March 18, 2026 • 29 mins
I thought about doing this episode very soon after starting this podcast. Ferne Pearlstein and Bob Edwards made a documentary more than a decade ago called “The Last Laugh” which talked about how comedy can tackle a tragedy as immense as the Holocaust and what lessons that might suggest for effectively communicating about crime. They interviewed basically every comedy legend you could think of and it’s an incredible film that will make you laugh and cry.
Talking to them and trying to tease out what lessons it might have for understanding and communicating about crime was a conversation that I really wanted to have and one that I really enjoyed. I think you will too.
Ferne Pearlstein is an award-winning producer, director, cinematographer, and editor, based in New York. She is a winner of the Sundance Cinematography Prize, and a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. In addition to her features SUMO EAST AND WEST and THE LAST LAUGH, which she produced, directed, shot, and edited, and both of which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and aired nationally on PBS”s Independent Lens series, she is currently producing JACK WHITTEN: A COSMIC SOUL, directed by Yoruba Richen.
Robert Edwards is writer, filmmaker, and the author of Resisting the Right: How to Survive the Gathering Storm, published by OR Books, about how to resist right wing authoritarianism in the US. He wrote and directed the feature films LAND OF THE BLIND, starring Ralph Fiennes and Donald Sutherland, and WHEN I LIVE MY LIFE OVER AGAIN, (aka ONE MORE TIME) starring Christopher Walken and Amber Heard. Most recently he co-produced and co-directed the feature documentary DEATH & TAXES with Justin Schein, and writes The King’s Necktie, a weekly blog on politics.
ASK E. JEAN, director Ivy Meeropol’s feature documentary about E. Jean Carroll, which premiered at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival, and on which Ferne a writer, editor, and supervising producer, will be in theaters this spring.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
I'm Jeff Asher and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
This episode is one that Ireally wanted to do from the
moment I launched a podcast.
Crime data rarely tells us howpeople process what happened.
And when communities experienceviolence, tragedy, or collective
trauma, the public responseisn't shaped by statistics
alone.
It's shaped by narrative,memory, and sometimes even
(00:21):
humor.
In this episode, I'm joined byfilmmakers Fern Perlstein and
Bob Edwards, the directors ofThe Last Laugh, a documentary
that explores the role of comedyin confronting the Holocaust.
Through conversations withcomedy legends and survivors,
the film asks, what's offlimits?
Who gets to joke about what, andwhether human can serve a
constructive purpose in theaftermath of unimaginable
(00:41):
tragedy.
We talk about how humor canfunction as a coping mechanism,
where the line sits betweenpunching up and punching down,
and even what comedy legends canteach us to better understand
crime.
This episode steps back fromcharts and trend lines to
examine how societies processtrauma and what role
storytelling and humor plays inshaping how we remember,
respond, and move forward.
(01:03):
Thank you both for joining theshow.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you.
So for this episode, I reallywanted to talk about how comedy
can be a critical component ofsort of healing from tragedy.
And I thought your documentary,The Last Laugh, was just such an
incredible display of this.
And I don't think I told youguys this, but I have triplets.
Actually, they turn eighttomorrow.
(01:24):
And when they were reallylittle, we do these midnight
feeds, and you know, you getthem up and they're still
sleeping and you put them onthese cushions.
And I would sit there for like40 minutes with a bottle and
feed them in the middle of thenight so that they would sleep
longer.
And I would just, I'd have myheadphones on and I'd watch my
iPad.
And I had like, you know, Bandof Brothers, war movies.
The Pelicans were playing theTrailblazers in this late night
(01:48):
series.
So I was watching NBAbasketball.
And your documentary, The LastLaugh, was one of the things
that I watched.
And so I have this endearingmemory of watching this terribly
sad and funny and justaltogether great documentary.
So I'm very excited to talk toyou both about the documentary
and sort of this intersection ofcomedy and tragedy and what you
(02:09):
learned of it.
So start off, what is yourbackground?
What sort of brought you to theworld of film?
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Well, you know, I started as a documentary
photographer.
So it was kind of uh an easyswitchover because it gave me
more opportunities and more waysto tell stories.
So mine is more straightforwardthan yours.
SPEAKER_02 (02:28):
Well, Fern is selling herself short because
she had this long career as adocumentary photographer and had
worked for Japanese newspapersand traveled and so forth, and
then went to the documentaryfilm program at Stanford, which
I also went to, but uh at adifferent time.
I'd come out of a militarybackground and but always wanted
to be in film and landed in thatprogram.
And that's how we ended upmeeting and and working together
(02:52):
and then getting married.
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
Well, so I was making a film.
I had finished the programbefore him a few years, and I
was working as a cinematographerfor many years, and he hired me
to shoot his film, and that'show we essentially met.
SPEAKER_03 (03:06):
So why choose documentaries first off as sort
of your medium?
And more importantly, why make afilm documentary about the
Holocaust and this angle of theHolocaust?
SPEAKER_00 (03:18):
It was actually gifted to me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:20):
Fern had a friend who was getting his PhD in
Oregon, and Fern was working forthis Japanese newspaper, the New
York City Bureau, and they senther down to Miami to do a story,
and while we're there, that'snot true?
It's not true.
No.
I guess it's the truth is lostin the mystery.
SPEAKER_00 (03:37):
Well, okay, okay.
I yes, you're combining two ofthe early stories.
So, so this friend of mine whohad done this sort of
dissertation on humor in thecamps, it was sort of like,
we're, you know.
Oh, I see.
You're saying it because we metokay.
So when I so when I was workingas a documentary photographer, a
(03:59):
friend of mine and I were inMiami.
I was on assignment and we metthis survivor, and we were
talking to her because Mouse hadjust come out, Art Spiegelman's
mouse.
And we were asking her about it.
We were like, what do you think?
And she said, Well, you know,you can't her only reference
because it was the first graphicnovel, her only reference to
(04:22):
comic strips were the Sundaypapers.
So she's like, You can't make,you know, you can't turn the
Holocaust into comedy.
You can't do it.
And then we had this wholeinteresting conversation with
her, and then he asked her, hadshe read it, and she said no.
So he went with this informationand wrote a paper for a class he
(04:43):
was taking, and it wasresearching all this humor that
was in the camps.
It was like in the concentrationcamps, the displaced persons
camps, the transit camps.
And he he did this paper, handedit to me, and said, make this
into a movie.
So that's how the process went.
I mean, so when he gave it to meand it was just all humor during
(05:07):
World War II, I knew that I wasgonna have to open it up to
post-war humor.
And he and I shared thatsensibility.
So he knew I was the rightperson to do it.
SPEAKER_03 (05:18):
Did you sort of know what the story was other than
sort of the outline before youwere making it, or did all of
these interviews point you?
SPEAKER_00 (05:28):
Absolutely.
No, no, no, no, no.
We had Bob and I had mapped itout completely.
You know, if you read, if youread early proposals that we
wrote, you would see the samefilm.
But we knew, I mean, the onestruggle was I knew I was gonna
interview all these comedians.
