WEBVTT - Tony Hendra on the Essentiality of Satire 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:05.800 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:10.840 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:15.240 hear their stories, What inspires their creations, what decisions change 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:21.240 their careers, what relationships influenced their work. In the nineteen seventies, 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.760 British born comedian Tony Hendra and his fellow editors at 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:30.800 the National Lampoon perfected the art of satire through comics, 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:36.360 illustrations and irreverent clips. They transformed a small magazine into 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:41.480 a powerhouse of hilarious, cutting edge social commentary. Before that, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.080 Hendra had been part of a comedy team with Nick Cullett, 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.000 performing live across the US, but the election of Richard 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:51.880 Nixon was a turning point for Hendra and the work 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:56.480 he wanted to create. After helping shape The Lampoon, Hendra 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:00.360 took his fearless wit on the road, writing and ucing 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:04.640 TV shows, acting in movies, and producing albums, one of 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:09.360 which propelled John Belushi to fame, still writing today. He 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.800 reunited with the Lampoon last year to write a new 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:17.360 album titled Are There Any Triggers Here Tonight? For Tony Hendra, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.399 the Trump administration has only made his work more relevant. 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.480 There are times, especially now, when there is an essentiality 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.360 of sata and it's important. I mean, even if you 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.160 don't get rid of the enemy, the enemy triumphs in 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:35.160 some curious way. It is a kind of civic obligation almost, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.600 you know, to to be taking on power, especially when 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.160 it's already corrupted power in this case. Do you feel 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.080 during the course of your career that was a part 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:49.680 of it, the essentiality of satire? Well, yes, I obviously 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.560 it's self seeking to to say that, But but I 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.440 must say, when after the after the election, my my 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.520 little cost I have a cost of a radio show 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.720 I do called The Final Adition Radio and there's a 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:03.280 cast in New York and a cast in l a 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.520 And everyone obviously was very cast down, as we all were. 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.560 They were asking questions like that, like, what's the point. 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:11.880 You know, we did all this satire all this year 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.880 and didn't have any effect on anything, um and um. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:18.239 I and I wrote them a sort of letter to 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:20.280 sort of cheer up letter. But the core of it 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:25.040 was that actually, after I got over the shock of 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.079 the fact that he had actually been elected, I found 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.720 that I had a little buzz, a little buzz not 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.040 a excitement exactly, but a buzz is kind of connection, 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.680 which I was trying to remember when I last felt it, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.400 and I remembered that it was actually the same at 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.320 the same time of day when I heard that Nixon 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.160 and ag Knew had been elected, and they were just 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.680 as much a horror show for for the left at 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.280 that point, and that just as much of a surprise, 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.520 in fact, even more so because Nexton had been completely 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.600 written off, and it was that actually at that point, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:00.640 it was like in that that moment in sixty eight, 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:03.920 then I actually thought to myself, Okay, where were you 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.440 in sixty eight? At sixty eight, I was half of 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:11.200 a comedy team with Nick with Nick, yeah exactly, called Hendra, 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.760 and if if I was giving the interview, if he 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.840 was giving the interviews, Hendra, but Hendra, And it was 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.240 slightly easier to say, but but we've been we've been 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.919 working since sixty four when we first came to these shores, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:28.200 and we were really at that point in quite successful 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.240 in a kind of official way. We we were doing 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.920 the really awful variety shows of the sixties, you know, 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.480 like Hollywood Palace and the Perry Como Show and and 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.520 all that kind of thing. Uh and so so so 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.760 in terms of comedy, then there were television programs that 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.640 really were craving acts to come on, and there was 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.480 work to be done for you and all it well, 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.200 there was work, but the strictures on the work who 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.640 were very frustrating because you know, because we were well, 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:58.760 I mean certainly for me anyway, because I was I 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.400 was very politically sort of anxious and aware. But you 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.160 couldn't talk on television about any of the stuff that 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.680 was going on outside the studio doors. I mean, you 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.800 couldn't talk about the war, You couldn't have talked about 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.840 the various forms of liberation. You can talk about drugs, 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:14.680 You couldn't even talk about rock and roll unless you 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.120 were making fun of it. And so it was very frustrating. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.160 But certainly we found that what we were doing, which 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.520 I would describe as bargain basement beyond the fringe at 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.760 the time, was not was not something that most American 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.640 audiences had much interest in, except in New York, where 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.400 they understood what it was. An indicious casting directors and 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.840 producers who took a chance, how did you get the jobs? 