Aug. 1, 2024

Journey Gunderson Executive Director of the National Comedy Center previews the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival

Johnny Mac welcomes Journey Gunderson, the Executive Director of the National Comedy Center, to discuss the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival in Jamestown, New York.

The conversation dives into the history and significance of the festival, Lucille Ball's...

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Johnny Mac welcomes Journey Gunderson, the Executive Director of the National Comedy Center, to discuss the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival in Jamestown, New York.

The conversation dives into the history and significance of the festival, Lucille Ball's legacy, and the unique exhibits at the National Comedy Center. They also explore the impact of comedy legends, the handling of controversial material, and the efforts to preserve comedy archives.


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WEBVTT

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Kalaroga Shark Media.

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The Lucille Ball Comedy Festival kicks off tonight. Hello, I'm

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Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news. My guest on

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today's program is Journey Gunderson. Journey is the executive director

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of the National Comedy Center, the United States official cultural

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institution dedicated to comedy as as designated by the US Congress.

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That is pretty cool, as you will listen here. The

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museum is super impressive. Their approach to something specifically, we'll

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talk about it in the interview. The areas of comedy

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that get a little wonky. You know, somebody says something

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or somebody does something in the real world and then

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you look at their body of work and you're like, huh,

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they are handling that well. I don't want to spoil

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the interview. The National Comedy Center is in Jamestown, New York.

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Why it's Lucille Ball's hometown. Lucy wanted Jamestown to celebrate

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up and coming artists and that is part of the

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thirty fourth Lucille Ball Comedy Festival. Tonight, the festival Nicole

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Buyer seven o'clock. By the way, seven o'clock, not eight o'clock.

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This old man love it. Imagine I could go see

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Nicole Byer and we're done by nine oh one. I'm

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back in the hotel room half asleep by nine thirty.

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That sounds amazing. But there's also comedy late night comics

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from around the nation who've appeared on ConA and America's

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Got Talent, The Late Late show Late Night with Seth

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Meyer's Last Comic Standing and Moore will be performing their

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newest and sometimes a bluest mid ceial. The event takes

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place in Ricky Ricardo's nightclub. What a cool venue, right,

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So let's jump in the pool. Here's my guest, Jerny Gunderson.

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Maybe you can help me. This is a topic that's

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been coming up on the show. When we talk about comedy,

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especially on my program, we tend to talk through a

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lens of stand up comedy, but branching out the form,

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where do we start talking about it? I could argue

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for Shakespeare, I could argue for Bob Hope. Jimmy Carr

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made a wonderful argument that Richard Pryor and George Carlin

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are like the John the Baptist of the modern stand

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up comedy, bringing it out of the clubs. In to

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the arenas. So for you, obviously, Lucy, part of this,

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where do we start?

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I'm maybe because I'm a museum person and we have

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created the first official archive, I tend to go further

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back in my milestones. You know, when people go through

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the stand Up Comedy Lounge exhibit, you know, they're seeing

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Gene Carroll and they're learning about Frank Fay and it's

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you know, moms maybly. So I tend to focus less

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on when they filled bigger venues and more focus on

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the art form and the craft and what they contributed

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that might have been unique before maybe it was even

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called stand up And in terms of sketch and other genres.

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You know, we've got original Vaudevilliera scripts from the Marx

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brothers with their hand annotations on them, and so we

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go back as far as we can.

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I know, one of the things at the museum that

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would love for you to talk about rather than me

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and try to explain it not having seen it, is

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the comedy Continuum. I just found this fascinating as we

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tie together the history of it and influences. If you

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could just walk the listeners through that, please, sure.

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So, the Comedy Continuum it's my favorite exhibit. It was

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the hardest one to build and bring to life. It's

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like the game six Degrees of Separation or six Degrees

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of Kevin Bacon on steroids. In comedy, it's this massive,

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seventy or eighty foot wide actually radar interactive wall, and

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you're building a web of connections that you continue to

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expose and build of collaborations in comedy. These are connections

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based on people who have worked together that you might

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otherwise not realize of work together or connections of influence.

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And what's neat is that not only are you uncovering

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these early in career collaborations between people who often end

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up as huge solo names in their own right, you're

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making connections between other visitors. So we see like a

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father and a son, or a grandfather and his grandson,

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and one has uncovered like Trevor Noah in political comedy,

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and then it connects with mort Saul and they're having

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a moment together of realizing that maybe their tastes and

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sense of humor isn't that different. And guess what those

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who do political comedy now stood on the shoulders of

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those who came before them.

