Speaker 1: Now really really, now really.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody.
Speaker 3: I am Jason Alexander here with my best friend Peter Tilden.
Speaker 2: Oh is that that's Peter Tilden?
Speaker 3: I was else, you're judging the way I said, welcome
Speaker 3: to really know really the podcast where Peter and I
Speaker 3: discussed things that make us.
Speaker 2: Say really, no, really really.
Speaker 3: And usually there's a bell here that I would ding,
Speaker 3: but my producer Lori Cremey doesn't like the bell, so
Speaker 3: ding today we have a very interesting topic. This one
Speaker 3: scared me a little bit because this is a world
Speaker 3: that I kind of live in.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So I was reading in a in a paper that
Speaker 3: there was a dance company, I think maybe a ballet
Speaker 3: company in Germany, and there was a new program and
Speaker 3: the one of the critics, I think a person named
Speaker 3: weep ke Huster, I think it was the name of
Speaker 3: the critic, wrote a negative, perhaps scathing review.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I didn't see the review.
Speaker 1: Well, it did say that the dancers feel like they
Speaker 1: were going insane or being killed by boredom.
Speaker 2: Ah, so that's not a great.
Speaker 4: Review, not a great review.
Speaker 3: And so the choreographer or the manager of the ballet
Speaker 3: company felt that that was excessive and that it needed
Speaker 3: to be addressed, and they addressed it by when they
Speaker 3: next saw Weepee Huster, they took dog feces and smeared
Speaker 3: it in her.
Speaker 4: Face in an audience. In the audience, Yes, in the audience.
Speaker 4: And we went and I.
Speaker 1: Got us talking about criticism because you and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that later, you've been criticized because you're in a broadway
Speaker 1: and you get reviewed.
Speaker 3: Anybody who's performing in the public arena in any way
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be in entertainment radio.
Speaker 1: For my entire life, on radio, you get ratings, and
Speaker 1: you get critiqued, and you get called in all the time.
Speaker 4: You're constant critiques.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to get on somebody who has to
Speaker 1: give criticism often as they're living. And Howie Mandel is
Speaker 1: somebody who has to criticize and give axe feedback.
Speaker 2: Because tenure to judge on America's got that.
Speaker 4: So let's welcome mister Howie Mandel. Good.
Speaker 5: Can I just say that opening of this do you
Speaker 5: want me to critique episode of first?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 6: That's the opening?
Speaker 4: Really? Really?
Speaker 6: Really?
Speaker 5: You you have me on and it's a show on criticism,
Speaker 5: And I love the thematic. Yes, the booking the thematic booking. Yes, criticism,
Speaker 5: and you have a talent judge on but I have
Speaker 5: I don't want to follow a story about ballet dancers
Speaker 5: who get wiped in their face. Well, I don't think
Speaker 5: that's a good I don't think that's a good entree.
Speaker 6: And we have Howie Mandel, here's a story of Eric.
Speaker 3: You think you're bigger than dog feces being smeared in
Speaker 3: the critics face.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of ego that you have. Bill to
Speaker 2: a doge are you doing?
Speaker 4: I don't know that is somebody.
Speaker 2: Somebody says Jackie Mason.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: Was Jackie.
Speaker 1: It's also a little bit Max Moments, a little bit
Speaker 1: of the Producers, which you.
Speaker 4: Did very well, by the way, you're very kind.
Speaker 3: Was that a criticism? It was a wonderful I did
Speaker 3: not get a good review in the La.
Speaker 5: Times, so you remember you can get That's the thing
Speaker 5: about criticism is that you couldn't have standing ovations. You
Speaker 5: can be loved by millions, but you get one little negative,
Speaker 5: one little gray area, and that's all you remember.
Speaker 6: You crushed it on Broadway.
Speaker 5: I know that, and I read a lot of it,
Speaker 5: and everybody loved.
Speaker 6: You in that play.
Speaker 4: In the producer.
Speaker 6: But you remember an La times.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and not only that, not only do you remember
Speaker 3: or I find that you remember the bad ones disproportionately.
Speaker 3: I don't remember the good ones the good ones feel like.
Speaker 3: And that may be a character thing to me. When
Speaker 3: people are complimentary to me, I tend to thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 4: You know, I can't quite.
Speaker 2: Know what I think take it in.
Speaker 1: I think it's the imposter syndrome. I think it's all
Speaker 1: of us. And I don't know if you feel this
Speaker 1: way too.
Speaker 4: How are you?
Speaker 1: I know you're a long time, You've had successful animated shows,
Speaker 1: you've hosted a talk show, you've launched success. But I
Speaker 1: think criticism hits us all because all of us have
Speaker 1: a bit of that imposter syndrome. So it taps into that.
Speaker 1: Oh they get what's in my head as far as
Speaker 1: how I feel about myself. Yeah, and it just nudges
Speaker 1: that thing.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: I don't know if anybody.
Speaker 5: Well, when you talk about criticism, I think that is
Speaker 5: the fuel of life. I think anybody, even in and
Speaker 5: out of this business, is concerned and believes that there
Speaker 5: is a critical narrative going on in a room when
Speaker 5: they walk in. You comb your hair, you dress a
Speaker 5: certain way, you show up at a party, you show
Speaker 5: up at an office. In your mind, everybody's looking at
Speaker 5: you and critiquing. I don't think anybody steps out of
Speaker 5: their house or into an office or into a workplace
Speaker 5: without feeling that they are critiqued. That's just our narrative
Speaker 5: of life, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, and you have to do it. You've done
Speaker 1: it for how many years on America's got talent?
Speaker 4: I've done it.
Speaker 5: Fourteen fourteen years and it's really hard. That was the
Speaker 5: hardest thing. Two things were hard for me. And you know,
Speaker 5: as somebody who like you guys, you know, entered this
Speaker 5: business not only for whatever we entered it to do,
Speaker 5: to be a broadcaster or an actor, a comedian or whatever,
Speaker 5: but we also needed to be accepted and loved and
Speaker 5: you know, respected by people that will probably never meet.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: It's like, I love that people that.
Speaker 5: Don't have the need to be in this business it's
Speaker 5: to be so it would lift a weight off my
Speaker 5: shoulders to wake up and not give a shit about
Speaker 5: what people thought of me.
Speaker 1: Except today it's not about the influencers. Everybody because of
Speaker 1: bar Soolo Howie, everybody there's a new entry into that
Speaker 1: field of I want people to love.
Speaker 5: It, right, But it's also very easy to read your analytics.
Speaker 6: You know, you got how many.
Speaker 5: Likes you get, how many views you get, how many
Speaker 5: listeners you have, So everybody is chasing that critique, and
Speaker 5: whether you hear the words or whether somebody shows up
Speaker 5: to wipe dogs in your face, it feels exactly the
Speaker 5: same to not have any views, to not have any listeners. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: So the hardest thing for me was I entered into
Speaker 5: this business to garner laughter and love and acceptance from
Speaker 5: people I don't know. And then the first day that
Speaker 5: I showed up on America's Got Talent. At that time,
Speaker 5: we used to travel the show.
Speaker 4: I don't know if people.
Speaker 5: Remember at the beginning, you know that we're like American Idol.
Speaker 5: We're coming to you from Dallas, or we're coming to
Speaker 5: you from and we used to travel around and find
Speaker 5: local talent and then bring it you're going to Hollywood.
Speaker 6: I remember the first time. I don't think I.
Speaker 5: Was that critical, but I didn't love a song choice
Speaker 5: that somebody, a singer was on stage and I said,
Speaker 5: you know something like you have a great voice, but
Speaker 5: you know, I don't think you chose the right song.
Speaker 5: I mean, there was no range in that song. And
Speaker 5: I said something that wasn't totally positive, and the entire audience,
Speaker 5: because this is their hometown boy or girl, the entire
Speaker 5: audience bowed me. And I had this negative criticism just
Speaker 5: wave over me, and I thought, oh my god, what
Speaker 5: the can I swear on there? No?
Speaker 6: But I know Laurie took away the bell.
Speaker 5: I don't know if she took away the bleep we
Speaker 5: have we have a like, okay, all right, but but
Speaker 5: you know, I thought, what the hell have I done?
Speaker 5: You know, like, I'm on a thing where everybody like
Speaker 5: they don't even like what I'm saying. It's not like
Speaker 5: I'm trying to entertain. I'm not trying to be funny.
