0
SPEAKER_02
Let me just say something about Alan Zweibel.
0
SPEAKER_02
He is like a famous writer from Saturday Night Live, and he was a huge part of the first cast.
0
SPEAKER_02
And the first cast is always going to be the first cast.
0
SPEAKER_02
They ll always be the greatest, right?
0
SPEAKER_02
And what happened, and he really breaks it down, another thing I like to say, stay in your lane, break it down.
0
SPEAKER_02
He breaks down that when they got on the show, it was kind of innocent.
0
SPEAKER_02
No one knew, they weren t rock stars.
0
SPEAKER_02
That s why they call them not ready for primetime players.
0
SPEAKER_02
And then at a given point,
0
SPEAKER_02
I think it was John Belusi did Animal House and became a movie star.
0
SPEAKER_02
And so the entire culture of the show changes because of this, which is a fascinating thing.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it goes in detail about that.
0
SPEAKER_01
You can picture he come back to the set and they re in those little tiny, he s on SNL and now he s like so much bigger than everyone.
0
SPEAKER_01
And now he s back to doing sketches and there had to be attitudes in this.
0
SPEAKER_01
And some people were on drugs, some people weren t.
0
SPEAKER_01
But I think that once that hit, he said it changed the dynamic.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and it s also, Alan worked very closely with Gilda Radner, and that s fun to hear because she s somewhat- America s sweetheart, she s great.
0
SPEAKER_02
Maybe the most likable, I don t know.
0
SPEAKER_02
She s just brilliant, and he really talks fondly about her in great detail.
0
SPEAKER_01
He did a movie that he wrote, which was such a hyped movie with a hyped cast called North, and it fucking
0
SPEAKER_01
Bombed!
0
SPEAKER_01
And... Was John Lovitz in it?
0
SPEAKER_01
It s so brutal because... I m kidding.
0
SPEAKER_01
The interesting thing about showbiz out here is that no one knows Jack shit.
0
SPEAKER_01
You can t, there s almost no for sure hits.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so smartest people, directors, writers, cast, and you just can t say this movie will be great.
0
SPEAKER_01
And people just say pass.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it s unbelievable.
0
SPEAKER_01
I can t believe they haven t cracked the code yet.
0
SPEAKER_02
I actually starred in a movie right after that, 1995.
0
SPEAKER_02
Nobody knows Jack shit.
0
SPEAKER_02
And that even bombed.
0
SPEAKER_01
That movie didn t do well?
0
SPEAKER_02
Nobody knows Jack Shit, and it even bombed.
0
SPEAKER_02
And you played Jack Shit?
0
SPEAKER_02
Show business.
0
SPEAKER_02
On the poster?
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I was Jack Shit.
0
SPEAKER_02
I looked kind of like Joe Dirt.
0
SPEAKER_02
I was kind of like, hey, what up, Jack Shit?
0
SPEAKER_02
Jack Shit and Joe Dirt should hang out.
0
SPEAKER_02
And Jack Shit, are you Clueless?
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
I don t know even Jack Shit.
0
SPEAKER_02
I don t know myself.
0
SPEAKER_02
That was the cold open of the movie.
0
SPEAKER_02
It was on a mountain retreat.
0
SPEAKER_02
There were cowboys.
0
SPEAKER_02
Anyway, it doesn t matter.
0
SPEAKER_02
It s on live streaming.
0
SPEAKER_02
I think it s on Pluto, maybe.
0
SPEAKER_02
Pluto, is that a planet or a channel?
0
SPEAKER_02
It doesn t even know it s a network.
0
SPEAKER_02
That s how obscure.
0
SPEAKER_02
It doesn t even qualify to be streamed.
0
SPEAKER_02
It s like the real Pluto, which is called a dwarf planet, because it s so tiny.
0
SPEAKER_02
Pluto doesn t count as even a streaming site, because only 3,200 people watch it.
0
SPEAKER_02
3,200, that s the latest number.
0
SPEAKER_01
Globally.
0
SPEAKER_01
All right, well.
0
SPEAKER_01
Most of them in Czechoslovakia.
0
SPEAKER_01
I digress.
0
SPEAKER_01
More on that later.
0
SPEAKER_01
Here s Alan Zweibel.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s like the moon landing usually, but no, I ve been blessed, Dana.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ve been really blessed.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s fresh.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, not too much sun, light on the booze, healthy diet.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
And you know, I get my basic
0
SPEAKER_00
six hours of sleep a week.
0
SPEAKER_00
So it s working out nicely.
0
SPEAKER_02
So you re not sleeping as well.
0
SPEAKER_02
That s a, yeah, that s, that s pretty common.
0
SPEAKER_00
Don t you?
0
SPEAKER_02
Uh, well, I take a little bit of a sleep aid.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I see.
0
SPEAKER_00
In the form of a pill.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, David.
0
SPEAKER_02
Teeny bits, bits of it.
0
SPEAKER_02
It s David Spade, everybody.
0
SPEAKER_02
By the way, Al Franken asked me to ask you a question.
0
SPEAKER_02
OK, he asked me why Bella question.
0
SPEAKER_02
He said, are you are you Jewish?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s all that s from Al Franken.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s not a yes or no answer.
0
SPEAKER_01
I know my answer.
0
SPEAKER_00
I ask him, ask him if he s Jewish.
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, you think this is Nordic?
0
SPEAKER_00
No, no, no, no, no.
0
SPEAKER_00
Nordic.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, look, we are on your square.
0
SPEAKER_00
It says David Spader.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t know what happened, but you can figure it out.
0
SPEAKER_02
His nickname is Spudly.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s my codename.
0
SPEAKER_02
Nickname is Spudly.
0
SPEAKER_02
Your nickname is Swibes.
0
SPEAKER_02
OK, I don t I don t have a nickname.
0
SPEAKER_02
And it s all right.
0
SPEAKER_00
By the end of this thing, you re going to have a nickname.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, OK.
0
SPEAKER_02
My wife is like that.
0
SPEAKER_02
So you ve been married a long time, right?
0
SPEAKER_02
Or no.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, God.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, God.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, God.
0
SPEAKER_00
God help us all.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s 40, 42 years.
0
SPEAKER_00
For those of you who bet the under.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m sorry.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s funny.
0
SPEAKER_02
Hey, man, I m looking right at 40, I think.
0
SPEAKER_02
Really?
0
SPEAKER_02
Married in 83, 2023.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you re on the cusp of 40.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
How s it working out?
0
SPEAKER_02
I ve been married 40 years to six different women.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, I mean, it s cumulative how this stuff works.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, you don t get any points for just one.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
0
SPEAKER_00
It s just how long you ve been.
0
SPEAKER_02
I don t write jokes, but this joke always kills.
0
SPEAKER_02
I have two jokes about my wife and that s it because I can t write a joke and you re brilliant at it.
0
SPEAKER_02
I met my wife when she was 19.
0
SPEAKER_02
I raised her as one of my own.
0
SPEAKER_02
Gets a nice little laugh.
0
SPEAKER_02
I ve been married 38 years.
0
SPEAKER_02
Plaws to seven different women.
0
SPEAKER_02
Those are, but they, they kill so much.
0
SPEAKER_02
It makes me mad.
0
SPEAKER_02
Cause I, I don t even like them.
0
SPEAKER_01
Here s mine, Dana.
0
SPEAKER_01
I say my longest relationship is three table dances in a row.
0
SPEAKER_01
That was my old one, but I m not like that anymore.
0
SPEAKER_01
Danny, you know that.
0
SPEAKER_02
So, Alan.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
You have so much.
0
SPEAKER_02
I ve been reading your book.
0
SPEAKER_00
No, no.
0
SPEAKER_00
This is we should have allowed a lot more time.
0
SPEAKER_00
This one hour thing.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, I don t know how that s going to work.
0
SPEAKER_00
Believe me.
0
SPEAKER_01
Career is a seven hour career.
0
SPEAKER_01
We re trying to cram it into one.
0
SPEAKER_02
We could get several people off.
0
SPEAKER_02
I mean, it was it was grim.
0
SPEAKER_02
Two oh five.
0
SPEAKER_02
Finally, Jim Downey said, OK,
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh, we love Jim.
0
SPEAKER_02
He came on and said nice things about you.
0
SPEAKER_02
Don t you love when people say that to you?
0
SPEAKER_02
Hey, I ran into someone, Alan.
0
SPEAKER_02
They said nice things about you.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
Like like it s an unusual thing.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
0
SPEAKER_00
Somebody actually doesn t think you re an asshole.
0
SPEAKER_02
You seem very popular so far for what I ve read and heard and seen.
0
SPEAKER_02
You seem very popular.
0
SPEAKER_02
Are you a bad guy pretending to be a nice guy or a nice guy?