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It's interesting to me, I was prepping for this and

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listening to you on some other interviews you mentioned, or

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the interview I mentioned how quickly some comedians not get forgotten,

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but just time marches on. Over the weekend, I was

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listening to Joe Rogan and he name checked Richard Jenny

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and he name checked Robert Schimmel. And when I first

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got into this working at Series XM, a new Shimmel,

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pretty well, he was at the top. And I don't

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think I've really heard Robert's name. For those who don't

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know Robert passed away, it's probably fifteen, maybe twenty years now,

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but you know, here's a comedian that was at the top,

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and just for whatever reason, in the zeitgeist, those names

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don't come up as often. So it's great what you

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guys are doing.

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Thank you for saying that. And I couldn't agree with

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you more. And I admit that what I guess annoy

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is a strong word. But what annoys me day and

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day out is how often you hear people commenting that, oh,

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the new style in comedy or new voices in comedy

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are so much more vulnerable, or they're talking about their

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issues with mental illness et cetera. And they're so much

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more candid. I don't see that that much. I mean,

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certainly there was an era where no one talked about that.

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But when Richard Lewis passed away, you know, what better

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reminder do we need? That there have been decades of

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people willing to be vulnerable and pull back the curtain

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on neuroses, you know, than that. And so there are

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these heroes. I guess what that puts a finer point

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on is that there are heroes of this art form

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that are sadly, so quickly glossed over by it, you know,

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the TikTok generation, and things move so fast now that

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the saddust example. This is really a downer thing to say,

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but you know, we tour sometimes high school groups through

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and I wasn't shocked when, you know, only a smattering

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of hands went up. Who knew George Carlin or why

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they should care? Because they're seventeen and eighteen years old,

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and so we're, you know, introducing them to his brain.

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In comedy, we do a deep dive with his joke

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notes and you see process of one of the most

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prolific comedic minds the world we've ever know. But Robin

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Williams is now a name that when young like seniors

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in high school, come through, they aren't familiar. And if

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that doesn't speak to the need for a museum and

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a cultural institution like this one to put quote unquote

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these paintings on the wall for the next generation to

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be educated about, I don't know what does. These are

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heroes and they deserve to be memorialized for generations to come.

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I teach a college class about radio, and I remember,

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and even this story is maybe ten years old. I

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remember mocking through how a morning shod team works, and

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whatever example I was using, I said, you know, and

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that would be an example where somebody could throw in

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a JFK impression. They had no idea what I meant

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by a JFK impression. So then I tried to bring

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it forward and I said Mayor Quimby from the Simpsons,

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and they still had no idea of the reference. I

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remember another time I was talking about Late Night and

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I said Carson, and they thought I meant mister Daily

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and it just I know, I'm up here on old

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Man Mountain now, but the time goes by, back to

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the estates. I think it's great that you're working with

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the estates. In the course of my career, I've worked

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with the Hope people. I've worked with Jeff stottzing with Carson,

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I know Kelly Carlin fairly well, and I think for

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those are three estates in particular that are in good

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hands where it's not about money, it's about keeping the

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legacy alive and getting the name out there. So again,

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kudos to you in the museum on keeping those names

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out there. George Carlin in particular, like, you know, I

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get it. You know, how would you know George Carlin

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unless you showed up on TikTok. Although specific to car

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arln his last two albums, which I didn't love at

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the time quite honestly and thought at the time, Ah,

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has George lost his fastball? It just sounds so angry

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now when I play his last two albums in twenty

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twenty four, topically, they sound like they could have been

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recorded this morning.

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I know.

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Every time there's something that they need is somebody does

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something off, usually from those albums.

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Yeah, it's like wine. Sometimes it's better with age or

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these brilliant, prolific minds are sometimes ahead of their time right,

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So it is interesting to look back on comedy from

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different eras, because actually, as W. Kamal Bell, who's an

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advisory board member of ours, said, he gave a speech

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at the grand opening, and you know, it's comedy is

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so temporal, right, It's so of the moment that there's

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a lot to be learned. In addition to just appreciating

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the humor and having good laughs. There's so much to

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be learned from observing what was funny and what was

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a punchline at an exact point in time in our culture.

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And so when people come to the National Comedy Center,

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not just enjoying themselves and laughing at a really well

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done curation and examination of comedy's greatest hits and heritage,

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they're also given the opportunity to learn about truth tellers

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from every era.

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How do you handle things that have fallen out of fashion,

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whether it is Amos and Andy or Flip Wilson or

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something more recently. Is there a tendency to go, oh,

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let's park this exhibit for a while. Is it out

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there with an explainer?

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It's funny because it just depends on what sometimes makes

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it onto the internet or goes viral in the wrong way.

