Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So I have a really unusual and fascinating guests this week.
Speaker 1: And I know this every single week, but I guess
Speaker 1: this week was Harry Shearer. Uh. You know him from
Speaker 1: sn L, The Simpsons, This is spinal Tap. He's produced documentaries,
Speaker 1: he has a thirty two year old radio show. It's
Speaker 1: been running thirty two years called The Show. Obviously, everybody
Speaker 1: knows The Simpsons. He's half of the voices on The Simpsons.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they could do the show without him.
Speaker 1: And and he's just really a thoughtful, intelligent, interesting guy
Speaker 1: that has some real insights into the entertainment and television business. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we only had him for about forty five minutes. He
Speaker 1: had a run, uh to catch a plane, so we
Speaker 1: were a little tight for time. But um, it's really
Speaker 1: an interesting and entertaining conversation. And the next time he's
Speaker 1: in New York, he lives in New Orleans. The next
Speaker 1: time he's here, we'll get him back to talk about
Speaker 1: an update to the documentary he did ten years ago
Speaker 1: about New Orleans. It's it seems really really fascinating post Katrina,
Speaker 1: what happened, Why it happened, what failed. I'll let him
Speaker 1: tell you the story. It's it's it's intriguing and just
Speaker 1: generally talking to somebody with the breath of experience that
Speaker 1: he has in film, theater and music, um, television, radio.
Speaker 1: He's really just a general entertainer and I found our
Speaker 1: conversation delightful. I hope you do as well. Without any
Speaker 1: further ado, my chat with Harry Shearer. This is Masters
Speaker 1: in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. This week
Speaker 1: on Masters in Business, we have a very special guest.
Speaker 1: And I know I say that every week, but it
Speaker 1: happens to be true. We have an actor, comedian, writer, voice, actor, musician, author,
Speaker 1: radio host, director and producer, the one, the only, Harry Sheer. Harry,
Speaker 1: welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you very much. So for those
Speaker 1: of you who may not know who um Harry is, UM,
Speaker 1: which includes me, I don't know who I am. You
Speaker 1: know I have a question about that coming up. We'll
Speaker 1: get to that. I first noticed him not for his
Speaker 1: synchronized swimming on Saturday Night Live, but as the bass
Speaker 1: player of a band whose drummers kept on spontaneously combusting
Speaker 1: called spinal tap. Do you hate the word mockumentary or no, No,
Speaker 1: it seems like that's been beaten to death. That was
Speaker 1: the first mockumentary, or at least it feels like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I co wrote with Albert Brooks a sort of precursor
Speaker 1: to that, called Real Life, but it wasn't shot in
Speaker 1: exactly the same way, so it didn't quite qualify as
Speaker 1: a as a mockumentary. But yeah, I mean I don't
Speaker 1: get as sick as that as I get of television
Speaker 1: shows sort of taking the visual style of the movie
Speaker 1: without any purpose at all, you know, just to make
Speaker 1: it look a little different, just to make a little
Speaker 1: little edgy. Uh. You know, speaking of television, you've dabbled,
Speaker 1: and I've dabbled. I've dabbled in a cartoon show for
Speaker 1: about twenty seven years. He is again for those of
Speaker 1: you who may not be familiar with The Simpsons, he's
Speaker 1: essentially Harry is essentially half of the characters. Here's the quote.
Speaker 1: He's half of the regular characters. And quote he pads
Speaker 1: his resume with God, the Devil and Hitler on the Simpsons. Um,
Speaker 1: and you're some of the really big characters. So Mr
Speaker 1: Burns Mr Burne, Smithers and ned Glanders, reverential love Joy
Speaker 1: Kent Brockman, scratchy auto principal Skinner and Brockman really sounds
Speaker 1: the closest to yours, you think, so I do. Interest,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little more about The Simpsons and a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um, I'm not done with your your curriculum, vite.
Speaker 1: He's the director and producer of the documentary The Big
Speaker 1: Uneasy about the destruction of New Orleans, and then there's
Speaker 1: a ten year version of that, an anniversary of that
Speaker 1: coming out at radio documentary for the BBC called The
Speaker 1: Crescent in the Shadow, which runs on on BBC's National
Speaker 1: Service in Britain and also in the BBC World Service worldwide.
Speaker 1: Are we going to see it here BBC America or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It's not. It's not. It's radio, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's uh some we can some public radio
Speaker 1: stations carry World Service, so it may be. I listen
Speaker 1: to BBC two on streaming over the internet Radio two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so I should like that middle of the road music,
Speaker 1: do you? Um? I like what's his name, um, Bob Harris? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I mean, you know, it's funny because I
Speaker 1: every now and then on the blog on on the
Speaker 1: big picture, I'll throw up a music post or something.
Speaker 1: And people have said to me, you found Amy Winehouse
Speaker 1: before anybody ever part over here. I go, oh, Bob,
Speaker 1: And there's a half a dozen other people along those
Speaker 1: lines that I used to on the in the winters
Speaker 1: when I'm working indoors on the weekend. Now, you're from California,
Speaker 1: so you're spoiled. But here, when the weather is nice
Speaker 1: and you have worked to do it, you go out.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. And there I'm told the weather is
Speaker 1: always nice in California. Yeah, mainly I live in New
Speaker 1: Orleans now, and the weather nice except during the summer.
Speaker 1: You're a California kid, though, didn't you grow up out there?
Speaker 1: When when did you make the move to New Orleans?
Speaker 1: Well started. I first went to New Orleans and eighty eight,
Speaker 1: and then just kept going more and more often, and
Speaker 1: finally my wife and I decided not to subsidize the
Speaker 1: hotel business there anymore, and we bought a place in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties, and then we bought our present huge
Speaker 1: spread and uh, it's not a spread, it's a pile.
Speaker 1: In two thousand six h post post. There you go alright.
Speaker 1: So so let's get into a little detail about your background,
Speaker 1: because I find you to be um fascinating for many
Speaker 1: reasons beyond the Simpsons. So let me ascu you this question.
