Art Bell, Writer, TV Executive-Episode #391

Art Bell is a writer and former television executive. While at HBO, Art became known for developing and launching the Comedy Channel, which later became Comedy Central. As President of Court TV, he oversaw daily live courtroom coverage and the production of hundreds of hours of original true-crime TV series, documentaries, and movies.

Art’s memoir, Constant Comedy: "How I Started Comedy Central and Lost My Sense of Humor", was a finalist in the 2020 Best Book Awards in both the memoir and business categories.

Art has had short stories, nonfiction, and satire published in several journals, including The Lowestoft Chronicle, Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature, The Ocotillo Review, Fiction Southeast, Castabout Arts and Literature, High Shelf Press, and Writers Read.

Art recently published his first novel, "What She’s Hiding", which I’ve read and found to be an action-packed legal-noir-thriller with some terrific surprises and twists. If you like John Grisham, then you’ll enjoy "What She’s Hiding".

 

Episode Transcript

Steve Cu (00:00):
On today's Story Beat.

(00:02):
I was the least powerful man in Hollywood. I wasabout to walk in unprepared to pitch my idea for a
comedy channel, and that's what we did. But I satdown, did the pitch as best as I could. And
Michael liked it because he was a big comedy guy.
He loved comedy. He put comedy on hbo, uh, beforehe became chairman. So he set me up. As you know,

(00:25):
he says, okay, let's see if this thing can work.
And the rest is kind of history.
This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden A podcast forthe creative mind. Story Beat explores how masters
of creativity develop and produce brilliant worksthat people everywhere love and admire. So join us

(00:46):
as we discover how talented creators find successin the worlds of imagination and entertainment.
Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.
Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We're comingto you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. My guest today, Art Bell is a writerand former television executive. While at hbo, Art

(01:12):
became known for developing and launching theComedy Channel, which later became Comedy Central.
As president of Court tv, he oversaw daily livecourtroom coverage and the production of hundreds
of hours of original true crime TV series,documentaries and movies. Art's memoir, Constant
Comedy How I Started Comedy Central and Lost MySense of Humor, was a finalist in the 2020 Best

(01:37):
Book Awards in both the memoir and businesscategories. Art has had short stories, nonfiction
and satire published in several journals includingthe Lowestoft Chronicle, the Journal of Sports
Literature, the Ocotillo Review, Fiction SoutheastCast about arts and literature, High shelf press
and writers read. Art recently published his firstnovel, what She's Hiding, which I've read and

(02:03):
found to be an action packed legal noir thrillerwith some terrific surprises and twists. If you
like John Grisham, then you'll enjoy what She'sHiding. So for all those reasons and many more,
it's a true honor for me to welcome theoutstanding author Art Bell to Story Beat today.
Art, thanks so much for joining me.
Steve, thanks for having me. It's really fun to behere.

(02:24):
Well, it's a great pleasure to have you. So let'sgo back in time just a little bit. At what age did
you first recognize words and writing andentertainment and movies? When did you start into
this process that you've been in for most of yourlife?
Well, I have to say that comedy was a big part ofmy life from a very early age and I think that's

(02:46):
what started it. I did, um, my earliest writing. Idon't know if it was my earliest, but my writing
in around seventh and eighth grade, when I startedto say this is fun was satire and, you know, kind
of short comic pieces, I was really drawn to thatwhole thing. And then I continued through high
school, actually, and I was particularlyfascinated with satire. I remember reading Swift,

(03:11):
Jonathan Swift, and just thinking, man, this guywas good. He's talking about stuff in a very funny
way, but. But changing the world at the same time.
And early on, he was one of the earliest pioneersof that sort of style of writing.

Art Bell (03:25):
Yep, that's for sure.
Um, did you also admire the satirists of your era?
So MAD magazine and so on? Was that something foryou?
Someone, I don't know who it was, said madmagazine is the source of all humor. And I sort of
subscribe to that view. Yes, Mad magazine was, uh,was always on my desk. National Lampoon. Those

(03:48):
were the great days, the early days of NationalLampoon.
And do you think that people could get away withthat today if they were starting it today?
That's an interesting question. I. You know,again, National Lampoon. Well, MAD magazine, for
sure, that was considered real underground stufffor a long time, you know, as in, uh, you know,
you're not supposed to show it in school becausethey take it away. Uh, I had somebody approach me

(04:14):
once and said, say, uh, does your mother knowyou're reading that? I think it was MAD Magazine.
I said, uh, I think so. But anyway, this was real,almost contraband. So could they get away with it
today? I think they could get away with it todayif it remained contraband. But by the time
National Lampoon, they kind of gave it up. I, uh,mean, it persisted through the movies and

(04:38):
everything else, but in the glory days, you know,I think that they had become kind of nationally
known and nationally noticed, and that may havebeen the reason it folded when it did.
Who were you looking at in movies and TV forcomedy, who were your heroes?
Oh, well, you know, it goes way back to the EdSullivan Show. Now, I know you were. We're not

(05:01):
exactly the same age, but we're close. So youprobably remember the Ed Sullivan show.

Steve Cuden (05:05):
Oh, extremely well.
And, uh, I. One of my early memories is sitting infront of the television with my father and my
brother watching the Ed Sullivan Show. And one ofthe Bush Belt comics came out. You know, I think
it was Alan King. And my father was hystericallaughing. The audience was laughing. And I

(05:26):
realized that there were. I didn't know thenumber, but, you know, 30 million people watching
this guy and laughing. And I thought, wow, howpowerful is this comedy thing? I. I really did And
I wanted to learn more about it. And I was veryyoung. I was, yeah, 6 or 7. And then I watched all
the great comics. I, I watched Richard Pryor'sfirst appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

(05:49):
Oh, is that right?
Oh, it was Orion. He was like 20 years old and hewas so funny. Uh, and he was talking about getting
beat up on the playground, which was a concept Iknew pretty well by then. And, uh, so it really
kind of, it really kind of touched me. And helooked so nervous while he was delivering, which

(06:10):
was part of his act. He wasn't nervous, but he wasjust like, you know, looking around and just, you
know, like somebody's gonna come at him at anysecond. And I realized that was a really great way
to deliver comedy.
Well, it seemed harmless. He seemed harmless. Butyet what he was delivering was actually, in a way,
subversive.
That's true. Even on the Ed Sullivan show, it wasa little subversive. But, you know, thinking back

(06:32):
to the stuff on the Ed Sullivan Show Jackie Masonwas on, he got into big trouble on the Ed Sullivan
Show. Uh, and, um, Flip.
Flip the bird.
Yeah, flip the bird. That's true. Um, and a lot ofthe stuff that was on it was, you know, a lot of
the comedy in those days would not be comedytoday. I mean, Alan King talking about his mother

(06:53):
in law constantly, you know, in kind of aderogatory ways. But, you know, I thought that was
fascinating stuff.
You said something interesting just now, which Irarely explore on this show, but I'd love to talk
about. What do you think happens? Is it culture?
Is it society? Is it history? What causessomething like comedy which continues to evolve

(07:17):
over a long period of time and goes from one sortof sensibility to a completely different
sensibility and abandons the old sensibility in away where it's almost verboten anymore. How does
that happen?
Well, I think people are looking forbreakthroughs, um, in entertainment all the time.
You know, what, what can we see that's different?

