Unlike Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, some of us actually know what's in his new health care bill. Ted Bundy was more pro-life than this hate-filled, murderous prick Paul Ryan. It's 3 a.m. Tuesday, May 9th, 2017. I'm David Feldman. We got a lot of show. Let's get right to it. On today's program, Jackie the Jokeman Martling. The man cannot be stumped.   There is not a joke on the planet that he has not heard. There isn't a joke he doesn't know. I continue to be amazed by giving him the punchlines to the most obscure jokes I've ever heard in my life. He knows the jokes. He is the world's leading curator of jokes, and he's on our show today, and he's coming back all the time. Jackie the Jokeman Martling. He cannot be stumped. Journalist Sam Kiniones is author of the new best-seller Dreamland, the true tale of America's opiate epidemic. He tells us why our country's growing OxyContin and heroin epidemic is actually good news for Donald Trump. We also have my friend. He hosts WFMU's Seven Second Delay with Kevin and Andy. WMFU is a legendary radio station in Jersey City, New Jersey. There's been a documentary about WFMU. One of the great, great radio stations. Andy Breckman, host of WFMU's Seven Second Delay with Kevin and Andy, stops by. Andy is also the creator of Monk, and he's written some of your favorite movies. He just won a Writers Guild Award, and one of the ways he keeps his sanity is by doing a radio show for WFMU. It's called Seven Second Delay with Kevin and Andy. Can you imagine that? A comedy writer who keeps his sanity by doing a radio show? I've never heard of anything like that. We go to Paris to catch up with World Politics Review editor-in-chief, Judah Grundstein, who tells us about the French voters' decision on Sunday to reject all things Trump. Fascism, nationalism, anti-intellectualism. They didn't vote for the Nazi in France. Also from Letterman and The Simpsons, author of Everything's Coming Up Prophets, The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals, Steve Young. We decided to put Andy Breckman and Steve Young to legendary comedy writers in the same room. They both wrote on Letterman, not at the same time. It's kind of interesting. Andy Breckman was one of Letterman's first writers. Steve Young was one of, I think he wrote for Letterman 26 years. I think that's a record. He's also doing a documentary based on the book, Everything's Coming Up Prophets, The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals. Howie Klein stops by to tell us, just when you think the Republican Party couldn't sink any lower, they strike oil. Stay with me. You're listening to the David Feldman radio program, Use Sad Pathetic Hump. Welcome to the broadcast. I'm David Feldman. DavidFeldmanshow.com. Please friend me on Facebook. Follow me on Twitter. Please do all your Amazon shopping via the David Feldman show website. Just go to davidfeldmanshow.com. 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Can you send it to me? By the way, if you're a subscriber, you will be getting an email from me this month with the password. We haven't changed it, but we just want to remind you and encourage you to check out the premium content, especially if you're a monthly subscriber. We gave you a bonus episode on Sunday.  That's fantastic. You should check that out. Angela Cobb, Sean Donnelly, and the most evil man in the world, Pat Dixon is on the show.  And then on Sunday, we got pretty upset about this new health care bill. We've been fooling around a little too much on the show with the comedy. My producer, Alex Brazil, decided to run an episode from the vault called Medicare for All. We recorded this about three years ago. Strongly urge you to listen to it because it'll explain the problem with Obamacare. Why Obamacare isn't enough. Why we need Medicare for All that'll give you insight into the insurance companies and how we are the only industrialized nation that wants to murder its own. It's pretty, pretty shocking. Speaking of shocking, my good friend, Jimmy Lee Wirt, he works on this show. He does a lot of our web work. He's opened up a horrible store. It's called OMF, I'm sorry, omfgamazon.com. Check it out. It's some of the sickest stuff you'll ever see in your life. It's a store powered by Amazon. What Jimmy did is he curates the most horrible stuff for sale on Amazon. He is selling it on his store omfgamazon.com. That's omigod, amazon.com, but it's omfgamazon.com. Go check it out. There's like a, I think it's a 10-gall, I can't even tell. I can't even, we have too many serious people on today's show. Just check it out. It's pretty disgusting. Speaking of disgusting, Paul Ryan has been making the rounds of the talk shows defending his new healthcare plan. He says, you know, this healthcare plan is all about personal responsibility. Okay, Paul Ryan, you are personally responsible for 50 million dead Americans. Congratulations, Paul Ryan. Your new healthcare bill is going to kill more Americans than the Spanish flu. Sleep well. You cross between Eddie Munster and a worm-filled turd. All right, we're going to have fun today. We're going to have fun today, I promise you. We're going to talk Trump with Howie Klein, France with World Politics Review, Editor-in-Chief, Judah Grunstein. We're going to talk about the heroin, the opiate epidemic in America with Sam Kinones, author of Dreamland. But first we're going to have fun with Jackie the Joke Man. We're going to lighten the mood and talk about jokes and hear some jokes. And then we're going to talk to two comedy writers. So I've been trying to get in the same room for a couple of years, Andy Breckman and Steve Young. This will be very interesting because Andy was Letterman's first writer, Steve Young, his longest running writer. We'll talk about raising funny kids. And then we eat our vegetables with Sam Kinones, author of The New Best Seller Dreamland and Howie Klein and Judah Grunstein. Stay with me, please. You're listening to the David Feldman radio program.  Jackie the Joke Man. Now we can talk. Now we can talk. Jackie the Joke Man is no stranger to this show. Just a stranger to women who are under the age of 90. Please. Alex just reminded me that I know him.  You remember, right? He recorded like a two hour podcast. Up at your house. Right. And then announced that we didn't have it. I never heard that story. Have I got the right guy? Oh, that's great. It was killer. It was me and Micah Fox and some gorgeous stand up bass player and Liam Mechanekinigernagy. Are those at my show? Are you talking about my show? Liam's show. Because you did my live show a year and a half ago. No, no. They recorded it at my home up on my patio. I made them lunch and steak and maybe I had steak before they got there. I forget. And we did this incredible podcast and all of a sudden whoever was the engineer said, wow, we got a start over. Which is always a comedian's favorite thing. That was Alex who did that. I don't know if it was Alex, but he just, he never told me that. I know you from somewhere and he said, yeah, I was with Liam. We came out the house and all of a sudden I'm like, oh yeah, you ought to. Statue of limitations, you're off the cuff.  It was the greatest podcast. We'd be superstars if he had in a lost time. Thank you for having me here. The reason I'm out of my mind is because I looked on the map and I always do the thing where, okay, that's a thousand feet and this is Broadway Lafayette and this is 99 Avenue B, not to give away this apartment number 503, whatever it is. So of course I'm going to walk. It's a lot, you know, the thousand feats that I added together came to like less than a mile. I'm sure I walk 14 miles to get here. How far is it from Broadway Lafayette subway station to here? Is it healthy? Sure. It's healthy. We sent you a subway car. Oh my God. That's, I'm a David Feldman show. We spare no expense.  I have greetings for you from Roy McDonald from Bright Shot. I don't know if you know him and Steve Grillo, formerly the Stern Show. We just had a nice and Monique. We had a great gang. Irene, we have a great gang we have lunch with. But I went, I actually went to meet with an agent because I want to get some acting roles and I thought I was going to walk in there. She said, okay, you got a resume and she talked to me for an hour and a half, you know? So I apologize for being late, but she feigned being interested. Well, Jonathan Katz says hello. Oh, I love the Jonathan man. How was you guy? We were down in Philadelphia doing a benefit and I said, I have to, I stayed overnight and I said, I have to get back, honey. And so he let me out of the bed and he said, tell Jackie. I said, he loves all your, we're talking about all the stuff, the merch that you give us. You know what Sin Bear used to call it? Jack's knick knacks. I got his knick knacks. I, let me introduce you to my audience. Hello audience. Because you are Jackie, the joke man.  And I, I have been out of the comedy, the whole time I was on the Stern Show, I was not in any loop. I would go to Chicago and headline. I go to Denver and headline. It was usually not even an opening act. Like the local DJ'd say, here's Jackie and I do an hour or an hour and a half and get paid a fortune. So I was out of the whole comedy. So I don't know anybody.  But, but so I don't know. So everybody's like David Feldman, David, you know, the palms for before your feet. And to tell you the truth, Alex, I haven't been impressed yet. I'll tell you one thing.  Was it as much fun as I thought? That's one of that. You got, you were lubing up the audience for Gilbert. You know, go figure, right? Right. I guess there's a beauty to it when he only does, only 10 minutes. You know, I got to go. I got to go. Jackie the Jokeman has a new book coming out. It's called The Jokeman, Bow to Stern by Jackie Martling, forward by Artie Lang. And it comes out around Thanksgiving. I believe it's going to come out October 24th, 2017. I can't wait. I'm so excited because it's right in time for Christmas. It's a perfect holiday gift. I tell everybody, I said to Artie, it's easy to wrap. And he thought, why would you wrap your book? I said, I don't mean easy, Jackie, go to Jackie. I'm talking to physically wrap as a holiday gift. And if you've got five friends that are Stern fans, you order five and you know, that's an extra two days shopping you don't have to do. You can go get high, you know. You were on the show a year and a half ago. We did a live show from QED and you were great. I had so much fun and I got in so much trouble that night. What happened?  You're Jackie the Jokeman. But I'm not a horny, lecherous, weird guy. You know, I've been fooling around with girls on stage for 30 years. I've been saying rude things, doing rude things, but I don't grab any buddy's boobs. But I'm very off color and do all kinds of crazy stuff. And I was doing Keith and the Girls podcast. I probably had done it three or four times.  And so it's politically wild all over the place and it's wonderful. And I completely support all of that, of course. And, you know, and people come on that show and then be young girls on the show and I would say, hey, you know, here's my email, send me an email. But it was never to flirt with anybody. The reason I want people's emails is, by the way, folks, Jokeland at AOL.com.  I say where I'm working and I send dirty jokes. And they're the best.  You know, I mean, I got this disease that I have always had to share these jokes. You've watched it because it's just how I am. So I'm constantly getting people's email address. But guys, girls, whoever, never think in anything.  But I tell jokes about everything. And then Keith started having me just calling out of a clibless guy. I'd never be listening to the show. So all of a sudden, he'd take a phone call for me and in the middle of whoever they were talking to, which was you, somebody incredibly politically correct, I would tell a really foul off-color joke and then hang up. And his audience loved it. So I go to do your show. And I absolutely loved it. My girlfriend from 40 years ago, her brother's there. So long ago, I didn't recognize her brother.  And it could have been a more fun atmosphere. And I think we were doing soundcheck. And I was standing up on the stage next to Hemda. And I never in my life have ever done this. But she was standing next to me and I goosed her. Like, you know, I don't mean I stuck my finger.  They won't talk to me. I'm not allowed near the show. If I talked to anybody, they're not allowed. I mean, I have apologized, emailed, told everybody I know. I have no idea. You know, it was like Flip Wills and the Devil made me do it.  It's like tickling somebody.   I was killing time while we're waiting for the levels to get right. And you and then all of a a sudden I was like, you know, and when are we on the show? We know you're just sitting there waiting to say something foul or to flirt with the girls. And you think that any of those girls are interested in an old man like you. I'm like, I wonder if they're thinking this the whole time. So I'm just using this platform. If you see them till I'm once again, Jackie is so sorry.  You know, it's so funny. I insulted Patty Davis Reagan on the show. And then it was a it was a huge thing. And she called I did it at an event and she called up and I'm apologizing to her.  I like I just did, you know, what did you say? Now, Patty Davis is Ronald and Nancy's daughter. That is a chapter. That was one of the best chapters in the book. I love her because I don't know what you I'm curious to find out what you said. I always blame the children for the parents. It's not because the parents are sociopaths. So you have to blame the kids. So the kids steer them. Right, you know, right. My kids, if I have forced them to take a stand where where they might not have taken a stand otherwise, if I show up to a school event with a fleck of dandruff on my lapel, I am dead to my kids. How you embarrass me? Your glasses were dirty. Well, they know it was Coke. Yes. But you know, Jenna Bush, her father kills three million Iraqis.  Yeah, right. Patty Davis disapproved of the Reagan administration. She disapproved of her mother and her father. And she spoke out and then spread her legs in Playboy. That's what she did. She said, I do not approve of what they're doing to the Sandinistas. I do not approve of tax cuts for the rich. Look at my vagina.  No. There's no big, you are the, you know, I'm going to wreck my book for the fans of this show. Not wreck my book. I'm going to wreck, I'm going to give one of the punch lines to my book. Okay. It's one of the best. Do you want me to tell you a story? By all means. Just to wreck your book, not for the show. Just wreck your book. So my book is coming out October 24th. And what it is, it's, I would say it's 30 or 40% me and then 40, you know, enough about me. What do you think of me? You know, it's like 30% me and then 70% me on the Stern Show. You know, my point of view, everybody knows everything that happened on that show, but it's from my point of view. And this, obviously some tidbits in there and stuff. People don't know, but not that much, but it's fun and it's funny. And everybody loves it. That's Reddit. My mother who's passed away. And really? So, yeah, so. Oh my God. No, she didn't really read it, but she really just passed away. So I got to cancel the room at the risk. So why didn't you tell, when did this happen? See, and we missed the whole story. I walked in here and David said, don't mind the smell. My roommate is in here and a whore died in here and we're doing everything we can to keep the smell here. It was the greatest joke in the world and it was lost, but I brought it back because I do that. So, so. Thank you for, thank you so much for talking about the locker room conversation that goes on before you. I'm giving you the first laugh. So that, if you predate it, that's, it was the first laugh of the podcast. So, so 30% of these stories about me, but my whole book is stories. They're like modular one page, three pages, eight pages, but you could sit down and read a chapter on the toilet. Your books are great for just a quick read. It's, it's, you can read one chapter or you can read 40, whatever you want to do.  