is the family.

I forget what the pitch was. And I remember some of the early pieces. And if you see them now, it's like you ever saw Steamboat Willie. It sort of looks like the crude beginnings of those characters. That's not quite the Mickey Mouse we know. Yes. Right, right, right. Yeah. And then we had these huge waits for the audience, as I said.

So as we were on, we were on for about five years, we gathered a lot of these things and we start to show them to the audience during the waits of the former man. Just back to back. Yeah, back to back

and they killed. And then there was one, there was a Christmas party we had where our animator who had done those got drunk and cornered me. And when he cornered me, he just told me the passion of all animators to have an animation television show on.

There hadn't been one for 25 years. And it just knocked me out how his eyes shone with this. And we did it. And that was the story, huh? Yeah. Sam, Simon, myself, and Matt. And you thought when you brought... Sam, he wasn't working for you at the time,

but you knew he was the guy? We had worked together a lot. Right. We had worked together a lot. And he had done Saturday morning animation. So he bridged both worlds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what we had for the first two years was

we won't tell anybody who the actors are, no publicity on the actors. We want them to experience this as real. We want them to know we're not doing a cartoon. We had so many rules about that. We were paranoid on the subject and we were going to do character. We were still going to do the kind of, you know,

and we had rules that we wouldn't go too far. You know, Matt had rules. And one of the things I think that happened is. Groening had rules about what? You can't go into space. You can't, you know, just how far you go. You have to keep this. And he'd say brilliant things.

He'd say this should be a family on television that watches television. We knew we were doing dysfunctional family. We knew we were doing that we knew you know and But you wanted to keep the emotions human We wanted them to be believable characters that but but to to a paranoid extent and and held to it for two years and And then started to let go of all our rules bit by bit. We still have some, but I think that was...

Was that just for story reasons more than anything else? We wanted them to believe the characters. Right, but once they were established after years and years... Well, you can't. The actor, it was becoming big, too big to contain on a certain level.

Yeah. And there's none of us who don't appreciate it every day. can't the actor it was becoming big right too big to contain on a certain level yeah and and um there's none of us who don't appreciate it every day there are many of us who have been there since the beginning there are lots of us who have been there for a while and also but as a training ground for amazing comedic talent and actors and writers bird came yeah yeah yeah conan brad bird yeah yeah i mean like they like the simpsons is the gold standard of comedy writing that you but i guess it's interesting to me that having created these these sort of seminal you know live non-animated shows around comedic characters and and human emotions and stuff was there in you in you now, looking at The Simpsons

and the amazing impact it's had on culture and continues to have, I mean, does that, in your mind, has the power of real people in their capacity to generate comedy and emotions and comedy, has that been diminished somehow culturally? No, because it's unique. It's iconic. We're all small parts of this final thing that's iconic,

which iconic is a weird deal. It's weird. And there's a language about it. So it's a sense of service. It's like we're working in the Vatican or something. For the Church of Simpsons. Overall, yes. Yes.

Right. I mean, you know, we care enormously. When we did the movie, you know, the movie was the toughest damn script, one of the toughest damn scripts we ever did or any of us ever did. Because of the pressure you put on yourselves? I think we were white-knuckled. And the whole thing with The Simpsons is you're screwing around. You're loose.

And we were white-knuckled and had to break through that. And we had to get to the point with something we cared about so much to write as if we didn't give a shit. Right. You know, that was... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Challenging. Yeah, yeah.

It took us a while. But, yeah, yeah. Were you able to, at some point, break loose in the writing process? Yes, yes, yes. And were you all conscious of the fact that the reason why you were having a difficult time? Yes. But what do you do about that? Don't be nervous.

