WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 859 - Joy Behar / Adam Goldberg
Episode Date: October 29, 2017Joy Behar was already a successful comic when she became a co-host on The View. But before she was a comic, she had already been a teacher, raised a daughter, and worked on staff at Good Morning Ame...rica. Joy talks with Marc about the many chapters of her life, her new book about surviving Donald Trump's presidency, and whether or not comedy can ever be inappropriate. Plus, Marc's buddy Adam Goldberg calls in to try and crowdfund his new movie, The Hebrew Hammer vs Hitler. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking
ears what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it uh today on the show i have joy behar joy behar is here
she's a comedian and a host on a talk show called the view do you know about the view
she also just wrote a new book called the great gas bag an a to Z guide to surviving Trump world. You can buy that. But Joy and I go back, kind of.
I remember her from, we didn't do a lot of comedy together,
but I always liked her and I did appear.
I was on the show.
I have to bring that up to her.
I did her comedy corner thing on The View.
God, how fucking long ago was that i don't remember man
there are all these little shows you could do also on the show today i have a brief chat with uh
adam goldberg on the phone i did want to let's read a couple emails i you know like i said i
you know my life is pretty limited now because I'm working.
And my days are pretty much going to set and doing the thing.
I can't tell you a lot about what's going on there.
Heartbreak mix, maybe.
That's a subject line.
Just listen to your convo with Lizzie Goodman.
Good stuff.
You mentioned that you spent the first decade of the new millennium listening to a single heartbreak mix.
Help.
I'm nine months into a breakup after eight years.
I'm heartbroken, but stuck on the same old loop of Magnetic Fields and Hank Williams songs.
Good choices, my friend.
I know it would be weird and or vulnerable to share,
but I was wondering if you might share a few of those tracks that helped you get through.
From one human to another.
Either way, thanks for putting yourself out there and for the show.
Lonesome Johnny. Lonesome Johnny, you got to pick your own tunes man you know the ones that work you know the ones that solve the sadness in your soul you know the ones that
elevate sadness into beauty you know the ones that expand sadness into something eternal and perfect and pristine, but not damaging.
Something that elevates the sadness to just part of the human condition
that makes poetry and change so powerful.
You know the songs.
Some of them just make you rock your head and make you go like, fuck it.
And other songs make you go like, oh man, she was was so good she was the best thing and now she's
gone and then you go back to fuck her i'm fucking rocking and then you go back to like oh why but
hey man life is still beautiful and sadness is pure but i'll get through it man you know you
gotta find your own songs and it is too vulnerable i would i would be a little
weird it would weird me out to share my heartbreak mix and i got to go back and find it i'd have to
go back and figure out what songs i was listening to but it was very it was very um eclectic like
for the feelings involved like you got to put some uplifting ones you got to put some blues on there
very select blues don't overdo the blues just the ones that make you understand why the blues exist and then the ones that have sort of a
anthemic kind of dark ballady feel the famous three chord situation the elevators and then
you have to have a couple ones that are just screaming raw powerful you got to mix it up
got to mix it up lonesome johnny and i can only recommend what
you're looking for i can't recommend the songs to you but good luck with it good luck with it and
you'll get better you'll feel better don't obsess about it don't obsess about it it only took me
like a couple of decades to really let it go here's one called white supremacists cancel a
marching band contest this is kind of topical because this turned out, I don't think this resolved itself,
but as of today, they canceled.
Dear Mr. Marin, long-time listener, first-time caller, so to speak,
I felt like I needed to get something off my chest today.
My youngest son, who's 16, informed me this morning that his marching band state contest
was being canceled due to the protests by White Lives Matter, white supremacist group.
They are protesting in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
The championship was to be held at the university, MTSU.
The university canceled the event due to safety reasons and concerns, which I understand.
But it doesn't ease the disappointment and frustration of this group of young adults who have worked so hard since July to get to this point.
Not to mention the disappointment of the parents who have worked diligently with these wonderful, funny kids.
My son's school is a large Nashville public school.
Our music department has produced many fine musicians who play across the world,
as well as great educators.
To have this contest taken away by a group of hate mongers is disgusting going forward
i would just like to state to the supremacist your words do not matter thanks for letting a
band mom feel better sincerely mary band mom that mur that that protest was canceled from what i
understand but i doubt that they were did it in time to to get in time to get these kids back on their horns and drums.
And I'm sorry, Mary, you're right.
You're right.
This is the proactive, beautiful things that America should be known for,
which is contributing community and music into the world,
educators, creativity, and not just sweaty hate.
Sweaty white hate.
You're right.
Well, I hope they reschedule that.
I do.
Willem Dafoe, doctor's offices.
Hi, Mark.
Loved your interview with Willem Dafoe.
I was amused when he was talking about how patients screamed
and cussed at his mother while waiting to see his father and then so sweet to his father when they saw him as you recall his
mother worked in his father's doctor's office i'm an office manager for a doctor 25 years and let me
tell you nothing has changed lol all the time all the time patients are rude and mean to the office
staff when the doctor is running behind and has nothing to do with us.
And then they greet the doctor so sweetly.
If he says, sorry, I'm running late, they will respond, oh, don't worry, that's okay.
Please, as a public service, tell your listeners not to yell at us for something that is not our fault because we don't forget that kind of treatment.
Next time you call for an appointment, it may be a long wait to get one.
Signed, I better leave her name out of this
but i can tell you from growing up with a doctor in the house my father if it's not an emergency
and you're trying to get your father your doctor father yeah yeah to talk to you uh he might just
be eating dinner or taking a nap at home if you're waiting there in the emergency room it's not an emergency he might be at the movies and he ain't leaving that's all i'm saying
so adam goldberg uh we're buddies and he's stranded in toronto making a tv show and
he's wants to he's trying to crowdfund some support to make a sequel to his film, The Hebrew Hammer. It's called The Hebrew
Hammer versus Hitler. To be part of that, to crowdfund and be part of the production, go to
the Adam Goldberg on Twitter for the link, because he couldn't seem to come up with it in a practical
way when I talked to him. But this is a little phone call I had with Adam Goldberg. He called me
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Out. Yeah? What time is it there? Is it another day? It's 7 p.m. here. What time do you think it is?
I don't know. Is it 7 p.m.? No, it's not.
Yeah, 7 p.m. It's like the other side of the world.
No, it's not. It's like New York, isn't it?
Yes, it's one. It's a time difference.
So what are you doing? Are you up there with the whole family?
Are you recording this?
Yeah, I'm recording it.
That's what we're supposed to be doing.
So what are you doing up there, buddy?
I haven't seen you in a while.
I miss you.
Are you being held hostage by a television show?
Yeah.
Remember when we were in the car that day?
Yeah, you were very manic.
You were very manic, and you had a lot of ideas about things.
I hadn't seen you in a long time and you were full of ideas and anxiety.
And you were deciding whether or not you should go to Canada.
And then you were upset about your house not selling and you thought maybe you would never work again.
There was a lot going on that day in the car.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The takeaway is I got a lot of really nice clothes from Mr. Freedom that day.
That's right.
We went to the jean store, and after telling me you were worried about money,
you spent a lot of money on pants.
None of which I've worn.
Is that true?
You're compulsive.
Yeah, I'm compulsive.
So that day, or that day before, I think,
or something, I was offered this show, Taken, this NBC show.
And I took the job, and that's what I'm doing here in Toronto.
Is that a show? What season is it? Should I know that show?
I mean, I don't know that you should know it any more than I know any show.
It's the second season, but only Clive and Jennifer, the two leads of the show, are coming back.
Well, what are you playing?
What's your character?
Do you play a guy?
I don't know.
I don't know.
How much have you shot?
A lot?
Roughly half.
And you have no idea who you're playing?
I'm not sure.
No, I play a hacker.
I play like a kind of a Snowden-esque character who gets co-opted
by the government basically oh and how's the food on set i don't eat it i ate it for about a week
and i i was i was uh almost immediately sick each and every time often so gassy on set that i'd have
to excuse myself um so uh so now i either don't eat or i i or I have like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
or something
oh yeah see like I started shooting
Glow and like I
I don't even know what it is
like the catering food
wait I'm sorry back up
should I have heard of that?
yeah it's a TV show on Netflix
it's about female wrestlers
oh Netflix
I know what Netflix is
because there's a building outside of my house
my old house
that says Netflix on it.
Yeah, that's it.
And that's the building where you work?
No, I'm on set in Atwater on some stages.
Yeah, I'm doing a TV show.
It's like a 10-minute drive from my house.
It's pretty nice.
Is that why you did it?
That's the only reason I took it.
I'm like, this is a shooting where?
That's my dream.
You know, you get dream jobs.
Your own show, which was basically
I don't know.
Let's just say it was shot in your house. I mean, I know it wasn't.
It was around the corner.
But effectively, you know, rebuild my
garage a block away.
And then this is like a 10 minute drive for you.
I have to go to fucking relocate my family
every time I work.
Well, what do you want me to do about that?
You're blessed.
You're blessed.
I'm blessed and I don't even appreciate it as much as I should.
No, you don't.
You don't.
So in that drive, speaking of glow, I offered you, well, we had been talking for a while
about doing something together other than my guest appearance on, I think it was called
Mark.
Was it called Mark?
Marin.
Marin. Marin.
Marin.
Yeah.
We were going to go with Goldberg, but we thought that was weird.
Right.
That would have been weird.
Right.
No, we were talking about doing a narrative film about two brothers, one who was in trouble.
There was a body involved, and we were at a country house.
I don't know.
I don't think you should give it all away.
No, I'm not.
I don't think you should give it all away.
And I have another idea at a country house. I don't know. I don't think you should give it all away. No, I'm not. I don't think you should give it all away.
And I have another idea about a mock documentary.
Do you want me to pitch it to you right now?
We're playing ourselves, okay?
You're Adam and I'm Mark, and we're driving across country, and we have some problems in Idaho where we get kidnapped by neo-Nazis.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It's fucking brilliant.
It's great. But I wanted to...
I added something. We're never going to do it.
We're never going to do it. You know why? Listen to me.
