November 25, 2025 • 49 mins
SCTV’s Dave Thomas talks about making bold life choices, growing up in Canada, Shakespeare saving his ass, choosing between big money success as an ad man or being a broke improviser at Second City, becoming head writer on SCTV, Martin Short, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, Grace Under Fire, running an animation studio, turning to dramas like Bones and The Black List, going to Ukraine, Thailand, Mad Magazine, The McKenzie Brothers, Chester Hope, and how, to make it in Hollywood, you need at least two of these three things, Talent, Drive, & Luck.
Bio: David William Thomas was born May 20, 1949, in St. Catharines, Ontario. He is the eldest son of British parents, Moreen Duff Muir (May 4, 1928 – May 18, 2022), a church organist for thirty years originally from Glasgow, Scotland and composer of church music, and John E. Thomas (1926–1996), a medical ethicist from Merthyr Tydfil, Wales who was head of the Philosophy Department at McMaster University, and the author of several books. Dave's younger brother, Ian Thomas, is a Canadian singer-songwriter. The family moved temporarily to Durham, North Carolina, where his father attended Duke University and earned a PhD in philosophy. The family moved back to Dundas, Ontario, in 1961, where Dave attended Dundas District high school, and later graduated with an honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.[1] Starting his career as a copywriter at ad agency McCann Erickson in 1974, Thomas became the head writer of the Coca-Cola account in Canada within a year. After watching a Second City stage show in Toronto, and while suffering from self-described "boredom" in his advertising work, he auditioned for the Second City troupe and was chosen as a performer.[2] He was a cast member of the Toronto production of Godspell, along with Victor Garber, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, and Andrea Martin.[3] Paul Shaffer was the musical director.[3 He first achieved fame as a cast member of the Canadian TV comedy series SCTV, joining Godspell castmates Levy, Martin and later Short, plus Rick Moranis, John Candy, Harold Ramis, Catherine O'Hara and others. Notable characters on the show include Doug McKenzie of beer-swilling brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie, editorialist Bill Needle, Scottish scone-chef/bluesman Angus Crock, motor-mouthed TV ad announcer Harvey K-Tel, Lowery organist/curio pitchman Tex Boil and the "Cruising Gourmet". Thomas's first film role was in Home to Stay, directed by Delbert Mann, in which Thomas played in a scene with Hollywood legend Henry Fonda. He then wrote, co-directed, and starred in the Bob & Doug McKenzie feature film Strange Brew. Soon after, he wrote for and acted in The New Show, produced by Lorne Michaels during his hiatus from Saturday Night Live. Short-lived, this show featured a powerhouse writing staff including Thomas along with Buck Henry, George Meyer, Jack Handey, Al Franken, Tom Davis, Valri Bromfield and Steve Martin. Thomas tried his hand at network television hour-long shows in 1986 when he wrote and co-executive produced Steel Collar Man for CBS. The pilot was produced but did not go to series. He co-wrote Spies Like Us (1985) with Dan Aykroyd. In 1988, Thomas wrote another hour long show for CBS, B Men, which was back ordered, but Thomas took a directing job at Paramount, which caused the network to drop the series. He reportedly introduced John Travolta and Kelly Preston while directing them in the Paramount film The Experts. He wrote for, produced, and starred in The Dave Thomas Comedy Show (1990). In 1991, he starred in the Showtime comedy, Public Enemy #2. In 1992, he tried his hand at reality TV and co-executive produced ABC's America's Funniest People with Vin Di Bona, but left after thirteen weeks to appear in the film Coneheads. In 1993, he co-starred in ABC's Grace Under Fire with Brett Butler and Tom Poston and continued with the show for 5 seasons. In 1995 Thomas starred in the ABC television film Picture Perfect with Mary Page Keller and Richard Karn. In 1995 Thomas produced a pilot of a game show called Family Challenge for ABC. When ABC did not pick up the series, Thomas sold Family Challenge to the Family Channel, where he produced 144 episodes of the show spread over 2 seasons. In 1996, Thomas played the title role in the Fox television film Mr. Foster's Field Trip aka Kidz in the Wood with Julia Duffy. In 1996, he wrote the book SCTV: Behind the Scenes (McClelland & Stewart, publishers). From 1999–2002, he voiced various roles on the animated series Mission Hill. Thomas co-starred in the Paramount feature Rat Race. As of 2001, Thomas has been the Executive Creative Director of Animax Entertainment, an animation studio based officially in Culver City, California. In 2001–2002 Thomas appeared with Eugene Levy and Martin Short on Short's show Primetime Glick as Bob
Bio: David William Thomas was born May 20, 1949, in St. Catharines, Ontario. He is the eldest son of British parents, Moreen Duff Muir (May 4, 1928 – May 18, 2022), a church organist for thirty years originally from Glasgow, Scotland and composer of church music, and John E. Thomas (1926–1996), a medical ethicist from Merthyr Tydfil, Wales who was head of the Philosophy Department at McMaster University, and the author of several books. Dave's younger brother, Ian Thomas, is a Canadian singer-songwriter. The family moved temporarily to Durham, North Carolina, where his father attended Duke University and earned a PhD in philosophy. The family moved back to Dundas, Ontario, in 1961, where Dave attended Dundas District high school, and later graduated with an honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.[1] Starting his career as a copywriter at ad agency McCann Erickson in 1974, Thomas became the head writer of the Coca-Cola account in Canada within a year. After watching a Second City stage show in Toronto, and while suffering from self-described "boredom" in his advertising work, he auditioned for the Second City troupe and was chosen as a performer.[2] He was a cast member of the Toronto production of Godspell, along with Victor Garber, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, and Andrea Martin.[3] Paul Shaffer was the musical director.[3 He first achieved fame as a cast member of the Canadian TV comedy series SCTV, joining Godspell castmates Levy, Martin and later Short, plus Rick Moranis, John Candy, Harold Ramis, Catherine O'Hara and others. Notable characters on the show include Doug McKenzie of beer-swilling brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie, editorialist Bill Needle, Scottish scone-chef/bluesman Angus Crock, motor-mouthed TV ad announcer Harvey K-Tel, Lowery organist/curio pitchman Tex Boil and the "Cruising Gourmet". Thomas's first film role was in Home to Stay, directed by Delbert Mann, in which Thomas played in a scene with Hollywood legend Henry Fonda. He then wrote, co-directed, and starred in the Bob & Doug McKenzie feature film Strange Brew. Soon after, he wrote for and acted in The New Show, produced by Lorne Michaels during his hiatus from Saturday Night Live. Short-lived, this show featured a powerhouse writing staff including Thomas along with Buck Henry, George Meyer, Jack Handey, Al Franken, Tom Davis, Valri Bromfield and Steve Martin. Thomas tried his hand at network television hour-long shows in 1986 when he wrote and co-executive produced Steel Collar Man for CBS. The pilot was produced but did not go to series. He co-wrote Spies Like Us (1985) with Dan Aykroyd. In 1988, Thomas wrote another hour long show for CBS, B Men, which was back ordered, but Thomas took a directing job at Paramount, which caused the network to drop the series. He reportedly introduced John Travolta and Kelly Preston while directing them in the Paramount film The Experts. He wrote for, produced, and starred in The Dave Thomas Comedy Show (1990). In 1991, he starred in the Showtime comedy, Public Enemy #2. In 1992, he tried his hand at reality TV and co-executive produced ABC's America's Funniest People with Vin Di Bona, but left after thirteen weeks to appear in the film Coneheads. In 1993, he co-starred in ABC's Grace Under Fire with Brett Butler and Tom Poston and continued with the show for 5 seasons. In 1995 Thomas starred in the ABC television film Picture Perfect with Mary Page Keller and Richard Karn. In 1995 Thomas produced a pilot of a game show called Family Challenge for ABC. When ABC did not pick up the series, Thomas sold Family Challenge to the Family Channel, where he produced 144 episodes of the show spread over 2 seasons. In 1996, Thomas played the title role in the Fox television film Mr. Foster's Field Trip aka Kidz in the Wood with Julia Duffy. In 1996, he wrote the book SCTV: Behind the Scenes (McClelland & Stewart, publishers). From 1999–2002, he voiced various roles on the animated series Mission Hill. Thomas co-starred in the Paramount feature Rat Race. As of 2001, Thomas has been the Executive Creative Director of Animax Entertainment, an animation studio based officially in Culver City, California. In 2001–2002 Thomas appeared with Eugene Levy and Martin Short on Short's show Primetime Glick as Bob
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hut Media. Hi, I'm Dave Thomas and I am
thrilled to be on Don't Be Alone with Jay Cogan.
See I mean I really know this show so well.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Don't Be Alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hi, Cogination, and welcome to Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan.
We're in the beautiful Don't Be Alone Studios and we
have yet again another amazing show for you today. I
was a nerdy kid used to sitting around watching TV
and being entertained by geniuses, and instead of instead of
doing anything athletic, I would just stay home and watch stuff.
(00:44):
And one of the great things that popped on in
my life around the time that I was reading Mad
Magazine and National Lampoon was showing up was SETV. SETV
was supposedly a network that showed a TV show, so
it was an excuse to do parodies of TV shows,
and it was so funny and so sharp and so
(01:05):
interesting that it just took my generation by storm. Everybody
I knew loved SCTV, and we love the people who
made SCTV. And one of the people who were directly
responsible for making SETV is one of my guests today.
His name is Dave Thomas, and he was part of SCTV.
He was part of Grace under Fire. He's obviously the
(01:27):
McKenzie brothers. He's part of Second City. In general, people
don't know he's also a director. He's also a writer,
not just performer. He's a producer. He's a creative entity.
And he's spent his life doing something very interesting, which
is he has driven his career in different directions. Where
other people would be stuck in one gear and let
(01:50):
their career sort of fade away. He's been able to
turn right or turn left, go to drama, go to animation,
do things, and I'm always impressed by that. I'm always
impressed by people who can see the future or feel
in their gut best place to go and then go there.
Dave Thomas seems to be one of those guys, and
we'll find out more about him coming up. But before
(02:11):
we do, I'm going to encourage you to write to
me at Dbawjka at gmail dot com with all your questions,
is your suggestions and your listener mail. I need your
listener mail questions. Please write in. We also have a
new substack, so come look for the show on the
substack and you'll find a bonus material and other things,
and a community to talk to that'll be fun to
share your notes about Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan.