0
SPEAKER_02
People say I m nice, but they go, I m kind of a dick inside and maybe Dennis Miller is sort of the opposite or whatever.
0
SPEAKER_00
He s really nice with a nice guy.
0
SPEAKER_02
Well, he plays that character, but he s incredibly sentimental and loyal to his friends.
0
SPEAKER_02
So what about you, Alan?
0
SPEAKER_02
I m also a part time therapist.
0
SPEAKER_02
I m full disclosure.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think that I m generally nice.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I ve got three kids, five grandchildren.
0
SPEAKER_00
So they automatically make you nice as far as doing what we do is concerned.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know something?
0
SPEAKER_00
I remember all the people who were nice to me when I started.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I also remember all the dicks and I m going, well, I don t want to be remembered that way, you know?
0
SPEAKER_00
Right.
0
SPEAKER_00
And also, you know, all the collaboration that I ve done, you know, whether it would be Shanling or Gilda or Billy Crystal or I learned to take my ego.
0
SPEAKER_00
and put it over here and make it just work for the work.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so that avoids if I believe in something that I m writing and the other person doesn t, then we have a different kind of talk.
0
SPEAKER_00
But it s about the work, you know.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know, you said your your kids like you.
0
SPEAKER_01
Let s look at a clip.
0
SPEAKER_01
Oh, they say they don t like we have a clip.
0
SPEAKER_01
I find just trying to get in there.
0
SPEAKER_02
See if this relates to you guys.
0
SPEAKER_02
Dave s got a million of his.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was sitting on that for about 45 seconds, guys.
0
SPEAKER_02
Just do you ever even as a non-confrontational confrontational nice guy, there s ways to get what you want.
0
SPEAKER_02
So if you hear someone s idea, you don t really agree with even if they re one of the greats.
0
SPEAKER_02
Do you rope a dope a little bit?
0
SPEAKER_02
Like you don t push back at that moment.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you go.
0
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that could be good.
0
SPEAKER_02
And then you fight for it later.
0
SPEAKER_00
There s a dance.
0
SPEAKER_00
And one of them I learned from shandling.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, you can pitch a joke to him about a cow.
0
SPEAKER_00
All right.
0
SPEAKER_00
And then Gary would go, well, off of what you re saying, I think that Amish people and you go, wait a second, how did the cow get to Amish people?
0
SPEAKER_00
He includes you as if he would never have had that thought had he not heard about the cow.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s crafty.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_02
He s very proprietary.
0
SPEAKER_02
He makes sure that he s was in there.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was in there, but it was inclusive and nobody would be telling stories like this, you know, after he passed.
0
SPEAKER_01
The writer dynamic, Dana, of when I started SNL, Al and I was a comedian.
0
SPEAKER_01
Dana came on as a full cast member, but obviously he s a funny writer and thinker, but he wasn t paid, you know, as a writer.
0
SPEAKER_01
He could write like, as you know, but for the people at home, like I was a writer before
1
SPEAKER_01
So I was sort of, when you re a feature player, the word was you write for everyone else.
1
SPEAKER_01
You don t really need to be on, you know, like start writing.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s a hard thing, A, to write for the people.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think that s where you re good.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s hard to not want to be on.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think you ve had a career where you were okay just being a good writer.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s a hard thing to pitch and all that.
1
SPEAKER_00
I ve been lucky, David, in that, you know, Letterman would put me on as a guest and I go on talk shows, I have speaking engagements.
1
SPEAKER_00
So that part of me that has that need or that desire to have an audience respond to me is pretty much satisfied.
1
SPEAKER_00
That being said, I just love the craft of writing too much.
1
SPEAKER_00
To me, it s I wake up five thirty every morning,
1
SPEAKER_00
I move my words around and try to make sense of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I have the best of both worlds that way.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you know, I mean, Dan, I was just gonna say that when there s so much pride, even when I was there, when I d get a sketch on, that I started to feel so much pride in the word writer, that when they were saying at other shows and comedies, you could be a producer or something, I go, and they stopped kind of using the word writer.
1
SPEAKER_01
I go, no, no, writer is like the coolest thing to be proud of.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like you were saying, like, if you re a good writer, you feel so much, you get so much out of it to be called a writer.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, you re absolutely right.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there is an older school.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if I don t think it exists now, but there was an older school where they was regarded by executives and even producers where you started off as a writer and you graduated to a producer or something like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Whereas you go, no, no, I write.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s that s what I do.
1
SPEAKER_01
You just pay me more to write.
1
SPEAKER_01
Don t call me something else.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
What s that?
1
SPEAKER_02
Well, I would I would just interject this after reading a lot of stuff about in the last couple of days, like it s really valid, valuable for a performer on Saturday Night Live to find a writer who gets them and will incorporate their rhythms like you would.
1
SPEAKER_02
I had that with Spiegel and you had it with Gilda, I guess, where you would listen to her and then you would add stuff on.
1
SPEAKER_02
So it came together, the writing and the performing.
1
SPEAKER_02
were kind of created simultaneously as opposed to Handing Guild or something.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is that how it worked or?
1
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, before I got to SNL, I was writing jokes, jokes for stand up comedians in the Catskills.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then Rodney Dangerfield, Morty Gunty was his name.
1
SPEAKER_00
Morty Gunty was the first.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I remember that guy on TV in the 60s.
1
SPEAKER_00
When we were growing up, there was Morty Gunty.
1
SPEAKER_00
He had a show called The Funny Company.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for you, trivia buffs out there.
1
SPEAKER_00
the Dick Van Dyke show had two pilots.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the first one that got rejected, Carl Reine played what eventually was Dick Van Dyke s role.
1
SPEAKER_00
Morty Gunty originally played what became Maury Amsterdam s role in that show.
1
SPEAKER_00
But when I
1
SPEAKER_00
When I learned how to write jokes, that s why Lorne hired me.
1
SPEAKER_00
And when I got to SNL, I had never seen, I don t think I even heard of Second City at that point.
1
SPEAKER_00
Certainly not the groundlings or the proposition where Jane Curtin came from.
1
SPEAKER_00
And when I saw them assuming characters where you get somebody like Dan Aykroyd, who all of a sudden creates this whole world in front of you, I was like,
1
SPEAKER_00
I was running for guys with tuxedos and bad teeth, you know.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so, yeah, you went for the cat.
1
SPEAKER_01
Are you writing like joke jokes for people?
1
SPEAKER_01
And then now it s sketches, which is very different.
1
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
The only time, you know, as you know, that that joke jokes were maybe appropriate was Weekend Update.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
OK.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
But when I was writing for those guys, I, you know, Rodney Dangerfield, you know, he had that thing.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t get no respect.
1
SPEAKER_00
Even as an infant, my mother wouldn t breastfeed me.
1
SPEAKER_00
She said she liked me as a friend.
1
SPEAKER_00
OK, so that was so.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I captured his rhythms and whatever.
1
SPEAKER_00
But and the joke that got me the job at SNL and Lorne is the first to to admit it or to verify it, I should say, is I had written a joke saying that the post office was about to issue a stamp commemorating prostitution in the United States.
1
SPEAKER_00
Ten cents stamp.
1
SPEAKER_00
You want to lick it?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a quarter.
1
SPEAKER_00
OK.
1
SPEAKER_00
So so, you know, I learned how to write jokes.
1
SPEAKER_00
But when I got to SNL, aside from Weekend Update, where I collaborated with Herb Sargent, was he there with you guys?
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yes.
1
SPEAKER_02
Herb was there the entire time running an update when I was in.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
God, you know, he was the old guy in that big office.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
The map on the white hair.
1
SPEAKER_02
It was shocking.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, here are the glasses that he wore up.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
For some reason, when his eyes were down here.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so the jokes I wrote with him, but character writing like for Gilda or the Samurais for John Belushi was something I had to feel my way around.
1
SPEAKER_00
And with Gilda, it was we found each other as people.
1
SPEAKER_00
She
1
SPEAKER_00
She was a little spooked out by the big city coming to New York and living here.
1
SPEAKER_00
This is where I m from.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we found each other.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you re absolutely right.
1
SPEAKER_00
Not only did we have this synergy where we made each other laugh, but it was like she wanted somebody to write for her and I wanted somebody to speak through.
1
SPEAKER_00
OK, so it became a very convenient kind of marriage that way.
1
SPEAKER_01
You started, I don t know this Dana, but I think Alan, you started originally with the original, so you met Gilda when everyone did, everyone was like sort of merging together.
1
SPEAKER_02
You were there day one of Saturday Night Live.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was there day one, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, the first meeting we had in Lauren s office
1
SPEAKER_00
July 7th, 1975.
1
SPEAKER_00
I just remember that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, OK.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I I walk into Lauren s office for our first meeting.
