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PAUL PROVENZA - January 28, 2006
GUY MACPHERSON: You care a lot about standup as an art
form, don't you?
PAUL PROVENZA: Yes.
GM: Do you think it's represented fairly in the media
among the general public?
PP: Uh, no, actually. It's thought of more generally
as a sort of disposable pop-culture kind of white
noise out there on the horizon. It's just sort of
there. Nobody really thinks about it very much as an
art form. Even people who enjoy it and go out of their
way to see it and support it and don't think of it
negatively, I think, oft-times don't realize that it
is an art form; that it's not just entertainment, it's
not just pop-culture. Interestingly we can go back to
early recorded comedy from the turn of the century,
people like Will Rogers or even Mark Twain, a lot of
the work that they did, if you just heard it out of
the blue you would think it was written yesterday.
GM: That can't be said about all of comedy, though.
PP: No. It's very culture specific in many, many ways.
But my point is that when it is seen as an art form
you can begin to see how it relates to different
cultures over time. I mean, certainly when you get
into the political arena and social commentary.
GM: Clearly not all comics are artists and not all
comedy is art. How do you deal with the hacks? I guess
there's bad art in anything, though, right?
PP: For every Picasso there was somebody who thought
they were doing their own thing and breaking ground
and what-have-you and nobody was interested. That's
true in anything. Artists emerge from people who are
doing work. There are musicians out there... There are
Top 40 albums that are far from art but they're
astonishing craft. The same is certainly true in film,
in theatre, and pretty much anything you can think of.
GM: Yup, there's good and bad in everything.
PP: Exactly.
GM: What's the purpose of comedy, if there is one?
PP: That's the eternal question; the existential
aspect of comedy. But for me and for a lot of my
colleagues and for a lot of people who really are
working as artists in comedy, it's not so much about
pleasing an audience; it's about expressing something
real and true and honest. I often talk about Bob Dylan
as an example. You know, Bob Dylan doesn't care what
the audience thinks of what he does; he's going to do
it no matter what. And ultimately, that's why people
find him so great and why he's had such longevity and
why he's regarded outside the pantheon of normal
everyday pop music because his stuff is ambiguous and
mysterious and compelling and provocative and it
resonates. And comedy, because it's literal, there's
no layer between the ideas of comedy... I won't say
there is no layer, because there are people who are
working with many, many layers, but the general
notion, what we know is standup comedy, there's no
layer between the verbal and the idea; it's right
there. In music, there's that other layer of mystery
going through this particular form. But in standup
it's a little bit more linear because of its literal
nature so people take it at face value. Do you know
what I'm saying? It makes it a little more
challenging. It makes it a little bit harder to add
layers to deal with subject matter that people may
have difficulty with or what-have-you because it is so
literal.
GM: I read an interview recently with Albert Brooks.
He was talking about something you just said about not
really caring about what the audience does. Basically,
if you think it's funny, you should do it.
PP: Yeah. Well, George Carlin put it perfectly. He
says, "The way I look at an audience is this: I'm here
for me, you're here for me, and no one's here for
you." And the risk, of course, in that is the
commercial aspects. What if nobody likes what you are
doing and nobody's interested in what you have to say?
That's where the artists really put it on the line.
That's really what it is. Comedians who tailor their
material to what an audience will like, that's a
different beast than somebody who's got something to
say and they're expressing themselves and they're
going to stay true to that regardless of what you
think.
GM: Don't go out looking for an audience; have an
audience find you.
PP: Yeah, that's the thing. There's a lot of work out
there. Just like in music. There are people who get
hired to write music to sell laundry detergent and
stuff like that, and they'll do that and they'll make
that money. But then they go off and they write the
music that they really want to write. It's the same
thing in comedy. It's the same thing in any art form.
There are great painters who will turn around and
paint houses because they need the money, or whatever.
But the work that they do is about what they want to
express and what they want to say.