Speaker 5: I'm not trying to get a laugh. I'm just being
Speaker 5: honest and I'm just being howey. And that hurt more
Speaker 5: than ever. You know, you don't agree with my my critique,
Speaker 5: and now you're critiquing my critique, and you're critiquing who
Speaker 5: I am and my taste and my sensibility.
Speaker 3: And that wasn't even that audience response. I wouldn't even
Speaker 3: put that under critique. That was, I'm going to hurt you.
Speaker 3: I'm going to hurt you, Howie Mandel, because you did
Speaker 3: something I don't approve of and I don't agree with,
Speaker 3: and I feel you're hurting someone else. So in the
Speaker 3: guys a protector, I'm going to boo you and hurt
Speaker 3: your feelings.
Speaker 4: I'm going to diminish you.
Speaker 5: And you don't think that's what a critic does to
Speaker 5: you about your about your performance.
Speaker 3: I've received many different kinds of critique.
Speaker 2: There are some critique that is not.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't categorize it as positive, but it is helpful, yes.
Speaker 3: And then there's critique that goes, I do want to
Speaker 3: hurt you. I feel that you need to be harmed.
Speaker 5: And that's why, as a judge on these shows, my
Speaker 5: empathy precedes my professionalism. I am somebody who is on stage.
Speaker 5: I am somebody who is in front of an audience
Speaker 5: all the time, and I'm very cognizant. I try to
Speaker 5: be as cognizant as I can be about how I
Speaker 5: would feel. You know, it's kind of like do onto
Speaker 5: others as you would have them do unto you. So
Speaker 5: when I tell somebody something that isn't positive, there's this weight,
Speaker 5: and the weight is because you just you just alluded
Speaker 5: to it because of social media. America's Got Talent gets
Speaker 5: a billion clicks a season on YouTube.
Speaker 2: World criticism, Yeah.
Speaker 6: But it does.
Speaker 5: And I'm cognizant of the fact that people are listening
Speaker 5: to what I'm doing and taken being entertained by the criticism.
Speaker 5: So therefore I feel obligated to be honest, and I
Speaker 5: feel obligated. It's really easy, but also boring and not
Speaker 5: entertaining to just be nice for niceness sake. Wonderful, that
Speaker 5: was wonderful, and it was horrible, but I'll never say
Speaker 5: it was horrible. I will say I'll try to be
Speaker 5: as constructive as possible. I'll say listen. Opera is not
Speaker 5: my thing. I've never bought an opera album. I've never
Speaker 5: gone to a concert. But I think that some of
Speaker 5: the notes were not They weren't notes, they were pitchy.
Speaker 1: So I listened to when I was preparing for this
Speaker 1: and thinking about criticism because I had to help a
Speaker 1: judge in the past on another show who called me
Speaker 1: and said, I need to come up with X amount
Speaker 1: of week. Can you write some right, some write some criticism.
Speaker 1: In other words, get me. You have to come up
Speaker 1: with so many ways to say something's bad after fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Do you have to come up with a novel idea
Speaker 1: or are you processing it as it happens.
Speaker 5: I don't want to do that, So then it's I
Speaker 5: don't want to write critique.
Speaker 1: No, no, but you know them, But you know what
Speaker 1: words you can use or what things you haven't said before,
Speaker 1: a way to say it differently.
Speaker 5: You know, that's the biggest issue that people have. But
Speaker 5: then you become like, he just said pitchy. You're making
Speaker 5: fun of a gentleman that was on idol, right, he
Speaker 5: always said it was pitchy.
Speaker 6: Listen, dog, it's pitchy.
Speaker 5: But the point is, so then I'm internalizing and I
Speaker 5: know I don't think about saying it in a different way.
Speaker 5: My whole goal on that show is to be a
Speaker 5: real human being and to be authentic in the moment.
Speaker 5: And even if I feel that I've repeated myself over
Speaker 5: and over, I say wow, and I say I am
Speaker 5: amazing way too much, and when I listen to it,
Speaker 5: I go, oh my god, I'm just repeating that.
Speaker 6: But that's okay.
Speaker 5: That's my criticism, my self criticism, which is the biggest
Speaker 5: critic in the world. I have a tough problem with myself.
Speaker 5: I'm my worst critic. I suffer from depression and anxiety
Speaker 5: and all these things because I am a critic living
Speaker 5: in a very sensitive body. But the truth of the
Speaker 5: matter is, I'm just I want to be honest and
Speaker 5: I just want them to know that.
Speaker 4: It comes from a place and.
Speaker 6: A good place. I don't want to what you just said, Jason.
Speaker 5: I don't want to hurt anybody, and the last thing
Speaker 5: I want to do is hurt you. But my job here.
Speaker 5: You're a person who shows up on this show. You
Speaker 5: know that that's the game you're playing. It's like I
Speaker 5: want to go play tennis, but I don't want anybody
Speaker 5: hit a ball back to me. It's like, you got
Speaker 5: you gotta. You're performing, and you know you're going to
Speaker 5: hear from me, and I promise you I'm going to
Speaker 5: be hopefully not mean and hopefully not hurtful, but constructive
Speaker 5: as somebody who's been in the business for a long time.
Speaker 5: And also when I don't know, and I'll tell you
Speaker 5: I don't know, like I'm not a big mime.
Speaker 6: Or opera fan.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 5: Those are two things that I would never buy a
Speaker 5: ticket to go see I would never.
Speaker 4: Buy a mime show.
Speaker 6: I won't. I run from mimes whenever the street.
Speaker 1: This made me remember I went to Stomp, and I
Speaker 1: took super day to stop to Stomp.
Speaker 4: It seems like.
Speaker 1: And we're sitting in the back we got less mian
Speaker 1: of seats that somebody gave us, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to go, and we're watching Stomp and he waited.
Speaker 4: Half an hour in he goes, these seats are so
Speaker 4: bad if they're lyrics, if they're saying I'm gonna sue you.
Speaker 6: Well, I sat.
Speaker 5: I had a five hour flight sitting beside Marcel Marceau.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't say.
Speaker 5: But I hate mine and I tell people, I tell
Speaker 5: people on the show. I just don't like it. I
Speaker 5: don't get it. It annoys me exactly what you just said.
Speaker 5: A mime is never nothing good is happening to a
Speaker 5: mind that's always too windy their trap.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a mine who's putting an act
Speaker 1: together saying, you know what, I'm going to do, an
Speaker 1: act that's going to change the world.
Speaker 5: No, but there is a mind that I ended up loving,
Speaker 5: and I changed it changed my mind there's a guy
Speaker 5: by the name of Tapeface who is now performing in
Speaker 5: Las Vegas, who was one of the funniest, most innovative
Speaker 5: mimes I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Well, you must enjoy Billy the Mime. Have you seen
Speaker 3: Billy the Mime? Look him up on YouTube. He does
Speaker 3: the most versus.
Speaker 5: I'm not interested in seeing any more mine than than
Speaker 5: mime is put in front of me.
Speaker 3: He was the mime in The Aristocrats. He told the
Speaker 3: Aristocrats joke. In my mind, Oh wow, then I know
Speaker 3: I'm in that movie.
Speaker 4: We're in that movie. Oh wow, the my Aristocrats. Now
Speaker 4: we got to see that.
Speaker 6: Now I'm gonna watch that.
Speaker 2: So let me go back on.
Speaker 3: So you you don't like mime, you don't like opera.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing for me, and I wonder how
Speaker 3: you address it. So you have many singers, you have
Speaker 3: many dancers on the show. You're not a trained singer,
Speaker 3: you're not a trained dancer. So but you you do
Speaker 3: like those things, and you will critique them. What's the difference,
Speaker 3: if there is one in your mind between what makes
Speaker 3: you able to critique a singer or a dancer.
Speaker 2: You have no background, you.
Speaker 5: Know, but I am. I don't know how much you
Speaker 5: know about me. I'm brilliant and I didn't know yet.
Speaker 5: No I am, I'm brilliant and I'm no. The truth
Speaker 5: of the matter is this, if you are a singer
Speaker 5: and you show up, you know I'm somebody who has
Speaker 5: a modicum of intelligence, who has been in the business
Speaker 5: for over forty years, who understands.
Speaker 6: Marketing, marketing.
