Steve Martin on stand-up comedy- The New Yorker Festival

[Music] pauline kael the late New Yorker movie critic once wrote that Steve Martin seems to crossbreed the skills of WC Fields and Buster Keaton with some Fred Astaire mingled in at that point Steve was only a you know rock star stand-up comic a movie star and a screenwriter since that time he's branched out he has contributed dozens of charming and funny pieces to The New Yorker has written several plays and two acclaimed novels and later this year he'll publish his memoir called Warren standing up about his life in stand-up comedy so here's Steve I was asked to read a short piece from born standing up and and so I will it's it's about five minutes long so on a humid Monday night in the summer of 1965 after finding an $8 hotel room in the then economically friendly city of San Francisco I lugged my banjo and black hardshell prop case tin sweaty blocks uphill to the coffee and confusion where I had signed up to play for free the club was tiny and makeshift decorated with chairs tables a couple of bear light bulbs and nothing else I had romanticized San Francisco as an exotic destination away from friends and family and toward mystery and adventure so I often drove my 20 year old self up from Los Angeles to audition my fledgling comedy act at a club or to play banjo on the street for tips I would either sleep in my VW van camp out in Golden Gate Park pay for a cheap hotel or snag a free room in a Haight Ashbury Victorian crash pad by making an instant friend at this point my act was a catch-all cobbled together from the excuse me disparate universes of juggling comedy banjo playing weird bits I'd written in college and magic tricks I was strictly Monday night quality the Nightwind traditionally anyone could get up to perform all the way entertainers knew Monday's were really audition nights for the club I walked past Broadway in Columbus where Lawrence Ferlinghetti 's ramshackle City Lights books was jam-packed with thin small press books offering way out poetry and reissues of long ago banned erotic novels around the corner on Broadway was Mike's pool hall where bikers and hippies first laid eyes on each other unsure whether they should beat each other up or just smoke pot and forget about it steps away was the hungry eye a nightclub that had launched a thousand careers including those of The Smothers Brothers the Kingston Trio and Lenny Bruce but I had to trudge on by just up Columbus I passed the Condor the first of a sudden explosion of topless clubs were Carole dota in a newfangled bathing suit that exposed her recently inflated basketball descended from the ceiling on a grand piano that was painted virginal white this cultural melange and the growing presence of drugs made the crowded streets of North Beach simmer with toxic vitality the coffee and confusion was a few steps away on Grant Avenue a Street dotted with used clothing stores and incense shops I'd nervously entered the club and Ivan ult's the showrunner slotted me into the lineup I lingered at the back waiting for my turn and surveyed the audience of about 15 people they were arrayed in patchwork jeans with tie-dyed tops and the room was thick with an illegal aroma and the audience was a street poet dressed in rags and bearded like a Yeti who had a plastic machine gun that shot ping-pong balls which he unloaded on performers he didn't like I was still untouched by the rapidly changing fashion scene my short hair and conservative clothes weren't going to help me with this crowd Ivan introduced me my opening line hello I'm Steve Martin and I'll be out here in a minute was met with one lone chuckle I struggled through the first few minutes keeping a wary eye on mr. ping pong ball and filled in the dead air with some banjo tunes that went just okay I could see Ivan standing nearby concerned I began to strum the banjo singing a song that I told the audience my grandmother had taught me be courteous kind and forgiving be gentle and peaceful each day be warm and human and grateful and have a good thing to say be thoughtful and trustful and childlike be witty and happy and wise be honest and love all your neighbors be obsequious purple and clairvoyant the pompous obese and eat cactus be dull and boring and omnipresent criticize things you don't know about be oblong and have your knees removed be tasteless rude and offensive live in a swamp and be three-dimensional put a live chicken in your underwear go into a closet and suck eggs then I said now everyone and I repeated the entire thing adding in ladies only never make love to Bigfoot mid only hello my name is Bigfoot not many people sang along I thought I was dead but I wasn't and now I announced the napkin trick unfolding a paper napkin i grandly displayed it on both sides held it up to my face and stuck my wet tongue through it I bow deeply as though what I had done was unique in the history of show business no ping-pong balls came my way only a nice curious laugh that perked up the rest of the show and seemed to make the audience think that what they were seeing might be ok I got word from the club's owner Sylvia Finnell that the coffee and confusion would like to try me for a week as an opening act Sylvia was a hard-nosed likeable New Yorker who had moved West to enter the nightclub business and whose width height and depth were the same measurement she didn't know much about show business having once told a ventriloquist to move the dummy closer to the microphone she was however savvy about the bottom line as evidenced by a sign in the kitchen that said anyone giving money to Janis Joplin before her last set is fired and if they are a customer their eighty-sixed later I found out the main reason I was hired was because I was a member of the Musicians Union which I joined only because I thought I had to be in at least one performers Union and the musicians was the cheapest Sylvia had been told that if she didn't hire a union worker pronto the place would be shut down the night of my first appearance Gaylord the bartender the separate syllables of his name correctly described his sexual orientation and his demeanor came to me and said it was time to start but I said as I waved my hand to indicate the stone empty club there's nobody here he pointed to the large window that looked on to the sidewalk and explained that my job was to be on stage so passers-by could see a show going on and be lured in I said I wasn't a singer I was a comedian and doing comedy for absolutely no-one posed a problem so Dave Archer the amiable doorman seconded him telling me this is the way the evening always began so I went on stage and started talking talking to no one the first couple who walked through the door did a whiplash scan of the vacant room and immediately left but more than a few came in looked around saw nobody shrugged and oh well and sat down especially after Dave offered them a free coffee one night I started a serious banjo tune and sensing the audience's boredom stopped and said I like to keep the laughs rolling even while I'm playing I reached down to my prop table and put on my arrow through the head purchased as an afterthought at a Hollywood Boulevard magic store with no idea how I was going to use it and finish the song then I forgot to take it off every earnest thing I said was contradicted and deflated by the silly novelty Sylvia phenyls advice about the arrow which was to become my most famous prop was lose it I had a strong closer an absurdist version of a balloon animal act in which all the balloon animals were unrecognizable I