The Comedy Couch - Alonzo Bodden Interview

GUY MACPHERSON: Is it Bodd-en. Or is it Bode-in?
ALONZO BODDEN: Bode-in.

GM: But there are two D's!
AB: I know. Don't ask me to explain, but it is
Bode-in.

GM: Okay. Alonzo Bode-in. The last comic standing.
Literally the last comic standing. Is that correct?
AB: Thank you for knowing that. You don't know how
many times I get, "Whoa, you shoulda won!" Because no
one saw the end of season three. They didn't televise
it. So people don't know. But I did win. And
unfortunately because of networks and lawyers and so
on, the show probably won't be coming back so I will
be down in history as the last comic standing.

GM: Was it bittersweet? I mean, obviously at the time
you must have been elated. And then to find out that
the network cancels it! The very last episode!
AB: Yeah. And to tell you the truth, it was funny.
Because if you can imagine, you're part of this show
and it's well rated. You've got fans. You've got the
whole thing. You go through all the eliminations,
right? The pressure every Tuesday - am I gonna make
it? Am I gonna make it? You do the final one. America
votes. And they didn't even tell us the results. They
just called us the next morning and said, "Oh, we
cancelled the show." So you're only reaction is to
laugh. You can't get mad. You're like, "You gotta be
kidding?!" And then the second question is, "Well, did
I win?" And they say, "Well, we can't tell you because
we might do another episode." (laughs)

GM: So you won. I assume the winner gets some sort of
prize.
AB: I got the huge prize. This is another thing that's
funny. The prize on the previous series had been
$50,000. When I won it, they had increased the prize
money to $250,000.

GM: Oh, because it was Season One versus Season Two.
AB: Right. So I can't complain too loudly when they
gave me 250 grand.

GM: That's not bad. How does that affect you
psychologically getting that much money?
AB: Well, it's almost like it's not real. Because you
get this cheque, right? And then the first thing you
do is you pay your taxes and you pay your commissions
to your agents and this and that, and you're like,
"Hey, wait a minute. I thought I won $250,000?! What's
this $30 cheque?" But it's security. In our business,
with the ups and downs, and this and that, when you
get a lump sum of money like that, it provides some
security. I bought a house. I mean, not cash, but it
was a great down payment on a house, which makes it an
investment. And it was sweet. Again, I can't complain.
I mean, yeah, I went out and bought a few toys. I
bought a motorcycle, a giant screen TV, and stuff like
that. But it does move you up a notch on the food
chain.

GM: Does it make you lazy?
AB: Not at all.

GM: Can you still relate to the common man?
AB: Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm far from rich. But you know
what it does? It actually, in some ways, puts more
pressure on because now when I go to a club they know
who I am and they have some expectations. So they're
not just coming to Joe's Chuckle Hut and whoever's on
is whoever's on. They're like, "We bought tickets to
see Alonzo Bodden and he better be funny." So in some
ways it makes you work harder. But for me personally I
love it so much, and I love writing and doing new
material, the thing that I had to learn - and John
Heffron and I were talking about it - is that people
will want to do jokes you did on the TV show, so you
have to find the balance of how much new stuff I want
to do but also give the fans what they want to hear.
Fans'll tell their friends, "He does this great bit
about so-and-so," and then when you go up, if you
don't do it, "Hey, how come you didn't do that bit?"
So you learn about it. But the money didn't bring any
pressure; the money's a nice side benefit of doing
what I love.

GM: I saw you on the gala last night. I thought most
of it was new material, wasn't it?
AB: Yeah. Since the show, starting with Season Three,
I personally kinda decided I'm going to retire all the
material I did up until Season Two and try to do new
stuff. Now, that's not 100 percent true; I still do
some of the older stuff. But what I did on the gala is
probably everything I've written in the past year.
When major events come... I mean, we had the
presidential election, which I am not happy at all
about the result, but you know. That was a whole new
topic. And Arnold Schwarzenegger being our governor,
that's an embarrassing topic but you gotta talk about
it. So new material always comes up.