Speaker 1: You meet somebody, they don't know your work, and they
Speaker 1: ask you, so, what do you do? How does someone
Speaker 1: like you answer that question? Well, you know, I have
Speaker 1: the occasion to to answer that very question quite often
Speaker 1: because I go to London and they don't know who
Speaker 1: you are there. No, they know who I am. But
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, on the on the landing form
Speaker 1: you have to say your occupation and I just put
Speaker 1: entertainer and that's it. Yeah, I mean everything I do.
Speaker 1: You know, even when I was making that very serious
Speaker 1: no jokes uh documentary about why New Orleans flooded, I
Speaker 1: had an entertainer's clock working in my head. It's a narrative.
Speaker 1: You want to tell a story, but if the people
Speaker 1: are if the viewers aren't interested, the point never gets
Speaker 1: got ninety minutes max. If I haven't got the story
Speaker 1: told by that time, I've lost him. I should learn
Speaker 1: that here because I go two hours sometimes with something
Speaker 1: you need, you need my my clock inside your head,
Speaker 1: all right, you know we tell people if it's too long,
Speaker 1: listen to it in two segments. Um, so let's listen
Speaker 1: to it faster. You can do that with the line
Speaker 1: of the playback stuff. So the story that you've you've
Speaker 1: discussed about how you got into the business sounds like
Speaker 1: an urban legend. You have a piano teacher who decides
Speaker 1: I'm going to become an agent. Yes, and goes to
Speaker 1: your parents and says, hey, your your boy would make
Speaker 1: for a good child actor. She was the mother of
Speaker 1: a of a child actress, so she already knew people
Speaker 1: in the business had contacts. Um. I don't know if
Speaker 1: she went to the parents of all the kids that
Speaker 1: she taught, or just to mind that that's lost in
Speaker 1: the midst of history or lack of history. But she
Speaker 1: did come to my parents and say, do you mind
Speaker 1: if I try to get Harry work. They were both
Speaker 1: immigrants from Eastern Europe. Um they thought this was fantasmagorical
Speaker 1: and they'd never hear from her again. And then seven
Speaker 1: months go by and finally she calls with an audition
Speaker 1: for the Jack Benny Program. And I was a very
Speaker 1: good reader, and so I went in and just aced
Speaker 1: the first reading and got the job and worked for
Speaker 1: Jack Benny for eight years. You're listening to Masters in
Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is Harry Shearer,
Speaker 1: best known for The Simpsons Spinal Taple Show. You've put
Speaker 1: out a number of musical CDs, including Greed and Fear,
Speaker 1: which we'll get back to later. Has a little bit
Speaker 1: to do with the financial crisis and other things. But
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued by your early work with you were eight
Speaker 1: years old, seven years old, seven years old, Aben and Costello.
Speaker 1: What was that like? Well, Uh, Abbott wasn't there that day.
Speaker 1: I worked one day in Abbert and Costell go to Mars.
Speaker 1: Uh Costello was was nice. You know, I basically was
Speaker 1: a binary world that a child actor exists, and either
Speaker 1: they're nice or they're not nice. That's that's, that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jack Benny was Jack Benny was extraordinarily nice. And I
Speaker 1: knew him for eight years, so I mean I have
Speaker 1: I had a fairly special relationship with him. I thought,
Speaker 1: when you were working at that time in Hollywood, were
Speaker 1: you aware the fact that hey, this is the end
Speaker 1: really of an era, that the Hollywood machinery was starting
Speaker 1: to really change into something else. And I was more
Speaker 1: aware of the fact that it was the end of
Speaker 1: a very specific era, of the era of big time
Speaker 1: network radio, because I started in on Jack Benny's radio program,
Speaker 1: and people were doing comedy programs and dramatic programs on
Speaker 1: the radio like they still do in England, interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: but all that was dying as I was entering it.
Speaker 1: So within a few years Benny had had added a
Speaker 1: television show and I worked migrated to that, and I
Speaker 1: saw these radio shows just sort of falling in the dust,
Speaker 1: and the radio networks following. And yet You've stayed with
Speaker 1: radio your whole career. I love radio. Um it changed,
Speaker 1: and I was really profoundly influenced by a comedy team
Speaker 1: and a newscaster. A comedy team was Bob and Ray
Speaker 1: worked in New York for forty years together and really
Speaker 1: invented the modern way of doing radio, not on a
Speaker 1: big stage in front of an audience with an orchestra,
Speaker 1: but by themselves in a little studio. There was a
Speaker 1: third guy, to Gean Shepard, who was a storyteller on
Speaker 1: the radio, again just by himself in his studio. And
Speaker 1: then Paul Harvey, the legendary news broadcaster who again sat
Speaker 1: in the studio talking to the audience. Personally, wasn't a
Speaker 1: big show anymore, but it was this incredibly powerful fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes of radio, and I became aware of how easy
Speaker 1: it is to paint pictures with radio. I do satirical
Speaker 1: sketches on my radio show, and the work that I
Speaker 1: do to create a picture of Hillary and Bill talking,
Speaker 1: or Obama, Richard Nixon, Pritchard Nixon, or Trump looking with
Speaker 1: his advisors would take a hundred a crew of a
Speaker 1: hundred people on television. For me on radio, it takes
Speaker 1: me and you having a gift for voices, so that
Speaker 1: allows you to do things that perhaps one person working
Speaker 1: by themselves normally might not be able to correct. But
Speaker 1: even even with that alleged talent, to do it in
Speaker 1: television would take a lot more people, and a lot
Speaker 1: more money and a lot more time. So radio is
Speaker 1: something I can do while I'm doing the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. So let's let's shift gears a little bit
Speaker 1: and talk about spinal tap. I just fell in love
Speaker 1: with the movie in college, so that that tells you
Speaker 1: how how old I was and tells me he went
Speaker 1: to college. Um, they you know, I actually went all
Speaker 1: the way I wow kept going until they said, that's
Speaker 1: what you've done. Oh you mean with your studies, with
Speaker 1: my studies, it's exactly that's exactly correct. Um yes, well,
Speaker 1: um hence you can see I'm on radio, so that
Speaker 1: those sort of braggydicio does not really take place. So
Speaker 1: the film was made in twenty five days something like that.
