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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Waka waka and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and

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Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And I just made

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Speaker 1: sure to kick this two-part episode on stand-up comedy off

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Speaker 1: in the worst way possible.

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Speaker 2: You know what? This one has some COAs, unfortunately.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah. I mean, we're talking about genuine stand-up comedy and,

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Speaker 1: you know, they're edgy. They push the envelope.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we're going to, there are people throughout this,

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Speaker 3: peppered throughout this episode that, you know, some of them,

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Speaker 3: they're like bad people.

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Speaker 2: Some of them have done bad things.

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Speaker 3: But you can't talk about the history of stand-up comedy

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Speaker 3: without talking about some bad.

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Speaker 2: People, as it turns out.

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Speaker 1: Are you talking about Frank Fay?

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's a bunch of people throughout here.

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Speaker 1: Oh, okay. Well, I'm not familiar with a lot of

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Speaker 1: the badness here, so. Let's just avoid it.

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Speaker 3: That and, you know, this is the thing on stand

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Speaker 3: up comedy. So we're seeing our own a because like

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Speaker 3: you can't do justice even in a two parter. Like

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Speaker 3: after we got all this together, I was like, oh, well,

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Speaker 3: we're not even talking about truly weird stand up like

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Speaker 3: Andy Kaufman and Zach Galifianakis.

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Speaker 2: And we're not talking about this and this.

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Speaker 3: And you just have to stop at a certain point

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Speaker 3: and realize you can't cover something that's completely that's so

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Speaker 3: deep and vast like this, you know?

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Speaker 1: For sure. Every once in a while we record an

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Speaker 1: episode and then like the next day I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I should have said this. I think that's going to

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Speaker 1: happen 15 or 20 times.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But we got to let ourselves up because I know

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Speaker 3: we're going to get emails. How could you not talk

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Speaker 3: about blank?

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: It's just the deal. You know, it's too much to cover.

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Speaker 1: No, but shoot us those emails, especially ones we didn't

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Speaker 1: bring up because we might not have heard of them.

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Speaker 1: And not only... Name check them. Send us your favorite

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Speaker 1: joke of theirs, too.

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Speaker 2: And I pledge to do a full episode on Andy Kaufman.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 3: All right.

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Speaker 1: Okay. Well, I pledge to do a full episode on

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Speaker 1: Zach Galifianakis.

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Speaker 2: Hey, I'd do one on Zach in a second.

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Speaker 1: And one other COA, too, just to throw in. Some

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Speaker 1: of these jokes are maybe slightly edgier than stuff we

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Speaker 1: would normally say, but that's, you know, we're covering stand-up comedy,

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Speaker 1: which is inherently edgier than what we normally do. All right.

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Speaker 1: You ready?

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Speaker 2: I'm ready.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about stand-up comedy, as we've said. And Livia

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Speaker 1: helped us with this, and she points out that basically,

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about being funny in front of an audience,

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Speaker 1: stand-up comedy is pretty much as old as humans are.

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Speaker 1: As old as human speech is, I would guess.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, you could have made gestures that were funny. But

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Speaker 1: to really just kind of shore it up, you want

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Speaker 1: to just zero in on vaudeville.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, a lot of this stuff we've covered

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Speaker 2: in other episodes. It's funny. This is another one of

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Speaker 2: those we've danced around.

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Speaker 3: Like we've done shows on specific comedians, The Science of Funny, and.

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Speaker 2: Like two or three other ones. And then, of course, vaudeville.

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Speaker 2: But here we are with stand up.

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Speaker 3: But you have to start at vaudeville because, you know,

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Speaker 3: vaudeville had a lot of skits and stuff like that.

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Speaker 3: But it wasn't too long before there were people. all

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Speaker 3: of a sudden, whether they were hosting the night or something,

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Speaker 3: did something that resembled stand-up. And Charlie Case is one

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Speaker 3: of those people that people say like, hey, maybe he

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Speaker 3: was the first person doing this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the son of a freeborn black man

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Speaker 1: and an Irish mother. And he was educated and became

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Speaker 1: a lawyer and a salesman, but he also was known

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Speaker 1: as a great storyteller. And so starting in, I think,

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Speaker 1: actually 1880, He joined vaudeville and being a vaudeville performer

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Speaker 1: of any race. He whenever he talked about black culture,

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Speaker 1: it was in a mocking way. He had to wear blackface,

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Speaker 1: all that stuff. And eventually he was like, I'm not

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Speaker 1: really down with this. This is trite. So he moved

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Speaker 1: on around 1900 to doing essentially what's a stand up act.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he, you know, a tried and true thing. He

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Speaker 3: talked about his family a lot. And I found this

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Speaker 3: part hysterical at one point. His performance was on the

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Speaker 3: billing was billed as the man who talks about his father,

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Speaker 3: which could, you know, it's about talking about parents is

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Speaker 3: probably 90 percent of stand up since then. But, yeah,

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Speaker 3: it was, you know, the 20th century had rolled around.

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Speaker 3: And like I mentioned, being an emcee kind of led,

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Speaker 3: you know, at vaudeville kind of led to, you know,

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Speaker 3: hosting the night and telling jokes in between other acts.

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Speaker 2: And that kind of morphed into what we would know

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Speaker 2: as stand up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a guy, I already mentioned him because you

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Speaker 1: mentioned terrible people. His name is Frank Fay. He was

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Speaker 1: the first one to really kind of take stand-up comedy

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Speaker 1: out of the realm of like a pie in your

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Speaker 1: face or wearing baggy pants and suspenders or making yourself

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Speaker 1: the butt of the jokes at all. He was an

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Speaker 1: acerbic wit and he was very refined. And he gave

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Speaker 1: us those kind of like the type of– the type

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Speaker 1: of comedian like that David Letterman was in the vein of.

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Speaker 1: But I really hesitate to even associate Letterman with Faye

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Speaker 1: because he was a Nazi and a virulent racist too.

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Speaker 1: He really was a terrible person, but his form really

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Speaker 1: created a certain type of stand-up comedian. And he was

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Speaker 1: also one of the first stand-up comedians of any kind.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And that's early 1900s.

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Speaker 3: And then, you know, by the time you get to

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Speaker 3: the 30s, You had something called the Borscht Belt, which

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Speaker 3: were these Jewish resort communities up in the mountains in

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Speaker 3: the northeast, the Catskills and the Adirondacks. And, you know,

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Speaker 3: I'm sure people who know anything about the history of

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Speaker 3: stand up know about the Borscht Belt. You know, comics

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Speaker 3: would basically go and like summer there. They would do

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Speaker 3: shows in New York City and stuff, but they would

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Speaker 3: summer in the Catskills and the Adirondacks, just going sometimes residencies,

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Speaker 3: but going from resort to resort. You know, it was

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Speaker 3: kind of a Jewish medium at the time. A lot

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Speaker 3: of jokes about Jewish life and Jewish culture and Jewish food.

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Speaker 2: Lots of self-deprecation.

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Speaker 3: And this is where stand-up kind of took its form

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Speaker 3: that we know today.

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Speaker 1: Yes. And one of the kings of the borscht belt

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Speaker 1: who really broke out as a legendary stand-up comedian was

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Speaker 1: Henny Youngman. He was known as king of the one-liners.

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Speaker 1: And he's best known for the line, take my wife, please.

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Speaker 1: It's actually funnier than that. The full line is women

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Speaker 1: today are crazy. I mean, take my wife, please.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a social director at a resort, something

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Speaker 3: called a Tumbler. And this is where a lot of

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Speaker 3: the standups would get their start is like social chairs

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Speaker 3: and social directors of these resorts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And he was a big one.

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Speaker 3: Like this was a time where standup was like very

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Speaker 3: much joke, joke writing and It didn't you know, we'll

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Speaker 3: talk about the changes of stand up over the years

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Speaker 3: where it morphed into like storytelling and then alt comedy

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Speaker 3: and all that stuff. But early stand up and you

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Speaker 3: don't see a lot of that stuff anymore. Brian Kiley,

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Speaker 3: a pal of mine and a friend of the show

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Speaker 3: that was the with along with a couple other guys,

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Speaker 3: a monologue writer for Conan O'Brien for the entire run

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Speaker 3: and has written for.

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Speaker 2: The Academy Awards and.

