The Comedians

by Kliph Nesteroff

  During the autumn of 1981 there was talk of using the Fridays name for a film franchise like National Lampoon. Jack Burns, the show’s director, wrote a full screenplay, but by the time he was done Fridays was headed for cancellation. Fridays left the air in spring 1982 and the film was abandoned.

  Larry David teamed with Elaine Pope and they pitched new projects around town. “Larry was always working on scripts,” says Richard Lewis. “He was so embroiled in getting his footing out here [in Hollywood].” David and Pope created a television series called Cable, a satire about the emerging world of cable television, and sold it to producer Pierre Cossette, but like the Fridays film, it was shelved.

  Fridays cast members returned to the clubs as the Comedy Boom exploded. There was a lot of work for a young comic at the start of the new decade. However, the Boom did not mean more work for the older demographic. Vegas comedians were considered too old-fashioned for the new comedy club era and many were displaced. “The last few times Dad played Vegas, he was billed as an opening act, not the headliner,” said William Berle. “It never occurred to me that my father would ever be anyone except Milton Berle, the Star. I realized that something bad was happening to him in show business. My father wasn’t the biggest star anymore. Without knowing any of the details, I still knew that Dad had fallen.”

  The comedy baton was passed to the new generation, but not willingly. Berle’s television appearances exemplified it. When he was asked to host Saturday Night Live in 1979, he acted with arrogance and contempt. He told Lorne Michaels, “Yeah, I saw it once,” and referred to the cast as “the stars of tomorrow.” Lorne Michaels told The Washington Post, “What he didn’t realize is that they’re not the stars of tomorrow. They’re the stars of today and he’s the star of yesterday.”

  Likewise, members of the comedy club generation were occasionally booked in old-fashioned settings. “The Catskills had gone into decline in the early 1980s,” says Paul Provenza. “There was a booker up there—Howie Rapp, an old-school guy. His son took over the business and wanted to liven things up and started booking some of us young comics. You’d do three nights in a row at three different hotels and they were awful. It was the same old Catskills audience, so we were out of place. The gigs were torturous, absolutely horrible.”

  A former joke writer named Mike Callie cast Comedy Store comedians Roger Behr, Joey Camen, Vic Dunlop, Murray Langston and Robin Williams in a sketch comedy film he produced called Can I Do It . . . Til I Need Glasses? It inspired Callie to open his own comedy club—the Laff Stop in Newport Beach. He was one of several people to open a club in 1978. The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, the Punch Line in San Francisco and the Comedy Workshop in Houston opened that year. The Cleveland Comedy Club, the Columbus Comedy Club and an Ohio chain called Giggles came next. The Comedy Corner opened in Long Beach and a small comedy club opened in the basement of Osko’s, a disco venue in Los Angeles. Some local papers figured it was a regional phenomenon, not aware of the nationwide Boom afoot. The Boston Globe reported in January 1980, “Without much ado, Boston has become a mecca for the stand-up comedian. A few years ago, you could count them on one hand. Now there are about sixty of them who throw out the one-liners regularly while moving between the Comedy Connection or Ross Bickford’s Comedy Cab in Boston or the Constant Comedy in Cambridge. These places are booming—sellouts are now the rule rather than the exception.”

  New clubs were identified with their emerging stars. The Comedy Workshop in Houston had Sam Kinison. The Comedy Works in Denver had Roseanne. The Cleveland Comedy Club had Drew Carey and the Pittsburgh Comedy Club had Dennis Miller. By mid-1982 there were new comedy clubs in Cincinnati, Fort Lauderdale, Kansas City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Toledo and even Sandy Springs, Georgia, where Jeff Foxworthy got his start. Sweeps Comedy Club, the West Coast Comedy Club (the original Comedy Cellar) and the Manhattan Punch Line opened in New York. George Carlin shook his head and called the spread of comedy clubs “an infectious rash.”

  Joe E. Ross, onetime star of Car 54, Where Are You?, was another old comic unable to profit from the Boom. His career was at a standstill when he died dramatically in 1982. His fellow old comedians relay the story in a stand-up version of Rashomon:

  Sammy Shore: You know how he died? He was doing a show—I forget where.

  Hank Garrett: Joe E. was in some housing complex.