I added something. Their goal
in life was to kill you exactly
like you were killed in Saving Private Ryan.
Well, you make a joke, but those
are the tweets I get. People send me gifs of me
getting killed in Saving Private Ryan. I'm sorry.
Yeah, that was the greatest day of my life. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I mean, you're only reminding me of one of the high points of my'm like, yeah, that was the greatest day of my life. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
You're only reminding me of one of the high points of my career.
But yeah, that is a good, that's very funny and ironic and quite meta.
And disturbing.
And somehow related to exactly what I'm dealing with right now, which is the crowdsourcing or crowd equity crowdsourcing of this movie Hebrew Hammer versus Hitler and when it was announced I have gotten more you know bedwetting white nationalists with
you know yeah dorky avatars yeah what are they for me then then I have since
Sarah Silverman right retreated something I said about 11 months ago
just for the for the crowdsourcing, what is it?
How do people go give money to it?
Well, you're investing in it.
You're investing in it through this site called, well, Indiegogo.
You know Indiegogo?
Yeah.
They're like Kickstarter, right?
So Indiegogo started this platform of micro-ventures, which was an investment site.
And it's equity crowdsourcing.
So basically, you can give $100,
you could give $50,000, but you're investing in the film,
so you're not just getting a mug or whatever.
You're getting a...
You can have a mug. I'll make mugs or whatever.
So you...
Actually, your guy who makes your mug should make the mug.
Sure, but you...
And you give money...
But you're all part of the film.
And you get a back-end deal with the donation?
Yeah, I don't know.
You get some...
You're part of the waterfall.
It's all explained on the site. You know? Waterfall-end deal with the donation? Yeah, I don't know. You get some, you're part of the waterfall. It's all explained on the site.
You know? Waterfall?
You know how there's a waterfall and back-end deals and, you know,
the first money goes here, first money,
second money goes here, third money goes here. So I don't know
where you get your money, but you get your money
in the back-end. I feel like I'm getting,
I gotta say, I feel like I'm getting fucked already.
Well,
it's because I've been saying back end a lot.
It doesn't sound like I'm going to win.
But Mark, let's be clear about something.
I don't want your money.
I offered you a role in the movie.
As Jesus, I know.
And, yeah, as Jesus.
People, hello.
People of Mark Maron, you don't want to see Mark play Jesus Christ?
But I'm 54 years old.
It's okay.
It's okay.
I understand.
So tell me the idea, and then we're going to drive, we're just going to drive my thousands
of people over to the Indiegogo site to get a piece of this movie.
What happens to Hebrew Hammer?
He goes back in time.
So to be clear, John Kesselman was the writer-director, and I made this movie,
Hebrew Hammer, in 2003. And at the time, I sort of was wary of being kind of
over-identified with something that sort of felt like a franchise-y type thing,
and also with being so overly identified as some sort of Semitic superhero.
But I kind of, you know, gave into it.
And it turned out to be kind of, you know, rewarding.
And people, you know, it was kind of a cult movie and blah, blah, blah.
And also it, like, moved people, even though it's a completely ridiculous comedy.
It offended a lot of people, but it moved.
You know, it was like a Jewish power movie.
It's a parody of people, but it moved. You know, it was like a Jewish power movie. It's a parody of black exploitation films, but, you know, I'm a Jew, but he's a, you know, he's a Hebraic.
I know, I saw it.
It was great.
I like how you called it a franchise movie.
Like, you know, like this is like, this is going to go on for a while.
I mean.
Well, all I'm saying is that it kind of lent itself to that.
It had a comic book reality to it and that kind of thing.
Okay, so, yeah, so now...
So for a year, for the subsequent couple of years
after the film was released, people,
and this was before Twitter or whatever,
so I don't know where they were telling me this,
I don't know, in the street...
Friendster?
...seemed to be clamoring for a sequel.
So in 2005, I said to John,
I was like, we might as well do it,
but if we're going to do it,
we should go after the big kahuna.
I mean, we went after Santa Claus in the first one or whatever.
We should go after, you know, Hitler.
And the only way to really do that obviously the the time travel the place
so
so we can work that script out john wrote it
and um... united gone through a variety of iterations and i i would have had
one put in one put out
throughout the years but during the expense of trump over the last you know
eighteen months
uh...
i swear to you my my inbox, my Twitter mentions
were sort of like 50% like a clarion call for resurrecting the Hebrew hammer, and 50%,
you know, we're warming up the oven for you, like really, you know, tacky, anti-Semitic
imagery from the 30s.
And so I really thought, huh, this has got a more, it has more context than it did before.
Before it felt almost arbitrary.
And so I began to talk to John about doing a series of shorts that were literally related to Trump,
which were quite funny, actually.
And we sketched out about five of them.
And in the end, we should have devoted all the attention, you know, all the effort into trying to, you know, make the film.
And so we kind of bastardized the pilot premise of the shorts
into the campaign video,
which is in effect that we're resurrecting
the Hebrew Hammer, we're bringing him out of retirement
because of the rise of Trump, but the film itself
makes no literal reference to that,
although there is an infomercial
star who becomes a
president of the United States,
and who's
rather demagogic.
And then, yeah, we need to go back in time and, you know.
Deal with Hitler.
Of course, it's a wonky beta time machine called a time sukkah.
A time sukkah?
And that's how we end up meeting Jesus, by the way,
which is the role that I want you to play.
You go back too far?
No, it goes all over the place.
I've been describing it as Bill and Pat.
Okay, wait, wait. Oh, that's it as villain. Okay, let me show up.
Oh, that's good. So let's talk about this Jesus idea. Is there any way that I could be like,
the last temptation of Christ Jesus? Like, the whole story of Jesus was made up and I'm actually
in my 50s? Well, okay, here's the thing, right? So you were talking about your age and all of that.
And then I went home, I started to think about it.
Because initially, first of all, I was 30 years old.
I was actually, wait, how old was I?
I was Jesus' age when we made the first one.
So when we started making the second one,
I said, I want to play Jesus.
Because, you know, when you look at those composite pictures
of what Jesus may have looked like,
they always end up looking like a kind of black version of me, you know?
Uh-huh.
And so I thought, you know, that'll be funny, because we'll go back in time, and we'll meet
Jesus, and I'll play Jesus, and then, you know, I show him pictures of the way that
Jews have been depicted, while I play in both roles.
So the Hebrew Hammer shows Jesus pictures of the way that Jesus has been depicted in
Catholic and mainstream culture
and art and all that kind of thing.
Yeah.
And, you know, we all have a good laugh about it.
But then once I started to think about it, I was like, I don't want to fucking play that
role.
I want something great.
And I've been wanting to do something with you.
Yeah.
And it's like, it's a no-brainer.
And you can, you know, you can do it and you can be out of there.
You know what I mean?
It's not like...
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
So that... The point is, the point is, i was thinking about your age because right i had forgotten he
was 33 but think about it think about the way guys actually aged in those days you know you
think he looked 54 of course he did you think he looked like fucking you know jared Leto, a 20-year-old Jared Leto? Sure. Who wouldn't want to kill that guy?
That's funny.
So, okay.
So how do you get, how do we, it sounds like a great idea.
I'm excited to almost be part of it.
And how, so where do people go?
Can you make it easy? If you go to my Twitter or my Instagram and all that, I'm just becoming unabashed.
You're not.
There's unabashed groveling going on.
So it's like link in bio
should be my new fucking Twitter handle.
Why frame it that way?
Why not frame it as
you're an artist
that did a funny thing
and you've got this great idea
to do this sequel
to the funny thing
and you need some,
you're applying a creative...
Okay, I got it.
I got it. I got it. I got it. I'm an artist and I did this funny thing and you need some, you're applying a creative. Okay, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it.
I'm an artist and I did this funny thing and I have this idea of having everyone collaborate and make it with us.
So you're not only going to get to see the film, you're getting to be a part of the film
and in success, you too will be successful.
How is that?
Pretty good, but you don't know the website?
It's app.microventures.com.
Wow.
All right, I'll have to clean that up when we put this on.
I'm telling you, dude.
I don't, you know, I don't, listen, man, I don't make the rules.
No, I know.
Just enforce them.
I'm glad you sound good.
You sound healthy.
You sound well.
You don't sound like you're sweating or worrying about things.
I'm on Prozac.
It's working?
I think it kind of
is. Okay. When are you coming
back? February.
Can we please
have like a
date?
We'll go out with the girl or just me and you.
I got to go watch you buy pants again? No, we'll go out with the girl, or just me and you. I got to go watch you buy pants again?
Or do you want to go out with the girl?
No, no, we'll go out with the girl.
I envy that you're in Canada.
You know, you might end up staying there.
Please don't say that.
Anyway, I'm proud of you, Mark.
I am.
Thank you very much, and I appreciate that.
And I appreciate our friendship, and I want you to take care of yourself.
Stay in touch, will you?
Yeah, of course.
Well, I'm only a text away.
You know that.
Okay, buddy.
I'll talk to you later.
All right.
Talk soon.
Bye.
As I said before this thing, go to the Adam Goldberg on Twitter for the link to the crowdfund.
And, yeah, get get involved let's make the
hebrew hammer happen maybe i'll be in it so joy behar yes i've known her for years not well but
she's a comedian she's on the view she's done a lot of little talk shows here and there but uh
years ago i did the view when she had her comedy corner thing
where you'd sit there in this weird little,
you know, fake brick wall corner
that was built on the set of The View.
In my recollection, I stood up and did some standup
and then sat down with her.
She thinks that she just set me up
and I just did the standup sitting there.
I don't remember.
I just know there was a time
where there were all these cable shows
where all of us did them and The View. It was sort of an interesting, weird, little big deal.
It's like, that's a lot of people watch that.
I'd like to dig up that footage of me on The View doing Joy's stand-up corner.
Perhaps I will.
I'll let you know.
But this is Joy Behar.
We talked about a lot of things, but she's got a new book, The Great Gas Bag,
an A to Z guide to surviving Trump world.
You can get that wherever you get books
And this is me and Joy
She was just here, by the way
This just happened
So this is me and Joy Vahar
You good?
