Interview with Paul Moomjean

Paul is an established stand-up comedian in Los Angeles with a DryBar special and was also the producer's asst to Dan Schneider - the infamous Nickelodeon EP on the trending doc "Quiet on Set." Paul made it through The Hollywood gauntlet and continues to thrive.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How are you. I'm good.Thanks for jumping on. Uh, this
wasn't too complicated. No, Igot to update an app that I didn't
know I had before we start.I do it like a little bit of
YouTube audience. I sto introduce toyou. So, Paul Moujim is a
comedian here in Los Angeles. Hetours, but he has such an interesting

(00:26):
background. Because I met you casuallyover at dinner, I think we were
just about that, but when Italked to you, I was like,
this guy knows his comedy and alot of people don't know their comedy,
but you actually understood the business ofit, like the La dynamics, and

(00:47):
the further I've talked to you,I've learned that you also have this way
interesting backstory to who you are andhow you come. And we've kind of
had these philosophical talks, I meanabout just the motion of like where we
are in life. So, uh, you know, I just want to

(01:07):
ask you, was was comedy alwayson the goal of where you are right
now in your life? So it'svery funny. I used to watch comedy
specials as a kid, Yeah,like HBO, Like when I was like
twelve eleven, My grandma had oneof those illegal black boxes where you could

(01:32):
get free cable, and she wouldshe and my grandpa would record Carlin,
the Waynes Brothers, all those specialsand then give them to me, and
I'd watch them in my room.And I would go to Borders and Barnes
and Noble and Walden Books and getall the cassette tapes of all the comics.

(01:53):
So I've always been a student ofstand up comedy, and to give
you kind of understanding of where mycomedy sensibilities are, my favorite comedian as
a kid was Albert Brooks. Sureit's maybe Andy Kaufman, but Andy Kaufman

(02:19):
really didn't do stand up, whereasAlbert Brooks was doing impressions of bad stand
up. That was Albert Brooks's introduction. I think that's how I learned what
comedy was was by watching him makefun of ventriloquists, musical comics, mimes.
He made fun of all these hackyacts. So what was interesting is

(02:44):
I knew what a hack was becauseI realized immediately that's who Albert Brooks was
making fun of. That changes howyou view comedy because most people liked certain
comics because they made them laugh,and they never think about why am I
laughing at this? Right? Likewhen there's a terrible comedian and there are

(03:07):
terrible successful comedians, when they getbig laughs, you have to ask yourself
what is the IQ of the peoplein the room, Because if you can
just say and then I farted onher face or something really racist and everyone
just laughs, well that's a hack. And on top of that, having

(03:30):
Albert Brooks point that out to meat eleven, twelve, thirteen years old
really helped me realize, Okay,who's really funny, who really has a
strong point of view? And allof a sudden you start to realize,
oh, certain comics are better atthis than others. And so it took
that weird deconstruction route for me tostart doing that. When I was eighteen,

(03:50):
I found out I had to betwenty one to go to most clubs
to do open mics, so Istarted coaching wrestling instead, and I didn't
start doing comedy until thirty two.When you say Albert Brooks, like,
right off the bat, I'm thinkingokay, So you automatically see comedy very
differently because most guys will say,oh, Richard Pryor or George Carlin.

(04:11):
But Albert Brooks is a very eplectictaste, like you know, same as
back then. But I don't thinkpeople know today like the influence he's had
on stand up. But just ifpeople have backstory, I know we got
some viewers already, like like Paul'sdone Drive our Specials, he's touring,
you know, he's worked for highlevel execs. But I hope we can
get into a little bit. Butso, but right now, what I'd

(04:33):
like most about your career is islike there's kind of a shit show in
La right now of a comedy justin general in America. But you take
this traditional route of hey, I'mgoing to work the road, I'm going
to work the casinos, I'm goingto get better as a comic, and

(04:54):
you're you seem to be doing that. I mean, having a Drive our
special working clean is not an easytask. So you started late. We're
all your experiences formative. Do youthink like having a later start because thirty
two wasn't you know eighteen prodigy?Would that help your comedy? It helped,
It helped my identity, right becausewhat is a what is an eighteen

(05:19):
to twenty two year old know aboutthemselves? Like nothing. So if you're
a prodigy, it's because you know. Albert Brooks was a prodigy. Kyle
Reiner called him a prodigy on theTonight Shows and the funniest kid in the
world. As a sixteen year oldin my living room, it was Rob
Ryder's best friend. But I here'sthe thing. I was always the funny

(05:41):
kid in class. I was thefunny teacher. I was the funny guy
at work. I'm the one thatmade the meetings worth going to because I
could ask silly questions and I knewhow to make jokes, you know.
But but translating that to stage isdifferent, as we both know, right
because Bill berrwe said, the funniestguy in the world probably works at a

(06:02):
warehouse somewhere, you know, makespeople laugh all day, but could do
stand up to save his life.But when I was thirty two years old,
I already had a life, andI already had and I had worked
in Nickelodeon, which I know youwant to talk about. So I understood
working with joke writers, what basicstructure was like, how to get to

(06:24):
a joke very quickly, how toget to a bunchline. I understood all
the basic elements of joke writing,and I understood brevity, pausing, and
timing. So I started hosting bigshows at Flappers six months in. They
had me hosts for Burt Kreischer andTom Segura within my first four or five
months. So they trusted me todo ten minutes in front of their wild

(06:50):
crowds. And it was because asa host, I could work clean and
I had a good sense of jokestructure where the set's great. Particularly.
But here's the other thing too thathelped me amongst all over all the young
kids. So many young kids whenthey get a big break and they get

(07:11):
to work with a big headliner,you want to know what they do.
First. They try to get ontheir podcast, They try to see if
they can open for them. Moreoften, they're trying to add them on
Instagram and Facebook. Immediately I waslike, look, these guys are so
famous they got I don't offer anything, So I'm just gonna do my job
and move on, because even ifthey gave me an opportunity, I wouldn't

