471: David Zucker—Thanks for the Parking Spot

Chuck, yes, did you know Variety magazine says that David Zuckers,

“the naked gun is the number one comedy of all time?”

No, I didn't know that. I didn't, you could feel a book with what we don't know. Folks, this is the way I heard it on my Chrome, I guess today is David Zucker. Yeah, he gave us the naked gun. He gave us airplane.

He gave us police squad, naked gun two and a half the smell of fear. And naked gun 33 and a third, the final insult. Scary movie, I mean, the guy is just, he just left. I just spent over an hour talking with him, and I just realized, you know, what an impact his work had on me, and I hadn't really thought about it really.

Until today. Now, so much of our humor comes from seeing those movies. It just all came up again, and let me just say, he is super sharp. I don't know what his age is, but he's 104. Well, you know what?

He seems a little slow for 104, but he just was really sharp, really funny. And again, it was like a time machine going back to the late 70s,

“early 80s when these movies had pivotal effect on our lives, I think,”

in terms of our sense of humor.

We had never seen anything like this.

Now, it comes up, and his response is really interesting. But for me, blazing saddles, and airplane, were transformational, because A, they broke all the rules. And B, they were genuinely funny in a surprising way. And C, they hold up his movies.

They're still whole movies. It's not just a collection of gags, which a lot of people say. They're movies. [coughing] Are you okay?

I'm okay. There was a coughing fit during the episode as well. Oh, God, he made me laugh. And now it's, I'm still wrestling with the residual hacking. Well, I just want to say that by the, like, as this goes on,

he loosened up more and more, and it became funnier and funnier, and you were falling off the chair a couple times. Yeah. I thought it was funny from the get-go, but the thing about this guy is, he's so experienced, and he's done so much,

and he's just come out with this thing. We'll plug it in the conversation, but it's called Master Crash. Which, essentially, he attempts to do the impossible, which is to tell you how to be funny, right? And he admits it's kind of impossible, but he does it anyway.

So I guess maybe I should just leave it by saying, the title of this episode, incidentally, is an homage to the last thing he said to me before he left, which was thanks for the parking spot. You'll understand, I think, why it's so funny,

when he says it, at least I hope you will. If you don't, you probably didn't like airplane. And if you didn't like airplane. I mean, come on, how can you, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, you're listening to the wrong podcast.

If you didn't like airplane. Apologies send advance for anything that could be deemed politically incorrect. I laughed at what I laughed at, and I said what I said, and I stand by it all. Yup, having said all of that.

David Zucker is very grateful for the park spot. I'm grateful to him for coming by, and I'm grateful to you for listening. It all starts right after this. (humming)

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You can get more information at SkillsUSA.org/mic. I'm talking SkillsUSA, SkillsUSA, SkillsUSA. Oh, look at my name, so you remember? Do we spell it, right? Are you in some kind of dementia?

How old are you? I'm.

I never look in that direction.

Oh, I don't think so. So she says, "Look, oh my god, we got to-- Oh, yeah, to remind you. So he is dementia, then." Now, to be clear, it's Zooker.

Zooker, like Hooker. Like, yeah. See, I knew Jeff Zooker, that he was running CNN. And, of course, I called him Jeff Zucker. And, oh, did he say anything?

Yeah, he said not. It's Zooker. He said not Zucker, like Hooker. Zooker, like Hooker. Oh, okay, I'm one.

I'm one. Yeah. Which is strange in the ones. I don't know. Everybody's nice when you meet them.

Now, you said I could ask you anything.

Yeah.

“You said to ignore all the things your publicists sent over.”

Right. Warning me to avoid. Right. Okay, good. Hey, it's really terrific to meet you.

Thank you. Are we on? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, we're on.

You know, you could have warned me. Would you have warned me? No. Exactly. So it's 1980.

I'm sitting at a theater, probably at Golden Ring Mall, where we used to work as usherers for United Artists. Yeah. And what city was it? Baltimore.

Unbought to modern. Baltimore. Now, I just got to get this stuff out of the way. I'm sure you're sick of talking about it. Hearing about it, dining out on it, call it what you will.

But there's a moment in an airplane where Julie Agarty said, he says to her, you know, I lost six men. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

It's seven. Lieutenant Zip died this morning. But you don't cut back to him. You stay on her. And all we see fly through the screen is the contents of whatever fluid he had in his

mouth. Right. I started to laugh at it and not since blazing saddles have I really lost my entire composure in a theater over just a silly little moment like that. But I couldn't recover, David.

I mean, I laughed for about, I don't know, it felt like the rest of the movie. But I mean, out of control for 10 minutes, and everybody around me started to laugh as a result of it. Oh, good. Yeah.

It was just a simple little thing.

And I wanted to thank you for it because I've never, I never forgot in it.

And it made me want to ask, well, not at the moment. But right now, it makes you want to ask you. You mostly trying to amuse yourself with that whole thing. Always. Just we started out doing comedy because we just wanted to laugh at stuff.

And we did laugh at stuff. And we were class clowns and Wisconsin in Wisconsin. We grew up in the the first suburb north called Shorewood. And yeah, we were, you know, and we weren't even the funniest guys in our class. There was at least six guys who I thought were funnier than we were.

But they all were able to find jobs, you know, be lawyers and whatever. And we kind of pursued it. We weren't really wanting to do, you know, have jobs. So we started a small theater called Kentucky Vrite Theater on the University of Wisconsin campus.

And then that was a huge hit for a year. But we were only able to charge a dollar. And so we moved the whole show. We're going to you all truck west to LA and set up a show on theater, on Pico Boulevard. God, I can still see it, man.

Chuck, you remember? Are you aware of the penal codes in the state? Oh, did you see the live show? No. That was the movie.

Yeah. Kentucky Vrite movie, but we did that gag on stage. Oh, my God. I just remembered.

“I think the first time I saw boobs on the big screen.”

They were kind of blurry because the steam, but it was the girl in the shower. Oh, yeah. I think it was young Catholic high school girls in trouble. Yeah. Some Catholic high school girls in trouble, right?

And that was what laid 70s, 77, scandalous man. We were young. Yeah. And a lot of that, we shouldn't have been seeing that. And a lot of that cool stuff was contributed by John Landis, who directed it.

Yeah. And yeah, John was fabulous and you know, it was, was that before an animal house for after. Before animal house, he got animal house because, you know, the, our script supervisor, yeah, whose name was Catherine Hooten, was the girlfriend of one of the, one of the

set every day in John Landis' directing and you should consider him for animal house. And that's what happened. Geez. Yeah. Way leads on the way.

I ask you this, Chuck has sick of hearing me talk about it, but the idea of comedians in particular,

but really any performer, who's, who's trying first to please themselves, or in your case,

amuse, is, to me, there's like a real difference between that sensibility and the kind of person who is really trying to understand the audience and then trying to feed the audience and trying to do whatever I don't know, an executive or producer or an audience might expect. It was airplane, more than anything else that just overwhelmed me with the sense that, like, the lunatics were running the asylum, no one was getting permission for anything and just

a bunch of guys who were all in on the joke had somehow gotten permission to do whatever the hell they wanted, whatever made them laugh and just kept doing it. It's the most relentless procession of gags I've ever seen and I, to this day, I can't believe you got away with it. Well, I think the pace came while I don't think the pace, I know the pace came from doing

our theater because we were the actors in our Kentucky bright theater. We did a show in L.A. called Minos, just so our listing in the weekly L.A. Times calendar section would say Minos runs continuous and that's the kind of stuff that we would do.

And so we were always not taking anything seriously.

“I think that's, you know, right through grade school and high school, I remember I was not”

taking anything seriously. So, the famous exchange and the thing that I, to this day, I'm so glad to be able to ask you this question, but when it's Roger Roger, which are Clarence Clarence, shall you have back your vector, right? Did that joke come when you realized these guys' names would lend itself to it, or did

the joke form and then someone say, oh shit, no, we have to name them. No, no, we named the characters because we wanted to make those jokes. Clarence Clarence, Vector, Victor, Roger, all that stuff, no, we designed the joke like that. And it became a version of, who's on first, we also did a similar, you know, take on that kind of concept in police squad, the TV series, where Frank Drabbin, Leslie Nielsen

questions the lady and said, you know, it's a whole, who's on first routine. Yeah, but, I mean, I would think, I haven't cast all the sat down and said, okay, here's the routine. This is how it's going to work. It'll be funny if we do this and this and this, it's like they start with the end

goal in mind, you named the central characters in the movie, you do such a way that you could make one gag. Yeah, yeah, it was, but then, and then after that, it wasn't a joke anymore.