Speaker 1: What was that set? Like you have you? Christopher gets
Speaker 1: Michael McKeen and Rob Reiner directing this. That had to
Speaker 1: be a hilarious group of people. It was, and then
Speaker 1: we had all these really funny people coming in to
Speaker 1: do other parts. Billy Crystal, uh, friend Dresher, Fred Willard.
Speaker 1: Fred Willard is the one who who challenged to not laugh.
Speaker 1: I mean it was almost impossible when Fred Willard came in.
Speaker 1: He is he is from another galaxy. Uh, you just
Speaker 1: can't fathom where this stuff comes from. And he's relentless
Speaker 1: and his energy is just overpowering and he So that
Speaker 1: was really the challenge was not to laugh during Fred's scenes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was. It was great fun. Uh. We'd
Speaker 1: have about three or four takes maximum and then it's
Speaker 1: rolling on mostly IMPROVV Two lines were written in the
Speaker 1: entire moved. That's the entire thing, famously improved. How much
Speaker 1: good stuff didn't make it into the fun hours of stuff,
Speaker 1: So there there. There was never really a Spinal Tap
Speaker 1: Director's cut DVD. There was a DVD with some some
Speaker 1: extra scenes, but there's a few minute I mean, like,
Speaker 1: if there's hours worth of stuff, I gotta think, especially
Speaker 1: given how the audience for this developed. It came out
Speaker 1: a lot of people didn't necessarily get it. Some reviews
Speaker 1: were really laudatory, so not so much. And then it's
Speaker 1: slowly developed its own following, and now I think it's
Speaker 1: on twenty nine of the hundred, number twenty nine on
Speaker 1: the best Comedies, the first suck filler. I can tell
Speaker 1: you one thing about Spinal Tap. It is probably in
Speaker 1: the annals of relatively successful movies, the only self marketed one.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever spent a dime on marketing. You never saw
Speaker 1: a billboard for that movie. You never saw saw a
Speaker 1: post or somewhere. We had it. And I worked in
Speaker 1: the campus films with with a friend, and there was
Speaker 1: for the for the for the video, for the for
Speaker 1: the theatrical film, and uh, you know, there was I
Speaker 1: think there was one newspaper ad when the day it
Speaker 1: opened it was it was all of the success has
Speaker 1: been self marketed, basically by fans telling each other word
Speaker 1: of mouth. It's a classic word amount story. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: is pre internet too, so that it was tweeting about.
Speaker 1: So this is a horribly cliche question, but I have
Speaker 1: to ask it. So you make this movie that turns
Speaker 1: out to be this incredible cults longevity film. When you're
Speaker 1: doing it, do you have any idea that you guys
Speaker 1: got a little bit of a lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 1: Well we had to. We had to pitch it to
Speaker 1: Hollywood studios, all of whom turned it down. And what
Speaker 1: I would say to them is, look, everybody in the
Speaker 1: world in this in this day and age, in that
Speaker 1: day and age particularly, uh knows all about rock and roll.
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone has shoved every detail of rock and roll
Speaker 1: down their throats. This is not an unfamiliar story. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a familiar story. Forty million people have taken
Speaker 1: guitar lessons. This will strike so to speak. Um, they
Speaker 1: all turned it down. Fortunately, Norman Lear was running Embassy
Speaker 1: Pictures for a few moments and picked it up. But
Speaker 1: by the way, since it's a financial show. I think
Speaker 1: it's important to say that despite all the success it's enjoyed,
Speaker 1: according to what we're being told officially, the film has
Speaker 1: not yet gone into profit according to Hollywood account, yes,
Speaker 1: although that has chan changed with the The Watchman Call
Speaker 1: at the Coming to America litigation. No, that just put
Speaker 1: it to that. That just all that did was pay
Speaker 1: a few people to go away so that the studios
Speaker 1: didn't have to open their books. That was it. So
Speaker 1: Spinal Taps still in the red because seventeen dollars and
Speaker 1: forty three cents to make it's gross billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: But you know there's a lot of other costs involved
Speaker 1: that don't show off on That's correct. They're they're just
Speaker 1: they're they're palazzos in Italy. We don't even know about.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My
Speaker 1: special guest today Harry Shearer, you know him from The Simpsons. Uh,
Speaker 1: Spinal Tap the show. We could keep going down the
Speaker 1: whole list of things, maybe Jack Manny and and Avian
Speaker 1: Costello for some of our older audience, The Mighty Wind,
Speaker 1: the Christopher guest movie, that's right, And what else have
Speaker 1: you done with Christopher guests. I did that and for
Speaker 1: your consideration, the last Cristifer Guest movie the the the
Speaker 1: Oscar mockumentary, so to speak, I recall that and you
Speaker 1: were not, you were not, and best and show I
Speaker 1: was not. I was making my own movie at that time,
Speaker 1: which was a comedy about a lightly fictionalized comedy about
Speaker 1: the uh secret, supposedly secret retreat of the richest, most
Speaker 1: powerful white man in America. The real one is called
Speaker 1: Bohemian Grove Show. The movie was called The Teddy Bears
Speaker 1: Pechnic because if you go out in the woods today,
Speaker 1: you're in for a big surprise. Okay, there you go. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little more about spinal tap before we
Speaker 1: get into um the big uneasy um. So you still
Speaker 1: record occasionally, as Derek smalls, how how often is is
Speaker 1: that going on? Or write songs in his voice. I'm
Speaker 1: in the middle of a Derek Small's solo album project
Speaker 1: as we speak. I've been writing the songs and UH
Speaker 1: doing demo versions of them, and my producer and I
Speaker 1: are working on on, you know, getting together and getting
Speaker 1: an all star band together to play him, and UH,
Speaker 1: is anyone willing to be the drummer for Derek Smalls
Speaker 1: or does that come with its own liability. I think
Speaker 1: we'll just get a machine. We bought a drum machine,
Speaker 1: but it explode it. So I don't know what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do, but yeah, I think we'll get some drummers.