(07:32):
know what to do with it.Four or five months in and so the
comedy cub Flappers actually trusted me.The old booker Richie Leeks told me one
time, he said, I couldtrust you with big names the way I
couldn't trust other people who were starvingto get in front of big names.
So that helped a lot too.But I was an adult. I was

(07:54):
thirty two years old. I alreadywas teaching for many, many years.
I had been teaching on and offsince two thousand and three. I worked
in Nickelodeon. I worked with somebig names in Nickelodeon. You know,
like I was. When I meeta comedy writer. I've been in a

(08:15):
comedy writer's room. I'm not intimidatedor I don't feel I need to prove
anything, which helps a lot.They we naturally become friends much faster.
Dude. I you know what,I know a lot of I've been doing
common a long time, but Iknow like a lot of comics. But
what what I think what gravitated metowards your stuff was your newsletter. Like

(08:35):
you're a really good writer. AndI hope people watching this. We've got
some people all these saying some stuff, but uh, your newsletter. You
gotta you gotta check out his newsletterman because he does not hold back.
And I really appreciate that because Ifeel like that. It almost signifies how
diverse you got to be in thisoversaturated landscape and you've got these different weapons.

(08:58):
So check out his newsletter because hewrites about comedy and just puts it
through his filter. And I think, I think your age benefits you because
you've gone through these experiences and youbroke down the LA comedy landscape just with
no impunity, like you didn't givea shit, which which is kind of

(09:20):
refreshing. I kind of like,uh, I mean, you burn your
own bridges, but I feel likeyou know what you're doing, what you
want to do. But the refreshinggo ahead. Yeah. But but here's
the thing. There's no such thingas burning bridges. That's made up in
people's head. It's a it's I'mgonna use some aggressive language. It's a
servant's mentality. It's you thinking thatthe comedy club owes you the or you

(09:45):
owe the comedy club. I'm sorry, but the comedy club, the minute
you become famous after trashing them onJoe Rogan's podcast, will take you in.
The comedy club has no soul.The comedy club has no heart.
The comedy club is a business.And and keep in mind, let's not
forget how many comedy clubs burn thebridge with comics when they didn't give up

(10:09):
and coming comics who deserve spots,better spots. Think about how many comics
they said, bring five people,or we won't book you, or you
don't sell enough tickets, and thenthat person wins a Golden Globe for Best
Comedy Series, and suddenly that personisn't going to be available for them anymore.
So who burnt the bridge there?Because too often we think of it

(10:33):
as we have to serve the comedyclub. The comedy club will fall apart
as soon as the comics realize theydon't have to be there. And comedy
clubs are falling apart all over thecountry because they run a bringer model.
They mistreat employees. The HBO documentaryin Nickelodeon, you could do ten on

(10:56):
comedy clubs. Dude, I feellike I feel like this is the fifteen
hundreds. He'd be like Martin Luther, like nailing like things ye all,
Like yeah, you're you're like aman out of time, you know,
like in the Because dude, it'snot just La comedy though. It's like
because I started in New York andit's it's everywhere man like. That's always
been the power dynamic, and nowbecause of podcasting, now we have multimillionaire

(11:22):
comics buying in private jets and thingslike. It's shifted the dynamic, but
that power is always going to bethere, especially in this oversaturate the market
filled with TikTokers and twenty year oldsbut with but okay, so yes,
are you familiar with the kill TonyShow? Of course? Okay, So

(11:45):
Hans Kim was on a financial auditshow recently, so he was talking about
how much money he makes, andhe's making three hundred thousand dollars a year,
Yeah, doing about thirty weeks atten grand. I mean, he
openly admitted this, so I'm notgiving anything away. You can watch it.
It's on Caleb Hammer's special, andit's a great insight for people who
are trying to figure out a howmany comedians are unfamiliar with how they're making

(12:07):
their money. He has an agentdoing it. So think about how many
people leave money on the table thatthe comedy club should have been giving to
them when they could have got moreright. Here's the thing about comedy clubs,
TikTokers, all these things they're alldoing door deals. It's not like
the comedy club is making them famous. They got famous on their own.

(12:30):
This is not nineteen ninety one.You are not Richard Jenny. You do
not need thirty spots a week andhope that you like literally grassroots a fan
club, right, if you're puttingin the work or you have the act
that the club needs to sell becausethey have a demographic, right, you're
the valuable entity. And it's notentitlement. It's just a very truthful way

(12:54):
of looking at what's actually going onout there and doing the drives. You
can drop all if you can drawan audience. But if you can draw
an audience, But also keep inmind sometimes the comedy club they need a
particular type of act, Like theycan't just put anyone up there, right,
Like we've all done little bar showswhere it doesn't matter who the comic

(13:16):
is. The audience patiently sets,they're drunk and it's whatever, you know.
But if you think about how manyclubs are like we want a certain
quality of comedian. Well, ifyou can be that quality, even if
you don't have a fan base,they still need you more. And that
has to be the mindset. Noone ever won a war thinking I hope

(13:37):
the other side's okay. Like,that's not a mentality. That's just not
a mentality. You have to thinkin really terms of like I'm going out
to do it's best for me,and I want to make sure the club
is sustainable. I don't want tosuck up all their profits. But you
have to look at it and say, they do need me. And if

(13:58):
you don't have that attitude, youwill not make it or you will get
sucked up and spit out. Andif you want to think about how many
artists are suicidal, they go,they go kind of down a rabbit hole
of drugs and alcohol. It's becausethey thought the club needed them or in
a way that was unhealthy, orI need the club, or I need

(14:18):
to be on No. No,you have to have a mindset that says
I'm doing this for me and ifthe club benefits, great, but I'm
going to look out for myself becauseit's a business and I have to look
out for my act and my brandand all of those other aspects. And
most people don't. Most people arebegging for spots and they're losing their dignity
in the process. And you tellme if I'm wrong here. Like,

(14:41):
there's almost two ecosystems with comedy.There's being a Dralic Hanskin, which is
when we get it, like theclubs you're trying to place hate you and
you know, get you. Andthen there's the other world where you're being
the best version of yourself, whichexplains to me why you're able to do
casinos. You're able to you're versatile, you're doing driver special, which is
the deal. Like, you're beingthe best version of yourself as a comedian,

