You're listening to the downbeat on ninety seven one of the Freak Happy Friday Metroplex
of course Rangers Astros Game five. It's at four pm today. Pluckers and
Plano is where the bit and Skin show and the speakeasy will be. And
I would imagine that Pluckers and Plano will be pretty lit as everyone can I
go enjoy the speakeasy with Jeff and Julie. I think Jesse Holly's in with
them today, as I'm sure Ryan's is going to the game. But that's
a time you can watch the game. You can watch the game, enjoy
the show, all that good stuff. Good times at Pluckers and Plano for
the Freaking the Weekend series. I'll be at the game. We'll go on
out there for Game five. We'll see if we can pull one out of
our ass. But joining us now live in studio thok. We got a
new friend here. I do too. He's gonna be at the Plano House
of Comedy October twentieth and twenty first. That's tonight and tomorrow. Eat your
tickets at TX dot House Ofcomedy dot net. Paul Maturio's in the house,
great man, Thanks for having me. Yeah, I have a nice chat
off the air. You guys are awesome, man, Thank you. So
you're performing tonight, So look, you can watch the damn Ranger game and
then go see some stand up. You might need some mirth in your life
after what I watched. Yeah, that hotel and I watched most of the
game. I was watching it on the plane and then I wanted to almost
broke the TV in my hotel room when they did some like little thing on
how great Jose Altubo is and I'm like cheeter and I started banging it can
but nobody listened to me, like like, you know, it's so it's
just like I don't get it, you know. I guess it's like,
you know, the networks need to do their thing. But I'm going my
Red I'm a Red Sox fan. They're out of it. I'm rooting for
the Rangers. I've been amazed at how honestly Fox has seemed a little blind
to the fact that a lot of America hates the Astros. Yeah. I
just think it's the product, right, and they want to keep putting the
product out there and going everybody loves a product, then they stand there.
He goes, oh, he's five foot six and look he hit a ball
from nine inches from the ground and three foot from his Yeah. Yeah,
well you know it's like I'll just never forget him coming home and going don't
pull my shirt off because I'm wired. Yeah, there's no proof, there's
space. It was a Columbian drug. Water was turned over on to the
Feds. Right, but yeah, and so you have enough context, you
don't need proof. Yeah, clearly there exactly. You said Red Sox originally
New Englander. Yeah, just get a little bit of background. Rhode Island.
I grew up in Rhode Okay, and my wife and I were actually
together both we went to high school together, Okay, Providence and Providence,
ok And I grew up in a family furniture busin. My wife and I
dated fifteen years before we got married. She proposed finally. Yeah, I
can't tell you her exact words. They understood really emotional, but they ended
with or get off the pot. And it was that kind of thing.
And then uh yeah, and then I was I ended up being a lawyer,
and I was working on Wall Street doing like merger deals and stuff,
and I started writing jokes as a hobby and then I met Jay Leno with
a private function and I didn't plan on anything. I don't know why I
was writing jokes, but I had whole bunch of jokes written. And I
went up to him after this before after his performance, and I said,
I'm never gonna use these. I'm a lawyer. He wants these jokes.
And he was like, okay, my man, and like he took the
jokes. And then a couple of days later, my phone rings and it's
more jokes. It's jay Leno exactly. He really does like talk like they're
letting helium out of a balloom very slowly. It's like and I go yeah
and I and he says it's jay Leno. Was pull there, And I'm
like, there's no way jay len was calling me, right. So I
told my friend who likes to pull pranks, and I thought it was my
friend pulling a prank pretending to be Jay Leno. And I go, yeah,
really funny. He goes, no, it's really jay Leno. I
go, David, look, I'm in the middle of like a steal,
like I'm crazed. I can't go now is jay Leno? And he goes,
I go stop. He goes now it's Jay Leno. And I actually
said to Jay Leno, you do a lousy j Leno. He was doing
an impression of himself right, exactly love it and he's like, no,
I think I do it. Give me. I'm like, oh my god,
it's Jay Lenna, right. And then a couple of days later,
but a week later, he calls me and says, uh, hey,
I'm gonna do one of your jokes on the Tight Show tonight. And I
got a bottle of champagne with my girlfriend now my wife and another couple we
watched it. He did it, and it paid me fifty bucks for this
joke, and it blew my head off my shoulder, and you realize I
can make money due this is like fifty bucks a joke, right, And
yeah, and didn't plan on it. You know, people always say you
plan I'm like no, they and then they're like, were you funny?