“I mean, he was just named, well, I think at one time, the story is says, I'm standing over”

over over, so we came back a little more of a twist on it, but, you know, these things just kind of happen, it's just, it developed and when you have three of us writing, you

get, you know, I can never write this alone, you know, it's so helps to have a trio.

And everybody would, you know, put out, try a joke, and if I got a laugh, it was in, you know, we just, we knew it was funny if you got a laugh among your triumphers, among the triumphers, exactly. Which means you're just trying to abuse yourselves, that's the answer. So, if I could get a laugh out of Jerry and Jim, I was as proud as I could be, like, okay,

I hit a single. Yeah. And then, you know, Jerry and Jim would hit a triple and get me home. Well, that's how you win games. That's how you win games.

That's how you win games. That's the level. Yeah.

“Um, okay, so now that that's out of the way, what are you doing these days, man?”

I know there's a master class. Yeah. I have the master crash. Yes. You go to mastercrash.com.

I'm teaching an online course in Spoof Humor and inspired by the dreadful naked gun for, which you're not supposed to ask me about. I understand. I understand. I don't know why you've brought it up.

She's brought it up. Can this be? Can you go back and erase them? No, we're late. All right.

I'm going to start recording now. Okay. Thank you. Chuck. Yeah.

People try to do this stuff. First of all, it looks easy, evidently.

They did airplane two. They did, I don't know.

There was a movie called "Loaded Weapon."

There was a Angie Tribeca TV saying, all this stuff. They think they're doing it, but they don't know the rules. And Jerry and Jim and I developed this over 40 years. You had actual rules. We had 15 rules.

And this isn't to say that everybody has to follow our rules.

“And if you're doing this kind of spoof, our particular spoof, you have to follow the”

rules. Otherwise, it falls flat. It's embarrassing. Now, Mike Meyers did a spoof of James Bond movies in Austin Powers. Sure.

Great job. Funny movie.

The weigh-ins brothers did scary movies, they did it in their own style.

Brilliant. Wonderful movies. They didn't want to do four or five, so Bob Weinstein called me and said, "Do you want to do this?" And I said, "Well, if the weigh-ins aren't doing it, then I'll be glad to do it, but in my

style." And so scary three and four are a lot different than one and two. So do the weigh-ins follow the rules? When are they not they knew they exist? No, they didn't need to follow them.

The weigh-ins are brilliant on their own. Well, if you can be brilliant and make a great funny spoof without following the rules, why do you need the rules? Well, yeah, nobody needs the rules, and they don't need to take my course. In fact, I advise against it.

You're a terrible say. It's just a waste of money. Yeah. Well, I'd rather sell pillows. Was it fun to do?

Was it? Of course was great. Yeah, no, we did one episode for each rule, but we also have a glossary of terms that's like over a hundred terms that we've used throughout all the movies that we've done. Well, this is stupid question, then.

Well, I'd glad to answer stupid.

“Well, I mean, I was kind of like, how do you, can you learn to be funny?”

Ah, you can, and you can't. If you're naturally funny and want to do spoof, I think you can learn a lot of things not to do. The rules are things not to do. We can't, how to make a joke.

That kind of has to happen naturally. But it's not, but Jerry and Jim and I aren't the only ones who could do it. Pat Proff could do it. Craig Mason was great at it. Mike McManus.

These are the guys that I'm writing with now, or Proffton Mason, I'm writing with now. And I have, I wrote a script, Phil Noire, great love story comedy set in 1949. And it's really spoofed to point out. [MUSIC PLAYING] Well, America is turning 250 years old this year, and I suppose somebody somewhere will celebrate

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“What's the difference between a spoof and a satire?”

I don't know. It's like they used to, I don't know too many terms. I don't know. Jim Evans used to know, we'd be asked that, and I don't really know. But Jim knew, but he died, so it's lost with him now.

I always thought of satire, like...

He's blazing saddles, satire or is it a spoof? I don't know. Yeah, see. But when what's his name? It was a tough one.

Was it Swift, Jonathan Swift, maybe a modest proposal that famous essay that talked during the potato famine about how to prepare your infant for consumption?

So it's basically like a recipe on how to eat your kid, and it was so dark and so crazy.

It's satire. It's not really a spoof. It's not a spoof. That's satire though. Okay.

Right. Spoof has to be, and you're helping me here, define this.

“I think his spoof is directly derivative of some serious thing that you can make funny.”

And I think Mad Magazine used to do an article every magazine called "Seans We Like to See" in movies. In movies. So, I think that was spoof. I guess.

Right. Because it's based on an expectation. Yeah. It's a scene you've already seen, but what I'd like to see is a some element of it. Yeah.

So you recognize the original.

I remember a long time ago a reviewer said about our show, is that basically what they do

is set up a familiar scene and then reverse the viewer's expectation of the outcome. So, you know, not to get too technical, but that's because I can get technical and be really unfunny fast. Great. Great.

No. I, like, know, to see, I'm drawing a blank on the guy's name, who played Ted in airplane. Oh, yeah. Robert Taze. Right.

Hey, to see the fluid in his mouth flying, it was a spit take, but you didn't see the guy spit. Yeah. Now that was a satire or a spoof. That's just a gag and it's part of what I'm teaching and directing is that not to point

out the joke and the same thing happens when Leslie Nielsen is in the passenger cabin working on a patient and all you see is the, the woman's legs and he's got a speculum and she's

in the stirrups and Leslie says, what the hell's going on up there and we never point to

it. So, that joke of the spit take is the most obvious thing to do is to show him doing the spit take. Right. But Mel Brooks did that.

I don't want to play sloppy seconds.

“So, that's why it's a spoof because you didn't want to imitate Mel, but in a way you”

paid homage. I think it has nothing to do with spoof or satire. It's just a gag and just some things are just gags and not, not a spoof or that little 12-year-old girl turned to that 12-year-old boy and said, I'll take my coffee black like my men.

Yeah. Okay. Now, I don't know if you can do that today. Well, you're talking about two different things. The studio boardrooms would say, oh no, that's too much, and that's too much, you can't

do that. They're all frightened and that's why you just get the pabble now that's in theaters. There's nothing funny. If you want to see funny, go to TV, watch South Park or in practical jokers. So, okay, both so interesting.

I think South Park will be remembered as the greatest satire of their great. And I had the opportunity to work with them, the baseball, and it was so fun, so I really got to know those guys. Did you see the documentary? They put out, it's called six days to air, no, I had to not.

You're welcome. I love this. I don't know to apply any of your rules, but it's just they're coming back from winning the Grammy for Book of Mormon. Yeah.

Okay. They're baked out of their minds. They land in L.A., they got on skateboards, and they go to work. The first episode of the first season is doing six days. And they had to do it.

They got nothing. Now, Simpsons takes like a year and a half script of screen. Oh, really? I didn't know that. There's just styles totally different, writers are in different.

“This writer's room is tray and Matt, and I think Bill Hayter is sitting there.”

He doesn't do much. It's so much tray. But within six days, they've got to navigate a script, get it through S&P, which is tough, because I think this one is human centipede, right, when the people are stitched together. I don't even know what S&P is.

Standard subtract. Okay. I don't know any. You'd be surprised. It's shit that I don't know.

I mean, I did. Yeah. Again, you're trying to sell a course on comedy and telling me you could fill the books with what you felt now. Right.

No, I don't know anything. Yeah. And we're trying to get people's money to sign up for this course, at least. No. Did you name it Master Crash?

Yeah, we named it Master Crash, because I couldn't say Master Class. So now it's an Asian. I had a manager. I don't think you could make that. Oh, Master.

I almost did a spit-take right there. Well, I don't know. Oh, Master Crash. Yeah. You're making it into some kind of racist.

I think you wanted me to think it. And then you wanted, I think. Well, I have to research this and see who was the original racist here. Back to the 12-year-old girl. Yes.

Whose idea is it for her to turn to this kid, who I'm assuming is 10 or 12-years-old, dressed in a three-piece suit, and tell him she likes her coffee. Like she likes her man.

“Well, normally, we don't remember who came up with what?”

I mean, the most famous joke in the movie.

Don't call me Shirley, none of us remember, because we never made a thing out of, you

know, who wrote what and it really helped the collaboration, because we didn't care about individual credit. It was only ZAZ, we wanted to succeed as a trio. It was great. But there are some jokes that I know that Jim Abram's wrote.

