Now this was a special event! Tonight I ventured down to the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. to see Ten from Your Show of Shows. Ever hear of that? You've got ten skits from Your Show of Shows starring Sid Caesar and a cast of comedians like Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca. An unknown Mel Brooks was one of the writers on the show.
And guess what? Mel and Carl were here tonight! You believe that? It's kind of hard to emphasize how awesome that is. Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks are hands down two of the most legendary comic geniuses pretty much of all time.
While you know who they are, have you ever heard of Your Show of Shows? I'm in my thirties and didn't really know what it was until a couple years ago when I watched a couple episodes on an old VHS collection at my Dad's place in Jersey during my annual Thanksgiving visit. It was a weekly show of comedic sketches. Like Saturday Night Live, each episode was ninety minutes. Sid Caesar didn't actually create it, although you could say he inspired it. The real brain behind Your Show of Shows was Pat Weaver, father of Sigourney Weaver. No, you never saw him on the show, just as you never see Lorne Michaels on SNL. The geniuses devise their plans and then find the charismatic comedians to make it happen. While Your Show of Shows would've been enough to cement Pat Weaver's name in the annals of TV history, this guy did quite a bit more. He wasn't even thirty when he was the producer of Town Hall Tonight, an extremely popular radio comedy program with maestro Fred Allen. It was a weekly show that ultimately became the longest-running hour-long comedy show in radio history. Among the recurring skits was "Town Hall News," which quite clearly had an influence on "Weekend Update" on SNL, not to speak of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In's "Laugh-In Looks at the News," and just about every other faux comedy news skit/program. Shit, just look at The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. With a notch like that in his resume, not to speak of the fifteen or so years of broadcast producing experience under his belt in general, it's no wonder NBC hired Pat Weaver to take on CBS.
Pat didn't waste a minute at NBC. He created Your Show of Shows almost right away. And you know The Today Show, which airs every morning to this very day? Yep, that was his baby, as is The Tonight Show. Awesome, huh? What's ironic is that Pat wasn't at NBC all that long, maybe five or six years or so, the last couple of which saw him run the joint. And he did even more as head of NBC, not in terms of creating more awesome shows but more in the way he steered the network's ship. You take programming, for instance. Pat decided NBC should produce its own programming, as opposed to having an ad agency do it, which was common in radio broadcasting and early TV. Pat actually never worked for a radio station. When he produced Fred Allen's Town Hall Tonight, he was working for an ad agency called Young & Rubicam. But at NBC he changed the system. NBC would do its own thing....and then sell ad time during broadcasts. Sound familiar? That's pretty much how it's still down today. He never meant to blaze a trail (or rock the ad world's boat). Pat's reasoning was strictly practical. By having an ad agency produce your content, if that agency decides they don't like you for some reason and defects to another radio station or TV network, your station or network's revenue could be impacted severely. Under his new system, of course, a single defecting agency or advertiser wouldn't be as big a deal. Pat was by all accounts a classy guy, a consummate professional. He thought shows should do more than entertain. They should educate a little as well. And so that's why he mandated all shows produced by NBC include something cultural. That could be tricky, right? How do you do that with Your Show of Shows? We got to see at least one example tonight. One of the skits took place at the opera. There ya go. Culture!
Now how about Imogene Coca? You heard of her? If you're a child of the eighties like me, the first time you saw her was in National Lampoon's Vacation. She played Aunt Edna, the one who kicked the bucket during the road trip. Remember when they put her corpse on the roof of the station wagon? At night? In the rain? Classic. I had no idea until much later that she was a comedy legend. About the same age as Pat Weaver, Imogene toughed out her twenties and thirties without much to show for it. It wasn't until the late 1940s, as she herself was approaching forty, that she and Sid hit it off with The Admiral Broadway Revue, which put them on the TV map. That's the show that caught Pat Weaver's eye and inspired him to create Your Show of Shows. After that show's four-year run, Imogene kept working steadily. She even had her own eponymous show, albeit for just one season. She landed a couple other steady TV gigs that carried her through the sixties. From around 1970 onward, she scaled back. Indeed, Vacation is probably the most memorable thing she did in her golden years. All told, Imogene Coca blazed a trail for comediennes. Your Show of Shows scored her a Primetime Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy, making her the second woman ever to get that prize. She also scored a Peabody for excellence in broadcasting and got a bunch of Emmy nominations over the years.