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Speaker 3: Just like a great throwback, like joke writing comedian that

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Speaker 3: you don't see much anymore.

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Speaker 2: So I love Brian's stuff.

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Speaker 1: Awesome. Shout out, Brian. There's a guy, there's a comedian

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Speaker 1: named Jimmy Carr, who's British, who basically carries on the

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Speaker 1: Henny Youngman mantle. But it's way darker than anything Henny

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Speaker 1: Youngman said. I turned up one that he was saying

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Speaker 1: that he saw an ad for charity. And it said,

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Speaker 1: little Zuki has to walk 13 miles a day just

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Speaker 1: to fetch water. And I couldn't help thinking, she should move.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's dark.

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Speaker 1: It is pretty dark. But it's a one-liner and that's

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Speaker 1: all he does. Just like Henny Youngman did. Henny Youngman

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Speaker 1: was known for doing like 50 jokes in eight minutes,

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Speaker 1: which is less than 10 seconds a joke. You just

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Speaker 1: can keep people in stitches if you do that, right? Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And, you know, the Borscht Belt lasted way longer than

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Speaker 2: I thought.

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Speaker 3: Like it was a thing kind of through the 1970s

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Speaker 3: and a lot of big comics got their start here.

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Speaker 3: People like Mel Brooks and Jackie Mason and Sid Caesar.

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Speaker 3: But Jerry Seinfeld even got his start in the Borscht

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Speaker 3: Belt in the 70s at a venue, kind of one

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Speaker 3: of the last Borscht Belt venues called Kutcher's Country Club

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Speaker 3: right there in the Catskills.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so the start of the of. stand-up comedy, especially

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Speaker 1: as it came out of the Borscht Belt. It was

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Speaker 1: very clubby, very Jewish, very male. But women were kind of,

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Speaker 1: they kind of emerged a little later, I guess mid-Borscht Belt,

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Speaker 1: if it went into the 70s. Joan Rivers is a

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Speaker 1: good example. And so is Jean Carroll. Both of them

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Speaker 1: just basically, they broke a glass ceiling that was very

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Speaker 1: much in place. And I think that, isn't Joan Rivers,

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Speaker 1: her biography is what The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is based on?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think comedy-wise, and I know sort of the

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Speaker 3: look was based a little bit on Gene Carroll, so

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Speaker 3: it was a bit of a mashup. But I think

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Speaker 3: I watched the first couple of seasons of that show

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Speaker 3: and quite enjoyed it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Kevin Pollack's on it, friend of the show,

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Speaker 1: Kevin Pollack.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Pollack's great on it.

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Speaker 1: He started out as a stand-up, too, didn't he? Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 1: I just think of him as an actor almost through

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Speaker 1: and through. But, yeah, he was a funny stand-up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he famously got called to the couch with Carson.

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Speaker 3: That was one of the big signs of respect if

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Speaker 3: you performed on The Tonight Show and Johnny Carson called

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Speaker 3: you over to the couch afterward for a briefing.

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Speaker 2: Interview, that means like he liked you. So you get

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Speaker 2: that stamp of approval.

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Speaker 3: Nice.

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Speaker 1: I found a quick, funny Jean Carroll joke. She said

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Speaker 1: that she had a cold and the woman said, why

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Speaker 1: don't you take something for it? And I said, make

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Speaker 1: an offer. So we talked about the Borscht Belt in vaudeville.

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Speaker 1: We also talked about the Chitlin Circuit, which was essentially

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Speaker 1: the Borscht Belt for black comedians, a series of venues

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Speaker 1: that black comedians played vaudeville-ish around the country, around the

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Speaker 1: United States. And this is just like with the Borscht Belt.

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Speaker 1: This is where black stand-up comedy started to emerge as well. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you can't get any better than Redd Foxx

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Speaker 2: and Flip Wilson.

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Speaker 3: Those guys definitely played the chitlin circuit, as well as

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Speaker 3: a very funny woman who went by Moms Mabley on stage.

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Speaker 3: And she had sort of a shtick, like she would

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Speaker 3: dress up and had kind of an onstage persona. And

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Speaker 3: as we'll see as we go, like there's lots of

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Speaker 3: ways to skin a cat when it comes to stand up.

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Speaker 3: But one way is to be up there or something

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Speaker 3: other than yourself. And that's what Moms Mabley did.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: One of the people who is usually pointed to is

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Speaker 1: the guy who carried stand up out of the resorts

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Speaker 1: and into mainstream is Bob Hope, who is British. I

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Speaker 1: did not know that. Did you?

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Speaker 2: I think I knew he was born in Britain, but

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Speaker 2: I don't know that he considered himself British.

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Speaker 1: So he was a he was his one of his

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Speaker 1: acts was about how rich he was and all that.

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Speaker 1: It's very mid-century. But he he also kind of broke

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Speaker 1: tradition by. having a team of writers working for him.

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Speaker 1: And he would talk about current events, things that were

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Speaker 1: going on like that day, you know, stuff that like

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Speaker 1: if you were looking through like Us Weekly today or

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Speaker 1: something like that, you could get a bunch of jokes from.

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Speaker 1: That was his act. And he was also really well

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Speaker 1: known for touring military bases around the world and performing.

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Speaker 1: So he was the one who was like, hey, there's

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Speaker 1: this thing called stand-up comedy and you guys should all

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Speaker 1: start going to see it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And I think Bob Hope is one of those guys

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Speaker 3: where he he was one of the first real big

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Speaker 3: influencers of the craft, because anyone that kind of followed

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Speaker 3: after those years, if you ask them, they'll say like

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Speaker 3: like Bob Hope was kind of the guiding light.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. They actually based the soap opera guiding light on

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Speaker 1: his life story.

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Speaker 2: You should do stand up. That's that's gold.

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Speaker 1: Hey, we'll get to that about how being funny on

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Speaker 1: a podcast doesn't necessarily make you a good stand-up.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think you just spoiled that, didn't you?

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Speaker 1: Yeah. We'll edit in spoiler alert.

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Speaker 2: Sick Comedians was sort of the next wave.

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Speaker 3: In the 50s and 60s, there was a new style

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Speaker 3: that kind of came around where it wasn't just like, hey,

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Speaker 3: can you write a good joke?

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Speaker 2: It was more like, hey, I've got.

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Speaker 3: A unique point of view or I have a unique

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Speaker 3: voice that's going to add to my act. And San

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Speaker 3: Francisco was one of the cities where a lot of

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Speaker 3: this is taking place, especially at a club called the

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Speaker 3: Hungry Eye. And, you know, we'll go through a few

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Speaker 3: of these guys, but Mort Sahl was one of them.

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Speaker 3: He started in 1953 and.

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Speaker 2: He wasn't doing one liners.

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Speaker 3: He was like he would sit down on stage with

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Speaker 3: the newspaper sometimes and talk about like current events and

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Speaker 3: politics and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: Yes. And he kind of kicked off that preachy, hip, insightful,

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Speaker 1: kind of biting social commentary type of stand-up comedy. A

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Speaker 1: lot of people associate that with Lenny Bruce. Mort Sahl

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Speaker 1: came first. One thing I saw about Mort Sahl, though,

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Speaker 1: is he was, I guess, canceled in an early way.

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Speaker 1: He called it getting blacklisted. He said that the right

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Speaker 1: never came after him. But that it was the liberals

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Speaker 1: who supported Kennedy who kind of got him pushed to

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Speaker 1: the side because they didn't like him attacking Kennedy. And

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Speaker 1: his whole jam was going after whoever was in charge.

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Speaker 1: That's who you attack. That's who you criticize because just

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Speaker 1: by default, they were in charge. So they were probably

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Speaker 1: doing something horrible, too. But after it became cool to

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Speaker 1: attack the establishment again after JFK was dead and America

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Speaker 1: was mired in Vietnam or it's all came back into fashion.

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Speaker 1: But I thought that was interesting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.

