May 6, 2025 • 47 mins
Bruce talks about stumbling into writing and finding a home. His feud with Barbra Streisand, writing for Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Lily Tomlin. He talks about how being your own weird self is the best marketing and he discusses his new book “It Seemed Like a Bad Idea at the Time: The Worst TV Shows in History and Other Things I Wrote” He talks about t-shirts, Elmo, Hollywood Squares, The Star Wars Holiday Special and surviving as a writer forever no matter what he’s asked to write.
Bio: Bruce Vilanch is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor who has won two Emmy Awards for his work on the Annual Academy Awards. He is also known for his appearance as a celebrity participant and head writer on Hollywood Squares for four years. Here are some facts about his life and career: He was born on November 23, 1948, in New York City and was adopted by Jonas and Henne Vilanch, an optometrist and a housewife. He started his career as an entertainment writer for the Chicago Tribune, where he interviewed celebrities and wrote about the industry culture. He moved to Los Angeles and wrote for various shows and artists, such as The Donny & Marie Show, The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, Bette Midler, Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O’Donnell, Paul Reiser, Elizabeth Taylor, Steven Tyler and Aerosmith. He wrote the lyrics for the farewell song that Bette Midler sang to Johnny Carson on his final broadcast of The Tonight Show, which won him an Emmy Award. He was a panelist and the head writer for Hollywood Squares from 1998 to 2002, where he sat next to his friend and client Whoopi Goldberg. He was the head writer for the Oscars from 2000 to 2014, after being a co-writer for the previous ten years. He collaborated with hosts such as Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, and Billy Crystal. He also acted in several movies and TV shows, such as The Ice Pirates, Law & Order, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, and Celebrity Fit Club. He performed off-Broadway in his self-penned one-man show Bruce Vilanch: Almost Famous in 2000. He played the role of Edna Turnblad in the Broadway musical Hairspray in 2005. Within the last several years, he has written the book for 2 jukebox musicals. He is openly gay and has been involved in various philanthropic causes, such as AIDS awareness, gay rights, and animal welfare
Bio: Bruce Vilanch is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor who has won two Emmy Awards for his work on the Annual Academy Awards. He is also known for his appearance as a celebrity participant and head writer on Hollywood Squares for four years. Here are some facts about his life and career: He was born on November 23, 1948, in New York City and was adopted by Jonas and Henne Vilanch, an optometrist and a housewife. He started his career as an entertainment writer for the Chicago Tribune, where he interviewed celebrities and wrote about the industry culture. He moved to Los Angeles and wrote for various shows and artists, such as The Donny & Marie Show, The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, Bette Midler, Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O’Donnell, Paul Reiser, Elizabeth Taylor, Steven Tyler and Aerosmith. He wrote the lyrics for the farewell song that Bette Midler sang to Johnny Carson on his final broadcast of The Tonight Show, which won him an Emmy Award. He was a panelist and the head writer for Hollywood Squares from 1998 to 2002, where he sat next to his friend and client Whoopi Goldberg. He was the head writer for the Oscars from 2000 to 2014, after being a co-writer for the previous ten years. He collaborated with hosts such as Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, and Billy Crystal. He also acted in several movies and TV shows, such as The Ice Pirates, Law & Order, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, and Celebrity Fit Club. He performed off-Broadway in his self-penned one-man show Bruce Vilanch: Almost Famous in 2000. He played the role of Edna Turnblad in the Broadway musical Hairspray in 2005. Within the last several years, he has written the book for 2 jukebox musicals. He is openly gay and has been involved in various philanthropic causes, such as AIDS awareness, gay rights, and animal welfare
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawt Media. Hi, it's Bruce Falanche. I'm on don't be
alone with Jake Cogan, which means I'm going to be
alone with j Cogan. Ah, don't be alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hi there, welcome to don't be alone with Jake Cogan.
I'm so glad you're here. I'm even gladder when you
write to me at dbawjk at gmail dot com with
your questions, comments, criticisms, and any kind of communication. Please
write me dbaw jk at gmail dot com. Also would
appreciate anybody subscribing to the show, or liking the show,
(00:40):
or writing a positive review of the show, but especially
sharing the show with a friend. That is the greatest
gift you can give me. And if you like the
show and you send it to a friend, it's maybe
a good gift you can give your friend. I appreciate
it and I like it. Today, we've got a very
good show for you. Somebody who wanted to be on
the show for a very long time. Bruceville Now. Bruce
(01:02):
Flanche is a comedy writer and he's written many many
award shows and many oscar shows and many variety shows
and special material for people. And he's managed to have
a very long career, and that's been pretty impressive, because,
like sports, comedy sort of has a shelf life of
a certain amount of time. But it seems like Bruce
(01:23):
is ageless, and he continues to work and continues to write,
and nothing seems to stop the man, no matter how
much we try. And we're going to talk to him
about how he's done that. And part of it is
his personality, part of it is his style. Part of
it is the way he's kind of marketed himself, maybe
by accident, but just his distinctive look and style has
(01:45):
made his name a household name when most people who
do what he does nobody knows those names. It's very
interesting to see a comedy writer sort of venture out
into the public, and I want to talk to him
about that. I also mentioned here that Brucell Nswe is
responsible for one of the highlight moments of my life,
which is I one time won an Emmy award, and
(02:06):
this one I was able to give a speech, and
the speech you can see it on the internet. It's
a pretty long speech. It's filled with jokes and just
all I want to do is if I won, was
to say as many jokes as I could before they
threw me off the air, and they started to play
me off about midway through, and I was told that
Bruce Flanch is the guy in the room in the
(02:29):
control booth and said, let the kid keep going, and
so he let me finish my long ass emmy speech,
which was one of the highlights of my life. And
so I thank him for that, and I'm so glad
to have him here to talk about his experience with
award shows and big stars and little stars and all
that stuff. So we'll hear about it right after this.
(02:50):
Don't be alone with JA. So, Bruce, I'm happy that
you're here. And I wanted to the reason why, amongst
the many reasons I wanted to do on the show,
is because you have a long and storied career doing
it a thing that very very few people do, which
(03:12):
is right.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Jokes is bizarre, isn't it, y. I mean it didn't
plan it that way. I thought i'd be a playwright.
I thought i'd be Neil Simon. And what happened to that. Well,
I came to Hollywood and I wrote I started writing
movies and none of them got made. I mean, i'd
like sold fifteen scripts, but they all got bought and
for various reasons, fell apart. Right, But so I the
(03:34):
one thing that worked was television and variety stuff and
writing for people and all of that. But I I
had a Broadway flop. And when you have a big
flop on Broadway, it doesn't you're not encouraged to go
back right away unless that's all you do.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I don't think Broadway encourages you to come back ever.
I think and even when you have a hit, sometimes
it's a very good point because when you have a hit,
then you just rest on your laurels and collect the
money from the hit.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
And that the idea, that's the old the added the
theater is a great place to make a killing, but
a lousy place to make a living.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, and that's true. So what was your play called Platinum? Platinum?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It was a musical nineteen seventy eight. It started Alexis Smith,
who was a Warden Brothers movie star, and it was
a kind of sunset Boulevards story about an older woman
and a younger man, a rock star, an old movie
star and a younger rock star.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And the hair was platinum in his records.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
All right, Well, I have a book and I talk
about it in this book.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
It's about well, it.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Started with doing podcasts like This Week with people younger
than we are asking me about shows that I did
before they were born.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
What's the name of the book.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
It seemed like a bad idea at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
And if I wanted to get this book, I might
be able to buy it on Amazon.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
On Amazon right now, it's on pre order and on
March fourth it will drop at a bookstore near you.
If you happen to still have a bookstore.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
If you have a mom and pop bookstore, you could
go to one of those and actually help them.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I would do. There are no more mom and pop bookstores.
I've discovered there are a mom and mom bookstores and
dad and dad books. Well that's good because gay people
buy books. What can I tell you that I listened
to books?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well that too.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I mean it will also drop more tworth. I just
did that to listen in the audio tape of it.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So you start off doing wanting to be Neil Simon
and you say you have wanted to do it, but
how did you fall into the joke writing comedy writing
person of all.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I was a child actor. I was never a child
star or me too. Oh my god, but we should
be having this conversation and rehab.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's how bad. That's how bad a child actor I was.
And I never got to the drum, you and me both.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
It never happened. And I keep saying they don't age well.
But now there's there's Ariana Grande, so you know, you
really can't even make that joke, but I will. And
I started writing because my age out of being a
child actor, and I love chow business and I was
writing about it and I had a talent for that,
and my parents encouraged me. They said, work for a newspaper.
They'll never die.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
And so I started writing.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
When I was in college, I started I was the
editor of the Ohio State Lantern and began writing pieces
of columns and stuff in. The Chicago Tribune offered me
a job, so I went to Chicago and.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Was reviewing things. I was Gene.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Siskel's number two critic. After anything he didn't want to review,
I got to review. If I'd known that I could
have stayed in Chicago being a movie critic and become
a multi millionaire, I would have done that, but I
was not privy to that knowledge. So Roger and Jean
seemed to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So like an INVI came out to Los Angeles, I
came to Hollywod.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I was in Chicago writing and reviewing and interviewing people,
and I saw Bette Midler as she was just starting out,
and my friend but Treatman was managing her, and he
asked me to do a story on her, and I did,
and she said you're a funny writer. And I said, well,
you're funny. You should talk more and she said, you
got any lines?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And that was the beginning, and.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I began writing Chicago jokes for her, and then whenever
wherever she would play, I would call the TV critic,
you know, in Cincinnati, and say what's going on there?