They're almost, almost everyone is an actual person.   You're the painter. You know your stuff. They told me how many words, okay?  You know, this one went away and this one stays, you know, that's the, this is the jokes that made the team and inserted everybody's names that I know. I figured they know what they're doing. They were off by a factor of three. They, they, if for argument's sake, they told me 150,000 words and I only needed 50,000. The book is due. I'm like, what the, so I had to get rid of two thirds of the book. So I have people I hardly know whose names in the book. It's really funny. All right, so Patti Davis. So, so Patti Davis, what year are we talking about? 19, the issue is in Playboy. Oh, okay. I would guess 94, give or take three years, whatever. So, so each of these stories is modular. So this is the Patti Davis Reagan incident and she came on the show to promote the fact she was nude in Playboy and everybody knows the reason she came on.  Hey, you know, you were the president, I don't agree with you. And she was estranged from the family, et cetera. I got a call from Playboy. We need you to host a show at Webster Hall with Jenny McCarthy. And at the time, Jenny McCarthy was the host of a show called Hot Rocks, which was the Playboy version of MTV, you know, videos, but they were the videos that were too dirty or too hot for MTV, but they weren't too hot for the Playboy channel. So these very, very hot videos are being played and she's the DJ. So that was Harry, here's Charlie. I have my guest today is Jackie Maron. Say hello, Jackie. Hi everybody. Okay, that was and then introduce the next video. So she's doing the wraparounds downstairs. So they asked me to host this and they tell me who's they're going to be there.  Okay. Al Lewis, grandpa from the Munsters. Grandpa from the Munsters, Gilbert Godfrey, Patty Davis Reagan, probably Mason Williams. What's that? Mason Reese.  So I'm on my way in. I'm like, you know what, let me write a quick blurb about each person so that when we're introducing them, you know, we supposedly we're going to do some kind of show and there's going to be and I look over there is Gilbert Guy and look over there. Right.  Whoa, that's I get to the thing and it's a shitshow. There's room for 600 people. They invite 6,000 people. There's 6,000 guys and three girls jammed into Webster Hall. Sounds like my honeymoon. That's just the bedroom and it was crazy. So of course I don't get to do even say hello. There's everybody we say, I'm Jackie. This is Jenny. Isn't she hot? Have a good time. So we go downstairs or into the next room where my friend Eric Middlemann is producing the wrap arounds for Hot Rocks. They think it's fun to do the wrap arounds in the next room for where the Playboy party is. It's to give it some possession. Right. Yeah. So we're there and we're doing them and I'm drinking and Jenny's drinking and I never met her and we were hitting it off. We're having a great time. You know what I mean? I'm thinking, oh, I could bang her. You know, of course not. So I say, you know what, there was like a cameraman and Eric was the producer and the cameraman, like a lighting guy and make, you know, skeleton crew, five people.  It, you know, it's a little heavy, but it's so funny. Tell me if I should use this. I tell them the joke.  Jenny says, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We come back. Hey, Jackie, you got any jokes? Well, as a matter of fact, and I told the joke and she's a sport. She laughs just as hard today and now everybody roars. Great, great, great, great. So I must add four or five, six beers. I killed them with the joke. I'm killing with Jenny's the best audience. I'm telling, you know, me, I get going.  So I'm on fire and I go upstairs and walk through the double doors to the VIP door, VIP bar at, I think it was Webster Hall and the doors open and nose-to-nose, nose-to-nose with Patty Davis. And I go, Patty, you know, because I keep it on show, I think twice. And I said, Patty. And she knew who I was. I said, that's so funny.  And I told her the joke. And as I'm saying the punchline to the joke, I realized that the joke is funny to every human being on the planet, accept her. Because I didn't know, but in the time lapse, from the time she posed naked to the party, her father's condition had worsened and she had been accepted back into the fold and they were a happy family again. I have no idea this. She went white. She went ballistic. It's a playboy party and she's Patty and I'm jacking the joke. Man, the bulbs are going off. It's crazy. I never talk so fast.   So the next day is Friday. So she yelled at you. Oh, she went ballistic. It's a miracle. She didn't kill me.  Hold on. No, no, no. And then we took a picture after that. It was me and her. I'll show you the picture you got to put on your website. It's me and Patty and the playmate of the year from Russia and Jenny McCarthy and the four of us are there and three of us having time of our lives. Lives and Patty looks like she just ate a lemon. Okay. So the next day, nothing happens on a stern show. And I'm like, I skate. Meanwhile, the party was the night before. So of course there's nothing in. I'm a Long Island boy. I don't read the post, huge thing in the post. I don't see, of course, I walk in Monday, six o'clock in the morning, the mics go on. Well, Howard, he did it again. So she starts to say, read the thing that Jackie Marling insulted the ex-president's daughter and was so horrible on Jack, Jack, Jack and Howard's berating me and what's wrong with you and we can't send you out. And I mean, I'm getting scolded by my parents and 10 minutes, 15 minutes into it, Gary comes and says, Howard, a lot of phone calls. This is one of the jokes Howard. So he says, all right, and I tell them the joke. I'll tell you the joke.  And then, of course, it finally calmed down after a half hour and an hour. The next morning, she calls in and Howard goes into the whole thing, belating me and going crazy.  And I'm like, I refuse to take it seriously. And as much as they try to make it serious, I'm trying to pick her up on the phone.  You know, whatever. So it was two days of, it was absolute unbelievable radio. And I really could have cared less. But the joke was, I said, Patty, you know, they say that you were the first one to know that your father at Alzheimer's because he started returning your phone calls. Which is a perfect joke. A perfect joke.  I'm going to wind up getting killed by the sequence. Now it's like saying, don't you know? So that is one of the greatest. So she called in to complain about you? The next day. Well, and she's like everybody. She's calling in also. It doesn't hurt her name. And she knows she's got a... As I remember, she was so mad at you, she spread her legs for hustlers. Yeah. So when you're being braided by... It was so hypocritical. And I just then it made them nuts that they couldn't get me to crack and feel bad. You know, not to make a bad joke. But when they berate you, they're just doing it for entertainment. That's not heartfelt. No, no. And they know it.  But sometimes, you know, and how it could be so convincing with the... I still have listed the gel on me. He's got me on Rodney Dangeville $3,000 and I borrowed $1,000 and it was paid back, you know. And, you know, one day we went to... There's a whole thing they play on the air all the time. And I'm the one that went around to Denver and Chicago. And, you know, I'd go and do a show. But I'd also do whatever the station wanted.  You know, because I love it. I love people who are having fun, trying to get laid out thing. And so I knew all the owners and then the station owners and the general managers, then general manager down in Florida, you know, I'd go down there and done the Toys... I would say Toys for Tots. Toys for Tots motorcycle thing. You know, all this stuff. And me and Nancy never had it together, the book vacations. And all here is, you know, December. I'm like, oh, sure. So I called Dave in Florida. I said, Dave, me and Nancy, it was too late. Can you help us get a room? And he said, well, yeah, let me see. And he said, oh, you know what, Gloria Estefan and her husband have a place above the Cardozo Hotel. And then I could be there.  You know, they have friends of mine. I never asked for discount. You know, I just said, sure, fine. So we go down, go on vacation and pay for the room the whole deal. And all of a sudden we come back after a bit. Uh-oh. Jackie called the manager and glommed himself a hotel room and he goes to the whole thing and goes, how you use in my name. I mean, well, networking is, first of all, the whole business and everybody knows that. Listeners don't know that. But of course, it's all trade and, you know, and I've done more than my share of favors anyway. But it wasn't a free room. So he goes on and on. How I glommed. You're using my name. You can't use my name. You went and got a room. You got, got, got, got, got, got. He goes to the whole thing. And he gets done. I said, all right, well, now that you're done with your phone, I think I only fear for me to tell you that we paid for the room. They edited that. Sorry, time it airs. They finless this thing that I ripped off. Which is, which is dirty pool, but that's, you know, this is the business we have chosen. You know, I didn't get upset at it every time. You know. Why do you think, I, I, I don't want to talk about Howard, but I just, very quickly, and then we'll move on. I, I never get, people come up and say, he asked me questions. They go, you must be sick of hearing that.  I live in a house on the water. He paid for it. At least that's what he says. When did you, you joined the show? When? What year? That is that the epic tale of what led me there is a very important great part of my book. But what happened was I was a musician. I became a joke teller. I started making albums. I sent my albums to him in 1982 because I send them everywhere. And a couple months later he called up and said, Hey, we got your albums and we think you're funny. You know, every joke when we're doing a contest over the telephone on the show today. Do you want to come in? I had no idea who he was, what he was. All I know is that Harry Monacruz was down in. Washington. Garb. Garbans laugh. Told me this guy got fired down here. He's going to NBC. You should look him up. And me and my wife, it's one of my wife. Is Harry still around? Oh, yeah. Me and my wife are sending, by the time it got to be 1982, I had three comedy albums, three LPs, like LP LPs with the matching cassettes. And we sent them to everywhere. If I ran into you on the street and you said, Oh, yeah, my uncle has a club, you got the whole package. Hey, you should look up this guy, Howard Stern. Howard Stern care WNBC. That's how I got to him. That's how I got the Gershaw Legman, the classic. I was just going to talk about Gershaw Legman. Well, that guy, and that's how I got Rodney. A blind letter, right? So. So I started reading that book, by the way, that you gave me. The Gershaw Legman. The big, thick one? Yep. Oh, I'm so glad I sent it to you. That's great. Thank you for that. Go ahead. Oh, I liked you. So, I don't know why. So, we get the album. So I say sure. And I mean, I'm in my mother's attic. The first jokeland is in my mother's attic.  And I said, sure. Nancy goes up and says, Oh, that disc jockey called. He wants you to come in.  He got right on the phone.  And it's like, it's a far cry from Governor's Comedy Shop in Levittown. And I walk in and it's Howard, Robin, Fred. And I sat down, which was the exact same combination my last day in March of 2001. Same for people. So we do this show.  Won't you come back next week? He could have just as well said, thank you very much. You know, it was nice to meet you. I got a hair in my throat.  The dial jokes is exploding. And then next week, yeah, yeah, Jackie 9 today. Won't you come back and after the second week he calls me up and says, I got some bad news.  But we want you to come in.  I thought you're calling up the telling cell. And I was I was there one day a week for free for three years. So I and along the way and finagling, you know, like, giving an idea here and a line there and kind of give me dirty looks like I don't need your help. And then how about some more help? And then when it came to 1986, he had been fired, rehired, he called up and said, David, I made millions of dollars. And we were on 55 cities. And we're the greatest radio show in history. And my entire job description, the entire 18 year run, Jackie, I need a price. We're going to mornings. I need two days a week.  That was my total discussion, job discussion. I want you to come in and do your thing with the notes because at that point, it was to the point where I had a stack of paper, a sharpie, and I'm writing notes and putting them up and from and I went from two days to five days within a month or two. Because he was funny when I was there.  So and that and that was the total discussion. That's as far as it ever went. And you know, people, some people knew I was writing notes. Some people didn't to this day is people that, you know, because I got picked on enough and laughed good enough that it almost was enough to justify my presence. You know, just being just laughing. And look at that. Yes, all over there. You know, in meanwhile, you have the things he's saying to me that are horrible. I'm right. You know, so what do you think? What do you think the stern phenomenon can be explained down to? Is it the authenticity, the honesty? No, it's as simple as he went where nobody ever went on the radio before he talked. He described when he was a kid. He listened to the radio and said, why don't these people talk like people? He came on the radio and talked like a person. Talk like the talk like kids in fifth grade. Right. You know, we used to say 24 hours of fifth grade fun was one of the promos, you know. But then it could get incredibly smart. It could be top of the line smart and then turn into a fart joke, which was the beauty of the whole thing. Gershon Legman, you are a genuine student of jokes. Well, that's the whole deal. And this book, you gave me part two, which is about a thousand pages. For you people that don't know, if you saw the aristocrats, there's a shot of Gershon Legman's book from the side, Rationale of the Dirty Joke, part two. There are two huge volumes, about two inches thick, volume one, volume two. This guy, Gershon Legman, was a guy that collected erotic folklore, which is a nice way of saying dirty jokes. All over the United States, he worked, he was at the University of Pennsylvania, they wouldn't give him a grant. So he's an expat expatriate.  And he was a professor. He had been a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was such a character. Now, I hadn't heard of him. Nobody that I knew is so happenstance. But when he wrote these books, he was kind enough to put the jokes themselves in italics, which is so great because you can just go from italics to italics. You can read it as a joke book.  And then, you know, you can't, it's like the Bible, you can't sit and read a lot at one setting. I can only read five pages, 10 pages as much.  And it's all in there. And then I'll come across something like, oh, I get, that's in there, right?  