And I put it like in context, yeah, I guess I was like
always the funniest lawyer in my law firm, like, which isn't really saying
much, right, It's like kind of saying you're the sexiest I guy,
And uh, basically it was just that. And then That's how it started.
And then we kind of went on. You've parlayed that into now being
a kind of a staff writer and uh yeah, yeah, yeah, we
go back and you know, I'm carrying Stephen every day. He's drinking a
lot. There's no question. It's like a lot of rum in that guy's
body. And yeah, it was you know, started on the Daily Show
and like honestly took the job just to make some I was just starting out
as a comic and like, oh okay, this, like all TV gets
canceled, so we all thought it would get canceled after like six months,
right, and the next time yeah, and it's like and then it just
kind of took off because they left us alone. Like Comedy Central was a
different network then it was like it was still like an underground little kind of
thing. So they there was they were just more liberal about like not politically,
but just like what they let us do. Yeah, Like we did
this piece about Disney. It's we called it the disneification of Times Square.
So remember Times Square had all the smut shops and whatever, and then like
Disney and all these big companies came in and turned it into all these like
entertainment type things, and so we sent a like a correspondent out to do
a peace saying, well, you know, the Time Square has been really
cleaned up, but has it been? And he goes, I'm here at
the Disney store. And then and I don't know if I could say this
word. Yeah, of course, bildo, you say it all the time
because I have one in my pocket now, and so I basically go So
the guys in said j J said, I could do I could I could
have it, but whatever, anyway, sorry, I hate it when it
goes off. Oh good, And you have a turkey based because my wife
can't get pregnant. Yeah, get turkey based here for no good reason a
radio show. You can impregnate her with the turkey baser. And then satisfied
with what you have in your co podcast, Carol, you're getting pregnant tonight.
Listen say hi to your lover. Yeah. Our listener by the name
of freak Jesus sent that up here. So and then there's a Rice Christmas
for an after post coital snack. Why not? That's awesome? And then
I think you just dumped the last ten seconds of what we said. You're
I don't think that thing. We were not even sure if thing. Yeah,
well it discount a game show, buzzard, How was the show great?
Well, he kept leaping himself for no reason at all, the guy
who works on TV but doesn't know anything about radio. So what was I
talking about? Disneyfication? So the correspondent is now in the Disney store that
just opened, and Disney's happy to have us because we would say, oh,
yeah, we're a news show from Comedy Central. But then we would
go in and like whatever story we're doing, we'd be ragging on the people,
and then once the shot thing was over, they realized, oh wow,
they just scragged on us. But now we had the film and we
could do what we want to. He goes, so I'm here in Times
Square and it's a Disney store and they say that the things are being cleaned
up, and Disney is the best example of that, or is it?
And then he would just grab the most innocent, like the Mermaid doll or
whatever, and you go, this may look like the Mermaid doll, but
it's a dildo. And then he'd grab another thing like Mickey Mouse. Nope,
vibrator right, And so so we cut the piece together. You know,
when you do something wrong and your father or your mom is so mad
at you they're screaming, they can't see straight. Yeah, like so or
your program director whichever, okay, right? Perfect? Right? So then
so the president of the network, we would have Friday would be what we
call it dark day, which is that you don't tape me just in the
office. He came in and he goes and he's like shaking. He goes,
I saw that piece about Disney. What are you guys doing? We're
like what. He goes, you can't say dildo twelve times in a four
minute piece. We're like, now we're trying not to laugh at dad,
right, And we're like, he goes, we are you laughing at it?
We go, well, we didn't know there was a rule about how
many times you can say dildo. You told us to go for it.
We're going for it. He goes, well, you can't do it,
and so I go, well, we go, what do you want us
to do? He goes, don't be a smart ass macurial. I go,
we just what do you want us to do? But he goes,
you need to edit it down? How many times can we say? Do
the four you could say it four times. It's an arbitrary exactly. Do
we don't have a censorship per person or standards and practices persons or whenever we
would see them after that, like at a party or something, we'd go,
hey, there's for dil do Doug right there. Yes, it sounds
like we work in very similar industries. It's the same thing. It's always
push the envelope, push the envelope until you cross the invisible line that gets
you in trouble and then you get scolded, written up, and sometimes fire.
