Advertise on podcast: Ian Talks Comedy

Maggie Wheeler joined me to discuss 60's sitcoms; her parents not wanting her to pursue acting; her inspiration; Anna Deveare Smith; being 18 in the late 70's; Studio 54; MTV voice-overs; Rubinoos commercial; her audition for The New Show; her cheerleader characters; attempting to break dance with Penny Marshall and the Breakers; working with her idols; Lorne sends her audition tape to Rankin-Bass; hired on cartoons Silver Hawks& The Comic Strip to do most voices; Jonathan Kaufer casts her in Soup for One; Henry Jaglom hires her for New Years Day; her co-star is ex boyfriend, David Duchovny; wins Best Actress at a film festival; going on Johnny Carson; Dream On; becoming friends with Brian Benben, David Crane & Marta Kauffman; guesting in Emmy-winning Seinfeld ep "The Fix UP'; Larry David says Top 5 episode; Danger Theater; X-Files; being first one hired and first fired on Ellen; Janice's voice and laugh; writing her in 8 months pregnant in an episode; getting fired from Suddenly Susan; Janice's entrances were hidden; being second for wife on Everybody Does Raymond and being given a recurring role; Parent Trap; "Palestinian Chicken" episode of Curb; her recent double guest starring on Bob's Burgers

Brad Isaacs joined me to talk about the Dick Van Dyke Show; favorite episodes; writing a spec script for Taxi, handing it to Marilu Henner and her remembering twenty plus years later; sitcoms not talking down; Simpsons & Saul Bellow; mother could sing songs even though she hardly speak due to dementia; dropped out of high school and got a GED; goes to Vegas to be a pro gambler; watching DVD inspires him; gets a job on TBS series Safe at Home; leads to a freelance Head of the Class and a job at Webster; one Webster so bad guest actor Michael Richards walks off; freelance Duet; hired for Newharts last season; favorite episodes; Dan O'Shannon came up with shows ending; "Father Goose" episode with Henry Gibson; others being confused by which Newhart he worked on; getting hired at Roseanne; being asked to come up with a show for Tom Arnold; models it after DVD with Tom rarely seen; Roseanne wants more Tom Arnold, Brad quits; meeting Carl Reiner and getting forgiveness; writing to Bill Persky and getting a letter back from his 12 and 10 year old daughters; Ken Levine; meeting George McGovern on Newhart; Larry Sanders Show; Norm MacDonald story; rewriting Tommy Boy; adding Superstar and housekeeping among other things; NBC had high hopes for NewsRadio; shows were written by 4 writers; Dave Foley was young enough looking to me believable; episodes "Smoking" & "Big Day"; inspiring "Bitch Session"; quitting after a year; having the show down stairs "The John Larroquette Show" angry at them due to noise; not getting their due; working as a consultant on King of the Hill and Undeclared; writing 8 Crazy Nights and fighting with Sandler about poop jokes; creating Lovespring International, an improvised sitcom for Lifetime; Tarzana; A West Texas Children's Story

Chris Lemmon joined me and discussed how he knew his dad was a movie star; his films Going Undercover & Weekend Warriors; working with Lloyd Bridges; dreaming of Steely Dan; classical musicians were there first rock stars; wanting to make a movie about Robert Schumann; Billy Joel, Chevy Chase & Jeff Goldblum; his film debut in Airport '77; having one line in Seems Like Old Times and being remembered by Goldie Hawn when they did Swing Shift; his sitcom Brothers & Sisters, which was shot on the same set as King Kong; becoming friends with costar Randy Brooks; Mary Crosby; his film, COD; being a guest on the Tonight Show; subbing for Rick Dees and doing a sketch about a Haggis Wagon; That's Life largely improvised; Duet; taking his dad to tapings; his favorite episode, "I Never Played for My Father"; his book; his one man show playing his dad; Kevin Spacey's impression vs. his; SNL Star Wars sketch; Harvey Lembeck; playing a stalker; Alan Alda plays one in Whispers in the Dark; Lena's Holiday; Thunder in Paradise; Jack almost makes the cut at Pebble Beach but it's rained out; The Way You Look Tonight; his daughter Sydney on Broadway and son has a movie coming out; his children and golf; golf as a way to see what a person is truly like; his lung transplant and being greatful

David Garrison joined me to discuss watching I Love Lucy and Maverick; going to high school with Bruce Springsteen; getting a BFA at BU; joining the Arena Stage in Washington D.C.; his first off Broadway play, The History of American Film; his tenure on the soap opera The Edge of Night; getting a Tony nomination for A Day in Hollywood / A Night in Ukraine - a Marx Brothers parody; joining Pirates of Penzance; appearing on Night of 100 Stars; James Cagney accidentally being locked in the basement; replacing Harvey Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy; leaving to join the cast of a new show It's Your Move; favorite episodes; Married with Children; writers taking his love of the outdoors and giving it to Steve; favorite episodes include "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", "I'll See You in Court", and "Have You Driven a Ford Lately"; actually driving a '65 Mustang; leaving MWC and joining Working It Out; playing Nixon in The Great Society; Titanic; Wicked; and working out a musical based on the 1998 film Ever After