(15:05):
which is almost like the old schoolway of doing comedy before social media
came about, right, you'd beyou just became the best version of yourself.
Is that? Is that very sick? There's two things, Yeah,
to waste their approach this, Yeah, you can either be a draw or
you can be a quality act.And perhaps you've become a draw from that.
You could be both. Clearly youcan be both. I mean Jim

(15:26):
Gaffigan is both. Jerry Seinfeld isboth. But when I think about all
of the working comments I met onmy way up, they weren't draws,
you know. They were just reallysolid headliners with a great forty five to
sixty minute show and and and andthat's that was the goal. Because look,

(15:48):
fame is so fleeting, and it'sso temperamental, and there's so much
luck involved. You don't hard workyour way into fame. I'm sorry,
you just don't. I just sawSidney Sweeney at a Q and A.
She's twenty six years old, she'sdoing everything. She's twenty six. Name
one other twenty six year old ata company who becomes the number one person

(16:11):
in the company. Okay, it'sa weird thing. She put herself with
the right people, right time,and it just worked out. There's a
lot of twenty six year old beautifulwomen actresses who worked just as hard who
didn't make it. So it's aluck thing. When it comes to the
same part, it becomes a luckthing that there are plenty of dude bro
comedians at every open mic, butthey but nobody's following them because they didn't

(16:37):
get the algorithm to snatch them up. For a minute. If you don't
accept the luck factor, then whatyou then you're really gonna do is you're
gonna be running yourself ragged. Butthe act, having a quality act that
somebody can actually book and give twothousand dollars a week two. That's how
you're going to be a sustainable businessperson in the world. You have a

(17:02):
quality act, You work on yourjokes, you're not afraid to take some
risks. You treat people with dignityand kindness. You do all of the
things you're supposed to do. Everyheadliner who isn't famous is the nicest person
I ever met. Do you everlike? Do you ever know? Do
you do? You feel the sameway like a lot of headliners who aren't
famous, they're just well, theyare so kind, they're so giving.

(17:26):
I agree, Yeah, the headlinerswho kind of made it overnight or whatever.
Some of them can be prickly.Some of them are great. Some
of them aren't. But every longlasting comedian who doesn't have more than a
thousand followers on Instagram, but itis a great comic. You wish that
was your dad, you wish thatwas your uncle, because they're so great,

(17:48):
or your aunt. They're all wonderful. It's and that's the key to
this. You treat people well.You don't get into the muck too much.
You know, you don't create alife, and says when I wrote
the article about the comedy clubs,I didn't write a single thing that wasn't
true. What I was writing was, if you think you're gonna go to

(18:08):
the comedy store and get found,it's not happening. You know what.
I hope less people showed up atthe comedy store pot luck, because I
think the comedy store is probably overwhelmedwith how many people are trying to get
in. I couldn't imagine. Ihad a comedian who's passed the comedy store
who once wrote a dmd be aboutthat article, and he said, I

(18:29):
do not envy anybody who has totry to book, you know, five
hundred comedians a week and there's onlyeighty spots. Like, that's not a
fun job. So the more peoplethousand bar shows and casinos and corporate gigs,

(18:55):
you can make more money, havemore fun. I just did an
eight hundred cet theater in minute soda. Okay, eight hundred people left and
had a ball. And that's aboutas far away from Los Angeles as it
gets. So you don't have tobe in LA and thriving to have a
great, you know, time incomedy or a successful career. Yeah again.

(19:18):
Uh. Follow Paul Paul Mumjin onInstagram. Check out his newsletter because
I felt like that that blog youwrote about the comedy clubs, it wasn't
more so an attack in the clubs, but just about the landscape of comedy
of like how to you know,be a better person as a comedian,
which I just feel like is lostnowadays in you know, in comedy,

(19:42):
like you just get so beaten downand you're like, well, what's the
point of this, because there's likeit's gone out the wind, you know,
Godfrey, you know god or not? Uh. He just said this
great podcast on Shay Sheha Club ShayShay with a Shannon Shannon Sharp and he
was talking and if you saught itor not, but he was talking about
like in sports, like the bestperson plays. But he's like, in

(20:03):
comedy, we celebrate mediocrity and that'sjust what it is. I mean,
if you can accept that, thenit makes more digestible. But we also
celebrate fame, and so people likebeing in rooms with famous people. So
so you can be really funny.But let's be honest, most men think

(20:23):
they're the funniest guy in their ownlife. Right, Like you got to
any dude and after a show,how many times have you had someone comfy
and be like, you know,people tell me I should be a comedian
all the time. Okay, No, you're just a big fat guy and
people tell you that, so youshut up. Okay. I mean I
coached wrestling for years. I dealtwith the big fat, stupid dads.

(20:45):
I call them that in my act. Okay, it's a very clear branding
language I've chosen. But there's alot of people who think they're but they
know they're not famous, and sothey'll go into a room with a famous
person. They know that they can'tbe famous because there's nothing about them that's
fame worthy. They don't stew sketches, they can't sing right, but they'll

(21:08):
sit in a room with a famousperson and tell everybody they were in the
room with the famous person. They'llsay, oh, I saw so and
so last night, and they'll belike, oh, how were they.
But if you tell them I wentto the comedy club and the guy was
really funny, most people go,that's great. But when you tell them
the famous person's name, the otherperson now is engaged in the conversation.

(21:30):
Nobody ever asked me at the endof a comedy show like a student showcase.
When I first started out, orwhen I taught some students, nobody
ever asked for their names afterwards becausethey're not famous. Nobody cared. They
were funny, they laughed, butnobody cared. So the same part is
really what's allowing people to sell twothousand and five thousand seed theaters. Yeah,

(21:53):
it's almost like it comes with theterritory and it has frozen cuns.
Like I saw it an actress anduh, you know she does not like
the the TMZ part, the celebrityclebretism of acting. But I was like,
you know it, come you makea deal with the devil. If
you want to do this, you'vegot If you've become famous and you're living
in Hollywood, that comes with it. Man, you're a public persona.