Speaker 5: I think I can understand why what you're doing is
Speaker 5: marketable and why some people would love it. And even
Speaker 5: though I don't love it, I mean, I can hear
Speaker 5: that you're hitting notes that and I could hear that
Speaker 5: your original I can hear that you're powerful. I could
Speaker 5: look at you and say that you own that stage,
Speaker 5: and you have such confidence and there's a magnetism. I
Speaker 5: don't want to buy your record, I don't want to
Speaker 5: stream your music, but you're really good. I get why
Speaker 5: people are going crazy for Taylor Swift. I've never been
Speaker 5: to a Taylor Swift concert. I'm not knocking her, but
Speaker 5: I know that she's really good and relatable, and she
Speaker 5: hits an audience.
Speaker 6: I understand.
Speaker 5: You know, I never watched soap operas, but that is
Speaker 5: I understand that's a rabid audience. And it's really good
Speaker 5: and is the more melodramatic it is, the more they
Speaker 5: entice that audience. So I think, as an intelligent person
Speaker 5: who is in the entertainment industry, I have a right
Speaker 5: to give you my opinion, and you have a right
Speaker 5: to go, well, you don't know what the work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't know what ahead? Thank yous on that.
Speaker 4: Do you know we pay for if you if you
Speaker 4: had to come to your right now, I don't need
Speaker 4: your Jason taught me this.
Speaker 1: At the end of every scene in soap opera, they
Speaker 1: go to commercial and the person is standing there and
Speaker 1: they focus on their faces and.
Speaker 4: I go, what is it? What's the trick?
Speaker 3: Well, this was a director that I worked with who
Speaker 3: directed a lot of when they do those pushions that
Speaker 3: they end never seen. The scene could be mother died,
Speaker 3: the scene could be Jeffrey's missing, the scene could be
Speaker 3: we'll do it tomorrow. But there's this ten second push right,
Speaker 3: say what do I do? What do I do with that?
Speaker 3: What do I play? And the director said, very subtly
Speaker 3: but very real, play who farted?
Speaker 2: It'll cover any situation if you do that.
Speaker 3: It's this, it's this, you go, that's even that's two
Speaker 3: over the time. If you're really put I'm going to
Speaker 3: do it to this camera who farted mother Jeffrey died.
Speaker 4: It's very and it will work every time. I'm so
Speaker 4: glad I brought.
Speaker 5: That better than well I'm going to critique. It was wonderful.
Speaker 5: I didn't know you kind of take away from the
Speaker 5: critique by telling me the mechanism that it was. But
Speaker 5: that was an amazing That's why they say, I smell
Speaker 5: emmy Simon.
Speaker 1: You've got into riffs with him. Yes, hey, I guess
Speaker 1: they got to be honestly real. But the other interesting
Speaker 1: thing is I looked up reviews of America's Got Talent,
Speaker 1: and there was a review recently by a guy named
Speaker 1: John Dudley who said America's Got Talent would benefit from
Speaker 1: more negativity and all those amp up the criticism. What's
Speaker 1: interesting is when Simon cow first hit America, right, people
Speaker 1: went crazy, He's mean. Oh my god, he's so mean.
Speaker 1: Today it doesn't seem mean. And I'm wondering if that's
Speaker 1: because he's adjusted or everybody else has gotten discourse. Public
Speaker 1: discourse now has gotten so mean that to get clickbait
Speaker 1: you almost have to amp it up.
Speaker 5: To what I think the digital age kind of led
Speaker 5: us into reality. And you know, Simon was the first person.
Speaker 5: And I've talked to Simon about this. We become really
Speaker 5: good friends. Simon was a record producer and in the
Speaker 5: record business. He's told me, I'm not in the record business.
Speaker 5: I can't tell you how many people would come into
Speaker 5: his office or his building and sing a song and
Speaker 5: he'd go, you know what, I'm gonna be honest with you.
Speaker 5: It's like cats screaming. You know, It's like it's it's
Speaker 5: terrible and I'm not signing you. And that's just normally.
Speaker 5: He get tapes all the time, just over and over again.
Speaker 5: And then he got recruited as a record producer to
Speaker 5: lend some you know ravata. Yeah, there's a real record
Speaker 5: producer here on these shows. He didn't know. They said
Speaker 5: he's not a TV he was. They said, just be
Speaker 5: the record producer. We in America because they had been
Speaker 5: doing it a little bit in the UK, and the
Speaker 5: UK is much I feel ahead of us in comedy,
Speaker 5: ahead of us in edginess and reality. We had never
Speaker 5: seen anybody be anything but nice on TV, whether it
Speaker 5: was Star Search or the Ted Matt.
Speaker 6: Tower yeah, I saw that live when I.
Speaker 4: Was a kid. My parents took me.
Speaker 6: Whoa, yeah, I'm old so so.
Speaker 5: But everybody was always nice, and it was always considered,
Speaker 5: even on the Gong Show, the worst thing you got
Speaker 5: to god, but it was it was with a laugh,
Speaker 5: you know, and it was it was all in good nature.
Speaker 5: But he was the first one that went, oh, this
Speaker 5: are you kidding me? And they purposely for entertainment. The
Speaker 5: producers would like William Hung. Do you remember William So
Speaker 5: William Hung got cast? Do you think he got cast?
Speaker 5: And they put him in front of the in front
Speaker 5: of the judges because the producers thought he was amazing
Speaker 5: and he would get a record deal. No, he was
Speaker 5: put there also to be exed or gonged or whatever. Right,
Speaker 5: but they did that a lot and a lot of people.
Speaker 5: Are you know, listen he is I think he was genuine.
Speaker 5: I think William Hung enjoyed singing and enjoyed it somewhat
Speaker 5: of a career little.
Speaker 6: But the point is Simon was just himself and.
Speaker 5: That caused a lot of people, like you said, negativity
Speaker 5: and criticism online and when people are mean online and
Speaker 5: on YouTube and on Twitter and on that.
Speaker 6: That stuff blows up. And that's what blew that show up.
Speaker 5: Because Star Search with our Sinio Hall, you know, premiere
Speaker 5: the same time as American Idol. American Idol and Star
Speaker 5: Search had bigger you know, our Sinio. That was his
Speaker 5: next show after our Senio Hall show. Our Sinio was
Speaker 5: the host. I can't remember, but you can look it up.
Speaker 5: I can't remember who the panel was, but there were
Speaker 5: much bigger stars than Paula Abdul and Randy and Simon
Speaker 5: wasn't even known right, right, And why did Idol blow
Speaker 5: up and go through the stratosphere because we went, oh
Speaker 5: my god, we've never seen anything like this before. That's
Speaker 5: that guy is saying what I'm saying on the couch
Speaker 5: at home. You know, when you're sitting with your friend
Speaker 5: or your wife at home and you hear somebody singing
Speaker 5: like William Hung, you go you could bleep this again?
Speaker 4: What the is that?
Speaker 2: Does this guy think?
Speaker 4: This is? Like?
Speaker 6: What is that?
Speaker 5: And he was willing to say it like he would
Speaker 5: say it in his office. The truth is that what's
Speaker 5: good about America's got talent. They don't cast a lot
Speaker 5: of people like William Hung, but there are those people.
Speaker 5: And because We're a variety show, I believe, and so
Speaker 5: do our producers, who are mostly English.
Speaker 6: We love and that's kind of gone from our world.
Speaker 5: When I was growing up, I loved Professor Irwin Corey.
Speaker 5: I loved these weird you know, the the Charros when
Speaker 5: she was just a guest, I loved I'm trying to
Speaker 5: think of other weirdness that was, you know, on the
Speaker 5: Murk Griffin Show, Missus Miller, who was always funny with
Speaker 5: Missus and you know, I used to argue with Howard
Speaker 5: Stern even when I said, I love this. I love
Speaker 5: because I think there could be a show around this.
Speaker 5: I think, who did who did Letterman have as a
Speaker 5: what's his name?
Speaker 6: Remember Letterman?
Speaker 5: Oh, Larry bud Melman, Right, So, Larry Bud Melman was
Speaker 5: an amazing real life character that I thought you could
Speaker 5: have done a whole show around. You could have had
Speaker 5: a Vegas show Larry Bud Melman and the Larry Bud
Speaker 5: Melman dancers, and you could have put the lasers.
Speaker 6: But I believe that you could produce something around there.
