Norm Macdonald Live 2x12

1. - I mean, that's tough Norm, you know?

2. The old man's been,

3. he's been in a coma for about two weeks now

4. and every day I go in, it's just the same story.

5. I don't think he's gonna pull through

6. and I keep hoping and praying some chance

7. that's he gonna get better and pull through

8. and it looks like we're finally gonna have

9. to just pull the plug, you know?

10. He's my old man, it's tough, you know?

11. It's really tough.

12. - You got any fours?

13. - Go fish.

14. - Damn, I can't catch a break.

15. - Got any twos?

16. - Oh my god, this must your lucky day.

17. Tonight, the full hour with comedy legend, Martin Mull.

18. He starred in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,

19. Fernwood Tonight, and America 2-night

20. alongside Fred Willard.

21. He was also Roseanne Conner's boss and Roseanne,

22. he played Gene Parmesan in Arrested Development.

23. Alright, so.

24. - That'll do it.

25. - My trusty sidekick, Adam Eget, who you have meet,

26. is in the throes of a panic attack at the moment.

27. - Did you have a bag to breathe in?

28. - No, no.

29. - I had a bag of Xanax.

30. - That'll do it.

31. - He might get sleepy.

32. Where do you first remember Martin Mull from?

33. - That's a really good question.

34. Gosh, I—

35. - I couldn't answer that either.

36. - I think I remember the first time—

37. - That would be almost impossible for you.

38. - Yeah.

39. - Yeah, that's tough.

40. - Okay, forget it.

41. - Probably from Roseanne.

42. - See I remember him from way before that

43. because when I was a teenager, there were two comics

44. that I loved, Steve Martin and you

45. and you guys seem to be the cutting the edge,

46. the new comedy and I saw you.

47. - We toured together.

48. - You toured together?

49. - We did the Steve Martin Mull show on the road.

50. - Oh my god, that must of been amazing.

51. But I saw you alone.

52. I saw you in Toronto.

53. - Well sometimes he wouldn't show up.

54. - And you'd sit in the big comfy chair.

55. Where'd you get that idea?

56. - The comfy chair came from that fact that when

57. I was in college, I didn't have the proverbial pot

58. to piss in, I had no money.

59. So like everybody us during the folk music scare of the 60s,

60. I started playing music and I was in these rock

61. and roll bands, set up, you know.

62. The Beatles used to set up with the amps

63. about 30 yards apart, you know, across the stage,

64. it was supposed to make you look magnificent or something

65. and it was noise and it was awful and it wasn't anything

66. and then I went home at night and maybe with

67. a little help from some plants or something like that,

68. I would sit around with my pals

69. and sit in the furniture and just play

70. and that was music and I thought,

71. I got it, the catalyst here is furniture.

72. And so from then one, when I went on on my own,

73. I took literally my living room furniture with me.

74. - That wasn't in your rider, you would take it with you?

75. - Later on when I was working out of town,

76. it became in the rider.

77. You had to go to the Salvation Army and find an easy chair

78. and end table, that kind of thing.

79. - So were you a serious folk musician at one point?

80. - That's an oxymoron if you ask me

81. but no, in fact I hated the whole folk movement.

82. - Oh you did?

83. - Yeah, to me, I actually had a song once called

84. Stop The War Or I Won't Stop Singing.

85. Which was my little tribute to folk music.

86. - You think that Bob Dylan hated folk music?

87. - I don't know.

88. I was not, I'm one of these rare people that—

89. - You're not a Dylan fan?

90. - I was once quoted in Rolling Stone

91. and I guess I'll stick by it by saying

92. that his lyrics were the equivalent

93. of throwing a thesaurus out the window of a moving car.

94. - So it's all just a trick?

95. - Yeah and I was not a fan.

96. - What about folk musicians that were doing

97. not as good as you but, like John Prine

98. or guys that were—

99. - John Prine I liked.

100. I liked Prine, Stevie Goodman, I liked.

101. - Phil Ochs?

102. - Phil Oaks, wasn't a huge fan of his.

103. Bonnie Ratts was a pal.

104. - Oh, you met her?

105. - But that gets more into the blues

106. and R and B and that was more where I,

107. what I liked to play.

108. - And my favorite, and we have it apparently,

109. but my favorite memory when I was young, of you

110. was, you know they've done it so much since,

111. like they did Lazy Sunday on Saturday Night Life,

112. that digital short where it was white guys doing rap

113. and I remember you doing White Man's Blues

114. and we have it on the screen.

115. - Oh my god, on the ukulele?

116. - That's what they say.

117. - I woke up this afternoon.

118. I saw both cars were gone.

119. I woke up this afternoon with Mommy

120. I saw both cars were gone.

121. - I'm an idiot.

122. - Woke up.

123. I fell so low down deep inside.

124. I threw my drink across the lawn.

125. - There it is.

126. - There it is.

127. - I threw my drink across the lawn.

128. That's a great, great line.

129. - Thank you, thank you.

130. It was supposed to be learning the blues

131. on the deltas of Lake Eerie.

132. - What were you using to?

133. - Well, I claimed that part of my show,

134. we'll call it a show for now,

135. that I learned this when I was very very young

136. so I get my original guitar, my original slide bottle,

137. that's why it was a baby bottle

138. and I used to actually take it on the road and—

139. - You're almost using it as a steel guitar kind of.

140. - Yes, exactly and I wanted it to look like it

141. had milk in it, so you can't carry milk on the road,

142. it gets bad and so I put powdered sugar in it

143. and one time coming through an airport,

144. some guy found this thing and I missed that flight.

145. - You look like Jeff Foxworthy in that clip.

146. - I know, I look like a young hippie or something.

147. - So how did that happen?

148. So there was you and Steve Martin,

149. you guys were the kings of comedy at that specific moment.

150. - He's reputation proceeded him when I first met him

151. and this is kinda amusing to me

152. and isn't that really what's important?

153. - Yeah.

154. - The first time I met him, we were playing

155. at a place called the Great Southeast Music Hall

156. in Atlanta and it was kind of a dump.

157. But any rate so I'm going back to the dressing room

158. and there's a very narrow hallway

159. and Steve is sitting out there tuning his banjo

160. and I didn't know what to say to him.

161. For some reason I was absolutely tongue tied

162. cause his reputation had proceeded him.

163. I'd seen him on the Smothers Brothers

164. and so forth.

165. So I just said nothing.

166. I just walked about five or six paces past him

167. and I hear, oh pretty good, how are you?

168. And it made me laugh so hard

169. and we became great friends and still are to this day.

170. - Oh you are?

171. - Oh yeah.

172. - God damn, that's cool.

173. I wish I was friends with somebody.

174. - You got to work on it.

175. - I know, I went to Martin Short

176. and I said how bout me and you become friends?

177. And he agreed to it.

178. - Marty did?

179. - Yeah and he said I have a place,

180. I have a cottage in Ontario, we can go there

181. but I never, I can never get out of apartment and stuff.

182. - It's tough.

183. - Yeah.

184. - It's hard.

185. - But I find he would be a fantastic friend.

186. - Marty's very funny. - Just make you laugh

187. - and very smart. - all the time right?

188. Gosh cause one time I was out,

189. they have this comedy festival.

190. - That Just For Laughs thing?

191. - It was in Aspen.

192. - Oh in Aspen.

193. - I met your friend.

194. What's his name?

195. Norman Lear.

196. - Norman.

197. - Yeah what an insufferable guy.

198. He comes out, so he's coming out of this theater

199. and I go hey, Mr. Lear I wanted to say

200. I loved All in the Family and Mary Hartman,

201. that was great

202. and he's like "What about Where's My Car?"

203. That's what he said to me, where's my car.

204. So I go no, I'm in show business also

205. but also even if I wasn't, what the fuck?

206. Why aren't you saying thanks?

207. - I though where's my car was a show he had done.

208. Like my Mother The Car, was a spin off.

209. - He did a show—

210. - He thought you were the valet?

211. - Yeah.

212. He did a show I saw once, it was on Youtube

213. and everybody was a dog, dressed up as a dog

214. and it was, no he's a great guy.

215. - High concept.

216. - Yeah it's very high concept

217. but he's a great, he's alright.

218. - Yeah.

219. He's ninety something now.

220. - Is he really?

221. - Yeah.

222. - And his wife writes a magazine.

223. - His ex-wife.

224. - Are they split up?

225. - Well his first wife writes a magazine.

226. I don't know if his new...

227. I don't know, I don't read magazines.

228. - Yeah it's just, I find him a deeply uninteresting man.

229. - Really?

230. Wow, he's always been very kind to me.

231. - Yes, he put you on everything for god's sake.

232. - Yeah he sure did.

233. Which makes him not only uninteresting but tasteless.

234. - He has an eye for comedy.

235. My god, without Carol O'Connor, you know,

236. how would that of worked?

237. But on the other hand, All in the Family I found

238. didn't work because my Dad was racist

239. and loved All in the Family

240. and I think that Archie Bunker

241. was a much more likable character than Meathead

242. and if you just watch that show from a neutral position,

243. you'd take Archie's side.

244. - Absolutely, he made sense.