And we'd make jokes about that town. And so she
would come out on stage and do all this local
material and yeah, people were like, how does she know
any of that? And of course her audiences at the beginning,
(07:21):
particularly were the hippus people in town. I mean, we
had a standing joke. She would say, I hope nobody
needs an emergency blowout because every hairdresser in Columbus is
in this room.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Now, that's when you're talking about the calling the critic
from the town and getting in for it. Used to
be called the frontman, they used to comedians and Bob
Hope or somebody was.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
They would send something somebody early to go. And I
did that for Hope too, actually, but by that at
that point I was out here. I was writing stuff,
and I was one of many people writing for Hope.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, that was he had a cavalcadd right, he had
his his his stable. But then he would pick funny
people up. I mean he would go and somebody would
send some jokes to him backstage and he would with
a phone number and he'd call him and say, right,
mofarmail pay.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I met Bob Hope once. He was very very nice
to me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I always had a great time with him.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
He he called me Mansfield. He looked at me and
he said, look at the tits on you. And he
called me Mansfield from that that time.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
And he blonde.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
He said, oh you're blonde, you're Mansfield.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
But he was great.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
And I'll tell you something about him. When Aid's happened,
he was the first non gay affiliated show business person
to do a PSA for US, and he and every
he got every coup and who was a surgeon general,
and they did a PSA telling people that you should
(08:49):
not be scared of people who have They didn't even
know it was HIV yet, but you should open your
heart to people who are sick and not be afraid
of them because of their lifestyle. And for a guy,
you know, that big to take that chance, and that
Catholic and that's Catholic during that period, and it was
(09:10):
almost like it was a favor not to me.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
But to some other people on his staff because he
saw what was happening, right. I thought that was pretty
extraordinary too.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Let's get off the train of the history, but I
want to get back on the train of history. But
amongst the remarkable things that the amount of material that
you provided over the years is amazing. The amount of
varied and sundry kind of people you've written for is endless.
But also you were one of the first people, even
before the Internet, who seemed to be able to market
himself as someone just by how you're dressed and where
(09:41):
you were, as somebody could as like a personality to
be to be seen.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I've heard and I've heard it put that way, not
kindly but I you know, it was never intentional.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
That's the funny part.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
What do you mean not kindly?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Well, people say, oh, yeah, you created a brand and
you were you were look, you were out to create
something like that to you know, like Madonna, you were good.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
You know, I thought, and I know.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
The truth was I was comfortable. I was never comfortable
in real clothing. And when I moved to LA I
realized you can go anywhere in.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
A T shirt.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So well, this is true k wearing T shirts and
it was the era of the ironic T shirt.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
If you happen to have changed your clothing and said
I'm gonna wear Elmo or whatever it is you it
doesn't matter to me as somebody. I'm a writer and
I don't have a marketed boll You know. I haven't
marketed myself in the way that I wish I would.
I wish I was as marketed as that. I wish
it was like, oh look the thing and Jay Cogan's
(10:39):
this like that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I think it was always the performer monk k. You know,
I couldn't do it as much as I wanted to,
So I did it in real life right right, and
to this day, when people said, what are you doing
for Halloween? And I said, nothing, that's amateur night, right, right,
consume every day.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But it works, it works for you because now you
are also performer. And wait, I mean you've been on
Hollywood Squares and all things like this. You wheeled yourself
into that position in an amazing and I would say, wonderful,
way good, I think, and I think it's huge. I'm
nothing but compliment that.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
My agent kept saying to me, you are performance art, right,
you are your greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
But that's true, fantastic I'll take that. Why not because
that provides the ability to continue making a living and
a career. It's like it's like it's it's not it's
not small change. It's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I've noticed that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, so fantastic. So okay, So you come to Los
Angeles and you and you meet bet No, you met
bet Miller's and what what what's the thing that brought
you to La.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Bett had a dresser whose brother started an act called
the Manhattan Transfer. His uh Fayette Hauser. Her brother was
Tim Hauser, the late Tim Hauser. And we saw them
and Bett called Amatt Ertigan, who ran Atlantic Records which
is her label, and brought him down to see them
and he gave them a record deal. And then her
(12:02):
manager brought Fred Silverman in. We put together an act,
and her manager brought Fred Silverman down, who was running
CBS at the time.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
He ran all three networks. I was waiting for him
to get PBS, just to.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
See what we did right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So the transfer he brought the transfer for a Sunday
night for a replacement for share Right, and so we
did four shows and I came out here in the
summer of seventy five to write the fore shows all four.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I'm sure when I was a kid, they saying I
love coffee, I love the jobs.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Job that was one of the biggies, and everyone loved
the show. But of course there were no ratings. We
were opposite the Disney and I forget something else, ridiculous.
But it was an interesting show to put together and
a great experiment. But it got me out here and
I stayed. And yeah, I had that as a as
(12:54):
a ticket, I had a job. I had an agent,
so I went around trying to get jobs in variety
and I was considered too. And the one night I
was having dinner with Florence Henderson, who I knew from
New York from Broadway, and I told her and she said, oh,
I know how you feel. And I said, really, never
occurred to me that anyone said. But she said, I'll
(13:15):
tell you what to do to cure it. Come and
write the Brady Bunch. No one will ever say your
two hip again. And at the time they were developing
The Brady Bunch Variety Outright, which was a nine episode
thing sitting righty Cross produced, and we were and Florence
(13:36):
sent me in and I got the job, and that
was how I wound up. That was the first And
then came Donnie and Marie with your.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Dad, and my dad told me to ask you to
tell the story of He said, you he thought it
was Barbara Streissan, that you worked for Barber Strett writing
jokes for Barbara Streis and it may have been beat,
but worked for Barbara Streissen. And she complained that you
cast a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Oh yeah, I had written for free. I did.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
We've done a whole a lot of benefits with Barbara.
And then she was she was gonna come out and
do her first concert tour in forever and and so
you know, she made an offer, and it was a
very low ball offer, and we said we and my
people countered, and she got She said, what you know
she said? She said no, she said, that's what That's
(14:25):
as much as I can do. And at the time,
she was selling furniture from her house. She was clearing
out one house to have another house. And she said,
what do you want me to do? And I said,
sell a lamp.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
That's just one lamp.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
What I would make on one of your lamps?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
You know? So?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And she laughed and went and called Robin Williams and said,
I need you to write me some jokes and Robin
said I don't do that. She said, you should call
Bruce Flance.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
She said, oh, he's too expensive.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
That's so funny. Don't be alone with JJ.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I told that story in a movie twenty years later
that was made about me twenty years ago called Get Bruce,
produced by Harvey Weinstein, who never laid a hand on me.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I'm surprised hashtag why not right, I understand, Yeah, really
you had the stuff missed his bet.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So she got pissed off at me because I told
that story and the story had broken. The movie opened
the week two other streisand cheap stories were in the
media that the New York Post was dancing all over her,
of course, and so for a while it was a
rocky She didn't speak.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
She can handle the heat.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Eventually it all resolved.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, she can hand you, Barber streisand you got to
take a little heat. Sometimes. I gather it.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Doesn't bother her because her book is which is a
thousand pages, it doesn't mention me.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I did not, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I think her audio, which is forty eight hours, doesn't
mention me. So I gather I have I've missed the guillotine.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It was so big, like I'm interested in Barbra strit saying,
but the size of that book maybe think I'm not
that interested. I cannot spend that time.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
It's it's hysterical, I mean, because she has that kind
of fandom for years.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
They want to know everything.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
And the truth is, once you get past her childhood,
like like a lot of those books, once you get
past the child and once she's actually telling stories about
her work, it is it is interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I'm sure it is, sure it is. She's great.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Honestly, she's terrific, and but of course never acknowledges that
even to herself.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So you were doing all these variety shows. How did
you get into.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Were you always? I guess we're writing special material for Bet?
Were you writing special material for a lot of people
before you started writing award shows in Chicago?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
After Bet, and I got known as being her writer.
Actually the first person I wrote for was Kay Ballard,
and I always give her credit. But after Bet, first
of all BET's people all broke out. Barry Manilow was
her piano player, Melissa Manchester was the first Tarlette, Luther
Vangos was the backup singer, and they all I began
(17:23):
writing for all of them, and I met Eliza Minelli,
who I didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Write for it, but she was married to Peter Allen,
who I wound.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Up writing for up until the end. And I was
writing for people who came to town. So Richard Pryor,
George Carlin, David Steinberg, Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin. Those were
all the people I met in Chicago, though I was writing.
There were more, but not as big.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That's interesting. So you're writing jokes for Carlin for television.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I mean, Carlin wrote all of his own stuff, but
he would.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Have these deals.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
We had a pilot at HBO called Apartment two G
where he was the cranky landlord and he had to
deal with all these people. And we did we did
a pilot, but it didn't go because it was you
could just take so much of him, you know, he
was again, he was George right, and and he never
was really in movies much except and he was in really.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Uh's Excellent Adventure.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I know he was in that, and he was in
Harsh I mean no, he would call me up and
read me stuff, and you know, and we play around
with stuff. So it's to say I really wrote for him.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I mean that to be in the inner circle of
George Carlin is like being their of Jesus. It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
It's just and I listened to it, and still the
stuff is his stuff is just priceless.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I agreed. Kelly Carlin was here not long ago, his
daughter and we talked about George and just his amazing legacy,
like he's such an influence.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
He was and he was like the kindest person. I mean,
he was really not not not mean at all. I
mean his observations were sharp, right, there was there was
no meanness to him.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
What was Richard Pryor like uh, like a child.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
He was sweet and kind of lost, but he'd realized.
You think he had drifted off somewhere, and then he
would come back and say something incredibly coach. It was
again it was he wrote. He didn't write all this stuff.
And he had people, you know, Paul Moone, he was
writing for him a lot, and he had people, had
(19:24):
some other people I forgot who.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
But he was able to become the characters in his act.
That was, yeah, he was and just became. But it
was like when he was the bit where he became
the neighbor dog and stuff like that. You really believe
that he's the dog.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
It's fantastically Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I never got to meet Prior, but one of the
great all time you know, influences of people of my generation.
