Speaker 1: Really now, really, really.
Speaker 2: Now, really hello, and welcome to Really Know Really Jess,
Speaker 2: Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind you onequivocally that subscribing
Speaker 2: to the podcast is a truly stand up thing to do.
Speaker 2: And speaking of stand up, actor Paul Reiser began his
Speaker 2: illustrious career back in the seventies as one of the
Speaker 2: hottest young stand up comedians of his generation. What quickly
Speaker 2: followed was breakout acting roles in films like Diner, Beverly Hills,
Speaker 2: Cop and Aliens. That was followed by television stardom and
Speaker 2: series like My Two Dads, Stranger Things, The Kaminsky Method,
Speaker 2: The Boys, and his highly acclaimed series Mad About You,
Speaker 2: which he also produced and wrote. But then last year,
Speaker 2: after a thirty two year hiatus from stand up comedy,
Speaker 2: Riser returned to his comedy roots with his special Life
Speaker 2: Death and Rice Pudding, and suddenly he was a stand
Speaker 2: up again.
Speaker 3: Really no really, Today.
Speaker 2: The guys will chat with him about the twists and
Speaker 2: turns of his amazing career and what called him back
Speaker 2: to take up the microphone and comedy clubs once again.
Speaker 3: Here's Jason and Peter.
Speaker 1: All right, let's say.
Speaker 4: Should we actually begin, but.
Speaker 1: Rolling why I just want to I want to go.
Speaker 3: What is so important that I had to race over
Speaker 3: to this side of town? What is how?
Speaker 4: He's interrupting? Apparently we're trying to start a show and
Speaker 4: roll in and do introductions and the.
Speaker 3: Guests I thought i'd come in aggressive.
Speaker 4: Has decided to come in like you know, like it's
Speaker 4: like it's his show.
Speaker 1: You know what that means. He's a little bit nervous,
Speaker 1: he's uncomfortable. He wants to try and get in and
Speaker 1: feel the.
Speaker 3: Yeah you put me in my place nicely. Good for
Speaker 3: you for you know who did that?
Speaker 4: Remember who did that? Same thing? Same thing?
Speaker 3: He's gone.
Speaker 4: No, he's still with us.
Speaker 1: You know what comes? I love you, Remember I love
Speaker 1: obscure things. I was gonna say, Lance Wrens, No, just
Speaker 1: to see.
Speaker 4: If Shatner started the interview, started interviewing, what's the show? Why?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: Now I'm doing sign But yeah, Shatner started the.
Speaker 1: Same always takes over. You go to lunch with him
Speaker 1: and we say we're not going to have desert, and
Speaker 1: he goes everything and then you gotta get it. Yeah, so.
Speaker 4: We'll pretend that we had not been interrupted. Are you
Speaker 4: excited about our guest today.
Speaker 1: I am really excited to because oh, this is like
Speaker 1: a nine and a half ten, and he's gonna say
Speaker 1: why not?
Speaker 4: Why not immediately?
Speaker 1: All right, that's it because the Orson Walf is dead.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge How are you not a huge man?
Speaker 1: I mean you grew up watching him? And also he's
Speaker 1: taking jobs away from me, nomadic actresses your way from me.
Speaker 4: I still like them.
Speaker 1: It's dramatic, it's action adventure, it's the boys, it's stranger things,
Speaker 1: it's it's met about you. Reduct you know, comes back.
Speaker 4: For a guy with an every man's face and a
Speaker 4: really you know, I'm not saying he doesn't have talent.
Speaker 4: I'm saying it's not a to Z you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. He's not Brando, but.
Speaker 1: He llow he's done up singing comedy with the thing
Speaker 1: he did with that monitor lizard. Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but no, Paulie, Paulie is he's done at all?
Speaker 1: And what the really no really is thirty two years
Speaker 1: he waited to do stand up the thing?
Speaker 4: Now here's the thing because I haven't done the deep dive.
Speaker 4: I know paul primarily as an actor because I first
Speaker 4: remember the first time I remember remember seeing Paul's work
Speaker 4: was in diner, right, you're with me? So I didn't
Speaker 4: know him as a stand up prior to that, and
Speaker 4: I kept here on a stand up standing stand up.
Speaker 4: And so for me, I go, it's even more of
Speaker 4: a really no, really, because I go, you never did
Speaker 4: stand up? Why we Why now you're going to do
Speaker 4: stand up? But it's a return to the roots. What
Speaker 4: balls would it take? Yeah, drove all the way here
Speaker 4: from wherever? Yeah, and we never we just did this,
Speaker 4: We just do this what he did? Just talk about
Speaker 4: him in front of him. Yeah, and speculate what his
Speaker 4: answers might be.
Speaker 3: They'll be fine with me to watch two people talk about.
Speaker 4: Please welcome to really no, really the great and I
Speaker 4: do mean that one of thank you gentle men out there,
Speaker 4: and and a lovely human being. Nobody by the fact
Speaker 4: that he's willing to come down to the van Night's airport.
Speaker 1: And by the way, not knowing from comedy anybody or
Speaker 1: under what thirty probably thinks you're dramatic from aliens on, thanks,
Speaker 1: you're a dramatic act my favorite thing.
Speaker 3: And I hear this a lot. His friends will say
Speaker 3: that their kids their teenage kids will go, what the guy,
Speaker 3: the doctor from Stranger Things is going to try to
Speaker 3: be funny and I go, okay, first of all, tell
Speaker 3: him I'm not a doctor, right, really, and I'm actually
Speaker 3: a stand up but you know, and I did take
Speaker 3: twenty years off doing stand up, not intentionally but just
Speaker 3: as it turns out, so it's understandable. But you know,
Speaker 3: I think of myself as a stand up for But
Speaker 3: as you were talking, we were in an acting class
Speaker 3: together for a brief with Larry. Yes, that's right, that's
Speaker 3: where I first met you, and it would be it
Speaker 3: was way before you would be probably eighty. I remember
Speaker 3: just two three big locks of hair. Yeah, that would
Speaker 3: have been a while ago.
Speaker 4: You're confusing us. It happens all the time. But seriously,
Speaker 4: because I never asked you this, because how often have
Speaker 4: we chatted about this stuff? So when you were a kid,
Speaker 4: you weren't thinking actor. You were thinking come yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know they were sort of meshed. I don't think
Speaker 4: that you're in fourth grade thinking I want to do
Speaker 4: a fellow but performing. So it was like the blanket performing.
Speaker 3: So in elementary school, you'd write an essay, a composition,
Speaker 3: a story and my recollection is you could read it
Speaker 3: aloud if you'd like, and I would go and I
Speaker 3: would volunteer because I wanted the laughs of the eighteen
Speaker 3: twenty kids. And even then, this is how dumb and
Speaker 3: ill advised. I would put in subtle jokes that only
Speaker 3: one guy would get and the rest of the class
Speaker 3: would go. But like, I was always working the back
Speaker 3: of the room, which is death is silly, but it
Speaker 3: made me happy. So it was always performing and getting
Speaker 3: laughs was the thought. But you know, you'd be in
Speaker 3: a school play. I remember in college I did Guys
Speaker 3: and Dolls and I was not in the theater department.
Speaker 3: It was like the dorms putting on a silly thing.
Speaker 3: And I even fell into that by accident because some
Speaker 3: guy dropped out. And I loved getting the laugh. I
Speaker 3: was like, and I love the excitement, and I loved
Speaker 3: getting ready, Well we got a show. It's only nine
Speaker 3: more hours to a showtime, you know that. But I
Speaker 3: knew there were four solid laughs that I would get.
Speaker 3: That made me realize, yeah, that's what I like, and
Speaker 3: we'll get through the dancing and singing and stuff.