  Bobby Ramsen: In the building that he lived in they were putting on a show . . .

  Ronnie Schell: They hired him to do a show in an old folks’ home.

  Denny Johnston: I heard it was for Budd Friedman’s Improv.

  Hank Garrett: They were paying him a hundred dollars.

  Will Jordan: Fifty dollars.

  Ronnie Schell: He was offered two hundred dollars.

  Steve Rossi: Five hundred dollars . . .

  Hank Garrett: Joe E. was working . . .

  Bobby Ramsen: He got up to do a turn . . .

  Sammy Shore: He was doing old jokes . . .

  Hank Garrett: Suddenly felt ill . . .

  Sammy Shore: He fell backwards . . .

  Hank Garrett: Keeled over.

  Ronnie Schell: He died.

  Bobby Ramsen: He expired onstage.

  Hank Garrett: Joe E. Ross died performing.

  Sammy Shore: And that was it.

  Bobby Ramsen: His wife went to get his pay.

  Steve Rossi: His agent went to get the money.

  Hank Garrett: This hooker went to collect the hundred dollars.

  Chuck McCann: I went and got his check.

  Will Jordan: Chuck says he got the check.

  Hank Garrett: It was supposed to be for a hundred, but they only gave her fifty.

  Steve Rossi: They said, “Wait a minute. This is only half the amount!”

  Hank Garrett: The booker said, “Yeah, well . . . he never ­finished the show.”

  New comedy clubs kept proliferating. Added to the comedian’s itinerary between January 1982 and December 1983 were Cobb’s in San Francisco, Charm City in Baltimore, Shirley’s Comedy Club in Lexington, Comedy Cabana in St. Paul, Laugh Lounge in Philadelphia, Tickles in Pittsburgh, the Punch Line in Austin, the Laff Stop in Dallas, Mari’s Comedy Club in D.C. and the East Side Comedy Club in Long Island. Caroline’s Comedy Club opened in 1983 and became a favorite spot for New York headliners Carol Leifer, Larry Miller, Paul Reiser and Jerry Seinfeld. By August 1983 The New York Times was referring to “the nationwide comedy boom.”

  As the Comedy Boom expanded, comedians started to get to know the rock-star lifestyle. The clubs were packed, there were plenty of girls around, comics got preferential treatment and celebrities were making cameos.

  More clubs, more comedians, more money—it also meant more cocaine. “It was everywhere,” says Gary Mule Deer. “There were guys who used to take half their pay in cocaine. I bought cocaine in the basement of the Pittsburgh Comedy Club from two officers in uniform.”

  Comedy stars with major cocaine habits included John Belushi, George Carlin, Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams and Flip Wilson. The new breed of stand-up comic took to cocaine the way old comedians once took to cigars. “The club owners in the 1980s would give us cocaine because they wanted the comedians to be crazy,” said comic Kevin Rooney. “The drugs were free, but if you asked for a sandwich they charged you.”

  “We were all doing blow when we were young,” says Rick Overton. “There was blow at the Improv, but luckily I was broke. Being broke probably saved my life. You trick yourself into thinking you can withstand it forever—but how many times can you not get an erection? You start to think, ‘I’m no longer seeing the appeal of this. Give me a sign, God.’ And then Belushi died. I didn’t mean for it to be that big of a sign.”

  On March 4, 1982, John Belushi walked into the Melrose Improv with comedians Richard Belzer, Ric
k Overton and Robin Williams. Club manager Mark Lonow said, “He doesn’t look too good.” Belzer responded, “What do you mean? He’s been like that for the last eight years.” Bernie Brillstein naively gave Belushi a wad of cash a few hours before his death when the comic asked for a loan so he could buy a guitar. Belushi convinced Brillstein the store only took cash. A few hours later, he was dead from a combination of heroin and cocaine.

  Overton accepted it as a sign, but for most people cocaine use remained routine. The new cast of Saturday Night Live kept the tradition going. “Whenever a new shipment arrived on the floor, I would come in and see everybody grinding their teeth,” said SNL cast member Tim Kazurinsky. SNL capitalized on Flip Wilson’s recent cocaine bust when it hired him to host the show in 1983.

