And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft

by Mike Sacks

  To make things even more complex, Fred Silverman, then the head of NBC, had requested that we hire “a family” for the show, by which he meant regulars along the lines of a band singer, an astrologer, a beauty expert, a funny announcer, and an eleven-year-old fiddle player. Silverman's role model was the old Arthur Godfrey variety show, which none of us had even seen. Silverman saw Dave as a young Arthur Godfrey. Dave did not see Dave that way at all.

  We pretty much ignored Silverman's edicts — at our own peril. Almost immediately, the show was cut from ninety minutes to sixty. After that, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to zero.

  I remember fighting with executives about what women did and did not want to watch in the morning. I argued, “Don't tell me about women! I'm the only woman here!” But, of course, I was so much weirder than the majority of women in the audience. I had no idea.

  If NBC didn't understand the morning show, why did they then give Letterman and you the opportunity to create Late Night, sixteen months later, in February 1982?

  By then, it was a case of them having to line up an eventual replacement for Johnny Carson. And Johnny really liked Dave. Dave was a frequent guest host of that show and always a serious contender.

  Were you surprised when Dave was passed over for The Tonight Show slot when Jay Leno took over in May 1992?

  I guess so. I must confess that this was right after Dave and I broke up, so I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the dramatic arc of this particular opera. In fact, I was purposely doing everything in my power to be paying as little attention to it all as I possibly could.

  You seemed to hit your stride so early with Late Night. I'm thinking in particular of the remotes, in which a camera would follow Dave as he wandered around New York.

  Those remotes started on the morning show, so we had been doing those for a while. They came out of our mutual fascination with local news. I used to take the camera out into the hall and around the building and down the street and shoot things I thought were funny; like weirdly-worded signs, misspellings, puzzling front-window displays, disputable business claims. I did a lot of research for these excursions by reading the yellow pages.

  One of the early remotes I remember very fondly was “Just Bulbs.”

  The premise of the “Just Bulbs” remote was pretty much Dave acting as bratty interloper. We went into a store in Manhattan called Just Bulbs. Dave, very innocently, asked something like: “So, what all do you have here?” To which the woman working in the store replied, “Bulbs. We have every kind of light bulb you can imagine. Colored bulbs. Clear bulbs. Flickering bulbs. Every size and shape.” To which Dave, after nodding politely, responded, “Great. And what else do you have?” And it kept going like that until the woman started to get irritated. At which point, in the editing of the piece, we switched to the second segment that took place at a store called “Just Shades.” “So, what all do you have here?” “Just shades.” “Yes, but what else do you have?”

  I still am not sure why that strikes me as so funny. But it still makes me laugh — asking really obvious questions and then pinning people to the wall with them. Maybe it's my background. That was what it was like talking to my parents.

  How much of these remotes were written versus improvised by Dave?

  Before we hit the street, the premises were carefully constructed and equipped with a bunch of relevant questions that I felt predicted a pretty good outcome. A good premise required some idea of what you expected everyone to say. But Dave was free to add and subtract and ad-lib whatever he wanted. Then, in post-production, I would go through all the footage and create a script. Somehow it would eventually be arranged into a coherent whole. I was very scrupulous about never putting words in anyone's mouth except for David's, via voice-overs. Everyone else was free to respond honestly to whatever stupidity we were hurling their way.

  There's a story that after the initial success of Late Night the writers for Johnny Carson were told to come up with more “Lettermanly” material. If that's true, it's a major compliment.

  I remember that phase, when Johnny was doing bits that looked like our show. It was weird and kind of sad. That style of humor didn't fit him, and it didn't look right on him. It was as if Tony Bennett or Barry Manilow suddenly decided to start recording rap songs. Or when Pat Boone was doing heavy metal.

  When we began Late Night, Johnny had the right to approve Dave as keeper of the time slot after The Tonight Show. And with this privilege came a couple of basic rules that we inherited on day one. We were told, “There cannot be an announcer/sidekick who sits down to chat with the host.” Also, Dave was told not to do an opening joke monologue.

  Johnny didn't want Dave to do a joke monologue to open the show?

  No. He thought the monologue was The Tonight Show's distinctive signature.

  Is this why Dave made his monologue shorter and called it his “opening remarks”? Was this in response to Johnny's request?

  Yes, exactly.

  How did Dave feel about this?

  I think it was initially confusing for him. Dave was a stand-up comedian.

  And what were your thoughts about this at the time, being less a fan of Johnny than Dave?

  I thought, If they don't want us to imitate The Tonight Show too closely, big deal. The Tonight Show consisted, as far as I could tell, of a few distinct elements that they repeated endlessly: the monologue, the guests sitting beside a desk, Johnny's several repeatable characters, and a segment called “Stump the Band.” That left us with, oh, let's see … about a million other things we could do.

  There was a real explosive, subversive nature to those early Late Night shows, specifically with the frequent appearances by Andy Kaufman, comic book writer Harvey Pekar, and Chris Elliott.