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Because Bill Hicks is a good example. I was recently

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listening to an old I think his early nineties era

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Bill Hicks album, and there's some stuff in there that

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wouldn't hold up now in terms of homophobic type of commentary.

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And I think that is so it is so common,

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and as artists have said before, I'm saying it now.

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Everyone evolves, We all evolve, and I don't think anybody

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stands by every word they've ever said, and you know,

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insists that it was perfect. But there's something to be learned,

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even in that we have a blue room level of

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the museum for this reason, right, We're not. We didn't

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build a blue room level, which is leaning into the

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most boundary pushing material of all time in different eras.

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We didn't build it to endorse it and say like

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these things are fine to say. We built it because

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we're a museum. And that's the conversation that we're trying

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to have is look at what was okay to say when,

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or look look at how controversial it was when Lenny

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Bruce was making jokes about the Catholic Church and being

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arrested for it, or making jokes about the government and

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being hauled off stage and having to spend the night

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in jail. That's why we feature it. And so whether

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it's a Dave Chappelle joke that's considered transphobic that's also

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in the Blue Room, or Louis c. K's material in

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our lens on the topic of too soon, we do it.

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There's an exis it on the concept of too soon?

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And when is it okay to joke about tragedies through

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all of these different stories and lenses, And we tell

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this story through the lens of nine to eleven in

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the aftermath and comedy that came out. And so there's

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Gilbert Godfried who had toured through this exhibit, and he's

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an example of it not going well right at the

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Hugh Hefner roast making a nine to eleven joke in

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what many considered in the room too soon, and someone

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even called that out. But Luis c. K's material on

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nine to eleven is in that exhibit. You know, you asked,

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how do we handle a controversial subject matter because we

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didn't approach the whole story of comedy as one of

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glorification of individuals. Anyway, when we designed the museum, it

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was really about the art and the contribution and the

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craft and the substance of it, the work product. We

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didn't suffer too badly. It wasn't you know, Cosby was

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on trial when we were in the throes of media

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production getting ready to open. And because we didn't build

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a Cosby wing, it was okay. Because we didn't omit

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the Cosby Show from the exhibit on television comedy, because

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you can't tell the story of comedy on television without it.

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And again, it's really about the work and the subject

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matter that comes out of this process.

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I love that approach. Some articles and maybe it's maybe

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it's cool, maybe it's a little lazy. I'll see your

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museum compared to Cooperstown, And for me, I often when

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I have baseball arguments, I'll say, you cannot tell the

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story of baseball without Barry Bonds. I'm sorry, he should

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be in the Hall of Fame. I will make you

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litigate somebody else's museum today. But I love your approach

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of you can't tell the story without the Cosby Show.

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The Cosby Show happened. That's a thing. Comparing it to

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baseball in the Baseball Hall of Fame, if I go

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out and hit eighty five home runs, they still make

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me wait five years after I retire before I get in.

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In terms of an exhibit, especially here in the twenties,

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we see shooting stars in comedy. Somebody will get super

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hot on TikTok. Again, we're both here to celebrate comedy,

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but there, you know, there's a guy who's selling a

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lot of tickets right now who doesn't have the thirty years.

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Doesn't mean that he's not good at comedy. But do

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I have to wait to get an exhibit or can

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I just you know, if the UFO lands today and

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I slam the bid on Wednesday, can I be in

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the museum next week?

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That's such a great question. And our feeling on that

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is that And it's often said museums should stay respectfully

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one step behind the art form. So it is often

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only with the benefit of hindsight that anything can be

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properly evaluated. So we try not to expend valuable, precious resources.

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You know, we're a nonprofit to jump to celebrate or

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build an exhibit about the latest, as you said, shooting

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star in comedy unless there's a story there to tell, right,

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like a story of comedy might be. How during the pandemic,

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a lot of lay people, I'll say, would say like, oh, well,

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can't you just do comedy on zoom? And people who

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perform comedy understand that the audience, the relationship between the

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artist and the audience is actually crucial and that energy

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and the acoustics of the laugh and the timing of that,

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and how that can work and not work in different mediums,

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And so moving to drive ins and performing to cars

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like that's a story. And so really we're about telling

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the meaningful stories of the craft and the art form

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more than staying or picking the stars that are worthy.

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I'd rather focus on what was contributed and why it

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was unique.

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Let me come at at from a different angle. It's

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a Thursday afternoon in the summer. We're all looking forward

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to summer Friday. It's late in the day. Bob Newhart

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has passed away. Do we immediately react and see what

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we have in the back room and put it on

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display or how do you handle something like that?

