Eight-time Emmy award winner J.R. Havlan wrote for The Daily Show for sixteen years, starting at the very beginning with the show’s original host Craig Kilborn.
In this week’s episode of Inside Late Night, Havlan walks Mark Malkoff through those early days at The Daily Show as the show was still finding its footing through the Jon Stewart-era where it became a pop culture force to be reckoned with.
He also shares his own experiences performing stand-up on Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O’Brien, complete with the angry call he got from Jay Leno after he let slip to TV Guide that he preferred Dave over Jay.
Click the embed below to listen now, or find Inside Late Night on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Be sure to check out J.R. Havlan’s website at havlanland.com. Follow him on Instagram and X/Twitter.
Show Transcript
Mark Malkoff: J.R. Havlan, thanks for joining us.
JR Havlan: Hey, it’s good to see you for the very first time this afternoon.
It’s been a while, yeah. 16 years on The Daily Show. Do you remember the first taping? I know it didn’t have guests. I think show number two, the first guest was Mary Kay Place, but going back all those years, I think it was like 95, 96, what stands out?
The first guest was Bill Murray.
See, I thought Bill Murray was the first guest with an audience.
Oh, that might have been the case.
Yes, I think that that was the case. You bring up an excellent point, which I don’t think a lot of people remember, which is The Daily Show did not have an audience. They were doing a SportsCenter.
Not for very long, though.
It’s true. Madeleine Smithberg, who’s a wonderful individual, told me, because I asked her about it once, that her and Lizz Winstead, the creators, were very resistant to The idea of bringing in an audience, which was a Doug Herzog idea. And Doug said, let’s just try it with a test audience. And, um, Madeleine told me within like 30 seconds, she knew that Doug Herzog was right. And that the audience work, what was your thought about that? Because it was very strange watching a show on Comedy Central initially without the audience.
I’m moving around real quick, Mark, so that you can see a piece of daily show history.
Oh, what is that?
That is a part of what was a large piece of plywood. A standard piece of plywood that was painted as part of the original set of The Daily Show. And when we left the first place we were at, I kept dragging it around from office to office. And then when I left, I had them bring it to my apartment and it just sort of kind of started rotting. So I just. Cut out a piece of it and then built a little frame around it. And I wish I’d had people signing it the whole time along, but still that was the original set of The daily show right there. It’s
Pretty amazing. Originally, weren’t you at, is it PBS around that? The first studio?
We were in a building that’s now like a fancy hotel. It was on like 50. 56th or 58th or something and, uh, and 8th Avenue.
What were your thoughts about not having an audience? Were you for an audience or did you think you would, the original vision, which was we’re not going to do this audience at SportsCenter?
We all had in mind we weren’t going to have an audience. I know there were like, there were different levels of commitment to that. I can’t really recall what my commitment to it was. I remember thinking like, I don’t, we shouldn’t, I don’t want to have an audience. That doesn’t fit with what we’re doing. You know, that kind of thing,
It was a small audience to it was like 49 to 50 people initially, and that, uh, grew, but it definitely for me when I watched it. I remember watching the 1st time. I think, yeah, we mentioned Bill Murray. I think was the 1st one. It definitely felt right. It felt just in terms of, uh, I don’t know, hearing the laughs in terms of, of Kilborn’s performance.
We were all immediate converts once we got the audience. And what happened was, I don’t know the, I don’t remember the exact timing of it. I know it wasn’t long at all where we started without an audience. And I think it might’ve been a week or something. I mean, in my head, it was like not much longer than that. That before we started, um, having crew come down and, uh, and, uh, um, and kind of act as a, as an audience so that you could hear some reactions, but you’d hear like individual laughs, you know, it’d be like really weird. Then they made the arrangements to, um, get audiences in there. And I think, uh, I can’t even remember I can’t recall that first day when we had a first audience, you know, maybe that was a bill murray when I was thought Bill Murray was just the first guest in in general I I thought I remember bill murray before the audience and it was just that’s when we That’s when a lot of the crew came down, but but I don’t remember at the beginning like if we even had If they were just like in folding chairs or something, you know, I really don’t recall because I don’t know that we had it set up for an audience. So we wouldn’t have had bleachers, you know?
Yeah, they didn’t. I don’t think back then, at least they weren’t showing the audience at least right away. But it’s interesting to look back, because, you know, you look at the first 30 shows and these are some of the guests, Phyllis Diller. You have Charlton Heston, Joan Rivers, Wink Martindale, Kreskin, Engelbert Humperdinck. Would you go backstage to say hi to some of these people? You had like Rodney Dangerfield, John Cleese, all these, uh, really people you wouldn’t think. I think when people think about The Daily Show and obviously there’s an evolution, you’re thinking maybe getting the younger people in, which they did have some, but would you go back to say hi to some of these people?
First, I think we just lost half the audience at least.
Probably.
Phyllis Dill what? You know, like anybody under the age of 70 is no longer tuned in.
Goodbye. Listening to Smartless
For those in the know and who want to be in the kn ow. That was a pretty impressive list of, uh, icons, right? Entertainment icons. What was the question?
I think the question was, would you go backstage sometimes to say hi to Dane, Rodney Dangerfield or Cleese or Michael Palin?
I think right from the beginning. And this would, I would imagine is sort of a standard procedure for any talk show. We were, uh, highly encouraged if you will, to not even asked to meet guests, they just didn’t want to put them through that. So right from the beginning, you weren’t, you, you, we were basically told, don’t ask to meet a guest because it just becomes a clusterf*ck.
You know, every show is different. I mean, we Colbert Report when I was there for the first three years and eight months, we could request and normally we’d be able to do what I know my friends that were at Letterman, um, for many years, I was only there for like a year. Um, Could request and sometimes meet, but I know that every show was different. But like, seriously, I’m looking at I’m not insulting some of these guests early on, but like Ron Palillo was great on Welcome Back Kotter. He’s on the first year. And I think Ron Palillo, Horshack, would have been pretty happy to have people come say hi to him in the green room.
Well, yeah, they, well, some people, they, they don’t even ask, you know, but, and then even at the Colbert, um, my guess is that they first checked with those guests to say, would it be okay for us to put your name out there for people to ask who might be big fans, and they would say yes or no?
They would, and I don’t know anybody that said no to it. Even, um, some of the people back, um, on the street that wouldn’t sign autographs necessarily, like a Neil Young. I just remember, like, someone like Eric Drysdale getting, like, something signed by him and talking. And then someone, I think it was Aaron Cohen, who would collect records signed by people, and he, he was signing it. But, yeah.