For sure. I'm not unlike you.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Oh yeah, man, not on acolytes all over.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The Uh So, the Brady Bunch thing happens, and you
do that, and then you work Donny Marie and then
and like how do you escape that world?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Well, the world escaped me. What happened was cable television
came in and it killed variety because you no longer
had to wait for somebody to be on the Carol
Burnet Show, where the Ed Sullivan Show, they were on
MTV twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
They were all over the place.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
And the other thing that helped kill it was SNL,
which was on Saturday nights at eleven thirty. You could
get away with stuff that a younger generation loved that
you could not do on the Carobernet.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Show or the Dean Martin or the mac Davis or
the Flip Wilson.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
As hip as some of those shows were, you couldn't
do it on there, and so the audiences felt that
they were stale.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
And it drifted away, and.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It's never gone away altogether because variety is still around,
but now it's all competition. Now's so you think you
could yodel, you know, shows like that, but because we
love competition in this country, we're mad for competition.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, I mean the Voice and all, they're all talent shows.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
They're all people well their variety and especially when they
add the human elements, right, uh so their their reality
and variety and competition. So that's kind of like ruling
at the moment. I mean, the mass singer, what what
is that? I mean a bunch of people stumbling around
in costumes that they can't wear really.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And and and singing yes.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And that's variety, I mean. And it's used to be
a finale on Donium Marie.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
That's often like the power forward for the Mavericks. It's
never like an actual singer. There's no like an actual
singer shows up. Often it's really just like I'm available.
The undersecretary of state for somebody is in a mask.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It's hard, I know, but I am available, and I
can you know I can fit into many a mask.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
What if they put you in an Elmo costume?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
What would happen is that Elmo I'd probably be arrested
for some sort of violation like the Elm and Square
I have to ask.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I wrote for Elmo.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yes, I did a special well twice actually hollow squares.
We specialized in bringing on muppets. We had Kermit, we
had Piggy, we had Almo and UH and I had
to write for all of them. And then Natalie Cole,
whose Vegas show I put together, UH had a PBS
(22:16):
Christmas special with Elmo.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Elmo was her co host.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Fantastic. Did they get along? No?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
She slapped that rag still. She just said I'm gonna
wash you and hang you out to dry.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
She she broke no trout. Sure, Natalie is fabulous. She
was she was, she was fabulous.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
She was.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I mean she's she was a great story. Someday somebody
will do it unless they have already and I missed it.
It was like was it on Hallmark? And I missed it.
It didn't a bigger story than that, because you know,
I mean she was she was black royalty and grew
up but surrounded by racism. I mean they were excluded
from everything, even though he was a huge star.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Hancott park Right.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Burned across on their lawn. I mean, this is all
her childhood. And then then she had to fight the
NEPO baby thing before it even had a word describing it.
And of course she's you know, she emerged from that
because she was brilliant. And then she died young.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, I mean it was. It's tragic, really.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Very very sad. Unlike so many other people who died young,
this was tragic.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
We always Hitler had died, yet Baby Hitler.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Why couldn't we have killed baby Hitler. I had a
one time, a bad science fiction pitch of a guy
A time traveler lord who has to protect time by
protecting baby Hitler. Change He can't change history to protect
baby Hitler. I didn't sell for some reason.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Nobody wanted to play. No. I guess nobody wants to play.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's like I've always when I had written a bunch
of screenplays and I would go around to pitch them
to various actors and say, oh, you have he wants
to meet about this play, you know, And they say,
tell me about this character. And I would say he
has a very large penis, and there would be a
pause and they say, I can play that, right. That
(24:10):
was my way in, and then I tell him about
the rest of it.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Speaking of movies, you were partly responsible at least for
one of the most famous TV specials of all time,
which was the Star Wars Chapter one.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
In my book, it was a bad idea for.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Star Wars holiday special. Now star Wars a phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, well it had. It was a phenomenon. It wasn't
the intense phenomenon. It had not yet become the scientology
of the nerves.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
This was all part of the hype of the movie.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
It was the Well, the movie been out for eighteen
months and George was about to start shooting The Empire
Strikes Back, which, as we all know, is the second
movie but actually the fifth series for you Star Wars,
You Devotees, and he wanted to story of the Pot
and he had a bunch of story. He told me
he had ten stories and he six of them were
(25:03):
earmarked for movies, and four others he sold off as
various things. And this was the last one, which he
sold to CBS as an original musical. Why he would
sell this particular story to CBS, right as there was
a musical when the lead characters were the Wookies, who
may speak no language. It's known they make that noise
(25:24):
they make sound like fat people are having organs. I
know this is right, Yeah, this is I'm on my way.
I'm so close, and this is how they do it
in Wookie World. And they don't they can't move in
those costumes, so they can't dance, so they can't sing,
and they can't dance, and they can't speak. And you're
in an original musical. So this is an exciting concept.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And you when you heard this, you say, sure, irresistible.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
But I should also preface it by saying that a
couple of things. One was it was the seventies.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And as I'm fond of saying, if you say you
remember the seventies, you weren't there.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
We were all.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
There were a lot of chemical additives. There were a
lot of a lot of half baked and fully baked people.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
That was part of it.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And there was a lot there were a lot of
crazy television shows, belike something.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
That was conceived when someone was high.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
There were a lot of stunt shows being done. I
mean there was Battle of the Network Stars, yes, where
they had Charlie Tilton with a shot put trying not
to hit Webster.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
It was, it was. It was a sickening six times.
And then the other thing I.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Point out to people who don't quite weren't there, is that. Yeah,
for many people, Star Wars was like a summer drive
in movie fun thing.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
It had not become a cannon. It was for something.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I was twelve for you just on the one movie.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yes, but it didn't really happen until the three pictures
were in the release and now and the Internet came
in and cable came in and people got to see
these repeatedly that they began creating this this myth about
about the Star Wars and it became kind of a
(27:10):
religioso experience for many younger people who and when this
thing showed up, this special showed up.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
On YouTube, they would say what is this? And George,
how could you betray us this way?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
And he was getting a lot of heat and he was,
you know, they're crazy death threats and stuff, so he
was he decided to just try and stamp it out, okay,
and disown it and not speak about it. And many
many years later, after he had made his deal with
Disney Plush, he reinvented the Star Wars Holidays Special as
(27:45):
a for Legos. It was done with Lego characters on
the on the streamer a Lego Daisy Ridley, who looked
a lot like Rosie o'bonna.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Very strange, but it seemed like Harrison Ford or the
people were.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
They were inveigled into working for one day and maybe
two incredibly uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
The only one who was was gung ho was Carrie Carrie,
because Carrie wanted to have a musical career and she
thought this could kickstart it if she could record a
song that jumped out of the special.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
And but she wanted a kind of.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Johnny Mitchell musical career, and in fact, she wanted to
sing a Johnny Mitchell Swiman. Johnny was not interested, and
so Kenny Missywillich wrote a song, a Life Day anthem
for the holiday that Georgia Cock created, and Carrie got
to sing that, but uh, it never went that far.
But she hung around because she saw this as if
(28:44):
I'm going to do this, I'm going to make this
work from the other part of my life.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
It seems like more of a natural fit to be
singing in a special if your Debbie Reynold's daughter, then
going around a space the universe in a space rocket.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
But she was so established, you know, the DeBie was
coming out and say good evening on Princess Leah's mother. So,
I mean the tables had turned, and but I just
never thought Princess Leah would be builting out a tune.
You know, this is not something that I envisioned, but
that's what happened. I said, I think you should hit
a note, and I think that that the Danish pastry
(29:18):
ears that you have the hairstyle, they should pop out
from the note that you That didn't go down well either.
Harrison pretended he wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I mean he did, he was game. He did do
a couple of lines, not dialogue, not coke.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
He did a couple of lines with Chewbacca in the
in the Millennium falcon and and Mark Hamill pitched in.
He did a little piece with robots blowing up and stuff.
But you know, they did what they had to do.
I mean, they couldn't say no to George, but it
didn't matter. It was you know, Harrison won't talk about
(29:57):
it either. I mean he's been on many shows with
Young a talk show host who bring it up and
he kind of looks at him like, I have no
idea what you're talking about. He says, I have no
idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Don't be alone with. Who was the most surprisingly funny
person who wrote special butchera for like, I wouldn't imagine that.
I don't think. I think Luther Vandrose probably could tell
a joke, but I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, Luther was funny. I guess rock keel Welch who.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Or Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I think of her because she was a statuere as
beauty and famous for being very serious about herself and
not not being funny. But I gave her a couple
of things and she scored really really big with them,
and that that kind of surprised me.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I mean, was she doing like a nightclub act?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Was she doing?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
What was she?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
She did in my clubat she played Vegas and she
toured and then I did a thing for her to
benefit it's in the movie an AIDS benefit. And she
came out in the fabulous dress and did a turn
and said do you like the dress? And they cheered
and she said that I borrowed it to Rue Paul and.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
It got a huge laugh. And this was before the
drag race. That this was like to a crowd who
knew who he was. And I thought, well, good for her.
But I think it's always interesting when you give a
joke to somebody who's not a comedian and they get
a big laugh. And my favorite that I can think
of it that is Tammy Baldwin, who is a Senator
(31:39):
from Wisconsin and she is an out lesbian and was
a congresswoman in Madison, the hip center of Wisconsin, and
she was doing a rally and when she was ready
for Senate and she just come out and she got
(31:59):
up and from this rally, and the press was all
there because I thought, what she says, I come to
you today representing a much maligned minority blonde, right, And
they screamed because it was the last thing they were
expecting was that you'd be funny about this. And of
course she's standing there all blondes, you know. And and
(32:23):
she said, should I say more? And I said, I
don't think so.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I mean, then it's a routine. I think it's just,
you know, then get to what you want to talk about, healthcare,
which has always been hershian.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Knowing when to stop joking is another exactly very important thing.
I don't have that gene. I don't know when to stop,
but many people have told me to stop.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Lewis.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I mean, I never got the grandiose jury. You know,
who told you how he built the Queen Mary all
by himself.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Well, that's I mean that, That's what I'm fascinated by.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Now. He never laid that on me. I have to
say that.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Whether you're lucky, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I'm lucky with people who are notorious.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yes, Well, I want, well, what's your secret and how
do you handle.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I don't know, I uh, I guess I just I
like them, and uh, and I guess I'm real. I
guess I mean partially, you know, having been out all
my life, the idea they kind of admire that. I mean,
Howard Stern said, jeez, you talk about guys the way
I talk about girls. You know, I would go on,
(33:23):
you know, I would go on his show and about
yes you have stay mus on, stay mus I'm huge.