1
SPEAKER_00
Nobody s there except for Michael O Donoghue, who was I don t know if you met him, but he founded the National Lampoon.
1
SPEAKER_00
He was the darkest
1
SPEAKER_00
humor guy ever.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he was by himself in Lauren s office.
1
SPEAKER_00
And what how did I find him?
1
SPEAKER_00
I found him.
1
SPEAKER_00
He took Big Bird, a stuffed yellow Big Bird.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he was wrapping the Venetian blind cord around
1
SPEAKER_00
Big Bird s neck.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then he pulled it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Big Bird was hanging.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he did that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Then he looked at me, goes, do you like the Muppets?
1
SPEAKER_00
That s how he felt about the Muppets being on the show originally.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was and I liked the Muppets, but I was too scared to admit it.
1
SPEAKER_00
I go, I hate those fucking things.
1
SPEAKER_01
I would have said the same thing.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
So he murdered a man in Vegas, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
Was that the rumor?
1
SPEAKER_02
No, I m kidding.
1
SPEAKER_02
Made that up.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s always like killed a man in Reno is always that other go to thing.
1
SPEAKER_02
I was kind of interested in that joke for just a second.
1
SPEAKER_02
The post stamp joke.
1
SPEAKER_02
Because I realized that the language, the syllables of a writer of jokes, like it had to be, what was the punchline, the way you teased it out?
1
SPEAKER_02
If you want to lick it, it s a quarter, not 25 cents.
1
SPEAKER_01
Not 25 cents.
1
SPEAKER_01
Quarters, better rhythm.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I have this book that I that recently came out called Laugh Lines, My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s the one I m reading.
1
SPEAKER_00
I devote a bunch of pages to how I wrote that joke.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was it was 1975 when I got the job on SNL.
1
SPEAKER_00
But the next year was going to be the bicentennial.
1
SPEAKER_00
So they were going to have commemorative stamps about
1
SPEAKER_00
things in history and say, okay, what s a funny thing that you can have a stamp about?
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, maybe prostitution.
1
SPEAKER_00
I can t even begin to tell you how many different punchlines I had.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know, if you lick it, it goes, ah, I had one where you took the stamp out to dinner first.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was ridiculous.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then it was, if you want to lick it, it s a lot more.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then it ended up on quarter, but you re right, not 25 cents, but that one took a long time to quarter.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s got a K in it.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, not not really when you write it out sometimes.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but it s got that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s funny.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s going to be a quarter.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
Anyway, so that s process.
1
SPEAKER_02
So Gilda, as a person, I mean, I was someone in college when you guys all came on and had never done stand up when you started.
1
SPEAKER_02
So you were superstars.
1
SPEAKER_02
The whole show was ridiculous.
1
SPEAKER_02
It was.
1
SPEAKER_02
just must see television for everyone in the dorm, you know, and Gilda Rand are always bounced off the screen.
1
SPEAKER_02
I know it s been talked about so much.
1
SPEAKER_02
Her level of likability and vulnerability.
1
SPEAKER_02
I don t know if I ve ever seen a more likable person.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was mine.
1
SPEAKER_02
Spade also was my next person.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I know.
1
SPEAKER_02
And I would say it s a dead heat.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s a dead heat.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a real toss up.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And being Gilda was cute, too.
1
SPEAKER_01
Everything about it was cute.
1
SPEAKER_00
She yes, she had that intangible.
2
SPEAKER_03
quality that you felt you know, you knew her even if you never met her.
2
SPEAKER_03
And, and Lauren,
2
SPEAKER_03
It may have been the first year of the show.
2
SPEAKER_03
What he would do is he would put Gilda on stage just sitting there and she would talk about what she ate that week.
2
SPEAKER_03
And then she would do the same thing.
2
SPEAKER_03
He would do the same thing with Belushi, where he let the people know who they were for two minutes as people.
2
SPEAKER_03
So when she would do Roseanne, Roseanne, Adana,
2
SPEAKER_03
You felt you knew that person who was now wearing a funny wig and doing that dialect.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, because it s a different person.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because sometimes as a kid, I m too stupid.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you don t even know really their characters.
2
SPEAKER_01
The first time you see someone, you go, that s who she is.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s kind of smart to differentiate it and say, hey, audience, you don t know her yet, but here s who she is normally.
2
SPEAKER_03
That s absolutely right.
2
SPEAKER_03
So it s like, you know, if a friend of yours is doing something funny, it feels doubly good because you know who that person is.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, so that s what s happening in the podcast world.
2
SPEAKER_02
People do a podcast, people get to know them and then they tour the podcast and the same laugh they re doing gets double the lap because the audience is their friend and they know them.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s very new art.
2
SPEAKER_03
Absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
No, there s a familiarity as opposed to a reintroduction or having to define yourself.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s a head start.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s really it s really good.
2
SPEAKER_02
If if Sinatra was around today, he d come out, he d take off his hairpiece.
2
SPEAKER_02
He would go, hey, let me.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
The summer when I don t do Sinatra, but I will do Sinatra before this podcast is over.
2
SPEAKER_02
I vow.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Alan was was was Gilda.
2
SPEAKER_01
She seems a little fragile to me, too.
2
SPEAKER_01
Was she or she very tough?
2
SPEAKER_03
Oh, well, that s a great question.
2
SPEAKER_03
There was a fragility there.
2
SPEAKER_03
Look, she had vices.
2
SPEAKER_03
She was publicly known that she was a bulimic and she had trouble with guys.
2
SPEAKER_03
never probably got over the fact that her dad died when she was 15, and she was this fat kid and all of that stuff.
2
SPEAKER_03
But I think that her greatest, I don t know if it was talent,
2
SPEAKER_03
But what she did was she didn t hide that vulnerability.
2
SPEAKER_03
OK, she didn t try to be something she wasn t.
2
SPEAKER_03
And once again, that made her somewhat embraceable, you know, but she was strong enough to to get through it.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know, when we did the show, what I m sure was the same for you guys, it ultimately became a battleground, you know, within the office.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it s tough.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
You gotta be strong and no one, I don t think anyone s ready for it.
2
SPEAKER_01
You think we re all in this team, we re all gonna have this great fun time.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then there are great, great fun highs.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then there s some tough times when you re in nothing or you walk through the halls and people are ignoring you because you had a bad read through or something.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re just like, oh, this is so weird.
2
SPEAKER_01
We re there.
2
SPEAKER_02
So it s a weird thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, go ahead, Dana.
2
SPEAKER_02
I m just curious about what you just said and the alliances that get made.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it is a Game of Thrones or something.
2
SPEAKER_02
There s a whole subterfuge.
2
SPEAKER_02
You put all these comedians and clowns and writers in a room and you say, if this guy gets on, I m a clown.
2
SPEAKER_02
Phil Harp used to go, I m a clown.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m a clown, yeah, it s hilarious.
2
SPEAKER_02
This guy, my friend s sketch gets on, then mine won t get on, and all that psychology that went on, at least when I was there, we were all very friendly with each other, but it was weird, that put it that way.
2
SPEAKER_01
Stomach turning.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know something?
2
SPEAKER_03
This is my own personal sort of observation when that started, okay?
2
SPEAKER_03
I could be wrong and other people could dispute it, but
2
SPEAKER_03
Look, when we first started, the only rule that we had, Lauren said, let s just make each other laugh.
2
SPEAKER_03
And if we do, we ll put it on television.
2
SPEAKER_02
Good idea.
2
SPEAKER_03
OK, so we had this show.
2
SPEAKER_03
Hey, we re going to do a show.
2
SPEAKER_03
And it was sort of egalitarian.
2
SPEAKER_03
And it was the show was the thing.
2
SPEAKER_03
But when when Belushi came back after doing Animal House,
2
SPEAKER_03
It s my theory that the that the culture change, because now John was on the cover of I think it was Newsweek by himself with the toga, you know, and yeah, and and none of the other casts were on either side of him.
2
SPEAKER_03
So now it was almost subliminal.
2
SPEAKER_03
But wait a second.
2
SPEAKER_03
This show can get us that.
2
SPEAKER_03
OK, and it was not declared.
2
SPEAKER_03
But I do believe that that was a turning point.
2
SPEAKER_03
It was a line of demarcation there where for us, the show was the end.
2
SPEAKER_03
Now it became an end, a means to an end.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because Chevy left early, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And then Chevy blew up and Belushi was fucking huge.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like one at a time, it started blowing up.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m sure everyone s like, when is my time in the sun?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, when do I get to that level?
2
SPEAKER_01
I m already at a huge level, but it s not enough.
2
SPEAKER_03
And then what happened, you re absolutely right, Dave, because after Chevy left,
2
SPEAKER_03
Bill Murray.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
And Bill not only became a hit on the show, but he did meatballs.