Yeah, I can, I actually have a, uh, you, you’ve mentioned Drysdale. He had this big collection of Simpsons figurines, you know, that were about like that high. And he had like, like the, you know, 40 of them or something, all different characters. And I actually am looking right now at, um, the Homer character that, uh, I had signed by Hank Azaria, which is, he didn’t do Homer, but like for whatever reason, I didn’t have him sign Apu or whoever, you know, the other ones. But. So the stuff like that went on. I, you know, we were just, we were told like, don’t just don’t do it. So it just became sort of a rule in the show. And I only actually met, uh, you know, unless it was like if Louis CK was on or something, and I know I, you know, when Louis would come on, he’d be on a few times and I would go down and say hello. Cause I just knew him from the day sort of thing. If I know the person you go down and you say hello, but there were only two times. Um, Where I asked personally to meet a guest. I grew up in the Bay area in the eighties and we had, uh, Joe Montana on the show one time. And I went up to the booker Hank Gallo and I said, and who’s a friend of mine. And I said, you know, I’ve never asked you for any of this, but, uh, um, I’m not going to even make a request. I’m going to demand that you let, that you arrange for me to meet Joe Montana, because this is bulls*t. I’m not going to let him be this close. So I got to meet Joe Montana and then. And then Jerry Rice, the receiver for the 49ers, uh, back then also came on the show when he was doing Dancing with the Stars or something. So I wanted to meet him. Everybody else say, you know, I can do without meeting a movie star. But one time my brother came in from California. Tony Danza was the, uh, guest. And my brother was a huge Tony Danza fan from, uh, from Taxi, really loved Tony Danza. I mean, really liked him. So he wanted to meet Tony Danza. So I went down there with the booker and, uh, and with my brother and we’re standing out in the hallway. And then there’s the, the green rooms. And I said, uh, the Booker was a different person at the time. I asked her, you know, can my brother meet Tony Danza? He’s a big fan. He’d really like to meet him. So she says, let me check. And she walks in and the door’s open. We can’t see them, but we can hear them. And, and, and all we hear is Tony Danza on the other side of the, um, of the, you know, like through the open door, very incredulous saying, the writer’s brother? I’ll meet the writer, but the writer’s brother? And she came back out and said, he doesn’t want to meet your brother.
Tony Danza.
So then, so then that, that refrain became a very common thing that we would say. And, uh, that the staff would say for years and years and years, we would always be like, anytime there was somebody’s brother was mentioned, we’d do it in that voice and say like, you know, you know, John’s brother? The writer’s brother?
I’ve never heard of that. I remember, like, William Shatner would be taking photos with people. I think Snoop Dogg, after I left, was taking photos with anyone who wanted on the set.
Yeah, yeah, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t do it.
I remember hanging out with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, um, in the second dressing room, the small, I think it was, was Carole King on that show? It was like two guests, and he couldn’t have been nicer! Couldn’t have been nicer.
You must make quite a pair with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Yeah. And he just couldn’t have been nicer. I mean, I guess there’s some, you know, maybe Tony Danza was having a bad day or something.
Yeah, you know, I mean, whatever, whatever it was, but it was, uh, but he w but he was quite offended by the very idea of it.
That’s really funny. When you were hired at The Daily Show, because you were there from the beginning, hard to think back that there were only five writers. You knew Lizz Winstead from Stand Up, but you still, I mean, a hundred people are submitting to the show, and you were able to get one of those packets in. And I’m sure most of the shows, they would cover the names and stuff, but like going in, did you have any expectations? I mean, you had done a little bit on Politically Incorrect as a faxer. We’ve talked about that before, but what were your expectations submitting to this new show?
I don’t know about expectations, you know, I mean, I had an opportunity. So like, uh, um, so I worked hard on the submission. It was, you know, I thought it was a good submission and, but then you just handed it in and, um, and didn’t hear back for a while. I actually, in between handing in the submission and finding out I got the show, I did meet with Lizz and Madeleine out in LA, cause I was out in LA for the spring that year. But then LA, uh, you know, doing like pilot season and, um, and that was very interesting experience. And once that wrapped up and I was heading back to New York, I didn’t really have anything going on. I hadn’t heard from them. I knew the show was going to start in early June or that’s when they were gonna start meeting. It was like, uh, it was now already into May. And so I just kind of figured I didn’t get it. And, uh, I was planning for whatever it is I was going to have to do and then got a call and that was it.
So Kilborn, Craig Kilborn, you didn’t meet with him before you got hired?
I didn’t meet with Kilborn. Kilborn, I would say like Craig did, uh, was a perfect foil for us to get going, you know, like he, he was the guy we needed to get the show going. He had sort of, his ego, you know, was limited to what he looked like rather than being part of the machine creating everything. So he was just hands off and we got to do whatever, he would just read what we wrote for the most part, you know.
They would make fun of him, and I think he, he laughed with it, um, that he would, during the tapings, in between the commercials, just stare, he would have a handheld mirror and just stare into it.
Well, yeah, he would always make a joke out of it, and, and as part of his warm up, one of his lines in his warm up, you know, you’d do the warm up and then you’d bring him out, he would go over his list of rules that he had for the audience. And I can’t remember the exact list, but one of them was, uh, no direct eye contact. He played the person that, uh, people kind of thought he was, and, and he probably, and he was, it was a part of him, but he also, he also played it up. And, uh, um, and he was good on camera. He, he did what we needed him to do and, and his sort of like, separation from the material allowed us to just kind of do whatever we were doing and feed it to him and have it go through him, which, you know, just because somebody wants to have control over that doesn’t mean it’s going to ruin everything, but he wouldn’t have been the right guy to have the control over that.
You had done warm up for Bill Maher on Politically Incorrect and then you go over to the Daily Show. Were you doing the warm up? I know you did it for some of the time during the Daily Show, but were you the first warm up for uh, Killborn or did they, who would that have been?
Um, yeah, it was me and Paul. I guess we were just doing it right from the beginning. You know, we were just splitting it because we would do, you know, every other day.
What was that like? Like, how long do you think it took for the audience to be excited for Killborn to come out? Because normally those shows take a while for that enthusiasm for people to get used to somebody because people at first, if somebody’s new, normally they’re not the audience. It takes them a while to really,
Yeah, I don’t, I don’t remember that. I, you know, I don’t remember, like working with the, working with an audience that is sort of like captive. You know, which they have to do a lot. I’d, I’d done shows after I left The Daily Show where we had audiences and they didn’t really know what they were in for. So you’d have to kind of like, uh, it was a different sort of energy. You didn’t get to just walk out there and they were already excited to be there kind of thing, which obviously makes that job a lot easier. But I don’t, I don’t really recall. We would just go out and mess around. It was pretty open ended what it didn’t matter what we did. So you’d just do crowd work and mess with them and just try to make them laugh and have a good time and tell them what they were in for. And some people knew and some people didn’t and, uh, but I don’t remember it being a fight really.
When I went to The Daily Show the first time on 54th street, before they moved over to 11th, I was invited to go to the show. I could not believe they started like 40 minutes late and I was just, I’d never been to a show where they didn’t start exactly when they were supposed to to tape and do it pretty much in real time. And then I was told they were waiting for maybe a graphic or something like that. Like, did that happen on Kilborn that the warm up would have to do, I don’t know, like 30, 40 minutes or was it pretty much, would they start on time on Kilborn? And I’m guessing early Jon Stewart. I’m guessing that became a thing later through Jon Stewart. Maybe they might not start. Um, if they’re waiting on graphics or something like that to come up with a new joke.