Good morning, how are you?
Good morning, look at you
Early in the morning
But you're all done up already
Well, you know, I took
I had to do more last night.
That's why.
And I did access and rest of it.
You know, when you're pushing a book.
Yeah, the book.
Yeah, let's do it right out of the gate.
Joy Behar, The Great Gas Bag, An Agency Study Guide to Surviving Trump World.
Now, when you wrote this, you know, it's obviously jokes, you know, and it's fun, and it's cutting.
There's a lot of information also. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's jokes, you know, and it's fun and it's cutting. There's a lot of information also.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know it's all categorized.
But, you know, you talk about everyone who's involved.
You talk about the politics behind it and you talk about him.
But it gets progressively more scary and more difficult to make jokes, doesn't it, after a certain point?
Well, yeah, but that's why we have to keep doing it.
I'm on board.
I mean, you know, we're comics and comics are going to save the world, in my opinion.
Yeah?
Well, yeah, because we're the only ones that really tell them the truth.
I mean, no one's telling the truth anymore, but comedians do.
Right, and they really stick it to him, and it affects him.
There have been moments, because I get, maybe a few months ago, sometimes I watch Alec Baldwin do his thing.
Right.
You know, and then, like, there was a couple of times when he was doing that where I was like, no, he's
going to blow up the world because of this.
Like literally, I thought Trump would get so insulted that he was going to do something
insane because of a comic.
Hasn't stopped me from talking about him.
Well, you know, it's interesting because I'm after him every day on The View.
Whoopi is too.
But he never says anything about us.
I think he's a little scared of the comedians. Yeah.. Whoopi is too. But he never says anything about us. No?
I think he's a little scared of the comedians.
Yeah?
He might be scared of us.
Could he?
He learned how to shut up.
I think he's pretending like he doesn't register it.
Maybe he doesn't.
I don't know how mentally ill he is.
I know he's a little mentally ill.
Something's wrong with him.
No doubt.
Yeah.
But you know what?
I don't even fault him 100%.
It's the Congress and the enablers and the collaborators.
The Vichy governments that
we're talking about here.
Right, right.
Yeah, the craven sycophants and people that are willing to-
And greedy.
Well, yeah, it's all greed.
I can't.
But you've been in New York a long time.
You must have had other experiences with the guy.
I did.
He was on The View a couple of times.
He was there the day he came on to his daughter.
Remember that?
You know about that?
That's right.
That's right.
Where he said that he would be dating her.
Yeah, if she wasn't my daughter, I'd be dating her.
I said to him, who are you, Woody Allen?
And he kind of laughed at that.
Yeah.
That's how craven he is.
You got through to him?
And then another time, we had him on the phone when he was first campaigning.
Oh, I saw him at Radio City at an Adele concert.
There he was with Melania.
Yeah.
And I went over to say hello to him.
This is before I realized how destructive he was going to be and the fact that he was going to win.
No one did.
No one did.
And he said, can you believe the numbers, the poll numbers?
Even then, it was early.
And I said, Donald, what do you want to do this for?
What are you getting out of this?
What did he say?
Nothing.
The poll numbers.
The poll numbers.
So he was just excited.
He was surprised. Well, I i mean i talked to other guys you know i you know i had jeff ross in here and
you know the comics that knew him before you know and they they're at the beginning even stern was
not apologetic but sort of like you know he knew the guy yeah stern yeah right you know and then
jeff ross was on you know trump's plane and had a certain you know uh you know, and then Jeff Ross was on Trump's plane and had a certain, you know, relationship and dynamic with the guy.
Right, right.
And their first thoughts were, you know, like, initially they're like, oh, I'm a little worried about him.
And I would hope that that's turned around.
What do you mean they're worried about him?
Well, he doesn't eat well, he's out of his league, he's incompetent, he's in trouble, and this and that.
But now it's like, no.
Don't worry about him.
I'm not worried about him.
No, no, no.
You know, I'm terrified every fucking day.
I went to his wedding also to Marla.
You did?
Yeah.
My manager at the time, Richard Fields, you know who he was?
Yeah, Rich Fields from Catch.
Catch Rising Star.
The other half of Catch.
Yeah, with Rick Newman.
Rick and Newman, yeah.
And Richard Fields was in some kind of business with Trump, and so I was invited to the wedding.
And it was like, first of all, Marla appeared.
Is it like the Song of Bernadette?
You know, when she went to Lourdes and the Madonna appeared to Bernadette?
It was like that.
She sort of appeared in a grotto.
And like I always say, there wasn't a wet eye in the house, you know?
And so I get up to dance, and I come back to my table, and the film is taken out of my camera.
Like the Godfather? Like the my camera. Like the Godfather?
Like the Godfather, like the KGB.
Really?
I said, what does he think?
I have a picture of him smooching with Rosie O'Donnell?
Why would they take the film out?
Because she was there also in O.J. Simpson.
I don't know.
They didn't want any pictures.
Hold on a sec.
Okay.
I got to get new equipment, Joy.
I can't believe you got Obama to come to this neighborhood.
I was surprised myself.
I don't even know where the hell we are.
In Highland Park.
But I was surprised myself.
I thought, you know, if I was going to interview the president, it would be someplace, you know, different.
The White House, maybe.
But no, he wanted to come here.
It was an ordeal.
But how did you get him here?
He wanted to do it.
I think there were some staffers that were fans of the show,
and they started talking about it.
It took about a year for it to unfold.
Yeah.
But eventually it happened, and the Secret Service came.
Everybody came, and that was that.
And he wasn't running at the time.
No, he was ending.
He was ending.
So he just liked the idea.
That's what I like about that guy.
He'll just do something like that.
Well, I think what he said is he really wanted to get people involved in politics in a
very general way that's why he did it he was reaching out to people to get involved which
is a problem you know there's a whole side of this political spectrum that are sort of
self-involved and just you know want things to be okay yeah and they don't do anything no no that's
the majority right majority i have to i think i'm part of that at some point at some times yeah even though with air america everything else during obama i was like i
think things are okay yeah i'll be okay things feel good for me fuck it remember when he was in
office we all relaxed we knew the daddy was taking care of business he wasn't provoking north korea
yeah i know yeah you did feel like someone was in charge even if you didn't hear from him you're
like i think we're okay yeah he's good he's smart he's not going to do anything stupid yeah you know i lived through the cuban missile
crisis i don't know how old you are i was in college i'm older than you 20 years yeah and i
i lived through that and i was afraid i was going to be blown up i really believed it i feel that
now i'm feeling that now and being in la i feel it i worry about it you really do incinerated yeah
yeah but i don't believe that any government is actually going to pull the trigger first i think it'll be like a rogue thing well but that's what north
korea is well no but they were government they don't want to die they know they'll die yeah yeah
they don't want to die they're having a good time you're optimistic you're right kim jong yum yum
is what he calls him is having fun you think so yeah i think so it's like when i saw saddam
hussein and the way he lived i said this guy's never going to do anything really destructive to himself.
Because he's taken care of.
He was on the payroll for years.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, but Kim's not on our payroll.
No.
Not in a long time.
Isn't he on China's payroll?
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
But I think they're pulling back a little bit.
So I remember when he started on The View, because I did the comedy corner.
Do you remember?
You had me on there.
Oh, yeah.
When the hell was that?
How long ago? I'm there 20 years. Right. I was two had me on there. Oh, yeah. When the hell was that? How long ago?
I'm there 20 years.
Right.
Two years off for being fired, but then I came back.
Right.
But yeah, that was a long time ago.
Right.
Like, was it the 80s?
I did good.
Yeah.
I remember I felt okay about it.
I was always a little angry and a little weird, but I mean, but you had me on.
I did well.
Yeah.
It was sort of an interesting setup.
It was just on the view set
there was a corner that was made out of boards and you sat there and then you go stand in front
of the people and come sit with you for a minute i sat you out i set you up right but like i was
trying to figure out where for years i thought you were jewish i don't know i just assumed i'm not
i'm italian i'm both sides i know yeah and i i I think I worked with your daughter a million years ago.
Yeah, she remembers you. Yeah, I don't think
Was that politically incorrect? She was
politically incorrect. She was at HBO Downtown
and I was doing short attention span theater.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right. She worked there.
Yeah, she worked at HBO Downtown. Yeah.
And I was always sort of like, wow, Joy's got a daughter that old?
Yeah, I know. I know.
I'm older than I look. No, you look great.
Thank you, but I'm older than I look no you look great thank you but i'm older than i look
but where'd you where'd you started later than every other comic because i had a job i was a
teacher i raised a kid well where'd you grow up where'd you come from williamsburg oh yeah old
brooklyn oh well i used to hang out at a mozzarella store i mean now in williamsburg so before the
polish the polish were in greenpoint oh that's right we're in the italian so williamsburg and then there's the hasid's over there too that's right. Greenpoint. We were in the Italian. So Williamsburg was all.
And then there's the Hasidim over there, too.
That's right.
That's what it was.
It was like one side Hasidim, one side Italian.
Yeah.
My mother worked for the Hasidim.
She was a sewing machine operator, and she worked for the Hasidim.
That's where they all were.
I remember when I was growing up, it was like Williamsburg was for the Jews.
It was for the real Jews.
The real Jews.
The heavy duty Jews.
So you grew up in that.
And then there was tension, right?
Eventually.
No. No tension. No. I grew up with bookies yeah you know and people like that and you know it was it
was it was actually an interesting childhood although it was sort of sad i never went to camp
i never learned to swim i never rode a horse i just hung out at this on the stoop playing jacks
my whole life it's kind of somebody said that's so sad. I don't know. It's pretty exciting. No, I mean, Williamsburg, New York.
You know, it gave me material.
Yeah.
But like how many kids in the family?
Just me.
Really?
What kind of Italian family is this?
The one with the hysterectomy.
We're going to stop it now?
That was it?
My mother had a hysterectomy after I was born, so she never had another one.
She didn't want any more, I guess.
My father was a compulsive gambler.
We never had a dime.