GM: In comedy, everybody seems to have a goal in mind
that's not standup comedy, whether it's writing for a
crappy sitcom or acting.
PP: That's a pretty general statement that everybody
seems to have a goal. That's not true. The marketplace
is what it is. Somebody like Jerry Seinfeld - here's a
good example that's really counter to what you're
saying. because Jerry, his whole career is ironic
because from moment one he's always said "I'm not
interested in sitcoms, I'm not interested in making
movies; I'm interested in doing standup the best I can
do. That's what I want to do. I'm a comedian, that's
my language, that's what I've always wanted to do,
it's the thing I know I can do, it's the thing I do."
And the fact that he was the kind of comedian who
without compromising who he is and what his vision is,
having to speak to a mass audience, he ended up
getting a TV series and ended up doing it and ended up
making an impact. But he never walked away from the
fact that he was a comedian. In fact, I spoke to him
shortly after his series ended and he moved back to
New York. I said, "So the series is over and you're
back to New York, what's it like?" And he goes, "I
feel like I just woke up from a dream and I can get
back to doing what I do."
GM: But isn't he kind of the exception?
PP: There exists, absolutely, comics who would love
nothing more than a sitcom to get rich and famous and
be popular to sell out their dates but those people
generally fade away. They don't really have a voice in
comedy that's speaking from [their] heart, that
generally doesn't last very long. A guy like Ray
Romano is another one of those great examples. Ray
Romano is doing exactly what he does. He did a sitcom
that was very much born of who he is and what he does
and it worked and he's able to live in both worlds
without compromise. Roseanne had to struggle to do
that. And that's why she got the reputation of being
such a big bitch because when she was doing the
sitcom, her vision of who she was and what she wanted
to express through comedy, whether it be standup or
the opportunity to do it in a sitcom form, was being
compromised. And she said, "I'm not going to take
this." And everybody said she that was a bitch but you
know what? The show got better and better. But there
are people out there, yes, who would love to have a
sitcom just like there are people out there making
music who all they want is the next hit record.
GM: You've been at this a long time. When did you
start? At 16?
PP: Yeah, 17.
GM: Where did you perform at that age?
PP: At the New York Improv. I used to watch comedians
on television and my favourites in the early and
mid-'70s when I was a teenager were George Carlin,
Robert Klein, and Richard Pryor and whenever they were
on talk shows, the host always said, "Where did you
start out?" and they all said the Improv. So one day I
just went to the phone book and I found the Improv.
And I went down there and I said, "How do you become a
comedian?" They said you take a number on Sunday, you
wait on line, and you get six minutes of time to be a
comedian. It was astonishing. I grew up in the Bronx,
my father was a chemist, my mother was a school
teacher. I got to the Improv and it was like, oh, the
other side of that door is show business. (laughs)
It's astonishing!
GM: How did you do as a 17-year-old?
PP: Um, appropriately. I was like a deer in the
headlights, but I felt at home in this weird way. I
felt like this was one of the most difficult things
I've ever done, this is one of the most embarrassing
things I've ever done, this is one of the hugest
failures I've ever done my first time on stage, but I
said I'm coming back.
GM: And your professional parents were pleased about
this?
PP: Well, my dad actually died shortly before I went
into this world, and that's no coincidence. But my mom
was very supportive, and still is to this day. And my
whole family was excited about it. It was something
that was odd for them, but they're really lovely
people and I was always raised with the idea that you
can do whatever you want to do if you set your mind to
it. I was very fortunate that I never had any of those
obstacles or family pressure or anything.
GM: Did Jay Leno give you your first shot?
PP: Jay was the emcee the night that I was
auditioning. At that time, you took a number and it
was at random and that was your spot in the line-up.
It was about three o'clock in the morning and I still
hadn't gone up, and I just went up to Leno, the emcee
- he wasn't "Jay Leno" at the time; he was just the
emcee, although he was phenomenal - and I said, "Mr.