(02:34):
I'm really enjoying the positive feedback I'm getting and I
want you to be part of it, and I like
having a direct conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So please actually take the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Time to write in. I will write you back and
we'll have a nice exchange. Okay, so there's that. I
did the housekeeping. Now let's get on with a really
fun and interesting interview with Dave Thomas.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Don't Be Alone with JJ Cogan.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Dave Thomas, thank you for being here. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
As everyone of my generation who gloves comedy, you and
your cohorts on SETV are all heroes. He might not
be comfortable with it, maybe you're very comfortable with it,
but the truth is you shaped our lives.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I'm comfortable with it because it was very collaborative, right,
So it's not about me. It's about the group of
people that I worked with.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
All great comedy things are usually very collaborative and usually
about the group, and people who watch it don't know that.
They think it's just the one person who did the
one thing, but that's never the case. But that group
of people to come together in that particular time, what
a stroke of luck. Whatever that was, it was unusual,
that's for sure. Now was everybody there from the Chicago
(03:49):
Second City, No, mostly Toronto.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
The Toronto Second City started seventy two, no. Seventy three,
and Joe Flaherty and Briandoh Murray came up to start
it with Bernie Songs who ran it, and Dale Close
and they held additions and dan Aykroyd was looking for work,
(04:18):
and Gilda Radner was in Toronto looking for work. She'd
been in Godspell. Eugene was looking for work. He didn't
get cast in the first show, but so they put
a company together in Toronto that when I saw the
first show, it was Killered. John Candy was in it,
(04:38):
Joe Flaherty was in it, Eugene finally was in it,
dan Ackroyd was in it, and Gilda Radner and Andrea Martner.
So that was a killer cast. Amazing, yeah, and unbelievable.
Their ensemble work was fantastic and their solo.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Work was also and all these people were many of
these people turned out to be not just great performance
but also good writers. Yeah, true, yes, and then the
second city promotes writing because you know, you start doing improvs,
but every the show is basically written, right yeah, yeah,
so that's that's really important.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We build the show on the same city stage show
with improvs, refine them. Anything where you go out one
night and a particular idea works in its first incarnation,
then you try it again. We had tape recordings of
it so we could play it back and hear what
worked and what didn't work, and then you try to
(05:34):
refine it and hone it and make it better. So
that's writing, that's editing, that's writing.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
And I imagine most of the improvs don't have great endings.
You have to figure out endings.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Oh yeah. Sometimes you discovered the ending the first time out.
That's fantastic, and then that's kind of locked in, right,
so you know where you're driving, you know where you're going.
That's fantastic. As a as an improviser.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
At the groundings, I found that we had great characters,
we had great conflicts, but that we didn't necessarily have
great endings. We had to figure those out.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I mean, you know, when I saw Dan Aykroyd for
the first time. I was a student of comedy, and
you know how everybody when they start out, you can
see their roots from who they're doing, you know. And
Eugene was very He had Jack, Benny and him, and
you'd see a lot of Jacks slow takes and things
like that. And this guy Acroid blows into town from
(06:24):
Ottawa and he's doing blue collar comedy where the reference
level of the blue collar workers is so high and
so detailed and so intricate that the audience is going,
what the fuck is he really a plumber?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It does? How does he know that? Does he know
how to fly a plane? How does he know that?
And it gave dignity to comedy that had been belittled
and those kind of people were always treated as buffoons
and clowns. But he treated these people as funny, but
in a different way and mark in their field of course.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
And how did he He did know a lot of jargon,
or at least seem to, how do he know?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When I worked on Spies Like Us with him, I
found out because I went I was working on another
movie at the time for Joel Silver, and Universal took
me off that movie and said Akroyd wants you to
work with a month spies like us, And I said, okay.
Joel Silver is famous for saying I would stab myself
(07:28):
in the back for that, right, yeh. And Miranda's impersonated
him on SETV. So anyway, I went to Danny's. He
had a bungalow there on the lot, and I went
to his bungalow and he says, great, I'm glad you're
doing this, David. And there's a big steamer trunk full
(07:48):
of books and he said this, we got to read
every book in this steamer trunk before we put pen
to paper. And they were all books about oh mobile
Soviet missile launcher. There's the Cold War capabilities of the
USSR versus USA, And it was just so much data
and information. And he had Danny had a great memory,
(08:12):
but he researched and he read. And then that made
it really clear to me how he got that comedy
that was so novel and different than anything I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So much of what's great and important about comedy is
specificity and detail. And so like a lot of us
when we're doing improv, we're just bullshitting and making stuff up.
But if you have at your fingertips, real details of stuff.
You're going to make it that much better. And even
if the.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Audience doesn't know the specificity, it rings true for sure,
and it resonates and they kind of go, oh, what's right.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
It feels different like Ghostbusters felt different because of all
the jargon and stuff that was being told. Yeah it
it had a pseudoscience, verisimilid to that would go like, yeah,
this could, this could happen.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And that's that's Danny. I mean, you know, we were
on stage one night, Danny and I, and we were
stealing a car, which is mime stuff. You were in
the grounds, you know, so you two chairs sit beside
each other, you mind the door again, and then we're
trying to start it and it wasn't It wouldn't start,
(09:23):
and Danny was doing the and he did that a
few times and then you know how when you start
to wear the battery down gets slower. And then I
just went at the end and he looked at me
just with the look of delight, and he said the
solonoid and I said the solnoid And just the fact
(09:43):
that I knew that he loved me, do you know
what I mean? And I was so happy to be
able to meet him on his level of specificity. The
hard part of all of it is that most comedy
goes on too long, right, and people forget that. Commercials
(10:06):
took people's attention span and condensed it right. You can
say an awful lot in thirty seconds, So that yardstick
was something that comedy could be measured by two. I
found that two three minutes was a really good sort
(10:26):
of weight for a little comedy sketch. Right. There are
sketches on stage, especially group sketches or sketches that explore
relationships that could go on three to five minutes, and
that makes sense too, and rarely does it go on
beyond that.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I heard a funny story something about you ends and
Dell close.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
At a certain point, maybe did you you were at
a second city?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Was Dell the Yeah, he was directing one show.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
He was kind of a weird guy, and he did
a lot of weird things, and a certain point.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
He was insane, right, I mean, you're being very kind, right, Well,
I love that. Okay, that was really funny, but that
was a great guy. But he was insane, ridiculously self indulgent,
and I he fired me in a rehearsal, which I
wasn't real he couldn't fire me because he didn't have
the authority to do that, and I knew that at
(11:26):
the time, but it was a scene that he wanted
to do where he said to me, you know, and
he would do this occasionally because he had a history
of drug abuse, a history of a lot of therapy
and psychiatric problems, and his father had died mysteriously. And
if you follow Dell's narratives, there's different reasons why his
(11:51):
dad constantly changing the story. Was constantly changing anything that
made a better story exactly was what. So Dell wanted
to recreate the scene he was playing on Our Heart
Strength where he finds found out that his dad died
from drinking sulfior cacid and he wanted me to be
the doctor to tell him, to give him the news,
and he was going to play himself. And I'm thinking, well,
(12:15):
wait a minute, we're doing rehearsals to build a show.
Dell isn't in the cast. Why are we doing a
scene where he plays a pivotal role if not for
some self indulgent reason that I make. So I said,
I'm not going to do that and he says what
I said, I'm not going to do that. That's ridiculous, Dell.
(12:37):
It makes no sense. You shouldn't be in the scene.
It's very self indulgent. I'm not doing it. And he said,
theater is not a democracy. I'm the director. You do
what I say. And I said nah. I said, no,
theater should work Second City theater should work towards building
a show, and you, as the director should be really
(12:59):
somebody that we look up to as somebody that relentlessly
works to that goal and not other right side projects
guiding us towards the goal. Right anyway, he said you're
fired and I said, okay, well all right, I said
I don't think so, but I'll leave right So I left,
and then Andrew Alexander called me later and he said,
(13:21):
you're coming in tonight and I said yeah, and he said,
oh good. He said, Dell told me he fired you.
I said, yeah, but I knew he didn't have the
authority to do that. Unless you're firing, right, then I'll
be in. So then I had to come in and
face Dela. We're doing the show and he's there, and
(13:42):
we didn't really say anything during the actual show, itself.
He was pissed off, you know, and I said, about
halfway through the show, I said, hey, why don't I
give you a ride at home after the show? And
he looks at me, he goes, okay. So I gave
him a right at home, and I said, look, Dell,
(14:03):
I wanted to talk to you because he said what
I did was wrong. You were you did the exactly
the right thing. You remind me of me. That's exactly
what I would have done. And I was just like, okay,
well that's that's nice. But I just want you to
know I respect you. I think you're a funny guy.
(14:23):
I think you a lot to give us, but I
can't stand it when you do these really self indulgent,
you know, digressions. And so anyway, we manded fences and
I drove him home and but he was crazy as
could be the next night.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
And I think there's there's fair amount of evidence that
his dad did not die in any of the ways
that he said it.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Absolutely but certainly not from drinking.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So if you're a cast, right, don't be alone.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
With a lot of people I know are in improv.
My one of my very first mentors in improv Phyllis
Katz said that the only reason she got into improv
in Chicago is because Joe flaherty enlistener said you should
(15:23):
try that, Like he was just you know, she was
just around the theater and he said, you want to
try you should try it, like he was very encouraging
to get people to do that. And I work with
Joe on The Wrong Guy with Dave Foley, and you know,
of course he too was a hero. Interestingly, I never
really understood the machinations how SETV the TV show was made,
(15:46):
and how you know, you were writing a lot of
it and he was trying to write a lot of it,
and you guys were at a certain point overwhelmed by
budget time, you know, all the stuff that was going
on that was happening.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
And the show that has a problem with its inception
is doomed to have problems. And that was SETV, right,
because what was the problem with its inception. Bernie Sollins
decided when Lorn Michael starts Saturday Night Live, that Lauren
was stealing all his cast from his stage shows and
that he should do a TV show. The problem is
(16:20):
there already was one on and it was a hit,
so he decides to launch a SCTV, which was at
Second City Television at that time. SCTV was a later
name for the show, and so it was doomed from
the fact that we couldn't get the financing for budgets
and we got a production deal from Global TV in Canada.
