You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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Episode number three forty one. Cinema is a matter of what's in the
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to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullets. This
week's guest is one of the most sought after coaches in comedy. His first
book, The Hitting Tools of Comedy, was one of the one of my
favorite books that came out in the past couple of years, and it's been
an international bestseller. At His new book, which we're going to talk all
about, The Comic Hero's Journey, is out now everywhere. So, without
further ado, was Steve Kaplan. So, Steve, you've been on twice
before and this is your third time on the podcast. How does it feel.
It feels good. I'm still waiting for my third time jacket, you
know, like they do on SNL. But I'll just wait. I'm sure
that's in the mail. It is, and if it gets lost, well,
you know what, there's been a lot of cutbacks at the post office,
Steve, so oh boy, okay, well I'll continue nevertheless, By
the way, here's a funny story for you, Steve, really quickly.
I used to work at the post office. So that explains it. They
were so desperate they hired me. Can you believe that? So did you
experience what it meant to go postal? Well, see, I have an
unfair advantage, and that part of it because I've always been like, you
know, that unhinged guy. So I kind of walked in with a chiple
by shoulder. So okay, and what what were you? What were your
duties at the post office? Were you walking around or were you behind the
desk or uh? Neither. I actually was the guy who was in like
the in the like the warehouse, and we would like sort mail. We'd
move like tons of mail from here to there. We would like stock up,
we would help like the actual postal workers. We actually like, you
know, here's all the mail for your route today, and here's what you
gotta do. Yeah, it was. It was not a very glamorous job.
So if you think, tell me, tell me one thing that you
hoped your supervisors never found out that I probably took the only thing I could
do say is I took longer breaks than I should have. I didn't like
steal any mail or hide in wins mail, nothing like that. I never
I would never do anything like that, So so sorry, I don't have
any like crazy stories like I didn't. I didn't help a bag of mail
down like a sewer or something. But uh, did you ever did you
ever know anybody who did oh oh stuff would go like I mean, Steve,
Like they used to like throw stuff across the the entire floor, so
like you know, they would take a box that says fragile and they would
just boot it all the way across the whole ruin. Oh I knew it.
Oh yeah, that happens on the regular. Okay, Well, this
is the basis of a new Sun Dance comedy. I can I can see
it now going stolen. I thought you were going to say, like a
new lawsuit against the Post Office. I got this guy. Oh No,
everything is story. Everything is a something to generate story. That's that.
That's very true. And you know, I've seen a lot of the interviews
you've done, Steve, and not just the ones that you've done here.
You know you've been on twice before, but you know you've been on Film
Courage. Uh. You know, you've done a ton of interviews, and
you know you're you're you're very good at you know, sort of putting comedy
in perspective, which and what I mean by that is putting putting you.
It has to be a story. There has to be a reason it's funny,
because if it's just a series of events, it really doesn't mean a
lot. Right, Well, it's it's not that it doesn't mean I've been
thinking about that a lot in the new book that I wrote, Comic Hero's
Journey. I was thinking today that I didn't give enough props to totally silly
comedies that that have nothing on their mind other than to be totally silly.
And I was thinking about the fact that one of the reasons that I don't
have a section on that is because it's so hard to do because you're not
you have nothing to hang hang the narrative on, don't you You kind of
have characters, but they're not fully dimensionalized characters. I'm thinking of things like
like The Jerk that I just recently rescreened. You you don't have a story
that you really care about because you know that the character are just there for
laughs. And when it works, it's it's it's amazing, but it's it's
very hard to work. I can think of a lot more instances where it
doesn't work, like Scary Movie four or or you know, Naked Gun the
seventh sequel, because while it's possible to do, it's it's a very hard
trick to pull off because what it means is that you are entertaining the audience
in one particular way for ninety five minutes or one hundred or one hundred and
five minutes, and and that's extremely difficult because you don't have a love story
to fall back on. You don't have you don't have any real tension to
fall back on. There's no suspense, there's no drama, there's no there's
nothing thematic that hooks in. And what I found. What I find is
that when I go back and watch these movies like The Jerk, they don't
hold up that well. I mean, for me at least that, you,
you know, having being familiar with the comedy of it, the jokes
of it, I'm not as as I'm not taking for a ride anymore,
and I kind of see the shallowness of it. Although at the time I
loved it, I was a big fan. One movie that's like that that
still works for me is Airplane, And I think the reason for that is
because, even though it is as silly as the day is long, you
care about that Robert Hayes character. You care about him somehow. They make
you, you know, they make you concerned, They have a not It's
kind of the reverse of a save the cat in drama, you have a
saved the cat moment. In comedy, you often have the cat scratches your
hero's face and then you know, then peece on his leg and then walks
away. You you're made to feel sympathetic, You're made to feel bad for
the for the character, and and that that makes you care. And if
you care about the character, then no matter how silly the circumstances are,
you're you kind of fall into the narrative. You're hooked in the narrative.