Oh, really? He was a truck driver. He worked for, his idol was Jimmy Hoff, I guess. My father was a compulsive gambler. We never had a dime. Oh, really?
He was a truck driver.
He worked for, his idol was Jimmy Hoffa.
Yeah.
Because he was a teamster.
Yeah.
And you realize that the teamsters in those days, this is the way unions operated.
My father got his birthday off.
Yeah, right.
I mean, who, where the fuck do you hear that?
That your father, that the grown men who are driving trucks are getting their birthdays
off.
And that was in a contract negotiation somewhere.
Yeah, it was.
Our guys are going to get their birthdays off.
That's right.
And they're going to wear hats and have a cake.
I mean, and now all they want to do is bust unions.
Yeah.
You know, and the reason that we could even have food on the table, it was because my father was in a union.
Yeah.
Even though he gambled most of his money away.
But it was enough left over.
So what kind of truck, where did he drive?
For who?
Coca-Cola.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
So he worked for Coca-Cola.
Yeah.
And he's a union guy driving Coca-Cola around.
That's right.
Yeah, stopping everywhere to get on pay phones to bookies.
Yeah, exactly.
One time, he played the horses a lot.
Oh, yeah.
So one time, he was staring into space, and I thought he was having an epileptic seizure.
He was just listening to the results from Belmont. was i'm serious just hypnotized it's like what's
the matter with you and then he's with the running here they come that whole thing he was really
degenerate gambler oh really but did he go to like did he go did he play cards or anything no he
didn't play cards just the horses that's all he liked so did you have guys coming to collect money
at the house hfc called house finance uh They called my mother and they said, we're going to take your furniture.
She said, take him, leave the furniture.
Good stuff of her.
You know.
Oh, man.
I said, why don't you divorce him?
She go, where am I going to go?
Right.
How about around the corner, the Gamanda Angelouza's house?
I'll leave.
Get out.
Yeah.
Someone put me up.
The neighborhoods were tighter then, right?
Everyone took care of each other.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So everyone knew he was a degenerate gambler.
They probably felt bad for your mother.
The whole block were degenerate gamblers.
Bookies lived next door.
Some guy named Anuj, he went to jail.
I'd say, what happened to him?
They'd say, oh, he went to college.
College?
He didn't even go to elementary school.
What are you talking about?
But that's exciting. And your worked for the the Hasidim
my my wife my the Hasidim yeah they used to say Rosie come to my daughter's wedding you'll dance
with my wife she's like what why would I do that they're very odd uh bunch but uh yeah I mean I
get in trouble like sometimes because like I'm a Jew and like and I sometimes make fun of them and
then a couple of them will email me and they'll be like what are you doing why are you making yeah yeah they're
more they're listening to the show though one or two just one or two and the one of the guys he's
no longer a chassid he he he criticized me and then he said i understand then the next thing i
know he's out here he's trying to be an actor without the curls oh really yeah he bailed he
bailed on the chassids one time i did a set at Catch, and these two Hasids came out afterward, saw me on the street,
and they said, I hear you like Jewish guys.
And I said, not that Jewish.
Yeah.
Yeah, my ex-husband's a Jew.
The one I have now is Jewish, but the Hasid, no.
You're not that far on the spectrum.
The look is...
Way on the spectrum.
Too far off on the spectrum.
Like the middle range.
The middle range.
But you basically have given up stand-up, haven't you?
No, no.
Oh, you still do it?
I just did a special on Netflix.
I'm out every week.
I go out to, I usually work out the comedy store here.
I go tonight.
Oh, that's great.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I just did the best special I've ever done.
I mean, like the, you know, for Netflix.
I never stop, no.
I just sort of, I'm just off to the side. You're a workaholic, you said. A bit, you know, for Netflix. I never stop, no. I just sort of, I'm just off to the side.
You're a workaholic, you said.
A bit, you know, I do.
I mean, I'm compulsive.
Because some part of me
doesn't see it as work.
Like, there's still something
about comedy
where I'm like,
it's a privilege in some way
to be successful at that.
It is true.
And I'm shooting a TV show now,
you know, that I'm on.
So, like, I feel that it's work.
But, yeah, I just keep going. So, you're actually making some money. Yeah, I do. All right. So wait,
so when did, what did you do? Okay. So you grew up playing jacks, you know, with a,
with a compulsive gambling father. Go up on the roof. A guy would expose himself. I'm really
early years of exposing men. They were jacking off in cars in the neighborhood. Oh yeah. Yeah.
That's been going on forever. It's going on forever.
Men.
Yeah.
They're men.
That's right.
What is it with guys, though, that they feel like?
Like when they, yeah, and they send pictures of them as if no woman is that interested
in seeing like a flying dick.
Yeah.
If it's attached.
A detached dick, yeah.
Maybe if it's attached and a dick is doing something.
Yeah.
But to just see the actual penis is not interesting to women.
I don't know
have you have you talked about this with the ladies you know we discuss this every once in a
while we try to figure out men and where they're coming from like what's his name um um no the one
with the schlong what's his name anthony wiener yeah yeah wiener like he sends a picture of his
dick anyway let's go back to comedy so? You grew up there and then what happens?
Forget about it.
No.
Because I don't, like when I was coming up, I don't, like I remember you were always on TV.
I don't remember seeing you doing stand-up, but I was not always in New York.
Well, I was always scared of stand-up.
I've always been a little nervous about it, even though I do it all the time and I have been doing it for 35 years at this point.
But there's something about it that scares the shit out of me. Yeah, well. And so I get nervous before I go out and I just been doing it for 35 years at this point. But there's something about it that scares the shit out of me.
Yeah, well.
And so I get nervous before I go out, and I just can't.
I mean, Jay Leno said to me,
why are you always on panel when you come on this show?
Do some stand-up.
And I'm like, I don't want to.
It's hard, the eight-minute set.
You know, you have to really work that out.
The eight-minute set, yeah.
And I had the kind of set that was not like a set of punch.
You're a talker.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's hard.
I mean, like Rita Rudner, she was good in those.
Remember Rita?
One-liners, yeah.
One-liners, she was good.
Sure, and she had a whole character going.
Stephen Wright.
Same thing.
Fabulous.
Yeah, but that's not who you are.
You're not a character act.
They had very specific personalities.
Iemo Phillips, Judy Tanuta.
Why you pick those four?
The opposite of your style.
Yeah, of course they were good.
What I'm saying is that type of thing works better in those little five minute spots.
Yeah, but I mean, Jerry can do it and Louie can do it.
You can do it.
I don't know.
I didn't feel comfortable.
Well, where did you start doing stand-up?
What did you do when you went to college, and then what was the job?
Did you go to college?
I went to college.
I graduated Queens College.
Oh, yeah.
Free.
$64 a term.
Yeah.
And then I got married.
Right away.
Like 22.
Oh, yeah?
Ridiculous.
Yeah.
I met him in college.
He was great and smart.
Good guy.
Turned me into a socialist, basically.
Yeah.
And Jewish.
Yeah.
And then we had a baby.
Yeah.
And then I had a little bit of a
breakdown was i was trapped at exit 60 on the lie while he was getting his doctorate at stony brook
so i went and got my master's degree oh you did and then i then i really freaked out it was like
get me the fuck out of here or i'm gonna kill somebody where were you in brooklyn no in long
island long island right yeah oh so that was it so you saw your whole life what it was going to look like. Well, I had grown up
with Italian people all around me.
My family, my cousins, my aunts and uncles.
And I was all alone in the woods there with
two basset hounds and a guy who's getting his PhD.
And I'm like, I gotta get
out of here or I'm going to have a break. And a baby.
And so we moved
to Queens. What was the master's in?
English education.
I was teaching. So you moved to Queens where? was the master's in? English education. I was teaching.
So you moved to Queens where? I was funny at
parties, Mark. Where did you move in
Queens? Forest Hills.
Had a really great apartment. There was a balcony
and everything.
And then what happened?
You were teaching? I was teaching
and then I said, I can't do this either.
What year? High school.
High school. How was that? High school English. It's not easy. I can't do this either. What year? High school. High school. How was that?
High school English.
It's not easy.
I can't imagine.
It's a very hard job.
Thankless, I imagine.
Well, it's completely thankless.
And all you do is work, mark papers, make up tests, spend your whole life marking papers.
And then I imagine the percentage of students that don't give a shit has got to be heartbreak.
It's hard not to take that personally, I would imagine.
Well, yeah.
And you have to be a disciplinarian. that's not my personality i don't want to tell
people what to do but you got it must have been rewarding to have one or two good kids yeah i did
have a few good kids i did how long did you teach oh several many years oh really lower east side
oh really yeah lindenhurst high school i taught at the home of the bunt lindenhurst they used to
have meetings there yeah oh no kidding yeah that was the the pre what is that german club is that yeah like the germans
were there in lindenhurst during the war right and um and then so then um then i said you know
what i can't do this anymore the teaching it was not i didn't know what to do with my life yeah
so were you depressed what the breakdown looked like did you were you just like crying like your husband were you yelling at him mean to him probably i don't know where did you
take me why am i out here blaming him yeah yeah um but it was really my fault it wasn't his fault
well it's good that you had that moment as opposed to just die inside you know in those days women
would accompany their husbands so i was accompanying him in his life.
He was getting a PhD.
He was a professor.
Really?
Of what?
A sociology professor.
Where at?
Dowling College out in Long Island.
Okay.
And so he loved it.
Yeah.
And I was miserable.
I didn't know who I was,
what I was doing.
All I knew was that I could get a laugh.
Right.
That's all I knew.
So I said, I'm going to go into television
and become like maybe a producer or something.
So I get a job as a receptionist
at Good Morning America. Oh really?
What year is that? That was 1979.
Who was it on? Who were the people?
Joan London and David Hartman.
Oh wow, I remember them.