Well, we've talked about this on the show, that my favorite joke is my wife cut me down once a week. That's not so bad, too. Guys, I know she cut out all together. Right. And on the last show, I mean, to me, that is the, the ur text of all comedy. That's the joke that somebody wrote for Rodney specifically for him, and it was two black guys talking to each other in the Civil War, and the subject was rationing. You know, they rationed cigarettes, they rationed chocolate. My wife even cut me down twice a week. Well, man, I know something.  And it's like, there's the joke. And I'm like, holy 1863. And meanwhile, that's from forever ago. So this guy, so I am a voracious joke teller. I love them. I knew them in the 70s. I was in a band and we told jokes. It wasn't even a band. It was two guys with guitars. We tell, play songs, original songs and tell jokes. And by then I knew all the jokes and I would take a break and somebody come up and say, all right, I got one you haven't heard. And you say, all right, I'll count down from 10. I want to get to zero if I don't know the joke, I'll buy you a beer. I never bought a beer.  I mean, I could see the whole thing, right? So we didn't know anything. So we're two guys playing guitars and telling jokes in the same two bars every week. Nobody bothered to tell us that a comedian has an act and plays the different audiences. So we're doing the same audience every week. So we got to have a different act every night. Not really an act, but I knew every joke, but you go through them all so fast. So we're going through voraciously through every book. We was every right. Fox album backwards and forwards and anything to get a new joke or a new line. I was like, I got a great new joke. I'm going to make Bates laugh. That was my partner. So I'm master Bates and I'm looking at the back of a comic book or some periodical.  Count Basie plays Mary Poppins. You know, so I'm looking also and I see rationale of a dirty joke, part two.  So I signed up for the other 45 books and this thing comes and it's this joke book with the jokes in italics and I'm like, what the wow. I feel like somebody just mailed me, you know, this I couldn't dream that this existed. So I go to the forward and the guy so he goes on and on and on and the forward is about 30 or 40 pages. So I start reading the forward and I get and so I flip to the end of the forward and it says G. Legman, Valbonne, France and a city code. I got nothing to lose. I write a letter. Dear Gershawn, I am flipping out as a joke teller at this book of yours. This is 1977. Forget internet. I have no idea where to go look for the first volume of this two volume set. No idea what to do. Can you help me at all? And I put in cassettes of our jokes and all kinds of horseshit. I got nothing to lose. I mailed to France a couple of weeks later. What a wonderful thing you said. I love your cassettes.  I really love it. You know, I have two copies of the first series. I don't need two of them. Send me $18 and I'll send you one. So I sent him my copy of the first volume has all his corrections in the margin and pencil because he had made the corrections for the second printing, which of course was never ever. I think they probably sold three books. So then I was like, whoa, and we became pen pals and we're writing back and forth. And then at some point, Martin Lewis, do you know who that is? The magician. We're down in flow. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Martin Lewis. Martin Lewis. His father was a magician. Martin, I lived with Martin Lewis in Sacramento for a week because we were working together and they put us up in a house. This guy sent me out to buy a deck of cards and I handed it to him and he said, what do you want me to do? I said, deal me a full house. He would open it up. I had bought the deck of cards and he dealt me a full house. Is he not one of the best magicians? I'm working with him in Florida and I'm drunk most of the time. He's just at the light. It's me and him and Bob Nelson and Adam Leslie. And it could have been more fun. And all I remember is him saying to some of the audience, what is your name, sir? Have you any idea? So one night we're in the car and he tells us the aristocrats and then he tells the kernel joke, which I don't know if you know, but in the movie, the aristocrats, I said, well, the guy told me that I got to tell you. And so the kernel joke is in the DVD extras of the aristocrats. The aristocrats joke I noticed is at the very end of the Gershon. The Gershon book. That's the whole, and if you, did you see my dirty joke book? It's the last joke in my dirty joke book. That's an homage to Legman, okay? So I hear this joke from Martin Lewis and I love it. By the way, Gershon is a Hebrew name for pulling my, his real name is pulling my leg, man. My Legman, I followed and I'm sure your audience did do that, both smarter than us. So, so I tell the joke, nobody knew the joke except my friend Dave Hawthorne, who was partners with Billy Crystal in 1971. You know, he'd been around the block, but no comedians don't know jokes. I don't know from anything. And then at some point, I don't know why or where, you know, sometimes you start at the end of a book, I open to the end of the rationale. The second big thick joke book. It's the last joke on the last page of the second volume. I'm like, Jesus Christ, there's that joke, the aristocrats. Not only that, it was my favorite joke. And Legman's entire premise, if you've read enough about him, is that you are totally defined by what you think is funny. And I thought that was the funniest joke in the world.  He said, here's a guy who was raised in squalor by two parents that constantly fought, but stayed together for the good of the children.   I sent him money, he would take the bus. Gershon Legman would take the bus, go to Cannes, and make me Xerox copies of each page, and send him, and then I started making more and more money with the Stern Show, so I'd send him $100 to take his wife out to dinner, and he had no money, so I like, and his daughters would run around the south of France wearing stumped joke man T-shirts, you know, it was like, and this is years, this is eons before the aristocrats movie, and what happened was when the internet happened, I put that joke, as told by him, on my webpage, and my version of the joke, and did a whole thing about the aristocrats, and when Paul Provenzen and Penjaleck came to my apartment, they said, Marlene, we have to put you in the movie, because we did a search on the web for the aristocrats joke, and we only got two hits, and they were both in your page. So that's the story. I had actually heard, when I was a kid, I had actually heard the aristocrats joke. Is that right? Yeah, so, but Gershon Legman going back to him, so he was a PhD, a doctor? I'm pretty sure he's PhD, and he was taught at University of Pennsylvania. Yeah, and like, it's all in the web, like he, he had a falling out because he wanted to pursue jokes, folklore and jokes, and he put out two huge volumes of limericks. I mean, this guy was crazy, you know. And he maintains, you say, that your favorite joke reveals who you are. So it's a Freudian, what is your favorite joke? Well, at that time, it was the aristocrats, but you know, for a while it was, it's a moving thing. Like, I always tell people my favorite joke is the newest one I heard that I'm going around telling them. So the aristocrats is your favorite joke because it's about a family that performs together. No, no, no, it just happened to be, it just the outrageous. But Legman would say, there's something revealing about you. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Why that was so funny to me. Not that it was a conscious thing, like, wow, that reminds me, you know, it was like, it's a it's a lot more subtle than that.  Oh, my, you know, it is it is pretty interesting.  I've never been able to find it. I have a copy. It's falling apart.  And this guy had four pages talking about this friend of his that wrote Hairlip. Like, you know, it's written out. I'll send it. But what's the what's the Hairlip? A cleft palate. Yeah. But what's the joke? No, jokes about guys that there's a lot of jokes where there's a guy with a cleft palate in the joke because he's making fun of me. That's that's the classic.  I said, sorry, we have a general manager. Okay, thank you anytime. He goes to the next bank and how do you like to hire me and me and my sorry, we got a vice president. Okay, thank you. There's another bank. Yeah. I don't like it. Tell her. Sorry, we got all the television. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And he's so full on, he's walking on the streets, a beautiful blonde walking the other way.   He says, well, I'm not saying I will. And I'm not saying I won't, but it's the best offer I've had. Oh, nothing. I will. I have never told that joke ever.   And who, he doesn't know who wrote the joke. No, no, no. This is his friend. He was quoting, he was probably cutting pasting his friends. He said, this is so-and-so from so-and-so. He was like a form of a legman. He said, I couldn't believe this guy could write hair lip because he knew just enough.  You don't make every word a stutter. You make the hello, how you doing? I hope you're having a good, you know what I mean? There's an art. It's all art, you know. Do you have a hair lip? I have a comb over a lip. Meanwhile, the kid across the street from me growing up had a cleft palate, had a hair lip, but he was probably six or seven years older than me. Way back then, I was born in 48, way back then, they might as well have been operating on that with a pickaxe, you know what I mean? So, he really was money. And so, he had no friends. So, he taught me electricity. I had a puppet stage with a full-working curtain and electricity and everything because me and this older kid, he showed me how to do everything. It was, you know, he was my hot tray to show. His parents had a little bit of money. They lived in this old farmhouse across the street. He had a 16-millimeter sound projector. A sound projector, like he's showing Steamboat Willie in his attic, you know. I never saw anybody that had a, you know. But he was alone. And he was all alone and he had a huge train set, the length, you know, and I was his only friend. It was, you know, but so the hair lips, you know, it sent me through the roof, you know. Every joke is written down somewhere? Of mine? Yeah. Oh, yeah.  The jokes are so important because for a finite amount of time, you are lasered in to only paying attention to that and where it's gone and it's your total escape from anything.  It's going to happen right here and you can't go anywhere.  There's a zen to it.  Now, did we have, did we talk about Albert Einstein? All the great minds, not to pat myself on the back, but the great scientists, those guys are all huge fans of filthy jokes. Neil deGrasse Tyson loves jokes. This friend that I know, I'll tell you, or fear this guy, I know, gives millions of dollars to Noam Chomsky.   Noam Chomsky, okay? And I'm going to, I'm going to film festival two or three years ago and this guy's about my age, 65, 70 years old, comes up and said, Jackie, I know you're going to love this story. My music teacher years ago told me this story. His grandfather was one of the world's greatest cantors at the turn of the century. Yosele Rosenblatt, you can look it up, Yosele Rosenblatt. Edison loved him. He said he had the biggest range of anybody he ever read. Edison was deaf. Edison was deaf. Well, but he took people's word for it. And anti-Semitic. Who is it? So at any rate, this stuff's all in the web. But so Yosele Rosenblatt knew everybody at the turn of the century and his friends were Caruso and but one of his best friends was Albert Einstein. And I guess his grandfather had told the kid or however he found out that Albert Einstein was a huge fan of filthy jokes, which I thought was interesting. But now that I'm watching Einstein on TV, the show Genius, and I'm reading the book about him, and I, you know, he had girlfriends and he was banging his cousin.   And but this guy says, so Albert Einstein was a huge fan of dirty jokes.  That's succinct and brilliant.  And oh, man. So that's, you know, that's my Albert Einstein story and I'm sticking to it. Now I'm trying to, I'm trying to get some, some stamp of approval for that. I'm dying to read in the book. And oh, yeah. And Albert loved to tell a joke. You know, I haven't gotten to that yet. Where do you keep your jokes? Is there a fault? It's in the computer years ago. What happens if the computer crashes? I got my head.   When you hear a joke that you haven't heard before, what happens? It's very rare. I usually, if I like it, I'll retell it and tell it and retell it. But you write it down. I'll write it down. Sure. And how long could you go telling jokes till you ran out? I have six CDs. I'm talking about like if I said to you. No, no, I'm telling you. You mean if I said to you for charity, you're going to stand on this stage and tell jokes for as long as you can without picking up a book, without anybody talking to you, just jokes that come forth from your brain. How long could you go? I have no idea, but I'm sure hours and hours because something would spring. It's all springboard. If I'm standing there with you and him and you tell a joke, makes me think of one, and he tells one, makes me think of one, and all of a sudden while you're talking, I'm thinking of three more. By the time it gets to me, I've forgotten the first two, I was going to tell it like so. Why is that? Because somebody said to me, how do you remember jokes? That's how conversation, how do you know what you're going to say next in a conversation? Well, you know because it's something that I said or something that he said that made you think of something to say, only it's a joke, and the right thing just comes to you. Did I tell you about McCartney? Yes, you did, but you didn't tell me on the show. No, you did tell it, you did. But all of a sudden there he was, and I just, it wasn't like I said to myself, well, you know what, if I ever see Paul McCartney, I'll tell him this joke. All of a sudden there he was, and it was like, it was like, you know, the ball in the lottery came up and that was the right one, you know? You know what I found interesting reading the Legman book and reading your joke book? I never used to read joke books, because I said, I'm a stand-up, I'm a comedy writer, if I read jokes, I like. It's going to screw up your motive thinking or something. I just thought, I like hearing a joke, but reading a joke book is, I don't know, I just never read one before, so I read, start reading your book, because you gave me all these books. There was a joke in Legman's book about castration. He had a chapter on castration jokes.  And he said, don't worry, they would have missed yours, or some joke. But I'm reading, these aren't that funny, these aren't that funny. And then the version that I liked was President Lincoln got shot. Where did he get shot? Don't worry if he had been aiming for you, he would have missed. The implication is you have no brain. Oh, that's kind of interesting.  No, no, but I know what you're saying. And there's different ways of saying the same thing. And I thought, I remember reading that and going, wow, that's a 150-year-old joke. Well, my job, people say, you tell old jokes, blah, blah, blah. I've got lots of examples of jokes and I'll show you, all right, here's what I read and here's my joke. And aside from them being the same joke, they are not the same joke because the art of here's what I read. In other words, you took an old joke and reworked it. And yeah, and made it, for the most part, you could not go on stage and read from a joke book. You could not. They don't play. And the good thing about my joke books is if you're reading them, you're reading what I say on stage. Like when I had my Jackie's Joke Hunt for eight years, people are sitting there and reading jokes, but they might as well have been doing my act because they're reading them the way they meant.  