I already knew a lot of thearchival clips we wanted to use,
but I was I was desperatelylooking for something that was
(05:52):
gonna elevate it from just atalking heads film.
So that story, I knew therewould be that story.
I didn't know until I foundRenee that she would be the
heart and soul of the film.
But I knew I needed to make itless sort of like this very, you
know, interview-heavy film.
SPEAKER_03 (06:13):
Can can you just talk me through sort of the
synopsis of the film for forlisteners that haven't seen it?
SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
I'm gonna have you do that because you're faster.
SPEAKER_02 (06:21):
Well, let's film about what is taboo for humor
proceeding from the premise thatthe Holocaust would seem to be
the most off-limits topic or oneof the most for humor.
Um, but clearly it's not becausethere's been a lot of humor
around it, right?
You can go back to Mel Brooksand the producers.
There's a lot of humor attackingthe Nazis during the war and
(06:42):
since it's still around.
But there's a big differencebetween humor that's about the
perpetrators and humor thattouches on the victims, even if
it's not at the expense of thevictims.
But just invoking the images ofthe camps and so forth is a
third rail for many people.
So with the film, we wanted toexplore whether there was a role
for humor, a constructive role,a productive role, rather than
(07:04):
one that's just cheap orpunching down, as we say, at the
expense of the victims.
And once we start exploringthat, you know, this entire
world of humor and psychologyand history opened up to us.
SPEAKER_03 (07:16):
What lessons do you guys sort of take from having
done all of this research andthen having interviewed all of
these incredible people with uh,you know, I'm I'm just amazed at
the the number of people thathave lived such a such rich,
incredible lives that you guyswere able to talk to.
What have you learned from allthese conversations?
SPEAKER_00 (07:32):
Well, I'm gonna start that with a quote from Rob
Reiner, who it is just breaks myheart that he's not here right
now.
He was the first person to agreeto be in the film, and he opened
the doors to every other personthat's in the film.
But he has this line about, youknow, there's nothing funny
about the Holocaust.
There's nothing at all humorabout it, but humor and what it
(07:53):
takes to survive.
There can be humor in that.
And I think that the lessonsthat are very crystal clear for
me is, you know, a lot of peopleneed that humor to get through
difficult moments, to let offsteam as a release valve.
It's not for everybody.
Not everybody, you know, usesthat.
(08:14):
But the huge distinction iswhere humor is productive and
where it's not, like where itcan, like like Bob said,
punching up versus punchingdown, where it's used to, you
know, help me with this, likemake, you know, like helps draw
call attention to the ills inthe world rather than making fun
(08:38):
of the victim.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
Yeah, and Rob Reiner, not only was he pivotal
in the film just because he wasso beloved and so at the center
of American comedy in so manyways.
And once he was on board, otherpeople said, Oh, you're
legitimate.
But we talked to him about Allin the Family, which is a good
example of a very provocativepiece of art that's taken
differently by different people,you know.
(08:59):
Many people loved it, of course,and thought it was fantastic
social commentary and criticism.
But there were people who saidhalf your audience agrees with
Archie, and they're not laughingat him, they're laughing with
him.
So this is one of the big issuesthat their film tackles.
SPEAKER_03 (09:12):
Did you learn anything about sort of the role
of comedy in a larger scalerather than at the sort of the
victim level, but as how we as asociety engage with tragedy?
SPEAKER_02 (09:22):
Well, as Fern was saying, the the film opened up
to a lot of other things, waybeyond the Holocaust.
It came out just a couple yearsbefore COVID.
And so the Me Too movement, thelockdown, and in fact, every
sort of serious, dramatic,tragic thing that's happened
since then, we now kind of seethrough a different lens because
(09:44):
of our experiences making thefilm.
And and in each of those cases,people look to humor as a way to
to cope and deal with it, butit's always fraught because
those are serious topics.
And and you you never want tobe, unless you're have bad faith
in the first place, you neverwant to be in a position of
engaging humor that'sdestructive or damaging.
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
And and humor, it's been like a the use of comedy, I
should say, has been a movingtarget since we made this film.
I made a film after that forTrevor Noah about cancel
culture, and that's a movingtarget.
So how you know comedy is used,like for a while it felt like
late-night comedy shows werebeing more direct news coverage
(10:34):
than the news was in some cases.
So it and and now it's changedagain.
And then there, you know,there's how would you describe
that?
SPEAKER_02 (10:43):
Well, we always say it's moving in two at least two
directions at once.
So there are things that used tobe off-limits for comedy in a
more prudish era, let's say,that are now routine.
You you hear comedians talkabout all kinds of subjects that
used to be taboo.
But there are also things thatyou used to be able to talk
about or joke that are now offlimits and and a third rail.
(11:05):
And it's not permanent, likethose things are shifting and
going back and forth all thetime.
SPEAKER_00 (11:09):
But just as politics are divided right now, so so is
what's not okay.
You know, like what's not okayfor you is different for than
what's not okay for somebodyelse, and and vice versa.
And that is adding to this thissort of culture clash we're
living through.
SPEAKER_03 (11:29):
I guess there's certainly no correct answer to
this, but sort of combiningthose two, the idea of this
cancel culture and the comedy ofthings like the producers, is
that something that you thinkcould get made today if we were
20, 25 years after such ahorrific tragedy, or is has
society changed too much?
SPEAKER_00 (11:49):
I think that it would be hard to make it right
now, might be different in five,10 years.
But in this exact moment, I dothink it might be hard.
I think it would have been hardto make the last laugh right
now.
SPEAKER_02 (12:03):
I mean, not only would it be hard to make the
producers, the original MelBrooks film from 67, it would be
hard to do the Broadway musicaleven, which is now 20, 25 years
ago that it premiered.
The great irony there is themovie is the most, you know,
despicable topic you can imaginefor a lighthearted musical,
becomes a Broadway hit.
And then it really did become aBroadway hit 25 years later,
(12:24):
right?
Harry Shearer talks about thatin our film.
But now I I don't think youcould get away with it.
I think people would be, youknow, rightly concerned about
what your motives were, andespecially if you didn't have
the goodwill of being MelBrooks.
SPEAKER_00 (12:38):
Right.
But I I'm gonna add, you know,it wasn't easy for Mel Brooks to
make it when he made it, and itwasn't easy for us to make the
last laugh.
We we were trying since 1993.
So I got my first interview withRob Reiner in 2011.
So it's it's always hard.
These topics are never easy, butI just think with with
(13:01):
everything going on right now, Ithink right now, this moment,
very difficult.
SPEAKER_03 (13:08):
Yeah, and I I was very much struck by how you
literally could not make thesame movie now.
Obviously, you know, RobReiner's project passing and a
lot of the survivors havinghaving passed in the last
decade, it was it's sortfortuitous that it was made when
it was made.
Do you think, and this is goingin a totally different
direction, but do you thinkthere's sort of a unique
(13:29):
pressure on our generation,largely as sort of the last
generation that have directmemories of those survivors and
to have dealt with them to tellthese stories?
How how do you sort of take thatpressure?
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
People underestimate the children and the
grandchildren of survivors.
You know, they are gatekeepersof some of these stories.
