To understand humanity is to understand the sweet, lovely, wonderful foolishness of the human condition. The best comedy comes from your living experience. Every comic sees the world through a prism that the average person doesn't see through. All we do is point out the obvious, really, and then twist it somewhere. I just can't believe the way people are. What is it with humanity? What kind of a world do we live in? You're not alone, ultimately. I think that's what the comic is saying. Reality is the fodder for comedy because that's what we have, so where else can we find comedy if not in real life? As opposed to what? Fake life? Um, you know... life is real. Yeah, we got that. First, a philosophical question. Have you ever noticed when you're driving that anyone who's driving slower than you is an idiot? And anyone driving faster than you is a maniac! You see a million things a day in your life, and they all go on the back burner of your six-burner Wolf... ridiculously priced mind. A comedian comes out and brings it to the front burner. I don't like other people's showers. There's always a problem with temperature adjustment. There's always a little hair stuck on a wall, and you want to get rid of it but you don't want to touch it. I don't know how it got up that high in the first place. Real life is funny because it's relatable, period. That's it. And if people are at home watching something relatable, that will make them laugh because they go, "Oh, that happened to me, too." Remember when you were a kid and you'd go on vacation? You be like, "Why is dad always in a bad mood?" Now I understand. Don't! No! Hi-ya! HE LAUGHS Is this Grandma? Yeah, she's still alive. Why is the family a good place to look for humour? Was that it? Well, where else...where else is it? Maybe you should ask Santa for a new family. I don't want a new family. I don't want any family. Families suck. You ever notice when you trip on something when you're walking and you go, "What was that?" HAND-DRYER WHIRS There we go. Well, that was your family. They put their foot out, and just... "Don't get so ahead of yourself." Anybody got them mothers that would hit you with a shoe? I had a mother that would throw a shoe at you at the drop of a dime and fuck you up wherever she was aiming. HE IMITATES GUN FIRING HE WHISTLES THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY THEME I don't want to give you the wrong impression of my dad. He never hit us. Carried a gun. Well, he never shot us. HE IMITATES GUN COCKING When I started, I just did fat jokes. I didn't know other families had that insanity that I grew up with. "Oh, yeah. Mom told me to tell you today...you're adopted. "You're ruining this whole family." That's why we laugh, and that's why the family sitcom has always prevailed. Oh, I could just crawl into a hole and die! You know, that's the second hole she's crawled into in two days. In the '50s, you get these sitcoms that frankly aren't really trying to be that funny. Boy, nobody can make pancakes like Mom. And nobody can eat them like Pa. These shows are presented by soap sellers, car sellers. They wanted their product to be nice with no sharp edges, so it couldn't be that daring. Very sort of white-bread portrayals of family were what the public wanted to see at that time. But in the '70s, all that changed. # And you knew who you were then... # The comedy grew out of transgression. Shows like All In The Family showed a different side of that nuclear family. You realise how many boring things I got to do in a single day that drive me crazy? I got to get up. I got to brush my teeth. I have to shave - and I hate to shave. There are mornings when I stand there debating with that mirror - "Should I shave or should I cut my throat?" But I shave! You know, it's too bad you always lose that argument. What was it about All In The Family that was so different from the things that had come before? I wasn't aware at the time there was anything different. I was writing out of my own experience. I grew up with a father much like Archie Bunker who insisted that I was the laziest white kid he ever met. You are a meathead. What did you call me? A meathead - dead from the neck up. Meat. Head. Norman Lear blows the lid off what a family sitcom is. Oh, Archie! Get out of the way, Edith. We were writing about what we knew what was happening in our families up the street, down the street, across the street from each other, and that's how we got to the real problems. I think it's time we had a brother-to-brother talk. Or to put it delicately, a talk about the birds and the bees. Well, I have to study right now. I'll teach you about sex some other time, OK? Norman Lear gave you All In The Family, he gave you Good Times, he gave you The Jeffersons. He gave you different looks of what real niche versions of the American family were in different segments of this country. Well, he married into one of them mixed-up families. What do you mean "mixed-up"? Zebra City! He's white. She's black. The kids are medium-rare. It was basically all flawed characters, but that was what was good about it. People could relate to the fact that these were not perfect human beings - far from it. You could draw a line right there. That's where it started to change, and that paved the way for everything that came after. I'm going to get married when I'm 23. 