would end up with balloons on my head nose glasses on my face and bunny ears the point was to look as stupid as possible then pause thoughtfully and say and now I'd like to get serious for a moment I know what you're thinking you're thinking oh this is just another banjo magic act I was cont contracted to be on stage for 25 minutes I have a solid 10 minutes and the rest of my material was highly unreliable if I got some laughs I could almost make it but if the audience was dead my twenty five minutes show would shrink to about 12 afraid of falling short I ad libbed wandered around the audience talked to patrons joked with rate races and took note of anything unusual that was happening in the crowd and addressed it for Laughs in hope of keeping my written material in reserve so I could fill my time quota the format stuck years later it was this pastiche element that made my performances seem unstructured and modern that week at the coffee and confusion something started to make sense my act having begun three years earlier as a conventional attempt to enter regular show business was becoming a parody of comedy I was an entertainer who was playing an entertainer I'm not so good one and this embryonic notion drove me to work on material other material in that vein after my last show on Sunday I walked a few doors up to the coffee gallery another Grant Avenue folk Club and sat alone in an empty showroom on the jukebox was the haunting voice of Frank Sinatra singing when I was 17 it was a very good year each successive stanza advanced the narrator by a decade causing me to reflect on something I could not possibly reflect on my future the next song was the Beatles Eleanor Rigby and it's minor tones underscored the moody darkness I felt an internal stillness much like the moment of silence a performer seeks before it goes on stage I now know why this memory has struck stuck with me so vividly my ties to home were broken I had a new group of friends I was loose and independent I had my first job where I slept in a hotel at night instead of my own bed I was about to start my life that was great thank you thank you this is a wonderful book in the book you'll see that Steve performs in a lot of unorthodox places early on including a drive-in movie theater where he has to stand and perform it well people are in their cars and honk instead of applauding but the first place that you performed is it's also very interesting at Disneyland wondering you could tell I was I was about ten years old had just moved from Inglewood California to Garden Grove California and it was 1955 and it was sunny and vast parking lots as far as the eye could see and orange groves and nothing over 12 feet high and a friend told me that they were looking for kids to work at Disneyland to sell guidebooks so I got to my bicycle went down there and applied and got a job selling guidebooks and I was you know dressed in a costume a little gay 90's with a straw hat and standing there but the the greatest part was I got into Disneyland for free and I worked there for eight years as that as a guide book salesman I did I did it advanced I worked as guidebook salesman for a couple of years and I worked in Frontierland as a trick Roper I was about 14 years old I met a cowboy and he sold these little tricks trick ropes that you could perform you know cowboy tricks with and I learned how to do that and so I did that for a while that's why were little vest and a cowboy hat and then I got a job as a as a warehouse boy for tikis tropical imports in Adventureland and then I my my crowning achievement was a job at Merlins magic shop in Fantasyland where I learned to do magic and perform for people and so you would demonstrate the tricks to potential buyers yes yes and it was a it was a really funny guy who worked there named Jim Barr and he was you walked into the store and there was a kind of atmosphere of performance I mean he would shoot those coiled spring snakes at people and he would say you'd make a sale and I'd say this trick is guaranteed to break before you get home and you know this wasn't done at Disneyland and people really like this so I there was a lot of things like it sounds as though there were a lot of and he would say and what a customer would come up did say take your money I mean help you vary on Disney and so you learn magic there you started performing there and then when did you get it into your head that you wanted to branch out and perform magic elsewhere yeah I think I've scheduled there's a lot of comedians who work started as magicians and I'm convinced it's because you can you know everything else if you can dance you can dance you practicing your dance and you can go dancer if you can sing you kind of know it early on you can sing and sing but if you don't really have any of those gifts you can go to a store and buy a trick and then you read good evening ladies and gentlemen you know in the ancient China the mysterious feet of flu and you're in show business you know I'll you if you buy five you have you have five tricks your five trick show bit show business easier than med school obviously and then you know eventually you would have to get better but I did a lot of shows for Cub Scouts and Kiwanis Clubs grown-ups we pay you grown-ups you know and I do a Quantico honest Club and they pay me five dollars and later I would think I mean that's an adult I would think why would grown men hire a fifteen year old to come and do hippity hop rabbits you know I just I think we have a clip that shows you're doing some of your early magic I'm not sure he's that really scary for what it's fun but you can tell us yeah so oh oh oh oh I know this clip we found our next guest in a most unusual manner that's right because we happen to be walking through the writer area of the show and there he was sitting at one of our writers desks and later we found out that he actually was one of our writers it's amazing yeah and since he hasn't been paid for his work we thought we'd let him come out and tonight and make a few dollars that's right ladies and gentlemen mr. Steve Martin [Music] [Applause] [Music] come and get seven-speed Martin and I'll be out here in a minute well I'm all I'm waiting for me I'd like to jump right into kind of a Saco boffo comedy routine this has really been a big one for me it's the one that kind of put me where I am today this is really a big one a fabulous glove into dove trick the napkin trick [Music] [Music] I'll tell you where I got the napkin trick it was a staple for many years I when I worked at the magic shop Disneyland there was an old Volvo villian who worked there named Dave Stewart and he he was he had worked as a comedy magic comic magician in the 30s and 40s and now it's the 50s need he gave me memorabilia at a photo of his acted and everything was very deadpan very thin and he's his big closer he brought it in to show me had he had a violin that was the the finish to his act and it's always start to play the violin and it would never play it and then at the end of it change into a bouquet of flowers and it was all tricked and it was very clever and and then he said and I opened with this and he picked up the napkin and he white there sorry was the glove into the glove into dub trick and he picked up the glove and he walked to the room and he threw it up in the air and it hit the ground and and I looked at him and he said that's it and and and it was the first time that I ever saw comedy out of nothing and it really struck me and I said and I asked him permission I said could I use it a Mac he said I don't