And that's one of them because what would happen is we'd all sit around a table and Jim would be on the typewriter. And he would type of everything, and then he'd show Jerry and me what he had just typed. And so we just had to take a black or something and Jim had typed in. I take a black like my man and Jerry and I cracked up and it's all that stuff.

We thought, well, we probably can't do that. And then we thought for another 30 seconds and then why not? Well, of course we would do it. And the same with Jim came up with, I remember how he used to hold me and how he used to sit on your face and wriggle.

And that was Jim.

So I remember all those really, really bad lines were Jim.

No, it's not bad though. I mean, no, no, I mean, what's funny? What's funny? No. I mean, it looked so, but in that case, it wasn't the line.

I mean, like you can't have that exchange between full grown adults. You could. It wouldn't be funny. Exactly. Just like a lot of the stuff between Peter Graves and the little boy couldn't

be done with comedians.

“You couldn't, you know, what if that were domed Eloise?”

I mean, or even Chevy Chase, it would have been creepy. But, well, how did you get Peter Graves to say yes to this? Well, he originally, he turned it down. We just, and when we found out later, he just threw the script across the room and said, this is a worse piece of trash.

Yeah, we've lost. And then, you know, years later, I had much more experience with actors. And his producers, studios, I realized you give an actor a script to read and they just read their own parts. And so he must have been horrified.

He appeared that the character was a pedophile. And we were saying, "Oh, how funny is this?" You're like, "Let it or move this stuff." Yeah, so we're going to see the grown man naked. And he was, "Yeah."

Yeah, right. No, no. He said, and evidently, you know, his daughter read the script. Who was probably, you know, 17 at the time. She thought it was hilarious.

His wife read the script. She thought it was funny. And then Howard Koch, our executive producer, who was at the time, you know, 62, which was, to me, just so old, I couldn't believe that. Anyways, he knew all these guys.

So he said, "Peter, why don't you come in and meet the boys?" We were called the boys at the time. And she had a famous yet. We're not famous. No.

“So somewhat known from Kentucky Pride, movie, but I think Landis got most of the publicity.”

But so he came and met us and I think he expected, you know, some just drugged out weirdos. Sure. And we were actually quite preppy, you know, not many years out of Wisconsin. But yeah, we had written this stuff.

And so we convinced him that, you know, we knew what we were doing, even though we had never

directed before. And so all these guys made a leap of faith, Robert Stack wanted to know, well, who else is coming to the party? Yeah. That's how he put it.

And so once Lloyd and Peter and Leslie signed on, then Stack came on. And then they offered Stack, I think, low money, like 30,000 and a piece of the profits. He had no faith at all. A great guy, by the way. But he says, no, no, I'll take the 50 grand.

Yeah. So how often I get you guys a team? But once the cast trusts you and once everybody's in on the joke and they all kind of get where they're going, did ideas ever come from Leslie or Lloyd? Ah, normally I don't like to take any ideas from actors.

But actually, one of the actresses, the woman who was the one who became the hysterical woman, she suggested, why doesn't they slap me? And we didn't have that in the script, we didn't think of it. And so we said, okay, you know, slap, and then somehow, this I don't remember, I wish

But it's one of the funniest gags in the movie, he slaps her and then he slaps her again.

Yeah. And then you see the line of family line of people was also suggested by somebody. So in Hava, Hava doing that and we said, yeah, let's do that. We sent out the prop, lighting and she brought in the whips and the chains, the bats and brass.

All the time. And so. But it happened so infrequently that we don't do any improvisation and because we don't use comedians, right? And sometimes though an actor will come up with a suggestion, Judge Ryan hold on ruthless

people, he was supposed to pretend that he was ruthless and he was giving the speech about how ruthless was and he scoops up a bug and puts it outside the door and closes the door. And so in judge suggested to me, why don't I open the door again and stamp on the bug? And I said, no, that won't be funny. Like I knew, like you know, it's like you get to be a director, you get full of yourself.

Right. You know. And I said, but it couldn't hurt to try, just do we another take, the lighting set up there. We can know we let the audience decide, so he did it, everyone laughed and that the preview

they laughed. And that's why that's in the movie. All right. Was it a real bug? No.

No, I don't think so. It was like what's so there's no bug wranglers or no. No bug was harm during the movie.

“That's what I'm doing during the making of this motion picture.”

Yeah. [MUSIC PLAYING] Dumb.

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and the credits I might have put no bug was hard.

“- Oh, that's what we did put jokes in the credits.”

But yeah, I don't think that's a particular thing.

- Who was the first to put bloopers in the credits?

- I remember like Cannonball, Ron, and-- - Oh, I don't know if I remember seeing-- - I don't know, we did not do that, but all that stuff happened after-- - In the movie. (laughs)

- And I think after airplane, it's putting jokes in the credits. And also putting a gag at the end of the credits, we put the guy in the cab saying, "Well, give him 15 more minutes, but that's it."

- For every ridiculous non-secretor, I propose nothing moment, like the spear going into the map on the wall. It's explicable to me. - Right, and that's one of the things I teach about

in my course is not to do that. - And yet.

“- Well, we did it, but I think it wasn't the greatest decision”

because we thought background stuff was funny. It's not funny, it doesn't get a laugh unless it's related, so that's just one of the things. - So why did you laugh on that spear when sailing into the wall?

- I guess I did, yes. - Do you, were you high? - Yes, yes. - Let's see, we don't do stuff, because we're not high when we write this stuff.

So we can't assume that we really weren't, we just had coffee. (laughs) - Don't give me that look.

- Can we make it only? - Well, the coffee.

- We actually, we get together at 9 a.m.

We drink coffee, we talk, with airplane, we talked about watergate, we would talk about watergate, and then at 10, we'd start writing. - Okay, spear goes into the wall. - Yeah.

- Not sequper, not funny, rule breaker. Robert Stack takes all his sunglasses. - That's funny. - And there's another pair of smaller sunglasses. - That's what we did that on stage.

- Why does that funny? - The gag was written by Pat Proft, and I guess, 'cause it's silly and unexpected. - All right. - I can't believe you're asking me why that was funny.

- Is you having the master cry? - You're having a master cry. - You're having a master cry. - Yes, I have master cry and so I presume we know what I'm doing.

“- All right, I think you'd, well, obviously I think you'd do.”

But I'm just trying to, like the,

'cause you made a distinction between a gag and a joke, a satire, and a fool's foothold. - Yeah, right, so all these things, but the most relatable gag that I remember in a play is when Ted is just spilling his guts

and the woman hangs or so. - Yeah, people, everybody's been somewhere when they've been talked to death. - Everybody. - Yeah, everybody.

- And on a plane, you're trapped. - Right, so like, in that moment, okay, that's a gag. That's funny, that's a heck of a thing. But in the same way, you gotta line up people waiting to slap the steric woman.

Now we go to our Japanese gentleman, fully dressed in World War II Garb, who commits a Harry Carrey. - Right, oh man, what's your question? Come out with it.

Why is it funny to see a man commit suicide? - Oh, why is it funny when a woman hangs or self? Like, if you just reduce the thing

“to a various component parts, it's the opposite of funny.”

- Yeah, but when you create a scene, and nothing is literal, or everything is literal. It's just we just do it, and the more outrageous it is. And I find this in my personal life, I go to restaurants, and I start engaging with strangers,

and if I'm outrageous enough, people know it's a gag. - But if you're not, it's just, let's just embarrassments, you guys, and call the cops. - Yeah, I've also embarrassed myself, too. - My dad can't get into an elevator

without chatting up who's ever in there. - Doesn't matter how many, but he wants to know. - But where they're headed? - Real, but is your dad interesting or is he just boring these people that they wanna...

- I think he's interesting. - Okay. - I mean, he's 93, and that's great. Is he still doing fine? - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, that's great. - He's hangin' tough, but he's the kind of guy he walks,

it was my mom's a writer, and she wrote a very funny story about his around Christmas, and he goes to the elevator, and it's crowded, and there's a big guy in there with the beard. I mean, you know, my dad's like,

got the reindeer parked up, bare back, you know? - That's just awful. - Yeah. - And they're like nine people, and they're all like looking at this, and the big guy, my poor mother's, it's shrinking,

but she's like, this is either gonna be the longest elevator ride ever, but the guy turns and makes another Santa joke. - Oh, well, that's great. - So, what's good about it is everybody else

in the elevator now, relaxes and laughs, 'cause somehow or another, we have permission, right? - Yeah. - But for those first couple of seconds, like in Kirby or enthusiasm, they're like all these moments that really are just so uncomfortable,

and then I guess it's, I don't know, the tharsis or something, and then we get permission to laugh. - I think Larry David deals directly in that uncomfortable stuff, in which he's so good at. - Yeah. - I'm sure most of that stuff

is things that really happened to him as inside felt, most of stuff. - Yeah.