23. And I'll have a husband named Bud. A husband named Bud? Bud WHAT? Bud Huxtable. The Cosby Show in the '80s normalises the black experience in a way that was super important. That felt more like my family than what I heard the myth of the black family was. How do you expect to get into college with grades like this? No problem. Huh? See, I'm not going to college. Damn right. We had Cosby Show, Family Ties. We have the Seavers. And those families were saying, "We're all basically the same." It was a more conservative era, and so you had these upper-middle class households who don't worry about money, you know, are able to, like, balance their careers and their kids, and then in comes Roseanne. I'm sorry. What do you want me to do? Throw myself off a bridge? Yeah, and take your brother and sister with you. Were you ever sorry we got married? Every second of my life. We're used to a certain amount of slickness in our sitcoms, but Roseanne got rid of all of that, mostly because she was never that kind of performer. This was not The Cosby Show. They were letting it all hang out and letting it be funny. You're being totally unfair, just cos I don't want to eat your stinking beans! Wrong. I'm being totally unfair because that is my job. Now, you sit down and have a nice dinner with your family. I hate you. Hey... I say disown her. I wanted to do a show that was about real people, that wasn't about, "Honey, bathroom wall needs cleaning." You know, I wanted to do a show that was like just the joy and the horror of, like, life. Every person from a family recognises all that stuff. Human beings are a huge pain in the ass. How any of them get along with any others of them... Get off! ..they really don't, actually. Sometimes I just... I don't know what to do! Sometimes I just want to smack you! You're stuck with your family. There's nothing you can do about them, and you put up with stuff from your family that you wouldn't put up with from anybody else. What do you mean you don't eat no meat? Oh, that's OK. That's OK. I make lamb. Come. Anything that you find horrifying as a kid, just write it down, because when you're older you can make money off it. "You used to scream all night, we didn't feed you, "you turned out fine." I didn't turn out fine! I'm a fat comedian with OCD. I get up in front of strangers and talk about my dick. This is not good parenting. ALARM CLOCK BLARES Feel like I was just here a minute ago. I know what you mean, but you'll get used to it. Everybody does...eventually. The workplace is something we all have to endure in some way or another. I got to get out of here. I think I'm going to lose it. Uh-oh. Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays. SHE CHUCKLES You can go to work on a TV show, you can go to work in a sheriff's office, you're still going to have a boss. You're going to have a pain-in-the-ass worker. You've got somebody maybe you're attracted to, and you've got to deal with that. So this is a human experience that transcends all generations. Comedy is about an imbalance in power. Everybody who's ever had a job realises it's a power imbalance the minute that they get there. I'm the new vice president of East Coast television and microwave oven programming. That sounds like you programme microwave ovens. I like you. You have the boldness of a much younger woman. So, you go to work and your boss is an asshole. If you write a joke about him and everyone laughs at him... Is that decaf? No, no. It's regular. ..suddenly you go from being his victim to being his captor. The joke is re-figuring the scales of justice. When you were dismissing some of the staff, did you intend to fire me too? Especially me. I'm very sorry I troubled you, you little runt. Early sitcoms were just about home life, and I used to make the joke all the time, in Ozzie and Harriet, you know, what did Ozzie do for a living? And then Van Dyke was the first time you saw his home life and his work life. Oh, is that the comedy spot? No, bubble-head. This is the comedy spot. Rob. Buddy. Sally. Mel. Rob! Sally! Buddy! Go ahead, Curly. It's your turn. Say "Rob." Rob! Beautiful. Oh, wonderful. Somebody asked me to do a situation comedy after I finished being on Your Show of Shows because situation comedies weren't very good. They didn't mirror life. I asked myself, "What piece of ground do I stand on "that nobody else stands on? "Well, I work as an actor/writer on a variety show "and I write about what happens at home, "and at home I talk about what goes on at the office." Are you doing this because you're afraid of Alan? No, I'm doing it because I respect Alan Brady. A man of his calibre has great firing power. It's a hybrid of family life, work life, and you cared about them like a family because you saw them together every day. They were a family. Afternoon, everybody. OTHERS: Norm! Hey, Mr Peterson. There's a cold one waiting for you. I know, and if she calls, I'm not here. On TV, family sort of transcends blood. You recognise that family system, that family dynamic, even if it's not biological. Sure, things didn't go your way. Sure, we're a little disappointed, but we'll get over it. What's important here is that you tried to do the wrong thing. Hey, that's right. I did, didn't I? THEY CHANT: Sammy! Sammy! Sammy! You have certain archetypes in the bar, in the office, in the workplace, in the taxi