And I was the, Mark, when I tell you
the worst receptionist,
8 o'clock in the morning
they'd call me up and they'd be like where's joan london i say how the hell do i know well i don't
know where she is when she was on break or what no she'd be off the air that day maybe lactating
somewhere she had a lot of kids right all right so she like when she had a day off people who
were watching would call they call where where is she i said where are you calling from canada what
do you care in canada where joan london i was terrible yeah this is a funny story one time we had albert
speer on the nazi from the third reich yeah the architect yeah he was a guest he wrote a book
right and i as a receptionist had to feel the the complaints the jews the angry jews are calling
was that albert speer you had on this morning? I say, yes.
The Nazi?
What do you mean you had a Nazi on morning television?
I'd be like, yeah.
Look, I don't book the show, okay?
Yeah.
It was like, and I'd make jokes.
You have to fly them in from Argentina.
They were a pain in the ass.
What do you want from my life? Right.
And so I never got promoted for years there.
Three years, I never really got promoted.
I could just hear someone like, the Nazi?
What do you do?
What do you mean you have a Nazi on television?
On morning television.
Maybe it would be better at night.
Now they're on TV every day.
Not the original crew.
No, not the Neos.
Not the OGs, yeah.
These are the originals.
So you never got promoted?
So I never got promoted.
Then I got fired.
And I had a bit of a near-death experience because I had an ectopic pregnancy.
I was still married.
Then I got divorced.
What is that?
That's the one that grows in the tube?
Yeah.
Really.
Horrible.
It's death involved there.
So I almost die.
I get a divorce.
And then I get fired.
So I'm like in the trifecta.
And you got a baby.
And I have a kid.
She's 11.
She was 11. Okay. So now I'm thinking, what theecta. And you got a baby. And I have a kid. She's 11. She was 11.
Okay, so now I'm thinking, what the fuck am I going to do now?
Oh, you know what?
You're not getting a lot from the sociology professor, I imagine, money-wise.
There's no money there.
One thing you'll never hear is, you know, rich sociologists.
Those words don't go together.
So now what am I going to do?
I'm going to do stand-up. What was that moment like? I was like, holy shit. gonna do yeah i'm gonna stand do stand up what
was that moment like so i was like how do you do it where do i go so so i i get like five minutes
together how just wrote it i sat with somebody one day and i said he says like you yeah like
but except he wrote everything i said a friend of yours sort of i paid him oh i found this guy
i paid him that guy's this guy. I paid him.
That guy's got a hell of a racket.
He said to me,
you know,
I'll write down what you tell me.
So he starts writing things down
like, you know,
I never went to camp.
You paid him?
Like, what was his job?
Where'd you find that guy?
I need someone to listen to me tell jokes.
I can't tell you every single thing
in this period of time.
Okay, it's a long time.
But I was in a show.
I looked in Backstage Magazine
and I saw that they were hiring people in a show i i looked in backstage magazine yeah and i saw that they
were hiring people to for a show called fun with jane apologies to dick uh-huh okay yeah it was
going to be like chorus a chorus line where you developed right so in that milieu i found this
guy okay so he says let's just be tell me his story he would write write write and little jokes
would appear i didn't even know i was saying like you said what was the one you just said that you um you know my family didn't
believe in camp they believed in stoop yeah right stuff like that so he'd write things down that's
one of those great early jokes it's not didn't even have three beats you know just a turn and
you hope that you know you're hoping that the stoop will get the laugh and they usually did
yeah yeah sure in new york yeah yeah i'd say you know like they never took me on vacation uh they You're hoping that the stoop will get the laugh. And they usually did. Yeah, sure. In New York.
Yeah, yeah.
I'd say, you know, like, they never took me on vacation.
They tried to pass the cemetery to the country, which is a true story.
I only told true stories.
What do you mean?
They took you to the cemetery because it's nice and quiet?
It's a very Italian thing.
They'd be picnics.
We'd have sandwiches.
I swear to God.
Really?
I had photographs.
Near relatives or no
dead relatives were in the ground and live relatives would make the veal and pepper sandwiches
we go to like saint john's cemetery so i tell the guy everything and now i have like a few
a few minutes and i try it out like for friends yeah you know and they laughed it went into the
five minutes right and then i would try
to get on at the improv and of course silver friedman never put me on i got in there at the
last at the end of it you know hang out there for like two until two in the morning in those days
everywhere though what year was that though for you that was like 1982 because i like i got there
i got to new york like in 89 and it was all it was over. It was just me. It was done, yeah.
It was me and Jerry Diner.
Jerry Dinnerstein changed it to Diner, yeah.
Me, Jerry Diner, and Bob Shaw, and Uncle Dirty.
Uncle Dirty.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, so Silver, so 80, what'd you say?
83, four.
So it was not the heyday.
Yes, it was.
Still?
Yeah, it was.
I mean, Kennison was hot.
Robin would stop in to catch a rising star.
Catch a rising star, but we're talking about the improv.
Yeah, no, the improv never put me on.
I went to catch.
Right, so you went to Silver.
I was better at catch, yeah.
And she was nasty.
No, she was not nice to people.
She was not nice to women comedians, except Carol Siskin, she was nice to her, but not to me.
Yeah.
I'd say to her, look, I can't stay up till 1 o'clock.
I have a kid and I have to get up in the morning.
And what did she say?
It's not about your talent, Joy.
You don't hang out here enough.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, no, I know they all wanted you to.
There was no help.
Look, for years I had problems with Louis.
Louis Ferranda?
Yeah, for the same fucking reason.
I mean, I tell you, man, because i got there in like 86 and all my buddies were
going over the catch and you know he was making todd sit there for three hours to do a one in the
morning for four people todd todd um barry todd barry yeah he's funny he's great he's really fun
no they were good guys you know like i come from the same generation as louis and nick de paulo and
a lot of them were working by the time i come down down, I guess I move in 89, you know, and, you know, and he just,
yeah, come down, you know, hang out.
And I'm like, I can't fucking hang out.
I could not tolerate him having any control over my life.
And for years I held a grudge, right?
For years.
I know a lot of people have grudges against people like him who ran those clubs.
Sure.
But the funny thing was, it's like, you was, and I've talked about the grudge,
and it was really active for a long time.
And then last year,
for the New York Comedy Festival,
which he books,
they asked me to do Carnegie Hall.
And I wouldn't even do the New York Festival
because of him.
And I'm like,
I guess I get it.
I'm going to do Carnegie Hall.
Like, yes.
Did you do it?
Yeah, and now I'm okay with Lewis.
That's right, of course.
It's like, you know, if he's not putting you on, you're not going to like him.
But what are you going to say?
Oh, that's his job.
It might have been right.
He might have been right.
At the time.
Sure.
Well, weren't you in the alternative comedy crowd?
No, there was no alternative then.
Yeah, with Janine Garofalo.
No, that was the mid-90s that that happened.
Oh, that was later?
Sure.
Oh.
So, like, you know, like, but in the late 80s, I was a Boston comic.
I moved down to new york and i
i started in la as a doorman at the comedy store got fucked up on drugs went back to boston where
i went to college coke and and pot and booze and went back to boston and started my career doing
one-nighters you know and then i come down to new york to try to get on at those clubs and all i
could get i could get barry katz's club the boston comedy club but that was a decade before alternative
i mean that alternative thing yeah i mean i was just i always thought you were in that crowd but And all I could get, I could get Barry Katz's club, the Boston Comedy Club. But that was a decade before Alternative.
I mean, that Alternative thing.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, I mean, I was just...
I always thought you were in that crowd, but you're not.
No, I was.
But, you know, but we were, almost everyone in that crowd at the beginning were club comics.
It was me and Jeff Ross and Silverman.
And, you know, even Janine started in clubs.
None of us came out of nowhere.
It was just a different venue.
Yeah, most of the comics I came up with were 10 years younger than me.
You guys were 20 years younger than me.
Right.
Yeah, because I started later.
Right.
So who was your crew, like in 80, what, 82?
Well, Susie Essman.
Oh, yeah.
And Lou DiMaggio.
Yeah.
Seinfeld was around at those days.
Gilbert Gottfried.
Sure.
Kinison.
But he was out here, and he would go there occasionally.
Oh, Kinison?
Yeah.
Yeah, he would just kill.
Rodney Dangerfield used to come in all the time.
Oh, fucking Rodney.
Rodney, he was funny.
Did you work his club?
He was the original guy with the bathrobe out in the street.
Yeah, well, that's because he had that club.
He had Dangerfield's, and he made it like his house.
Dangerfield was a scary club.
It was pitch black.
You didn't know who the hell you were talking to.
Rick Messina used to book it back when he was nothing.
Everyone gets big, man. It was a scary club. Hiram Kasdan was always there.
We all did pretty well. We all did pretty well. I mean, as you say, it's a privilege
to be in this business. Well, yeah, if you make it through.
If you don't make it, you got to get out. You got to get out.
No, who do you know that gets out? I know. I don't know. A lot of people who
we don't hear about are'm still on the road i know
i know it's it's tragic and it's difficult and you know but i know very few how what are you
gonna fire yourself that's the fuck up thing about about comedy is like somewhere in the back of your
head you like i could still hit and yeah no one's gonna tell you like i don't know you know who's
really funny and still trucking around don herrera ohera. Oh, no, he's great. I see him all the time. He's so fucking funny.
He's great.
I love Don.
I go to see him wherever he is.
I travel to Belmore.
I always see him.
Oh, yeah.
He strikes me funny, that guy.
He's the greatest.
Oh, yeah, he's great.
The last time I saw him, he's so fat now, and he's like, I got about three months to
live, the way I'm going.
His eyes are closing.
The eyes are closing.
He looks like a little Buddha.
Oh, my God. I go eat with him sometimes. He works a store like, the eyes are closing. He looks like a little Buddha. Oh my God.
I go eat with him sometimes.
He works a store out here a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So like,
so okay,
so who,
so it's,
you're a catch
and it's the mid 80s.
Yeah.
And it's like,
it's still,
like the early 80s were crazy,
but it stayed crazy there
for a long time,
right?
It did,
but I started to get work.
I started to,
How was that first time on stage?
The very first time I got on stage
was at the improv.
Yeah. And it was like 10 o'clock at night. time I got on stage was at the improv. Yeah.
And it was like 10 o'clock at night.
Dirty little corner.