245. - It was a failure.

246. He failed.

247. But he didn't fail with Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,

248. that was an insanely good show.

249. - That was awfully good.

250. - Yeah my god, I remember watching

251. that I was like, I thought I was the only guy watching it

252. and some people use that word surreal all the time

253. but it did seem surreal.

254. - Well, I was on the road doing my little live act

255. and I came home once and I heard about that show

256. and I turned on the TV and just in time,

257. the first thing I saw was Grandpa Larkin,

258. the old guy, come in the kitchen, he says

259. "Where's the peanut butter?"

260. and the first place he looked was in the frigging dryer.

261. I thought good, they're dealing with Alzheimer's

262. and senility and so forth.

263. I like this show, so I made it,

264. I had some contacts so I went and met Norman Lear,

265. I wanted to be a writer on the show.

266. We talked for about an hour and he said,

267. "Oh it's been nice meeting you, you're interesting,

268. but we don't need any writers."

269. That was it and then like six months later

270. I got a call to come in to read for something

271. and I thought read, actor?

272. I never acted in anything expect for my draft physical,

273. that was it, you know?

274. And I went in and lo and behold, I got the damn thing.

275. It was really fun.

276. - It's funny how much luck plays in show business.

277. - So much luck.

278. Absolutely.

279. - When people ask how to, you can't just go and get lucky.

280. - No, people say what's the key, you know?

281. Just be frigging lucky.

282. Absolutely.

283. - It's funny cause I had a similar experience

284. but opposite kinda.

285. Roseanne saw me, saw I was like, you know,

286. but anyway, she liked me and she said

287. do you want to be an actor on the show Roseanne,

288. the Roseanne show.

289. She said "you can be Jackie's boyfriend."

290. And I said, I can't act, I don't know how.

291. I should of said I knew how to act

292. but I don't know how to act

293. so she said "well then why don't you write?"

294. I'm like, she's like "you had jokes,

295. you wrote those, right?"

296. I'm like yeah.

297. So then I wrote and then I was like holy god,

298. going from stand up to a sitcom

299. when you're a writer,

300. you go oh this whole fucking script is gonna bomb.

301. - That's it.

302. - Cause the jokes are so weak compared

303. to what a joke has to be onstage in front

304. of a paying audience.

305. - What I found was I did a stint as a writer too myself

306. and a gal named Max Lapiduss, I don't know if—

307. - A Maxine Lapiduss?

308. - Yes, she and I wrote an episode

309. and I thought this thing was just as clean,

310. you could eat of this puppy, this was so good

311. going all the way through and we went into the,

312. we finally brought it in, sit down in the meeting,

313. there's like 26 writers sitting there.

314. They went, okay page one act one,

315. first line Roseanne says hi, honey

316. anybody beat it?

317. - Oh yeah, they always want to beat it.

318. - And they went through and I don't think

319. there was anything left that we had written.

320. - Yeah.

321. - Nothing, I just thought Jesus.

322. I quit writing.

323. - But in the old days, you'd see like, I don't know,

324. but you'd see the Lucy Show or whatever,

325. you'd see one guys name or one guy,

326. I'm not sure, I think there was a woman,

327. one name on those shows.

328. Sherwood Schwartz or you know.

329. I don't know.

330. I hate collaboration.

331. - Really?

332. - Well, you're an artist.

333. - Painter.

334. - Painter, you would not,

335. is that what you used to call it, painter?

336. - I'm a painter, yeah.

337. - So you would not collaborate on painting?

338. - Ever, I don't even want anybody else in the room.

339. - Yeah.

340. - No, don't even visit.

341. - It would be ridiculous.

342. You could take, if you took the five greatest painters

343. in the world and asked them to collaborate,

344. wouldn't the thing be a mess?

345. - It would be the old adage of a camel

346. is a horse put together by a committee, absolutely.

347. - Exactly, right, right.

348. - Absolutely, it be horrible.

349. - Now, stand up obviously is a vulgar art

350. and especially to you who is an actual artist,

351. when you talk about your little show,

352. it was a big big show.

353. Like, you were a big big stand up comedian.

354. - I guess, I don't know.

355. It's just so long, I worked all the time.

356. If that's the definition, yeah

357. and then people starting showing up

358. and then I quit.

359. I said no, no.

360. - You mean...

361. - Audience.

362. - They were in on it?

363. - Yeah, no.

364. - I mean, you know, like Steve Martin reached

365. a point where everybody was in.

366. - Then they're shouting out punchlines before,

367. you know, an hour before he's there

368. and what's the point?

369. I don't know what made me quit.

370. I think I just got tired of the Holiday Inns

371. and the airports and the running around

372. and it was really hard to keep the drinking going

373. and get all that done.

374. So it would be much easier to stay home with the bottle.

375. - You haven't drank in how many years?

376. - About 25, 26, maybe more, 27,

377. I don't know.

378. - And what about you?

379. - A couple days.

380. - He goes on the wagon, then he falls off,

381. and then I don't know anything about the stuff

382. but he goes back to AA

383. and then they're like it's alright.

384. I thought they'd be mad at him?

385. - Yeah.

386. - Well, I think you're mad enough at yourself.

387. - I would feel like if I was a guy

388. that didn't get to drink and then you came in,

389. hey I got drunk, I would be mad.

390. I don't know, whatever.

391. I was at one point, Martin.

392. I had a gambling problem.

393. - Did you really?

394. - So I went to gamblers anonymous.

395. - GA?

396. - What a bunch of losers.

397. - Yeah.

398. - But you were, weren't you telling me a story,

399. just before, cause we put you up at the Ramada Inn

400. for the show and weren't you telling me

401. about a thing where you were lying in the bed

402. completely naked.

403. - No.

404. - And then the maid.

405. - No, I think you had somebody from the Allman Brothers

406. in here.

407. - The maid?

408. - It's not me.

409. - You said that you were in bed, a maid walked in

410. and you were completely naked.

411. - Oh that.

412. - You told me this a minute ago.

413. - Yeah.

414. - At the Ramada Inn.

415. - Yeah, just laying there stark naked in the bed

416. and the maid came in, finally.

417. That's a Fred Willard joke.

418. That's Fred joke.

419. - How's Fred Willard to work with.

420. - Fred is great.

421. Working with Fred is like following somebody

422. who refuses to use their turn signals through traffic.

423. - When you first met, did you just know instantly,

424. like was there just an immediate connection,

425. did it take some time to build?

426. - Yeah, we met on day one, a little rehearsal

427. of Fernwood Tonight and it was scripted

428. but our timings were there and so forth

429. and so on, it was just great

430. and then later on, what happened was,

431. and as a writer you'll appreciate this

432. from a one time writer,

433. Norman thought it was a talk show,

434. you know and Merv Griffin didn't want it in an hour.

435. Johnny didn't want it in an hour.

436. So we're gonna do two a day.

437. - Good god.

438. - But it's gonna be scripted.

439. We'll do ten a week of these things

440. but the writers had to write, literally,

441. ten half hour comedies a week

442. and you can't.

443. - No.

444. - So there was one show where we were

445. about two minutes short and Norman said,

446. "Is there anything you guys can just talk about?

447. Doesn't have to be terribly funny or anything,

448. just stay in character."

449. And Fred and I huddled a little bit and said yeah sure

450. and as I recall, and this could be apocryphal

451. or it just be the fact that I'm old

452. and I don't remember right but I think we were

453. about 18 minutes over when we finally finished

454. and they liked what we did enough that from then on

455. an awful lot of it was bullet points.

456. Just bullet point things, you're gonna get a,

457. your next guest is Norm MacDonald,

458. he claims that he was abducted by a space craft

459. this past week but he said none of the women

460. were attractive enough to really make him want to stay.

461. That's all we'd have to know

462. and we would up doing an eight minute hunk with you

463. and Fred was just the best at that.

464. - Yeah, you know everybody says the word unique

465. too many times but Fred Willard,

466. I can't like find a influence in him.

467. You know what I mean?

468. And then when you talk to him off stage,

469. he's such an unassuming meek person.

470. You go does he realize how funny he is?

471. - Yeah I think he does.

472. - He must.

473. - I think he does and in a way,

474. I think his influences are not from the business.

475. His influences are from people walking the street

476. that he's probably listened to.

477. So therefore, you can't say, you know,

478. he just keeps his ears open, I think

479. and he really is one of a kind.

480. - Like an actual actor.

481. - Like a human.

482. - Do we have a take a break, Annie?

483. - We do?

484. - Alright, we'll take a break.

485. - Is there a sponsor?

486. - Oh yeah, yeah.

487. - Who sponsors you?

488. - I don't know.

489. We pretend to be a TV show.

490. - Snow tires and Depends.

491. Is it Depends?

492. - I'm only two score and ten.

493. - Oh, okay.

494. - Instead of saying 50, I like to say two score and ten

495. cause it sounds like more I'm Abraham Lincoln.

496. - Yeah it does.

497. - Alright, we'll be back in a moment with more,

498. we have so much to talk about.

499. - You'll be older than two score

500. and 10 by the time we're back.

501. - That's right.

