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 J:
A lot of sketch groups put work up as YouTube videos, but it seems like
you’re trying to highlight a different aspect of the Internet -- the way
things spread virally.
BW: We’re trying to use … trying to fuck with the Internet while we use
it as a vehicle. We don’t just put up clips of the live show. For
example, we put up on eBay -- Sean Wiggins, my booker for the show --
put up a “high five” and an “attaboy” on eBay that will then be
given to you at the Talk Show [on May 3]. That’s how we’re using the
Internet to get exposure for the Talk Show and get people talking about
it on the Internet and elsewhere, but do it in a creative, fun and
different way, and fuck with the Internet at the same time.
J: How’s the trash
can video doing?
BW: It’s getting viewers -- not a lot, but I think at last count it had
126 the last time I looked -- but it’s more than it probably deserves.
Tonight [April 26] we’ll have Matt The Internet Magician and we’ll talk
about how to manipulate your clips to make them a lot more popular and
get a lot more hits than what they deserve. So I told him to pick one of
our lame YouTube clips and will give him 24 hours to manipulate it to
get a lot more hits and views than it would otherwise. He will reveal
for us tonight what he’s been able to pull off with that. That’s another
way we’re trying to have fun with the Internet while doing a show about
Internet stuff.
J: Is this an updated version of Letterman having Larry Bud Melman, and
that being more interesting than just chatting with actors?
BW: Definitely. I knowingly went into this talk show with the idea of
taking those things that were some of the strongest things Carson and
Letterman did, and use those as inspiration and take them further. For
instance, Carson and Letterman’s strongest moments weren’t stars talking
about whatever they would talk about. It’s real people -- the zoo animal
lady, the guy throwing the ax at the crotch in Carson’s day, Larry Bud
Melman -- to me those are the memorable moments of those talk shows --
like throwing fruits and vegetables off a high rise building. That’s
their calling card and what got people excited about them to begin with.
We’re just doing updated next-generation pushing the envelope of the
talk show format with those types of inspirations. We’re trying to get
regular people with interesting things to say, who are weird, offbeat or
do weird and funny stuff that makes you think people were very high when
they thought of it. But it’s well calculated and well thought out. Those
are things we’re trying to pursue.
When I read “The Late Shift,” just last year for the first time, one of
the great stories in that book, that is inspirational to me is when
Carson was at a cocktail party and a producer of a new talk show was
talking to him about all the great bits they were going to do, and
Carson listened patiently and at the end of all of it, said, ‘You know,
all these shows, it’s about the guy behind the desk.’ To me that was
like a eureka moment, reading that story because that’s the philosophy
we use with this show. All the things we’re doing with the Internet are
completely secondary to trying to establish a likeable, friendly host,
which would be me and trying to find a friendly, likeable, approachable
home feeling for the show. We can have the most weird or cool ideas, but
if you don’t like me as a host or interviewer, or your friend for the
night, chances are it won’t catch on. I buy into that. That’s the
overriding principle for everything. If I have to choose one focus in
everything we’re doing, it’s trying to establish me as a likeable,
friendly voice in the talk show format.
J: How much of that is yourself and how much of that is created?
BW: I would like to think I’m a really likeable guy in general. Part of
being a performer is putting on your best face when the lights come on.
I did that in TV news. Anyone who performs does that to a certain
degree. It’s like inviting people over for a dinner party. The way you
are when they aren’t in the house is going to be different from the way
you are when you open the door to welcome them into your house. It’s
that type of switch. You put your best foot forward. That’s how I am
onstage. To me it’s probably 10 to 15 percent a character, and 90 to 85
percent me at my friendliest and best, welcoming people to my home.
J: With recent events in the business of talk show entertainment, would
you say the climate is better or worse for free speech now? Has it
always been the same?
BW: I have a couple thoughts. I see both sides of the fence on this. For
instance, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, when they wrote Seinfeld
episodes, they knew they had to be on network television. They knew
there are certain jokes that are funnier given certain language or
references that they couldn’t get out on network television [otherwise].
So they had to challenge themselves to get creative and find a different
way to tell the joke or find another joke to use. They’re still funny as
hell.
Imus, in my opinion, I don’t buy into the defense that he’s a comedian
or social satirist. Yes, that’s an important role in society -- I’m not
pooh-poohing that at all -- but there are certainly better ways he could
have made his point than saying ‘nappy-headed hos’ or whatever he said
about the Rutgers basketball team. My theory is he simply got
comfortable and lazy in that approach of comedy, as opposed to updating
and realizing we live in a different world now that you can’t get away
with that stuff. For good or bad, that’s today’s world. You can still
make the same point but do it in a different way. That’s [Imus’] failure
in my opinion.
That said, what [spoken word performer] Mike Daisey said, he should keep
on saying. [In Boston, Daisey recently encountered a hostile audience
offended by his work]. It wasn’t his fault this religious group got
upset at his material. It was their fault for not realizing they were
going into a show that might offend them. To me, there’s a little
difference between the Imus and Daisey situations. Daisey was just doing
his show for a paying public. Anyone who wants to come in and buy a
ticket should know what they’re getting themselves into. Imus, to me,
was broadcasting over a public channel and has some responsibility
because he had a much bigger audience.
J: The line used to be network and cable, and now it seems to be network
and basic cable, and you can only get more explicit on pay cable or
satellite radio.
BW: That’s a fair description of what’s going on. But we have to embrace
that mainstream media and entertainment, you can get away with a lot
more now than in Lenny Bruce’s day, by a long shot. I applaud people
saying you can’t put handcuffs on social satire. I agree with that 100
percent, but you also have to appreciate you have a lot more avenues
now, and the big avenues a lot more open to being riskier and edgier. If
NBC won’t put you on with something that rips Bush or some segment of
the population, you can find another avenue. It may not have as big an
audience, but you’ll get an audience. I don’t buy into the idea that
we’re losing something as a society if we fire Imus. Imus has satellite
radio, he’ll find another audience, people will come and listen to him.
J: Let me challenge you though. Does it have to qualify as ‘social
satire’? What about the freedom to just be an idiot?
BW: If you want to take it to the extreme, the old argument about
freedom of speech doesn’t allow you to say fire in a crowded theater.
The reason why the Daily Show succeeds in doing what it does, is it
finds creative ways and biting, truthful ways to reveal truth through
making you laugh. The same anger and frustration fuels those comments as
a guy on the street yelling at the top of his lungs ‘Bush is a fucking
idiot!’ I’d say to the guy on the street to find a creative way that
entices -- give a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down and
you’ll find much more reception of it.
It’s like a musician writing a protest song -- that song will get a lot
more mileage if they find a really cool hook, as opposed to just ranting
on record to music, saying they hate the state of the world. The same
holds true with comedians. The anger and frustration are justified. It’s
challenging yourself to find the most creative way to get that message
across. For comedians, it’s doing that in the most creative, clever and
funny way they possibly can. I don’t view it as sacrificing one to get
to the other. I view it as a tennis player who has a net. That net
provides a barrier, or depending how you view it, provides structure to
play the game, and gives you rules and lines that you can’t cross. Other
comedians or people might say that’s bullshit, but that’s how I feel.
Bob Wiltfong’s next edition of Talk Show, on Thursday,
May 17, will be paired with the Marcus Monroe Variety Show.
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