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.080 And we had a very powerful manager called Robert chart Off, 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.240 and we had yeah, that Bob Chatter, and we had 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.440 a good friend in Jackie Mason, who was his premium client. 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.640 In fact, Jackie Mason signed the application for my green card, oh, 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.880 which is kind of funny. Yeah. And anyway, so we've 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.680 gone through all the sort of storm and dragon fire 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.680 and ice of of being a comedian in sixties, like 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.560 doing the cats Skills, for example, which was unbelievable and 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.479 I could write an entire book about. But that we 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.080 had emerged from the other end as a kind of 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.679 the English comedy group. You know, there was the Italian 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.040 comedy groups and comedy team, and there was an Irish 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.080 comedy team, and lots of Jewish comedy teams and and 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.800 and there was us. We got that little slot to ourselves, 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:21.360 but it didn't make any difference. We couldn't really do 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.520 anything very you know, very sort of cutting. I mean, 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.520 I think the most cutting joke we ever did was 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:33.560 was one about General the Gold being seriously injured this 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:35.840 morning during his morning walk. He was hit by a 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:42.719 motor boat. And that was like Meggie Sata Verry Como 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.160 drawing his finger across the throat behind your back foot 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:47.240 again exactly. So it was that kind of thing. And 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:49.839 above all that, the sort of pinnacle of this dreadful 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.560 television was was the Edge Solomon Show. I mean, it 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:54.640 was the thing everybody had to get on if they 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.400 wanted to succeed. Yeah, I think it was five or 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.280 six times. Ed had a very ethnic point of view 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:01.800 on comedy. I mean he had to have you had 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.120 to have one of everything. And so I mean George 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:06.640 Carlin was his favorite Irish comic coman in Pat Cooper 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.520 was his favorite Italian comedian, you know, and we were 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.440 we actually beat out Mr Pastry more of a you know, 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.520 more popular than Mr Pastry with but but it was 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:19.520 but it was a really difficult show to get last 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.800 on and it was well known. All comedians used to 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:27.240 bitterly complain about it being this kind of mausoleum. And 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.600 our own private name for the show was a Night 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:36.600 of the Living head. What do you think it was 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.240 that had them call you back again and again? We actually, 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.919 I guess got good ratings or something or but but 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.000 I mean, obviously, as I said, we were, we were 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:49.240 in good shape by virtue of being Ed's favorite British comedians. Um, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.280 and then what changed well, what change was was was 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:54.919 this moment actually when when I mean, at that point, 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.360 I was basically doing the kind of jokes I've been 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.839 telling you, jokes like about how bad British teetha you know. 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.320 But it was really in that moment I was describing earlier, 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.680 when when I realized that Nixon and Agne were actually 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.440 going to be running the country for the next four years. 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.360 Then I decided I've really got started getting serious about 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.080 being funny. And it was actually at that point where 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.160 I sort of began to break up the act because 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.160 I really wanted to do I really wanted to do 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.280 much tougher stuff and and and much more. I mean, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.920 George had a wonderful George Carlin had a wonderful comment 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.680 about that time. He said, you know, when I did 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.160 shows like that, me and he had Sullivan Show, and 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.200 he did all the same shows, it was like being 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.040 a traitor to my generation. So you shared that view 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.640 with Carlin, Yes, very much. So. I didn't know enough 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.119 yet about what what I wanted to make fun about. 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:46.840 But but I mean, for example, I had a piece 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.560 um which I was trying to sell to ramparts at 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.400 the time, remember ramparts, and and it was. It was 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.400 I thought a very funny piece about Gomer Pyle in 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.320 Vietnam and killed me some good storge, you know that 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.240 kind of stuff. And and that was that, as I said, 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.120 that was where I really began to think, well, I'd 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:07.960 much rather be doing this, but I have to find 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:09.880 a forum to do it. I have to find somewhere 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.040 somehow to do it either by myself. I wasn't going 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.280 to convince Nick because he really wasn't that political, and 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.040 part ways with him then, not immediately, but but gradually, 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.080 you know, I sort of we broke up actually in 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.040 the next year. Was he happy to continue going along 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.120 and just wanted to work. And yeah, but that was 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:28.920 the point, wh as I say, really in which I 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.400 began to look around for other other ways. And very 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.959 soon the National Lampoon started. You don't start the National 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.560 No, no no no, But those who started they find you. 