Leno, it's not my number for a few more, but I'm
wondering if there's any way that I can get on earlier
because I have to be at school in four-and-a-half
hours. And he laughed and he said, "Yeah, kid, I'll
see what I can do." And he brought me up next, which
was way cool. And one of my great milestones in my
career was being on the Tonight Show with Jay and
telling that story.
GM: Did he remember?
PP: He didn't remember that specific story. But by the
time I had graduated college and I moved to Los
Angeles, Jay and I would see each other every night at
the Improv or Comedy Store.
GM: People forget how good he was.
PP: He was great. He was one of the best standup
comics ever to stand on a nightclub stage. But you
know, he's working in a different format and he's
dealing with corporate issues and it's a whole
different ballgame. And that's one of the things that
I never wanted to have happen to me where I was in the
position where I had to make that kind of decision.
Same thing happened to Dave Chappelle. He went his
whole career basically not having anybody tell him
what to do and doing all the things that he loved to
do. And then all of a sudden he's in a position where
if he made a mistake, what used to just be, "Okay, so
that show didn't go well at the Comedy Cellar to 70
people on a Tuesday night" all of a sudden became
like, "Wow, stock prices are being affected." And he
just said, "You know what? This is not what I thought
it would be or could be and I'm just going to go back
to what I really love doing and find a different way
to do this." That's an interesting kind of thing. It's
a whole different ballgame. Jay's at a different point
in his life. He's got a wife. And he's always wanted
to do something like that. To host The Tonight Show
for a comedian of Jay's generation is like the Holy
Grail. So he makes whatever compromises he needs to
make in order to do that and make it work for him.
GM: You also performed on Carson, didn't you?
PP: Yes. My first shot was in 1983 with Johnny.
GM: That was a completely different show at that time
because that was the only show. So that must have been
huge for you.
PP: Huge, absolutely huge. I mean, since I was twelve
years old thinking about doing standup. To be a
standup comedian on The Tonight Show was like, wow.
And it's funny because I got to that point and I was
like, "Wow, that happened way sooner than I expected."
I think I was 23. I was like, "That happened real
soon. Now what?"
GM: What came of that first appearance?
PP: Well, my first appearance changed my life. What
happened to me was the stories that you've heard about
what used to happen on The Tonight Show. The day
before my Tonight Show I had some work on the books,
and then the day after my life was completely
different. It was a particularly notable first
appearance through no fault [credit?] of my own. The
talent coordinator at the time, the guy who helps
choose material and put a set together... I was doing
a piece at the time that he knew Johnny would relate
to, because it talked about somebody who was in the
news at that time and that person was a good friend of
Johnny's recent ex-wife. And [Johnny] hated that
person on a personal level. So the talent coordinator
stacked the deck in my favour with Johnny. He knew
that Johnny would go nuts over this piece of material.
It was funny and the audiences always dug it, but he
knew that Johnny in particular would go nuts. So when
I did the set, the audience was laughing as hard at
Johnny as they were at me because Johnny was banging
the table, smacking the wall behind him and by the end
of my set, he had spun out of his chair and he was on
his knees banging the floor. That really bumped things
way up. So it was a rather incredible first shot. He
told me afterwards he would have called me over to the
couch, which, of course, is like the Oscar for a
first-time appearance on the show, but that Art
Pepper, who was an old friend of his, was scheduled to
be on the show and he couldn't come back and do it
another night because he had to get back to a gig in
New Orleans. So he couldn't call me over to the couch.
So he did the next best thing, which was come over and
shake my hand on camera. It was just astonishing. It
was a dream come true.
GM: How many times did you do the show?
PP: I did it with Johnny about five or six times and
did it with Jay, I don't know, about eight or ten
times.
GM: And who was that person you were talking about?