(16:43):
It was like next to nothing. And I remember the
one meeting dell or sorry Bernie had with the Global
TV executives and he said, they said, who's going to
direct the show? And this guy a malade besides who
was a director of news and cooking shows, That's all
(17:07):
he had ever done. Bernie said, do you have a director?
Are you? And so it was that kind of carelessness.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
When things were falling apart sometimes at SETV. I remember
you telling me that at some point they they needed
you to help sort of pick up the ball in
terms of the writing and in terms of the producing
something that you didn't want to do.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Here's the genealogy of it. Harold Ramis was our head
writer right in the first season. Well, he was a
great head writer, as we saw from his career after
that and even during the time that he did I
say SCTV, he was writing Animal House with two other
runners Chris Miller and Doug Kenny. So, and he had
(17:58):
been Playboy joke editor, so he had this catalog of jokes.
And he was a really smart guy, real high IQ
and so his memory was great and that allowed him
to have a great reference level all the things you
know that are absolutely necessary to be a good comedy writer.
And he had experience which none of us had. So
(18:19):
Harold ran the show for the first year and then
he left. Well when he left, the logical choice of
the person to run the show was Joe. But Harold
said to Andrew, no, Joe will quit. Joe can't do
the administrative stuff that is required in this job, and
(18:43):
you should make Dave and Joe do it together because
Dave will do the administrative stuff. So I just knew
you were the hard ass I like that. What was
that was that? Well? No, but I was the guy
that would try would look at the board and go,
we need this done, and we need it done by tomorrow.
You know what I mean. So, and it makes you unpopular,
there's no question about that. But I I remember saying
(19:07):
to Harold when he made that decision, I said, why
did you make me the I understand why you made Joe.
Why you asked Andrew to made Joe the head writerer?
Why did you make me? And he said, because Joe
will quit probably within three months, and he did right,
because it just wasn't what Joe wanted to do. Joe
was an artist. He was very misanthropic and very eccentric
(19:31):
and unusual and hard to get a hold of. If
you have a meeting at nine o'clock, you'd be lucky
if Joe was there at noon. And so that kind
of stuff on a television schedule is just a disaster.
So that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And then.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Finally then I'm running it alone.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And then.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
After the third season, I invited Rick Morans in because
we were or to on cast and he was an
amazing writer and a great and where do you know
Rick from? I met him at a party and two
of us just started improving together and I thought, Wow,
this guy's fast and really funny. So I saw him.
(20:16):
I did some research on him, and then I went
to Andrew because we were down in between the second
and third seasons. Andrew Martin and Eugene Levey had left
the show to go to Los Angeles to try and
get into sitcoms. Catherine was taking a year off, was
(20:37):
just tired of doing it. John Kenny was doing his
own show, Big City Comedy, So we need if we're
going to do the show, we need to cast. And
Andrew got this facility deal to replace Global, who dropped
us in Edmonton. Right, So there's also the feeling that
we were the b team to Saturday Night Live. We
(21:00):
were first doing the show in Toronto, and then to
keep the show alive we have to move to Edmonton.
Right then it seems like, well, what's next, right Horse Siberia? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So anyway, it was hard to get people motivated. I
convinced Catherine. I convinced Eugene and Andrea to do like
(21:20):
a couple a couple of weeks of shooting and then
we'd feed their stuff in between all the shows. As
a fan, I didn't know they were not part of
that show, and it seemed like they were because there
was enough of their pieces to give them a presence
in the show. But we still needed to cover for
John and Catherine, and so I got Rick Moranis to
(21:44):
join the cast, and then Joe Flaherty invited Tony Rossotto
and Robin Duke. So that was our third season cast. Well,
we had a real moranas and I had a real
good rhythm going in that year because he was just
so fascinated this job of head writer and it was
like an empty board of twenty six shows and you
(22:07):
got to fill all the cards and I'm like, oh God,
and he's there, Mars, Okay, how about this? Okay, how
about this? And I'm just like, holy crap. So we
ended up doing a lot of duos. We ended up
doing Bob Hope and what he Own? We ended up
doing Cronkite and Brinkley. We ended up doing the Mackenzie Brothers.
(22:27):
Did you know, by the way, you did a good
Bob Hope imitation before you did Bob Hope. No, Brian
Doyle Murray was responsible for that. Okay, the makeup woman. Okay,
bab Shackman fantastic. One of the great Bob Hope imitation.
Was there a Chester Hope. It's like there's a Bob
Hope sold or something. Played Chester Hope at his ninetieth
birthday party. Yeah, his nephew. Okay, that was well. Anyway,
(22:50):
we're out there in Edmonton and we've got this cast
and the season ends, and we don't know whether the
show is going to get picked up again. What we
didn't know was that Brandon Tartakoff was watching the show
and thinking about putting it in on Friday nights because
Blushy n Ackroyd were making noises about leaving at SNL
(23:11):
and doing Blues Brothers, and he thought he's either going
to groom a cast to replace those people, or leverage
or another show on Friday. Right. Also, it's good negotiating tool.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
If I've got another comedy show on Friday Night, then
you can't hold me up on Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
That's right, Yeah, exactly, exactly so, and they're into those
big monikers, the Tonight Show, the Today Show. They like
to own real estate and television, and so if you
could get Friday Night, sure with us. I think he
was excited about that, But we didn't know this at
the time. So Mirandas and I go to LA and
I had done a pilot with CBS and become friends
(23:51):
with the guy running at Harvey Shepherd and I bit,
your dad worked with My dad knew Harvey Shepherd. Yeah,
he had the world's worst wig, but he had an
automatic switch on his door at his desk that closed
his door. So he'd walk in and then he'd do this.
It just happened, and the door would close and you'd
look behind you. It was like haunted house.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I first ran into that in twenty Century Fox sometime
in nineteen eighty seven. There's a magnet that's attached to
the door, and you press the button and you release
the through electromagnetism, release the magnet power, and the door closes.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
But it has a thud, like there's a It's.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
All about intimidation. I have no idea why people just
couldn't close the door.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And Harvey loved that. Yeah, of course, so it was
you'd see his eyes twinkle when he did it, you know.
So anyway, Moranist and I sold him a show, the
two of us doing a two hander, because we cut
together a bunch of clips of this stuff that we'd done. Right.
Then we find out Brandon Tartakoff has approached John Candy
and put together a wants to put together the cast.
(24:56):
So we get a call from John Candy in Toronto
and he's like, guys, you know you got to come
where NBC wants us to do a show, right, And
it's a ninety minute show on Saturday on Friday, right,
And I'm like, ninety minutes a lot of time. Yeah,
I don't know if we could do that. And then
I'm stuck with you know, we don't know what to do.
(25:18):
Rick and I have got this deal now it's not
signed yet, but anyway, we went to Toronto.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
You've got this show that you and Rick have and
you don't know what's going to be big. You have
no idea what's going to work. Nope, So what led
you to.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Join everybody in Toronto and do the ninety minute show?
It was a gut feeling. And the gut feeling was
that these people were good. I mean, I knew Candy
was a star. I knew he was going to break out.
I knew Flaherty was really good. I knew Catherine was
really good, and I knew Eugene was really good. So
(25:55):
it was just like, and Andrea is just a force
of nature. So I thought, there's too many You you
can't fill a show with just two people, you know,
even a half hour show gets thin, and you need
to support cast. So who do we get when? Then
we got to find a new support cast. There's a
(26:15):
support cast in Toronto right there. So and not a
support cast either, but it's all stars. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
One of the things about my show is I have
a always a burning question of my own that I
always approach you guests with. And one of the reasons
you're here other than huge fan of yours also like
you is a Fred like your kid, like you're like,
oh that is you seem to have made a lifetime
of interesting and good choices in show business. In other words,
(26:44):
when something falls out, you find another route. You find
when something's when there's a problem, you find a solution.
When there's an opportunity to go into animation, or an
opportunity to go into drama, or you find your way
to those things where a lot of people are just
stuck in one position. So when you make a decision
like this where it could be your show, you you're
(27:05):
in rich show and decided no, no, no, I'm going
to veer to this other group thing, it's fascinating to me,
like you seem to have these instincts where the drive
to get you where you want to go.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, you've got to drive in this business or you're dead.
I mean I make it dead. So I don't know,
it's like talent right, luck is really big, and drive
is really those are the three right magic ingredients. And
and if you you can make it on one, one
on two of them, but you can't make it on
(27:37):
one of them, and you can't make it with none
of them. So I considered that I react, not that
I have this amazing intuition or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
But I would agree that you're reacting to the situation.
But a lot of people don't react in that situation,
or don't or stuck in one position.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I took a job as a copyright in advertising because
I went for six months without getting any work before
Second City started. And then I said to Eugene Marty,
I said, I'm not going to be a waiter who
tells people that he's in showbiz. You know, you'll be
an advertising executive. And well, I knew how to write.
I thought I could write, sure, because I was good
(28:19):
at essays in school. So I wrote a bunch of
fake ads and I got the Yellow Pages, which was
the Google of the day, and I went through and
I called every ad agency till I got to the
MS at McCann Erickson. I got hired temporary job like
on trial for six months eighty five hundred a year,
(28:42):
and I was working as a junior writer on the
Coca Cola account, which sounds prestigious except that you were
doing the retail stuff, which is just big bottles of
Coca Cola standing next to Pepsi bottles, trying to look
frostier and better and stoopid. A copy that makes it
(29:02):
was awful. But then I got an opportunity to do
a contest. And this is again a luck turn that
happened in my career. They had a contest in the
retail area of Coca and it was called Capital Caps,
and so underneath the cap of each bottle there's a
(29:23):
number or a token, and if you get the rights hoking,
you could win up to ten thousand dollars something like that.
So I get the job of writing that, and I
get the legal copy that's required for the thirty second spot,
and there's literally twenty eight and a half seconds of
legal copyright, so there's no room for anything. And I
(29:44):
was thinking, well, how can I make this fun and interesting?