company. They're there because they are real and they're honest and they're true, and we all recognise them. I don't deserve this. You know, goddamn it, I don't, but you do... because you are all losers! Every motherfucking one of you! Loser. Loser! The worst word you can hear when you're trying to make a comedy is "likeable" from the suits. It's not believable if everybody's likeable. We're not! What's happened to the old idea of doing some of your fellow man, of service? I mean, today people just... Mr Fawlty... Yes, I'm coming! I'm coming! Wait a moment! There's no comedy in likeable. I always go to Louie DePalma on Taxi, played by Danny DeVito. Sunshine Cab! Hey, crazy lady, give me a break here! It's Ma. This was a troll. Mean. Said the worst possible things. Is that likeable? No. Is it lovable? Yes. Why? He's really funny. This guy does the best Ali G impersonation. Aight! I can't. You do it. I... Go on. I don't. I think you're thinking of someone else. Oh, sorry. No. It's not you. It's the other one. The other... The other WHAT? Um... Paki? Ah... That's racist. I think the thing that made The Office successful with Ricky Gervais was the realism was more relationship-oriented and commented on the mundane-ness of situations that we all find ourselves in. If I have to work with him for another day, right, I will... I will slit my throat. You won't do it like that, though. You get the knife in behind the windpipe. Pull it down, like that. I could just apply for another job. The jokes or the stories or the emotion isn't from the work, it's from the people who work together. All right, where to first? Your mother's butt. All you need to relate is the human connection, the believability that these people live together, know each other, love each other, and it's that love underneath that allows for all kinds of behaviour. HE BLOWS RASPBERRY Puberty usually begins between the ages of 11 and 14 when profound hormonal changes occur. The onset of these changes is the function of a small gland called the pituitary. This gland sends chemical signals throughout the body, most notably resulting in height increase and hair growth in the genital area. LAUGHTER Hey! Hey! Knock it off. Think this is funny? Just try me. People love coming-of-age comedy because it's innocence to not innocence, you know? Obstacles to growing up, obstacles to maturing, are always really hilarious because most of the time things do not go well. You don't know how to deal with the emotions of it, the physical aspects of it, and so it's just going to be very embarrassing. Fred, she's gotten her boobies. Oh! HE LAUGHS I'd better go get my magnifying glass. When I was in high school and my mother said to me, "Some day you'll look back on all this and laugh," you know, I didn't realise it would take, like, 20 years, but... ultimately, she was right. My two front teeth didn't fall out until I was in fifth grade... ..which is late. And that same week, I got my period... ..which is early! Any stage of life, if you tell a story honestly, it can be funny. That's what people connect with. Everybody's been 12 years old. Everybody knows what that feels like. Were you typical? I was typical of, I guess, a young, budding future pervert. Ever been sitting around when you was young, man, just sitting in class and your dick get hard for nothing? You be just sitting there and your dick says, "Hey, what's going on in here?" That's when your teacher said, "Mr Murphy, want to come work out this problem on the board?" We're just trying to figure out how to be humans, and your body's changing and you're becoming aware of how it's changing. And, you know, sex is just this crazy, mysterious thing. Jim? Well, we'll just tell your mother that, uh, we ate it all. Let's face it, all of these unpleasant subjects, one way of dealing with them is humour. I can't believe this. They fucking forgot my birthday. John Hughes captured many different eras of life, but he was one of the great storytellers about being a high school student. He took his teenage characters incredibly seriously. All of them. I loathe the bus. Sixteen Candles was a revelation to me as a kid, because I thought, "Oh, I'm Anthony Michael Hall." That's who I am. All right. I knew you'd come around. It epitomises what it's like to be 15, 14. You know, a freshman. You know, he's anxious to be at the senior parties, anxious to be with this girl, you know. That guy, who's normally made fun of in other movies, is a hero in this movie. Farmer Ted is, you know, you could argue the lead of that flick for a lot of us. Very nice. We're five minutes in... I'm at a loss. Prior to John Hughes, most of the comedies weren't aimed at us. The teenager to us in the movies was Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. These kids, when they were in high school, looked like, you know, my parents. It was kind of like he woke up one day and was like, "This is entirely under-served audience here. "Let's make movies about them, for them, on their level, "talking the way they talk, using actors that look their age." I think one of the mistakes that's commonly made in Hollywood teenage pictures is they're going for the bucks and they're not going for the heart. I think he's very honest and... he doesn't try to show us for something that we're not. He took the simplest of canvases, and ones we were all familiar with growing up. Bueller. Bueller. Staying home from school. The sneaky stuff we liked to pull off. Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it. John was obsessed with sort of the middle American outlook on life. There is no clearer expression of John's affection for what is a flawed society, but he loves it. Right. That's it. I'm going to be right outside those doors. The next time I have to come in here, I'm cracking skulls. HE MOUTHS He celebrated the normalcy in all of us. He made it bigger. He made detention an event. He made oddballs OK. We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all. Oh, God. Because he's cracked the code with the teen audience, others that followed realised, "Oh, you don't have to talk down to them. "You can talk up to them or talk right at their level." Man... I hate high school. On Freaks And Geeks, what was important to everybody at the show was that it was realistic. Oh, my God. All right. Come on, guys. Let's go. Will somebody please tell me what's supposed to be fun about this? Paul Feig wrote characters that were more authentic. He really, more than anyone else, to me, understands really what it was like, and hasn't forgotten what it was like, to feel like an outcast. THEY COUGH: Homo. Homo. Hey, hey, hey. Now, if Sam wearing something different to express his individuality makes him a homo, well, then, I guess we should all be proud to be homos. Now, you go ahead, Sam. Paul had this idea that he wanted to see a high school show about the kids no-one ever talked about. You're dead, Weird! That was very different for network television. It seemed bizarre to them. "Why did they fail all the time?" And we just thought, "Because you fail all the time." It was that simple. HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYS I guess we live on the same floor... if you live on this floor. I don't know where you live. What I love about Judd Apatow is that he took the smartness of the John Hughes but let the kids be a little less articulate about it. They're a little more lost, they're not quite as sure of themselves. It's just not fair that they get to flaunt that stuff, you know, and, like, I have to hide every erection I get. I mean, just imagine if girls weren't weirded out by our boners and stuff, and just, like, wanted to see them. I mean, that's the world I one day want to live in. No matter how much we try to add new viewpoints to it, we're still the same people reacting to the same change, and there's something really startling about that. Boop-boop-boop! If you get to the heart of it, beyond all the funny, and find out there's a ticking, living, breathing heart there that you can identify with, you've got the audience. I love you. I love you. Women know what men want, men know what men want. What do we want? We want women. That's it. It's the only thing we know for sure. It really is. We want women. How do we get them? Oh, we don't know about that, we don't know about that. The reason relationships are such a fertile area for comedy is because what do you look for in life anything more than love, except maybe money? And money's just so not funny. How many women's purses are about five pounds heavier in case you do sleep elsewhere this evening? You guys may think we're being spontaneous but women have to pack for these events, boys. Whether you're in a very insanely committed relationship or you've been dating somebody for a couple of days, you can recognise the ridiculousness of the situation. Like, we go through an awful lot. Gahhh! You know, just to get naked with people. The only time I get hit on is last call at the bar. What a weird time of night, right? The lights go on, just feels real rapey all of a sudden. You see some dude in a full blackout, just walking at me like a zombie, just pointing at his own dick like, "Here." I'm like, "I'll get us a cab." Erm... Romance is a great source for comedy because everybody wants it. Also romance gives people instant vulnerability. It's a situation where stakes are really high and whenever the stakes are really high, funny shit's going to happen. Did you want to see some brochures? Hup! SHE SCREAMS This is so awkward, I really want you to leave, but I don't know how to say it without sounding like a dick. Oh... The idea that human beings couple up, you know, for good, it's ridiculous. Imagine if marriage didn't exist and you're a guy and you ask a woman to get married. You'd be like, "Hey, so, you know we've been hanging out "together all the time, spending a lot of time together "and everything?" "Yeah, yeah, I know." "I want to keep doing that till you're dead." It doesn't really make sense. Because of that, it's rife with comedy. That takes courage to go on a date, for both sides. Two very different kinds of courage. The male courage, traditionally speaking, is that he decided to ask, he went up to a random woman, who he has no idea if she's going to like him or not, and he walked up to her, terrifying. Everything in your body's telling you, "Just go the fuck home and jerk off, don't do this!" It's a hilarious subject because it's awkward and it makes you feel great or makes you feel terrible. You're breaking up with me? You know, I can't believe I even thought of getting back together with you. We are so over! HE STUTTERS Fine by me! If I had a terrible break-up, I would just