Sick in the Head: Conversations About Life and Comedy (38 page)

Mel:
Well, look at the cast. You had Peter Boyle. Cloris Leachman alone could have carried that movie. Gene Hackman, without money, without—you know, we gave him some billing at the end, you know, to play the blind man and pour boiling soup on Peter Boyle’s crotch. I mean, that was so—

Judd:
See, I wouldn’t think he would be funny, Gene Hackman. How did you know Gene Hackman was that funny?

Mel:
I like comedy that just strays an inch from reality. If it strays an inch to the right or left then it’s really good because you don’t, you feel it so real, you don’t expect it to explode. Gene Wilder does that for me every time. He’s very sincere. He’s very emotional. He cares so much. You couldn’t ask for a better real actor to play Dr. Frankenstein.

Judd:
Wilder is your De Niro.

Mel:
He’s actually my Alberto Sordi. If you know anything about movies, Fellini—Alberto Sordi was his leading man, his comic leading man, in those early pictures. He went on to Marcello Mastroianni for
La Dolce Vita
and other movies, and he was always amusing and lovely and, you know. Fellini went on to a handsome guy and I never would have done that. I would have stayed with Alberto Sordi until I died.

Judd:
What about Marty Feldman?

Mel:
Oh, Marty Feldman is…I don’t know. God put him together. We had nothing to do with it. The only way to hide from Marty Feldman was to put your nose against his. And then he can’t see you because his eyes, his eyes go out the sides, you know. But we used to, I mean, Jesus, it’s so wonderful. It was thrilling making that movie because Madeline Kahn, the funniest, the funniest, most moving—I mean when she did Lili Von Shtupp in
Blazing Saddles
and she leaned against something and missed and she…I’m a composer. I know a lot about music. She did a strange one-third off harmony with the melody. They had to carry me out.

Judd:
Our next question is from Maria Markarian. How did I do on that one?

Maria:
Very well, actually.

Mel:
You’re in my next picture, Maria.

Maria:
Let’s do it.

Mel:
Just your name. You may not do a lot, but I like the name.

Maria:
So my question is, aside from Carl Reiner, who has inspired you the most in your career?

Mel:
I guess, you know, that’s a good question. I don’t know. It could be Buster Keaton. It could be Charlie Chaplin. Those guys inspired me. I was about nine years old and I used to go to Feltmans and Nathan’s in Coney Island and Feltmans would have these silent movies. You’d have a knish or a hot dog for a nickel and maybe three cents for the root beer. It was incredible. And then you’d see, they’d show Harold Lloyd, you know,
Safety Last
, or Buster Keaton,
The Navigator, The General.
Or
City Lights
with Charlie Chaplin. I was just lost in it. It was so funny it made me cry. I had a lot of early influences way before people of my time told me, in no uncertain terms, what is really funny. What is really human and what is really funny.

Judd:
Okay—

Mel:
That’s my answer.

Judd:
Our next question is from Cindy Kapp.

Mel:
Spell Kapp. K-A-P-P?

Cindy:
Yes.

Mel:
Oh gee, how do you like that? You know there was somebody in music—Kapp Records.

Cindy:
Yeah.

Mel:
Do you know that? Are you related?

Cindy:
Kapp was shortened from Kappulski.

Mel:
Oh, Kappulski. Well, good shortening. Tell the family well done.

Cindy:
Thank you. All right, my question is: What movie or project are you most proud of, and if you could go back and do something differently, what would you change and why?

Mel:
You know, it’s hard. It’s like children. It’s hard to pick. But I do have some favorites that I am really proud of. I’d say an underrated movie that I’ve done that I’m proud of is
The Twelve Chairs
because it’s that perfect—for me, it’s that perfect combination of having something really important to say about the human condition and human behavior and, and flights of fancy and comedy. It’s a wonderful mélange of comedy and, I don’t know, bravery. I do like it. I’m very proud of and I’m very good in it. I have a small part, but I like it. But I’d say
Twelve Chairs
is overlooked.