(07:39):
Now? The, the comedy that I grew up on originallywas, was pretty much Bush bell comedy. You know,
Alan King and those guys. And the older stuff,Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello. I mean, that
was, that stuff came out of, I guess, more of avaudeville, uh, mentality. The Marx Brothers, you
know, listen, and I say, I say that with all kindsof love for these things. I mean, I read all that

(08:05):
stuff. I read about them. I read the scripts. Iperformed the who's on first, uh, routine in
college with a friend of mine, which is a Funnystory, just a small aggression. We got up there to
do it and we had practiced like forever, and theaudience moaned because they figured they knew it,
right? And then we did it. And it's so good thateverybody went nuts. Everybody really loved it.

(08:28):
And it is a perfect routine. Uh, so thebreakthrough that we kind of know in comedy as the
big breakthrough was when people stopped talkingabout their mother in laws and their bosses and
everything else and started talking aboutthemselves. Richard Pryor talking about his life

(08:49):
as an African American and America and what wasgoing on. Um, you know, the Carlin for sure, the
political comedians Mort saw was, you know,certainly talking about stuff that nobody else. I
mean, Lenny Bruce, who kind of took it to itslimit. I mean, he ended up not being funny at the

(09:11):
end because he was talking so personally. But, youknow, those things, um, really kind of punched a
hole in the old comedy and became the new comedy.
I don't think we've deviated too much from that,uh, in, in recent years. I don't. I think it's
been, I think it's been a pretty good through linefrom, uh, you know, the 60s through now.

(09:32):
So we're talking about comedy here. I want to getus to how you became an executive at HBO and then
obviously created the Comedy Channel. What did youdo in your life? Did you go to school to learn to
be, uh, in business or were you a lawyer? Whatdid, how, what did you do in school?
I think this is going to surprise you. I was aneconomics major in, uh, undergraduate, uh, that

(09:56):
doesn't surprise me. I was fascinated by it. Andmy first job out of school was, uh, as an
economist at a consulting firm in Washington. AndI worked with the smartest people there. I mean,
it was just a great experience. And one day I'msitting there reading Coal Weekly because I was
working on coal transportation problems, as onedoes, as one does when you're an economist in

(10:18):
Washington. And I had my feet up, uh, on the deskand I'm reading Cold Weekly and I threw the thing
down and said, I can't do this for the rest of mylife. I just can't get interested in Cold Weekly.
So I thought about what I wanted to do and I said,you know what? I'd really like to go into the
entertainment business. Which I guess has beensaid millions of times by millions of people.

(10:38):
But you had not given that a, uh, real thoughtprior to then.
Well, that's not entirely true. When I was anundergraduate, I hung around with the other kids
in undergraduate school who wanted to go into theentertainment business. And I kept saying, hey,
you know, you're going to, you're going to LA tobe a writer. You're never going to get work,

(11:00):
you're going to starve to death. I'm not going todo that. I'm going to get a real job. I'm going to
be an economist. But, you know, I was still, youknow, I was hanging out with these guys who were
doing, you know, comedy and writing comedy andperforming comedy. As I said, I did those on first
thing. But, you know, a lot of these guys and one,um, of my best friends, who's still a best friend,
went to la, became, started, uh, out as somethingother than comedy, uh, writers, but ended up

(11:26):
comedy writers and ended up very successful. Soit's not like I had no experience thinking about
whether I should go into the entertainmentindustry. I just always thought about what my
parents would say, uh, which is, you'll never makea living. Which is what I told my friends. You'll
never make a living. My parents said, so.
Well, you know better than most that 99% ofeveryone doesn't make a living at it.

(11:51):
Yes, I do know that better than most.
You know, it's a tiny percentage that a very smallnumber of people actually are able to make a
living at. Many people will have a job or two orsix, but can't make a living at it. It's almost
impossible sometimes. And so though, those thatdo, that's a really big deal. So now how did you
then get into being an executive? How did thathappen?

(12:14):
Okay, so here it is. I, um, I went to businessschool. I wish somebody had told me, you don't
have to go to business school to get into theentertainment business.
You don't have to go to any school to get.
As a matter of fact, school works against you ifyou're trying to get into the entertainment
business. But I thought, okay, I'm going to, youknow, I want to learn about business and I want to

(12:38):
get into the entertainment business. So I'm goingto go to go to business school. So I went to
business school and on my first day there, I said,hey, you, I'm kind of interested in the
entertainment business. Um, you know, a littleartsier. Uh, where do people like me in this? Uh,
I went to Wharton grad school. Where do peoplehang out? You know, people like me. And the woman

(12:59):
I was talking to said, uh, well, there's thisthing called the Wharton Follies. And all the
people who come out of, like, theater and musicand are trying to get to Wall street and figure
they have to learn something about business. Theycome here, but they, they put on a show every
year, you know, and it's obviously a rotatinggroup of people, but why don't you go see what

(13:22):
they're up to? So I did, and, man, it was reallyinteresting because these people were, in fact,
very talented people who'd been in theentertainment industry and wanted to get out of
it. And so we were kind of passing each other inthe night. I. I did the Follies for two years. The
second year I did. I was a head writer. I did alot of the writing. I wrote a lot of really funny

(13:45):
stuff. And at the end of that experience, whenpeople were saying, you know, that was really kind
of very well done, you know, very professional, Isaid, you know, maybe I do know something about
writing and comedy. Anyway, I took that concept,um, with me when I started looking for a job. I
graduated from Wharton and I started looking for ajob. And I, I. First thing I noticed was there was

(14:09):
a music channel, there was a news channel, therewas a sports channel, there was no comedy channel.
And this was in the early 80s, right? So I endedup getting a job at CBS, which unfortunately at
that time was like working at the post office. Imean, it was just a horrible experience for me,
you know, layers and layers of stuff. I wasworking as I got hired as a financial analyst

(14:30):
because, you know, that was my strength sort of atthat point. And I was doing reports, and I went
into my boss one day and I said, you know, I dothis report, it takes me six weeks to do or a
month to do it. And I went around and asked peopleif they ever use it, and they say no, they throw
it out. I say, well, you know, why don't we dosomething useful? And she said, look, we've been
doing this for this way for like, the last eightyears. We're not going to change now. And I knew

(14:54):
at that point I wasn't going to stay there.
Luckily, a friend of mine called me and said, hey,come on over to hbo. They're looking for somebody
with your kind of background, you know, who knowssomething about economics and econometrics. And,
man, that was the last thing I wanted to do. ButHBO was like Netflix in those days. It was the
cool place to work in the entertainment business.