come and wail about the break-up and I think because it was so real and honest, it related to people. It's actually really comforting to realise that something that is just truly troubling in your life could be great fodder for comedy. Now, those were the days when people knew how to be in love. You're a basket case. They knew it. Time, distance, nothing could separate them because they knew it was right, it was real. It was a movie. That's your problem, you don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie. We have a love/hate relationship with romantic comedies because it sets these ideals that you can never reach. But love is so relatable you immediately empathize with one of the people and you feel like you're falling in love. Did you put that breakfast burrito on my desk? I just thought you might be hungry. That's why I love you. I love you too. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I needed that. The cliche about romantic comedies is it's boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. There's no new stories in that respect. It's just what's your take on the old story. Alvy, let's face it, you know? I don't think our relationship is working. I know. A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know, it has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we've got on our hands is a dead shark. Annie Hall was a game changer. Woody said, "I want to do a real film about real people "where you could care about the characters "and be somewhat emotionally invested." You and David... I think we better call this relationship quits. That's fine. That's great. Well, I don't know what I did wrong. I mean, I can't believe this. Somewhere she cooled off to me. Is it something that I did? It's never something you do; that's how people are. Love fades. Love fades. God, that's a depressing thought. There's no, you know, happy ending with a neat bowtie at the end but, ironically, Annie Hall became one of the funniest movies ever. It changed so much about the way people thought of, you know, romantic comedies. One of the summer's surprise hit movies is... ..stars Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. It's called When Harry Met Sally. Men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way. That's not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved. No, you don't. Yes, I do. No, you don't. Yes, I do. You only think you do. You're saying I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge? No, what I'm saying is they all want to have sex with you. Nora Ephron wrote When Harry Met Sally and she got a lot of help from Reiner creating an erotic main character. That's because he was based on Rob Reiner. When Harry Met Sally was a, you know` it was an extension of what I had been through as a single person, having been married for 10 years and then being single for 10 years. It was the experiences I had with trying to get with women and, you know, the confusion of, can you be friends with a woman and if you have sex, does it ruin the friendship? Why can't we get past this? I mean, are we going to carry this thing around forever? Forever? It just happened. It happened three weeks ago. You know how a year to a person is like seven years to a dog? Yes. Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario? Rob Reiner's collaboration with Nora Ephron, they very much both worked together to have an equal female and male perspective. There are a lot of desperate women out there looking for love. Especially over a certain age. You know it's easier to be killed by a terrorist than it is to get married over the age of 40. That's not true. That statistic is not true. That's right. It's not true. But it feels true. Even a romantic comedy where you know what's going to happen, there's still something satisfying about it. I don't know why, but there's still something that works. I mean, that's why they use the formula over and over. I mean, love is the bottom line and there are so many billions of ways to be with somebody, it's never finished. Relationship material is never finished. Frankly, I wish I just had someone I really cared about, that I could hold. But I don't have that person, so... ..I'm going to jerk off and go to bed. Aren't people stupid? Yes, it's the others. Have you ever noticed? Have you noticed...? What is it with...? Why are haemorrhoids called haemorrhoids and asteroids called asteroids? Wouldn't it make more sense if it was the other way around? But then if that was true, you wouldn't be a proctologist, you'd be an astronaut. There's so many things that are distasteful in life and stupid and there are these rules that everybody has to follow. It's tedious, so they deserve lampooning. This was this morning, I get up this morning, I put my maxi pad on adhesive side up. Oh, come on, you've done it. There is so much comedy in the little details of life. It's just taking a magnifying glass and throwing it out to the audience. Well, that's sort of my job to think about stuff that a lot of us are too busy for most of the time. Little things that occur to us, we have universal ground, you know? Like, do you ever belch and almost puke? We think that we're alone and then a comedian steps on stage and says, "Have you ever noticed...?" And boom, it explodes but, in that moment, we all connect, which is an amazing charge, really. It's