So it is true that we're losingmost of the survivors, but the
stories are being passed outnow.
Are people willing to hear theirstories right now?
That is the question.
SPEAKER_02 (14:04):
I mean, that we're living the age of
disinformation, right?
More so than maybe at any timein human history.
But as early as 1945, the springof 45, when the first camps were
liberated, Eisenhower understoodthat people were going to deny
that it happened.
That's why he had Germancitizens marched out to see with
their own eyes the camps and tophotograph the camps and that.
(14:26):
But when the last generation offirst person people with
first-person experience of theHolocaust is gone, it'll be
entirely on the two Gs asthey're known, the three Gs and
other folks to carry that on.
And yeah, I am concerned thatpeople will will that that
impulse that has been theresince the spring of 45 to say it
(14:46):
never happened, it was a lie, itwas a hoax.
I'm concerned that it will rise.
SPEAKER_03 (14:51):
And how does sort of getting back to the comedy, how
does that change as you get fromsort of that first generation?
Because you I think incrediblyimpressively talk about the sort
of the the first generation, thesurvivors approach to comedy, as
you get towards that second andthird generation, is does it how
does it change?
How did you what did you takeaway from how the differences
(15:13):
and how they those differentgenerations approach things?
SPEAKER_00 (15:17):
Well, I I want to step back to something else you
just said.
How do we keep the memory alive?
I believe personally that we wekeep it alive by remembering
other people's tragedies andother genocides as well.
Right?
There is nobody is, you know, ifwe don't if we only go and
(15:43):
think, oh, you know, theHolocaust is the worst thing
that ever happened, we aresiloing ourselves and our
memories.
And I strongly, strongly feelthat this is a matter of, you
know, seeing all these differentgenocides, all these different
tragic, you know, situations andseeing them clearly and you know
(16:09):
having empathy for others.
And that's how others willremember the Holocaust, right?
Because Jewish people are gonnaremember it.
We learn about it through ourown families.
The question is, are otherpeople gonna remember it?
Are we gonna remember whathappened to them and their
families and their ancestors?
That's the big to me, that's thethat is the way.
SPEAKER_02 (16:32):
Yeah, and there's no nobody's a bigger advocate of
that point of view than ReneeFirestone, main character in the
film, who's a hundred now?
Is she over a hundred?
She's a hundred and one.
She was 88 when we filmed her,and she says it clearly in the
film.
You know, she's a huge been toRwanda many times, huge advocate
for calling attention togenocides beyond the Holocaust,
(16:52):
and not, as Fern says, siloingit as this unique event in human
history, but keeping everybody'sawareness of ongoing atrocities
all over the world.
SPEAKER_03 (17:02):
And is there a role for sort of the entertainer of
today to make that more real?
I mean, it's it's much easier tolaugh at something, to learn
something while you're laughing,learn something while you're
entertained and enjoying it,than to, you know, to go to the
Holocaust Museum and it it'sjust like information and just
(17:23):
like so devastatingly.
What is the role of theentertainer in all of this in
making sure that all of the thedarkness and the the tragedy of
today is something that we learnabout?
And especially as you said, insuch an environment where
there's so much misinformationand disinformation out there.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
Well, I'm gonna answer that by saying that Bob
and I share a mentor that namedBill Jersey, who when he was at
one of our earliest, earliestscreenings, he stood up and he
said, you know, and he's he'salso a hundred or not late
nineties.
And he said, you know, I havewatched endless numbers of
(18:05):
Holocaust films, but this is thefirst one that I let in because
of the humor.
Because he he, you know, you gointo these films and you see
horrors and you shut down.
But he was saying that the humoropened him up, you know, he let
his guard down, and then therewould be a serious moment where
(18:28):
you would see it, and he wassort of forced to take it in.
So that always really touched methat he saw it that way.
So I I agree with you that humoris a good way.
It's like a common language wehave.
SPEAKER_02 (18:42):
Yeah, to your earlier point, how do we
maintain the memory of it whenit's just the ground has been
trodden so heavily and everybodyhas seen the same sort of black
and white footage and sad cellomusic?
It ceases to have any power.
So it's humor a way, a new way,a fresh way, an accessible way
(19:03):
for people to approach thistragedy.
SPEAKER_03 (19:05):
And what has been the overall reception to your
film?
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
It's been very good.
You know, I mean, honestly, itit premiered, it'll be 10 years
in April at the Tribeca FilmFestival, and then it went on to
over a hundred film festivals,and it continued pretty
extensively showing all over theworld for many years, including
Germany.
(19:29):
It played multiple times inGermany.
It plays differently now.
It plays differently at everynew political event.
You know what I mean?
Every new little pol minipolitical era, it it changes.
SPEAKER_03 (19:46):
I'm curious, how did it play in Germany?
SPEAKER_00 (19:48):
It it plays really well, but you know, you know, in
it's very interesting.
I we were lucky that we knewthis going in, but you know,
they're brought look, I don'tknow what's happening now, but
they were the ten years ago, theaudiences had been brought up to
not laugh at Holocaust jokes,right?
(20:10):
Not laugh at this situation.
SPEAKER_02 (20:12):
That's probably a good thing.
SPEAKER_00 (20:13):
Well, well, it's interesting there are jokes in
the film that are just sort ofmaking fun or poking fun at, you
know, sort of anti-Semitic jokesor whatever.
That nobody said you can't laughat that.
So to me, that was veryrevealing.
Like, well, it it's okay tolaugh at at Jack Benny, you
know, you know, making fun ofhimself in this Jewish
(20:36):
stereotype, but it's not okay tolaugh at that.
And that felt almost worsebecause the film is giving you
permission to laugh at thesejokes.
But it was, it just felt veryrevealing to me.
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah, it was tricky because you know they say
Germany is the only country thatever learned anything, right?
They they reckoned with theirhistory in ways that many other
countries, including the UnitedStates, have not done.
But as a generalization, ofcourse, you've got the AFD now,
you've got a rising right-wingmovement in Germany.
We showed it there on thefestival circuit when it came
out, and a couple of times sincethen.
(21:09):
I don't know how it would playthere now.
Might be different, might beworrying.
So that's what, like Fern says,it changes all the time with the
politics.
Different parts of the filmresonate differently and jump
out that didn't jump out before.
SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
There was one city city in Germany that has a a
cinematech, and they theyinvited me a number of times.
And after the Me Too movement,they were like, Can you take out
certain people?
SPEAKER_03 (21:35):
Yeah, they wanted, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:36):
But it was, I was like, I can't, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_03 (21:39):
And they still showed it, but so then then you
made a documentary about cancelculture just to exactly,
exactly.
Do you think are there lessonsfrom your film, which was
obviously made a decade ago,that pertain to our current
moment?
About like is there what isfunny about our current
political moment that we canlaugh at?
SPEAKER_02 (22:00):
Well, I mean, one of the things that's in the last
laugh that continues to beevergreen is the question of the
power of power or weakness ofhumor and satire as a political
force.
We get into a little bit in thefilm because we want to believe
that comedians can really have apolitical impact and, you know,
be court jesters who bring themighty down.