use it anymore I don't do anymore shows yeah yeah go ahead and then I kept it in my act for years there's a wonderful image in the book of when you were a kid doing these magic tricks you would these magic shows you would write up these little post-mortem reviews of your own show so that return forth what worked what didn't its they're adorable you know on Big Chief Indian tablets but you write that you noted pretty early that the audience seemed to like it better when the tricks didn't work right and that was a quite a revelation when your struggling to be a magician and every time you blow it they love you and there was a great comic magician named Carl Ballantine he still around and he did an act where nothing worked and we were all just he was he was like a legend you know it was it was he only appeared until nobody appeared on television with their act because I'd blow it and so it rarely would we ever get to see him but he's still alive today really really funny now another little bit of performing that you did early on you were a cheerleader in high school is that right and you and you wrote some cheers you wrote cheers for the team is that I read that somewhere not in the book oh no it might be true oh no I I think I did some jokes in my act about it but I came over with the jokes where they were all die you gravy sucking pigs or something like that now I in in your book there's a wonderful description of your last day at Disneyland you work there till you're 18 and the day you left I I was leaving the magic shop I was 18 years old and I had gotten a job at Knott's Berry Farm and there was a theater an actual theater that Disneyland was just a counter but here was a theater and I was hired to be a sort of actor in the the little play and do my five minute magic act and the olio act at the end and so I was leading Disneyland and I have you know said goodbye the little magic shop is all very sentimental and I started to walk out it was about 6 p.m. I think was evening and the security guard said oh can you not go through the main entrance to the castle there's a photographer shooting the pay just go out the side I said ok and I walked out and I saw this woman with a big format camera taking a picture of the castle and it was Diane Arbus how many years later did you learn I bought well I I found the photo in the book I had heard that she had taken a picture of it the date matched up to the today at least the year that I left and it was taken from exactly the same position and it was a kind of stunning moment to look back go oh that's very interesting because she obviously you know saw Disneyland is the same with the same kind of kitschy sweetness that you did well I I write about it in my book wondering whether she saw it as Kitsch you know this castle or maybe she saw like I did which was beautiful you know I it was it's gorgeous and it still is I think now at Knott's Berry Farm you you did your little juggling comedy banjo act but you also were in melodramas right right and what was that like you were they well we did these four shows a day it's great five on Sunday and we did everything we would walk the grounds and pitch this show meaning to come see the show The Birdcage you know we've kind of humiliating when you think you're finally made it and you're sweeping up afterwards and you know you're luring the Kurds a real community effort but I did get to do my act at least you know four times a day for three years and as I say in the book that's that's where you start to no matter how bad your material is or unoriginal or whatever you still be at you get grace and there's nothing like performing it over and over and over to oil yourself and around this time you also started doing some auditioning of clubs and yeah there was lots of folk clubs around that was just it was just in the coffee houses sprang up to all the beatnik coffee houses where they applauded like this where the beatniks were sort of dying out and the folk music craze was coming in so it was a natural slide so all the coffee houses beatnik coffee houses turned into folk music clubs but there were no comedians there were some funny acts so the days movie as a banjo guy and how did you know I I was I did everything I was just trying to fill out time so I had I had some jokes you know that I got from joke books and I played the banjo and I did my little magic act I read poetry i read TS Eliot and Annie Cummings and then I'm very serious you eventually just sort it out he learned to drop that but you were you were in college at this point studying philosophy and there's a an interesting section of the book where you talk about a girlfriend who you met at the birdcage giving you a copy of Somerset mom's razor's edge which seemed like it was a really life-changing well it wasn't what happened there I got out of high school and I knew I had to go to college but my heart I just I just wanted to be out in the world and but I still I went I signed up at Santa Ana Junior College really not knowing what I was going to do I took drama courses and took a course in poetry which was in English poetry and I kind of fell in love with it and I really studied it a lot it actually affected my writing today with those those poets Dylan Thomas and TS Eliot any e comings as I've said before that TS Eliot taught me the intelligence of words and Dylan Thomas taught me the beauty of words and E Cummings taught me the rhythm of words and so I and and so I was working at the birdcage and I met stormy who has you might know she is her name is stirs now her name then was stormy shirk now her name is stormy or mardian and she became a Christian proselytizer and she's a huge book a best-seller best-selling author but anyway then she wasn't and as I say they say she had a spirit that was not yet wholly and and she was you know ahead of me intellectually and she gave me this book summers at summers at Mom's razor's edge which was about the study of philosophy about a man who becomes fulfilled by trying to seek the truth and this had this great romantic him impact on me and so I left Santa Anna Junior College and I applied at a Long Beach State College and majoring in philosophy from nowhere you know but it really taught me a lot I think one of the biggest things that taught me was a question question things and so I started questioning the only thing I had which was comedy and it really altered things for me just to say okay the oldest out the new is in what's going on well it also there are a lot of examples of you know as you're getting deeper into the study of logic it's starting to question cause and effect and the way you write about how those questions affect at your comedy is very interesting if you know applying principles of cop cause and effect to jokes can you do jokes without punchlines can can't do captain make sense does there have to be a payoff it's I had a kind of there was the big comedians then were really from the 50s now we're up into the 60s and they were from the 50s and those certain kind of nightclubs style that I actually eventually parodied in certain bits but which was the jokes and then there's the punchlines and and I was looking at this and I was thinking well the audience here's the punchline and they actually know they're supposed to laugh it's not it doesn't matter if it was really funny they just know they're supposed to laugh at that moment and it's it's like when a song ends everybody goes like this and I'm gonna joke anybody go but it's not real laughter a lot of the time sometimes it really is but and so I thought and then