So so that's what I've been thinking about that's a that's a long answer to
a question you didn't even ask. And those are the best ones, Steve,
trust me, because you know, people tewn it into you always hear
the guests, like I always say, and it's always good to you know
when the guests you know, uh, you know, talks more than I
do. And uh, I look good too, because I didn't have to
ask a question. You already gave me an answer. So thank you,
Thank you for that, Steve. Well there you go. So, but
you know what, I I watched The Jerk again recently. You know,
I still love the movie. I absolutely think it's hilarious. But I and
I see what you mean. Uh, but you know, and when I
watch movies like The Jerk and then you kind of compare it to today,
you know, I still think The Jerk has more character development because some movies
today maybe you know, maybe there's not so much character development, or maybe
there are too many you know, there are too many jokes that really don't
kind of tie in with it. So, you know, and then that
kind of ties with one of the questions I want to ask you, is,
you know, what, what are some of the recent movies that you've
seen where that have that have not only been funny, but you also thought
they were good because they actually told a story, you know, that actually
focused on a character. Oh well, I would say, you know,
I would say, Lady Bird, if you're gonna go on the on the
spectrum of of amusing too hilarious, Lady Bird might not be on the hilarious
side of that spectrum. But it's moving, it's funny, it's true,
it's authentic. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
now back to the show. Uh, I like I liked the Grand Budapest
Hotel. Again, it's it's just this perfect little fairy tale that has very
exaggerated characters. But ultimately it's it's about Uh, it's about honor and integrity
in a strange way because it's about this matre d who you know, who
screws all the all the elder guests the hotel. But in a strange way,
it's it's about holding on to something that's valuable from the past and and
mourning the things that are lost. Uh. In terms of movies that I
thought I thought were just funny, uh, I thought Spy was very successful.
In terms of parodying that James Bond formula and yet finding its own comedy
in in what Melissa McCarthy does. So, uh So, I think let
me see, was there something? Uh? You know, most of the
comedy that I see today aren't aren't movie. You know, successful comedies aren't
movies as much as as what you see on television and and especially on this
on the streaming channels. Brockmeyer, uh is uh is a binge worthy favorite
of mine. Uh It's because I love baseball and I love hankas area and
he just takes this dissolute character to its ultimate illogical, logical conclusion, and
it makes sense. It's him, Hank's area. Amanda Pete great stuff,
very funny, and the marvelous missus Mazel? Did I pronounce that right?
I can never figure that out. I'm just starting to watch season two.
Uh So, that that's very good. I I think it's hard to it's
hard to do feature comedy because the marketplace kind of demands them to dumb down
their material. So you have something like have you seen Tag? Right?
I've seen Tag? So I don't know what you thought of Tag, but
I thought that that it's kind of an odd quirky story that I couldn't see
the reason why they made it into a movie, because even though there were
some funny things that happened, it kind of eluded me. Maybe you had
a different experience. But I find that a lot of what gets into the
theaters is something that they're condescending to the audience. They're thinking, well,
this is funny, they'll like it, as opposed to what's the best story
we can tell, and it's the most comic way we can tell it.
Yeah, I saw tag and I again, I kind of felt that way
too. It's kind of like, you know, how did this, you
know, get made into a movie. It's kind of like one of those
things where you're like they made you kind of see the poster and you're like,
well, maybe it could be good, you know, and then and
then it's kind of like, you know, they made this into a movie.