Judd:
Are you writing a musical of
Blazing Saddles?

Mel:
I am working on a few tunes. I don’t know if it’ll ever come to, you know. But finding Broadway was a thrill for me after sixty years of fooling around in TV and films. When
The Producers
opened on Broadway, it was a thrill of a lifetime, and then when it opened in London, and they stood on their chairs and screamed? I said, “This is British reserve?” But anyway, I love the payoff. I really do. I’ve got to be honest with you. You don’t get that payoff in film. And you get even less payoff on television, because you could be there alone watching it, and there’s no communal, you know, Let’s laugh together. Let’s be together and enjoy it. You get goose bumps and you cry. I mean it’s the most fulfilling thing that could ever happen to any kind of creative artist.

Judd:
Are they doing it around the world now still, productions of it?

Mel:
They did “Springtime for Hitler,” they did
The Producers
in Berlin. I didn’t go. I was afraid there would be a guy in the balcony with a rifle, but I mean, what a thrill that they did it in Austria, and in Berlin in Hitler’s theater. You know, that box. They invited me to be in that box. No thanks.

Judd:
Yeah.

Mel:
It’s in Akron, Ohio, now in some high school. I swear. I mean, if I’m needy, I could go see a couple of high school kids do
The Producers
and it would be a little bit of a thrill for me.

Judd:
Oh, absolutely. Our next person is Miriam Kavas from Panorama City.

Miriam:
Well, first of all, thank you for the many years of enjoyment that you’ve given everyone. My question—

Mel:
This is good. I’m enjoying myself here. This is wonderful.

Miriam:
Which of your productions have given you the most satisfaction?

Mel:
To Be or Not to Be
, with my wife. Every day, I couldn’t—I liked it so much I couldn’t get enough of her. We did “Sweet Georgia Brown” in Polish and there’s no greater joy than singing with my wife “Sweet Georgia Brown” in Polish. It was very moving. I mean, that was the most enjoyable making of a movie for me. I wasn’t worried about money or art. Every day I would come in early to make sure the set and everything was right, and I’d have a breakfast burrito with rice, beans, scrambled eggs, chorizo, and a kind of green tomatillo sauce and a big cup of coffee. I loved that. I loved my breakfast burrito and my big mug of coffee, and Anne was there already getting her hair done, so we’d hang out. We would hang out for, like, twenty-four hours. And that was, you know, how many people could stand their wives for twenty-four hours? But she—I could cry now. She was easy, let me tell you. She was easy. She was fun.

Judd:
I realize that is one of the many ways I’ve imitated you, by working with my family, and with my wife, Leslie.

Mel:
That’s great.

Judd:
Do you have the best memory of anyone you know?

Mel:
Uh, yes. I think I do have the best memory of anybody I know. Because I want to remember more than anybody I know.

Judd:
Do you currently have a writing schedule? Are you writing or are you just doing work?

Mel:
I have an office and I go every day and make notes. I have a little upright piano, and sometimes I compose a little bit, but I don’t know. I don’t know if anything will happen but, you know, I try to stay interested.

Judd:
You’re open to inspiration.

Mel:
I’m open to it. I’m desperately waiting for it.

Judd:
Can we talk about me for a bit? I have to say as a young, young man—I remember when the VCR was invented and we had, we had
The Godfather
and
Blazing Saddles
and
Young Frankenstein
and
The Producers
and
Annie Hall
and
Sleeper
, and that is what built my brain. Those are the movies that made me want to do this.

Mel:
How old were you then?

Judd:
I was born in ’67. So you know eight, nine, ten. I must have watched those movies hundreds and hundreds of times, and it’s always fun to go to a theater and see them with people. If anyone gets a chance to see them in a movie theater with a lot of people, there’s no experience like watching
Blazing Saddles
with three hundred people. It’s complete madness and—

Mel:
I know. The thrill is seeing it communally. Seeing it in a movie house on a big screen. And that’s, you know, television is wonderful and DVDs, they’re wonderful, but they are really a disservice to movies. I mean, you enjoy somebody cackling from the balcony. You enjoy people around you joining you in the laughter.