Speaker 5: I legitimately believe there is something wonderful and authentic about
Speaker 5: somebody who is maybe not odd, odd, but different, and
Speaker 5: we need to celebrate that. And I like that, and
Speaker 5: I still like that in our show. But on AGT
Speaker 5: and Simon talks about this. If we don't agree, we
Speaker 5: don't have to all agree. But on a lot of
Speaker 5: those shows, so there is negativity. He gets mad at
Speaker 5: me if I like somebody that he doesn't like it.
Speaker 1: Do you ever get bumped? Do you ever get bumped
Speaker 1: by that where it gets actually lines?
Speaker 5: No, because we feel that the criticism of each other
Speaker 5: is probably the part I love the most, because I like,
Speaker 5: I'll sit and watch TV with my wife and she'll go,
Speaker 5: you got to watch this movie, and I'll go, this
Speaker 5: is terrible, this is terrible. My wife watches. My wife
Speaker 5: is stuck on watching all these crime all this crime
Speaker 5: stuff stuff, yeah, the true crime, and I'll critique it.
Speaker 5: I'll go, like, the reenactments are always like horrible, all
Speaker 5: how is this not making you laugh? And she goes,
Speaker 5: just shut up and watch the thing. But that's how
Speaker 5: we could be on the panel and.
Speaker 4: To do that.
Speaker 1: But what about when you get pushed back. I don't
Speaker 1: have a woman's name, but I know the mom of.
Speaker 4: The mom of the two kids that bothered me.
Speaker 5: What happened so there was a there was a there
Speaker 5: was a kid that danced on the show.
Speaker 6: Are you waving yet?
Speaker 4: My wife?
Speaker 5: I was just talking about her and.
Speaker 4: She shows up. It's like she said, that's.
Speaker 6: About what I don't like about what she watches.
Speaker 5: And then she shows up in the room and she
Speaker 5: will contive me after about my appearance.
Speaker 3: Really, if your wife is like my wife, the hardest
Speaker 3: critiques ever are from my wife. When my wife loves
Speaker 3: something I've done, I know it must.
Speaker 2: Be good because she just doesn't give that up.
Speaker 4: Very easily.
Speaker 3: Married a fan, and she believes in me and she
Speaker 3: loves me. But she will always say that moment in
Speaker 3: the play, what choice did you make there?
Speaker 2: And I go, yeah, I'm not really sure. She goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: we see that.
Speaker 1: By the way, My wife a sitcom that I wrote
Speaker 1: and directed his wife on the floor of the sitcom
Speaker 1: five hundred audience members. The head of the studio, I've
Speaker 1: got a lot on my plate came down to me
Speaker 1: and said.
Speaker 2: Are you going to really let him say a line
Speaker 2: like that? Are you going to let him say alone
Speaker 2: my wife?
Speaker 6: My wife is very protected during the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what, she was right?
Speaker 5: Yes, I think when you're married long enough, it's like
Speaker 5: that's your own personal living critic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, and my wife will you know?
Speaker 5: Because I'm always trying to write something witty and funny,
Speaker 5: and rather than laughter my wife, everything I say is
Speaker 5: kind of followed by is that a joke?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: And I sometimes say no, no, no, but it is.
Speaker 5: But I don't want to you have to ask.
Speaker 6: The mom what happened and critique these kid dancers.
Speaker 5: Apparently I found out later that the kid was devastated.
Speaker 6: This is the problem. This is the problem.
Speaker 5: This is the biggest problem I have with my show
Speaker 5: and critiques and just show business. I don't think kids
Speaker 5: should be in show business. I don't think it's a
Speaker 5: healthy place. I don't think kids need to be. This
Speaker 5: is why it's the topic of this. I think it's
Speaker 5: hard enough to get along in life and to be accepted,
Speaker 5: but especially on a show like ours, where they're going
Speaker 5: to be up against And I don't want to lie
Speaker 5: and say I loved it. I don't think I was
Speaker 5: particularly harsh with this child, but it's how the kid
Speaker 5: took it. And we've also seen backstage there's a lot
Speaker 5: of stage moms and dads who put a lot more
Speaker 5: pressure than the show puts on the child, the parents
Speaker 5: put on the child.
Speaker 6: Anyway, the kid was devastated.
Speaker 5: And then the mother came on later on and let
Speaker 5: me know how devastated the child was and because of
Speaker 5: my words, and that was devastating to me.
Speaker 6: I don't know what to say.
Speaker 5: I said, I'm sorry, you know, I had to apologize,
Speaker 5: and I was, to be honest with you. I was
Speaker 5: publicly embarrassed because she came on national television and told
Speaker 5: me that I devastated her.
Speaker 2: Child with By the way, Simon Fanning, that slam.
Speaker 4: A little bit.
Speaker 6: He thought, well, he has friends.
Speaker 5: He thought it was funny to He always thinks it's
Speaker 5: funny to see me uncomfortable, and it kind of is,
Speaker 5: you know, I get it. Listen, humor always comes out
Speaker 5: of yes, it always is. So the sense of humor
Speaker 5: of seeing me squirm and being uncomfortable.
Speaker 6: He liked that.
Speaker 5: He doesn't He didn't like the fact that a child
Speaker 5: was what it was about, and the child was the
Speaker 5: center of it, and the child.
Speaker 6: Was Here's the other feeling I have.
Speaker 5: If your child is devastated by critique or by not
Speaker 5: doing well or by not getting a part, then I
Speaker 5: think it is the parent's obligation to say this is
Speaker 5: not for you. You know, acceptance in life is hard enough.
Speaker 5: This is a business of rejection. You're always going to
Speaker 5: and if they can't take that, and that's devastating, then
Speaker 5: that should be taken as a lesson.
Speaker 1: A lot of times a kid will do it for
Speaker 1: the attention for the parents. I mean every time Jason
Speaker 1: and I have done a TV show. I have done
Speaker 1: a TV show and you're casting and there's a child's
Speaker 1: role and you're bringing in a kids and you're only
Speaker 1: picking one kid. You see on their face the parent
Speaker 1: brings them in or the agent brings them in, and
Speaker 1: it always bumps me every time because as I'm watching
Speaker 1: them do it, they're nervous.
Speaker 4: They want to be pleased. Again, you said it before.
Speaker 1: We all walk out of our houses and we want
Speaker 1: to be loved and we want to look good and
Speaker 1: all that. Those kids that's all amped up when you're
Speaker 1: a teenager or preteen, Judging those kids to do an
Speaker 1: acting scene always destroys me because I know only one
Speaker 1: kid's going to get it, and I know when they
Speaker 1: walk out and I'm not, they're not going to get it.
Speaker 1: What that must be like the rest of the day
Speaker 1: for them, and they've got their own center, they've got
Speaker 1: their own critique going on in their head because if
Speaker 1: they didn't get the part, their second.
Speaker 5: Guessing why they didn't get the party, their parent is
Speaker 5: critiquing them, you know, which I don't think is healthy.
Speaker 6: You know, here's what you got to do, here's what
Speaker 6: you did.
Speaker 5: I think that a stage parent is probably the most
Speaker 5: toxic kind of critic that somebody can have in their life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it can.
Speaker 5: It really is, because it's coming from a parent who
Speaker 5: I believe and you can critique me on this, but
Speaker 5: I believe that as a parent, our job is to
Speaker 5: be the most supportive, the most coddling, to remove our
Speaker 5: children from any I mean, we could be a helicopter
Speaker 5: parent and maybe do that too much, but in this world,
Speaker 5: which is tough as it is, I think we have
Speaker 5: to keep our children away from toxicity. And I think
Speaker 5: that this business is toxic anyway.
Speaker 1: But then there's a balance too, because I think about it,
Speaker 1: and I said, just to Jason, we'll think about growing up.
Speaker 1: And I don't know your childhood, but I'm all over
Speaker 1: my kids and I think maybe smother them too much.
Speaker 1: Because my dad never as much as I love my dad,
Speaker 1: he never sat down.
Speaker 4: And said, what are you feeling today? Are you good?
Speaker 1: He never asked me about emotions and feelings and how
Speaker 1: I'm doing and what It was kind of perfunctory. He
Speaker 1: was busy, I was busy. And it wasn't that they
Speaker 1: weren't supportive, it just was not feelings and emotions. Of today,
Speaker 1: parents are much more aware that their kids are going through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to let them go through roost. You're
Speaker 3: just gonna say you can't. You can't oversmother a child
Speaker 3: with affection. You can problem solve for them, and that
Speaker 3: can become your child.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Suck the Dalai Lama's tongue.