502. Okay, we're back with Martin Mull

503. and we're still trying to trace exactly

504. his influence on comedy.

505. Cause I'm trying to get a grip on who was around.

506. Cause it was you, I remember Gary Mule Deer

507. but he was in kinda of a lesser level

508. but it was you and Steve Martin

509. and who were your other peers?

510. Cause you were not standard...

511. - If I had to say a real like steal from, influence,

512. I would have to go to Bob and Ray, George Gobel.

513. - George Gobel?

514. - And Jack Benny, I loved

515. but the dry and under.

516. - See I loved Bob Hope more than Jack Benny.

517. - Really?

518. - You didn't like Bob,

519. I mean, not the old Bob Hope.

520. - The dead one?

521. - No, the young one.

522. - Dead Bob Hope.

523. - Not the one from you know,

524. he'd have the running backs come out

525. and do jokes while he just stood there.

526. - Ernie Davis.

527. - But no, younger, when he was around.

528. I like that he would play the coward, that's what I like

529. and I like those movies with Bing.

530. - The roads to?

531. - Yeah cause it seemed like they were just kidding around

532. like they weren't really serious.

533. - Yeah, those were enjoyable.

534. - Or Dean Martin was the same.

535. It just seemed like a guy that was having fun.

536. - Just having fun, I can see that.

537. - That appealed to me.

538. I guess it's kinda unprofessional but,

539. when you were a kid, who'd you like?

540. - Well, just who I named.

541. - Bob and Ray.

542. - Bob and Ray, and Gobel, and Jack Benny,

543. and Buster Keaton.

544. - Oh god yeah, he was amazing.

545. - We were talking in an earlier episode

546. about how a lot of physical comedy translates well

547. and holds up but written comedy, spoken word,

548. a lot of comedy—

549. - Doesn't seem to to me.

550. - But Bob and Ray, I think would definitely be an exception.

551. - But Bob and Ray it's not just jokes.

552. - Where do you draw the line between written

553. and physical?

554. - Well, I think like—

555. - What about Groucho Marx jokes.

556. They don't seem too funny to me.

557. - No.

558. - I don't know and I watched you—

559. - That be more physical.

560. - I watch You Bet Your Life and he just seems

561. to be struggling to find anything.

562. - That was like a game show for gods sake.

563. How much fun can that be?

564. Exactly.

565. - And as I'm sure the writers, obviously writers wrote

566. and I'm sure also anything funny that was said during

567. that air was attributed to him, you know.

568. - Probably.

569. - Could be S.J. Perelman or some actual writer, you know?

570. - Exactly.

571. - But I don't think, I don't know,

572. I never got the Marx brothers.

573. I mean, I understand that for that period

574. it must of been complete anarchy.

575. - Were you a Laurel and Hardy fan?

576. - I love Laurel and Hardy.

577. But my favorite was Buster Keaton.

578. - Buster Keaton was unbelievable.

579. - Because he did, he had a hilarious face.

580. It was like the funniest face I've ever seen.

581. - I like Jacques Tati as well.

582. - Oh god lord, I don't know.

583. He was the French.

584. - Mr. Hulot's holiday, that was great.

585. - But I've heard, see he's too smart.

586. - I like W.C fields.

587. - I always meant to see that but I never did.

588. I see that though, Jacques Tati.

589. - Yeah.

590. - I remember this one Buster Keaton,

591. it was just funny cause it was like one joke,

592. it was only like a five minute reel or whatever

593. but he was with a girl, you know,

594. and he loved this girl and he was trying

595. to get to the girl but the cops were all chasing him,

596. with more and more cops,

597. you know how in those old silent films

598. were all of a sudden there'd be a thousand people.

599. And so he kept running and running to get to the girl

600. and more and more cops kept coming

601. and he, you know, and so he finally get's

602. to where the girl is, he opens the door,

603. and he closes it and then the cops are like pushing

604. at the door and he looks over

605. and the girl is kissing another guy.

606. So he opens the door and the cops just come in.

607. - That's great.

608. - I don't know if he wrote those but—

609. - I don't either, no idea.

610. - But I'm sure he must of written the physical,

611. like the house falling down and the window.

612. - Or at least directed it, exactly.

613. - And do you know who they paired him with

614. at the end of his career?

615. - Jane Fonda?

616. - Jimmy Durante.

617. - Oh jeez, that's crazy.

618. Mrs. Calabash.

619. - Cause they didn't think, I guess, funny enough.

620. Now, this is a joke, okay.

621. - Okay.

622. - Now, when I was a young boy, I would get the cartoons,

623. you know the Sunday funnies and I'd read them,

624. you know, cause I always like laughing at them.

625. - Dondi.

626. - Yeah and Maggie and Jiggs, the better half.

627. So I would read them and then if there was one I didn't get,

628. it would drive me crazy and I'd take it to my dad,

629. I'd go what does this mean.

630. He goes, "God damned if I know and who cares"

631. that kind of attitude and nobody cared

632. that the joke was indecipherable, you couldn't figure

633. out the joke and it made me mad.

634. I knew it was supposed to be a joke

635. but anyways, this is a joke I heard George Burns tell

636. when I was a young boy.

637. Okay?

638. So I'm gonna tell it to you

639. and you tell me what the fuck this joke means.

640. - Okay.

641. - He goes, "I don't tell jokes, I tell anecdotes and lies"

642. he just says a bunch of stuff first.

643. He goes, "There was a great actor

644. and his name was Wilton Lackey,

645. he was a Broadway actor and every summer

646. he would play about eight weeks of vaudeville

647. and he was a tremendous act, like John Barrymore

648. and he played Cincinnati and Cincinnati was on the bill

649. with a little act called Browns and Williams

650. and they were a skating act

651. and when they saw Wilton Lackey,

652. why they were flabbergasted.

653. They never thought that they would ever play on the bill

654. with Lackey and anyways, you rehearse about 11 o'clock

655. in the morning and then you do your show

656. in the afternoon and at rehearsal,

657. Lackey went into the bar to have a drink

658. and Brown and William's went into the bar to have a drink

659. and they see Lackey and they were so thrilled

660. they went over and they said Mr. Lackey,

661. it's a pleasure for us to be on the bill with you

662. and he says thank you boys

663. and Brown said we'd deem it a pleasure if we could buy

664. you a drink, sir.

665. And Lackey said thanks fella, but I'd rather drink alone,

666. I just got a wire saying I lost my mother

667. and Brown said, we know just the way you feel,

668. our trunk is missing."

669. Oh you get it.

670. Why am I so fucking stupid?

671. Are you laughing cause it's no good?

672. - I think it's funny.

673. - We know exactly how you feel

674. and his mom just died and they're comparing

675. it to them losing their trunk, unless I'm mistaken.

676. - Which reminds me actually, of one of my favorite jokes,

677. if you'll permit me.

678. There was a guy who was sitting watching TV,

679. he's an older fellow with his wife is older

680. and all of a sudden he looks over,

681. she's turned kind of blue and she's stiff

682. and he thinks oh my god, Joyce has had her stroke.

683. So he rushes her to the hospital and he takes her in.

684. Immediately they take her right through the swinging doors

685. into the ER and he's out there just oh my god,

686. you know for an hour, two hours, three hours,

687. finally the doctor comes out and says Johnson?

688. Says yeah, he said Joyce is your?

689. Yes, he said well she's had a stroke

690. and he said, yes that's what I thought

691. and he said and I just want to tell you

692. it's a big one, you're probably going

693. to have to, she won't be able to speak,

694. so you'll have to probably learn sign language

695. and she's also deaf

696. so that will help there too

697. and part of the speaking is being able

698. to literally move her mouth

699. so in order to feed her, you'll have

700. to place food in her mouth, move her jaw up and down

701. and get her some exercise in her jaw that way,

702. that way she can actually eat

703. and while you're doing that, be the time to roll her over

704. and start rubbing off, cause of the bed sores

705. that are gonna come in and there's gonna be,

706. with that form of eating, there's always digestive problems

707. so you're gonna be cleaning up a lot of

708. and the guys sitting there like this, really?

709. And he goes, no I'm just kidding you, she's dead.

710. So to me, that's in the same pocket

711. as the joke you just told.

712. It has to do with how nurturing men are.

713. - I snorted there.

714. I never heard of that joke.

715. Okay, how come you never hosted Saturday Night Live?

716. That would be right at the exact time you were at,

717. there's a word called zeitgeist, isn't there?

718. - Zenith, I think is the word you're looking for.

719. - You're at the zenith of your career.

720. - Well, when Lorne put Saturday Night Live together

721. initially with Aykroyd and Belushi and Gilda

722. and everyone like that, my name was in the hopper.

723. - For a cast member?

724. - And I was supposedly a decent enough guitar player

725. that his thought was, aha, Martin you can be a band leader,

726. you can be in the band or something like that

727. and most of the time you'll play with the band

728. and then maybe now and then you'll put you in a sketch

729. or something so as I recall,

730. I went to the first rehearsal and there were these

731. monster players in the band, just numbers

732. in next to Howard Johnson, the tuba and the horn player

733. and they fold out these sheets of music

734. and I don't read music and I look at this thing,

735. all I know is that it looks like you know,

736. there were rat races across this thing,

737. I don't know, with ink on their little paws

738. and I had no idea what anything was

739. and I basically had to bow out.

