VHS Vault: Jay Leno

Is there a more despised man in comedy right now than Jay Leno? I can't think of one. Maybe Kyle Cease, but he's small time. In both cases, I'm not entirely sure it's fair. Leno lost all comedy cred since taking over from Johnny Carson with his bland version of The Tonight Show, then lost even more respect when he wrestled control of the show back from Conan O'Brien. But did he? It's more like he was offered the job back and he took it. Coco fans seem to believe that if Leno had declined the invitation to return as host, O'Brien would still be there. That's faulty logic, methinks. I think NBC wanted Conan out no matter what due simply to the ratings. It's a numbers game. Had Leno refused to come back, they would have replaced Conan with someone else.

Here's an early clip of Leno on The Tonight Show. There's lots more earlier stuff available. I'm not sure exactly when this is but I believe it's from the late 1980s. Since Leno didn't take over from Carson until 1992, this would have been when he was guest hosting, as he did regularly since 1987. It was a period when he was still liked and respected. Is he that much different? I don't think so. But judge for yourself.

The Buck stops at the Tonight Show

After 17 years, the Jay Leno era has ended. At least as far as the Tonight Show is concerned. He'll be back in the fall with a new nightly primetime series.

I was a huge fan of Leno back when he was a standup and appearing monthly on David Letterman's old Late Night series. It's hard to believe all these years later, but those appearances were must-see TV. Any serious fan of comedy wouldn't miss them.

What happened? I think not only did he alter his style somewhat for the venerable chat show, but the style, either way, didn't mesh with the show. Too grating, perhaps. Too whiny. I wasn't a fan.

So now it's Conan O'Brien's turn. His tenure begins tonight. Can't say I'm a big fan of his, either. His recorded comedy segments where he goes in the field are unbelievably great, I'll grant you. But I just can't take his mugging and constant interruptions. Still, I'll give him a shot. Hell, I keep giving Jimmy Fallon a shot and Conan is about a million times better than Fallon.

Anyway, I noticed with great interest that Conan's new stand-up comedy booker for the Tonight Show will be J.P. Buck. Buck has a bit of a local angle. He helped out Will Davis a couple years at the Vancouver comedy festival.

I interviewed Buck for a story I wrote in Vancouver magazine back in 2005. You can read the whole thing here. But as always there were tons of quotes I simply couldn't squeeze in so I dug 'em up for the blog. Here's the new Tonight Show comedy booker talking about, among other things, the level of talent here in Vancouver. But first, he gives us his resumé:

“I’m a freelance producer. I started out working for various networks in Los Angeles. I did a show for Fox. It was called 30 Seconds to Fame, which was a variety show. It didn’t last too long. It was kinda like a Gong Show. But I’ve always had a love for comedy. It’s been what I’ve always wanted to do. I saw Bill Cosby at the age of 11. I saw him live at Radio City Music Hall. I even heckled him at one point. And he actually responded to me, but I soon realized what I had done. I just slumped under my chair. But I’ve always loved comedy. That gave me my first foray into actually going out and scouting. And after that my next job was booking talent for Star Search. The Arsenio one, which was on CBS. And then I did two years of syndicated programs, two of which were for the Showtime at the Apollo people. And after that I moved over to the US Comedy Arts Festival, which is run by HBO, and went over there to run their talent department... geared towards finding the best up-and-coming and also current comedians and sketch troupes and theatre shows.”

“In every one of these jobs I’ve been travelling around the country and going to one-horse towns and see their best comedians. I would have open calls, I’d set up showcases. So over my travels I’ve seen probably about 8000 comedians.”

“I’m looking for comedic ability. My job is not to close the door to somebody because of the way they look. That comes further down the line in terms of the networks. I’m looking for the next comic genius. That’s what I’m expected to do. Further down the road they can become writers, they can become stars on sitcoms. I think that if you’ve got enough personality, it certainly gets you over the hump. There are plenty of leading men out there on TV nowadays that aren’t that good-looking. I think men get away with it moreso than women.”

