Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians

by Corey Andrew

Corey: What do you think you’d be doing now if you hadn’t got on that stage?

  Mo’Nique: What would I be doing now? I might be a stripper, Corey. I have this thing about beauty and people say they’re called exotic dancers. Well, call it what you want, but I love being onstage. I love all eyes on me. They would call me Cinnamon Pop. Yes, Cinnamon Pop. (laughs) I think I would be an attorney.

  Corey: Attorney by day, dancer by night.

  Mo’Nique: There you go and I would pass out my cards in the courtroom. ‘We beat this case. Come on down here and see Cinnamon Pop do her number.’ Can you see me now on Court TV? ‘That was Cinnamon Pop! What is she doin’?’

  Corey: Being a Queen of Comedy, is that like a monarchy? Do you rule forever, and how do you rule your Queendom?

  Mo’Nique: I think that we will be queens forever, and the way that I rule my Queendom is I make sure the doors are open for the future queens. Often, there’s so many comedians out there that we don’t even know about that are funny as hell! But it became something different. There was a time when you were a comic you focused on being a comic. You weren’t worried about Hollywood. You just wanted to be funny. I miss those days. Now people really aren’t putting in the work to be funny. They just want to get to Hollywood. Hollywood ain’t goin’ nowhere. Master your craft and just be funny. I rule my Queendom through knowledge. Like guys, get in your car and drive up and down the world to get that fan base.

  Corey: What can you do that a ‘skinny bitch’ can’t do?

  Mo’Nique: Baby! I don’t know if we can write that! You’d have to put that in those little squiggly lines. ‘And Mo’Nique said, and then you take an “umm.”’ What can I do that a skinny girl can’t? I can keep my husband warm in January with no blanket. That’s the soft side of it.

  “Weird Al” Yankovic

  Meeting a childhood hero can be tricky. What if they’re not nice? Cold? Even … weird?

  Well, I would have been disappointed if the latter weren’t true, considering I was meeting king of parody music videos, “Weird Al” Yankovic.

  Back in the mid-’90s, I took my pal, James Hallar, backstage at the American Theatre in St. Louis to interview the “My Bologna” dude, and while Al was more restrained than his on-screen persona, he was plenty funny—and weird.

  Odder still were the remarks we heard while waiting for Al to appear. “Mr. Finkelstein doesn’t like this. Mr. Finkelstein doesn’t like that.” Years later, Al admitted that he stays in hotels sometimes under the name Leroy Finkelstein, so he doesn’t get woken at 2 a.m. being accused of being the “‘Eat It’ guy.”

  Corey: James’ dad, here, plays a mean accordion, also. Are you any relation to polka king Frankie Yankovic?

  “Weird Al”: No, we are not, but we send each other Christmas cards every year.

  Corey: How much preparation goes into making your hair look like, well, that?

  “Weird Al”: It's naturally bad hair, not permed.

  Corey: What were you like as a kid? Were you “Weird” from the get-go?

  “Weird Al”: I was pretty quiet. I actually acted more like an adult at 12 than I do now. I kept to myself. I fit the Unabomber profile. I was also valedictorian in high school, and then I got a degree in architecture (from California Polytechnic State University).

  Corey: What was it like getting your first video on MTV?

  “Weird Al”: It made me instantly recognizable. People were pointing at me on the street yelling, ‘There's the “Eat it” guy!’

  Corey: You had cameos in all three ‘Naked Gun’ movies where you got to work with O.J. Simpson.

  “Weird Al”: He seemed nice enough on the set. He didn't try to kill anybody at the time.

  Corey: What does the future hold for ‘Weird Al’?

  “Weird Al”: I never thought my career would last this long. I guess I'll do albums for as long as people can stand them.

  About a dozen years later, I caught up with Yankovic, this time when he was headlining the Illinois State Fair in Springfield.

  Corey: You’re doing both a theatre show and a state fair concert this week. How do they compare?

  “Weird Al”: Well, with theatre audiences, you don’t smell corndogs through the whole show. That’s the main difference.

  Corey: How do you feel about outdoor concerts?

  “Weird Al”: At outdoor shows you get the fresh air, and it feels a little more open. Also you get attacked by mayflies. A couple nights ago in Michigan I swallowed a number of bugs during the show. That’s not fun.

  Corey: You’ve been sans facial hair for some time. Do you ever miss the ’stache?

  “Weird Al”: Um, not so much. Some hardcore fans are still traumatized that I changed my look 10 years ago. Someone asked me, ‘Do your fans prefer classic Al or new Al?’ I don’t know; we’ll have to have an Internet poll.

  Corey: You have many classic music videos, but I imagine it’s tougher to make them these days.

  “Weird Al”: Music video budgets have shrunk. You may have heard this: the music industry’s in trouble.

  People are trying to figure out how to do videos cheaply. Everyone is trying to figure out how to do the new OK Go concept for the treadmill video. That’s a brilliant example for a great video for next to no money. Even I’m looking for that now. You don’t see as many videos put out by rap artists spend $2 million showing off their bling.