Then I remember this bit that Don Knuts used to
do on the Old Tonight Show where he was a weatherman,
and he had like charts that snapped up unexpectedly and
pointers broke and you know, and too much information to
(30:05):
be able to convey in a short period. That was
the gag. And I had a similar problem with the spot, right,
So I thought, all right, So I wrote a bit
like that and I took it to the creative director
and I said, here's my spot. And he says, he says,
this is great, but good Coca Cola is never going
to improve it if they just read this, because they're
not going to visualize it. To show them, you have
(30:28):
to go up there and pitch this to them, And
I said okay. So I went up to Coke and
I pitched it and they loved it. And then they
said who do you see being the guy in this?
And I didn't expect that question, and I just said
Tim Conway. So within a week I was on a
(30:48):
plane to La to shoot this spot with Tim Conway.
And the spot was a huge success. Then Coca Cola
Canada said they fired the head writer for Coke Cola
Canada and made me the head writer. And I'd only
been in advertising for three months, right, And so it
went like that, and I had lucky breaks like that.
(31:12):
The formula that we were talking about, right, And I
mean I was ballsy enough to go up to Coke
to pitch it and uh clear enough to come up
with a bit that worked for the problem, but lucky
enough that they went forward and cast Tim Conway. All
of a sudden it was a hit.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Don't alone with you had an animation company, right? And yes, okay,
so you're you know, you're trying to make a show business,
not just as a performer and as a writer, but
also just like you know, as an owner.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Three of us formed this company called Animax, Me, Dan
Greeney and then the Simpsons and Andy Baine. Dan's friend
who was a business guy who'd bought some who'd graduated
Yale NBA went over to USSR when it collapsed and
bought some businesses in Ukraine at a real bargain. So
(32:28):
he bought. One of the things he bought was an
animation company. So the plan was to outsource to the
Ukraine cheap labor and underbid local animation companies and get
some stuff going well. Dan and Andy got into an
argument and Dan quit and then it was just me
(32:48):
and Andy. But Andy was also in the US Marines Reserves,
and then the Warren Iraq breaks out and Andy says,
I'm going over and I said, what are you talking about?
So I'm going to the war and I said, what
about the animation coming? So he leaves me to run
it and he goes off to Iraq. Well that was
(33:10):
a tough thing. And now all of a sudden, I've
got these animators on staff and it's something for them
to do. And I and it was Selling animation is
really hard because there's only a few places that buy it.
And at that time it was like nickelode and Disney
and and and there was always Fox, but they didn't
(33:31):
really buy anything. They just they were looking for family
comedies like The Simpsons or Family Guy and and that's
all they wanted. So it was a hard job. Then
Andy comes back. This story is worth telling. Okay, I
was going to cut you off, but go ahead. He
comes back from Iraq, right and I said, so are
(33:53):
you done? He said, yeah, they sent me back. I
said why. He said, well, when I got over there,
they weren't giving any of the mid He was a colonel.
He said, they weren't giving any of the mid ranking
officers positions on bases that mattered. They thought too many
of the reserve guys were trying to get in the action.
(34:14):
So they sent me to a base in the south
and he said, I was at this base in the
south and he said, then all of a sudden, this
four hundred army engineers show up, and He's like, what
the who are you guys? And he called sentcom and
(34:37):
they say, oh, yeah, sorry, we meant to tell you
they were coming. We overestimated the number of weapons of
mass destruction that we were going to find, and sending
these guys home now will be embarrassing for us. So
just keep them down and there at that base, out
of the way until we can figure out what to
do with them. So and he said, okay. Then he's
(35:02):
sitting having a beer with this army engineer one day
and looking at sand dues and he says, see that
sand dune from there to there, there'd be a great
dog's power for And the army engineer says, we can
build you a golf course if you want. Andy said,
what do you mean. He said, we're army engineers. We
could build you a fucking skyscraper in the middle of
(35:22):
this desert. So Andy said, okay, let's do it. And
I said, well, Where'd you get the material? Andy just laughed.
He said, I just sent Sandcom memos saying that I
was worried that insurgents were going to compromise my AMMO bunkers.
He said, I got all the pos for concrete and
rebar everything I need. So Andy builds a clubhouse and
(35:43):
a pool, first for a golf course. And he's building
a golf course. Then a regiment of Ukrainian soldiers show up.
Sandcom knew that Andy spoke Ukrainian and had businesses in
the Ukraine. He also speaks fluent Russian. And so the
Ukrainians say, and he meets the head guy and he
(36:05):
knows they're all black market guys. Sure, and Andy says,
where's the vodka? And the guy says, don't insulk me.
We have the finest and and he says, where's the vodka.
You either give me the vodka. You can't sleep on
the base. So and he said, within three days, two
deuce trucks, that's trucks with two thousand pound cargo full
of booze show up. Right that these Ukrainians got Now
(36:27):
they got this, this clubhouse full of booze. They got
a pool, right, a cabana a booze and they're building
the front nine and the Ukrainians are going to get
them grass that doesn't need one. Then the generals come around,
the brass come around, touring all the bases and they
see this golf course, that the building. What's this and
and he says, well, you know, idle Hands is the
(36:49):
devil's playground, as you got these guys. So they got
pissed off and just sent Andy everybody home. They never
got to play golf. But that's weird, right now, very strange.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Well, what's not weird is there were no weapons of
mass destruction, so they overestimated by a factor of everything.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
You know. I know. So and he tells me this
story and I go, that's a great that's.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
A show, right, So versus military things always seem to
excite me.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
And then this is has another life because then in
April of this year, Andy says to me, I've been
He stayed in Ukraine when the war started and he's
been there helping them and he founded this company, this
charity called the Ukrainian Freedom Fund. And so he's like,
(37:39):
he calls me and he says, you're a Canadian with
a media presence, and there are a million Canadians and
a million Ukrainians in Canada. We're trying to build a
donor base. Would you come here and help us build
a donor base, do some press and maybe do some
interviews while you're here. And so I so, all right,
(38:02):
why not? So I went to Ukraine and it was like, uh,
something I never expected to see.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
It's pretty eye opening when you get there to see
it's a war zone, sure, and and and see people
who stayed to fight, and see how the people who
were there are trying to hang on. And it's very
it's very touching and difficult.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It is, it really is. And and it's amazing that
you went.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
As a matter of fact, you were going to do
my show at a certain point, you had to hop
on a plane to go to Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I remember that. It was as fantastic as like. And
I was like, you're going where? Why? And then but
you did?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Eventually I understood, I understood why. I want to back
up for a seconds.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
So SETV.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
One of the breakout things of SETV were the Mackenzie brothers,
so and and they have a very interesting origin, which
is I guess you had to make some Canadian content.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
When Brandon Tartakoff Uh picked up the show in the
third season and ran it in the NBC O and
O S. CBC was the broadcaster that broadcasted in Canada,
and CBC had two minutes of less commercial time, which
(39:16):
meant that they needed two minutes of program content that
weren't in the American shows. And so they said to
the producers, we want that that two minutes of content
to be distinctively Canadian. So I'm ad writer and I'm
sitting in a working late with Maratus and Andrew Alexander
(39:37):
comes in. He says, this is what CBC wants. They
want too many. I said, what do they want? Do
they want like they want us to put up a
flag of a map of Canada dressed and Parkers and
tubes and the trip beer And he said, fine, do
that and if you could have a Mountie and that
(39:57):
would he be better. So we did these two minute
spots and they're all exactly two minutes. And because they
were such a low risk part of the program content
of the show not seen in the US at all,
Rick and I decided we're not going to write them.
We're just going to improvise them. So we would get
a ten count in from the floor director and then
(40:20):
it go to us and then we would wing it right,
get a five counter out, and we'd have to wrap
it up and then some of them would be good.
Most of them would be really shitty. But if in
an hour we got two two minute sketches in an
hour of shooting, that was program efficient to the producers.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
You know, here's another thing. You went into drama writing
to writing mysteries and dramas, Bones, you know, all these
other shows. How did you get there?
Speaker 1 (40:52):
From the world with comedy the move to drama. Isn't
that weird? Because comedy was changing at the time that
I made the jump, and it was becoming very woke
and very precious and you couldn't say anything without people
getting bummed out and pissed.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Off, right, and not in that form non TV, Yeah,
it was. Yeah, these were more restricted.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah. So I got I knew Hart Hanson who ran Bones,
and he said to me. I was talking to him
about what the hell am I going to do? He said,
why don't you come up with five really interesting ways
to kill somebody? I said really, He said, yeah, just
do that and send them to me. Right, I said, okay.
So one of them he really liked was a bullets
(41:35):
made of frozen blood, and so, because then it would
leave no trace, you know, they gave me an offer
to write a script based on that. So I wrote
the script and I went in and worked with the
writing room and it was fun. I really loved the
intricacies of procedural but I also loved the fact that
you had an extra twenty minutes of content that would
(41:58):
allow you to tell a story, because you can't tell
a story in a sitcom. It's impossible. Yeah, and hence
the term sitcom. You are reacting to a situation. Oh
my mother in law is coming, what are we gonna do?
But by that time it had gotten worse and worse too.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Commercials had gotten more and more and the amount of
time for the actual show is something like nineteen minutes
and thirty seconds, very small amount of time to have
a cold open, the beginning of the story, and then
how it advances and how it ends.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
It's almost over before it begins, that's right. Yeah, And
some guys like you guys on Fraser were artists in
the way you handled that, And I was so thrilled
to watch that, but I don't think I had that
kind of skill. So I went into drama, and after
I'd written that script, they all liked the script. Then
(42:49):
they said would you come on as a consulting producer
and I said yeah. So they made me an offer
and I joined them and I worked for three years,
had a great time. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
You also did the Blacklist, right, yeah, which is also
really smart. Interesting it is show. All right, Well, now
it's time for listener mail. Now it's time for listener man.
This is from Stewart. He said, listen to Cliff nesteroff
and then, having watched the Tom Brady roast and having
(43:24):
listened to you complain on occasion about not being able
to say things say things inappropriately in comedy these days,
exactly what we were just talking about. Based on what
I know about you, I would assume tough to hear
jokes is what comedy should be doing, pushing the boundaries.