740. I said, I can't possibly do this.

741. I can't even fake it, even with thread strings

742. so it's somebody else is playing but it looks like,

743. there was just no way to do it

744. and when I walked away there

745. was nothing ever asked again since.

746. Never went back.

747. I remember after that feeling very dejected

748. and John and I went downstairs to the bar

749. and I did what I did know how to do.

750. - So then you never hosted because of that?

751. - I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

752. Probably or just not enough of a name to host.

753. - I think you're a big name.

754. - Yeah I could see some of the names—

755. - Now, I would like to do that thread,

756. I didn't know that was such a thing,

757. but as you said, I've always dreamed of,

758. there's a thing where you're playing where

759. there's no music coming out.

760. - Air guitar, whatever.

761. You can do with an electric guitar that's not plugged in.

762. - Yeah, that would be fun.

763. That would be a lot of fun.

764. To join the—

765. - Yeah, you'd look good.

766. - You just go up and join the band.

767. - I could see you doing that.

768. - You could see that?

769. - You did that for you special,

770. the intro to your comedy stand up special.

771. - I did?

772. - Didn't you?

773. - Oh no, I lip synced, yes I lip synced.

774. - Well it looked like you—

775. - I lip synced.

776. I listen to outlaw country.

777. - Really?

778. I listen to bluegrass mostly.

779. - Oh, bluegrass is fantastic.

780. - That's why I'm trying to learn to play that stuff

781. and it's very very hard.

782. - So then, Flatt and Scruggs.

783. - Got to play with Earl Scruggs, once.

784. - No you didn't.

785. - Yeah I went to, Steve Martin had Earl Scruggs

786. over for dinner and he called me up and said

787. "Would you like to come over, have dinner."

788. I said sure and do that fairly often

789. and he said "Earl Scruggs is here."

790. And after dinner, I'm cleaning banjos

791. and I actually got to play guitar behind Earl Scruggs.

792. - And how old was he?

793. - Next day I called, he was 82 at the time,

794. I called Steve, I said thank you so much,

795. I said how many guys get to say

796. that I played with Earl Scruggs.

797. - Good god.

798. - And Steve said, "Hundreds."

799. - I was baffled just going through the list of—

800. - He just had him at his dinner every night?

801. - Yes, hundreds.

802. - Reading through the list of some of the people.

803. - Steve Martin has a specific way of saying

804. an actual true fact that makes it funny.

805. I don't know how to explain it but.

806. - Reading through the list of some of the people,

807. you opened up for, like Randy Newman in his prime,

808. Sandy Denny, one of my favorite vocalists,

809. Frank Zappa, Bruce Springsteen.

810. - You know, somebody showed me a poster,

811. one of the writers on Dads, an ill fated television show

812. on Fox, sent me this poster that said Martin Mull,

813. it said Bruce Springsteen and Martin Mull

814. and he asked me what it was.

815. I don't remember it.

816. - That's 74.

817. - I do know...

818. Then there's a real good chance I don't remember.

819. - Was he maybe not, when did he get big?

820. - Oh not till Born To Run,

821. which I think was the following year.

822. - He was a cult guy for a while.

823. - Maybe it was just a local little thing or something

824. but I don't remember that at all.

825. You'd remember that, you know.

826. Did you ever open for The Beatles?

827. Jeez, I don't remember, you know?

828. You'd know that.

829. - 74, he had—

830. - Okay, that would explain it

831. cause I thought it was maybe just clobbering myself

832. on a nightly basis and I just didn't.

833. - You're 71 years old.

834. - Not quite, in August I'm 71.

835. - So 70.

836. - That's correct.

837. - I was thinking, you know, with comedy,

838. like you know the guys,

839. there's only a couple of guys I can think of

840. that stay funny.

841. Like to me the top guy is Tony Randall.

842. - He's funny.

843. - He'd go on Letterman and he'd be 88 or something

844. and still know how to do it

845. but meanwhile, Dick Van Dyke,

846. I don't know if he was every funny

847. but he's a doctor or something.

848. - Carl Reiner can be funny.

849. - Carl Reiner was sitting right here, last week

850. and he was sharp as a tack.

851. - He's like 91 or two isn't he?

852. - Yeah.

853. You know what he called this guy?

854. Ed McBoy.

855. - That's really stuck, too.

856. - Ed Mcboy.

857. - It's accurate, it applies, on a number of levels.

858. - It sounds like an x-rated gay movie.

859. - Well you know what, he likes the cuckold videos.

860. - The cuckold videos?

861. - Tell him about the cuckold videos.

862. - What are the cuckold videos?

863. - Cuckold videos, it's a sub-genre of pornography

864. where a gentleman who's married is shamed by his wife,

865. his wife goes and beds, usually a African American gentleman

866. who's well more endowed than he is

867. and is ashamed.

868. He's forced to watch his wife—

869. - His wife will taunt him.

870. - Taunt him while—

871. - If you were man enough.

872. - Yeah, if you were large enough or man enough

873. I'd like, yeah.

874. I need to, I need to—

875. - The husband basically has dinner and a show?

876. That's it?

877. - Yeah and then he's in the corner just really ashamed,

878. a lot of that and this.

879. - That's what he likes.

880. - Huh?

881. So it's a real family fair.

882. - It's fun.

883. - That's great.

884. - I saw you movie called Serial

885. cause I was such a big fan, I went to see it

886. and I liked it, I thought it was great.

887. - Not many people saw it but yeah, that was amazing.

888. - And it was a guy who I became friendly with, also,

889. who I find hilarious was in the movie, Bill Macy.

890. - Bill Macy.

891. - God I think he's funny.

892. - Like my best friend and Tommy Smothers.

893. - Just talked at full volume all the time.

894. Oh and Tommy Smothers, is he a good friend of yours?

895. Tommy Smothers, I feel, is one of the most under appreciated

896. cause he's had such a great comic persona,

897. like he could of been on so much I think.

898. - Smart as a whip.

899. - Yeah and smart right.

900. But by god, he didn't do anything.

901. I mean, he did the Smothers Brothers

902. but I mean, I think he could of been a great comic actor.

903. - Probably, if he had wanted to do more of that.

904. I don't know, I just think he's, I love him.

905. - He's hysterical but I mean, do those guys have money?

906. I don't know how things work.

907. - I know they have a winery, Smothers Wine

908. and they still go out and tour.

909. They still work on the road and Tommy's got

910. to be 74, five, I'll bet.

911. - Wow, he's still funny.

912. He said why do we have to go to Iraq?

913. - You worked with Bill Macy, didn't you?

914. - Huh?

915. - You worked with Bill Macy?

916. - Yes, I did.

917. - In Funny Stories.

918. - I remember doing the Serial movie,

919. there was one point where Tuesday Weld, who was—

920. - Tuesday Weld was in it?

921. - Played my wife and there was a scene where—

922. - Tuesday Weld played your wife?

923. Holy cow, that must of been something.

924. - Cocktail party, I'm cheating on her in the film—

925. - You're cheating on Tuesday Welds.

926. - And the girl I'm cheating on her with

927. is at this party and just kind of

928. cause she wanted to as an actress,

929. Tuesday took a carrot strip and just flicked it at her

930. at this cocktail party and the director said cut.

931. He said, "Wait a minute, what are you doing?"

932. She said "Well it's just a spontaneous thing

933. that I thought Kate, the character, would do."

934. And he goes, "Okay, okay, everybody,

935. Tuesday, everybody, if you're going

936. to do something spontaneous, for Christ sake,

937. tell me about it ahead of time.

938. At which point we all let that sink in.

939. Tuesday said "Can we have a five?"

940. and he said "Yeah, back in five."

941. We all went to Tuesday's trailer,

942. she had enough Stoli on ice in there to float the Bismarck

943. and we basically spent of the shoot just pissed.

944. It was great.

945. - That's awesome.

946. - It was a fun shoot.

947. - I don't remember Tuesday Weld in that

948. cause she's my favorite.

949. Who's prettier than her?

950. - Pretty girl.

951. - God dang it.

952. You played a gay guy, remember on Roseanne.

953. - Yes, when they first asked me,

954. Tom Arnold said "Do you want to be on Roseanne?"

955. It was like the number one show, I was like duh.

956. Yeah I'm there and he said

957. "You're gonna be Roseanne's boss."

958. And I said, okay great.

959. He said "You're gonna be gay."

960. And I thought, I said, well nobody really believes

961. Eddie Murphy is Gumby, you know what I mean?

962. Fuck it.

963. - But, I remember that period cause I wrote for the show

964. and I remember sitting on the steps of Radford

965. and you coming over and going god damn it,

966. I just keep getting asked to do these PSAs for gay causes.

967. - Yeah.

968. - Like I'm a gay guy.

969. - I did a few of those and the other thing

970. that I, what I was secretly worried about is apparently—

971. - Well when you did the PSA,

972. would you go like I'm not gay myself.

973. - But I play one on TV.

974. - Kinda that thing?

