Carol Leifer

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Folks, I like that word. Folks.
That's what a lot of politicians say. They go, for the folks at home.
Yeah, that's true. You know what? They can't say men or women.
They say for the folks at home. It's a good word for Obama.
Folks are hurting. Folks aren't sure how to pay the bill.
That's what folks are doing. Folks are feeling the pinch.
Folks are feeling the pain. Folks, it's definitely a lot of politicians use it.
It's kind of a homey thing. But folks, we have a super guest today on super super fly on the ball carol leafer is with us who's who's a mainstream of comedy for the from 1981 or 2 she was on david letterman and she's worked as a stand-up and also david her writing career huge writing career Se career.
Seinfeld. Seinfeld to Hacks presently, where they're winning Emmys over there.
Do some curvier enthusiasm. Hacks is always doing well, yeah.
Good friends with Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, and she has some interesting takes on their relationship. Teaser alert.
She has a book out, Dana. And it called How to Write a Funny Speech for a Wedding, a Bar Mitzvah, or Birthday, or Any Other Event You Didn't Want to Go to in the First Place by Carol Leifer.
We laughed a lot during this one because she's a stand-up that you knew in the old days. I've known her recently, and I just saw her at the Laugh Factory, actually.
So very funny, great storyteller, exactly what we want in this show. Yes.
And also one last thing, the sort of famous season of 1985, she was there writing and she'll talk about Robert Downey Jr. at like 19 years of age, skating down the hall and stuff like that.
So it's really fun. She's super likable.
I've known her for longer than I want to remember. I'm now Downey Jr.
Please enjoy the one and only Carol Leifert. You mean the set that I did for The Tonight Show tonight show yeah um well it's a bit of a saga because uh you know letterman saw me on the big new york laugh off oh the laugh off yeah yeah because you know in our, that's how you got people to pay attention to you.
You did. And he saw the big laugh off.
You know, that's the one where Eddie Murphy came in fifth and I came in fourth. Yes.
So he had seen me on the big laugh off and he recommended me to Jim McCauley, as you know, the talent booker for The Tonight Show. And then they passed.
And then probably when I saw you, Dana, they saw me again and they passed. And I auditioned 22 times until I finally got the tonight show in 1992, right before Johnny left.
Never even heard of that. That's that many times I've never heard of that.
Over a decade or what's the timeframe of the 22 auditions? I would say from 1980 to 92, but what was happening also was, it is, that, you know, I was doing Letterman a lot during those years. So Tonight Show also saw me as a Letterman act.
So that did it my way. But it just became like, I don't know, should I wear a dress the next time? Okay.
Oh, oh yeah like it just became a bit of like okay i guess i'll go out there again and it's always macaulay it was always macaulay yeah i mean you remember how powerful he of course great and powerful oz i didn't even try they just like you don't you't, you don't, you don't got it. Don't even audition.
Just, yeah. Well, I was doing characters and stuff and they, they liked jokes.
I was going to ask you from a personal point of view, what kind of standup in your head were you in 92 compared to 1980? Well, I was much more, you know, you have 12 years of experience, as you know, I mean, you get better every year. And at that time in New York, I mean, you guys didn't come up in the New York scene, but you could do eight sets on a Saturday night.
I don't do that in a year. It sounds preposterous, but it's true.
Yeah. I've heard that.
I've heard that. Yeah.
You know, with all the different comedy clubs, I mean, you have, you know, a 710 here and eight, you know, 815 here. It just went on and on and on.
So I just was a better comedian. But wait a minute.
So, Dana, you never did the Tonight Show with Johnny? I did, but I came out as a guest from Saturday Night Live. I never came out behind the curtain and did that terrifying thing.
What I want to ask you, two things about those days. Did you ever say and step on it to the cab driver in New York? And did you ever get so good that like leafers here like you? Because I think confidence, you know, Eddie Murphy had peak confidence at 19.
He it now there are certain people sandler took me a long time but when you get the confidence it's fun do you ever walk in and go i'm the shit man fuck you people i've heard her say that okay two questions step on it i'm about to have a baby okay go ahead it was. Get going was definitely something.
And I learned in many different languages to communicate with all of the cameras. But I think by 92, you know, I remember it was just I had done the New Year show with Leno before.
And I just feel like they kind of felt like, oh, we got to put her on. I mean, this is ridiculous already.
It's such an omission at this point. It looks weird.
And who were your peers? It was Elaine Boosler. Who were your female peers? Elaine Boosler was actually not my female peer.
She was before me. And I got into stand-up because one of the big reasons was because of elaine you know i'm sure people have talked about on your pod that not not really enough not much yeah she was the yeah the top the female stand-up that when i'm in those early days she was yeah she was on the cover of new york magazine, you know, funny girl.
And it just kind of changed. I was like, oh, if this, you know, woman can do it, like maybe I can do it.
I remember Seinfeld and I talking about that cover. It had an impact on him in wanting to go into standup because it was a new type of woman and person going into stand-up yeah the 70s is when it all kind of shifted and what was allowed and then lately i don't want to jump too far ahead but we have a lot of our great women comedians or call them comedians it's all about the same now but it was moreated.
And there's a liberation of really being as hardcore as the men. It's just been a shift where the audience, you know, the women are more, they can be sexual.
They can, they can step outside the lines, but you were kind of riding that wave and you had Phyllis Diller, but not Phyllis Diller. She's a little more back there.
Joan Rivers was quite a, you know, she was sort of body and intense. Yes.
Joan Rivers was great, but I think what differentiated her from my generation was, you know, it was a very like, am I right, ladies? You know, can we talk, Elizabeth Taylor dog dog she said five facelifts and a boob job can we talk Barbara Bush is not sexy can we talk Barbara Bush not sexy was Rosie O'Donnell around then or was that a little late Rosie O'Donnell came a little after me you know, my peers were like Rita Rudner and Paul Neffinstone. But I remember with Rita, because we went on a Cat Rising Star together, you know, in those days, they wouldn't put two women on after each other.
It was like, horrifying, horrifying. You know, like, okay, there's the singer, then the ventriloquist, then a woman, the monkey act, and then another woman.
You know, it was just an act. How are two women on the same show? That's revolting to the audience.
It was revolutionary. I worked with Rita.
She was a linesmith. She could write great jokes.
It was just boom, boom, boom. Yeah, yeah.
She is one of the all-time best joke writers, for sure. She's a really good joke writer.
Yeah. Maybe underrated because I don't hear about her enough because I worked there for a week and I was new and I just kept going, wow, this is, you know, really, I was like, it is just bam, bam, bam, bam.
Interesting delivery, you know, interesting persona. Yeah.
Yeah. She works a lot.
She gets a lot of the corporate gigs that I want to get. We got Rita.
Oh, good. We got Rita.
All right. Let's put that out into the universe.
Corporates are fun. Yes.
Juicy corporate. She's clean.
She's funny. She's likable.
And she'll go for pictures afterwards without any complaint. CEO's kid, even if it's not part of the deal, can we take a quick picture? Yes.
You're kind of like you, this lame because you're still here and you started there and you're, you're getting more famous than your resume. Like I only found out this week and I want to talk about it because there's a whole documentary briefly, about your your work as a writer while you