You should be allowed to offend and be cruel. Did
you like the roasts about white guy sucking Dix and
(43:45):
blasting Giselle and Kim Kardashian and making women the butt
of many jokes? Where's the edge of appropriate too inappropriate
in comedy.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I remember seeing some roasts like David Hasselhoff Rolls where
he was kind of down. He had done this video
of eating drunk, eating a verb and everybody was just
piling on him and beating him up. And I remember
getting mad at that roast, thinking, this is not the
(44:15):
idea of a loofe shot. Yeah, the roast should be
taking these shots as someone who is up right, someone
who is at the top of their game, but not perfect,
and so let's true, let's give him a haircut. That
is the spirit behind what I think a good roast
should be, not piling on somebody who's down.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
And it's also you could say the spirit of comedy.
Comedy isn't about taking on the week. It's about taking
down the strong.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Absolutely, and the strong who are doing things that aren't
right of course, and you know, so those are the
boundaries for me. And it's the intention behind it and
the target that make all the difference to what whether
I think you can go as far as you want
when you're making fun of, right of somebody who deserves
to be made fun of, you know, right, But.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
I mean, for example, if I wanted to make a
joke about Jewish people or black people, or how Jewish
people and black people get together. That is tricky territory
these days more than it was a while ago, because
people don't know. People don't assume intention is good. They
(45:24):
don't care about intention anymore. I just say, well, you
said something that could offend somebody.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
The other thing is they quote you out of context.
They'll take a clip that's only part of what you
said and then judge that is the entire thing.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
But I do think that in years past and decades past,
people have been hurt by their portrayal in the media.
They have been hurt unfairly or judged unfairly that stereotypes
where people were leading with stereotypes and not the humanity
of people. So that's that's fair. But again, you talk
about intention. If somebody's coming to you from a fairly
(45:59):
if and just seeing the world for what it is
and trying to make fun of everybody, including themselves, I
think that should be fair game.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Absolutely. And you know Dave Chappelle's stand up where he
got in trouble because he went on a rant about
this trans person that was at one of his shows
that was a love letter to that trans person, and
that was not offensive or mean spirit mean spiritedn't all.
(46:28):
But the people who quoted how he needed how tat
Rando's had to take him off and that you know,
he's going to be stopped. They were not listening to
what he said and happen to stupid people.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
They feel that you've touched this third rail of identity
of any kind and you're not allowed to touch it.
And I think that's not fair because if you're sitting
in a world and you're an artist and you're an observer,
he gets to observe everything absolutely should be able to.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, and you know without the you know, George Carlines
of the world that mocked Catholicism relentlessly because he saw
all the hideous inconsistencies and lies.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
He back to hypocrisy and old and government and religion
and everything. Yeah, Dave, we have this thing called the
moment of.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Joy, A moment of joy. I had an old car,
a fifty seven Cadillac convertible.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Will you Elvis Presley at any time in your life?
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Now? I know he gave people cars, but this car
was like, I restored it and I polished the chrome,
and I drove it around and I play Sinatra songs
as I'm driving to this old commercial, old Cadillac, and
(47:53):
I just I do love that old Hollywood old lam.
Would love to be driving around here in say nineteen
forty six, nineteen forty seven up to say fifty two.
There's a movie I love called Mulholland Falls. Most people
(48:14):
don't know about. It's Nick Nolty, Chans Pomentary, Chris Pan
and Michael Masden as cops in the Hat Squad and
they're driving around in this nineteen forty eight Buick Roadmaster
convertible black with a red interior. It's just I had
(48:37):
such a great time being part of LA. And I
think it was Lalo Schiffren who did the music. And
nobody knows LA better than him, sure, And so I
love that film, and so I would be fantasizing in
my Cadillac that I was in that, you know. So, Dave,
(48:59):
thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
This is so great. I've wanted to have you in
for a long time. And thank you for sharing all
this stuff, and thank you for all the comedy and
all the great stuff you've done over the years. And
you know, it's nice to be able to meet one
of your heroes and know that you're a great guy.
So that's awesome. I'm really a pleasure and thank you
(49:21):
for being here my audience. Please write me at DBAWJK
and like the show and like it whatever you share it,
all that stuff you're supposed to do, but more importantly,
sit down with somebody cool and have a fucking conversation
one on one with somebody.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
You'll be so better off.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Than just sitting in your house looking at TikTok. That's right,
I mean, that's what I say. So anyway, well until
next time, I'll see you later.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Don't be alone with
Straw Hut Media. Hi, I'm Dave Thomas and I am
thrilled to be on Don't Be Alone with Jay Cogan.
See I mean I really know this show so well.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Don't Be Alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Hi, Cogination, and welcome to Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan.
We're in the beautiful Don't Be Alone Studios and we
have yet again another amazing show for you today. I
was a nerdy kid used to sitting around watching TV
and being entertained by geniuses, and instead of instead of
doing anything athletic, I would just stay home and watch stuff.
(00:44):
And one of the great things that popped on in
my life around the time that I was reading Mad
Magazine and National Lampoon was showing up was SETV. SETV
was supposedly a network that showed a TV show, so
it was an excuse to do parodies of TV shows,
and it was so funny and so sharp and so
(01:05):
interesting that it just took my generation by storm. Everybody
I knew loved SCTV, and we love the people who
made SCTV. And one of the people who were directly
responsible for making SETV is one of my guests today.
His name is Dave Thomas, and he was part of SCTV.
He was part of Grace under Fire. He's obviously the
(01:27):
McKenzie brothers. He's part of Second City. In general, people
don't know he's also a director. He's also a writer,
not just performer. He's a producer. He's a creative entity.
And he's spent his life doing something very interesting, which
is he has driven his career in different directions. Where
other people would be stuck in one gear and let
(01:50):
their career sort of fade away. He's been able to
turn right or turn left, go to drama, go to animation,
do things, and I'm always impressed by that. I'm always
impressed by people who can see the future or feel
in their gut best place to go and then go there.
Dave Thomas seems to be one of those guys, and
we'll find out more about him coming up. But before
(02:11):
we do, I'm going to encourage you to write to
me at Dbawjka at gmail dot com with all your questions,
is your suggestions and your listener mail. I need your
listener mail questions. Please write in. We also have a
new substack, so come look for the show on the
substack and you'll find a bonus material and other things,
and a community to talk to that'll be fun to
share your notes about Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan.
(02:34):
I'm really enjoying the positive feedback I'm getting and I
want you to be part of it, and I like
having a direct conversation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So please actually take the.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Time to write in. I will write you back and
we'll have a nice exchange. Okay, so there's that. I
did the housekeeping. Now let's get on with a really
fun and interesting interview with Dave Thomas.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Don't Be Alone with JJ Cogan.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Dave Thomas, thank you for being here. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
As everyone of my generation who gloves comedy, you and
your cohorts on SETV are all heroes. He might not
be comfortable with it, maybe you're very comfortable with it,
but the truth is you shaped our lives.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I'm comfortable with it because it was very collaborative, right,
So it's not about me. It's about the group of
people that I worked with.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
All great comedy things are usually very collaborative and usually
about the group, and people who watch it don't know that.
They think it's just the one person who did the
one thing, but that's never the case. But that group
of people to come together in that particular time, what
a stroke of luck. Whatever that was, it was unusual,
that's for sure. Now was everybody there from the Chicago
(03:49):
Second City, No, mostly Toronto.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
The Toronto Second City started seventy two, no. Seventy three,
and Joe Flaherty and Briandoh Murray came up to start
it with Bernie Songs who ran it, and Dale Close
and they held additions and dan Aykroyd was looking for work,
(04:18):
and Gilda Radner was in Toronto looking for work. She'd
been in Godspell. Eugene was looking for work. He didn't
get cast in the first show, but so they put
a company together in Toronto that when I saw the
first show, it was Killered. John Candy was in it,
(04:38):
Joe Flaherty was in it, Eugene finally was in it,
dan Ackroyd was in it, and Gilda Radner and Andrea Martner.
So that was a killer cast. Amazing, yeah, and unbelievable.
Their ensemble work was fantastic and their solo.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Work was also and all these people were many of
these people turned out to be not just great performance
but also good writers. Yeah, true, yes, and then the
second city promotes writing because you know, you start doing improvs,
but every the show is basically written, right yeah, yeah,
so that's that's really important.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We build the show on the same city stage show
with improvs, refine them. Anything where you go out one
night and a particular idea works in its first incarnation,
then you try it again. We had tape recordings of
it so we could play it back and hear what
worked and what didn't work, and then you try to
(05:34):
refine it and hone it and make it better. So
that's writing, that's editing, that's writing.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
And I imagine most of the improvs don't have great endings.
You have to figure out endings.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Oh yeah. Sometimes you discovered the ending the first time out.
That's fantastic, and then that's kind of locked in, right,
so you know where you're driving, you know where you're going.
That's fantastic. As a as an improviser.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
At the groundings, I found that we had great characters,
we had great conflicts, but that we didn't necessarily have
great endings. We had to figure those out.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I mean, you know, when I saw Dan Aykroyd for
the first time. I was a student of comedy, and
you know how everybody when they start out, you can
see their roots from who they're doing, you know. And
Eugene was very He had Jack, Benny and him, and
you'd see a lot of Jacks slow takes and things
like that. And this guy Acroid blows into town from
(06:24):
Ottawa and he's doing blue collar comedy where the reference
level of the blue collar workers is so high and
so detailed and so intricate that the audience is going,
what the fuck is he really a plumber?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It does? How does he know that? Does he know
how to fly a plane? How does he know that?
And it gave dignity to comedy that had been belittled
and those kind of people were always treated as buffoons
and clowns. But he treated these people as funny, but
in a different way and mark in their field of course.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
And how did he He did know a lot of jargon,
or at least seem to, how do he know?
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When I worked on Spies Like Us with him, I
found out because I went I was working on another
movie at the time for Joel Silver, and Universal took
me off that movie and said Akroyd wants you to
work with a month spies like us, And I said, okay.
Joel Silver is famous for saying I would stab myself
(07:28):
in the back for that, right, yeh. And Miranda's impersonated
him on SETV. So anyway, I went to Danny's. He
had a bungalow there on the lot, and I went
to his bungalow and he says, great, I'm glad you're
doing this, David. And there's a big steamer trunk full
(07:48):
of books and he said this, we got to read
every book in this steamer trunk before we put pen
to paper. And they were all books about oh mobile
Soviet missile launcher. There's the Cold War capabilities of the
USSR versus USA, And it was just so much data
and information. And he had Danny had a great memory,
(08:12):
but he researched and he read. And then that made
it really clear to me how he got that comedy
that was so novel and different than anything I've ever seen.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
So much of what's great and important about comedy is
specificity and detail. And so like a lot of us
when we're doing improv, we're just bullshitting and making stuff up.