GM: At the end of Season Two, you didn't win. John
Heffron won. Does everyone else just get nothing?
Thanks for coming out?
AB: Yeah. Yeah, basically. I mean, we make money
because you're in the union and you get paid for being
on television.

GM: And name recognition, too.
AB: Yeah, that's the big payoff. See, it's not that
lump-sum cheque; it's the fact that now you've moved
up in the comedy game where our name is worth more
money. So you get paid more to do the clubs that you
had been doing. Also, the doors open to a lot of clubs
and a lot of gigs that we hadn't done before. And I
say 'we' because it's not just me; that's happened for
all of us. I mean, Gary Gulman,Tammy Pescatelli and
Corey Holcomb, all of us are all travelling at a
different level now.

GM: In Season Two, why did you align yourself with the
weasels?
AB: I didn't. That was the funny thing. I'm gonna tell
you how that worked. It's television. Right? And they
want controversy. They want fighting. Ant knew how to
work it. This is exactly what happened: After we were
approved to go into the house, we had like three days
to go home and pack or whatever. A bunch of us went to
lunch together and it was basically like, "What do we
expect?" This or that. It wasn't planning or plotting.
I mean, when they tell you you're going to live in
this place for thirty days and you can't have any
outside contact, so we talked about it. So what Ant
did was he made that 'The Alliance'. And the reason he
said it was The Alliance is because he knew every time
he said that, he'd get more airtime on the show. I'll
tell you my only strategy and who I got it from: from
Jay Mohr. He used to tell us this every week. He used
to say pick someone you know you can beat. That's who
you pick. And I personally would never tell people who
I was going to pick. The only one time I told them who
I was going to pick was Ant and Gary had kind of a
feud going and they wanted... It was like a challenge
to go up against each other. And we didn't want to
allow Ant to back out so we all figured out who to
pick to make sure Ant and Gary went against each
other.

GM: And what's Ant doing now?
AB: Ant's doing exactly what he wanted to do. He hosts
a show called Celebrity Fit Club on a cable network
called VH1 where, I don't know what you call C-level,
ex-celebrity, whatever, they literally have a weight
loss contest between two teams. And he does a lot of
those celebrity gossip shows and stuff like that. So
I'm not mad at Ant because he did exactly what he
wanted to do.

GM: Is there anyone from the show you wouldn't talk to
now?
AB: No. No, I think I was friendly with everyone on
the show. The only person I didn't really get to know
was Bonnie McFarlane.

GM: She left early.
AB: Yeah. It wasn't any dislike or anything it's just
that she was the first one eliminated so we didn't get
a lot of time to sit around. My thing was, I got to
know Kathleen Madigan, who I only knew by name and is
fantastic. Same with Corey Holcomb. Gary and I had
already been friends. Tammy and I were friends but we
got to know each other much better. Jay London - made
friends with him. Fantastic guy. So I really didn't
have any negative experience. The only fights I got
into were with the producers.

GM: Oh yeah? What for?
AB: The producers would change the show. Their job is
to produce a TV show. So if they had an idea that they
thought this is going to make the show better, they
would kind of change the rules or try to manipulate
things. And I always felt that that was kind of a
disrespect for us comics. So I would get into
arguments with them about doing things like that.

GM: When you were a young up-and-coming comic, did you
ever enter competitions?
AB: I did. I actually have a lot of experience in
competitions because they were the way to get on TV.
So it started with me, I did a show called The Next
Big Star on a little cable network called PAX. It was
hosted by Ed McMahon and it was modeled after Star
Search. I won that. I won a car. Which is when I
learned how much money it cost to win a car. Anyone
listening to this, if you want to win a car you need
financing to win a car. It costs thousands of dollars.

GM: Explain.
AB: You have to pay sales tax on the car. Then you
have to pay registration on the car. And then you have
to pay income tax on the cost of the car. If the car
is, say, $30,000, you have to pay income tax on the
$30,000 income.

GM: So did you keep the car?
AB: No. No, what I did was I sold the car to the
dealer. Basically they gave it to me, I paid the
registration to own it, I sold it right back to the
dealer, bought a cheaper car, and took the difference
in cash.