I had no idea, but he's Greek, so I'm taking
a shot. And and Howard would just kind of be
the three of them would.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Kind of robin.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
They would kind of go, wow, you're talking about them
like people. They talk about boobs on that show. So
and I think a lot of that that preceded me,
that reputation preceded me, and a lot of them said, well,
you can't mess with this guy because it's all on
the table already with this. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
That's right, Well, that's that is again not you didn't
do it to market yourself.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
But right, exactly you are is marketable.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Like the fact that that that that you're clear about
who you are, You're out, you have a style, you
have a sense of yourself, you have a sense of
humor that's clearly very valuable. And it's also and one
of the shows Don't Be a Little with Jay Cocain
is always always comes back to me and and and
one of the things that I respect about your career
is it's still going that that there's been no pause,
(34:23):
and it's like, that's amazing to me. And as I know,
as time wear is on, I mean, it's harder and hard.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You know, I say yes a lot people.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
My agent you used to say you have to learn
to say no. But I say yes to things because
they're interesting and and I do them and they work
or they don't work. You know, this is a thing
I shared with Whoopee because she's unusual and was never offered.
They didn't know what to do with her, so she
would find interesting things and do with them. And I
(34:52):
remember when she said I'm going to do Star Trek
and if she said, everybody says, don't do it. I mean,
I'm a movie star. You're a movie star. Are you
doing Star Trek? Because I love Star Trek. I watched
them when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I want to be a part of it. And it
didn't hurt her, No, you know, there still is only
one Whoopee.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
What's the thing that you wish you would have said
no to? Is there anything?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Oh wow, what a fabulous question, because I never thought
of it in those terms. No, because the experience was
worth it. Right there's I mean I can't think of truly.
I mean no, I can't. I mean I should have
said no, it can't stop the music? Right, which right
about in the book. But it was attached to a
month out of fat Farm in North Carolina, and I
(35:36):
was being paid to lose weight, and I said, wait
a minute, I'm Jewish.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
You're paying me to lose weight. This is unpressure.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I lost thirty pounds, which I gained on the plane
back from the Fat Farm when I had the chicken
Kiev and that was it.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I was on the set of Can't Stop the Music
because my friend's mom was one of the costumers I
Can't Stop the Music. So I was there when they
were filming something on a big on an out here,
an exterior set. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, I was not on the set because I had
been fired. But then Alan car after I did a
third revision for three different actresses, and I said, I
think this trigger is more pain, but you said you're fired,
And then he started calling me the week after asking
me questions and it never stopped.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
But I never went back to the set or anything
like that. And then ten years later he brought me
in to write the Oscars.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Well, that's let's talk about the Oscars because that is
the gig of gigs. Like everybody wants to write for
the Oscars. I once got a joke on the Oscars
by my default, But but I wasn't part of the
writing team of the Oscar officially in ten years.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
But I mean some things I've said I've written, I've
been on this showy, but that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Makes me always made me feel good if they pick
a joke that I've written and somebody says it makes
me feel happy. But describe that process, because my friend
Conan is doing it now the.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Oscars with his people.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Like you start months in advance, you do.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
It used to be that you started around October. They
had a producer, and they producer has gotten a host,
and and around you could start talking with the host
about what they could do and then they would announce.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
The honorary awards.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
But they pulled that off the show because it added
forty five minutes to the show and they created a
separate revenue stream of the Governor's Awards, which is a
big dinner, and they shoot that and then they edit
a minute of it into the broadcast, so absent that
there's nothing you really can write until the nominations are announced,
because then you know what the show is going to be,
(37:43):
and you know who's who will show up and who
will exercise the ritual taking of umbradge So.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And then what happens when you get a crop of
movies that you just think are just unremarkable and.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Don't have Then you give the award to nomad Land,
right I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
The year that the COVID year where they did the
show from the train station, No Madland won. Every single
movie was available to watch at home on your couch,
and obviously nobody watched anything. It was the lowest ratings
the show ever had because they didn't care about any
of those movies.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
The line between writing something funny that the audience will
laugh at and writing something that feels a little too
insulting to the person, the star or something, how do
you walk that long?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
You can't be mean spirited.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And that's why Ricky Gervais, I mean, there was a
certain faction of the Golden Globes that liked him, but
there were a lot of people looking at him going,
why are you making fun of me?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Who are you?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
You know, they didn't even recognize him because he lost
a lot of weight and he wasn't the Ricky Gervaise
from the Office British version that they knew. So you
can't be mean spirited, and you have to be at
their level. You can't be Joe Coy, who was a
gigantic star in his world, but not in the world
of those people at the gold the Globes. They won't
(39:02):
take it. So when they have a you have a
Steve Martin or a Billy who's a movie star, right
or a talk show host who they've all appeared on
shows with, like Ellen or John Stewart or Kimmel, you know,
and Conan they've all been on one of his shows.
So h they will take it from because also those
(39:25):
guys they are joshing. They're not they're not puncturing anybody.
I mean, they're not being mean spirit they're even holding
back a lot. I mean even Letterman was was not.
I mean, he made silly fun of people. Oprah Uma
and all of that. But that was awkward, See like
it was because you know they're they're at the Oscars right,
UMAs in their season come to the Oscars to have
(39:47):
her name made fun of by TV boy. She may
win an oscar and this may change her whole career trajectory.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
The line, but knowing the line between what might be
offensive is it really right? Good skill that I don't
necessarily have, because I'm I'm. When you're writing jokes, you're
just writing pages and pages and pages and jokes. You
tend to fall in love with certain ones, and then
you're trying to push those forward and then the other ones.
You know, some some weaker jokes sometimes get picked and
go why do you like that? Versus? But but you
(40:17):
think they're all going to work, and they don't all work.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Yeah, and you cross your fingers and you hope the
moment's right.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
The one thing I tell every host for those shows is, uh,
for every every time somebody wins, there are four people
who don't. And as the evening wears on, the room
fills up with losers and they are busy texting. Now
they're agents firing people firing, They're hating what I hate
(40:48):
what I'm wearing. I hate it, and they're not paying
attention to you. So I keep saying front load, take
your your best stuff up front, because they are not listening.
Come back with one thing and then introduced the next
segment or whatever it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
All right, Well, we have to go to listener questions.
We have a question time is question. What specifically were
some of his ideas that ended up in the Star
Wars Holiday special?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Ah, well, b Arthur, b Arthur, we needed a place
for Han solo and and well, we needed guest stars.
CBS want of guest stars, and they wanted guest stars
who were.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
On the network. And b was Maud at the time,
pre Golden Girls, and she was a Broadway Broadway baby.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
She had done name and want of Tony and she
sang and all these things, and she said she would
do it if she could sing, and she had a
certain so we had them stop off at the cantina
on Tatooine and she ran the cantina and she was
very much in her statue of liberty peerio right well,
and she had we brought in hard corner. There's an
(42:00):
alien who was hitting on her and but she had
to sing a song, and she brought in the song
by Berthold breathton Kurt Vile. She said, this is my breath, vile.
So I said, b this is your vile breath. It's
the Alabama song if you ever frank zapply oh show
me the way and it ends with I tell you
I will die.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
And I thought, that's real up for you, perfect for
this group of aliens, right, and so the Breakfast State
said nine nine nine.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
So Ken Missy Welch again wrote her a song very
much on the along the lines of those were the
Days my Friend, very similar and she she did that
and it was a big it was a big drink
up song. And but getting her on, I said, I
said how about Be? Because we looked down the list
(42:51):
of CBS people and I said what about Be?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And so that was that was it.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
And then of course I wrote a lot of with
stuff that harm he did Harvey Korman, he did an
alien Julia Child doing a cooking show with seven arms,
which was a one joke thing, unfortunately. I mean it
was that she had seven arms. I was watching SNL
fifty and they showed the clips of Danny Ackroyd doing
(43:17):
Julia Child, where he cuts her and she bleeds to
death on the show, and it was nothing that smart.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
It was one.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
It was the joke was watching her continue to do
the act while bleeding to death, and which was funny,
believe it or not. And the thing with that was
but Harvey had another bit where he was a robot,
and but he was his batteries were dying and then
(43:45):
they would perk up again, and it was a physical
thing for him to do it. Off the top of
my head, those are the things other things I wish
to remember, Harvey.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yes, you can selectively throw away the things you don't
want to.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Have their legion.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Would you rather be performing or writing?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (44:01):
I think performing.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I mean, you know, it exercises some kind of outlet
and the reactions immediate. Writing is very solitary, even though
I'm collaborative and I'm frequently in writers' rooms where you
wind up performing for the other writers. But it's not
the same as actually having an audience or even a
camera that you can work for.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
What qualifies as a Bruce Worthy T shirt?
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Well, BET's favorite always was a gorgeous picture of Joan
Crawford by Heral the photographer with the Venetian blind lighting
and all that, and underneath it it had in quotes
I never laid a hand on those kids.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Very much a joke of its day from the Mommy
Dearest period, but actually my all time favorite t shirt.
This is actually the really ultimate. Her one was you're
standing on my penis.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Can you send us elite motif here? Howard? Then you
know what? Can I hap?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Well?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Again, those talks were few and.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Far between, but yet they exist.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
They exist, they remain once they exist, they remain.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Right, Yeah, this is true?
Speaker 2 (45:08):
All right, Well, now now it's time for listener mail.
Now it's time for listener May. Cheryl Metcalf rights, what's
the longest lasting friendship you've had and what do you
think has made it endure?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Mmmm? Well, professionally, it's it's with Bett, who I've been
working with for fifty years, he said, taking his eloquence.
So that would that would be that one. But there
are there are people I grew up with in Patis,
New Jersey who I'm still friendly with. They're all now,
of course in Boca Bratone, Florida.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Is an express train.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Right, that's right, exactly right? But what endoors is well, now,
of course we have a lot of nostalgia to share.
But I think it's just we all had the same sensibility.