Speaker 4: But the reason I find it interesting because I talked
Speaker 4: to Jerry about this too. Jerry said, I assume it's
Speaker 4: still true that his preference, by a landslide is stand
Speaker 4: up because he loves the thrill or the challenge of
Speaker 4: working in one. Yeah, And I find like I talked
Speaker 4: to Kevin Pollock about that too, and he likes that too.
Speaker 4: He likes the he likes working in one. I went
Speaker 4: into acting because I spent my life in one and
Speaker 4: I wanted to have a community, and so it was
Speaker 4: always the communal aspect of being in a show or
Speaker 4: being in a film that drew me to it. I
Speaker 4: find that a lot of comedians I talked to are
Speaker 4: very intimidated by the community work of being an actor,
Speaker 4: or vice versa. My actors won't go near.
Speaker 3: It's ironic because one of the things, yes, you're working
Speaker 3: in one, but one of the things that I loved
Speaker 3: when I did my little you know, theater experiences, but
Speaker 3: I also love in stand up is in fact the community. So, yes,
Speaker 3: you're working in one, but you're all hanging around that,
Speaker 3: you're all chiming in with hey, you know, it would
Speaker 3: be a great line after that, and you're with the
Speaker 3: other it's you know, like, oh, these you know, the
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters. So I think there really is a
Speaker 3: strong community. And it's interesting. I never felt comedians were
Speaker 3: really competitive professionally. I mean you might say, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: jump on the line. You're an actor. There's eleven guys
Speaker 3: go into the audition. One of you will get it,
Speaker 3: the other ten will not. Just stand up. There's a
Speaker 3: great gig, you'll do it this week, you'll do it
Speaker 3: next week. So it's not a zero sum game. So
Speaker 3: to that effect, there really was a community. There is
Speaker 3: a community and stand up which I still love. Well.
Speaker 1: You also, you were that part of the Best Buddies
Speaker 1: thing with Cherry Too, right, did you Mark Schiff, Larry
Speaker 1: Millwer didn't you do the New Year's.
Speaker 3: Michael Lampton Ky? Yeah, yeah, we were, you know, five
Speaker 3: idiots who said it's New Year's Day, we got nothing
Speaker 3: to do, nobody has a girlfriend, let's go eat lunch.
Speaker 3: And then that became a tradition, you know, we'll get
Speaker 3: through the New Year's Day thing. I did it for
Speaker 3: like twenty five years or something.
Speaker 1: And did you guys compare notes? Did you guys always
Speaker 1: fell comedy for like a mont grow.
Speaker 3: We wouldn't talk. No, in fact, almost not at all,
Speaker 3: but but it would just be sprinting and having ridiculous laughs.
Speaker 3: You know, we were the guys that everybody else is
Speaker 3: going to led Zepplendon, We're going to see Robert Klein.
Speaker 3: So when you find that community, you know, and and
Speaker 3: I remember one time in fact, that group was Larry
Speaker 3: Jerry and myself and Mark Shift and we were eating
Speaker 3: out in a restaurant and wait, just said something silly
Speaker 3: and there was an opening and almost like we all
Speaker 3: went around instantly and did the same joke but a
Speaker 3: little different went Wow, that's that was your take. That
Speaker 3: was your take and uh, and we just laughed at that,
Speaker 3: the fact that we had the same idea and we
Speaker 3: all went a little bit different way.
Speaker 1: So may I bring up so I watch a comedy
Speaker 1: special not before you were even booked.
Speaker 3: That is really appreciated.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I single out one thing, not
Speaker 1: that everything else wasn't brilliant, one thing that was got broken.
Speaker 1: I'm a lot more healthy than so the thing that
Speaker 1: got me though, that was so broken. And you get
Speaker 1: to that point when you're logging in and says, are
Speaker 1: you a robot?
Speaker 3: I love those tests because there's so few things that
Speaker 3: I'm good at and those one I I crush them.
Speaker 3: I go, I know I'm already in, but give me
Speaker 3: another one.
Speaker 4: I know, because there's always like a piece of one
Speaker 4: in the corner of a blank.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I go, do I click on that cross one?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, you're either a robot or Jason Alexander.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, but you're not getting it.
Speaker 3: There was when I go someone that I try to
Speaker 3: trick you up, palm tree.
Speaker 5: Palm Well it could be a focus, right, hey, not
Speaker 5: so fast that yes, yes, but it's it's it's interesting
Speaker 5: with the technology that advance, the one thing that stops
Speaker 5: a robot, we cannot attemptify a chimney.
Speaker 3: You put a chimney in with debt.
Speaker 4: Now, you say you took a twenty year break, but
Speaker 4: were you and you were writing and running some of
Speaker 4: the other things as well, But were you keeping sort
Speaker 4: of a here's a.
Speaker 3: Little journal note I should make no real No, I wasn't.
Speaker 3: I think the brain's always putting doing that anyway, like
Speaker 3: that's funny. But I wasn't keeping it because I I
Speaker 3: had never intended. There were a lot of comics who say,
Speaker 3: you know who just actually got into stand up because
Speaker 3: they want to get discovered and then they'll get a sitcom.
Speaker 3: And then they advanded it my our group of guys,
Speaker 3: we just loved stand up.
Speaker 1: That was the goal.
Speaker 3: So I never wanted to get out of it. And
Speaker 3: I only got out of it because I like, when
Speaker 3: Mad About You started, I was I don't know Jerry
Speaker 3: managed to do it, others did it. I was like,
Speaker 3: that's a full time job and my brain is dead,
Speaker 3: and if I have a month off, I'm going to sleep.
Speaker 3: So and then I got really comfortable, and then we
Speaker 3: you know, the show was over, and I said, I'm
Speaker 3: going to take a year off, and and I didn't
Speaker 3: always wanted to get back, but I didn't want to
Speaker 3: just dig dust off the old act. So I just
Speaker 3: kept waiting and waiting. I said it's time, and I
Speaker 3: just started really from scratch. I had three minutes of
Speaker 3: stuff in's you say, what's relevant? I'm not smart enough
Speaker 3: to make anything up and I can only I'm going
Speaker 3: to tell you what happened in my house. See if
Speaker 3: this is funny, and most people go, oh, that happened
Speaker 3: to my house, and lot George Colin used to call it,
Speaker 3: oh yeah comedy, like oh yeah yeah. So but you know,
Speaker 3: you find out that what you're going through is really universal.
Speaker 3: What was nice about coming back after all those years
Speaker 3: and now this is post mad about you, so audiences
Speaker 3: now they know you and they feel comfortable. It really
Speaker 3: felt like getting together with old friends. It's like, we
Speaker 3: know what's happening. Those babies that we had, they're growing
Speaker 3: up now, right, Well, they's funny. So it was was
Speaker 3: it was way overdue. I wish I had I don't
Speaker 3: know wish, but I wanted to and I only was
Speaker 3: procrastinating because I wanted to do it well. And what
Speaker 3: I found was it was exactly going back when I
Speaker 3: was sixty or whatever, felt exactly the same as when
Speaker 3: I was eighteen. I went on audition night. It's like
Speaker 3: just as excited, just as nervous. It's just as challenging,
Speaker 3: and there's no shortcut, like you can't you're not automatically better. Lo,
Speaker 3: you got to go up every night. And then a
Speaker 3: year I felt it was a year before I said
Speaker 3: I can maybe try to sell a ticket. No, even
Speaker 3: the first club date I wait to the I would
Speaker 3: just go to eight club and do fifteen minutes or
Speaker 3: four minutes, and then eight minutes, ten minutes, I think
Speaker 3: I can do it. At the first club date manager
Speaker 3: booked it was like two shows with two shows in
Speaker 3: one night. No, I'm in pajamas at eight thirty. That's
Speaker 3: not gonna I can't do that. And to my surprise,
Speaker 3: so we negotiated down to one and then of course
Speaker 3: when it was over, I went give me another show.