GM: Excellent. You know, if you win something in
Canada - of course, we don't have these big
competitions - but you don't have to pay income taxes
on winnings. So if you win the lottery, for instance,
you don't have to pay income taxes on that.
AB: I probably should move to Canada. If you guys
could warm up the winter a little, it sounds good.

GM: You've played Vancouver and Victoria before,
haven't you?
AB: I love Vancouver. I'm not sucking up. I really do
love Canada. Canadians are so great because you guys
have a great sense of humour and you know all of our
references. If a Canadian comic came to the States and
made a joke about Canada, we'd be like, "Where? I
heard of it."

GM: Now that's an exaggeration surely.
AB: It's an exaggeration, but I'll give you an
example: Americans don't know about provinces. We
think Canada is just a series of cities.

GM: Or states, maybe?
AB: No, we don't think of it as states. We know you
don't have states so we just think there are cities in
the wilderness.

GM: But you now know all about Canada. You've been
here lots.
AB: I know a lot more about Canada than the typical
American. I wouldn't say I know all about it. But
yeah, I've learned quite a bit.

GM: How many times have you been here to Montréal at
the Just For Laughs festival?
AB: This is my fourth festival. They have been
fantastic to me. A whole range of shows and a couple
of tours. They treat me great.

GM: Is it still a relevant comedy festival in the
industry?
AB: Absolutely. Because although they don't make the
same deals that they used to - I mean, they used to
make development deals and write big cheques up here.
They don't do that as much, but it's still the
opportunity for a whole lot of people to see you at
one time in a great situation in a full venue, a full
room or whatever, as opposed to you trying to get a
meeting with them and then coming in and trying to be
funny in a conference room for eight network
executives that would rather not laugh.

GM: And it's a great schmooze-fest, too, isn't it? And
hang with other headliners.
AB: That's the best part for me. You get to hang with
other comics. You get to watch other comics because we
don't see each other. We see each other's head shot in
a city as we're passing through: "Hey, I know that
guy. Yeah, I know that guy." And once in a while we
cross paths in L.A. but this is the week we get to
just hang out. We get to watch each other. I go to
shows and Jeremy Hotz, one of my favourite comics and
a good friend, I get to see Jeremy. I get to see
Harland [Williams]. So many people that I just get to
go see and be a fan of theirs.

GM: Do you still, at this level, learn from other
comics?
AB: Absolutely. Absolutely. I've learned more at this
festival watching, for example, Dom Irrera. Dom's
brilliant. And I still learn if I watch Dom Irrera.
You definitely learn a lot. And what I've been trying
to learn now is the TV side of the business. How you
develop and try to get a TV show done. I think I'm
pretty good at the standup part and I love the standup
part, so I think my next level is to learn the TV
side.

GM: Reality based or acting?
AB: Both. I've done some acting. I can stretch as an
actor. I've played a bouncer in numerous movies. But
it's how to come up with an idea and then turn that
idea into a workable TV show. That's what I want to
learn. The reality based stuff... The hard thing is
what are they looking for? What are they going to buy?
I think we went through the phase of crazy reality
shows where they were like, "Okay, we're going to just
put people in ridiculous situations." And now that's
gone, I think that talent-based reality shows are the
ones people like the most. Like our show or American
Idol or The Contender. People seem to like it when
you're living together for a reason, because you all
have a talent, you're pursuing a dream. So maybe that
will be something I'll come up with. I don't know. But
it's kinda hard to figure out what people want to
watch.

GM: You came to standup relatively late, didn't you?
AB: I did. I didn't start doing it until I was thirty.

GM: And you had a real career before that?
AB: I used to be an airplane mechanic. And then they
started drug testing. And since then I've gone with
the funny.

GM: So you were an airplane mechanic on drugs? That
doesn't help someone like me who's a fearful flyer.
AB: No, I'm a comic. I throw in drugs because it's
funny.

GM: (laughs) Oh, okay. That's good. Airplane mechanic.
That's a very serious profession. Do you miss it?
AB: I don't miss it. It was fun while I did it and I
got to do some great jobs in it. But once I left it, I
never looked back. Because I love comedy. This is
totally such a passion for me that I couldn't imagine
doing anything else.