- I never watched any sitcoms except for a side felt,

and it also some of Kirby, and some of Gary's shambling was great. - Oh my God.

“- The original, that, remember the original theme song?”

- Yeah, Gary's shambling. - Gary's shambling. - Oh, he was so great. - Oh my God. - And, but I don't watch any other television, except that, and you know, today I watch impractical jokers. - That's what makes me laugh. - That's what makes me laugh.

It makes me laugh so hard, yeah. - Look, I'm tempted to ask why, but I'm gonna offend you again. - Well, those guys are funny. I mean, they interact with real people, and they prank themselves, and you know,

you just see that they're having such obvious fun, and they laugh at themselves. I mean, everything about them is great. - Well, that goes back to my first, I think, super pressing observation,

which was, you amuse yourself. - Yeah. - Everybody was an attempt to amuse yourself. - Exactly, and these guys, impractical jokers, obviously, are, they're amusing themselves. - They're doing it because they think.

- And so, and so we're trying to match. - That's right, yeah. But they're awfully smart about it. - Yeah. - Of course, one, I've had the pleasure

of getting to know both of those teams.

on a pig farm while they were feeding bacon to the hogs.

- Oh, Matt and Trey? - Yeah, I'll really, I haven't seen it. - They're just doing like a stand-up in between thrown to a thing,

“and they're just sitting there with pigs,”

feeding the pigs, pigs. - Yeah. - They don't really acknowledge it, they just do it. And so, you know, suddenly you're one of those people in the elevator trying to figure out

that I have permission to laugh at this. Can I laugh at the Japanese gentleman for, yeah, I'm not sure, I'm not sure, except I was sure in the theater. - Yeah, it comes from a really good place

that they genuinely think it's funny and they're original, and they're not trying to copy anybody,

like other people today are.

- Were you a fan, I'm asking this, 'cause what part of Wisconsin? - You're Milwaukee. - Milwaukee, and I went to a graduated from University of Wisconsin.

- That's Madison. - Madison, did you know the onion guys? - I didn't know them, I met some of them later, 'cause we did a movie with them. My partner, I gill, netter,

and we had zucker netter productions.

“And Gill worked out this deal with the onion”

to do the onion movie, and so that's, we did that. - You mentioned mad magazine. - Yeah, for me, when I was in the very early 90s, one of the greatest moments of my miss spent career was learning that the editor at the onion

was taping my segments on the QVC cable shopping channel in the middle of the night, and he created a cartoon called The Endless Knights of Rick Nobles, which was based on things I would say, in the middle of the night.

And I was so flattered by that, because to me, the onion was the perfect mix of irreverence and subversion, and he would use that this cartoon was meant to be an example to the staff writers.

He was like, here's a guy on TV, who's clearly trying to get fired. I want you to write with that same goal, right? - Right. - So my question is, what happened to the onion?

And how come the Babylon be as funnier today? - Oh, I think it's a lot because what happened to Saturday night live. Yes, they were committed to an ideology rather than to jokes. And so the Babylon be as much funnier.

I've gotten to know some of those guys, and I subscribe, I love it. It makes me laugh, they're so good. They're just because their targets are better. You know, just how do you defend AOC

and Chuck Schumer, you have to invite? I mean, you're stuck defending those guys. That's not very funny. - No. - There's nothing to laugh at.

- Right. - Right. - And when I think of SNL, I mean, occasionally they've done some good stuff, but I remember when Hillary lost, they did an episode where these two characters on SNL,

they were kind of sad. And he was a whole, do you remember this? - It's a kid and he was funny as hell. - It's a piano. - Yeah. - And played like a eulogy.

- Where's the joke? - There's no joke. - Yeah, there's no joke. And this is another thing I teach in my course is, "Excrinding."

You can't ask grinds, it ain't funny, not for a laugh. - Yeah. - I mean, I did a movie and American Carol, which made fun of Michael Moore.

“And it was funny, but I think it was a bit of "Excrinding."”

So, you know, to the extent that it was "Excrinding." I mean, I really was conscious at the pay for every political point I was making by a joke, it had to be a joke. And, you know, I wrote it.

I think I mentioned my friend Lewis Friedman, whose total lefty and we just loved making movies together. So, and he was great writing jokes for that. - Well, since you brought it up. - No, I don't want to talk about it, though,

but it's-- - Let's get his publicity on the way. - Yeah, I think it was. - No, I mean, I mean, Wisconsin is about as blue as a blue state gets. - Right. - And you're coming out of the university system.

I'm assuming your ideology was what it was. - Yeah. - You've made no great secret of-- - No, it's not a secret. I'm out.

And what happened? You know, we grew up in a sea of blue there. My entire extended Zucker family Democrats and some of my very far left and continue to be everybody. I'm the only one, you know, I actually did an interview for the Milwaukee Journal.

This is when I had first crossed over to the dark side

And the Milwaukee Journal interview me

“and I was interviewed on the radio station there.”

And my mom didn't care about the radio station, but it was in the Milwaukee Journal, all her friends read it. That her son became a Republican. And I called up, I wanted to kind of apologize and I said, "Mom, I'm sorry, but I--

I guess I'm the black sheep of the family." And she said, "Oh, no, no, you do a lot of good things, too." (laughing) (humming) - The pop culture definition of insanity

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or you can go to M drive for men.com and order straight from there. And use code row to get 20% off your first purchase that's M drive for men.com, code row for 20% off. And for years, after my dad sank into dementia, my mom continued to vote for Democrats for him.

So even when my mom died, I said, yeah, everybody said, I'm so sorry, and I'm sorry for your loss.

I said, yeah, but I always look on the bright side.

It's one less vote for the Democrats. So, you know, and because if someone isn't run over by a bus, and they live till 86 or 87, don't ask me that when I'm 86 or 87, I mean, I think, of course, and I'm still, yeah, I'm not going to die now, but it's,

my whole family is, but I changed, I think, after 9/11, the lot of people who were 9/11 conservatives. And I saw how both sides reacted to that.

“And Clinton, I think, said, what did we do to deserve it?”

- What did we do to deserve it? - And so, being just practical, and I'm not that bright, I mean, I'm bright, but I, you know, I just, why would this, this is pure evil? And the right was saying this is pure evil. And people on the right actually use the e-word.

I've had friends, I've had girlfriends who said, no, there's no, people aren't equal, you know. Oh, yeah, that relationship didn't last. (laughing) But Mike, I don't want to get into my personal life.

- I just can't keep this eye on you. - I just, yeah, I know. - I know, I know, I would have been naked gun for it. (laughing) - And master crash in the pronunciation of my name. - Right, I've heard lots of people talk about your influence on them,

and obviously the influence of your work, so forth, and I'm sure that's terribly gratifying for you. But who, like who really influenced you? Who was funny? - Oh, you know, we loved, we loved Mad Magazine,

the Marks Brothers, Woody Allen, that's who we loved. And more than anything, we would laugh at serious movies. And what we would do is we would dub in our own voices. - So mystery science theater must have just chapped your ass.

- And I never watched it, really.

- That's what that, I mean. - But that's what they were doing. - Like zero hour, was it? - Yeah, zero hour, we saw zero hour. And we thought, 'cause we were taping late night movies

to get the commercials.

- Because you were lampooning. - We were making fun of commercials. So we saw this movie, and we started getting more interested in the movie than the commercials. And we thought, why don't we spoof this movie,

and originally, the first airplane script was called

The Late Show, and it was the zero hour, the airplane story with commercials. As if it were a late night movie. So we gave it to a friend of ours for a first read. And he said, I liked the script, but I think the commercials,

I got, I was getting into the story, commercials interrupted it. So we asked the commercials.

“And we just, that's how we ever, I mean,”

it started out in this our whole book, Shirley Can't Be Serious, which you can get on Amazon. The main theme is we didn't know what we were doing. We kind of learned as we went. We were just, draw guys.

- Went to, two came up with the cover art. - That's fine. - Paramount, that was paramount. - That's brilliant. Studio run by Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Cantsonberg,

Frank Mancuso, Barry Diller, these guys were so great. - I spent a chance on you. Eisner took the chance and it's such a contrast to the, you know, the idiots who run the studio today. - People do listen to this podcast.