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That is true, We do go into the archives and

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see what we have, and we start to reflect as

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everyone does and hearing the news, and we ask ourselves, okay,

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what unique ground on did he stand on? Which did

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he stand? So? Is it one thing I'd say about

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New Heart is he was known for that deadpan delivery,

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and so you can see the influence and so many

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that came thereafter. He was also able to succeed, Like

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one of my favorite things about New Heart is that

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he won Grammys for Album of the Year, including Album

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of the Year, going against like Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte,

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and so here's comedy beating rock stars. And that makes

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me smile because this was early on and so he

293
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had to go toe to toe and beat them out

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for Album of the Year. He was also notably a

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great talk show guest. Not all comedians are great guests,

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and he was fantastic on Carson. So we have some

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of that in the museum in our Johnny Carson exhibit.

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Then you go to the Television Comedy exhibit, and there

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he is in a piece about workplace comedy. And as

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we reflect again, we step back and say, like, what

301
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is the unique ground. I think he will also go

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down as having the distinction of sticking the landing as

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best as well as anyone can in a series finale.

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Television series finales are difficult, and he nailed it. And

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I love that that goes down in history. Is one

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of the greatest of all time.

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It's amazing that he's the one that who had the

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number one album because of his persona. If you had

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told me Dice Clay was the first to do it

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when there was dice Mania. If you had told me

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Dane Cook did it early this century, okay, I would

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have believed it. But Bob Nehart, the salesman, the low key,

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deadpan guy, beating out Elvis is just amazing.

314
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Yeah, that's like one of my favorite stories of comedians

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as quote unquote rock stars for once, because you're right,

316
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the vibe was not such and Dice Clay is a

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great example in content.

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All right, we'll head towards a break here. The National

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Comedy Center, Jamestown, New York, was named best New Museum

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in the Country by USA Today. It is one of

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Time Magazine's World's Greatest Places, one of People Magazine's one

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hundred Reasons to Love America, and one of the twenty

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five Best family weekend getaways by US News and World Report.

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Just three blocks away, the Lucille Ball Desi or Nez

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Museum celebrates the live's curism legacy of the first couple

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of comedy, the impact they had on the world, and

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also the story of Desilu Studios, which not only produced

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Lucy Stuff, but produced the original Mission Impossible, and most importantly,

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Star Trek. I wish Desilu still controlled Star Trek. Don't

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get me on a Star Trek rant, Don't do it.

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Did you see the section thirty one trailer? Did you

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see they're making a Star Trek sitcom? I obviously like comedy.

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Don't make a Star Trek sitcom? All right, be right back.

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So the reason I invited you on today is because

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it is the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival kicking off again

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Kudoston Museum. This is something that's been around for quite

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a while, but I think the museum has brought more

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daylight to it. It has definitely been on my radar

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the last few years. So what can we expect to

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see this weekend? Who's coming? What should we do encourage people?

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I've talked about this in the past. If you drew

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a circle from Cleveland to Boston to New York, you

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can get there, and it's a really pretty part of

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the country for people who aren't familiar with it. So

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why should we come up this weekend?

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Because now a trip to Jamestown, New York, it's like

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an immersion in by day, you're immersed in an award

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winning museum experience where you are given the chance to

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really appreciate generations of artists, and then in the evening

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take in the best live voices in comedy. And I

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just can't think of a better way to spend a weekend.

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And it almost it's funny because museums contextualize. That's what

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we do. We provide some context so things can be appreciated.

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We aren't just showing clips and saying isn't this funny?

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And so I think that what is unique about tending

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the Lucille Ball Comedy Festival relative to other festivals is

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because you're in the setting of the National Official Archive

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and the museum, it contextualizes the comedy you're going to

359
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see that evening live on stage and just engenders in

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the audiences in an even greater appreciation for what these

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people are doing. I love that it's come full circle

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that Nate Bargetzi is headlining a sold out arena show.

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And my first festival was really when we got the

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festival back to being a comedy festival and less of

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a nostalgia I Love Lucy reflection. It originated as a

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comedy festival with the young Ellen DeGeneres, a young Ray Romano,

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Bob Newhart, in fact, the Smothers Brothers, George Wallace, And

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that was Lucille Ball's intention for her hometown, and that

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it become a destination for the celebration of the art

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form in all of these ways. And then, like any

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strong brand, whether it's Elvis or Star Trek, the fan

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community of I Love Lucy and Lucille Ball is so

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massive that that dominated for a while. And it was

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actually the estate you mentioned, the estates. The estate raised

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its hand and said it was supposed to be more

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broad than this. It was supposed to be about all comedy.