(22:23):
And to some extent that's true.
But as a couple of the people inthe film talk about, satire can
also be counterproductive,right?
It can be a way for people whoare suffering from political
repression to let off steam thatmight otherwise be channeled
into like getting out into thestreets.
And even the Nazis understoodthat.
(22:44):
And especially in the beginning,they allowed a certain amount of
humor, more than you wouldthink.
But the historical record showsthat they understood that
letting people make some jokeskept them from mobilizing and
organizing against the regime.
Now that changed as the war wenton.
But in the beginning, they weresurprisingly tolerant.
And I think we see it now,right?
You do see comedians, I don'teven need to mention any names.
(23:06):
We all know who they are, whohave gotten under the skin of
various leaders.
But ultimately, how much impactdo they have?
That is a question that isbeyond me.
SPEAKER_03 (23:16):
And most of my audience, I think, I think,
tends to be sort of working inthat data and policy and
research element frequentlyaround, but certainly not
exclusively to the criminaljustice sphere.
Do you have any thoughts on whatyou would want somebody working
in that area to sort of takeaway from a film like this?
That is a tough one.
What do you think?
SPEAKER_00 (23:35):
Well, I think this is your business, your milieu.
SPEAKER_02 (23:40):
Well, in my my pretty firm Pearl Stein
documentary career, I had donesome work on the criminal
justice world with um RogerGrafe, who's a British
criminologist, not with us anyany longer.
I don't know.
I mean, I'd love to see somedata on the impact of comedy and
humor.
I don't even know how you wouldquantify that or what the
(24:00):
metrics would be, but I'd bevery interested to see what
could be gleaned from that andwhat the impact is on crime,
crime statistics, and policingand those sorts of things.
The general lessons of the film,I think, apply across the board
and in all areas, economics,public affairs, health,
whatever.
We do believe that humor has aplace.
We think it can be constructivein the right hands when when
(24:23):
wielded in good faith, but bythe same token, it can also be
weaponized for some some reallyhorrible and nasty ends.
SPEAKER_00 (24:29):
I mean, like historically, the political
cartoon is an attack on it's theultimate punching up.
So I b I think, you know, withissues of policing, there's, you
know, are the memes goingaround, political cartoons that
point to, you know, the misuseof power and stuff can be very,
(24:51):
very effective.
Almost especially because theygo viral and stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (24:55):
Yeah, almost more effective than say stand-up or
or sketch comedy or anythinglike that.
I mean, we we can all think ofcases of political cartoons that
so shook the power structurethat people rioted, people got
arrested, people got attacked.
That's a fraught job being apolitical.
SPEAKER_00 (25:11):
I mean, speaking of Art Spiegelman, I mean, this is
a little bit different, but thatthe the Crown Heights issue when
they when he when he did thecover of The New Yorker, you
know, like that was so stark,you remember?
SPEAKER_02 (25:27):
Yeah.
Art spe it all comes back to ArtSpiegelman, right?
Mouse was the original of thisfilm.
You know, he's done work on 9-11uh in the shout of No Towers,
this book.
Nobody tackles darker subjectsthan art.
And didn't Mouse get bannedsomewhere recently?
Newly banned, yeah.
It's one of the most bannedbooks in this latest book
burning, you know, era thatwe're in.
(25:49):
In fact, the there's adocumentary film about art that
came out, what, like last year?
Yeah.
It's a film about censorship,and it was itself censored.
SPEAKER_03 (25:58):
Don't lack a sense of irony, at least.
SPEAKER_02 (26:00):
No, irony is neck deep.
SPEAKER_03 (26:03):
So I have to ask, I knew I was talking to you guys.
I the first question that Iwrote down will be uh towards
the end of the ones that I askyou, but just what is it like
talking to so many legends?
Like this is as close as I'llget to talking to all of these
comedy legends that I admire.
So I have to ask you all, whatwhat is that like?
SPEAKER_00 (26:19):
Well, I will tell you that after I interviewed Mel
Brooks, which was, you know, asyou can imagine, not an easy
interview to get, he put hishands on my face and he was
like, Good job, Pearl Steam.
And I was like, I think firetoday.
SPEAKER_02 (26:36):
Yeah, that was to to be in the presence of Mel Brooks
and and some of these otherpeople who are such icons.
We're pretty starstruck.
SPEAKER_00 (26:43):
Carl Reiner invited us into his house to do the
interview and he came down thestairs and I I started to cry.
I mean, it's it's pretty, it'sit's it's it's heavy, you know,
it's really incredible.
And and like I said, Rob Reinerwas just the mensch of all
mensches, you know, like he wasjust the kindest and most
(27:03):
generous person.
SPEAKER_03 (27:05):
Did you laugh more than you expected while making a
Holocaust documentary?
SPEAKER_00 (27:10):
Well, I expected to laugh, but I also knew what
there would be serious moments.
See, people, you know, hear, oh,what's your film about Holocaust
humor?
They blanch.
But I knew that there would be,you know, not just humor.
It wasn't, you know, people justautomatically assume that means
we're making fun of theHolocaust, which is so
interesting because that'sexactly the opposite of what I
(27:33):
was trying to do.
SPEAKER_02 (27:34):
Well, Fern's opening, sorry, her opening
question to everybody was do youhave a Holocaust joke?
And usually they would say, No,but I have a Nazi joke, and then
they tell us a joke about theNazi.
SPEAKER_00 (27:45):
And I did that on purpose because I was it's such
a serious subject that eventhough I'm interviewing
comedians, I didn't, I wanted togive them permission to just
like okay, set the tone.
SPEAKER_02 (27:57):
Yeah.
The only the only and I can'tremember if this is in the film,
but you asked that of GilbertGottfried.
That was the first question.
Do you have a Holocaust joke?
And what did he say?
SPEAKER_01 (28:06):
Do I have a Holocaust joke?
No, no, no.
No, he said he said, There was aHolocaust?
Nobody told me.
But then he's not, I'm nottelling his jokes.
Sorry.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (28:16):
He he is the guy with the sky his soul, the
fewest lines, if any.
No lines.
SPEAKER_01 (28:23):
No, no, no lines that he wouldn't cross.
SPEAKER_03 (28:25):
Right.
Sure.
Sure.
It I I was extremely struck bythat.
That the difference between thethe Holocaust is not funny.
There's no jokes in there.
The Nazis, let's make fun ofthem.
They are funny.
Let's and to your point, let'spunch punch up at them because
they are worth mocking.
So I I very much appreciatethat.
For sure.
So what what's next for youguys?
(28:46):
Any any projects in the works?
SPEAKER_00 (28:49):
Yes, but I'm keeping them under wraps.
SPEAKER_03 (28:52):
All right.
SPEAKER_00 (28:53):
Something along these lines.
Something along these lines ofcomedy.
And I don't want to give itaround.
SPEAKER_03 (29:00):
Very mysterious.
I'll have to have you back onthen in a few years if it comes
out.
SPEAKER_00 (29:05):
I think we should do a thing about the analytics of
uh if comedy helps.
SPEAKER_03 (29:12):
Absolutely.