Speaker 3: I realized I missed this. Wow, well it was great.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you that dumb question that I've never
Speaker 1: just came to my mind? Thought, Jason's gonna call me
Speaker 1: for asking Spust, how do you decide what to wear?
Speaker 1: Whenever I watch a comedy special, I go, if you're
Speaker 1: wearing the wrong thing for now and your stomach and
Speaker 1: your thing, and it's going to be bad. How do
Speaker 1: you test out what you wear? Because you were a
Speaker 1: very nice outfit that worked. The shoes, worked the pants.
Speaker 3: But it's not a dumb question because it took me
Speaker 3: while to realize.
Speaker 1: You test out what you wear because you were a
Speaker 1: very nice outfit that worked, the shoes, worked the pants.
Speaker 3: It's not a dumb question because it took me while
Speaker 3: to realize, I only feel comfortable with these shoes, and
Speaker 3: I like to gee I don't like to wear a suit.
Speaker 3: It looks nice, but I don't feel comfortable in a suit.
Speaker 3: And and so I found a shirt. I went, let
Speaker 3: me give me a lot of these shirts. And I
Speaker 3: got a dozen of the same shirt. And then was
Speaker 3: the special. I actually had a meeting with a wardrobe person.
Speaker 3: I said, well, this is not just me chilling it chuckles,
Speaker 3: I have to and they go, but you want to
Speaker 3: be comfortable, I said, I'm just gonna wear exactly what
Speaker 3: I wear. And uh, and if you need those shirts,
Speaker 3: by the way, we'll watch the shirts.
Speaker 1: I like the blue monitor. I'd like the things good.
Speaker 4: But there is there is a thing.
Speaker 3: As we've all gotten older, and I would imagine you
Speaker 3: found this too. You find a uniform, whether it's for
Speaker 3: home or for work. I was like, let me do this. A.
Speaker 3: It's comfortable. B. I don't want to think. I remember
Speaker 3: Obama talking about that that one of the things like
Speaker 3: when he got busy, is like, I'm going to cut
Speaker 3: out all wardrobe decisions except one day I'm gonna wear
Speaker 3: a cream colored suit. But that he stepped out of
Speaker 3: the zone and then he got he got in trouble.
Speaker 3: But it's like, yeah, you know, just gonna here's what
Speaker 3: I wear, Here's what I do. So is this it
Speaker 3: is this the ni No? This is my Jason Alexander
Speaker 3: put on a sweater. No, but yeah, yeah. Basically I'm
Speaker 3: always wearing jeans in the sweater and if I step out,
Speaker 3: it's wrong.
Speaker 1: If you still have clothing you wear from Matt about
Speaker 1: your for God's sake, because I'll tell you what you
Speaker 1: want him. He's wearing two items right now from Cipher
Speaker 1: and we just talked about.
Speaker 4: By the way, if you're a constant listener, we talked
Speaker 4: about this in the last episode as well. So when
Speaker 4: the show went down, what do you take? I don't
Speaker 4: know what to take, so I took all my wardrobe.
Speaker 3: I remember, Yeah, but us thirty years now.
Speaker 4: Look at his shirt.
Speaker 3: It's a classic. It's like a hemingway.
Speaker 4: You don't throw.
Speaker 3: I remember the when you're doing a show and we're lucky,
Speaker 3: we're privileged to be working on a show, and they
Speaker 3: dress and slowly you start dressing just like your character
Speaker 3: is you. Let's just close that gap. And then while
Speaker 3: you're doing a show, Well, I got to do it
Speaker 3: tonight show. I need a suit, get your suit. You
Speaker 3: doing a thing? I have a wedding can give me
Speaker 3: cut to afterwards, I went, I haven't been in a
Speaker 3: store now it's nine years. I don't know how to
Speaker 3: do that, and so I got to get a show
Speaker 3: so somebody can buy their pants and somebody go take those.
Speaker 4: In when I shoot something. That's when I got closed.
Speaker 4: I have an insane foot. I have a five and
Speaker 4: a half d so it's five five and a half.
Speaker 4: I wear a six shoe, but five and a half.
Speaker 3: It was like those those little boxing dummies with the
Speaker 3: little plastic feet that correct. So really, yes, shocked that
Speaker 3: you can support your body weight.
Speaker 4: If you're listening the first time, this is my foot,
Speaker 4: and my foot ends here. My foot ends here.
Speaker 1: Your parents and they felt to see if there was
Speaker 1: room in the shoe.
Speaker 4: One hundred and four episodes of the Sign Felt program
Speaker 4: right there, these shoes still looking good brush suede.
Speaker 3: I always, I always. I always found it a bit sad,
Speaker 3: little melancholy that you grow when you're growing as a kid.
Speaker 3: You you hit your final shoe size, but you don't
Speaker 3: know it. And if I knew it on that day,
Speaker 3: I would have liked to celebrate. I'm a six, I'm an.
Speaker 1: Eight, I'm a nine.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it's staying then, but you don't know it
Speaker 3: till you're twenty four.
Speaker 1: So that was it.
Speaker 3: I'm a nine and a half.
Speaker 4: The other the other observation this is this is, oh,
Speaker 4: come on, I'm having a senior moment. Everybody loves Raymond
Speaker 4: ray it's raised joke. But his joke is I didn't
Speaker 4: know the first time I slept with my wife that
Speaker 4: I was choosing my side.
Speaker 3: For the rest of our time. To get that, which
Speaker 3: is so true. It's these decisions you never realize is
Speaker 3: the decision. Here's a phenomenon that I and my wife
Speaker 3: cannot figure out. We have our sides, and if we
Speaker 3: move to another house, it's the same. But when we
Speaker 3: go to a hotel, we switch it and not delivered it.
Speaker 3: Not like, hey, let's freshen things up.
Speaker 4: My wife gets the side closest to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: That's why there is a slight element of macho. I'll
Speaker 3: have the closest to the door so I can protect you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so as first to go out, she's the first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just feel feel I never say it
Speaker 1: that way, but the really hotels do change up.
Speaker 3: And we'll go interesting. We switched we didn't know why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you're some of your biggest I mean really
Speaker 4: some of your home runs are in really serious stuff
Speaker 4: like does that surprise you or did you go nope,
Speaker 4: I got this, no problem.
Speaker 3: I know it surprised me. I didn't really think too
Speaker 3: much about it. I remember, I mean it was really
Speaker 3: Aliens was the first thing. And it wasn't that it
Speaker 3: was dramatic so much.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: It was certainly non comedic, but I looked at it
Speaker 3: more as like this is gonna be a huge this
Speaker 3: is like oh absolutely, yeah, well Alien. The first one
Speaker 3: was Jim Cameron had done, Done, terminated. I wrote, well,
Speaker 3: that's my home run right there, and then I read
Speaker 3: the script and go wow yeah. And so I remember
Speaker 3: reading it thinking, hey, I have no business being in
Speaker 3: this movie. But it was I've never had this experience
Speaker 3: since I was out of breath reading it goes oh
Speaker 3: really yeah. It was just and it was written sort
Speaker 3: of like haiku, you know, bam slam metal on Metal Dog,
Speaker 3: and it was it's just visual. You could see it
Speaker 3: and hear it. And to my mission statement for myself
Speaker 3: was just be do whatever you have to do so
Speaker 3: that when you're on screen the film doesn't come to
Speaker 3: a grinding halt.
Speaker 1: That was the bar.
Speaker 3: I said, just if people just go all right, he's
Speaker 3: in a movie, you know, so what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Okay, coach?