were being stand-up and i don't know what your one was before the 85 season on saturday live which did you okay so let's just talk about that a little bit how you got the job and it you have you seen the documentary about i have seen the documentary okay uh are they what is affectionately unaffectionately called the weird year of SNL.

When Lauren came back and um I remember I auditioned at the comic strip uh to be a performer and uh Al Franken the great Al Franken and sorry and Jim Downey as you know famous head writer came yes to first showcase and I did well and they came over to me afterwards and they were like would you want to think about being a writer and I was like what I want to be yeah um so I lived in California and um they said well come in and have a meeting with Lauren so I came into New York so I'm ready for my you know I had it all planned you know an hour of what I could say to you know perspective perspective questions blah blah blah and it was literally Lauren was auditioning talent in that big kind of like studio room in Broadway. I don't know where they held the auditions.
It always looked like where they would audition dancers for like a chorus line. You know, like, no, and two, three, four, you know.
And they said, okay, Lauren's going to meet with you now. He came outside the door of the audition room and he said, you know, they've said very good things about you.
I said, oh, thank you. And, you know, the job.
I don't do a good Lauren impression, so somebody could do this for me. But let's guess what he said.
The job is not easy, but you'll find it's exciting um it's that thing of like you're going to find your voice this year and then you'll go on to like much much bigger things um we'd like you uh go ahead something like how do you like new york well it was almost exactly like that You have been told that Tuesday nights are late and you, you work very late. And I went, yeah, no.
And I went, okay. So it lasted about a minute.
And, um, and then I was hired. Um, yeah, it was a crazy, I love that documentary about, uh, the year because it was crazy and it was nutty, but I still, you know, I always like to tell young people, you know, we wrote a wrote long hand on yellow pads.
Yeah, me too. Me too.
I say that all the time. Yeah.
So that was it. And then I was really the only woman writer that year.
But it was amazing. Like murderers row of writers, like Smilo was an apprentice.
Whoa. Yeah, I always teased him.
Apprentice means you need to wear goggles in the writer's room. you know john swartzwelder and um jack handy and george um meyer meyer and uh don novello and it was just amazing but i've had a lot of stuff on i have to say i look back and it was like, you know, I wrote a lot with Franken.
We did this sketch quirky. Yeah.
This Tom Hanks sketch, you know, a lot of people don't know, as you guys know, you can write a sketch and have it at read through. and if they pass on it you can bring it back uh a few more times no and um it's a little stinky but you bring it back yeah and then tom hanks finally um yeah put it over the finish line so who was your cast i can't remember yeah let's talk about that a little bit for people

who don't know but this pivotal year was the first year that lauren came back right after leaving with the the seminal cast of all time in 1980 his first year back so a lot of pressure lauren is back we've had the billy crystal martin short chris for guest year we had the eddie years with Joe Piscopo. And now Lorne Michaels is back.

So who was on that show?

Cass.

Well, it was Dennis Miller, of course.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thanks for the call.

Shout out, Leifer.

Okay.

Good.

You know, it was Nora Dunn,

Joan Czak,

Denitra Vance.

Then the guys.

Was it Terry Sweeney?

Terry Sweeney.

It was Randy Quaid.

Anthony Michael Hall.

Anthony Michael Hall.