(15:15):
That was still fairly early on in the HBO years.
Yeah, we're talking 1983, 1984, and it went up onthe satellite and I believe 1977 or something. So
it was fairly new. And the concept of bringingthis kind of television into people's homes,
uncut, uh, movies and all that kind of stuff, ithadn't been duplicated, you know, so they had the

(15:39):
place to themselves for the moment. And my friendcalled me up and he said, you know, the people
walk around here and they say, we are going tochange television. It's a very exciting place to
work. So naturally I went, I applied for the job,I got it. And they said, okay, all you have to do
is build a model to forecast subscribers, uh, overthe next 10 years. Because the last guy who did it

(16:04):
messed it up terribly and ended up getting fired.
So I said, okay, no pressure, right? And that wasmy first job there. That was my first job there.
And so how did you then move up into the ranks?
This is a valuable lesson for listeners.
I made myself visible in the organization by doingthis forecasting. I knew it was going to be a high

(16:26):
profile thing. And when I gave, uh, kind of like afinal presentation, there were a lot of executives
in the room. And one of the executives came up tome and said, hey, I'm, um, in. You know, I'm the
head of new business development. Uh, why don'tyou come work for me? And previously I was in
something, you know, some financial area, and Isaid, yeah, great, I'll come work for you. What

(16:47):
are you doing? She said, well, we're working on anew channel idea. I said, really? What is it? She
said, it's called Festival, and Festival is goingto be a channel for people who don't buy HBO
because they don't like the sex, violence andlanguage on television. So it's kind of a clean
hbo. I said, okay, that sounds great. And I gotthe job and I took the job and I started working.

(17:13):
And on the second day of my job, I said, you know,I've been thinking about this television with no
sex, violence and bad language. I said, that's. Isthat pretty much why people watch television?
Because they want that kind of excitement? And shesaid, sh. Don't say that again. Okay, so Festival,

(17:35):
after about eight months, bombed. As you canimagine, it was just like, uh, not a great idea.
And, uh, we tried our hardest. So I was leftwithout a job in new business development. And I
thought they would fire me, but they said, no, no,no, no, we don't fire people here. We want you to
stay. We'll keep you around, we'll give you someprojects or something. I said, okay, but I thought

(17:55):
I was going to get fired. So I Kept thinking aboutthis comedy channel idea, which I had mentioned to
people, like, why is there no Comedy channel? Andthey said, well, it's too hard. It's writer
intensive. It's going to be expensive, blah, blah,blah. So I said, okay. But then when I had no job,
I said, well, I better get my resume together. AndI decided to write up a proposal for the Comedy

(18:17):
Channel and send it with my resume to MTVNetworks. I thought they would be interested in it
there, right? But before I did that, I said, youknow, I better pitch it to somebody here. So I
called up the office of the head of programming athbo. Her name was Bridget, and she was a very
scary person to someone like me. Uh, so I did getan appointment with her. She said, yeah, you know,

(18:42):
her secretary said, yeah, she'll see you tomorrow.
So I went down there and I say, bridget, I want topitch you this idea. I think there should be a 24
hour, seven day a week comedy channel, all comedy.
Now, HBO is known for comedy, so I think HBO isthe one to do it. And she said, arthur. She called
me Arthur for no apparent reason. My mother callsme Arthur. That's pretty much it. Anyway, she

(19:04):
says, arthur, that is the worst idea I've everheard. There is no way that there can be a, uh, 24
hour, seven day. Who wants to watch that muchcomedy. And she said, you know, you'd have to get
really, the highest. You'd have to get RobinWilliams, you'd have to get Whoopi Goldberg, you'd
have to get Billy Crystal in order to make itsuccessful. And they're not going to do a comedy

(19:27):
channel. Their managers would die before they'dlet them do a comedy. She went on for about 10
minutes, telling me why there would be no, youknow, Whoopi, Billy, Robin. No, they're not going
to do it. I didn't say anything. I just, you know,she. She didn't even let me continue with my
pitch. And at the end, she said, okay, Arthur,thank you for coming down. Uh, you obviously. This

(19:51):
is a true story. She said, you obviously knownothing about television or comedy. So, uh, see
you around. So I walked out, and I rememberwalking out saying, you know, thank you. And I
just thought she was wrong. I just thought she waswrong. So I went back upstairs. I kept working on

(20:11):
my project of writing up this idea for a comedychannel that I was going to staple to my resume.
And what happened? My boss's boss came by andsays, what are you working on? You have nothing to
do? I said, well, I'm actually writing up aproposal for a channel. He says, well, let me see.
So he takes a look at it, reads it, says, this isgreat. I said, oh, thank you. He said, have you

(20:32):
pitched it to Bridget, the head of program? Isaid, she didn't see it as great. Uh, she didn't
like it at all. He said, yeah, that figures. Hesays, but, you know, I think the chairman of HBO
should see this. I said, really? That's great. Youknow, I'll get a presentation. He said, no, no,
let's just go down there right now. Now, thechairman of HBO at the time was Michael Fuchs. He
had just been on the COVID of New York TimesMagazine, and the headline was the Most Powerful

(20:57):
man in Hollywood. I was the least powerful man inHollywood. I was about to walk in unprepared to
pitch my idea for a comedy channel. And that'swhat we did. You know, my boss's boss walked me in
there and says, art has a good idea. Michael Fuchsfirst comment was, you know, you guys should

(21:18):
really make an appointment when you want to seethe chairman of a company. I said, wow, that's a
bad start. That's really a bad start. But I satdown, did the pitch as best as I could. And
Michael liked it because he was a big comedy guy.
He loved comedy. He put comedy on HBO before hebecame chairman. So he set me up as, you know, um,

(21:38):
he says, okay, let's see if this thing can work.
And the rest is kind of history. But, you know,it's a long story. You can read about it in my
book. But that is how I got into the comedybusiness and became an executive.
Well, I think that, uh, it's remarkable that shedidn't see it at all when. Now, of course, in
retrospect, clearly, it's, um, more than just alittle viable. But even if it didn't exist, it

(22:03):
seems to me if you just thought about it a littlebit, even if you gathered up lots of old comedy
movies and put them on for a while, that would atleast sustain you. And old comedy shows, TV shows,
that would sustain you for a while till youdevelop new stuff. So, uh, you know, to me, that
just sounds like a natural.
And that was part of my pitch because we had to doit cheap. Everybody figured, okay, if you're going

(22:24):
to do 24 hours of original comedy, it's going tocost a fortune. That wasn't the idea.
And there's hundreds. There were hundreds ofcomedy shows at that point. Sitcoms.
I know. And we got a Lot of them. Andinterestingly, we attracted. I remember one time
we did an avid and Costello stunt. 24 hours, justAbbott and Costello. And I don't know if everybody

(22:46):
knows this, but Seinfeld was a big avid andCostello fan. And we knew this because our talent
person knew this and called him up and said, hey,you want to host the Avan Costell thing? And he
said, yes. That's how we got, you know, the bigstars on the channel in the early days, because
they loved the old stuff. You know, they, theyreally, they knew

(23:09):
it well, it, it made the channel then cool. Itwas, um, irrelevant. And in that, in that, uh, it
was, uh, something that you, if you were sort ofnot avant garde, but in the cool kids section, you
would not have a problem turning that channel on.
It wasn't, it wasn't musty and fusty. It was kindof cool. So I think that's, that's a really good

(23:32):
way to go. Now, how do you get 180 degrees fromthe Comedy Channel to Court TV? I can't think so.
To me, it seems that some court cases are clearlyhilarious, uh, and some comedies are really a
crime. But that's another story. Uh, how do youget from Comedy Central or Comedy Channel to doing

(23:55):
Court tv? How's that work?
Well, I got fired from Comedy Central.
That's a, that's a way after being
there, as, you know, had a program in marketingfor eight years. And I know what people in your
audience are saying, like, what do you have to doto keep a job in this business? How about you
start the channel? Yeah, no, that's, that's not,that's not good enough. That's not going to have

(24:18):
you keep your job. I mean, they brought new, theybrought, they fired the president. I was working
for the president and they brought a new guy inand the new guy said, I can't have you here
because you're with the old guy.
That's Hollywood, by the way, isn't it? The newregimes always kick out the old regimes.
Really. And you know what the guy said? He said,you got your fingerprints all over the place. You
know, I can't have you here. I said, all right.