PP: It was Gloria Vanderbilt. At the time she had
that jeans empire. We're taking you back to the early
'80s, my friend. It was so odd. I never thought that
there would be any connection like that. But the
segment producer knew it because Johnny used to talk
all the time about his ex-wife and her friends. So he
heard me do that bit and he just knew Johnny would go
crazy.
GM: But he didn't tell you about it.
PP: No, he didn't tell me about it. He told me
afterwards. He said, "That's why I wanted you to close
with that."
GM: How is comedy different in a club compared with in
front of 80,000 people in a stadium, which you've
played?
PP: It's actually way more fun [in a club]. I mean,
80,000 people is just ridiculous. It was an incredible
experience. Luckily, it was only a once-in-a-lifetime
experience. That's Bruce Springsteen stuff, that's not
comedian stuff. Comedians don't play stadiums like
that. It was an odd one-off thing that happens at the
University of Florida. It's become a thing they do.
It's part of their homecoming program. They've always
had comedians. When the gig came up I was like, "This
can't work!" And they were like, "They've been doing
it for like 15 years." It's so weird because you're
performing and you're on the big screens and you do a
joke and you can actually track it as it hits the
audience from the time lag. It's so far back, the
timing gets all screwed up. Oh, it was wild. And I was
doing the gig with Jeff Foxworthy before Jeff
Foxworthy was a household name. He was still moving
very quickly in his career and had quite the
following, but he wasn't a household name. And the two
of us were like, "What are we doing?" And we flipped a
coin and I went up first. And I came off and I was
like, "It's gonna be okay, man. It was really fun! But
just watch out for this, watch out for that. But it's
really fun. You'll have a good time." And he's
standing by the stairs to the stage vomiting.
(laughs) We were both so incredibly nervous.
GM: What can we expect from your club show?
PP: The Aristocrats is doing some interesting things
for me because people who are now coming based on
their interest in The Aristocrats are sort of already
primed for the fact that I'm going to say whatever I
feel like saying. And that's an interesting phenomenon
because I've not really had that. Generally I've been
having to deal with people getting to know me first a
little bit and then dealing with that. But now I
generally feel a little bit more supported. I do not
play to the status quo at all. I confront everything.
When I was growing up, my parents used to tell me an
adage. In social settings there are three things you
never talk about: death, religion and politics. And
I'll talk about all of them.
GM: Do people expect you to tell the joke?
PP: That's happened a few times and on rare occasions
I will do it just for the hell of it because I'm in
the mood. But I don't like to. I like to keep it in
its own little special box.
GM: Did you know Bob Saget's going to be in town the
same night you are?
PP: No! I didn't know that!
GM: He's out promoting your movie a lot. He was one of
the hits of the movie, wasn't he?
PP: Yes. And he's been incredible. He's just a
beautiful guy. We've been friends for such a long
time. When Penn Jillette and I came up with this idea,
there were a handful of people that we said... Because
when we originally conceived it, we didn't know it
would be a movie. We thought it was possible, but
that's not what we set about to do. We set about just
to engage in this experiment and then see what we got.
And we said, well, if this just ends up being a
handful of people and this sort of exercise and we
have just a tape of some funny people doing this over
and over again, we'll only do it if Saget does it, if
Gilbert [Gottfried] does it, if a couple of other
people [do it]. They were really the reason that we
were like... Well, we know that if this ends up just
being some short little exercise with a handful of
people, it's gotta be Saget and Gilbert and a couple
others. So he was really a big part of our motivation
in doing this. And after he did it and it came out, he
was incredibly gracious. He was like, "I didn't think
you guys could do this. I didn't think it was
possible. How do you do it? How do you make a movie
out of one joke? And the fact that it's really good
and the fact that it's getting all this attention and
people are digging it, it's just beyond my wildest
dreams." And I get a phone call from his manager at
the time who said, "I just want to tell you that we've
been trying to change Bob's image for like 15 years
now and haven't been able to make a dent. And you guys
did it over night." So he's having the time of his
life. He can be loose. He doesn't have to worry about
anything. He doesn't have to worry about what people
are thinking of him, he doesn't have to worry about
playing up to that image, or fighting that image. He
can do whatever he wants now and he's having a blast.