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Speaker 3: Shelly Berman is noteworthy because he had a kind of

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Speaker 3: the first big comedy album that hit. It was in

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Speaker 3: 1959 and the record was Inside Shelly Berman. And it

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Speaker 3: was the first comedy record to go gold. And then

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Speaker 3: the first Grammy award winning, like non-music Grammy award winner

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Speaker 3: was Shelly Berman.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's cute. It was cute stuff. Nothing like Mort Sahl's stuff,

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Speaker 1: but it was based on his personality, right? Not his

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Speaker 1: ability to remember tired jokes. Dick Craig, who's another one

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Speaker 1: of this era too, he was really well known as

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Speaker 1: being like a huge civil rights activist. He's come up

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Speaker 1: several times in other non-comedy related episodes we've done. But

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Speaker 1: he was also super funny too. And he started out

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Speaker 1: as a standup. Apparently he started out because Hugh Hefner

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Speaker 1: discovered him In 1961 and gave him time at his

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Speaker 1: Playboy Club in Chicago. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Did you know Atlanta used to have a Playboy Club?

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Speaker 1: I didn't. I know pretty much every decent-sized city did.

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Speaker 2: Oh, did they?

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Speaker 1: I think so. I could be wrong. If Atlanta had

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Speaker 1: one back in the 60s, surely. You know? There was

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Speaker 1: like a Kansas City one, too, or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, probably.

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Speaker 3: So Jonathan Winters is another that we should mention from

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Speaker 3: early on. He did a lot of kind of character

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Speaker 3: work that I don't think a lot of people were

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Speaker 3: doing at the time. And he was one of the

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Speaker 3: early people to kind of talk about the tragedies of

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Speaker 3: his life in a funny way on stage because he

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Speaker 3: he would later on to be known as bipolar disorder.

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Speaker 3: But he spent time in mental hospitals and he would

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Speaker 3: take that stuff to the stage. And not many people

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Speaker 3: were doing that kind of thing at the time.

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Speaker 1: No, and he was just totally making wacky fun of it.

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Speaker 1: He called those places funny farms. Like, it was not any,

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Speaker 1: you know, tear-jerking or gripping comedy from it, but just

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Speaker 1: even making fun of it for himself going through it

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Speaker 1: was something. Another big name of this era who was

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Speaker 1: really different-ish, he definitely had one foot solidly planted in

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Speaker 1: the borscht belt still, is Don Rickles.

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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 1: I think the funniest thing Don Rickles ever did was

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Speaker 1: an inadvertent, unintentional facial expression where he got up to

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Speaker 1: get the shotgun in Casino. I'm pretty sure it was Casino.

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Speaker 1: When De Niro thinks that they're coming for him, Don

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Speaker 1: Rickles gets up and goes and gets the shotgun. And

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Speaker 1: just the look on his face is hilarious.

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Speaker 2: You think that's the funniest thing Don Rickles ever did? Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: I loved Rickles. I was a huge fan.

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Speaker 4: Really?

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, man. He was, he was great.

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Speaker 3: Like I remember growing up watching him on the tonight

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Speaker 3: show and he would just send, uh, Carson into like stitches.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. That, that made it fun to watch Carson just

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Speaker 1: lose it too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: That was good stuff. Uh, and then you mentioned Lenny Bruce.

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Speaker 3: You can't talk about this early generation without talking about

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Speaker 3: Lenny Bruce. Uh, he was, he was a guy that, uh,

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Speaker 3: kind of became, I mean, his comedy was great, but

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Speaker 3: he kind of became famous for, um, getting arrested. He

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Speaker 3: would talk very frankly on stage, um, in the, you know,

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Speaker 3: like late 50s and 60s about sex and about religion

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Speaker 3: and racism and stuff that was pretty controversial to talk

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Speaker 3: about on stage, such that he was arrested many times

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Speaker 3: on obscenity charges and was a huge, huge influence on

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Speaker 3: the people that followed him.

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Speaker 1: Huge. He's also controversial in that, like, calling him a

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Speaker 1: comedian is odd because he wasn't that funny. It was

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Speaker 1: just he was a really important person in comedy and

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Speaker 1: also in free speech in the United States, too.

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Speaker 2: I think he was very funny. There were.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he had some funny stuff. But yeah, I just

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I'm speaking for everybody from my opinion.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for bringing me back down to earth, man.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, comedy is one of those things. It's

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Speaker 3: it's so subjective on what people find funny. Like I've

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Speaker 3: had people say, you've got to watch this comedian special.

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Speaker 3: that I just literally did not laugh once during. And

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Speaker 3: there are other people that I know I love that

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Speaker 3: other people can't stand. It's just, it's, I think even,

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Speaker 3: I think it's one of the most subjective sort of

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Speaker 3: art forms, you know, even more so than some others.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Wrapping this up, and then I say

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Speaker 1: we take a break. This is the 50s. This was

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Speaker 1: a huge shift in comedy, and Time Magazine noted it

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Speaker 1: in 1959. They labeled these kind of comedians that were

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Speaker 1: personality-based comedians sick comedians or sickness in a very kind

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Speaker 1: of loving way, but also in like a what the

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Speaker 1: heck is going on here way. It was pretty interesting.

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Speaker 1: But I say we take a break and we're going

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Speaker 1: to jump in. We're going to basically pass the 60s

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Speaker 1: and really go into the 70s.

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Speaker 2: Things are heating up, everybody. Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Oh, yeah. Thank you.

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Speaker 2: All right. So we're out of the 50s. We're into

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Speaker 2: the 60s.

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Speaker 3: In the wake of Lenny Bruce, we get a bunch

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Speaker 3: of people highly influenced by him, willing to take a

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Speaker 3: little more chances and a little more risks, I think,

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Speaker 3: with their comedy.

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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 3: They talk about sometimes the holy trinity of the counterculture

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Speaker 3: comedians of the 70s and late 60s.

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Speaker 2: And that would be George Carlin and Richard Pryor and

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Speaker 2: the great Robert Klein.

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Speaker 1: What? I don't even consider him counterculture. That was the

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Speaker 1: only thing. He is funny, for sure. But he's much

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Speaker 1: more observational and much less political.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 1: Carlin... I went and watched, he apparently started out like

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Speaker 1: telling jokes and suits and like they were pretty clean.

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Speaker 1: And I went and watched one of his early performances

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Speaker 1: and he's almost unrecognizable. And then he starts doing, you know,

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Speaker 1: conversations with two people by himself. And I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, there's Carlin. But he switched over to the

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Speaker 1: counterculture in the early seventies. And one of the, one

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Speaker 1: of the things he became quickly famous for was the

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Speaker 1: seven words routine, which are seven words you can't say

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Speaker 1: on television. which also were words that I think Lenny

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Speaker 1: Bruce got arrested for saying like each one. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And then of course, Richard Pryor was the third. And

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Speaker 3: he's another guy who started out a little more straight laced.

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Speaker 3: And then, you know, I feel like all these guys,

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Speaker 3: what the switch was, was I'm going to start being

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Speaker 3: myself a little bit more on stage and having the

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Speaker 3: courage to kind of like, you know, speak in my

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Speaker 3: own language and whether it's like dirty words or in

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Speaker 3: Richard Pryor's case, sort of really accepting like that he's a,

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Speaker 3: you know, one of the great black comedians and he

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Speaker 3: can just sort of let loose.

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Speaker 1: Yes, he he was, I guess, often pointed to as

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Speaker 1: like the first black comedian who truly removed like the

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Speaker 1: palatable jokes for white audiences. Like he just he he

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Speaker 1: basically was a black comedian in front of white audiences

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Speaker 1: that didn't Code Switch. That's what it's called. He was

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Speaker 1: probably the first black comedian to not code switch. And

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Speaker 1: then it's also even hard. It's not that hard, but

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Speaker 1: I think of Richard Pryor more as just like a

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Speaker 1: mega movie star because he was in so many great

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Speaker 1: movies of my youth, like Stir Crazy, Silver Streak, Hear

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Speaker 1: No Evil, See No Evil. Those were all what, those

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Speaker 1: were with Gene Wilder.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

437
00:22:25,170 --> 00:22:29,750
Speaker 1: Bustin' Loose, Moving, Brewster's Millions.

438
00:22:30,130 --> 00:22:30,409
Speaker 2: What else?

439
00:22:31,010 --> 00:22:31,690
Speaker 1: Harlem Nights.

440
00:22:32,190 --> 00:22:32,970
Speaker 2: Okay. What else?

441
00:22:33,430 --> 00:22:35,209
Speaker 1: There's plenty others, but those are the ones that I

442
00:22:35,250 --> 00:22:36,410
Speaker 1: watched a lot when I was younger.