(24:39):
And that was the end of that. So I was without ajob. I was fired for the first time in my life.
And you have to get used to being fired if you'rein the entertainment industry. But this was the
first time, and I took it very personally. But Idid go around to, you know, I had friends in the
industry and they kind of Helped me out. And one.
One, very highly, uh, placed guy in the industrysaid, you know what, Art? If you don't get fired

(25:03):
once in a while in the entertainment industry, itmeans you weren't doing anything worthwhile. You
weren't making an impression. You weren't doinganything but keeping your head down, because
that's how you keep a job.
You weren't moving the needle.
You weren't moving the needle. And that made mefeel a little bit better, But I still didn't have
a job. Um, so I work, you know, I consulted to anumber of channels for a few years. And then, as

(25:24):
it turns out, somebody who used to work at HBOcalled me up and said, uh, look, I want to
interview you because I was just made chairman ofthis channel, Court tv, which is a failing
channel. They're going to close it down, butthey're giving it one more shot. So I went to
interview with him. He said, okay, here's thething. I don't know anything about cable

(25:45):
television or cable channels and how to make themand run them. That'll be your job. He said, my job
is to work the outside and take all the credit. Isaid, okay, sounds like a good deal. And that's
what we did, um, until he left the channel and Ibecame president. So.
And what. What was your background in order to beable to even think about law? Law and lawyers? You

(26:09):
didn't have a law degree?
Let me tell you, I had absolutely no backgroundother than I'd read a lot of, you know, mysteries,
thrillers, legal thrillers, and watch, uh, PerryMason when that was on, you know. I mean. Oh,
well.
Well, that obviously qualifies you, that, you
know, that makes everybody a lawyer. But anyway,um, yeah, I had no. I had no, uh, background in

(26:32):
this. And let me tell you something. When I walkedinto the comedy business, people said, what do you
know about comedy? And I said nothing. When Iwalked into Court tv, it was. I walked into what
was basically a newsroom. These people werejournalists who had been at the Wall Street
Journal and the New York Times and Time magazineand all these places. They were professionals. I
walked into the newsroom, and I could just feelthem saying to themselves, what does this guy know

(26:58):
about what we do? He's not a journalist. He's nota lawyer. He doesn't know this kind of television.
He's from comedy. This is, like, the wrong guy.
And that was, you know, that was my introduction.
And what did you do to overcome that?
I had to, you know, get these people on my side byfirst of all, not doing anything dramatic. You

(27:20):
mentioned that people walk into new places andfire everybody. I wasn't going to take that
approach because, as you pointed out, I didn'tknow that much about it. Uh, and I wanted to see
who was doing a good job, who wasn't, what wasgoing on, how they did things and all that. So I
just, you know, basically sat back and watched andlistened to these people talk about what they did.

(27:42):
And, you know, when you listen to people, theythink you're smart. I mean, I. How's that for, uh,
a. For a pro tip right there? I mean, they don'tthink you're smart when you tell them when you
walk in exactly how you should do things. Theythink you're stupid. So I listened and I got the

(28:03):
lay of the land. And, um, being smart when you'rearound journalists is like, you know, the number
one qualification, you know, you can't be stupid.
And so that's how I, eventually, I think, got themon my side. And they were also worried about not
only their jobs, but that I was going to turn thechannel into something ugly.
I think the listeners should pay very closeattention to what Art just said. It's, uh,

(28:27):
notorious that great leaders are unafraid to havepeople who know more than them around them and to
learn from the people that you surround yourselfwith. That sounds like what you did there. Uh, and
it's also really important that you go into a joband not be the bully and take over. And that just

(28:48):
shows insecurity, I think. I think you go in andyou absorb what you can from those that are there
because they know whatever they know personally,plus whatever they know professionally. So
learning from others is a very important factor, Ithink, if you're going to run an organization,
Right.
And I had the added burden of getting them on myside because I wanted them to help me. And

(29:12):
ultimately, that's what happened. I mean, thepeople started saying, well, here's what we really
want to do and here's a good idea. And here's. Andthat's another thing I found. This was my. You
know, when I was at Comedy, I wasn't executive. Iwas a vice president, senior vice president,
whatever. And. But those. Those were earlyexecutive jobs for me. But when I went to Court

(29:32):
tv, I felt like more of a seasoned executive.
Like, I, you know, I could really figure out howto do this. And I didn't feel as scared,
essentially, about, uh, doing a good job. And I.
And I ended up, I think, doing a better job forthat reason. I just knew I could do it.
You also brought a perspective to that job that isunusual and not expected. It's an unexpected thing

(30:00):
that you did. So therefore you had a way oflooking at it that no one else did, I'm sure.
Well, that was especially true in this case. Thechannel Core TV had been started by a lawyer who
was a journalist, the head of American Lawyer,which is a big journal for lawyers. He knew
nothing about television, which is why the thingwas failing. He put cameras in daytime courtroom,

(30:24):
uh, and covered daytime courtroom exclusively. Andthen at night, he ran it over again as the first
thing you learn in the television business, cabletelevision is it's prime time, where you make the
money. I mean, daytime is not going to do thatmuch for you. So I, um, walked in and essentially
said, okay, look, we're going to keep thecourtroom coverage. We're going to keep the focus

(30:47):
on the justice system, but we're going to look atcrime too, because that's the other side of the
situation. So we became a channel of crime andjustice and we started doing, uh, true crime
documentaries and putting those on primetime. Andguess what? We got ratings, we got advertisers,
and things started going well.
You did, uh, remarkably smart thing, obviously,and that is you put conflict into your primetime

(31:15):
program. It became conflict filled. And that'swhat people want to see going back to the. When
they did not want to have sex, drugs and rock androll on hbo, on. What'd you call it? The. What was
the channel? The festival channel. Uh, so theywanted no conflict like this show. This show is a
conflict free show story beat. But that's not itsintention. Its intention is to inform. If you're

(31:39):
going to do Court tv, it has to have conflict init, right?
That's right. And to be fair, courtroom can m bepretty exciting once every 10,000 minutes. I mean,
that was the problem. I mean, the big action incourtroom was just not. There wasn't enough of it
to sustain. So again, we kept the courtroomcoverage. And I got to tell you, that was, you

(32:03):
know, people say, how did you go from comedy tocourt? It was a very exciting time for me because
I learned so much about the criminal justicesystem. I mean, I ended up working with cops and
detectives and lawyers by the thousands andjournalists. I had never, you know, I never had
worked with journalists before. I mean, it was areally interesting place to be in the television

(32:27):
universe. Uh, and then I started, I started, youknow, when you're, when you're running things, you
get to do crazy things and So I decided, because Iloved mystery and thriller novels, I decided we
were going to do a show like that about mysteriesand thrillers, only because I wanted to have lunch
with some of these writers. And that's what I did.