975. - Yeah, I'm not a doctor.

976. Yeah, what I liked about it was, in a way,

977. they wanted him to play it straight, you know?

978. - No I liked that you and Fred Willard were both—

979. - There was no caricature

980. but what I was actually worried about

981. apparently, there are gay actors.

982. Call me crazy.

983. - Oh and they want to play the gay guy.

984. - And I was thinking, there gonna hate the fact

985. that a straight man has been given a prime role

986. on Roseanne, that I'm gonna be taking, you know,

987. as really an evil thief or something like that

988. and instead it went the other way around

989. and we won some awards.

990. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

991. - Was there any backlash at all?

992. None?

993. - No, no.

994. - That's interesting though.

995. - Yeah, but I thought about, you know.

996. - Sure.

997. - I remember that, sometimes they get so PC about

998. these things, that movie The Last Of The Mohicans

999. and they had a big protest, apparently they weren't

1000. using any actual Mohicans.

1001. - The last, that's hilarious.

1002. - Alright so...

1003. What we should talk about though.

1004. - When you're doing the last of,

1005. it would sort of presupposes that there aren't any

1006. other Mohicans, doesn't it?

1007. There can't be anymore if you're the last.

1008. - How often do you paint.

1009. - Every fucking day.

1010. - Seriously, every day?

1011. - Yeah, this morning up at six o'clock,

1012. I'm in the studio six o'clock every day.

1013. - You ever worry about your hands shaking

1014. as age takes you?

1015. - No, not so much my hand shaking,

1016. which is still fairly steady

1017. but more my eyes going.

1018. You know, if I was to go blind, I think I'd eat a bullet

1019. but I don't know.

1020. - Really?

1021. - Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that.

1022. I, you know—

1023. - Eat a bullet?

1024. - I can't play the piano, there's nothing I could do.

1025. - Yeah, wow he'd eat a bullet.

1026. - Dirt nap.

1027. - Dirt nap?

1028. Yeah.

1029. - Oh yeah, who said that?

1030. - Larry King.

1031. - Oh yeah, Larry King came on

1032. and all he wanted to talk about was death.

1033. I'm like oh and he's like, "There's nothing,

1034. there's nothing after."

1035. I go, I don't know, Larry I can't help you

1036. and he's like, "It's dirt nap."

1037. - You're mispronouncing iron.

1038. - Dirt nap.

1039. - Dirt naps.

1040. - Good.

1041. - Hey I'm reading some questions right now from the,

1042. are we supposed to go on a break, Annie?

1043. - Oh yeah, we were.

1044. - Well, I just wanted to get these questions

1045. from the Twitterverse.

1046. - Why don't we do one Twitter,

1047. why don't we do Twitterverse questions

1048. when we come back from the break?

1049. - Huh?

1050. - Maybe we take one break

1051. and then come back with the Twitterverse questions?

1052. - Well this—

1053. - We can do one.

1054. - How did you know George Gobel, though?

1055. What he was like?

1056. Cause I only know him from Hollywood Squares.

1057. - That's where I met him, was on Hollywood Squares

1058. and he was legendary from radio

1059. when I was growing up and then when I was doing a series

1060. of shows called The History Of White People In America,

1061. I cast him as Fred Willard's father, a plumber.

1062. - So that must of been fantastic

1063. to be able to cast—

1064. - Got to work with him, that was fantastic.

1065. - So you remember radio comedy?

1066. - Yeah, I'm old.

1067. - I wish there was radio comedy still

1068. cause you know you could those jokes,

1069. they do those jokes on radio comedy

1070. that you can't do on TV comedy cause you can't see it,

1071. you know?

1072. So you go—

1073. - But also, you know, you use the expression PC earlier,

1074. I think that's the enemy of comedy.

1075. I think it's the enemy of a lot of things

1076. but you know, we live in such, as I said earlier,

1077. litigious times, you can get sued for anything

1078. and there's always going to be somebody who's

1079. oh, you made a fat joke, you made a thin joke,

1080. you made a black joke, you made a white joke

1081. and so all of a sudden, you know,

1082. you can't even come out and say take my wife, please

1083. because that's anti marriage, anti women, you know,

1084. Rodney Dangerfield's out of work, Henny Youngman's

1085. out of work, and I just think political correctness,

1086. what it really does is make people, a nation full of liars.

1087. - Oh yeah.

1088. - Yeah that's true.

1089. It forces to you lie and say—

1090. - Oh yeah, it forces you to lie and the other thing it does,

1091. is it forces, it enforces a lack of introspection

1092. or wonder.

1093. You don't think about alternatives, you don't wonder about

1094. this or about that or something

1095. because there's only one correct way to do it.

1096. So you stay with that correct way.

1097. - Right.

1098. - You know, and it's something as simple as you

1099. don't wonder what it would be like

1100. to drive down the sidewalk because you'd been trained

1101. to stay on the road and when you come

1102. to that octagonal sign, you stop

1103. and you wait till it turns green and then you go

1104. but you never think, I just go over right over the top

1105. of those cars, on top of the safeway, all the way down

1106. right through the bank building and back down on

1107. and around it, around that fucking truck.

1108. - Do you still have a license?

1109. - I do have a license, yes.

1110. - What, he's only 71.

1111. - It's interesting, I know exactly what you're saying.

1112. When Carl Reiner was here,

1113. he was talking about the blacklist

1114. and how his friends couldn't get work

1115. and I said but they didn't go to jail.

1116. No, no, they just couldn't get work.

1117. And this was a terrible thing

1118. but now a days if you say something racist,

1119. you lose your job.

1120. So it's freedom of speech, I suppose,

1121. expect you lose your job.

1122. - Yeah, unless you say something against white people.

1123. Which is racist and you would not lose your job for that

1124. but yeah, I mean, and I understand that all of this

1125. is trying to make up for some terrible inequities

1126. that existed for generations and

1127. but I still don't think it's terrible healthy

1128. to put a padlock on peoples mouths.

1129. - Could you question like, you know, can you question...

1130. Like, let's take the newest thing is transgender.

1131. Which the American Medical Association

1132. says is a mental illness but I'm not allowed to say that.

1133. - I thought it was an airline.

1134. It's not?

1135. I had no idea.

1136. Yeah, I was going transgender there and the American back.

1137. - Alright, we're gonna be back and do jokes.

1138. Back with the inestimable Martin Mull.

1139. We're gonna talk about art because you are,

1140. is that your first love?

1141. You don't care about comedy and jokes.

1142. - I went to art school for six years

1143. and realized that I had to do something

1144. to make money and so I put a band together

1145. cause everybody did and then that lead to making records

1146. and that lead to being hopefully on stage funny,

1147. that lead to being an actor and so forth,

1148. all of that, all that part, was simply a way

1149. to make money to by paint.

1150. Painting as always been my absolute true love.

1151. Up every morning at six, I'm in my studio.

1152. - And that's a real talent.

1153. I mean comedy—

1154. - It's certainly an occupation.

1155. - Comedy could be learned and so forth but art can't.

1156. - Art can be learned.

1157. - The craft of it

1158. - The craft of it, yeah but.

1159. Yeah, it's a mental illness.

1160. - Really?

1161. - Probably, isn't all of it?

1162. - I don't know, I don't know anything about art.

1163. All I know is, I don't believe it's subjective

1164. because I tried to explain this Carl Reiner

1165. but like, cause I don't think comedy's subjective either,

1166. but I was saying art can't be subjective

1167. because if there's like some sort of abstract painting

1168. on the wall, for me right who doesn't know anything

1169. about art, and then there's bulldogs playing poker.

1170. I would take the bulldogs playing poker

1171. but I would be wrong.

1172. - No.

1173. - Well.

1174. - I don't think so.

1175. I love those bulldogs playing.

1176. - You probably don't like abstract.

1177. - Yes, I do.

1178. I like anything done well.

1179. It's like I say, I like bluegrass, I also like Prokofiev.

1180. You know, anything that's done well.

1181. What I don't like is stuff done half assed

1182. or wrong or badly or uninspired.

1183. - But you don't think there's any movements

1184. in art though that are just wrong headed from the start?

1185. In other words sloppy, in other words agenda driven?

1186. - First of all, I don't think anyone should be able

1187. to show their paintings until their at least 50

1188. or two score plus ten, as we say,

1189. and because they have some 22 year old showing

1190. their inner thoughts and their life experience

1191. on a large canvas, like really?

1192. Do we have to?

1193. There's too much tread on those tires, as my wife says.

1194. - Oh that's good.

1195. - Do you think that holds true for music as well?

1196. - Yeah.

1197. - Yeah?

1198. - So when do hit your peak of art?

1199. - About 50.

1200. - 50 and then you have less to say after?

1201. - No, you know on any given day,

1202. I either have good days or bad days,

1203. it all depends on...

1204. There as a great statement that Matisse,

1205. it's attributed to Henry Matisse, who he said,

1206. "People make art in spite of themselves."

1207. And despite the fact that I have ham fists

1208. and feet of clay and all these other things,

1209. every now and then there could be some sort

1210. of accidental something, some little push pull

1211. where you do something that is absolutely transporting

1212. and like hitting a hole in one in golf

1213. and that's the reason you're out there the next day

1214. hitting it into the woods.