Later, it became, you know, like a system. So, you know, you know, we’re starting in 10 minutes, go out and start the warm and they, they wouldn’t have you start the warm up with, you know, kind of open ended. At the beginning, sometimes we weren’t sure, uh, the audience has been in here for a while, so let’s get somebody out there because it’s starting to get dead and they sure they weren’t still weren’t sure when we were going to start. Yeah, yeah, there’d be times you’re out there 45 minutes. I remember being out there for an hour one time and you’re just doing everything you can to, I mean, it’s really, really torturous. I remember one time being out there so long, I stopped and then went back out.
It’s brutal.
Because you’re also trying to put on a show and there’s technical stuff and there’s stuff you can’t, you don’t have control over. You, you know, it was, uh, it was, uh, in its infancy, you know, what we, at least we were in trying to put the show together. Sh*t goes wrong and um, and then, you know, it’s not like that happened all the time, but it would happen sometimes. And yeah, it would, it would cause like these massive delays.
So when you did your first Letterman, I guess it was your first and only letterman in 96. What was…
You didn’t have to throw in the only.
I was looking down because I think you did Conan twice, right?
You did some kind of ambush. I heard you did Letterman once.
I was looking down at my, uh, you know, just the fact that you did Letterman is
I heard you were on one of the biggest shows ever in the world once. My mother hung me on a hook once.
I was looking down at my research because I thought maybe you were on twice, but um, I see that you went on once and you did Conan twice, but when you went on Dave, what was that experience like from the time you found out you were going to be doing the show? I’m guessing Zoe Freidman was there at the time until you arrive at the building until you’re back with Biff Henderson and Dave says your name?
Yeah, no, it was a super, super wild experience. Um, What happened was, uh, um, I was working at the comic strip. I was a regular host there at The Comic Strip, uh, in New York City, a comedy club, and they were doing, uh, they, they had Letterman auditions coming up. And so Lucian Holt, who used to run the club, he asked me to host, which was sort of this honor thing to, you know, they wanted the, the good guy out there to make sure that we had a good crowd for these people and the way they would do it is they would start the show. So they’d get the show going and then, um, I mean, we’d just start a regular show. We’d have a couple of acts and then the Letterman people would show up. They had a table waiting for them up in a little kind of balcony area. And then as soon as they sat down, we’d start bringing out like this string of four or five people who were auditioning for them doing basically their TV spot. Their nice, clean, simple, straight ahead. No, no crowd work, six minute TV spot for them to see. And it so happened on that night that, uh, it was a really good crowd and, uh, um, and things were going very well. They, they took to me, I was having a very, very good night and brought up the first few acts and they all killed and it was, you know, it was really solid and, and, um, and I was doing my thing and then the Letterman people get there and I bring up the first act, I can’t remember everybody that was on it, there were four or five people auditioning, but I remember the two of them were, one was Caroline Rhea. And one was Marc Maron. And so I bring up Marc or something and Marc comes out and does his thing, but it doesn’t go so well because. It went from a regular show to them being sort of stiff and having to do their TV spot. And the audience wasn’t really biting that much. So, so like Marc goes up and doesn’t do that. Well, I go back out and I have to get them going again. Now he didn’t die, but it’s my job to do a little bit of time in between and then bring up the next app. And I go out and right away, I’m just killing it. You know, it was just one of those nights. I bring up Caroline. She doesn’t do that. Well, I go back out, I’m killing it. I bring up the next one. They don’t do that. While I go back out, I’m killing it. And it kept happening. So I made sure I hung around afterwards to sort of accidentally bump into the producers, which, which was Daniel Kellison back then, actually. And I said, uh, I just wanted to say, hi, you know, it’s one of those things. You stick your foot in the door. These are the chances you take the opportunities you try to seize. And he said, Oh, you were great. I’d love to see your set sometime. And we’re off and running.
So you do this show. What stands out from the time you got to the stage entrance and your backstage till Biff is, um, you’re in the wings and he says, okay,
Yeah, that’s a good one, actually, like, first of all, I accidentally, um, in, in leaving the green room, I, I, or walking into the green room, I stepped on Tom Selleck’s toe. Pretty good claim to fame.
Did he make a visible, uh, an, an audible noise?
Uh, no, he’s a very large man. Probably didn’t even feel me, you know, and just kind of, you know, but I did, I did step on his foot by accident. I had some friends there in the green room. I still have photos of it. It’s great. It’s a really fun photo to look at of, uh, some very good friends I had at the time. And still in friends with and just hanging out. It was pretty loose. I was feeling pretty good about it. I had two friends, uh, um, uh, Peter Stronski and Jimmy Heinz, who were my, at the very first, my pal since the early days of doing open mics and just starting out and I invited them, they came down and they came into my personal, like the dressing room where it was just the three of us and I did my set for them, and they loved it and they’d seen most of the stuff anyway, but I did, it was just like a warm up. And then I went down and hung out with my other friends and then all of a sudden, um, you know, you’re just kind of hanging out. I can’t remember. It’s all very surreal. Uh, I do remember pulling up in a limousine out front at the beginning of it. And, um, you get out at the stage door and when people would hang out there and the limousine pulls up, they’re very excited. It’s going to be Tom Selleck or somebody. And I, I came out just like in a t shirt and shorts, just going, thank you everybody. And, and, uh, they kind of bit at that and then just grab my, nobody know who I was. I, I walk in. Went through all that stuff and then suddenly you’re backstage, you’re next, like, and it didn’t really hit me until then, like, I’m backstage, I’m kind of going over my stuff, and I’m just kind of sitting there thinking, and you can kind of see Dave over there, you know, the band’s playing, you hear the warm up doing their thing, a warm up with Wally Collins back then, and then I’m looking at, um, then the show starts back up, and Dave’s talking a little bit before he introduces me, then he starts the introduction, I’m looking at the TV, the monitor in the back, And that’s when it occurred to me, like, oh, I’m about to be on this show. Like, I’m next. And I just went blank. And the next thing I knew, I felt Biff Henderson just pushing me out onto the stage. And then it started.
How did you get interviewed by TV Guide at that point? Was that, was that before or after your Dave appearance?
It was before.
And how did you, how did they approach you? Did, how did they know that you were going to be doing the show to ask you about what would, that was like for a comic?
So at that point, so I came in in a weird time. The audition process for me was, took a long time. So Daniel Kellison is the one that got it started and Robert, um, God, what was his name?
Morton?
Robert Morton was the producer. Yeah. But then they left. In the middle of giving me the show, they left. The new producer and Zoe Friedman was the new booker. They agreed to honor that, their, their choice of having me on the show. So then I started working with Zoe and I kind of had to start over working with her. And it just so happened that TV Guide was doing a piece on people who had done the show. And for most of the people watching or listening to this, TV Guide is a magazine.
It used to be the most, um, circulated, uh, I believe, magazine in the country at one point in terms of the readership.