- Oh, I heard that you have a dozen people? - Literally. - This is not gonna get out, is it? - But they all work at Paramount. - They're all in the board.

- I didn't name names. Actually, you know what I did? I sent a letter, a registered mail to David Ellison, who took over Paramount. And I enclosed a dollar bill in it.

“And I said, dear Mr. Ellison, I'll bet you a dollar.”

You don't know how Paramount ruined the naked gun franchise.

Never heard back, but maybe he'll give you a little help.

- I don't know, you know, yeah. - There was a truly glorious moment. I don't know if the window was shut yet, but in the bulk mail business, when you would get these envelopes,

the postage is paid, they want you to fill out a thing that you just send it back. - Right. - Right. - We were getting inundated with Mrs.

in the early '90s, and my roommate and I would take a box and fill it with rocks, and just put the envelope on the top and seal it and take to the post office. And they have to ship it. - They do even if though you don't be in a postage

for the box of rocks, the postages do by the recipient. - Oh, it's prepaid. - Oh, it's prepaid. - So we were sending back 60 pounds of rocks. - That's great.

- We got to get the giant man, yeah.

But unlike you, we didn't film it, and then take it to a studio and go, hey, what if two kids go on this adventure and upset the recipients to the point that they put it hit out on?

- It's a brilliant idea, but the studio today would have said, yeah, that's a great idea, but we're gonna give it to Seth McFarlane to ruin it. - Oh, no. - So not a big family guy, fan?

- No. - In fact, oh, God, you're gonna get me in trouble. - You said ask me anything, I said you don't care. - But I didn't mean that.

- I don't want you to violate any of your rules. - I don't know, okay, I just say not a family guy fan. In fact, why don't I be positive? I'm a glass half full guy. - I'm positive, I'm not.

- I love South Park. - Sure. - Yeah, I just, I love good stuff, good original things, yeah. - I had a part in family guy. - No, I said it was American dad.

- Who was the president? - I was like, yeah, okay. - I played brick the meter made. - So you weren't even good enough for family guy. - No.

- No, I got bad news. - And I'll talk about a law. - No. - Mike, I wouldn't tell that story. - Look, I'm not proud of it.

My real disappointment is that when Dirty Jobs was killing it, I wanted South Park to do an artificial insemination segment. Or maybe Cartman got artificially inseminated

“and gave birth to something out of his butt, right?”

Which, of course, he would do because the whole AI thing, it kind of saved my career and I thought it would have been fun. But they didn't bite, you know. And you learned that nothing could save your career. - At this point, I mean, clearly.

- Yeah, all right, well, I'm glad to be with you on the way down. (laughing) - Okay, so Mad Magazine, Groucho Marx. - Groucho Marx, we were exposed to the Marx brothers in college. They would do these huge screenings in big lecture halls.

600, 800, you know, stone kids, watching Groucho and her. - We're so old, dude. - For people born, you know, in a prior century, what was it about Groucho? Look, what made him, why do people say,

someone so-and-so, and so-and-so, was the Groucho Marx of? - Oh, yeah, I mean, he was such an original. Again, I'm a fan of anybody original. And I don't like people who aren't original. So, Groucho was, there was nothing like him before.

There was no one like Chaplin before.

“So, these guys, and the same thing with, you know,”

Ben Franklin, Davey Crockett and Will Rogers, they were all such original humorists. And, you know, Ben Franklin was a saddest. - Big time. - Yeah.

- He wrote a book called "Fart Proudly." - I did not know that. - I have it, it's thin, it's an easy read, but he starts by talking about the unintended consequences of not passing wind, and then the joys of doing so.

- I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. - Yeah, "Fart Proudly" was great. You know, Crockett was like a stand up comedian. - Crockett was awesome.

- Well, I has no one made a movie about Davey Crockett. - Well, I tried, but, again, I didn't know what I was doing. And the script wasn't good. And, you know, I even, and Spielberg was a big Crockett fan. - Wait, man.

- Did you want to make a comedy? - I wanted to make a serious movie, which would have had funny things in it because he was crazy. - Crockett was funny.

So, and I'm a big Crockett fan, and it's a great story, but this was 30 years ago. - Yeah. - Wait, wait, wait, wait. You're a big Crockett fan.

- Yeah. - Like you corrupt, like memorabilia. - I collect memorabilia. I had I owned a three original Davey Crockett letters,

“including the last and most important letter he ever wrote,”

which was tomorrow I leave for Texas. And I just donated, not in, well. - No. - It was, yeah, he didn't know, he said, I explained, I plan to explore the Texas well

before I return. And I have other things, I have a lot of other original stuff. And I just donated the whole collection to the Alamo Museum, which is under construction. - In San Antonio.

- Okay, very the lead man. You know what, I almost just should have put that in. She should have, King of the Wild Frontier. - Yeah. - His land was biggest, his land was best

from the grassy plains to the mountain's west. He's ahead of us all, lead in the rest. Follow his legend right into the west. - That's very good. - He remembered that, right?

- I didn't remember it on top of the mountain top in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free killed in the bar when he, - Everybody of our generation remembers that song. You know, I actually showed naked gun 33 and a third

at the White House and for Bill and Hillary. And Bill said, can you give an introduction in front of the whole White House, the cabinet, everybody was there. And in my speech, I said, I didn't direct this one

because I'm writing a script about the life of David Crocket. And I was about to go on and Hillary in the front row says, are you gonna use the song? And I said, no, 'cause I wasn't gonna, this was gonna be a serious movie, I wasn't gonna.

And so I was about to go on and she started singing for an amount of time. And then Bill started singing and the whole room started singing the song. And I ended up leading the whole thing.

- Oh my god. - And we were, yeah, what a scene.

It was amazing, they were very nice.

And I voted for Clinton twice. And they gave me a tour to the White House and it was very cool. - Which one? - Bill or Hillary.

- Both of them, they both took me on a tour of the White House. - Which one's your vote for, twice? - Oh, Bill, can't fight. Did not vote for Hillary, by the time I came to my senses,

I did not vote for anybody like that. - It was born on a mountaintop in Tennessee. Greenest state, the land of free. - Raised in the woods. - So he was a very tree killed in a bar.

- When he was only free, when that was politically correct, to kill bears, were bars. - Yeah, so I mean, Davey cry. So I had to kind of maneuver through the minefields writing that script in our modern world,

because he killed defenses, animals, and Mexicans. - Yeah. - Oh. - You can, I don't know if you'll leave this in. - There's no doubt it's got to be it.

- Don't even get to defeat it, man. I feel like I went too far with black-like my men and masks. - I think Mr. Crash was a bridge too far, but Mr. Crash.

- And you know, my manager, about two or three years ago, put me up for Masterclass. How about Davey does a Masterclass, because he's done all these great movies and everything? And no, they just turned down.

- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I think I, well, they come back around then.

I mean, what would finally seal the deal?

- No, no, I'm doing my own.

“- And that's why it's called Masterclass. - That's true.”

- Masterclass, not Masterclass. - So it's not, yeah, if you...

- No, it's not. - Not literally renamed just for your sake.

- No, no, no, it's my own thing from the get-go. - Not sanctioned at all by Masterclass. - No, not sanctioned, no, no. - In fact, you were turned down. - I was rejected. - It's several times.

- As I were being honest. - By Paramount, you're doing another, my own many times. - Right, right, right, so Paramount. - So I don't know, I mean, it could go... - It doesn't matter.

- It just... - Yeah, it is a wizard. - Yeah, and we're just, this is why I'm doing jet-to-by every one.

“- That's why I'm down to doing this five days.”

- I think, you know, if somebody important here is this five guests, I can get on a reel. - Maybe you can get a job. - Yeah, yeah. - You know who we had in here yesterday?

You'd like this kid, his name's Mark Malkov.

And he wrote, "I think maybe the best book "about Johnny Carson." - Oh, really, yeah, that is, love Johnny Carson. - Johnny Carson, yeah. - Okay, I'm interested in, I would read that.

- Yeah, this is just published in the last, yes. - In the last, I think it was a few months ago, - Two months ago, yeah. - Two months ago, yeah. - But what he did, you would like. - What he uncovered that hasn't been said,

it's not that, it's kind of like, why was airplane so different? And it's because it was somehow an impossible malange of gags that worked from starts finish. - Right.

- This is 400 interviews. This kid gets invited to Mel Brooks's house, gets of a Doc Severance thing. - And everybody talked about, everybody is desperate to tell a Johnny Carson story.

