Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star (4 page)

“My mother freaked out cause I quit college to do this. She’s always saying ‘you got to get your degree.’ I say ‘what for, what’s it going to do for me?’ This is her reason: She says, ‘You’ll be able to say you’re a college graduate.’ Like I’m not able to say it now? Like I try, ‘I’m a cogger gradugate. I’m a coleberagabubate.’ Damn, four credits short, I almost had it!”

“I asked my sister why my parents like her better than me. She said it’s because she’s older and they’ve known her longer.”

The onstage persona that I was gradually developing reflected who I was as much as who I wasn’t. I hardly had any life experience. I was still as socially adept as a battered timid kid who had awoken from a coma after twenty years. I didn’t have enough self-esteem to be conversational so I’d just shoot out morbid non-sequitur one-liners with my head down, keeping my hands busy by making a noose with the microphone cord.

For a short while I opened by standing onstage for a few moments before stating, “I was killed in Vietnam.” Other jokes were similarly cheerful.

“You people are going to see me on TV in a few years. And when you do, you’ll be able to say, ‘Wow, I saw that guy before he killed those eight people.’”

“My cousin killed himself because no one would play with him. He hung himself from a pole in his backyard. Now people play with him.”

“I hate my guts.”

“Last week I was on the ledge of a building, twenty stories up. Below me, a crowd of people formed, and they started yelling, ‘Don’t spit!’”

I remember the first time I was approached after delivering my stand-up routine. A very business-like woman came up to me and handed me her card. She told me that after seeing my act she had some ideas on how she could work with me. She said I should call her. I was so excited until I looked at her card and saw that she was a psychotherapist. A year after hanging out and vying for stage time, some peers were taking to my style and material. Some audience members understood that my jokes were jokes and not a cry for professional help.

In 1980, I was able to do the second scariest thing I had ever done, besides getting onstage my first time: I moved out of my parents’ house. A friend had told me of an apartment in New York City for just $130 a month. It was actually more a room than an apartment. The bathroom and shower were in the hall and I had to share them with two other rooms up there on that fifth-floor walkup. But still, it was in Manhattan, and I could always get out! (Three years later I upgraded to another apartment where I had my own bathroom, but the shower was in a bathtub in the kitchen that was propped up four feet up in the air. To shower I had to climb a stepladder.)

I had several sources of income that helped me pay my rent during that time. I found a part-time job handing out tickets so people could preview and rate possible new CBS TV shows. I’d write my name on the back of each ticket and get a dollar for each tourist I could convince that sitting in a room watching a tape of a TV show they had never heard of would be a good time. Well, I didn’t exactly sell it that way. I’d say they were seeing a free CBS TV show! If they’d ask, I’d fess up, but if they thought they were seeing
The Price Is Right
, or one of their other favorites, the better for me.

Sometimes there’d be fights between vendors for the prime territory at 47th and Broadway where tourists lined up for half-priced Broadway tickets. I had a partner, a big guy named Colin who was reminiscent of Lenny from
Of Mice and Men
. Colin would toss his bag of tickets down and lunge at any other vendors he claimed were in our great spot. I never watched any of the shows I handed out tickets for and I didn’t quite know about the mechanics of the TV pilot I was fighting with other vendors to push at the time. Besides my CBS ticket job, I also actually started making money from stand-up comedy. The comedy boom of the eighties was just starting to explode. It enabled me to eke out a marginal living playing a dingy bar somewhere and then eating there for free. Most comics didn’t even need representation. At the peak of the boom, all you had to do to get work was answer the phone. There were dates available for anyone with any semblance of an act.

Typically, three comics would meet at The Improv in Hell’s Kitchen near the Lincoln Tunnel. The comic who owned a car would drive the other two out to some bar or disco in New Jersey. Weeknights, you could make $55 for a half-hour set. Many comics were able to get work solely based on the fact that they owned a car. Some even included that on their résumé.