(22:15):
I mean why I see comedians getbugged by people famous and you're like,
dude, you're on. People arebuying tickets a hard dollar to see you,
man, Like that's part of thething. But most people want to
be left alone in general, right, I mean, I mean you've had
a real job, Like, yeah, you know, okay, most day

(22:37):
at your real job, if you'renot talking to the one or two coworkers
you like, you want to beleft alone, and so that mindset doesn't
leave like nope, imagine I'm okay. Imagine at the end of your accounting
shift, everybody at work comes upto you to shake your hand and take
a selfie. You would hate theend of the day. That's why you

(23:02):
charge meeting greets at the end.Yes, that is why they charge.
That's a new thing. They didn'tdo that back And I mean I remember
even ten years ago when I startedthe somebody did a meet and greet money
and they were like, can wedo that? They're like, sure,
why not. So the aspect ofbeing famous, some people want it.

(23:26):
Listen, some people love it.Some people love it, they love taking
pictures. But you know what,a lot of comics are very quiet people.
They're very socially distant, like theyloved COVID more than anyone else.
And so when you when you addan element of social awkwardness to this profession,

(23:48):
because keep in mind, a lotof comedians, when they're doing jokes,
it's not necessarily a completely thought outpunchline. The way that like comedy
writers for it comes to sometimes it'sjust the weird way they see the world.
So you have a weird thought process. You most likely don't have much
in common with these people. Youknow, you don't really care that they

(24:11):
saw you once ten years ago,you know, at a diner and you
got to like, I just dida show with a pretty famous headliner on
Saturday. Guy was also an NBCnews personality for years, and you see
people come up to him all thetime saying, you know, I saw
you fifteen years ago here and twentyyears ago my son and your daughter did

(24:33):
a thing at a school play anddid it. And you could just see
the look on his face like,Okay, thank you. I don't yeah,
yeah, I always see Jamie Kennedylike walking on the high and stuff
like that, and like people alwayslike bugging him, and it's like you
just see, like Scots, he'snot He's a nice guy. But you

(24:55):
can tell Jesus Christ how many timesthis guy get approached, you know,
and you know part of the filmlike screen just one film and he will
get for the rest of his life. And the Jamie Kennedy expres I mean,
he's got like three major fan baseprogramming well. Also, he was

(25:17):
in that Malibu's Most Wanted that whichis a funny comedy when Nixon Wortz,
and then Tremor's kind of revitalized himtoo, so you know, he had
He's had a pretty great career.And and I love the fact that he
keeps working on his comedy, youknow, at the haha and grinding it
out. But you know that's partof Hollywood comedy. I mean, and
I think everything changes, Paul,Like it's easy to say stuff, but

(25:40):
once you're in the thick of it, it must be a different realm of
fan interaction, like psychology, Likewe don't really know unless we're actually living.
I've never been super famous like that, so God knows what would happen
to you or me, what demonswould arise if we weren't experienced. So

(26:00):
it's funny you talk about that becauseI have been famous in other areas of
my life. So when I wasa wrestling coach, I was about as
well known as a god, soeveryone knew Paul Mumjen. I did rankings
for the state, I did rankingsfor our section. I was very active
on all of our social media accountsfor interaction with parents and coaches and refs,

(26:25):
and I did a lot of favorsfor people. What I found about
myself. I was young, Iwas in my early twenties. What I
found about myself was I liked theidea of helping people, and I also
knew how to shake a hand,say thank you, and move on.
Most people do not have any cluehow to socially manage their fame. As

(26:51):
for your point, like what kindof demons would come out? Yes,
would would a twenty two year oldversion of you probably, you know,
say some things or treat people differently. But you're an over thirty five year
old male at this point. Youknow how to treat people. And if
you were given a million dollar checktomorrow, I don't think you would start

(27:12):
hitting people. But if you gotthat check at nineteen or twenty, it
could change how you respond to things. So I'm not worried about fame from
that perspective, but I think,but I'm also forty two years old,
Like, I know who I am. You know ironically, you know the

(27:36):
you know right now, the poweryou know that right now, the power
ball is a billion dollars millions.Yeah, And I was thinking about that
and I thought, this is okay, this is how the difference of a
forty two year old man to achild. Okay, if I won a
billion dollars and I wanted to getrevenge on someone, do you know what

(27:56):
I would do? I would buythem a three million dollar home. Now
you know why I would do thatBecause they've got to pay taxes on it,
You got it. See, anadult understands that. Yeah, and
they'd have to fill it with furniturethat they can't afford. So like the

(28:18):
mindset of an adult who finally getssome success is going to be very different
than if you give it to achild. And when you give a child
a lot of money, they don'tknow what to do with it. They
become richie rich, and they startbuying, you know, giant playgrounds for
their backyard. And that's what causessome of those issues to happen when a

(28:42):
twenty five year old becomes famous overnight. Yeah, I agree with you.
I think I think money does accentuatethe worst part of people, or maybe
or maybe accentuates the best part ofpeople. And while we're on the topic
of thing you did work in Nickelodeon, which is another great blog you wrote,

(29:06):
was that so you want the trajectorybeing a writer? Was that your
first goal of your love of comedy. So I was, yes, I
majored in film at a junior college, and that I was going to transfer
to UCLA, and I decided tocoach wrestling instead and become a teacher,

(29:27):
so I dropped. So luckily,all those film classes translated into just electives.
But I have always loved film andtelevision. I've watched the Oscars every
year since nineteen ninety one. Ibig fan of the Emmys, all of
those things. So I always wantedto be a TV writer. I always

(29:47):
wanted to be a screenwriter. SoI when I got the production assistant job
in Nickelodeon, I looked for everyopportunity I could to get in front of
producers and writers so that they couldsee that I was going to bring value.
What happened was is Dan Schneider neededa driver to work because he was

(30:10):
sleeping in hold on, let's stopyou right there. Let's set this up
for a second. So guys,right now, there's a huge documentary right
now called Quiet on Set. It'sabout Nickelodeon. It's about all the shows
of what happened. It's about sexualabuse from this guy Brian Peck, who
was acting dialect coach actors that comeout of the woodwork. This guy,