And you're to the joke, you know what I mean? Which is so important because otherwise it's a snooze fest.  And it's, I think it's really history has been written about jokes. You know, the Legman thing is great, but it's so pedantic and goes on and on so deep that, you know, Colin Quinn years ago, he said, come on, Jackie, why don't we get together and make a show about jokes, which I would really like to.  Like I did a show. Do we know what jokes were told in the 1500s? Do we know? Yeah, of course we do. The same ones. How do we know that? I bombed very badly at the Friars roast for Don King. And I told a joke that Adam Leslie told me that's so funny. And it's a boxing joke, or this version was a boxing joke, we're roasting Don King. Everybody's doing quick boom, boom, boom. I'm like, Jackie, the joke man is going to get up and tell a few jokes, which of course was the worst call. 2000 drunken businessmen don't have the attention span. Hello, I'm Jackie, they're already lost, okay? I did have, I did have a joke that made it AP worldwide. I said, you know, as people said Don King wasn't that good to Mike Tyson. At least that's what Mike told me when he was parking my car. And that was on AP around the world. But the joke was so great. And Alec Baldwin has a book out with the punch line is the title of his book. And I'm like, Jesus, I got to write to Alec and ask him if he knows that that word is the punch line of a joke. And today at lunch, Roy McDonald says to me, oh, that's so great that Alec Baldwin book, because he explains at the end where the title came from.  And of course, a completely different version of this joke. But I'm answering your question. What's the title of the book? I'm not going to tell you the title, but you'll see in a second. Okay. So the version I told, which is an indication, because my version of the joke is from 1958. Here we are. It's 1958, the world's boxing championship, Madison Square Garden, and the announcer comes on. You know this joke. It's one of my favorite jokes. Okay. So the name Alec Baldwin's book is nevertheless.  You know, well, you're going to hear a version of the joke that you'll get the gist. So I go to see this one. My friend, John Ross, who listens to the show, who's a great comedian, he told me that joke. It was a Kate Smith joke at Yankee Stadium. Okay. I told that joke to, I did the show leverage and afterwards we're all getting drunk. Well, I wasn't drinking, but everybody's having fun because they just found out they were renewed. And even though I just shot one line in the show that wasn't going to air for six months, I took credit for the renewal.  And he had never heard it. No, no, no. So, so I'm, uh, this guy, uh, Chip, uh, Daffa, Daffa, do you know him? He's a screen, uh, a playwright. He wrote a one-man show called George M. Tonight. George M. Cohen, but a one-man show. So I'm sitting with him at his play and, and it's good. It's the story George M. Cohen told by George M, a guy playing George M. Cohen goes through his life. And at one point, uh, he says, then I came out and said, uh, and now Mary McConnell is going to sing for you.  And I said, well, nevertheless, so it gets done. I go, Chip, I can't believe George M. Cohen used that joke. He goes, we don't know the truth, Jackie. Everything in the play tonight. Everything is absolute gospel except that I added that joke because I've always been in love with that joke. Cause when I was a kid, Carol Channing was a friend of the family and she told that joke to the family because it had been told to her by her grandmother, Carol Channing's grandmother. In other words, these things go back and back and back and they just do. You know, nowadays you tell a joke, you know, the jokes about, about Trump or Polish jokes or the jokes about Clinton where the jokes about Bush or the jokes about Elizabeth Taylor where the jokes about May West and on and on back to Eve, you know, and if you think about it, the way I heard that joke, and I'm not going to do it justice, but the way I heard that joke from John Ross was ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Yankee stadium. Lou Gehrig will be out here shortly to say farewell. But first, please rise for the national anthem sung by Kate Smith is a fat C word.  She's a no talent C word. I hope she gets cancer and dies. Never laugh. So, so, so I tell that joke. It's the announcer at a boxing match in this corner, weighing in at 220 pounds in the black trunks, Ingemar Johansson, the challenger. Before we start our bout, we have to sing the national anthem, the lovely Kate Smith.  And as I said that, I was looking in the eyes of Dionne Warwick. I swear, she was four feet from me. She was sitting ringside, sitting in the front. I want to go, Dionne, I love walking by. Please ignore what I'm saying. She probably saw that coming. Oh, God. She's, isn't she a psychic? Oh, I didn't even think about that. But, but the point is they've all been around.  So I gave him my sheets. There you go. I remember Tamara told that joke. So I gave him my underwear. One of the best jokes. I need a stool sample, a sperm sample, and a urine sample. So I gave him my underwear. He told that joke on stage one night. I had never heard it before. And I fell off my chair. Well, there's the, there's the entire premise of joke telling.  And if you haven't, it's a new joke. And that works individually for every human being, for every joke. Well, but it's interesting to me. Listen, I, I, in my life as a joke teller, I could tell jokes I knew since 1952. But if a joke just went around the pike a week or two ago, sometimes jokes get in the, in the mainstream for a few minutes, I couldn't tell that joke on stage because it'd be like, oh, that's an old joke. You know what I mean? And there's no such thing as an old joke.   I know. And I'm already laughing while I'm saying myself, I know that joke already. And that's, that's where somewhat of the art of it comes into a couple of things. One is the nevertheless joke is not funny mathematically.  Nevertheless, doesn't add up. But it does. It does.  Oh, it's, oh, it's frighteningly more. Oh, it couldn't be more elegant. You know, there was, if you, I don't know if it's, I've never Googled it, but Richard Dawson was on a show, some game show, for some reason, Richard Dawson and Gene Rayburn were on the same show. Match game. Whatever it was. Match game. And they were doing, they're in the middle of the game, and one of the contestants, they said something to the contestant, and the contestant said, nevertheless. And the two of them went down, and people like, what's going on? We can't explain. We can't explain. Both of them independently went down to their knees. I've never seen that, but I would imagine that's on YouTube. Sure, sure. Which is classic, you know. It's almost like, it's the equivalent of, oh, did you ever hear the man from Nantucket? You know, you don't have to keep going, you know what I mean? My favorite, one of my favorite jokes is, my favorite, beef and broccoli. Love that. Now, did that come up when we were there? We were doing a series together. When Frank, Frank went off the, off the deep end. I said, oh, we were doing this. I said, we were, I said, we were late because we had to do a show at the Chinese network. And I said, floor number 12, please. And the guy said, oh, beef and broccoli. And Frank went, but it's the Chinese couple in bed. And the man says, let's try 69. She says, I'm not going to give you beef and broccoli this hour. I love that joke. It's just, it's a perfect joke. Perfect joke. I mean, I've been telling, some joke, I've been telling that every night for ever and ever and ever. Well, because it's both sexual and makes fun of the Chinese. You just can't not laugh at that. You know, I remember, the most part, I remember people who told me what almost when, and that joke was telling me, told to me by Alan Pepper that on the bottom line, like in 1978 or something like that, you know, because you can remember not only the joke, not always, but a lot of them, a real lot of them. And I can remember laughing at them the first time. I'm going to ask you, so I remember as a kid, the first joke that I laughed at was stick it at your, stick it out the window and let it cool off. Do you know that one, please? Huh? My aspirins. My aspirins, my aspirins. I read that as a kid. I remember Josh freed told me that joke. We're playing football. I must have been five. And he told me that joke. And I thought it was the funniest thing. And that sticks. I'm telling you, I was, I tell it every night. I was in third grade and we have a snowball fight. And in those days, there's no such thing as a dryer to throw your clothes in and get warm.  And we're sitting on the floor of my buddy's house. And I'm in third grade and he's in fourth grade and he's in second grade, small town. And there's maybe four, five, six of us sitting there. And my cousin walked in who's in eighth grade, which is way older. And he pulled out a piece of paper and he read a poem. And it was the night before Christmas, dirty parody.  And some, you know, old years are getting famous and people say, what was your first joke? You never know. And you go back and you remember that something must have clicked in my head because I remember every joke since then. Okay, hang on for a second. So and eventually over time, I pieced that back together. And then it became one of those things that went around on Mimeograph. Remember Mimeograph? Like the church. And then it went around. It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, everybody in the family was drunk as a louse.    I remember what he said. But over time, I pieced together what he had said because this piece of it here and there.  Another line that was then it was away the windows. I flew like a flash.   I would pee in my pants, you know. Okay. So I don't know if this isn't going to be interesting to my audience, but you're helping me remember my first laugh. Worcestershire sauce. What's the joke? I just remember laughing at a guy was trying that guy was invented a new sauce and he thought it was really great sauce and he was trying to come up with a name for it. And the janitor from the building walked in and tasted it and he said, what is his sauce? That's a true story. So the first two jokes, I remember sticking out the window and let it cool off. It was a woman complaining about she can't find her aspirin.  Right. The first real and the Worcestershire sauce. I don't remember until you told me, I just remember laughing at Worcestershire sauce. Right. My buddy worked at my buddy Warren Merton's worked in a drug store. And his first day of work, this little black woman came in and says, what's that? He said, excuse me? She said, what's that? And he's like, he's embarrassed. You know, he said, I'm sorry, man. What'd you say? What's that? He goes in the back. This is not joy.  Just give her her Winstons and her Alka-Seltzer. That was a true story. What's that? Oh, so funny. Oh, God. Oh, man. I, you know, the earliest, I remember the, probably the first really disgusting joke or maybe not the first one, but it stands out my mind with the guy who was with the girl on the honeymoon or something. And the guy really had to take a dump. And he didn't know where the bathroom was on the train and he really had to take a dump. And the train comes to a tunnel. I think you're in a tunnel.  They come out of the tunnel and conduct the system.   Which is the worst joke? Hey, buddy, you with the cigar. All right, so honest. What's more fun than jokes? Come on. What is more fun? When we went in sixth grade, we had a week at camp. This was the public school. Can you imagine a school now with helicopter parents and lawsuits, but we went the entire sixth grade class went on a camping trip and we had a cab and it's frightening what we used to do and the thought of the kids can't go next door without. So the jokes that I heard on that camping, the laughter I had never heard, bowels no move. To this day, to this day I use that line. Alex, do you know that joke? Chief bowels? Tell that joke. They're going to put the highway through and then he doesn't. How do you remember this? He doesn't want to give up his teepee and they say, chief, we're going to take down a teepee. He says, bowels no move. So they give him some laxatives and then they come the next day and say, you got to move this teepee, we're going to put the highway through. Bowels no move. They give him some more laxatives and then come the next day, you got to move these tenes.  It makes no sense. I heard it differently. Then why'd you let me tell it?  The other one, I told a joke to a kid and I told it to a young kid and it was my buddy's son and he was seven, eight years old and he was just getting the real love jokes.  So we're up skiing and the next day I'm skiing and I get on the, what's it called, the lift. So it's me and some stranger in the middle and little Vinny, little Vinny starts telling the joke to this guy and then I'm like, and the joke went on and on and on, but when he stuck on the lift and it was like, it was like that the squaw goes to the pharmacist, goes to the drug store and says, big chief no fart. Do you know that? Some pharmacist gives her a pill to give the chief and she goes back to the next day and says, big chief no fart.  And this poor guy is trying to be polite while this eight-year-old's trying to tell a joke. Do you remember patient jackass? Patience jackass? Patience jackass. Patience jackass. Because I did this. That's a joke form, I'm sure. One of my most vivid memories with one of my youngest daughters, I remember walking her.  Well, I was walking my daughter in nursery school in Los Angeles and it was about a half hour walk.  Patience jackass. Patience jackass. And then they walk and then the desert comes to an end and then they see a movie theater and they say, should we go into the movie theater and the jackass says, no, I want to get to where we're going. How much longer? Patience jackass. And then finally my daughter says, when is this joke going to be over? And I go, patience jackass. Patience. And I look at her and she was like four years old. And she's hurt. No. And her eyes, she thought that was the most amazing joke. I never forgot that. And then I watched her try to tell it when she couldn't. But she thought that was like. Because it must have been an eternity. Yeah. And when I said, yeah. So what was the, what did that trigger when I said patience jackass, you thought it was what? There's a lot of, a lot of those, basically what you said, you know, like something where eventually something, you know, there was, there was a beautiful, I went on a windjam of barefoot crews and it was a girl that worked there that was so hot. And I was just in love with it. And they shanghied me and kept me for another week. So I'm, we're in between the weeks. So the whole crew is stuck in the Bahamas somewhere. We go out to dinner. It's me and this loudmouth bartender and another guy. And this beautiful girl. And I'm, you know, I'm trying to impress her and make her laugh and blah, blah, blah. And I, and I told one of those types stories and I can still see her screaming.     Well, like what? How's that possible?   It's just, you see, it's the same thing. Like it's, it's, you know, it's the fish hook in the mouth. That's so great.  You know, this was the loudmouth.  