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.880 How there was a kind of grape vine for alternate comedy. 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.360 Did the grom Pile piece appear in ramparts? No a 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.839 calling card for you in that kind of no. Unfortunately, 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.440 Walter Kin, it was a great editor called you from 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.320 lampo in no sense of humor. Nobody called me from Lampoon. 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.480 I was told that it was starting up about four 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.400 or five months before it started up by by a 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.120 friend of mine who had also been part of a 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.839 comedy team. And but as soon as I as soon 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.079 as I read the first issue, even though it was 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.040 a very ugly and weird issue, I realized that I 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.720 had found somewhere that I definitely wanted to write for 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.400 and and I in fact started writing for them within 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.280 the next couple of issues. So I started. I was 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.240 first published in them, I think April April of the 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.679 nine and I've been sort of making friends and and 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.840 you know, especially in Los Angeles, were as learning at 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.440 the time, and uh, there was much a much better 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:31.120 kind of underground in San Francisco and Los Angeles for 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.920 comedy than there was in New York. So that also 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.560 helped to sort of mature me in that direction. And 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:42.160 for people who don't know Lampoon was, Lampoon was Henry 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:46.880 Beard and Doug Kenny and uh, and they both were 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.839 from the Harvard Lampers described them well. Doug was a 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.480 very strange character, very good looking, like a real college 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.880 joe good looks, you know, blue eyes and and shell 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:01.280 theer length hair, and and and but but curiously unsure 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.280 of himself, and he was a terrible editor. He would 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.200 say things like this sucks, but I don't know why, 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:11.160 which is really helpful. But he but he was also brilliant. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.120 I mean, the first time I met Doug, he told 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.520 me that the British humor wasn't funny. It was like 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.760 the first thing that started off the interview, but then 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:24.520 somehow it's um it moped very quickly into him doing 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:29.760 a parody of a novelist called Mrs Gaskell, who was 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.760 the nineteenth century novelist, and and doing it brilliantly, so 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.120 sort of the words just came out of him, and 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.679 then you know, ten seconds later he was showing me 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:43.000 he could put his entire fist into his mouth. Was 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.720 his background. He came from Ohio. His dad was a 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.760 tennis coach. He'd been a real star. No, not at all, 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.000 not at all. And Henry was like the other end 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.240 of the spectrum. Henry. Henry was like very academic looking 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.600 with with sort of informous amounts of spiky hair, and 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.160 smoked a pipe incessantly even in bed, it seemed, and 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.920 and just a brilliant intellectual dissector of things, and when 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:09.920 did you start writing with them? Um. The first piece 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.720 that really got me on the map actually was a 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.720 piece called with with Them. I did it with Henry 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:20.280 and it was called nine Days that Shook Woke, Iowa. 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.640 And it was about the assassination or attempted assassionate assassination 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.480 of Spiro agnew Um with with somebody had put an 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.400 ice pick in his head in Woke, Iowa during campaign stop. 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.760 And the difficulty with it was not whether this was 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.480 an assassination, but how many people claimed to have been 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.760 the assassin I was. I was terrified. I thought I 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.559 was going to be deported immediately. I wouldn't even put 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:45.880 my name on it. I called back then that was 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.000 entirely possible. You want to believe absolutely. It would keep 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:51.440 warning me now that it may be impossible again if 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.840 I don't stop with some of my current that the 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.320 Attorney General then John Mitchell was was was actively talking 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.080 about suspending the First Amendment because administrations and so on, 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.480 so um so on that. But that really got me 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.480 sort of set and then and then I then I 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:08.280 was sort of in the groove then because that that 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.880 was really kind of what I did at the Lampoon 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:12.960 how long did you do that at the Lampoon for 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.920 to run. I was there until seventy eight, so for 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:21.480 eight years. Yeah, we know. During that time, obviously, you know, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.960 comedy and not not just satire, for comedy in general 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:29.079 goes through this tremendous expansion. You know, Saturday Night Live 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.760 comes one five and you know, Lauren is always quick 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.599 to point out that when Saturday Night Live debut in 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.120 nineteen seventy five, there might have been fourteen comedy clubs 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.320 in the entire country, and now there's four hundred comedy 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.760 clubs in the country. So um, back then, from seventy 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:47.679 to seventy eight, was there a thought on your partner, 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.160 did you actually go out and write films and TV shows? 