Robert Downey Jr.,

who I just saw at the Oscars.

Did he remember?

I mean, surely he did, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. He goes, hey, Carol.
All right. It's like, I remember you skateboarding down the halls of the 17th floor.
Yeah, no, it was, you know, they talk about it in the documentary. Lauren hired actors more than comedians.

And it's that sort of, oh, and Lovitz. Lovitz was a cast member and he did really well.
I think he and Dennis were the, and Nora were the only people that were brought back after that. Survived the fire.
Yeah. Do people know this? At the end of the season, some some sketch i was watching it live and then ever all the casts had to go into a fire except three of them didn't have to go into the fire i mean it was who wrote that al i wish i remembered who wrote that uh yeah it was and then do you remember when madonna came back the next year to host

he apologized for the entire 85 86 season or like a dallas kind of thing my first like a dream she was our cold open oh and you were there dana yeah that was your year um yeah when did So was your audition in one of those chorus line rehearsal rooms like I saw them? No, I just real quickly, I had auditioned at the comedy store in like 20 people with no MC in the original room. And I followed Kennison at midnight.
Before I went on, they said SNL is here. I don't think it was Lauren, but SNL is here.
I bombed so bad. And I, Al Franken saw me at the punchline.
I just bombed and bombed. And then it was show came around again, real fast.
I just went to Igby's. You remember that little hundred seater? Yes.
Rosie O'Donnell was headlining. I got ahold of Jan Smith.
I said, I,ne michaels will come see me because we had the same my manager was managing him i was with bernie brilstein brad gray so then i met rosie who seemed like just like so confident and new york and everything i can't believe how young we both were but i got to do 40 minutes lorne came brought brandon Tartikoff and and then share and i got 40 minutes in front of a regular audience instead of five following kennison and that's kind of how i got the show wow did share do five how was her set uh share came out and she had like a sequined dress on she goes half funny half funny instead Half funny? Instead of half-breed, I don't know. I like it.
Yeah. Do you believe I'm 74? She's just kind of reaching with the leafer pod.
I don't know what's going on. LinkedIn is something we've all heard about, Dana.
You've heard about it. I've heard about it.
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I like it.

This is a famous one.

I think this is one of the first online job hiring entities.

And it does make it easy.

It's a pain in the bottom.

You have to interview tons of people.

They don't work out.

You post your job.

LinkedIn's new feature can help you write the job description and then quickly get your job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights. Yeah.
You don't have to know much. They're going to like walk you through it.
It's, you know, you don't have time to even like figure out how to do this. You just, you know, post your job for free or you can pay to promote it.
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linkedin.com slash candidates to post your job for free what applies though dana terms and conditions when did you audition spade when was yours thank you i'll take this question dana um i'm gonna stay quiet because this is well funny story i was born in no i'm kidding going too far back um i went it was schneider it's funny because you were mentioning new york clubs i've never played them and they had us audition off a young comedian special they brought us in to audition at probably catch rising star if that sounds familiar yeah and on a tough night and they all came in from downy to maybe smigel to maybe frank and to um not lauren i don't think lauren is there but i remember it was me schneider tom kenny i always say this like it's negative to tom kenny it's not negative tom kenny he a San Francisco act that was very just broader I knew him well Spongebob he became Spongebob and he owns most of Nevada yeah but anyway he's so rich but Dennis Miller was there too and he was helping and you know before I went on he goes I told Dana he, you know, you don't want to kill too hard. They don't want some polished fucking road hack.
And I go, so don't do good. He's like, all right, three, two, one.
I'm like, wait, Dennis, what? So anyway, I took his advice, did not do well. His advice was the right thing.
It just in the whole complexities of it all. I didn't really get get it they were just really looking at the writing of the jokes for me to be a writer maybe a performer later I thought I was to be a performer so I'm like yeah I give him the whole JonBenet routine really amping it up and then afterwards I got off early because I said I think I was supposed 20.
I did 12 maybe. I think Schneider went off early.

But Tom Kenny did do very well.

But Rob and I got the call to come in and write and perform.

Oh, wow.

But you thought that night you hadn't done well, right?

I just knew it was a tough night, but it was pretty sparse, you know.

And it was probably half, it was probably 15 from SNL and 15 people. So regular people.
So they don't laugh a lot, but they're just looking at sort of, you know, it's the same way I am now. I can watch a comic and even if not killing, I almost don't hear it.
I just go, ooh, that was a good one. Ooh, you know, like I like it.
Who cares if they like it? I was like, I think that's good and well-written or something about it. You can, you can tell like a name that tune in two jokes.
You go, I think this guy's got some game. Yes.
And so, you know how it is. So at a certain point, you know that, but at that point I didn't, but luckily some of the jokes, they kind of liked how I put them together.
And that really got me in as a writer that was not ready to be a writer with my legal fan. Would you have liked have been a cast member carol did you ever think of that or audition for i think well you know the weird year it was like i don't know that i want to be a part of well what do you say yourself in the fire at the end but you know i feel like that year i had one foot in and one foot out because I really wanted to concentrate on my stand up.
So, yeah, I don't think I I just on the weekend, you know, weeks off, I'd be doing sets and all that. So, yeah, no, certainly maybe if I had been on a more successful year, I would have dreamt about it.
But did you ever take,

