by Mike Sacks
The most difficult aspect was combining four story lines in order to make a complete episode. There wasn’t an episode, really, where all four characters weren’t part of the show. That was difficult right throughout, but if I had a story lying around where Jerry was dating a masseuse and all he really wanted was the massage, and I had another story lying around in which Jerry was dating someone who just hated George, that’s where I could say, “Wait a minute, the masseuse can hate George,” and then we’re connected. But it was really tricky.
It would then be up to Jerry and Larry to rewrite the script that I’d turn in to them, and for them to inject their own magic into the scripts. As far as how much they would rewrite, it depended on the episodes. Sometimes it would be A to Z. Sometimes it was lighter.
What were the writing differences between Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David? Would they have a different way of attacking a joke?
There was an episode that took place in the Hamptons, where George has a girlfriend he hasn’t slept with yet [“The Hamptons,” May 12, 1994]. George goes off to buy tomatoes, and while he’s doing so, this woman goes topless in front of Elaine, Kramer, and Jerry. When George returns, he’s upset that he was the only one who didn’t get to see the breasts. Jerry then wrote a line where George says, “It’s like I’m Neil Armstrong. I turn around for a sip of Tang and you just jump out first!”
Jerry’s synapses work really well on analogies. He was really big on analogies. It’s a great line, but jokey. And Larry just didn’t write jokey lines. All his jokes were funny because of the situation. As an example, he once wrote a line for George: “I’ve never had a meeting where I really wanted the other person to show up.” And that was Larry.
You didn’t start off as a TV writer. You were a freelancer for various magazines. How did you make the leap from magazine writing to being a writer on Seinfeld?
In 1990 or so, I ran into Larry David, whom I had known a bit. He also attended the University of Maryland, but he was about ten years older than I was. He said, “I’m working on a little show with Jerry Seinfeld.” He asked if I had a script. I didn’t, but I said that I did have a recent funny article I wrote for The New York Times called “Star Trekking.” It was about me walking around Manhattan, trying to spot famous celebrities. Larry and Jerry liked it, and they gave me an assignment to write an episode, which eventually became “The Apartment.” That script idea was changed a bit from the original concept, which was to have Elaine moving farther away from Jerry. Larry Charles [a Seinfeld staff writer, and later the director of Borat, Brüno, and The Dictator] suggested it would be funnier to have Elaine moving closer to Jerry, into the apartment above his, and he was right. This was also the episode where George wore a wedding ring to a party thinking it would improve his chances of meeting women. It aired in the second season [April 4, 1991].
That is such a rarity. Magazine writers don’t usually—if ever—get asked to write for TV.
I know. It never happens. And it’s what a lot of freelance writers wish for, but it just never, ever happens. The funny thing is, years later, I think on Facebook, somebody sent me this blog that they wrote—this woman in New York—and it was called “In Search of Peter Mehlman.” This woman was wondering whether it was just apocryphal that there was this guy who was a freelance writer and then he became a writer on Seinfeld. And that was the first time I ever heard that people even aspired to that kind of thing if they were freelance writers. The difference is that I didn’t hope to write for TV. Magazine writing was fine. I actually prefer writing full sentences.
So you’re not apocryphal? You’re no Bigfoot or Abominable Snowman? You do exist?
I do exist. [Laughs] By a thread.
PURE, HARD-CORE ADVICE
PAUL F. TOMPKINS
Writer, Mr. Show with Bob and David, Real Time with Bill Maher, Best Week Ever, Bob’s Burgers
There can sometimes be a division between different artistic expressions. Writers sometimes look down their noses at people who are actors, and actors do the same with writers. And that’s too bad. What you have to remember is that it’s always a team effort. That is how great things get done. You can arrive at a movie like Citizen Kane just as easily through team effort as you can with the auteur method. Bear in mind, Orson Welles was an actor, as well as a writer. He understood all those disciplines. That’s what makes a successful auteur. Somebody who understands those disciplines and has respect for all of them. I think respect for people who do the things you don’t do is very important. The writer of the movie is just as important as the director, who’s just as important as the makeup artist, who’s just as important as the key grip and the lighting guy. And the guy who carries the tiniest cable is just as important as the actor who ultimately stands on the red carpet.