  That was the hoped-for idea. In the beginning, I used to make a lot of noise about booking a different kind of talk-show guest. And I made quite a lot of those delightful noises for a number of months, until I realized how hard it was to actually book a nightly show. Guests were always backing out. You had to find credible replacements right before air time. As Peter Lassally, the executive producer of The Tonight Show, once explained to me, “There comes a point in the week where Charo starts to look really good to you.” So I lightened up about it after that.

  Chris Elliott, however, wasn't exactly a subversive when we met him. He was about nineteen and giving tours of Rockefeller Plaza. Dave and I were both fans of his father, Bob Elliott [of Bob and Ray], and we liked Chris instantly. So Dave hired Chris with no idea of a job definition for him. Chris's first task was to make and then post FREE FLU SHOT signs all around the 30 Rock building. I remember seeing one of these really sad little hand-printed signs Scotch-taped next to the elevator buttons.

  As for Andy Kaufman, he was a big fan of the morning show and appeared on it quite a few times. He came back to my office early on and told me he liked what we were doing. I remember we once had a first grade class on the show to perform their Columbus Day pageant. Andy really loved that sort of thing.

  Let's talk about some of the characters you created for Late Night. I was always struck by how little you played to the audiences' affection. I say this with the utmost respect. So many comedians and performers do all they can to please; you didn't really seem to care. If the audience didn't get the joke, you didn't tip your hand.

  I learned early on that the point was to make Dave laugh — if the audience laughed along with him then that was a bonus. The idea was that I was playing this unbalanced staff member who desperately wanted to get on TV. This was not far from the truth. And my characters, such as the Guy Under the Seats and the Panicky Guy, and all the “guys” for that matter were basically poking fun at the running characters that were the staples of shows like Saturday Night Live. It was all very anti-performance oriented, but at some point the audience did start laughing, and I gradually evolved into the kind of running character that I was making fun of in the first place.

  How well did you know
Andy Kaufman?

  He was one of the first people I met when I moved to L.A. in 1977. I had seen him on Saturday Night Live and related to him in a big way, because his pieces seemed so art school — esque to me. So we hung out a little. He had started to do a weekly midnight talk show at the Improv in L.A., which he was calling “Midnight Snacks.” At that time, Andy was calling me his “writer,” which I found flattering, since I hadn't yet managed to get myself hired for real as a writer anywhere else. But no matter what anyone tells you, no one really wrote for Andy Kaufman. He was a one-man band, his own force majeure. You could agree with him, maybe say something like, “You should fill the cup with Pepsi instead of Coke,” and possibly he would consider that. Or just as likely, you wouldn't be able to tell if he'd even heard you.

  My favorite element of Andy's pretend talk show was the set itself. He had his desk mounted on a platform that placed him a good five feet above his guests. That was pure Andy, and it still strikes me as the most brilliant and completely hilarious vision of the talk show format I have ever seen.

  Dave's famous comment about Andy was, “When you look into his eyes, you get the feeling that someone else is driving.”

  Someone else did seem to be driving. Dave was right. But that someone else was Andy — and Andy knew exactly how to do his comedy with that other guy. He was always in control. That's why Dave really loved having Andy as a guest on his show. He knew Andy would only go so far and no further.

  It seems that quite a few Late Night guests tried to imitate Andy's bizarre behavior. I'm thinking in particular of the infamous Crispin Glover interview in July 1987, when the actor, on the show to promote his movie River's Edge, wore a blond wig and platform shoes and performed a karate kick, nearly missing Dave's head.

  I seem to recall that Dave was a little concerned about getting kicked in the head. But as a rule, Dave didn't mind any attendant brouhaha inflicted by guests as long as he thought the elements of chaos were being handled and controlled. That was why he loved having Andy as a guest. Andy's little circus was always being controlled by Andy.

  How picky were you and Dave with material? What was the acceptance rate for jokes? I've been told that it was very, very low.

  Dave and I had a very intense collaboration that went on day and night when we lived together. But, in most cases, he only liked a portion of the jokes or ideas anyone suggested. Your odds were slightly better if Dave was in on the original thought. Don't forget, Dave started out as the writer of his own material.

  Were there any writing rules on Late Night? Anything that you wanted the writers to avoid, such as comedic clichés?

  We wanted them to avoid every comedic cliché, unless the point of the piece was to showcase how something was a cliché. We didn't like anything maudlin and we didn't want anything with a sentimental core — unless we were trying to make fun of coy, manipulative sentiment. Otherwise, we were up for anything we thought was interesting and funny, and anything that had an original or authentic quality to it.

  Dave and I both really liked words. That was actually the first bond I felt with him. Seriously, I remember admiring his choice of nouns. So when we hired writers, we looked for people who liked to use language very carefully.

  Why weren't there more women writers for Letterman over the years? There has only been a handful, including you.