443
00:22:37,170 --> 00:22:39,350
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, as you'll see, a lot of these

444
00:22:39,369 --> 00:22:41,290
Speaker 2: comedians went on to have great careers as actors.

445
00:22:41,730 --> 00:22:42,370
Speaker 1: Yeah.

446
00:22:42,410 --> 00:22:44,730
Speaker 3: Which is not always a given because a lot of

447
00:22:44,970 --> 00:22:46,879
Speaker 3: stand-up comedians are really, really bad actors.

448
00:22:48,020 --> 00:22:51,060
Speaker 1: It's true. And it's really surprising how many of them

449
00:22:51,380 --> 00:22:55,160
Speaker 1: become great actors. Like Tom Hanks started out as a stand-up. Oh, yeah.

450
00:22:56,520 --> 00:22:57,340
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tom Hanks is great.

451
00:22:57,680 --> 00:22:59,380
Speaker 1: But Peter Scolari? No.

452
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:03,810
Speaker 3: No. And then Robert Klein was the third of that trio.

453
00:23:04,330 --> 00:23:08,570
Speaker 3: He grew up going to some of these Jewish kind

454
00:23:08,609 --> 00:23:11,890
Speaker 3: of summer camps and resorts in the Borscht Belt and

455
00:23:12,050 --> 00:23:13,750
Speaker 3: worked at some of them. And so he kind of

456
00:23:13,790 --> 00:23:16,790
Speaker 3: got that education there. And he did a lot of

457
00:23:16,830 --> 00:23:20,010
Speaker 3: political stuff, a lot of social commentary, as well as

458
00:23:20,070 --> 00:23:22,550
Speaker 3: just his Robert Klein-ness. And he was another guy that

459
00:23:22,570 --> 00:23:23,430
Speaker 3: was really influential.

460
00:23:24,170 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 4: Yeah.

461
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,580
Speaker 1: And just beloved for his personality, like who he was.

462
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 2: Yeah.

463
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:31,090
Speaker 1: You know? Like he told lots of stories that he

464
00:23:31,109 --> 00:23:34,270
Speaker 1: didn't have like one liners or punchlines necessarily.

465
00:23:34,590 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 2: Yeah.

466
00:23:36,170 --> 00:23:38,220
Speaker 1: So one of the other big things that happened to

467
00:23:38,260 --> 00:23:42,659
Speaker 1: the 70s was comedy clubs started opening up. And the

468
00:23:42,780 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: two that really kind of quickly jumped to the forefront

469
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:51,770
Speaker 1: was the improv and the comedy store. One of the

470
00:23:51,810 --> 00:23:54,270
Speaker 1: other things that those kind of went hand in hand

471
00:23:54,310 --> 00:23:58,010
Speaker 1: with these comedy clubs opening up across the country was

472
00:23:58,070 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 1: a switch from. social commentary, uh, more to like observational

473
00:24:05,130 --> 00:24:07,260
Speaker 1: stuff too. Yeah.

474
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:09,460
Speaker 3: And those, those comedy clubs, all of a sudden you

475
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:12,939
Speaker 3: had these places where you could, you know, go up

476
00:24:12,980 --> 00:24:16,659
Speaker 3: a few times a week and really workshop your material. And, uh,

477
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 3: you know, very small audiences generally at these places. Um,

478
00:24:20,220 --> 00:24:23,350
Speaker 3: I think the improv, uh, eventually expanded into a chain.

479
00:24:23,420 --> 00:24:27,369
Speaker 3: It started in, in New York city, um, but expanded

480
00:24:27,570 --> 00:24:30,540
Speaker 3: to 15 clubs eventually, um, And then the Comedy Store,

481
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 3: I know we talked about the Comedy Store before in

482
00:24:32,900 --> 00:24:36,180
Speaker 3: other episodes, but it really changed the game in Los

483
00:24:36,270 --> 00:24:41,790
Speaker 3: Angeles in 1972 when Mitzi Shore, Polly Shore's mom, took

484
00:24:41,810 --> 00:24:45,229
Speaker 3: it over when she won it in a divorce settlement and.

485
00:24:46,630 --> 00:24:50,230
Speaker 2: Ran the show there for decades, basically.

486
00:24:50,850 --> 00:24:53,370
Speaker 1: Yeah, she also went on to found the company that

487
00:24:53,410 --> 00:24:57,010
Speaker 1: became Comedy Central, from what I understand. So, yeah, she

488
00:24:57,050 --> 00:25:00,590
Speaker 1: was a huge influence in comedy. And then I also

489
00:25:00,650 --> 00:25:02,409
Speaker 1: mentioned one of the things that was happening hand in

490
00:25:02,470 --> 00:25:07,050
Speaker 1: hand with the 70s comedy clubs was that switch from

491
00:25:07,090 --> 00:25:10,770
Speaker 1: political and social commentary necessarily more to like personal stuff,

492
00:25:10,890 --> 00:25:13,610
Speaker 1: observational stuff. And I found a great example of that

493
00:25:14,170 --> 00:25:18,070
Speaker 1: in Elaine Boosler, who definitely helped kind of usher that

494
00:25:18,150 --> 00:25:20,350
Speaker 1: in from the late 70s into the 80s when she

495
00:25:20,390 --> 00:25:23,850
Speaker 1: was really big. But she had this joke that she said, like,

496
00:25:23,890 --> 00:25:26,449
Speaker 1: she has six locks on her door now. And when

497
00:25:26,490 --> 00:25:29,660
Speaker 1: she goes out, she only locks every other one. Because

498
00:25:29,700 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: she figures that if somebody wants to come pick her lock,

499
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:34,660
Speaker 1: no matter how long they stand there, they're always going

500
00:25:34,700 --> 00:25:36,100
Speaker 1: to be locking three of them.

501
00:25:37,460 --> 00:25:38,379
Speaker 2: The great Elaine Boosler.

502
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:42,620
Speaker 1: That's great. Like it has it makes a social commentary

503
00:25:42,660 --> 00:25:45,990
Speaker 1: and crime exists, but that's about as far as it goes,

504
00:25:46,030 --> 00:25:46,310
Speaker 1: you know?

505
00:25:46,730 --> 00:25:48,070
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. She's she's awesome.

506
00:25:50,170 --> 00:25:52,750
Speaker 3: Late night talk shows is where stand up took a

507
00:25:52,790 --> 00:25:55,110
Speaker 3: huge jump to. And Ed Sullivan started all of that

508
00:25:55,210 --> 00:25:58,490
Speaker 3: out in the 1940s. And then, obviously, when The Tonight

509
00:25:58,510 --> 00:26:01,350
Speaker 3: Show came about in the 1950s, like I talked about eventually,

510
00:26:01,390 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 3: Johnny Carson, you know, anointing you was a very big

511
00:26:04,820 --> 00:26:07,260
Speaker 3: deal as a stand-up comic.

512
00:26:08,300 --> 00:26:09,540
Speaker 2: And then, like, records.

513
00:26:10,540 --> 00:26:13,500
Speaker 3: I know we mentioned Mort Sahl and some of these

514
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 3: other guys with their early records.

515
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 2: But once LPs came around.

516
00:26:17,980 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 3: And all of a sudden you could get your comedy

517
00:26:19,700 --> 00:26:23,220
Speaker 3: on a record and win a Grammy for it and, like,

518
00:26:23,300 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 3: make money selling comedy records.

519
00:26:25,270 --> 00:26:26,230
Speaker 2: That was sort of the.

520
00:26:26,250 --> 00:26:29,030
Speaker 3: Early version of like the standup special that we have

521
00:26:29,090 --> 00:26:30,210
Speaker 3: now was the comedy record.

522
00:26:30,630 --> 00:26:34,720
Speaker 1: Yes. I say that we take a break and come

523
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,859
Speaker 1: back and talk about some of the comics from this era. Okay.

524
00:26:38,100 --> 00:26:38,300
Speaker 1: All right.

525
00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.

526
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:48,459
Speaker 4: All right.

527
00:27:11,670 --> 00:27:16,490
Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, so we're back. And thanks to comedy albums,

528
00:27:16,570 --> 00:27:20,540
Speaker 1: thanks to TV, there were suddenly way more places for

529
00:27:20,940 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: comics to perform rather than just clubs and also get discovered.