But you and I both know that the, that the main purpose of the TV Guide was to make you feel like you were really, really good at crossword puzzles.
There was a hotline where people could, if you were really stumped and addicted, you could call and get clues. I never did that, but I was tempted a few times.
So they, they were doing a piece on people that were, that had done the, the, uh, Letterman’s show or, and, uh, the late, the, well, whatever it was called, Late Night with David Letterman. And The Late Show, they knew that she was in the middle of grooming me to do the show. And so they asked for that perspective. She said, do I want to do it? And I said, yeah, sure. I guess so. I’d never done an interview or anything like that and anything close to it. So then I was sitting down with this person to just go over my experience.
So you had never been interviewed before and you know, it’s just this organic conversation, sometimes maybe somebody that hasn’t been interviewed before. Might not realize that everything is on the record. So you did say something to the effect that you would rather do, um, one Letterman set appearance than something like ten Jays. I, I, I’m probably off on that, but it’s something like that. But you didn’t think anything of it. And it got in print. And then one day at the Daily Show reception says you have a phone call. And what happened?
Uh, well, your numbers were a little bit off. They reeled me in on kind of a trick question. The, the interviewer was this woman and she said, well, it wasn’t really a trick question. She just, she just asked about doing The Tonight Show. And because this was right, right around the time of the late night wars. And like Jay had recently taken over. Right. And then Letterman had gone to CBS. So Letterman was always like Letterman was already established and Letterman was my favorite host, late night host. And the, and, and when you’re out in New York city, The Late Show’s, the thing you want to do, you know, that was, it was, that was the pinnacle. So I made a joke about, Oh, I would do, I would do Late Night for free, you know, uh, 10 times before I do The Tonight Show for 10, 000. I think I said something like that. And as soon as I said it, I said to the woman, I said, yeah, maybe don’t print that. And she said, Oh no, of course not. And then she did. And then what happened was I, I’ve, I found out that, uh, uh, Zoe Friedman actually called me because she got an advanced copy of the TV Guide. And she said, Oh, by the way, they, that interview came out. Thank you so much for saying all these nice things about us. Cause there was other stuff in there too. And I said, Oh, can you send me a copy? And I saw that quote and I was like, gosh, but you don’t think anything’s going to come of it, but I didn’t want it to get out. And then, yeah, I went into work. I was at The Daily Show. I was just wrote jokes that morning. We went into the morning, the afternoon meeting, the joke read. I come back, my phone was ringing at my desk as I was walking into my office. So I ran and I picked it up and it was, uh, um, it was Jay Leno on the phone.
Did you think it was real at first?
No, no. Um, because it was just weird. It’s not like hold for Mr. Leno or something like that. It was just him, you know, just started launching into this thing. He started, he started like yelling at me.
This was on a show day for him.
It’s a show day for him. He had a show that night. And I’m, I’m just like. I hadn’t even done, I don’t, I can’t even remember if I, I think I already did the show, so like, and I did really, really well, I had a great set. And so I was really happy about that by the time it had come out, but he just started, he just launched into this whole thing and there’s, you know, the comic Elon Gold?
Of course.
Well, I thought it was Elon.
Elon is a master at those impressions. Oh my goodness.
And so that was the best guy I could think of. So I was like, is this cause he’s just going off? Like, you know, I don’t know why you would say something like this. You know, he just kind of went that, that classic, like Leno full on, like very aggressive whine, and he was just going off and it was, I was like, what is f*cking happening? How can this be true? And as, as this, I mean, he was talking nonstop for like a minute. Or longer, which is a long time. And I finally just interrupted and I’m said, I’m really sorry to interrupt you, but like, is this, is this really Jay Leno? Cause I really thought it was Ilana. Well, how could this be happening? And he said, well, yeah, yeah. And anyway, I didn’t understand why you would say something like that. And he just kept going and he was talking about like how, you know, first Dave was winning the ratings and he was winning and then Dave was winning again. And now I’m winning again. And going into all this stuff, like, just doesn’t matter to me. It was not part of whatever conversation he was trying to have. It was just really, really weird. And he was just went off for a really long time until at the at the end of it, I felt relatively comfortable, you know, I was like, well, this guy seems like he’s nuts and I don’t know what to say to him, but I stopped him and I just said, well, listen, you know, I’m glad you called. I, I want you to know, and this is the first opportunity he gave me to speak. I said, I want you to know this is the first time I’ve, I’m sure you’ve been interviewed a thousand times before. I’ve never been interviewed. They hit me with this question. I said this thing, I actually made a joke, uh, because I’ve always loved Dave. And you know, since the time when you were on Dave all the time, you know, I just loved you guys and. You know what, and when, as soon as I said it, I said to the woman, please don’t print that, and she said she wouldn’t, and she did anyway, and I’m really sorry that she didn’t, and I hope you understand, and he just sat there for a second, and then just launched into more sh*t, just giving me more sh*t after that.
Is it because it’s, like, Leno is the host of The Tonight Show, but he, he still considers him a stand up, and he’s like, why would a fellow stand up? Do that to another stand up. Is that, was that his angle?
No. Well, I think he might’ve, I think he might’ve brought that up. It’s sort of like the angle was like, you should have known better or why would you do this? Or this was a dumb move. I mean, it was like everything. He just threw the kitchen sink at me, but I was like, I’m just this completely green kid with no idea. Like, like, and then I explained that to him and he still kind of like, didn’t let it off the hook.
Andy Richter said something about Jay because I think I could be getting this wrong, but that Jay was asked if he would ever come back And this, I think was when Jay at the 10, 10 o’clock show. Would he ever come back to do the Tonight Show? And I forget what he said, but Andy Richter, uh, didn’t, um, the answer didn’t like what Jay had to say that he’d even think about it and said something and that Jay called Rick Ludwin and then Andy had to do the fake apology to Jay. But, um, my point is, is it does seem like some of these people, I know, I’m guessing a publicist or someone will put out everything that has been said, because this Andy thing that he said about Jay was like a local. It was like not a national piece. It was just some local, uh, print piece. So I’m guessing.
Yeah. Yeah. But he’s still fine. He still finds it somehow. I mean, the, the, the TV Guide was a national thing, but it was an interesting experience. And when it was done, I was like, I felt fine because it was sort of like, well, I’m clearly never going to be on this guy’s show, you know? So it’s like, it, it didn’t matter. And after it happened, I got Conan. I was going to do Conan. Cause this was just a few months after I did Letterman. So I was going to go do Conan’s show. And so I, I wrote Jay a letter. You know, this was a long time ago. So I wrote him a letter and I addressed it to whatever the Tonight Show care of Jay Leno, that sort of thing. And I remember in the letter, I was like, you know, kind of apologizing. I’m glad you called and gave me the opportunity to state my case. And I appreciate it. I hope everything’s okay. And then I said in the letter and for the record, um, of course I would do your show for $10,000.
Did you hear back?
No.