Speaker 4: Wow, what was that?
Speaker 2: But are you you're giving that?
Speaker 6: Are you giving that criticism?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna put a big X on that cancer culture.
Speaker 4: I just had to hear that one.
Speaker 1: There is no Usually when celebrities are criticized, they're worse.
Speaker 4: Like I had.
Speaker 1: Some example, Shila was criticized. I put a bag over.
Speaker 1: The reaction is not always the best. I saw that saying,
Speaker 1: and I thought, the the doll you seek truth and wisdom,
Speaker 1: And he asked the kid to suck his tongue. I
Speaker 1: didn't get what did the explanation come out? By the way,
Speaker 1: did anybody?
Speaker 3: As I was driving in today I heard something he said.
Speaker 3: It was a joke. It was supposed to amuse, it
Speaker 3: was supposed to be funny.
Speaker 6: And where's he from?
Speaker 5: Originally sometimes into suck my tongue.
Speaker 4: It's like pulifinger.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the only thing that would be the only explanation.
Speaker 1: By the way, possibly even if I went to bed
Speaker 1: now and n people say, hey, suck my tongue.
Speaker 4: I go, okay, all right, get it now.
Speaker 5: But you know how many people are on a on
Speaker 5: a podcast right now? TI Beeth going, you know they're
Speaker 5: Americans that have children?
Speaker 6: Can you imagine that?
Speaker 1: I don't know is this talking about this? Because I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've talked about this before, about criticizing
Speaker 1: and doing the responsibility of that.
Speaker 5: Well, I feel bad, Yeah, I feel bad. I don't
Speaker 5: know how I'm affected. You know, on our show, I
Speaker 5: want to tell you this. I don't know if you
Speaker 5: know this, but you said you were to judge on
Speaker 5: another show. Do you know that there is a full
Speaker 5: time employed psychologist backstage?
Speaker 4: Do you know that?
Speaker 6: I was wondering, Yes, So the guy that is the
Speaker 6: psychology by.
Speaker 5: The way, sorry Laurie took it away from you, okay.
Speaker 5: So the guy that is backstage at AG he used
Speaker 5: to work for the LAPD. He was the guy that
Speaker 5: was waiting in the foyer on Roxbury at the end
Speaker 5: of the slow speed chase when they brought Oj in.
Speaker 6: He's the guy that had to talk to make sure
Speaker 6: that Oj.
Speaker 5: Stayed somewhat, saying as they were putting handcuffs on him
Speaker 5: and taking him in. That same guy is the guy
Speaker 5: that is backstage at agt saying are you okay with
Speaker 5: what Howie said?
Speaker 1: I got so many questions about that. That's another episode
Speaker 1: you come back for that. I want to interview.
Speaker 4: That he'd come in. Wow, was amazing. They and curiously
Speaker 4: do people say no, and do they yes?
Speaker 6: So?
Speaker 5: And and they are really busy. You know, listen, people,
Speaker 5: we humans are very uh uh complicated and and you
Speaker 5: don't what affects you might not affect me. What affects
Speaker 5: me probably doesn't affect many other people. And how you
Speaker 5: react to whatever has happened to you in the world
Speaker 5: is very unique. And these are people that are put
Speaker 5: in a very crazy think about this a lot of
Speaker 5: these people have never been on television.
Speaker 6: A lot of people come to.
Speaker 5: Us, and especially when you're talking about a child, a
Speaker 5: lot of people have come to us and they go,
Speaker 5: you know, this is something I've always wanted to do.
Speaker 5: My mom had cancer and I started singing, and singing
Speaker 5: helped me, and my mom always wanted to hear my voice,
Speaker 5: and I think this is my calling. And now they
Speaker 5: come out to Pasadena, California. They probably a lot of
Speaker 5: them have never even been in California, so they're fish
Speaker 5: out of water. They walk out on a stage where
Speaker 5: there's three thousand people, thirty cameras, all these lights. Just
Speaker 5: think of the fish bowl that they're in, and then
Speaker 5: me and three other people looking at them, and then
Speaker 5: telling them exactly what we think about what they did.
Speaker 5: And then you know, you know, their interpretation of what
Speaker 5: we say is really unique. It's not what we said,
Speaker 5: it's how you took what we said. We're in an
Speaker 5: age right now where context doesn't really matter, you know,
Speaker 5: it doesn't really They don't hear what word did we trigger?
Speaker 5: What word did they hear? And then they didn't hear
Speaker 5: the other word. And then some people take that into
Speaker 5: a very dark place and it affects them forever. And
Speaker 5: that's why when they walk off stage and you can
Speaker 5: see and and sometimes they'll say to us. A producer
Speaker 5: will come to us and say, listen, the next one,
Speaker 5: it's very we don't really know what we're saying, but
Speaker 5: they will say. The producer says, this one is that's
Speaker 5: very delicate. Yeah, so know that. So we know that
Speaker 5: we try to be as responsible as we can be.
Speaker 5: But you can't be inside somebody's head.
Speaker 3: But how has this sensitivity and not knowing what's going
Speaker 3: to trigger and how someone's going to trigger it. As
Speaker 3: you continue to work in the comedy world, don't you
Speaker 3: find that's the same thing with your audiences.
Speaker 6: I'm incredibly nervous. For me. Stand up comedy was my respite.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I've talked to Peter many times over the years, and
Speaker 5: everything I've ever been punished for, expelled for, hit for
Speaker 5: is what I got paid for. The thing is, it
Speaker 5: was the first time I didn't have any friends as
Speaker 5: a kid. The first time I had any real acceptance
Speaker 5: was acting like an idiot on stage.
Speaker 6: And my act actually came out of authenticity.
Speaker 5: You know, when I was dared to get on stage,
Speaker 5: I didn't pursue this business. And when I was standing there,
Speaker 5: if you look at the old videos of me, I'm
Speaker 5: very different now than I was then, But it was
Speaker 5: always like, it.
Speaker 6: Was very hyper, and it was like okay, okay, all right,
Speaker 6: all right.
Speaker 5: It was me really legitimately being terrified, trying to think
Speaker 5: of something to do, having nothing to do. My hands
Speaker 5: were in my pocket and I grabbed my I had
Speaker 5: rubber gloves because I you know, I've always had OCD
Speaker 5: and I carried rubber gloves with me because if I
Speaker 5: had to go to a public restroom, I didn't want
Speaker 5: to touch anything. And I was terrified in front of
Speaker 5: these people, and I didn't know what to do. And
Speaker 5: so I took the gloves out of my pocket and
Speaker 5: I pulled them over my head and I inflated them
Speaker 5: with my nose and the crowd roared, and I went
Speaker 5: good night, and I ran off, and the owner of
Speaker 5: the club said come back tomorrow, and I go for
Speaker 5: what And he goes to do that?
Speaker 6: I go what did I do? And what started happening?
Speaker 5: You know, I garnered an audience and people really liked me.
Speaker 5: But the truth of the matter is, critically I was
Speaker 5: killed like I didn't have an act. I was the
Speaker 5: joke for I can't tell you for how many years,
Speaker 5: and this destroyed me inside.
Speaker 6: I'll be honest.
Speaker 5: I was, you know, Letterman's top ten list. I was
Speaker 5: always included in that top ten list as a joke
Speaker 5: with it. They said, and we'll send you to a
Speaker 5: Howie Mandel concert.
Speaker 6: And that killed me.
Speaker 5: And it was funny and it got a laugh because
Speaker 5: within my own community of stand up I wasn't thought
Speaker 5: of as the wordsmith you work with Jerry. Jerry is
Speaker 5: a very articulate writer who works every word and every rhythm.
Speaker 5: And I was a guy who got on stage and
Speaker 5: just terrified and likable, you know, tried to hold on
Speaker 5: to their attention and make people like me. And it's
Speaker 5: it's different. And that affected me throughout my whole and
Speaker 5: still does throughout my whole career, you know, even when
Speaker 5: I blew up and in a couple of hours sold
Speaker 5: out two shows at Radio City Music Hall. And I
Speaker 5: remember in between shows. I've told this story so many times,
Speaker 5: but in between shows, looking out the window onto Seventh
Speaker 5: Avenue as the first show, it was I did choose shows,
Speaker 5: and night the first show went out onto the Street,
Speaker 5: and the next people were so seven thousand people are
Speaker 5: teaming onto Seventh Avenue. Seven thousand people are coming in
Speaker 5: for the nine o'clock show or the nine thirty show.