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:52.480 You ever want to become a TV writer or a 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:54.800 movie screenplay right, The last thing I wanted to do 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:56.840 is go back into television at that point. I'm really 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.160 that that that was I how lucrative it might be 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.600 absolute how did you avoid that trap? The Lampoon took 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.360 a stance very early on that that it was kind 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.360 of an alternative to television. In fact, we never did 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.480 anything about television. It was very interesting. It didn't occur 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.800 to us it was just like it was an alternate 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.800 reality that wasn't our reality. Our reality had much more 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.760 to do with campus and what people were worrying about 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.920 on campus. And I think really it's it's true to 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:29.000 say that for those four or five years seventy two two, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.720 S n L and a little bit and and we 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.640 went on afterwards, but we really had that, we really 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.400 had the landscape to ourselves. Is the Lampoon still being 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.920 published now and it stopped when it really gave up 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:43.720 the ghost in the at the end of the nineties, 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.160 And what do you think changed to contribute them? Just 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.480 a natural attrition or there were other things replacing in 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.800 terms of set times yees. So well, there was several issues. 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.559 One one was that everything has ever every comedy enterprise 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:01.960 has a kind of five year initial curves, and SNL 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.200 had two uh and um and that then that was 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.400 very apparent when especially in seventy five when the founders 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.120 actually got brought out, So that that was one one 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.960 aspect to it. Then the other was obviously that once SNL. 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.280 SNL basically took our cast, i mean the cost of 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.160 a review that we were doing at the time and 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.080 put it and made it the SNL cast. I mean 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.400 Pelluci and and Guilda and Bill Murray, we're all working 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:29.880 for the National Input. At that point, what were they doing. 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.960 They were doing the radio show they find the National 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.800 Lampoon Radio Radio, and um then they also did a review, 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.120 which is where Lawn saw them. Actually they had come 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:43.800 or they were Chicago, Chicago and Canada, not Tonoranto. So 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.880 those who were interested in doing television sort of decamped 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:52.280 to SNL. And although SNL did have censorship issues, they 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.680 certainly couldn't do what the Lampoon did on a monthly basis. 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.240 So I guess they saw us. They sort of took 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.400 all the oxygen out of our particular rock. So I 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.440 guess it. Beard and yourself and Kenny, if I follow, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.240 you did not have an appetite for working in television. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:08.840 You didn't want to go back to a television show. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.520 But other people that work that were performers certainly didn't 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:16.280 mind being on television. Yes, precisely. The magazine began to 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:18.960 go into sort of slight decline, but I kept it 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.480 alive for a couple more years, and UM, well then 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.680 I then I quit, and um almost immediately did not 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.800 The New York Times um, which was this huge parody 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:30.680 of the New York Times, and that sort of put 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.720 me on the map as as a person who could 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.640 do parodies and everyone at times respond to you in 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.560 as agnew esque away as I might imagine, were they 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.280 just as actually um no, actually a Brosenthal said, we 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.000 acknowledged that the people who did this parody must love 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:50.400 the New York Times, which was shrewd shrewd um and 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.040 But what he never said, what he never said was 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.160 anything about was the fact that was then, like McCarthy, I, 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.400 you know, investigations into the into the Times staff to 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:04.480 see who, if anybody had collaborated, and I actually were 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:06.520 a couple of key people who had so. But anyway, 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:07.720 that kind of put me on the map. And I 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.160 did a lot of parodies after that, and did some 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.920 projects with Chris stuff, and one of them was a 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.680 book called the Eighties look Back, which we published on 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.880 January the thirty one nine and um and was a 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.280 big bestseller and really was a kind of extension of 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:26.200 what the Lampoon used to do, but in a in 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:30.160 a slightly more commercial format, and it was brought by 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.080 some studio as the movie rights were brought by some 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.680 studio and they wanted to make a movie of this book, 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.400 sort of futuristic comedy. So that was the first time 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.800 that movies really appeared on my on my personal horizon. 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.760 But by then The Lampoon already done, Animal House and 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:54.880 Caddyshack by then coming up. Tony Hendra discusses the Benedictine Monk, 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:59.560 who became like a father to him as Hendra left 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.120 the Poon in the late nineteen seventies to pursue his 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:07.359 own projects. Another genius of wit, Molly Ringwald, was just 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.120 getting her start, the definitive it girl of the nineteen 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:16.000 eighties who inspired John Hughes films like Sixteen Candles. Ringwald 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:21.080 helped shape a generation. I just trusted him, and I've 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.640 really never felt this since. I mean, John actually had 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.720 less experience than I had at that point. I mean, 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.320 sixteen Candles was his directorial debut, So it was really 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:36.040 like we were kids in that way together, and he 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:40.440 was really like a like a confidante. You could say. 