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And so twenty eleven, the hundredth birthday of Lucille Ball,

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that anniversary year was really the first year that we

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set forth saying we're building the National Comedy Center, the

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first national archive and museum, and the festival will get

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back to its roots about being, you know, entirely about comedy.

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And Nate Barghetsi was the first comedian ever booked, and

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he was in our showcase, you know, then largely unknown

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and now here he is hosting SNL, starring in one

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of the most viral sketches in SNL history, on the

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brink of its fifty year anniversary, and you know, headlining

387
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our festival in the arena. So there are dozens of

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other amazing comedians coming to town. I like to say

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that you can, you know, experience what you can otherwise

390
00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:04.720
only experience in the greatest, most legendary clubs coast to

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00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:08.359
coast by coming to Jamestown that weekend. We have Ofira Eisenberg,

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00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:13.480
Dave Hill, Aaron Jackson, Matt Koff, who's an Emmy winning

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writer for The Daily Show, Nina Daniels, Ali mccofsky, and more.

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Specific to Nate, I don't know what you nailed it.

395
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And here's why I'm saying this, and I don't mean

396
00:21:22.759 --> 00:21:25.079
this about look how cool I am. When the initial

397
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releases came out about the festival, there was a line

398
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paraphrasing quite and another headliner to be announced. You hadn't

399
00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:35.000
yet announced Nate, and I mentioned on the pod. For

400
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:36.720
some reason, the universe was telling me it was going

401
00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:39.119
to be Nate. I had no inside knowledge, there was nothing.

402
00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:41.839
I didn't read an article telegraphing it. I just said

403
00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:43.720
it just felt like it was going to be Nate,

404
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and then when it was Nate, I was like, ooh,

405
00:21:45.440 --> 00:21:48.480
look at that. The universe somehow community communicated that to me.

406
00:21:50.279 --> 00:21:53.039
I think you guys have done a great job. You

407
00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:55.319
spend a lot of time around comedians. I've spent a

408
00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:58.720
lot of time around comedians. Sometimes it's not all sunshine

409
00:21:58.720 --> 00:22:01.640
and roses, and there's jealous or I've talked up on

410
00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:04.920
the podcast of the New York City brick Wall cigarette

411
00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:07.240
smoking crowd. We'll give the LA people a hard time.

412
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Now there's the Austin contingent. Everybody's mad at the blue

413
00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:12.599
collar people. You've worked with fox Worthy. You know, he's

414
00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:15.079
the nicest guy on the world. You know that, Larry

415
00:22:15.079 --> 00:22:17.359
the cable guy. And I'll tell this to Larry's I'm

416
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:19.200
friends with him. Larry's the nicest guy in the world

417
00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:21.599
unless Jeff Foxworthy's in the room, right. I mean, these

418
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are just wonderful people. So kudos to you that the

419
00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:29.880
comedians seem to be backing this thing. Like my sense is,

420
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you know, you're you're able to ask people to come

421
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and they come for whatever reasons. People are motivated to come,

422
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:39.000
but you're getting people, they're not giving you nos, and

423
00:22:39.039 --> 00:22:42.400
the artists seem to genuinely love this thing, you know,

424
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whether you're involved with somebody like Lewis Black, so that

425
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:46.759
that just speaks volumes about the work you're doing.

426
00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:49.519
Thank you so much for saying that. Yeah, it's I

427
00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:52.960
often lay awake at night in the ten years building it, going, oh,

428
00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:55.880
this was a really bad idea, Like, you know, the

429
00:22:55.920 --> 00:23:01.039
comedy community doesn't ever take kindly to outsiders telling its

430
00:23:01.079 --> 00:23:06.640
story because in comedy, authenticity is paramount right through and through.

431
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:11.599
And you just cited, you know, the cynicism and to

432
00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:16.559
build a museum an institution for the most anti establishment

433
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.799
population of people who are really good at making fun

434
00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:23.319
of things, I was like, oh, maybe this is daunting

435
00:23:23.480 --> 00:23:26.160
and probably a bad idea. And so one of the

436
00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:29.240
things that we don't tout often, but some people have

437
00:23:29.319 --> 00:23:31.359
noticed in the museum is that there is no third

438
00:23:31.400 --> 00:23:34.880
party voice the media pieces. All of the storytelling is

439
00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:40.440
in the voices of artists and creators and crafts people themselves, directors, producers,

440
00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:44.240
stand ups. So we relied really heavily on getting the

441
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story right by talking to and interviewing hundreds of comedians,

442
00:23:49.799 --> 00:23:52.319
so that we didn't make the mistake of being this