- Oh, everybody. - He's got 400 interviews. - Oh, I'm interested in it. - And he himself is, he's not like I guess in his 40s,

but grew up so enamored of it, really because his dad was enamored of it, and so he had that sort of adjacent thing. - Oh, yeah. - And so he turned his obsession into a podcast called

the Carson podcast and took all those interviews and a bunch more, and turned into this book. - Oh, which leads me to the obvious question. Which Johnny Carson funny, and if so, why? - Oh, he was very funny, I mean,

and mostly because he let other people be funny, he let his guest be funny, and he was a big fan, observer, and aficionado of Jack Benny. And Jack Benny had those takes where he would just not say anything,

and just look, he would fold his arms and look. And Carson wisely knew that that would be great.

“And I think, in Groucho did that too on his show,”

I don't know of Groucho, which came first.

Benny's act or Groucho doing that, but they both did it, and Groucho knew how to use those pauses. - But Carson was also very funny. I mean, the way he told jokes, the way he if a joke bombed,

he could make a joke out of that. - Well, we talked about that moment at length, where Ed Ames threw that tomahawk right into the garage of the cowboy. - And he waited.

- Well, you can see him grabbing Ed. Ed's going to get the tomahawk back, 'cause I'm saying it's like, no, he just stand here, and it's like, but the most sustained laughs in the history of TV.

- The great talents, I think, realizes when silences are the best. And Vince Gully, when Kirk Gibson hit his famous home run, just silenced, he let it, and then during that silence, now I realize, Vin was thinking of that great line.

- Oh, I mean, you were saying, he was in the bathroom. - Yeah, that's good too, but. (laughing) - Yeah, man, but look, it's scary. Silences, scary, you know, let's try it.

See, couldn't do it. - I can't do it. - I can't do it. I can't have to fill up. - You got to do it.

- Yeah. - But, you know, it's like a space in a sentence. You take all the spaces out of the book, it's just. - Yeah, but a lot of that, you know,

“I think Letterman was good at doing that too.”

I think he, you know, he was a follower of Carson. And also, these guys were quick, and Carson used the pause to think of that line, I think he said, Frontier Brister something on the, at AIMS thing. - Yes.

- And, and Vin Scully thought of in a year that has been improbable, the impossible has happened. And I'm sure he, yeah, he was thinking during the pause. - Yeah. - Uh, I do admire the quickness of a guy like Carson.

Even without the pause, he could come, do a comeback. These guys are quick, Letterman very quick, and to do it every night. And to do it night after night, well, just to do those shows,

Sometimes, you know, some nights, you don't feel great or you just wanna have Martin, yeah, and go to sleep. - Yeah.

“- Well, in my old age, now that's what I like to do.”

- Yeah, well, we're getting close. - Yeah. - What time is it, Joe? - It's a time, it's time for Martin. - Are you dating?

- Oh, wait a minute, are you done with me? - Was, was Davey Crocket the Groucho Marks?

- Yes, I think he was, and he was one of the first

celebrities, you know, Ben Franklin was a celebrity. And because he did a lot of things. He was a scientist, you know, he invented lightning or something, or whatever. - Yeah, that's what he was supposed to think they say,

but yeah. - And Crocket was not only the best raccontour and humorist and speech maker in the day when that was entertainment was speeches, people, orators. - Yeah.

- Crocket could be funny, he could entertain. And he was the best athlete of his day. - Meaning he was a marksman, he was a marksman. And he did this tremendous feat of, you know, shooting a lot of, what did he shoot?

- Bears, yeah. - And a little bit. - A little bit.

- Where I thought you were going to say Mexican.

- No, no, I've done that joke. That's another thing I teach in my chorus. Don't do the same joke over again. - Though maybe he hangs herself and then the guy stabs it, but that's the same joke.

- Increasing is what you go A, B, and C. It's another concept. - You have kind of like bad week to quit smoking, quit sniffing glue, yeah, right? - Yeah, right.

- Taking advantage of it. - You build the joke, yeah. - So in that way you can, I can teach, you know, some amount of humor. - Is your hope with the master crash

to genuinely impart real useful information that's actually going to make people thought, like is, or is the whole thing in a,

of it's, let me ask you with all the respect I can muster,

is going through master crash, designed to make me laugh and entertain me or actually are made with useful tools I can apply. - It's definitely arming people with useful tools. It's even helping me because like today,

I do one hour classes on Zoom with people and they can interact with me and ask me questions. They were asking questions and one question was about

“when can you use background humor, when can you not?”

And then about building a gag, how can you tell when something goes too far? So I thought of in scary movie three, do you remember the scene where the Charlie Sheen is talking to the sheriff, this woman, and her hat,

the hat is already ridiculous, they wear. And so what I did was have the hat get bigger and bigger as he's talking to it. And the last gag in that, which we cut, was it was just the hat driving off

in the car, because she was getting into the car with barely fitting in the hat. Anyways, we had to cut that because the audience didn't laugh and I thought, and I just came in this class today, I came up with the fix, I mean, it's 20, 30 years ago,

but I should have background in the hat driving off because then it would have gotten a laugh. If Charlie would have been either doing something, doing some business or talking to somebody, and in the background, you see the hat,

then it would have gotten a laugh. But you made it the center, which is a mistake, and I didn't know, but you know, I saw I'm learning myself from this course. I mean, well, I would refer the gentle viewer back

to a lacking material, I believe.

“That's a background gag, that's a background gag, right?”

What was the magazine he was reading, modern sperm? (laughs) - This is ridiculous, this is it. - Oh my god. - And that now for some reason, I know that's another gym

Abrams joke. - Yeah, I mean, I'm on a lacking material. (laughs) - It's just so wrong, yeah. - But do you understand how it would have been anti humor

to cut to it? - Yes, so yeah, those are things that I can teach. - Absolutely, anti humor to cut that. - You can't cut head doing the spit.

- You don't have the spit tag. - Show me the spit, not to take. - Right, yeah. - To show it passing, and it's, oops, it becomes badly, you can do it.

- No, it made it a background. - Don't worry, that thing's not even on. - Oh, great, this doesn't mean you talk me. - Talk me, talking about your dad. - This or a tell me, I know, I'm sick of it.

(laughs) - I can't get enough of the Davey Crocket thing. - Okay, I know, it really, I'm, like the method. - Well, because the other thing that my publishes is said, do not talk, don't talk, whatever you do.

- Like, are there photos of you dressed as Davey Crocket?

- I have the, I had the Compton cap and,

see if you can find it.

“- I had it at this, there's got to be a photo”

of him dressed as Crocket. - There is, I can send it in, I can send it to you. We used to have these big rendezvouss at my ranch in Ohio. I had a 20 acre ranch, and we had 100 people from all over the country, all dressed in the period.

And dressed as Crocket. - And armed to the teeth with Flintlock rifles, we would target shoot with a target being a picture of Santa Ana, who was leading the Mexican forces at the Alamo.

- That's right. - Well, it was just because he was a Mexican. - Yeah. (laughs) - Who else died there? But it was like Jim Booye died?

- Jim Booye died, and, Jim Booye, Davey Crocket, and the Travis, it was Travis. - Travis. - Travis? - I wonder, like, was there anything or accurate

about that movie? I mean, aside from my whole humor there. - Yeah, well, there were a lot of movies

“done about the Alamo, but they were all bad.”

I mean, all my Alamo buddies revere all these movies. But I don't think they're very good. And I try to do a movie like I said about Davey Crocket, but I finally figured out that it needs to be just what was the second act in my movie.

It should not have the Alamo.

Every scene the Alamo has been a million.

Everybody knows how it turns out. So the congressional period is the interesting thing where Crocket actually stands up for the Indians. Jackson, President Jackson wanted to remove all of them. It was horrible.

Otherwise, pretty good presidency, wrecked by his treatment of the Indians. - Was that the whole trail of tears? - The trail of tears, which happened after 1836, when you were killed.

So, and Crocket stood up in Congress and spoke against it. And he was Jackson had him defeated. Oh yeah, there you go. - This is you.

- Yeah, that's me. - Look at this. - That was impulse, man. - I know what is going on with that. Oh my God, you're dressing.

I was saying, well, that's good. - That was, there was a scene in Naked Gun to an half where we were firing rifles. And so I was, I played Davey Crocket. Dude, you're kind of a geek, man.