1215. You know what I mean?

1216. You don't always get it but it's enough, it's a drug.

1217. It keeps you going back.

1218. Keeps you going back.

1219. - But the process itself, is the process isn't the

1220. paint on the canvas, is it?

1221. Or is it an idea first?

1222. - For me, I try to make as much of it as possible

1223. the paint on the canvas.

1224. So that way I like to try to remove myself

1225. as the auteur or in anyway possible.

1226. Yeah.

1227. - So you're invisible?

1228. - Yeah, I like to be as surprised any one else.

1229. - Like Tolstoy.

1230. - Well that's high company.

1231. - Let's take a look at your paintings.

1232. - That will do it, that'll end all my high talk.

1233. - On the, this is, now this, is beautiful.

1234. - That was a painting called Canada

1235. and it has a couple of these paint by number geese

1236. that I put in there and this lady up painting

1237. and that's five by six feet

1238. and it's pieced together from various source,

1239. I use a lot of source material from things from the,

1240. it's like my life went by so fast, when I was a child

1241. and to this day, it allows me to go back

1242. and examine things, so I have tons of old Life Magazines,

1243. National Geographics, and Boy's Life and things like that.

1244. - This looks like Life Magazine.

1245. - I think that she was there but the landscape

1246. is from a place where I grew up

1247. and the ducks are from a whole other paint by number kit

1248. and I just keep putting these things together

1249. and try to put something together

1250. that I haven't seen before.

1251. - Right, right, let's take a look at another one.

1252. Oh this is cool.

1253. - This was Homeowners.

1254. - Is that the title?

1255. - Yeah, the ladies came, I think,

1256. from book about World War II that I found,

1257. I was just fascinated by all these ladies

1258. holding their guns.

1259. This is again, is about six feet long by three feet high

1260. or so and the architecture in the back is based on

1261. a photograph that I took.

1262. I use those disposable cameras you get at the grocery store

1263. for any photography cause I want the quality

1264. to be really shitty.

1265. So that it's almost half abstracted by the time you look

1266. at it.

1267. You know, blurred and changed.

1268. - To simulate memory?

1269. - This painting, interestingly enough,

1270. I had a show in Chicago and a guy came in,

1271. it was a young Mexican boy,

1272. I say boy cause he seemed quite young,

1273. and paid for it with a brown bag full of money.

1274. So I don't know where it is now but...

1275. - So how do you make this painting?

1276. I still don't understand, you take...

1277. This is painted though, this not a collage of things.

1278. - No, I will take the various elements that I find

1279. and clippings and things like that

1280. and I'll cut em out and I'll make an actual collage

1281. out of them, then I'll copy that on my photocopier,

1282. then I'll move that around, then I'll move it around,

1283. move it around, move it around, until I think,

1284. that's roughly what I think I'd like to make a picture of,

1285. you know?

1286. I like the way it works, I like the balance,

1287. I like this, I like that and then,

1288. laboriously will put that on canvas

1289. and then once that's on canvas, it's usually wrong

1290. because the size change has changed all the relationships,

1291. etc, then you go back in and you paint

1292. until you think it's right.

1293. - So, you are...

1294. Cause to me, it looks, I don't know a thing about art.

1295. I don't even wanna, I probably shouldn't even say I like it.

1296. It's like you're talking to a retard.

1297. Should I even—

1298. - No, no.

1299. - To me it looks, I would say like hyper realistic.

1300. - It's not hyper in terms of the actual school

1301. of hyper realism because if you get close—

1302. - Wait, there's a school?

1303. - Sure, there's probably a kindergarten.

1304. But if you get close to the—

1305. - Of the word I just said?

1306. - Yeah, hyper realism.

1307. - That's a real thing?

1308. - Yeah, that's a class of paintings.

1309. See, see how smart you are.

1310. But if you got close, you'd see brush strokes, etc.

1311. I don't make any attempt to be a photo realist, you know?

1312. - To do, like it looks like a photo?

1313. - I want the impression of photographic stuff—

1314. - So photo-realism is another school?

1315. - Yeah.

1316. - And that's to make it look like a photo?

1317. - Absolutely, anal compulsive laborious.

1318. - And what's the point of that though?

1319. - You got me.

1320. Keeps you off the streets.

1321. - But the photograph itself would be,

1322. that would be enough right?

1323. - For some yeah.

1324. I've seen somethings that are pretty amazing, technically.

1325. - If you're trying to make something that looks exactly

1326. like the photograph, it's virtually forgery, isn't it?

1327. - But there's an element of it being man made

1328. that comes into the equation there

1329. and it's not so much, I made this my own two hands

1330. but you can also say I made this with my own two weeks

1331. or my own two months

1332. and hence, ergo, a value.

1333. The time of a human being.

1334. - Let's take another, what's this school then?

1335. Oh this is really cool.

1336. - This is a painting that Steve owns

1337. that he actually used for the album cover

1338. of his recent album and this comes from a little photo,

1339. it's been altered and changed in this any other thing.

1340. Like I said before, collaged and pieced together

1341. and moved but it was a little photo about that big,

1342. maybe an inch and half by an inch and a half.

1343. I had my wife go online because I don't use the computer

1344. for anything other than Gmail, I detest the computer.

1345. I just think it's horrible, horrible.

1346. Hate the thing.

1347. I don't like what it's done to us,

1348. I don't like people doing this.

1349. The fact that we have opposable thumbs,

1350. that's gonna be all we have.

1351. - Wow, doesn't use the computer.

1352. - No, no, and I'd have a phone that does if I had a chance.

1353. But any rate, so she went online

1354. and found all these people selling of their family pictures

1355. and I got these things and it's amazing.

1356. I went through like stacks of hundreds of them.

1357. - People sell their...

1358. - Yeah and when I would go through,

1359. I'd go, yeah, yeah, oh my god, yeah, yeah, oh boy.

1360. Some of them just absolutely resonated with me.

1361. - But what really resonates is the family picture

1362. here is obvious.

1363. - Yeah.

1364. - The man's eyes are closed.

1365. - Yeah, tanked.

1366. So that's a very large painting.

1367. - So this an actual, the source material was real.

1368. - A real photo but I changed some things

1369. like the painting behind her.

1370. - I was gonna ask about the painting.

1371. - The flowers are different.

1372. - How do you do the painting?

1373. How did you do the painting behind it?

1374. - It's all paint brush.

1375. - But that you didn't use source material?

1376. - No.

1377. - You just made a painting.

1378. Cause that's more, now I'm gonna use words

1379. that are not the right words.

1380. The painting behind the people is what I would say,

1381. and I'm sure I'm wrong, impressionistic.

1382. - More so, you got that Norm.

1383. That's good.

1384. I smell a book.

1385. I think there's a book deal here.

1386. - Now if I were to buy a painting from you,

1387. what would, how much would that cost me?

1388. - They're expensive.

1389. - How much?

1390. - Well, a lot.

1391. - Are they in the tens of thousands dollars?

1392. - Yes.

1393. - Jesus good god, I could buy a computer.

1394. - Buy a computer.

1395. I actually have some paintings if anyone's interested

1396. in seeing them at the Hirshcl and Alder gallery

1397. all summer long.

1398. - In New York City, New York.

1399. - New York City on 5th avenue, Hirshcl and Adler modern.

1400. - Now how does that work?

1401. Do you go there?

1402. - I went there, met with the people—

1403. - I mean do you attend it though, while it's going on?

1404. - I may.

1405. - That doesn't embarrass you or anything?

1406. - No, this particular show is a group show,

1407. so there's not gonna be a big gala opening

1408. but I may get a chance to get back and see it.

1409. - Yeah, that's fascinating.

1410. Don't we have any more, is that it?

1411. God damn it.

1412. So, like $40,000.00 would that get me like...

1413. - You could get one for that.

1414. - But not a great not.

1415. Not one of you best.

1416. - Yeah, you can get good one for that.

1417. - I like that, why not, cause it looks like things.

1418. - Well I never thought ever in my life

1419. that I could earn a living making paintings

1420. and I just feel so—

1421. - That's amazing.

1422. - You know.

1423. - I think we should use that quote maybe,

1424. if you feel free to use that

1425. when selling one of the paintings.

1426. - What's that?

1427. - I looks like things, Norm MacDonald.

1428. - It looks like things, love it.

1429. - Alright.

1430. - I've had a lot of people say it looks like a picture

1431. and I thought that was pretty good

1432. but things I think tops it

1433. because that's not even a fucking noun.

1434. - When are we gonna do jokes?

1435. - Okay, what you got?

1436. - Well—

1437. - Two guys go into a bar?

1438. - It's been a rough week for me

1439. cause I'm from Canada, Martin.

1440. - Yeah, America Lite.

1441. - Yeah.

1442. - No, I love Canada.

1443. - Yeah, I saw you in Canada, for goodness sakes.

1444. - Absolutely.

1445. - Years ago at the Toronto whatever the fuck

1446. they called it.

1447. - Montreal Comedy—

1448. - No.

1449. - Alright.

1450. - Was it the outdoor one?

