Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (34 page)

Corey: You’ve had some real celebrities guest on the show, but sometimes it’s difficult to tell if it’s really them or someone doing an impression. Is there anyone special that you really tried to get?

Seth: We had the entire cast of ‘Murphy Brown.’ KISS did the show. Norm MacDonald was exciting for me because I’m a huge fan of his. We had Jennifer Love Hewitt which was even more exciting. Obviously, Adam West, who became a regular, became one of the most popular characters. We would get letters: ‘More Adam West.’ He’s a very funny guy. They’re scattered throughout. Andy Dick. Dick Van Patten. Waylon Jennings, which was his last acting appearance before he passed away. Appropriately enough, it was a ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ gag.

Corey: His legacy ends with ‘The Dukes.’

Seth: Yeah, he was great. He was very sick at the time, and he agreed to do the episode. We were very grateful for that. Wallace Shawn. Hugh Downs.

Corey: Were these people who had seen the show and got what you were doing?

Seth: Some of them. Some were taking a gamble, and they had just read about it. It became easier once we started getting more people because we could say, ‘Well, we got this person to do it.’ Most of the time it was playing themselves. It was pretty fun the mix of personalities that were involved with the show.

Corey: Are there any impressions you do that you’re particularly proud of?

Seth: We tried to get Shatner early on, for the second episode, and he said no so that was one I had to do. Here and there. I do a passable Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly. I’m trying to think of obscure ones. Gosh, Mr. Sulu. More often that not we were able to get the actual person. Some times out of desperation, I would go in there and mimic them the best I could.

Corey: The DVDs were first available overseas. What kind of following do you have?

Seth: We’ve always been told we are big in the U.K. It’s quite a compliment because British humor is some of the best. It’s interesting some of the translations of some of the names. In France the show is just called ‘Le Griffin.’ In Korea, it’s called ‘The Shocking Family.’

Corey: Appropriately enough. I wonder how some of the jokes translate.

Seth: Yeah, I have no idea. Some just scare the crap out of me. There’s one in the pilot with the black woman who is selling pancakes door to door, and she’s a Jamina’s Witness. I have no idea how they could possibly translate that because it’s an English pun. I’m sure whatever they came up with is horribly offensive—not that the original isn’t!

Some folks are just drawn to drama like a moth to a flamer, so it’s easy to understand why the offstage life of Roseanne Barr overshadowed her role as an entertainer.

Sure, you could dwell on the stacks of tabloid articles, the three ex-husbands, the book about multiple personalities and familial abuse—and that unfortunate song at the ballpark forever ago.

But…don’t forget why there was so much ink and bad TV movies and clips of the week. Roseanne—formerly Barr, Arnold, single name only like Cher and now back to Barr—is one of the funniest, groundbreaking comedians of all time. Her sitcom family, the Connors, will rival others like the Ricardos, the Bunkers and the Huxtables—and you better believe the Connors would kick all their asses at a Halloween costume contest. Or how to skate by ’til payday with only $37 in the bank.

Now that the media frenzy has died, Barr is able to get back to doing what she does best, making people laugh as she made Johnny Carson laugh on her first, stressful “Tonight Show” appearance in the ’80s.

Corey: How does your stand-up style compare from when you first started to what you’re doing today?

Roseanne Barr: It’s about the same. I have my style. It’s still my style. It’s more seasoned because I’ve been doing it a long time.

Corey: I bet the subject matter is a little different
.

Roseanne: Not all that much, no.

Corey: Rodney Dangerfield was a big fan of yours, and you were a big fan of his. I heard you were a pallbearer at his funeral?

Roseanne: No, I wasn’t a pallbearer, but I did speak.

Corey: How did you first get involved working on his comedy specials?

Roseanne: Well, he invited me.

Corey: He had seen you perform?

Roseanne: We were introduced, and he had heard about me from friends, you know. He liked me, which was lucky for me.

Corey: Do you remember your first ‘Tonight Show’ visit?

Roseanne: Oh yeah, it was very exciting, very exciting.

Corey: Did you get called over to the couch that first time?

Roseanne: I did, and I ran the hell out of there. I had no idea; I was just not prepared.

Corey: It was intimidating?

Roseanne: Oh, yeah. I was on there a second time, and the guy goes, ‘Make sure you watch Johnny this time, and if he motions you over there, you’re gonna have to go over there.’ I’m like, ‘OK, I get it.’ So he did, and I left; I ran. I just panicked. Then they came to the dressing room to get me, and I was trying to get my clothes on and get out of there. They go, ‘Johnny wants you. Johnny wants you to come out there.’ I couldn’t get out. OK, so I had to go out. As I knew would happen, I had nothing to say, and I just sat there like a blithering idiot. He made me look good, though.

Corey: Was he nice to you off camera?

Roseanne: So nice, so nice.

Corey: I’ve heard a lot of people say that’s the moment they knew they made it in show business.