do you ever feel weird about taking a standup bit and putting it into sketch? You feel like you're kind of wasting it and it's a selfish decision to go, do I try to get this on there and then I can never use it again, but it would help here. Yeah.
I, I didn't really have that fear because as you boys know, you know, you got to get stuff on or it's a very bad feeling there, you know. That's a good way to put it.
I'm not getting things on. And people start ignoring you and it's like, oh no, they go, you're not even a formidable opponent here.
You're just, yeah, you want to get on. So it's of course goes into the show if it can.
Exactly. So I always felt like if I had to take for my act, dig away.
Because if it keeps you alive at the show. 100%.
Yeah. That's so crazy.
But people don't think of that. But it is a weird thing goes through your head.
You're like, because you out of ideas quickly yeah every host looks the same and you're like wait i gotta i got this guy the next week it's corbin bernson and then it's you know i think i had corbin bernson was there when i did it yeah he was i think he was an overlapping guy i think it was the third host yeah right yeah yeah yeah and uh funny and i just uh sorry i'm show dropping the oscars a couple of times please do john lifto was um presenting this year and i saw him the writers hanging out in the green room and i saw him and i said you guest hosted the year that I wrote on SNL.

And he was like, oh, you know, he like, well, he was very sweet.

He was like, oh, you must have been a young child when you were there.

I said, yes, of course, child labor.

But no, I told him that, you know, he was such a great host.

He learned every writer's name that week. And was incredible and he remembered the sketch that uh uh we had written for him um that got on yeah yeah so he was he was amazing and still is did you ever so what other can you tell us about the oscars you were at the oscars i read on them yeah i wrote on the oscars and you wrote so conan's team brought you in or whatever or how does it work and then um this is my 11th time i was part is there writers that come with the show a lot for the oscars over the years yeah yeah you baked in and then conan can bring some extra people is that how it works no, Conan has his own team of people.
And then there's a show team that I'm part of. Okay.
I don't know if you guys know this guy, John Max. He's a head writer of many, many great.
He's the guy to go to for your award shows. And yeah.
And then we- Is Valanche in there? No no no bruce valanche but um yeah it's a good group and it's fun you guys know it's fun writing of course well who's the greatest host that you've written for would you write for billy did you write for billy yes i wrote for billy a couple of times. Billy's great.
I'm going to say on this podcast, they've all been great. I love Billy's Broadway songs about the current movies.
I do like that. Nora, Nora, she's annoying.
Nora, I'm a wicked man. You know, I mean, so Billy was just great.
Great host. I don't know if he was the first one to go into the movies and be like, they'd use the actors of the real movie and he'd be inside of them.
Yeah, he was in an airplane. That was funny as shit, yeah.
I love the host. Yeah, well, Troy Miller used to direct.
Oh, right. Yeah.
And I loved Conan's substance parody. How funny was that? That was because for people who haven't seen the movie, he crawled out of, in the movie, Demi Moore sort of becomes a walking corpse or like a monster.
Anyway, he climbed out of her backside. I mean, to start the 119th Oscar show, his head is, I mean, it was, it was definitely catching.
It was like, okay, we got something different here. Yeah.
But even his, I loved his, his musical number was a lot like it reminded me of the great Billy stuff too, like that. He was, I thought he was great.
I thought for Conan, it was a little edgier than normal for him to say, like, it's halftime. Usually Kendrick would be calling Drake a pedophile.
I'm like, a pedophile joke is kind of a lot for the Oscars and Conan. I was fine with it, but I thought, oh, good.
At least he's out of the box a little bit. Yeah.
Yeah. It was, look, funny is funny.
But I agree that uh i'm just i'm saying i'm just surprised sometimes they don't they they tamp down a few things at different shows you know they go i don't know if that's what we do here that kind of thing but at least they're saying hey it's getting harder and harder to get people watched let's just go crazy some of these things pay off these days like get out there and shake it up exactly it's fun to have more free reign it's hard to get jokes killed it's like ah come on come on so just so the people familiarize so you wrote 12 times for the oscars you wrote for seinfeld i mean can we talk about that a lot has jerry changed has jerry changed we We know him pretty well. We had him on the podcast.
Yes, I heard it. It was great.
Yeah. Jerry, Jerry.
He is a great, great guy. He made all my dreams come true a couple of weeks ago because I was in New York.
and um as you can see i'm a big beatles fan i have don't get me started did you go to the b the bowery or something yes yes oh wow oh great yeah and not only did we i go with him to see mccartney at the by Ballroom. But afterwards, there was a little after party and he introduced me to him.
That's as good as it gets. Yeah.
And he said my name. He said, hello, Carol.
And he kissed me on the cheek. Whoa.
He kissed you on the cheek? Kissed me on the cheek. Yeah.
He doesn't do that too often. That's pretty huge.
I haven't seen it. I know.
You seem like a really nice lady, you know. So I get a little, I gave her a pecker on the cheekies, you know, just to kind of cheer up the whole room, you know.
Then David Spade came over. of buzz killed it not as impressive as carol well you guys i have to say this is would you say that so as far as musical living legends i'd say mccartney there's mcjaggar there's i mean there's a couple but those two definitely could be the top two or i'm sure i'm spacing on some, but Ringo.
I mean, if you're in the Beatles, you're up there, of course. Yes.
And Mick is such a just a worldwide phenomenon of, you know, legend. So who else is up there? Like it's still because when you see Paul, you just get like shook a bit.
Yeah. I'm going to ask you.
I'm going to ask you about your introduction to the beatles and your lifelong love affair because i was we're in the same age group and then to meet him later on but to me i'm sorry there's just the beatles and then there's incredible bands zeppelin stones pink floyd and then you know go on and on eminem and uh um but there's just one beatles because there's just too much music and too much revolutionary things going on. So were you a classic, I want to hold your hand in 64 or when did I see a, yeah.
Yes. Yes.
I mean, I'm lucky that, uh, yes, yes, yes. The whole ride little, little, little girl.
As little little feed yeah i was interested no um