(30:33):
Dan Schneider exec producer for all theseamazing shows. He was an actor in
the show Head of the Class Bagin the late eighties nineties, I don't
know, went on to become thishuge I guess kid mogul creating these shows
now experiencing a huge backlash because allthese stories have come out against Dan Schneider
about how each a monster. AndPaul was his assistant and he writes this

(31:00):
great blog which you can see findthat He's newsletter. Check it out.
Go for it, Paul, Andthis is how you eventually became his assistant.
So here's what happens. They Danneeded a driver. I saw,
well, why wouldn't I want tobe in the car with the creator of
the shows? So I offered topick him up at his house. It

(31:23):
was kind of on the way,so it wasn't a huge issue. I
picked him up and we kind ofhit it off. You know, I
knew who he was from Head ofthe Class and Better Off Dead, and
so, you know, we andI was able to ask him questions that
were different than most people probably wereasking him. And then it went so

(31:45):
well that he fired his on setassistant. It made me as on set
assistant. Now he knew I wantedto be a writer. They can only
have four writers in the room.So what he did was is he offered
me a high pain producer's assistant jobthat allowed me to work in the writer's
room as a non staff writer.So I pitched stories, I did the

(32:08):
write up, so I got thewhole experience of what it was like to
be in the writer's room. Butthen also I would sit in the editing
bay with him, and I wouldsit on set with him, so we
would write on set, we'd rewritejokes. I used to pitch a lot
of jokes on set that got intoepisodes. I pitched a lot of jokes
that were in the original scripts,and I helped with edits. When Dan

(32:31):
and I would look at the editingbay and there would be some scene and
we say, well, which cutsthe better cut? And he would say,
Paul chows, I can't, andI go second cut and he would
go sure, and then we wouldjust you know, so I was part
of this whole process of how televisionwas created. So like I understand the
ins and outs of a lot ofelements of television because of my job at

(32:53):
the same time. The job wastwenty four to seven. It's what you
would call a slave slave labor contract, and that I was just on call
the whole time, and I wasn'tpaid properly for overtime. I ended up
having to sue, and we settledvery quickly because they just all realized that

(33:13):
this was a ridiculous demand. Butthe way in which working with Dan worked
is that he's he was working threeshows at one time. It was post
production of Drake and Josh, itwas the new production of I Carly and
the current production of Zoe one ohone, and so you put up So
when I talk about, you know, you give a twenty five year old

(33:36):
too much money. He started attwenty five making all these shows. By
the time I get to him,he's forty years old. He's been for
fifteen years, been making millions ofdollars and having everyone bend over backwards for
him. So when you see thedocumentary and you hear about him yelling at
people and he yelled at me,and you hear about him mistreating people.

(33:57):
One of the things that I thinknobody really understands as the subtext or the
deconstruction of it, which is dude, when you tell a twenty five year
old, just make great TV,we don't care how you do it,
you're going to get a lot ofthose problems. Television does not have a
moral center. It has a businesscenter. And if someone is abusive verbally,

(34:22):
and see if Dan wasn't abusive sexually, Like he never did anything with
kids that I know of. Imean I was around and I never saw
anything. And nobody else. Imean there's too many people who worked with
him for years who they would havereported him. I mean keep in mind
in the documentary, as soon aseveryone found out about the other people,

(34:43):
they were reported, with the exceptionof actually when they talked about going to
production and do you remember there's apart where somebody complained about Brian Peck and
the uniproduction manager said, well,you're just homophobic. I know who that
person was, and that person wasprotecting Nickelodeon. And so when you talk

(35:05):
about who's the problem, the problemis when you go to the production side
and the you know, and yousay, hey, this is what's happening
if they don't do anything. SoI don't think Dan knew what was going
on, because he seems shocked whenDrake told him. In fact, Drake
defends him in the documentary, butwhen it comes to being an abusive boss,

(35:25):
on power dynamics, on language,on demoralizing behavior, Dan ate the
cake, and part of me believesit's because he started at twenty five.
Had he started at thirty five,it might have been a completely different situation.

(35:45):
And you know, it's funny.In his butle video, which was
fully scripted, he says the samething, like there's things I wouldn't do
then that I do now, orthings I wouldn't do back then that I
know now are wrong. Oh hehad. I mean it wasn't a great
apology, but it was still like, yeah, twenty five year old men

(36:07):
with thirteen year old kids. Youknow, he's a big kid himself.
So he was only behaving in away in which Nickelodeon rewarded him. Yeah,
and look, look well, andI think I told you this on
Instagram, like aside from a slavelabor, which you settled and rightfully,
so you can be a dick inHollywood. There's no there's no rule that

(36:30):
says you can't be an asshole.I mean, I've worked a place it's
okay. If you're making money forthe company, and if you're if you
accept to work at a company andthey're yelling at you, they're allowed to
yell at you. I mean,you can quit and somebody else is it.
Is it morally right? Probably not, But if you're making money for

(36:54):
the company, some people, that'show they do. When I was working
in an agency, their boss withthe yell at them, I'd see these
kids rise becrom agents and take onthe persona of their boss because they feel
like that's the way they operate.Its like they're wired, like they're broken.
It's like being a son of analcoholic or something to become an alcoholic
yourself. It's like the circle downoff. Oh well, it's definitely learned

(37:16):
to behavior. You know, it'sthe Wolf of Wall Street, right when
Leodardo DiCaprio shows up all wide eyedand you know, like he just wants
to make money on Wall Street.And then after a few years it becomes
a quelud coke addict. Right,But they all were. I think that
part of the problem is that,you know, most businesses would have more

(37:38):
moments in which they're self reflecting onthe company culture. But Hollywood is such
a quick turnaround for the need ofprofit that they can't afford to do that.
So, if you're paying someone onehundred thousand dollars a year to be
your manager and they're being abusive,you just lost one hundred thousand dollars.