Now the part about the relative quality of Vancouver comics in the greater North American market:

“I was scouting for the US Comedy Arts Festival. I’d chosen my cities originally. The cities I wanted to go to and the cities where I knew had the best comics. We were based in New York. We were going to New York, LA, Chicago, San Fransisco, Seattle, Austin Texas, and Atlanta and Toronto. Those are the cities that we had mapped out that we were going to go see. So in my discussions with my various scouts around the country, I got referred to Will Davis and got in a conversation with him. And he said, ‘I would love to show you my guys up here.’ And I said, ‘Well, great. I’d love to have you come down to Seattle and see the guys there.’ And so he came down to Seattle and then picked me up and we drove back up to Vancouver, and he put up three shows for me of, like, 36 guys, maybe. And I was really, really impressed with the depth of talent there and just the variety of performers, of material, and how original a lot of the comics were. Because usually whenever I go to a city, I’ll maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll find two or three out of thirty that I’m impressed with. And when I came back from Vancouver, I probably had on my list at least eleven guys that I had no fear of recommending for the festival. And actually two of them got in, which is still a great rate.”

“We were lucky to get one out of every city that we went to. So two out of Vancouver was great.”

I asked Buck if Vancouver was an untapped market:

“Absolutely. Ever since I’ve been there I’ve just been singing its praises to everybody down here. I’m just telling everyone how amazing the talent is up there and how much people are missing out on. I think there’s maybe been a bias. I don’t know enough about Canadian culture enough to say that there’s an east coast bias. But I think Toronto, Montreal, those cities are getting so overworked. But I think the years that Vancouver’s been neglected by the rest of the country I think has been beneficial because it’s created this community of comics that... It fosters an environment where they can write their own material, think differently, work on their sets and their skills, and become much better comics for it, and not get overexposed too soon.”

He even offers an assessment of us, the Vancouver audience, and how we've helped the comics without even knowing it:

“Another great thing about Vancouver is that Vancouver has possibly one of the most discerning, and also toughest crowds, I’ve ever seen. You’ve got these amazing comics on stage... And it’s funny, if you see these comics in other cities, I think you’d get audiences that are flocking to them. But the toughness of winning the crowds over makes the comics work even that much harder here.”

I suggested, maybe ignorantly in hindsight, that Vancouver's scene was better than Seattle's just because we're just one of three major markets in the country, while the U.S. has so many:

“I agree [Vancouver’s better than Seattle]... Boston used to be a mecca for comedy. San Francisco was that as well. But I think both of those cities had their moments and now they kind of need to recharge. And at that moment while they’re down, Vancouver’s the one that’s come up. I don’t want to forecast anything that’s horrible but I think what you’ll see is you’ll see all these Vancouver comedians that come up, become big and move on, and then there’ll maybe be like a little bit of a lull of years before the next wave comes. But I definitely think right now that there’s such a wealth of comics. The audiences are almost spoiled.”

“The only style I can maybe put it under is unapologetic. That’s the beauty of the comics that were out there -- they weren’t all of the same mould. I think maybe when you go to some of these other cities like Boston or San Francisco or LA or New York, there are comics that are so successful that they kind of almost unfortunately influence all the other ones. But I think everybody in Vancouver is working so hard they’ve had time to kind of form their own styles.”

Buck ended up taking both Simon King and Dave Nystrom to the HBO Festival in Aspen:

“That was kinda why we took both of them because there was a little bit of something for everybody that came to our festival. Like, here’s a sample of one guy from Vancouver; here’s another style from Vancouver.”

“That’s something that we’re really trying to make sure we have. What we’re doing is having one group of shows called Rising Stars, which is the guys we’re thinking that over the next few years will do really well. Right now we’re looking at different groups, and in each one of those groups, we want to have one Vancouver guy. There are plenty of comics that deserve to be on it. We want to find a way to kinda get them in to almost every type of show that we have. We have these TV sets that we’re doing where guys will do five minutes of TV-clean material for the industry people that are coming in. We’ll also try to get them to host other shows so whenever people from LA and out of town are driven to see these big names, they’re also getting a taste of what Vancouver is. We want to make sure that the Vancouver comedians are sprinkled throughout the festival.”