2
SPEAKER_03
He did stripes.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, my God.
2
SPEAKER_03
He did Caddy Shack, you know, and then he s had this huge career, glorious childhood.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_03
This career, you know.
2
SPEAKER_03
And so there were some people
2
SPEAKER_03
the order of succession was sort of leapt over.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know what I mean?
2
SPEAKER_03
If some people felt that, wait a second, it s my turn.
2
SPEAKER_03
Oh, right.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know, hey, I ve been here long ago.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know, like I said, I never had those discussions with people, but I would bet anything that there was a degree of, hey, wait a second.
2
SPEAKER_03
Why is so and so getting this?
2
SPEAKER_03
Not me.
2
SPEAKER_03
I ve been here longer, you know, or I haven t I proved my worth or that
2
SPEAKER_03
Look, Lauren threw everybody into the deep end of the pool, you know, whether you could swim or not.
2
SPEAKER_03
And you either drowned or somehow you made it to the side of the pool.
2
SPEAKER_03
You were OK.
2
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
Lauren was Lauren was amazing.
2
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, everybody in the pool, when you get you get used to it, you know, Dana, is this sketch ever going to work?
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, he was tough love.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then, you know, if you
2
SPEAKER_02
I felt like I had to levitate the room.
2
SPEAKER_02
I had to just kill on the show.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then you d just pass Lorne on the way to the next sketch and get that little nod.
2
SPEAKER_02
So he was great that way, to earn that compliment.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then he d review the show on Monday very briefly, and he d always pick out something very obscure rather than the sketches that killed.
2
SPEAKER_02
He said, I thought Jan s exit from that sketch was breathtaking.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, I m attitude.
2
SPEAKER_02
So Lauren kept you off balance, but he had a method to it, you know, to keep us all so hilarious.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know something, when I went out to L.A.
2
SPEAKER_03
to do the Shanling show, and Dana, I remember meeting you through Gary.
2
SPEAKER_03
I think the first year we did the show was ABC Prospect, and I don t know if you came to see Gary, but I remember hearing through Gary, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
I remember, and just to intersect for a second, when I went there that night to watch the taping,
2
SPEAKER_02
First of all, I love the show.
2
SPEAKER_02
It always, it was, and it s how the show was, Gary s brilliant, but, and you.
2
SPEAKER_02
But then Gilda came out, I guess she was doing kind of okay, and she came out behind the curtain, and it was so, the audience reaction to seeing her, it was just an incredibly emotional moment.
2
SPEAKER_03
You were there, right?
2
SPEAKER_03
She was in remission at that time, and she said,
2
SPEAKER_03
asked me if I can help her make cancer funny.
2
SPEAKER_03
She she said that her humor was the only weapon she had against this fucker.
2
SPEAKER_03
You know, she personalized the cancer.
2
SPEAKER_03
And when she came out and she was afraid that nobody would recognize her, her hair was shorter and she hadn t been on TV in many years.
2
SPEAKER_03
When she came out, the audience not only erupted, OK,
2
SPEAKER_03
When I went to edit the show and I wanted to use the angle of her entrance, I saw that the picture was just bouncing just a little bit and I couldn t figure out why.
2
SPEAKER_03
And then I remembered the night that we taped the show, the cameraman on that angle, he was crying and his hands were shaking.
2
SPEAKER_03
So if you ever see it on TV, you look for it.
2
SPEAKER_03
It s subtle, but it s there.
2
SPEAKER_03
But and David, I remember having a dinner or a meeting with you, somebody named Ray at the Brillstein Company.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I want to hear a real, real real manager.
2
SPEAKER_03
And I wanted you to be on the show.
2
SPEAKER_03
I thought you could be Gary s friend or something.
2
SPEAKER_03
I know it didn t work out.
2
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we talked about maybe a pizza guy, or I talked to him about dating or whatever, like a guy that comes in.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I remember that, yeah, because Bernie, Brad, Gervitz, everyone we talked about.
2
SPEAKER_01
But the show went away, it was too, after that, and it didn t work out, but I love just the idea of, that would have been so fun, because I watched that show, it was so cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s oh, so this is just back to lawn for a very quick second.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we were doing the Shanling show, and I guess it was around 1989 and 90, whenever the 15th anniversary show of SNL, the reunion show was.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, it s just like going to your high school reunion and you go, all right, what have I done since I was in high school?
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, I got a car.
3
SPEAKER_00
I got married.
3
SPEAKER_00
I got a house.
3
SPEAKER_00
I got a thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
All right.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re going to be OK.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we fly back for the reunion and the doors open on the eighth floor.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we run into and beats, who was one of the writers when I was there.
3
SPEAKER_00
She she was writing the anniversary show.
3
SPEAKER_00
She was, you know, OK.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I hadn t seen her in many years.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I go, hi, Anne, what s doing?
3
SPEAKER_00
And she just shakes her head and goes, fucking Lauren.
3
SPEAKER_00
So not a lot.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not a lot has changed here.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was always on the 40th.
3
SPEAKER_02
I was the most fly by the seat of your pants showed I ever been on.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, we didn t get any of the run throughs or practice shows.
3
SPEAKER_02
Mike and I were back in a little room going, I don t know, look for Kanye.
3
SPEAKER_02
We ll see if we can make something out of it.
3
SPEAKER_02
But yeah, that was.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s it s a very melancholy or weird thing when you go back there.
3
SPEAKER_02
Right.
3
SPEAKER_02
When you go back to 17th Floor 8H.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
It always gets something comes over me a little bit when I see the pictures.
3
SPEAKER_02
I ll see Phil in a picture and Jan.
3
SPEAKER_02
And for the obvious reasons.
3
SPEAKER_02
But how do you feel when you go back there?
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of ghosts there for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s John.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s Gil.
3
SPEAKER_00
I knew Jan.
3
SPEAKER_00
I knew Phil.
3
SPEAKER_00
But obviously I knew the other guys.
3
SPEAKER_00
better.
3
SPEAKER_00
I work with him for five years.
3
SPEAKER_02
Dave Wilson, who is our director, our director to you, want to direct it to what the shows in a half hour changes.
3
SPEAKER_02
No, we love Davey.
3
SPEAKER_02
He was like, wait, wait a minute.
3
SPEAKER_02
You want to put a camera on a tomato?
3
SPEAKER_02
How am I going to get the angle?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, smile changes.
3
SPEAKER_01
He goes, Robert, I got it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was that after dress meeting when it was so tense.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m in Lauren s office.
3
SPEAKER_01
They re reading all the changes.
3
SPEAKER_01
OK, on Sweeney s sisters, we re going to change this.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s like, well, I guess it s a job that should not exist.
3
SPEAKER_02
Direct.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s too stressful to exist.
3
SPEAKER_00
But by the way, not only didn t exist, you know, I wouldn t have existed without Dave Wilson was Dunkin Donuts.
3
SPEAKER_00
as he ate them like they were going out of style.
3
SPEAKER_01
Jelly donuts.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Such a nice guy to the greatest guy in the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he he lived in Parsippany, New Jersey.
3
SPEAKER_00
He he commuted every night.
3
SPEAKER_00
He had a wife and kids.
3
SPEAKER_00
And and as I remember it, Lauren hired him very much because he didn t have an ego.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK, that was stated.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK, it would be.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there might be an initial panic attack, but ultimately he would figure it out because of the show, you know?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he was really good for it.
3
SPEAKER_02
He was great that way.
3
SPEAKER_02
He was great.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I found that super useful because I was in a couple of movies here and there.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I was so bad because I was being so directed and doing hundreds of takes.
3
SPEAKER_02
And on SNL, it was great.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was just sort of get the shot.
3
SPEAKER_02
You and when I did Church Lady with Rosie Schuster, you know, who was great and she thought of the name Church Chat.
3
SPEAKER_02
So we worked on it for like a month.
3
SPEAKER_02
But there wasn t classic direction.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like I knew the character from my stand up.
3
SPEAKER_02
So it was very liberating as a performer.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, no.
3
SPEAKER_00
A character like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I imagine that you were given all the leeway and he followed you, you know, or he gave you this much space.
3
SPEAKER_00
Rosie Schuster, by the way, I
3
SPEAKER_00
insist.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I know that Frank and you mentioned him earlier feels the same way wrote when I was there, what I believe to be the best joke of the five.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it never was.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
3
SPEAKER_02
This is this is OK.
3
SPEAKER_00
Rosie.
3
SPEAKER_00
Rosie pitched a sketch of the ten worst Hanukkah gifts ever.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK.
3
SPEAKER_00
And number one,
3
SPEAKER_00
was the Hanukkah that they gave Anne Frank a set of drums.