Outside New York City, my act went over a fair amount, but too many times my low-key style wouldn’t go over in the suburbs with the rowdy drunken patrons in their hometown bars. It seemed they’d much rather see some high-energy act run around the stage singing TV theme songs or insulting them in some way. So often, I’d bomb and then the act following me would blow the roof off the place. It would be too unbearable to hear them cheering him on after hating, or at best, mildly tolerating me, so I’d walk outside in the freezing cold or on a lonely deserted road to escape his adulation. And these acts would go on forever. One time after waiting an hour and a half for the headliner to end so he could drive me home, I then had to wait some more when the club turned back into a disco and he danced the night away with all his adoring fans.

I was never a die-hard “Let me slay this crowd!” comic who loved being on stage. It honestly never felt natural being up there for more than three minutes or so. And that had nothing to do with my act doing well or not. It just didn’t suit the style of the quick-hit, depressive jokes I had to stretch out to fill up the time. Most clubs flashed a light when your time was up. I loved getting the light. Once, I got in trouble for getting off too early, but it wasn’t my fault. Apparently, this regular customer hated me and had his own flashlight. He stood in back and flashed it. All I saw was that wonderful light and I left the stage fifteen minutes too early. The manager was upset and forced me to get back onstage and resume. By that time though, most of the crowd had left.

Eventually, I was doing sometimes six sets on the weekends and sometimes even a couple during the week, which was enough work to quit my CBS ticket job, but I was stuck in something that I never intended to spend years and years doing. I was mistaken in thinking that doing my sometimes well-appreciated routine was going to get me to my real dreams. I didn’t really have that compulsion to be up there every night in front of packed crowds. I wanted to be on a set, interacting with other people and not have the whole onus on me. I wanted to be in movies like Steve Martin or be on
Saturday Night Live
or some other hit TV show.

Once a year, the man who booked the comics for
The Tonight Show
would come to New York looking for fresh talent, but I was never one of those he got to see.
The Tonight Show
for awhile was the ultimate revered launching pad. I had seen Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, and Larry Miller plucked out for their shots. A fellow CBS ticket vendor’s brother was an aspiring West Coast manager. I called him up and he said he could set up a
Tonight Show
audition for me at The Hollywood Improv. So, I took what money I could spare and bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles. On the night of the showcase they put me on first, a terrible spot, because the crowd was still milling in and ordering drinks. If that wasn’t bad enough, my contact was talking himself and his other clients up to the
Tonight Show
booker while I was trying to perform. Afterwards, I chided the manager for ruining my shot and flew home that same night.

On January 28, 1986, I was put in a very nerve-wracking situation that I thought would lead to my big break. With four hours’ notice, the producers of
Late Night with David Letterman
called and asked if I would be available to be on the show that day. Apparently, they had had a cancellation. Getting called to make an appearance on such a big show at the last minute was obviously not the best situation. I wouldn’t be listed in
TV Guide
and wouldn’t have much time to prepare. But for where I was in my career, there was no way I could pass up on Letterman! Not being in
TV Guide
, I’d soon learn, was the least of the reasons why doing
Letterman
that day was not an ideal situation. My apartment had no TV reception and wasn’t installed for cable, so I was oblivious to the fact that on that day America was recoiling in shock after the space shuttle
Challenger
exploded.

I rushed to the NBC studios in the legendary 30 Rockefeller Plaza and only then discovered why no one had wanted to do the show. I had to do my act for the producers in their office, where TV monitors replayed the horror over and over again. They had to make sure I didn’t do any material that was inappropriate for that day. They didn’t want me to do anything “too morbid.” Unfortunately, that was half my act.

In his opening, Letterman apologized to the audience for doing the show. He said that he didn’t mean to be irreverent on this tragic day in history, but they were going to try to do the show anyway. I was trying not to be selfish, but couldn’t help thinking,
No one is going to watch the show. Who is going to laugh? This show will never be shown in reruns
.

I did sort of okay for the situation. It was obviously a sullen mood. Years later, I saw Letterman on
The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder,
and he said that the hardest show he ever had to do was the day the space shuttle blew up. At least he didn’t say it was so hard because I was on it.