Don't be nervous, somebody says to you. Yeah, what do you do? Okay, thanks. And your company, the Gracie Films Company, you know, you've worked with, you know, obviously you put out your movies and the gracie films company you know you've worked with you know obviously put out your movies in the simpsons movies but you know you did cameron crowe's two very big movies for him yeah and and uh we did bottle rocket and just west anderson yeah yeah and and which were first time writer directors and i'm doing it for the third time right now he said yeah and um and we're in post-production on that which is interesting well what's your relationship first time writer directors and I'm doing it for the third time right now, he said.

Yeah. And, um, and we're in post-production on that, which is interesting. Well, what's your relationship with Cameron like? I mean,

how much, how involved were you with, uh, with Jerry Maguire and say anything, uh, in terms of like, did he come to you and go like, how do I fix this? You seem like a fixer to me.

It wasn't. Or can you help me out with this moment, with this scene? What do you think? It was much more informal than that. We just must have talked a million hours. But not in any conscious way. I mean, it was just, you know, the thing that I respect so much and what's really fun for me

is that with Cameron, with Wes, with the young woman I'm working with right now, they have voices. They're distinctive. They're distinctive writers. And it's fun for me to get out of myself and try and help their thing. And that's a rare thing. A voice?

A voice? Yeah. Especially if you get, if you, I think it's something that you must see too in staff writing for television, that there is a system that gets ingrained that can diminish voice sometimes. Yes. So this is exciting.

You don't want to mention this director's name or. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's her name? Yeah. Kelly Fremont Craig. I mean,

yeah, I just don't want to be semi plugging or something. When's the movie come out? Uh, it'll, it'll come out in the fall. It'll come out in the fall. And she's,

and she, and she wrote a distinctive heroine and she um and she spent she served her time on it and uh and she has a real voice this this this this girl the girl in the movie talks like not quite like anybody you've seen before and um yeah that's exciting yeah and i don't want like i feel like we're winding down but i want to do i do want to talk a minute about As Good As It Gets because that was his movie, right? I did a year's rewrite on a very terrific script written by somebody else. And so I feel like it was like we were writing partners,

but we didn't work at the same time. It was, you know, one of the great openings, I think, for a comedy where a man takes a dog and puts it down a garbage chute. And that's the opening of the picture. And that was the opening of the picture that I set out to rewrite, and that still is the opening of the picture. And that was the opening of the picture that I set out to rewrite, and that still is the opening of the picture. And Jack was the only person on earth that could play it, I believe. Because before I had him, I had to think of anybody, and I just thought maybe, but it would be different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and i think that's true

more often than any of us can face yeah we're to do the thing you have in your head you know as you go down the list a little it's no longer the thing you had in your head right right sure it'll be something else and maybe something you know every once in a while something better than you had in your head right but but in this case i felt that was the only man who could do it. Greg Kinnear, who now, I'm going to say, you tell me how I sound telling you this. I couldn't begin to guess the number of people I read for Greg Kinnear's role. I couldn't be, great actors, but just that right tone, that tone that you take for granted, that tone that looks so simple that Greg brought to it, which was an honesty, just a simplicity,

and brilliant and just elegant comedy moves instead of, you know, and the range of actors, dramatic actors, comedy actors, names, you know, 40 people I respect like crazy and would be a pleasure to work with. Couldn't nail that. Helen Hunt, who was doing a series at the time, only one who could do it. In my mind, only one who could do it, you know. Yeah. And to work the schedule of her doing the movie and the series at the same time, it was mind-bending.

But we did it. And I think it needed all of that. It needed all that. And it needed a dog trainer who was treated with great respect and who helped us author the performance of the dogs in the movie. Tough with animals, huh? I mean, if you do it that way, it's not. If you're waiting around for the dog to do it, but if you really give the dog the time you give an actor,

it gets less tough. This dog was a pivotal dog. Pivotal dog. Yeah. Then one did this, one did that. It's like casting babies. You've got to have a couple. They ought to look alike.

