The Comedy Couch - Eddie Brill Interview

GUY MACPHERSON: The first question I've got to ask you
is about this great gig that you have on Letterman.
EDDIE BRILL: Yeah.

GM: How did you get that?
EB: You know, like anything in the entertainment
world, it's who you know.

GM: But you gotta be good, too.
EB: Oh, yeah. I mean, that's very true. The
interesting thing is I had done warm-up for a bunch of
different TV shows and they were okay. They were nice
jobs; they were a lot of work. And I had been offered
once by one of the writers that Dave was looking for a
warm-up guy. And I wasn't really that interested
because I was doing a lot of travelling and I enjoyed
that. Travelling around the world and all that kind of
stuff. And then a situation came again where one of
the writers said to me, "Eddie, Dave's looking for a
new warm-up." So I went in for a meeting just to see
what it would be like. And it turned out to be a great
meeting and they gave me a six-week trial period,
which has now lasted nearly eight years.

GM: Is that every show?
EB: Every show. Whenever there's a show, my deal is I
have to be there. There's no excuse.

GM: And it's not just warm-up comedian; you're also
the booker.
EB: Yeah. And all during the time that I did the
warm-up, Dave and I got close and he we talked a lot
about comedy. Almost every night. And on the
commercial breaks I'd sometimes chat with him and I'd
give him a line to say when we come back. And we'd
talk about the comedians or comedy. And of course we
had mutual friends, we found out, that were comics,
and we'd discuss certain things. And then all of a
sudden he was not happy with the person who was
booking the comedians, or the way it was going. And I
had told him before, I said, "You know, I'm really
surprised that all these terrific comedians have not
been booked on the show. And so many great ones out
there." And he said, "Well, why don't you do it?" My
first thought was like, I don't know because all of a
sudden I'm going to have all these friends of mine,
all these people I know, and my life would change
incredibly. All of a sudden I'm just like a good
friend and a guy that they can rely on to a guy who is
the gatekeeper to a lot of their dreams.

GM: You were worried they'd be sucking up to you.
EB: Well, yeah, I thought that that might happen. But
the one thing I was sure of was, because I've been
very honest with people my whole life and have been
pretty fair, that I wouldn't really have that problem.
And I really have not had that problem. People get
nervous around me sometimes who I don't know, and I
understand it because my dream was to be on the
Letterman show. And when that happens, I recognize it
right away and put those people at ease and let them
realize, hey, I'm just a comic like you. I just got
lucky; I got a really cool job. I take it very
seriously. The most important thing for me is the art
of standup comedy. We go away from that all the time.
We go away from art all the time in our society. We go
to the fast food and Last Comic Standing, which is the
other end of the spectrum. You know, Otis Redding is
soulful and Michael Bolton isn't. The Letterman show
is a soulful TV show to do as a comic; Last Comic
Standing, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel.

GM: So you don't have much respect for Last Comic
Standing.
EB: No. No respect whatsoever.

GM: None?
EB: None. I understand why these comics do the show,
because it helps them get publicity and helps them get
out there, which is fantastic for them. But it also
takes everything that we worked really hard on and
spits all over it.

GM: Can you explain that a little more?
EB: What they do is... A reality show is never a
reality show. First of all, a lot of the people who
made the final house were chosen in advance. The
judges didn't judge and vote and it worked out
correctly. There was a little bit of a scam where they
had picked out people. So anyway, that sucks
immediately. That there are some guys from the middle
of nowhere USA who stood in line for eight hours to
show his two minutes to the people who were in charge,
and they just laughed in his face because they were
never going to use him to begin with. So that alone
right there is evil. The second thing that's evil is
that they tend to edit the show the way they want to
make people look. There are people who didn't get one
laugh at the audition; when they showed the tape,
there was not only huge laughter but they cut to the
audience of other comedians who were getting laughs.

GM: Ant! You're talking about Ant!
EB: Who?