530
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: Joan Rivers is a good example of that. She started

531
00:27:30,340 --> 00:27:32,940
Speaker 1: doing stand-up all over the place in New York. She

532
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: had some hilarious bits. And then she got her big

533
00:27:36,540 --> 00:27:38,679
Speaker 1: break on The Tonight Show. And a lot of people

534
00:27:38,830 --> 00:27:43,210
Speaker 1: from Stephen Wright, one of the most amazing comics of

535
00:27:43,270 --> 00:27:47,550
Speaker 1: all time, to Mitch Hedberg, another amazing comic too, all

536
00:27:47,590 --> 00:27:50,490
Speaker 1: got their break on late night shows. And she was

537
00:27:50,590 --> 00:27:54,409
Speaker 1: one of the early ones. And so she became a

538
00:27:54,450 --> 00:27:57,770
Speaker 1: regular because she killed so hard. on the late night

539
00:27:57,830 --> 00:28:01,630
Speaker 1: shows that she almost took over for Carson. We've talked

540
00:28:01,650 --> 00:28:06,770
Speaker 1: about this before, but she upset him by, um, trying

541
00:28:06,790 --> 00:28:08,910
Speaker 1: to get her own show without talking to him first,

542
00:28:08,950 --> 00:28:11,390
Speaker 1: getting his blessing first, but that's how good she was

543
00:28:11,430 --> 00:28:14,270
Speaker 1: at late night. And she started out as just a, um,

544
00:28:14,530 --> 00:28:16,880
Speaker 1: a standup comedian in the little clubs in New York

545
00:28:16,930 --> 00:28:18,690
Speaker 1: before the improv even.

546
00:28:19,340 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 2: Yeah.

547
00:28:19,740 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 3: And, you know, if you were a comedian back then,

548
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:25,460
Speaker 3: it wasn't like today where it's a, It was just

549
00:28:25,510 --> 00:28:27,670
Speaker 3: starting to become a thing where like, hey, you can

550
00:28:27,750 --> 00:28:30,330
Speaker 3: have a full career just doing this because a lot

551
00:28:30,350 --> 00:28:33,869
Speaker 3: of these people did other stuff like they acted. I

552
00:28:34,170 --> 00:28:37,409
Speaker 3: know Joan Rivers acted in plays and movies when she

553
00:28:37,450 --> 00:28:38,590
Speaker 3: wasn't getting booked.

554
00:28:39,730 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 2: Red Fox did the same.

555
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 3: He was he was on the Chitlin circuit, but he

556
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 3: was too raunchy for white audiences at the time.

557
00:28:47,180 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

558
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:49,620
Speaker 3: So like he would put out an album and they

559
00:28:49,660 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 3: may not even sell it in mainstream stores. But then

560
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,790
Speaker 3: he becomes a huge star. When he is an actor

561
00:28:56,070 --> 00:28:58,870
Speaker 3: on Sanford and Son, one of my favorite shows as

562
00:28:58,930 --> 00:28:59,170
Speaker 3: a kid.

563
00:28:59,410 --> 00:29:01,990
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wasn't allowed to watch it because my mom

564
00:29:02,470 --> 00:29:06,390
Speaker 1: thought Red Fox was a dirty old man. He was.

565
00:29:06,410 --> 00:29:09,630
Speaker 1: I found a hilarious Red Fox joke. He said that

566
00:29:09,790 --> 00:29:11,860
Speaker 1: I carry a knife now. I read in a white

567
00:29:11,930 --> 00:29:14,340
Speaker 1: magazine that all black people carry knives. So I ran

568
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: out and bought me one.

569
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:19,140
Speaker 2: He was great.

570
00:29:19,180 --> 00:29:21,740
Speaker 3: I mean, he wasn't filthy on Sanford and Son. So

571
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:23,260
Speaker 3: I feel bad that you didn't get to.

572
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 2: Watch the show.

573
00:29:24,590 --> 00:29:26,370
Speaker 1: Oh, I've watched it for sure. Oh, okay.

574
00:29:26,390 --> 00:29:27,070
Speaker 2: You snuck it.

575
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: I watched it a little later. Yeah, I had plenty

576
00:29:31,420 --> 00:29:33,820
Speaker 1: of other stuff to watch like Flintstones and things like that.

577
00:29:33,860 --> 00:29:35,790
Speaker 1: So I just saved it for later. I don't think

578
00:29:35,830 --> 00:29:37,530
Speaker 1: I would have enjoyed it as much because I was

579
00:29:37,590 --> 00:29:39,489
Speaker 1: five years younger than you. So I had to wait

580
00:29:39,530 --> 00:29:41,230
Speaker 1: until I got older. little older to really think it

581
00:29:41,250 --> 00:29:43,250
Speaker 1: was funny. But it is a great show.

582
00:29:43,730 --> 00:29:44,110
Speaker 2: Great show.

583
00:29:44,810 --> 00:29:47,370
Speaker 3: Steve Martin was another one. He was a comedy writer.

584
00:29:48,910 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 3: He plays the banjo, I think, as most people know.

585
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 3: So he would work that into his early nightclub shows.

586
00:29:55,660 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 3: and worked as a comedy writer for the Smothers Brothers

587
00:29:58,820 --> 00:30:04,370
Speaker 3: Comedy Hour and other variety shows. And then after SNL,

588
00:30:05,180 --> 00:30:07,750
Speaker 3: and if you've seen the great documentary on Steve Martin,

589
00:30:08,190 --> 00:30:12,430
Speaker 3: it's a two part documentary. It's just fantastic. But he

590
00:30:12,490 --> 00:30:16,790
Speaker 3: was he was the first like superstar of comedy. There

591
00:30:16,850 --> 00:30:20,550
Speaker 3: had not been people that sold out, you know, basketball

592
00:30:20,570 --> 00:30:24,380
Speaker 3: arenas before Steve Martin. And it was It's an incredible

593
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,500
Speaker 3: thing to watch in this documentary. Like just what a

594
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,380
Speaker 3: he was like one of the most famous people in

595
00:30:30,020 --> 00:30:34,070
Speaker 3: the world in the 1970s and then just stopped, just

596
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,350
Speaker 3: walked away from it all and never did stand up again.

597
00:30:36,410 --> 00:30:37,310
Speaker 2: So he could do movies.

598
00:30:37,810 --> 00:30:39,910
Speaker 1: I know, which is sad because some of the stuff

599
00:30:39,950 --> 00:30:44,370
Speaker 1: he was doing was so creative. Like I watched his

600
00:30:44,530 --> 00:30:48,780
Speaker 1: comedy Act for Dogs, which he did on Carson. where

601
00:30:48,820 --> 00:30:50,580
Speaker 1: he had like four or five dogs just lined up

602
00:30:50,620 --> 00:30:52,500
Speaker 1: right in front of him. And he told the viewers

603
00:30:52,540 --> 00:30:54,770
Speaker 1: to bring, bring your dogs because this is going to

604
00:30:55,350 --> 00:30:57,490
Speaker 1: kill them. They're going to love this. And then he

605
00:30:57,530 --> 00:31:00,930
Speaker 1: did a act geared toward making dogs laugh. So they

606
00:31:00,950 --> 00:31:05,390
Speaker 1: were all dog centric jokes, not, not like about like

607
00:31:05,430 --> 00:31:07,630
Speaker 1: to owners, but to the dogs. And then at one

608
00:31:07,670 --> 00:31:10,390
Speaker 1: part he plays a little, like a bit on a

609
00:31:10,710 --> 00:31:13,650
Speaker 1: dog whistle that you can't, you can't hear anything. It's just,

610
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:16,350
Speaker 1: It's amazing. And this is like the kind of stuff

611
00:31:16,380 --> 00:31:18,570
Speaker 1: he was doing, not just standing there telling jokes, but

612
00:31:18,610 --> 00:31:22,490
Speaker 1: like hilarious bits. So, yeah, just he should have been

613
00:31:22,530 --> 00:31:24,350
Speaker 1: a superstar. He was so good. And I wish he

614
00:31:24,390 --> 00:31:26,870
Speaker 1: was I wish he would still do stand up once

615
00:31:26,930 --> 00:31:31,020
Speaker 1: in a while. You know, I can't imagine how many

616
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: tickets he would sell if he came back and did

617
00:31:33,580 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: stand up once.

618
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:36,090
Speaker 2: Yeah, he kind of does it.