Speaker 5: There's cops out there with stanchions and the traffic is
Speaker 5: all And my wife says to me, what are you thinking?
Speaker 5: And I said, I'm in a city that has ten
Speaker 5: million people. Nine million, eight hundred and ninety four thousand
Speaker 5: people don't give a shirty worm IM here, right, you know?
Speaker 6: So I'm always aware the word to do.
Speaker 2: So many people don't.
Speaker 5: Like me and think I'm an idiot and think I
Speaker 5: you know, I talked to this.
Speaker 6: I talked to carrat Top a lot.
Speaker 5: Carratop is an amazing guy who has had the ability
Speaker 5: to have a showroom in Vegas for the last couple
Speaker 5: of decades, who not only writes material that holds and
Speaker 5: gets laughs every night, but engineers and builds props.
Speaker 6: I don't think he gets the but he.
Speaker 4: Does not get the respect. No respect.
Speaker 6: He gets critiqued.
Speaker 5: He gets criticized for doing more than what the average
Speaker 5: comic does and for having more success than the average
Speaker 5: comics have.
Speaker 6: There's thousands of us out there.
Speaker 5: Most of us don't make a big living, you know,
Speaker 5: most of us are just these road warriors. Look what
Speaker 5: he's doing. He doesn't deserve any critique. He deserves to
Speaker 5: be applauded for what he does. So the critiques within
Speaker 5: our community are somewhat and I've talked to him about it,
Speaker 5: debilitating and horrible. You want respect from an audience, from
Speaker 5: fellow people in your own.
Speaker 4: As an actor.
Speaker 5: You want other actors to go what a performance, and
Speaker 5: that also sometimes means more to you, and it is
Speaker 5: more hurtful if other actors that you respect are critiquing
Speaker 5: what you did than some guy in the paper. As
Speaker 5: a stand up that was a safe haven in a club.
Speaker 5: And now with the advent of cell phones and people,
Speaker 5: well just people and social media, people could say something
Speaker 5: that I say in a club, take it out of context,
Speaker 5: and then the world and then they criticize what they heard.
Speaker 5: Then somebody else hears that I said something that was
Speaker 5: maybe off color, or they interpret it as negatives.
Speaker 6: It's not even real, and then it blows up and
Speaker 6: then you're canceled, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 5: So it's bigger now than it ever was the world
Speaker 5: and social media has become the critic so much so
Speaker 5: that average Joe Schmoe is now on social media and
Speaker 5: it's not even a real picture. They give you filters
Speaker 5: and they give you things where you can create something
Speaker 5: so that you don't get criticized.
Speaker 6: You could change your shape. So what is reality?
Speaker 5: And that's based on why you're changing your shape on
Speaker 5: social media so that you don't get criticized. And it's
Speaker 5: mean criticism.
Speaker 4: You bet.
Speaker 5: My daughter, who I do my podcast with, is a
Speaker 5: mommy blogger, was a mommy blogger. She doesn't do she
Speaker 5: doesn't put her kids online anymore because people criticized her
Speaker 5: children and were mean mean to children. I'm it's hard
Speaker 5: enough for me, who gets paid a nice dollar to
Speaker 5: sit in front of somebody who's asked me to say
Speaker 5: something about their dancing child. Right, It's different than when
Speaker 5: somebody that nobody asked is talking about your kid in
Speaker 5: the background and making disparaging remarks about their looks.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, And how's your how the kids doing? And
Speaker 1: by the way, just to sheer volume in that too,
Speaker 1: it's everybody. Now, everybody's dangerous. Well, it's after you leave.
Speaker 1: We usually take this to another level. The level we're
Speaker 1: going to take to is that it's about everybody has
Speaker 1: an opinion now and everybody's encouraged to give it, whether
Speaker 1: you're an expert or not. It's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I don't do talk radio anymore, because people were
Speaker 1: giving opinions about things they knew nothing You would ask them, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm open to that, give me your opinion.
Speaker 4: Well, I remember talking about what they're talking about.
Speaker 3: I remember it has to be fifteen years ago watching
Speaker 3: Wolf Blitzer do a news story, a news story, and
Speaker 3: at the end of it he said, we want to
Speaker 3: know what you think, so right to usaid at something,
Speaker 3: and I go, what doesn't matter what I think my
Speaker 3: opinion on This is a news story. This is a
Speaker 3: factual event that you have shared with us. Yes, it
Speaker 3: may inspire some thinking, but why is what I think
Speaker 3: need to go into the CNN public discourse sphere.
Speaker 5: Because the new media and media is all around us.
Speaker 5: You don't have to be there. Used to be a
Speaker 5: time when we were kids where people used to they
Speaker 5: wear a fedora. That's at press, and that was a
Speaker 5: professional person. And now everybody social media, they're really boy,
Speaker 5: it's a guy in his underpants sitting in his bed
Speaker 5: in Cleveland, you know, but the.
Speaker 3: Seems a little critical by the way engine hear then yeah,
Speaker 3: a little bit strong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and finish your thought.
Speaker 5: My thought is, My thought is that in order to
Speaker 5: feel alive, the keyword in social media and everything you're doing,
Speaker 5: even this podcast is engagement. So how else do you
Speaker 5: engage an audience? How do you engage anybody? The only
Speaker 5: way to engage a stranger is ask them to critique criticism.
Speaker 5: I want your criticism. Hopefully it's positive, but it's not
Speaker 5: always positive. And the people that rise to the top,
Speaker 5: or the criticism that rises to the top, is the negative.
Speaker 5: As dark as you can get, as negative as you
Speaker 5: can get. That's the louder you're going to be, and
Speaker 5: more people are going to notice that.
Speaker 6: You know, if somebody says.
Speaker 5: They listen to this in the comments of this podcast,
Speaker 5: I don't know. If you read the comments of this podcast,
Speaker 5: you should say you do so that people in Ada.
Speaker 4: I don't follow this show, so I don't know.
Speaker 5: Well in the comments, if they go I saw the
Speaker 5: you know, I listened to their I listened to really
Speaker 5: no really last week with Howie Mandell.
Speaker 4: That was nice.
Speaker 5: That'll just go by, right. But if somebody goes, why
Speaker 5: the hell would you have that idiot on? I can't
Speaker 5: stand listening to a second of them. That comment will
Speaker 5: go to the top, and that comment will be commented on.
Speaker 6: You know, So that's criticism is our fuel.
Speaker 2: Well, you said something so interesting.
Speaker 3: So I directed a film years ago as my first film,
Speaker 3: and we were doing test screenings, and as we would
Speaker 3: sit and watch the test screening with the audience, it
Speaker 3: was a comedy and there would be fifty big laughs
Speaker 3: and at the end we'd get a smattering of flaws
Speaker 3: from the test audience, so I go, oh, we must
Speaker 3: be pretty good. Then the focus group would happen and
Speaker 3: the question would be did you guys like the lead character? Now,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, they go, well, if I stand
Speaker 3: here and say I like the lead character, I'm a schmuck.
Speaker 2: So they clearly they want they want.
Speaker 3: They must if they asked that question, they must have
Speaker 3: an inkling that there's something wrong with the lead character.
Speaker 2: Let me think about that. Oh well, now that I
Speaker 2: think think of it.
Speaker 4: Same thing.
Speaker 3: We tested a TV show, our first TV show together
Speaker 3: was Bob Patterson. And in the test screenings, they have
Speaker 3: a room full of people with two buttons. I know,
Speaker 3: if you like what you're seeing, hold the left one.
Speaker 3: If you don't like what you're seeing, hold the right button.
Speaker 3: So the show starts and everybody's holding the left button,
Speaker 3: and I know, if I'm sitting in that room, I'm
Speaker 3: going to go what am I as?
Speaker 2: Shmuck?
Speaker 3: I'm not just going to sit here and like everything
Speaker 3: that's Let me hold this button for a little while.
Speaker 2: Arbitrarily, I would be pushing the other button.
Speaker 4: Well, you know I did that.
Speaker 6: So I sold a show.
Speaker 5: I sold a show once to a network and they
Speaker 5: do tests in Vegas at the it used to be
Speaker 5: the testing place was in Vegas at the Mote in
Speaker 5: the mall, right in the mall. So I put on
Speaker 5: a baseball cap and I took ten friends. They pay
Speaker 5: you twenty five dollars, and I said, oh, what do
Speaker 5: you do? I found out what day they were testing
Speaker 5: my show, and it was me and ten friends went
Speaker 5: in and every time there was a joke, we turned
Speaker 5: the dial up.