This interview was originally part of Sirius Radio’s Town Hall series and took place with a live audience.

When I dipped a toe back into the world of stand-up comedy in the summer of 2014, one of the people performing in the clubs with me almost every night was a thirty-year-old man named Michael Che. At the time, he had just left
Saturday Night Live
and was dedicating himself to working on his stand-up act. I would go on before him most nights and then come out and watch him perform, and I was just blown away by his confidence and poise, by his facility with language and the sophistication of his jokes. He had that easygoing air of somebody who is clearly on his way to comedic greatness. And sure enough, before the summer was over, he’d been hired as a correspondent on
The Daily Show
, and then, just a few months later,
Saturday Night Live
hired him back, stealing him away from
The Daily Show
, to be one of the anchors of “Weekend Update.” When you’re that strong, that’s how it goes.

Judd Apatow:
Well, you’re in the thick of it, aren’t you?

Michael Che:
I’m definitely in the thick of it.

Judd:
Belly of the beast?

Michael:
Absolutely.

Judd:
You’re kicking ass, though. You’ve taken to “Weekend Update” so quickly. Does it feel that way to you?

Michael:
You never feel that way. You always feel like there’s more shit to do—and you need to tighten and tighten and tighten it. Hopefully, by the second half of the season, things start to feel a lot smoother as we get a better sense of what we can do and what we can get away with.

Judd:
As an outsider, it seems like you’ve found your angle on it. And you and Colin Jost—the pairing works so well. It’s exciting to watch it come together so fast.

Michael:
It’s definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in comedy. It’s exciting to know that it can still get better and go further, you know.

Judd:
It works because you guys are so different.

Michael:
We’re completely different. We answer questions different. We dress different. Everything about us is different, but nothing’s forced. It’s not like they like put us together like some buddy cop movie, but it totally could be.

Judd:
In the beginning, Colin seemed so anal and tight, and you’re so loose and confident, it seemed like you brought something out in him that helped him discover what his point of view on the news is. The interplay between you was fascinating. I felt like I could see you guys figuring it out.

Michael:
They wanted us to be different than what Seth was doing. They wanted it to be fresh. You know, Norm Macdonald’s update was nothing like Dennis Miller’s and Dennis’s was nothing like Kevin Nealon’s and Kevin’s was nothing like—you know, everyone’s different. Then, Jimmy and Tina. The one thing that really jumped out to me about them was that there were no runs, really. There was mostly just headline punch lines. I wanted to do something where we could go on a run with the story and inject more personality and opinion. That’s what makes
The Daily Show
and
Colbert
so great. You’re excited to hear what their take is going to be on a certain thing as opposed to them just having something witty to say when they find out about a two-hundred-year-old turtle that got arrested or whatever.

Judd:
I think the only person who did anything close to what you’re doing was Norm Macdonald.

Michael:
Every generation has their “Update” host, you know, the way the people have their Johnny Carson or their Jay Leno or their Jimmy Kimmel. Norm was the “Update” guy when I was a kid, so he’s the one that will always seem the rightest to me.

Judd:
People forget that Norm was fired for making O.J. jokes after NBC told him to stop. [
Editor’s Note: Norm says that is a stalking horse. They just had it in for him and were looking for an excuse.
]

Michael:
People don’t even know that.

Judd:
He also did an enormous amount of aggressive Michael-Jackson-is-a-child-molester jokes.

Michael:
Super-aggressive Michael-Jackson-as-child-molester jokes. Super-aggressive Germans-love-Hasselhoff jokes, too. It was edgy stuff, but it’s just not the same climate today. Now it’s this whole thing of you are what you tweet. I could know you for twenty-five years, I could have followed your whole career, but if you tweet something I don’t like, that means you’re just this kind of a person and you should never have a job again.