Speaker 1: We once had drummer auditions for Spinal Tap, and uh
Speaker 1: we had it at the l A Coliseum just because
Speaker 1: it's capacity was ninety three thousand and three hundred people
Speaker 1: showed up and uh, the drummer for Fleetwood Mac came
Speaker 1: in an asbestos Uh yeah, you know, just to make
Speaker 1: sure he didn't. When when was this done? This was
Speaker 1: in the ninety two when when our second record came out,
Speaker 1: Break like the Wind, and I just like saying, break
Speaker 1: like the one. Of course that's the only the only
Speaker 1: other way to break. So so let's get serious a
Speaker 1: minute and talk a little bit about the big Uneasy.
Speaker 1: So you've been a New Orleans resident for quite a while,
Speaker 1: and in the documentary you basically say this, this wasn't
Speaker 1: an act of God. This was a man made disaster.
Speaker 1: I don't say it. I bring you the people from
Speaker 1: two universities, UC Berkeley and Louisiana State who organized independent investigations, uh,
Speaker 1: much of its pro bono work lasting months and months. UH.
Speaker 1: They did all the the forensics, they did all the
Speaker 1: literally deep digging, and they came up with remarkably uh
Speaker 1: identical conclusions that, in the words of the co author
Speaker 1: of the Berkeley Report, this was the greatest man made
Speaker 1: engineering catastrophe since Chernobyl. That had the so called protective
Speaker 1: system worked as advertised system that the federal government built
Speaker 1: for New Orleans via the US Army Corps of Engineers
Speaker 1: after the hurricane, the worst Katrina would have inflicted on
Speaker 1: New Orleans would have been quote wet ankles. That's pretty much.
Speaker 1: And and you know there were I recall, post Katrina,
Speaker 1: everybody starts finding and re rediscussing and retweeting. I don't
Speaker 1: remember if it was Twitter or some other media at
Speaker 1: the time. Was probably pre Twitter articles that had predated
Speaker 1: Katrina warning, hey, you know, this levy system ain't a
Speaker 1: whole lot of No. They were warning about what would
Speaker 1: happen in New Orleans if a Category five hurricane hit
Speaker 1: the city. Those were all the predictions was the city
Speaker 1: is in big trouble if a Category five hurricane hit
Speaker 1: the city. Two things Katrina wasn't a Category five hurricane
Speaker 1: by the time it went in the vicinity of New Orleans.
Speaker 1: It was a strong one or a week category two.
Speaker 1: That's according to the National Curricane Center's final report, and
Speaker 1: two it didn't hit the city. It went thirty five
Speaker 1: miles in the northeast. So this was not the widely
Speaker 1: foreseen disaster that people had four tolds. This was just
Speaker 1: an engineering failure. This was a widespread The system, so
Speaker 1: called the corp of Engineers itself admitted, or the head
Speaker 1: of it admitted at one point this was a system
Speaker 1: in name only. It had been built over forty years.
Speaker 1: It had never been completed piecemeal piecemeal. Uh. It broke
Speaker 1: in over fifty locations. So here we are a decade past.
Speaker 1: You live in New Orleans, sir? Do you feel safe
Speaker 1: for now? I feel fine because I live in this
Speaker 1: part of the city that did not flood in in
Speaker 1: two thousand five. It's called the Sliver by the river,
Speaker 1: It's by the Mississippi. It's the highest ground in New Orleans. Uh.
Speaker 1: If I look at the system that, at a caxspayer
Speaker 1: cost of fourteen billion dollars, has been built by the
Speaker 1: same people who built the last one, and I read
Speaker 1: what the the educated people, knowledgeable people say about it,
Speaker 1: which is it was built to a lower standard than
Speaker 1: the one that failed. So we got nothing to worry
Speaker 1: about it. I got. I'm cool. So in the last minute,
Speaker 1: we have New Orleans still susceptible to a Cat five
Speaker 1: hurricane and still susceptible to a near miss with high flood.
Speaker 1: Was well, cat five is not Yeah, I mean cat
Speaker 1: You know, Miami, every every city on the Atlantic and
Speaker 1: Gulf Coast is susceptible to a Category five hurricane. That's
Speaker 1: not the issue. But New Orleans if a lesser hurricane
Speaker 1: comes by with very heavy rainfall in the next two
Speaker 1: or three years, there might be a problem. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Master's and Business on Bloomberg Radio, and my guests
Speaker 1: this week is voice actor best known for The Simpsons,
Speaker 1: Harry Shearer. So, so let's go through the list of
Speaker 1: all your voices, all your characters on The Simpsons. Mr Burns,
Speaker 1: who you've described as the most difficult character you currently do. No,
Speaker 1: I have not, I have not. No, he's fine. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dr Marvin Monroe, well you you don't do him anymore? No,
Speaker 1: although they brought him back last season. They brought him
Speaker 1: back from the dead. No, Burns is find The only
Speaker 1: time I had problems with doing him was when we
Speaker 1: were doing a video games and I'd be doing Mr
Speaker 1: Burns for four consecutive hours and the only direction, the
Speaker 1: only direction I'd get was louder. Then they then he
Speaker 1: gets a little strange, stressful, you know, and then and
Speaker 1: then Mr Burns assistant Smithers. Who's Who's a wonderful character,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite voices. Thank you. I believe the
Speaker 1: correct description of him is is emmanuensis. Okay, and we've
Speaker 1: we've talked ned Flanders, and ned Flanders really developed into
Speaker 1: a whole different character than originally planned, or so I've read. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know I've read that, and I have no memory
Speaker 1: of that. Uh that if that ain't an urban legend.