  Corey: How do you keep up with who is hot to make a food parody out of their songs?

  “Weird Al”: I surf around the Internet a lot. The Internet’s sort of like the new MTV.

  Corey: What trends have you noticed lately?

  “Weird Al”: Viking music is real big in parts of the country right now. I’m following that closely.

  Corey: How often do you get the ‘Fat’ suit cleaned that you wear on tour?

  “Weird Al”: That’s a good question for my wardrobe mistress. I can’t imagine sending it to a dry cleaning shop too often. Maybe they do a topical cleaning solution?

  Corey: What does it smell like after you’ve worn it on stage?

  “Weird Al”: By that point in show I’m so stinky I couldn’t tell you what the suit smells like.

  Corey: What’s the last thing you bought on eBay?

  “Weird Al”: A floaty pen for my wife. She likes them for some reason. She wanted a floaty pen with a North American buffalo. It took me a year to find one. I got her one for her birthday.

  Corey: Do you have a lot of pets?

  “Weird Al”: We just have a cockatiel.

  Corey: What is your favorite guilty food?

  “Weird Al”: Baby seals.

  Corey: How do you like them prepared?

  “Weird Al”: Just raw.

  Corey: What was the first concert you attended?

  “Weird Al”: Elton John in my early teens.

  Corey: Are you doing anything special for the 20th anniversary of your movie ‘UHF’ next year?

  “Weird Al”: I’m doing everything on the 19th. I’m not that big a fan of even numbers. Nineteen is a good prime number. There’s a big celebration tonight. I’m gonna eat all the guacamole backstage and maybe light a candle.

  Corey: I imagine you’ve gotten to meet some pretty cool people over the years.

  “Weird Al”: I’ve always been a huge Beatles fan. Meeting Paul McCartney in 1984 still ranks as probably my coolest star encounter. My head is still spinning from that. The fact he knew who I was just blew my mind.

  Corey: You’ve been entertaining three generations of teenage boys for the last 25 years without using porn. What’s the secret?

  “Weird Al”: Ha! Yeah, how do you entertain teen boys without using pornography? I’ve never been able to figure that out.

  Corey: But you do.

  “Weird Al”: Then I have figured it out! Pornography, well, um, what was the question again?

  Corey: Why do you think you’ve stayed successful without getting dirty?

  “Weird Al”: I just write the t
ype of comedy I think is funny. I tend not to work blue. I want to put out sort of a family-friendly vibe. That attracts a pretty wide audience group. My humor isn’t squeaky-clean; there’s sort of an edge to it. I was hugely influenced by Mad magazine at that age. It’s not meant for young kids; it’s meant for people with an irreverent sense of humor. That really kind of translated into my own brand of sense of humor. People have referred to me as audio version of Mad magazine. That’s pretty cool.

  Judy Tenuta

  Remember the love goddess? Because she remembers you, petite flower followers.

  Judy Tenuta may not be sporting dark, flowing tresses these days, but she had added a special feature for her legion or worshipers—she can legally hitch you.

  Yes, the sprightly comedienne who can turn her sweet, Glinda the Good Witch persona into a demonic hell-raiser with one squeeze of her squeezebox got herself ordained in order to better serve her marriage-bound fans.

  She has fond memories of performing in St. Louis, and recalled something called the Freedom Show at the Gateway Arch where she was in the dressing room with former First Lady Barbara Bush.

  “So the makeup lady said, ‘Barbara, what can we do for you?’ She said, ‘I’d like to look like her.’ Yeah, that can happen,” Tenuta laughed.

  Corey: Looking at recent pictures of you, is there a portrait hanging in an attic somewhere that is gradually aging?

  Judy Tenuta: (laughs) Oh, thank you. As you know, modern technology, Photoshop. Yeah, I think I look better than I did in those days. As a woman matures, it’s more complimentary to not wear our hair jet-demon black. Maybe Elizabeth Taylor could take a hint and stop looking like Grampa Munster.

  Corey: Do you ever get blamed for things, like God does? God made me do it. Or Judy made me do it?

  Judy: I get blamed for good things, like, ‘Oh, how do you like my hot, round butt? I was doing some squats, just like the goddess!’

  Corey: So I love that ‘Weird Al’ is your No. 1 friend on your MySpace page.

  Judy: Oh, yeah, I love Al. I’ve done so many fun things with ‘Weird Al’ including ‘The “Weird Al” Show.’ I also did two music videos with him, ‘White and Nerdy’ and also before that one I got to play Lorena Bobbitt.

  Corey: I understand one of your excited fans crashed your stage dressed as a flower?

  Judy: He had decided that his member should be out as well. I go, ‘Great, a petal? Or is this self-watering? What is this?’

  Corey: The festival you are headlining is sponsored by Bud-Light.

  Judy: I’ll say, ‘Hey, I got pregnant from one of your Clydesdales while I was performing under the Arch.’ They should have to pay something at least.