And he's incredibly generous to us with helping us
promote the movie and talking about it. And also very
genuine, too. He really thinks it's a terrific little
movie and he's really proud to be a part of it. I've
known Saget since the '70s. When I was in college, I
was at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia
and he was at Temple in Philadelphia. And there were
no comedy clubs in Philly at the time. So I and a
couple of people that I had met there who were
interested in comedy started doing our own shows. The
University of Pennsylvania has a student body of
30,000. So we would go to these different dorms. They
were like different markets. So we would go to these
different dorms and say, "Hey, you've got this little
community centre here. Can we do a show here on
Saturday night? We'll put up posters." "Yeah, sure."
And we'd do that. We'd do these shows. And then we
started to go these little restaurants right off
campus and do the same kind of thing, take over their
banquet room for a night and just do a little show.
And one day this guy who went to the University of
Pennsylvania, his name was Sam Domski, he came up to
me - I met him through a bunch of mutual friends - and
he was like, "You know, I'm in a comedy team. And we'd
like to do some of this, too." So I said, "Well,
great." And he goes, "My partner is at Temple
University and we'll come do a show." And it was Bob
Saget. So we go way back. So to me, and anybody who
knows Bob, the fact that he is dirty in The
Aristocrats and that people are talking about how
outrageous he is in The Aristocrats, is not the joke.
The joke was that people think he's this milquetoast,
Full House, America's Funniest Home Videos guy. That's
the funny thing to us.
GM: I was a big fan of his before those shows but only
from TV, so I never saw the filthy side of him. But
when he got on those series, people just hated him.
And I was going, "What are you talking about? He's
hilarious!"
PP: He is hilarious. And he'll talk about this himself
if you get a chance to talk to him, he'll tell you
himself that he was an actor hired to do roles. And he
did them. And the fact that those things were
successful is not something that he feels he should be
bothered by.
GM: I guess now your movie has helped so that when he
goes to perform standup, people aren't going to go,
"Oh my God! He's not the father on Full House!"
PP: Yeah, he's been really great about it. Every once
in a while I'll just get a text message from him out
of the blue that just says, "Hey, thank you."
Something happened. Whatever. And I write back and I
go, "Oh, did you get laid off The Aristocrats?"
GM: What is Everyone Poops?
PP: Everyone Poops is an art film I'm working on. You
know the children's book?
GM: Yeah, I've heard of it.
PP: It's the largest selling children's book in the
history of publishing.
GM: But it's not going to be a children's movie, is
it?
PP: Uh, well, I don't know. But you know I've got this
little thing in my head right now. Because with The
Aristocrats, everybody said it was impossible and it
couldn't be done. And we had so much fun proving them
wrong that now I can only do that kind of thing. And
so when people say, "How can you possibly make a movie
out of this book?" I love to say I have no idea, but
we did The Aristocrats and now I feel like I'm going
to go and see if I can do this and maybe get the
children's market involved in my particular
scatological fetish. (laughs) No, it really is one of
those things where I don't know what it's going to be.
It's a huge, huge challenge and I think it'll be fun.
I've already shot some footage. Notice I avoided the
phrase 'got footage in the can'. I've already shot
some footage and it looks like it may be something
very, very interesting, although I'm not quite sure
what it is.
GM: Any idea of a date, or is it going to be like The
Aristocrats where you just finish it when you finish
it?
PP: Yeah, I think so because I don't know what the
commercial viability of it is. So I think I'm going to
have to do it all by myself.
GM: I know you've spent a lot of time in Vancouver.
PP: Yeah, I lived there. I was shooting a series for
ShowTime, Beggars and Choosers. I lived there for
about a year and a half.