3
SPEAKER_00
As a writer, I m going, wow, I live to be a thousand.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, look, there s always this little bit of a competition.
3
SPEAKER_00
You go to read three.
3
SPEAKER_00
You go, oh, man, I should have thought of that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I could have done that.
3
SPEAKER_00
But there was certain people like when I was there, Michael O Donoghue or Ackroyd.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK, Ackroyd.
3
SPEAKER_00
I could never do basimatic, you know, where you would drink a fish.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I would just sit back and enjoy the ride.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s so great.
3
SPEAKER_02
So for a second, because John Belushi is an overarching person in the history of SNL.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you you wrote a lot of the samurai.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you hooked up with him and then wrote the final nine of them.
3
SPEAKER_02
How many were there?
3
SPEAKER_02
And what was that relationship like with John?
3
SPEAKER_00
There was like ten or eleven.
3
SPEAKER_00
The first one was John.
3
SPEAKER_00
auditioned for the show with that character.
3
SPEAKER_00
He brought that character to the show.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK, the very first one was written by Tom Schiller and it was Samurai Hotel, which was with Belushi and I want to say Richard Pryor.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK, which is the seventh show.
3
SPEAKER_00
Of the first season?
3
SPEAKER_00
From the first season.
3
SPEAKER_00
Ooh, juicy.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now the 11th show, the 11th show, Buck Henry was coming in.
3
SPEAKER_00
Lorne came up to me and said, before you got the job here, you worked in a delicatessen, didn t you?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I did.
3
SPEAKER_00
So he says, you think you can write Samurai Deli?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I went, oh yeah, that s a piece of cake, no problem.
3
SPEAKER_00
He walked away, I d go, what the hell am I going to do now?
3
SPEAKER_00
Samurai Deli.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wrote Samurai Deli and then all the other samurais, the eight or nine that came afterwards.
3
SPEAKER_01
Samurai Night Fever?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Samurai Night Fever I wrote.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s what I remember because it was so hilarious and the movie is such a huge hit and it sounds funny, Samurai Night Fever.
3
SPEAKER_00
It sounds very close.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sounds funny, yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you know who the host was for that show and was- John Travolta.
3
SPEAKER_00
Buck Henry.
3
SPEAKER_00
Nope.
3
SPEAKER_00
O.J.
3
SPEAKER_00
Simpson.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, whatever happened to him?
3
SPEAKER_00
Where is he?
3
SPEAKER_00
I just sort of lost track.
3
SPEAKER_00
He retired from football.
3
SPEAKER_00
He did naked gun.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know what happened.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now, do you think Samurai I mean, this probably obvious question could not be done in 2022.
3
SPEAKER_02
You guys.
3
SPEAKER_02
probably had the most leeway.
3
SPEAKER_02
Maybe my cast, I don t know, but it definitely changes at a certain point.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, obviously we did an Asian character who didn t, you know, but no more, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
Can t do samurai.
3
SPEAKER_00
I would think you re absolutely right.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, certainly from my era, Roseanne, Roseanne Adana, I don t think could see the light of day.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Why?
3
SPEAKER_02
Because some of her jokes?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because it was sort of,
3
SPEAKER_00
Puerto Rican ish.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, OK.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s right.
3
SPEAKER_01
OK.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the samurai.
3
SPEAKER_01
And she was in Puerto Rico.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
No.
3
SPEAKER_00
Those days are over.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I think that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know when it started, but it may have happened after you guys were there.
3
SPEAKER_00
It may have been within the last 10 ish years or so.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I don t have an exact, you know, when the woke thing and cancel culture and all politically correct.
3
SPEAKER_00
What s that?
3
SPEAKER_02
What are you talking about?
3
SPEAKER_02
No, go ahead.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it must get tough for every year because
3
SPEAKER_01
It seems to get, but the show still has funny stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s such a landmine to get through and go, well, this could rub people wrong.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the whole idea of the show was to rub people wrong and to get laughs and to shock people.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s really where it s hard because if that s the point of it and that s the point of being good and then you can t do that, what s left is so tough.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, for me, I just didn t...
3
SPEAKER_02
The idea that I was going to hurt someone never occurred to me or the idea I would decimate somebody sitting in the dark crying.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, I never even thought of that.
3
SPEAKER_02
So now I just do Western Europe.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can do France.
3
SPEAKER_02
I do Western Europe.
3
SPEAKER_02
I do Ireland.
3
SPEAKER_02
I ll do Britain, you know, but I don t go east.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can t do Indian.
3
SPEAKER_02
I don t.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I just say I could do put jump around.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not the problem.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can do all those cultures.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that s where I m.
3
SPEAKER_02
But I m fine with that.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can still do a beetle.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can still do Paul McCartney.
3
SPEAKER_02
So.
3
SPEAKER_00
I long for the days where we all made fun of each other and then went for lunch.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_00
We were friends.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s what you did.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, and
3
SPEAKER_00
And the people who object are usually not the people who you make the jokes about.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s some other group who is telling everyone, no, you can t do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
You go, wait a second.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the show was, you re absolutely right.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s what made it the hit that it was.
3
SPEAKER_00
It expanded all parameters.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if you go back and if these rule apply,
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, Lenny Bruce wouldn t have been around.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if Chico Marx could do the Italian accent that he did.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, no, he s out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Bruce is out.
3
SPEAKER_00
Chico s out.
4
SPEAKER_01
Carlin, done.
4
SPEAKER_01
Carlin stays in the suit.
4
SPEAKER_01
He doesn t go hippy-dippy.
4
SPEAKER_01
He doesn t go seven words, you can t stay.
4
SPEAKER_01
He does the hippy-dippy weatherman maybe.
4
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, it s an interesting idea.
4
SPEAKER_02
Even in movies, you see that the bad guys are only vague Russian.
4
SPEAKER_02
You know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_02
It s somewhere over there.
4
SPEAKER_01
We don t know where.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Thank you, Mr. Bond.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m from nowhere.
4
SPEAKER_02
You don t need to know where I m from.
4
SPEAKER_01
I am from nowhere and I am from everywhere.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I spit on your grave.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m just bad.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s all you need to know.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
But so I m cool with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I got a lot of tools.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m fine with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
But even talking about it now on this podcast, Fly on the Wall, available wherever podcasts are.
4
SPEAKER_01
It makes me a little nervous, you know, because, uh, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
Aren t we the ultimate?
4
SPEAKER_01
We talk too much.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m scared.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re too much.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re so white that it s not even, we re alabaster.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s, um, and some of us have very nice skin considering our age, as you pointed out.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what you ve done and I don t judge
4
SPEAKER_02
I ve seen you in a lot of clinics and it s working.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t judge Restylane.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know you ve done Dermabrasion.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how you ve done it or why you ve done it, but you ve done it and you look terrific.
4
SPEAKER_02
I did Dermabrasion on my wiener.
4
SPEAKER_01
Just end now though.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re good now.
4
SPEAKER_01
No more business.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re good.
4
SPEAKER_00
You look great.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, so any tighter, it would be like it would really be off the charts.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then people start to notice.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like Madonna, who I love, is wearing a mask.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think it actually she actually just wears a mask.
4
SPEAKER_00
What about James Caan?
4
SPEAKER_02
Oh, is he tighter now?
4
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
He s back to Sonny Corleone.
4
SPEAKER_00
Sonny Corleone, his eyes are bulging.
4
SPEAKER_00
Are we allowed to say bulging?
4
SPEAKER_00
You touch my sister again, I ll fucking kill you.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s all I remember.
4
SPEAKER_01
His bulging eyebrows.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I just put on glasses, fluff it up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Coppin  attitude is the big part of life.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, act young.
4
SPEAKER_02
Hey, Alan, you know, Steve Martin, who is probably one of my all time favorites, especially growing up, but still to this day, he s he s very, very you re tight with him because I saw you wrote on his best show ever.
4
SPEAKER_02
That was right in his fucking heydays like back then.
4
SPEAKER_02
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that was a live show that we did.
4
SPEAKER_00
the night before Thanksgiving, okay?
4
SPEAKER_00
So it was the Wednesday night, it was a live show.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was live.
4
SPEAKER_00
And boy, that was fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was because we had been away from the show
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, a year and a half, close to two years.
4
SPEAKER_00
So to get that rush, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
The way you can write something and a half hour later it s on television was really exciting.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s hard to do jokes where you do them in a movie and they sit for a year and you go, fuck, I got to wait because someone could step on it.
4
SPEAKER_02
Comedy does not sit well on a shelf.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s like, you just want to get it out right then, right then.
4
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And now I write books and plays and movies and if I m lucky,
4
SPEAKER_00
If I m lucky, it sees the light of day two years from now.
4
SPEAKER_01
Al Franken asked me to ask you another one.