(37:59):
May not destroy the business when youfire them. Whereas if you spent a
million dollars on an episode of televisionand then you're spending millions more and now
you have to cancel the show,you've just lost too much money. So
you're right, you can be ajerk. But if the industry was willing

(38:20):
to have a little more backbone,people wouldn't do it. Now, Listen,
there's a lot of wonderful producers,and there are a lot of wonderful
people who got very far ahead.Mel Brooks is a saint based on what
everyone says, So Steven Spielberg isa saint based on what everyone says.
You know, people will tell Thereare plenty of people who will tell you
that they're you know. And thenthere's people like Stanley Kubrick, who made

(38:44):
everyone cry. So but Stanley Koprickwas considered a genius now here. Here's
the thing. I love Stanley Koprickmovies as much as anybody. In fact,
probably more than most because he wasa little weird. But the way
that he treated some of those femaleactors, it doesn't matter that you're a
genius. It's wrong because it's ahuman being. And I don't care if

(39:09):
they're making money for people. Andso me as a forty two year old
right now, I have a verydifferent mindset. I see someone being mistreated,
I stop it immediately, like that'sjust done. And if I get
fired in the profile, but I'mnot going to stand by now at forty
years old, because I still thinkI'm going to face God one day and

(39:30):
he's not gonna be happy when hesays, well, why didn't you defend
that person? Well, gun Iyou know I had to make a paycheck.
No, In fact, leaving thecomedy club, I just left.
They were doing some things that Ithought were really shady, and it was
like time to go. I'm notgonna go, and guess what, I'm
still making rent. My WiFi apparentlystill works. I'm talking to you like

(39:55):
there is a metaphysical belief that Ihave that if you do do what is
right God, the universe. Howeveryou want to declare and I call it
God protects you. You will beokay, you will make it. But
when you continue to run your soulthrough the mud, you will become what
you're running through, and you mightbe a millionaire. But let me tell

(40:20):
you something, the most miserable peopleare filthy rich because they built their fortunes
sometimes on the backs of other people'shard work. And I've learned this in
every profession, even in education.Football coaches who cheat, and I dealt
with one of those before. Wealways used to say, how does the
guy sleep at night? We foundout he didn't. Principles who change grades,

(40:44):
how do they sleep at night?They didn't. There are plenty of
people who are successful, who reachthe highest levels of the mountain, and
yet they don't get to enjoy asingle second of it because they know how
they got there. And the oneswho do enjoy it are socio paths,
and they will eventually be called out. That's what twenty seventeen was, when

(41:06):
every sociopath got called out and theyhad to go through whatever, you know,
scrubbing they went through on social media. Yeah. Look, I'm not
saying crimes should be a lot.If you do something illegal on set,
like like a why illegal, anabuse of power? Obviously that stuff,

(41:27):
But I guess I have an oppositeapproach, like the nihilistic way of crushing
life, where I feel like everythingthere is a sense of lawlessness. And
Hollywood, when you said there's nomoral center, people capitalizing it where you
can succeed and you can thrive,there's no there's no Uh oh, do

(41:47):
you want to know? The fastestway, fast way you get ahead is
just lie? Just lie, youjust lie all the time. We used
to joke about that at a jobI had where where we go, Oh,
the marketing strategy is just lie andyou know, and yes, lying
is a great way to get aheadreally fast. My point is is that,

(42:08):
uh, every one of those executivesthey may have slept on a really
nice bed, but they didn't sleepwell. And when you look at how
many people's lives end in disruptive destruction, like that's the endgame. No more
family, no more friends, multiplespouses, massive amounts of debt, you

(42:32):
name it, everything goes wrong,No one lives a com I mean,
okay, so like we did wejoke about Trump, right and we go,
oh, well, this guy neverget this man deal with all of
this. How would you look togo through four court cases right now?

(42:53):
You you would probably be in ayou know, mental distress. So it
does come back to bite you insome way, you know, it just
doesn't you Just the problem is ifwe look at the world through an economical
terms or a success terms, thenwe don't see the all the aftermath and
all of the problems that come withit. I'm looking at things from a

(43:15):
peace angle. I want peace morethan I want money. I would rather
be able to watch a television showin my little one bedroom apartment knowing that
I did the best I could thanmaking a ton of money, wondering is
anybody gonna come after me tomorrow?Because I don't want to live in a
Shakespeare play where everyone's trying to killme to become the king. Yeah.

(43:40):
I think you can definitely choose theroad you want to go down. But
as you get older from me,and I'm just talking with personal experience,
I just don't believe like if youact a certain way, it's gonna guarantee.
You've got to make your own choice. You got to live with your
own decisions and sleep at night.And however you want to play, you
know your your cards, it's it'syour choice. Oh yeah, I just

(44:04):
truly believe that people who live alife of backstabbing and doing things are going
to find themselves at a bad end. Yeah, I you know what.
I used to believe in that,But I just see so many people who
who thrive, and I see somany good people who suffer, and I'm
was like, wow, this isthis is It's not as Hollywood, man,

(44:27):
It's systemic everywhere. Man. Wellwhen we talk about you know,
the sexual assault on set of Nickelodeon, right with Brian Peck, Okay,
that happens in coaching, That happensin teaching, that happens in churches.
Everything happens everywhere. If there's kids, you're gonna have the same problems.
It doesn't matter the industry. Thesame thing goes with economical over like working

(44:53):
too much. Right, people whoare CPA's probably work just as hard as
showrunner for the big bank theory,like every industry has the same problems.
The difference is there's no camera andthere's no entertainment weekly and there's no magazine
to cover those other industries with thetype of you know, popularity. So

(45:19):
we see Hollywood and we see theseother industries as the ultimate evil when if
you were to just go into anygeneral marketing or real estate, Oh my
gosh, have you ever met realators? These people are insane, Like you
have to be scum of the earthto tell someone who makes four thousand a

(45:42):
month they qualify for a three thousanddollars mortgage. Yeah, bankers, bankers,
scum. I'm gonna sound like GeorgeCarlin here. This is what George
Carlin would be saying right now.How dare we have a profession that purposely
puts people in debt who could neverafford the debt. So there's tons of
professions where people are unethical and immoraland guess what, they get their problems