619
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 3: You know, he and Martin Short have a roadshow that

620
00:31:38,260 --> 00:31:44,310
Speaker 3: they do together, which is essentially a two hander stand up. But,

621
00:31:44,570 --> 00:31:47,590
Speaker 3: you know, in the documentary, he talks about just he

622
00:31:47,630 --> 00:31:52,310
Speaker 3: got so big that he was doing routines where the

623
00:31:52,490 --> 00:31:54,130
Speaker 3: you know how the audience will sing along at like

624
00:31:54,170 --> 00:31:54,710
Speaker 3: a concert.

625
00:31:54,770 --> 00:31:54,970
Speaker 1: Yeah.

626
00:31:55,430 --> 00:31:59,050
Speaker 3: Where the audience was saying punch lines, you know, 20,000

627
00:31:59,050 --> 00:32:02,110
Speaker 3: people saying the punch line out loud with them. And

628
00:32:02,230 --> 00:32:03,670
Speaker 3: it just I think it got to be too much.

629
00:32:03,730 --> 00:32:06,450
Speaker 3: And he was just like, that's not what this was

630
00:32:06,510 --> 00:32:09,430
Speaker 3: meant to be. And I mean, he had to it

631
00:32:09,450 --> 00:32:10,969
Speaker 3: takes a lot of bravery and guts to just be like,

632
00:32:10,990 --> 00:32:12,820
Speaker 3: you know, I'm done with that part of my life.

633
00:32:12,950 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 2: They totally walked away.

634
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:17,740
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like Dave Chappelle would later on 30 years later. Yeah.

635
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 2: Eddie Murphy in between.

636
00:32:19,140 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 3: Uh, although there's rumors that Eddie's working on a standup set,

637
00:32:22,270 --> 00:32:25,630
Speaker 3: which would just, that would, oh man, that would be incredible.

638
00:32:26,630 --> 00:32:30,470
Speaker 1: Uh, yeah. So, uh, that's Steve Martin superstar. Uh, another

639
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: superstar that came out of the seventies was Robin Williams, who, um,

640
00:32:35,930 --> 00:32:40,630
Speaker 1: rose to fame, like just completely fueled by cocaine and

641
00:32:40,710 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 1: just totally out of his mind. And I assume that

642
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,740
Speaker 1: that's why he was always like, you know, going nuts

643
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 1: and bouncing all over the place. Apparently the exact opposite

644
00:32:51,100 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: happened with him. Cocaine called him down. So he was

645
00:32:54,010 --> 00:32:57,290
Speaker 1: naturally like that. And when he was mellow, it's because

646
00:32:57,330 --> 00:33:00,410
Speaker 1: he was on coke, which I found quite interesting.

647
00:33:00,430 --> 00:33:00,530
Speaker 2: Yeah.

648
00:33:01,410 --> 00:33:05,709
Speaker 3: Well, he was obviously Mork from Ork, which debuted as

649
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:09,420
Speaker 3: a character on Happy Days in 1978. And then he

650
00:33:09,460 --> 00:33:12,140
Speaker 3: got his own show, Mork and Mindy, that same year.

651
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 3: Another favorite show of mine as a kid. And he's

652
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 3: another one of those that like he always loved stand

653
00:33:17,300 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 3: up and like kept doing stand up alongside of movies,

654
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,470
Speaker 3: like once he became even a dramatic actor at times.

655
00:33:25,550 --> 00:33:27,750
Speaker 3: But he was he was still love going on stage

656
00:33:27,770 --> 00:33:29,890
Speaker 3: and doing stand up in the Heard lots of stories

657
00:33:29,910 --> 00:33:33,090
Speaker 3: about him, like, showing up at the comedy store and stuff. Like,

658
00:33:33,210 --> 00:33:35,230
Speaker 3: even in his later years and, like, showing up to

659
00:33:35,270 --> 00:33:36,870
Speaker 3: do a set and it would just, like, floor people.

660
00:33:37,390 --> 00:33:40,580
Speaker 1: I'm sure. He also, remember, he appeared in our Coco

661
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,160
Speaker 1: live episode because he got to go hang out with

662
00:33:44,220 --> 00:33:48,180
Speaker 1: Coco for a while and they just communicated.

663
00:33:48,200 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were buddies.

664
00:33:50,780 --> 00:33:55,550
Speaker 1: Okay, so... You've got like 20,000 seat stadiums with Steve Martin.

665
00:33:55,590 --> 00:33:59,030
Speaker 1: You've got raunchy comedy albums with Redd Foxx. You got

666
00:33:59,070 --> 00:34:03,950
Speaker 1: Joan Rivers hosting late night stuff as a guest. Cable

667
00:34:03,990 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: was another thing that came along that really changed things

668
00:34:08,219 --> 00:34:11,900
Speaker 1: for comedians for a couple of reasons. One of the

669
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: big reasons was they could say stuff on cable specials

670
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,720
Speaker 1: that they could not say anywhere else except in person.

671
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,460
Speaker 1: And now you were saying this instead of to 50

672
00:34:22,460 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 1: people in a small club, you're saying this to millions

673
00:34:24,700 --> 00:34:27,060
Speaker 1: of people who got to watch your stuff. And then

674
00:34:27,420 --> 00:34:30,299
Speaker 1: you went from 50 seat small clubs to, you know,

675
00:34:30,580 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: pretty large venues after that. And then also, instead of

676
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:36,980
Speaker 1: like five minutes on a late night show, you would

677
00:34:37,020 --> 00:34:39,259
Speaker 1: have like an hour long special. So you did your

678
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:43,459
Speaker 1: entire set. And that really changed things, as I said.

679
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:44,739
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

680
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,500
Speaker 3: Like HBO, it just can't be overstated what an important

681
00:34:47,540 --> 00:34:51,250
Speaker 3: thing HBO was to the rise of comedy in the

682
00:34:51,290 --> 00:34:54,790
Speaker 3: United States, because that's where those first comedy specials started appearing.

683
00:34:55,870 --> 00:34:59,770
Speaker 3: I think Robert Klein was actually the very first HBO

684
00:34:59,790 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 3: comedy special in 75. And then Steve Martin, I think,

685
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 3: kind of right after that, almost called him Stephen Martin.

686
00:35:08,620 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 3: But then, and I know we talked about this in

687
00:35:10,620 --> 00:35:15,939
Speaker 3: the Rodney Dangerfield episode, when Rodney started the HBO Young

688
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:21,090
Speaker 3: Comedian specials, that run of, 19 years from 76 to 95.

689
00:35:21,070 --> 00:35:23,989
Speaker 3: I remember watching this when I was a kid and

690
00:35:24,030 --> 00:35:27,359
Speaker 3: seeing all these, like Sam Kinison and Roseanne Barr and

691
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,339
Speaker 3: Rita Rudner, Jerry Seinfeld, that's where he got his start.

692
00:35:31,420 --> 00:35:35,020
Speaker 3: I was just a kid sitting around watching every bit

693
00:35:35,060 --> 00:35:36,980
Speaker 3: of stand-up I could get my hands on, and HBO

694
00:35:37,020 --> 00:35:38,839
Speaker 3: was definitely the place. Yeah.

695
00:35:39,230 --> 00:35:44,730
Speaker 1: Oh, it definitely was, especially before Comedy Central, too. Yeah. Basically,

696
00:35:44,790 --> 00:35:48,370
Speaker 1: everything I ever put on HBO was amazing. because they

697
00:35:48,410 --> 00:35:51,140
Speaker 1: didn't just give a special to just anybody. The cool

698
00:35:51,180 --> 00:35:54,780
Speaker 1: thing was, is you didn't have to be an already

699
00:35:54,820 --> 00:35:58,939
Speaker 1: established standup. Like you said, Jerry Seinfeld got his start

700
00:35:58,980 --> 00:36:00,500
Speaker 1: on that. You just had to be really good at

701
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,060
Speaker 1: what you did. One of the other ways that HBO

702
00:36:04,100 --> 00:36:06,219
Speaker 1: helped too, they helped a lot of up and coming

703
00:36:06,260 --> 00:36:10,589
Speaker 1: black comedians on Deaf Comedy Jam, which ran for years

704
00:36:10,650 --> 00:36:14,630
Speaker 1: and years and years. And essentially any huge black comedian

705
00:36:14,650 --> 00:36:17,700
Speaker 1: that you know of today, got their big break on

706
00:36:17,739 --> 00:36:19,910
Speaker 1: Deaf Comedy Jam. It was like that important.