(32:49):
That's such a great segue into where I was headednext anyway, which is your book. And so you
already mentioned earlier about your love ofmysteries, and now you're further saying it, that
you loved it so much that you managed to get itinto Court TV as well. Uh, how did you ever
decide, okay, I'm now going to sit down and writea mystery, which is a task. It's a real, um. You

(33:13):
have to be very smart about it because you've gotto know what the plot is very, very thoroughly.
How did that come about? How did you get intowriting?
I had retired from the business because I was kindof done with it. I had been doing consulting for a
few years after I left corporate, uh, which wasreally fun, but I decided that I was tired of it.

(33:33):
I was done, and I always wanted to write, and Ihad done some writing. And when you're in the
television business, you know, you end up writingsomething once in a while. So, uh, it was my wife
who suggested, you know, why don't you go take acourse at Sarah Lawrence College? Now people say
you can't learn writing, and I disagree.
Oh, well, you're absolutely right. You can learnwriting. You can't learn talent. You can develop

(33:57):
talent, but you can't learn talent.
I think that's a great way to put it, Steve.
Anyway, so I said, okay, I'm going to go take aclass in, uh, writing. And they told me at Sarah
Lawrence the first thing I should do, and this isgood advice for anybody, is take a class in memoir
because you want to write memoir. And the reasonyou want to write memoir first is because you know

(34:20):
the stories. You've been telling these stories.
And I love telling stories. I was always tellingstories, funny stories, stupid stories, sad
stories. So, yeah, that was a good place for me tostart. And I wrote some memoirs, uh, short memoir
stuff, got some stuff published. Then I wrote thebig memoir. And the way I wrote the big memoir
about comedy was I was in class, I read a storyabout Comedy Central about. Actually, it was

(34:48):
Comedy Channel, where the head writer at ComedyChannel was angry at me because he said, I didn't
know anything about comedy. And he said, I wantyour job, and I want to talk about it with you.
And I said, you're not getting my job. He says,well, meet me for lunch, and he told me where to
meet him for lunch. So I'm in my tie and jacket,he's in his, you know, T shirt because he's a
writer. And I walk into this place, and it's astrip club. That's where he had made reservations.

(35:11):
And there was nobody there but me and this guyEddie and the stripper and we sat with. Right.
Right up in front. And I know why Eddie did that.
He wanted to disarm me. You know, that was. Thatwas, uh, the whole reason for him to do it. But
anyway, I wrote that story up, and it's a funnystory, and people, you know, people had been

(35:32):
sleeping through my other stuff, kind of like wokeup and said, hey, wow, that's. That's great. Why
don't you do more on comedy? And that's how Iended up doing, you know, doing the book. I just
wrote a lot of stories. And. But I will say this.
It's not just a string of stories. You can't dothat. You have to write a memoir like a novel. It
has to have a beginning, middle, and end. It hasto have conflict. It has to have characters. You

(35:56):
have to make characters out of the people in yourlives. You can't just, you know, introduce them
and hope that they're going to sing as characters.
You really have to work it. And so that was great.
A great education for me.
Well, you could write a memoir and have it beepisodic, but it should have some kind of a
through line. It should have a definite rhythm andflow throughout the whole thing. And so, you know,

(36:20):
that's the difference between great memoirs andones that are not so memorable. Uh, what do you
think you learned all those years as an executivethat helped you to be a good writer?
You know, listen, these channels were schools inlots of different things. I mean, comedy was a
school in the comedy business, for one thing. Uh,but it was really Court TV that fueled my interest

(36:44):
in writing the
novel and gave you a lot of information to use inthe novel, I assume.
Information and really an understanding of how thecriminal justice system worked. But even before
then, I always point out that there were somethings that I did in high school that informed
this novel. One is I loved noir as a kid. Youknow, we've been talking about mysteries,

(37:07):
throwers, but the classic noir, you know, theMaltese Falcon, the Postman Always Rings Twice,
you know, the Big Sleep. And those things weremade into movies. And. And the movies mostly
relied on the snappy dialogue from the books.

Steve Cude (37:24):
100%. 100% which is.
Which was brilliant was part of their brilliance.
But I really. I didn't study noir, but I reallygot a sense of what noir was. So when I decided I
was going to write fiction first I wrote someshort stories. But that when I decided to. I was
going to write something that was kind of noirish.
I went back and read noir and I learned aboutnoir. And one of the things I learned was there

(37:48):
are also romances. So I had to really kind ofthink about, okay, I'm going to write a noir ish
kind of thing. I want it to be current and I wantit to have a romance.
And frequently quite sexy. Not just romance.
Well, sex. That's a whole nother thing.

Steve Cuden (38:04):
It is.
It's. Of course they're sexy. Of course they'reabout adultery as well as murder. I mean, yeah,
really sexy.
So who were you reading? James M M Cain and, uh,Raymond Chandler Dashiell Hammett.
Yeah, James M M Kane. Raymond Chandler DashHammett was, I think, my introduction to noir.
Now, he didn't write a whole lot of stuff. Youknow, he didn't have a big volume of, uh, stuff.

(38:30):
But he wrote the short stories of, uh, theContinental Op, which were. They're brilliant,
these things. Brilliant. They stand up even today.
I mentioned the Postman Always Rings Twice. DoubleIndemnity. It's basically the same concept where a
bad woman leads a nice guy into a really horriblesituation. She wants him to kill her husband for

(38:51):
whatever reason. And I just. I loved that. I lovethe. They ended up calling it a femme fatale.
They, uh, weren't always femme fatales in that.
They weren't always gorgeous, but they wereattractive to these guys. And they made the guys
or either do bad things or they got them intotrouble.

(39:11):
Certainly true in Double Indemnity. Big time.
Yeah. This woman wanted this guy to help her killher husband so they could collect the insurance. I
don't want to do any spoilers on these thingsbecause I think everybody in your audience should
go run out and get the thing and read it. If theyhaven't, it's classic.
Or watch Mr. Wilder's great version of it. Uh,with Fred, uh, McMurray, Murray Barbrick,

(39:35):
Stanwyck. It's just a tremendous movie. And thedialogue in that thing just snaps. I mean, it's
just as snappy as can be.
Well, that snappy dialogue is what. That's what Iwanted to write. Remember, I'd written some
satire. I'd written some, you know, some comedystuff. I wanted that snappy. I wanted to be an
author who did snappy dialogue.

(39:56):
Well, I think you achieved that. Did you doanything to develop your voice in that? Was there
anything that you practiced that. I mean, that'sa. That's a sort of a skill set.
I, uh. You know what? I don't think so. I think Ilearned how to write a novel while I was writing a
novel. It didn't really start out as a novel.
That's a theme in your life, isn't it?