4
SPEAKER_01
He said you wouldn t mind talking about your experience with the movie North Rob Reiner s movie.
4
SPEAKER_00
You can pass on questions about that, too.
4
SPEAKER_00
OK, here we go.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the sequel South.
4
SPEAKER_00
Remind me to thank Franken, by the way.
4
SPEAKER_01
OK, so this was a film done by Rob Reiner and
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, well, it started out as a book that I wrote.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Where s your first mistake?
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ended, I left SNL in 1980.
4
SPEAKER_00
Robin, my wife and I started having a family.
4
SPEAKER_00
And at one point, our son who was around seven, I was able to tell at the dinner table, by the way, he looked at me and Robin that the kid was thinking,
4
SPEAKER_00
I could do better than these.
4
SPEAKER_00
All right, so.
4
SPEAKER_00
Parents-wide, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
I wrote a book about a little boy named North who didn t feel appreciated by his parents, declared himself a free agent and went all over the world offering his services as his son to the highest bidding set of parents, okay?
4
SPEAKER_00
So I write the book for Random House and I got the manuscript.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now, Rob Reiner had hosted the third SNL ever.
4
SPEAKER_00
I send him the manuscript
4
SPEAKER_00
um just for a blurb for the book jacket and i remember the blurb he sent was if you read only one book this year i wouldn t call you an avid reader okay that was the blurb
4
SPEAKER_00
But he said, you know something, I really like this book.
4
SPEAKER_00
He said, you know, I m a director now.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m going, no kidding.
4
SPEAKER_00
He did Harry when Harry met Sally.
4
SPEAKER_00
Few good men.
4
SPEAKER_02
Few good.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
He said, I d like to do this as a movie.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s music to my ears.
4
SPEAKER_00
I moved the family out to L.A.
4
SPEAKER_00
OK, and
4
SPEAKER_00
Two years I ve spent writing this script, adapting my own thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now it s a $50 million movie.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, Bruce Willis, my old friend Dan Aykroyd, a little eight-year-old.
4
SPEAKER_00
actress, her first job, her name was Scarlett Johansson.
4
SPEAKER_00
All right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Elijah Wood.
4
SPEAKER_00
Elijah.
4
SPEAKER_00
John Lovett.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s Reba McIntyre.
4
SPEAKER_00
It just went on and on.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now it s too big to fail.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, let s discuss that.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, I think people are interested with a guy that a career where we have so many things work.
4
SPEAKER_02
This is just interesting because I ve had movies that I don t, I read and, and just somewhere along the way, it s not what I thought.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I think it s interesting to hear from you as you re saying along the way, something that is working, something happens and you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Something got derailed.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Did you ever figure that out?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, because it may have been episodic.
4
SPEAKER_00
He went to about eight different countries and might have read like a series of sketches, OK, with each set of parents.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it was the night of the premiere.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I flew my parents out from Florida.
4
SPEAKER_00
Boca Raton had two less Jews that night.
4
SPEAKER_00
They were in L.A.
4
SPEAKER_00
The movie and greatest night of my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
I adapted my own book.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s a 50.
4
SPEAKER_00
Then the reviews come out the next day.
4
SPEAKER_00
For those of you who don t remember.
4
SPEAKER_00
Roger Ebert s review of North, and I think this is what got in his hand, folks, his hand, the review, which I took on a paper, not even online, which I took out of a wallet.
4
SPEAKER_02
OK, Roger, you keep it with you at all times.
4
SPEAKER_02
Roger Ebert was a big, big reviewer back.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you know, he will.
4
SPEAKER_00
He and the biggest Gene Siskel had this show, the huge show.
4
SPEAKER_01
So let s hear it.
4
SPEAKER_00
OK, here s his review.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, boy.
4
SPEAKER_00
I hated this movie.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hated, hated, hated, hated this movie.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hated it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hated every simpering, stupid, vacant, audience-insulting moment of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would actually be entertained by it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now,
4
SPEAKER_00
On the surface, this may seem like an unfavorable review, but when you read it again and again, you know, I was devastated.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, boy.
4
SPEAKER_01
How long did it take you acutely to get past that?
4
SPEAKER_01
Two months?
4
SPEAKER_00
I would say I would say about six months.
4
SPEAKER_00
We lived in L.A.
4
SPEAKER_00
where, as you know, a lot of people root for other people.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Our son, Adam, went to Crossroads.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was a private school that we sent them to Santa.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he would not only he would get taunted by the other kids who are no business kids.
4
SPEAKER_00
He would he came home and said, Dad, is it OK if we change our last name to Sorkin?
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, so it was it was
4
SPEAKER_00
It was, it became difficult, but it took about, it took four to six months to get up off the couch.
4
SPEAKER_00
Cause I had given the guy the power to, um, you know, boy, you know, and it s always some somebody who s related to you.
4
SPEAKER_00
They mean well, but my father would say, don t read time magazine.
4
SPEAKER_02
I dog eared it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you ever have passive aggressive friends that would say something like, I don t I don t know if I should tell you this, but there s this review.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if you want to hear this as if they didn t want to just rub your face.
4
SPEAKER_01
So what was your I know you did curb your enthusiasm.
4
SPEAKER_01
What was your after North?
4
SPEAKER_01
What was your neck?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, I had written a success or he wrote.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, I had written a book that was a bestseller called Bunny Bunny.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was about me and Gilda.
5
SPEAKER_00
up.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it was my way of dealing with her death.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it became a successful off Broadway play.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that is even talk about doing it as a movie.
5
SPEAKER_00
But but God knows.
5
SPEAKER_00
But but curb curb was great fun because Larry s my old friend.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I also there was a big success.
5
SPEAKER_00
I collaborated with Billy Crystal on a Broadway show that won a Tony called 700.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, all about.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yes, for sure.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it was.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So Billy and you did a lot together as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
Go ahead.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
We did that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then we recently did a movie with Tiffany Haddish and him called Here Today.
5
SPEAKER_01
I thought it was great.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
5
SPEAKER_01
I did.
5
SPEAKER_01
Billy was awesome.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that really.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he directed it as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, so there s been peaks.
5
SPEAKER_00
But, you know, look, the valleys are, you know, I did when I was promoting the book.
5
SPEAKER_00
I did CBS Sunday Morning.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know that guy, Dr. John LaPook, who is their medical guy on it?
5
SPEAKER_00
He s Norman Lear s son-in-law, greatest guy in the world.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he had one of these kind of podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it was for CBS This Morning, it was called.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I was in the middle of pandemic.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the theme of it was,
5
SPEAKER_00
failures, okay?
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m going, gee, I m on with Norman Lear, and all you think about is all on the family and Maud and all that.
5
SPEAKER_00
He named 13 shows, a.k.a.
5
SPEAKER_00
Pablo, all these other shows I never heard of before.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you look at your idols and, you know, you look at the Paul Simons.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you re going to go into music, you re looking to go.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not everybody was a hit.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, there was a hundred percent.
5
SPEAKER_02
Never.
5
SPEAKER_02
Alan, when you did North to you, is there one point and we ll let it go.
5
SPEAKER_02
But is there a point during
5
SPEAKER_02
you see a rough cut and assembly or just clips or dailies where you go, I don t know if it s clicking.
5
SPEAKER_02
Because sometimes you re too close to it and you go, and people are like, oh, it s hilarious.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you re like, okay, good.
5
SPEAKER_02
Because you can t really tell a long way until you see it all together.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and then is there one point where people started getting nervous or you started getting a vibe like, uh-oh.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I you re absolutely right.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like this is old adage that no movie is as good as its dailies and not no movies as bad as the first cut.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, so our dailies were great because like I said, it was episodic.
5
SPEAKER_00
They were almost like sketches that we did.
5
SPEAKER_00
So so you judged it that way, strung together with a narrative
5
SPEAKER_00
Mm hmm.
5
SPEAKER_00
Go.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, boy.
5
SPEAKER_00
All right.
5
SPEAKER_00
What s what s wrong here?
5
SPEAKER_00
Then you played it in front of some audiences.
5
SPEAKER_00
And Rob was used to ninety five percent.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Ninety seven percent.
5
SPEAKER_00
The top two boxes with all of his hits.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I don t know if we were in the single digits, but we weren t in the high double digits by any.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
I have to go.
5
SPEAKER_01
I saw I just was about dailies.
5
SPEAKER_01
I have a theory about that because, you know, modern Woody Allen,
5
SPEAKER_01
I know he has his issues privately.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m a fan.
5
SPEAKER_01
He started using moving master shots.
5
SPEAKER_01
So a lot of threes and fours and people moving in the frame.
5
SPEAKER_01
So when I, some of the shitty movies I did that I wasn t in control of, the dailies are pretty good because there d be the moving master or a wide shot.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you would see it, all the rhythm, and then you d see it just fucking cut to pieces.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it doesn t go from funny to pretty funny.