Speaker 1: I live in Lake City. Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it may have happened. I couldn't swear either way, but
Speaker 1: it's it's out of my can I just remember, you know,
Speaker 1: being handled a script and saying you're this guy? So
Speaker 1: so was the hey Didley Doodle stuff written? Or did
Speaker 1: you kind of create that? I couldn't even answer that question. Kidding, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you know that's in the in the in
Speaker 1: the in the beginnings of stuff you don't really keep
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't keep a diary. I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: taking notes. I wasn't keeping score. This is mine. I'm
Speaker 1: owning this. I should have. But uh, you know, so
Speaker 1: I I couldn't say with any degree of certainty. It
Speaker 1: may have been written. It may have been an ad libe,
Speaker 1: and may have been an I lived that then the
Speaker 1: writers expanded upon, and may been something written that I
Speaker 1: expanded upon. So so given that, let's let's digress a
Speaker 1: little bit. So what sort of planning or thinking or
Speaker 1: or inspiration goes into each of these characters? I would say, basically, uh,
Speaker 1: almost none. Okay, I was shattering my I'm trying childhood,
Speaker 1: trying to I would see these scripts. We would never
Speaker 1: see the in the early days, and never see the
Speaker 1: drawings of the characters, so we had no idea what
Speaker 1: they looked like in the boarding stages. When you say
Speaker 1: early days, you mean like the Tracy Ullman show, the
Speaker 1: first couple of Simpsons. I wasn't on the show when
Speaker 1: I came to the Simpsons, and we would start, you know,
Speaker 1: I would start doing characters. They started sending me scripts.
Speaker 1: You're this guy, You're this just so, there's this guy,
Speaker 1: there's this guy, there's this guy, there's this guy. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't see a drawing. I just have a one line description,
Speaker 1: you know, Old Miser runs the nuclear power planet in
Speaker 1: case Mr Burns, and I would make uh an intuitive
Speaker 1: leap as to how the person sounded. And I figured,
Speaker 1: if they don't like the intuitive leap, they'll tell me
Speaker 1: to stop. And if they don't tell me to stop,
Speaker 1: I'll keep doing it. I didn't think I keep doing
Speaker 1: it for twenty seven years, but is it that long?
Speaker 1: But so there was not it was not an analytical process.
Speaker 1: That's what I try to impart is that, uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's intuitive. Uh. There are only two people, only
Speaker 1: two characters that I do that had any resonance with
Speaker 1: people I'd already done before or people in the real world.
Speaker 1: One was when they had me doing real Red love
Speaker 1: Joy and uh, who's Who's actually a sort of charming,
Speaker 1: albeit whacking. He's one of I do two characters on
Speaker 1: the show that years after the Christians were denouncing the
Speaker 1: show for Bart being a bad role model, they discovered
Speaker 1: that my two of my characters were the only two
Speaker 1: professed Christians on American television, Prime Time, Love Joy and
Speaker 1: at Flanders. So I had done. I've done satirical takeoffs
Speaker 1: on this evangelist named Ernest Angeli who was a healer,
Speaker 1: and uh so I took his voice and just changed
Speaker 1: it a little bit for revn Lovejoy and then Principal Skinner.
Speaker 1: I was really running out of intuitive leaps. And you
Speaker 1: may remember a guy who used to be on CBS
Speaker 1: named Charles Kirault. He was on the road, and he
Speaker 1: was on the road because he had a squeeze in
Speaker 1: Montana in a cabin hidden from his wife. You know
Speaker 1: that story, right, No, I don't. We'll talk about it anyway.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I just took that particular kind of nasality
Speaker 1: and sped him up and made him less avuncular and
Speaker 1: more sinister and turned him into Principal Skinner. Oh that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So um, what about bus driver Otto? Where does that
Speaker 1: come from? It comes from the part of the voice
Speaker 1: that I hate doing. That's that's the pain painful part.
Speaker 1: So well, Dr Margra Morou is more pain full of that.
Speaker 1: Otto was kind of a trick. But Marvin Monroe was.
Speaker 1: He was written as a character he was a family therapist,
Speaker 1: and the whole joke of his character was he was
Speaker 1: a guy who was far from being you know, somebody
Speaker 1: a healer. Just made you stressed out from listening to
Speaker 1: him talk because he had such an irritating way of speaking.
Speaker 1: So that was the whole idea. So let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about Skinner. Right, I didn't even mention you're
Speaker 1: working on SNL. We haven't even gotten yeah swimming, you
Speaker 1: mentioned we were, so we were so ahead of our time.
Speaker 1: There is now a male synchron i swimmer and so
Speaker 1: so you guys actually pre pressingly appreciently anticipated. So so
Speaker 1: let's go back to principal Skinner. So not a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, the writers decided to basically take, however
Speaker 1: many years that Skinner had wormed his way into everybody's
Speaker 1: heart and turned around and basically say he's right, let's
Speaker 1: let's let's just make him a fraud star. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you really pushed back on this. Yeah. You know, the
Speaker 1: one thing that we in the cast, everybody that Cass
Speaker 1: tries to do is is, uh, keep faith with the audience.
Speaker 1: Who's kept faith with us? Uh, they know these characters
Speaker 1: were kind of the institutional memory of the show. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's a protective it's a it's a writer's show, as
Speaker 1: most television is, but we're protective of the characters. And
Speaker 1: I said, boy, this is you're not you're not making
Speaker 1: you're not rewarding the audience for their years of attention.
Speaker 1: And of course that's that's now an episode that's never
Speaker 1: spoken of. So they did it and then kind of
Speaker 1: forgot about it. And Skinner what happens with him afterwards?
Speaker 1: Now he's back to like nobody ever. It was a dream.
Speaker 1: That's the that's for words of you always need to
Speaker 1: know about television. It was a dream. Well, that seems
Speaker 1: to be the classic ending if you can't come up
Speaker 1: with any any other ending. So I have a quote
Speaker 1: of yours I have to throw out because I love this.