kind of an adrenaline rush to connect on that kind of a level. Now, we have to fight these battles, we're all alone in the bathroom. Alone. Whatever goes wrong, you have to handle it. You ever flushed the toilet in a big party and the water starts coming up? This is the most frightening moment in the life of a human being. It's an illumination on something that was right in front of you. It was right there but yet when they bring it up, it's the way they shine the light on it. What, what are we doing? What in God's name are we doing? What? What kind of lives are these? We're like children. We're not men. No, we're not. We're not men. We're pathetic, you know that? Yeah, like I don't know that I'm pathetic. Seinfeld, you know, initially was... They called it the show about nothing. I mean, obviously it was not about nothing but that's what they called it and their initial idea was Larry David and Jerry had an idea about just two guys hanging out and talking about stuff. Listen to this. Marcy comes over and she tells me that her ex-boyfriend was over late last night and "Yada, yada, yada, "I'm really tired today." What do you think she was tired from? Well, obviously the "yada, yada." Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, those two minds together, you know, that's just comedy dynamite. What do you think did it? Can you take a step back and say, "This made this show"? I think it was the style of the writing was fresh and I think it was the strength of the cast. The cast is very, very strong and the writing had a different sound to it, the conversation sounded different than the other sitcoms that you see. So you think you're sponge-worthy? Yes, I think I'm sponge-worthy. I think I'm very sponge-worthy. I'm out there cheering and I'm loving every minute of it! The ideas... ..were seemingly insignificant, where the comedy came from. Usually small, quirky, idiotic things. HE LAUGHS Larry always carried this little notepad in his pocket, whenever something would happen that he thought make a good idea he'd write it down and eventually it would wind up in a show. You mean shrinkage? Yes. Significant shrinkage. It's a little thing that I might notice that I could expound on. Expound on or expand on? Expand on. Both. Both, expound and expand. Yeah. I got it. No, no, no, I'd like to pay for mine. Now, Julie, don't insult me. You know, what difference does it make who pays for lunch? It's totally meaningless. OK, thanks, George. Here's your big salad to go. Oh, thank you. I remember I was editing an episode with Larry and we took a break for dinner and he turned to the editor and he said, "Carol and I are going to get a bite. "Would you like something from the restaurant?" She said, "Yeah, will you bring me back a big salad?" And then we got back to the editing room, I took the salad and I gave it to Janet. Thank you, Julie. You're very welcome. And then, like, two months later, here's an episode that he's written called The Big Salad. She just took credit for my salad. That's not right. No, it isn't. I mean, I'm the one that bought it. Yes, you did. Don't you think she should've said something? She could have. Oh, I know. Like, "Hm, I wonder where that came from. Oh, right, that was me. Perfect." A lot of Larry's humour is based on the difficulty of just being out in the world... Smile. ..and everything is a land mine waiting for you to step on it. And mind your own business, how about that? We all think that shit but Larry just points it out, you know? It's so great. It's just material. Yeah, I know, but... ..but, really, look at these pants. I've seen pants bunch up before this. I have never a bunch up like this in my life. I have. This is like a five-inch bunch-up I got here. Curb Your Enthusiasm is brilliant. Larry took the essence of himself, of Larry David. I mean, it's not exactly Larry, but it's pretty damn close. And when you get close to the bone, the audience can somehow feel that that's real. What...? Get me off the speakerphone, please. Hold on. Now you're off the speakerphone. What's the matter with you? I thought I was having a private conversation, I didn't know anybody else was in your car. I think with Curb, Larry gets to be the full completion of himself. It was the person I'd like to be, but social mores prevent me from being that way all the time. BRAKES SCREECH, HONKS HORN Hey! I'll call you back. What...? What the hell are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? What am I doing? What are you doing? We decided that we should walk this line where people watching it wouldn't quite be certain if it was really a documentary or if it was embellished, but to play it as close to real as possible. And sure enough there were people who thought it was real. When you walk through my door, you play by my rules! You take off your fucking shoes! My feet have a tendency to get a little chilly when I... He's psychotic, get him out of the house. Get out! I had no idea that until the show was on the air that anybody would ever have to leave the room because they couldn't bear to watch a scene cos they were cringing as to what was about to take place. I kind of liked it. Yeah. Thank you for fixing Judy's hair. Oh, you're welcome. Mommy, Mommy! That bald man's in the bathroom and there's something hard in his pants! GASPING You know, I think it's a shame to just dump this in