I'm sure there was a market for it. I don't know how well
it did, I really, I don't have the numbers, but I don't
know what. I don't think there's gonna be a sequel, No, I
don't think so. You know, in a way, sometimes the best comedies
nowadays are the animated comedies because they're they they're creating, especially the Pixar comedies,
they're creating material that has to be four quadrant, that has to appeal
towards everybody. So it can't just be silly jokes that the kids like.
There has to be something for the parents. They want something for the parents.
And those Pixar movies are all driven thematically as opposed to driven by plot
and gag. So Incredibles to Coco, is that was that the one with
the Day of the Dead. I think that's I think I'm getting that right.
Yeah, I think that was Coco. Yeah, I mean those are
those are wonderful, inventive, imaginative and and and moving, moving pieces of
comic film. And I guess, I guess there's the sense because it's not
R rated, that they can just tell a story and they're not beholden to
do something outrageous or gross every ten minutes to keep this imaginary audience of thirteen
year old boys happy. So, you know, you mentioned Brockmeyer. I've
never seen an episode, but I have a friend who swears by it because
he just like Hacker's area as well. But you know, speaking of baseball
shows, have you ever seen east bound and down. I do like Eastbounding
Down. And the thing is is that I like Eastbounding Down, I like
Danny McBride, And if you put the two of them together, the thing
that I like more about Brockmeier is that it it expands the the the envelope
of what's, what could be, what could actually have have happened, and
it doesn't break the envelope, whereas with Eastbounding Down you often have to just
leave your your good sense off to one side and just to just enjoy Danny
McBride, is this outrageous? Uh? Not too bright? Ex baseball player?
So those are actually two similar projects, which I think one is is
done better, but both both have both have amusing things. I mean,
you know for me, you you start with the hardest question for me,
Dave, which is what have you seen that you like? Which makes me
feel obligated to well, what's what did I like? That's good? But
the taste is subjective. That's one of the things that I I I teach
strongly in my workshops and my books, is that is that funny is subjective.
I mean, what I find funny you might not find funny. It
doesn't make me right and you wrong, or vice versa. So you so,
if you're not going to try to create funny what's going to make me
laugh as opposed to what's going to make you laugh, then you then you
want to try to create comedy, which is telling the truth about people,
what's true about people, and telling the truth about that using you know,
a variety of methods that that make it, that bring it out of the
mundane and the ordinary, and and elevate it to to common kind of comic
art and comic truth. So uh so, if you ask me, what
what have I seen that I really like? I'm really drawn to movies that
I've seen years ago that still stay with me, like About a Boy or
five Hundred Days of Summer. Movies that are funny, but they have something
on their mind and they move me. They move me in three ways.
They move me kinetically I laugh, they move me emotionally I feel, and
they move me intellectually I think. And to me, those are the best
movies. And to me, I still I still go to my favorite,
which is Groundhog Day. And I guess my second favorite might be forty year
Old Virgin, which I just spent a day screening for a class in Milan,
trying to teach them how it works in terms of the comic hero's journey.
So when you screen that, by the way, those are two very
good choices. By the way, so because you know Groundhog's Day, you
know, we could we could dissect that right now. But I mean,
it's it's such a great movie because you know, repeating the same day over
and over and eventually you're right. I think you touched upon this in an
interview before, maybe you and I talked about this, But where he kind
of assumes that he's God and he kind of assumes these things, that's how
people would have really, you know, that's how if that happened to you
or me, you would assume that same thing, right, I mean,
And that's that's really the brilliance of the Herald Ramus revision of the originally of
the original Danny Rubin's script is that in at least in the final shooting version,
they he kind of holds very closely to Okay, this impossible thing happened,
that he's waking up and it's the same day over and over again.