Robin Riker joined me to discuss Julie Brown; her families history in show business; making her stage debut at 4; her parents start a theater in Aspen; her dad hosts a kids show Cap. Rick's Showboat; appearing in the Colorado Shakespeare festival at 10; auditioning for her parents; divorce; watching Walt Disney & Old Yeller; being a waitress; getting parts on Joe Forester, MASH, & Rockford Files; working with Greg Antonacci for the first time; being in the movie Alligator with Sue Lyon & Robert Forrester; her performance written about by Quentin Tarantino; doing the pilot Herndon with Michael Richards & Ted McGinley; reuniting with Greg Antonacci on Brothers; being told that the series has been picked up for 50 episodes; her 2 Cable Ace Award nominations; guesting on Misfits of Science and befriending Dean Paul Martin & Kevin Peter Hall; guesting on Doctor, Doctor; getting cast on Get A Life; growing up a fan of Bob & Ray and now working with Bob Eliot & Elinor Donahue; playing the wife of Sam Robards; meeting his real life mother, Lauren Bacall; Zoo Animals on Wheels; being on Shaky Ground; taking Jennifer Love Hewitt for lunch on her 15th birthday and getting yelled at for being 5 minutes late; working with Ed Asner; being in the pilot but not the series Emeril; Bones; doing interrogation scenes; soap operas; getting killed of Bold and the Beautiful by forgetting how to swim due to Alzheimer's; General Hospital; doing the plays The Ladies Room and Kiss at City Hall; writing A Survivors Guide to Hollywood, with advice on navigating an actors life in Hollywood; going on a tour; costarring with Brian Austin Green in an upcoming movie; working with Jack son Adam on a one person shwo

Robert Hays joined me to discuss loving the Lone Ranger; moving from Virginia to Turkey to Nebraska; changing schools & becoming class clown; being a Marine brat; signing up for an acting class in college; selling his horse to buy a VW bus and moving to the Old Globe in San Diego; being taught by Craig Noel; working with Leonard Nimoy; getting a job on Rockford Files from Eddie Foy III; his dad asking Eddie to talk him out of acting; Laverne & Shirley; Angie makes him recognizable; winning the Tug O' War on the Battle of the Network Stars with Kent McCord; Family Feud / Angie crossover; being called the New Cary Grant by Merv Griffin and having other guest Orson Welles call him the New Robert Hays; doing a magic trick with Orson; having to shoot Airplane & Angie consecutively for two weeks of twenty hour days; the "alcohol problem" scenes took a lot of time and shirts to shoot; dailies were packed; 1st screening the third reel was shown before second; having his parents come to the premiere and Peter Graves tell him he has a hankering for young boys; Bette Midler laughs throughout; friends thought trailer had all the jokes; name is different in foreign countries; one town in Australia played it for two years straight; choosing scripts; picking Take This Job and Shove It to work with Art Carney, Royal Dano and Barbara Hershey; Airplane v. Caddyshack; Michael O'Keefe, The Great Santini and Robert Duvall; hosting SNL 1/24/81; dress rehearsal going better; a prop phone is not placed on stage forcing him to ad lib; pitching sketches Ordinary People and Inflatable Prostitute; loving NYC; filming a TV movie Murder by the Book in NYC; Fred Gwynne; doing Mr. Roberts live on NBC in 1984; dress rehearsal ran better and show was too neat; bringing Anthony Hopkins to taping of Angie; Starman - designed as Highway to Heaven meets The Fugitive; not picked up at last minute

Ken Estin remembers the laugh track; MTM shows; going to college to write short stories; send a Bob Newhart Show spec to the Charles Brothers; tracked down 2 years later for Taxi; working with Jim Burrows, Glen & Les Charles; party after each show; 1st script "Reluctant Fighter" wins Writers Guild Award; Christopher Lloyd won Emmy's for his episodes; having to cut 10 minutes from "Elegant Iggy"; Jim crying in "Jim's Inheritance" while Coach cries on "Coach's Daughter" on Cheers; Danny DeVito uses real life story to redeem Louie in "Louie Goes too Far"; "Jim's Marios"; wrote most Taxi episodes; "Shloogel Show"; "Louie & the Blind Girl" a taken on "Beauty and the Beast"; Sam Simon; creating a sitcom "Shaping Up"; cancelled in Top 10; Tim Robbins fired after pilot; Sam meets Jennifer Tilly and says I'm going to marry her and does; script credit; rewriting Beverly Hills Cop for Eddie Murphy; movies are too loose; created Tracey Ullman Show; her characters but sketches written by writing team; gets Matt Groening to create new characters for bumpers - The Simpsons; hires Sam Simon; James L. Brooks spins them off; he sells his share of Simpsons for $200,000; Sam Simon's Simpsons money goes to dog's charities; Way Cool World; and his book on breaking into TV writing And the Emmy Goes to . . .