you know i have an older sister who's five years older and a brother who's 11 years older so i

heard their music a lot as a kid and remember the ed sullivan show them coming on going crazy

you know what a happening it was uh it's hard to explain to people how revolutionary their hair

Thank you. going crazy, you know, what a happening it was.
It's hard to explain to people how revolutionary their haircuts were. I mean, it was like, what? Just the haircuts alone shot him up the chart.
That's the haircuts alone. And I was lucky enough in 66, yes, 1966.
Oh, yeah. My brother was home from University of Chicago.

And the night of the Beatles concert, he said, because we lived on Long Island,

hey, hey, squirt, you want to go see the Beatles?

And I was like, yeah.

And we drove to Shea.

Whoa.

We got tickets that night.

My sister, who had gotten tickets six months before, she was like, in front of us and saw the beatles at shay at shay stay that's a that's a legendary big thing for a band rock and roll band to play a giant they have two pv amps dana wasn't it some shitty sound or whatever I think they only did 30, 35 minutes. They couldn't hear themselves.
The roar of the crowd, they just couldn't, you know. Oh, yeah.
I just love it, though. How great.
Oh, my God. What a part of history.
If you had a not famous Beatles song, like what is one of your favorites? I'll throw out some. She's Leaving Home and I Love Her.
No Reply. Hard Day's Night.
I Want to Hold Your Hand, which I think is I think that She Loves You is a masterpiece. It's like two minutes and five seconds.
But are you kind of a Strawberry Fields or are you Penny Lane? I kind of am very wedded to their early stuff because it reminds me of the mania and of first seeing them and all that. So, like, I saw her standing there, you know, that early, early stuff.
But I'm also a Wings fan, you know? Yeah, me too. And I just worked with Lawrence Juber, who was like his guitar player in Wings.
So I run the gamut, you know, with McCartney. Did you tell McCartney you saw him at the Shea Stadium? What did you say? Did you tell him you saw him? No, I was too...
He would have probably freaked out. He doesn't hear that every day.
Yeah. But he was talking about...
You know, they didn't... People couldn't have their phones that night.
At the Bowery Ball. At Shea Stadium? Oh, Bower stadium oh no i brought my landline 2025 is calling spudley okay i know but it was because there were and to watch the uh show because we were up in this little you know i mean maybe has like 300 people in the whole place but to watch a concert now with people not having their phones it was such a joy because it's like oh right people actually experience it and not uh wanting it for later yeah it's incredible were you sitting or was it standing only with sitting you get to sit um.
The VIPs like Jerry and his plus one were up on a balcony, you know. So we were standing, but you wanted to stand.
Everybody was standing. There was no.
Well, you stand every song anyway, because it's a hit. So you stand up anyway.
Yeah. Yeah.
Every song's a hit, basically. Can I do a clumsy kind of forward thing? Because during the peak of the Seinfeld years and how many seasons did you write on that show? Three.
Three. I think they're on the Rolling Stone, almost like they were so got so big.
There's only the Beatles, but they were almost like a Beatle-y sitcom and I'm always interested in the dynamic between Jerry and Larry you know because that this partnership and so how did you get hired for that they just already knew you loved you they knew you from Letterman and you were just was that an easy kind of well we really go so far back as to when i auditioned at the comic strip along with riser and rich hall uh yeah jerry was the mc and he put us through the audition and then when i auditioned at catch a rising star larry david was the mc and he put me through that audition so i go back to my first days at these clubs with them. But what happened with Larry and Jerry was weird because I remember they, I got a call from both of them and it was like, why are my friends calling me together? You know, I mean, you know, in 93, that was probably like, you know, conference call call.
Like, they had to be on the same phone.

But I was like, why did they call me?

And they were like, hey, do you want to write on Sunfeld?

I was like, yeah.

But my advantage was, and I think other writers' advantage was,

they didn't want people who'd written for sitcoms before.

