🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media and Hello, I’m Jennie Mack with your Daily Comedy News. The New Yorker said to Jerry Seinfeld, it’s possible that you’ve made a dollar or two from Seinfeld, yet you still work hard. Why, Jerry said, because the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine, they’re good.
I like them, but having a skill. I learned this from reading Esquire magazine in the sixties. They did an issue on mastery. Do you remember that, The interviewer says, I don’t. I’m surprised you definitely read Esquire.
Oh yeah, of course I loved Esquire in the sixties and magazine for men. Remember, yes, I do. Yeah, And they did one issue. In fact, I gotta get this issue. I’ll get it on eBay.
I’m sure it’s there. It’s a very zen Buddhist concept. Pursue mastery that will fulfill your life. You will feel good. I know a lot of rich people, so to you, they don’t feel good as you think they should and would.
They’re miserable because if they don’t master a skill, life isn’t fulfilling. So I work because if you don’t stand up comedy, if you don’t do it a lot, you stink. They asked Jerry, who did he start listening to that made him say that was the skull I want to learn. Terry said, Robert Klin and Jay Leno were the two guys that and George Carlin, Bill Cosby I love, but I thought I can never be that good. Switching gears.
Jerry talked about naming the series. I thought, well, they’ll just call it Seinfeld no matter what we call it, so we might as well just call it Seinfeld because Carson wasn’t the Tonight show. You’re on Carson. It becomes the name of the guy, and that’s why we called it that. I never thought, well that’s a Jewish name.
What about Middle America never ever crossed my mind. The New Yorker pointed out that NBC executive Brandon Tartakoff said the show originally was to New York and too Jewish. Terry said, maybe we mentioned a bar Mitzvah one time. Maybe I don’t know. We would have done anything, and comedy do anything that you think might work.
Anything. The reason my show succeeded was the brilliance of Jason, Michael and Julia. They took this really esoteric material and the brilliant performers and actors that they were, they made this material accessible to a wide audience. That’s why the show worked. Those three people, Larry and I could never have done it.
Our humor is. I think maybe it’s a little more accessible now, but at that time no. Brandon Tartakoff was right, but he didn’t realize how great Jason, might and Julia were. That’s what he missed. A tip from Jerry, don’t try to be funny if you’re not funny, if people aren’t always telling you you’re funny, don’t be funny unless you’re drunk and you’re with your very very close friends.
I set out to find out if I was funny. I didn’t think I was any funnier than any friend I had growing up. I thought we’re all exactly the same. I drove to this club, the Golden Lion Pub one forty three West forty fourth Street, no longer there. I’m still a Queen’s college.
They have an audition. I think there were just a few people there, and I did this joke about being left handed and They got a laugh, and then they booked me. The interviewer says, I want to hear the joke, and Jerry goes, all right. The joke is I’m laught handed. Why are so many left things negatively associated?
Two left feet? Left handed? Cop of it? You go to a party, there’s nobody there. Where’d everybody go?
They left huge? It got a huge laugh. Jerry tells an anecdote. I saw comedian do a couple of Tonight shows and get bounced. I don’t want to mention the name.
He went on, He did well. The second time he went on, he did less well. The third time he struggled. They never had him back, and I went, oh, now I get how this racket works. This is a writer’s game.
If you can write, you succeed. If you can’t, you will not make it. The performing being funny on stage, that’s great. A comedy can be funny on stage, But the bullets are the writing, Jerry. Do you watch tapes of yourself?
For films of yourself? Jerry said, sometimes every artist is only showing you his best. When you watch a movie, every scene, they only show you the one take that worked. Seventeen times they missed it, you’re only seeing the peak of it, and stand up. You gotta make it happen every night.
That’s the difference. That’s why actors I think they like to do theater. They want to be honest, They want to be held to account, and only a live audience holds you to account. Jerry, do you feel constant pressure to make it new all the time? Jerry says that conversation would take another hour.
The short version is, there’s no answer. If I love a bit that somebody doesn’t, I go and they do the bit. I love it the comedian you’ve seen them after the show. You go, you did the Beana bit? I love the bean A bit and they go, I know I’m trying to get out of my act.
Do something new? You go, No, I love that bit. Who’s right, there’s no answer, Jerry? Will you do another special for Netflix? He says, no, why not again?
We don’t have time for that. Jerry. Do you ever go to clubs? Yeah? I go all the time.
I don’t sit there and pay for two drinks and watch the guys go. That guy’s fantastic. I gotta work out my own stuff, Jay Leno told uh New Jersey one on one point five radio to me, there’s nothing funnier than comedy in New Jersey. I was at Rascals once years ago. So next to Rascals is an arcade, literally right next door.
So I’m in the arcade. I’m playing one of the games. To see this guy looking at me and he goes, hey, you look like Jay Leno. Jay says, I am Jay Leno. The guy goes, no, you’re not.