Roseanne: Absolutely.

Corey: How does that performance compare to the first time you ever got on stage and told jokes?

Roseanne: What, ‘The Tonight Show?’ Are you shitting me with that? It was more exciting to be on ‘The Tonight Show’ than anything ever. That’s why I went through all the crap I went through; kept getting onstage even thought they hated my guts. I wanted to learn it. I wanted to be on ‘The Tonight Show’ with Johnny. So when I got there, it was every dream I ever had come true.

Corey: Do you use notes now, or how do you get ready for a show?

Roseanne: I use notes because I’m old, and every so often I have to look at them, not too much. I just get up there and let it rip.

Corey: There’s not a set format?

Roseanne: No, it’s a show. It’s a set format, written show.

Corey: Does this particular show have a title?

Roseanne: The title I’m having trouble with. I’ve changed it about 75 times. It was, ‘Let the Healing Begin,’ just because I hate people who say, ‘Let the healing begin.’ I hate Dr. Phil. He keeps saying crap like that so I just named it that because my act is a celebration of the end of the world. That’s why I named it, ‘Let the Healing Begin.’ Every week it has a different name. I was calling it ‘The Gay Tour.’ I was calling it ‘Kiss My Ass.’ You know, ‘Menopause,’ that was taken. I don’t know, ‘Bitter Old Woman,’ ‘Fat Old Jew,’ ‘Bitter Old Fat Jewish Woman.’ (laughs) I don’t know.

Corey: Was menopause a dirty word for you when it started hitting?

Roseanne: You mean personally?

Corey: Yeah.

Roseanne: I knew it was gonna happen. I was prepared for a lot of things, like I knew I was gonna get emotional and paranoid and grow a beard. I was prepared for that, but I was not prepared for some parts of it such as the fact that you lose your sex drive. I thought it was just because I was married, but no, it’s a symptom of menopause. These are my jokes.

Corey: My stepdad likes to say that. My mother is going through that right now, and that’s a symptom I didn’t know about or want to hear about.

Roseanne: It’s a good one, though. It’s awesome to stop worrying about being hot so someone will have sex with you. That’s what’s ruining the world is people’s obsession with sex. I’m glad that I’m saying that.

Corey: Does it make it difficult to date now?

Roseanne: Date, are you kidding me? I don’t date.

Corey: You don’t have a boyfriend?

Roseanne: I do, as a matter of fact, but he’s old, too. He’s old, thank God.

Corey: If you go out on Saturday night, you don’t call it a date?

Roseanne: We don’t go out. We’re those two old Jewish people who go on screaming about socialism, like in Woody Allen movies.

Corey: I am a big fan of the Halloween episodes of ‘Roseanne’.

Roseanne: Oh God, do I miss those! I’m talking to people about doing something Halloween-ish. They were the most fun things—my favorite part of the whole show.

Corey: Do you still get into the spirit of the holiday even though you’re not doing the show?

Roseanne: Halloween? Oh yeah, it’s right around my birthday so I’ve always been a Halloween fanatic.

Corey: When do you pick out a costume?

Roseanne: I start thinking about it pretty early.

Corey: Are you narrowing it down already?

Roseanne: I think my and my boyfriend are going to go as penguins because we loved that movie (‘March of the Penguins’). Did you see that movie?

Corey: That was a great documentary.

Roseanne: If we could make it to a Halloween party, we would just stand in the corner, passing an egg back and forth on our feet. That’s kind of what I’m thinking this year. But I’ll probably do what I do every year which is be with kids. That’s real fun. My grandkids and my son, we do those kinds of things.

Corey: Do they get all dressed up, too?

Roseanne: We all wear costumes, definitely. It’s probably like the most important religious holiday in our family. Last year, my son-in-law, he started like four months before Halloween, gathering pallets out of trash and he built a pirate ship in his front yard which we filmed. It was a work of art. It was a real pirate ship. He had cannons that actually fired and sails. And it was all made out of discarded trash because our family is creative and crazy. The block was lined up for like two weeks bumper to bumper. People could not believe it. We were all dressed up like pirates and stuff.

We used to say, the Connor family, the reason why they didn’t have any money was because they spent it all on Halloween. We’re actually not that poor. We’d say, me and John Goodman, ‘Well kids, this year it’s either college or Halloween.’ And they’d go, ‘Halloween, of course.’ Yeah, the Connors. It was fun.

Corey: On the scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the kissing ability of Mariel Hemmingway?

Roseanne: Geez, that’s something I haven’t thought about for a long time. I just saw that she’s got a book out at the bookstore I was at today. She’s nice. The kissing ability? That’s one thing that bugs me about actors, they just want to have an excuse to make out with people, but the real thing is you’re just pretending you’re kissing. So I was just pretending I was kissing her. Compared to the real world, there was no reality in it, so I don’t think it stacks up with anything.