And it paid off. Yeah. Do you ever see War of the Roses? Yeah. Okay. So it's sort of War of the Roses. I take Michael Leeson. He was the writer there. Danny directed it. I think

it was one of the darkest comedies. And I love that. I love that we one of the darkest comedies. And I love that. I love that we did a major studio black comedy. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't happen too often. Yeah, yeah. And I think it is a classic.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And as good as it gets, had to have elements of that. Had to get really dark in order to earn a heart. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It took a while, that's right. Yeah, yeah. And riding that edge that Jack had arrived was I think the most difficult thing in his career and it was murder for me and I could not help him at a certain point. All I was doing was saying, no, that's not it, driving him crazy. To get the turn?

To get the, to thread the needle, to not be too angry, to not be that sick fuck, you know, to not be doing that. Maybe his own frustration and the relaxation of the frustration is what what murder he was going crazy i mean but i mean i'm telling you where it was it was bending him bending me and there was one day um we were doing a scene and and and i think that movie would have maybe not been finished if we hadn't been good friends. I mean, it was really a test. And then there was one day where it was just, we were batting our heads against the wall,

and it wasn't working. And I heard myself sending the crew home. This is with like four or five hours left to shoot. We were on a huge soundstage. Larry Kasdan was there as an actor, and I remember feeling so lonely when I saw Larry leave behind those huge doors that closed like with this slam, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And the door slammed, and it was Jack and I alone on this stage. I have no idea what we said to each other. We talked for three hours. The next day everything was okay and we had the character. And I have no idea what we said to each other. And his story, his story about it, I come off much worse.

His story is that I kept on saying, too angry, too angry, too angry and then in one scene he absolutely exploded and I said that's it but it could have been something like that I understand that it could have been his experience exploded in anger but it was just you can't name it

and what is your I forgot to bring this up but Judd speaks very highly of you. Do you advise him at all, ever? Oh, no, I don't think any, I mean, I don't think anybody advises Judd. I'd just like to see you as a Buddha who is sought out. No, no, I think there was, I admire Judd. I mean, I think Judd's great.

I think, and I love, I sort of, one of the things I admire Judd. I mean, I think Judd's great. I think, and I love, I sort of, one of the things I admire is that he tends to give his scripts out, ask for notes, usually everybody's note is the same, it's too long, and he doesn't give a shit. And I really do admire that.

It makes him a real filmmaker, it makes him a real, you know, it makes him a real filmmaker it makes him a real you know it makes him a real individual writer yeah and he's and he's and he has he has a way of doing movies like i think we'll be reading about the way he did movies for you know decades i mean you know i mean he's good guy well the interesting thing about you too and in relation to some of the other um you know mogoli people i've talked to oh what a to yeah but it seems that you know you're you're still like I think that you know whatever has happened with The Simpsons

and however you're engaged with that both creatively and and and what you've been able to to get from it financially it has enabled you to be very selective and do exactly I don't you don't feel to me as a guy that's like we got to do more movies no no it's never been like that. It's never been, no, it's never get big. It's never been anything like that. But where I am spoiled is, you know, it's always been my fault because I've been getting to do what I want for a while.

So, you know, everything that's wrong is my fault. Right, right. And I'm privileged to be able to say that. That's the risk you take is sort of like your production company is not so big where you can throw a producer who's working for you under the bus. No, it's always been. Every picture is intimate. Every picture is like done with the spirit of it. The spirit of this thing we the spirit what

we just did we're all going nuts we're passionate um uh i i do believe in the simpson when we work in the simpsons we we are into it we you know we're serving something bigger than ourselves and you know yeah yeah and that feeling is there and yeah yeah um judd i had on here years ago and he had uh when he was in high school, he had recorded several interviews with comedians, you know, and you also did something like that? You didn't interview when you were in high school? Oh, I did.

Oh, I did. I did. Okay, yeah, like I did. I was, as I told you, my high school life and stuff. We didn't get that into it. So not only was I somebody that wasn't exactly a social hit, but my picture was on the front page of the newspaper every week because I got interviews.