“What helps to draw people up there are some of the American names. We’re trying to say to the LA and New York executives and industry and agents and managers, ‘Come on up here and see Leno perform on this show, see Jake Johannsen perform here, Jim Gaffigan. And Zach Galifianakis is a huge Vancouver name that will attract attention. But on top of that, while you’re there we’re hoping that we can kind of influence them with all the great Vancouver comics and say, ‘Hey, this is actually a comedy Mecca and you should come here a lot more often.’”

Interesting that at the time Buck thought Galifianakis was a Vancouverite. Maybe that informed his opinion of the scene. Zach was filming up here and playing all the local rooms.

“Believe me, you can say that about comics in just about any city outside of New York, LA, Toronto and Montreal. Because none of those comics understand what goes into getting a deal or getting on a show or getting in a film or being able to perform standup on Comedy Now or any of those shows. It comes with experiencing, unfortunately, rejection or having someone from the industry tell you what the industry’s looking for. Because a lot of times it doesn’t always go to the funniest person, unfortunately.”

“It certainly helps to be in LA of all the US cities. But you don’t want to come here too early. You want to be able to come here so that people can see you and they know who you are, but at the same time if you come here too soon, if they see you too early, and you don’t do well, they’re going to write you off and never want to see you again. That’s the unfortunate thing. A lot of guys in the States make the mistake of ‘Okay, I’m the biggest fish in this pond so it’s my turn to go to LA’. And they go to LA maybe after performing stand-up for two years, which is the wrong thing to do. You almost want it to come to the point where you’ve got an agent or manager calling you to come to LA: ‘We need you here because I’ve got stuff that I want you to do.’”

“Vancouver’s such a perfect city for us to hold this festival. You want to get the people coming from LA and there’s no sense in flying all the way to Montreal when you can just go to Vancouver and see these comics.”

“I definitely see it becoming a major player, absolutely. And I think the timing is perfect because I think there’s been a lull over the past few years. Unfortunately it’s hard to sustain a festival for so long. I think people maybe are looking for something different. I definitely think it can become one of the top international festivals. We’ve definitely booked some great international acts this year. So I’m excited about that, too.”

And some advice for all comics:

“The worst thing a comic can do for himself when he’s peforming in front of a bunch of people from the industry is to actually comment on how bad the crowd is. You’ve probably seen it a lot where comics will be like, ‘Wow, you guys aren’t getting this stuff.’ If they could just plow through. It’s a lot easier said than done, but if they can make it through that often can speak volumes about them.”

So will this lofty impression of the city's talent translate to a Tonight Show appearance for one (or some) of them? It should, but we'll have to wait and see.

Misadventures in interviewing

I love interviewing celebrity comedians. They're mostly all really great and engaging. Don't get me wrong. I also have a blast interviewing non-celebrity comics, too, on my show. The ones I'm talking about here are conducted over the phone for print stories. But you can't beat lounging around your pad talking on the phone. Off the top of my head, only two have been less than engaging.

One was Patton Oswalt, who was pleasant enough, but it was a forced pleasantness and he offered absolutely nothing more than he had to. Most comics will treat an interview as it should be treated – as a conversation. But Oswalt took it literally. If there was no direct question, there'd be next to no answer. If there was a yes/no question, you can bet he'd answer with either a yes or a no with zero explanation. I guess he does a lot of interviews with idiots and went into it figuring I was an idiot, too. And maybe I was. But I was also no different than I am with anyone else. Here's the thing: over the years, I've found no correlation between great answer and great question. Sometimes a really original, well-researched question gets a fantastic answer and sometimes it gets nothing. Sometimes a really banal and boring question gets a fantastic answer and sometimes it gets nothing. It all depends on 1) what the interview subject wants to give, and 2) the connection between the subject and me.

I hung up from my interview with Oswalt thinking we didn't really connect and he wasn't all that giving, but I put most of the blame on myself. I always think I should be able to reach whoever I'm talking to – and I usually do. Oswalt certainly was polite enough, so it must have been me. Then, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from a colleague who I rarely see. He didn't know I had spoken to Oswalt. He just wrote me to tell me that he just had the worst interview of his life... and it was with Patton Oswalt. It was enough to turn him off interviewing comedians altogether. What I can't figure out is why someone who wants to promote a show would piss off the very person who can help promote the show. If you don't want to speak to the press, don't. Simple enough. But if you're going to talk, be a professional.