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.360 It kind of seems weird, you know, I heard how well. 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.879 I mean, I'm older than than he was when we met. 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.280 But when I was thirty six years old, like I 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.960 didn't want to talk to people who were fifteen. I didn't. 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.920 Why do you think he did? I don't know. Take 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.320 a listen to my conversation with Molly Ringwald at Here's 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:12.400 the Thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.879 listening to Here's the Thing. After performing on The Ed 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:20.959 Sullivan Show, editing the National Lampoon and successfully parodying the 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.520 most popular newspaper in the world, Tony Hendra could have 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:30.080 retired at thirty seven. Instead, the English born writer, comedian 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.760 and actor kept reaching new heights, acting in a Rob 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:39.240 Reiner mockumentary, creating a successful British TV series called Spitting Image, 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:43.160 and writing a bestseller on a monk who saved his soul. 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:48.320 But despite his ability to capture viewers attention, the seventies 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.520 six year old was never much of a TV fan himself. 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.440 I certainly didn't do any appointment viewing, you know, and 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.119 I would never stay up to catch a show. So 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.880 you've never taped, recorded, you never follow. There's no television 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:07.359 drama or comedy that you've absolutely none No none, I 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:09.520 mean I I to this day, I don't watch a 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.359 lot of television. I mean it's partly partly upbringing We 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.040 didn't have a television when I was kid. Um and 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.240 was you know, still very early days in England for 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.840 television and and and and but I just was just 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.520 I don't have that ingrained habit of turning on the 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:24.760 television for the news. For example, I read a paper. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.560 And to this day, I mean now I watch a 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:29.560 lot of Netflix and stuff like that because it's such 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.080 a great series. Yeah, but I'm usual something that you 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:38.080 that you like, what something you recommend. Okay, I liked 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:44.960 very much show called Catastrophe, which is you Have the Baby. Yeah, exactly, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.879 very funny and very well written. Um And I don't know, 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:51.320 I can't think of anything. It's already gone out of 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.120 my mind. Um. But but but that's that. The only 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:58.320 time I watched television really is is late at night 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.159 when i'm you know, having my cheese and cheese and 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.800 wine or whatever it is. And um. But but it's 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:05.680 it's just not a habit I've ever had. I must say, 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:08.640 it's it's it's very interesting you should say that. Well. 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.760 I used to watch Will and Grace. I love Will 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.960 and Grace because well because I had partly because I 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.520 had two children who watched it. Um, and I must 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.320 say you have how many kids? I have three by 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.639 this marriage, and you have some previous you have two, 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:27.199 and then three is five? Yes, okay? And and the 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.919 ones who watch Will and Grace were this current batch 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.679 Will and Grace fan and there are other great shows 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:38.240 thirty Rock. They were just taste, very good taste. But 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.280 but but only because they watched watched these shows. Would 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:43.320 you know, Di Di? Did I watch them? Up to 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:45.359 that point? I can't tell you. I mean, I get 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.280 my decades mixed up. I couldn't tell you if The 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.120 Day After and Roots were in the same decade, which 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.000 actually they were, but Winds of War, but I wouldn't 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:55.400 be able to tell you right off the hat off 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.240 the back, you know, any of that stuff rich Man, 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.840 poor Man and Wins of War, which one was Robert 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:04.760 mitchum in. Yeah, I remember, Yeah, it's all a blur 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.399 to me now. I remember. I was on nots Landing, 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:13.680 which was the more kind of working man's version. There 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:18.240 was Falcon Crest and Dynasty and Dallas and those were 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.680 all the Quotinian concerns of rich people, and not Slanding 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.159 was there were normal people, the raverage people. So I 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.840 was on I was on Miami Vice A couple of times? 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.240 Would you play continuing character? I played a wicked recording 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:36.960 executive who killed who killed? What's his name? What? What's 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.639 the what's don? Don Johnson? Don Johnson's What's what was 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:44.920 his character's name? Sonny Crockett? Yes, And I knew nothing 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.040 at all about show. I'd never watched Miami Vice, and 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:48.439 it flew me down to Miami and I had to 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.600 do the show. And it was pleasant, it was, it 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:53.040 was all right, It was, it was, it was. It 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.240