  “Cocaine was huge in the 1980s,” says comedian Dana Gould. “The Punchline [comedy club chain] in the South was either a front for a cocaine business or the cocaine business underwrote the club. It was not uncommon to be asked if you wanted to be paid in cocaine. It had all been under the table. Then the IRS got a whiff that there was a lot of money going around. Once they started writing checks, people stopped offering you drugs instead of money.”

  While everyone else was high, David Letterman was dutifully working toward his own television show. Letterman’s style and cadence influenced hundreds of comedians during the Comedy Boom. He was one of the only things during the boom more influential than cocaine.

  The modern Letterman was born on November 26, 1978, the night of his first Tonight Show appearance. Letterman said, “It was the most exciting thing in my career and it took me a week to get over it.” He returned a few weeks later, and by his third appearance he was hosting the show. No other comedian in Tonight Show history had ever received such a quick vote of confidence. Letterman signed a holding deal with NBC in May 1979. By the time he got his own NBC morning show in February 1980 he had guest-hosted The Tonight Show twenty-four times.

  Former Tonight Show host Jack Paar predicted big things: “Of the newest personalities, David Letterman will unquestionably be a big star. He has an original style and winning manner that is lasting. He will go the distance.”

  NBC president Fred Silverman devised potential projects, none of which suited Letterman’s sensibility. One was called Leave It to Dave. “The whole project was just a disaster,” said Letterman. “I was supposed to sit on a throne and the set was all pyramids. The walls were all covered in shag carpet.” Letterman writing partner Merrill Markoe said, “The set was not even the worst idea to come down that particular pike. I remember that they wanted the guests to make their entrances by sliding down a chute.”

  Letterman resisted the network’s many ideas, and when Silverman finally suggested a ninety-minute daytime talk show, Letterman went along. “It may not be the high side of glory, but it sounds like fun.”

  The network made a twenty-six-week commitment. NBC president Brandon Tartikoff announced, “We think this program will upgrade and change the face of morning television.” NBC ran an unironic, cross-country campaign with a photo of Letterman and the slogan: “A face every mother could love.” The David Letterman Show replaced the game shows Chain Reaction, High Rollers and Hollywood Squares. It acted as the lead-in for Wheel of Fortune. NBC hired Bob Stewart to direct. Letterman didn’t care for him. “The first director was a game-show director, and he could direct a game show in his sleep, but he couldn’t direct a talk show,” said Letterman. “Basic rules of television directing were being violated left and right. The guest would be saying something and the light would be on me. I’d be asking a question and the shot would be on who knows what. Finally he started to shoot everything with one wide shot. It looked like a security camera at a 7-Eleven. I mean, it just stunk.”

  Letterman forced Stewart to resign just days before the first episode. The David Letterman Show debuted at 10 A.M. on June 23, 1980, as a ninety-minute program. The management team of Rollins, Joffe, Morra & Brezner was named producer and worked under the aegis of Letterman’s brand-new company, Space Age Meat Productions. There was an emphasis on conceptual comedy, improvised banter and offbeat comic guests like Steve Allen, Andy Kaufman and Steve Martin. Character actress Edie McClurg appeared as a sidekick of sorts, satirizing the daytime TV audience as “a disgustingly pert, cheery and bouffant-brained homemaker dispensing such valuable household hints as how to refreshen a room gone stale from air freshener.”

  It was evident after a few weeks that daytime viewers were not digging it. Fred Silverman cut the program down to an hour on August 4. Some affiliates, like KYW in Philadelphia, were so dissatisfied that they arbitrarily cut the show down to thirty minutes on their own. Forty-nine out of a possible two hundred and fifteen affiliates failed to carry the program. Four major markets—Boston, Baltimore, Detroit and San Francisco—decided to drop the show altogether. It was consistently the lowest-rated program on daytime TV.

  Merrill Markoe said their refusal to pander meant doom from the start. “The morning show was a delusion in the sense that we felt you could just do whatever comedy you wanted, any time of day or night. And when the show started to fail, Dave was going crazy. It was not a happy time.” Acknowledging his poor ratings, Letterman slapped a portable TV on his desk and invited the audience to join him in watching his competition. Flipping channels, he settled on Dinah Shore’s daytime talk show. “Dinah’s makin’ an omelet. Unbelievable!” Remaining episodes of The David Letterman Show featured a sweepstakes in which viewers guessed the correct date of cancellation. October 24, 1980, was the winning answer, and Letterman was done with what he called “the best and worst experience of my life.”