It would be crass for me to describe all 10 skits. I could never do justice to the hilarity. I will say, though, that the hilarity doesn't come from datedness or quaintness (i.e. unintentional hilarity), although once in a while that popped up. Most of the comedy is still fresh and clever. But not raunchy. No toilet humor here, and I can't tell you how refreshing that is. One of my favorite skits is the Bavarian clock one. You've basically got this big old clock you sometimes see in German and Swiss towns. When the hour strikes, these little toy figures dressed in lederhosen and dirndls come out and perform some simple little moves before going back into the door beneath the clock face. Well, in this skit, Sid and gang play the little toy figures. Hilarious! Pure. Comic. Genius. And no one says a word. Again, they're toys. Like most comedy, it all comes down to body language and timing. And then you've got the Verdi opera skit I mentioned above. Another skit parodied From Here to Eternity. Anyway, I'll leave you to discover the skits for yourself. I'm not sure if 10 from Your Show of Shows is on DVD, but I do know you can find several different Sid Caesar anthologies on DVD which, like my dad's VHS collection, include these skits.
And now let's get to the rowdy Q&A with two funny old guys with more energy and spunk than folks a quarter their age: Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. Suffice it to say they got a standing ovation when they came up front afterward. The first thing Mel talked about was cutting his entertainment teeth at Catskills summer resorts when he was in his teens and twenties. He was what his Jewish ancestors would call a tummler, an MC. Mel became especially known for his awesome celebrity impersonations. But he didn't just do standup. Mel played drums in a band. I had no idea. That's pretty cool. And speaking of the 1940s, here's another thing I didn't know: He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. I guess it makes sense, he'd've been in his late teens in the early forties. But more than just serve, dude saw action at none other than the Battle of the Bulge. That's kind of amazing, actually.
Mel wasn't the only musician/comedian who yukked it up/jammed during the Catskill summers. A comedian and tenor saxophonist named Sid Caesar was also making a name for himself at that same place and time. This is where they met. Think about that. Mel Brooks and Sid Caesar jamming and doing standup. The Catskills must've been a really awesome place to be. Sid's four years older than Mel but was even further ahead than that in his career. He started playing the sax in the Catskills when he was all of fourteen as part of a band called the Swingtime Six. He did standup and performed in sketches as well, but he really wanted to be a musician. He sacrificed a lot toward that end, quitting his job and living poor while taking classes at Julliard and whatnot. A Swan Lake, Catskills hotel called Vacationland was where he got the most gigs. As for his involvement in the war, Sid joined the Coast Guard but didn't see any action. He was basically an entertainer, putting on military revues in Brooklyn. And you want more networking? Enlisted on the same base at the same time was Vernon Duke, the man behind Autumn in New York and Taking a Chance on Love, among other things. Sid and Vernon were transferred to a base in Palm Beach, Florida to do another military revue. The director of that show was Max Liebman...who would later go on to produce Your Show of Shows. See how it all comes together?
As much as Sid wanted to play sax, everyone, including him, knew he was better at comedy. Max Liebman became a sort of mentor to Sid following the war. He helped him develop material and land representation at William Morris, then and now one of the hottest talent agencies in the country. With reps like that, Sid landed gigs right away, mostly in New York. And then of course it was time for Your Show of Shows. Tonight Mel made no bones about it. The only reason he knew Sid was because of their jamming together in the Catskills, even being in the same band at one point. And it was only because of Sid that he landed the writing job on Your Show of Shows. Networking!
While Sid took a shining to Mel, Max Liebman didn't. Mel didn't say why, but apparently Max couldn't stand him. He'd even throw lit cigarettes at our man Mel. You might wonder why Max didn't just fire him. Well, Sid wouldn't allow it. And in the end everything went Sid's way since there'd be no show without him. Mel said his first day on the job saw him literally wander into the theater like a hobo off the street. As the producer of the show, Max was accustomed to interviewing and vetting everyone who wanted to be on the writing staff, but Sid had basically guaranteed Mel the job. The theater, by the way, was the International Theatre on Columbus Circle. Don't bother looking for it today. Like too many historic theaters, the International (also called the Park Theatre) was torn down.