Because Larry hated all other sitcoms.. They wanted people new to the task.
So I was lucky that way. So that's how I got hired.
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Visit roberthalf.com today. It was such a, you know, interesting sensibility on that show, how it was kind of just about little things.
And everyone knows the soup Nazi and the puffy shirt. And it's like trying to catch the wind.
It's like, it's even now with curvier enthusiasm these last 15 years, it's like, what is that sensibility about? You know, it just but it really pops the cast was super likable um but there's something about the writing yeah so smart and subtle and and well observed so that's just a i mean that must that's the best writer's room on a sitcom in history i think i i'm not shitting on cheers or anybody else but i think it's gotta be as far as it worked i mean it just worked through the roof and our greatest half i think cheers was more considered just a great sitcom and seinfeld was a little off kilter not just a sitcom it was like sort of a different thing going on there what What is the thing about Seinfeld? What do you think made it go? So huge. You know, in a lot of ways, it was like SNL to me because you had to pitch your ideas to Larry and Jerry.
You would go in and set a time to go in. And it was like two sentences kind of max, you know, like, like I went in, you know, Elaine thinks the Korean manicurist are talking about her behind her back at the nail salon, you know, and that kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah.
We're doing that. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a great idea.
Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah and then you pitch other ones and he had this habit of like rolling his shoulder and going no no no you know i could i could see that on another show now you know uh does he say expand in the room like like some ideas are a little more than that like he'll go i like it so far what else is on there or just go write it? Yeah, he would be like, if he liked something like that,

or- Like some ideas are a little more than that. Like he'll go, I like it so far.
What else is on there? Or just go write it. Yeah.
He would be like, if he liked something like that, or like Elaine thinks there are skinny mirrors at Barney's, you know, he would go, yeah, yeah. I love that.
But, you know, come back with like a George, a Jerry, and Kramer story, you know, that kind of thing. But it was the same thing.
Like if you pitched ideas and it was a lot of, I don't know, you know, you sort of started to get anxious about it. But when he liked something, he was so effusive about it, it lifted you to go off and do it.
Right. Exciting.
I do think, and let's go back to the beatles here i'd love to

made the show great was the two of their sensibilities together um i always call it kind of like lennon and mccartney you know jerry the more kind of pop sensibility you know friendly and larry being more the you know, the curmudgeon, having the edge and that together it made it lightning in a bottle. Yeah, for sure.
That's interesting. That makes sense to me.
Yeah. And even working on Curb, I know Larry so well from Seinfeld that it was the same thing at Curb.
You'd go in and pitch ideas and he would love them or not like them. But when he loved something, he always...
I remember the first time I pitched him Curb ideas, I said, you know, when you are with regular people, and by regular people, I mean not comedians, and you make a joke and one of them goes, ba-dum-bum. You know, that's how you want to strangle them.
You know, the equivalent of saying the N-word, you know. And he was like, he loved that, you know.
So when he loves something and you're on a good role you can for sure how fun yeah you you wrote on so many though i've been looking at you did modern family also hacks right yes hacks just won an emmy yeah hacks is a big deal of course yeah i think i saw hannah at that party the other night i don't know her but i think i saw her walk by is she possibly taller than i would think she seemed like i that party the other night. I don't know her, but I think I saw her walk by.
Is she possibly taller than I would think?

She seemed like, I thought she was tiny.

And isn't it amazing that she's Lorraine Newman's daughter?

I did not, you know, I didn't even put that together for so long.

Yeah.

And sometimes when she delivers lines, it's like, I totally love Lorraine.

I saw Lorraine at the thing.

Oh, yeah. 50th, yeah yeah well jayner were you there no i had the flu oh okay so i missed it but i'm already i've already thought about just what i'm going to do on the 60th yeah that's going to be great i thought about the hundredth what i'm going do keep it a little quiet keep it real on it don't start getting curious leaf when people say but dump bump i literally it's like cutting your balls it's such a weird move to to say you're this is a bad joke you're stupid and then they look cool or something yeah yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a weird, it's all weird vibe. And he loves all that small stuff.
Like he loved, I had a pitch about, you know, you pitch something to TV people and decks and they go, you know, I don't love it. Yeah.
I don't like, it's like, nah, I don't love it. And and you know that's the kind of thing he sparks to like yeah i felt like a story that i when that's in the ether now when i'm out and there's a situation i almost think of curb i was out somewhere and this might even be an episode but i said bye to everyone it took me forever to get out to the front and say bye bye bye and then I forgot my keys inside and I go I'm not going back in I cannot go through there again and just that awkwardness of like I just left but I'm they think I'm coming in for I ditched them or something and so it just made me think that's one of those weird things that makes you think of that show you go I could picture him in some awkward situation but but every episode i watch i think oh this is such a good little weird curveball like just everyday thing but they make a whole meal out of it yeah you when you see stuff like that like the puffy corduroy pants looks like he's excited okay we'll build a whole episode around that and you go, so simple it's so funny everybody knows what he's talking about but he would totally he would have totally made something about that totally yeah um have you talked about the snl 50th like uh ad nauseum spade or well not really i mean it's funner with people that have been there because we talked a little bit about it,

but what is your experience of it?

You can say anything you want.

Oh, well, I wanted to know,

I was only there for the concert.

So I didn't see.

What did you think of the concert?

The concert was amazing.

Yeah.

Even with my shitty seats, it was amazing.