I heard this somebody analyzing comedy and I think was in one of the my text books and they said it's you you you create tension by telling the story and then with the punchline you release the tension and the audience goes and it kind of made sense it didn't really but I thought okay what if that were true and I thought well what happens if if you never released the tension and they're sort of sitting here waiting it's a glove ended up trick is a perfect example they're waiting and they're waiting and then pretty soon they pick their own place to laugh because eventually they're just gonna look at them store up all this tension this was the theory anyway and and so and I thought that if that laugh happens and that's a real laugh because they're picking it out you're not telling them it's almost like I always liked the idea early on in my show and people were going we're looking at each other now as you were performing boring clubs you needed to have more than five minute bits you needed to kind of pad out your act and you started making syllogisms based on takeoffs of things you learned in logic class by Lewis Carroll right well actually I was studying syllogisms which can be varied you know dry you know Socrates is a man all so it's as a man therefore all men are mortal whatever and I'm reading Lewis Carroll do you have the book here they're hilarious and and and I came across these syllogisms they're not really syllogisms they're they're called saw righties but they're the same idea and they just struck me as weirdly funny here's one of his one babies are illogical to nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile three illogical persons are despised therefore babies cannot manage crocodiles [Laughter] and this one no interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste to know modern poetry is free from affectation 3 all your poems are on the subject of soap bubbles for no affected poetry is popular among people of taste 5 only a modern poem would be on the subject of soap bubbles therefore all your poems are uninteresting and I liked it because it was it was just so quirky you know coming out of your logic textbook you you also as you were studying poetry and philosophy Mukherjee you one day that all of your material should be original yes and so that was kind of a crisis it was a horrifying revelation because Here I am I have this act it's like 25 minutes long and I had gotten stuffy I could borrowed something from Carl Ballantine and I got some stuff from joke books and things I'd heard and go hmm that sounds good and then now I'm in college and I'm you know reading all these original poets and and I and and writers and I thought oh this is so awful if I'm going to have any any kind of distinction at all everything has to be new everything and so I went through my act and had to eliminate at least half or more than half half of it and I said the audience can never hear something they've heard before they can never think oh that's that or that's from that or that's from that even subconsciously and so that was a that was kind of a crisis and I thought well how do I write material where do I where do I get it from and so I kind of solved but I said well okay I laugh in life so I'll just observe what made me laugh and see if I can make some material out of it and I also had my stuff from them the magic shop and I went down to the you know the the joke shop and I bought all these props thinking I could use them in some way that I saw them as ironic I saw them like the arrow through that was I got dumb joke and the bunnies were dumb and I tried to get everything that was really really dumb I was actually trying to be pointless now we just saw this clip from The Smothers Brothers it was while you were studying philosophy you you you for a time you were considering becoming an academic in philosophy right then you put that aside and then went into television what how what was this mother's brother's experience like oh it was it was so fantastic I I'll tell you that brief history of how he got to be a writer on The Smothers Brothers I was you know I'd written these little stories in creative writing class and and I had a girlfriend when she was a dancer she was in the in college and she left and she got a job on The Smothers Brothers show and she started dating the head writer of The Smothers Brothers show I mean after we split up and I think there might have been an overlap anyway she said she was very nice really a nice person and she said you know they're looking for young writers that for the mantra of the day was never trust anyone over 30 so they wanted all the writers would be really young and which is idiotic you know but so I give him some material so I gave him some material and they read it and I went down and actually auditioned my little magic act for them and I said okay I grow okay you know I was 21 I sort of had no future and and then a you know a month later I was writing on The Smothers Brothers show now a year after you started if I'm if I'm correct is when CBS pulled the show off the air because it was becoming so controversial and there was so much criticism of the Vietnam War and a lot of political comedy magician cuz it strikes me that what you were specializing in your act was you know not angry and hostile and political and what was it like for you being in the middle of that I was very happy to write we'll call him left-wing comedy beds we loved it I mean I was very at least emotionally political at the time so it's just your stand-up act you kept this up well I I was I would do political kind of you know comedy in my act but that was another decision later that I think really altered my act was when I decided to eliminate all of it because the world was in such turmoil after the Vietnam War and everything and and all the comedians were political everything was political you had a if you just came out and mentioned Nixon you'd get laughter people laugh and mu you know and it was you specialized Nixon jokes didn't yeah no I had a couple they weren't very good though I can't remember now I can't remember but and so when I eliminated all that and I you know I was a hippie you know there's a photo of the book that's shocking and and I have a lot of love 15 pounds of turquoise jewelry armor outlaw outlaw I was an outlaw believe me Mad Max yeah yeah and I bought 1973 I cut my hair shaved my beard and I put on a suit and it was a and as I say in the book suddenly instead of being at the tail end of an old movement I was in the front end of a new one right and there's something about the white suit and the clean-cut you know the way you look that it was clear that it was a send-up of a kind of traditional slick showbiz it was very unusual but a lot of the critics said that it was that I was dressing very conservatively because I I wore a vest there were a white vest white suit and I and I knew I wore the vest to keep my shirt from coming out you know out of my pants I was working well now our next clip has the white suit and this brings us up to where we are I said let's look at that oh no wandering puppy feet [Applause] see this I got this for five bucks [Applause] well you've got to be a wise shopper nowadays you see something like that you better pick it up because well with prices today I want to buy some carpeting you know much they want for carpeting $15 a square yard and I'm sorry I am NOT going to pay that for carpeting so what I did I bought two square yards and when I go home I strap them to my feet and now it's time for bubbles Rio Oh a dog [Applause] venereal