- Oh yeah, 100%. - I mean, no, really, when you just said before, you just kind of slipped it in there in a little parent's article, but you know, all my Alamo buddies, yeah, thought, thought, thought.

- Oh yeah, no, we were very proud of it. They were great, and at the time, this was in the, this was deep in the late '80s and '90s. These guys were really conservative. They were from Kentucky, Tennessee, you know,

some from New Jersey. They were all very right-wing and my friend Paul Hutton and I were in Robert Wheel, who's an artist. We were all lefties, and so, but we all got along. I liked these guys, and we wrote our script

with a kind of a left-wing band. It was ridiculous. Anyway, so, but then I realized, I mean, I flipped over, and I actually sent the script to Fest Parker.

- No kidding. - I did, the original David Crocket. - Yeah. - Well, I realized that. - Because after naked gun two and a half,

I got a call from Fest Parker, and he wanted to meet me 'cause he had seen that I put all these scenes in about David Crocket, and I put pictures on the wall of David Crocket. - I was just gonna say, we have photos.

Can you find a photo of David Crocket? Like the actual David Crocket? - I think so. - 'Cause I'm pretty sure he didn't look like Fest Parker. - No, there are artists renderings of him.

There was no photography then, but they must be. - But they have about six different portraits of him. Tell me something else about David Crocket. I don't know. - Well, you know, we said, you know, he's humorous.

You know, he actually stood up for what he thought was morally right, and not a politician.

“He was an entertainer, and that's how he got elected”

because he was really popular. They probably cheated and had him defeated through, you know, you look, how they held it, Biden get elected. - Well, yeah, that's a serious thing.

- That's a serious thing. - But yeah, there was something going on. - There was something going on, yeah. - I remember him almost drowning in some river boat on this app, or something.

Yes, he, you know, cut out, - There's your fart prowess, that's not him.

- Writing's a benchman, Franklin, you never read it

in school. - And Franklin wore a Coon skin cap, yeah. That's Crocket there, that's probably what he looked up. - That's the Osgood portrait. - Osgood was a famous portraitist.

and Crocket mainly was not pleased with any of these portraits

“'cause he said it made him look like a Presbyterian minister.”

And it's like a cross between a school teacher

and a certain, so he finally got a famous portrait artist

named Chapman to paint him in his bookskin outfit and with a hunting dog and a rifle and his outfit. - Yeah, and his element, and that's, and that hung in the Texas State House was a well hung. I'm not gonna treat that joke with any kind of dignity ever.

- That wasn't a joke. - But I was going to say that the Texas State Capitol burned down because they had evidently Karen Bass was the mayor of that. (laughing) - Oh, man, so, okay, let's go.

- Have I said enough, you think? - No, I still don't. - I still don't. - Well, you know, no, it's strange. I flew in a year ago as the fire had really just started

looking up the window of the plane and I'm like, what is this?

It looks like a very unusual fog.

- Okay, yeah.

“- It did look like smoke from my perspective.”

It looked like fog. And then I flew in again, exactly one year later and it's just, I don't know if you wanna go there but it's just a polling. - I have driven up PCH's who Malibu,

and I mean, I don't recognize it. There's just nothing there now. - Yeah, and I have not driven through palicades, but, I mean, it seems to me, and again, you know, I don't know that much about it,

but it seems that this is all this was unnecessary. And I wish we had another governor and another mayor but I don't know who's running for mayor. I wish Caruso would run. - I bet he will.

- But if not, he ran before and lost, so, you know.

But, like you're going for. - Yeah. - But, to suit. - It just didn't need to happen. I mean, in so many, you know, with the technology they have today, they're gonna have remote cameras

everywhere so that if there's smoke anywhere. In fact, I guess there was a, it was burned and the fire department said we need to stay here and someone up the chain of command said, no, you don't need to stay there anymore.

It's out, so, you know. - Yeah, there's nothing funny about it. - No, I wasn't, there's nothing funny, but there's funny about the voters in LA who, and the voters in, well, that's not funny.

There's voters in New York. I don't know what they're thinking. - Yeah, well, you know, I think sometimes, as I say a lot on this thing, things have to go splat before they get better.

- Yeah, and I think that might be true, like maybe with, like for a while there, I thought that was true with the state of comedy. Like this is bad, this isn't funny anymore. - There's nothing on this, and I'm kind of,

I wanna do these movies and bring comedy back. And, you know, you're telling me about how you were laughing in the theater and it's spread to other people, well, that's the importance of having a theatrical experience and not communal,

yeah, especially for comedy. I mean, I can still watch my favorite movies like "The Godfather" and like, in the privacy of that place. - I'm in the living room.

“- Yes, well, something like airplane, you need to.”

- But you got to, seven, oh, honey. - Right, yeah, you know, I mean, that scene was sunny in the toables, hilarious. - Yeah, they look they're still shooting. - Right, was placing saddles important to you?

- No, what? I don't know, I think I enjoyed it, but I think I loved it, they were making jokes and, but it didn't, it wasn't our sense of humor real. I mean, it wasn't our style, it wasn't our style.

- No, it's not your style, but it seems like in the same way like the weigh-ins, it was not your style, but the weigh-ins came after us, but, you know, Mel Brooks came before us in wood, but something about Woody Allen,

I think, was more inspiring to us. It's just, we just thought, I remember Jerry and Jim and I couldn't wait for the next Woody Allen movie to come out. - You know, I couldn't wait for his next books.

Did you ever read side effects? - No, funny, and he wrote another one called without feathers, which is even funnier. I just read, I think I read the recent, he wrote an autobiography, not funny.

No, wasn't funny, but I was interested in it. I think it's mainly, he wanted to pose the,

his story, he's side of the story, you know.

- You know, I read without feathers. - Okay. - Which is taken from an Emily Dickinson poem, which is about his unfunny and dark as you can see. - Okay, I haven't read it.

I really read only non-fiction and history, biographies, anything about World War II. - I could not stop for death. So death kindly stopped for me. - And that was Emily Dickinson, that's Dickinson.

- Yeah, that's nice. And I can't imagine what was just ourselves and immortality. - Right, there was Sylvia Plath, great comedians. - Yeah, very fine.

All right, so aside from Master Crash, which I had, how does one crash the Master? - Just go to MasterCrash.com. It's a free community. You get in and then for other extras,

it'll cost some money, but yeah, you can get into the community and get a lot of it. - I'm gonna eat. - Absolutely check it out. - Check it out.

- I don't know. - You don't really know me, you don't know me at all.

“And you're not gonna remember any of this,”

but the David Crocket thing, man. - Yeah. - Are you watching, I don't know, like a landman or Taylor Sheridan stuff, any of this. I don't watch any of this.

- I don't watch anything. I don't watch anything on TV. And I read books on airplanes, when I'm trapped on an airplane, I have to read a book.

I watch documentaries. I watch documentary on Andrew Jackson, on all this stuff on Patton. I just love history. I love to watch and learn what really happened.

- Well, for that reason, there's this part, there's this part in reality again. - Sorry. - I'm starting to get this up. - There's Master Crash.

- There you go. - There's a crash there. - Oh, very clever, very clever. - Yeah, so. Is it still fun being you?

- Everything is so fun. It gets kept more and more fun. I'm excited to wake up every morning because I have a movie that I'm in pre-production for. I mean, you know, the Star of Malta,

which is a black and white film noir, set in 1949, we're casting it now. We're going out to cast. So that's very exciting. So, you know, we have backing for it.

And you got a role for a marginally famous cable, TV star between gigs? - If how many people watch this or follow you? - It doesn't. - It doesn'ts.

- No, I got 9 million people on the social media.

- You're in. (laughing) - To be clear, you didn't say you're in. - No, you said, see, you're seeing it at one time,

“that's how we made jokes was hearing things the wrong way.”

And so, somebody said, we saw in a serious movie, the line surely you can't be serious. And one of us thought, okay, that's surely it's someone's name. So, that's how stuff. And everything, when somebody, I watch Dave Rubin all the time,

and he'll say, "I'm gonna have more on this after that." I want to say, "Who you calling a moron?" You know, it's just dumb jokes like that. - What's that in the road? - A head.

(laughing) - Well, now, now. - Is that from Monty Python? - It's either that or maybe fire sign theater beyond the fringe or some of those earlier.

- But sometimes, I send stuff into Dave, he'll use stuff. - That's great. - I send it, yeah. - Well, that's funny, Carson used to send stuff into the game. - That's how he got started.

- Well, he was like after he retired. - Oh, yeah, after we retired. But I think a lot of these guys, George Kaufman, used to send things to, there was a guy named F.P. Something, you know, these newspaper columnists.