There were the kids who I did plays with in
high school and that they were all archie types, and
some of them have actually become people in their own
(46:08):
right in their own fields. But I think what we
had the same attitude. We kind of we survived high school.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
And all of that.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
So that shared experience that bonds people always, the shared experience,
shared history bonds people together for forever.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I think that.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
I mean with the with the advent of the Internet
and Facebook and all those things, we now have a
means to keep up with each other. But we did
it before with letters and phone calls and all that
kind of stuff. So it wasn't like we weren't waiting
for the for social media to come along and find
each other. Although there are some people, yeah, who I
absolutely did. I mean when I so I looked up
(46:48):
all the people who wouldn't sleep with me in high school.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
And see how they were doing and how are they dead?
Speaker 2 (46:53):
A common thing that if you don't sleep with bruise,
you'll die.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Well, that's you know.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
When Shelley Winters wrote her memoir and everybody she slept
with was dead, okay. And I said to her, you
should call the book Fox, Shelley and Die, and she said.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Very funny and slapped me with one of her oscars.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Well, Bruce, this was great. Thank you for being here.
I really appreciate it. Let's uh, the book that's coming
out is called it seemed like a bad ID at
the time, right, And the movie that was twenty years ago,
we should still watch.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
You can Netflix and chill, get Bruce, Get Bruce, and
I'm working on the sequel had Bruce. Oh, very nice,
a much larger.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Cast, very exciting. Well, thank you for being here. I
really appreciate it. It was many weeks in the making
and worth it every moment, absolutely, And thank you for
being here, and thank you for tuning in. And if
you want to write me at dbawjk at gmail dot com,
do that and then we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yay, terrific. Don't be a load, don't bel
Strawt Media. Hi, it's Bruce Falanche. I'm on don't be
alone with Jake Cogan, which means I'm going to be
alone with j Cogan. Ah, don't be alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hi there, welcome to don't be alone with Jake Cogan.
I'm so glad you're here. I'm even gladder when you
write to me at dbawjk at gmail dot com with
your questions, comments, criticisms, and any kind of communication. Please
write me dbaw jk at gmail dot com. Also would
appreciate anybody subscribing to the show, or liking the show,
(00:40):
or writing a positive review of the show, but especially
sharing the show with a friend. That is the greatest
gift you can give me. And if you like the
show and you send it to a friend, it's maybe
a good gift you can give your friend. I appreciate
it and I like it. Today, we've got a very
good show for you. Somebody who wanted to be on
the show for a very long time. Bruceville Now. Bruce
(01:02):
Flanche is a comedy writer and he's written many many
award shows and many oscar shows and many variety shows
and special material for people. And he's managed to have
a very long career, and that's been pretty impressive, because,
like sports, comedy sort of has a shelf life of
a certain amount of time. But it seems like Bruce
(01:23):
is ageless, and he continues to work and continues to write,
and nothing seems to stop the man, no matter how
much we try. And we're going to talk to him
about how he's done that. And part of it is
his personality, part of it is his style. Part of
it is the way he's kind of marketed himself, maybe
by accident, but just his distinctive look and style has
(01:45):
made his name a household name when most people who
do what he does nobody knows those names. It's very
interesting to see a comedy writer sort of venture out
into the public, and I want to talk to him
about that. I also mentioned here that Brucell Nswe is
responsible for one of the highlight moments of my life,
which is I one time won an Emmy award, and
(02:06):
this one I was able to give a speech, and
the speech you can see it on the internet. It's
a pretty long speech. It's filled with jokes and just
all I want to do is if I won, was
to say as many jokes as I could before they
threw me off the air, and they started to play
me off about midway through, and I was told that
Bruce Flanch is the guy in the room in the
(02:29):
control booth and said, let the kid keep going, and
so he let me finish my long ass emmy speech,
which was one of the highlights of my life. And
so I thank him for that, and I'm so glad
to have him here to talk about his experience with
award shows and big stars and little stars and all
that stuff. So we'll hear about it right after this.
(02:50):
Don't be alone with JA. So, Bruce, I'm happy that
you're here. And I wanted to the reason why, amongst
the many reasons I wanted to do on the show,
is because you have a long and storied career doing
it a thing that very very few people do, which
(03:12):
is right.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Jokes is bizarre, isn't it, y. I mean it didn't
plan it that way. I thought i'd be a playwright.
I thought i'd be Neil Simon. And what happened to that. Well,
I came to Hollywood and I wrote I started writing
movies and none of them got made. I mean, i'd
like sold fifteen scripts, but they all got bought and
for various reasons, fell apart. Right, But so I the
(03:34):
one thing that worked was television and variety stuff and
writing for people and all of that. But I I
had a Broadway flop. And when you have a big
flop on Broadway, it doesn't you're not encouraged to go
back right away unless that's all you do.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I don't think Broadway encourages you to come back ever.
I think and even when you have a hit, sometimes
it's a very good point because when you have a hit,
then you just rest on your laurels and collect the
money from the hit.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
And that the idea, that's the old the added the
theater is a great place to make a killing, but
a lousy place to make a living.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yes, and that's true. So what was your play called Platinum? Platinum?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
It was a musical nineteen seventy eight. It started Alexis Smith,
who was a Warden Brothers movie star, and it was
a kind of sunset Boulevards story about an older woman
and a younger man, a rock star, an old movie
star and a younger rock star.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And the hair was platinum in his records.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
All right, Well, I have a book and I talk
about it in this book.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
It's about well, it.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Started with doing podcasts like This Week with people younger
than we are asking me about shows that I did
before they were born.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
What's the name of the book.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
It seemed like a bad idea at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
And if I wanted to get this book, I might
be able to buy it on Amazon.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
On Amazon right now, it's on pre order and on
March fourth it will drop at a bookstore near you.
If you happen to still have a bookstore.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
If you have a mom and pop bookstore, you could
go to one of those and actually help them.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I would do. There are no more mom and pop bookstores.
I've discovered there are a mom and mom bookstores and
dad and dad books. Well that's good because gay people
buy books. What can I tell you that I listened
to books?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well that too.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I mean it will also drop more tworth. I just
did that to listen in the audio tape of it.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
So you start off doing wanting to be Neil Simon
and you say you have wanted to do it, but
how did you fall into the joke writing comedy writing
person of all.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I was a child actor. I was never a child
star or me too. Oh my god, but we should
be having this conversation and rehab.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's how bad. That's how bad a child actor I was.
And I never got to the drum, you and me both.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
It never happened. And I keep saying they don't age well.
But now there's there's Ariana Grande, so you know, you
really can't even make that joke, but I will. And
I started writing because my age out of being a
child actor, and I love chow business and I was
writing about it and I had a talent for that,
and my parents encouraged me. They said, work for a newspaper.
They'll never die.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
And so I started writing.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
When I was in college, I started I was the
editor of the Ohio State Lantern and began writing pieces
of columns and stuff in. The Chicago Tribune offered me
a job, so I went to Chicago and.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Was reviewing things. I was Gene.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Siskel's number two critic. After anything he didn't want to review,
I got to review. If I'd known that I could
have stayed in Chicago being a movie critic and become
a multi millionaire, I would have done that, but I
was not privy to that knowledge. So Roger and Jean
seemed to figure that out.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So like an INVI came out to Los Angeles, I
came to Hollywod.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I was in Chicago writing and reviewing and interviewing people,
and I saw Bette Midler as she was just starting out,
and my friend but Treatman was managing her, and he
asked me to do a story on her, and I did,
and she said you're a funny writer. And I said, well,
you're funny. You should talk more and she said, you
got any lines?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And that was the beginning, and.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I began writing Chicago jokes for her, and then whenever
wherever she would play, I would call the TV critic,
you know, in Cincinnati, and say what's going on there?
And we'd make jokes about that town. And so she
would come out on stage and do all this local
material and yeah, people were like, how does she know
any of that? And of course her audiences at the beginning,
(07:21):
particularly were the hippus people in town. I mean, we
had a standing joke. She would say, I hope nobody
needs an emergency blowout because every hairdresser in Columbus is
in this room.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Now, that's when you're talking about the calling the critic
from the town and getting in for it. Used to
be called the frontman, they used to comedians and Bob
Hope or somebody was.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
They would send something somebody early to go. And I
did that for Hope too, actually, but by that at
that point I was out here. I was writing stuff,
and I was one of many people writing for Hope.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, that was he had a cavalcadd right, he had
his his his stable. But then he would pick funny
people up. I mean he would go and somebody would
send some jokes to him backstage and he would with
a phone number and he'd call him and say, right,
mofarmail pay.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I met Bob Hope once. He was very very nice
to me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I always had a great time with him.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
He he called me Mansfield. He looked at me and
he said, look at the tits on you. And he
called me Mansfield from that that time.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
And he blonde.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
He said, oh you're blonde, you're Mansfield.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
But he was great.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
And I'll tell you something about him. When Aid's happened,
he was the first non gay affiliated show business person
to do a PSA for US, and he and every
he got every coup and who was a surgeon general,
and they did a PSA telling people that you should
(08:49):
not be scared of people who have They didn't even
know it was HIV yet, but you should open your
heart to people who are sick and not be afraid
of them because of their lifestyle. And for a guy,
you know, that big to take that chance, and that
Catholic and that's Catholic during that period, and it was
(09:10):
almost like it was a favor not to me.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
But to some other people on his staff because he
saw what was happening, right. I thought that was pretty
extraordinary too.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Let's get off the train of the history, but I
want to get back on the train of history. But
amongst the remarkable things that the amount of material that
you provided over the years is amazing. The amount of
varied and sundry kind of people you've written for is endless.
But also you were one of the first people, even
before the Internet, who seemed to be able to market
himself as someone just by how you're dressed and where
(09:41):
you were, as somebody could as like a personality to
be to be seen.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I've heard and I've heard it put that way, not
kindly but I you know, it was never intentional.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
That's the funny part.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
What do you mean not kindly?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Well, people say, oh, yeah, you created a brand and
you were you were look, you were out to create
something like that to you know, like Madonna, you were good.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
You know, I thought, and I know.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
The truth was I was comfortable. I was never comfortable
in real clothing. And when I moved to LA I
realized you can go anywhere in.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
A T shirt.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So well, this is true k wearing T shirts and
it was the era of the ironic T shirt.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
If you happen to have changed your clothing and said
I'm gonna wear Elmo or whatever it is you it
doesn't matter to me as somebody. I'm a writer and
I don't have a marketed boll You know. I haven't
marketed myself in the way that I wish I would.