That’s funny. But they didn’t put it in the mail. I, I will say this, it’s such a cliche, but in show business, like, um, word spreads. And obviously you probably told a few people at The Daily Show about that Jay called you and it got around to the point where you were doing Conan and it was your first or second time. But after the show, the producers or somebody on set, it wasn’t Conan said, um, could we talk to you? And you’re probably thinking, there’s a, why do they want to talk to me? And they put you in a room and they just want to hear the story from you because it had already moved its rounds and people were just fascinated by it, correct?
Yeah, it was like, I got a, it, that did get around very quickly and a lot because, you know, it was, it, it fit into like just kind of rumors and sort of things that people thought about, like, uh, how, you know, how people in late night were operating at that time. And so I ended up having telling the story a lot. But when I went to go do Conan, um, I did my spot and it wasn’t as good as Letterman. It was a kind of, it’s a very, it’s a, it was a tougher atmosphere. First of all,
It’s a tiny studio versus Letterman was 460. Some. And I think the, the, Conan was like 200 people, maybe.
Well, you know, it was less, it was less that than the, you know, his crowd is also way up high and there’s like this barrier, like the front row is like Letterman, this was at the Ed Sullivan theater, so it’s just set up like a theater. This one was like, the first row was five feet above my head. And they were behind this, that’s because all the cameras were in front of them. So it was just all these cameras right there. Then the people back there, there was no connection. It was really, it was really hard. And the band is like right there and right in front of you, rather than kind of off to the back. Like Paul, when you’re, when I was on Letterman, You really couldn’t see anything except the people. So you’re just doing a show. And even the cameras were kind of down low, it was set up really nice. So, so it, it, um, I mean, that was maybe my material wasn’t as strong as well or whatever, but it didn’t go as well. And I was like, Oh, that’s too bad. Cause I think they were going to, they were kind of planning already on having me do the show a few times and come back and stuff like that. So it felt like that kind of fell off to the side, but then the booker, Frank Smiley, I think maybe at that time, he came up to me and he said, um, Hey, you know, would you mind going and telling your story that Leno story to, um, Conan and, uh, and Jonathan Groff was the, uh, um, head writer. And I said, I don’t want to bother them, you know, like, cause I, Frank had asked me and I told him, he said, no, no, no, no, no. They want to hear it. And so I went into Conan’s office and it was Conan and the, and the executive producer, Jeff Ross, uh, and Jonathan Groff, head writer.
I didn’t know Conan was in the room. So it was Conan and Jeff Ross. Okay.
Conan was in the room. Yeah. So it was really weird. Cause I just done a show. I didn’t do that great, but then I go in there and start telling the story and. and killed it. They just loved it.
How did you find out that Kilborn was going to be leaving to go to CBS?
I think it’s when the article for whatever magazine it was came out where he said that he could get Lizz Winstead to blow him.
He was suspended, but then he came back and then all was
Yeah, but it was kind of on the outs and I don’t, I don’t remember what, um, what led to him leaving. I think he was, I think he just wanted to go.
Money, Lots of money to go to CBS.
Yeah. Cause he got his own show, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. That was a, that was a big deal.I, you know, I don’t remember the timing of it and exactly like how we were told and all that stuff, but it wasn’t like the show was going to end. We’re just going to get a new host. And I think they had wanted Jon from the beginning, you know, and then we started going through this whole thing where they were, they did auditions and you mentioned Eddie Brill, Eddie Brill, like the way they would do the auditions, they would read a little bit. They would do some jokes that we had given them. They were all the same jokes that we were seeing how each one did the same jokes differently. And then they would do a, like a mock, uh, you know, short interview and Eddie Brill was always the mock guest. And so it was like a really long lineup of Uh, names, uh, um, Michael McKean was really good. Um, uh, what’s his name? The guy that does Dirty Jobs. Uh, Mike, Mike Rowe, Mike Rowe was, Mike Rowe was great. Uh, they were, they were my favorites. David Alan Grier was really, really good. It’s funny. Um, you know, a lot of people like that. So like, um, Some, some, uh, pretty big names, some pretty interesting names. And it was kind of really fun to go through the process, but it kind of reeked of fairly typical. Kind of Hollywood or entertainment style like, uh, uh, search for your, um, search for your host. And that they just got the guy they wanted the whole time.
Do you think they knew going on that they wanted Jon and they just did it as formality that they were interviewing people?
I think so, yeah.
That’s what they did with, um, Conan when they had Jon Stewart and Paul Provenza. Paul would have been great. I mean, I think all would have been, I think great. Jon Stewart auditioned, um, Drew Carey. But it seems like that they more knew probably it was Conan.
Yeah, it’s sort of like they’re, they, they know what they want and then they look for lightning in a bottle or something. And even if they get it, they’re like, nah, no, I’m still going to go with this. You know, I mean, I don’t know the exact machinations of it behind the scenes and everything, but, um, then it was announced that they ended up with Jon, who I think not everybody on the show knew who he was that much at that point. I definitely knew who he was. And, but he was also like, you know, his persona at that point was very different than the show, you know.
It really was the black leather jacket. He was on show number 24, I believe, with Kilborn, but he had an MTV show talk show, and then it was syndicated by Paramount, and then he was doing the Larry Sanders show for a while, but when he came in, and I’ve talked about this a little bit, but you were there.I’m telling you all I heard for almost, I don’t want to say a year, but at least six months was when Jon’s took over how much people missed Kilborn. I would hear that routinely from audiences. And it was one of those things where as Conan says, people do not like change. I do confess early on watching Jon in a suit. I was like, I can’t, this is so strange to watch this guy wearing a suit.
And his wildly oversized it’s, it was, it is also like, you know, it’s not like we were being outfitted by, you know, Armani at that point either. So like his suit looked like he borrowed it from David Byrne. You know what I mean?
But he was, Jon was good right away. It just took a while, I think, for him to make the show his own. But do you remember that initial where people were just, they missed that, that, the Kilborn, the sarcasm, the smugness. He could be a little bit mean where Jon wasn’t, that wasn’t him.
We were pretty busy. I didn’t really pay much attention if there was like, you know, reading through reviews or paying much attention to what might’ve been getting said in that, like, I just, it didn’t, it didn’t kind of cross my desk, you know? So, um, I don’t remember having an opinion about that. We’re just trying to make a show every day and it took a lot of work. So we just keep going. And there was, there was a, there, there was obviously a big difference between the two personalities, but, you know, when Jon first came in, you know, he did the show as it was the, the format of it for like about at least a year before we really started tweaking the format. And then also just kind of the material, you know, he wasn’t really trying to guide it too much at first, but it didn’t take long before you could see differences like his first, you know, month of shows. It was probably the same kind of level of like we were just making fun of anything we could make fun of, you know, there was no real point to it. And then you could see it start kind of turning to less trivial stuff and some more stories that like had some substance to them.
What was your personal take when Jon was with the writers and said, you know, I want to do something different. The late Tom Johnson told me. And he was just laughing about it. He’s like, we were very,
What a sad sentence that is.