“I think Woody Allen sent stuff into columnists.”

That's how he got started. And so the guy, I can't remember who the columnists were, but they would use his jokes. And then he came in and he wrote for, you know, comedians.

- Well, you know, the, like the pulp's were a big deal, right, for writers. And like getting into a pulp fiction magazine, it was a starting point for so many guys who went on a John D. McDonald and more Leonard,

you know, those guys, you kind of find your way. - Yeah. - You know, I mean, it's so different now, it seems anybody with a phone, you know, we can, you know, the audience might not be big to your point.

- Yeah, but it's always changing.

With every generation, you know, at one point, it was newspapers. And then it was pulp novels. And then it was radio. And then TV, then move, you know, just all this stuff.

And today it's something else, you know, I don't think that how we started will happen again. We started a small theater and we had video as a part of the theater show.

- We had two video monitors on stage.

- Were you a second city fan?

- Uh, no. - STTV? - No. - No. - I mean, STTV, I think was good,

“but I didn't watch, we didn't watch anything that much.”

- I got a theory for you. I love to get your opinion. Are you okay? - You're late. - You got to go.

- Let's see, no, I'm fine. - Okay. - So, like Lenny Bruce. - Yeah. - All right.

Any comedian coming up once upon a time, I had to bomb, you have to fail. You have to go down in flames, right? That's how you get better you learn. - The Marx brothers did Woody Allen,

they all failed, they all failed. - Yeah. - But they failed in front of dozens of people. - Right. - Today you fail, you can fail in front of dozens of people,

but they're all documenting your failure. - That's true. - They're gonna share it with the world. - Yeah. - So, you know, I wonder what it's done

to the state of comedy, to remove the freedom to fail modestly. - I don't, I can't answer that, you know, I'm not that, I'm not that deep, and I'm not that aware of what's happening today.

All I know, there's always funny people coming up,

but there is a lack of theatrical comedy. I mean, there's some comedy on TV, I don't think I don't really have an interest in any of the such comms that are there. I don't like that kind of humor.

I mean, since sign-filled and curved, there hasn't been anything really acidly cutting and out there and just totally, like Larry David and Seinfeld are, they didn't respond themselves.

And I don't see anybody coming up, that's like that. I mean, in on TV, you have South Park, and as I said, the Joker's, but I don't, and I don't watch anything.

I don't think any of that stuff is funny.

“Well, I think, like if I were actually taking notes”

and capable of remembering much of what you said, I wouldn't want to hang on to the idea that nobody wants to sermon. Nobody wants to lecture. That's our rule, which is technically--

No, it's ex-grinding, same thing. Yeah, same thing, that's recovered. Yeah, yeah. And so, and if you do want to make a point, you better adjoke to pay for it.

You got to earn it. Yeah, you got to earn it. David, you've earned it, man. You're career is so amazing. And really not to make it too much about Carson,

but as we were talking about it, I thought, the reason that kids' book is doing so well is because so many people have so many collective memories of watching that's a night show. And the reason I think you're important

is because you gave it terrific gift to millions and millions of people who really didn't know how much they appreciated a little reverence or a little subversion or some fun rule breaking. And just laughing and thinking about those moments.

That's a gift, man. You gave a lot of people a gift.

And it's always nice to hear.

And I hear it a lot, somebody saying that this is, you know, this shaped their sense of humor, something, it's, I like to hear. Anything where I can feel more important, I love, yeah. Well, sure.

“You should think about putting together some kind of class.”

I don't think so. No, that's not going to say, it's a dumb idea. Yeah, you're probably right, yeah. But what about a crash? Oh, wait a minute.

You might have something there, guys. Thanks again. Really? It should. Was, was a lot of fun doing this. I'll get you that martini, no. Oh, a lot of, yeah, oh, and I just have to get home by six.

And then, and then having a guest over, yes, anybody I know? No, nobody famous. That fine bird guy you were talking about from New York? Who was this name? Oh, Friedman, Friedman, Lewis.

You tell Lewis said, I will tell Lewis, you said, hello. And if we get about that 20-- Maybe he'll listen to this. Well, turn him on to this, because I didn't be heard either. I mentioned him, didn't I?

You came in and you started telling me a story about this lefty in New York. Yeah, I don't think so. You know what we did? I have to tell you this, we grew up in the first suburb

north of Milwaukee, all white high school in the 60s. And there was only one black kid, and he was the exchange student from Uganda. Nobody saw him for 50 years. We had a 50-year classroom union.

Lewis and I hired an actor named Mario somebody. And we dressed him in an African Dishiki. And we had him come to the reunion as his name was Mojabi Mapaka.

And he, of course, the kid had a--

“I remember he had a wonderful sense of humor.”

He thought it was funny. We gave him a speech to read. It was a huge ice. I have a-- I have a video of the speech. That was great.

Now I understand why practical jokers is on your list. Yeah, no, it's practical. It's what other pranks. I'm sorry, I can't let you go yet. Like that, anybody capable of hiring somebody

to come into impersonate a black-fart exchange student decades after the fact? Yeah, our class still doesn't know that it was a friday do now. They won't listen to this. Right, right, right. Oh, it should be great.

You know, I always wanted to cast him in a movie,

and then have him be in a talk show and tell about the gang. That's such a great question. Anyway, you know, he had his picture. Everybody wanted their picture to take him with him. And a couple of these women sent the picture to his--

the hoax, the AFF has hoaxed. And he said, that's not Mojabi. Mojabi was a foot taller. And you know, that's not him at all.

“And so then, everybody's, you know, emailing.”

There's 200 kids in the class. It all these panicked emails. They-- it's an African prince. He was a swimmer. And then I had an article mocked up article

from some newspaper in Illinois saying, the guy had been apprehended. And it was accused of doing this scam.

And in one recent Milwaukee reunion, he was used

to scamming elderly women. And he romance somebody, he slept with her, and scammed her out of $5,000. And so that became a whole thing. Everybody's wondering who it was.

But the big complaint was, one of our classmates, this lady says, we are not elderly. So-- But see, this actually-- I'm so glad we kept talking, because that really lands the plane.

Now I understand why taking the gag to the next level, to the next level, is-- Yeah, we kept doing it, kept going, yeah. So good. Yeah.

Because I'm bored, you know, and I need to do something. I'm looking, I'm doing this show. I said, at home, waiting for my movie to start. I got one for you. We took in college.

We took a picture of a guy. His name was Chuddy. Everybody called him Chuddy. Yeah, there's this odd thing. And he had a big round face.

He's a nice enough kid. But he's here if he's just kind of a noxious. Anyway, somebody took a picture of his face and put it on thousands of little decals that had adhesive on them.

Yeah. And just handed him out to people who don't tell Chuddy, but just take him and put him in the elevator, put him on the headphones, just put him all over town. And I don't think anybody ever told him.

But I think you may have lost his mind. Yeah, seeing these pictures. Didn't know where to take himself out of context, no explanation. Yeah, but to really commit to that bit and go with it. Yeah, that's also a big thing.

And we also loved having the bomb go off when you're not there.

“And so that's what Jim Abrams used to do.”

In the book, we tell a story where Jim and Jerry and I were at our friend Kenny Hurwitz's house for the afternoon. And Jim takes Jerry and me aside and said, I have to leave now because I have something, but Kenny's going to have you guys over for dinner.

And so Jim leaves. And Jerry and I are waiting around. And Jim finally said, you know, guys, I have to leave. I have a day to, you know, Jim totally made it up. And Jerry and I, you know, we weren't invited for dinner.

So it's just, it's a, it was a thing. And Jim was nowhere near, it was just, we all. So he didn't even get to appreciate the joke that he told. No, no, that's just for some years. Yeah, wow, man, that's a long game.

Jim was just pure comedy, pure humor.

He never even wanted to get into the business.

He was an insurance adjuster and an investigator, private investigator for a law firm in Milwaukee. And he had a company car. It was a Ford L8 LTD. He was fine.

Jerry and I dragged him into this Kentucky fried theater. And it was a big deal for him to leave Milwaukee, go to LA with us. And, you know, so that was Jim. Now is, okay, Zucker, like, Hooker. Zucker, yeah, you got that right.

(laughter) Mike, you seem to be right like the clock twice a day. Twice a day, man. Twice a day. Thank you again.

We'll get you home by six. Thank you. With the marketing. Yeah, okay, thanks for the parking space, too. (laughter)

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