Speaker 4: But did you have to go get it or was
Speaker 4: it an offer?
Speaker 3: No, it wasn't an offer. No, Im I met with
Speaker 3: Jim Cameron. I don't know that I read. Maybe I did.
Speaker 3: And then it was a long period of months because
Speaker 3: they had to they had to look at every actor
Speaker 3: in the UK. They shot it in London and apparently
Speaker 3: there is no one on the continent there the can
Speaker 3: do what I did. So they came back and so
Speaker 3: what I had kind of forgotten about it is like
Speaker 3: you're usually here in a week. This is months. And
Speaker 3: then I was shooting some the thing and my manager
Speaker 3: shows up, you got it? What alien?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: Really so I knew it was. I mean, I was anxious.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I was nervous. I want them to do well an
Speaker 3: interesting thing that you will certainly appreciate as an act.
Speaker 3: As it turns out, the first week or two of
Speaker 3: my shooting of the schedule, I was in scenes, but
Speaker 3: I had no lines. So as a comic, as a
Speaker 3: performing you know, what do I do? But it made
Speaker 3: me think deeper. For the first I was what are
Speaker 3: you doing? What do you and you don't want to
Speaker 3: telegraph on you know, but so how do you be
Speaker 3: so that anytime that they get you, you're And by
Speaker 3: the way, maybe absolutely nothing is the right choice. But
Speaker 3: I never had to think at that level because like,
Speaker 3: usually you can skate on your performance, on your lines,
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 1: Right performance, but you show up and you sell likable
Speaker 1: and trustworthy, and then when you reveal that you're not, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fast. I mean Stranger Things is kind of the
Speaker 1: same mae.
Speaker 3: Of the things that I think they were trying to
Speaker 3: ride off of that image of like, we don't trust
Speaker 3: this guy and he's replacing Matthew Modin and he was terrible.
Speaker 3: You know, his character was evil. So who turns out
Speaker 3: maybe not so much evil, But it's funny. I remember
Speaker 3: Jim Cameron saying that he wanted someone who the audience
Speaker 3: didn't really know, you know, wasn't gonna be a big star,
Speaker 3: but it was also somebody that would be amiable and
Speaker 3: you'd like him, and you wouldn't you wouldn't be suspicious.
Speaker 3: My recollection is that people in the minute I showed
Speaker 3: one that's wrong. Something's not right with this guy. Because
Speaker 3: also the people were so trained to not like corporate people,
Speaker 3: the corporate weasel. And it's sort of like the guest
Speaker 3: star on Star Trek Ugly he's gonna be dead, yes, right,
Speaker 3: shirt guy. Yeah, one of these things is not like
Speaker 3: the other.
Speaker 1: But you do sell it. I mean you do sell
Speaker 1: it like you and in a big way. And obviously
Speaker 1: they looked at eight billion people Games Town could have
Speaker 1: a casting list that forever forever to decide, Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: the right thing. It's pretty amazing, right it was.
Speaker 3: It's you know, there is a life to that movie
Speaker 3: that I never I mean, it was a big hit
Speaker 3: and people would often remember recognize. But there are conventions
Speaker 3: that are you know sci fis and comic cons and
Speaker 3: that I've been to and I'll meet people. Go, I
Speaker 3: watched that movie every Saturday for the last thirty six years.
Speaker 3: Get out of the house, do something, get a job,
Speaker 3: don't tap.
Speaker 1: Paper by the way, somebody does, Well, who shows up?
Speaker 1: Do they have someone? Did people dress up as the yes?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they dress up in aliens, they dress up
Speaker 3: on the full stuff and they bring in props that
Speaker 3: I'm going is that from the actual movie. Its like
Speaker 3: some of them they are, Yeah, it's and it's I
Speaker 3: mean it speaks to the success of that of what
Speaker 3: a good movie it was, and it still holds if
Speaker 3: you you know, I'll catch up. Wow, it's and so
Speaker 3: many movies after that sort of stood on the show.
Speaker 1: It's amazing being something that's that iconic. And I'm wondering.
Speaker 1: So you're you're at home writing stuff and you're doing
Speaker 1: stand up and then you do Mad About You. There's
Speaker 1: no guarantee it's going to be a hit. How many
Speaker 1: episodes in and you went, whoa, this thing is got
Speaker 1: some heat. Was it immediate or would it take a while?
Speaker 3: Well, there's a there's two different ways to look at it.
Speaker 3: I knew immediately it was going to be good, and
Speaker 3: I knew the minute. I just Helen Hunt came over
Speaker 3: to my house and we read it in my house
Speaker 3: before she even agreed to audition, and I just went, ah,
Speaker 3: this feels special. And then we did the pilot. Well
Speaker 3: everybody and the audience are like, yeah, this is working.
Speaker 3: Is it going to be a hit that you don't know?
Speaker 3: And because we didn't, you know it was actually initially
Speaker 3: we were paired and the timing was it was we oh,
Speaker 3: Jerry's show was just beginning to take off, so like,
Speaker 3: oh New York Jewish comic in New York, and what happened,
Speaker 3: And but we weren't guaranteed anything like a second season.
Speaker 3: They go, you should have a baby, went no, no, no,
Speaker 3: that's no good to get. And I think it wasn't
Speaker 3: really till the end of the second season when they go, Okay,
Speaker 3: we're gonna go but the first season, like you know,
Speaker 3: you do twelve and then we'll pick up the back
Speaker 3: nine and second season they was still trying to but
Speaker 3: by the third season they would take their hands off
Speaker 3: and say, you guys obviously know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And did you have to take notes from network or
Speaker 1: did you do much like Larry where you said I'm
Speaker 1: quitting if you try and give me a note.
Speaker 3: Oh, I just I just had lunch with Helen Hunt
Speaker 3: and were laughing. She said, you have a real allergy
Speaker 3: to notes, like, yeah, I can't. Can't so much so
Speaker 3: that when we did the the revisit five years ago,
Speaker 3: Helen and Peter Tolan itself and we were like it
Speaker 3: was really a well oiled trio. But it was like
Speaker 3: you guys do the meeting. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 3: I'll soil myself. I said, they'll give you twenty things.
Speaker 3: If three of them makes sense to you, let's talk
Speaker 3: about the three, but don't I can't hear the other ones. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just it's just how was it in the initial
Speaker 3: run though?
Speaker 4: How do you could you push back against it or
Speaker 4: did you have to?
Speaker 3: It was? You know, I had a partner, Danny Jacobson
Speaker 3: and Danny Danes, and often he would, you know, vet
Speaker 3: them and so here's a good one. And sometimes they
Speaker 3: were good and sometimes often they're just execs who feel
Speaker 3: like they have to, yeah, put their fingerprints on it,
Speaker 3: Like what if you do remember one it was a
Speaker 3: network guy?
Speaker 1: What if?
Speaker 3: What if Paul? What if what if your character was
Speaker 3: chewing gum? He could what if he had toast? How
Speaker 3: does that help you? Is that a better show? Is
Speaker 3: there a Toast demo that you're trying to get? But
Speaker 3: they also you know, but we knew early on. I
Speaker 3: think it was this. Certainly in the first season we did.
Speaker 3: We knew that the success of the show. We wanted jokes,
Speaker 3: we wanted laughs, we wanted you know, fun, but it
Speaker 3: was the small stuff that people would tuning into and
Speaker 3: and we did. And I've often talked about this is
Speaker 3: that we did a the highest concept show. You always
Speaker 3: saw a siphoned it's a show about nothing, and we
Speaker 3: always say wow. Show was about the small things, the
Speaker 3: little things, a little thing. And then we had the
Speaker 3: biggest concept ever. It was I invested in a virtual
Speaker 3: reality thing. But the issue was I invested our money
Speaker 3: and I didn't speak to her, didn't check it with
Speaker 3: the wife. And we come back when in bed and
Speaker 3: we're just it's just a two shot, the two idiots
Speaker 3: sitting up in bed, and I said, you're not trying
Speaker 3: to talk them into I said, you can do anything.
