Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser. Excited
Speaker 1: to wrap up our day in our week and to
Speaker 1: have back with us. I kind of say I kind
Speaker 1: of needed this this week. It's been a little crazy
Speaker 1: back with us. Uh. It's comedian, actor, writer and author
Speaker 1: Paul Riser. He joins us once again on the phone
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles. Hey, nice to have you back with us.
Speaker 1: How nice to be back. I have my mug, I
Speaker 1: have my Man About You mug still on my desk.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let you know, well, we have a deal.
Speaker 1: You know, I know. I'm really sorry about the emmy.
Speaker 1: Yeah what I That's why I'm calling, okay, because that
Speaker 1: was that was your doing. That was your fault. No
Speaker 1: it wasn't. But we had a deal. Let you win.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a picture. I'm gonna I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: able to hold your emmy and you're gonna get to
Speaker 1: hold the Man about right. That's right. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: It is my fault then for not having one. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I'll try and find some sort of reasonable substitute. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you might win for this next project. I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you, I looked a little bit at it.
Speaker 1: Um tell us about what you're up to you right now? Well,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting little journey. UH. I created with
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine, my friend David Simon. We created
Speaker 1: a show called There's Johnny, which is UH debuting on
Speaker 1: on Sunday on Peacock and it's a weird thing. Well
Speaker 1: I'll talk about the show, but it's weird because it's
Speaker 1: it's not quite debuting. It was on another platform. We we
Speaker 1: we did it two years ago and it was on
Speaker 1: very quietly so to not disturb anybody. Was not particularly promoted.
Speaker 1: Just a hint, don't do that. You want to disturb people.
Speaker 1: You want to make sure you know. You know. That
Speaker 1: wasn't my decision. They decided they didn't want to bother anybody.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, I had always thought that once
Speaker 1: the show was on streaming, well let's just be there
Speaker 1: and people will get to it whenever it's always there.
Speaker 1: And then I found out a few months ago, I go, hey,
Speaker 1: There's Johnny is no longer up. I want it just
Speaker 1: because they had apparently a two year of contract of
Speaker 1: UH deal. So anyway, So it sort of fell into
Speaker 1: the ether. It was nowhere, and it was this summer
Speaker 1: Peacock was launching, and I said, well, this is a
Speaker 1: show that if any show belongs on Peacock, this is it.
Speaker 1: It takes place, there's Johnny takes place in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two behind the scenes of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Speaker 1: So literally, the Peacock is in our opening credit. It
Speaker 1: takes place, it's it's in NB shot in NBC hall
Speaker 1: NBC hallways and stuff, and uh, extra icing on the
Speaker 1: cake that since we shot this two years ago, uh,
Speaker 1: one of our wonderful, wonderful stars, Jane Levy, has gone
Speaker 1: on to become a big star for an NBC show
Speaker 1: called Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist. So we call the people a peacock.
Speaker 1: We said, you know, you have this wonderful star and
Speaker 1: Jane Levy, she's also in this show. I'll bet you
Speaker 1: people would like to see it, and luckily they went,
Speaker 1: yes they would, So they're putting on which you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of these sometimes when the shows die, they
Speaker 1: just die. But this was so good that I it
Speaker 1: felt it was worth the extra effort to fight for it.
Speaker 1: I have to say in our planning meeting when we're
Speaker 1: talking about and that you were going to come on
Speaker 1: and talk about it. We all watched the trailer and
Speaker 1: and caught some clips of it, and we all were like,
Speaker 1: this is really good. I mean, first of all, it
Speaker 1: takes us back to the seventies, which was such a
Speaker 1: kind of iconic era. There was so much going on.