disease you see this in a toilet seat don't sit down because they leap on you hello mr. Johnson is Sally home but we've had a few laughs and I think that's important truly please remember one thing I am an experienced professional don't you try this at home and one more thing if you bought my album and you came down here expecting me to do a lot of routines from the record and I didn't do them Carl Reiner used to say about me you never throw anything away you know when I was watching this the other day I was I was struck by how much physicality there wasn't your act you know I I had always thought from seeing you do those great dance parodies on Saturday Night Live and like the great scene in all of me where you're dancing with yourself I always assumed that you had trained as a dancer and then I read that when you were preparing for pennies from heaven you did months in tap tap tap dancing but you can tell look at the movie you can tell if I go you know one hand is going hey but this I mean obviously in happy feet I mean you this comes from somewhere all of this just I don't know just uh letting comes from letting go I mean I was looking at that I remembered as physical as the act was that you know try going from there to there and doing that I remember I could I could get there and I could get back and then that second burst was always like at the limit of physicality and I was young you know it was it's just we do that on movies they you you sit all day in a trailer for four hours and they go in and you like run like crazy for two minutes and then you go back and sit in your trailer in the book you quote a line of EE Cummings that you came upon in college they said was important you like the burlesque comedian I am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement you said it took years to understand what it meant and that I heard that in a in a lecture by EE Cummings and he was explaining why he was a poet and he said like the burlesque comedian I'm an abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement and he cites a joke which is now politically incorrect but he said I used it as example he said would you would you hit a woman with the baby he said no I'd hit her with a brick but I I think he was talking about the the timing and the surprise of language and I and I puzzled over this for a long time I did not know what he meant and then when I finally ended even after I'd finished my stand-up and after I've done a lot of movies I I finally understood it and it was exactness keeps the audience attentive and the next thing is always coming precisely when the previous thing ends and I think it keeps it keeps the show moving or the thought moving the idea moving and there's never this there's a lot of Jerry Lewis in so did you watch up a lot as it was he an important well you know you don't know what anybody's important you suddenly you're doing something in a movie and you realize oh that came out like Jerry Lewis or that came out like somebody else or that came out like Jack Benny there's a long line of I can watch a Stan Laurel effect Jack Benny with that sort of slow slow burn effect Johnny Carson's effect or Tommy smothers you know we did it too there's a lot of things that are handed down from comedian and and they're they're changed and altered so they're sort of unrecognized a little bit essentially they're the same idea and so who else was important Nichols in may but that's even though I'm very unlike them but I got in something very cerebral about what they did their cerebral that they're so you know I would go to sleep at night listening to records of comedians there was the linee Bruce and Nichols and May and there's also Bill Cosby and Bob Newhart they were great but I had absolutely nothing in common with what they did but Nicholson made there was something in the tone of their voice that just got me and I realized I could have the same effect by instance manipulating the microphone I mean moving in and talking low and and I do it even in the clip we saw her they come up with a mic like this and everything's changing constantly a lot of comedians to shout at you and they did this and you this very I have two landmarks in comedy that I think distorted you know just distorted comedy by lesser talents the first is Richard Pryor who used you know call it obscene language as poetry and his imitators just saw obscene language so they started using obscene language but Richard Pryor used it as poetry and then Sam Kinison the great stand-up I saw him one night in a club this is in the 80s he was not well-known and there was a one of those nights with a lot of comedians getting up he said I think I talk in the book about the best opening lines I ever heard this is one of them he said you're gonna see a lot of comedians tonight said some of them will be funny some will be okay this is there's a difference between me and them them you might want to see again sometime but he but he would also shout as scream his punchlines and it was hilarious and it sort of caught on it said okay I'm gonna scream my punchline and I'll get a laugh and that and that's sort of another via audible cue for the audience with a lot of comedians that if I scream it then I'm supposed to laugh at it or if he screams at la when you were on the road a lot you you you had a long chunk of time where you went to Aspen's it's just you know in the middle of the flower power yeah moment and that let seems like it was a kind of a and a turning point for you in terms about 1965 or so and I went to Aspen and I had I was working I got a job a friend of mine broke his leg skiing anyhow he hired me to take his place in a little Club and they were talking about essentially flower power and it was so seductive it was like love love will change the world man and go oh really it's like oh these older people they don't even get that you know yeah we I can't believe we know this and they died I just you know I can't wait to teach it to others you know you immediately feel you're in a you know a secret culture and everybody's smoking pot and you're acting very stupid and laughing your head off um well it strikes me that even though you had a very clean-cut image in your act and I think you say that you looked like a you know a Baptist teenager that elements in your act you know that the illogical syllogisms the absurdity that they would appeal to a kind of a trippy psychedelic Sensibility well they a lot of oh you were so stoned up there but that was everybody thought everybody was stoned who did anything you know now you you also had a phase where you um you would end every show by bringing the audience out of the theater yeah that happened one night I was doing my I was working colleges and they know hundred seats hundreds eat little they're not even theaters there they're like multi-purpose rooms that are transformed and I was on a stage you know like this only was a classroom and this was be like 1972 and I'm just doing my act of doing my act and and I finished and there was no way out there was no side exits and into my props er be just a little alcove there you know and so I said okay thank you and they just sat there and I said it's over and I've been overnight and I put my props away and and there was like this like and I said seriously it's over and then I don't know what I did but I started okay okay so I walked along and there they started walking with me and I walked outside it was a night it was a University in Nashville it was a anyway Emory I think and I was walking along outside this audience sort of