On today’s program, David kick’s off the show with a commentary about the ongoing situation in Ferguson, Missouri. Then he’s joined by comedian’s Judy Gold and Henriette Mantel for a great conversation about when a joke is a joke, and when it’s just bad taste. It’s a lively discussion, so strap yourself in for about an hour and hang on!
Writer/Comedian Chris McGuire joins a very silly Laura House and Jerry Stahl to talk about working on shows like the recently cancelled Arsenio Hall Show, The Burn with Jeff Ross and many others. Plus David goes over Joan Rivers horrible business practices with Melodie Shaw, field representative and organizer for The Writers Guild of America West. David also talks with his co host of the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Steve Skrovan. And last but not least, music by Will Ryan and the Cactus County Cowboys.
Filling in for David, Steve Skrovan and Jerry Stahl talk to Emmy Award winning writer and former Writer’s Guild president, Patric Verrone about why he’s running for State Senate in California District 26, how he led the WGA through the strike of 2007-08 and his career writing for Johnny Carson, The Simpsons and Futurama.
While writing on The Simpsons Verrone helped the writers find the money.
Verrone began his career as a variety show writer, which included a late 1980s job as monologue writer for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Shortly after his work on The Tonight Show, Verrone wrote for the popular animated program Rugrats in 1991. From there, he worked for the entirety of The Critic’s run on television, before moving on to write for Muppets Tonight (for which he won an Emmy) and Pinky and the Brain.
Eventually, Verrone became a major contributor for Futurama. Subsequently, he wrote an episode of The Simpsons (Milhouse of Sand and Fog (2005)), developed the Cartoon Network series Class of 3000 (including writing the pilot episode Home (2006)), and co-executive produced all four feature length Futurama direct-to-DVD movies.
On today’s show the brilliant writer Jerry Stahl fills in for David while he’s away in Washington hanging out and recording the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. Jerry’s guest is his old friend Larry Charles, who’s credits are so long and varied that we might break the internet listing them all here. But here’s a few: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bruno, Entourage, Seinfeld, Borat…the list goes on and on.
Larry Charles is best known as a staff writer for the American sitcom Seinfeld for its first 5 seasons, contributing some of the show’s darkest and most absurd storylines. He has also directed the films Borat, Religulous, Brüno, and The Dictator.
Although series co-creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote the bulk of the show’s episodes during the first five seasons, Charles was their second in command during this period. Charles had met Seinfeld co-creator Larry David when he was part of the writing staff of the ABC sketch show Fridays, on which David and Michael Richards were also part of the show’s ensemble cast. Charles had been unable to write for the show’s first season, as he had been writing for The Arsenio Hall Show during its production.
Charles is noted for contributing some of the show’s darker storylines and scenes. In the season 2 episode “The Baby Shower” Charles wrote a dream sequence in which the title character, Jerry Seinfeld, was killed. Charles’ episodes also covered such controversial topics as Nazis (in “The Limo”), a psychotic stalker (in “The Opera”) and a hospital patient committing suicide (in “The Bris”). A season-two episode he wrote, “The Bet”, concerning Elaine buying a handgun to protect herself, was never filmed because NBC, some of the cast and the show’s director felt the gun content was too provocative. Charles claimed that his writing on Seinfeld was heavily influenced by Dragnet, Superman and Abbott and Costello.
Charles said he was instrumental in the development of Cosmo Kramer; he felt that “Jerry and George were so well-defined through Larry David and Jerry, that there was less room for me to, sort of, expand on those personas. But Kramer was very unformed at the beginning of the show and it gave me an area of creativity to, sort of, expand upon. So I spent a lot of time with Kramer because he was a character that I could have an impact on in the future of the show”. It was Charles who imbued in Kramer a distrust of authority (especially in his episodes “The Baby Shower” and “The Heart Attack”), and who created the character of Kramer’s notorious unseen friend Bob Sacamano, after his real-life friend of the same name
Shadoe Stevens aka Fred Rated! Plus Jeremy S. Kramer. Shadoe is an American radio host, voiceover actor, and television personality. He was the host of American Top 40 from 1988 to 1995. He currently hosts the internationally syndicated radio show, Top of the World, and co-hosts Mental Radio, an entertaining approach to UFOs and paranormal topics, and he is the co-founder and creator of Sammy Hagar’s new rock station “Cabo Wabo Radio” broadcasting worldwide from the Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In television, he is the voice of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS. His most recent project is Blackout Television. One of our best episodes ever!
We welcome 2014 with Paul F. Tompkins, Eddie Pepitone, Janie Haddad Tompkins, Laura House, Mark Thompson, Frank Conniff and Chris Pina. Eddie talks about last month’s anxiety attack before, during and after his audition for The Middle. And Mark Thompson talks about creating Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? and how it led to the creation of The Bachelor. Portions written by Ben Zelevansky, Steve Rosenfield, and David Feldman. Please subscribe to our show for free on iTunes and Stitcher.