(46:06):
and they you know, we've seenit happen where the businesses and run all
of these places, they finally getcaught. You know, Jordan Peterson has
a great quote because I've never seenanybody get away with being awful. You
eventually have something happen, even ifyou're Hitler and the Bunker. I mean,
at some point it doesn't end wellbecause you're it all catches up and

(46:29):
and you know, I think aboutagain, like what kind of life do
you want? At the very end. Do you want a life in which
you can look at your family andfriends and have a certain sense of dignity
or do you want to look atyour life and say, well, I
have the number one television show,but my kids don't talk to me.
Yeah I don't. That doesn't soundfun. You know where where you you

(46:51):
have to have six wives because youcan't keep one because nobody wants to be
around you. I can see yourexperiences have shaped your sense of righteousness in
stand up comedy, like, yeah, more formative, but I just in
terms of this TV stuff that youwent through with Dan and seeing how you

(47:15):
approach that with your stand up comedy, I mean it speaks to how you
know, our past finds us insome capacity, like there's no escape from
that. So I mean in yourcase, I feel like it's benefited you
because you kind of have this moralcenter very well hard work, Yeah,

(47:35):
well you go. I don't likebeing treated like that, so I'm not
going to treat other people like that. It's not that I haven't done that.
I'm sure I've been a jerked manypeople, but it it becomes a
conscious effort to try not to be. Yeah, that's that's clear, I've
tried very hard and and you know, when I ran the school at Flappers,
I had I think about on andoff thirty instructors and a lot of

(48:01):
them were women. And there's thisvery funny picture of me teaching a class
with like eight female instructors, andI had someone reach out to me.
They said, you don't get tothat point unless they trust you. So
you want to create a culture inwhich people feel valued and appreciated and you're

(48:23):
not stepping on them to do itjust the way you want it. But
you know, if you run aresults based what's what I'm looking for.
If you run a results based objectiveas opposed to a I'm in a position
a power objective, because that's howa lot of businesses are run. That's

(48:45):
how a lot of producers work,you know, Like I'm in charge,
so I'm just gonna tell everybody whatto do, as opposed to this is
what needs to get done, andI'm going to honor and respect you to
get it done. That to mejust allows people to maintain their dignity more
so, that's what I saw.I think with Dan because there's a lot
of micromanaging and that really I sawthe effects that it has on others,

(49:06):
and it prohibits creativity. Yeah,you know things like that. I mean,
just I don't know Dan. Ithink I totally met him once some
Nickelodeon auditions. But he must havegone through his own, you know,
Odysseus journey as a child actor,you know, just going through that world,

(49:28):
and maybe that shapes how he treatedpeople, because I mean, you
can make that decision. Do Iwant to be a good producer a bad
producer? Do I want to treatpeople nicely? Like? Who knows how?
These people have what they've seen,like almost like victims of war and
then they're almost like just their PTSDis like just we spit out at your

(49:49):
assistant. So he started at liketwenty years old, twenty one years old.
Okay, he wasn't a child,he was playing a teenager. Okay.
What what I learned working with himis that what it really comes down
to is he just started as aproducer at such a young age because him

(50:10):
and Brian Robbins were creating all thatand Keenan and kel together. So Brian,
by the way, runs Paramount now, I think, right, doesn't
he run? Right? Yeah,he's the head of film distribution, like
he he makes the movie, likehe's the guy that's gonna determine how many
top guns we get. Yeah,those two guys work together on Head of

(50:34):
the Class, wrote an episode togetheron Head of the Class. So when
you when you hit a home runout of the out of the gate,
well you started thinking you're a littleinvincible. Maybe what really happened was Dan
never failed. Like if I neverfailed, I'm going to start to think

(50:55):
it really is just me. No, you know, he you are one
hundred percent. I used to workfor this actor and I was his digital
manager, but he could be adick and the way I just both his
assistant. He hit it when hewas sixteen, so he's always had success
and it's just changed his work,perception, how the world works. And

(51:20):
now he's he's what he's in hisforties. I'll tell you his name off
camera. I don't know it's great. Well, okay, so so I
had I worked for a wrestling coach, my my high school wrestling coach.
I coached with him for the firstsix years I coached, and he tells
me a great story. He goeshis first year coaching, he has a
state placer and he goes, well, I'll just do this every year,

(51:40):
right, he goes, I didn'thave another state placer for twenty eight years.
And he and he was a prettyhumble guy, like he was the
most humble of successful guys. Hewas a college All American, won a
couple national titles as a team.You know, great, you know,
very successful, very well respected.And what was funny is that he goes,

(52:05):
You think you have a hit,and you just assume I'm gonna do
it again and again you don't,and he goes, it takes a couple
of years and then you realize,okay, I just have to kind of
you know, stay level headed andit'll be fine. And he coached for
many years and had a very goodcareer. But when you get people who
get success early and they can matchit again and again, I mean,

(52:25):
my gosh, it just yeah,because you really do think it's you,
and maybe it is, and I'mnot denying it. I mean Dan wrote
a lot of TV. He wasthe David E. Kelly of TV writers.
He wrote all those scripts. Okay, the writers wrote a lot of
beat sheets. The writers wrote alot of plotline ideas. Dan and at

(52:47):
least I for one year, satin a room sometimes by ourselves, rewriting
and writing all of these scripts.And he did a great job in that
way. Like, yeah, sohe must have felt accomplished. I mean,
he's got the number the top fourshows a Nickelodeon at one time,
I think. I think at onetime he might have had four shows at

(53:09):
Nickelodeon in the top five, withlike reruns of Drake and Josh and Zoe
Victorious and I Carly. Yeah.I look, whether it's Dan or any
other producer, you can't deny likethey've got to put in work. And
I'm sure he's what he does.But you know, getting the opportunity and

(53:30):
carrying the momentum. I think you'rein the business. You realize there's a
lot of X factors that are beyondyour control. And if you're fortunate enough
to get in the door and you'rechallenged, you know, the star staffs
are align in some capacity to moveforward. Oh well, you have to
keep working, Yeah, you know, you have to. You have to.