I know it’s sad. Tom told me, you know, he was, they were the writers for the most part. A lot of them were very resistant to John doing the political stuff and to changing the tone. And then Tom started laughing. He was like, that’s when we started winning Emmys. And it was like, we were completely wrong. What was your personal take when John wanted to take something that was working, um, and, and do it a different way. And do you remember the writers, the resistance? What was that like to, to, to witness that?
They’re different personalities and so like different levels and re of resistance, different, different reasons for resistance. I didn’t give a, sh*t, you know, uh, I was just there to do a job and, uh, um, you know, I might’ve been, I might’ve thought like, uh, this is kind of turning into a pain in the ass. And, you know, we were kind of being instructed what to write about too much and stuff like that. I, I, I, that, that was probably stuff that sort of, you had to make an adjustment, but I don’t remember necessarily like fighting it or anything like that. And the fact is that like, you know, for John, he was a beneficiary of timing, but also like planning. He was there, he started in, uh, um, 99, the beginning of 99, like January 99. And he spent a year kind of tweaking things and trying to realize what was possible with the show. You know, that’s what, that’s what I think. He might say differently, but I think it was basically like he was kind of feeling it out and really starting to figure out, like, how am I going to make this, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, you know, what, what do I want to do with this show? How do I run this show? And then he decided that like, we can, you know, we can be a more kind of serious news format thing and talk about more, more substantial things. And stories and politics and stuff like that. And he also knew that, you know, come the turn of the year, the 2000, the, the elections were coming up. So there was, we were kind of like slowly prepping for, you know, us to be able to cover the elections, which I think he foresaw we’d be able to do in a way that other people would not be able to do. And so then they came along and they turned into what they turned into that allowed us then to do what nobody else was doing also because of the, if you remember in the 2000 election, nobody knew what was going on. So the 24 hour news channels, the, um, your CNN and your MSNBC, and if it existed in Fox, they were still pretty new. They were pretty new and they really didn’t know what they were doing. So they were really struggling to fill time. And so we started making fun of them, and that’s when the show really turned from just talking about certain events to talking about the coverage of those events, uh, as much as anything else.
Do you recall at The Daily Show when Billy Joel showed up unannounced? Jon Stewart had done at least one joke about Billy Joel. I believe at that time he was having some substance abuse issues, I think with alcohol, and maybe he got in a car accident or something like that in Long Island. But what exactly happened?
I can’t remember what the topic of the joke was, but I know there were, I know there were two like really super cheap jokes that we told, that Jon told. And this was early on, so he was kind of like not as picky about what he was doing. One of them was written by, uh, um, Guy Nicolucci, and one of them was written by me, and, uh, Nicolucci’s just had something to do with the description of his, of Joel’s music as, like, schlocky, you know, uh, senior prom, whatever it was, I can’t, but the description was funny, but also, like, really kind of insulting, you know? And then I made a joke about his looks, And I think I compared him to a wombat because it sounded funny. And then I looked up wombat cause I didn’t know what a wombat looked like. And I, and one of the first things that popped up was a picture of a wombat that looked like Billy Joel, kind of like, it just, it just, it was. You know, cause he’s an unusual looking guy and, and especially if you find an unusual looking photo of him. And so it was funny and they, we did the joke and the crowd laughed and all this stuff, but they were cheap. It was like super cheap, stupid shots, you know, to a guy who’s like a massive star for good reason. And, uh, and was having whatever difficulties or issues he was having at that time for us to bring him up. And then one day, all of a sudden, uh, we just hear from Jon. Cause I didn’t see Billy Joel, but Billy Joel just showed up at the studio with like a giant bodyguard and just walked up through the front door and said, yeah, um, is Jon here, I guess. And whoever was at the front desk was like, called up Jon and said, yeah, Billy Joel’s here and, um, and he had to let him up. And so he went into his office and I don’t know the, you know, he told Jon told us about it. Didn’t give us specifics, but was it basically Billy Joel just gave him sh*t. Rightfully so, probably set him straight. And I like to think. Mark, when I think of this story, I like to think that Billy Joel told him like, you’re better than that, dude. Like he wasn’t there like going, QQ, but you’ll make fun of me, blah, blah, blah. I’m the best. I did piano, man, whatever. I like to think he’s like, probably saying like, why would you do something like this? You know, we’re artists. You got a good thing going here. I don’t need to brag about what I got going. Cause it’s been going forever and it’s going to keep going though. Neither one of us knows I’m going to be selling out Madison square garden in 30 f*cking years,, you know, and, uh, every month or whatever it is. But I like to think that Billy Joel said to him, look, you know, we’re, we’re artists. We are professionals. We are, we have an opportunity to do like excellent things and what you’re doing, what you did with me is beneath you and you need to be better than that. And it seems like something that John would definitely take to heart. That’s how I picture that meeting going. I’ll stick with it.
Somebody told me about it and somebody told me it was, it was, um, drinking issues that that was the joke, but that’s great to know that you cleared up that had nothing to do with it.
It was what? Oh, no. Oh, I don’t know why there may have, there was a story in the paper that made us do a story about him. I don’t remember what the story was.
Was there anyone else that showed up unannounced like that you’re aware of, or that called Jon over a joke?
No, not that not. I think maybe we probably got calls and stuff from certain people. Nobody just kind of shows up to the show. You know, like, um, the only, the only thing that that brings to mind is when Springsteen came with his son one day and just sat in the audience.
I remember. Yeah, I remember. And no one noticed.
What you’ve got to go into a taping of the daily show and turn to your right. And there’s Bruce Springsteen sitting next to you. How crazy would that be?
Nobody noticed There was, um, I believe that somebody that was there at the show told me that I. I think in front they definitely put like an intern a daily show intern or somebody or maybe to the side, but that nobody had any idea. Nobody noticed that it was him because you’ve never think about Springsteen being in the audience. You know, I remember early on in the Colbert Report. Um, you know, obviously, um, you know, Stephen’s in character and not every guest necessarily maybe early on, is going to get it. I remember I believe Gary Hart was not thrilled. Um, with the way it went. I don’t know if he, if he really got, well, the show was, was there anybody that was a guest, um, on the show that you know of that wasn’t happy, um, afterwards
From being a guest?
With how the show went, maybe?
Oh, I’ve, I’ve, sure, I imagine. I mean, again, that’s not something that I’m going to be privy to. You know what I mean?
I just didn’t know if you heard.
You might hear stories, but it was never significant enough to me to, like, really, really think about it. I do, I do think that, um, You know, certain guests are more difficult than other guests and that’s going to be for whatever reason they, they, you know, whatever’s going on in their life at the time or whatever happened to him just before the show, just for the cameras are rolling and stuff. I don’t remember, like, we didn’t have like a blacklist or anything, but I do recall that apparently Hugh Grant was one that Jon didn’t like interviewing. He was a difficult guy on that day, you know, which seems weird. Cause you, it’s like a, you know, like England’s sweetheart, you know what I mean?