707
00:36:20,469 --> 00:36:24,610
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Huge hats off to producer Russell Simmons

708
00:36:25,370 --> 00:36:28,509
Speaker 3: for that. It was hosted by Martin Lawrence. And yeah,

709
00:36:28,550 --> 00:36:29,380
Speaker 3: I mean, you name it.

710
00:36:29,469 --> 00:36:30,650
Speaker 2: If you.

711
00:36:31,850 --> 00:36:34,260
Speaker 3: Ended up being a famous Black comedian in the 1990s,

712
00:36:34,590 --> 00:36:37,820
Speaker 3: there's a pretty good chance you started on Deaf Comedy Jam.

713
00:36:38,860 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 3: And that would lead, I know this is jumping ahead

714
00:36:41,540 --> 00:36:44,500
Speaker 3: a bit in time, but to the Kings of Comedy Tour.

715
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:45,760
Speaker 1: Man, that was so good.

716
00:36:46,219 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 3: And then the original Kings of Comedy film of that

717
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 3: tour from Spike Lee in 2000, of course, that was

718
00:36:52,060 --> 00:36:53,260
Speaker 3: Steve Harvey, D.L.

719
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:58,140
Speaker 2: Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and R.I.P. the great Bernie Mac.

720
00:36:58,340 --> 00:37:01,460
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. He was great. His show was pretty great, too.

721
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:03,379
Speaker 2: I loved the Bernie Mac show.

722
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, still holds up.

723
00:37:05,060 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet.

724
00:37:07,140 --> 00:37:12,410
Speaker 1: So we mentioned Comedy Central, and that started in 1991,

725
00:37:12,410 --> 00:37:17,259
Speaker 1: even though Mitzi Shore had established something before it a

726
00:37:17,300 --> 00:37:20,420
Speaker 1: few years before. Not sure why that's important, but I

727
00:37:20,460 --> 00:37:23,489
Speaker 1: felt like I needed to mention it again. And the

728
00:37:23,530 --> 00:37:25,430
Speaker 1: whole thing, I don't know if you remember this. I'm

729
00:37:25,469 --> 00:37:28,870
Speaker 1: sure you do. It was just basically shows that were

730
00:37:28,989 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: clips of comedians doing standup. That's how it started. And

731
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:36,580
Speaker 1: it was so pure. That's all you needed. They would

732
00:37:36,620 --> 00:37:39,820
Speaker 1: just figure out different ways to package it. Short attention

733
00:37:39,860 --> 00:37:42,300
Speaker 1: span theater, stand up, stand up or whatever.

734
00:37:42,540 --> 00:37:42,880
Speaker 4: Yeah.

735
00:37:42,980 --> 00:37:46,299
Speaker 1: But that's all it was. It was just stand ups

736
00:37:46,340 --> 00:37:49,219
Speaker 1: doing stand up clip after clip. And it was wonderful.

737
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great. You're right.

738
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,580
Speaker 3: There was a purity to those early days of Comedy Central.

739
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:57,989
Speaker 3: They did have shows that would come along, but they

740
00:37:58,030 --> 00:38:02,670
Speaker 3: were shows from comedians like The Great Chappelle Show. And

741
00:38:02,790 --> 00:38:05,190
Speaker 3: I know a show that you and I both love, Dr.

742
00:38:05,250 --> 00:38:07,310
Speaker 3: Cat's Professional Therapist.

743
00:38:08,070 --> 00:38:11,450
Speaker 1: I'll always remember Dom Herrera saying, like, you can't get

744
00:38:11,469 --> 00:38:13,870
Speaker 1: to a cat. Like, you just can't get under their skin. Like,

745
00:38:13,890 --> 00:38:15,430
Speaker 1: you could throw them across the room and the cat

746
00:38:15,450 --> 00:38:17,569
Speaker 1: would be like, thanks, my man. I was going this

747
00:38:17,590 --> 00:38:18,379
Speaker 1: way anyway.

748
00:38:18,660 --> 00:38:21,280
Speaker 2: Dom Herrera is so great. Yeah.

749
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 1: So, yeah, Comedy Central was an enormous driver, too, as

750
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,020
Speaker 1: you can imagine. And then Saturday Night Live, as we mentioned, like,

751
00:38:28,900 --> 00:38:32,100
Speaker 1: It's pretty difficult to overstate the importance that Saturday Night

752
00:38:32,140 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: Live has had on launching like stand-up comedians into stardom.

753
00:38:37,219 --> 00:38:37,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

754
00:38:38,260 --> 00:38:39,900
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we already mentioned Eddie Murphy, but

755
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:43,990
Speaker 3: that's where he got his start at age 19.

756
00:38:43,989 --> 00:38:47,109
Speaker 2: Again, I highly recommend his documentary. It's really, really good.

757
00:38:48,230 --> 00:38:50,610
Speaker 3: And then he had his protégés to follow after he

758
00:38:50,650 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 3: put out his two kind of groundbreaking comedy movies, Delirious

759
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 3: and Raw.

760
00:38:58,070 --> 00:39:00,219
Speaker 2: Both of which I think a lot of Gen Xers

761
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:01,419
Speaker 2: can kind of quote by heart.

762
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,260
Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's see. What else, Chuck?

763
00:39:06,460 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 2: Well, Chris Rock, he was one of those protégés.

764
00:39:08,489 --> 00:39:11,690
Speaker 3: So he came out of that Eddie Murphy school, was

765
00:39:11,750 --> 00:39:14,850
Speaker 3: on the SNL cast, and had a nice run of

766
00:39:15,010 --> 00:39:15,790
Speaker 3: HBO specials, too.

767
00:39:16,570 --> 00:39:19,850
Speaker 1: Okay, so one of the other things, this is just,

768
00:39:19,969 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: I love this part because it's so nostalgic for me,

769
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:25,359
Speaker 1: but one of the things that people figured out pretty

770
00:39:25,420 --> 00:39:28,020
Speaker 1: early on is you could take a stand-up comedian and

771
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,240
Speaker 1: even if they couldn't act, they could at least pretty

772
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:35,029
Speaker 1: much act like themselves. So shows that were based on

773
00:39:35,110 --> 00:39:38,989
Speaker 1: that comedian's life where they played themselves, like Seinfeld is

774
00:39:39,050 --> 00:39:42,190
Speaker 1: an excellent example. Those have come out over the years

775
00:39:42,230 --> 00:39:46,760
Speaker 1: and some of them have been just amazing. Like Seinfeld, obviously,

776
00:39:46,820 --> 00:39:49,589
Speaker 1: was on for almost 10 years. No, more than 10 years,

777
00:39:49,590 --> 00:39:53,210
Speaker 1: 11 years. And the Drew Carey show was on for

778
00:39:53,430 --> 00:39:56,670
Speaker 1: almost 10 years. Jamie Foxx show was on for five.

779
00:39:56,730 --> 00:39:59,649
Speaker 1: Bernie Mac was on for five. And it just keeps

780
00:39:59,690 --> 00:40:02,489
Speaker 1: going on. And then others didn't have quite as much

781
00:40:02,550 --> 00:40:05,750
Speaker 1: staying power, but they weren't necessarily terrible. They just didn't

782
00:40:05,830 --> 00:40:09,670
Speaker 1: draw the audience that the execs expected, like the Norm

783
00:40:09,710 --> 00:40:12,870
Speaker 1: show or Whitney or Mulaney all had very short runs,

784
00:40:12,910 --> 00:40:16,730
Speaker 1: but they were all based around stand-up comedians. Yeah.

785
00:40:17,890 --> 00:40:20,029
Speaker 2: Louis C.K. had a couple of runs on TV.

786
00:40:20,050 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 3: He had a sitcom, like an on-stage multicam sitcom called

787
00:40:24,820 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 3: Lucky Louis, which not a lot of people saw, I

788
00:40:27,660 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 3: feel like. He got a lot more attention with his

789
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:35,850
Speaker 3: show just called Louis. But, you know, Seinfeld was very famously,

790
00:40:36,150 --> 00:40:39,469
Speaker 3: when he won an Emmy, got up on stage, I

791
00:40:39,469 --> 00:40:43,149
Speaker 3: don't know if you remember this, and grabbed the Emmy and.