Months later, I performed several other five-minute bits for the
Letterman
producers, trying to get back on the show. By then, I had come out of my shell a little and was a bit more conversational and accessible. They said they wanted me to go back to when I was weirder. I tried, but many of those old jokes weren’t working anymore. It felt like I was doing an imitation of what I used to be. But I was soon distracted from getting back on
Letterman
by some other opportunities.

Saturday Night Live
is every comic’s dream launching pad. The only thing standing in my way was Al Franken. Years before his fame as a best-selling author, Franken spent one season as the head producer of
Saturday Night Live
. A scout for the show thought my act seemed interesting and brought me in to audition for Franken. I did a few minutes of my act before he stopped me. He asked how I could be on the show. I was all excited, I thought I had the perfect way. “I’ll be this cast member that does these characters that just miss. I do my best and I am not quite, let’s say, an L.A. surfer dude or a French wine critic.” I added that I wouldn’t be doing the characters like all these other cast members, who know how to do dialects and all that stuff.

“So how would I use you? You’re saying you’d be this guy that’s always a little bit off? That’s it?”

“Yeah, it would be great! You know, I’d do a character, but I’m not one of these guys that’s going to look like them or know how to do all the mannerisms.”

He said, “That’s the second time you told me what you
can’t
do.” I sat there, stunned. All I could think was, did he have to put me down like that? Was he my father giving me life lessons? But he may actually have been right. As much as that stung, it did help. Now I try to only say what I can’t do once during an interview, never twice.

Then came my David Brenner experience. Brenner was one of my favorite comedians. In 1986, he hosted a short-lived late night talk show called
Nightlife
. I got booked and my act went over very well. I mostly talked about my mother, how she always says the phrase “again.” “Again with the TV on.” “Again with the candy.” She’d say it to anything. She’d come into my room at four-thirty in the morning and go, “Again with the sleeping. Again with the feet at the end of the legs.”

But what I enjoyed the most was sitting down and interacting with Brenner on the panel. I talked about how exciting it was the time he had followed me at the comedy club Catch a Rising Star. I had a good set and during our interview reminded him that he had said, “That kid is going to be a star, unless he gets hit by a truck.”

“Yeah, I think I remember saying that,” Brenner admitted.

“Well, the only problem is,” I said, “last week I got hit by a truck.”

After that show, I felt comfortable enough with Brenner and his staff to come by and say “hi” a few times. Dave Wilson was Brenner’s director and had been the original director of
Saturday Night Live
. His son, Mike Wilson, was Brenner’s talent coordinator. I put together a few sketches, thinking perhaps I could write for
Saturday Night Live
. I thought Mike Wilson would have a contact there. Instead, he gave my material to Bob Tischler, Brenner’s executive producer.

Tischler called me up and said that my sketches were good and noted that their sensibility seemed to be based around my distinct persona. One sketch was about a timid guy who decides to do risky things, called “The Thrill Seeker.” My Thrill Seeker would do dangerous things like step into a pool ten minutes after eating a tuna fish sandwich, or eat an apple at a deli without washing it first. Another bit was about a guy who volunteers to be a Big Brother. There is a mix-up and he is matched with another guy like him who wants to be a Big Brother. They each think that the other is the little brother and they take each other on rides and play tag.

Tischler then offered me a staff job on
Nightlife
where I’d come up with little walk-on bits for myself, like what Chris Elliott did on
Letterman
.

At first, it was amazing. I had my own office! Sure, it was a little room that never would have passed an electrical safety inspection, there were exposed wires and twisted pipes all the way to its high ceiling. But that didn’t matter. I had a steady salary and a break from vying for stage time at the competitive clubs and Jersey bars and discos. I was earning about $800 a week, the most I had ever earned in my life.

My first piece they did was a corny little bit in Brenner’s monologue. He did a set up for a joke. “Yesterday it was so cold…” He waited until he got the standard Carson-like, “How cold was it?” response from the audience. He said, “Ever wonder why audiences scream that out? I’m going to show you a showbiz secret.” And in the mode of an applause sign, they showed instead a flashing sign that prompted the audience to scream out, “How cold was it?”