5
SPEAKER_01
It goes from funny to incredibly not at all funny.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s just a directorial thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s what I admired about, you know, Billy when we did here today and also with Rob.
5
SPEAKER_00
I did a few movies with him.
5
SPEAKER_00
I ve been lucky to work.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m working with Barry Levinson now.
5
SPEAKER_00
Brilliant director.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we re writing something with him.
5
SPEAKER_00
And what I what Billy Crystal did
5
SPEAKER_00
in that movie here today where he played a character like Herb Sargent, like the senior writer at an SNL kind of show.
5
SPEAKER_00
And but he had the onset of dementia.
5
SPEAKER_00
And since you shoot movies out of sequence, where was he in the character s progression towards getting very hard?
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, so but he would come in every day knowing.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, so it s about the script.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, I was here.
5
SPEAKER_00
Now I m going to be here.
5
SPEAKER_00
So when it s cut together, it doesn t you know, it doesn t jump.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Cognition or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_00
But that s what the great directors do.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, they say, yeah, they make sure you stay on you and say where you are and where you re going to from here.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Can I see some some basic questions?
5
SPEAKER_01
Because I think
5
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because you re a writer and you ve had this long, long career and you re still, you re, you re writing a movie with Barry Levinson.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re 45 years in or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_01
What, what was it?
5
SPEAKER_01
about you, you think?
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you ever analyze, do you ever think like, why me?
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, how did I manage this?
5
SPEAKER_01
And what was the main characteristic that you think you needed to get through?
5
SPEAKER_01
Is it just keep going?
5
SPEAKER_01
Or what would you tell young writers who are listening to this podcast and dreaming of having your career?
5
SPEAKER_00
I would tell them, first of all, there are a lot of naysayers out there.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if you guys ran into them, whether it was a manager, an agent, sometimes your friends, you know, college friends, when they all went to med and law school and they came back Thanksgiving, they made fun of me because I was working in a deli and selling jokes to Morty Gunty.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think that, I think that, look, when this book starts, I m 21.
5
SPEAKER_00
At the end, I m now 71.
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s 50 years.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think if you stay in your lane, I don t think I could write for SNL now.
5
SPEAKER_00
I do miss the activity, that I do, that adrenaline rush and all of that.
5
SPEAKER_00
But with the exception of Weekend Update, which is jokes, which I think I would be able, I don t think that it would sound like an old man trying to predict
5
SPEAKER_00
what what what the kids are laughing at.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the with the movie here today, I could not have written 10 years ago until my father got dementia, until Billy s aunt got dementia.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we lived it.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I think it s like I think there s an audience for everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s honest.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think an audience can smell fraudulence a mile away.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
We put on a hat that really doesn t fit, you know, trying to stay.
5
SPEAKER_01
The word is relevant.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s sort of a thing of life for an older performer trying to stay relevant.
5
SPEAKER_01
It sounds so negative here.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah, if you try too hard, it can really back.
5
SPEAKER_02
You re trying to stay relevant.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s like I think you are your whole career.
5
SPEAKER_02
You just want to be in the mix.
5
SPEAKER_02
That s shouldn t be negative.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, you guys have certainly proved that you ve got longevity.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, how do you how do you do it?
5
SPEAKER_00
You do tell me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you go up and you do what you do.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I remember Lorne Michaels always used to say, he says, you just keep going.
5
SPEAKER_01
You never stop.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sidney Poitier told me that.
5
SPEAKER_01
You just keep going.
5
SPEAKER_01
He did?
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s that thing of like, you re just going.
5
SPEAKER_01
That or so, two nights ago.
5
SPEAKER_00
Lord would do that.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, there was an anecdote I have in my book.
5
SPEAKER_00
And this this literally happened when Shanling and I, we came back east to look for actors for its Gary Shanling show.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we went to catch a rising star.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we re at the bar was David Brenner, who I had not seen.
5
SPEAKER_00
Remember him?
5
SPEAKER_01
I flew on MGM Graham with MGM.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Graham.
5
SPEAKER_01
I flew.
5
SPEAKER_01
I d had a flight where I was sat with David for the whole flight and he had a tank top on.
5
SPEAKER_01
He was really tan.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I go, is your life awesome?
5
SPEAKER_01
He goes, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
He goes on sailboats and he has lots of girlfriends.
5
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, I remember it was very likable.
5
SPEAKER_00
He was a very, and he was always very nice to me.
5
SPEAKER_00
We walked into catch.
5
SPEAKER_00
I hadn t seen him in a while and I go, hi David.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he goes,
5
SPEAKER_00
All right.
5
SPEAKER_00
So me and Shanley go up to him and he goes.
5
SPEAKER_00
And now he I was hoping he was kidding.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would bet everything that he was not, though, because I was looking for some sort of a wink.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
He said, I figured out.
5
SPEAKER_00
What the funniest number is.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I like it.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I said, really?
5
SPEAKER_00
What?
5
SPEAKER_00
What number?
5
SPEAKER_00
He goes, guess.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I guess I go, David, there s lots of numbers.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t have this kind of time.
5
SPEAKER_00
He goes, Shanley goes, oh, that s the funniest number.
5
SPEAKER_00
So David looks around to make sure that nobody s no comments in the earshot.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
So nobody would hear this secret.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he whispers two hundred and sixty seven.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, you re kidding.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we go, he says, I ve tried them to 260.
6
SPEAKER_00
gets the best laugh.
6
SPEAKER_00
OK, so Shanley and I are now worried about David s mental health.
6
SPEAKER_00
We say goodbye.
6
SPEAKER_00
We leave.
6
SPEAKER_00
And when we were writing shows together, Gary and I, yeah, we need a joke here.
6
SPEAKER_00
Gary, how about 267?
6
SPEAKER_00
OK.
6
SPEAKER_00
Now, when I wrote this book, Steve Martin read it and gave me a very nice quote.
6
SPEAKER_00
But Steve couldn t believe that Brenner had done that, that 267 is the funniest number.
6
SPEAKER_00
So to this day, I ll send Steve an email
6
SPEAKER_00
that just says, well, I m going to make you laugh now, Steve, dot, dot, dot.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then I just write 267 and hold right back.
6
SPEAKER_00
He says, I really appreciate it, Alan, because I was having a 366 kind of day.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_00
Dana, I m going to take a wild guess and say that you re not in your kitchen.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m just, I m in a bedroom.
6
SPEAKER_02
Oh, you mean David Spade?
6
SPEAKER_02
No, no.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m in a bedroom, a guest office.
6
SPEAKER_02
I do a lot of stuff here.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
I don t really like to have grand things.
6
SPEAKER_02
David has a gigantic superstar Al Pacino and Scarface mansion.
6
SPEAKER_02
I have a humble townhome, but we don t know who has a greater net worth.
6
SPEAKER_02
And that s a question the audience is obsessed with.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have cocaine stucco on the outside of my wall.
6
SPEAKER_02
This guy, let me tell you, man, this guy got a house, man.
6
SPEAKER_02
You ll never see.
6
SPEAKER_02
I still do.
6
SPEAKER_02
I still do.
6
SPEAKER_02
You know how I m able to do Scarface when I feel like it?
6
SPEAKER_02
I say I m doing Al Pacino s eccentric, bizarre Cuban accent.
6
SPEAKER_02
So I m not saying that s right.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m just doing what you moved yourself.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
So, yeah, man, look at you.
6
SPEAKER_02
Look at your man.
6
SPEAKER_02
You got a face like a baby, like a little baby.
6
SPEAKER_02
Look at that, man.
6
SPEAKER_02
Look at you, man.
6
SPEAKER_02
You don t know Sega, but a bad guy.
6
SPEAKER_02
So it s a really fun accent to do.
6
SPEAKER_00
The bad guy.
6
SPEAKER_00
Your woman s hilarious.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
Distance between you and that.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_02
Great.
6
SPEAKER_02
Insane.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m just doing that.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m not doing Cuba.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think you re still going to get canceled, but good.
6
SPEAKER_02
So if you OK, here s another one I like.
6
SPEAKER_02
You re what you could never answer your favorite thing you ve ever worked on.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s either a sketch movie, a Broadway show.
6
SPEAKER_02
Oh, you ll never be able to answer this.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m just throwing it out.
6
SPEAKER_00
No, no.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I mean, I can throw out some 700 Sundays was really great because.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s about the process, you know what I mean?