I think now though, I think our leadership wants us to get compliants
and things. I think they're just trying to get rid of us. I
think that, Yeah, we had a show pulled. I'm kind of proud
of this as a joke that I actually wrote and caused the show to be
pulled and never reaired because it was about and this was on the daily daily,
and so you know, we would if you like, you know,
we would make a joke about something and sometimes we would like take their face
their headshot or whatever, and they would we'd mock it up with something,
you know, funny hat or whatever. Right, So this was, uh,
this was somebody having an affair and then the in like was a really
nasty affair and it was very public. It was, oh, it's Lewinsky.
It was that that long ago, and it was yes, it was
a long time ago. So basically, and I think we got incense that
like, you know, Chelsea was a little kid, and then Lewinsky was
out like getting endorsement deal like remember like she got like ags and she was
on the cover of like Cosmopo, one of those like Vanity Fair, and
she was like had like this little picnic thing going on with like a little
like your t shirt tied off and stuff, and she was shy, so
and we just thought it was like, you know what, this is gross,
Like you shouldn't be like you just broke almost broke up a family.
So I said, we wrote, this isn't the only thing that she's doing
to realabilitate her career. She's getting endorsement deals from different products, including the
milk industry. And then we had them put ash shot of milk on her
face and I know you for ten minutes and I'm like, yeah, this
is all check job. I'll ever have this standing in the graphics department leaning
over a guy in a computer, going, no, no, it needs
to look more like something something else, like milk, like milk, It
needs to be more translucent. He goes, what it is translucent? And
I go, just like you can see through it. I'm like it was
like and it was like and I go, no, no, it's can't
be a little. It's gonna be a lot. It's gonna be keeping from
everything from her ears of course. So apparently it's been real proud of this
bit. Yeah, this is like you know again, I'm take the hair
jail from something about think about that, why are you going to go to
law school? Well, so I can do these kind of things. So
apparently, so what we did was when you finished. So the routine is
working on a show. On shows like that, it's like taking a final
every day, because we would it's day of deciding what stories we're gonna do.
So we sit around table like this and there's like a dozen of us,
including the pretty uses and stuff, and we're just going like, so
I was. Everybody was assigned the newspaper. I can't remember what mine was
on a Wall Street journal of or something. And you go through and you
say and you pitch stories to the table what about this? What about this?
What about just like a TV a show would do like a new show
or a newspaper, and they go, Okay, well let's see, we
got we got this, Let's do these six right, and then you go
off and you have three hours to write as many funny jokes as you can
and hope to God that you're funny that day. And it's like literally taking
a college final every day. Yeah, yeah, it was like that,
and that's why. But until I started. We're going to show why they
have a group of writers because you may be off someday and I'll be on.
So you you accomplish it. So so we're, you know, we're
doing our thing, and we're writing the joke, and then a one or
so. By the way, I don't know if this is inside baseball and
too boring for people how this stuff works, but I'll stop talking about this
if you want. But we basically would then write the jokes, then produce
the jokes, meaning get everything ready if you need, like sound bites or
one hats drawn on people or whatever, and then at four o'clock you rehearse
the show. Then we rewrite the show between five and five thirty and then
Tavia at five thirty, is there an audience in the rehearsal, No,
good question, it's the staff. You bring the staff out, which kind
of sucks in a way because like some of like some of the staff and
crew are like teamsters, guys who like only laugh at fart jokes, so
like if that gets the best, like you go, please don't laugh at
the fart joke. Ye laugh at the part joke, and that's the one
that gets on the then the like the smarter joke doesn't. But but it
all worked out. It was great, but we have enough bodies in there.
Also, you just get to get it out of your mouth, like
Steven the host whoever, like even me, like when I'm writing a new
joke for my act, like you just got to say it. You got
to just start getting the words out so you get the rhythm of it.
And so while the audience is being seated and put into the studio, we're
rewriting the show one last time. So it's literally like there's never enough time.