Networking is extremely important. I hate the word networking because it feels very crass. To me, networking used to be going to parties and insinuating yourself into conversations. Now, the better definition of networking is that you socialize and find like-minded people and either work with them or have conversations with them about creativity. Networking does not have to be, “How can I get someone to give me a job?” It’s, “How do I establish relationships with like-minded people that will eventually lead to work?” It doesn’t have to be about, “Hey, you got a show. Are you going to put me in the show?” If you approach everything from a pure creative angle, the work and employment will take care of itself. People don’t like others who constantly ask them for work. People find that off-putting. That’s not the way to do it. Just be around and engage people in a pure way and you’re going to get more work that way.
People like to talk about selling out. I don’t think most people understand what that really means. To me, selling out is if you’re set for life with money, and yet you still decide to do an M&M’s commercial. That’s selling out. That’s you saying, “I want a bunch of money.” But if you are someone who wants to do good work but you’re not set for life and you can’t pick and choose what you want to do, then you do what you have to do to pay the bills. It’s just that simple. I’m forty-three, so I kind of feel like that’s just life. That’s fucking life. I have a wife. We can’t be precious artists who starve anymore. We’re too old to starve. I base decisions on, “I need to work. I need to do this.” I’m fine with that. Honestly, even with the things I’ve done that were more for money than art, I had fun and I enjoyed the people I worked with. I’m not ashamed of anything. Do whatever is going to pay the bills for you while you are trying to get your foot in the door. There is no shame in that.
When you’re younger, you’re very concerned with appearance. You’re very concerned with how you look to the outside world. Are you cool? Do people think you’re cool? When you get older, you don’t give a shit about that anymore. The more you do it, the longer you do this, the more it becomes about the work itself. I love the stuff I’m doing, and I’m excited by the prospect of how my artistry is going to evolve over the years. To me, it’s exciting. I see the journey in a way that I did not see when I was starting out.
What it really comes down to is that life is short and these things should be fun. That’s why we get into this business and the arts. It’s because it’s fun; it’s like nothing else. The idea is to get paid to participate in this wonderful fun with other fun people.
ADAM McKAY
Will Ferrell doesn’t mince words when describing Adam McKay, his longtime friend and comedy collaborator. “He’s kind of a dangerous individual,” Ferrell says. “He’s extremely funny; there’s no doubt about it. But he’s dangerous. I wouldn’t stay in a room with him, one-on-one, for any longer than I had to. There’s a criminal tendency there. We have a great working relationship because I don’t ask him much about his past. He just frightens me.” Ferrell is joking, obviously. But there was a time, years before McKay found Hollywood success directing and co-writing films such as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
and The Other Guys (2010), when he might very well have been the most dangerous man in comedy.
In June of 1995, McKay was making history at Chicago’s legendary Second City, in a sketch revue called Piñata Full of Bees. It would prove to be one of the most seminal and groundbreaking productions in the theater’s history. Set apart by its aggressive approach to political and social satire, Piñata tackled such seemingly unfunny subjects as wealth corruption, racism, and the massacre of Native Americans. McKay is often given sole credit for masterminding its strong political point of view.
McKay hadn’t always aspired to create political satire. The Pennsylvania native grew up idolizing mainstream comics such as Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. While studying English at Temple University, he performed what he calls “family-friendly” stand-up in local bars and restaurants. But less than a year shy of graduation, he dropped out of school and moved to Chicago to study improvisation, and he soon became one of the most popular (and notorious) performers in the city’s vibrant comedy scene. With such pioneering groups as The Family and The Upright Citizens Brigade, he became infamous for interactive theatrics and elaborately staged pranks. During one show, he led an entire audience back to his apartment, where they witnessed a brutal (and entirely staged) murder from his bedroom window. During another show, he staged his own suicide.