I wish I was as marketed as that. I wish
it was like, oh look the thing and Jay Cogan's
(10:39):
this like that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I think it was always the performer monk k. You know,
I couldn't do it as much as I wanted to,
So I did it in real life right right, and
to this day, when people said, what are you doing
for Halloween? And I said, nothing, that's amateur night, right, right,
consume every day.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But it works, it works for you because now you
are also performer. And wait, I mean you've been on
Hollywood Squares and all things like this. You wheeled yourself
into that position in an amazing and I would say, wonderful,
way good, I think, and I think it's huge. I'm
nothing but compliment that.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
My agent kept saying to me, you are performance art, right,
you are your greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
But that's true, fantastic I'll take that. Why not because
that provides the ability to continue making a living and
a career. It's like it's like it's it's not it's
not small change. It's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I've noticed that.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, so fantastic. So okay, So you come to Los
Angeles and you and you meet bet No, you met
bet Miller's and what what what's the thing that brought
you to La.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Bett had a dresser whose brother started an act called
the Manhattan Transfer. His uh Fayette Hauser. Her brother was
Tim Hauser, the late Tim Hauser. And we saw them
and Bett called Amatt Ertigan, who ran Atlantic Records which
is her label, and brought him down to see them
and he gave them a record deal. And then her
(12:02):
manager brought Fred Silverman in. We put together an act,
and her manager brought Fred Silverman down, who was running
CBS at the time.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
He ran all three networks. I was waiting for him
to get PBS, just to.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
See what we did right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So the transfer he brought the transfer for a Sunday
night for a replacement for share Right, and so we
did four shows and I came out here in the
summer of seventy five to write the fore shows all four.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I'm sure when I was a kid, they saying I
love coffee, I love the jobs.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Job that was one of the biggies, and everyone loved
the show. But of course there were no ratings. We
were opposite the Disney and I forget something else, ridiculous.
But it was an interesting show to put together and
a great experiment. But it got me out here and
I stayed. And yeah, I had that as a as
(12:54):
a ticket, I had a job. I had an agent,
so I went around trying to get jobs in variety
and I was considered too. And the one night I
was having dinner with Florence Henderson, who I knew from
New York from Broadway, and I told her and she said, oh,
I know how you feel. And I said, really, never
occurred to me that anyone said. But she said, I'll
(13:15):
tell you what to do to cure it. Come and
write the Brady Bunch. No one will ever say your
two hip again. And at the time they were developing
The Brady Bunch Variety Outright, which was a nine episode
thing sitting righty Cross produced, and we were and Florence
(13:36):
sent me in and I got the job, and that
was how I wound up. That was the first And
then came Donnie and Marie with your.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Dad, and my dad told me to ask you to
tell the story of He said, you he thought it
was Barbara Streissan, that you worked for Barber Strett writing
jokes for Barbara Streis and it may have been beat,
but worked for Barbara Streissen. And she complained that you
cast a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Oh yeah, I had written for free. I did.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
We've done a whole a lot of benefits with Barbara.
And then she was she was gonna come out and
do her first concert tour in forever and and so
you know, she made an offer, and it was a
very low ball offer, and we said we and my
people countered, and she got She said, what you know
she said? She said no, she said, that's what That's
(14:25):
as much as I can do. And at the time,
she was selling furniture from her house. She was clearing
out one house to have another house. And she said,
what do you want me to do? And I said,
sell a lamp.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
That's just one lamp.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
What I would make on one of your lamps?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
You know? So?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And she laughed and went and called Robin Williams and said,
I need you to write me some jokes and Robin
said I don't do that. She said, you should call
Bruce Flance.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
She said, oh, he's too expensive.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
That's so funny. Don't be alone with JJ.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
I told that story in a movie twenty years later
that was made about me twenty years ago called Get Bruce,
produced by Harvey Weinstein, who never laid a hand on me.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I'm surprised hashtag why not right, I understand, Yeah, really
you had the stuff missed his bet.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So she got pissed off at me because I told
that story and the story had broken. The movie opened
the week two other streisand cheap stories were in the
media that the New York Post was dancing all over her,
of course, and so for a while it was a
rocky She didn't speak.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
She can handle the heat.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Eventually it all resolved.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, she can hand you, Barber streisand you got to
take a little heat. Sometimes. I gather it.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Doesn't bother her because her book is which is a
thousand pages, it doesn't mention me.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I did not, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I think her audio, which is forty eight hours, doesn't
mention me. So I gather I have I've missed the guillotine.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It was so big, like I'm interested in Barbra strit saying,
but the size of that book maybe think I'm not
that interested. I cannot spend that time.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
It's it's hysterical, I mean, because she has that kind
of fandom for years.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
They want to know everything.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
And the truth is, once you get past her childhood,
like like a lot of those books, once you get
past the child and once she's actually telling stories about
her work, it is it is interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I'm sure it is, sure it is. She's great.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Honestly, she's terrific, and but of course never acknowledges that
even to herself.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So you were doing all these variety shows. How did
you get into.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Were you always? I guess we're writing special material for Bet?
Were you writing special material for a lot of people
before you started writing award shows in Chicago?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
After Bet, and I got known as being her writer.
Actually the first person I wrote for was Kay Ballard,
and I always give her credit. But after Bet, first
of all BET's people all broke out. Barry Manilow was
her piano player, Melissa Manchester was the first Tarlette, Luther
Vangos was the backup singer, and they all I began
(17:23):
writing for all of them, and I met Eliza Minelli,
who I didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Write for it, but she was married to Peter Allen,
who I wound.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Up writing for up until the end. And I was
writing for people who came to town. So Richard Pryor,
George Carlin, David Steinberg, Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin. Those were
all the people I met in Chicago, though I was writing.
There were more, but not as big.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That's interesting. So you're writing jokes for Carlin for television.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I mean, Carlin wrote all of his own stuff, but
he would.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Have these deals.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
We had a pilot at HBO called Apartment two G
where he was the cranky landlord and he had to
deal with all these people. And we did we did
a pilot, but it didn't go because it was you
could just take so much of him, you know, he
was again, he was George right, and and he never
was really in movies much except and he was in really.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Uh's Excellent Adventure.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I know he was in that, and he was in
Harsh I mean no, he would call me up and
read me stuff, and you know, and we play around
with stuff. So it's to say I really wrote for him.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
I mean that to be in the inner circle of
George Carlin is like being their of Jesus. It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
It's just and I listened to it, and still the
stuff is his stuff is just priceless.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I agreed. Kelly Carlin was here not long ago, his
daughter and we talked about George and just his amazing legacy,
like he's such an influence.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
He was and he was like the kindest person. I mean,
he was really not not not mean at all. I
mean his observations were sharp, right, there was there was
no meanness to him.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
What was Richard Pryor like uh, like a child.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
He was sweet and kind of lost, but he'd realized.
You think he had drifted off somewhere, and then he
would come back and say something incredibly coach. It was
again it was he wrote. He didn't write all this stuff.
And he had people, you know, Paul Moone, he was
writing for him a lot, and he had people, had
(19:24):
some other people I forgot who.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
But he was able to become the characters in his act.
That was, yeah, he was and just became. But it
was like when he was the bit where he became
the neighbor dog and stuff like that. You really believe
that he's the dog.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
It's fantastically Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I never got to meet Prior, but one of the
great all time you know, influences of people of my generation.
For sure. I'm not unlike you.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Oh yeah, man, not on acolytes all over.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
The Uh So, the Brady Bunch thing happens, and you
do that, and then you work Donny Marie and then
and like how do you escape that world?
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Well, the world escaped me. What happened was cable television
came in and it killed variety because you no longer
had to wait for somebody to be on the Carol
Burnet Show, where the Ed Sullivan Show, they were on
MTV twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
They were all over the place.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
And the other thing that helped kill it was SNL,
which was on Saturday nights at eleven thirty. You could
get away with stuff that a younger generation loved that
you could not do on the Carobernet.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Show or the Dean Martin or the mac Davis or
the Flip Wilson.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
As hip as some of those shows were, you couldn't
do it on there, and so the audiences felt that
they were stale.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
And it drifted away, and.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It's never gone away altogether because variety is still around,
but now it's all competition. Now's so you think you
could yodel, you know, shows like that, but because we
love competition in this country, we're mad for competition.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, I mean the Voice and all, they're all talent shows.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
They're all people well their variety and especially when they
add the human elements, right, uh so their their reality
and variety and competition. So that's kind of like ruling
at the moment. I mean, the mass singer, what what
is that? I mean a bunch of people stumbling around
in costumes that they can't wear really.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And and and singing yes.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
And that's variety, I mean. And it's used to be
a finale on Donium Marie.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
That's often like the power forward for the Mavericks. It's
never like an actual singer. There's no like an actual
singer shows up. Often it's really just like I'm available.
The undersecretary of state for somebody is in a mask.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It's hard, I know, but I am available, and I
can you know I can fit into many a mask.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
What if they put you in an Elmo costume?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
What would happen is that Elmo I'd probably be arrested
for some sort of violation like the Elm and Square
I have to ask.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I wrote for Elmo.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yes, I did a special well twice actually hollow squares.
We specialized in bringing on muppets. We had Kermit, we
had Piggy, we had Almo and UH and I had
to write for all of them. And then Natalie Cole,
whose Vegas show I put together, UH had a PBS
(22:16):
Christmas special with Elmo.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Elmo was her co host.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Fantastic. Did they get along? No?
Speaker 1 (22:21):
She slapped that rag still. She just said I'm gonna
wash you and hang you out to dry.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
She she broke no trout. Sure, Natalie is fabulous. She
was she was, she was fabulous.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
She was.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I mean she's she was a great story. Someday somebody
will do it unless they have already and I missed it.