And I'll give you my screenplayabout the crime analyst that
solves crime with Excel.
It's uh Oh, that's a great idea.
It's coming coming along.
Look, can I steal it?
Oh no.
Oh no.
Copyrighted.
Fern and Bob, this has beenwonderful.
I really appreciate you bothcoming on.
I I know that this is sort of uha little bit out of left field,
but this is a a conversationthat I really, really wanted to
(29:35):
have, and I really appreciateit.
So thank you both.
SPEAKER_00 (29:37):
We appreciate it too.
It was great talking to you.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (29:39):
It was a great, great fun to speak with you
about it.
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
I'm Jeff Asher and this is the Jeffalytics Podcast.
This episode is one that Ireally wanted to do from the
moment I launched a podcast.
Crime data rarely tells us howpeople process what happened.
And when communities experienceviolence, tragedy, or collective
trauma, the public responseisn't shaped by statistics
alone.
It's shaped by narrative,memory, and sometimes even
(00:21):
humor.
In this episode, I'm joined byfilmmakers Fern Perlstein and
Bob Edwards, the directors ofThe Last Laugh, a documentary
that explores the role of comedyin confronting the Holocaust.
Through conversations withcomedy legends and survivors,
the film asks, what's offlimits?
Who gets to joke about what, andwhether human can serve a
constructive purpose in theaftermath of unimaginable
(00:41):
tragedy.
We talk about how humor canfunction as a coping mechanism,
where the line sits betweenpunching up and punching down,
and even what comedy legends canteach us to better understand
crime.
This episode steps back fromcharts and trend lines to
examine how societies processtrauma and what role
storytelling and humor plays inshaping how we remember,
respond, and move forward.
(01:03):
Thank you both for joining theshow.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you.
So for this episode, I reallywanted to talk about how comedy
can be a critical component ofsort of healing from tragedy.
And I thought your documentary,The Last Laugh, was just such an
incredible display of this.
And I don't think I told youguys this, but I have triplets.
Actually, they turn eighttomorrow.
(01:24):
And when they were reallylittle, we do these midnight
feeds, and you know, you getthem up and they're still
sleeping and you put them onthese cushions.
And I would sit there for like40 minutes with a bottle and
feed them in the middle of thenight so that they would sleep
longer.
And I would just, I'd have myheadphones on and I'd watch my
iPad.
And I had like, you know, Bandof Brothers, war movies.
The Pelicans were playing theTrailblazers in this late night
(01:48):
series.
So I was watching NBAbasketball.
And your documentary, The LastLaugh, was one of the things
that I watched.
And so I have this endearingmemory of watching this terribly
sad and funny and justaltogether great documentary.
So I'm very excited to talk toyou both about the documentary
and sort of this intersection ofcomedy and tragedy and what you
(02:09):
learned of it.
So start off, what is yourbackground?
What sort of brought you to theworld of film?
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Well, you know, I started as a documentary
photographer.
So it was kind of uh an easyswitchover because it gave me
more opportunities and more waysto tell stories.
So mine is more straightforwardthan yours.
SPEAKER_02 (02:28):
Well, Fern is selling herself short because
she had this long career as adocumentary photographer and had
worked for Japanese newspapersand traveled and so forth, and
then went to the documentaryfilm program at Stanford, which
I also went to, but uh at adifferent time.
I'd come out of a militarybackground and but always wanted
to be in film and landed in thatprogram.
And that's how we ended upmeeting and and working together
(02:52):
and then getting married.
SPEAKER_00 (02:53):
Well, so I was making a film.
I had finished the programbefore him a few years, and I
was working as a cinematographerfor many years, and he hired me
to shoot his film, and that'show we essentially met.
SPEAKER_03 (03:06):
So why choose documentaries first off as sort
of your medium?
And more importantly, why make afilm documentary about the
Holocaust and this angle of theHolocaust?
SPEAKER_00 (03:18):
It was actually gifted to me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:20):
Fern had a friend who was getting his PhD in
Oregon, and Fern was working forthis Japanese newspaper, the New
York City Bureau, and they senther down to Miami to do a story,
and while we're there, that'snot true?
It's not true.
No.
I guess it's the truth is lostin the mystery.
SPEAKER_00 (03:37):
Well, okay, okay.
I yes, you're combining two ofthe early stories.
So, so this friend of mine whohad done this sort of
dissertation on humor in thecamps, it was sort of like,
we're, you know.
Oh, I see.
You're saying it because we metokay.
So when I so when I was workingas a documentary photographer, a
(03:59):
friend of mine and I were inMiami.
I was on assignment and we metthis survivor, and we were
talking to her because Mouse hadjust come out, Art Spiegelman's
mouse.
And we were asking her about it.
We were like, what do you think?
And she said, Well, you know,you can't her only reference
because it was the first graphicnovel, her only reference to
(04:22):
comic strips were the Sundaypapers.
So she's like, You can't make,you know, you can't turn the
Holocaust into comedy.
You can't do it.
And then we had this wholeinteresting conversation with
her, and then he asked her, hadshe read it, and she said no.
So he went with this informationand wrote a paper for a class he
(04:43):
was taking, and it wasresearching all this humor that
was in the camps.
It was like in the concentrationcamps, the displaced persons
camps, the transit camps.
And he he did this paper, handedit to me, and said, make this
into a movie.
So that's how the process went.
I mean, so when he gave it to meand it was just all humor during
(05:07):
World War II, I knew that I wasgonna have to open it up to
post-war humor.
And he and I shared thatsensibility.
So he knew I was the rightperson to do it.
SPEAKER_03 (05:18):
Did you sort of know what the story was other than
sort of the outline before youwere making it, or did all of
these interviews point you?
SPEAKER_00 (05:28):
Absolutely.
No, no, no, no, no.
We had Bob and I had mapped itout completely.
You know, if you read, if youread early proposals that we
wrote, you would see the samefilm.
But we knew, I mean, the onestruggle was I knew I was gonna
interview all these comedians.
I already knew a lot of thearchival clips we wanted to use,
but I was I was desperatelylooking for something that was
(05:52):
gonna elevate it from just atalking heads film.
So that story, I knew therewould be that story.
I didn't know until I foundRenee that she would be the
heart and soul of the film.
But I knew I needed to make itless sort of like this very, you
know, interview-heavy film.
SPEAKER_03 (06:13):
Can can you just talk me through sort of the
synopsis of the film for forlisteners that haven't seen it?
SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
I'm gonna have you do that because you're faster.
SPEAKER_02 (06:21):
Well, let's film about what is taboo for humor
proceeding from the premise thatthe Holocaust would seem to be
the most off-limits topic or oneof the most for humor.
Um, but clearly it's not becausethere's been a lot of humor
around it, right?
You can go back to Mel Brooksand the producers.
There's a lot of humor attackingthe Nazis during the war and
(06:42):
since it's still around.
But there's a big differencebetween humor that's about the
perpetrators and humor thattouches on the victims, even if
it's not at the expense of thevictims.
But just invoking the images ofthe camps and so forth is a
third rail for many people.