I think everyone I talked to had shittier seats than they thought they were going to have. Yeah.
Even with my shitty seats, it was amazing. I think everyone I talked to had shittier seats than they thought they were going to have.
Yeah. I was like, hmm, maybe this was, I had a better view at home.
I said, Lovitz, were you at the American Girl store for that too? He goes, no, I was at Banana Republic. That was very close to Radio City.
Jealous. Yeah, no, the 50th was a blast to just goof around.
But the weekly events of that was that night, what you went to, which was, I think, more fun than people thought. And then the next night, there was like a little toast thing.
And then the next night was the show. So did get a lot of it that's why i wasn't at the party forever the night of the show because say i think it was a sunday and also i just done everything with everybody all week and i thought there's a three-story party i don't think i could do it that long yeah did you go to that thing or did you skip it all um well the next next night, the Saturday night was the Writers Guild Awards.
Okay. And we won for Hacks.
Oh. Hacks never, because it doesn't kind of, don't they win kind of everything? I mean, they win a lot.
They win a lot of stuff. Well, I'll say this past season, we sure did.
Yeah. Where's your hardware? You got a hardware back there somewhere? Yeah, you should throw it right up there in that cabinet i do have an emmy but it's in the other room but i think it needs to be on camera uh also is it interesting go from you go from snl you go to seinfeld and you're like everywhere feels like it just couldn't be as good then you're gonna show like hacks it's a great show and you go okay that feels good modern family's a great show yeah yeah no it's um it's a good streak oh so when shows are really what's the common denominator there's one common denominator but i'm not let me just think what it is what would it be started carol carol king no no no no but anyway i mean you must.
I mean, it is pretty cool how many great shows you've worked on. So clearly you're a valuable commodity.
And I would like to negotiate whatever your next deal is. Personally, you know, I'm not going to push.
You guys know as well as I do to be in a room with other funny people is just it's just the greatest. mean as much as I love stand up and I saw you recently spayed at that's right um there's there's nothing better to me than being in a room with other people it's just the greatest thing it's like I always think it's like you know you go to a foreign country and say you're there for like a month, like Italy and, you know, everybody's speaking Italian and nobody speaks English.
And then like an American comes in and you're like, Oh my God. You know, and you just, to me, that's like with any comedian, there's always this kind of just instant bond.
And yeah. I'm always happy if I'm at some event then i see a comedian or a comedian i know yeah that we're just gonna look at it all differently and trying to yeah just clown on everything going on that was the same thing i went to some oscar thing the other night and zip right the comedians and then uh just sort of make fun of the whole situation exactly it.
It's the only comfortable spot. But that's why I like sketches because I was a standup and then I had never done sketch comedy.
So then it was like, oh, you say that, I say this, we're working together. And then, of course, you get funnier if you're in a writer's room and people are starting to riff.
Your brain gets kind of associative into this. Everything's funny.
Or how about this thing? Or how about this? So I think I totally relate to that. If someone wanted to see, I said, Carol Leifert is a great stand-up.
What would you want them to look at? I would say probably. Some of your 25 letterments.
Yeah. Box set.
You know what? I really have a great affection for my first letterman, which was in 1982. Just because, you know, your first time, like, oh my God, I'm on TV and people are seeing this and what i dreamed about to me that's like my most precious kind of memory because it was the first yeah it was fernwood tonight and when i came out and so i know that was does anyone remember fernwood tonight martin mole and funny it is yeah Kind of a parody of a talk show.
Yeah. Did you ever work with Wendy Liebman? Yeah, this is like the perfect setup.
I'm working with Wendy Liebman on March 20th at Comedy and Magic Club. Oh, Comedy and Magic? How great.
Also with the great Kathy Ladman. So three funny ladies all together.
I see Wendy. She's great.
Publicizing it as three funny ladies or no? Just as a comedy show. I think they're calling it the ladies of laughter.
Oh, the ladies of the night. Dave and I go out as the pipsqueaks of funniness.
The pipsqueaks twinsies. Two little pixies with a dream.
We just did a corporate together. It was pretty fun.
We'd never done one. It was pretty fun.
Right? Yeah. How much time did you have to do? Well, we convinced them.
Dana kind of tweaked, tinkered with that. This is inside baseball, but we kind of like, as a stand-up, well, I love being out there with a friend just riffing.
So I said to the guys in charge, I said, cause they wanted 45 each, you know, and it's hours in a ballroom, all that. And I said, you don't, how about we do 30 each or 25 to 30.
And then we come out together and just sort of talk to the audience and they yell stuff out. And he goes, you would do that.
Yeah go out on a limb i'm not gonna try to redo the deal yeah we will come out without a script or our act you know and they're yelling out garth or tommy boy and we have yeah it's a little chaotic but it you know because we threw it at him late if we could have had a microphone up there or something but it's just just fun because they also want to see a picture of us together. You know, whatever.
We're out together and it made it more fun for us too. That must have been a great gig.
Yeah, it was super fun. They never had comedy and they were like, oh, this is great.
Well, the sound was good. It's really important.
The sound is great. That is important.
You don't hear muffled jokes. I don't go to sound checks, but Jay Farrell played the night before some casino in West Virginia.
I go, you need a sound check? How was the sound for Jay Farrell? Oh, it was great. He loved it.
So then I go out. First thing I hear is a huge slap back.
Hello, hello, hello. I can't stop the show and do a sound check.
So it's difficult. You do a show every night you think i think they know what they're doing and then you go oh they don't are you ready to optimize your nutrition dana yes yes i'm gonna say yes i got factor it has chef-made gourmet meals that make eating well easy.
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Can I tell you a great story about Joan Rivers with that kind of stuff? yes we would love it all right so i had a corporate gig in new york when i was coming up and uh they had booked um joe rivers to just open the show and introduce me and leave so i get there you know before her obviously and you know like you guys you know you don't travel with your agent or manager for these times so i show up and i see that there's uh no spotlight so i say to the guy the tech guy um yeah i'm the comedian i see you have a mic but you don't have a spotlight and he looks at me like oh sorry we don't have your spotlight share you know like you know i'm some diva it's like yeah people need to see me yeah you know and he just like blew me off it was so brilliant so then joe rivers gets there she says hello to me and she goes where's the spotlight and i go i know so and the you know the tech guy was like hanging his head in shame she literally went on stage and she was like yeah she did her bit you know q you doing your joan rivers impression but she goes um listen i'm gonna bring on uh the next act but you be very nice to her all of you because there's no spotlight and it's very unprofessional and it was i mean i mean i love you joan rivers may you rest in peace we've all we've all had these situations i was in a club once and i asked them to turn up the mic for the second show because i couldn't you know and they they just turned it down it's like just aggression and anger. Sometimes the club owner is a frustrated standup and kind of hates you.