It was like was it on Hallmark? And I missed it.
It didn't a bigger story than that, because you know,
I mean she was she was black royalty and grew
up but surrounded by racism. I mean they were excluded
from everything, even though he was a huge star.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Hancott park Right.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Burned across on their lawn. I mean, this is all
her childhood. And then then she had to fight the
NEPO baby thing before it even had a word describing it.
And of course she's you know, she emerged from that
because she was brilliant. And then she died young.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, I mean it was. It's tragic, really.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Very very sad. Unlike so many other people who died young,
this was tragic.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
We always Hitler had died, yet Baby Hitler.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Why couldn't we have killed baby Hitler. I had a
one time, a bad science fiction pitch of a guy
A time traveler lord who has to protect time by
protecting baby Hitler. Change He can't change history to protect
baby Hitler. I didn't sell for some reason.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Nobody wanted to play. No. I guess nobody wants to play.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
It's like I've always when I had written a bunch
of screenplays and I would go around to pitch them
to various actors and say, oh, you have he wants
to meet about this play, you know, And they say,
tell me about this character. And I would say he
has a very large penis, and there would be a
pause and they say, I can play that, right. That
(24:10):
was my way in, and then I tell him about
the rest of it.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Speaking of movies, you were partly responsible at least for
one of the most famous TV specials of all time,
which was the Star Wars Chapter one.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
In my book, it was a bad idea for.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Star Wars holiday special. Now star Wars a phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, well it had. It was a phenomenon. It wasn't
the intense phenomenon. It had not yet become the scientology
of the nerves.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
This was all part of the hype of the movie.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
It was the Well, the movie been out for eighteen
months and George was about to start shooting The Empire
Strikes Back, which, as we all know, is the second
movie but actually the fifth series for you Star Wars,
You Devotees, and he wanted to story of the Pot
and he had a bunch of story. He told me
he had ten stories and he six of them were
(25:03):
earmarked for movies, and four others he sold off as
various things. And this was the last one, which he
sold to CBS as an original musical. Why he would
sell this particular story to CBS, right as there was
a musical when the lead characters were the Wookies, who
may speak no language. It's known they make that noise
(25:24):
they make sound like fat people are having organs. I
know this is right, Yeah, this is I'm on my way.
I'm so close, and this is how they do it
in Wookie World. And they don't they can't move in
those costumes, so they can't dance, so they can't sing,
and they can't dance, and they can't speak. And you're
in an original musical. So this is an exciting concept.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
And you when you heard this, you say, sure, irresistible.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
But I should also preface it by saying that a
couple of things. One was it was the seventies.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And as I'm fond of saying, if you say you
remember the seventies, you weren't there.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
We were all.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
There were a lot of chemical additives. There were a
lot of a lot of half baked and fully baked people.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
That was part of it.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And there was a lot there were a lot of
crazy television shows, belike something.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
That was conceived when someone was high.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
There were a lot of stunt shows being done. I
mean there was Battle of the Network Stars, yes, where
they had Charlie Tilton with a shot put trying not
to hit Webster.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
It was, it was. It was a sickening six times.
And then the other thing I.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Point out to people who don't quite weren't there, is that. Yeah,
for many people, Star Wars was like a summer drive
in movie fun thing.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
It had not become a cannon. It was for something.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I was twelve for you just on the one movie.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yes, but it didn't really happen until the three pictures
were in the release and now and the Internet came
in and cable came in and people got to see
these repeatedly that they began creating this this myth about
about the Star Wars and it became kind of a
(27:10):
religioso experience for many younger people who and when this
thing showed up, this special showed up.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
On YouTube, they would say what is this? And George,
how could you betray us this way?
Speaker 1 (27:24):
And he was getting a lot of heat and he was,
you know, they're crazy death threats and stuff, so he
was he decided to just try and stamp it out, okay,
and disown it and not speak about it. And many
many years later, after he had made his deal with
Disney Plush, he reinvented the Star Wars Holidays Special as
(27:45):
a for Legos. It was done with Lego characters on
the on the streamer a Lego Daisy Ridley, who looked
a lot like Rosie o'bonna.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Very strange, but it seemed like Harrison Ford or the
people were.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
They were inveigled into working for one day and maybe
two incredibly uncomfortable.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
The only one who was was gung ho was Carrie Carrie,
because Carrie wanted to have a musical career and she
thought this could kickstart it if she could record a
song that jumped out of the special.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
And but she wanted a kind of.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Johnny Mitchell musical career, and in fact, she wanted to
sing a Johnny Mitchell Swiman. Johnny was not interested, and
so Kenny Missywillich wrote a song, a Life Day anthem
for the holiday that Georgia Cock created, and Carrie got
to sing that, but uh, it never went that far.
But she hung around because she saw this as if
(28:44):
I'm going to do this, I'm going to make this
work from the other part of my life.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
It seems like more of a natural fit to be
singing in a special if your Debbie Reynold's daughter, then
going around a space the universe in a space rocket.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
But she was so established, you know, the DeBie was
coming out and say good evening on Princess Leah's mother. So,
I mean the tables had turned, and but I just
never thought Princess Leah would be builting out a tune.
You know, this is not something that I envisioned, but
that's what happened. I said, I think you should hit
a note, and I think that that the Danish pastry
(29:18):
ears that you have the hairstyle, they should pop out
from the note that you That didn't go down well either.
Harrison pretended he wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I mean he did, he was game. He did do
a couple of lines, not dialogue, not coke.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
He did a couple of lines with Chewbacca in the
in the Millennium falcon and and Mark Hamill pitched in.
He did a little piece with robots blowing up and stuff.
But you know, they did what they had to do.
I mean, they couldn't say no to George, but it
didn't matter. It was you know, Harrison won't talk about
(29:57):
it either. I mean he's been on many shows with
Young a talk show host who bring it up and
he kind of looks at him like, I have no
idea what you're talking about. He says, I have no
idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Don't be alone with. Who was the most surprisingly funny
person who wrote special butchera for like, I wouldn't imagine that.
I don't think. I think Luther Vandrose probably could tell
a joke, but I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, Luther was funny. I guess rock keel Welch who.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Or Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:43):
I think of her because she was a statuere as
beauty and famous for being very serious about herself and
not not being funny. But I gave her a couple
of things and she scored really really big with them,
and that that kind of surprised me.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I mean, was she doing like a nightclub act?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Was she doing?
Speaker 3 (30:59):
What was she?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
She did in my clubat she played Vegas and she
toured and then I did a thing for her to
benefit it's in the movie an AIDS benefit. And she
came out in the fabulous dress and did a turn
and said do you like the dress? And they cheered
and she said that I borrowed it to Rue Paul and.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
It got a huge laugh. And this was before the
drag race. That this was like to a crowd who
knew who he was. And I thought, well, good for her.
But I think it's always interesting when you give a
joke to somebody who's not a comedian and they get
a big laugh. And my favorite that I can think
of it that is Tammy Baldwin, who is a Senator
(31:39):
from Wisconsin and she is an out lesbian and was
a congresswoman in Madison, the hip center of Wisconsin, and
she was doing a rally and when she was ready
for Senate and she just come out and she got
(31:59):
up and from this rally, and the press was all
there because I thought, what she says, I come to
you today representing a much maligned minority blonde, right, And
they screamed because it was the last thing they were
expecting was that you'd be funny about this. And of
course she's standing there all blondes, you know. And and
(32:23):
she said, should I say more? And I said, I
don't think so.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I mean, then it's a routine. I think it's just,
you know, then get to what you want to talk about, healthcare,
which has always been hershian.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Knowing when to stop joking is another exactly very important thing.
I don't have that gene. I don't know when to stop,
but many people have told me to stop.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Lewis.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I mean, I never got the grandiose jury. You know,
who told you how he built the Queen Mary all
by himself.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Well, that's I mean that, That's what I'm fascinated by.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Now. He never laid that on me. I have to
say that.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Whether you're lucky, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I'm lucky with people who are notorious.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yes, Well, I want, well, what's your secret and how
do you handle.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I don't know, I uh, I guess I just I
like them, and uh, and I guess I'm real. I
guess I mean partially, you know, having been out all
my life, the idea they kind of admire that. I mean,
Howard Stern said, jeez, you talk about guys the way
I talk about girls. You know, I would go on,
(33:23):
you know, I would go on his show and about
yes you have stay mus on, stay mus I'm huge.
I had no idea, but he's Greek, so I'm taking
a shot. And and Howard would just kind of be
the three of them would.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Kind of robin.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
They would kind of go, wow, you're talking about them
like people. They talk about boobs on that show. So
and I think a lot of that that preceded me,
that reputation preceded me, and a lot of them said, well,
you can't mess with this guy because it's all on
the table already with this. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
That's right, Well, that's that is again not you didn't
do it to market yourself.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
But right, exactly you are is marketable.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Like the fact that that that that you're clear about
who you are, You're out, you have a style, you
have a sense of yourself, you have a sense of
humor that's clearly very valuable. And it's also and one
of the shows Don't Be a Little with Jay Cocain
is always always comes back to me and and and
one of the things that I respect about your career
is it's still going that that there's been no pause,
(34:23):
and it's like, that's amazing to me. And as I know,
as time wear is on, I mean, it's harder and hard.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
You know, I say yes a lot people.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
My agent you used to say you have to learn
to say no. But I say yes to things because
they're interesting and and I do them and they work
or they don't work. You know, this is a thing
I shared with Whoopee because she's unusual and was never offered.
They didn't know what to do with her, so she
would find interesting things and do with them. And I
(34:52):
remember when she said I'm going to do Star Trek
and if she said, everybody says, don't do it. I mean,
I'm a movie star. You're a movie star. Are you
doing Star Trek? Because I love Star Trek. I watched
them when I was a kid.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I want to be a part of it. And it
didn't hurt her, No, you know, there still is only
one Whoopee.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
What's the thing that you wish you would have said
no to? Is there anything?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Oh wow, what a fabulous question, because I never thought
of it in those terms. No, because the experience was
worth it. Right there's I mean I can't think of truly.