Speaker 4: That's fantastic and we loved it.
Speaker 6: What did you like?
Speaker 5: And I had everybody. The show got picked up. They
Speaker 5: go it tested through the roof, like I know, it
Speaker 5: tested through the group. But everything that they sell Everything
Speaker 5: that you buy is based on criticism. Criticism is what
Speaker 5: creates this world, and that's what we live on, and
Speaker 5: that's what social media is. It makes everybody a critic.
Speaker 5: Everybody is a critic. Everybody is a judge. I say,
Speaker 5: the only people ask me about my show about agt
Speaker 5: I joined it on We're going into our eighteenth season
Speaker 5: right now. I joined it on season four. The first
Speaker 5: three seasons, I watched every show. I'm a nut for
Speaker 5: watching TV, so I watched every show and I'm not
Speaker 5: doing anything different today than I was doing. They just
Speaker 5: gave me a pair of pants and a paycheck. That's
Speaker 5: the only difference between what is happening with me watching
Speaker 5: the show.
Speaker 1: So let me say now to the people who agreed
Speaker 1: and said, boy, why do they have Howie on? It's horrible,
Speaker 1: it's ending, It's over. So for those people, congratulations ear Muster.
Speaker 3: Second, thank god he was.
Speaker 4: How is I say this.
Speaker 6: In the Northeast.
Speaker 4: Howie is one of the most creative I tell you.
Speaker 1: One of the funniest jokes and I still tell people
Speaker 1: that you do it, and I've seen you do your
Speaker 1: actor a million times, is when you you did the
Speaker 1: thing we said, I'm going to do improv now and
Speaker 1: you ask people for the pot you so, I told Jason,
Speaker 1: because it's so brilliant to make you feel good about yourself.
Speaker 1: I've seen everybody, worked with everybody, and how he would ask,
Speaker 1: give me a profession, give me a prompt, give me
Speaker 1: a location, and then it's all tell me what to say.
Speaker 5: And boom, give me no, give me okay, give me
Speaker 5: something funny to do.
Speaker 1: And the a the balls to take everybody that down
Speaker 1: that path to pay that off is what is who
Speaker 1: you are.
Speaker 4: That's a real good way of summing.
Speaker 1: It up, because you've got a lot of guts with
Speaker 1: your comedy to take people on rides and it's brave.
Speaker 5: It's I love terror. I'm addicted to you do I am.
Speaker 5: I love thrill rides. I like to feel that adrenaline.
Speaker 5: I like when it's not working and then I'm devastated
Speaker 5: that it didn't work.
Speaker 1: Yes, but but and anytime I've worked with you, it's
Speaker 1: always been and hidden.
Speaker 4: Howie.
Speaker 1: The thing I tell there is you were was it
Speaker 1: a Vegas buffet? That's my favorite thing that you've ever done.
Speaker 1: Take a Vegas buffet and the guy would go and
Speaker 1: fill his plate up and he put it down. And
Speaker 1: when you talk about terror, Howie would show up and
Speaker 1: he had a band down a seat and notes how
Speaker 1: he and how he would immediately soon as a guy
Speaker 1: put the food down and turned, he would take it
Speaker 1: and dump it into the trash and the guy he
Speaker 1: was cleaning up, and the guy would go, what did
Speaker 1: you do? And how he would go, you could take
Speaker 1: as many times as you want. You go back to
Speaker 1: take his much.
Speaker 6: You wouldn't start.
Speaker 4: I would.
Speaker 5: I would clear tables. I would clear tables. I see
Speaker 5: them going, they go to their table. Then I'd go
Speaker 5: dresses and I take the plates.
Speaker 2: And dump them.
Speaker 4: Because I didn't I didn't finish.
Speaker 6: You can go back and I didn't.
Speaker 7: Even this guy though, over and over time the guy
Speaker 7: was going screaming of his mind, screaming, how would we
Speaker 7: have a guy come in a bakery no one's there,
Speaker 7: and how we would call out numbers number eight sixty
Speaker 7: two and the guy goes, there's nobody here, and how
Speaker 7: we were sure sure age sixty three.
Speaker 4: I mean, you watched this and you're going this is
Speaker 4: really no? They would I would have.
Speaker 6: I would be in the in the bakery. You're an
Speaker 6: ice cream store and we would.
Speaker 5: Have numbers and I'd give an equal of number seventy two.
Speaker 5: He'd be the only one there store and I'd go
Speaker 5: six and he'd be looking at his seventy.
Speaker 4: It no matter that people are ready to kill him.
Speaker 5: Some guys, and I would go an hour.
Speaker 4: I call an hour.
Speaker 6: He goes, but there's nobody here. I go with number you.
Speaker 6: He goes seventy two. I go, wait your turn.
Speaker 4: Your comedy is smart, howing well, their comedy is different.
Speaker 4: It's dangerous. Push the envelo. Thank you, Thank you for
Speaker 4: having me on and thank you.
Speaker 3: I should note for people that don't know, we do
Speaker 3: our show here in your facility, and you are an
Speaker 3: amazing host and a fantastic We have to pay for.
Speaker 4: This one because at you promoting well, there should be
Speaker 4: some sort of a rebate. I do think on this,
Speaker 4: what do I get paid for this? All with us?
Speaker 6: Thank you?
Speaker 4: That's brother.
Speaker 3: Having talked about critique and the power of critique, I
Speaker 3: have been critiquing you since we began about you not
Speaker 3: wearing the really no really branded shirt, and look at.
Speaker 4: The power of critique. It actually it came out with.
Speaker 1: A positive powerful it's a positive change. Your handsome of powerful.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to hear it anymore. Right, Sometimes it's.
Speaker 4: Shirt.
Speaker 1: That's what we've learned about critics for nine dollars shirt
Speaker 1: and it's like like gold, you know what, fourteen fifty.
Speaker 8: But that's not with the logos on the gifts. Absolutely
Speaker 8: and only if you want to return it the receipt
Speaker 8: that was the big scam, all if you want to
Speaker 8: return the received So.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about criticism.
Speaker 1: Why was amazing, Yeah, about if people watch those shows
Speaker 1: like America's Got Talent and you don't realize the responsibility
Speaker 1: with Great Power.
Speaker 3: Responsibility was always clear to me, especially seeing the guests
Speaker 3: they had on because a lot of them are not professionals.
Speaker 3: A lot of them probably they're not making their living
Speaker 3: from the thing they're performing on that show, and it
Speaker 3: is a spotlight as how he pointed out that they're
Speaker 3: not used to. So it's a deer in the headlight.
Speaker 3: And you've got somebody who you came in that you're
Speaker 3: trying to impress, good, better and different, giving you feedback
Speaker 3: live in front of three thousand.
Speaker 4: People that you know is going to be replayed all
Speaker 4: over the world.
Speaker 3: It is the responsibility of that much greater than absolutely,
Speaker 3: and in this and particularly you know I've been I've
Speaker 3: been teaching acting students of late, and when you give feedback,
Speaker 3: it is in a way some sort of judgment. And
Speaker 3: I am I hope, I hope I have not had
Speaker 3: a student, you know, tell me anything else there that
Speaker 3: what I'm offering is always pulling them in a positive direction,
Speaker 3: asking them what they're trying to achieve, asking them if
Speaker 3: they it doesn't nearly matter.
Speaker 1: It's how person hears it in their background, and you
Speaker 1: never know how they're going to hear. But by the way,
Speaker 1: just some interesting things about criticism.
Speaker 4: JK.
Speaker 1: Rowling was told that children just aren't interested in riches
Speaker 1: and wizards anymore. That was when a modeling agency told
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe, you better get secretary worker get married.
Speaker 4: So I love it.
Speaker 1: The Beatles, of course, were rejected by every record label
Speaker 1: there was. The brutal one is Barbara Streisen. Her mother says,
Speaker 1: you never be a singer and not good look enough
Speaker 1: at home when you do that, when you don't have
Speaker 1: to leave home to get kicked, and then you know what,
Speaker 1: that's pretty tough.