I got interviews nobody could get from my high school paper. And as the person who got them, they always took a picture of the person you're interviewing and me. So this guy that, you know, just... A little bit social awkward. So the high school stars weren't getting their pictures in the paper. My picture was in the school paper all the time. How were you doing this? Who were you interviewing?

I was trying to remember. My favorite was Louis Armstrong. I interviewed Louis Armstrong. And you were a kid? You were like 15? 15, 16, yeah. How'd you get the interview? Like, what was the price?

I don't know how I did those things. But was he playing at a theater in Jersey or what? He was playing at the Paramount Theater in New York City. And Louis Armstrong. And I wish I had that picture now. I wish I had that picture now. And I asked him, I thought I asked him a great question that I don't think anybody had ever asked him before.

I'm bragging. I asked him, you tell me, you'll be honest with me. How do you take care of your lips? It's a great question. Well, the answer made it a great question because he starts to produce creams and ointments and tells me about the thing he has to go through before every performance. Yeah. Yeah.

And I have sense memory of it. You're getting tingles? Now. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So you were backstage at the Paramount?

Because he was really Louis Armstrong. Yeah. He was the only one. But I mean, and that's who he was, who we, you know, that's who he was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had a whole system. Yeah, and I just, and I told my kids, I shake my kids' hands, and I said, you're connected now to

Louis Armstrong. You loved Louis Armstrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah, still do. Yeah, he was something, huh? Yeah, yeah. What drove you to do this? Journalism, or the need to be on the cover of the paper, or like No, no, believe me. I wish they would have learned it a few times. I got lumps for it.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Driven is the wrong word. I did it. It was the only... I did it, yeah. But it serves as a great testament

to sort of balls and also you learn things, I did it, yeah. But it serves as a great testament to sort of balls, and also you learn things, right? I like balls. Yeah. And you're good. Do you feel good? Do you want to talk about, is there something that I missed? I know there's a lot there.

No, I'm afraid it was no good because I enjoyed myself so much. There's a certain point I go back to, you know, it's great. I won't be doing this again. Really? Why? I don't think so. No, because it gets, you know, I don't know. It's being the moment.

You know, that sort of stuff. I love your job, man. I love your job. Yeah? Yeah. Don't you love it? Yeah. Well, the thing about me is that, like, if I don't talk to somebody,

because, you know, once we're done here, done here, I will put this in a can. And my producer and business partner and genius editor will take it from there. All I'm going to have is this. And I get so attached to these conversations with people that it helps me as a person. And you and Terry Gross were, and I think, That was crazy. And there are several examples of this. I think, I forget the woman who was on your show

that you were clearly flirting with. That was sort of great. All of them? Yeah. And it was great to hear, but sometimes it becomes, I'll just say it because it's true, it becomes an art form. There's nobody I spoke to who really knows Terry Gross' work

who didn't hear that interview and feel the revelation of who she was as a human being and she's been on stages before and she's been interviewed before lots you know and you're

being able to talk about the challenge of interviewing obama the experience afterwards but still when you did it yeah that man you you did it yeah you you did it yeah it was you know and it was different than anything he'll ever do you know it was yeah it is yeah you know i the thing with terry you know, was, it was amazing. It was an amazing. It must have been a high. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Yeah. Yeah.

Because it just couldn't have, like I was, it made me proud that I was able to respect her. You know, because I, you know. Oh, great, man. In my life, you know, I've gone through periods where I do, I, you know, I was too self-involved or too cynical to have that, the humility enough to, to, to really respect what was happening. And it was like a big sort of rites of passage for me that, you know, like that, that I'd, I'd somehow become a decent person in, in having that conversation with her, you know, does that make sense?

Decency is a great ambition. Thanks for talking to me, man. Okay, pleasure. James Brooks. James L. Brooks. What an amazing career. I hope you enjoyed that. Don't forget to check out WTFpod.com,

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