Speaker 1: But it's also and you must have loved working on
Speaker 1: it as a comedian. I mean, Johnny Carson is you know,
Speaker 1: kind of the gold standard in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: what we thought about when it came to comedy or
Speaker 1: really created the world that we live in today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very very much. And I'm all, you know, my class
Speaker 1: of comedians, my generation, we that was the goal to
Speaker 1: get on Johnny and for all of us getting on
Speaker 1: that first time was like the huge reward and it
Speaker 1: was also the currency that everybody else could understand. So
Speaker 1: you know, your parents went, I guess my son's not
Speaker 1: a total loser, and because we just thought he's staying
Speaker 1: up late and making no money, but he was on
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show and Johnny liked him, so he must
Speaker 1: be okay. But what we did, it's very You're right,
Speaker 1: it's a very interesting time. Seventy two was, first of all,
Speaker 1: just when Johnny Carson moved the show from New York
Speaker 1: out to Burbank and it took on. It's almost like
Speaker 1: it became in color. Then you know, it's suddenly took
Speaker 1: on a new life. And it also coincided with the
Speaker 1: beginning of the comedy scene in the comedy clubs, the
Speaker 1: Comedy Comedy Store and the West Coast and what we did, uh,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's really kind of unique. And we
Speaker 1: have we partnered with Carson Entertainment Company UM for the
Speaker 1: rights to use the clips. We have some way little
Speaker 1: clips of episodes of his, of actual broadcasts that are
Speaker 1: in our show as part of our show, because we're
Speaker 1: behind the scenes and they're putting us some when you see,
Speaker 1: we need to get George Colin, and there's George Colin,
Speaker 1: and there's Johnny and so for me, you're it was
Speaker 1: absolutely a treat to go into the vault. We had
Speaker 1: this wonderful exclusive access to the vaults, and I would say, well,
Speaker 1: let's just pick out my favorite. So let's go get
Speaker 1: George Colin, Boom, Albert Brooks and Steve Martin and it's
Speaker 1: an interesting thing because for people of a certain age
Speaker 1: who remember Johnny fondly, it's a lovely way to revisit
Speaker 1: and see pieces of the show. But it really ultimately
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the show, because it's really
Speaker 1: about this eighteen year old kid right Lands, you know,
Speaker 1: through some silly accident, ends up working there and he
Speaker 1: meets his twenty five year old wonderful Jane Levy, who
Speaker 1: just makes his head explode. Good. She's unlike anybody he's
Speaker 1: ever met. Paul Riser still with us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles, of course, comedian, actor, writer, author, author
Speaker 1: of several books, and he's talking about the show he
Speaker 1: co created. There's Johnny. Uh and it starts streaming on Sunday, November. First,
Speaker 1: forgive me if I called it the Johnny Carson Show.
Speaker 1: It's based Well, no, as you said, it's kind of
Speaker 1: the backdrop in the in the background, which is such
Speaker 1: a cool part of it. I have to say, Paul,
Speaker 1: it's also kind of neat as you do dig back
Speaker 1: into the seventies. Uh, the fashion, the sexism, you know,
Speaker 1: women not pay the same as men like you have
Speaker 1: some you really get into it. Yeah, you know, it
Speaker 1: was it's hard. So many things was so different. I
Speaker 1: mean it's forty or fifty years ago, but almost fifty
Speaker 1: years ago. And uh, you know, there's a great scene
Speaker 1: where Jane Levy goes into Our Boss with Tony. Tony
Speaker 1: Dan's as the only guy who plays an actual person.
Speaker 1: He plays Johnny Carson's producer, Freddie Dakordova, and he's brilliant
Speaker 1: at it. But there's a scene where she goes in
Speaker 1: and she complains that she just found out that her
Speaker 1: her colleague, who's a male, gets the has the exact
Speaker 1: same job. It makes twice as much and it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem fair. And you see Tony goes it's not what fair?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? And Paul, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: never changes. But it was at that moment it was
Speaker 1: so foreign. That's like, I don't even understand the question
Speaker 1: why would it be fair? Like let's start their um,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh so yeah, And it was Vietnam
Speaker 1: and our lead character is his young eighteen year old
Speaker 1: whose brother is this all American kid who goes to Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and uh, it doesn't go well so that it impact
Speaker 1: everything and the part of the fun of the show
Speaker 1: was taking this really sweet innocent kid played by Ian Nelson.
Speaker 1: He's his eighteen year old kid fresh off of farm
Speaker 1: and threw a sort of knuckle headed misunderstanding ends up
Speaker 1: working the tonight sho so for him to see suddenly
Speaker 1: Hollywood and sex, drugs, rock and roll, and women who
Speaker 1: women who see therapists, and and women who are just
Speaker 1: you know, you know, chew chew up men for for fun. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a whole new world. So we get to enter
Speaker 1: this beautiful, complex world through his uh, innocent eyes, which
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun to write. Listen, what were
Speaker 1: your memories of your first time on Johnny Carson? I?
Speaker 1: You know, I did it. I did it many times,
Speaker 1: but the first time I did it was it was
Speaker 1: a moment that we had all planned for, you know,
Speaker 1: or dreamed of. We didn't planned for it, but we
Speaker 1: worked towards it. So it was an interesting, weird feeling
Speaker 1: because he got there suddenly. He didn't feel surprising. It
Speaker 1: felt like, oh, okay, I have and I have envisioned
Speaker 1: this so many times, um, but it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was certainly a turning point for every comic. Your
Speaker 1: first time on Johnny is such an accomplishment and and
Speaker 1: for me I don't remember ever thinking of anything beyond that.