1451. - Outdoor yes, in Toronto.

1452. - Oh with the park there.

1453. Yeah I remember I did 90 minutes that day.

1454. - Wow, I should remember things about my home country.

1455. But anyways, I was just gonna say that was a rough week

1456. because there is a guy—

1457. - A mayor?

1458. - No, this guy makes the mayor look like a clown.

1459. This is what this guy did.

1460. It's a terrible story but he was kinda of porn star

1461. or something and he—

1462. - Oh, I read about this.

1463. - A lover, yeah, yeah.

1464. French Canadian guy and so what he did is,

1465. he cut up his, just talking about the computer,

1466. he cut up his lover live on screen on the computer

1467. on some sort of webcam and then he ate the person,

1468. he ate the person while he was alive.

1469. He feasted on this man viscera while the throes of death

1470. came crying from his mouth and this seemed

1471. to make this fella hungrier

1472. and I mean this guy was a real jerk.

1473. - Did he have anything to drink with the meal?

1474. Do you remember?

1475. - He drank blood, of course.

1476. - Oh okay.

1477. - Now here's, this is a thing we do,

1478. this is a thing—

1479. - He sounds mean.

1480. - He's a bully.

1481. There's a new thing called this week I learned

1482. and it's, you don't like the computer

1483. but it's on hashtag this week I learned everybody writes

1484. this week I learned.

1485. - It always seems to be me that learns these things

1486. every week.

1487. - Yeah so Adam Eget, this week I learned.

1488. - Let's see what I learned this week.

1489. This will be a hoot.

1490. This week learned, you can pay your dentist with blow jobs.

1491. - Who knew that right?

1492. - That's what I found this week.

1493. - But you won't feel it because of the Novocaine.

1494. - Alright, I learned two things this week.

1495. - Is that easier?

1496. - Another thing I learned this week is...

1497. - Is that easier?

1498. - Is it easier to give the blow job when you're not...

1499. - Numb.

1500. - Remember when I Cosby—

1501. - The Cosby.

1502. - It puts new meaning when he says open up.

1503. Keep it open.

1504. - It's easier to give the blow job,

1505. yeah I'm not gonna.

1506. - Don't do that.

1507. - Rinse.

1508. - Here's one for Martin Mull to read.

1509. It's about the president.

1510. - Presidential fact...

1511. No, I want to continue to work in this town.

1512. - We're not doing that joke, it's ridiculous.

1513. Here's one for Adam Eget, most are for Adam Eget

1514. for some reason.

1515. - I do a terrible John Travolta impression

1516. but I find the impression gets a lot better

1517. when my male masseuse is jerking me off.

1518. - Oh jeez, that was all alleged I believe.

1519. I don't know about that one.

1520. - Get massages.

1521. - Huh?

1522. - Huh?

1523. - You know they had a big black mass devil worship

1524. this week apparently but I skipped it

1525. because I believe you can be just as close

1526. to Satan on a golf course

1527. as in some stuffy old satanic church.

1528. - It's really what's in your heart.

1529. - That's exactly.

1530. You don't want to do anything but I'm trying

1531. to give you one that doesn't hurt people.

1532. So here's one, here's one Mr. Mull.

1533. - Okay.

1534. - Mr. Mull, that sounds weird.

1535. - Some biblical scholars now believe that Jesus Christ

1536. was married, they also believed

1537. he had the worlds worst bachelor party.

1538. - That would of not of been a good one.

1539. - Terrible.

1540. - Not a good one.

1541. What about this joke?

1542. - Okay.

1543. I love it!

1544. A Chinese man spent 10 years developing a suitcase

1545. that doubles as a motorized scooter.

1546. There's no word on whether he had any particular hopes

1547. or dreams.

1548. See that comes back to, that's right in there with

1549. I know how you feel, we lost our trunk.

1550. - I don't get it, I should get it.

1551. God, I wish I got that.

1552. Maybe you can write me a letter or something

1553. and explain it.

1554. I need a map for that joke.

1555. I think it was when I heard it, I was so young

1556. and it bothered me for so long.

1557. But you laughed as soon as I said it.

1558. Movie fans are now celebrating the 30th anniversary

1559. of Ghostbusters and are demanding a Ghostbusters three,

1560. at least according to a homeless dude on my block

1561. who looks suspiciously like Ernie Hudson.

1562. Remember Harold Ramis?

1563. - Yeah a dear friend of mine.

1564. - Was he?

1565. - He lived right next door to me.

1566. - I love that guy.

1567. - Yeah, poor dear departed Harold.

1568. - I went to, cause when I was young

1569. he was in SCTV, the television show in Canada

1570. and so I knew him from there, on air, you know

1571. and I always thought he was really funny

1572. and of course Ghostbusters

1573. but he was cast in this movie and I can't act,

1574. I never did anything but I really wanted

1575. to meet Harold Ramis and so he flew me all the way

1576. from New York to LA and stuff

1577. and then I was going to meet him

1578. and the producer was bringing me down to meet Harold Ramis

1579. and the producer was like this fat guy.

1580. - What was the film for?

1581. - Oh, it was the Micheal Keaton movie

1582. where he played all different parts, Multiplicity,

1583. where he was cloned and I thought the script is cool

1584. cause I really love Micheal Keaton

1585. and he's doing all these different characters.

1586. So I was excited, I'm going with this,

1587. the producer was a big fat guy with a white beard

1588. and I was telling, I say I can't wait

1589. to meet Harold Ramis.

1590. - Red suit with a bag of toys?

1591. - Just thought I might know him.

1592. - But he did look a little Saint Nicholish

1593. and so I said to him, I can't wait to meet Harold Ramis,

1594. you know, cause I loved him when I was young

1595. and he goes, "Oh, you've already met him."

1596. It was him, he was Harold Ramis

1597. and I had not seen him since he was a rail thin,

1598. you know a guy with a black hair.

1599. Then he was real nice, he was really nice to me

1600. and stuff and then he said, I said I can't do this

1601. and then he said "I didn't think so."

1602. But then he said that, he keeps hitting me.

1603. - Nothing.

1604. - You know what he does, he goes like tell that story.

1605. - They're usually good.

1606. - Don't you love those guys?

1607. Tell that story.

1608. And you go what?

1609. It involves his mother or something

1610. and I'm like you can't tell another person,

1611. tell that story.

1612. - It's just like an inch below show that scar.

1613. - This where I smashed my hand with a hammer.

1614. - I thought it was Penn Jillette thing

1615. where he paints his little finger nail red.

1616. - Oh to mean what?

1617. - I don't know, probably just distract your viewer

1618. or you know for slight of hand something.

1619. - He puts you down—

1620. - That's black as can be, that nail.

1621. - Yeah, it's not pleasant

1622. but Orange is the new black

1623. but not in my apartment building,

1624. Kevin is the new black.

1625. But he puts you down you know, Penn Jillete puts you down

1626. as a hero in his movement towards atheism

1627. because he said you were the first person

1628. along Randy Newman who he had heard utter the words

1629. I don't believe in god.

1630. - I had written a song called, a gospel song

1631. called Jesus is Easy.

1632. - Wait a minute, I remember you had one on,

1633. I saw the one.

1634. - I Want To Be God.

1635. - I Want To be God, yeah that was hilarious.

1636. That was hilarious.

1637. - In fact, that goes back to the trunk thing too

1638. because at one point while I was performing I Want

1639. To Be God, which was a song about wanting to be god.

1640. - God shows up.

1641. - God shows up and I'm talking to him

1642. and I'm saying, I said to him,

1643. first of all, I'm so sorry about your boy.

1644. But I think I know how you feel

1645. cause I had a hamster down in the basement

1646. in one of those little cages that was going like crazy

1647. and the door flew off and he like flew out

1648. and hit his head on a water pipe.

1649. He's alright now.

1650. It's kinda the same thing.

1651. - Yeah, I laughed at that.

1652. So I should of laughed at that.

1653. - And that's the trunk joke.

1654. Good lord.

1655. - It all comes back to that trunk joke.

1656. Wow, hey what about this,

1657. says an Alabama youth ministry group is under fire

1658. for putting up a billboard that quotes Adolph Hitler.

1659. To be fair, they did pick his most inspirational quote.

1660. - I heard he was a mean drunk.

1661. - This guy's a holocaust denier.

1662. - Oh my god.

1663. - Not true.

1664. - But he says you know other than that.

1665. - I remember my Torah portion, had a bar mitzvah,

1666. both sides of the family are Jewish.

1667. Holocaust happened.

1668. Stalin was worse, that doesn't mean that I—

1669. - Why does he keep saying Stalin is worse?

1670. Isn't that what every holocaust denier says?

1671. - They were both unspeakably evil.

1672. Yes.

1673. - I'll tell you something, that Weird Al fella,

1674. he ain't so weird, he just sings parody songs.

1675. My friend Weird Phil, that guys weird.

1676. He saves all his common Sparkletts bottles,

1677. he saves it for marriage.

1678. I'm sorry I said that stuff.

1679. It says here on a card.

1680. - You know sometimes you really question the wisdom

1681. of free speech.