falling following along and I and I came across a drained swimming pool and I said okay I said everybody get in the pool they all they all got in the pool I said and now I'm going to swim across you and then I and I did this and they did you know it was the original mosh pit yeah it was yeah and I and I went home that night I thought something important just happened to me and to my act and I and then everything sort of opened up and I would finish the shows and keep going and I'd go up to the sound booth and you know and I think the show is over in the cylinder here though they can't hear me out there can they boy they were terrible there go on and on and on and it actually altered the act and it's got to be kind of a tradition to go outside then then it got too big and then it as soon as you'd be talking something go I graph you know and you do and be over he couldn't do it anymore but one of the one of the great things about the book is you emerge in it as this almost Zelig like character who you know keep encountering all of these iconic you know bits of the 20th century everyone from Dalton Trumbo to Aaron Copland to you know the carpenters to Elvis and Elvis caught your act one night right and yeah I was about 1970 this was still way before I had any success but and Margaret and her husband Roger Smith would hire me to open the show for them in Vegas and this place the Hilton would just thank God torn down it was the most unfriendly comedy room in the world the ceilings were like 90 feet high and there are cherubs and things that came off and and you know essentially died every night but you know you kind of get less and you get like pockets of laughs silence over here they go yeah beep silence over there but anyway so one one night it's after the show and and I see Elvis who had seen the show coming back to visit and Margaret he was all in white and he had the big belt you know everything in the black hair and and I'm like this and he's goes past my dressing room when he says son you have a knobbly [Laughter] that's a great one no no for every comic for every comic big breaks I know I was left I was to think of something those like inadvertent comments I screened a movie once was like one of those test screenings and a couple came out afterwards and they saw me standing there you always sneak in the back and watch and she came her she grew up and she said ah I love this movie I love this movie and my husband loved it and he hates you [Laughter] so for every comic that a big breakthrough moment is the first time you get on The Tonight Show and you ended up doing Tonight Show many many many times but one of your earliest times on The Tonight Show you were on with Sammy Davis jr. if I'm right right but I had been on the show about 16 times before I consider this from my breakthrough Tonight Show and the the the idea that you think you believe is that if you did The Tonight Show once you were a star overnight but it does not work that way because you could do the The Tonight Show you know the first time you do this Tonight Show you're just nothing the next day there's nothing you're kind of walking around like this hey nothing there like the fifth time here we go you know and they say yeah that had me chew it I meet you at that party and so on so I don't know in the tenth time you do this show they go oh yeah yeah oh yeah you're that guy you're that guy and so this was about the 16th time I'd done the show and it was I I did kill him I must say I was like well good a good shot and and there was a moment which I described in the book that I'm you know performing and Sammy Davis jr. is on the couch and there's Johnny Carson and they're sort of in half light and once the camera you know cuts to Johnny and he's just by accident he's laughing and falling out of his chair and which is way better than any bit I could have done you don't have Johnny laughing he followed his chair and then and then I sat down on the panel and Sammy Davis jr. was there and he laughed and fell out off his sofa now this was before anyone knew that every time Sammy laughed he fell off yet that big sir oh oh you're having a great time all the time now our oh then the next day I went to this antique store on La Brea and a woman said were you that boy on The Tonight Show last night and I said yes it's you it now we we our last clip is a clip if you're doing tonight's show rather later but it's it's it's my favorite I'll set this up yeah I was talking to Carl Reiner one time and he said oh I said I saw the funniest act once he says I was at the folly bearshare in Paris and this curtains open and there's a little man standing on the stage and there's a dinner table with dinner plates on it stacked up and I kept thinking what is this what is this gonna be and the little man started to sing he goes across row he went through all 500 dinner place and I thought that sounds so funny to me I said I and I thought what I need you know because you get asked to do a lot of charity things and I said I need a solid seven man if I had a solid seven minutes that would be so great just a little self-contained Act and this is with the help of by the way Ricky J and Peter Pitts came up with this routine and this was the last week of The Tonight Show and Johnny asked me to do it would you welcome the great fly Dini [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] ladies and gentlemen we've seen we have seen some amazing effects ladies and gentlemen over the years but you have to admit flighting he has shown us more than we ever wanted to see in magically let's bring him back runabout [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] no no no Carson was a high school musician Johnny Carson a lot of people I think Kevin Nealon does the tricks of Jason Alexander that's a lot of people to trick now I wouldn't talk about another show that you appeared on a lot Lorne Michaels the producer of Saturday Night Live has said that at first the first four times he caught your act he didn't really get it you know he I think your act was so avant-garde that some people mistook it for just dumb you know but yourself said but by the second season he had you on and and that was obviously an incredibly productive collaboration what what was it like for you the first time you saw that show and did it well it came on I think in 1975 and I was just getting going I was having some nice things happen in my career and I saw it and I thought they did it that they had brought that sort of new underground comedy to the mainstream and I thought I'm usurped and because I thought it was the only one doing it and but it worked out to my action my advantage because going on the show and I was also doing so much stand-up it was - I was touring so much and it's very lonely and I went to this show and there were other people other people oh this is fantastic you know and everybody was friendly and I'm still very close friends with Lauren tonight how many times have you done the show you're the by the way who cares I've been about 14 times I guess and I guess I care yeah and and around the time after your success on SNL you you your stand-up act really really took off I'm not that it hadn't taken off before you started doing arenas you know like rocks like rock bands and and you've said that that you know being in a place like Nassau Coliseum that you felt that you could almost conduct the audience like like an orchestra what was that thrilling was it scary was it when you go from you know a hundred seats to five hundred seats to two thousand seats to three thousand seats