Speaker 1: And again, we're a financial show, and this talks on
Speaker 1: the finance. But quote says Harry Shearer, as an actor
Speaker 1: on an insanely sucessful TV series, I am, by any
Speaker 1: standard of the human species, obscenely overpaid. It is also
Speaker 1: true that, as an actor on one of the most
Speaker 1: insanely successful television series of old times, I am getting
Speaker 1: royally screwed. Both things are true. Discuss Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I've just been through a very uh somewhat publicized by
Speaker 1: somewhat pumblicized you mean entire internet worldwide, Twitter, Facebook, linkedinwhere
Speaker 1: else discussion and a series of discussions with the show,
Speaker 1: which resulted satisfactorily in my return to the show. Both
Speaker 1: of us, I think, are satisfied with the result. Um,
Speaker 1: that was not about money. Uh. It is apparent that
Speaker 1: the guys who got in early, um got the lion's
Speaker 1: share of what was going on. And I don't mean
Speaker 1: the cast members um and UM, there may not be
Speaker 1: anything more there at this point. Uh, So I'm I
Speaker 1: have to be happy with what we got. You know,
Speaker 1: uh understood, it's not chicken feed. I know we've been
Speaker 1: concentrating on the first part of that sentence. The Wikipedia
Speaker 1: actually lists what your your per episode UM payroll is,
Speaker 1: and it looks like a lot of I have to work.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're in finance, you have to work
Speaker 1: like two weeks to get that. This is you know,
Speaker 1: what you do in an hour, so you're you're really
Speaker 1: really well paid. But that's we don't get paid by
Speaker 1: the amount of time we work. We get paid by
Speaker 1: one intro business gets paid by the amount of value
Speaker 1: we create, don't we all wish we can say that? Well,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's true. It's true of sports figures,
Speaker 1: and for sure of celebrities sports figures. How many people
Speaker 1: in the world's are Michael Jordan or Lebron James or whoever?
Speaker 1: You know. I always have this debate with people when
Speaker 1: you could do something fairly unique and there's a demand
Speaker 1: for that service you could charge with the market. And
Speaker 1: my feeling about when when in the old days Fox
Speaker 1: used to say, however, how much or how quick we
Speaker 1: we how much time or how quickly we could do
Speaker 1: these shows? I would always say, yeah, if you've got
Speaker 1: the thirty years of experience that allows you to do
Speaker 1: with that quickly. If you want to hire a guy
Speaker 1: off the street, he'll take you two weeks to do it,
Speaker 1: you could have that. Writers are fond of saying, I
Speaker 1: apologize for the length of the letter. I didn't have
Speaker 1: time to write shorter. It's the exact same, exact same things.
Speaker 1: So so let's go through the development of a typical
Speaker 1: episode of The Simpsons. How involved are you given your
Speaker 1: background and ad lib in comedy and snl in in
Speaker 1: all these things. Do you just come in and voice
Speaker 1: the characters? Or is there a little back and forth? Um?
Speaker 1: The back and forth is basically what we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, about defending the characters? Uh or or yeah,
Speaker 1: what about in the service of the funny? How does
Speaker 1: that work? They're they're in charge of that. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: this year I may be writing a script or two,
Speaker 1: so I may getting more deeply involved in that problembly
Speaker 1: done that previously? Is that something that that's been You
Speaker 1: would think that that's a natural fit. You have a
Speaker 1: long career as a writer, a comedy writer. How is
Speaker 1: it that you've worked for them for twenty seven years
Speaker 1: and no one said, Hey, this guy Harris here, he's funny.
Speaker 1: You should get him to go to ask one of them. Really,
Speaker 1: it just never came up, never came up. Well, I
Speaker 1: suggested at one point and they said, no, we're fine,
Speaker 1: and I saw I dropped. Were good. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: people coming out of Harvard Lampoon we could do this
Speaker 1: was this was not my suggestion this time around. It
Speaker 1: was proposed to me, and I thought, okay, so that's
Speaker 1: a very nice gesture. Yeah. So we'll see I have.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of ideas. So oh that's exciting
Speaker 1: and let's keep um. You know, we're talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about We talked earlier about radio before we started,
Speaker 1: but talking about your career. You've done TV, you've done
Speaker 1: on film, you've done radio, You've written books, you recorded
Speaker 1: c ds, I've acted in plays. So what turns out
Speaker 1: to be your your favorite form of media? You know?
Speaker 1: I used to say, uh, much like my friends Christopher
Speaker 1: Guests and Michael McKean, I like doing it all. That's
Speaker 1: why I do it all. But there was one year,
Speaker 1: about five or six years ago, when it was about
Speaker 1: this time of year, and I realized, well, we did
Speaker 1: a spinal tap record, than I did some live gigs
Speaker 1: off of not the Green and Fear record, but the
Speaker 1: one before that with great musicians. Then we did uh,
Speaker 1: Michael and Chris and I did a tour where we
Speaker 1: were going out touring as ourselves but playing spinal tap
Speaker 1: music and folksman music. Not God, it's been eight months
Speaker 1: of doing nothing but music. I've never been happier. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fun. So is there more music, uh well coming
Speaker 1: up in your future? Yeah? I mean this Derek Small
Speaker 1: solo album. So when is that coming out? I don't
Speaker 1: know yet, but it's all base. No, no, it's not,
Speaker 1: but it's I think we're gonna call it so Low. Okay,
Speaker 1: that works as a solo record, and there's a reference
Speaker 1: to the basis and now, but not right now. I'm
Speaker 1: working on a Christmas single, charity Christmas single, so I'm
Speaker 1: getting a bunch of singers involved and it's sort of
Speaker 1: a uh maybe out this Christmas hopefully. So I'm always
Speaker 1: working and I write songs every once in a while
Speaker 1: for the radio show, So, the show, which you've been
Speaker 1: doing for how many thirty seven thousand years? Right, so
Speaker 1: you've been doing this for longer than you've been doing
Speaker 1: the Simpson So Radio. Really you you talked about the
Speaker 1: various shows and the various people who are influences. I
Speaker 1: know I only have you for a few more minutes,
Speaker 1: So let me let me turn to some of my
Speaker 1: favorite questions that that I ask everybody, um, and one
Speaker 1: or two that I just asked. I gotta talk politics
Speaker 1: a little bit. Okay, So you come of age in
Speaker 1: the sixties, clearly some political bend. What what what was
Speaker 1: the motivation for that? What other than avoiding going to Vietnam.