I went over their ones. I think it was shortly after I left The Colbert Report. Somebody wanted to go over. So I brought them to the daily show. And in the Q and a Jon, they asked who is his least favorite guest. And he, the only reason I’m mentioning this because when you mentioned and also it was in the newspaper, because, um, I believe it was Stephen was interviewing, uh, Colbert was interviewing Jon at the Montclair film festival or something. And, and, um, And Jon told the story and you made the newspaper and Hugh Grant actually said, um, he was right. He said something to the extent that, um, yeah, that he did, he did act like that and he shouldn’t have acted like that.
Well, Hugh Grant was like, I was a d*ck? Yeah, yeah, he probably was. And I’d say, and it was, and it might’ve been out of character at the time, but he was, he was difficult for whatever reason, but you know.
So when Jon Stewart hosted the Oscars, one of your jokes got in, it was like the newspapers were quoting it, which was the Bjork joke about Dick Cheney, right? And is that, was that your joke about Bjork couldn’t be here tonight? She was trying on her Oscar dress. And that was a, that was, um, with the, cause she had the swan and then you wrote, you said, um, Dick Cheney. Cheney shot her because he had hit recently or some time before had accidentally shot one of his friends hunting. So, um, that was, that got a lot of press, your joke.
That was the most epic story of a joke. The adventures of a joke. Like ever. So this was the first time John got the, uh, Oscars. What year was that Mark? You’re the guy
2006.
2006. And we were going to bring like the daily show to the Oscars, which was not, it ended up not being the best idea in the world, you know, and that’s his oversimplification, but that was kind of it, they wanted to make, you know, do some, they wanted to insert like, uh, um, some, uh, political thing and, and have it be the stamp of the show a little bit at least. And so like, uh, what, when are the Oscars on in February or March or whatever they’re on? And we knew that he was going to be doing it. So, uh, and we were going to be writing. So we actually did our first round of monologue jokes, like literally like in October or something the year before, you know, they really wanted to start prepping for stuff. And, and they just wanted to have jokes that had. That involved politics, but also, uh, entertainment, you know, they wanted to really kind of like mix it as much as they could. So this was literally the first round of jokes that we wrote. And we were all assigned to write like a few pages of, uh, you know, Oscar style jokes, mainly focusing on like, Oh, so and so’s here tonight or so and so’s here tonight. Right. Uh, just so they could be kind of evergreen and that, and we would all know what they were. So I wrote, this was, this was very soon after Dick Cheney had shot, uh, whatever that guy’s name was, um, on a hunting trip. He shot him in the face by accident, you know, and it was the year after Bjork wore her famous stork dress to the Oscars. And so, um, so I wrote a joke that, uh, you said that it was, uh, Jon says, is he’s just going through the audience talking about who’s here and who’s not here, and he says that, uh, unfortunately Bjork couldn’t be here tonight. Uh, she was, she was trying on her dress and Dick Cheney shot her. And it killed in the meeting, in our meeting, right? Cause there were kind of reading and they, they actually like it was a Ben Karlin was the, was the executive producer back then Ben and John came into the writer’s room for a writer’s meeting one day and said, this is the kind of joke we want. This is the joke right here. This is, this is, this is what we want to do. We want to marry the two and have it be like, this is good. It’s funny. It means something. It’s ripping on together. We want to rip on all this stuff. Great. Oh, great. Then we’re writing for months preparing for the show. And this joke goes away and then somebody mentions it again. So it comes back and then it goes away and then somebody mentions it again. So it comes back and then it’s in this part and then we’re going to do it in between this and we’re going to do it in the monologue or not. And it just kept going. And Jon, like most comedians, you hear a joke too much, you get tired of it. You don’t want to do it. So it loses its luster. And it was like that. People had to keep convincing him to put it back into the thing all the way up until the end. Like literally like the week of the show. Where it ended up in the script and then it was out of the script, out of another script and somebody, somebody neutral said like, where, where’d that, why is that joke not in the script? And they said, okay, just put it back in. So they put it back in. And um, and like I said, the show didn’t go that well. It’s not like everything bombed, but it didn’t go that well. That joke worked really well. And I was, and I remember waking up in the morning and reading the LA Times, had a pretty scathing review of the performance but Isolated that joke as the only highlight of the evening.
That has to feel good.
Yeah, it felt good, but it was also like, uh, it was, it just felt like more fun. I didn’t feel good that we, we didn’t make a better mark in, you know, that year. We did much better in 2008, but, uh, but it was just fun to think of like the, just that idea of this joke, just being written and then surviving for so long is, was really like shocking.
For sure. I thought that your evolution with comedy was interesting because you, you graduate in December of 1987 with a degree in finance from Cal State East Bay. And then you moved to New York the next year and you’re doing stand up all over the place. And then the timing is amazing because you’re friends, you know, somebody who is, is a writer’s assistant at Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. So not only are you sending in jokes and you have to have the capability to actually write jokes, but you’re getting jokes on and then one day, out of the blue, they need somebody to do warm up and you had already started doing stand up. So like, it just seemed like everything with, with this, you know, being prepared, but having this opportunity came together. What was that like?
Oh, that was, uh, that was great, but it was, it was sticking your foot in the door, you know, it’s just a Boy Scouts, like being prepared for an opportunity, but then creating your own opportunity. The way I got the, started writing jokes for Bill Maher was I just knew if I knew a guy who I think was a writer’s assistant or maybe something even kind of lowlier than that, you know, back then. So I just, I, I called him and I asked him, can you see if I can write jokes for Bill, if I can fax in jokes, so they would have faxes. We actually use a fax machine. So it has a staff of writers. And then kind of an army of fax, people that fax in, you know, however many 50 people, right there, they would get a lot of jokes. And, um, so I just asked this guy and he, you know, called me back the next day and said, yeah, here’s the number. You know, go ahead. They know you work at the, you know, they told him I was working at The Comic Strip. I knew that. Scott Carter was the executive producer. And, um, and I, that’s, that’s what gave me the idea because I saw his head shot up at the comic strip. And so I told my friend, I said, go to Scott, tell him if he wants, he can ask Lucien, the, you know, this guy about me and I just want to write jokes for them and I don’t know if they went through that whole rigmarole, the guy just said, yeah, go ahead and here’s the fax number to start writing jokes. And it’s 50 bucks if we use one, it’s like, okay. And right away they started using my joke. So I got myself in that door, but I was writing good jokes and they were, they started using them. And I’m talking about like, you know, back then Bill’s doing four shows a night or four shows a week. He’s, he did not have much of a monologue. He would do four, five, six jokes tops. So you’re talking about 20, 20 jokes in a week, basically eight staff writers, 50 fax writers. For, for 20 jokes a week and I’m getting four jokes a week on, you know, which was a crazy hit rate when you consider those other numbers and they took notice of that and it was only, but this was for like the first two, three weeks. And it was right then where their warmup, whoever it was, I can’t remember who was doing it at the time. He got sick. And they needed somebody or he called and he couldn’t make it. So my friend happened to be there at that meeting and said, Hey, you know, that guy JR, who’s getting all the jokes on, he’s a really good standup. You, he should do it. So I came in to do it really hard gig. Cause you had to do material only material, no crowd work, very tight window. You had to end your joke when they were ready to go. Your joke was done, whether you were finished with it or not. The two minute they would tape live. So the, during the two minute ad breaks, commercial breaks, um, you’d have to go back out there and stand like right in front of you. And remember it was like horseshoe, like there were the guests. And then Bill, and then I’m right out in front of them. And, um, and they’d have some pretty big names in there and stuff. And so I’m out there and I have to do a bit while cameras are swinging around. People are getting makeup done. The crowd’s way up here and you had to, you had to hit your punch line right at the two minute mark or you wouldn’t get it out. And it was really, really hard.