GM: Ant.
EB: I actually didn't see that one. But I know a
couple different cases where there was not one laugh
and those people got laughs [when it was shown]. I was
on Star Search in 1986. I saw that happen to a friend
of mine where he killed and the other guy bombed. The
other guy won and they cut [my friend's] set down by
30 seconds and they added laughter and applause to the
other guy's set. That's what they do whenever there's
a contest. The fact that you're judging comedians is
evil because you cannot judge a comedian. You don't
compete against other comedians ever as a comedian;
you're competing against yourself. Again, the show
goes against all of that.

GM: So your problem is more with the producers, the
network, I guess, rather than with the comics who
apply.
EB: Right. And then what happens after the first
season when this guy who's not really a standup
comedian wins the standup comedian winner of the show,
and then goes on the road and cannot fulfill his
comedy because he's not a great comedian. He did it
because he got the sympathy of the audience. And then
I see these other comics come up there and they try to
use that sympathy thing instead of being funny.

GM: And it reflects poorly on the profession.
EB: Right. Like, for instance, Ralphie May. His father
died before he went out to do the thing. Well, instead
of going out there and taking whatever strength and
love and humility that comes with the death of your
loved one and going out there and having a good set,
he shit all over his father's memory by using that to
get sympathy on that show.

GM: I really hated that. That was the last episode I
saw. I was going, "Come on, suck it up." Both my
parents are dead, so I speak from experience.
EB: Right. My sister died and I had to go do the
Letterman show. Did I go on stage and go, "This is for
you, baby"? I went out there and I had the set of my
life, and she was with me while I was out there. And
that's how that works. I did Tough Crowd with, uh,
this guy...

GM: Ralphie.
EB: Ralphie. And I lost respect for him there. And
then I completely lost respect for him. He had done
the Tonight Show and he did somebody else's bit on the
Tonight Show. And that's the guy who's selling a ton
of DVDs around America because he was on Last Comic
Standing.

GM: Is he still on?
EB: I'm not sure. I stopped... I can only watch bits
and pieces just to sort of get angry and then turn it
off. Kathleen Madigan is a phenomenal comedian. She's
so outstanding. Uh, hold on one sec. I'm sorry about
this... (on another call) John? I'm doing an interview
right now. So gimme a call in about 20 minutes. All
right, buddy, bye... (back to me) all right. A friend
of mine is in trouble with the law. Not really
horribly but he needs help... But anyway, so Kathleen
Madigan's a brilliant comic. And unfortunately maybe
she wasn't getting the accolades she deserved, and the
stage time and the money, around the country. And
what's happened for her is she did Last Comic Standing
and now she's making some good money from the tour.
And I'm very happy for her because she's a great comic
who I respect. And she's been on Letterman and all
that stuff, and she got more respect from America for
Last Comic Standing than Letterman, although it should
be the other way around.

GM: So there are comics from the show that you would
have on Letterman.
EB: Bonnie McFarlane did Letterman.

GM: Good Canadian kid.
EB: Yeah, fantastic. Funny, smart, goofy, funny.

GM: I really liked her and she was out in the first
episode.
EB: Of course. Like if you look at Star Search, Dennis
Miller lost.

GM: To Sinbad!
EB: I thought he lost to a guy who was, like, whipping
a hose around and making a song. But it might have
been somebody else.

GM: I don't know if this has changed now, but I used
to think that Dave, who I admired and loved from even
before he had a talk show, as a comic, that hosting he
had a real disdain for comics. Or was it just those
comics he wasn't happy with before you came along?
EB: Well, no. He really respects standup comedy. He
loves standup comedy. The one thing about the show is
that he wants the comics to really deserve to be on
the show, not just to have everybody and his brother
who does standup on the show. You have to really be
special to get on that stage. The way he felt, how he
had to work hard to get on the Tonight Show. He was
the biggest fan of the Tonight Show. The reason why we
had standup comics on Friday nights on our show is
that's how Johnny used to have it. My first
two-and-a-half years booking the show, we had a comic
every Friday. But logistically this last year has been
less because of different scenarios. What happens in a
television show, bookers book the show and present it
to Dave. And Dave says, "Okay, I like this, I like
this, I don't like this, let's do more of this." And
that's how it works. So it's a team. I'll change
subjects. People say, well, "Dave's not a really nice
guy. He's really mean to people." And I watch him
everyday. He's so lovely to people and so warm and
terrific. He's only turned off by someone who acts
bigger than they are. And then when that happens, he
makes fun of them.