Art Bell (40:15):
Art?
You learn as you're going. You just jump intothings and go,
yeah, and it's a crazy way to live. Uh, and itdoesn't always work, and I'm proud of that. So I
started writing this novel, and you mentioned.
Okay, you know, it's hard to write a novel likethis because you got to. You got to think about
the plot twists and everything like that. And Ilearned. What I did was, remember I said I was

(40:38):
really drawn to those characters who. Bad womenwho dragged nice guys into horrible situations. I
wanted to do that. I wanted. And I wrote the firstscene in my novel where a woman walks in to a
lawyer's office, her ex husband, and says, I'm ina lot of trouble. I need money, and you're in

(40:58):
trouble, too. And that's all I knew about thebook. That's all I knew about the book. And he
didn't believe her until it became clear that shewas right, that someone was after both of them,
and he didn't even know why. So that's where itstarted. No. No plot. I don't know if you've
talked to, um, writers about this, but I foundout. I thought I was the only one who wrote like

(41:20):
this. Like, okay, I'm just going to write and seewhat happens. No, about half the. Half the
novelists in the world write like this are called.
We're called pantsers, which means we write by theseat of our pants. Plotters. They have 10,000
index cards behind them. They write everything upon their index cards. They write from scene to
scene. Sounded like too much work for me. So I wasa panther. And as I said, I thought I was the only

(41:45):
guy in the world who did this, but turns outeverybody did, or about half the people did. And I
really just kept writing with that setup to seewhat happened. I wanted to see how this guy would
handle mortal violence for the first time. Andthere was one other influence on that. I read an

(42:06):
article when I was in high school called theViolence that finds you, and it was written by a
guy named Harry Cruz. It was an Esquire. And Ialways thought of it because he was a writer. He
went to Wyoming or something and he was in a barand some guy wanted to fight and he didn't want to
fight, but he ended up having a fight. And he saidsometimes you just get into situations where

(42:28):
there's violence and you got to deal with. And Ialways thought about that. And so I was going to
bring that into it too.
There's nothing better in storytelling. Well, as astoryteller of any kind, you need the audience to
always be in suspense. They need to not knowwhat's coming next. You, the writer, at some
point, need to know what's coming next becauseyou're writing it, you're creating it, but you

(42:51):
didn't plot it out. I'm a plotter, I'm anoutliner. You do it. I've talked to many people on
this show who do not. And, uh, I find thatfascinating because I don't know how to do that. I
would just get. I would find myself down dead endalleys. Did you find that you got lost in places
where you had to sort of abandon it and dosomething else?

(43:12):
Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. But, uh, let me.
Before we get to that, let me tell you the goodpart about it. Characters show up and you don't
even know who they are or what they are, but thensuddenly you like them and you say, wait a second,
this character is great. I'm gonna keep him or herin this novel. So that's the good part. You kind

(43:36):
of trip over great things. But as you point out,the bad part is you write yourself into a corner
all the time.
And sometimes that's a good thing because you haveto work your way out of the corner. And that makes
it interesting.
I'm telling you, I was up at three in the morningplenty of times saying, how am I gonna get my
carrot character out of this mess? Or into. Therewas one time I had to get the character into a cab

(43:59):
with another guy so he could interview him, youknow, basically ask him questions about the crime.
And I said, how am I going to get these guys intoa cab? The guy doesn't want to get in a cab. How
am I going to do it? And I had to figure out how Iwas going to do it. Now, I will say this. I was
lucky. I did not have to go back and rewritestuff. I talked to a lot of people, panthers who
end up saying, you know, I ended up here. So I hadto go back and rewrite this stuff again. Lazy. I

(44:24):
did not want to do that.
That's remarkable art. Uh, as I have taught manypeople, which I believe in. I truly believe in
that the first draft is a craft thing. It's yourdrafting a first draft. And the art comes. The
real storytelling comes in the revisions. You'resaying you didn't do that?
No, no, Please don't misunderstand me. This thinggot, uh, rewritten 47 times. Oh, great.

Steve Cuden (44:47):
Okay.
I'm. Yeah, edited to death and changed and scenesadded and everything else. What I'm saying is I
didn't get to a point where I said, okay, all thisstuff is happening, but the first part of the book
doesn't really kind of lead to this. And so Igotta go rewrite all that stuff.

Stev (45:01):
Right, right, right, sure.
Or the character didn't carry through. So, uh.
Well, many, many novelists will get 100 pages intoa book and realize that the book doesn't start
till page 101. And they abandon the first hundredpages pages and start the book on 101. That's not
what you did.
That's not what I did. And I was so glad. But Itell you what I did find. I found, as I said, I

(45:24):
was learning how to write a novel. When I wentback to the early parts and started. Started
editing, I said, wait a second. I got to be abetter writer in the second half of the, you know,
as the book went on, the book got better. And so Idid rewrite. You know, I kept the concepts of the
scenes and the characters and everything else, butI didn't. I did a lot of, uh, adjusting and

(45:45):
rewriting and everything else. Well, you.
It's like going to the gym. You got more muscularas you went, you know, and the more and more you
write, the better you are as a writer. That's justthe way it works. It is a lot like an athlete,
only with your brain. Uh, and you do get strongeras you write. So let's go back a half a step, tell
the listeners what. What she's hiding is reallyabout what happens.

(46:07):
Okay, Well, I told you the setup. This woman walksin, she says, if you don't give me a lot of money,
they said they're going to kill me. And he doesn'tbelieve her. And then he throws her out of his
office. Uh, this is his ex wife, and as she'sleaving, she says, and they're going to kill you
too. He goes home that night not believing her,didn't give it a second thought, and, uh, his

(46:30):
place was trashed. So now he's got a. He's got tofind her. He doesn't know where she is because
it's his example. Uh, and he's got to figure outwho's looking for them, what the problem is, why
they're looking for him too, and get them both outof this mess. That's what the book is about. It
goes on from there. I mean, I don't know how muchyou want me to get into, um, but he ends up asking

(46:53):
his best friend for help, who helps him a littlebit, and, uh, offers his private detective to help
him. And that's Gabriela. The main character'sname is Henry. And Gabriella and Henry are a great
team.
A great team. She's a terrific character.
And that's a case where she showed up. She showedup in a phone call. She was just calling him up to

(47:16):
say, hey, my boss, Aiden told me to, uh, give youa call because you have a problem with your ex
wife or something. And he hangs up on her,essentially. But she didn't give up, and that's
what I liked about her. And she ends up helpinghim. She's tough and knows what she's doing, and
he's a wimp and doesn't know what he's doing, andhe's scared, but he knows he's got to do it, and

(47:37):
that's how the book proceeds.
What's one of the things I really enjoyed aboutthe story a lot is that your protagonist, Henry,
uh, is really not a heroic guy, but he becomesheroic, that is.
Thank you for noticing. You know, not everybody. Ido book clubs all the time, so I get to talk to
people about the book and I love doing that. And alot of times they say, well, I don't know, did

(48:00):
Henry really change? And I say, yes. I have todescribe it. Henry ended up not being a wimp to
the same extent. And that's the kind of change youwant to see in a character.
Well, there's no question. That's called acharacter arc. He goes from a, ah, want to a need.
And he becomes a different person in doing so. Hegrows he. In a way, whether he likes it or not.