Sid may have been Mel's champ, but he had quite the temper too, apparently. Mel called working for Sid "mostly heaven with a little bit of hell." One anecdote he shared was when they were touring Chicago. Mel and Sid were up late in their hotel room. Sid was chain smoking cigars. Finally, when it was really late, Mel complained that he was exhausted and couldn't breathe from all the cigar smoke. Could they just call it a night? Guess how Sid responded. He literally picked up Mel and held him out the eighth floor window until Mel agreed they could work a little more. It wasn't as abrupt as it sounds. Mel said the whole night Sid was frustrated at the tepid responses his jokes got from the Chicago crowd the previous night. You won't think the whole balcony incident is farfetched when you see Your Show of Shows. Sid was a big mutha. And if you've seen Mel onscreen once, you know he's just a little guy. Other examples of Sid's temper in action include picking up a car that was parked in a spot he considered his, by the curb in front of the International Theatre. When someone else parked there on another occasion, he didn't have the patience to pick up the car or go looking for another spot. So he double parked. Lest we think Sid was a complete monster, Mel and Carl emphasized that he had a great sense of humor about his blowups. He was terrific at making fun of his crazy temper and even parodied himself in some of the sketches on Your Show of Shows.
One big reason Your Show of Shows has become so legendary is all the genius writers who got their start there. Mel Brooks is a shining example, of course, but did you know Neil Simon was a staff writer? Yep. And so was his older brother Danny Simon. Danny didn't find the success his kid brother found in the theater, but he did okay for himself with TV. After Your Show of Shows, he eventually landed writing gigs on My Three Sons, The Carol Burnett Show as well as two shows I grew up on in the eighties, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. Danny was quite the influence on Woody Allen, who said about him: "I've learned a couple things on my own since and modified things he taught me, but everything, unequivocally, that I learned about comedy writing I learned from him." Speaking of Woody, Mel and Carl said he did not in fact write for Your Show of Shows. Lots of people think Woody did because he did, in fact, help write some of those one-off specials for Sid after Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour went off the air.
Larry Gelbart was a staff writer as well. In terms of TV work, he is by far best known for M*A*S*H. He adapted the original Robert Altman film for the small screen and also wrote and directed a bunch of episodes. M*A*S*H scored Larry a Peabody as well as an Emmy. He did okay with movies as well. Larry wrote the script for Oh, God! with George Burns (I loved that movie when I was a kid) and co-wrote Tootsie, both of which earned him Oscar nominations.
Just to show you how chockfull of writing talent Your Show of Shows was, Mel and Carl said the office secretary was a twentysomething guy named Michael Stewart. Know who that is? Me neither until Mel and Carl revealed that Michael Stewart's the playwright responsible for Broadway smashes like Bye Bye Birdie and Hello, Dolly!. Wow, huh? And he wasn't even writing for the show. He was just the stinkin' typist! It paid the bills while he pursued his MFA from Yale School of Drama. He got the degree around the time Your Show of Shows ended. When Sid started Caesar's Hour the following year, he brought Michael along, this time as a staff writer.
Carl reminded us that, while Your Show of Shows was a TV hit, the TV medium itself was still very new. People weren't "obsessed" with TV the way they can be today. No, theater was the place to be. That's why most entertainers back then went to New York, not Hollywood, to get their start. And that's why Your Show of Shows was broadcast not from a soundstage in Burbank, but from a theater on Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Even today I sometimes hear a veteran actor saying that aspiring actors, even if they are aiming for TV and film, should understand the stage first. When I saw Samuel L. Jackson at the Aero for a double feature of Resurrecting the Champ and Black Snake Moan in December 2007, someone in the audience asked him what advice he had for young actors: "Go to New York," I remember him saying, just like that. Not just for the stage experience. Sam said that in New York, where everything's closer together, you have a better sense of community. It's easier to be part of a social group of actors, whereas in L.A. it's more spread out and competitive.
When asked what they like on TV today, both Carl and Mel gushed over Family Guy. As for today's comedians, Mel's a fan of Steve Carrell. He also gave a shout-out to Dave Chapelle, whom he discovered when he cast him in the early nineties for Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Chapelle was only twenty at the time. I saw that in the theater with my mom and remember cracking up at Chapelle's "White men can't jump" line. Most people of course know him from Chapelle's Show, which ran for a good three strong years before he bailed to South Africa. I really liked his Block Party film, a concert doc he made in Brooklyn about six months or so before his abrupt departure from Comedy Central but which wasn't released until after he returned to the States. He still does standup but otherwise stays out of the limelight, living with his wife and kids in the same area of Ohio where he visited his father as a child. "I miss him," Mel said.