  Corey: Why did you decide to start marrying people?

  Judy: In case anyone wanted to be married in Judyism. … I tailor it to the couple. Say you have a couple who says, ‘We love polkas. We love sauerkraut.’ I would make sure to play the wedding polka at their service. A lot of people want to write their own vows. I would have to find out some personal information from them.

  Corey: So if it would be on a nude beach, you would be game?

  Judy: Oh my God, I love that! A nude beach. The goddess has to have some coverage. Let me be honest with you, I did a movie in Jamaica. It was so wrong because all these old fossil fuels were walking around in a banana hammock in line at the salad bar. I was like, ‘You, put that in a cage and not near my food!’ It’s a fashion sin, really.

  Seth MacFarlane

  Those of us who grew up in the ’80s will always giggle with glee at the oh-so-wrong-it’s-right satire in each and every episode of “The Family Guy.” And good for creator Seth MacFarlane—and his $100 million deal—for getting a second chance after cancellation to dominate primetime animation with loads and loads of dick and poopy jokes.

  Corey: Watching these episodes, I’m thinking ‘Get out of my head!’ Who else knows these pop culture references?

  Seth: That’s what we tried to shoot for—hit the more obscure ones that no one else was hitting.

  Corey: What would be one of the more obscure ones you pulled out?

  Seth: That William Shatner version of ‘Rocket Man’ is in there with Stewie singing. There’s also the Kool-Aid guy.

  Corey: The one that really got me was the very special episode of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ with Arnold and Dudley and Mr. Bicycle Man.

  Seth: Right, right.

  Corey: We had been waiting for ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ to come back on TV for so long, and my buddy called me at 3 o’clock in the morning to tell me the Mr. Bicycle Man episode was on and he recorded it.

  Seth: (laughs) That was one that disturbed us all as children.

  Corey: With all the different references, is that what you absorbed growing up?

  Seth: Yes, it’s sort of a melting pot of what all the writers absorbed. There’s about 16 writers, and everyone has their own, obscure childhood references included in the show.

  Corey: Why did you go ahead with the decision to give Peter and other characters testicles for chins?

  Seth: There’s really no explanation for that. It was sort of a design choice. With the ‘Family Guy’ characters I voice, the voice really came first, and then I designed the characters to look like what I thought the voices sounded like. There’s no reason Stewie had a football head. It’s just the way the character sounded. It’s sort of the way I draw fat guys. We did an episode where we made reference to it. Peter is stroking his chin and suddenly gasps and says, ‘My God, how did these get up here?’ and he pulls his chin off and puts it back down in his pants where it belongs.

  Corey: Speaking of something like that, how were you able to get stuff like that on network television? I mean it is Fox, but …

  Seth: It is Fox, but I think we had a very good relationship with the standards and practices department. They really went out of their way to try and find ways to make things work that were funny. If something was funny, they would take that into account. ‘It has that word in it, but it is a funny gag, so what else can you give us in return?’ There really was a lot of give and take. The key really was our willingness to sacrifice some things for other things. It really was about quantity with Fox. If there were a whole lot of offensive things, it was worse than if there were just a little.

  Corey: Was there anything that they said absolutely no way?

  Seth: Yeah, most of them had to do with religion. There was one where there was a Last Supper gag where they all start to drink from the goblet, and Jesus says, ‘Drink this, all of you, for this is my blood,’ and they all just do this spit take because they’re just disgusted and horrified. That one didn’t make it in.

  Corey: There are quite a few religious references that did make it in. Did you grow up in a religious family?

  Seth: No, not really. My only experiences with very religious people have been troublesome ones. I was in a church choir when I was a kid, but that was about it.

  Corey: You won an Emmy for the vocal work. Where did you get your vocal training, and how did you start doing different voices?

  Seth: I used to do stand-up when I was in college, and my sister and I did local theatre. I took many years of vocal lessons, however that contributed. It was something I had always done. It just sort of felt like the right thing for the series, rather than trying to communicate to another actor what I wanted, it was just easier to get in there and do it myself.

  Corey: You do various voices for the show, and they’re all different. For example, where did Stewie’s voice originate?

  Seth: I’m a big Rex Harrison fan, and that’s pretty much all that is. A lot of cartoon character voices originated that way, doing an impression of an old-time actor. That’s where a lot of the Hanna-Barbera voices came from. They evolve into their own thing as the show goes along. That’s what happened with Stewie. He was just an evil Rex Harrison. He sort of became his own thing.

  Corey: There have been other characters in other shows that have done talking
babies or talking animals, but you’ve got both.

  Seth: It’s weird. I come out of the animation world so it’s something that always felt, what’s the big deal? It’s a cartoon. It was something that differentiated it from a lot of shows. Oddly, the Stewie-Brian pairing, I hadn’t even anticipated would be received as well as it was. They turned out to be the two most-popular characters. Stewie was really an afterthought as I was creating the show. That was something of a surprise.

  Corey: Are there any episodes that didn’t air?