443
00:23:52.759 --> 00:23:58.279
third party institutionalized voice telling comedy story for it. Yeah,

444
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and I think it's funny too, because comedians wouldn't have

445
00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:06.960
built it for themselves, you know, they're not. They have

446
00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:11.680
a complex relationship with awards and awards systems, right, That's why,

447
00:24:11.799 --> 00:24:14.240
like the American Comedy Awards, I suspect has come and

448
00:24:14.279 --> 00:24:18.880
gone and never found its sure footing, and so comedy

449
00:24:19.240 --> 00:24:23.200
becomes the red headed step child of the oscars, for example,

450
00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:25.880
the Academy Awards. And so I think that's maybe why

451
00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:29.799
there was a void for so long of an institution

452
00:24:29.960 --> 00:24:34.799
that exists to celebrate it. And I'm glad that the

453
00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:40.240
toughest crowd, which is comedians themselves, have loved it every

454
00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:43.279
time they've toured. Like I love when you see a

455
00:24:43.359 --> 00:24:48.759
John Mulaney on his tiptoes peering into Rodney Dangerfield's leather

456
00:24:48.839 --> 00:24:52.559
monogrammed duffelbag that has like his actual jokes and joke

457
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:55.279
notes stuffed into it that he would carry on the

458
00:24:55.319 --> 00:24:57.559
road with him as a briefcase because they didn't have iPhones,

459
00:24:57.599 --> 00:25:02.559
nothing was digital. I love seeing laugh at Joan Rivers

460
00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:06.880
type written sheet of paper she carried in her little

461
00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:09.640
briefcase on the road, seventeen ways to handle a heckler.

462
00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:11.720
It wasn't a bit, it was like those were her

463
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:14.559
seventeen ways she was ready with. These were her working papers.

464
00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:18.480
And I'm really excited that in starting at twenty twenty five,

465
00:25:19.480 --> 00:25:21.799
we're going to be able to get really creative about

466
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:26.920
showcasing and making an exhibit of the sixty five thousand

467
00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:31.680
typewritten joke notes joke cards of Joan Rivers that span

468
00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.960
from the nineteen fifties through twenty fourteen. It's like this

469
00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:38.559
amazing history of comedy through one perspective.

470
00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:41.440
I believe it now. I wish I had picked up

471
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:44.359
some scraps of paper twenty years ago. I produced Joan

472
00:25:44.480 --> 00:25:47.200
Rivers radio show for a few years circa two thousand

473
00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:50.240
and one, and she would work openly with two writers,

474
00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:52.119
an older guy and a younger guy, and they would

475
00:25:52.160 --> 00:25:54.680
pass her. They would scribble down a punchline and hand

476
00:25:54.720 --> 00:25:58.160
it to her. And I mean this very respectfully. She

477
00:25:58.279 --> 00:26:01.519
might not even have re what the reference meant, but

478
00:26:01.640 --> 00:26:03.400
they would hand her a piece of paper. She would

479
00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:06.519
read it, get the laugh, deliver it, timing everything about it.

480
00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:08.160
And then throw the piece of paper on the floor

481
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:10.400
and they were just feeding her lines left and right.

482
00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:12.880
It was just amazing to watch, just a pros pro.

483
00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:17.400
Yeah, it's funny. I mentioned Dangerfield's notes, and what stands

484
00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:21.440
out to me is every single centimeter of the sheets

485
00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:26.200
of paper is filled with handwriting of his in three

486
00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:30.599
or four different utensils, ink lad everything, and they're dog

487
00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:33.240
eared and they're wrinkled because he used them for so long.

488
00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:36.279
And in the upper left hand corner it says what

489
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:39.799
a crowd parentheses two x, like he wrote down that

490
00:26:39.839 --> 00:26:41.519
when he took the stage, he was going to say,

491
00:26:41.559 --> 00:26:43.839
what a crowd? What a crowd? And that was in

492
00:26:43.880 --> 00:26:46.480
the upper left hand corner of that little sheet of paper.

493
00:26:46.519 --> 00:26:50.680
And So because good comedy looks easy, I think the

494
00:26:50.759 --> 00:26:53.240
lay person or the casual consumer of it doesn't have

495
00:26:53.279 --> 00:26:56.119
a great level of respect for what goes into it.