Judd:
Treacherous waters.

Michael:
Oh my God.

Judd:
At any moment, some joke you make in the middle of the night can end your career. It’s a very different time for humor because you have to assume, with any great joke, it’s going to anger a certain percentage of the audience—and those people now have a way to communicate their rage. You can unleash the lunatics no matter what side of the issue you are on.

Michael:
And it’s so passionate on Twitter. But if someone recognizes you on the street, it’s like, “I’m your biggest fan.” Everybody I’ve ever met is my biggest fan and everybody on Twitter thinks I suck and shouldn’t have a job. Obviously these people are not my biggest fans and obviously these people don’t hate me. But it’s a strange thing that people do.

Judd:
Twitter’s just this place where the twenty percent who hate what you do will just let you know, and then it feels like eighty percent hate it. I don’t love Spanish rock and roll, but I’m not on the Internet trashing it all day long.

Michael:
Right.

Judd:
But somebody is.

Michael:
The funny thing about “Update” is that people have these irrational expectations. Every week, people yell at me, like, You should be fired, they never should have given you the job. But it’s not like they picked me over any of the old hosts. They’re gone and they’re not getting this job again. I’m not Amy and Tina. You’re not going to get Chevy Chase back just because you miss him.

Judd:
People love to debate what works on SNL. In every era of the show, people love to trash it while loving it and watching it. But the audience never seems to understand that the whole show is written in a week and the fun of it is trying to see how many good ones they can uncork.

Michael:
I always say that, too, when people compare the show to other sketch shows. We do a completely different thing. If we were a taped show that was condensed to a half hour, if we were able to get every perfect shot that we needed with directors, it would be the best comedy show on TV. But we can’t do that. If we had the talents of Will Ferrell and Tracy Morgan and Adam Sandler and we could just focus on making a half hour of perfect comedy, it would be insane. If our star each week wasn’t a person who has never done comedy before and we didn’t have to write every sketch about them and their ability and skill set, it would be amazing. But that’s not the way the show works—and that’s what makes it so special.

Judd:
Are you enjoying focusing on “Update” and not writing sketches as much anymore?

Michael:
“Update” is such a specific thing. With two people, it has this strange kind of momentum—you know, you never
quite
get on a roll. In stand-up, you get on a roll. There’s a flow to it. With two people, as soon as you’re on a roll, the camera’s on someone else. And then, when it’s back to you, you’ve got to restart. So they’re very different things. I was comfortable writing sketches. With sketches, I know what works—and if something doesn’t work, I don’t get suicidal over it. So at this point, sketches are more fun, but “Update” is new and I want to get better at it.

Judd:
In the last year, you’ve had all these big experiences: writing for
SNL
, being on
The Daily Show
, then straight to “Update.” That must have been a real head spinner.

Michael:
It was a lot. Especially during that time when I knew I was coming back to
SNL
but I was still working at
The Daily Show.
That was awkward. It was like being a product of divorced parents, which I am, so I can say that.

Judd:
How did you get out of
The Daily Show
when you just got there?

Michael:
Jon was really cool about it all. He understood the opportunity and he was like, “I’m not going to hold anybody back.” It was a lot like when I left
SNL
for
The Daily Show
, actually. Lorne said, “You know, I’m not going to hold you back. You’ll be great at
The Daily Show.
We believe in that.” So I just got lucky. Both Lorne and Jon could have easily been like, “Oh, fuck it. And fuck you for even
wanting
to go. Now you get the small office.”

Judd:
You didn’t realize Lorne had a master plan to get you back.

Michael:
I don’t know that he did. I’m still not sure.

Judd:
Lorne Michaels outplays everybody again.

Michael:
Who knows. But that guy’s smart, man.

Judd:
His success rate is ridiculous.