But if you have at your fingertips, real details of stuff.
You're going to make it that much better. And even
if the.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Audience doesn't know the specificity, it rings true for sure,
and it resonates and they kind of go, oh, what's right.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
It feels different like Ghostbusters felt different because of all
the jargon and stuff that was being told. Yeah it
it had a pseudoscience, verisimilid to that would go like, yeah,
this could, this could happen.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And that's that's Danny. I mean, you know, we were
on stage one night, Danny and I, and we were
stealing a car, which is mime stuff. You were in
the grounds, you know, so you two chairs sit beside
each other, you mind the door again, and then we're
trying to start it and it wasn't It wouldn't start,
(09:23):
and Danny was doing the and he did that a
few times and then you know how when you start
to wear the battery down gets slower. And then I
just went at the end and he looked at me
just with the look of delight, and he said the
solonoid and I said the solnoid And just the fact
(09:43):
that I knew that he loved me, do you know
what I mean? And I was so happy to be
able to meet him on his level of specificity. The
hard part of all of it is that most comedy
goes on too long, right, and people forget that. Commercials
(10:06):
took people's attention span and condensed it right. You can
say an awful lot in thirty seconds, So that yardstick
was something that comedy could be measured by two. I
found that two three minutes was a really good sort
(10:26):
of weight for a little comedy sketch. Right. There are
sketches on stage, especially group sketches or sketches that explore
relationships that could go on three to five minutes, and
that makes sense too, and rarely does it go on
beyond that.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I heard a funny story something about you ends and
Dell close.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
At a certain point, maybe did you you were at
a second city?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Was Dell the Yeah, he was directing one show.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
He was kind of a weird guy, and he did
a lot of weird things, and a certain point.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
He was insane, right, I mean, you're being very kind, right, Well,
I love that. Okay, that was really funny, but that
was a great guy. But he was insane, ridiculously self indulgent,
and I he fired me in a rehearsal, which I
wasn't real he couldn't fire me because he didn't have
the authority to do that, and I knew that at
(11:26):
the time, but it was a scene that he wanted
to do where he said to me, you know, and
he would do this occasionally because he had a history
of drug abuse, a history of a lot of therapy
and psychiatric problems, and his father had died mysteriously. And
if you follow Dell's narratives, there's different reasons why his
(11:51):
dad constantly changing the story. Was constantly changing anything that
made a better story exactly was what. So Dell wanted
to recreate the scene he was playing on Our Heart
Strength where he finds found out that his dad died
from drinking sulfior cacid and he wanted me to be
the doctor to tell him, to give him the news,
and he was going to play himself. And I'm thinking, well,
(12:15):
wait a minute, we're doing rehearsals to build a show.
Dell isn't in the cast. Why are we doing a
scene where he plays a pivotal role if not for
some self indulgent reason that I make. So I said,
I'm not going to do that and he says what
I said, I'm not going to do that. That's ridiculous, Dell.
(12:37):
It makes no sense. You shouldn't be in the scene.
It's very self indulgent. I'm not doing it. And he said,
theater is not a democracy. I'm the director. You do
what I say. And I said nah. I said, no,
theater should work Second City theater should work towards building
a show, and you, as the director should be really
(12:59):
somebody that we look up to as somebody that relentlessly
works to that goal and not other right side projects
guiding us towards the goal. Right anyway, he said you're
fired and I said, okay, well all right, I said
I don't think so, but I'll leave right So I left,
and then Andrew Alexander called me later and he said,
(13:21):
you're coming in tonight and I said yeah, and he said,
oh good. He said, Dell told me he fired you.
I said, yeah, but I knew he didn't have the
authority to do that. Unless you're firing, right, then I'll
be in. So then I had to come in and
face Dela. We're doing the show and he's there, and
(13:42):
we didn't really say anything during the actual show, itself.
He was pissed off, you know, and I said, about
halfway through the show, I said, hey, why don't I
give you a ride at home after the show? And
he looks at me, he goes, okay. So I gave
him a right at home, and I said, look, Dell,
(14:03):
I wanted to talk to you because he said what
I did was wrong. You were you did the exactly
the right thing. You remind me of me. That's exactly
what I would have done. And I was just like, okay,
well that's that's nice. But I just want you to
know I respect you. I think you're a funny guy.
(14:23):
I think you a lot to give us, but I
can't stand it when you do these really self indulgent,
you know, digressions. And so anyway, we manded fences and
I drove him home and but he was crazy as
could be the next night.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
And I think there's there's fair amount of evidence that
his dad did not die in any of the ways
that he said it.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Absolutely but certainly not from drinking.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So if you're a cast, right, don't be alone.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
With a lot of people I know are in improv.
My one of my very first mentors in improv Phyllis
Katz said that the only reason she got into improv
in Chicago is because Joe flaherty enlistener said you should
(15:23):
try that, Like he was just you know, she was
just around the theater and he said, you want to
try you should try it, like he was very encouraging
to get people to do that. And I work with
Joe on The Wrong Guy with Dave Foley, and you know,
of course he too was a hero. Interestingly, I never
really understood the machinations how SETV the TV show was made,
(15:46):
and how you know, you were writing a lot of
it and he was trying to write a lot of it,
and you guys were at a certain point overwhelmed by
budget time, you know, all the stuff that was going
on that was happening.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
And the show that has a problem with its inception
is doomed to have problems. And that was SETV, right,
because what was the problem with its inception. Bernie Sollins
decided when Lorn Michael starts Saturday Night Live, that Lauren
was stealing all his cast from his stage shows and
that he should do a TV show. The problem is
(16:20):
there already was one on and it was a hit,
so he decides to launch a SCTV, which was at
Second City Television at that time. SCTV was a later
name for the show, and so it was doomed from
the fact that we couldn't get the financing for budgets
and we got a production deal from Global TV in Canada.
(16:43):
It was like next to nothing. And I remember the
one meeting dell or sorry Bernie had with the Global
TV executives and he said, they said, who's going to
direct the show? And this guy a malade besides who
was a director of news and cooking shows, That's all
(17:07):
he had ever done. Bernie said, do you have a director?
Are you? And so it was that kind of carelessness.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
When things were falling apart sometimes at SETV. I remember
you telling me that at some point they they needed
you to help sort of pick up the ball in
terms of the writing and in terms of the producing
something that you didn't want to do.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Here's the genealogy of it. Harold Ramis was our head
writer right in the first season. Well, he was a
great head writer, as we saw from his career after
that and even during the time that he did I
say SCTV, he was writing Animal House with two other
runners Chris Miller and Doug Kenny. So, and he had
(17:58):
been Playboy joke editor, so he had this catalog of jokes.
And he was a really smart guy, real high IQ
and so his memory was great and that allowed him
to have a great reference level all the things you
know that are absolutely necessary to be a good comedy writer.
And he had experience which none of us had. So
(18:19):
Harold ran the show for the first year and then
he left. Well when he left, the logical choice of
the person to run the show was Joe. But Harold
said to Andrew, no, Joe will quit. Joe can't do
the administrative stuff that is required in this job, and
(18:43):
you should make Dave and Joe do it together because
Dave will do the administrative stuff. So I just knew
you were the hard ass I like that. What was
that was that? Well? No, but I was the guy
that would try would look at the board and go,
we need this done, and we need it done by tomorrow.
You know what I mean. So, and it makes you unpopular,
there's no question about that. But I I remember saying
(19:07):
to Harold when he made that decision, I said, why
did you make me the I understand why you made Joe.
Why you asked Andrew to made Joe the head writerer?
Why did you make me? And he said, because Joe
will quit probably within three months, and he did right,
because it just wasn't what Joe wanted to do. Joe
was an artist. He was very misanthropic and very eccentric
(19:31):
and unusual and hard to get a hold of. If
you have a meeting at nine o'clock, you'd be lucky
if Joe was there at noon. And so that kind
of stuff on a television schedule is just a disaster.
So that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And then.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Finally then I'm running it alone.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And then.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
After the third season, I invited Rick Morans in because
we were or to on cast and he was an
amazing writer and a great and where do you know
Rick from? I met him at a party and two
of us just started improving together and I thought, Wow,
this guy's fast and really funny. So I saw him.
(20:16):
I did some research on him, and then I went
to Andrew because we were down in between the second
and third seasons. Andrew Martin and Eugene Levey had left
the show to go to Los Angeles to try and
get into sitcoms. Catherine was taking a year off, was
(20:37):
just tired of doing it. John Kenny was doing his
own show, Big City Comedy, So we need if we're
going to do the show, we need to cast. And
Andrew got this facility deal to replace Global, who dropped
us in Edmonton. Right, So there's also the feeling that
we were the b team to Saturday Night Live. We
(21:00):
were first doing the show in Toronto, and then to
keep the show alive we have to move to Edmonton.
Right then it seems like, well, what's next, right Horse Siberia? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So anyway, it was hard to get people motivated. I
convinced Catherine. I convinced Eugene and Andrea to do like
(21:20):
a couple a couple of weeks of shooting and then
we'd feed their stuff in between all the shows. As
a fan, I didn't know they were not part of
that show, and it seemed like they were because there
was enough of their pieces to give them a presence
in the show. But we still needed to cover for
John and Catherine, and so I got Rick Moranis to
(21:44):
join the cast, and then Joe Flaherty invited Tony Rossotto
and Robin Duke. So that was our third season cast. Well,
we had a real moranas and I had a real
good rhythm going in that year because he was just
so fascinated this job of head writer and it was
like an empty board of twenty six shows and you
(22:07):
got to fill all the cards and I'm like, oh God,
and he's there, Mars, Okay, how about this? Okay, how
about this? And I'm just like, holy crap. So we
ended up doing a lot of duos. We ended up
doing Bob Hope and what he Own? We ended up
doing Cronkite and Brinkley. We ended up doing the Mackenzie Brothers.