Speaker 1: That was a big one that works so biggest is
Speaker 1: that the thing that really colors your perspective more than anything.
Speaker 1: It colored my perspective on a couple of presidents who
Speaker 1: wanted my ass. Yeah, but no, I grew up in
Speaker 1: a political in a family that was My parents, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, were European immigrants, so they had they had
Speaker 1: serious reasons to pay attention to politics. I mean, the
Speaker 1: most life and death reasons imaginable. Sure that they leave
Speaker 1: Europe during UH before the hal offaust just before, and
Speaker 1: the only ones out of their family. Nobody else had
Speaker 1: made it. So I was, you know, raised by people
Speaker 1: who read the paper, talked about it all the time
Speaker 1: at dinner time. We paid a lot of attention to it.
Speaker 1: So and yet you still voice Hitler for the Simpsons.
Speaker 1: Is there any irony in that? Orum? Mel Brooks did
Speaker 1: a whole movie about Hitler, you know, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: one one, uh Freud said you make fun of the
Speaker 1: things you fear. Makes sense, right? He got that one, right,
Speaker 1: Yes he did. So. I you know, the only thing
Speaker 1: that's really changed for me is, uh, I've got a
Speaker 1: lot less fascination with the day to day machinations of
Speaker 1: current American politics, because so much of it seems to
Speaker 1: be a shadow play these days. I mean it's always
Speaker 1: it's there's always some aspect of that. But as the
Speaker 1: as the Democratic Party uh found that its source major
Speaker 1: source of funding was being dried up as the Union
Speaker 1: movement shrank, it was forced to turn to many of
Speaker 1: the same sources for money as the Republican Party. Exhibit A.
Speaker 1: Barack Obama's the largest contributor in the two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight election was Goldman stas So. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the fascinating thing about that, that's not a secret. That's
Speaker 1: pretty widely known. Bloomberg writes about it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know it's it's not a secret, but I would say
Speaker 1: most most most fans of Barack Obama have chosen to
Speaker 1: ignore it, to have forgotten it. Yes, have chosen to
Speaker 1: forgot it, forgotten it. And if you look at Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, for that, lots and lots of Wall Street, well, Bill,
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, you know, bears responsibility for the repeal of
Speaker 1: Class Stiegel and the commodity futures modernization I so Quick
Speaker 1: Fund to Telecommunications Act, which Bob Dole said was a
Speaker 1: seventy two billion dollar giveaway and was right, and it
Speaker 1: was you know, a quick funny story about the Glass
Speaker 1: Stiegel repeal. So I've written a number of things about that.
Speaker 1: I actually have a book for you to take a
Speaker 1: plain weeks um and uh. I get a call from
Speaker 1: media matters that are fact checking Bill Clinton saying Glass
Speaker 1: Stiegel didn't cause the crisis, that they repeal Glass. The
Speaker 1: repeal of glass Stiegel did not. Right now, Phil Graham,
Speaker 1: if you want to have blame somebody, that's right. If
Speaker 1: you look at the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, I have
Speaker 1: a list of fifty causes. Graham is near the top.
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton doesn't escape criticism. But I really look at
Speaker 1: the repealed Glass st Eagle as it didn't make banks
Speaker 1: do stupid things. It allowed banks to become bigger. So
Speaker 1: when they did stupid things, they damage. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna jump out the fifty floor or the floor
Speaker 1: well off the fiftieth floor, that splat is bigger, but
Speaker 1: you're dead regardless. It's that sort of nuance that it's
Speaker 1: really not all his fault. It was the Mariskuito cherry
Speaker 1: at the top of the same day of disaster. That's
Speaker 1: a fair, fair way to describe it. You know that
Speaker 1: I'm always anytime somebody says this caused in this really complicated,
Speaker 1: intricate system with a million moving parts, that life is
Speaker 1: rarely that easy. Absolutely absolutely, you know. But that said,
Speaker 1: the Marichino cherry is a is a perfect metaphorature. So
Speaker 1: so God, I'm really pressed for time, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to let you go. You sure you don't want
Speaker 1: to take a flat out in the morning, all right,
Speaker 1: So I'd rather be at home or in New York.
Speaker 1: So we didn't get to Mill Blank. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about your your early mentors and luncers. How did you
Speaker 1: ever meet mel and what did he? Mel Blank was
Speaker 1: a member of the cast of The Jack Benny Show,
Speaker 1: and so Willie Nilly we were working together, and he
Speaker 1: had a son who was my same age. So I
Speaker 1: think he felt a sort of potter familiar quality, not
Speaker 1: in the Catholic priest's sense of the word, but you know,
Speaker 1: very very benign. And but he never said, hey, kid,
Speaker 1: here's how you do voices or anything like that. It
Speaker 1: wasn't that. Did it ever come up? Did you ever know?
Speaker 1: So this is just a wild, random quin. Absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: but if you're writing my life story, please don't. But
Speaker 1: if you're writing my life story, it would seem like
Speaker 1: the most obvious straight law from mel Blank to one
Speaker 1: of the most famous voice actors in history. You worked with,
Speaker 1: but he really didn't influence you, all right, No, I
Speaker 1: mean I was a fan. Couldn't help but be a
Speaker 1: fan of the greatest voice actor of his generation. I
Speaker 1: would say ever ever, okay that ever, uh, I tell me,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't dare say you're wrong. The Luney Tunes characters
Speaker 1: are are unforgettable and timeless and genius inventions, just brilliant,
Speaker 1: just just I'm I'm fond. And he was a wonder
Speaker 1: and he was a wonderful guy, very funny guy. Uh,
Speaker 1: lovely person to have. I don't dare do a voice
Speaker 1: in front of you, No, you don't. But the the bugs, Bunny,
Speaker 1: the space invader, guy who's a bowling ball Earthlings make me.