1682. - I'm still trying to get away from his denial

1683. of the worst atrocity known to man.

1684. - That Stalin is real conversation stopper.

1685. He could light up a room by leaving it.

1686. You know, when he went to parties,

1687. he was probably in the room with the coats.

1688. - Ol Joe Stalin.

1689. - Old Joe.

1690. - I'm invited to very little.

1691. - That would be a bad folk song.

1692. - Old Joe.

1693. - Old, old Stalin was a hell of a guy.

1694. - And his big red boots.

1695. - I snort, what is that?

1696. That's just started.

1697. - What you get?

1698. Anything good?

1699. - You mean it sounds like cocaine?

1700. No, I'm snorting when I laugh.

1701. Like you know ladies, like Jo Anne Worley do or something.

1702. That's me now.

1703. That's been one of my big age, aging things.

1704. - That will just get worse as you get older, too.

1705. - Yeah?

1706. - It will probably nothing but snorts when you're my age.

1707. - What's the worst thing about your age?

1708. I remember there was this movie once by,

1709. who's that guy that did Blue Velvet?

1710. - David Lynch.

1711. - Yeah, David Lynch did this G rated movie

1712. called Straight Story about an old guy, Richard Farnsworth.

1713. - Yeah, yeah it was great.

1714. - It's a great movie

1715. and they said what's the worst thing about being old

1716. and they said remembering when you were young.

1717. - Well, also having things go on you.

1718. Like for instance, I wear these little things here.

1719. - Oh, those are awesome.

1720. - Aren't they nice?

1721. I'll tell you a funny story about these.

1722. I was doing Two And A Half Men

1723. and my character was supposed,

1724. I was supposed to have a date with Charlie Sheen's mother

1725. and they invite me to this party

1726. but the story goes that when the door opens,

1727. I've actually brought my own date

1728. and I had this like 23 year old gorgeous young lady

1729. who was my date and when the door opens,

1730. we're supposed to be right in the midst

1731. of a big deep kiss and hug

1732. and I was a little hesitant, you know,

1733. cause I'm old and she's young and so forth

1734. and she says "No, go for it, whatever, I'm game."

1735. So, these hearing aids have pre-recorded messages

1736. in them every now and then to tell you about maintenance

1737. and so forth and so on and so on.

1738. Just as our lips meet and I'm feeling pretty good

1739. about myself, I'm thinking I got, I got, I'm still here.

1740. Just right then I hear, and it's a female voice

1741. that gives you the alerts, I hear battery low.

1742. And it was the most, it was the equivalent

1743. of the ultimate icy shower.

1744. It was unbelievable

1745. but that's one of the worst things about being old

1746. is certain parts that don't work that well anymore.

1747. - You didn't like that one?

1748. - What?

1749. Yeah, you can say it.

1750. I almost think that, what if they get to the point

1751. where they say that like at the end of your life?

1752. - Battery low?

1753. - Yeah.

1754. - Yeah.

1755. - Like three percent left.

1756. - Or battery out.

1757. - Now we have questions.

1758. Have you ever watched the actors studio with James Lipton.

1759. - Have I ever done it?

1760. - No, have you ever watched it on the TV?

1761. - Yes.

1762. - So you know how he has the questions by?

1763. - No.

1764. - Yeah, he has these questions and he asks all the people

1765. at the end.

1766. - Okay.

1767. - What's your least favorite word, people go intolerance.

1768. - Okay.

1769. - And stuff like that.

1770. So we have our own questions.

1771. Ready?

1772. I don't know where these questions went.

1773. First question says, who the hell do you think you are?

1774. That doesn't make any sense.

1775. Oh, what's the last thing you would ever do?

1776. - Skydive.

1777. - Interesting.

1778. Just too much risk, risk reward is not good?

1779. - Yeah, what's the point?

1780. - Most under rated body part?

1781. Is there one that when you get to be 70,

1782. you appreciate more than?

1783. - I'd say the molars because you can make noise when you eat

1784. and drive people nuts.

1785. - What's a bivalve?

1786. - It's a mollusk of some sort.

1787. - It says if you were a bivalve, what kind of bivalve,

1788. okay forget that.

1789. - Quahog.

1790. - Where do you see yourself.

1791. Where do you see yourself in ten minutes.

1792. - Well, I have to pee.

1793. - Very tough question.

1794. Oh my god, I snorted again.

1795. Oh your favorite song of all time,

1796. that's a good, that's kinda tough.

1797. - Oh my favorite song of all time.

1798. It's a song that Joe Tex recorded years ago called Bad Feet.

1799. - Really?

1800. - I love it.

1801. - Bad Feet?

1802. Well, we're gonna have to look that up.

1803. - Yeah, for sure.

1804. - Not necessarily my favorite song

1805. but I love that song.

1806. - Bad Feet.

1807. Something you like that most other people don't like.

1808. - That most other people don't like.

1809. Well that's one that's gonna actually cause,

1810. take some thought.

1811. Well, scratching my ass.

1812. - That's probably the perfect answer.

1813. - What little glowing candle of hope

1814. keeps back the terrible darkness of despair for you?

1815. - Next painting.

1816. - The art huh?

1817. That's beautiful.

1818. Do you think I serious with that last bullshit question?

1819. - No.

1820. - But that is beautiful though.

1821. - It's lucky.

1822. - You're a lucky man, huh?

1823. - If you can find something that,

1824. and I don't even consider a passion,

1825. I consider it just another form of breathing, you know?

1826. And my wife says that I'm driven

1827. and I think she's right.

1828. You know, I'm driven.

1829. You spend seven days a week, at least eight hours a day

1830. in the studio.

1831. - Wow, that's what you do?

1832. - Yeah, unless somebody has the lack of judgement

1833. and books me on a show, you know?

1834. Other than that, I'm in the studio.

1835. - My gosh.

1836. - And even when I do a show, like when we were doing Dads

1837. for instance, it was great because on the one hand

1838. it is an absolutely solitary occupation,

1839. painting, it is you and it

1840. and after awhile, that can get kind of maddening

1841. and so what fun to go off with a bunch of lunatics

1842. I was working with over at Fox on this show

1843. and have that much society and social interplay

1844. and so forth.

1845. Yeah.

1846. - But not just that show, but any sitcom,

1847. don't you do, after you do your beautiful paintings,

1848. you know, that have some meaning to them

1849. and them somebody hands some graffiti to read?

1850. - Well, yeah, they're different.

1851. It's apples and oranges, you know?

1852. At one point it occurred to me when I was doing my,

1853. doing Roseanne, I'm thinking Jesus, here I am working hard

1854. to learn something that Tony Danza's already mastered.

1855. You know what I mean?

1856. - Yeah, certainly, yeah.

1857. That your time is being misspent.

1858. - I don't know.

1859. - I mean, your time's better spent in that studio.

1860. - I tend to think it's well spent in the studio.

1861. - Yeah and you'll probably live a long time.

1862. - I don't know, we'll see.

1863. - I mean, you got, you don't like—

1864. - Cheated the reaper for, 70 so.

1865. - Oh I thought you were gonna

1866. say some specific incident.

1867. - No.

1868. - Never had a heart attack, none of that stuff?

1869. - No.

1870. - You don't like, you don't look 70 to me.

1871. - Well, it's makeup.

1872. - No, no, it's the handshake.

1873. I mean you're—

1874. - Really?

1875. - Yeah, you seem like a strong like,

1876. you work out or—

1877. - No.

1878. - You don't?

1879. - No.

1880. - So it's this passion that's keeping you going?

1881. - I think so.

1882. - That's beautiful, that's wonderful.

1883. I got to find some passion.

1884. Maybe I'll go to the school of hyper realism.

1885. - I think you have.

1886. - I just meant overly realistic.

1887. I didn't know there's a fucking school.

1888. - You check it out.

1889. You use the computer, I bet you do.

1890. - I do use the computer.

1891. - Just type in hyper realism and you'll see some images.

1892. - But I don't want to see that,

1893. I want to see your stuff.

1894. So your stuff is, what is it?

1895. - Just Martin Mull and then just hyphen or a slash

1896. or whatever it is, art.

1897. - This is a piece of art I like and I know I was,

1898. god damn it I wish I knew what it was called.

1899. - So do I.

1900. - It was...

1901. It was a picture of a picture.

1902. I can't explain it.

1903. - Was it things?

1904. - It was a guy painting let's say a man

1905. and there was the painting of the man

1906. and the painting of the man he was painting.

1907. - So unbelievable, that is precisely a picture

1908. I am working on right now

1909. and worked on this morning.

1910. Swear, as god as my witness.

1911. - Wow.

1912. - And he's got a young lady sitting there admiring him

1913. and it's called Realist Painter And Admirer.

1914. - I'll probably buy that.

1915. I'll probably buy that.

1916. - It's about this big.

1917. - That fit on my wall.

1918. - There you go.

1919. - Alright, let's talk after.

1920. Pleasure to have you on the show.

1921. - Come by the studio.

1922. - Oh I'd love to, that be awesome.

1923. - What fun this is.

1924. - Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

1925. Thanks so much.

1926. - Bye.

1927. - Oh yeah, we should bye.