GM: Phonies.
EB: Right. Anyone who's phony. He's so humble and so
intelligent - and I'm not just saying that because
he's my boss. I'm there everyday. I used to love him,
and now I have more respect for him than I ever had.
He's really a nice guy. When Farrah Fawcett was on the
show, and she was in some sort of trouble - we're not
really sure what - he was so kind to her, and could
have been so mean to her. And of course it came off
like it was Dave's fault that this all happened. The
director Robert Altman... At the Cannes film festival
they asked Farrah about the Letterman show and Robert
Altman sort of put Letterman down and made it like
Letterman was a big idiot for doing that. And if you
watched the show, he couldn't have been nicer to her.

GM: And his intelligence. The impression I get is that
because he must be a hermit, he's so famous, that he
just stays home and absorbs news and information.
EB: He is a guy... I have friends who are big stars. I
have friends that are known wherever we go. And it's
kind of fun at the beginning. But then it gets really
tiring. And now you're on television every single
night. People feel like they know you and you know
them. I'm only guessing, because I'm not him, Dave
Letterman, I'm guessing that he just likes to be a
regular guy with a real life. He has his girlfriend,
he loves his baby, and that's what he wants to do. He
wants to be with his baby every second. Obviously he
enjoys doing what he does on television because he's
there everyday working hard. He even works when
there's holidays.

GM: How much time does this job of yours take up at
Letterman? I know you're also out there performing.
EB: The warm-up is very easy. I'm there for the
taping, which is an hour-and-a-half of my day each
day. And on Monday now we tape two shows, so it's
about twice that much. But the booking part of it
consumes my life. I mean, it's not a bad thing; it's a
great thing. I'm a comedian as well. I travel around
the world. I've been working in Europe and Hong Kong
and these other places. And I know all these comedians
because I've been working for 20 years in a row as a
comic. So wherever I go people want me to see them
constantly for the Letterman show. I've put on Irish
comics and British comics on our show because I want
the world to see that there are smart people all over
the world. So it consumes my life that way. Plus if
I'm booking someone, I'm looking at a videotape of a
comedian, I'm taking a call from an agent, I'm calling
the comedian and producing the segment for the show.
It's pretty intense.

GM: When you come to a festival, like you will in
Vancouver, not a world-known festival or anything,
will you look at that and go, "Hey, maybe there's
somebody here."
EB: My idea has been, since I've taken over the job,
"Look, I'm going to go headline in Tempe, Arizona,
anyway. Why don't we set up a showcase of the guys and
girls who are in Tempe who are married with families
who can't move to LA or New York, who are probably
really funny and smart. Let me go to Austin, Texas.
Let me go to St. Louis. Let me go to these cities."
Now I'm going to Vancouver. I'm very excited to see
the people... I tried to set up a showcase in Seattle
that fell through, of the comics of the Pacific
Northwest area of America and, like, Vancouver and
that area. But now I'm going to actually see these
people. Whether anyone is good or anyone has
possibility, that would be great. If I see somebody,
they're not going to be booked on the show right away.
We're booked for a while now, for a few months.

GM: If you did find someone, would you work with them?
Would you say, "We like this, but we don't like that"?
EB: Exactly. That's what I do. Eventually I make sure
that the set is what they want. It's really their set
and their time on stage. I'm just there trying to give
the perspective that I have, and I've gotten better at
and I've learned by producing this segment this often.

