Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [49]
Some nights our living room would be filled with comedy writers, working on a TV special, Dad’s act or one of his shows. They’d be throwing around ideas—“spitballing” they called it—and I’d laugh at something that one of the writers threw out.
“You like that?” Dad would ask me. “You think that’s funny?”
He got a big kick out of his kids seeing the funny.
One night after the taping of one of Dad’s specials, he and I were leaving the El Capitan, the grand old theatre palace on Hollywood Boulevard. As Dad and I hit the sidewalk, one of the people from the audience waiting outside called out to him.
“Hey, Danny,” the guy shouted, “Jack Benny just about stole the show from you!”
“He’d better,” Dad hollered back. “That’s what he gets paid to do.”
On the drive home, I asked my father what he thought about that man’s comment.
“In any business, Mugs, you want the strongest people around you,” he said. “It’s not the strong ones that’ll kill you. It’s the weak ones.”
Always a killing.
Chapter 25
Turn-ons with Conan O’Brien
Conan O’Brien is a genuine double-whammy. A lot of comedians write their own material; but rare is the comic who cuts his teeth writing for other hit comedy shows (Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons) before becoming a star performer himself. Since 1993, Conan has been television’s favorite goofy cut-up, and his unique blend of Harvard-boy charm and unapologetic nerdiness has earned him his own niche in the late-night TV galaxy. It also makes him terrific to talk to. I enjoyed spending time with both Conans—the clown and the intellectual.
—M.T.
On . . . the kitchen table
Conan: There’s definitely a genetic component to comedy, and there’s also a huge cultural part. My family is Irish-Catholic, and I’m one of six kids, the third boy from the top. My brothers were funny and my sisters were funny, and both of my parents had a really good sense of humor. So whenever anybody asks me how I got started in all of this, I tell them that I learned ninety-five percent of what I know at the kitchen table. We’d sit around that table and see who could make my dad laugh—and he had good taste. He wouldn’t laugh at everything, so if he did laugh, you knew you had said something really funny.
Even at an early age, I remember thinking that all my brothers were good at things, but I didn’t know what I was good at. Then I figured it out—this is what I do. I can really make people laugh.
On . . . that magic moment
I want to do what that guy is doing. That’s what I was thinking when my father took me to see Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows in a movie theatre. I was ten years old and I distinctly remember watching that famous “This Is Your Life” sketch, when Carl Reiner goes into the audience to get Sid Caesar and bring him on stage. But Caesar runs away—and then everyone chases after him. That was a seminal moment for me. I literally remember thinking, This is what I want to do.
On . . . those 10,000 hours
A lot has been written about how you need ten thousand hours of practice to get good at something, and comedy is no different. You have to put in a lot of time. Like the Beatles—before anybody knew who they were, they went to Germany and played clubs where their sets went on for ten or twelve hours, seven nights a week. So by the time they started recording, they’d already done their ten thousand hours. They really knew their stuff. I believe I got my thousands of hours, too.
On . . . the class clown
I was never the class clown. To me, the class clown is the kid who jumps up on the desk and sets the clock ahead an hour, the one who plays all the pranks. That kid usually doesn’t end up too well. He winds up in some sort of motel shooting. I was the kid who did my work and kept to myself. And then, when I made close friends, they would say, “Hey, wait a minute—this guy’s really funny . . .”
That’s sort of been the way my careers have unfolded. When I was a writer, I would always show up in the writers’ room and be quiet for a few days. But by the end, I was