GM: And?
PP: Loved it. I've got a lot of friends there I
haven't seen in a long time. In fact, after I finished
that series, I went back to Los Angeles - it was
probably about six years ago - and I went back to Los
Angeles and for the next, like, two years I just kept
going to Vancouver to hang out with my friends. It's
such a great city.
GM: Have you done comedy here?
PP: No. I've never done standup in Vancouver. I mean,
I stopped in and did a couple of little venues in
little places where they were doing standup on a
particular night. I popped in and did some stuff. But
this is my first actual proper gig there. I may have
worked there many years ago in the early days. But
whatever place I worked isn't there anymore, I'll tell
you that. I'm really looking forward to being back in
Vancouver. It was a very great time in my life. You
know, I've done two series outside of Los Angeles
where I had to live in different cities. When I was
doing Northern Exposure I was living in Seattle, and
doing Beggars and Choosers I was living in Vancouver.
And it's such a different experience getting to do the
work that you do outside of that L.A. mentality. It's
so much more joyful to be away from all that crap. So
my time in Vancouver is all very bright when I
reminisce about it.
GM: It'll be a homecoming of sorts.
PP: For me, it is. It's like I can't wait to get back
and just wander the streets again... By the way, did
you see that the DVD is breaking records?
GM: No, I didn't. I saw that it was out.
PP: It came out on the 24th and it's been breaking
records. It's unbelievable what's happened to it. It's
number one on Amazon. It hit the charts before it was
for sale. On pre-orders alone it was number six.
Within hours it went to number three. And by the next
day it was number one and it's been staying at number
one. Best Buy sold their entire stock in two days.
GM: I've got to get it because I was thinking this is
a movie that's perfect for DVD because all the extras
will actually mean something. So many of the extras
you see with movies are pointless.
PP: Have you seen the movie?
GM: Yeah.
PP: You know, when we showed this thing at Sundance,
everybody was sniffing around and like, "Wow, this
thing is really special but we don't know how to
handle it." There were a number of distributors that
made us offers but they were really hesitant about
doing a theatrical release. And we actually made a
deal with Th!nk because they were the first ones to
step up to the plate with the courage to say,
"Absolutely, let's do this theatrically." And it was
important to Penn and I because one of the interesting
things about the movie, the meta-view of the movie
really is sitting in a room full of people and
watching how everybody else is reacting. Because
that's what happens with comics when we tell it to a
bunch of people: other comics, their friends, club
personnel, or whatever. It's all about how everybody's
reacting differently. So we said, "No, this has to go
into theatres. It doesn't matter if we don't make
money in theatres. It has to go into theatres because
that's really a part of the whole deal is seeing it
with other people." So I say to anybody who's watching
it for the first time on DVD, don't sit there and
watch it alone. First of all, it's comedy, and that's
always different when you're with a bunch of people.
But aside from that, in terms of the ideas of the
movie, it's a more intellectual experience when you're
watching it by yourself. And you don't get that meta
level of what the joke and the movie are really about,
which is kind of Andy Kaufmanesque in that Andy's work
was all about it's not about the joke, it's not about
where the edge of the stage is, it's all about how
it's being received. That's where the real comedy is
for him. And it's kinda like that. So I recommend
anybody who's watching it for the first time on DVD to
watch it with a bunch of people.
GM: Laughter is communication, too.
PP: And just on a comedy level, it's just always
better. You watch a movie by yourself and it's only
so-so funny; you watch it with a bunch of people and
you get swept up in it. You get that vibe that the
filmmakers intended. So that's a different experience.
But in this particular case, the beauty of it is
watching the way everybody reacts to those lines being
crossed, or not being crossed, and how different it is
from person to person. That's really part of what
makes it so interesting... It's the opposite of porno.
You know, porno, you want to be alone watching it, and
with a group it's a different experience. It's not the
best. (laughs) This is the flipside.