  The show canceled, Letterman returned to guest-hosting, filling in for Johnny Carson for long stretches in December and January. NBC and Carson Productions signed Letterman to a new holding deal in February 1981 for $750,000 a year, while they tried to figure out what to do. They considered using Letterman as a replacement for Saturday Night Live reruns on the fourth Saturday of every month. They also proposed he follow Carson, but Tom Snyder, who held that time slot, was vehemently opposed. After the impasse was resolved, Snyder’s contract was bought out and NBC announced that Letterman would get the time slot starting in 1982.

  Letterman went back to stand-up. He played an anniversary show at the Los Angeles Improv in May 1981 on a lineup that included Billy Crystal, Larry David, Jay Leno, Fred Willard and Dr. Timothy Leary. That summer he played the Ice House in Pasadena and picked up a Daytime Emmy for the defunct morning program. He hosted a comic-travelogue for HBO called David Letterman: Looking for Fun and guest-hosted The Tonight Show for the rest of the year. Late Night with David Letterman premiered on Monday night, February 1, 1982, and he did his last-ever stand-up set on February 14, at Radio City Music Hall, as part of the ABC television special Night of 100 Stars.

  Carson Productions dictated the procedure of Letterman’s program. Nothing identifiable with The Tonight Show was allowed on Late Night: no guests like Buddy Hackett or Eydie Gorme, no brass instruments in the band and no reference to the monologue’s being a monologue. For years Letterman’s opening monologue was officially referred to as “opening remarks.” Letterman’s staff members were actually pleased by the restrictions—it gave them the freedom to be different. Since the new show was unable to acquire star power, Late Night with David Letterman booked underground heroes like Captain Beefheart, Harvey Pekar, Brother Theodore, John Waters and the cast of SCTV. The marijuana smoke hovering above Paul Shaffer and the World’s Most Dangerous Band added to the hipster cred. “You used to walk down that hallway on the sixth floor and you couldn’t breathe,” said producer Robert Morton. “It was the greatest fog ever.”

  Letterman’s comedy was sometimes too weird for viewers and resulted in hostile reviews. “There are people running amok through the boardrooms of America’s third place network these days, people who aren’t playing with a full deck,” wrote Bob Michaels in The
Palm Beach Post. “The ludicrous quinella NBC is banking on to become their superstars of the 80s is David Letterman and [actress-singer] Susan Anton. If someone set out to find a more no-talent pair than those two, they’d probably find them clutching a bottle of Thunderbird in some alley. To even consider Letterman in the same breath as Milton Berle or Jerry Lewis is an insult to comedy.”

  James Wolcott wrote a brutal assessment in New York magazine in 1983: “Late Night with David Letterman has become a creaking, facetious contrivance—a choochoo forever wobbling off the tracks. If David Letterman is going to make it in the long haul, he’s going to have to spend more time listening to grown-ups and less time staring at the shine on Paul Shaffer’s head.”

  For seasoned comedy fans, however, and for the comedians on the club circuit in particular, Late Night with David Letterman was essential viewing. Exposure on the program boosted the ticket sales of established comedians like Robert Klein, Jay Leno, Richard Lewis and Jerry Seinfeld. It became a benchmark goal for comedy club comedians Bill Hicks, Jonathan Katz, Sam Kinison, Norm Macdonald, Dennis Miller and Drake Sather, all of whom got enormous boosts from the program.

  Johnny Carson made David Letterman a star, but for the majority of comedians a Tonight Show appearance did not make them famous. Sure, there were major exceptions like Steven Wright, Roseanne and Louie Anderson, but they were not the norm. “There was a belief that one appearance on The Tonight Show made you a star,” said Steve Martin. “But here are the facts. The first time you do the show, nothing. The second time you do the show, nothing . . . The tenth time you do the show you could conceivably be remembered as being seen somewhere on television. The twelfth time you do the show, you might hear, ‘Oh, I know you. You’re that guy.’”