792
00:40:43,150 --> 00:40:45,930
Speaker 2: Said, I am a bad actor.

793
00:40:47,570 --> 00:40:49,609
Speaker 3: So he was always very upfront about the fact that like,

794
00:40:49,969 --> 00:40:52,450
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not necessarily an actor, but I guess

795
00:40:52,510 --> 00:40:54,060
Speaker 3: I'm myself enough on TV.

796
00:40:54,380 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

797
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:57,780
Speaker 2: And then also want to shout out the Sarah Silverman program.

798
00:40:57,820 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: Yeah.

799
00:40:58,739 --> 00:41:00,180
Speaker 3: Not only was that a great show, but a lot

800
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,210
Speaker 3: of like alt comedians got their start either acting or

801
00:41:04,290 --> 00:41:05,049
Speaker 3: writing for that show.

802
00:41:05,489 --> 00:41:09,770
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that also kind of grew out of Mr.

803
00:41:09,830 --> 00:41:10,029
Speaker 4: Show.

804
00:41:10,780 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: Which was a big deal for alt comedy, as we'll see.

805
00:41:15,140 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: And Sarah Silverman was on. She was one of the

806
00:41:17,420 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: actors on that show, too.

807
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:25,989
Speaker 3: Yeah. So those were all sitcoms, basically, where, you know,

808
00:41:26,010 --> 00:41:29,210
Speaker 3: they weren't all playing themselves like as comedians in real life.

809
00:41:29,810 --> 00:41:32,450
Speaker 3: Like Mad About You, it wasn't about a, you know,

810
00:41:32,489 --> 00:41:36,350
Speaker 3: Paul Reiser, the comedian. there were other shows sort of

811
00:41:36,390 --> 00:41:38,870
Speaker 3: like Mad About You where there were comedians playing either

812
00:41:38,969 --> 00:41:42,049
Speaker 3: thinly veiled versions of themselves or kind of like in

813
00:41:42,090 --> 00:41:46,110
Speaker 3: Roseanne's case, she kind of took her act and formed

814
00:41:46,130 --> 00:41:51,220
Speaker 3: that into the show Roseanne. Obviously, The Cosby Show, Ellen,

815
00:41:51,260 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 3: Steve Harvey, Everybody Loves Raymond, George Lopez. I haven't seen

816
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,899
Speaker 3: a lot of these shows. Home Improvement and the great

817
00:41:57,940 --> 00:42:00,100
Speaker 3: Bob Newhart show. And we got a shout out to

818
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 3: Gnataro and her great show, One Mississippi.

819
00:42:03,219 --> 00:42:05,350
Speaker 1: Yeah. She didn't play herself in that.

820
00:42:08,030 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 3: She did not play herself. I don't think I'm trying

821
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 3: to remember now. I really like the show. I had

822
00:42:15,219 --> 00:42:18,859
Speaker 3: a couple of seasons, but I don't think she played

823
00:42:18,900 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 3: a comedian. I'm trying to remember now because I don't

824
00:42:21,780 --> 00:42:22,469
Speaker 3: want to get called out.

825
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,859
Speaker 1: So I gotcha. So there's also at the same time,

826
00:42:26,910 --> 00:42:29,850
Speaker 1: while people are standing there with a microphone and there's

827
00:42:29,890 --> 00:42:32,549
Speaker 1: a bar stool with like a vodka tonic on it

828
00:42:32,590 --> 00:42:36,489
Speaker 1: or something like that during the 80s and 90s, there

829
00:42:36,530 --> 00:42:39,650
Speaker 1: are also people doing their own thing. Still, you got

830
00:42:39,670 --> 00:42:43,270
Speaker 1: to shout out Gallagher, who definitely did his own thing.

831
00:42:43,950 --> 00:42:44,149
Speaker 2: Yeah.

832
00:42:44,530 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: You have to shout out another prop comic, Carrot Top.

833
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:48,540
Speaker 2: Sure.

834
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 1: You could. Shout out Jeff Dunham, who we talked about

835
00:42:52,820 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: in our ventriloquist episode.

836
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 4: Yeah.

837
00:42:56,420 --> 00:42:59,650
Speaker 1: Andrew Dice Clay was another one. He had his own shtick.

838
00:42:59,850 --> 00:43:02,390
Speaker 1: And not only did he have a comedy album called

839
00:43:02,410 --> 00:43:06,109
Speaker 1: The Day the Laughter Died, which I grew up on.

840
00:43:06,570 --> 00:43:09,940
Speaker 1: He starred in his own movie, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.

841
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:10,700
Speaker 1: Did you ever see that?

842
00:43:11,739 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 3: I never saw that. And I don't know why, because

843
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:16,810
Speaker 3: I really was into Dice for a while when.

844
00:43:16,750 --> 00:43:17,690
Speaker 2: I was in high school.

845
00:43:17,710 --> 00:43:18,589
Speaker 1: Did you dress like him?

846
00:43:19,489 --> 00:43:22,009
Speaker 2: Oh, no, no, no, no. Nothing like that. I just

847
00:43:22,090 --> 00:43:23,049
Speaker 2: thought he was very funny.

848
00:43:23,190 --> 00:43:26,290
Speaker 1: He had some very recitable jokes.

849
00:43:27,270 --> 00:43:28,350
Speaker 2: Yeah.

850
00:43:28,469 --> 00:43:31,130
Speaker 1: One other comedy album that was really influential on me

851
00:43:31,190 --> 00:43:33,830
Speaker 1: at the time was Dennis Leary's No Cure for Cancer.

852
00:43:34,050 --> 00:43:35,340
Speaker 1: That was really great, too.

853
00:43:35,860 --> 00:43:39,250
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was never into Dennis Leary. But but I

854
00:43:39,270 --> 00:43:41,210
Speaker 2: got it. I thought his MTV stuff was pretty fun.

855
00:43:41,430 --> 00:43:42,649
Speaker 1: Yeah.

856
00:43:42,750 --> 00:43:44,390
Speaker 2: And you know what? I'm just now remembering. I think

857
00:43:44,469 --> 00:43:45,810
Speaker 2: Tig Notaro played.

858
00:43:46,270 --> 00:43:49,550
Speaker 3: I think it was one of those slightly different versions

859
00:43:49,610 --> 00:43:51,630
Speaker 3: because I think she played like a radio host or something.

860
00:43:51,650 --> 00:43:54,140
Speaker 1: OK. Yeah. That's like Steve Harvey. I think he played

861
00:43:54,180 --> 00:43:55,839
Speaker 1: a radio DJ or something like that.

862
00:43:55,860 --> 00:43:56,460
Speaker 4: Yeah.

863
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:57,660
Speaker 2: So she sold Steve Harvey's bit.

864
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: So I say we sign off for episode one. We'll

865
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 1: come back with episode two. But there's one thing I

866
00:44:03,860 --> 00:44:07,210
Speaker 1: wanted to say that I didn't get to, but I

867
00:44:07,290 --> 00:44:10,730
Speaker 1: found out from researching this. You know that famous saying

868
00:44:10,790 --> 00:44:16,310
Speaker 1: that Ginger did everything Fred did, only backwards and in heels? Yeah.

869
00:44:16,690 --> 00:44:17,650
Speaker 1: That's Joan Rivers.

870
00:44:19,190 --> 00:44:20,370
Speaker 2: Oh, that was her original joke?

871
00:44:20,550 --> 00:44:20,750
Speaker 4: Yep.

872
00:44:21,510 --> 00:44:22,370
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't surprise me.

873
00:44:23,070 --> 00:44:23,290
Speaker 4: Okay.

874
00:44:23,430 --> 00:44:26,149
Speaker 1: Well, that's it. Are we going to do anything aside

875
00:44:26,190 --> 00:44:27,310
Speaker 1: from tell people our e-mail?

876
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 2: I don't think so.

877
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:30,859
Speaker 3: You know, we'll come back with part two, I guess,

878
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Speaker 3: probably on we'll probably do a Tuesday, Thursday, and we'll

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Speaker 3: pick up with alt comedy in the 90s there.

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Speaker 1: OK, so we'll we'll see you guys Thursday. And in

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Speaker 1: the meantime, if you want to send us your favorite

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Speaker 1: comedian and their favorite joke, send it off to Stuff

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Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeartRadio.com.

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Speaker 2: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.