(22:27):
Did you know, by the way, you did a good
Bob Hope imitation before you did Bob Hope. No, Brian
Doyle Murray was responsible for that. Okay, the makeup woman. Okay,
bab Shackman fantastic. One of the great Bob Hope imitation.
Was there a Chester Hope. It's like there's a Bob
Hope sold or something. Played Chester Hope at his ninetieth
birthday party. Yeah, his nephew. Okay, that was well. Anyway,
(22:50):
we're out there in Edmonton and we've got this cast
and the season ends, and we don't know whether the
show is going to get picked up again. What we
didn't know was that Brandon Tartakoff was watching the show
and thinking about putting it in on Friday nights because
Blushy n Ackroyd were making noises about leaving at SNL
(23:11):
and doing Blues Brothers, and he thought he's either going
to groom a cast to replace those people, or leverage
or another show on Friday. Right. Also, it's good negotiating tool.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
If I've got another comedy show on Friday Night, then
you can't hold me up on Saturday night.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
That's right, Yeah, exactly, exactly so, and they're into those
big monikers, the Tonight Show, the Today Show. They like
to own real estate and television, and so if you
could get Friday Night, sure with us. I think he
was excited about that, But we didn't know this at
the time. So Mirandas and I go to LA and
I had done a pilot with CBS and become friends
(23:51):
with the guy running at Harvey Shepherd and I bit,
your dad worked with My dad knew Harvey Shepherd. Yeah,
he had the world's worst wig, but he had an
automatic switch on his door at his desk that closed
his door. So he'd walk in and then he'd do this.
It just happened, and the door would close and you'd
look behind you. It was like haunted house.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I first ran into that in twenty Century Fox sometime
in nineteen eighty seven. There's a magnet that's attached to
the door, and you press the button and you release
the through electromagnetism, release the magnet power, and the door closes.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
But it has a thud, like there's a It's.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
All about intimidation. I have no idea why people just
couldn't close the door.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And Harvey loved that. Yeah, of course, so it was
you'd see his eyes twinkle when he did it, you know.
So anyway, Moranist and I sold him a show, the
two of us doing a two hander, because we cut
together a bunch of clips of this stuff that we'd done. Right.
Then we find out Brandon Tartakoff has approached John Candy
and put together a wants to put together the cast.
(24:56):
So we get a call from John Candy in Toronto
and he's like, guys, you know you got to come
where NBC wants us to do a show, right, And
it's a ninety minute show on Saturday on Friday, right,
And I'm like, ninety minutes a lot of time. Yeah,
I don't know if we could do that. And then
I'm stuck with you know, we don't know what to do.
(25:18):
Rick and I have got this deal now it's not
signed yet, but anyway, we went to Toronto.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
You've got this show that you and Rick have and
you don't know what's going to be big. You have
no idea what's going to work. Nope, So what led
you to.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Join everybody in Toronto and do the ninety minute show?
It was a gut feeling. And the gut feeling was
that these people were good. I mean, I knew Candy
was a star. I knew he was going to break out.
I knew Flaherty was really good. I knew Catherine was
really good, and I knew Eugene was really good. So
(25:55):
it was just like, and Andrea is just a force
of nature. So I thought, there's too many You you
can't fill a show with just two people, you know,
even a half hour show gets thin, and you need
to support cast. So who do we get when? Then
we got to find a new support cast. There's a
(26:15):
support cast in Toronto right there. So and not a
support cast either, but it's all stars. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
One of the things about my show is I have
a always a burning question of my own that I
always approach you guests with. And one of the reasons
you're here other than huge fan of yours also like
you is a Fred like your kid, like you're like,
oh that is you seem to have made a lifetime
of interesting and good choices in show business. In other words,
(26:44):
when something falls out, you find another route. You find
when something's when there's a problem, you find a solution.
When there's an opportunity to go into animation, or an
opportunity to go into drama, or you find your way
to those things where a lot of people are just
stuck in one position. So when you make a decision
like this where it could be your show, you you're
(27:05):
in rich show and decided no, no, no, I'm going
to veer to this other group thing, it's fascinating to me,
like you seem to have these instincts where the drive
to get you where you want to go.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Well, you've got to drive in this business or you're dead.
I mean I make it dead. So I don't know,
it's like talent right, luck is really big, and drive
is really those are the three right magic ingredients. And
and if you you can make it on one, one
on two of them, but you can't make it on
(27:37):
one of them, and you can't make it with none
of them. So I considered that I react, not that
I have this amazing intuition or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
But I would agree that you're reacting to the situation.
But a lot of people don't react in that situation,
or don't or stuck in one position.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I took a job as a copyright in advertising because
I went for six months without getting any work before
Second City started. And then I said to Eugene Marty,
I said, I'm not going to be a waiter who
tells people that he's in showbiz. You know, you'll be
an advertising executive. And well, I knew how to write.
I thought I could write, sure, because I was good
(28:19):
at essays in school. So I wrote a bunch of
fake ads and I got the Yellow Pages, which was
the Google of the day, and I went through and
I called every ad agency till I got to the
MS at McCann Erickson. I got hired temporary job like
on trial for six months eighty five hundred a year,
(28:42):
and I was working as a junior writer on the
Coca Cola account, which sounds prestigious except that you were
doing the retail stuff, which is just big bottles of
Coca Cola standing next to Pepsi bottles, trying to look
frostier and better and stoopid. A copy that makes it
(29:02):
was awful. But then I got an opportunity to do
a contest. And this is again a luck turn that
happened in my career. They had a contest in the
retail area of Coca and it was called Capital Caps,
and so underneath the cap of each bottle there's a
(29:23):
number or a token, and if you get the rights hoking,
you could win up to ten thousand dollars something like that.
So I get the job of writing that, and I
get the legal copy that's required for the thirty second spot,
and there's literally twenty eight and a half seconds of
legal copyright, so there's no room for anything. And I
(29:44):
was thinking, well, how can I make this fun and interesting?
Then I remember this bit that Don Knuts used to
do on the Old Tonight Show where he was a weatherman,
and he had like charts that snapped up unexpectedly and
pointers broke and you know, and too much information to
(30:05):
be able to convey in a short period. That was
the gag. And I had a similar problem with the spot, right,
So I thought, all right, So I wrote a bit
like that and I took it to the creative director
and I said, here's my spot. And he says, he says,
this is great, but good Coca Cola is never going
to improve it if they just read this, because they're
not going to visualize it. To show them, you have
(30:28):
to go up there and pitch this to them, And
I said okay. So I went up to Coke and
I pitched it and they loved it. And then they
said who do you see being the guy in this?
And I didn't expect that question, and I just said
Tim Conway. So within a week I was on a
(30:48):
plane to La to shoot this spot with Tim Conway.
And the spot was a huge success. Then Coca Cola
Canada said they fired the head writer for Coke Cola
Canada and made me the head writer. And I'd only
been in advertising for three months, right, And so it
went like that, and I had lucky breaks like that.
(31:12):
The formula that we were talking about, right, And I
mean I was ballsy enough to go up to Coke
to pitch it and uh clear enough to come up
with a bit that worked for the problem, but lucky
enough that they went forward and cast Tim Conway. All
of a sudden it was a hit.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Don't alone with you had an animation company, right? And yes, okay,
so you're you know, you're trying to make a show business,
not just as a performer and as a writer, but
also just like you know, as an owner.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Three of us formed this company called Animax, Me, Dan
Greeney and then the Simpsons and Andy Baine. Dan's friend
who was a business guy who'd bought some who'd graduated
Yale NBA went over to USSR when it collapsed and
bought some businesses in Ukraine at a real bargain. So
(32:28):
he bought. One of the things he bought was an
animation company. So the plan was to outsource to the
Ukraine cheap labor and underbid local animation companies and get
some stuff going well. Dan and Andy got into an
argument and Dan quit and then it was just me
(32:48):
and Andy. But Andy was also in the US Marines Reserves,
and then the Warren Iraq breaks out and Andy says,
I'm going over and I said, what are you talking about?
So I'm going to the war and I said, what
about the animation coming? So he leaves me to run
it and he goes off to Iraq. Well that was
(33:10):
a tough thing. And now all of a sudden, I've
got these animators on staff and it's something for them
to do. And I and it was Selling animation is
really hard because there's only a few places that buy it.
And at that time it was like nickelode and Disney
and and and there was always Fox, but they didn't
(33:31):
really buy anything. They just they were looking for family
comedies like The Simpsons or Family Guy and and that's
all they wanted. So it was a hard job. Then
Andy comes back. This story is worth telling. Okay, I
was going to cut you off, but go ahead. He
comes back from Iraq, right and I said, so are
(33:53):
you done? He said, yeah, they sent me back. I
said why. He said, well, when I got over there,
they weren't giving any of the mid He was a colonel.
He said, they weren't giving any of the mid ranking
officers positions on bases that mattered. They thought too many
of the reserve guys were trying to get in the action.
(34:14):
So they sent me to a base in the south
and he said, I was at this base in the
south and he said, then all of a sudden, this
four hundred army engineers show up, and He's like, what
the who are you guys? And he called sentcom and
(34:37):
they say, oh, yeah, sorry, we meant to tell you
they were coming. We overestimated the number of weapons of
mass destruction that we were going to find, and sending
these guys home now will be embarrassing for us. So
just keep them down and there at that base, out
of the way until we can figure out what to
do with them. So and he said, okay. Then he's
(35:02):
sitting having a beer with this army engineer one day
and looking at sand dues and he says, see that
sand dune from there to there, there'd be a great
dog's power for And the army engineer says, we can
build you a golf course if you want. Andy said,
what do you mean. He said, we're army engineers. We
could build you a fucking skyscraper in the middle of
(35:22):
this desert. So Andy said, okay, let's do it. And
I said, well, Where'd you get the material? Andy just laughed.
He said, I just sent Sandcom memos saying that I
was worried that insurgents were going to compromise my AMMO bunkers.
He said, I got all the pos for concrete and
rebar everything I need. So Andy builds a clubhouse and
(35:43):
a pool, first for a golf course. And he's building
a golf course. Then a regiment of Ukrainian soldiers show up.