So with the film, we wanted toexplore whether there was a role
for humor, a constructive role,a productive role, rather than
(07:04):
one that's just cheap orpunching down, as we say, at the
expense of the victims.
And once we start exploringthat, you know, this entire
world of humor and psychologyand history opened up to us.
SPEAKER_03 (07:16):
What lessons do you guys sort of take from having
done all of this research andthen having interviewed all of
these incredible people with uh,you know, I'm I'm just amazed at
the the number of people thathave lived such a such rich,
incredible lives that you guyswere able to talk to.
What have you learned from allthese conversations?
SPEAKER_00 (07:32):
Well, I'm gonna start that with a quote from Rob
Reiner, who it is just breaks myheart that he's not here right
now.
He was the first person to agreeto be in the film, and he opened
the doors to every other personthat's in the film.
But he has this line about, youknow, there's nothing funny
about the Holocaust.
There's nothing at all humorabout it, but humor and what it
(07:53):
takes to survive.
There can be humor in that.
And I think that the lessonsthat are very crystal clear for
me is, you know, a lot of peopleneed that humor to get through
difficult moments, to let offsteam as a release valve.
It's not for everybody.
Not everybody, you know, usesthat.
(08:14):
But the huge distinction iswhere humor is productive and
where it's not, like where itcan, like like Bob said,
punching up versus punchingdown, where it's used to, you
know, help me with this, likemake, you know, like helps draw
call attention to the ills inthe world rather than making fun
(08:38):
of the victim.
SPEAKER_02 (08:39):
Yeah, and Rob Reiner, not only was he pivotal
in the film just because he wasso beloved and so at the center
of American comedy in so manyways.
And once he was on board, otherpeople said, Oh, you're
legitimate.
But we talked to him about Allin the Family, which is a good
example of a very provocativepiece of art that's taken
differently by different people,you know.
(08:59):
Many people loved it, of course,and thought it was fantastic
social commentary and criticism.
But there were people who saidhalf your audience agrees with
Archie, and they're not laughingat him, they're laughing with
him.
So this is one of the big issuesthat their film tackles.
SPEAKER_03 (09:12):
Did you learn anything about sort of the role
of comedy in a larger scalerather than at the sort of the
victim level, but as how we as asociety engage with tragedy?
SPEAKER_02 (09:22):
Well, as Fern was saying, the the film opened up
to a lot of other things, waybeyond the Holocaust.
It came out just a couple yearsbefore COVID.
And so the Me Too movement, thelockdown, and in fact, every
sort of serious, dramatic,tragic thing that's happened
since then, we now kind of seethrough a different lens because
(09:44):
of our experiences making thefilm.
And and in each of those cases,people look to humor as a way to
to cope and deal with it, butit's always fraught because
those are serious topics.
And and you you never want tobe, unless you're have bad faith
in the first place, you neverwant to be in a position of
engaging humor that'sdestructive or damaging.
SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
And and humor, it's been like a the use of comedy, I
should say, has been a movingtarget since we made this film.
I made a film after that forTrevor Noah about cancel
culture, and that's a movingtarget.
So how you know comedy is used,like for a while it felt like
late-night comedy shows werebeing more direct news coverage
(10:34):
than the news was in some cases.
So it and and now it's changedagain.
And then there, you know,there's how would you describe
that?
SPEAKER_02 (10:43):
Well, we always say it's moving in two at least two
directions at once.
So there are things that used tobe off-limits for comedy in a
more prudish era, let's say,that are now routine.
You you hear comedians talkabout all kinds of subjects that
used to be taboo.
But there are also things thatyou used to be able to talk
about or joke that are now offlimits and and a third rail.
(11:05):
And it's not permanent, likethose things are shifting and
going back and forth all thetime.
SPEAKER_00 (11:09):
But just as politics are divided right now, so so is
what's not okay.
You know, like what's not okayfor you is different for than
what's not okay for somebodyelse, and and vice versa.
And that is adding to this thissort of culture clash we're
living through.
SPEAKER_03 (11:29):
I guess there's certainly no correct answer to
this, but sort of combiningthose two, the idea of this
cancel culture and the comedy ofthings like the producers, is
that something that you thinkcould get made today if we were
20, 25 years after such ahorrific tragedy, or is has
society changed too much?
SPEAKER_00 (11:49):
I think that it would be hard to make it right
now, might be different in five,10 years.
But in this exact moment, I dothink it might be hard.
I think it would have been hardto make the last laugh right
now.
SPEAKER_02 (12:03):
I mean, not only would it be hard to make the
producers, the original MelBrooks film from 67, it would be
hard to do the Broadway musicaleven, which is now 20, 25 years
ago that it premiered.
The great irony there is themovie is the most, you know,
despicable topic you can imaginefor a lighthearted musical,
becomes a Broadway hit.
And then it really did become aBroadway hit 25 years later,
(12:24):
right?
Harry Shearer talks about thatin our film.
But now I I don't think youcould get away with it.
I think people would be, youknow, rightly concerned about
what your motives were, andespecially if you didn't have
the goodwill of being MelBrooks.
SPEAKER_00 (12:38):
Right.
But I I'm gonna add, you know,it wasn't easy for Mel Brooks to
make it when he made it, and itwasn't easy for us to make the
last laugh.
We we were trying since 1993.
So I got my first interview withRob Reiner in 2011.
So it's it's always hard.
These topics are never easy, butI just think with with
(13:01):
everything going on right now, Ithink right now, this moment,
very difficult.
SPEAKER_03 (13:08):
Yeah, and I I was very much struck by how you
literally could not make thesame movie now.
Obviously, you know, RobReiner's project passing and a
lot of the survivors havinghaving passed in the last
decade, it was it's sortfortuitous that it was made when
it was made.
Do you think, and this is goingin a totally different
direction, but do you thinkthere's sort of a unique
(13:29):
pressure on our generation,largely as sort of the last
generation that have directmemories of those survivors and
to have dealt with them to tellthese stories?
How how do you sort of take thatpressure?
SPEAKER_00 (13:42):
People underestimate the children and the
grandchildren of survivors.
You know, they are gatekeepersof some of these stories.
So it is true that we're losingmost of the survivors, but the
stories are being passed outnow.
Are people willing to hear theirstories right now?
That is the question.
SPEAKER_02 (14:04):
I mean, that we're living the age of
disinformation, right?
More so than maybe at any timein human history.
But as early as 1945, the springof 45, when the first camps were
liberated, Eisenhower understoodthat people were going to deny
that it happened.
That's why he had Germancitizens marched out to see with
their own eyes the camps and tophotograph the camps and that.
(14:26):
But when the last generation offirst person people with
first-person experience of theHolocaust is gone, it'll be
entirely on the two Gs asthey're known, the three Gs and
other folks to carry that on.
And yeah, I am concerned thatpeople will will that that
impulse that has been theresince the spring of 45 to say it
(14:46):
never happened, it was a lie, itwas a hoax.
I'm concerned that it will rise.
SPEAKER_03 (14:51):
And how does sort of getting back to the comedy, how
does that change as you get fromsort of that first generation?