And guess what? Mel and Carl were here tonight! You believe that? It's kind of hard to emphasize how awesome that is. Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks are hands down two of the most legendary comic geniuses pretty much of all time.
While you know who they are, have you ever heard of Your Show of Shows? I'm in my thirties and didn't really know what it was until a couple years ago when I watched a couple episodes on an old VHS collection at my Dad's place in Jersey during my annual Thanksgiving visit. It was a weekly show of comedic sketches. Like Saturday Night Live, each episode was ninety minutes. Sid Caesar didn't actually create it, although you could say he inspired it. The real brain behind Your Show of Shows was Pat Weaver, father of Sigourney Weaver. No, you never saw him on the show, just as you never see Lorne Michaels on SNL. The geniuses devise their plans and then find the charismatic comedians to make it happen. While Your Show of Shows would've been enough to cement Pat Weaver's name in the annals of TV history, this guy did quite a bit more. He wasn't even thirty when he was the producer of Town Hall Tonight, an extremely popular radio comedy program with maestro Fred Allen. It was a weekly show that ultimately became the longest-running hour-long comedy show in radio history. Among the recurring skits was "Town Hall News," which quite clearly had an influence on "Weekend Update" on SNL, not to speak of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In's "Laugh-In Looks at the News," and just about every other faux comedy news skit/program. Shit, just look at The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. With a notch like that in his resume, not to speak of the fifteen or so years of broadcast producing experience under his belt in general, it's no wonder NBC hired Pat Weaver to take on CBS.
Pat didn't waste a minute at NBC. He created Your Show of Shows almost right away. And you know The Today Show, which airs every morning to this very day? Yep, that was his baby, as is The Tonight Show. Awesome, huh? What's ironic is that Pat wasn't at NBC all that long, maybe five or six years or so, the last couple of which saw him run the joint. And he did even more as head of NBC, not in terms of creating more awesome shows but more in the way he steered the network's ship. You take programming, for instance. Pat decided NBC should produce its own programming, as opposed to having an ad agency do it, which was common in radio broadcasting and early TV. Pat actually never worked for a radio station. When he produced Fred Allen's Town Hall Tonight, he was working for an ad agency called Young & Rubicam. But at NBC he changed the system. NBC would do its own thing....and then sell ad time during broadcasts. Sound familiar? That's pretty much how it's still down today. He never meant to blaze a trail (or rock the ad world's boat). Pat's reasoning was strictly practical. By having an ad agency produce your content, if that agency decides they don't like you for some reason and defects to another radio station or TV network, your station or network's revenue could be impacted severely. Under his new system, of course, a single defecting agency or advertiser wouldn't be as big a deal. Pat was by all accounts a classy guy, a consummate professional. He thought shows should do more than entertain. They should educate a little as well. And so that's why he mandated all shows produced by NBC include something cultural. That could be tricky, right? How do you do that with Your Show of Shows? We got to see at least one example tonight. One of the skits took place at the opera. There ya go. Culture!
Now how about Imogene Coca? You heard of her? If you're a child of the eighties like me, the first time you saw her was in National Lampoon's Vacation. She played Aunt Edna, the one who kicked the bucket during the road trip. Remember when they put her corpse on the roof of the station wagon? At night? In the rain? Classic. I had no idea until much later that she was a comedy legend. About the same age as Pat Weaver, Imogene toughed out her twenties and thirties without much to show for it. It wasn't until the late 1940s, as she herself was approaching forty, that she and Sid hit it off with The Admiral Broadway Revue, which put them on the TV map. That's the show that caught Pat Weaver's eye and inspired him to create Your Show of Shows. After that show's four-year run, Imogene kept working steadily. She even had her own eponymous show, albeit for just one season. She landed a couple other steady TV gigs that carried her through the sixties. From around 1970 onward, she scaled back. Indeed, Vacation is probably the most memorable thing she did in her golden years. All told, Imogene Coca blazed a trail for comediennes. Your Show of Shows scored her a Primetime Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy, making her the second woman ever to get that prize. She also scored a Peabody for excellence in broadcasting and got a bunch of Emmy nominations over the years.