Alex, I'll blow you for a glass of water. So I remember the, I'm just trying to remember the jokes that I laughed at the hardest. A guy named Greg, I think his name was Greg Lyon, a reporter, when I worked at KRON. Where are you from? I don't even know. I'm from New Jersey, but I was, I had a job. I should interview you next time. So I had a job in a newsroom in San Francisco. I was like low man on the totem pole. I answered phones and they used to tell jokes in the newsroom. And I remember Greg Lyon told me a joke and the punchline is, why do I need a baseball bat?   Do you know that joke? Singaloo the cook. What is that? Singaloo the cook. What's Singaloo the cook? The guy, the guy is stuck in a, in a bar, in a town in the middle of Alaska.  Remember I just said I count down from 10 and by the time I got to zero, I would know that the guy with the baseball bat was the Chinese cook in Alaska. That's what I just did. That's what I just did. The guy says, listen, I'm really, I'm really horny. You got any women here? And they said, there's no women in this town, pal. We got Singaloo the cook in the back.   We got no, we got Singaloo.  So finally he gets drunk and he says, all right, all right, all right, I'll take Singaloo the cook. And the guy's all right, go in the back room and I'll send back Singaloo, Singaloo and Alan John in a few minutes. He says, who's Alan John? They're going to hold them.  In my first book in 1981, so hang on. That joke is my first joke in 1981 and it's Dangerfield is a traveling salesman. That's how it begins. It's Dangerfield is the name in that joke. Thank you, Alan. That is such a great version of that joke, because you can't make up Singaloo. It's because it's racist. It's everything. They're going to hold the little Chinese guy. You can see the big tail. People have not, one of the things I do to my age group, the baby boomers, which is, you know, 50s, late 50s. How old are you? I'm 58.  So one of the things that I do in my age group is somebody said, I just got back from China. And I always say, do you notice that the Coca-Cola tastes very salty over there? Or you have to keep an eye on your Coca-Cola? Okay, you lost me. Me tell joke, me go pee pee. And there isn't anybody my age who, if I say, if somebody said, you know, this is really offensive, I apologize to my listeners. But they'll say, oh, my sister and her husband, they just adopted a Chinese baby. And I'll go, you've got to be careful. My sister adopted a Chinese baby. And the Coke, ever since then, I don't know what it is. You have Coke and it just tastes horrible. And they lose it.  I don't know what the joke is. Well, you know, it's funny because a girl that I went out with 15 years after I started telling that joke was Okie dokie, no more joking, no more P&T is how she used to tell it. The way I tell the joke is that there's businessmen that get drunk every day in Chinese restaurant, have lunch and get drunk in Chinese restaurant and they give the waiter hard time. Hey, hello, get over here. Give me some more fly like that. Give me fly like that. And one day one guy says, all right, you know what, every day we get drunk and we're so rude to the waiter and we're crappy. So I think it's time we straighten up and start being decent, true beings. Everybody's asked a good idea. Hey, come over. Because oh, look what I do for you. Listen, every day we get drunk every hard time. But for now, we're not going to give you a hard time and give you good tip every day. What do you think of that?  Which is the joke you're talking about? Which makes no sense because the Chinese restaurant and my girlfriend said, no, no, Okie dokie, no more joking, no more P&T, which makes no sense. Well, the version I, as I remember it, it was hop sing from Bonanza. Oh, of course. It doesn't please hop sing, hung low.  Maybe. No, no, no, what he's doing is. Do you know that joke? That's the same thing I just said that he's pissing in their coffee because he doesn't like, you know. Okay, so Jim Neighbors, when I was growing up, there was a rumor that Jim Neighbors was having an affair with Roman Gabriel, the quarterback for the LA Rams and was so bizarre. Because he was. Was that true? Oh, yeah. Jim Neighbors was, whoa. But Roman Gabriel from the LA Rams? I'm just making it up. Oh, okay. Well, they was called the Rams, but. You almost got me. I just couldn't believe it. Okay, then I go off to the sixth grade camp and they tell the joke, the Gomer pile joke. Do you remember this surprise, surprise? That ain't my finger. Do you know that joke? Oh, of course. I don't remember what the joke is.   But I had heard it. There's a million verses. The Gomer pile is with Bunny, Sarge's girlfriend, and she says, come on, Gomer. Stick it in. I don't, oh, Miss Buttock. All right, surprise, surprise. That's not my vagina and surprise, surprise. That's not my finger. Is that what you told me? Yeah. My father had two great jokes that he used to tell, the pretzel grip, the wrestler. That joke is in my very first book and the wrestler is Nelson, like in Bob Nelson, but like half Nelson. And I remember. How's your punch line? Well, but I remember telling my shrink, my, you know, I've been seeing a shrink since I was 18. It's not helping. And if I tell me about it, no, I'd be dead without a shrink. And I was in Freudian. And he asked me about jokes and what my father's favorite joke was. And my father's favorite joke was the pretzel grip. Pretzel hold. The pretzel hold. And he thought it, my, my shrink at the time thought it was very revealing, of course, that that was my father's favorite joke. See, he's another legman. But, you know, like, yeah. Is it more telling that that's his favorite joke or that he told his son that? You know, my father very rarely told jokes, but. Do you remember the pretzel grip? Please, please. Tell the pretzel grip. Nelson is the American champion wrestler and he's going to fight the French wrestler for the world championship. And the coach says, listen, Nelson, you're better than this guy. But he's got the pretzel hold and you got to be really careful because if he gets in a pretzel hold, you know, you're sunk. Nelson, don't worry coach, I'll stay away from him. So the, they go there and the match starts and within three seconds, the French guys got Nelson in the pretzel hold and the coach says, Jesus Christ, he throws it in the towel and goes back to the locker room. He uses this loud cheer and Nelson comes running into the locker room. He says, I did it, coach. I'm champion. The coach's like, what do you mean you're champion? He said, the guy got you in the pretzel hold right away.  He says, I'll tell you what happened, coach. I was, I was out there and I thought I could stay away from him.   I see these two testicles. So I bit him. The coach says, I don't understand. He says, coach, you'd be surprised what you can do when you bite your own balls. That's what you're talking about. Yeah. My father's version of it. How are we doing on time? Okay. Can I get five minutes? What? I know. My father's version of the joke was there was a retired wrestler and he wanted to prove to his kids that he could still wrestle.  He says, I need one final match. I just want to prove to my kids that I still got it. It's fantastic. But every all roads, it's like putting a dart in a wall and you draw the target around it. But I think that that element is why it was my father's favorite joke. Oh, of course. Why it's Friday and the old man wanted to prove that he still got it. Absolutely. And then he bites his own balls. I was friendly with Richard Dawson's kids this is when you lived in LA and Richard actually told me this joke. The commandant thinks you're trying to escape. That's the punchline. Right. Right. They throw his arm out the plane and they throw his leg out of the plane or something like that. How do you know that? Of course, I know them all, man. But Richard told it. It was a RAF pilot. Of course, of course. Get shot down over Germany during World War Two. And the Germans go, we have bad news. We have to remove your leg. Because you do me a favor. Drop it over London on your next bombing mission.  That's just this miraculous joke. Yeah. We got bad news. You're the gangrene. We have to remove your right arm. Do me a favor. When you're flying over London, do me a favor. Just drop it over there. And we got more bad news. We have to remove the gangrene spread, your left arm. Could you do me a favor? No more. The commandant thinks you're trying to escape. It's just beautiful.  And my father, as the years went by, he'd get drunker and drunker and come in later and later. And it was no source, I mean, no endless source of disgust and craziness. And my mother and father and the battles. But, meanwhile, that was just the background for the six guys, me and all my friends, all my brother and all his friends, playing poker. And it was like, you couldn't believe the scene. You know, forget about the reality shows. This was unbelievable. And we're all sitting around playing poker one night and the old man came in extra late and extra loaded. And I will never forget this. He comes in because he was not a joker.  And he goes, ah, yeah, I'm late. He's like, I got an accident.   And, you know, and, and she came out and I know she I went, I knocked on the door said, listen, your cat ran out in the street and I didn't see it coming. I ran over and I killed your cat. I'm really sorry. She comes out and looked at the cat. He says, listen, I feel really bad. I want to, I want to give you $20. And she says, I want $100.  I'm coming up the road and he ran out of nowhere. And it wasn't my fault, but I want to give you $20. And she said, $100. And a cop pulls up and gave me a ticket. And of course, one of my friends says, what did you get a ticket for, Mr. Marling? And he says, discussed in the price of pussy in a pub. And this is my father and my friends went batshit. And my mother's trying to be mad at him. Oh God. Well, we have to wrap it up. Can we do this again? Well, you're asking me. JackieTheJokeMan.com. I think I'm going to stump you. Hold on. JackieTheJokeMan.com. If you click on that, it goes right to the Amazon page. Please buy my book. And I do, I tweet jokes every day at 420 marijuana time at Jackie Marling. And it's always fun. And I love it here.  Obviously, we're both good audiences. So it's fun. Yes.  And if you don't, you buy me dinner. Go ahead. My son, you will find as you get older, the first thing to go are your eyes. The Amazing Watson. God, damn it. What are we having for dinner? That. Why do you use to crush walnuts? And now you're crushing coconuts.   My father, you said.  That is the greatest joke in the world. The Amazing Watson. It was the Amazing Rinaldo. It's our 40th anniversary. Let's go back and see the Amazing Watson. Let's end on this joke because this was my father's favorite joke. I heard a couple goes to Mexico to see the Amazing Rinaldo.  And they're like, well, that's amazing. And then 40 years later, it's their 40th anniversary and they are in Las Vegas and they see signed tonight the Amazing Watson. They can't believe that it's still the Amazing Watson.  And they can't believe it.  But when we saw you 40 years ago, you were smithing walnuts and now you're smashing coconuts. And he says, yeah, well, my age, the eyesight starts to go. Which is just wonderful. But my father would tell the joke. We're going to wrap it up. We're wrapping it up. My father would tell that joke. It was the great Ronaldo and he would ride in on a white steed and he would jump off and people go, the great Ronaldo.  Right. But you know, it's like, it's like anything. It's, it's, you know, you can create the tale. It's Charlie the boil sucker. You know, that joke. What's that? Charlie the boil sucker. No. And that you, Larry Miller used to make it longer every year. One year, I think at the comic strip Christmas party made like 55 minutes.  And his first day he goes to this lady's house and knocks on her door. It's a 450 pound woman. And she brings him into the living room. She takes down her panties and lifts up her dress. She got a huge boil on the inside of her thigh.  It all sends you cuts this huge fart.  Now you can see how you can make that joke three hours, you know. Thank you, Jackie. I'm sure your father was a delight. This is a great show because it's two amazing comedy writers and they both come from opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm going to give these guys a proper introduction to my left or radio right is radio is Andy Breckman. And I wanted to put them on with Steve Young because they are two very amazing men, two great comedy writers, both of whom are legends, both of whom work for Letterman. Let me introduce legend. Legends is a funny word. That's an elastic word. Andy Breckman created Monk, the hit television show. He just won a Writers Guild Award. He has written on Saturday Night Live. He has written for Letterman. He was there at the beginning and he's written movies starring Meg Ryan and Walter Mathau.  And I've been very lucky. Yeah. Well, yeah, some movies. Some movies, yeah. Movies with Steve Martin and you've written on the Academy Awards. I'm just going to keep going till I've had some movies made that I wish were it made. Yeah, that's true too. Steve Young, you weren't there at the beginning. Oh no, I was just a tiny boy when the Letterman show was launching. Steve Young, Harvard Lampoon, didn't even go to Harvard. That's how amazing he is. They just put him on the magazine. Simpsons. I think you were, I'm going to say without you, and you'll say no, but I would say, well, that's not fair to certain people. I would say you, David Letterman, if you think David Letterman is funny, which we all do, then Steve Young is funnier. I would assume that if you asked David Letterman, who's funnier, you or Steve Young, he would say Steve Young. Well, because you would have painted him into a corner and that would be the only gracious thing for him to say. And I think we must realistically say that Mr. Letterman has realms and reaches that very few mortals have and I'm not one of them. And he's certainly, if such a thing as possible, he's actually gotten more interesting. David Letterman, he is finding a way to his next chapter and it's even more fascinating. Both of you men teach comedy at NYU. In fact, our paths literally crossed last week. One of the relatively few times when it's okay to say literally. Yes, it actually happened. Steve's class had just ended and mine was just about to start and we met briefly in the lobby. Hey, you're that guy. Yeah, you're that guy. There we go. Well, did you go to the dinners? I know Letterman had these big dinners during the wrap up to the show. Didn't you guys meet at a steakhouse? Were you at the Friars Club thing? I was at the Friars Club thing and then I think David's referring to a dinner. Steve was not there. It was a dinner that we arranged the original writers and Mr. Letterman. Yeah, they didn't want me because I was only a tiny boy. It's true. I don't know if Steve had a chance. It's very interesting. I was glad I went to that dinner, that smaller private dinner with Letterman because I wanted to say thanks, really. Letterman, you were the Simpsons and you had a pedigree that I didn't have but Merrill Marko and Letterman gave me my first job in the business. My first break and you always remember the people that... What happened? That took you a chance on you. We just had Merrill Marko on the show.  