So we turned it down. You can't get laughs out there.
We're like, I don't think they can hear me. Oh, is that why? Yeah, that is why they can't hear me.
People are yelling, I can't hear you. Did you like the clubs on, you know, touring or going on the road or did you just do it? Or, you know, were you in condos with other guys and ventriloquists? The comedy condo was the worst experience of my life ever.
I did a gig. It was in Phoenix.
It was a comedy condo. Doing it with my friend Sue Kalinsky we get there and uh we go to this disgusting comedy condo and there's you know the other guy there and like uh disgusting here if you want to go uh whatever so about seven o'clock sue and i get ready we're getting ready to go to the gig and we yell up to the uh the guy well it's you know we're an hour away from showtime if you want to come down now we're going and the guy comes down he's like oh i'm not a comic i just live here oh my god never heard of that condo yeah had just one of their friends living in one of the rooms i mean if you don't call 911 then i i really don't know what just oh my god for people just i mean so you'd go to these cities and instead of putting you in a hotel they'd have a comedy condo and there was the main room or the headroom and if the headliner for the best place with its own bathroom if you come too late the ventura of course is in there with chuck wood you can't look at his puppet don't even look at chuck wood don't even david strassman i think no i'm kidding but openers get the couch sometimes they're a unique breed it's not a joke that is definitely like that anthony hopkins movie chuck wood was real you know you must have worked before it gets too late fellas um can i promote my new book yes let's do it now we're wrapping up oh my god we should we'll put it in the intro too yeah yeah it's how to write a funny speech for a wedding bar mitzvah graduation and every other event you didn't want to go to in the first place that's a good title so come So come on, it's going to fly.
That's a good title. I like it.
So that is literally instructive and also humorous, but actually trying to help people with that process. Okay.
Say the title again. How to write a funny speech for a wedding or a mitzvah, graduation, and every other event you didn't want to go to in the first place.

Okay, I like it. And I want to ask you a question.
So has no one written this book? Because I think it's a great idea. Yeah, it is.
Yeah, no one has written. I wrote it with my comedy writer friend, Rick Mitchell.
And no, no comedy writers have written a book like this. a lot of stiffs, you know, from the, you know, corporate headquarters or whatever have written it.
But no. Not funny people.
Right. We're tired of going to events where someone just stinks up the room with their horrible speech.
And we felt like we could give them some help. Well, that's the number one fear, public speaking or it's way up there so yes and most comedians greatest fear is not speaking in front of people and obviously i just want to where if people want to get this book you just go on amazon it'll be on that it's there amazon you can just click click a few buttons yeah and if you don't remember the title you can say carol leafer book yeah exactly very very easy oh i wanted to ask you spade because when i saw you i loved your bit about amber alerts yeah i got an amber alert i think that day that was new got an amber alert dana and uh i just want to know how much investigation i'm supposed to be in charge of what is my job here what are my duties if the kid isn't laying on my dashboard that's it i feel like the search is over it's a cold case that crushed it the day oh yeah i did the other night yeah yeah that's new thank god because i got one that was you were killing at that point i just said to the guy i go can we get him off now i mean i think he's over the light yeah can we just is it okay to give him a light i mean i don't want to push but yeah because you were killing so hard danny goes actually i got a light i'm gonna run the back row you always want to sabotage your friend if you can god there's guys the comedy store they get the light and it means now start your act.
Because I'm like wrapping up. They're like, what else is going on? I'm like, there's no, what else is going on? You're doing your last bit and getting off.
Not like. What else is going on? Let's go into the crowd.
Yeah, what else? I'm like, you're done. That should be a special.
What else is going on? That's a good special. That is the best title.

What else is going on?

All right, Carol, thank you very much.

Thanks for being here.

Congratulations on your career, your book.

Nice to see you.

She's one of the most likable people in this scene. I think you have that reputation, but I'm always happy to see you.

And you're very kind.

I'm just going to say it. I just love very kind.
I'm just going to say it.

I just love you guys. You're just so, you're both so incredibly talented and I enjoy your talent.

This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe,

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Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg H get your podcasts.
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