You're always like another like you just don't because you have to get the
show shot by a certain time to then get it shut up to a side,
shut up to a satellite and whatever. So you know, we're basically
you know, so the show that graphic I just described, the show airs
at eleven o'clock, and the story is that the same president Network saw it
was in the first act. But we the reason I told you the background
how the show works is because you're supposed toen the script into standards and practices
at like around four o'clock. So we just left the graphic out and said,
TBD, it's just a graphic of you know, the period. We're
just working on it, like that's all we said. Because funny hat bunny
hat, because because the writing didn't indicate what it was. And so apparently
he sees the thing and he picks up the phone and he goes, who
on the rise that picture? Pull the show? They pulled the show and
they never reaired because that show would reair four times a day and they never
reaired the show. Really, that's when I found that out. The next
morning, I immediately went to graphics and I said, before you delete that
picture, give it framed, and I have it framed. Him. That's
that's beautiful. Okay. Hold on, so you're uh was recent. Paul
mccurio is who is joining us and you're you're at the Plano House of Comedy
tonight and tomorrow night, and tickets are at t X dot House of Comedy
dot net. A year ago I read the Daily Show book, which I
don't know how you know how accurate those things are, but it's a good
oral history book. There's a lot of people in it. And one thing
they do talk about I remember them talking about the Chelsea Clinton, you know,
the scandals. Is that issue right there, So that's what you're referencing.
But also they did talk about the Kilbourne days and then when John Stewart
came in and there were some people very resistant and John's first few months they
were struggling to find out what the show was going to be because it was
going to be different than what Craig's version of the show was. And you
were in for both both, you know eras of that, So you're one
of the guys who I mean, because it was in the book. They
in the book, the way they painted out is there were ki Kilbourne writers
who were just very resistant to change the way they do things when John came
in, and the people that stayed were likely people who are more open minded
to what John's vision of the show was. Yeah, there was a couple
of people that whatever. I mean, John's great, But was that transitionary
interrupt Was that transition easy for you? It was? It was I think
it was, Well, John's got a big drug problem, and so we're
like, well, how's this guy gonna do it? Because he's asleep half
the time, he saw whatever, or it's coke, and he's all over
the place and he's got hookers in the room. Here's what happened that that
shoke got created. I work for drug addicts and alcoholic I love doing that
to my friends. You know, when you when you're proud of something you'd
make right. We were there from we built it from scratch, right,
and so you become protective of it. And I think initially, and John's
amazing, and he's so right, he's so smart, and he's such a
funny guy. But you don't know, if I think people were like,
well, is this going to get turned into like a traditional late night show
with a band and whatever and this and that, because we wanted to keep
our edge and that was the thing, and we didn't know if that was
going to change, because you know, John was a big name, and
so when a big talent comes in like that, they can bagasy. They
have the power to dictate changing the show in the way they want it to
be, as opposed to if you hired a non name and then that non
name, non person without a big name has to sort of adhere to what
the show is, you know what I'm saying. Sure, and so,
and I knew John a little bit from the stand up scene, but he
was way before me and higher on the food chain than I was, So
even I just knew him to be friendly around the clubs and stuff, but
I wasn't a close friend, and so I think that was like the core
of the concern. So any sort of tension that there was was just I
always felt and still feel from a good place out of caring and being protective
and a healthy of something whatever, as opposed to you want that instead of
people who working go I don't care, do whatever you want to do,
and this thing is a piece of crap anyway. Yeah, and so that's
what happened. So there are a couple of people that were, like,
you know, a couple of correspondents that didn't feel like it was a place
for them to be anymore, and then they left and then you know,
the rest of us stayed and you know whatever, and it evolves. Yeah,
but you know, it's a creative it's a creative process. And the
creative process, if it's ends up good, is messy. Talk to any
director, talk to a painter, talk to a guy that builds a house,
right, like anything that where you're creating something. I mean, you
guys work and radio, you're very successful. You've probably worked on other shows
too. You have you talked about program directors, and I know from being
doing a lot of radio, you get you guys get notes and feedback.