Performing storefront improv for free soon led to a gig at the Second City, and within a few months of Piñata’s premiere, McKay was hired as a writer for Saturday Night Live. (He was promoted to head writer after just his first year.) He wasted no time trying to infuse Saturday Night Live with a sharper satiric bite, but it wasn’t always easy. “We did a commercial parody about a luxury car with an aperture that you could have intercourse with,” says Tina Fey, whom McKay hired to the SNL writing staff in 1997. “Adam insisted on calling it the Mercury Mistress. Well, it turned out that Lincoln Mercury had just signed on to advertise at NBC, and obviously they didn’t want someone fucking their car. The commercial only aired once and it will never air again.”
While he was never able to make sweeping changes to SNL’s content, McKay eventually found small ways to be subversive. During his fifth year, he began writing and directing short films that were hidden in the show’s final minutes. The films—which starred such diverse talent as Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe, and Ben Stiller—were typically dark and disturbing. In The Pervert, for instance, a group of sexual deviants are disgusted by a fellow pervert’s attraction to the Cream of Wheat chef.
In 2001, after six seasons at SNL, McKay left to pursue a career in filmmaking. But Hollywood didn’t exactly welcome him with open arms. “It’s difficult if you’ve only ever made short comedy films about Doberman attacks and a brutal ‘rape’ involving [Eagles guitarist] Glenn Frey,” McKay admits. “There was at least one studio that was so horrified they asked me never to contact them again.” Despite that studio’s reluctance, the 2004 release of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy eventually grossed (for the DreamWorks studio) more than $90 million worldwide and became a cult classic on DVD. It was McKay’s feature debut as a director and screenwriter, and his first big-screen project with Will Ferrell.
More movies followed—Step Brothers (2008), The Other Guys (2010), and Anchorman: The Legend Continues (2013). McKay and Ferrell also hit Broadway with the 2009 George W. Bush–skewering one-man show You’re Welcome America, as well as infiltrating the Internet with Funny or Die, the wildly popular, user-generated video website they launched, in 2007, with their production company, Gary Sanchez Productions. Today, McKay is a mainstream juggernaut, one of the few dependable comedy writer/directors with a loyal following, whose name alone is enough to sell tickets. But has all the success softened the edges of this once subversive comedy writer?
Filmmaker David O. Russell, who coexecutive produced the first Anchorman, doesn’t think so. “Just spending time with Adam McKay sharpens my rebellious spirit,” Russell says. “He’s the pure stuff, as far as I’m concerned. We typically go from having a serious political conversation to an insane improvisational digression and back. It cracks me up that anyone would suggest that he’s become more traditional. Adam McKay is a cultural gem and he’s gonna shine and he’s gonna fuck shit up.”
Was there a particular comedy movie, or TV show, that influenced you as a child more than others?
It was the [1980] movie Airplane! Everything up to that point had been fairly predictable. Story structures had always been sort of the same in movies. With the comedies until then, you would see setup, a beat, and then a joke. Most had this kind of a structure, but Airplane! changed that.
There’s a specific scene in Airplane! that I love. A newspaper spins and it stops with the headline: “Disaster Looms for Airline Passengers.” And then it spins and stops with the next headline: “Chicago Prepares for Crash Landing.” And then it spins again and stops with the final headline: “Boy Trapped in Refrigerator Eats Own Foot.”
That was the first time I ever saw anything like that. That joke was just so out of left field, and yet it still made sense. It was one of the first times I ever saw something where I felt, Oh, my God, you can do whatever you want with this form! Someone’s imagination had taken a leap four steps ahead. It was just the utter surprise of it. It was almost wrong or naughty or crazy. It was just so exciting to me. I’ve talked to other comedy writers who have said the same thing, that they distinctly remember that joke: “Boy trapped in refrigerator eats own foot.” I remember my eyes just going wide.