GM: At these showcases, how many do you have to see
before you actually go, "Hey, there's one
possibility"?
EB: You know what? In all the over a thousand
videotapes that I've watched, I've only seen two
people that I didn't know about that caught my eye.
Out of the showcases, there have been showcases where
three comics on the showcases have gotten the show.
And there are many showcases where none of the comics
were good enough. But what I try to do is offer my
time up after the showcase to let these comics know
exactly how it worked. Because I remember as a comic,
you'd go into a showcase and the guy or the girl in
charge would leave and run out of there and you never
knew how you did and you couldn't sleep that night and
you didn't know for weeks what happened. This way,
that night they know, look, "You were great, you're
hilarious, but you're not right for our show." I look
for poise, which is very important. I look for
originality, which is very important. It sounds like a
Miss America contest. But I look for poise on stage,
which is very rare. I look onstage for people who have
something to say. But I also look for monologists
because that's what Dave wants. If it was the Eddie
Brill Show, I might be a little different. But it's
the Dave Letterman Show.

GM: By monologist, you mean not so jokey?
EB: No, jokey is fine if it's a style that's your own.
It's more like not characters. You're not doing, like,
Jim Carey's act, even though it was hilarious.

GM: Do you also look at the body of work? Or could you
just take somebody that no one's heard of, just a
local guy or girl? Or do you have to say, "What has he
done?" because maybe he or she was just good for this
five minutes that I saw?
EB: Um, I'm not sure what you mean. Like for instance,
there was a girl named Karen Runkowsky (?). No one's
really heard of her except other comics. She's a road
comic. I saw her tape. She made me laugh really hard.
I know that Dave would love her. I'm very excited
about when she gets on the show. We've been working
together for over four months. She's been sending me
tapes. I've been calling her up and going over the
tapes, and then she goes back and keeps working and
rewriting and working and rewriting. So she's someone
that no one's ever heard of. I don't care... Like,
someone will call me and say, "Look, my client opened
up for Bill Cosby." I go, "What are you telling me?
Maybe I should book Bill Cosby." I don't care if they
opened for Bill Cosby. I don't care if they have a
sitcom. There are many sitcom comics who are awful
comedians. So what do I care about what you've done in
the past. If you can do four-and-a-half minutes of
really smart, funny, original material, I think I can
put you on the David Letterman show.

GM: By "body of work", I didn't mean so much a name or
who they've worked with. But you mentioned that this
woman was a road comic. And I'm just thinking there
might just be somebody in some town who doesn't even
go out on the road, but performs three or four times a
week in their city.
EB: That's probably one of the comics I'd probably
like because they're working often on their set. You
know, something that's very interesting about sitcoms
is every sitcom that has ever been successful with a
standup comic as the lead, the standup comic has been
doing it probably 10 to 12 years minimum. Like
Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen, Brett Butler, Jerry
Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, all these people. Every sitcom,
every show where a comic has been doing it less than
that, the show has lasted a year or less. And that's
because people are not ready. And the industry keeps
throwing these young comics out there trying to get
them deals when really they're not ready. And
nowadays, what that's also done is made standup comics
write for sitcoms instead of writing standup. Like,
you don't have that many George Carlins out there or
Steven Wrights. You know, you'll get a Mitch Hedberg,
or that kind of a guy nowadays, who's very much like a
Steven Wright type. You'll get a few of those, but
less and less these days do standups really care about
the art of standup comedy.

GM: When you're doing these showcases, does it bother
you that other talk shows or festivals might be there
watching as well?
EB: Well, you know, it goes either way. Like for
instance, if I was putting the showcase together
myself with people I was interested in seeing, well
then I have every right to close it off just for me to
see it. But this is a festival and really I'm not
there to... If the comedian really really loves the
Letterman show, and that's their dream, well, if
that's their dream, then they're going to want to do
the Letterman show. The Leno show, I'm not gonna put
it down. But I don't respect it that much.