496
00:26:56.200 --> 00:26:57.920
You know, they go to an art museum and see

497
00:26:57.960 --> 00:27:01.119
an incredible painting and go, oh my god, like how

498
00:27:01.240 --> 00:27:04.519
they can't even imagine. But the equivalent in comedy is

499
00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:09.000
the thousand hours on stage, the iterative honing that goes on,

500
00:27:09.759 --> 00:27:12.759
and no one appreciates that. It's down to every syllable

501
00:27:13.640 --> 00:27:17.480
and the emphasis on each part of a word that

502
00:27:17.559 --> 00:27:20.000
can sink or make a joke. And that's part of

503
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.240
what we try to do in the participatory Wing. We

504
00:27:22.279 --> 00:27:24.759
didn't build a participatory wing because people are good at it,

505
00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:29.160
like quite the opposite. We built it because it shows visitors.

506
00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:32.200
For example, in comedy karaoke, we could give you a

507
00:27:32.240 --> 00:27:35.160
teleprompter with the strongest stand up bits of all time,

508
00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:39.920
and you'll bomb because you don't have the delivery. And

509
00:27:39.960 --> 00:27:42.640
it teaches them the difference between or the layers of

510
00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:45.279
the onion, right, Like it's the writing has to be good,

511
00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:48.440
but the delivery and the timing and every part of

512
00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:51.640
it is so much a part of the sauce. And

513
00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:53.720
that's what we That was our compass in building the

514
00:27:53.799 --> 00:27:56.519
entire museum was pull back the curtain on how hard

515
00:27:56.559 --> 00:27:58.799
this is and that there's a level of precision, and

516
00:27:58.799 --> 00:28:00.559
that it really is an art science.

517
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.599
I want to circle back to something you said a

518
00:28:02.599 --> 00:28:04.920
few minutes ago about not having a third party person

519
00:28:05.799 --> 00:28:07.720
tell the story that speaks to me. I had the

520
00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:10.960
privilege of working with the Pythons for their fortieth anniversary.

521
00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:14.720
We put together Monty Python Radio for series XM and

522
00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:19.319
one of the creative decisions that my team and I

523
00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:22.079
made was every piece of audio had to come from

524
00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:25.559
the Pythons. So the liners were by the Pythons themselves,

525
00:28:25.839 --> 00:28:29.079
but the soundscape, all the quirky noises were all from

526
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:31.559
episodes of the TV series. They had granted us a

527
00:28:31.559 --> 00:28:33.680
waiver for the weekend to make the radio station, and

528
00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:37.079
it all came out of the Python Universe, which made

529
00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:40.359
the project sing in a way that using generic rock

530
00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:43.240
liner number four and a DJ voice going Monty Python

531
00:28:43.319 --> 00:28:47.480
Radio would have just been lame. Having Eric Idol tell

532
00:28:47.480 --> 00:28:50.079
a story about John Clees that's what made it sing.

533
00:28:50.200 --> 00:28:53.599
So again, I think everything you're doing is just absolutely

534
00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:56.599
on point. I have tremendous props for you. I mean,

535
00:28:56.599 --> 00:28:58.680
I'm a guy recording a podcast in the basement who cares,

536
00:28:58.680 --> 00:29:03.119
but as a fan, awesome job. So let me ask you.

537
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:07.359
Sometimes I burn out on comedy. I do this most

538
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:09.960
of the day, and I explained to the listeners. Then

539
00:29:10.039 --> 00:29:12.599
ten pm comes and like, I don't want to watch

540
00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:15.200
the latest YouTube special. I just want to watch something.

541
00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:18.319
I'll watch the Universe and just let somebody tell me

542
00:29:18.359 --> 00:29:21.240
about Saturn's rings just to turn my brain off. So

543
00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:23.359
what do you do when you're not doing this? And

544
00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:27.200
follow up question, if we come up to Jamestown other

545
00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:29.359
than all the comedy events, what else should we do?

546
00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:31.039
Where do we eat? Where do we hang out?

547
00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:37.880
Okay, so first question, my struggle is just having anywhere

548
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:41.799
near adequate time to catch the latest special or late

549
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:47.640
night show, because in a nice way, like someone once said,

550
00:29:47.759 --> 00:29:50.640
you know, managing success is harder than managing failure, and

551
00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:53.200
so like I said, there's such a void for so

552
00:29:53.279 --> 00:29:55.720
long of an institution doing this work that now the

553
00:29:55.720 --> 00:29:59.720
floodgates have opened once people got to Jamestown and realized

554
00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:01.960
this is the place and that it wasn't going anywhere,

555
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:05.720
and that this was for real. You know, the amount

556
00:30:05.839 --> 00:30:09.000
of archives there are to preserve, the amount of estates

557
00:30:09.039 --> 00:30:11.319
we're working with day and day out. You know, we're

558
00:30:11.359 --> 00:30:15.119
presenting Nate Bargetti in an arena one night, or you know,

559
00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:18.920
inviting Jeff Frost to town. But on the other arm,