  I was also guilty of not hiring women in the few batches of writers I hired. But in my own defense, this was for a very particular reason: it was my task to hire writers who could replicate Dave's voice. I was kind of hiring Dave replicates. We were a new show, and I didn't feel like I had any margin for error. I needed to hire people who could write for Dave the way Dave would have written for himself if he'd had the time. I always felt like I had a gun to my head down there in the bunker. I also didn't receive very many submissions from women. I was just as picky in hiring men, but their odds were better just based on numbers. I was looking for writing that was a very specific combination of cerebral and silly. The funny submissions I did get from women were often funny in ways that didn't fit. I didn't need writers who could create hilarious characters. Dave didn't do characters. I needed a very specific attitude, use of language, and sensibility.

  I had Dave's voice all analyzed and figured out, because not only did I live with him, but I was preoccupied with creating a show that would please him. Nowadays we call that sort of thing “co-dependence.” But in those days I simply called it “being head writer.”

  Did you have any idea at the time the influence Late Night was having on pop culture?

  No. None whatsoever.

  Really? No idea?

  No.

  In the eighties, especially the mid-eighties, the show was a sensation. It was featured in practically every major magazine — from Rolling Stone to Time. Were you in the eye of the hurricane, so to speak?

  Dave always felt we were on the verge of going down with the Titanic. He always felt that we were doomed because our ratings weren't good enough. Sometimes I would argue that he was being hysterical and pessimistic, but I couldn't win those arguments because I also kind of believed him. How did I know if he was right or wrong? He seemed very certain, and I had no idea.

  If we were ever experiencing success, I definitely missed it.

  Can you appreciate the show more now?

  No. Although this interview is kind of making me sound interesting — even to myself.

  Why did you leave Late Night in the late eighties?

  How to phrase this for public consumption? My personal relationship with Dave was becoming unmanageable. So I had the uniquely unfortunate circumstance of having to back down from a position of power to a position of limited power, all in a misguided attempt at fixing the relationship. Thus, I went from being the head writer to other, lower-profile tasks, such as segment-producing all the remotes. There were such indistinct boundaries between the personal and the professional that none of it really worked out the way I meant for it to. My addled, little brain then imagined, Maybe if I don't work on the show at all and just pursue other things, everything will be okay.

  In interviews, you've described “reconnecting” with your writer's voice after you left Late Night. How did you manage to reconnect? And how was it lost to begin with?

  A good collaboration is a melding of sensibilities, and my voice was only lost in the same way that fans of Seinfeld probably couldn't sort out what was Jerry Sein-feld's voice and what was Larry David's. It all became more clear when Curb Your Enthusiasm appeared, and you could see, “Oh, that's Larry David's.” In our case, this was Dave's show, not mine. Dave had his name in the title of the show. He was entitled to be the final arbiter of what material got on.

  But when I started writing essays and articles and I didn't have to seek Dave's counsel or endorsement, I could finally hear my own sensibility. Now there was no one to please but myself. That was a really delightful feeling. Next thing I knew, Viking asked if they could publish a collection of my magazine columns. That became my first book, What the Dogs Have Taught Me [Viking, 1992].

  Since you left the show, you've written seven books, both fiction and nonfiction, and have contributed numerous articles to magazines and websites. Do you find writing for print as rewarding as writing for TV?

  It's less exciting, but I guess it is more rewarding artistically. A piece of writing on the page is entirely by you. An editor gives you notes designed to make it be as much about your style as it can be. That rarely happens in TV.

  I should probably add that it's about one-tenth as rewarding financially — at least for me. You can win an Emmy for a script that has your name on it and have only contributed a couple of lines. A friend of mine calls TV writing the “golden handcuff s.” You get hooked on the idea of making big money as a reasonable and worthy trade-off for lack of artistic control. So you stop worrying about whether you are meeting your own needs for self-expression and just focus on the size of your bank account.

  Some of th
e experiences you write about in your books are down-right frightening. I'm thinking in particular of that chapter in Merrill Markoe's Guide to Love, when you consulted a “love channeler” to help find and keep a boyfriend.

  That was very spooky. I showed up at this love channeler's apartment, and I knocked on the door, which opened to reveal a man sporting a Captain Kangaroo haircut and dressed in an ill-fitting Snoopy T-shirt. To make it more perfect, there was harp music playing on the stereo. Music to Be Strangled By.

  When I see weird ads in the paper, or things where people make strange claims, I think, Bingo. Perfect! I can get some great comedy from this! But then I arrive at the place, all by myself, and no one even knows I went there, and I can hear that scary narrator inside my head intone, “It all started out as a prank …”

  When I was a TV reporter for KCOP in Los Angeles, in the early nineties, I loved to cover weird events. I was the only reporter to attend the opening of a yogurt franchise Mickey Rooney was somehow associated with. Mickey was not amused by my questions. He turned hostile and started making fun of my stammer. And then he stared at me with the cold, dead eyes of a chicken and said, “Look, honey, don't mess with me. I can get really nasty, and I don't want to have to do that, because I love you too much.” I remember thinking, Whew! Okay, I'm definitely glad that you love me, because I'd hate to see how you'd be acting if you didn't.

  What sort of questions were you asking him?

  “How did you get into the frozen-yogurt business?” “Is this an old Rooney-family recipe?” “Is this connected to Mickey Rooney's Weenie World?”