Well, I owe her... She obviously predated Steve, I think, at the show. You predated Merrill Marko. Predated, I'm sorry, but I owe her... That's a good rumor to start though. I owe her my career. I owe her everything. What happened? It's not a great story, but if that's... That's what this shows. Lay it on us, yes. Even if I consciously stop and embellish it to the end, it won't be a great story. Just use the word sex dungeon and it'll be fine. I was performing. I was doing some performing. Got an agent. This is... And I applied to Saturday Night Live. I wrote some sketches. Saturday Night Live was turning over after the glory years, after the first five years. Lorne Michaels left, I'm sure you're aware, and all the cool kids left the show. And so there were some slots open in Saturday Night Live. And I wrote some sketches, four or five sketches, and had my agent submit them. And they were Saturday Night... The show passed. Then I got a very sweet letter from Ann Beatz, who... I don't know if you know Ann Beatz. She took the time to write a very nice rejection letter.  At that time, it meant working at a video store on 8th Street.  But Ann Beatz... May I interrupt? Yes, sir.  Yes. This is a six-part question. You know what I love? You know what I love in politics when there's a press conference and a reporter says, I have a question and a follow-up question. They announce beforehand that they're not going to be satisfied with the answer. They're definitely know they have a follow-up. Well, let's just not answer the first one. Curious, what video format around 1980, because I don't think VHS had even taken on it. You're exactly right. The first video stores were at Photomat, by the way, the first video rentals. No one remembers this. But I was in one of the very first video rental stores in 1980. What was Photomat? Photomat was where you went to get photos developed before the instant cameras. There used to be these things called daguerreotypes. The video revolution was so new that I was working at a video store. There were only like 12 titles. Nine of them were porn. But the video revolution was so new that we had a woman come in the store, rent a videotape, and then take it home and then call us from home and say, now, where in the TV does it go? Really? Who she needed. That's how new it was. Anyway. I hope that wasn't porn. She doesn't know where that goes. I am very anxious to see this film, sir. I need to have this right up in the next few minutes. Yes. So anyway, I'm at the video store. Unbeknownst to me, my agent took the rejected SNL sketches, my four or five sketches, the SNL pass, and got them somehow to Merrimarco, who was assembling a writing staff for the late, the first late night staff. Letterman, you might remember, was being sort of kept on hold by NBC. His morning show had failed or had ended, I'm sorry. And he was on hold for a year. They were looking to do something with him. And they gave him this slot and they were looking to put it. So I got this call. Literally, it's like a bad old Hollywood story from the video store. My then girlfriend, soon to be wife, soon to be ex-wife, called and said, David Letterman is looking for you. And he's only in town for a day. And he's up at the Plaza Hotel. And they meet you right now if you can get up there. And he's leaving tomorrow. So I went racing up and was very excited. But I think, thankfully, I had no time to prep or get nervous or think about it. I just got on the subway and left. And it was one of those Kevin, watch the register. I got to go jumpstart my career. And then I went up town and there's Letterman on a couch and a t-shirt and jeans. He was the most casual guy. And at least when I knew him, very accessible. Steve might have a different, Steve might have met a different Letterman. Steve's not accessible. Exactly. He was always in a tux by the way. And I had the guts. I don't know how there was a coffee table in front of him. He was lying on the couch. There was a coffee table with some spare change on the table. And I don't know where I got the guts, but I came into the suite and sat down and there was a spare change. And I actually had the guts to say, can I have this? And I collected the change and actually put it in my pocket. And then there might be a lesson here. Did he laugh? Yeah, he did. I made him laugh.  But the lesson that Merrill described the show that she wanted to do, that she already had it, the vision of it in her mind. And I think the DNA didn't really change for 30 years in some ways.  She had it all.  Now that's the dream come true. You know, that's the perfect letter. You know, that's so she, she described the show and my sketches didn't really fit what the format, but she liked the sketches, but she said, come up with, you know, come up with your own ideas and pitches for based on what I just described to you and send them to me. And I, this is a lesson, maybe if there are any young writers out there or would be writers out there. I didn't, I think it's important not to keep them waiting. I don't know if you guys agree. I ran home. I knew they were leaving for LA the next morning and I ran home and pulled an all-nighter and, and wrote up three or four pages that night just based on, you know, I was all fired up and adrenaline was popping and I got it at dawn. I got it to back to the Plaza Hotel for their flight back to LA. So, so in high, I'm so grateful that that number one, I was able to stay up all night, which I'm so grateful to myself that I, that I had the wherewithal to not keep them waiting. And I think that's, you know, if you have a good meeting and people are waiting on material, it's probably a good tip to get it to them as quick as you can. This is very exciting for me because you two, and I don't want to get into Sammy Davis territory, but does anybody have any meth? No, I don't want to get into Sammy Davis territory because... Junior or senior? Junior. Okay. The two of you share a lot of, you share a resume, but you also, when you walk into a room, everybody's glad to see you. There's this, you walk in and... Because, because the money. Because they know he's got a pocket full of change now. Exactly. No, it's just when you walk in, when the comedy, you're just, and your team players, and you're looking at, you're thinking about the show. And I love giving hand jobs. I don't want to say that. Steve Young, so how did you get your first job? What was your first job? My first TV job was not necessarily the news, the HBO show out in Los Angeles. And that was, I had gotten out of college a couple years before and knew I wanted to do this as a career, but there was not an immediate success at that. I did luckily have an agent, some junior level guy at William Morris who had come to the Harvard Lampoon and said, oh, we'd like to find some, some promising young comedy writers. And I said, William Morris, why is the cigarette company looking good? So I had no idea. But I wrote a Cheers spec script and printed it out on my pin feed, early generation Macintosh printer. And I'm sure it was fine for 21 year old or whatever. For a while I was bartending in Boston and just kind of scratching around trying to... Was there any business in Boston for a bartender? I can't imagine anybody drinking in Boston. It's a very tea totalish sort of town. So you went to work for, not necessarily, there was Pat Lee, John Moffitt, Rich Hall who was on the show last month. He had largely cycled out. He went to Letterman probably, right? He had been there. Did Rich write on Letterman? He did the morning show. I find that often in my career I arrive someplace just as the golden age has ended. In the case of not necessarily the news, the generation of performers that everyone knew and loved mostly had left. Conan had been a writer there like a year before and was gone now. Although I found his cartoons, scraps of paper with his drawings on them in the desk I was using. Did you keep them? No, no. I didn't have the, didn't have the foresight. Also my pockets were very full at the time. I did find that it was a fine place to work, but I was only there six weeks. I had been the sort of last hired, first fired at their first whiff of budget trouble. But I got a couple things on the show and actually got a Writers Guild Award out of that. So that was nice. And then I was in New York working on the comedy channel before it was Comedy Central. They were starting up in the fall of 89 and really didn't know what they were doing at that point. It was a lot of let's take old movies from the vault, cut five minute funny scenes out of them, just show the isolated scenes and have sort of VJs introducing each thing and doing pattern and little comedy bits between each thing. And so I was on one of those shows for a while. And so tell me how, very quickly, let's get to how you ended up becoming the legendary, I don't want to go ahead. How did you get on Letterman? That was early 1990. And the show, I think, had just had its eighth anniversary. And I believe it was out in LA and a lot of years. Yeah, this was 82 to 90 by this point. And a lot of writers went out to LA in addition to doing their work at the show that week, went on a lot of meetings. And in the coming month or so, about five or six of the old line guys said, Oh, by the way, we're leaving. Is that why Dave went to LA to get rid of everybody? I don't know if he's that strategic thinker about getting rid of writers. I think he has other ways of doing that. But suddenly, there was the sense that there were a lot of openings in the comedy Grapevine in New York, which I was tangentially plugged into.  And this is a great time. And now, why did he require urine? Most people need... Can you back up? What was that? You mean the job interviews? No, the sample that they required was urine. Yeah, it doesn't have to be your own. Oh, okay. Go on. New York in 1990. You could get it on any street corner. You could write either 20 monologue jokes or you have vial of urine. Yeah. And the vial, a lot of people overlook that. It has to be a nice vial. It has to be glass.  And they don't return the vial. I think they're just in it for the vials. No, I was unusual, I've been told. I got the cap back. These are your comics. Well, reading the tea leaves there. But Steve, I know, you leapfrogged over The Simpsons just now, didn't you? The Simpsons was later. Oh, it was later, I'm sorry. I wrote one episode. It was a freelance thing. I was never on the staff there. Well, you know, I'm sorry.  That's not done a lot. Yeah, and I don't think they do freelance episodes anymore. I think after a couple of years or so when I did it in 96, I think they didn't do it too much. The Writer's Guild for a while required staff to hire freelancers. But this was before The Simpsons was a Guild show. Oh, no, I didn't. Oh, okay, so it doesn't apply. But luckily, my agent at the time was clever and said, let's get you this Simpsons gig as if it were a Guild show. And so you're going to get residuals for your episode and none of the other writers were doing that. Wow. Yeah, I still get an $11 check once in a while. Was that the same young William Morse agent that found you years earlier? I think by that time I had moved on as writers occasionally. So you get to Letterman? I get to Letterman and it was great. I was going to the big leagues from the comedy channel up to the Big 30 Rock legendary show. And I got there and there were a few old line writers left. Steve O'Donnell was the head writer who hired me and was this wonderful talent and a great friend to this day. And you had Randy Cohen and you had Adam Resnick still there and Jerry Mulligan, of course. Wow. And the old timers were shaking their heads sadly by, oh, things are so degraded now. Oh, it used to be good in the old days. Now we sit in this room all evening and think of things that we can't get on the air and it's just so debased compared to the glory days. Was the top 10 list? That was a staple. Yeah, that had been on for a few years by then. So that was a anchor point every day. You knew there'd be that, but just the quest for new ideas that Dave would get behind and actually do as was the case from the very beginning. Yeah, I was always a struggle. But that was a sort of quiet period and you felt like, wow, the show is reaching the end of history. And we had 25 years to go. Yeah. That sums up life itself too, doesn't it? Yes, I have 25 years to go. Yes, exactly. Where's it? It feels like the end. It feels like the end and it doesn't end.  Steve Young, you wrote on Letterman for 25 years? 25 years. Wow. Spring of 90 to the last day, spring of 2050. In the bunker. Yeah, I liked, I mean, there were different up and down periods. Some periods I recall less fondly than others. But the last few years at the show, I mean, it was limited what Dave wanted to do. He didn't do remotes anymore. He didn't want to do complicated things that required extensive rehearsal and all that. But within those parameters, we were still doing things that we all really enjoyed and that would, on a good day, really tickled Dave because he'd been doing the show for so long. He probably had more comedy come across his radar than almost anyone alive. And it was hard to get something that really made his eyelids open up and go, whoa, this is something we've never thought of before. This is a different land that's just opened up. And some days you could do that just in a line or a 30-second bit or something and just feel like, okay, 25 years on, no, it's not over. We're still mining good quality ore here. Andy Breckman, you worked at 30 Rock. I don't want to violate your privacy, but you had one of those amazing deals with Saturday Night Live where you could just come in. I went, I was at Saturday Night Live when they were sort of in transition, maybe struggling a little in the early, let me say, I did Letterman for a couple years and then Saturday Night Live. So the mid-80s, I did three years there full-time. And then I don't think they do this anymore, just as Steve's experience at The Simpsons. They brought me in for the next five or six or seven seasons. I was brought in as a guest writer four or five weeks, four or five shows a season.  Well, I, you know, it's easy as a guest writer because you can make it look easy because you have all year to think of five. Everyone, the challenge is thinking of 22 ideas every week. But I had, all I had to do was think of five half-decent ideas. So I, yeah, I always came in with something, but I was trying to get a movie career going. What's interesting, yeah, and you did, what's interesting about the two of you is Steve is of the, you know, the regimentation of Harvard, work hard, play hard, Harvard, play hard.  You mean I don't work hard. You make it look a lot easier than I do. Because I don't work hard. But now did you go to college? I did not go to college. I came in and threw a different door. I was performing as a, as a, I went to BU for a semester, but I wanted to. And you dropped out of college? I dropped out of college to see if I could make a living performing. I thought I was, at the time, I thought I was Randy Newman or, right, you loud and wane, right? I don't know if you know that reference, but do we comedic music and songwriting and nobody, none of my so-called friends would tell me I had the courtesy to tell me I didn't have the talent to do it. So I tried it and the problem was, the problem was I didn't fail. I didn't succeed.  