(53:51):
You have to get up every day, you know. And so even
if you have actors or writers thatkeep stumbling into success, they're still going
to that audition like they're not messingup their opportunities. So that is one
element in which I would argue whatseparates maybe a person who has no failures
is that they at least hit everyopportunity, where a lot of people just

(54:15):
start to get lazy and they go, oh, I'll just not do that,
or I won't do this, orI'll stay up late, and then
it just kind of goes away.Nobody wants to deal with whatever drama you're
bringing. Yeah, well, Paul, let's wrap this up. But let's
end on a positive note, becausebecause I feel like you do have this

(54:38):
positivity thing about you with everything youknow you've experienced. Whenever I talk to
you, always you always see thelike I'm always bitching about Like we do
a lot of the same gigs,and I'm always like, man, this
gig sets and You're like, no, it's a great gig. Do this,
do this, do this? Likewhere can we people find you?
I know you have a driver special, but where can people come to see
you here in Los Angeles any partof the world. So if you go

(55:01):
to my website themomabides dot com,you can sign up for the newsletter.
It'll pop up and I have I'mevery Saturday, more or less in Santa
Clarita at the j RS Comedy Club, which is a little back room of
a Mimi's Cafe, a fifty seedtheater. It's a lot of it's a

(55:23):
lot of fun. You've done thisshow, and but like I have,
Tonight, I'll be in West Hollywoodat Hamburger Mary's. And then in April
I have I'm gonna be in LongBeach at Jade's Restaurant on the twenty second.
I'm see the Carson in doing forI believe for shows two nights Friday

(55:52):
and Saturday. I'll be at Ithink it's the Nuggets Sparks in Nevada in
June on the twenty eighth to twentyninth, and then I'm gonna be up
in Oregon and Washington in the fall, I don't know, I'm sorry,
Washington in the summer something like that. Yeah, one of the but on

(56:13):
the website, I have all thedates. But I travel as much as
I can, and I try toget out there as much as I can,
because nothing makes you better as acomic than getting in front of as
many kind of audience as possible,and you know, just getting you know,
in the La scene. What mostpeople don't realize is there's a lot
of pressure to bring. So theshow that I co run with my buddy

(56:34):
Randy at Jr's, He's he foundedit. I really have a Noebringer mentality,
like you just show up and I'mgonna do all the work, and
I'm gonna advertise and Randy's gonna sendthe newsletter out. It's so nice to
do roadwork because you know you aren'trequired to like text your friends the day
of to make sure they're coming.Yeah. Absolutely, I mean you recently,

(56:57):
right, you you recently did ashow. How stressful was it for
you compared to other shows? Whenyou're the responsible one for the it sucks.
Yeah, Like honestly, like mostof my friends showed up and I
was like I felt worthless as acomedian. I was like I should quit,
Like what am I doing? Ican't draw like fifty people. That's

(57:20):
like stupid. So okay, soI'm going to tell you this. You
could draw if the show had somethingspecial to it outside of just being a
comedy show. And what I meanby that is if it's a live taping,
if you're doing maybe something a littledifferent, like it's a one man
show if it's right, So soall of us have the capability of actually

(57:43):
selling out Madison Square Guarden. I'mbeing facetious, but if you're offering something
that's really special or different from whatyou're normally offering, Because think about this,
most people are just saying, Ihave a show, Come watch my
comedy show. This light up's killer. Oh you know, like it's not
really and they know that. Bythe way, whenever I see a producer

(58:07):
just be like, you know,this is a great lineup. I always
thought like, are you honest whenit's not, Like, do you post
this is a mediocre lineup. It'stotally not worth your five dollars, but
it'd be really nice if you getNo. The truth is we kind of
lie about all the shows. Butyou can't lie if you're saying I'm taping
something, I have an album.I know a guy, he's comic named

(58:30):
Kyle. He would do this everysix months. He would do a show
in the hu room and he wouldrecord it on his phone and then mixer
and cut it up and he wouldmake it into an album. But he's
producing something, so he would tellhis friends, I'm doing my album for
I recorded on his phone, Soget fifty people to come out support.

(58:57):
So if you do something special,because here's the thing. When your friends
have to choose between paying fifty bucksto watch you do comedy or having lunch
with you, they would just ratherhave lunch with you. Yeah, no
shit, and that you can makethem laugh at lunch. So that's what
I'm learning is you know, there'sall these people that I kept wanting to
invite to shows. You know what, I decided and said, screw it.

(59:20):
I'm just going to go out andhave dinner in lunch with all these
lovely people and let the let otherpeople worry about, you know, the
bringing part or and my comedy.My comedy mindset improved dramatically. Yeah,
yeah, I think you're anying ona good note. Like at the end
of the day, it's really aboutour you know surendity now moment, right,

(59:45):
Like we got to like live dayto day and some of find meaning
in our own lives and yeah,we're not We can't base anything on our
recent success or failures. It's atrack record. It's I always say,
it's better for us to view theworld the way for us comp did,
which is a series of events thatare some are positive and some are negative.
And if you and if you lookat life like Forrest Gump does your

(01:00:08):
relationship, life may suck, rightbecause he's got Jenny and all his friends
are dying, But he's also thetop investor in Apple, and he runs
a successful boat, you know,shrimping boat, you know, and he
and he and he's beloved by theBlack church that he went to, Like,
there's other components of our lives thatwe can find a lot of success
and rest in. And if wedo that, if we look at it

(01:00:30):
holistically, then everything should be waymore positive experience because more than likely in
America, in America and probably Canada, generally speaking, life is better than
it is worse. Yeah, formost people, you know, it's just
a little better than it is worsefor most people. And and that's just

(01:00:50):
how I have to look at life. And then it's like, Okay,
that's a bad show. Who cares? I bombed on Saturday? Like it
was. I had to just shutdown Heckler's the whole time. And one
one of the comics was like,well, how do you feel about that?
I said, what do I care? I got at the show on
Monday exactly. Also, you havea dry bar special two. People can
find your driver special yes on YouTube. Just just just type in Paul Mumejen
on YouTube and there you go.All right. Well, Paul, thanks

(01:01:14):
for jumping on man, I appreciatethis. I'll see what the clubs no
doubt for on Instagram. Bye