Speaker 3: You could. You could you could ski, you could you
Speaker 3: could climb a mountain, you could water, you could go
Speaker 3: in the ocean. And she's warming up, she does, what
Speaker 3: did you pick? I said, I got a massage from
Speaker 3: Christy Brinkley, and Helen just cocked her head ever so slightly,
Speaker 3: and I got a huge laugh and went yes, because
Speaker 3: the show is about not what you did, it's like
Speaker 3: what the other person feels about. When she cocked her head,
Speaker 3: I went, hm, hmm, this is gonna work.
Speaker 4: But can I if I'm the man, I think I
Speaker 4: may have delivered Helen Hunter, because as she was considering
Speaker 4: the show, I think she had already. I think she
Speaker 4: had the offer on it. I found myself doing a
Speaker 4: short film that she was producing, and she was in
Speaker 4: and we were having lunch, and she said, I think
Speaker 4: I may have delivered Helen Hunt here because as she
Speaker 4: was considering the show, I think she had already. I
Speaker 4: think she had the offer on it. I found myself
Speaker 4: doing a short film that she was producing, and she
Speaker 4: was in and we were having lunch, and she said,
Speaker 4: would I like doing the sitcom? I said, well, what's
Speaker 4: the sitcom? She said, well, it's Paul Riserd.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What what I mean? What is it an audience?
Speaker 3: She's yeah.
Speaker 4: I said, it's the best job you're ever going to have.
Speaker 4: Are you on the writing team? She said, I don't know. No,
Speaker 4: it's the best job you're ever gonna have. Why wouldn't
Speaker 4: you do it?
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 4: Is it ensemble? She said? What's two hands with Paul?
Speaker 1: Of course?
Speaker 3: Well, of course, Joe, thanks.
Speaker 1: Well, you know her.
Speaker 3: She was starting at that It was ninety two and
Speaker 3: she was starting to get some heat in movies. She
Speaker 3: worked as a teenager and done a lot of teen movies,
Speaker 3: and she was really on a roll. And I met
Speaker 3: her because my wife and they had a mutual friend.
Speaker 3: And we met at a little dinner party and I went,
Speaker 3: while I was writing it, I'm going, and she didn't.
Speaker 3: It wasn't at all. Doesn't look like my wife was
Speaker 3: not at all what I was picturing. But I left home.
Speaker 3: She's really intriguing. She's funny, she's lovely. She's just the
Speaker 3: right amount of goofy and neurotic, just the perfect amount.
Speaker 3: And I remember I turned to Paula and I said,
Speaker 3: what do you think of her? As you she want
Speaker 3: it'll be good. But Helen's fear was that it was,
Speaker 3: you know, going to be the wife in Gabe Cott
Speaker 3: and Welcome Back. Got her Yeah, like you know that
Speaker 3: you ever hear the one about the money. But but
Speaker 3: we were so saying. She came to my house, he
Speaker 3: had read the script and then we I said, well
Speaker 3: let's read it together. And then at that very first meeting,
Speaker 3: before she had even said yes, we talked about I said,
Speaker 3: I want to do a show.
Speaker 1: We have to do.
Speaker 3: You know, we had somewhere in this relationship story, one
Speaker 3: of them has to have an affair or the threat
Speaker 3: of an affair, and I said, and I figured who
Speaker 3: said it first, But we each had the same idea,
Speaker 3: like we have to do one shot, how about a
Speaker 3: one whole episode of one shot? And we're like yes,
Speaker 3: and we tried and it wasn't until year five we
Speaker 3: found a story that could do that. But we had
Speaker 3: the same show in mind. So thanks for pushing her
Speaker 3: over the fence. Now it was it was just kismet.
Speaker 3: I got to do a guest on the reboot. You
Speaker 3: did us an honor.
Speaker 4: I had a great time and Michael And that's the thing,
Speaker 4: because we were going to say Mike, Mike was shore, right,
Speaker 4: Mike Richards.
Speaker 3: Mike Richards did an episode. Yeah, yeah, it's always Jerry
Speaker 3: did an episode two?
Speaker 4: Did he really?
Speaker 3: We shot for a summer Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: We did a shot in New York and it was
Speaker 3: literally a cameo.
Speaker 1: We walked by and.
Speaker 3: My character had taken a viagara and it was very
Speaker 3: pronounced and you never shot below here, but you could
Speaker 3: tell something something wrong. And I said, hey, Jarry, walk
Speaker 3: on the street.
Speaker 1: How you doing.
Speaker 3: He's like, basically there was that.
Speaker 1: And then you lead the weird but big fan. The
Speaker 1: weird and interesting thing I remember in launching it was
Speaker 1: Lisa Cooper being on two shows. Yeah, which was fascinating
Speaker 1: that how did that happen that she could stay on your.
Speaker 3: It's like how did Michael McDonald be on The Dobie
Speaker 3: and the Doobie Brothers and Steely Days.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about.
Speaker 3: But Lisa Kudrou Somewhere in the first season we did
Speaker 3: a flashback, like you know, to before I met Jamie.
Speaker 3: I was having I hated blind dates and I had
Speaker 3: the worst blind date. It was with Lisa Kudro and
Speaker 3: we just cast on. It wasn't that much on the page.
Speaker 3: She was so funny. She as we know, but I
Speaker 3: mean her line readings. We were just having this stilted
Speaker 3: conversation on a first date and blind date and.
Speaker 1: What do you what do you do?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm a documentary filmmaker. She goes, Oh, that's so funny.
Speaker 3: I'm a banker. I'm like, why why did you hit
Speaker 3: that so hard? That doesn't make sense? She was, and
Speaker 3: we said we have to get her back, and so
Speaker 3: we made her not that character, but we brought her
Speaker 3: a back as she was the waitress in the place
Speaker 3: and I remember the day she said she's going to
Speaker 3: audition for another show because we only had it for
Speaker 3: like a few episodes. It was no, we didn't have her,
Speaker 3: And I said, what's the other show? It's like six
Speaker 3: friends and they all live in New York in the
Speaker 3: same building with that's not going anywhere. And then they
Speaker 3: embraced it. So they made her twin sisters. That yeah,
Speaker 3: but she she had such an odd, delicious delivery.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned Michael McDonald, You right, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that go to Michael McDonald has done my
Speaker 1: book with Paul Righter. Okay, how does that? How does
Speaker 1: that happen?
Speaker 3: That's the most natural thing in the world, Peter, you
Speaker 3: know it's it's not the first comedian a musician uh
Speaker 3: to write a book. Luciana Patti and carrat Top.
Speaker 1: Did I love that? That was which was the musician
Speaker 1: He was going to prop opera at that time, and
Speaker 1: Carrot Top said, I can help you, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, by the way a book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Leonard Burnsneine and Emo Phillips. So I was a
Speaker 3: huge fan of Michael McDonald and we met at a
Speaker 3: silly a party that I was invited to he was performing.
Speaker 3: It was in somebody's house, and we walked into this
Speaker 3: Michael like, this guy's doing well, he's got Michael McDonald.
Speaker 3: Is that his house guest musician? And I just went
Speaker 3: over to him and started chatting, and we became friends.
Speaker 3: And I would always ask him these things like exactly that,
Speaker 3: like I don't understand what you could be in two bands?