GM: Plus you're going to get these extras of these
great comedians.
PP: Unlike a regular movie release where maybe they
shot some scenes that they cut out of the movie, or
they have outtakes where an actor screws up or
something like that, we went back to all the original
footage. Because we cut from original footage. We
never had selects. We never decided, "Oh, this can't
be in the movie, that can't be in the movie" like
they'll do with takes in a regular narrative film. All
the material, every moment that we spent with these
people on camera, was potential fodder because they
were really being natural and they were really being
themselves. And a lot of what's in the movie was when
they were sort of finished their task at hand and
started just hanging out with us. So we had to go back
to the original footage to cut the extras. And they're
all completely unique and really interesting and some
are meant just to be hilarious and some are meant to
find different things about personality or craft or
technique or what-have-you. They're just really good.
And there's a couple of really fun things on there.
There's a little featurette called Behind the
Greenroom Door. When we were hanging out with all
these people, you know, whenever you start telling
jokes with comics it turns into a joke-telling
session. So as we shot everybody, everybody was always
telling other jokes that they liked. Or they'd say,
"You know, it's funny about the Aristocrats joke
because I have another favourite joke that..." and
they'll tell me that joke. So we just went through
them all and found our favourites and strung them
together. So it's sort of a round-robin of... It's
kind of like being in a room with a bunch of comedians
telling jokes.
GM: That would be a good sequel, actually.
PP: Yes, it would.
GM: All these comics' favourite jokes.
PP: Yes, it would. And there are also a couple of
pieces that we cut just for the DVD. Like, we did one
big huge version of the Aristocrats where everybody
contributes one line. It's one narrative joke from
start to finish with everybody contributing a line.
We're also in the process of putting together a live
tour which we're calling The Aristocrats on Ice.
(chuckles) That makes us laugh. Again, one of the
meta-ideas of the movie is we're letting you into our
world and it's a chance to engage in the thing that
Carlin says, it's for us, it's not for you. This tour
is going to be that. It's going to be different people
touring around with this concept. It's basically
comedy by comedians, for comedians and you're allowed
to come and play with us. But we're not paying
attention to any of the rules and regulations. And I
don't mean just in language. There's a lot of great,
really transgressive, challenging comedy out there
that's not the namby-pamby watered-down stuff that you
see on TV. In America, it's not only language that
gets censored, but there's entire subject matter that
you can't go towards. We're living in a world right
now where religion is, like, a huge issue in our
everyday lives. The world is on the brink of
destruction because my imaginary friend can beat up
your imaginary friend. And yet you can't do any
material about religion on television. You know,
things like that. People are going to be talking about
subjects that they're not allowed to talk about on
television and basically doing comedy that they really
like. Comedy that they feel is their art without any
concession to the FCC or producers or directors or
'Don't say this because the host won't like that'. You
never get to see comedians - even the best comedians;
even comedians that do well on television, you're
seeing them with their wings clipped. And on this
tour, we're bringing you the kind of people who are
doing really transgressive stuff, really edgy stuff,
stuff that speaks really from their heart with no
rules whatsoever... If the audience comes out and digs
this thing, we can do it forever because the pool of
comedians who are doing that kind of artistic work is
huge. We're also talking about bringing in people who
aren't in the movie but who work in that way. The idea
is basically, Trust us. Trust us that we know comedy
and we're going to show you some stuff that's worth
coming out to see. And if you don't know some of the
people who are on the show, you deserve to find out
who they are. See, that's the problem with people who
are doing the kind of stuff that's too hot for
television is that they don't get exposure and nobody
knows who they are unless they stumble across them. So
we're trying to create a scenario where you can come
to our shows and know that we've done the homework for
you and we're bringing you the best. You'll never find
them on television doing this kind of stuff. And so
this is a way for you to find people who are doing the
kind of work that appeals to people who are really
tired of the bland, anodized kind of stuff that's
allowed on television.