Speaker 1: And that voice has stayed with me since I was
Speaker 1: this tall. I just always barry, you're only this tall now,
Speaker 1: well now, but I used to be that now. I
Speaker 1: used to be this. That's the thing you can do
Speaker 1: in radio that you can't do anywhere else. Um, let's
Speaker 1: talk about some of your favorite books. What really influenced you, what,
Speaker 1: what stayed with you, what had a an impact on you? Um,
Speaker 1: As a New Orleans I can't uh not cite Confederacy
Speaker 1: of Dances a brilliant fantasia about life in New Orleans. Uh.
Speaker 1: It captures so much of the craziness and the unpredictability
Speaker 1: and ah, the weird routines of of life in that city.
Speaker 1: It's just a masterpiece. I love the rhythm of the
Speaker 1: title Confederacy of Dunce's Parliament of Whoors. There have been
Speaker 1: a number of books that carried that same sort of
Speaker 1: verbal rhythm that just grabs you and it and it
Speaker 1: has so much residence. Cash twenty two, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, was a profound you know. It was like,
Speaker 1: You're trying to think, am I crazy for thinking that
Speaker 1: this stuff is crazy? And here comes a guy saying, no,
Speaker 1: you're right, this is crazy. It was very powerful influence,
Speaker 1: to say the least. Um, what sort of advice would
Speaker 1: you give to a millennial or someone graduating college who
Speaker 1: wanted to have a similar career and entertainment as you
Speaker 1: do live at home with your parents? No? Uh, any
Speaker 1: of them. Many of them still are, I know, for
Speaker 1: as long as humanly possible. Now, I I always say
Speaker 1: this when I'm asked that question about show business, because
Speaker 1: the big this exists to find young talent, find the
Speaker 1: one specific thing that young talent can can be narrowed
Speaker 1: down to mind that as quickly as possible, as as
Speaker 1: deeply as possible, and then throw it away. Tossed you
Speaker 1: to the curb before harvest the organs, and then but
Speaker 1: put the rest into the site. So I say, talent
Speaker 1: is good, luck is better, But nothing beats sheer, brute persistence.
Speaker 1: That's quite fascinating. You know. The role of luck comes
Speaker 1: up on the show constantly, and I get to interview
Speaker 1: a lot of billionaires, and when these guys say, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't discount how important it is to get lucky,
Speaker 1: occasionally it comes up time and time again. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that's a false humility. I think it's it's
Speaker 1: the real deal. I mean, I I know so many
Speaker 1: brilliantly talented people in in show business who haven't had
Speaker 1: that luck that I had to. You know, have Matt
Speaker 1: Graining be a fan of my radio show when they
Speaker 1: were doing the casting on the Simpsons. That's how it happened.
Speaker 1: That's simple. Yeah, wow, that that's amazing. If I weren't
Speaker 1: a stubborn s ob and continuing to do the radio
Speaker 1: show for no reason at all, for no money at all,
Speaker 1: Matt wouldn't have been a fan, and I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: sitting here going I own you. And that's that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of finding something you really love and and working
Speaker 1: at it. Even if there's no a parent financial comp
Speaker 1: Even if there's no apparent financial compensation, you're still running
Speaker 1: a thing called a life. And uh, speaking of which,
Speaker 1: I have a print out of your entire retirement account here.
Speaker 1: I wanted to discuss some of your some of your
Speaker 1: stock picks before you run off to the airport. I'm gone,
Speaker 1: I'm so gone. Let me give you the last question. Um.
Speaker 1: I asked all my guests, and it's simply this. What
Speaker 1: do you know today about your chosen profession show business, acting?
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to describe entertainer that you wish you
Speaker 1: knew when you started out all those decades ago. Just
Speaker 1: how hard it is, really, yeah, just how hard it is.
Speaker 1: You make it look easy. I wasn't and I'm not
Speaker 1: just saying that to blow smoke. That's you seem to
Speaker 1: be naturally. You seem to be very comfortable with it.
Speaker 1: And well, I don't see the perspiration, don't I don't mean.
Speaker 1: I don't mean the work. The work it comes easily
Speaker 1: because you have one has perhaps a certain talent. But
Speaker 1: the survival, the the weathering of the storms, the grind,
Speaker 1: the grind, the fact that if you're in show business,
Speaker 1: many of us, because it's something you love and you
Speaker 1: have to do it. That's the other thing I say
Speaker 1: to kids is, don't get into this if you think, well,
Speaker 1: this would be nice. Get into it if you have
Speaker 1: to do it, because that that will be the basis
Speaker 1: of your persistence. But because you love it, because you
Speaker 1: adore it, because you have to do it, you have
Speaker 1: given a rusty ice pick to the executives who run
Speaker 1: the business to scrape into your innerns at any given moment.
Speaker 1: And that's the that's the hard part. It's just it.
Speaker 1: It's unrelenting and uh until your for profit business. And
Speaker 1: and that's it's more than that. It's it's the it's
Speaker 1: the egos of guys who are in a business where
Speaker 1: people are getting adored and revered and they're sitting there
Speaker 1: going on when it's making effing money. I hate these people.
Speaker 1: That's good money, if money is the best money. But
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it's there's a there's a
Speaker 1: certain uh envy that the executives have of the people
Speaker 1: who supposedly have all the fun and they're going to
Speaker 1: get their piece of the There there a ton of
Speaker 1: flesh right for for for whatever I know you have
Speaker 1: to run. I'd love to keep you here another hour
Speaker 1: and a half. You've been listening to Masters in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Our special guest today has been Harry Shearer.
Speaker 1: People want to find you, they can go to Harry
Speaker 1: Shearer dot com and on Twitter at the Harry Shearer
Speaker 1: at the Harry Shearer. I knew it was just a
Speaker 1: little off from your name. I'm Barry Ridholts. Thanks for listening.