Speaker 1: Like that was a far as I could picture down
Speaker 1: the road of whatever success might look like, get on
Speaker 1: the Carson Show and then I don't know. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, Johnny was such a big part of our
Speaker 1: lives as comics, but as America, just for America. He
Speaker 1: was in our living rooms, you know, and and in
Speaker 1: our bedrooms at eleven thirty at night for thirty years
Speaker 1: in a way that as great as Jimmy and Jimmy
Speaker 1: and and and Steve and and Conan are um, it
Speaker 1: wasn't the same. He Johnny was singular. He sat on
Speaker 1: that throne by himself and uh and we also it
Speaker 1: was when in the very beginning, when you couldn't record it,
Speaker 1: you had to stay up right, so it became it
Speaker 1: became part of your life and and like and you
Speaker 1: remembered it. So when we were doing this show, there's Johnny,
Speaker 1: and I was pulling up clips of George Carlin and
Speaker 1: Albert Brooks. I remembered them even though I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: them in forty fifty years. Whatever I was gonna I
Speaker 1: remember this because I stayed up late and it was
Speaker 1: important to me. So it was really a different time
Speaker 1: in culture just and how people watched uh television and
Speaker 1: how we related to people in the stars. And there
Speaker 1: was a reason Johnny was on top for thirty years.
Speaker 1: He was singularly talented. Well, it's interesting that you say
Speaker 1: that to like, I mean, it's an era where there
Speaker 1: were three networks essentially, right, three major networks, and you
Speaker 1: were you know, you watched one or the other. I
Speaker 1: was just quick googling. And I think they said at
Speaker 1: that at the Peaky it's something like fifty million viewers.
Speaker 1: Like to get your head around that, and everybody the
Speaker 1: next morning would talk about what Johnny talked about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he also, you know, he had so many skills
Speaker 1: and attributes, and he was a host, a really a
Speaker 1: genuine host in a way that it seems almost antiquated now.
Speaker 1: And he also he avoided politics. You know, he was
Speaker 1: very comfortable. He straddled straddled the world in a great way.
Speaker 1: I mean he was hip, you know, hip people liked him,
Speaker 1: and very conventional rural you know he was he was
Speaker 1: Nebraska and he was also New York. He was um
Speaker 1: and you never knew his politics. We would have an
Speaker 1: episode where somebody does you know, slips in an anti
Speaker 1: Nixon Joe and the producer gets incensed and said, how
Speaker 1: dare you you know you don't know Johnny, Johnny, do
Speaker 1: you have any idea what Johnny Carson actually thinks. No,
Speaker 1: that's right because he doesn't tell you, and it's not.
Speaker 1: But nobody's a business and he that was part of
Speaker 1: his appeal that everybody came to the tent um. He
Speaker 1: would poke fund and you know, a Democratic and Republicans,
Speaker 1: but gently it was never really um pointed and that
Speaker 1: level of um diplomacy that kind of is really does
Speaker 1: feel like a bygone era and it's it's refreshing to
Speaker 1: see when you watched Johnny go, oh, do you remember
Speaker 1: when things seemed simpler and and he kind of did
Speaker 1: you know, he kind of did put you to bed
Speaker 1: every night you took, you know, whether you were watching
Speaker 1: or just had it on the background. Johnny was how
Speaker 1: you round it off your day and the world seemed
Speaker 1: a little better and you had a couple of jokes
Speaker 1: to start your morning. And remember Johnny joke last night,
Speaker 1: and uh, it was a big deal. It was a
Speaker 1: big deal. So I'm thrilled the show is getting in
Speaker 1: a second life. Well, like I said, we've been talking
Speaker 1: about it, uh here at Bloomberg because it really just
Speaker 1: seems like such a nice, what a great piece of
Speaker 1: content to like kind of come out of this time,
Speaker 1: Like you said, it's a different, different era, but it's
Speaker 1: just it's really fun and to see somebody come from
Speaker 1: like you said, somebody who wasn't used to the big
Speaker 1: cities and then be on a show that he would watch,
Speaker 1: it's just a really cool thing. How much did you
Speaker 1: do did you need to do research into the show
Speaker 1: to kind of put it together, kind of understand the
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, and we just have about a minute left. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we well, we partnered with Carson's Company and which is
Speaker 1: run by uh fellow named Jeff Sting who was a
Speaker 1: producer on the original Tonight Show and was Johnny's nephew.
Speaker 1: So he got us access to you know, the blueprints
Speaker 1: to the set and so and you know what cameras
Speaker 1: were used, and we would check everything, did they where
Speaker 1: would a guy stand? Where would Johnny saying? Where would
Speaker 1: the producers stand? So we we kept it as authentic
Speaker 1: as we possibly could, and and uh, we we wanted
Speaker 1: to be vigilant and we were all sort of reverential
Speaker 1: about keeping it real. Well, I have to say we
Speaker 1: wish you good luck with it, and um, I hope
Speaker 1: you come back and let us know how it's all going,
Speaker 1: and you're working at you come by and I will
Speaker 1: hold up your coffee log, give it up any list,
Speaker 1: Okay deal, I'm going to hold it to it. You'll
Speaker 1: get that and you deserve it, all right, Be well.
Speaker 1: Paul Riser, comedian, actor, writer and author. Check out coming
Speaker 1: to Peacock on Sunday, November one. It's called Theer's Johnny,
Speaker 1: and check out the trailer because it really looks like
Speaker 1: a fun show to watch.