Figured it out. And it, I mean, it’s great. And then you had that credibility and then the daily show. Um, when they were launching, it seemed like everything worked out well. What was it like after you left The Daily Show? And I know that Josh, was it Josh Lieb over at Fallon asked you to come in to do, to help out because the show was trying to get more political? Is that, do I have that right?
Yeah. As far as I know, like Josh, Josh was at The Daily Show for a long time. And then, and then he was, I don’t think he went straight over The Tonight Show. He was, he was, you know, he was somewhere else. And then he ended up being the executive producer of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. And I had left, uh, the daily show and he called me up and, uh, invited me to come write for the show. Yeah. He did say like, they, they wanted to get a little more, can start getting a little more political. Because Colbert had either started or was about to start. And so they felt like they were going to have to compete with that a little bit. I can’t remember the exact timing of it. Um, but I know that that was part of it, but it turned out, I don’t think that, uh, like, first of all, I didn’t even meet Jimmy until my first day. I was just, I was already working there and no, there was no interview, nothing like that. They just allowed Josh to go ahead and hire me. And it was weird because they didn’t have a place for me to sit. I was sitting outside of, um, outside of the head writer’s, uh, um, office. So like UPS people would come in and throw packages on my desk and ask me to sign for them and stuff like that. Like, you know, it was very unusual and it was distracting as sh*t. And you’re not working with anybody. It was just completely alone, which I wasn’t used to at all. And so it was, it was kind of weird. And it seemed like Josh, I don’t know that Josh had really run by them, anybody else, what I was meant to be doing there. And Jimmy definitely wasn’t ready to start doing political stuff at the time, he didn’t want to get in the mix. And so it just didn’t, it didn’t match up, you know, and I found myself just writing jokes about Megan Thee Stallion or something, and I didn’t give a sh*t, and I wasn’t really that into it, and it was hard to get material on that show. It was all very individual. I don’t know how they operated before or how they operate since. Um, but they didn’t operate the way The Daily Show does, obviously. But they also just didn’t work together, like, like once you do the first round of monologue jokes, if they want more, it makes sense to me, and this is what we would do at The Daily Show, is like, the monologue writers get together and gang out stuff. So, rather than have all the monologue writers go to their separate corners, and write ten jokes about five different topics, We can have, you know, either one group or two groups write ten really good jokes about, about a couple of topics. And, you know, if the consensus in the writer’s room is that these are good jokes, then they’re probably going to be good on the other end. And you also have camaraderie and all that stuff, but that just wasn’t happening. And I, I, I tried to pitch that a little bit, but it was deaf ears cause I was brand new there and you’re not going to come in and make a stir, you know?
It’s really hard when something’s established, but at the Daily Show, I mean, what a run. I know it made the trades when you left. And, um, I know that Jon, uh, Stewart mentioned you on air. He said a goodbye and didn’t they show a video of you from the Kilborn years when you left, it was something they showed some video.
Um, it might’ve been like when we were introduced as the writers and came barreling through, um, uh, like a, a banner.
It could have been something like that, but I thought that was really nice that Jon gave you a goodbye. You did writers bloc your podcast and that’s B L O C. And that was talking to comedy writers. You did a 51 episodes. What were some of your favorite episodes? Who did you talk to? And what are a few stories that you got out of people that you, that really you got a kick out of?
I think that still lives up too. I’ve listened to a couple of them recently and, uh, um, and they’re still really good. I think they’re really interesting for writers. I remember, um, there were a lot of big names. I mean, mostly ones through The Daily Show and stuff, but, uh, um, I loved Sarah Silverman’s episode. We did it at her apartment. I, you know, I went out to LA and went on this tear where I did like, you know, how hard this would be. I did eight one hour podcasts in three days running around LA driving around LA to people’s houses or, or offices to get them done. But there were some really good ones. Mike Scully. Um, over at The Simpsons, Mike Reese at the Simpsons, or no, I did him later, but Mike Scully at the Simpsons and, um, and Sarah Silverman and, uh, Rob Corddry was a really fun one. And Lisa Ann Walter, who’s come, uh, screaming back to fame at, uh, on, uh, um, Abbott Elementary. I think we did hers in her walk in closet because it had the best acoustics. That was a, that was a really fun trip, but I remember one episode with Larry Wilmore, actually, who was the first guy that I worked with, because I was trying to like, talk to people in different genres and get what it’s like to write for, you know, single cam, multi cam, uh, animation, uh, late night, this late night, that late night, you know, all I was trying to get, like, you know, I was trying to learn along with the audience sort of thing. And. Larry was the first guy I didn’t realize it before we started talking, that I had on who basically worked in every genre, you know.
That’s a good point.
Yeah. And he basically created because he created the Bernie Mac show, which was the first show to do that straight to camera, like testimonial thing that he then used in the, uh, in the office, it was already used in the office, but he was in the first season of The Office as well. He was working on that, uh, the American office. But it was really interesting episode. Cause he was talking about not only how you write for these different things, but the very subtle differences to, uh, to like how you end a scene. In multi cam as opposed to single cam and what, where, where the joke goes, it was really, it was really fascinating.
I wish something like that would have existed when, you know, when we were starting out, um, you know, there was no blueprint whatsoever from hearing, um, From what, how people started and all, all this education. It’s wonderful.
That was the gist of it. It was always the same sort of format of like, how’d you get started? Where’d you work? And what’s it like working there? And what’s it like being in the writer’s room? And, um, I’m, I’m really, really proud of those episodes in that podcast. I, I, you know, I look back and I think it was, I think it was really good. And even still sort of could be helpful to people just kind of writing. It’s these were, these were big names and people that, and really interesting. And they were, they were super, super fun and funny too.
I really liked it, and there weren’t a gazillion podcasts back then. It’s so saturated now, but it felt like the timing was great. It was much needed at the time. It still, I would agree, holds up. J.R. Havlan, thanks for being a guest.
People are going to wonder why I’m laughing so much.
It’s all good.
Stick around for the, uh, the, the, uh, the outtakes.
Yeah, there’s going to be a few outtakes here, here, here and there. But I hope this went well. Thank you for doing this. I, I Been wanting to talk to you. So yeah, I mean, somebody that has, that was there from the daily show and the most influential late night shows of all time,
It was a good experience, Mark. It was, I was, I was fortunate to be a part of it. It was an amazing experience. Iit presented me with some of the very best moments of my life. And I’m very, very proud of it and happy that I was part of it.