Speaker 3: Don't don't they want to hold on you? And so
Speaker 3: I would ask him these questions over the years, and
Speaker 3: then I'd forget the answers, and I said, you should
Speaker 3: write a book so I don't have to bother you
Speaker 3: every time I have a question. And he said, you know,
Speaker 3: I've been approached. I don't know if I even have
Speaker 3: a story. And I go, you have a story, because
Speaker 3: I don't know how to write a book. I said,
Speaker 3: I've written books. I'll help you. So it was it
Speaker 3: was literally March twenty twenty COVID lockdown. We had nothing
Speaker 3: to do and we had no jobs, and we both
Speaker 3: had to figure out how to work zoom.
Speaker 4: It was like then is you can see each other technology?
Speaker 3: And we just we didn't even meet for three years.
Speaker 3: We just would He spent about a month talking like this,
Speaker 3: and I'd take the tape, I'd record it and type
Speaker 3: it up. So it's his story and I just helped him.
Speaker 3: But it was interesting because he would go, I don't
Speaker 3: think that's interesting. I go, trust me, that's really interesting.
Speaker 3: And then other times he goes, this is so fun
Speaker 3: I go, it is funny. Does not in the book.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating when telling your story, I guess, did you
Speaker 1: have revelations as you've written books, you've written best sellers,
Speaker 1: the stuff happened when you're writing a book. It's like
Speaker 1: when you're writing a script for the first time, and
Speaker 1: it's like an out of body experience. Something gets written
Speaker 1: and you go, I didn't know I had that in me.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I fired that. Yeah, well in this, in his case,
Speaker 3: you know, there was new. We were just doing it
Speaker 3: on spec Let's see IF and I and the safety net.
Speaker 3: I said, I said a minute, you don't enjoy this,
Speaker 3: Well stop, I said, doesn't have to.
Speaker 1: You know this.
Speaker 3: It costs us nothing to sit and have a coffee
Speaker 3: on zoom. But what he discovered is that by the
Speaker 3: end of it, he said, oh, I do have a
Speaker 3: story tell Because he is very humble, and he he
Speaker 3: felt that his greatest stories were having worked with all
Speaker 3: these different people. I go that in itself is you
Speaker 3: know who else can say that? I worked with Ray
Speaker 3: Charles and Quincy Jones and you know everyone else. But suddenly,
Speaker 3: as the more he talked, these through lines come up
Speaker 3: where he It was sort of an exercise for him
Speaker 3: of realizing how did he get here? You know? Seventy two?
Speaker 3: And he started working professionally at fourteen in a band,
Speaker 3: in like eighteen piece band. He's fourteen and I said,
Speaker 3: tell me there's a tape I want to hear fourteen
Speaker 3: year old who? He said, now sadly deadly? The tapes
Speaker 3: were in a jacket that was martinized. You know what
Speaker 3: that's wrong?
Speaker 1: Oh? I remember markin Wow.
Speaker 3: Do you know what that joke is? Hun from the
Speaker 3: in Laws? Tch flies with beachs? Yeah, did you get picture?
Speaker 3: They were left in a jacket that was mutt and
Speaker 3: you bos worked with Peter Falk?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: What did you do with peterful?
Speaker 4: I did a play with a two persons play with
Speaker 4: Peter at the I saw it.
Speaker 3: I was there, Okay, here's a magic night.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 3: And he makes his entrance from the back of the theater. Right.
Speaker 3: So here's this magical night. I grew up a door
Speaker 3: at Peter Fork, Peter Fock. He I just I loved him,
Speaker 3: and I had this idea for years I've been sitting
Speaker 3: on and would take a stab at I got to
Speaker 3: write a movie where Peter Fox plays my father. I
Speaker 3: don't know what the story is, but Peter Fowk is
Speaker 3: my father. That's a story. That's something I gotta do.
Speaker 3: I see you in that play and I loved it.
Speaker 3: I loved you, loved Peter. I go backstage, I guess
Speaker 3: to say a lot of you. I didn't know him,
Speaker 3: and I went and at that I was, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm mad about you know. I was doing commercials and
Speaker 3: so Peter says, I love you. I go, he goes,
Speaker 3: and he goes, I love everything you do. I love
Speaker 3: your show. He says, I love what you write. And
Speaker 3: I go and I'm just like, think you think, And
Speaker 3: he just makes a point, goes, I love what you write,
Speaker 3: like made it like you said it twice someone, thank
Speaker 3: you God. Like. I literally went home and I said,
Speaker 3: I got to write this thing. If Peter fo I mean,
Speaker 3: it was such a moment of the sky's open up.
Speaker 3: I said, here's the guy I've been wanting to write for.
Speaker 3: He doesn't know I've never discussed it, and he's saying,
Speaker 3: go write it. And then I wrote it pretty quickly
Speaker 3: after ifter sitting on it for years, it came out
Speaker 3: pretty quickly. I dropped it off at his house. Somebody
Speaker 3: gave him told me, Joe Montagna goes, here's his address,
Speaker 3: and I called him and said, I'll read it. He goes,
Speaker 3: I'm a slow reader. I said about it. I dropped
Speaker 3: it off on his at his house and I sid
Speaker 3: by the phone and he said, I'm going to read
Speaker 3: it right away. And by eleven o'clock at night, I
Speaker 3: got I take the dog out, the dog come back
Speaker 3: phone on the answer machine and I go, I missed it,
Speaker 3: and I listened to the message, and it's just Peter going, well,
Speaker 3: we got to.
Speaker 1: Make this thing.
Speaker 3: I went and I and that would have been enough,
Speaker 3: you know. I was like, I don't have to make it.
Speaker 3: The fact that he read it, he said it and
Speaker 3: it was the greatest was.
Speaker 4: Do you have a good time with him.
Speaker 3: He's not the easiest guy, but he took a shine
Speaker 3: to me. He somehow knew how much I loved him,
Speaker 3: so I was in a little zone of safety. He
Speaker 3: chewed to spare the director and anybody else. But I
Speaker 3: found I imagine you found this true. All he was
Speaker 3: he was not an ass.
Speaker 1: He just was really.
Speaker 3: Cared about the work, and he wanted to do his
Speaker 3: best work.
Speaker 4: I found, I absolutely, I believe that's true. I would
Speaker 4: also go so far as to say, and this might
Speaker 4: have come with age, because I worked, you know, we
Speaker 4: worked with him. He was he was getting up there.
Speaker 4: I thought there was like much like my dad, who
Speaker 4: would who and they would have been contemporaries. They were
Speaker 4: not allowed to say, you know, I'm nervous or I'm scared.
Speaker 4: So it so in Loua of being able to say
Speaker 4: that everything else was wrong, everything else was not right,
Speaker 4: The set's not right, the director's wrong. The story is
Speaker 4: the thing that dad dad, And if you took the
Speaker 4: time to go, well, what would you like to do?
Speaker 4: How would you like to fix it? How should we
Speaker 4: address it? He couldn't articulate. That's how I knew it
Speaker 4: wasn't those things. Because he's very bright, and he was
Speaker 4: an artist. He was a beautiful painter, and you know,
Speaker 4: so he knew about details. If he knew something was wrong,
Speaker 4: he would have spoken to it. And I found him
Speaker 4: to be fearful. And there was a complete personality change
Speaker 4: in him after our first audience. Once he knew that
Speaker 4: he knew what he was doing to display and it
Speaker 4: was reflected back to him, he became a totally different.
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
Speaker 3: There was a documentary about Brando and and I love
Speaker 3: this story that uh that street car on the waterfront,
Speaker 3: the famous Rod Steiger scene that could have been a contender.