George Arthur Bloom joined me to talk about watching Beanie and Cecil; wanting to be a pro baseball player; joining the Coast Guard; getting a job in the mail room at MCA; working his way up to Lew Wasserman's assistant; going to Universal with Wasserman; asking to learn how to be a producer; working on late 60's TV shows; optioned what would become Blade Runner after he lost the option; American International; experience like the show The Studio; producing the Abominable Dr. Phibes; Roger Corman; Little Shop of Horrors; writing Knife for the Ladies starring Jack Elam; write after school specials; writing the first 4 episodes of 1984 Transformers cartoon; setting up good guys and bad guys; writing original My Little Pony with a darker tone; writing songs and the movie; creating the after network executives; Potato Head Kids; helping to fix and then write Magic School Bus; creating the character of Digit (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) for Cyber chase; not liking writers' room, prefers to work one on one with writers; writing on The Nancy Walker Show for Norman Lear; seeing his episode done on another series; playing tennis with Robert Duvall; writing a screenplay, Any Day Now about a homosexual who wants to adopt a kid with Down Syndrome in 1982; having it pass through many leads including Tommy Lee Jones, Dom DeLuise, and Sylvester Stallone; his son is friends with director Travis Fine, who is looking for a script; finally made 30 years later with Alan Cumming in the lead; became a stage play in Japan

Julie Brown joined me to discuss Captain Kangaroo; being in her high school homecoming court; the scary nun's in elementary school; being funny in Van Nuys High; studying at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; meeting her comedy partner Charlie Coffey; Denzel Washington being in the cast; starting a comedy team, Brown & Coffey; playing San Francisco and gay audiences; guest starring on Happy Days; doing an NBC late night pilot Road Show with John Candy; being in a slasher film, Bloody Birthday; guest starring in the pilot for Get a Life; being on two episodes of Laverne & Shirley; being in the repertory company of Evening at the Improv; performing "Homecoming Queens Got a Gun"; Newhart; Just Say Julie; her character made jokes, she didn't hate any performer; Gene Simmons; "Downtown" Julie Brown; MTV wouldn't pay for props, proper writers; Beavis & Butthead stealing her commenting on videos; her SNL audition in 1985; turning down a re-audition in 1986; Sam Kinison; SCTV; The Edge; Wayne Knight; Tom Kenny; being a fan of reality TV; her new podcast being improvised; doing improv once a week at the Groundlings

Dirk Benedict joined me to discuss Montana v. Montauk; not having a TV in Montana until 1956 and not watching one until college; lived out in ranch houses; now only watches old movies and English football; Steven Spielberg could not believe the number of movies he hadn't seen; movies are just pictures, not like early dialogue based films; having same acting teacher as Sir Anthony Hopkins; Whitman College; not having a plan; not having a phone in Montana during Battlestar Galactica, agent had to call a bar six miles away to get him; Kate Jackson; wanting to make the film version of A River Runs Through It; house-sitting for Anthony Hopkins in 1971; Aaron Spelling offered him guest spots on Charlies Angels; Diana Rigg wanted all male heterosexual Broadway cast; met friend Keith Michelle, who taught him about macrobiotics; playing Gloria Swanson's blind son in Butterflies are Free; living with her and having dinner with Greta Garbo; learning dirt on Joe Kennedy; befriending Maya Angelou on a set in Sweden; co-starring with Strother Martin in SSSSSST; getting job because of death of Brandon deWilde and producer Richard Zanuck seeing him in a Hawaii 5-O; Jim MacArthur; wore most makeup ever up to that point in SSSSSST; Robert Blake hangs out with him and Strother; Strother and him listen to Mozart; befriending George Roy Hill; playing George's piano; palm reader accurately predicts his life; befriending Fred Astaire; co-starring with Twiggy in W; Chopper One; dating Lucie Arnaz while costarring in Lil Abner; being a conservative in liberal Hollywood; never wanting to be an actor; being dared to try out for school play and getting the lead; stage acting is sex and camera acting in masturbation; his Kamikaze Cowboy Kitchen; his twin granddaughters; living in Europe for 4 years; his macrobiotic book saved lives but were burned on orders from AMA; Marie Osmond's parents put a stop to a potential romance because he wasn't Mormon; diet drugs; impotence; was considered funny after he got out of his house; Markie Post; cast of A-Team were considered misogynists but every female guest stars loved them; NBC hated A-Team; dedicating his book to people who died of cancer; being fat is worse than smoking; people who think others who are successful are just lucky; trying to help Gilda Radner & Jill Ireland beat cancer; no for sugar takes 8 years; Merv Griffin loved him for his honesty