Because you I think incrediblyimpressively talk about the sort
of the the first generation, thesurvivors approach to comedy, as
you get towards that second andthird generation, is does it how
does it change?
How did you what did you takeaway from how the differences
(15:13):
and how they those differentgenerations approach things?
SPEAKER_00 (15:17):
Well, I I want to step back to something else you
just said.
How do we keep the memory alive?
I believe personally that we wekeep it alive by remembering
other people's tragedies andother genocides as well.
Right?
There is nobody is, you know, ifwe don't if we only go and
(15:43):
think, oh, you know, theHolocaust is the worst thing
that ever happened, we aresiloing ourselves and our
memories.
And I strongly, strongly feelthat this is a matter of, you
know, seeing all these differentgenocides, all these different
tragic, you know, situations andseeing them clearly and you know
(16:09):
having empathy for others.
And that's how others willremember the Holocaust, right?
Because Jewish people are gonnaremember it.
We learn about it through ourown families.
The question is, are otherpeople gonna remember it?
Are we gonna remember whathappened to them and their
families and their ancestors?
That's the big to me, that's thethat is the way.
SPEAKER_02 (16:32):
Yeah, and there's no nobody's a bigger advocate of
that point of view than ReneeFirestone, main character in the
film, who's a hundred now?
Is she over a hundred?
She's a hundred and one.
She was 88 when we filmed her,and she says it clearly in the
film.
You know, she's a huge been toRwanda many times, huge advocate
for calling attention togenocides beyond the Holocaust,
(16:52):
and not, as Fern says, siloingit as this unique event in human
history, but keeping everybody'sawareness of ongoing atrocities
all over the world.
SPEAKER_03 (17:02):
And is there a role for sort of the entertainer of
today to make that more real?
I mean, it's it's much easier tolaugh at something, to learn
something while you're laughing,learn something while you're
entertained and enjoying it,than to, you know, to go to the
Holocaust Museum and it it'sjust like information and just
(17:23):
like so devastatingly.
What is the role of theentertainer in all of this in
making sure that all of the thedarkness and the the tragedy of
today is something that we learnabout?
And especially as you said, insuch an environment where
there's so much misinformationand disinformation out there.
SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
Well, I'm gonna answer that by saying that Bob
and I share a mentor that namedBill Jersey, who when he was at
one of our earliest, earliestscreenings, he stood up and he
said, you know, and he's he'salso a hundred or not late
nineties.
And he said, you know, I havewatched endless numbers of
(18:05):
Holocaust films, but this is thefirst one that I let in because
of the humor.
Because he he, you know, you gointo these films and you see
horrors and you shut down.
But he was saying that the humoropened him up, you know, he let
his guard down, and then therewould be a serious moment where
(18:28):
you would see it, and he wassort of forced to take it in.
So that always really touched methat he saw it that way.
So I I agree with you that humoris a good way.
It's like a common language wehave.
SPEAKER_02 (18:42):
Yeah, to your earlier point, how do we
maintain the memory of it whenit's just the ground has been
trodden so heavily and everybodyhas seen the same sort of black
and white footage and sad cellomusic?
It ceases to have any power.
So it's humor a way, a new way,a fresh way, an accessible way
(19:03):
for people to approach thistragedy.
SPEAKER_03 (19:05):
And what has been the overall reception to your
film?
SPEAKER_00 (19:08):
It's been very good.
You know, I mean, honestly, itit premiered, it'll be 10 years
in April at the Tribeca FilmFestival, and then it went on to
over a hundred film festivals,and it continued pretty
extensively showing all over theworld for many years, including
Germany.
(19:29):
It played multiple times inGermany.
It plays differently now.
It plays differently at everynew political event.
You know what I mean?
Every new little pol minipolitical era, it it changes.
SPEAKER_03 (19:46):
I'm curious, how did it play in Germany?
SPEAKER_00 (19:48):
It it plays really well, but you know, you know, in
it's very interesting.
I we were lucky that we knewthis going in, but you know,
they're brought look, I don'tknow what's happening now, but
they were the ten years ago, theaudiences had been brought up to
not laugh at Holocaust jokes,right?
(20:10):
Not laugh at this situation.
SPEAKER_02 (20:12):
That's probably a good thing.
SPEAKER_00 (20:13):
Well, well, it's interesting there are jokes in
the film that are just sort ofmaking fun or poking fun at, you
know, sort of anti-Semitic jokesor whatever.
That nobody said you can't laughat that.
So to me, that was veryrevealing.
Like, well, it it's okay tolaugh at at Jack Benny, you
know, you know, making fun ofhimself in this Jewish
(20:36):
stereotype, but it's not okay tolaugh at that.
And that felt almost worsebecause the film is giving you
permission to laugh at thesejokes.
But it was, it just felt veryrevealing to me.
SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
Yeah, it was tricky because you know they say
Germany is the only country thatever learned anything, right?
They they reckoned with theirhistory in ways that many other
countries, including the UnitedStates, have not done.
But as a generalization, ofcourse, you've got the AFD now,
you've got a rising right-wingmovement in Germany.
We showed it there on thefestival circuit when it came
out, and a couple of times sincethen.
(21:09):
I don't know how it would playthere now.
Might be different, might beworrying.
So that's what, like Fern says,it changes all the time with the
politics.
Different parts of the filmresonate differently and jump
out that didn't jump out before.
SPEAKER_00 (21:22):
There was one city city in Germany that has a a
cinematech, and they theyinvited me a number of times.
And after the Me Too movement,they were like, Can you take out
certain people?
SPEAKER_03 (21:35):
Yeah, they wanted, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (21:36):
But it was, I was like, I can't, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_03 (21:39):
And they still showed it, but so then then you
made a documentary about cancelculture just to exactly,
exactly.
Do you think are there lessonsfrom your film, which was
obviously made a decade ago,that pertain to our current
moment?
About like is there what isfunny about our current
political moment that we canlaugh at?
SPEAKER_02 (22:00):
Well, I mean, one of the things that's in the last
laugh that continues to beevergreen is the question of the
power of power or weakness ofhumor and satire as a political
force.
We get into a little bit in thefilm because we want to believe
that comedians can really have apolitical impact and, you know,
be court jesters who bring themighty down.
(22:23):
And to some extent that's true.
But as a couple of the people inthe film talk about, satire can
also be counterproductive,right?
It can be a way for people whoare suffering from political
repression to let off steam thatmight otherwise be channeled
into like getting out into thestreets.
And even the Nazis understoodthat.
(22:44):
And especially in the beginning,they allowed a certain amount of
humor, more than you wouldthink.
But the historical record showsthat they understood that
letting people make some jokeskept them from mobilizing and
organizing against the regime.
Now that changed as the war wenton.
But in the beginning, they weresurprisingly tolerant.
And I think we see it now,right?
You do see comedians, I don'teven need to mention any names.
(23:06):
We all know who they are, whohave gotten under the skin of
various leaders.
But ultimately, how much impactdo they have?
That is a question that isbeyond me.