I mean no, I can't. I mean I should have
said no, it can't stop the music? Right, which right
about in the book. But it was attached to a
month out of fat Farm in North Carolina, and I
(35:36):
was being paid to lose weight, and I said, wait
a minute, I'm Jewish.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
You're paying me to lose weight. This is unpressure.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I lost thirty pounds, which I gained on the plane
back from the Fat Farm when I had the chicken
Kiev and that was it.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I was on the set of Can't Stop the Music
because my friend's mom was one of the costumers I
Can't Stop the Music. So I was there when they
were filming something on a big on an out here,
an exterior set. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, I was not on the set because I had
been fired. But then Alan car after I did a
third revision for three different actresses, and I said, I
think this trigger is more pain, but you said you're fired,
And then he started calling me the week after asking
me questions and it never stopped.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
But I never went back to the set or anything
like that. And then ten years later he brought me
in to write the Oscars.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Well, that's let's talk about the Oscars because that is
the gig of gigs. Like everybody wants to write for
the Oscars. I once got a joke on the Oscars
by my default, But but I wasn't part of the
writing team of the Oscar officially in ten years.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
But I mean some things I've said I've written, I've
been on this showy, but that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Makes me always made me feel good if they pick
a joke that I've written and somebody says it makes
me feel happy. But describe that process, because my friend
Conan is doing it now the.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Oscars with his people.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Like you start months in advance, you do.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
It used to be that you started around October. They
had a producer, and they producer has gotten a host,
and and around you could start talking with the host
about what they could do and then they would announce.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
The honorary awards.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
But they pulled that off the show because it added
forty five minutes to the show and they created a
separate revenue stream of the Governor's Awards, which is a
big dinner, and they shoot that and then they edit
a minute of it into the broadcast, so absent that
there's nothing you really can write until the nominations are announced,
because then you know what the show is going to be,
(37:43):
and you know who's who will show up and who
will exercise the ritual taking of umbradge So.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And then what happens when you get a crop of
movies that you just think are just unremarkable and.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Don't have Then you give the award to nomad Land,
right I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
The year that the COVID year where they did the
show from the train station, No Madland won. Every single
movie was available to watch at home on your couch,
and obviously nobody watched anything. It was the lowest ratings
the show ever had because they didn't care about any
of those movies.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
The line between writing something funny that the audience will
laugh at and writing something that feels a little too
insulting to the person, the star or something, how do
you walk that long?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
You can't be mean spirited.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And that's why Ricky Gervais, I mean, there was a
certain faction of the Golden Globes that liked him, but
there were a lot of people looking at him going,
why are you making fun of me?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Who are you?
Speaker 1 (38:41):
You know, they didn't even recognize him because he lost
a lot of weight and he wasn't the Ricky Gervaise
from the Office British version that they knew. So you
can't be mean spirited, and you have to be at
their level. You can't be Joe Coy, who was a
gigantic star in his world, but not in the world
of those people at the gold the Globes. They won't
(39:02):
take it. So when they have a you have a
Steve Martin or a Billy who's a movie star, right
or a talk show host who they've all appeared on
shows with, like Ellen or John Stewart or Kimmel, you know,
and Conan they've all been on one of his shows.
So h they will take it from because also those
(39:25):
guys they are joshing. They're not they're not puncturing anybody.
I mean, they're not being mean spirit they're even holding
back a lot. I mean even Letterman was was not.
I mean, he made silly fun of people. Oprah Uma
and all of that. But that was awkward, See like
it was because you know they're they're at the Oscars right,
UMAs in their season come to the Oscars to have
(39:47):
her name made fun of by TV boy. She may
win an oscar and this may change her whole career trajectory.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
The line, but knowing the line between what might be
offensive is it really right? Good skill that I don't
necessarily have, because I'm I'm. When you're writing jokes, you're
just writing pages and pages and pages and jokes. You
tend to fall in love with certain ones, and then
you're trying to push those forward and then the other ones.
You know, some some weaker jokes sometimes get picked and
go why do you like that? Versus? But but you
(40:17):
think they're all going to work, and they don't all work.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Yeah, and you cross your fingers and you hope the
moment's right.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
The one thing I tell every host for those shows is, uh,
for every every time somebody wins, there are four people
who don't. And as the evening wears on, the room
fills up with losers and they are busy texting. Now
they're agents firing people firing, They're hating what I hate
(40:48):
what I'm wearing. I hate it, and they're not paying
attention to you. So I keep saying front load, take
your your best stuff up front, because they are not listening.
Come back with one thing and then introduced the next
segment or whatever it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
All right, Well, we have to go to listener questions.
We have a question time is question. What specifically were
some of his ideas that ended up in the Star
Wars Holiday special?
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Ah, well, b Arthur, b Arthur, we needed a place
for Han solo and and well, we needed guest stars.
CBS want of guest stars, and they wanted guest stars
who were.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
On the network. And b was Maud at the time,
pre Golden Girls, and she was a Broadway Broadway baby.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
She had done name and want of Tony and she
sang and all these things, and she said she would
do it if she could sing, and she had a
certain so we had them stop off at the cantina
on Tatooine and she ran the cantina and she was
very much in her statue of liberty peerio right well,
and she had we brought in hard corner. There's an
(42:00):
alien who was hitting on her and but she had
to sing a song, and she brought in the song
by Berthold breathton Kurt Vile. She said, this is my breath, vile.
So I said, b this is your vile breath. It's
the Alabama song if you ever frank zapply oh show
me the way and it ends with I tell you
I will die.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
And I thought, that's real up for you, perfect for
this group of aliens, right, and so the Breakfast State
said nine nine nine.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
So Ken Missy Welch again wrote her a song very
much on the along the lines of those were the
Days my Friend, very similar and she she did that
and it was a big it was a big drink
up song. And but getting her on, I said, I
said how about Be? Because we looked down the list
(42:51):
of CBS people and I said what about Be?
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And so that was that was it.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
And then of course I wrote a lot of with
stuff that harm he did Harvey Korman, he did an
alien Julia Child doing a cooking show with seven arms,
which was a one joke thing, unfortunately. I mean it
was that she had seven arms. I was watching SNL
fifty and they showed the clips of Danny Ackroyd doing
(43:17):
Julia Child, where he cuts her and she bleeds to
death on the show, and it was nothing that smart.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
It was one.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
It was the joke was watching her continue to do
the act while bleeding to death, and which was funny,
believe it or not. And the thing with that was
but Harvey had another bit where he was a robot,
and but he was his batteries were dying and then
(43:45):
they would perk up again, and it was a physical
thing for him to do it. Off the top of
my head, those are the things other things I wish
to remember, Harvey.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yes, you can selectively throw away the things you don't
want to.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Have their legion.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Would you rather be performing or writing?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (44:01):
I think performing.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I mean, you know, it exercises some kind of outlet
and the reactions immediate. Writing is very solitary, even though
I'm collaborative and I'm frequently in writers' rooms where you
wind up performing for the other writers. But it's not
the same as actually having an audience or even a
camera that you can work for.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
What qualifies as a Bruce Worthy T shirt?
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Well, BET's favorite always was a gorgeous picture of Joan
Crawford by Heral the photographer with the Venetian blind lighting
and all that, and underneath it it had in quotes
I never laid a hand on those kids.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Very much a joke of its day from the Mommy
Dearest period, but actually my all time favorite t shirt.
This is actually the really ultimate. Her one was you're
standing on my penis.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
I like that.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Can you send us elite motif here? Howard? Then you
know what? Can I hap?
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Well?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Again, those talks were few and.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Far between, but yet they exist.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
They exist, they remain once they exist, they remain.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Right, Yeah, this is true?
Speaker 2 (45:08):
All right, Well, now now it's time for listener mail.
Now it's time for listener May. Cheryl Metcalf rights, what's
the longest lasting friendship you've had and what do you
think has made it endure?
Speaker 1 (45:25):
Mmmm? Well, professionally, it's it's with Bett, who I've been
working with for fifty years, he said, taking his eloquence.
So that would that would be that one. But there
are there are people I grew up with in Patis,
New Jersey who I'm still friendly with. They're all now,
of course in Boca Bratone, Florida.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Is an express train.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Right, that's right, exactly right? But what endoors is well, now,
of course we have a lot of nostalgia to share.
But I think it's just we all had the same sensibility.
There were the kids who I did plays with in
high school and that they were all archie types, and
some of them have actually become people in their own
(46:08):
right in their own fields. But I think what we
had the same attitude. We kind of we survived high school.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
And all of that.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
So that shared experience that bonds people always, the shared experience,
shared history bonds people together for forever.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
I think that.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
I mean with the with the advent of the Internet
and Facebook and all those things, we now have a
means to keep up with each other. But we did
it before with letters and phone calls and all that
kind of stuff. So it wasn't like we weren't waiting
for the for social media to come along and find
each other. Although there are some people, yeah, who I
absolutely did. I mean when I so I looked up
(46:48):
all the people who wouldn't sleep with me in high school.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
And see how they were doing and how are they dead?
Speaker 2 (46:53):
A common thing that if you don't sleep with bruise,
you'll die.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Well, that's you know.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
When Shelley Winters wrote her memoir and everybody she slept
with was dead, okay. And I said to her, you
should call the book Fox, Shelley and Die, and she said.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Very funny and slapped me with one of her oscars.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Well, Bruce, this was great. Thank you for being here.
I really appreciate it. Let's uh, the book that's coming
out is called it seemed like a bad ID at
the time, right, And the movie that was twenty years ago,
we should still watch.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
You can Netflix and chill, get Bruce, Get Bruce, and
I'm working on the sequel had Bruce. Oh, very nice,
a much larger.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Cast, very exciting. Well, thank you for being here. I
really appreciate it. It was many weeks in the making
and worth it every moment, absolutely, And thank you for
being here, and thank you for tuning in. And if
you want to write me at dbawjk at gmail dot com,
do that and then we'll see you next time.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yay, terrific. Don't be a load, don't bel
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