Speaker 3: Well that's you know, I want to circle back, because
Speaker 3: we were talking with howy about you know, what can
Speaker 3: you do if you're a parent, or you know you
Speaker 3: got a kid that comes to you legitimately and says, Dad,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do this thing. And I and I
Speaker 3: get asked by parents all the time. My kid is
Speaker 3: interested in the arts?
Speaker 4: What do I do?
Speaker 2: What do I tell them?
Speaker 3: And I say, I try to say look good, bad
Speaker 3: or indifferent? Here's your answer. Whether you think they're talented
Speaker 3: or not talented, here is your answer. Honey, you are
Speaker 3: my child. I love you, and I cannot see you
Speaker 3: through an objective lens. I think everything you do is
Speaker 3: special and I take joy in this. So if you
Speaker 3: want an objective opinion, I'm not the person to come
Speaker 3: to me. Wow. But I believe in you and I
Speaker 3: believe in your dream and that what I say to
Speaker 3: people is, look, life is going to teach them whether
Speaker 3: what they dream is viable or not. Never let your
Speaker 3: child be the person that goes. My mom didn't believe
Speaker 3: in me, and it's.
Speaker 4: Not a drug.
Speaker 1: I came from the non believer family. YEA, my mother said,
Speaker 1: Laurie knows this. I told her this before I said
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be on TV. You think you're good looking enough,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be rid you think you're smart enough, which
Speaker 1: didn't destroy me. I never, it never, It's just it's
Speaker 1: just what they were. It's just who she was, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So and it didn't deter me.
Speaker 1: But I knew she couldn't hint it just she couldn't
Speaker 1: process that. And maybe that was her way of saying,
Speaker 1: don't get hurt. It's a tough feel or whatever. But
Speaker 1: it was really, really it was an interesting childhood when
Speaker 1: you have a parent that supportive of all stuff.
Speaker 3: But there is that is a I think that is
Speaker 3: a realistic part of success because I have to tell you,
Speaker 3: and you know this, you were supported. I was supported
Speaker 3: by my no question. My parents were very supportive of me.
Speaker 3: But I've had a hugely successful career, no question about it.
Speaker 3: Many would argue unearned success, but I've had a very
Speaker 3: successful career. Ninety nine percent of my career are people
Speaker 3: saying no to me, you aren't good enough, We don't
Speaker 3: want you, we don't want your idea. If you cannot
Speaker 3: hear and go on and believe in yourself and believe
Speaker 3: in what you want to do because somebody says you
Speaker 3: don't do what you're going to it, then this is.
Speaker 2: A really bad place to try and make you.
Speaker 1: At that point, my dad pulled me aside and said
Speaker 1: one thing that was, you know, the highs are going
Speaker 1: to be really high, but the lows are going to
Speaker 1: be really low. He was right, And I told my
Speaker 1: son that who's in a band? By the way, Pretty
Speaker 1: Woman a Jason Richard Corliss from the Time magazine Pretty
Speaker 1: Pretty Woman review, and no one has yet made a
Speaker 1: romantic comedy in which, say, a toxic waste dumper falls
Speaker 1: for terrorist hijacker, The Pretty Woman comes close to find
Speaker 1: you the least admirable characters to build a feel good
Speaker 1: movie around, Well, not wrong.
Speaker 4: Owen Gieberman of The Entertainment Week was impressed either.
Speaker 1: He said, the kinds of characters who exist nowhere but
Speaker 1: in the minds of callously manipulative Hollywood screenwriters.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, you know my Broadway debut, Merrily we roll
Speaker 3: a luge. John Simon, who was a really acerbic critic
Speaker 3: for The New York Magazine in his review, but I
Speaker 3: want to congratulate the creative team of this show for
Speaker 3: assembling the ugliest cast and brought up.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah, forget you were good. You are
Speaker 4: not good. I can't stand to look at you.
Speaker 3: Oh no, oh, who would put that face on a stage?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was Before we go.
Speaker 1: To Google ham, I'll give you my favorite review. And
Speaker 1: here's a friend of ours, Leonard Malton. His complete review
Speaker 1: for the nineteen forty eight film Isn't It Romantic?
Speaker 4: Was no? Yeah, well that's only top that.
Speaker 3: I told you there was the most famous Broadway show.
Speaker 3: There are books written about it. The biggest flop in
Speaker 3: recent history on Broadway was a comedy thriller called Moose Murders,
Speaker 3: and it closed on its opening night. And the ten
Speaker 3: o'clock television review, which is the first one out, they said,
Speaker 3: here the show opened, and here's our critic on the aisle,
Speaker 3: and now this person has to give you a one
Speaker 3: minute review. And for one minute the guy sat there
Speaker 3: shrugging his shaking his head, trying to think of something.
Speaker 3: He was speechless. And at the end of the minute
Speaker 3: he went, and I'm so and something.
Speaker 4: That was it his review? Worst review? I have no worst.
Speaker 4: It's so brilliant. Google him raps up here. What we said?
Speaker 4: What do we do wrong? What do we need to know?
Speaker 9: First off, I just want to say that psychologists generally
Speaker 9: agree that criticism does not lead people to change behavior,
Speaker 9: but as we all know, shame does.
Speaker 4: That might be something that people want to take advantage of.
Speaker 4: A couple of quick statistics. Apparently people are let me
Speaker 4: save it for air.
Speaker 1: Then my parents were by the visionary's today, I shamed
Speaker 1: you did in my childhood.
Speaker 4: My parents they were visionaries, they knew, they knew what
Speaker 4: to do. Shame your son, thank you.
Speaker 10: But for office managers out of there, eighty three percent
Speaker 10: of employees really appreciate receiving feedback, whether it's positive or negative,
Speaker 10: and seventy two percent of employees say they get praised
Speaker 10: less than once a week. So perhaps if people, you know,
Speaker 10: manage these things a.
Speaker 2: Little bit differently.
Speaker 10: And although I know that Howie was not really into
Speaker 10: this whole idea. We first came, of course, to this
Speaker 10: idea after this choreographer whose name is Marco Goka.
Speaker 4: It smeared feces onto a critic's face.
Speaker 10: Well here's the interesting thing, Well, there's two actually interesting
Speaker 10: things about that. Goka explained that he did that because
Speaker 10: he was under pressure to create a masterpiece. He also
Speaker 10: had some personal struggles, such as an ill mother and
Speaker 10: his dog that is fourteen and a half years old.
Speaker 11: Was coming to the end of his life. The positive
Speaker 11: note is that that dog, whose name is gustav will
Speaker 11: live on because it was his feces that were smeared
Speaker 11: in verb Kerr Housta's face.
Speaker 3: And so that will forever be referred to as a Gustavus.
Speaker 4: There we gotta dog was well known.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: The other thing was that was his last was that
Speaker 1: is the dog's last mom, because that would have been
Speaker 1: really touching.
Speaker 2: That would have just given that away.
Speaker 1: In that case, that was a major you know, and
Speaker 1: you know Sleiser too, because the dog was so well
Speaker 1: he was thinking about bringing the dog and smearing it
Speaker 1: on her face.
Speaker 4: Couldn't travel? I love that you have you're giving reasons. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 4: now I understand that.
Speaker 2: No problem.
Speaker 4: Didn't realize you didn't realize your mother was. Wasn't that
Speaker 4: he didn't.
Speaker 2: Think it through.
Speaker 10: Travel from he brought it.
Speaker 1: My bag.
Speaker 4: I did not realize your mom was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, really, no, folks, that's going for us today. If
Speaker 3: you've enjoyed the show, let us know on really.
Speaker 4: Don't say that because there wasn't business that I worked
Speaker 4: out where we were getting.
Speaker 3: Really, I want to thank our producers laur Kribby, David Google,
Speaker 3: and I. If you're watching us on YouTube, please remember
Speaker 3: do like and subscribe.
Speaker 2: We drop, we drop, I hate the drop.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: After every Tuesday there's a new episode of Really No
Speaker 3: Really on the iHeart app, the Apple app, or wherever
Speaker 3: you get your podcast.
Speaker 2: And thanks to Howiman.
Speaker 4: Who were great. And by the way, thank you for
Speaker 4: putting on the ship. And thank you everybody. At least
Speaker 4: he took the dog stuff and bagged it. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4: Have a good thank you. Go on and thank you
Speaker 4: Laurie and see you. You're a very handsome man. That's
Speaker 4: a positive bring enforcement.
Speaker 1: So you're making up for my parents for fifteen years
Speaker 1: of my parents going you're not gonna make it.