And it was packed.
Yeah.
And I swear, I'm not bragging, I killed that night.
Yeah.
So now, fine, you killed one night.
Right.
Fucking deal.
You got it.
So now I'm thinking, I'm not doing this again, even though I killed.
It's too stressful.
Right.
But I come back to it about six months later.
Yeah.
And now they put me on at one in the morning, same material, in the toilet.
And there's like nine people.
So now I'm thinking, what am I going to do now?
I'm not doing it.
I don't have the ability.
I could never get a grip on it.
I could never get a grip.
Oh, my God.
Those late night spots, man.
To this day, I walk out there and think I'm going to bomb.
I always think, oh, they're going to hate me.
Really?
So somebody who wrote a book about creative visualization, she says to me, listen, you need to go out there and think,
these people are going to love me.
I'm going to be so funny.
I said, are you trying to ruin my act?
Because I need a negative warm-up.
I need a negative warm-up.
Otherwise, I can't do it.
But I used to do that, too.
I mean, I used to listen to the opener.
And I think you can sometimes feel a crowd.
Like, you know, when you're in a club and you watch the opening,
you're like, that table's a problem.
Yeah.
You know, right?
And when you're just like, I can't.
But I'd look for that.
Like, for years, for most of my career, I'd be like, this is going to be terrible.
It's going to be terrible.
They're going to fucking hate me.
And then I'd go out there, and right away, you're already fighting.
You know, right away, you're defying them to like you.
Like five years ago something gave way.
I was like, I don't give a fuck anymore.
It was the best thing.
I started doing larger venues and I'm like, they're here to see me.
I don't give a fuck.
I live up here.
I've been up here my whole fucking life.
Yeah.
I know what's going to happen up here that hasn't happened already.
Well, that's good that you do that.
I'm not afraid anymore.
I sort of feel that way about my life in general. Right. That's better's good that you do that. I'm not afraid anymore. I sort of feel that way
about my life in general.
Right.
That's better
because I don't feel that.
So I guess it's one or the other.
Let's say taking on Trump.
Yeah.
It's like,
unless they're really going to come
and put me in jail.
Right.
It's like,
what is he going to say?
You're old, you're fat.
He's already said all that to me.
You know?
I mean,
what is he going to say about me?
He's already written in his book,
I have no talent.
You know?
So fuck him. He wrote that about you? He singled you out? Yeah, she has no talent, he going to say about me? He's already written in his book, I Have No Talent. Yeah. You know, so fuck him.
He wrote that about you?
He singled you out?
Yeah, she has no talent, he said.
Oh, yeah?
In one of his books.
Because he didn't like that I did a joke about his hair.
The guy comedians were all doing hair jokes.
Right.
But the woman did it.
He didn't like it.
That was my first tip off that he was a total misogynist asshole.
I don't know.
I used to see him when I did Conan.
I did Conan with him once.
And he was scary to me.
Like, he felt like a connected guy.
It felt like, you know what I mean?
You don't think after all those casino deals that he's not in bed with...
He's going to find a horse's head on his bed.
Yeah, yeah.
But his wife lives with a horse's ass, so we're even.
He just felt scary to me.
I saw that everyone treated him like a clown, but he felt...
Because he's a bully, that's why.
Right.
He's a bully.
I've been dealing with it.
Listen, Bill O'Reilly came on The View and tried to bully me.
It's on tape one day.
He goes like this to me.
Shut up, listen, and learn, says to me on The View.
Five minutes of watching this, I get up and I say I'm walking.
I just walk off the set.
Yeah.
And Whoopi follows me.
I said,
I can't sit with this
asshole bully.
I said,
listen and learn.
Fuck you.
Who are you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who are you?
Yeah, no,
you stand up to everybody.
And it turns out
he's a complete moron.
$32 million
he had to pay somebody.
Last night on Mar,
I said I wouldn't fuck him
for $32 million.
No, I saw you with Huckabee.
You gave it to her. You stick it to him.
I stick it to them.
They come back for more. Nobody really gets that mad
at me, apparently. The politicians
don't. No? No.
They don't take it seriously. We're comedians.
That's why I say we're the most subversive
because they don't take us seriously.
And so they think, ah, fuck it. Who cares what Alec Baldwin's doing on television yeah I but you know
it gives a lot of people sanity because like the the more sensitive people that you know like are
are sort of more progressive and somewhat balanced in in a different way they have a different uh
you know system of thought like if we don't get the funny to them you know they'll collapse into
themselves yeah like you know a lot of them a lot of us are fighters but you know you you get tired of fighting
and you get depressed you know there is a sort of a futility and a hopelessness that like for a while
there like i had to watch i had to watch bill i had to watch john oliver just to make sure yeah
just to make sure you know every week that you know there was a counterbalance to this.
So I didn't fall into complete hopelessness.
Well, you know, I think that that's one of the purposes that we serve, which is saying it.
I mean, not to give us so much credit that we're like Aristotle and Socrates, but it serves a purpose.
I remember when one time I was watching Gilda Radner on the Johnny Carson show.
And she said to him when she was a scared little girl up in Canada,
she'd watch Carson at night and she'd say,
okay, the world is okay because Johnny's there.
And it stuck with me, that little rap she gave.
That's touching.
It's very touching.
It's true.
I mean, people watch The View and they listen to you and they say, okay, they're still okay,
so maybe things are not going to be so bad.
That's why I still like live television when I see it,
because it's like, this isn't pre-recorded.
For years, I still just sit down and see what's on,
because somewhere in my heart and in my mind,
I think there's a guy operating it.
There's a guy choosing to put this on now.
Yeah, that's right.
But there isn't.
So it's all programmed by whenever.
But when people are live, I'm like, okay, that's happening now.
Yeah.
So there are other people in the world.
Yeah.
Well, that's the secret of The View, too, is that one of the secrets is that it's live.
We're making it up as we go along like you are.
Right.
No, it's great.
It was an exciting time.
So when you did stand up, when you did it, were were you working as a comic did you get that were you headlining
well there was a booker named ruth stern do you remember her i don't remember she she was the most
annoying person you would ever i mean i remember a couple of them but i didn't do a lot of those
one-nighters in new york she was roger paul i knew roger paul was his booker at that time she was a
booker that was at the Friars Club.
They'd say, the joke about her was that she was so annoying,
they threw her off of Schindler's List.
That's the joke.
That's a classic Friars joke. Yeah.
And she used to book me in the tri-state area,
country clubs and things, because I couldn't travel.
I had a kid.
Yeah.
And so I give her a lot of my credit.
So you were doing, like, what, two-person shows?
You'd go out with an opener?
They have an opening act.
Like a young comic would come out, like a new guy?
Yeah, because the Jews, I'll give, the Jews were the best audience.
First of all, the Jews pay for entertainment.
A lot of groups do not.
And they would pay for it, and they were in the country clubs or wherever they are,
in the theaters, at the B'nai B'rith or at the JCC, wherever the hell they congregate,
and they pay you.
Yeah, and they liked you.
They liked me, I would say 99% of the time.
There was always a 1% where it was like orthodox, and then they would turn on me.
One group was a rabbi and his wife was sitting there, and I did a joke about, I don't know,
about that movie where Melanie Griffin falls in love with a Hasid.
And I don't know, I can't remember the joke.
Got some trouble.
She was like, oh, can I try on your tzitzit?
You know, your tzitzit would look so good on my tzitzit.
And they wanted their money back.
That's where they drew the line.
That's it.
So they helped me a lot.
And then I would get shows.
I got a show called Way Off Broadway in 87 on Lifetime.
Larry David was one of my writers.
Oh, really? Yeah. But did you do
any of the hotels? Were they
still around? What hotels? In the Catskills?
Oh, yeah. I did the Concord.
You know, I did the Neville.
I did all of them with their smelly back
rooms. You know, just
skivats. Yeah. You know.
And I did those. Yeah, I did all that.
They paid some money you know
i made i made a decent living they're all gone now all gone yeah you know gambling's coming up
there they might come back oh yeah not the way they were no because like it must have been must
been towards the end though like in the 80s right but it was still like it was still new york jews
coming up i think i used to do falls view was it mostly Hasids or was it all kinds?
No Hasids.
They were regular Jews
when I was there, yeah.
Regular Jews.
Regular reforms.
And they're a good audience.
Sure, because they're like the,
that's the sort of history
of American comedy.
Part of it is-
It's Jewish.
Yeah, it comes from up there.
Right, absolutely.
So, all right, so wait.
So Larry David was a writer for you?
Yeah, he was a writer
on Way Off Broad.
That was a TV show?
TV show on Lifetime.
On Lifetime?
Rick Derringer was my band.
Oh, yeah.
Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo.
Yeah, Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo.
We had Laura Branigan.
We had Darryl Strawberry.
A lot of good people.
Yeah, you've done a lot of shows in weird places.
Like network-wise.
Because I was looking at your stuff.
It's like you're on TV a lot, but you were in some of those zones where it's sort of
like, what channel is that?
HLN.
I was on HLN.
I had a great show on HLN.
I wish they had not canceled me there.
But what year was this way off Broadway thing?
87.
Huh.
And then after that, I got-
Was that like the beginning of Lifetime?
Yeah, I think it was in the early stages of it.
And what was the show?
The show was a variety show.
Oh, that was that.
With music and interviews and stand-up.
Wow.
And people come and Larry was there?
So you were friends with Larry?
Yeah, I was still friends.
Larry would do like cold openings with him.
He was in them.
Yeah.
A character named Larry Block, I think, was the name of his character.
Right.
And he said to me recently, he said, that's where I really started to learn to improv.
Oh, really?
On that show?
Like he does on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Was that before Fridays or after?
After Fridays.
Right.
Yeah, it was after.
Okay.
And he was broke in those days, you know?
Yeah.
He needed the job.
He didn't know what was going to happen.
No.
How would he know?
Did you ever see him do stand-up?
Oh, yeah.
He's notorious.
Yeah.