You should do less of this and more of that. If I would imagine
that you're in the room pushing back a little bit at times. Otherwise if
you don't, you shouldn't be in that job because you don't care about your
job enough. Yeah, And that's all that was. And sometimes it gets
blown out of proportion a little bit, you know. And I think for
John it was hard on him and fairness to him, and then looking back,
like you know, he came into like a thing that was already set,
and I think he was nervous about things too, and so it was
just like you know, an initial date. You know, it's a little
whatever awkward, Well you work through it, like what do you know we're
all at Del's here, you know, I guess. And also there's you
know, there's kind of like that that that power tier system dynamic too to
where well his name is on the damn show, he's got ultimate I guess,
final say, you know, it's everything is taken under advisement and into
consideration, but ultimately it's going to be my choice. And that can really
rub people the wrong way if in fact they've been there for a substantial amount
of time and then here's the new guy. But the new guy's got more
power than me, and more say than me. That's got to be a
really difficult thing to kind of evolve together into something that stays together and becomes
even more successful than maybe what it was before. That's a really good point
because you know John's like, you know, first of all, he's tiny,
like five four, Like why do you even get that? They carry
him around in a Sherpa bag like you know, little dogs are taking dog
Yeah, and little little face sticks out. You feed him like little little
kibble and stuff. It's amazing that he's able to travel that way in that
hair piece and never falls on It's insane, not a lot. I told
you not to talk about the hair piece on the air, and Ruin hit
the staples. But again, no, you know, it's a really good
point because Craig, I thought it was. Craig did not have that final
editorial. Say nothing against Craig, but he didn't have that comedy skill set.
So that was with Liz the one of the co creators of the show,
and Madelie Smithberg. They created the show. John came in. He
had the right to have that because he had the chops for it, and
he had the he had the power to negotiate for that, and he should
have because it's his name on the shingle and you do have to write for
his voice. So personally, that was never an issue for me. I
don't think it was really an issue for many people. But it was,
like I think we were concerned in the beginning, like are we going to
take the show away from this edge that we created and make it more late
night fluff? Kind of not that there's anything wrong with that, but like
a different like, you know, we're gonna have more guests, We're gonna
start having a house band and do well, you take the unique quality out
of it, you know in your head about what it could be. Yeah,
before even I give SNL credit. The only other show at that point
that was doing sort of edgy topical stuff, but it was only weekly and
it was only like eight months out of the year was SNL Weekend Update,
and there was no footage and no sound bites. And what we created was
every if you go back and look like, every joke had to be set
up using footage and sound bites because we're doing a parody of a news show,
so you have to have footage and sound bites. If were don't have
footage and sound bites, you couldn't do the story because we wanted to then
come back from the sound bite and then there's your punchline. The SoundBite is
the setup, right, And so we had created this really cool kind of
thing and just you know, yeah, so it all worked out. I
mean, you know, John came in and he focused, and I think
that was a smart move on his part. He made the show more about
politics in the media's coverage of politics, which you no one had done.
And he's like a really bright guy and and he and and and then we
were able to kind of start to execute you know what he wanted to do.
And and you know if you didn't, you know, he kidnapped my
dog for a couple of weeks until I gave in a hair piece game for
me exactly. Oh no, did he would change it up. The blonde
curls was weird. I'm like, hey, you're Jewish, that's not working
and not working. How often did you come to town, Paul? I
come back once a year. I was actually here like twice within two months
because just before I did the ployt playing on House of Comedy, I did
a corporate gig, a private gig for Old Capitol Bank, that's the big
bank here. I guess we don't have any money, no place to put
it is Frank. I took the president's ATM card, So it was a
it's a great gig for me. I had a lucrative trip. Uh So
once a year, Yeah, next time your town, we can hang out
with us again. Yeah. I have a million questions, so many these
questions like this, and and then I it's weird because you can tell them.
I said it on the air, like, uh, I get self
conscious because I'm like, do people really care about this stuff? They're like
get in their car. And I even wanted to get into the whole the
culture of comedy and how it goes through phases and evolves and changes. Well,
are you about to leave? What are you about to do right now?
You got craft to do right? No, I'm good. I mean
I'm doing something with the with these guys a podcast like about a half hour.
I'm trying to have to ruin your day. No, could you give
us five more minutes after the break. We have to get good ratings otherwise
they'll fire us. Oh yeah, sure, we have to break it.
Wait, what are you applying that I just hurt your ratings. No,
I'm saying, you know what, We want you to stay. Yeah,
I'll say absolutely right, Okay, awesome. Paul meccurio is coming back for
a few more minutes next ninety seven One for You.