(48:24):
And that's what his learning process is. Um, soyou learned, obviously, a lot about he's a lawyer,
and you learned a lot about the law and lawyeringand so on from Court tv. How much of your
background in Court TV is in the book?
Well, again, I'm not a lawyer, so I was guessingat what corporate law was all about. But I did

(48:46):
know what Lawyers think about. But even more fromCourt tv. I'll tell you what I took. We did
documentaries with some of the finest documentaryfilmmakers. The guys who were winning Oscars these
days, they were kids then, but they were doingsome really great documentary work. And what do
you have to do in a documentary? You have to tella story, beginning, middle and end story arc.

(49:07):
Build the characters into interesting characters,not just people in a tough situation. And I
learned all of that from them. I went watch themput piece together what were essentially, you
know, entertainment shows from real life. And Ithought, that's cool. So I learned how to tell a

(49:27):
story from those people. Honestly, it was themost. It was the best education I could get in
that.
I think that's fantastic. And, and the listenersshould understand that. Again, Art has said
something incredibly valuable. I've had, ah, ahandful of, uh, documentary filmmakers on this
podcast. And all of them, and it's the truth,they're all storytellers. And they all need to

(49:49):
follow the basic plotting of most movies. Sevenplot, I believe in the seven plot points. And they
all follow that. They have a beginning, middle andend. And there's an arc that you follow. And if
you don't, you'll lose the audience quickly. Andso you there, that's what you want to do, is sell
the story in the way that people. Exceptstorytelling.

(50:11):
Right now you're talking about the big overalleffort. The other thing to keep in mind is scenes.
You know, you want every scene to have conflict.
You have to know what characters want in everyscene. Cause if nobody wants anything, it's a dead
scene. You know, I tried to make every scene inthe book interesting. Now, I don't know if I

(50:31):
succeeded, but what I hate is reading a book andhaving it sag in the middle. And I did not want to
do that. So I tried to make every sceneinteresting. Yeah, that was my education from
Court TV that helped me write this book.
All right, so your process. We've already talkedabout your process a little bit, um, which I find
very interesting. When you started, did you haveHenry in mind at the start? Since you didn't have

(50:56):
your story worked out? Where did Henry come from?
Okay. Uh, as you pointed out, I've known lawyersin my life, and I've had friends who are lawyers.
Henry is not based on any one particular friend orone particular lawyer, but I knew I wanted him to
be a lawyer. And as I started writing, I realizedI had to give him a little bit of a backstory.
Now, I knew a couple of things about Henry, he wasdivorced and he still loved his ex wife. He still

(51:21):
carried the torch. That's all I knew in the firstfew pages. But that was a lot, that was a lot to
build a character around. And then, you know, Istarted thinking about his background. Where did
he grow up, how did he grow up, who were hisinfluences? I had one really bad influence on him.
He was like the cool guy in high school thateverybody knows he's a bad guy, but they want to

(51:48):
hang out with him anyway. And he, he had that kindof influence. I wanted him to have to face some
tough choices and have to make, you know, somereal big moral decisions about what to do next.
So, you know, listen, I mean, all I can say is Ideveloped the character as I was writing and after
a while, you know, 40 or 50 pages in, it's like,oh, I know this guy, I know him, I'm thinking

(52:10):
about him, I can have lunch with him now. I foundit more difficult to do. Uh, his ex wife.
Well, you describe her, and I'm going to quotesomeone who took life by the balls and lived
dangerously. Close quote. That's how you describeher. So that tells you a whole lot in one very
brief sentence.

(52:31):
Yeah, that was her. And I liked the combination ofher and Henry, who did not live dangerously.

Steve Cuden (52:39):
Mhm.
He did not want the dangerous life. So why did hemarry her? Because he liked the fact that she
could make his life interesting, make his lifemore dangerous. That's why he married, that's why
he was attracted to her and that's why he marriedher. He married her and that's why he missed her.
He missed the excitement of being around her,didn't he? That's right, because his life was not
all that exciting to begin with. Uh, um, so howmuch research did you then do on the Russian

(53:05):
mafia? You have all kinds of things going on inyour book that I don't see any of that from your
particular personal history. Did you have to doresearch to get there?
We go back to the, the laziness thing. I, youknow, I, I did a little bit of research. I didn't
do much on the Russian mafia because, you know, Ifigure most readers don't, aren't well versed in

(53:28):
the Russian mafia themselves. So I could make upthe Russian mafia and the characters and listen,
we've all seen mafia shows and read mafia booksand have some sense of what these people are like.
They're psychopaths, you know, they appearcharming but are, you know, in the next minute
we'll be Happy to kill you. Thank you very much.

(53:49):
And with a smile on their face.
Yeah, exactly. So, um, yeah, so that's how Ideveloped those characters. Um, and there was some
more Russian stuff I did have to do some researchon. Uh, and I don't want to give too much away
about the book, but, you know, you know what I'mtalking about.
Well, you don't need to give anything away. Didyou do the research by going to a library or

(54:11):
mostly online?
Well, truthfully, I knew a little bit about what Iwas researching, you know, what I was talking
about. So I think I just filled in some facts bylooking online. And then I did actually check into
a book at one point.
So I think that your book, uh, and I guaranteeyou've thought of this, uh, uh, your book would

(54:33):
make an excellent movie or series, a miniseries.
Have you gone down that road and tried to sell itthat way?

Art Bel (54:40):
It's, uh, a dirty road.
It is certainly a difficult road, no question.
No, it is a difficult road. And I knew, you know,I know people in the business, but, um, and I
tried to get the attention of some of them. It'shard to get their attention. Listen, you did some
producing, right? Selling an idea, selling a showis about the hardest thing you have to do. My boss

(55:04):
once said the hardest thing that anybody has to dois get a movie made. If you get a movie made,
you're a genius, because it's hard to do. So manypeople write script after script after script,
screenplay after screenplay. Nothing happens. Theyget paid for it, but the movie never gets made.
You now have what I think of, uh, from a marketingperspective, as a lost leader. You have the book,

(55:25):
and the book exists. It's in the world. It's forsale. People have bought it and commented on it
and reviewed, been reviewed. And now you're onthis show talking about it, and I know you've done
others. And so it's a real thing. It's not a, youknow, it's not an imaginary thing that a writer is
sitting in a room and trying to sell their storyto someone, whole cloth. You have an existing

(55:48):
property, so that's an advantage, don't you think?
I think it is. But producers or agents or whomeveryou're trying to pitch, they're inundated with
this stuff. And that's what I was told. Now I willtell everybody a secret. This. This book was not
on the bestseller list. I sold a lot of books, andpeople liked it, and I'm still selling a lot of

(56:09):
books, but it was not A bestseller. And a lot ofproducers look to the bestsellers because they
have built in audiences. Everybody's going to wantto see the movie. What this book does have that I
think would make it. And by the way, every time Ido a book group or every time I talk to people
about this book, they always say, so is, you know,is this going to be a Netflix series? Or what are
you on working, working on here? And I say, it'shard to get Netflix's attention. Um, and I will

(56:34):
continue to try, Steve, because I think thecharacters are really, uh, really worthy of
carrying a television show. Really able to carry atelevision show. Anybody who wants to help out
there, uh, in podcast land, please give me a callbecause I really think it could be a great, a

(56:56):
great thing.
Well, I have been having just the most marvelousconversation, uh, with Art Bell, and we're going
to wind the show down just a little bit. And I'mwondering, in all of your experiences, can you
share with us beyond the stories you've alreadytold us, uh, and any kind of experiential story
that's weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or justplain funny?