SPEAKER_03 (23:16):
And most of my audience, I think, I think,
tends to be sort of working inthat data and policy and
research element frequentlyaround, but certainly not
exclusively to the criminaljustice sphere.
Do you have any thoughts on whatyou would want somebody working
in that area to sort of takeaway from a film like this?
That is a tough one.
What do you think?
SPEAKER_00 (23:35):
Well, I think this is your business, your milieu.
SPEAKER_02 (23:40):
Well, in my my pretty firm Pearl Stein
documentary career, I had donesome work on the criminal
justice world with um RogerGrafe, who's a British
criminologist, not with us anyany longer.
I don't know.
I mean, I'd love to see somedata on the impact of comedy and
humor.
I don't even know how you wouldquantify that or what the
(24:00):
metrics would be, but I'd bevery interested to see what
could be gleaned from that andwhat the impact is on crime,
crime statistics, and policingand those sorts of things.
The general lessons of the film,I think, apply across the board
and in all areas, economics,public affairs, health,
whatever.
We do believe that humor has aplace.
We think it can be constructivein the right hands when when
(24:23):
wielded in good faith, but bythe same token, it can also be
weaponized for some some reallyhorrible and nasty ends.
SPEAKER_00 (24:29):
I mean, like historically, the political
cartoon is an attack on it's theultimate punching up.
So I b I think, you know, withissues of policing, there's, you
know, are the memes goingaround, political cartoons that
point to, you know, the misuseof power and stuff can be very,
(24:51):
very effective.
Almost especially because theygo viral and stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (24:55):
Yeah, almost more effective than say stand-up or
or sketch comedy or anythinglike that.
I mean, we we can all think ofcases of political cartoons that
so shook the power structurethat people rioted, people got
arrested, people got attacked.
That's a fraught job being apolitical.
SPEAKER_00 (25:11):
I mean, speaking of Art Spiegelman, I mean, this is
a little bit different, but thatthe the Crown Heights issue when
they when he when he did thecover of The New Yorker, you
know, like that was so stark,you remember?
SPEAKER_02 (25:27):
Yeah.
Art spe it all comes back to ArtSpiegelman, right?
Mouse was the original of thisfilm.
You know, he's done work on 9-11uh in the shout of No Towers,
this book.
Nobody tackles darker subjectsthan art.
And didn't Mouse get bannedsomewhere recently?
Newly banned, yeah.
It's one of the most bannedbooks in this latest book
burning, you know, era thatwe're in.
(25:49):
In fact, the there's adocumentary film about art that
came out, what, like last year?
Yeah.
It's a film about censorship,and it was itself censored.
SPEAKER_03 (25:58):
Don't lack a sense of irony, at least.
SPEAKER_02 (26:00):
No, irony is neck deep.
SPEAKER_03 (26:03):
So I have to ask, I knew I was talking to you guys.
I the first question that Iwrote down will be uh towards
the end of the ones that I askyou, but just what is it like
talking to so many legends?
Like this is as close as I'llget to talking to all of these
comedy legends that I admire.
So I have to ask you all, whatwhat is that like?
SPEAKER_00 (26:19):
Well, I will tell you that after I interviewed Mel
Brooks, which was, you know, asyou can imagine, not an easy
interview to get, he put hishands on my face and he was
like, Good job, Pearl Steam.
And I was like, I think firetoday.
SPEAKER_02 (26:36):
Yeah, that was to to be in the presence of Mel Brooks
and and some of these otherpeople who are such icons.
We're pretty starstruck.
SPEAKER_00 (26:43):
Carl Reiner invited us into his house to do the
interview and he came down thestairs and I I started to cry.
I mean, it's it's pretty, it'sit's it's it's heavy, you know,
it's really incredible.
And and like I said, Rob Reinerwas just the mensch of all
mensches, you know, like he wasjust the kindest and most
(27:03):
generous person.
SPEAKER_03 (27:05):
Did you laugh more than you expected while making a
Holocaust documentary?
SPEAKER_00 (27:10):
Well, I expected to laugh, but I also knew what
there would be serious moments.
See, people, you know, hear, oh,what's your film about Holocaust
humor?
They blanch.
But I knew that there would be,you know, not just humor.
It wasn't, you know, people justautomatically assume that means
we're making fun of theHolocaust, which is so
interesting because that'sexactly the opposite of what I
(27:33):
was trying to do.
SPEAKER_02 (27:34):
Well, Fern's opening, sorry, her opening
question to everybody was do youhave a Holocaust joke?
And usually they would say, No,but I have a Nazi joke, and then
they tell us a joke about theNazi.
SPEAKER_00 (27:45):
And I did that on purpose because I was it's such
a serious subject that eventhough I'm interviewing
comedians, I didn't, I wanted togive them permission to just
like okay, set the tone.
SPEAKER_02 (27:57):
Yeah.
The only the only and I can'tremember if this is in the film,
but you asked that of GilbertGottfried.
That was the first question.
Do you have a Holocaust joke?
And what did he say?
SPEAKER_01 (28:06):
Do I have a Holocaust joke?
No, no, no.
No, he said he said, There was aHolocaust?
Nobody told me.
But then he's not, I'm nottelling his jokes.
Sorry.
Okay.
SPEAKER_02 (28:16):
He he is the guy with the sky his soul, the
fewest lines, if any.
No lines.
SPEAKER_01 (28:23):
No, no, no lines that he wouldn't cross.
SPEAKER_03 (28:25):
Right.
Sure.
Sure.
It I I was extremely struck bythat.
That the difference between thethe Holocaust is not funny.
There's no jokes in there.
The Nazis, let's make fun ofthem.
They are funny.
Let's and to your point, let'spunch punch up at them because
they are worth mocking.
So I I very much appreciatethat.
For sure.
So what what's next for youguys?
(28:46):
Any any projects in the works?
SPEAKER_00 (28:49):
Yes, but I'm keeping them under wraps.
SPEAKER_03 (28:52):
All right.
SPEAKER_00 (28:53):
Something along these lines.
Something along these lines ofcomedy.
And I don't want to give itaround.
SPEAKER_03 (29:00):
Very mysterious.
I'll have to have you back onthen in a few years if it comes
out.
SPEAKER_00 (29:05):
I think we should do a thing about the analytics of
uh if comedy helps.
SPEAKER_03 (29:12):
Absolutely.
And I'll give you my screenplayabout the crime analyst that
solves crime with Excel.
It's uh Oh, that's a great idea.
It's coming coming along.
Look, can I steal it?
Oh no.
Oh no.
Copyrighted.
Fern and Bob, this has beenwonderful.
I really appreciate you bothcoming on.
I I know that this is sort of uha little bit out of left field,
but this is a a conversationthat I really, really wanted to
(29:35):
have, and I really appreciateit.
So thank you both.
SPEAKER_00 (29:37):
We appreciate it too.
It was great talking to you.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03 (29:39):
It was a great, great fun to speak with you
about it.
Thanks for listening to theJeffalytics Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and tolearn more, head on over to
ahdatalytics.com for moreinformation and previous
episodes.
If you like what you heard,please leave a glowing review,
which will help others todiscover the show.
Until next time, I'm Jeff Asher.
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