GM: Letterman is now the new Carson for comics, isn't
he? Maybe not with the impact.
EB: Not the same impact. But he's the guy. One thing
I'll tell you about the Leno show that's kind of
upsetting is, on our show we do one shot straight on,
called a three-quarter shot, of the comic. And that's
the way it should be. That's the way it always has
been. If you watch the Tonight Show with Jay Leno,
what happens is there's a shot of the comic
straight-on and then a shot from the side where you
see Jay in the background. So that to me shows
insecurity or ego, either one, or a combination of
both, on Jay's part. It also says to the audience, it
pulls focus from what the comedian is trying to say or
do. Any visual that they're trying to show or any kind
of wordplay that they're doing, the audience loses it
for a second. They go to look at Jay to see if he's
laughing.

GM: You talk about a certain style that you want. For
Letterman, a monologist. Is there a different style
for each show? I guess there is.
EB: Um, I'm not really sure. I guess Conan, which is a
really terrific show that Dave really respects, that
comics really respect, they like it to be a little
edgier. Dave doesn't mind it being smart and edgy as
long as it's not scatological. I mean, we had Colin
Quinn who talked about September 11th about a month
after the scenario, and did a really smart,
intelligent joke not about September 11th but dealing
with the scenario, which was great because it was a
really good catharsis for people who were just holding
all of this anger inside. Dave lets comics talk about
real life scenarios, lets them talk about politics.
But it's all about really just being smart and funny.
I've seen on some other shows, some of my friends
doing their material and not really nailing it, for
one reason or another. But again, it's easy to make
fun of the other shows, but I'm not competing against
those shows.

GM: How many times have you performed on Letterman?
Are you always on standby?
EB: I am, but I've done the show as a guest eight
times, and I've been bumped probably as many times as
I've been on the show because of running out of time
or that kind of thing. But I don't put myself on that
often because my job is not to just further my own
career. I used to go, like, once every year.... [lost
a chunk] I went to LA and saw Dwayne Kennedy. I don't
know if you know Dwayne Kennedy.

GM: No, I don't.
EB: From Chicago, lives in LA. And Letterman saw him
and he really hadn't done any network television
before. And Letterman said, "This guy reminds me of
the old style comics." So we put him on. I'm throwing
words around and thinking of ten thousand things at
once, so my quotes are coming out weird. Letterman,
when he respects somebody, he really roots for them
and we put them often and we make sure that the world
knows that these people are great comics.

GM: You hold workshops, right?
EB: I hold workshops in New York every once in a
while. And they asked me at the festival if I will do
some workshops in Vancouver and I said I would. It's a
lot of work. But you learn by teaching. I learned that
a long time ago. I used to teach years ago. I learned
more from teaching than I did from anything. So what I
do is I apply that to these workshops. I help comics.
Because you can't teach standup comedy. I help comics.

GM: So you help working comics and you fine-tune them.
EB: Yeah. And they help fine-tune each other. By
helping each other, they learn more.

GM: Are you still growing as a comic?
EB: Yeah. Constantly. I think the best comic of our
generation is Chris Rock. He's almost what I aspire
to. I think I'm a pretty damn good comic. I work
really hard at it. But I still am not where I would...
I don't think I'll ever be where I want to be. I'm
happy in my life, but I also want more.

GM: Do you have goals outside comedy, like movies or
TV?
EB: I've done a bunch of films. I love films. But now
that I'm at the Letterman show, it kind of keeps me
from doing so much that I can't really leave town that
often. And I'm not a big fan of sitcoms. But I'm a fan
of dramatic shows like The Shield, or Homicide: Life
on the Street. And to do little parts in those kinds
of shows, character stuff, that would be fun.

GM: Well, Richard Belzer did it.
EB: Yeah. Exactly. Also, you know, I'm involved in
music and writing some music. I do a little bit of
that as a hobby and I've been doing a little bit more
trying to get involved in trying to produce jingles
and different things like that. Plus I'm getting more
involved producing some shows, putting together comics
for shows around the country. Plus I go to Europe and
work all the time. So I'm constantly trying to do
something creative.