And he just walked all the
comedians would come in when he would get on right because they knew that he would walk out or turn
on the audience i mean if a girl would look at her watch during his act well you're bored and
then he would walk off one time this the great story is he came out there he just looks at the
audience and went i don't think so. And he walked off.
And Lewis would tolerate that, but make me sit around all night. Because Lewis found that to be funny, I guess.
Well, no, back in the day, it was like you were kind of half hoping someone would lose it.
You know, no one does that anymore.
Because everyone's got phones and people are so self-aware and they're self-conscious.
But early in the 80s, i saw so many comics just snap
out just like fucking lose their minds well there were a lot of drugs in those days sure but like
like was belzer around then oh yeah belzer was mc right okay so you were a catch then i was a
catch yeah yeah right yeah yeah he's a sweet guy i love him he's great all this conspiracy stuff
that he's been talking about with about jfk
is now coming to fruition finally he's gonna get the papers yeah but like but who else was there
like that was the mid-80s so that was a big time but he was there for a while before richard lewis
already gone lewis was in la yeah and uh like who were some of the other people colin got got freed
got colin quinn yeah he's a great guy i love love Colin. He's a sweetheart, yeah. So funny. Yeah, I love him, too.
There's some tension with us.
What kind of tension?
I don't know.
I was an asshole, I guess, probably.
People like your podcast.
You turn yourself in a lot.
Yeah, I do.
That's good.
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm trying to get him on, but he's like, you know, I said, do we have a problem?
He goes, we might.
And I'm like, is there anything I could do?
You know who else was around at that time?
Mostly in Boston, though.
Jonathan Katz was so funny.
Oh, he's great.
Love Jonathan Katz.
Oh, he's great.
Very subtle.
His jokes were...
He had the guitar act that was funny.
Oh, yeah.
No, the guitar at the end where the voices come in
because of pre-recorded voices.
But that joke he did about when does life begin,
the argument, the debate about when life begins. Yeah. He yeah he goes for me it's after that first cup of coffee
i can relate it's clever but you know like taking the the abortion yeah how you can do an abortion
joke you know and then you disarm it yeah no he's great yeah i've had him on here i did uh
the dr cat show i did that one too where say, you know, is there anything off limits for comedians?
Is there anything off limits for you?
You asking me?
Yeah.
Whatever it is, you've got to be able to handle it.
You have the freedom to do whatever you want.
So whatever's off limits is your personal capacity.
So you want to try something?
You know, you want to push the envelope?
Yeah.
You know, if you can shoulder the burden of what might come at you, then so be it.
That's it.
So nothing's off limits.
But on the other side of that, you're going to have to answer for it if you go too far.
I know.
I like to shoot up.
I don't like to shoot down.
You know, so if you shoot up, you're, I think, in pretty safe territory.
But, you know, look at James Corden.
He got in trouble last week or two weeks ago for making a joke about Weinstein on, you know, look at James Corden. He got in trouble last week or two weeks ago
for making a joke
about Weinstein
on, you know,
and Rose McGowan.
She took a shot at him only.
Not a lot of comedians
were doing it,
but why him?
And I thought, you know,
he's making jokes
about Weinstein.
He's not making jokes
about the victims.
Right.
So I think that that's okay.
Well, there's a lot
of angry people,
a lot of, you know,
rightfully so,
and it's a difficult climate. You know, it's like there's a lot of angry people a lot of uh you know and rightfully so and it's a difficult
climate to you know it's like there was a time where i come from a bunch of comics like from
kennison i you know i spent time with sam yeah where you know pushing the envelope was what you
did like you know when when like there was a what when all of a sudden it's like you can't do rape
jokes there was a lot of comics are like oh yeah well i'm gonna figure out how to do it chris uh
rock was doing that.
Sure.
Date rape jokes.
Yeah.
So, like, and then, you know, there are repercussions.
But, again, it's legal.
It's your right.
Yeah.
You can say whatever the fuck you want.
But then you're going to get the blowback.
But that's it.
That's what, when people ask me about that, well, is there censorship?
No, but, like, you've got to be ready to take the hit or answer to it.
There's a lot of PC now.
I mean, and people are always taping you where they're allowed to or not.
Taking you out of context?
Takes you out of context in a comedy club.
You could say something and then it appears on Twitter out of context and then you get screwed.
So it's a little bit, I don't like stand up anymore like that.
It's inhibiting.
But there's PC, but there's also just things that evolve.
Like, you know, it's like, all right, I can take the word retard out.
I don't need to use that word anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, tranny.
Okay.
It's not going to kill me not to use that word anymore.
So there's evolution, too.
Like, there's a lot of words that people don't say anymore because over time they were hurtful.
Yeah, but it's not the word.
I can relate to what you're saying about the word.
I can take the word out.
I don't need to use the word tranny.
Right, right. I mean, I was chastised by GLAA glad one time when i was on hl glad you know the uh gay and lesbian oh yeah yeah yeah and uh they because i won an award from
glad so i'm on their side and they know it but they called me up and they said don't use tranny
it's it's offensive i said really i thought it was affectionate yeah and it's not well there's
arguments within the community right rupaul saidPaul said he's fine with the word.
But that's RuPaul.
He can get away with it.
I know.
I know.
It's like I can say bitch and cunt.
Maybe you can't.
I've thrown a few cunts around.
You know, the Brits use twat and cunt for everybody.
The dog is a cunt.
The cat is a twat.
I've used that defense before.
They're like, move to Britain then, you cunt.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, Lenny Bruce made the case. It's just defense before. It doesn't, you know, they're like, move to Britain then, you cunt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, you know, Lenny Bruce made the case.
It's just a word.
It's just a word.
But it depends on the intent.
If the intent is to harm and hurt you, then I'm offended.
But if it's not to harm you.
I don't register it.
You know, I don't register it the same way, but we're comics.
Yeah.
So our sensitivity, you know, like when I hear stuff after being around comedy for decades, I've heard everything.
On stage or off.
You know, I want to tell you something.
I was on Access Hollywood set yesterday.
Yeah, how was that?
Did you like being in a spaceship?
It was actually fine.
No, they were fun.
It was two women that I liked.
Anyway, there was a guy there who came up to me again, and he works on the air.
He goes, I really love you, Joy.
You're doing a great show.
And you're so inappropriate all the time.
I said, really?
I said, give me an example.
Oh, there's so many examples.
I can't even give you one.
And I'm thinking, is that the word to describe me?
Inappropriate.
And I don't think that Marc Maron and Larry David would think I'm inappropriate.
No.
And Susie Essman. Butid would think i'm inappropriate no and susie esmond they
don't think but this guy thinks i'm inappropriate so what to your point about comedians we have a
different way of speaking well also like you know uh like inappropriate that to him that just means
it might just be you make him uncomfortable because you ask questions that you know put
people on the spot yeah maybe it might be a misapplication of the what is appropriate mean
in the context of what you do you're the one that's supposed to be inappropriate well the
comedian we are comedians and that's what's it was social morons we we are in a way no no doubt
all of us got in trouble as kids every one of us i've had girlfriends tell me like not to do it at
parties like don't make it about you the whole thing. And I'm like, ugh.
All of a sudden, you've got a black belt in storytelling and telling jokes.
She doesn't want to be upstaged or whatnot. Not this one, but like years ago.
Oh, yeah.
Do you have a girlfriend now?
I do, yeah.
So what's she like?
She's a painter.
She lives in a different world.
Oh.
She's an abstract artist.
That's good.
You don't want a comedian for a girlfriend.
No, I tried that once.
Yeah.
Who was that?
Anybody I know?
No, she was a, I don't think so, Mishna Wolf. She was a comic. She's good. You don't want a comedian for a girlfriend. No, I tried that once. Who was that? Anybody I know? No, she was, I don't think so, Mishna Wolf.
She was a comic. She's not anymore. I married her.
You married her? Yeah, and then that didn't work out. But you know, like you said before, how does a comedian fire herself? You say she's not anymore. Well, I don't know what happened there. She wanted to be a writer
more. A lot of comics became writers. The smart ones.
Well, if you have the discipline to sit there
and do that part well the people that were able to say like oh i've got this talent but do i want
to live that fucking life no so i can how do i apply this talent otherwise you become a producer
you become a writer yeah you know you write for other people yeah but i think a lot of those people
would like to be a performer yeah but they couldn't cut it yeah i mean judd apatow's back
but like what's he got to lose yeah but he's not a funny comic is he is he's a funny stand-up i've never seen it well you know
he started as a stand-up and then he became went out and he became a joke writer and then a producer
and he made a billion dollars and now he's back doing stand-up he came back around he starts doing
stand-up again but he's humble like he knows he's about where he's about a middle uh-huh you know
he's a middle act right but but he's got
he's a great joke writer he wrote jokes for everybody right so we watched him sort of work
it out and work it out now he's got a special and uh the jokes were great i mean and he was great
he you know he got back on it what's the persona you know if you don't have a persona on stage
that's probably what we're talking about when they become writers they really didn't have a
persona what took me 20 years to become me?
It doesn't happen overnight.
It's like your persona, you didn't
decide it. You just come out
of you. No, but you know, because I was 40
when I started. I already had a
persona, a personality. And I had a whole
20, 30, 40 years of material
already. But you've done a lot
of things. Yeah, I had done the teaching. You were who you are.
People say, oh, she's the one who's a teacher or right but you know when you're 20 you don't have that much
information you're growing up in public yeah yeah yeah no his persona is like he's a father
you know he's uh he's aggravated about things that's good no he's it's good like there's a
point of view definitely has a point of view yeah and he worked hard and i yeah i'm going to talk
to him i don't know i think like he's been on here before but he had a special out so but so how did you get the view
how did that happen i i went to a um somebody booked me for free yeah for milton burl's 89th
birthday party so you did all that friar shit huh you were always i was always because they were the
ones who were booking me yeah so i was involved with that group so this guy calls me up and he
says you know it's a big party at the Waldorf.
Could you get up and do 10 minutes?
So I say, all right.
So I go to the Waldorf with my husband, who's now my husband.
And we're sitting there.
And who's in the audience?
Regis Philbin, Barbara Walters, Arlene Dahl.