It would be crass for me to describe all 10 skits. I could never do justice to the hilarity. I will say, though, that the hilarity doesn't come from datedness or quaintness (i.e. unintentional hilarity), although once in a while that popped up. Most of the comedy is still fresh and clever. But not raunchy. No toilet humor here, and I can't tell you how refreshing that is. One of my favorite skits is the Bavarian clock one. You've basically got this big old clock you sometimes see in German and Swiss towns. When the hour strikes, these little toy figures dressed in lederhosen and dirndls come out and perform some simple little moves before going back into the door beneath the clock face. Well, in this skit, Sid and gang play the little toy figures. Hilarious! Pure. Comic. Genius. And no one says a word. Again, they're toys. Like most comedy, it all comes down to body language and timing. And then you've got the Verdi opera skit I mentioned above. Another skit parodied From Here to Eternity. Anyway, I'll leave you to discover the skits for yourself. I'm not sure if 10 from Your Show of Shows is on DVD, but I do know you can find several different Sid Caesar anthologies on DVD which, like my dad's VHS collection, include these skits.
And now let's get to the rowdy Q&A with two funny old guys with more energy and spunk than folks a quarter their age: Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. Suffice it to say they got a standing ovation when they came up front afterward. The first thing Mel talked about was cutting his entertainment teeth at Catskills summer resorts when he was in his teens and twenties. He was what his Jewish ancestors would call a tummler, an MC. Mel became especially known for his awesome celebrity impersonations. But he didn't just do standup. Mel played drums in a band. I had no idea. That's pretty cool. And speaking of the 1940s, here's another thing I didn't know: He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. I guess it makes sense, he'd've been in his late teens in the early forties. But more than just serve, dude saw action at none other than the Battle of the Bulge. That's kind of amazing, actually.
Mel wasn't the only musician/comedian who yukked it up/jammed during the Catskill summers. A comedian and tenor saxophonist named Sid Caesar was also making a name for himself at that same place and time. This is where they met. Think about that. Mel Brooks and Sid Caesar jamming and doing standup. The Catskills must've been a really awesome place to be. Sid's four years older than Mel but was even further ahead than that in his career. He started playing the sax in the Catskills when he was all of fourteen as part of a band called the Swingtime Six. He did standup and performed in sketches as well, but he really wanted to be a musician. He sacrificed a lot toward that end, quitting his job and living poor while taking classes at Julliard and whatnot. A Swan Lake, Catskills hotel called Vacationland was where he got the most gigs. As for his involvement in the war, Sid joined the Coast Guard but didn't see any action. He was basically an entertainer, putting on military revues in Brooklyn. And you want more networking? Enlisted on the same base at the same time was Vernon Duke, the man behind Autumn in New York and Taking a Chance on Love, among other things. Sid and Vernon were transferred to a base in Palm Beach, Florida to do another military revue. The director of that show was Max Liebman...who would later go on to produce Your Show of Shows. See how it all comes together?
As much as Sid wanted to play sax, everyone, including him, knew he was better at comedy. Max Liebman became a sort of mentor to Sid following the war. He helped him develop material and land representation at William Morris, then and now one of the hottest talent agencies in the country. With reps like that, Sid landed gigs right away, mostly in New York. And then of course it was time for Your Show of Shows. Tonight Mel made no bones about it. The only reason he knew Sid was because of their jamming together in the Catskills, even being in the same band at one point. And it was only because of Sid that he landed the writing job on Your Show of Shows. Networking!
While Sid took a shining to Mel, Max Liebman didn't. Mel didn't say why, but apparently Max couldn't stand him. He'd even throw lit cigarettes at our man Mel. You might wonder why Max didn't just fire him. Well, Sid wouldn't allow it. And in the end everything went Sid's way since there'd be no show without him. Mel said his first day on the job saw him literally wander into the theater like a hobo off the street. As the producer of the show, Max was accustomed to interviewing and vetting everyone who wanted to be on the writing staff, but Sid had basically guaranteed Mel the job. The theater, by the way, was the International Theatre on Columbus Circle. Don't bother looking for it today. Like too many historic theaters, the International (also called the Park Theatre) was torn down.