Michael:
Yeah, he knows what he’s doing. What other show, what other producer, can lose Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Will Ferrell, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley—who can lose all of those people and still have a relevant show? If
Cheers
lost Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, would they be able to reload and still be relevant?
In Living Color
was one of the greatest sketch shows I’ve ever seen, maybe number two after
SNL.
I loved that show. I was raised on that show. It had like a five-year window. But once the Wayanses left, it was like, “Okay, well, this is over,” you know what I mean? Lorne has had all these guys leave over the years, and he’s been able to restock. It’s amazing.

Judd:
What is your relationship like with him?

Michael:
I’m friendly with him in a strange way. I mean it’s obviously a boss relationship—we’re not getting coffee and talking about girls—but he’s been super-supportive. Anytime I’ve had an issue I could talk to him
about it and I never felt disappointed walking out of his office afterwards. He could be Darth Vader if he wanted and we’d all be okay with it and thankful to have the job. But he’s not. He has helped me believe I can do this job. To get his blessing is a pretty cool feeling.

Judd:
I’m considerably older than you, so I remember when
SNL
first came on. I was eight. I can’t imagine that I watched the first season, but I was definitely watching it in 1976 and 1977, when I was nine and ten years old, just trying so hard to stay up. I think the whole reason I got into comedy was because of
Saturday Night Live.

Michael:
It’s amazing that it’s still important to people. We still have fans who are fourteen and fifteen. It’s like Looney Tunes. My father grew up on Looney Tunes and I grew up on Looney Tunes. It’s a thing you can share.

Judd:
I would always sneak over to the show when Sandler was there. It’s just fun being around it. All the musicians hanging around, the incredible collection of people. Do you enjoy that part of it?

Michael:
Oh, yes. I’ve seen Eminem, I’ve seen Jay-Z, I’ve seen Justin. But I don’t think anyone has generated as much buzz since I’ve been there as Prince. It was crazy. Everyone wants to be next to Prince.

Judd:
Did you get any alone time with him?

Michael:
Hell no.

Judd:
Who have you gotten to meet who is meaningful to you? Was there anyone who blew your mind?

Michael:
Steve Martin. It was at an after party. I got to talk to Steve Martin about comedy and that was just like, what the fuck. This is the biggest comedian in the world. Like, he was
the guy.
This was a stadium comic, you know. And I’m saying that to him. And he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, but that was nothing. That was a long time ago.” He’s talking to me about comedy as if he’s never done it before. He’s like, “What do you do? Do you prepare? How do you prepare? Do you write it down first?” And I’m like, What the fuck? You’re Steve Martin, man.

Judd:
How many years had you been doing stand-up at this point?

Michael:
Four.

Judd:
Wow, your rise has been so fast.

Michael:
It has been insane. If you had told me five years ago that I’d get to do all these things in the next thirty years, I would have been like, “Sign me up.”

Judd:
What do you think accounts for the fact that you haven’t lost your mind?

Michael:
Probably because I love doing this more than anything. Comedy isn’t boring to me. That’s where my sanity is. It’s all the outside stuff that’s exhausting and stressful. The onstage stuff, the crowd, the performing—that never gets old.

Judd:
How closely were you following comedy as a kid?

Michael:
See, I came from a funny family. You know how some families are super-athletic or whatever? In a lot of families, sports are the most important thing—who’s the best football player or who’s the best ball player in the family? Well, comedy was the hierarchy in my family. We’d all get together and just snap on each other and make fun of each other. The level of respect that you got in my family came from being funny. I looked up to the funny people and I wanted to hold my own against the older kids and the adults. We always watched
Raw
and
Delirious
and Damon Wayans’s
One Night Stand, Hollywood Shuffle, Sucka, The Jerk, Bill Cosby Himself.
My brothers and sisters are a lot older than me, and they had these comedy tapes and I would just watch them all and recite them and perform them, but with the curses taken out. I would perform edited versions of
Delirious
and everyone would trip out because I was so young and I was doing it.