Sandcom knew that Andy spoke Ukrainian and had businesses in
the Ukraine. He also speaks fluent Russian. And so the
Ukrainians say, and he meets the head guy and he
(36:05):
knows they're all black market guys. Sure, and Andy says,
where's the vodka? And the guy says, don't insulk me.
We have the finest and and he says, where's the vodka.
You either give me the vodka. You can't sleep on
the base. So and he said, within three days, two
deuce trucks, that's trucks with two thousand pound cargo full
of booze show up. Right that these Ukrainians got Now
(36:27):
they got this, this clubhouse full of booze. They got
a pool, right, a cabana a booze and they're building
the front nine and the Ukrainians are going to get
them grass that doesn't need one. Then the generals come around,
the brass come around, touring all the bases and they
see this golf course, that the building. What's this and
and he says, well, you know, idle Hands is the
(36:49):
devil's playground, as you got these guys. So they got
pissed off and just sent Andy everybody home. They never
got to play golf. But that's weird, right now, very strange.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Well, what's not weird is there were no weapons of
mass destruction, so they overestimated by a factor of everything.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
You know. I know. So and he tells me this
story and I go, that's a great that's.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
A show, right, So versus military things always seem to
excite me.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
And then this is has another life because then in
April of this year, Andy says to me, I've been
He stayed in Ukraine when the war started and he's
been there helping them and he founded this company, this
charity called the Ukrainian Freedom Fund. And so he's like,
(37:39):
he calls me and he says, you're a Canadian with
a media presence, and there are a million Canadians and
a million Ukrainians in Canada. We're trying to build a
donor base. Would you come here and help us build
a donor base, do some press and maybe do some
interviews while you're here. And so I so, all right,
(38:02):
why not? So I went to Ukraine and it was like, uh,
something I never expected to see.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
It's pretty eye opening when you get there to see
it's a war zone, sure, and and and see people
who stayed to fight, and see how the people who
were there are trying to hang on. And it's very
it's very touching and difficult.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It is, it really is. And and it's amazing that
you went.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
As a matter of fact, you were going to do
my show at a certain point, you had to hop
on a plane to go to Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I remember that. It was as fantastic as like. And
I was like, you're going where? Why? And then but
you did?
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Eventually I understood, I understood why. I want to back
up for a seconds.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
So SETV.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
One of the breakout things of SETV were the Mackenzie brothers,
so and and they have a very interesting origin, which
is I guess you had to make some Canadian content.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
When Brandon Tartakoff Uh picked up the show in the
third season and ran it in the NBC O and
O S. CBC was the broadcaster that broadcasted in Canada,
and CBC had two minutes of less commercial time, which
(39:16):
meant that they needed two minutes of program content that
weren't in the American shows. And so they said to
the producers, we want that that two minutes of content
to be distinctively Canadian. So I'm ad writer and I'm
sitting in a working late with Maratus and Andrew Alexander
(39:37):
comes in. He says, this is what CBC wants. They
want too many. I said, what do they want? Do
they want like they want us to put up a
flag of a map of Canada dressed and Parkers and
tubes and the trip beer And he said, fine, do
that and if you could have a Mountie and that
(39:57):
would he be better. So we did these two minute
spots and they're all exactly two minutes. And because they
were such a low risk part of the program content
of the show not seen in the US at all,
Rick and I decided we're not going to write them.
We're just going to improvise them. So we would get
a ten count in from the floor director and then
(40:20):
it go to us and then we would wing it right,
get a five counter out, and we'd have to wrap
it up and then some of them would be good.
Most of them would be really shitty. But if in
an hour we got two two minute sketches in an
hour of shooting, that was program efficient to the producers.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
You know, here's another thing. You went into drama writing
to writing mysteries and dramas, Bones, you know, all these
other shows. How did you get there?
Speaker 1 (40:52):
From the world with comedy the move to drama. Isn't
that weird? Because comedy was changing at the time that
I made the jump, and it was becoming very woke
and very precious and you couldn't say anything without people
getting bummed out and pissed.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Off, right, and not in that form non TV, Yeah,
it was. Yeah, these were more restricted.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah. So I got I knew Hart Hanson who ran Bones,
and he said to me. I was talking to him
about what the hell am I going to do? He said,
why don't you come up with five really interesting ways
to kill somebody? I said really, He said, yeah, just
do that and send them to me. Right, I said, okay.
So one of them he really liked was a bullets
(41:35):
made of frozen blood, and so, because then it would
leave no trace, you know, they gave me an offer
to write a script based on that. So I wrote
the script and I went in and worked with the
writing room and it was fun. I really loved the
intricacies of procedural but I also loved the fact that
you had an extra twenty minutes of content that would
(41:58):
allow you to tell a story, because you can't tell
a story in a sitcom. It's impossible. Yeah, and hence
the term sitcom. You are reacting to a situation. Oh
my mother in law is coming, what are we gonna do?
But by that time it had gotten worse and worse too.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Commercials had gotten more and more and the amount of
time for the actual show is something like nineteen minutes
and thirty seconds, very small amount of time to have
a cold open, the beginning of the story, and then
how it advances and how it ends.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
It's almost over before it begins, that's right. Yeah, And
some guys like you guys on Fraser were artists in
the way you handled that, And I was so thrilled
to watch that, but I don't think I had that
kind of skill. So I went into drama, and after
I'd written that script, they all liked the script. Then
(42:49):
they said would you come on as a consulting producer
and I said yeah. So they made me an offer
and I joined them and I worked for three years,
had a great time. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
You also did the Blacklist, right, yeah, which is also
really smart. Interesting it is show. All right, Well, now
it's time for listener mail. Now it's time for listener man.
This is from Stewart. He said, listen to Cliff nesteroff
and then, having watched the Tom Brady roast and having
(43:24):
listened to you complain on occasion about not being able
to say things say things inappropriately in comedy these days,
exactly what we were just talking about. Based on what
I know about you, I would assume tough to hear
jokes is what comedy should be doing, pushing the boundaries.
You should be allowed to offend and be cruel. Did
you like the roasts about white guy sucking Dix and
(43:45):
blasting Giselle and Kim Kardashian and making women the butt
of many jokes? Where's the edge of appropriate too inappropriate
in comedy.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I remember seeing some roasts like David Hasselhoff Rolls where
he was kind of down. He had done this video
of eating drunk, eating a verb and everybody was just
piling on him and beating him up. And I remember
getting mad at that roast, thinking, this is not the
(44:15):
idea of a loofe shot. Yeah, the roast should be
taking these shots as someone who is up right, someone
who is at the top of their game, but not perfect,
and so let's true, let's give him a haircut. That
is the spirit behind what I think a good roast
should be, not piling on somebody who's down.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
And it's also you could say the spirit of comedy.
Comedy isn't about taking on the week. It's about taking
down the strong.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Absolutely, and the strong who are doing things that aren't
right of course, and you know, so those are the
boundaries for me. And it's the intention behind it and
the target that make all the difference to what whether
I think you can go as far as you want
when you're making fun of, right of somebody who deserves
to be made fun of, you know, right, But.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
I mean, for example, if I wanted to make a
joke about Jewish people or black people, or how Jewish
people and black people get together. That is tricky territory
these days more than it was a while ago, because
people don't know. People don't assume intention is good. They
(45:24):
don't care about intention anymore. I just say, well, you
said something that could offend somebody.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
The other thing is they quote you out of context.
They'll take a clip that's only part of what you
said and then judge that is the entire thing.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
But I do think that in years past and decades past,
people have been hurt by their portrayal in the media.
They have been hurt unfairly or judged unfairly that stereotypes
where people were leading with stereotypes and not the humanity
of people. So that's that's fair. But again, you talk
about intention. If somebody's coming to you from a fairly
(45:59):
if and just seeing the world for what it is
and trying to make fun of everybody, including themselves, I
think that should be fair game.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Absolutely. And you know Dave Chappelle's stand up where he
got in trouble because he went on a rant about
this trans person that was at one of his shows
that was a love letter to that trans person, and
that was not offensive or mean spirit mean spiritedn't all.
(46:28):
But the people who quoted how he needed how tat
Rando's had to take him off and that you know,
he's going to be stopped. They were not listening to
what he said and happen to stupid people.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
They feel that you've touched this third rail of identity
of any kind and you're not allowed to touch it.
And I think that's not fair because if you're sitting
in a world and you're an artist and you're an observer,
he gets to observe everything absolutely should be able to.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, and you know without the you know, George Carlines
of the world that mocked Catholicism relentlessly because he saw
all the hideous inconsistencies and lies.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
He back to hypocrisy and old and government and religion
and everything. Yeah, Dave, we have this thing called the
moment of.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Joy, A moment of joy. I had an old car,
a fifty seven Cadillac convertible.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Will you Elvis Presley at any time in your life?
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Now? I know he gave people cars, but this car
was like, I restored it and I polished the chrome,
and I drove it around and I play Sinatra songs
as I'm driving to this old commercial, old Cadillac, and
(47:53):
I just I do love that old Hollywood old lam.
Would love to be driving around here in say nineteen
forty six, nineteen forty seven up to say fifty two.
There's a movie I love called Mulholland Falls. Most people
(48:14):
don't know about. It's Nick Nolty, Chans Pomentary, Chris Pan
and Michael Masden as cops in the Hat Squad and
they're driving around in this nineteen forty eight Buick Roadmaster
convertible black with a red interior. It's just I had
(48:37):
such a great time being part of LA. And I
think it was Lalo Schiffren who did the music. And
nobody knows LA better than him, sure, And so I
love that film, and so I would be fantasizing in
my Cadillac that I was in that, you know. So, Dave,
(48:59):
thank you for being here.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
This is so great. I've wanted to have you in
for a long time. And thank you for sharing all
this stuff, and thank you for all the comedy and
all the great stuff you've done over the years. And
you know, it's nice to be able to meet one
of your heroes and know that you're a great guy.
So that's awesome. I'm really a pleasure and thank you
(49:21):
for being here my audience. Please write me at DBAWJK
and like the show and like it whatever you share it,
all that stuff you're supposed to do, but more importantly,
sit down with somebody cool and have a fucking conversation
one on one with somebody.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
You'll be so better off.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Than just sitting in your house looking at TikTok. That's right,
I mean, that's what I say. So anyway, well until
next time, I'll see you later.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Don't be alone with
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