Obviously I didn't succeed, but I didn't fail. I kept getting work enough to keep going. The carrot was just dangling and years went by the way years do and I was, I was in my mid-twenties and is this where we get to have the sex dungeon reference for you exactly? Yeah, I made a living. Let's just say that. So, yeah, so I made, I was doing, I was doing well enough to keep going and then thankfully, thankfully I stumbled backwards into, into sketch writing and found, before Letterman I had another credit on a kid's show, but thankfully I realized I could do something else because that's a tough life. Have I ever seen you stumped? I don't think there's ever been an idea presented to Andy Breckman that you couldn't solve. I don't honestly know what that means. No, seriously, a movie idea. I've pitched you crazy movie ideas and within five minutes. Well, that's my, my favorite thing to do is to break stories and to work on, in broad strokes, work on ideas and that's my favorite thing to do. My least favorite thing, like a lot of writers, is writing. That's hard, but I do love the, I do love the bantering and the kicking ideas around and my favorite place to be in the world is a good writer's room. I don't know if Steve agrees, but I loved the Letterman writer's room. I felt like this is where I am becoming the fully realized version of myself. I definitely agree. It's my favorite place to be and I'm working to get another show going, not to get a show on the air really or to write, which is going to be hard, but I just want to get a writer's room again. I just love being with the Harvard boys, love them. My favorite words in the English language are when the head writer says, I have to shut the door, but it's getting so. Because he's going to tell a joke or the room has just gotten. Yeah, we used to get, okay, close the door. We're going to talk about this and in terms that we don't want the rest of the world to hear. Are there women in the room at Letterman? Intermittently and usually, yes. I mean, that was always, I think increasingly over the years, a project that all these shows have grappled with because, yeah, we want it to be a place that people don't feel excluded from and all that. Did it damper some of the jokes that you were throwing around? Very little, very little. You're talking about jokes that weren't for the show? Yes, of course. Well, that's 99% of the jokes are. The shockingly, not even that it's graphic or crude, just like the conceptually horrifying sometimes was the direction we'd go. In my experience, and I think Dave, Dave, you'd agree, in my experience, the fun is being with funny people and poking at it, poking at them and poking them until you can get them to laugh. That often meant crossing some boundaries. Just getting people to respect, to crack up was the goal for me. They're not getting material on the air, but just making them laugh. Andy has this gift of pretending not to understand the assignment playing dumb. One of the most, Brian Reich, Brian Rich, I always mispronounce his name, it's Brian Rich. Very funny, very funny guy. You were probably in college with him. I think he was a little younger. And just a frighteningly brilliant guy. He invented the masturbating bear on Conan. Now, yes, but I think it's worth pointing out bears had been masturbating for millennia before this Conan business ever happened. But not while wearing a diaper. And Pimpbot. And what, I'm sorry? And Pimpbot on Conan. Oh, you never saw Pimpbot? It's amazing. Anyway, so Brian's like this frighteningly brilliantly funny guy. And we were traveling somewhere and Andy and Brian were in the backseat. Okay.  It was the most fascinating conversation for four hours. It's very easy for me to play dumb. The two of them just trying in a conversation. He is bringing it down.  If you can make Brian laugh, that's made my day. If you can break him, that's because he's as smart and funny as anyone. But just you guys, I can't articulate it, but they would start a conversation that would go on for an hour and the premise would be wrong. It would be based on some wrong fact. And then they would pursue it down. It was it was fat. It was anyway. Yeah, Betsy Borns has a great comedy writer and writes about comedy and she has a new podcast. Going back to women, the first writing job I had was on Roseanne and she hired women. And my recollection of the female writers on Roseanne were they were as filthy, if not filthier than the guys. I mean, they would, I don't want to mention any names, but there were female writers who were doing Lucian Ethel with the candy pretending to be blowing guys. So the idea that women can't be as horrible in a room as a guy is. No, I wouldn't say that belief holds any water, but I do think that there are cultural influences that begin when you're a child.  And then this is hard to overcome later. If you think, well, I'm a funny person, but I'm not used to thinking that I'm the one who's going to get up and get the attention. And maybe writing is a little different than performing in that. But I will tell you that in the later years of Letterman, I was looking at the writing submissions coming in. And even after we told agents, we are always very interested in seeing promising women writers. We don't want you to hold back on this. It was 25 to one men to women submitting to the Letterman show. And maybe by that point, we weren't the hottest show. Maybe there were other shows that the most talented women thought this is where I'm aiming for. So maybe that's not a real sample, but that has always stuck out to me as an example of the underlying social, cultural, blah, blah, blah hyphenated things that are going on. What I would do if I had a particularly raunchy joke in the room, and there was a woman in the room, is I would spell it. You didn't know that women can spell? What? They can spell. Holy, holy, there's a, there's a real flaw in my plan. Happiest day at the FLEW in my plan. Well, first of all, again, as with the bear, I'm going to point out, not all women can spell. So you may have been fine. Yeah, that's right. Well, yeah. We're looking for very funny, very illiterate women. Yeah. The women went out and created Broad City and Amy Schumer and Sarah, you know, right? And girls and all that kind of stuff. They probably... Well, they probably had a male producer helping. To help them with the spelling. Yeah, yeah. I think if I were a woman, I would... Those shows are so good, you've got to believe. It's funny that the Letterman show, Dave will say this, was created by, you know, Merrill Marko. Pretty much created the format. Many of his long-term producers were women, and there were very talented women coming in and out over the years. There is a... I was doing somebody's radio show the other day, and there were... It was me, the host, and three other women, and then Rich Voss came in, the great comedian Rich Voss, and the male energy took over, and we were... All three of us have daughters, and, you know, we look over and we see the women, and there is a male energy that is... Trying to impress them? Well, and it dominates... It's not necessarily more powerful, it's just louder. And there's a female energy. There is... There are two different energies. This confirms my theory that men want to get laid. I've been saying that for years. And you've just confirmed it. So that we were shown... Men are anxious to impress women. Yeah, it's... Well, look, I can't sink a three-point basket. I can't hit a curveball. This is all I can do to get women to... What about your comedy songs? Believe me, that doesn't work either. You've got to believe me. I tested that for 10 years. Have you ever laughed a woman into bed? Well, I don't have an option. I don't know what else do I have going for me. How does a comedy writer... Except now I could go up to a woman, you know, and say, I make a very handsome living. As a comedy writer, what do you do? You meet a woman.  I don't know. Do you guys agree that I don't... I know you're single now. I don't know if you're dating. I don't know what Steve's situation is, but a woman who laughs is a gift from God. You know, just a real laughter. And I love both my... I've been married twice and both my wives were very generous with their laughter. And that's just the juice. That's the energy that keeps me going every day. But is that... I wouldn't know what to do with a tough room at home.  Tell what your daughter is to say. This is a tough room just sitting at the kitchen table. Tell what your daughter is to do. Oh, yes, my daughter at the dinner table. If dad, if I told a joke or tried to be funny, and it didn't work, if the joke wasn't funny, my daughter Rachel would start crying, playfully crying and saying, we're going to starve. That was her thing. Around the house. I'm not going to ask you personal questions, but let's just say, Steve Young, you've had children. That's right. I live in a dwelling. What's it like? Is it wonderful? It's not bad. Let me keep you out of the elements. I haven't met your kids. Andy Breckman's kids were raised... are being raised exactly how my kids were raised. No, actually, better because... I also know better. They are constantly pitching. You walk into the house. They're two beautiful kids. These are from the new marriage. All right, from Beth. Well, it's funny to say that as we're sitting here in New York and on the Lower East Side, my son, Evan, my 10-year-old son. Who I have a feud with. Who you're having a celebrity feud with my 10-year-old son. Good luck on that feud, by the way. He wouldn't do a roast battle with me. I wanted to do a roast battle with him. I have to pick him up. I have to leave it a few minutes to pick him up. He's at comedy class. He's doing stand-up comedy at the Gotham Comedy Club. He comes out and does like every... At the end of every semester, they come out and do five minutes. You've got to come to see it. Oh, my God. But his last comedy routine was... He came in and said, you know, every comedian needs a hook, needs a gimmick. I'm the comic without a phone. And he did a whole five minutes on how he doesn't have a phone. Very funny kid. And he doesn't have a phone because you're not funny and you're starving. Because he's 10. I don't know. When did your kids get phones? He's 10. So, wait a second. Don't you think this would have been funny? There was a bet of Andy, by the way, hosts for WFMU. I have a show not unlike this. And Steve Young should come on your show. He's always welcome. He has the most amazing show. You would have so much fun. I would go with you just to watch you go beyond his show. But Steve was telling us about his dwelling. No, I want to hang on for one second. So, they were doing a benefit for WFMU, which is the greatest radio station. I'm familiar with it. I know Erwin Chewson. Yes, he's by Leedon, actually, on Wednesdays. And there are two great radio stations in America. KPFK in Los Angeles, where my radio show is. And WFMU, and it's just a beautiful building. So they were doing a benefit at Monty Hall. That's the name of it. Oh, yes. I've been there. I've done a show in this. Oh, great. Oh, yes. By the way, I did your show. In Jersey City, it's now become a real hot venue. Yeah, you can get over there on the path train. Yes. It's a number of people who heard me on your show. Well. So anyway, they're doing a benefit for WFMU. And it was a talent show. And I said, why don't Evan, your 10-year-old son, and I do a roast battle? He doesn't know you.  That's just wrong. No, it isn't. It's hysterical. All right. Well, let me ask Steve Young. Let me ask Judge Young. I'm going to have to thread this needle very carefully. Exactly. The idea would be a roast battle. Right. And they introduced me as a guy who's written on roasts. He's written for Triumph the Ansel Comic Dog. And he's going to go up against Evan, this 10-year-old.  Well, but he doesn't. The point, the problem is he doesn't. David, God bless you. I love you. But he doesn't know you very well. I mean, you've been to the house a few times. But to say to Evan, you're going to go on stage in this man. This middle-aged man is going to ridicule you. If he has to tough sell to a 10-year-old. Why? But no, but for the funny. But for the funny. OK, maybe. But he doesn't know you. All right. What did he say to you? He doesn't love you. Most. I don't even. I didn't even. I don't know. You didn't pitch it. It used to be that your average 10-year-old knew all the Feldman references. Now I don't know if they do. I don't. Yeah. It's getting tougher and tougher to get him into your van, isn't it, Dave? I don't know. I just. Comedy van. Hey, kids, come in the van and we'll work on a routine. I wanted to do a double with my son. They call them doubles. And back in Foddfield.  And we used to do it at parties. It would be so much fun to have a father-son comedy team. I don't know. Has it ever, is it unprecedented? Yes. A father-son comedy team? Yeah, and we would do it. I mean, you've seen siblings, of course. We would do it when we had parties. My son and I would come out and I would really, you know, the comedy team. I don't want to mention the name, but I'd come out and everybody would automatically assume that he was going to make fun of me. And I just humiliated. I would pretend to read his report card just tell him what I caught. Tell people what I caught him doing. What I would do is I'd have ever come out and every time I moved he would flinch. Like he's scared of me. They will, I will, I will sit, once a year they dane to invite me to their beautiful home. They're always inviting. And the kids, when I walk in, they immediately start pitching me show ideas, jokes. And it's... You're all very show-busy people. This stuff doesn't happen at my house. Really? Yeah. The kids... Are your kids, have your kids gone into show business? No. That's a badge of honor for you. My older daughter is about to go to grad school to get a master's in social work. Fine, healthy sense of humor. But not seeming to be inclined toward that. I'm sure she's getting in in what? Social work. She wants to become a clinical therapist. Certainly very healthy and robust sense of humor. But doesn't seem to think that she needs to be creating it. So that's fine. The younger daughter is in college now and I don't know what she'll end up toward. She also is a very funny person, but she doesn't seem like she has a great drive to be brought into the world. Well, that means you raise them well. That means they're happy. That means they're well adjusted and they don't have that void in their life. One of my favorite quotes in the world is, happy people do not make history. Wow. History is being made by people that are driven. But I'm curious, and maybe before you go, if you could comment on this, there's this perception, maybe we even talked about this last time I was here, that comedy writers have to be bitter and neurotic in order to have this comedy engine fired up to deal with their issues through comedy. And I always felt growing up that I'm not really that way. I just like really weird, silly, funny, smart stuff. And I'm, I think, fairly well adjusted most of the time. I don't know. I don't know where it starts. I don't know. Like, I look at, I have five kids. I have three from a previous administration, as a Korean. And then two from a man. And four of the five are not interested at all in show business or entertaining people or getting on stage. But my fifth at my youngest, Evan, it is important to him. It's how he looks at the world and he filters everything through comedy. I don't know if it's genetic. I mean, I don't know if I raised him differently. So if I have another half dozen kids, I might get one. Yeah, I don't know if you want one. But I don't know if it's the lucky one or the unlucky one. But that's, you know, his identity is kind of built around being funny. And he loves making kids in the class laugh. And he will come home sometimes from school and say, I got off a great singer. Got off a great singer today. And that's who he is, just like you and I do. Is he at the point of trying to impress girls with this? Yeah, exactly. That's who we are.  