It was like Madame Tussauds over there.
You know, Esther Williams swam in.
Oh, my gosh.
And so I get up on stage and i
talk about how milton is 89 and the wife's like 50 yeah and i do this analogy to salman rushdie
who got married while he was in hiding three times because you know he's a guy the women forget about
something like that yeah and i get off and they really a lot of people laughing and i get off
and steve is my husband says to me well everybody was laughing except barbara walters i said well i'm not gonna work with her what do i give a shit she's a newswoman what do
i care yeah a few months later they call me in and uh then i got the job on the view she was she was
watching uh-huh what she doesn't seem like a big laugher she can she can okay sometimes we call it
the comedy removal service you know the? The CRS has arrived.
But she's good to me.
She gave me the job.
So, yeah, so you were the original crew.
I was, with Star Jones, Meredith Vieira, and Debbie Matanopoulos.
I don't remember her.
She was only on for a year and a half.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Then she went to the Insider.
She got a nose job, and she became one of those girls.
Yeah.
Who's the other one?
Meredith Vieira.
But she's a terrific girl.
Meredith Vieira. She's amazing, because she's one of those girls yeah who's the other one girl married to the
air she's amazing because she like she's one of those people that seem she just lives on television
like i like she just always looks i don't know there's people that are just television people
well no she has a real life no she has three children right she has a husband who has ms
yeah she's she's got a real life i know but i mean she just fits on tv like she no matter like
for for ages.
You know what I mean? She has the right features and the right voice.
That's what I mean.
I have the wrong features and the wrong voice.
No, I like that, though.
That's what makes you, it's raw.
You know what I mean?
Like, you know what I mean?
Well, I'm not a newsreader, but if you're a newsreader, you have to have a certain nose.
But I like that energy, because Regis, too.
Regis is raw.
You know, like, but he's a broadcaster, but he's, like, all over the place.
The best.
He's great.
Let me tell you something about Regis.
That man had to get out there and make, like make Rumpelstiltskin every fucking day.
And one time I saw him at the gym.
Believe it or not, I was at the gym.
And I said to him, what are you going to talk about?
He goes, I got nothing.
And he goes on the air, and I'm watching him, and I hear him say to Kelly or whoever the
hell was there at the time, I ran into Behar.
I said to her, I got nothing.
That was his story.
That's it.
That's it.
That's brilliant.
Oh, no.
I was a big fan with Kathy Lee, the two of them.
I would watch it.
It was a guilty pleasure because it was like real live TV.
That's right.
And she was nuts.
She was a little nutty.
She was Jewish and became born again or something.
Oh, yeah?
She's Jewish.
Her name is Kathy Epstein or something.
No.
Yes. Stop it. I'm not kidding. Really name is Kathy Epstein or something. No. Yes.
Stop it.
I'm not kidding.
Really?
Yeah, she gave it up.
She gave up the Jew?
She's Christian now, yeah.
Yeah.
Wow, that's wild.
Yeah.
And what's that other woman, Hoda?
Hoda, Hoda, yes.
Where did she come from?
What do you mean, where did she come from?
I don't watch a lot of TV, but it's just one day the two of them are there,
and I'm like, how did that?
I don't know.
Who knows?
And I watch The View.
Sometimes I turn it on, and I'm like, who are all these I don't know. Who knows? And I watch the view. Sometimes I turn it on.
I'm like, who are all these new people?
I know.
It's this rotating thing.
I know.
I know.
It's true.
But you were there at the beginning.
And it was a great idea.
Got a lot of huge press.
And how long was that first run?
Well, it's 20 years on the air.
I know, but you say you didn't do it.
I went to like 16 or 17.
I got fired.
Why'd you get fired?
Who the fuck does that?
They got rid of me.
Then they begged me to come back.
They got rid of you?
Yeah.
What was the thinking?
The excuse?
Yeah.
They said that they were firing a Republican, so they had to fire a Democrat.
That's a lie.
That's bullshit.
What, the blonde girl?
Was it the blonde girl?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What was her name?
Elizabeth Hasselbeck.
Is she still on?
No.
She went to Fox, and then she left Fox, and I don't know where she is now.
So when they asked you to come back, did they sweeten the deal?
Yeah.
I said, show me the money, and I'll come back.
And also they said, we're going to talk politics, and it's going to be smart.
Oh, yeah?
So I said, okay.
It wasn't that smart in the beginning, but it's gotten smarter.
So what about the Friars?
You were hanging around all those old Jews for all that time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I watched them drool in the luncheonette there.
Henny Youngman, he'd be in a coma to a coma.
Yeah, he turned a weird color towards the end, didn't he?
He'd be sitting there and just his head down, and you'd say,
Hi, Henny, and he'd go like this, Take my wife, please.
No, he didn't.
He'd wake up saying that?
Yeah, out of a, yeah.
Like start his material right away. But you knew Freddie Roman. Freddie Roman, yeah. this take my wife please no he did like yeah he'd wake up saying yeah out of it yeah oh they start
his material right so but you knew freddie roman freddie roman yeah and uh and all those guys were
freddie roman he had like this articulation he'd go uh he'd say you know was uh so and so has cancer
yeah cancer on behalf of the members of the friars like as if he all of a sudden he went
to elocution school in england alan king. Alan King, yeah. Yeah, he was around, right?
I opened for Alan King a couple of times.
He would drink like a pint of booze back there.
Go gin and then go out there and kill.
It's a weird thing when you learn the backstage habits of people.
Yeah.
That that's how he got into his place.
Also, Don Rickles.
Oh, yeah.
I worked with Don Rickles.
Oh, yeah.
And he'd be back there drinking.
Oh, yeah.
That's the only way I can get out there
no kidding
I've seen it before I was never one of those people
but I understand it because the same kind of nerves
that you have and that I used to have
they have it too
but if I did that then I'd just be loopy
they know how to manage it
because I remember when I did Conan once and Alan King was on
that I looked in his dressing room before he got there
because I was talking to Frank and they always bought
the little tankeray.
It was a tankeray,
a bottle of tankeray.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because he needed it.
He needed it.
See, the problem with me
is that I couldn't do drugs
or alcohol.
I really was not capable of it.
So I had to go out there
just with raw craziness
and anxiety.
That's why it's hard for me.
And that's what serves you.
But I don't have a crutch.
You really don't?
I don't have a crutch. I need don't? I don't have a crutch.
I need a crutch. Yeah? I don't have one.
I never took Valium to go out there.
Susie Essman and I are on the same page but we talk about this all the time.
Neither one of us. Of course, she's the best.
Yeah. Neither one of you have it.
No crutches. Yeah. And you did some
acting? I did.
Yeah? I was in Hall Pass last couple
years ago, that movie by the Farrelly brothers.
Oh, yeah, Farrelly brothers.
Yeah, Farrelly brothers.
They use a lot of comics.
It's good.
Yeah, they're kind of fun.
And did you work with Woody Allen?
I've been in two things with Woody Allen.
Yeah?
Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Yeah.
And that last thing, he did a crisis in six scenes.
Yeah.
Not funny.
Not funny?
I think, nah.
Did you have aversion to working with him because of his history?
No.
Not really?
No.
In fact, you know what?
No, I mean, you know, when I did Manhattan Murder Mystery, it was right in the middle
of the whole thing.
Every day was the big headline about Sun Yi on the post.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And I mean, it's as skeevy what he did.
Yeah.
It's as skeevy.
Let's face facts.
Yeah.
I mean, to sleep with the kid and then take pictures
of her naked
and leave them around
and Mia Farrow
had to find them,
that's disgusting.
But I don't think
that he molested the kid,
the little one.
That's a whole other perversion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's where you fall with it.
You don't think he did that?
No, I don't think so.
It's not that I don't think it.
I talked to a social worker
who said that she was in touch
with the experts
at Yale University who basically cleared it on that. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. And Moses, it i i talked to a social worker who said that she was in touch with the experts at yale university
who basically cleared it on that oh really yeah yeah and you know he did some research one of his
kids yeah said that he didn't yeah so i don't know what the real truth of this of it is yeah yeah but
it was it was it interesting to work with him yeah yeah i mean he's standing right there there's
what he is to watch the way he operates. You know, he only does one take.
He doesn't have this single shots.
And he doesn't go into a lot of takes.
You know?
Yeah.
And, you know, he only was talking to Diane Keaton on the set.
He ignored me completely.
Everybody.
Sure.
Ignored everybody.
But this last time when I worked with him on Crisis in Six Scenes, I gave him a joke.
I mean, I said to him, you know what, Woody?
The way you did it last time was better.
Yeah.
Really?
He said to me.
I said, yeah.
He said, I'm going to do it the way you said.
And I thought, look at this.
I'm writing for Woody Allen.
Here's the funniest story about Woody Allen, and then we can wrap this up.
Yeah.
I mean, I feel like I'm living with you.
Okay.
So when I did the audition for Manhattan Murder Mystery,
I just had to get up there, and he just looked at me.
He didn't even ask me to do anything.
I was supposed to play Ron Rifkin's wife.
Oh, yeah.
Jewish.
So the costume designer said to him, you know, she's not Jewish.
And Woody said, does she know this?
I didn't know.
That's very funny.
Well, thank you for talking, Joy Behar.
That was a lot of fun. This is a very interesting thing you got going here, Mark. I appreciate it. Nice to see funny. Well, thank you for talking, Joy Behar. That was a lot of fun.
This is a very interesting thing you got going here, Mark.
I appreciate it.
Nice to see you.
I'm so happy for you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Okay, that's it.
That's our show.
Don't forget to go to podswag.com slash punch to get an official signed copy of Waiting for the Punch.
That's P-O-D-S-W.A.G.com slash punch to get an official signed copy of Waiting for the Punch. That's P.O.D.S.W.A.G.com slash punch.
Thank you, Joy Behar.
Thank you, people.
Be careful out there on Halloween.
No one comes to my house except my neighbor's kid because it's a big hill.
It's a big walk up to the garage.
But I'll play some song.
I'll play something that i've probably played before
somewhere all right hold on hold onme
me
meme
me
me
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