Part 31 (2/2)
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 b.u.mps 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 G.o.dfather 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.
MICHAEL CHE.
(2014).
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 Sat.u.r.day 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, Sat.u.r.day 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 a.s.s, 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 s.h.i.+t 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 a.n.a.l 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-Ha.s.selhoff 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 G.o.d.
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 a.s.sume, 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.
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