Sid may have been Mel's champ, but he had quite the temper too, apparently. Mel called working for Sid "mostly heaven with a little bit of hell." One anecdote he shared was when they were touring Chicago. Mel and Sid were up late in their hotel room. Sid was chain smoking cigars. Finally, when it was really late, Mel complained that he was exhausted and couldn't breathe from all the cigar smoke. Could they just call it a night? Guess how Sid responded. He literally picked up Mel and held him out the eighth floor window until Mel agreed they could work a little more. It wasn't as abrupt as it sounds. Mel said the whole night Sid was frustrated at the tepid responses his jokes got from the Chicago crowd the previous night. You won't think the whole balcony incident is farfetched when you see Your Show of Shows. Sid was a big mutha. And if you've seen Mel onscreen once, you know he's just a little guy. Other examples of Sid's temper in action include picking up a car that was parked in a spot he considered his, by the curb in front of the International Theatre. When someone else parked there on another occasion, he didn't have the patience to pick up the car or go looking for another spot. So he double parked. Lest we think Sid was a complete monster, Mel and Carl emphasized that he had a great sense of humor about his blowups. He was terrific at making fun of his crazy temper and even parodied himself in some of the sketches on Your Show of Shows.
One big reason Your Show of Shows has become so legendary is all the genius writers who got their start there. Mel Brooks is a shining example, of course, but did you know Neil Simon was a staff writer? Yep. And so was his older brother Danny Simon. Danny didn't find the success his kid brother found in the theater, but he did okay for himself with TV. After Your Show of Shows, he eventually landed writing gigs on My Three Sons, The Carol Burnett Show as well as two shows I grew up on in the eighties, Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life. Danny was quite the influence on Woody Allen, who said about him: "I've learned a couple things on my own since and modified things he taught me, but everything, unequivocally, that I learned about comedy writing I learned from him." Speaking of Woody, Mel and Carl said he did not in fact write for Your Show of Shows. Lots of people think Woody did because he did, in fact, help write some of those one-off specials for Sid after Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour went off the air.
Larry Gelbart was a staff writer as well. In terms of TV work, he is by far best known for M*A*S*H. He adapted the original Robert Altman film for the small screen and also wrote and directed a bunch of episodes. M*A*S*H scored Larry a Peabody as well as an Emmy. He did okay with movies as well. Larry wrote the script for Oh, God! with George Burns (I loved that movie when I was a kid) and co-wrote Tootsie, both of which earned him Oscar nominations.
Just to show you how chockfull of writing talent Your Show of Shows was, Mel and Carl said the office secretary was a twentysomething guy named Michael Stewart. Know who that is? Me neither until Mel and Carl revealed that Michael Stewart's the playwright responsible for Broadway smashes like Bye Bye Birdie and Hello, Dolly!. Wow, huh? And he wasn't even writing for the show. He was just the stinkin' typist! It paid the bills while he pursued his MFA from Yale School of Drama. He got the degree around the time Your Show of Shows ended. When Sid started Caesar's Hour the following year, he brought Michael along, this time as a staff writer.
Carl reminded us that, while Your Show of Shows was a TV hit, the TV medium itself was still very new. People weren't "obsessed" with TV the way they can be today. No, theater was the place to be. That's why most entertainers back then went to New York, not Hollywood, to get their start. And that's why Your Show of Shows was broadcast not from a soundstage in Burbank, but from a theater on Columbus Circle in Manhattan. Even today I sometimes hear a veteran actor saying that aspiring actors, even if they are aiming for TV and film, should understand the stage first. When I saw Samuel L. Jackson at the Aero for a double feature of Resurrecting the Champ and Black Snake Moan in December 2007, someone in the audience asked him what advice he had for young actors: "Go to New York," I remember him saying, just like that. Not just for the stage experience. Sam said that in New York, where everything's closer together, you have a better sense of community. It's easier to be part of a social group of actors, whereas in L.A. it's more spread out and competitive.
When asked what they like on TV today, both Carl and Mel gushed over Family Guy. As for today's comedians, Mel's a fan of Steve Carrell. He also gave a shout-out to Dave Chapelle, whom he discovered when he cast him in the early nineties for Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Chapelle was only twenty at the time. I saw that in the theater with my mom and remember cracking up at Chapelle's "White men can't jump" line. Most people of course know him from Chapelle's Show, which ran for a good three strong years before he bailed to South Africa. I really liked his Block Party film, a concert doc he made in Brooklyn about six months or so before his abrupt departure from Comedy Central but which wasn't released until after he returned to the States. He still does standup but otherwise stays out of the limelight, living with his wife and kids in the same area of Ohio where he visited his father as a child. "I miss him," Mel said.