That's it. Do you give note? I got into trouble. I would note my kids. Oh, you would do a little policy. I did. It was like I would correct them. Yeah, yeah. Like it was like it was math. But that can be fine if they see that you're not trying to diminish them but actually trying to help them. Have you done that? Well, no, no one brings me comedy. Now I'm talking about during in a conversation with my kids. I've never tried to help your kids with comedy. They will make a joke. And I will, when they were younger and I would correct their witticisms. And they actually didn't complain to their credit. No, sometimes. There were so many more horrible things that I was doing. Sometimes around the dinner table, somebody will try a humorous remark and I'll say or this and I'll have the hopefully slightly punchier version. I'll go, oh, of course. Well, there you go. I think I know how they feel here. You're funnier than me right here. When your kids make you laugh. That's the greatest. It's the greatest. It's the greatest. But is it intentional? Because I found that most of the hilarious stuff I think that has ever happened in human history has been done by little kids who don't know what they're doing. But I think they try to make you laugh. And then if I really laugh and it's a genuine moment, it's not unlike I think maybe you and I shared, if you can get Letterman to crack up. If you can make that Letterman laugh, that was something you savored those moments. And they didn't happen every day, at least not for me. But and it's probably the same for kids making their deadly. I'm always amazed when my kids can do things comedically that I can't do. Like at a laugh. Like I can't do sarcasm. And both of you got, well, you're not sarcastic. Steve Young, obviously. I think it's in there somewhere. I have this and maybe this is a little different than the male comedy paradigm of being super loud and energetic. I usually find that I do well with the calm, deadpan. Just slip the shiv into your ribcage sort of thing. I've never been it. That's not in my DNA. It's not in my DNA either. I can't do it. I remember when we moved into our house, one of my daughters, 10 years old, we had gotten sconces. And I never thought. Oh my God, he's finally telling the sconce. I've been asking for this for I don't know how long. That's basically what my daughter said. That's exactly where my wife and I was like nine in the morning. We're both leaving for work. And we couldn't believe we had a living room with sconces and go. Oh, no, no, no. I want to hear the end. Now it's horrible. No, no, no. I'm so sorry. That was so you have to go. I do. I have tickets for Guardians of the Galaxy and I have to get back to New Jersey. Okay. Will Evan come in here?  Have you done that on your show? No, it's a great idea. The children of the funniest friends you have bring their kids in. And just treat them like adults. Well, you'd get great stories. It certainly would be uninhibited. It would be fun to do the show with kids. No? Yes. Yeah, but it's a tough. Okay, I'll have to drive Evan down here to do it. It's a tough neighborhood. Would Evan do what I saw up front? Just call him on his phone. Thank you, Randy. Oh, hey, no, thanks very much. Steve, good to see you again. We're going to be right back. Andy Breckman, how do people reach you? How do they listen to the air? Dear God, how do they reach you? WFMU. Oh, WFMU on Wednesday evenings. And it's a great show. Well, that means a lot. Hey, and it meant a lot to be asked here. Steve, God bless you and your work. Okay. We'll be right back. So what do you have for us? Oh, well, David recalled from our time at Maya and Marty that I often relaxed and wasted time by getting out the guitar and doing my little finger-picking delights. I thought that was just not for relaxation. I thought you wanted to be alone when you whipped at your guitar. You were trying to get people to leave. Well, some people take the hint better than others. You actually studied guitar as I understand it as an adult. You didn't play it as a child, right? Yeah, in college I had lessons for a while and learned some chords and could just basically strum. And then I was, I don't know, almost 40, I think, when I decided I really want to get back into this. And I very luckily found a teacher in Manhattan who was excellent with finger-picking. And I thought, oh, I don't know anything about that. And it turned out, oh, my God, I was born to do this. And what if I had gone down to my grave, never knowing that the faucet was a trickle, and then it was a gush, and I just, oh, my gosh, this is great. I'll never be bored again. And then I went up to a different teacher. He said, I can't teach you anymore. The first teacher, yes, Val, a woman said, after a while, I'm going to have to pass you on to a higher-level teacher. But then she worked with me on piano and music theory for a little while. But then I worked with a teacher named Woody Mann, who's a hugely well-known and respected country blues, ragtime. I think he's also quite well-versed in jazz. And I learned a lot from him. Haven't taken lessons in a few years now, but the fingers still mostly work. And then I started writing little bits that would occasionally get on the Letterman show. So what do you have for us? Well, this was something we were doing, one of our staff Thanksgiving montages.  And so I wrote this thing about how turkeys are slaughtered and processed. And I wrote it thinking, well, it's only going to be a little part of a montage. So there's actually not even the first part of the song there. It just sort of comes in in the middle. Right. Then this happens. Then this happens, as if something's already happened. But now I haven't rehearsed this. I think I can still get through it. But let's see. Then the next step after the slaughter. Loosen the feathers in boiling water. The heads cut off and the feathers are plucked. Now the insides we de-construct. Pull out the organs they must be inspected. No sign of disease can be detected. The gizzards, livers, necks and the hearts are set aside as the giblet parts. The carcass then must have a cleaning. The turkey carcass passes a screening. On Thanksgiving, let's all sing of industrial turkey processing. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Wow. You're listening to the David Feldman radio program.  Welcome back. And by the way, Andy Breckman has to go. He had to leave, which he pretty much said already. Are you teaching? Yeah, I'm just finishing my second semester as an instructor at NYU. They've got this dramatic writing department. And I'm not teaching a writing course per se. It's more of a TV history course. No, my name is David. Why do people always call me per se? Because they think that you must have something to do with that expensive restaurant.  So you're teaching drama? No, it's just a sort of TV history overview, whatever I wanted to talk about. So some of it has been based on my own experiences at certain shows and some of it is just reaching back further into history to things that are generally considered worth knowing about, but your average 20-year-old might not know about. For example? Well, the Dick Van Dyke show, Mary Tyler Moore, people may have seen these things because they've been on TV land or whatever, but then all the way back into The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy drag net in the 50s and then again in the 60s. All the early stuff like not only your show of shows, but also even like the Texaco Star Theatre with Milton Berle, but also all sorts of oddities, which some of which I bet you know, like Pink Lady and Jeff. Yeah, nobody had ever heard of that. Jeff Altman was a comedian. NBC was trying to bring back the Variety series, which was always hard to do. And they found two Japanese, I believe Japanese women who didn't speak English. Well, they were a singing sensation duo in Japan and they had some huge selling records and everything. And I think it was Fred Silverman at the time at NBC said, oh, we got to jump on this. We got to get them over, put them on a variety show. And somebody said, are we sure they speak English? Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure they do. And then they got the whole show started up. No, they didn't speak English at all. So it was all, they had to learn their lines phonetically and didn't really understand what they were saying at any given point. And you couldn't really do rewrites the last minute because they couldn't learn how to say a different string of nonsense syllables that meant nothing to them. Had it been a hit, it would have been considered a stroke of genius. It seemed like so far into left field as an idea that, yeah, I mean it could have been seen as who would have imagined it. But by this point, the variety show as a genre really was on its last legs. And I think this kind of killed it off. I talk about it in the class. Can you find it on YouTube? There's a few clips. There's like an 18 minute best of. And the word best is used under advisement, I think. But you can tell that this was a sort of remnant of the 50s and 60s TV world where variety shows presented unironically were no longer really going to fly. I mean, you had all the way into the 70s with Sonny and Cher and the Osmans. And by the, I think this was early 1980, we are several years into the world of SNL, national lampoon had also done a lot to build a new comedy sense and a new generation. And we were almost ready to have it really come into its own fully with David Letterman. So a non-ironic old line variety show was really a very risky move. And then this show's terrible fundamental flaws just sank it. I think they had five episodes that got on the air and there was a sixth that never aired. So you teach each week one television show? Well, or one either kind of genre, like one week we were talking about cop shows and that's when we were talking about Dragnet and Kojak and Hill Street Blues, which kind of brought it into the modern age with shows that don't neatly wrap up at the end of each hour and storylines go for months or even years. Some of it was, oh, let's talk about variety shows. And we ended up all the way down at Maya and Marty. Okay, so you would do a class and say police drama. How do you prep the class? Well, sometimes it's just, all right, here's some... How do you prep it? How do you get ready? Oh, how do I get ready? Well, I watch a lot of stuff and read a lot of stuff and write out notes because it is largely a lecture class, although with a lot of things to watch in the middle of it. So I don't talk for hours at a time, but... This, wait a second. So let me get this. Okay, police drama. The class is on what night? This semester it was Tuesday from 3.30 to 6.15. Okay, Wednesday. When do you start prepping the police drama on a Wednesday? The first semester, last fall, I spent more time just gearing up because I was coming from a standing start and I didn't really have anything put together. The second time through, I will, depending on how I felt the class went in the fall, all I need to completely rethink this or this was pretty well there, but I'll try to see if there's anything new I want to add. So it's a part-time job. It's not supposed to be a full-time job. But you write a lecture out. More or less, but within that time, let's watch this for half an hour. Let's watch that for half an hour. Hopefully have some class discussion to some extent. So it's not just me talking. And are there significant academic books written about TV police dramas? There are a lot of books about TV that go chronologically and then some that go by genre. David Biancouli, is that guy's name? He just had a book come out in the last year or so that has chapters on different genres, like kids' shows, cop shows, medical shows, late-night comedy variety shows, and he'll have his pick for what are the five most significant ones in each genre and write about them and then sometimes have interviews with significant people. So that book informed me. There were a few other books I bought. But a lot of stuff is just available on YouTube. Not everything. Sometimes I would have to go buy sets of DVDs to show them I Love Lucy or MASH or something. You are fascinated by industrial musicals. Yes, I am. They're working within the puzzle. The puzzle being... that you have to sell this product to the salesmen who are... Yeah, they in many ways resemble Broadway shows, but they were put on for an audience of dealers and salesmen within a company to motivate them to sell things, which is a different animal than writing for the general population and luring them to come into an entertainment. These dealers and salesmen, they were forced to go to these things. In some ways, you knew your show was going to be a success because they were going to put everybody in the seats and make them sit and watch it. Were there any industrial shows that got a standing ovation where people were just totally moved? Oh, absolutely. Many of them, the best ones, were actually thoroughly professional and full of genius. Many of them were cheap song parody and rip-off type things, but the best of them... And sometimes you'd see on the back of a record album like the 64 Ford Tractor Show, which was a Radio City Music Hall in front of 5,300 people. Ford had flown in from all over the world and there were all these quotes on the back of the record about how great the show was. And one Ford tractor dealer from Austria said, this was the most beautiful day of my life, which you always get a laugh by recounting that. And then I lead people through what it must have been like to be a Ford tractor dealer in some rural part of Europe who's been brought over to the U.S. like royalty and put up in a nice hotel and you're ushered into Radio City Music Hall and you see a quite impressively mounted musical about why the work you do is the underpinning of civilization and you are the linchpin of progress and what you do.  And you're a hero and I'm sure on many, many of these shows and composers have told me they would see this, people in the audience just with tears streaming down their faces like I've been validated, I've been entertained, I've been informed, I've been motivated, but really somebody gets it that I'm trying really hard and it has meaning which gets lost sometimes. Wow. So as corny and weird as it is, is worth studying partly because it gets down to these primal human needs and emotions which these things when done properly met expertly and thrillingly. So you appreciate the context. It has been a great way to learn about American history and culture and even the business world which I really knew nothing about but it's always just going to be funny to me that there are musicals about selling tires and bathtubs and all these things and that's what attracted me initially was it seemed like these things shouldn't exist. This is something that comedy writers surely must have come up with because this is too bizarre to believe and then no, it is really, this is a complete legitimate musical about selling BF Goodrich tires or air conditioners or whatever and not all of them were great but when they were good they really make you go oh my god this is, I've fallen into an alternate universe. So teaching a class in television what are the similarities between say an episode of Dragnet and an industrial musical because they're both there to sell a product? Well I do sometimes remind the class that all these shows are essentially beyond and above whatever artistic value they have they were aired because they were going to help an advertiser move products and sometimes we were talking about the quiz show scandals, the 50s and Geritol was very upset because that show was at 21 I think was the big show of the scandal. Herb Stemple was this sort of nervous less appealing guy and Geritol said we got to get him out of there. People don't like the show when he wins and we're not selling enough Geritol and so this is the sort of behind the scenes engine that mov