you you always think you're at your limit you think oh they'll never see you know this joke or this everything's too small or that and somehow you adjust and when I was playing arenas my opening bit was I I'd say it now the magic dime trick and better you just get it's like you know when I was touring and I have a car a rental car or they've got a driver at one point you know then one day I'm saying with my agent in the in a and a limo pulled up I said I don't need a limo that's ridiculous I just don't need a limo and the next night I said where's the limo you just get used to everything you know and so how long did it go on that you were doing shows at that scale it really was that scale it was about three years but I I was starting to get hot around 1975 and I quit in 1981 and what made you finally just said well I had done a movie the jerk and I thanked and I just I just I was creatively dead first and up I just I didn't know where to go with it like I say the the act was you know is it's a hodgepodge of like real jokes and fake jokes and this but it was mainly conceptual that everybody had to kind of tune into it and you know once you do something conceptual you you can't keep building on it it's it just sort of it finishes you I got it I I don't have to do any more jokes or hear any more jokes you could do the same jokes those same jokes are fine you know because it's all about the concept so I was just really exhausted and tired and I thought and and you go to a movie set introduce good morning hey how you doing ah ha ha we got a bit and work it out there was just people people were around and did you feel that as you have become big more and more famous that the audience changed and its expectations will definitely yeah I felt an incredible responsibility when people paying a lot of money to come see me and I thought this you know what I'd better be good and and there was a lot of pressure on that before it was it was when you're working smaller places you're going I can I can be sneaky here you know I can be very subtle if I want to be and when you get to a big arena there's subtlety the definition changes now do you miss anything about that do you miss uh you know do you miss goofing around and doing tricks and playing Upson I miss absolutely nothing about it it was it's it's a young man's game it's it's very hard it's it's a you know you're on the road and traveling and I don't care how good you are I discussed this with a lot of entertainers how good you are if you do six shows a week two of them are great three of them are fine two of them are okay and one one's lousy yeah it's just the law of averages and I know you still play the banjo but do you just for fun now a noodle around with any of these I know what they're leading to when I was 14 I I'd like to say I'd learned to do the trick roping and Susan asked me if I'd bring my trick rope but I I got it out today and I was really bad at it but do we have it around yeah I can just show you a little bit it's right off stage yeah this yeah this is is this gonna die so so badly got telling you if I had the chance to rehearse I could get it down but I really didn't let's see let's see oh there's no what is there a spotlight or something okay now is this is no ordinary rope this is an ordinary rope yeah that there we go this is uh I'm losing that I'll get it back no really right there we go this is this is what I did with my time give this a shot [Music] [Applause] yeah and now you're kind of stuck you know well it's been great we've got a lot of fun so yeah let's see what that there was one other move but I'll never get it thank you very much they got their money's worth you know in that um the whites did you see I'm busy that we just watch thing that you say at the end I don't see a lot of people walking around Manhattan with one of these yes it is it actually was given to me for by montie Montana but at the end of that that stadium clip you you said I'm a professional comedian don't try this at home and and it reminded me it reminded me of something that I was thinking about preparing this I think in the last 10 years or so you know kind of ever since Letterman has become kind of you know incredibly popular I guess more than ten years we're sort of in this comedy glut you know there's comedy clubs in every in every strip mall there's comedy television unfunny comedians go on TV on Jon Stewart and let him in and try to act funny and you know every frat guy kind of walks around kind of doing this and and I mean who is a professional comedian do you ever feel like there's just kind of too much of it and I don't see it I don't see that much of it so I'm not you know I like to I listen XM radio and hear comedians and I laugh III don't I don't don't catch their names I don't know I know it's out there and they're they're pretty funny but I know it's I always have a you know my heart is with them you know just knowing where it's being taped you know in a club somewhere and the the backstage is dirty and there's though I can say I don't go into nightclubs anywhere because I can still taste the wine you know I you know I used to think was good and now I know it's not but I'm worried about time because I had dread going on too long when I was mmm 14 I had an act with my high school buddy and we there was a play and they had us open the show for our little act and you know so we open the show we did great at five minutes haha laughs and then they then they did the play and they said they and the play finish and someone said you know the play kind of ended earlier would you like to go out and do something else and we said oh yeah we can do the bit and we went out bombed and people were leaving and you know they when the show's over it's over and I always have this dread of going on too long well I'm sure that everyone I'm sure people have questions so why don't we go right to the questions do you think being funny is the most important thing in the world yes thank you you're welcome [Applause] now I need a question oh well I agree with that oh I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about Johnny Carson because I remember when he passed on Letterman made and other comedians made quite a point of his generosity to upcoming comedians well I I were actually write about him a lot in the book he was he was one thing people thought he had a great joke one time on the show he said you know he said it was announced in the press that I'm going to publish a memoir and 17 publishers went out and copyrighted the title cold and aloof but I I say about him I knew him you know not really well but I knew him we played poker we joked around and we loved comedy and that he was not aloof he was polite and you know we didn't show business people think you're they're your best friend somehow you know hey it is immediate familiarity but Johnny just preserved his dignity and kept relationships appropriate but when you got to know him he was very warm and very funny and also he was the greatest two comedians on the show because yeah I write a lot in the book that he when he's watching a comedian die who's sitting on me and it's it's just like a friend of his you could see the kind of gleam in his eye and but he's helping him all along he would drag you out of disaster that he you know he loved Rickles and he couldn't really play with those guys he was a very generous you know repartee Asteria Lee worked with you and he knew how to set you up one time I was working with Merv Griffin I had this this bit I did in my act and it was not very good it was the jokes were