On one level it’s pure absurdist comedy. The first couple of beats of the spinning headline are parody, then it becomes a bit of a satire about the media blowing stories out of proportion, and then all of a sudden, it becomes pure absurdism. The premise almost ate itself at that moment—or its own foot.
Your movies tend to contain that very same combination: parody, satire, absurdism.
If you just do parody, it can get pretty boring. You’ll just be hitting the old formulas that we’ve all seen before. We always try to make our movies one-third satire, one-third parody, and one-third original storytelling. We’re very conscious of that. We like to use the old tropes to ground the movie in familiarity, and then jump off and go in different directions. At that point—and, really, only at that point—can you then get as sincere as you want. I love getting really sincere off an insane joke or a tail-eating-itself kind of joke, but it has to be grounded first. It’s like grounding a live wire. It’s the only way good comedy works.
When did you first make the leap from loving comedy to actually devoting your life to it?
I dropped out of Temple University [in 1989] during my senior year. I had a buddy go out to Chicago to perform. He came back and told me about this thing going on out there, long-form improv. I couldn’t believe it. At that time, I was only doing stand-up. He said to me, “You go onstage, and whatever you say is what happens. You make up anything you want. If you want to be on Mars, you’re on Mars. The only rule is that you can’t say ‘no’ to the other performers. You have to say, ‘Yes, and . . .’ If another performer starts to go off in another direction, you say ‘Yes, and . . .’ and then you follow.”
I was like, “You gotta be kidding me!” My friend also told me about improv teacher Del Close, this old hipster who was the mastermind behind it all. There were other improv groups, led by other teachers, but they didn’t really do long form like Del taught. This is what I was waiting to hear. I called up my parents and said, “I’m leaving college.” I had a semester and a half to go. And they were so fucking pissed at me. My mom had just remarried a guy who was a doctor, so they had a little bit of money. She said, “Look, if you stay, we’ll buy you a car. We’ll pay for you to go to law school.” And I was like, “No, no. I’m going.”
I literally sold my entire comic book collection that I owned growing up. I had the reboot of Captain America No. 1. I had Iron Man reboot No. 1. I had Captain Marvel No. 1. Yeah, I had a bunch of g
ood ones. I had been smart enough to bag all of them. I had some good comics in great condition. I bought a Chrysler New Yorker with shag carpeting, power windows, and an eight-track player—there was already a tape in the player—from an elderly guy who could no longer drive. I then sold my baseball card collection for four hundred dollars, which paid for car insurance. Then my buddy and I put a gag lobster claw over the Chrysler emblem on the front of the car’s hood and drove out to Chicago.
When you purchased the car, what tape was already in the eight-track player?
Jethro Tull’s Greatest Hits.
Now, why would an elderly man in the 1980s be listening to Jethro Tull?
That’s the question that will haunt me for life. My Rosebud question, right there.
When you headed out to Chicago, had you already given up on your stand-up act that you had started in college?
I had given it up. I had been doing stand-up all throughout college, on the weekends, and I just didn’t like where my act was headed. It was more original and interesting when I started than what it eventually became. I had to create this bulletproof act that I could perform on the road, lasting about twenty minutes, that could get me through a rough night. In the end, I was doing airplane jokes and girlfriend jokes. I had a couple of original jokes, but I just wasn’t that into it.
Hearing about this whole other world and this scene in Chicago sounded so intriguing to me. I was just looking for a change. At that point, I was writing short stories and thought maybe I could be a serious writer. I still had those ambitions. And that’s what mostly attracted me to Chicago. It was a great blend of artistic ambitions combined with comedy, with maybe a slight commercial bent. It was a mix of artistic ambitions with straight-up laughs.