Comedian Trent Mabry (album It's Good to Be Here) and I go over the 1977 syndicated special featuring Anson and his guests Lou Rawls, Tanya Tucker, The 5th Dimension, Marty Allen, and Skiles and Henderson

Susan Isaacs joined me to discuss teaching at Chapman University; living on $400 a month rent in NYC; watching the Flintstones; no VCR's; watching Carson and SNL; being in the Groundlings with Lisa Kudrow, Chris Kattan, Will Ferrell, and Maggie Baird; going to USC Film School; guest starring on Family Ties; nice bosses making nice sets; starting a comedy troupe King Baby, with Tony Hale; Tony leaves to do Arrested Development; getting cut from Planes, Trains and Automobiles; Scrooged and Seinfeld and being awed by the height of Michael Richards and Bill Murray; reboots; TV is better than movies now; The Wrong Guys; She's Out of Control; doing a Sony digital commercial short; being a professor; hard to be just an actor; Singer & Sons pilot; getting added to the cast of Anything but Love the day before it was cancelled; Harold Gould v. Tom Bosley; Eric Stoltz v. Michael J. Fox; Peggy Sue Got Married; doing Delirious with John Candy; John Candy's life; funny people have trauma; Jodie Foster and Ron Howard are two child stars who've survived; Michael Jackson; her book Angry Conversations with God; turning it from a book to a one person show; story is universal even if not religious; improvising one of the first movies ever shot on an I Phone - Ride Share in 2011

Tommy Kovac joined me to discuss seeing Sam Kinison at 2; favorite SNL episodes; favorite comedy movies; Adam Sandler, Woody Allen, & Chevy Chase movies; loving all different sitcoms; comedy albums from Cheech and Chong and Radio Dinner; George Burns v. Brad Dourif & Nicholson v. Pachino 1975; 1994 Best Picture, 1980 Best Song; SCTV Perry Como, Bob Dylan; having done 2,500 shows; favorite guests Mitzi McCall & Charlie Brill; worst guest: Nicholas Myers & Butch Patrick; forgetting questions; wanting to have on Valerie Landsburg & Laraine Newman; having Cindy Morgan on; me almost getting Richard Dreyfuss and asking Jerry Seinfeld; being declined by Joanne Worley and Ruth Buzzi; people who died after being booked; Joe Polato; Richard Heard; pop culture nerd outs; belly buttons; sports; Cathy Rigby; Sean Weatherly; next year making 10 years

Bob Illes joined me to talk about his new book Funny is Money with 39 anecdotes; growing up in South Central LA; early TV influences; meeting writing partner James R. Stein at USC; doing the Stein & Illes show; Digby Wolfe; winning a contest to write for Tennessee Ernie Ford; Mike Ovitz; hard to get a radio job; working on Tom Smothers Organic Show; writing monologues for Bill Cosby on The New Bill Cosby Show; friction between Cosby & George Schlatter; meeting Groucho; working with Pat McCormick; Aaron Ruben hiring them on Sanford & Son; the controversial "Lamont, is that You" episode; doing a pilot for Schlatter called Lampoon w/ Alan Katz & Pat Proft; Joe & Sons; One Day at a Time; getting dressed down by Norman Lear and his mea culpa; What's Happening!!; Fernwood Tonight; A New Kind of Family with Rob Lowe & Janet Jackson; Dick Clair; Pat McCormick; working on The Steve Allen Comedy Hour and making a bad impression on Catherine O'Hara; his friendship with Sherman Helmsley; Anthony Geary & Ron Glass; All in the Family on the Nixon tapes;

Michele Lee joined me to discuss her podcast Knot Done Yet and her co-hosts Donna Mills and Joan Van Ark; her father being a makeup artist in the arts; watching early TV including Ed Sullivan & Sid Caesar; being on stage since age 17; having two careers pre (Herbie the Love Bug) and post Knots Landing; being on Broadway in Vintage 60; her dad said not to audition for How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, she did and got the part; starring in The Comic with Dick Van Dyke and going to his 100th birthday party; Dick not understanding hate and still performing; a person's legacy; guesting on Laugh In, Love, American Style, The Love Boat, Hollywood Squares, Tattletales, and Alias Smith & Jones; loving Barry and being friends with Henry Winkler; Juie Harris; Knots Landing not intended to be a soap; her podcast not being political; realizing we're trying to form a More Perfect Union; Night of 100 Stars; seeing Hal Linden & Barbara Eden in Love Letters in their 90's; All Star Party for Joan Rivers; turning down Sinatra and their long friendship afterword