The only other comic I've interviewed who I couldn't reach was Steven Wright. I wrote about that in an earlier post. But with Wright, I figure, that's just the way he is. I can't blame him for that. He eventually warmed up in his own peculiar way but was incapable of really communicating with someone he doesn't know.

Jimmie Walker was a tough nut to crack. He hates doing interviews and didn't want to do one. He's been screwed over by reporters in the past, who sweet-talk him to his face then turn around and bash him in print. That's not my style, but he had no way of knowing that. But I explained to his publicist that I respect him and I only write about comedy and was finally able to finagle one. I call him at the appointed time and he answers the phone quite strangely, I thought. It was like a sexy voice or something. I can't explain it. He was probably just being funny. But I tell him who I am and he immediately shuts down. The first few questions were like pulling teeth. But I persisted and as soon as I showed I knew something about his history outside of Good Times, he started to warm up and it turned out to be one of my favourite interviews.

Beyond that, I've had a couple of funny experiences while conducting phone interviews, both involving my son. These days, I can tell him I've got a phone interview to do and he'll leave me be. But back when he was two or three, it was more challenging.

One morning we got up around 9 and I checked my e-mail at 9:23. I remember the time because the message said Roseanne Barr was available for an interview at 9:25. So I quickly put on a video, explained to my not-quite-two-year-old that I needed to talk on the phone and he couldn't disturb me, then went in the other room to call Roseanne. Because of the situation, I wasn't as comfortable as I usually am. I was walking around talking to her when my son walks in carrying a big race track. I silently motioned "shhh" with my index finger to my lips while Barr was talking. I had forgotten that we hadn't eaten breakfast, which is no problem for me, but when a toddler is hungry, forget about it. That one little motion turned him from happily playing with his toys to bawling his eyes out. I was quietly trying to console him when Roseanne whined in her distinctive nasally voice, "What's wrong with that kid?"

I brushed it off, and got right back to the interview. We talked a bit more and my son started crying again. Roseanne, quite accusingly, I felt at the time, said, "Who's looking after that kid?" I told her I was and she said, "No, you're not. You're talking to some old broad." Then she told me to give him a cookie. It wasn't the smoothest interview I had done and I thought she was being harsh, but when I went back to listen to the tape, I realized she was actually being nice, in her own sweet way.

Fast forward a year and a bit and my son has just learned to poo on the toilet. So he's out of diapers but still needs help. I think you can see where this is leading. I'm expecting a call from Jay Leno's assistant one morning to arrange a time for later that day when I can interview Leno. I had set up a playdate for my kid so I could do the interview in peace. Everything would be fine.

So the boy is in the back yard playing in the dirt and the phone rings, as expected. Leno's assistant is on the line. She says, "I have Jay Leno on the line, can you take it?" Uh... My mind races. I can't say no. He's a busy guy. But I had no time to warn my son. So I stammered, "Sure," and headed to the office to record the call. On the way there, my cordless phone started beeping. It was running out of juice. So I had to pick up the corded phone, meaning I couldn't even walk around or see out to the back yard to check on my son.

So I'm talking to Leno and he's going on like a pro when my son walks in. He starts to talk and I gave him the shush sign again. Being just over three now, he wasn't reduced to tears. In fact, he stopped talking. And then he whispered those five little words I didn't want to hear: "I have to go poo."

Shit.

Leno is still talking and I'm trying to figure out my options. I finally pulled my son's pants down around his ankles and pointed him in the direction of the toilet. It seemed to work. He waddled off towards the bathroom and I was home free, I thought, not realizing he had never once gone on his own before. So a minute passes and he waddles back to the office and whispers, "I don't have to go now." Fine with me. So I put the phone between my ear and shoulder and bend down to pull up my son's pants. Leno is still talking, oblivious, and I'm attempting to offer the appropriate responses. While I'm bending over, the phone squirts out and lands on the floor. I quickly finish the job, send my kid out of the room and pick up the phone. Leno's still talking. I figure I can pick it up on the recording, which I did. It didn't make for the smoothest interview, but he didn't seem to notice.