560
00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:23.200
we're preserving Don Rickles archives and working with his estate,

561
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:26.240
and so some of them aren't public yet. And so

562
00:30:26.240 --> 00:30:28.519
I don't want to speak out of turn or accidentally

563
00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:32.839
do a press release via this podcast, but just insert

564
00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:35.400
the next dozen names you can think of whose comedy

565
00:30:35.480 --> 00:30:37.839
archives you would like to see preserved, and we're talking

566
00:30:37.880 --> 00:30:41.480
with them now. So it's funny, it's ironic. I guess

567
00:30:41.480 --> 00:30:44.680
you could say, to have very little, very few hours

568
00:30:44.759 --> 00:30:47.279
left in the day for our staff to actually now say, okay,

569
00:30:47.319 --> 00:30:51.000
we've got to be consuming what's new. You know, the

570
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:53.440
pantheon comedy is pretty large, you know, when you're going

571
00:30:53.480 --> 00:30:55.680
back to the Marx Brothers and then trying to have

572
00:30:55.720 --> 00:30:59.000
your finger on the pulse of today, it's like it's endless,

573
00:30:59.359 --> 00:31:01.000
but it's a nice thing to be buried in.

574
00:31:01.279 --> 00:31:03.920
That's the luci obell All Comedy Festival, kicking off tonight

575
00:31:04.119 --> 00:31:06.200
through the fourth Thank you so much for your time.

576
00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:08.440
This is fantastic. I am definitely going to hit you

577
00:31:08.519 --> 00:31:10.799
up next time a topic comes up to see if

578
00:31:10.839 --> 00:31:12.880
you can come on again. I've got a million more

579
00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:14.599
questions about the museum and I do need to make

580
00:31:14.599 --> 00:31:15.880
it up there. So thank you so much for your

581
00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:16.359
time today.

582
00:31:16.440 --> 00:31:18.480
Thank you for having me. It's been great talking with

583
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:21.319
you because you are a guy who's so steeped in comedy.

584
00:31:21.559 --> 00:31:23.319
Let me give you a little behind the scenes there.

585
00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:26.160
So during her last answer, the internet was getting a

586
00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:29.119
little wonky. Now, the system I use it records locally,

587
00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:32.079
so if I'm interviewing you, it's recording my files on

588
00:31:32.119 --> 00:31:34.680
my computer, your files on your computer, and then at

589
00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:37.359
the end we both upload to the central core whatever

590
00:31:37.400 --> 00:31:39.839
it is. That way we both have a clean copy.

591
00:31:40.160 --> 00:31:42.440
So I didn't want to interrupt her and be like, oh,

592
00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:44.519
I can't hear you, because I knew she was giving

593
00:31:44.519 --> 00:31:47.200
a thorough answer. I just couldn't hear it. I'm sharing

594
00:31:47.240 --> 00:31:49.960
that with you because you may have noticed I didn't

595
00:31:49.960 --> 00:31:52.319
ask a follow up about some of the estates and

596
00:31:52.359 --> 00:31:54.799
some of the legacy coming up. I'm very curious about it.

597
00:31:54.839 --> 00:31:56.440
But that's why I didn't follow up there, because I

598
00:31:56.440 --> 00:31:59.400
couldn't really hear her. After she finished speaking, I took

599
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:01.160
a full time and we kind of fixed stuff, and

600
00:32:01.160 --> 00:32:03.400
then I tacked on that close there. So that's what

601
00:32:03.519 --> 00:32:05.039
went on there. That's why I didn't fall up there.

602
00:32:05.079 --> 00:32:07.720
Just thought i'd share with you. I will wildly speculate

603
00:32:08.119 --> 00:32:10.799
Richard Pryor would make a lot of sense, Bob Newhart

604
00:32:10.839 --> 00:32:13.200
would make a lot of sense, and Richard Lewis came

605
00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:16.480
up during the interviews, so maybe those are clues. Who knows.

606
00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:20.000
Wild speculation. Here's what's scary too, the folks at the

607
00:32:20.039 --> 00:32:23.839
National Comedy Center. Some of them listen to this podcast.

608
00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:25.440
That's a lot of pressure. I'm just a dude in

609
00:32:25.440 --> 00:32:28.480
the basement. Kind of cool though, Jereney Gunderson, thank you

610
00:32:28.519 --> 00:32:30.200
for coming on the show. Best of luck with the

611
00:32:30.279 --> 00:32:33.480
Lucy Oldball Comedy Festival this weekend. Back with a normal

612
00:32:33.519 --> 00:32:35.039
episode tomorrow, See you then,