the trash. Maybe birds would like to make nests with it or, I don't know, maybe you boys use it for school projects. Arms up. People love family comedies... Dude. ..and now it seems like the family comedies they want are, how strange can this family possibly be? And now I'm expected to climb back on top of Kitty and do my thing again. I mean, this family runs into problems, it's "Oh, let's have Joe (BLEEP) their way out of it." What is the matter with you? Come on. There's a lot more variety in families represented on television today because it's represented in real life. OK. You're... He's our son. And my grandson. I'm his daughter. So you're...? His uncle. I have to believe that for kids of today seeing that families can come in all kinds of weird permutations has to be pretty great. What the hell is that? I had Andre do it while we were gone. We're floating above her, always there to protect her. OK, well, that's reassuring, right, Lily? Yes, we tore you away from everything you know but don't worry, things are normal here. Your fathers are floating fairies. A show such as Modern Family or Will & Grace before that really sped up the conversation about gay marriage and people's tolerance. Huge news! I have met - are you ready for this? - Mr Right. Well, Mr Right Now anyway. Ba-dum-dum. Goodnight, folks. I'm here all week. Jack 2000! He works over at the coffee shop in 72nd and his name is Paul and he is cute with a capital Q. Seeing people you don't normally get to see makes you realise, oh, you should love them as much as you love anybody else. That's the finger. Work in progress. We're trying to actually say that my family's different than yours, you know? But if you look close enough, you might see some things that your family is too. Hey. Hmm? Why don't the boys go with you? Yeah! No, no, not you. You're way too precious to me. Good, because Junior is the bad black person who needs educating. But after we get home, he'll be a bona fide Black Panther. Actually Dr King had problems with the Black Panthers. Do you know who the Black Panthers had a problem with? I think television has a history of helping us figure out how to deal with some very difficult discussions or changes in our time. Listen, can we just close up shop here a little bit? The knees... Your male privilege is leaking all over the place. The fearlessness of comedians bringing up subject matter that we're afraid to talk about is a wonderful conduit to starting a conversation. First off, up and owning it. Yeah. I don't want to freak you out but I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice... ..of a generation. There's a number of amazingly great, unique voiced shows that are on TV right now. They are standing apart from the wave of stuff that's being thrown at us all the time. The guy said this was their bestselling thing, by far, OK? I'm just trying to improve our sex lives. OK, well, here's an idea. How about you stop rubbing your eye every time you shove your junk in me? What? Yeah, you're always like... It's distracting! Now we're in this weird world where there's a demand that people take chances. No-one wants generic stuff any more. I like Mama's better because she makes good food. And I love her more so I like being there more. OK. All right, baby. Louis CK, he's tapped into things that most people don't tap into. He was able to take that sensibility that he uses so effectively onstage and find a form to dramatize it. All right, go get on your PJs. OK, Daddy. OK, baby. The more realistic comedy gets, the more drama is in them because real life is not just drama all the time and it's not just funny all the time. Why do you say such hurtful things? Because it's the only way to get your attention, that's why I have a rage problem. Shut up! All of you! Can I talk?! Is it my turn yet? I've waited 45 years to talk! I screwed up my life, I lost the best shitty job I could find. I'm mentally doomed! Look at all of you, it's all your fault! You're all disasters! I don't want to be in this family any more! Oh... Wah, wah, wah, what a baby. What's great about comedy is comedy can't exist unless it's true. You don't laugh unless you know there's an inherent truth to it. Oh, God, I keep forgetting what a freak show this family is until somebody new comes in and looks at us like that. We all are human and fallible and we're crazy and we have foibles and we're all in it together. There's nothing more interesting than the foolishness of the human condition. It takes the comedian to find the moment that helps people laugh at themselves. If you're lucky in life, you will have seen it, done it, eaten it, fucked it, you know, all of it. HE SNEEZES And now you can relive it through storytelling and from somebody's point of view all over again. Life is not that complicated. You get up, you go to work, you eat three meals, you take one good shit and you go back to bed. What's the fucking mystery? CHEERING When you see these things, do you keep track of them? I do. I write them down on a small pad. Once I lost a pad and it was... It was the worst experience of my life. Why...? And you can never get them back because these incidents where you get the thoughts, it's very specific, it never happens again. It only happens that one time. All those ideas gone. They're still gone, I've never thought of one` one of those things again.