Speaker 3: Brando didn't want to do the scene right well you
Speaker 3: know the story I heard it from Stiger you win, no,
Speaker 3: no please, But basically he didn't want to do the
Speaker 3: scene and he couldn't articulate it, couldn't articulate it. And
Speaker 3: Eliot Kazantz was the thing. And he goes, oh, he's
Speaker 3: got the gun and he's pointing at me, like, I
Speaker 3: don't know if I wouldn't do all that if the
Speaker 3: gun is at me, And the director goes, well, what if,
Speaker 3: like after the first line, you pushed the gun away
Speaker 3: and Branda goes, okay, it was that simple. The fix
Speaker 3: was that he is but throw out the whole scene
Speaker 3: because this.
Speaker 4: Doesn't work and then he didn't stay there to do
Speaker 4: the coverage Fortier.
Speaker 1: So I'm up one night and we talked about this.
Speaker 1: Prior to I watched this movie is a problem with people.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what to expect. And I'm laughing
Speaker 1: out loud, but what a sweet movie. But reading about
Speaker 1: you talking about it, if I get this right, you
Speaker 1: your premise is the people's default or default are at
Speaker 1: the anger, any discomfort.
Speaker 3: Any two people will put them in a room, they'll
Speaker 3: find some reason to argue, argue. It's like that all
Speaker 3: the joke you see that that ano the synagogue, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't go to. It's that.
Speaker 1: So that was and then and then you work through
Speaker 1: it and find out if you do hang with each other,
Speaker 1: you're more like that person.
Speaker 3: They're not well I think you know, I always, I never.
Speaker 3: I'm not. I haven't read and I'm not well read
Speaker 3: enough to know the difference between all the religions, and like, okay,
Speaker 3: but if you take the head of Sunny and you
Speaker 3: know and she it, so what what is the difference,
Speaker 3: So the Presbyterians and Episcopas, the difference is.
Speaker 1: What like what?
Speaker 3: And I remember, you know, part of the impetus The
Speaker 3: impetus for the movie was the Problem with People is
Speaker 3: the name of the movie. You can find it on
Speaker 3: iTunes and Amazon Prime. I just wanted to go to
Speaker 3: Ireland because I loved Ireland and I and I had
Speaker 3: seen Local Hero, which was in a nod to it
Speaker 3: in the movie. But I never had a story and
Speaker 3: I couldn't come up with it. And finally I said, well,
Speaker 3: what if there's a And I wrote it with a
Speaker 3: buddy who I never met but somebody suggested him as
Speaker 3: a writer, and we came up with there's got to
Speaker 3: be a reason conflict. So what are There's two relatives
Speaker 3: who've both grew up not liking the other one just
Speaker 3: because their parents told him not to. It's like, okay,
Speaker 3: that sounds rich, and how do they come together? So
Speaker 3: but one of the impetuses that moved me I remember
Speaker 3: reading a story over ten years ago in Israel. There
Speaker 3: was a school that was literally down the middle and
Speaker 3: half of it was Orthodox and half of it was Sectarium.
Speaker 3: But they shared in the yard. They shared a sandbox,
Speaker 3: so the little two year old Orthodox kids would be
Speaker 3: sitting in the sandbox would do non religious and religious
Speaker 3: people made a line in the sandbox, so the kids
Speaker 3: shouldn't meet. And I thought, okay, you know, you're afraid
Speaker 3: that your two year old will enjoy and that's why
Speaker 3: the end of the movie is children in the Sandbox.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think at bottom line, what do people want? Oh,
Speaker 3: I'd like to not get shot and I to not
Speaker 3: blow up me too. I'd like my children to be safe.
Speaker 4: Same here.
Speaker 3: All right, so we got that covered. What's the you know?
Speaker 3: And then but we get stuck on your grandfather said
Speaker 3: something about my grandfather. You know, I had my family,
Speaker 3: my mother for years with sort of bad mouth one
Speaker 3: of my relatives older and I never knew why. And
Speaker 3: I said, what is the thing? She goes, Yeah, she
Speaker 3: said something I didn't care for. I said when was that?
Speaker 3: She goes nineteen forty seven. I went, okay, let it go.
Speaker 1: But what do you so?
Speaker 4: I'm asking for all kinds of reasons, both selfish and not.
Speaker 4: But what is next for you? And what do you
Speaker 4: want it? You've I hate to be one of them.
Speaker 4: You've done it, Paul Rosie, you've done it all. But
Speaker 4: what do you Is there something that you go? Boy,
Speaker 4: before I hang this up, I'd really like to do
Speaker 4: that that kind of a role, work with that kind
Speaker 4: of person, go back to the stage, do another series.
Speaker 3: What do you think? What do you like? I really
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of doing nothing and nothing makes
Speaker 3: me happy. And they do another I won't see you
Speaker 3: though as a sitting star. Yeah, but I really love
Speaker 3: like on a given day. And I've really gotten into
Speaker 3: last couple years reading, like reading and buying books like
Speaker 3: if I live to be one hundred, I'm not going
Speaker 3: to finish the books. I why are you buying? Will
Speaker 3: buy because I might not like that one. But I
Speaker 3: sometimes I'll have an idea and I don't have a
Speaker 3: burning passion to do something. There's a part of me
Speaker 3: that still thinks I want to do my music, and
Speaker 3: I've never really somewhere I believe like I have one
Speaker 3: piece of music or some music that I want to
Speaker 3: put out. I've done, I've written songs with people, but
Speaker 3: I think, oh, i'd love to you know, when I
Speaker 3: hear a great instrumental soundtracking and going, that's the thing
Speaker 3: that lasts forever, Like Okay, you know he already wrote
Speaker 3: Cinema Paradiesel, But maybe I could write something that would
Speaker 3: make you pull over and weep. So that's like a
Speaker 3: sort of wish, But I don't sit at home thinking
Speaker 3: where I wanted. I mean, I'm happy to go out
Speaker 3: and do stand up. It's like I would love that
Speaker 3: to take off. I would love to play a little
Speaker 3: bigger and more frequently, but until something comes up, like
Speaker 3: I'm actually writing a show with my son that we
Speaker 3: actually sold and I went, okay, this is this, and
Speaker 3: that it was somebody else came to me. They not
Speaker 3: the idea, but just the invitation. We'd like you to
Speaker 3: do a show. You want to write a show with me? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: and we so that even if it goes no where,
Speaker 3: it's like, all right, I'm gonna write.
Speaker 1: But by the way, for somebody who likes to do nothing,
Speaker 1: I write a show. As you said, write a show
Speaker 1: is starting. You got the Boys coming out, you got
Speaker 1: stranger things coming out. You're probably writing some screenplay that
Speaker 1: you'll I mean, you're really busy, but you don't think
Speaker 1: you're busy.
Speaker 3: I you know, I'm gonna let you behind the scenes
Speaker 3: a little bit. On one hand, you know, you do publicity,
Speaker 3: and this is this isn't even publicity because I'm not
Speaker 3: promoting anything. We're just chatting. But du perlicicity. You want
Speaker 3: people to run out and see the things, and and
Speaker 3: oh he's so busy. You got to go see this guy.
Speaker 3: The Boys I did four days a week ago. Stranger
Speaker 3: Things I did two years ago. It's not like, oh
Speaker 3: we watched it all on one week. Yeah, but I
Speaker 3: did it over three years. But you're also stand up.
Speaker 1: You see it.
Speaker 3: They see it like somebody's t shirt. Like in the back,
Speaker 3: here's the sixty cities they're doing every other weekend. I
Speaker 3: go somewhere for two days, like, I'm not hurting anything.
Speaker 4: If I sent you the right thing, would you do
Speaker 4: a show in New York?
Speaker 3: Maybe, because I'm kind of itching to like go to
Speaker 3: New York to live in New York. Yeah, every time
Speaker 3: me when I'm there for like a few days and
Speaker 3: nice to be. I think at this point in life,
Speaker 3: to spend the six months what a show? A Broadway show?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my life has moved sort of to directing for
Speaker 4: the theater.