(57:19):
Okay, check this out. When I was at Comedy, uh,Central, we got a call from a guy named Bill
Maher, and he says, look, I got this show topitch. And so we met him, my partner and I, he,
uh, was a co. Head of program, and we met him in adiner in LA and he pitched us a show and he said,
you know what the problem with talk shows is?
Nobody talks. They don't really talk. I want to doa talk show where people really talk. And I want

(57:44):
to call it Politically Incorrect. We brought it onthe spot. We said, okay, 12 episodes, let's go. We
had no money for it. Zero. Anyway, we put the showon the air. We get the show going first six months
not doing too well, but we're doing the best wecan. Then suddenly it starts to get an audience.
Now, at that point, I'm also responsible formarketing. So I say, you know what? I'm going to

(58:06):
build a marketing campaign around this guy. So wedo a marketing campaign around Politically
Incorrect. And I, as you have to do in acorporation, I showed it to everybody. I showed it
to his producers, I showed it to his writers. Ishowed it to, you know, everybody who made, um,
who had to see it. But I didn't show it to Bill.

(58:27):
Now why didn't I show it to Bill? Because Bill'svery opinionated and I didn't want Bill to be the
head of Marketing on this thing. So I didn't showit to Bill. So the thing breaks, and it's all over
the place. And Bill calls me up and he says, I sawthat ad campaign. I said, yeah. He says, and I'm
going to get you fired. I said, bill, you can'tget me. He said, I hate it. It's terrible. It

(58:48):
knows nothing about the show. Doesn't knowanything, anything about me. It really m. Uh, you
know, represents me badly, and I'm going to getyou fired. And he hangs up. Now, he didn't get me
fired because he couldn't, but he didn't like memuch after that. Anyway, cut to. I get a call from
the ad agency months later. Hey, we've beennominated for, uh, an award for the Bill Maher

(59:11):
campaign. A big award. He says, and I got ticketsto the award show, so let's go. So we go to the
award show, and this is almost unbelievable. BillMaher was the host. Now, I didn't know he was
gonna be the host, and he didn't know I was gonnabe there. Uh, anyway, he's the host, and up comes

(59:32):
the campaign, you know, for best campaign, outdoorcampaign in New York or something like that. And
he turns around and says, that's my campaign. Andguess what? We won. He turns around, looks at the
thing again and says, now that's advertising. Hewalked out that night, passed our table, didn't

(59:52):
say a thing to us.
Oh, wow. Still, uh, still upset about it, huh?
Huh? Is that a crazy story, though?
That's a. That's a crazy story. Now, I. You know,I don't. I've never met him. I do watch his show.
He kind of has a little bit of that acerbiccharacter to him. That's.
That's sort of a little bit. I mean, look, I'm notgoing to tell stories out of school, but I will

(01:00:13):
tell one coda to that thing. I did the bookConstant Comedy, and I did my own reading of the
book, of the memoir for the audiobook, because youcan do that with a memoir. And I got. You know, I
was checking out the reviews one day, and I gotthis horrible review, one star. And I hadn't seen
that before. And I read it. I kept reading, and Isaid, my gosh, this is.

Steve Cuden (01:00:35):
Is terrible.
This guy is taking personal shots at me. And Ishowed it to my wife, and she says, oh, uh, that's
Bill Moore. Bill Moore wrote that review. And Isaid, yeah, you're right. Because he said, who
did? You know, the only worthwhile Chapter in thebook is the chapters on Bill Maher. And who does
Art Bell think he is? You know, it's like, ofcourse it was Bill Maher. Anyway, can you imagine

(01:01:00):
holding a grudge for 30 years?
Oh, uh, my God. Well, welcome to Hollywood.
You know, it's like you'll never work in thisbusiness again.
But I did exactly right. Um, so. All right, lastquestion for you today, Art. Um, you've shared
with us, actually, a really significant amount ofadvice already throughout the show. But I'm

(01:01:22):
wondering, do you have a single solid piece ofadvice or a tip that you like to give to those who
are starting out in the business or maybe they'rein a little bit trying to get up to that next
level?
Well, uh, you know, what I like to talk about iswhat you do with an idea. Because anybody going
into the entertainment business is creative andwants to pitch ideas. My idea, my big idea was
comedy. But you end up pitching all kinds ofthings. And I wrote 10 rules. This is when you're

(01:01:49):
making your pitch. Okay, first of all, you gottahave an elevator pitch. Make it exciting. Inject
passion. Think of Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run.
Second, if it's an investment kind of thing, likeyou got to raise money for a movie, let investors,
others feel the passion in every communication.
Everyone electrify them. 3. Understand everythingabout your potential customer or audience through

(01:02:14):
research. I gotta tell you, research is soimportant in the entertainment business. Four,
Expect setbacks. Don't dwell on them. Fix theproblem. Five. Talk to everyone about your idea in
order to hone them. Six, Find allies andadvocates. Seven. Assess your strengths and
weaknesses. You can't do everything. Eight.

(01:02:35):
Identify the competition. Who are you up against?
Nine. Check your vision. How will your new ventureor movie or television show change the world? And
that's how you have to talk about it. 10. Beprepared to compromise, especially in the
entertainment business. Steve, am I right that?
And 11. I said there were 10, but there's 11. Beprepared to fail. Nobody does something great by

(01:03:02):
avoiding failure. Go for success. And failuresometimes leads to great insights and great
success. That's my advice.
In my book Beating Hollywood, I have a chaptercalled Fail Up. Failing is part of the process,
and you must fail in order to succeed, to learn.
But you've got to fail in a way that takes youupward. You have to allow yourself to learn from

(01:03:24):
it. And, uh, if you dwell on it and get depressedabout it, you're not going to help yourself. So I
think that's those, those 11, um, um, uh, piecesof advice are absolutely tremendous, and I thank
you for sharing them. And this has just been atremendously wonderful, fun, uh, time on the show
for me. And I can't thank you enough for yourtime, your. Your energy, and for your great

(01:03:47):
wisdom.
Uh, oh, it was absolutely a pleasure talking toyou about it. And, uh, I really appreciate you.
And so we've come to the end of today's StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won't you please
take a moment to give us a comment, rating, orreview on whatever app or platform you're
listening to your stuff. Your support helps usbring more great Story Beat episodes to you. Story

(01:04:09):
Beat is available on all major podcast apps andplatforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube,
Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others.
Until next time, I'm Steve Cuden and may all yourstories be unforgettable.