I just bought a new car a 65 great this is really early in my career a 65 Greyhound bus and I put a lot of money into it and I put a new dog on the side and blood I went on like that and so I was gonna do it for panel with merv griffin meaning I would sit at the panel and then pretend I'm having a conversation and so I said oh I just bought a new car a 65 Greyhound bus and Merve lemur said now why on earth would you buy a 65 Greyhound bus and I couldn't get to my I put a new dog on the you know I guess the point is you've worked with so many interesting people and you have such a way of seeming so close to people in movies you're you seem so warm and it's so intimate and I wondered if my good actor it seems it seems so so I was gonna ask if there was a specific movie you did or a specific show you did that was your favorite or most memorable because of the people that you worked with in who were they well there are many many movies that where I just had great people to work with one was dirty rotten scoundrels with Michael Caine and glenne Headly and Frank Oz the director and it was shot in the South of France and we're yeah we couldn't believe how lucky we were and three amigos working with Chevy and Marty short he became a lifelong friend and Diane Keaton and follow the bride and it was just there's a great kind of collection of people that you'd drag with you through through your whole life that you met in show business it was one thing I would ask you how about John Candy you were very close to John Candy well just you know closest of it can be defined a lot of ways but we were very friendly with each other and he was very likable he was a great actor and I remember watching him do this scene in planes trains and automobiles and it was a long soliloquy which actually got cut out down by you know 2/3 2/3 of the movie but I was watching him this far and I was thinking this guy's a great actor and and he was he was he loved to laugh and he did a lot of impressions all the time he was a sweet guy yes on Saturday Night Live when you danced with Gilda Radner it was so special during the Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers takeoff and it was poignant even when you were doing it and it was it was extended and it was wonderful and I've never seen anything like it does it occupy a special place in your memory yes it does I have a little photo of Gilda and me on a table at home I see people starting to leave that's my work worst you know time oh my god you guys want to go out and do another five minutes sure but I do I have a special memory of her she was very funny and she was a sweetheart and and we worked as I say I'd worked alone so much on the road I'd worked alone for 15 years and when I went to Saturday Night Live and now you're in a you know in a sketch and you're looking in someone's eyes and they have a gleam in their eye and you have a gleam in your eye and it's fantastic and you can hear the audience you know it's really good feeling I think we should wrap it up and maybe just take maybe 45 more questions that take like two more minutes we'll take these four questions everyone else stay seated [Laughter] I understand um I used to think my husband was really witty and then I saw your movies and I realized it was just quoting all your lines and then you realize he wasn't witty because of the lines yeah I married him anyway well I started seeing the jerk and I was like oh you so stand-up is so interactive and you've been so successful in both movies stand-up and movies so when you trend when a comedian transitions to movies and it's you know the mechanics of making a movie yet the energy that you have in all your movies is still just as intense as when you're on a stage getting that feedback out how do you do that and what are the challenges and well I'll be brief because we're running out of time one is and thank you so well I thought the transition from stand-up to movies was going to be easy hey I've been billing stage for 15 years I've got no problem but I really had to learn a new craft and also I I don't know what the other part of the question was I oh you know what it's fantastic because here you can work on the joke you know you work on it I mean on a scene in a movie you can test it edit test it you know stand up it's like there it is it worked last night it didn't work tonight but once you finally finish that thing in the movie it's there it's like when I was watching fly Dini I'm going no problem it's it's gonna work it's not up to me now it's all there it's done anyway I think we're gonna be the last question yeah I'm sorry but maybe you shot your questions out at the same time it is getting late and I hate to do this to might you and myself a no-pressure of being last but a quick comment and a question comment is you know every every great comic needs a straight man or woman so as funny as mr. Martin has been today I'd like to say Ms Morrison has also drawn him out and done a nice job [Applause] that's not just because I want to write for the talk of the town I sincerely yeah listen the next time you want to ask the question to Miss Morrison you better be on her own night my question relates to several people have asked about Saturday Night Live you've had obviously a nice run on that show first as a regular and then it's you repeated return visits over the years some of your iconic bits from King Tut in the early days to the five timers Club my personal favorite more recently obviously you're a prolific writer and have your own ideas and yet that show has a large stable of their own writers each of whom has his or her own ideas so I'm wondering and of course your friend Loren Michaels may want you to do this or that so when you come on the show do you come there with ideas of what you want to do or that's tough sometimes but I love what's happening something happening we don't know why are you laughing I think it was cuz I didn't shut up for a lot oh well I I do go there with some buddies but I love working with writers okay that's how I started pitching room pitching comedy and the at CBS television in a room with writers and you know you just write in the book and you're sitting in that office for 14 hours and you're laughing all day long at the end of the day you have to sort out what was just comic delirium and what was actually usable you know what Joy's that that much so and by the way did you we're gonna ask the question dick this is a dick Dale this is one of the great rock and roll guitarists of all time here dick dick used to play in Newport Beach when I was playing at the prison of Socrates one of the first I just want to say one thing that only you and only you could have have have played this part and in the movie as well as you did cuz my mom god bless her she's no longer here now but she would I would play this movie because from her strokes and things like that but she would laugh so hard and just about fall out of her I'll sure wait because I was raised with these kind of guys back in Southie Boston and when you did my Blue Heaven net as the bike my mom just oh well I'm glad it made your mom fall out of her wheelchair [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The New Yorker

Views: 93,580

Rating: 4.8135047 out of 5

Keywords: festival 2007, Steve Martin, Susan Morrison, stand-up, rope tricks, festival, nyer festival

Id: j77_PqV47kk

Length: 82min 49sec (4969 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 23 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/amayernican]

This fucking guy. He's got a panache that's unmatched.