Speaker 3: That was the premise of your episode on the Mat
Speaker 3: about You. That's right, because like Jason, he goes, I
Speaker 3: have to get Sigourney Weaver and and so, and he's
Speaker 3: watching Helen's sister's dog and Sigourney, I forget what it was.
Speaker 4: We remember, Sigourney Weaver was, yeah, we got to run.
Speaker 1: But look at this. The whole purpose of the show
Speaker 1: was to get you on Broadway and have this thing.
Speaker 3: I understand. I I you know, I never say no
Speaker 3: to anything, but I mean I never said no to
Speaker 3: the possibility or something. I can't imagine doing a show. Uh,
Speaker 3: it's I want to work. And Larry, they gotta be awake,
Speaker 3: you gotta be limber or wait one.
Speaker 4: Day I will write down because it's a it's a
Speaker 4: great story. Where and Peter was with me Larry David
Speaker 4: when he was gonna go do the play that he
Speaker 4: wrote in New York. He called and Larry and I
Speaker 4: don't socialize all that much. He called me saying we'll
Speaker 4: take it lunch. And I go to lunch and I go,
Speaker 4: what is this going to be? And he goes, so
Speaker 4: I'm doing the play. Am I gonna like this? And
Speaker 4: you go, what happens? How does this work? And I
Speaker 4: literally walked him from day one of rehearsal through all
Speaker 4: the rehearsals, how it would go, what previous would be like,
Speaker 4: what tech would be like, good Opening night with that
Speaker 4: would be like what a bad opening night?
Speaker 1: What that would be like?
Speaker 4: And then the next week and the next week and
Speaker 4: the next week until I said, about six weeks after
Speaker 4: you open on a Thursday afternoon, around one o'clock in
Speaker 4: the afternoon, as you sit in your apartment and you
Speaker 4: know that you got to leave in four hours to
Speaker 4: get to the theater, you'd rather drive a nice pick
Speaker 4: through your own eye. There's no way you want to
Speaker 4: go down there, and that you would have I had
Speaker 4: it wrong.
Speaker 1: By about two weeks.
Speaker 3: He he called me four weeks you got to come in.
Speaker 4: And I wound up replacing him in the show because
Speaker 4: he it drove him out of his mind.
Speaker 3: I kind of feel that not panicking, but like my
Speaker 3: agent will callim was something I'm going, I'm gonna look
Speaker 3: at it like ah right shoots and well, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want.
Speaker 4: To go there, like or Michael Kaine school of picking
Speaker 4: up what I mean?
Speaker 3: I stand up, I go, hey, we got it's a
Speaker 3: great theater. I go, is it two flights to get there?
Speaker 3: I don't want the two flights.
Speaker 4: I have my personal appearance, so I don't like to change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to change playing.
Speaker 1: It's a whole William William H. Macy said, there's three
Speaker 1: stages in my career. The first and when you're younger,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this could make my career. The second
Speaker 1: is how much does it pay? In? The third is
Speaker 1: do I have to get wet? Thank you?
Speaker 3: Grateful? You know what?
Speaker 4: At least they're talking about us, right, that's right?
Speaker 3: Is it? Don't do that? That'll be the end?
Speaker 4: No, you know what, Normally we wrap up after the show.
Speaker 4: I've got nothing left to say, right, do you have
Speaker 4: anything you want to add with?
Speaker 1: Paul leaves behind your back like I loved you more
Speaker 1: than the blue pants you wore on your special. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Good.
Speaker 2: Now that's another episode of Really you know, Really comes
Speaker 2: to a close. I know you're wondering what comedians had
Speaker 2: hit television shows more or less based on their real
Speaker 2: lives or stand up backs. Well, all, Jerryrigan answer for
Speaker 2: you in a moment. But first let's thank our guest
Speaker 2: Paul Reiser. You can follow him at his website Paul
Speaker 2: Reiser dot com or on x where he's at Paul Reiser.
Speaker 2: His latest comedy special is Paul Reiser Life, Death and
Speaker 2: Rice Pudding, available for streaming on Apple TV. Find all
Speaker 2: pertinent links in our show notes, our little show hangs
Speaker 2: out on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and threads at really No
Speaker 2: Really podcast And of course you can share your thoughts
Speaker 2: and feedback with us online at reallynoreally dot com. If
Speaker 2: you have a really some amazing factor story that boggles
Speaker 2: your mind, share it with us and if we use it,
Speaker 2: we will send you a little gift.
Speaker 3: Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 2: Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
Speaker 2: button and take that bell. So here updated when we
Speaker 2: release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday.
Speaker 2: So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Speaker 2: podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: And now the answer to the question what.
Speaker 2: Comedians had hit television shows more or less based on
Speaker 2: their real lives or stand up acts. Well, First of all,
Speaker 2: the transition from comedian to television comedy star was never unusual.
Speaker 2: Early TV got its greatest boost from the best comedians
Speaker 2: of the day like Milton Burle, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante,
Speaker 2: Jackie Gleeson, and countless others, and television has managed to
Speaker 2: build huge successes by grabbing great comics and creating a
Speaker 2: show around their real life experiences and or their.
Speaker 1: Stand up bacts.
Speaker 2: Prime examples include Home Improvement, which builds a whole show
Speaker 2: around comic Tim Allen's bits about men and tools and
Speaker 2: the machismo they inspire. Roseanne, which offered a fictionalized version
Speaker 2: of Roseanne Barr's off stage life and initially borrowed heavily.
Speaker 3: From her working class comedic rips.
Speaker 2: Everybody Loves Raymond starring Ray Romano, which took his jokes
Speaker 2: about family life and turned them into a hit sitcom.
Speaker 2: The Bernie Max Show, which took the real life experience
Speaker 2: of Bernie fostering his sister's three kids and turned it
Speaker 2: into a television hit. Everybody Hates Chris was a fictionalized
Speaker 2: version of Chris Rock's tumultuous and hysterical childhood. Comic great
Speaker 2: Gary Shandling's show was so much of a television transfer
Speaker 2: of his life that the show was titled It's Gary
Speaker 2: Shandling's Show. Comedy rapper Dave Byrd aka Little Dicky, found
Speaker 2: television's success by turning his travails as an up and
Speaker 2: coming white rapper into comedy gold. In his show Dave.
Speaker 2: Before finding talk show fame. Ellen DeGeneres hit it big
Speaker 2: with her sitcom Ellen. That show was such a reflection
Speaker 2: of her life that her character came out as gay
Speaker 2: on the show. At the same time, Ellen truly revealed
Speaker 2: herself to be a gay woman, and though short lived,
Speaker 2: comedian John Mulaney also played himself on his self titled
Speaker 2: show Mulaney and I'm leaving out many like NewART Cosby Chappelle,
Speaker 2: Jamie Fox, Louis c. K, Robin Williams, and Moore because
Speaker 2: the list is long and formidable, But I have to
Speaker 2: go out on probably the most successful show ever to
Speaker 2: feature a stand up comic playing more or less himself,
Speaker 2: Jerry Seinfeld. In Seinfeld.
Speaker 3: By many measurements, it is one of the most.
Speaker 2: Successful half hour shows in televison in history and earned
Speaker 2: multiple Enny Awards for each of its cast members. Wait what, oh, oh, sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm just being told that one of the cast members
Speaker 2: actually was nominated seven times but never actually won. Well
Speaker 2: that is embarrassing, but don't feel bad. That guy probably
Speaker 2: is a podcast and.
Speaker 3: What more could anyone ever really want? Really, it really
Speaker 3: is a production of Blaise Entertainment.