6
SPEAKER_00
The product was successful, but the fact that my best friend trusted me with his family, who I never met, to put words in their mouths, it was something really honorable and glorious about it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think the book Bunny Bunny, because it was also from the heart, it was about Gilda,
6
SPEAKER_00
I had a children s book called Our Tree Named Steve, which was successful, but it was also about our family.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s more of the personal things, you know, I could say any of the SNL.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, when we started, when Gary and I started,
6
SPEAKER_00
I have the fondest of memories of when we started because we discovered each other, we became good friends, made each other laugh, and we were on for 72 shows.
6
SPEAKER_00
Then it got a little hairy towards the end.
6
SPEAKER_02
And why did it go off the rails a little bit in terms of your relationship?
6
SPEAKER_00
The relationship also is related to the work.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was married with three kids.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was the commissioner of my son s Little League, Little League.
6
SPEAKER_00
Is he dead?
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, and I wanted to write about that stuff.
6
SPEAKER_00
Gary, it s Gary Schilling show.
6
SPEAKER_00
Didn t have room for that.
6
SPEAKER_00
Gary played that single guy still trying to get it.
6
SPEAKER_00
So he resented.
6
SPEAKER_00
the time that I would think about something else.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I resented that I couldn t put this stuff into there.
6
SPEAKER_00
And by the time we ended the show, we weren t really talking.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it was he came back east.
6
SPEAKER_00
And he was at a hotel in Atlantic City, like the Borgata, one of those places.
6
SPEAKER_00
My wife, Robin, saw that he was going to appear there.
6
SPEAKER_00
And she said, I m bringing Alan down.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m putting you both in a room and you re not coming out until your friends again.
6
SPEAKER_00
You ve been through too much together.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s pretty much what happened.
6
SPEAKER_00
But Gary did Larry Sanders, you know, I did other things.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so we weren t on the same set every day or in the same offices.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I had to be pursuant to him.
6
SPEAKER_00
There was something about him that I still wanted.
6
SPEAKER_00
OK, I still need it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I still want it.
6
SPEAKER_00
And we got pretty close to getting back to it.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then he died, you know.
6
SPEAKER_00
So, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
I know grudges, you get wounded in show business, people fall out, all kinds of drama.
6
SPEAKER_02
I guess it s true in every business, but show business is so personal.
6
SPEAKER_01
And working very closely is tough, and especially if something is very important to both of you.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it s just almost inevitable you re going to go in some different directions writing and performing.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, what attracts you is about
6
SPEAKER_00
To have a writing partner is, okay, and I m gonna make up numbers now.
6
SPEAKER_00
Probably- 367, what was it?
6
267.
6
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
6
SPEAKER_02
The 80% we think alike.
6
SPEAKER_02
Okay, that s what draws you together.
6
SPEAKER_00
But the other 20%, you each bring something to it that you couldn t have done alone.
6
SPEAKER_00
So the alchemy is one and one equals three.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I had that beautifully with Gary.
6
SPEAKER_00
When I wrote Martin Short Show, I had it with him.
6
SPEAKER_00
I write with Dave Barry now, if you re familiar with him.
6
SPEAKER_00
He and I are.
6
SPEAKER_00
So there s an understanding.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it s different when you write with somebody for that person, because if they don t believe in it, even, you know, they re not going to say it with conviction.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s going to be false.
6
SPEAKER_02
So I love how much you just get up, you write every day.
6
SPEAKER_02
I mean, it seems like you re such a natural fit.
6
SPEAKER_02
Because for me, writing is the toughest part.
6
SPEAKER_02
I find it really exhausting.
6
SPEAKER_02
I have to take a nap after a two-hour writing session.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it is exhausting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s what made SNL so great, or any TV show, is osmosis and the synergy of all these people coming in and out of offices and whatever.
6
SPEAKER_00
I remember Lorne originally saying that the more initials
6
SPEAKER_00
that are on top of the first page of any sketch.
6
SPEAKER_00
The more he was happy with, that means it had the more sensibilities.
6
SPEAKER_01
Everyone puts their couple.
6
SPEAKER_01
You can always snag a good joke because everyone s good.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, here s something that I m pulling out of the same wallet.
6
SPEAKER_00
Remember the playwright Herb Gardner?
6
SPEAKER_00
He wrote A Thousand Clowns.
6
SPEAKER_00
He talks about a writer s life, OK?
6
SPEAKER_00
Your days are spent making up things that no one ever said to be spoken by people who do not exist for an audience that may not come.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s like total futility, it seems like it s like a real force of will.
6
SPEAKER_02
I find like if you know something s going or if you re going to be on a television appearance.
6
SPEAKER_02
you re very stimulated and very focused.
6
SPEAKER_02
But the idea of being in a room for so long and not knowing if it ll ever be seen or get made, that s the discipline of a writer.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s absolutely right.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s absolutely right.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Is this a waste of time ultimately?
6
SPEAKER_00
Is this not going to
6
SPEAKER_00
I see it, but maybe it s not going to touch somebody the way I do.
6
SPEAKER_00
And all that.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s very lonely to go full circle on this.
6
SPEAKER_02
What s so cool about you now?
6
SPEAKER_02
You re writing a movie with Barry Levinson.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
So pretty good shot.
6
SPEAKER_02
That ll get made.
6
SPEAKER_00
Is it live streaming or is it a it s probably like I think we see it as a feature, you know, but, you know, who knows now?
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Who knows now?
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, and there s another another one.
6
SPEAKER_00
Rob Reiner is now the head of Castle Rock again.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the director, Barry Sonnenfeld.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Wrote a memoir, which is hilarious, called Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother.
6
SPEAKER_00
Rob optioned it and they re hiring me to adapt it.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I ll be working with two Barry s, you know, if you count Dave Barry.
6
SPEAKER_00
But the
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
So in answer to your question, if you surround yourself or work with people like that, where the odds are better that it will reach fruition, you know, we ll materialize.
6
SPEAKER_00
It does give you a little bit more hope when you spend all these hours by yourself.
6
SPEAKER_02
So 50 years in and you re just really in demand.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s just nice.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s great.
6
SPEAKER_02
Obviously.
6
SPEAKER_02
And I ve been lucky, you know, and your book out that I ve gotten halfway through cause my Kindle was out of batteries, but anyway,
6
SPEAKER_02
What s the name of it right now?
6
SPEAKER_02
The one that s your current book about your life as a writer.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s called Laugh Lines.
6
SPEAKER_00
And the subtitle is My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for coming on, Alan.
6
SPEAKER_01
David.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s been great.
6
SPEAKER_02
This was great.
6
SPEAKER_02
We really enjoyed it.
6
SPEAKER_02
This is our our fans.
6
SPEAKER_02
Every all of them.
6
SPEAKER_02
My wife, David.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was just with Lorraine Newman, who told me she was on.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, that s right.
6
SPEAKER_00
She said she had a great time.
6
SPEAKER_00
She said she had a great time.
6
SPEAKER_00
Sweetheart.
6
SPEAKER_02
We love having writers on and love hearing their process.
6
SPEAKER_02
So I find it really, really, really interesting.
6
SPEAKER_02
And once again, there you are.
7
SPEAKER_02
Our Alan Zweibel just overarches the 50 years in show business.
7
SPEAKER_02
Your name is always kind of mentioned and it was always in the ether.
7
SPEAKER_02
Alan Zweibel is working on this or he s there.
7
SPEAKER_02
So congrats on that.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s pretty cool.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for having me.
7
SPEAKER_00
I had asked to be on it when I heard you guys were doing this even before I was.
7
SPEAKER_00
Was Tom the first one?
7
SPEAKER_00
Was Hanks the first one?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Pretty much.
7
SPEAKER_00
Even before I knew about that, I said to Laurie Jonas, the publicist, I said, I want to be on those guys.
7
SPEAKER_00
So thank you for having.
7
SPEAKER_02
Well, the only thing that a little weird happens, Franken has I let him have a feed to hear this.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I ll just quote it.
7
SPEAKER_02
It texted me.
7
SPEAKER_02
Alan Zweibel is a liar.
7
SPEAKER_02
Nothing he said.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thanks, Alan.
7
SPEAKER_00
Thank you to see you guys.
7
SPEAKER_00
OK, take care.
7
SPEAKER_00
We will.
7
SPEAKER_00
Good luck with it.
7
SPEAKER_02
We ll see you at some point.
7
SPEAKER_02
We ll see you at the 50th.
7
SPEAKER_00
We ll see you at the 50th, if not before.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
7
SPEAKER_00
Take care, guys.
7
SPEAKER_00
Take care.
7
SPEAKER_01
This has been a podcast presentation of Cadence 13.
7
SPEAKER_01
Please listen, then rate, review, and follow all episodes.
7
SPEAKER_01
Available now for free wherever you get your podcast.
7
SPEAKER_02
No joke, folks.
7
SPEAKER_02
Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13, executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment.
7
SPEAKER_01
The show s lead producer is Greg Holtzman with production and engineering support from Serena Regan and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.