Jay wouldn’t be here. Jay says, I’m playing Rascals right next door. I’m on in forty five minutes. Right now, I’m playing a video game. The guy asked leto for his ID.
Jay Leno declined to provide his ID. So I go on stage. I see the guy sitting like two seats right in front of me. I go, do you believe me? Now?
Wartschatter dot Com spoke to Mike Burri Bigley about what started him in comedy. Mike says, I want to say I was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. My brother Joe took me to see Stephen Wright, and that sent me into a rabbit hole of writing in my notebook like random thoughts, you know, because it perform what Stephen Wright does. So well as he performs this match a trick of here’s some things I was thinking about, and I’m just reeling them off the top of my head. And you know it’s an illusion because he’s written them and workshopped them, and he knows they’ll get laughs in these different places.
So I started writing a ton of jokes. Was acting ever going to be your focus? Mike? Mike said, When I got into comedy in the late nineties, the path success was you became a comedian, then you got a sitcom, and that was Ray Romano, that was Roseanne Seinfeld, et cetera. I was on that trajectory until about two thousand and eight, when I shot a sitcom pilot for CBS based on my life.
It was like an untitled Mike Birbiglia project. Then it didn’t get picked up. Then I kind of doubled down and tripled down on making these specials. I made Sleepwalk with Me my girlfriend’s Boyfriend. Thank God for the jokes, the new one and the most recent one, which is called the Old Man in the Pool, And weirdly those become what I do.
Forbes talk to Brad Williams about his new special Starfish. Brad, who is a little person, says, Look, there will always be dwarf jokes. I’m a little person. I don’t know how to write jokes from the perspective of a six foot guy. But on this special I dive into a lot of different topics and I’m really happy to leave my comfort zone.
I’m at the stage of life where I’m a father and I’ve been married a few years now. I want to give something new as a comic. I love the laughs, I live off those, but the moments that really get me excited to the silences, Because if the audience is quiet and that’s what I planned, I’ve got them. There’s a moment where I reveal something about my daughter and the audience goes quiet. I can tug it your heartstrings a little knowing that I have a joke to bring you back.
I want you to feel everything when you come to my show. I want you to feel joy and laughter, but I also want you to think a little bit this is great, and I also want you to be sad that I want to bring it back up and have you always leave happy. There was a famous speech by Jim Valvano at the sb Awards where he said something like if you can laugh, cry, and think on the same day. That was a hell of a day, and I want to make people do that, but just in an hour. So pretty profound answer there, right, What do they follow up with?
Do you find it hard to work out material for your specialist while people are taping with their phones? Wait to listen to the answer and follow up on it anyway, Brad said, I call people out. Hey, dude, I’m working on stuff. Let’s put the phone down. There’s a joke in my special and I’m most proud of about the bud Light transgender spokesperson controversy.
When I first told the joke was horrible and I got to a point where it was getting last, but it wasn’t kind of last I wanted. They were aggressive, so I kept tooling with it and I finally got the joke to point where it’s about the right laughter, The message reflects my personal beliefs. Nailed it, and you need to be allowed that process. Here’s some well written copy that I’ll read verbatim. Step right up, Comedy lovers, get ready to witness a night of hilarity and heart as the incomparable Gina Brillan takes a stage tonight at the legendary Gotham Comedy Club to film their fifth stan up special Mind Your Business.
The Washington Post has been covering the DC comedy scene. Matthew Deakins describes his comedy style as I wouldn’t describe my comedic style. Describing one’s comedic style is pretentious streetely like that answer? All right, what do you like to tell jokes about? Matthew Deacon says, Applebee’s Loreina Bobbitt Disney Adults, German adults seven to eleven.
What’s the best thing about the DC comedy scene? Matthew Deacon says, On any given night, you might be performing for the architects of the Iraq War. Tomorrow you might be performing for the architects of the next war. Someone in the audience works for Raytheon and Grumming. Somebody else works for a nonprofit that helps orphans in far away places that I’ll never visit.
They’re all here, and they’re all doing the same thing. They make spreadsheets and powerpoints, and most of them want to go home to somebody who loves them, and most of them will go home to an empty apartment for ninety minutes. They forget their apartment is empty, and they forget the mission statement of the organization they wish they didn’t work for. They don’t check email, they can’t look at LinkedIn for ninety minutes. They think about their dad, and their yard and their dawn.
They wonder if anything will ever be as good as their memories. Wow, all right, Matthew Deakons, What else should we know about you? I’ve told you everything. Democracy might die in darkness, but privacy thrives in it. If you want anything else, listen to my podcast.
It’s called half a Nice Day. Sounds like an interesting dude. That is your comedy news for today. If you would like this program, add free listen to the promo that you’ve heard five million times by now, or link in the show notes. Four ninety nine a month you get this one ad free, a bunch of others add free.
Pretty cool and nice? What to support the show? See you tomorrow