But having having admitted that, having just got along and said, okay,
this impossible thing happened, What would happen then if this were true, what
would really happen out of that? And I think one of the things that
makes Groundhog Day work so well is that is that even though incredible, weird,
funny things happen, it stays within the reality of the impossible situation that
they created. He wakes up the same day, he remembers everything. Nobody
remembers anything. So he can go to a girl and try to pick her
up. And if he makes if he says something wrong and turns her off,
he can come back the next day and make it better. So she'll
say, what should we toast too? And he'll know he's at a bar,
and he'll say, let's toast to the groundhog and she kind of gets
turned off by that. So he comes back the very next day. We'll
be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
show. And she says, what should we toast? Two? And he
turns all solemn, and he says, I'd like to say a word for
you know, a prayer for world peace. And and of course, because
he figures, having gone through trial and error, he knows that that will
that will endear himself to her. So I, you know, I like
the fact that it takes an impossible or improbable situation, which in in in
my book I call the WTF moment though, what the fuck moment, And
and after that, everything that happens after that evolves organically and an honestly out
of character guided by theme. Yeah, it's uh, it's kind of like
every guy's dream, right, Yeah, the unlimited chances to actually pick up
a girl. Right. So but uh, but no, it's it's it's
like those days, you know, And at the heart of Groundhog's day was
you know, it's basically, you know, he had to find out what
was missing in his life and and basically, you know, find out all
the mistakes that he was making. And you know, even when he thought
he had the perfect day, he would he wherever he woke up again and
he goes, what the hell I thought? I did? You know,
I got, I did all this right, and he he still didn't wake
up. And then finally, as it had progressed, it was he had
to, uh, I forget the uh the female character's name in there that
he ended up with at the end, Yeah, right, right right,
and read it played by Andy McDowell. Right, Well, I remember his
name was Phil because I remember that guy was like, hey Phil at the
Groundhog. See it stuck with me. It's like an a mock device.
But and then you have four year old version, which you know, I
think, you know again, that's brilliant, especially you know, I mean,
it's probably even more true today than it was what it was made even
a few years ago, because you got a lot of millennials still living at
you know, they know what I mean that you're still living at home.
And that's true, that's true. But I think for me, the thing
the brilliance of the Appatoe film is the brilliant combination and and and uh and
the balance between gross out humor and real heart uh where Whereas before you had
lots of films, you know, like those uh Rob Schneider films, which
were just basically, how can we be grosser than the Farrely Brothers and and
get away with it and get some laps. But what Judd Apatow did is
he he kind of hit the sweet spot between uh, you know, a
conservative sentimental story and uh, you know, balls to the wall gross out
humor. Uh and and in fact, in talking about the film. He
he, He often talks about the fact that there were things he cut out
because they lost the audience. They might have gotten some laughs from some from
some people, but if he when he showed it to the audience, for
instance, there were there was much more pornography, uh literal pornography, uh
that that they were looking at on the screens because they were in this uh
you know, the True Tech or whatever the name smart Tech was the electronics
store. And there was a sequence in which they lock Andy, which is
played by Steve Carrell in the in the booths where you could test out,
you know, sound systems, and they locked him in there with a pornographic
film to get him, you know, out of his I don't know,
virgin dumb and in the in one of the original cuts, uh, there
was a lot more uh porno film in it. And in fact, I
this is a very this is a very uh I think, uh odd point.
But the actress in the porno film I think is Stormy Daniels. You
could check me on that, but I think that that's Stormy Daniels in there.
Uh. And And what they founded at a test screening was that it
was funny. It got a laugh. But it lost the audience because you
know, maybe they were a little uncomfortable, or maybe they just thought,
oh, is this the movie we're gonna watch now, it's it's gonna be
as you know, more gross than more gross and more gross grosser and grosser,
as supposed to dumber and dumber. And so he he edited that out,
and he trimmed it, and he took out the part that that pushed
the audience away, not offended the audience, but pushed them out of the
narrative, push them out of the caring about the character. Uh and and
and so to me, one of the one of the one wonderful things about
the movie is that right when you think, oh, now they're going to
really make fun of this character and they're going to mock him, you empathize
with him. You sympathize with him, you feel bad for him. After
it's revealed that he's a virgin at the poker game, there's not a sequence
where he's like doing something dumb. He's riding his bike home in pain,
in agony. The first thing you see when he gets to his apartment is
a shot of him screaming, like this primal scream of pain. And humiliation,
And the result of that is that you're thinking, oh my god,
this isn't just a joke that's supposed to last for ninety minutes. This is
a human being who's you know, has this improbable I go back to impossible
or improbable, improbable thing. He's forty years old, he's still a virgin.
It's not impossible, but it's improbable. And what would happened? What
would he do? And and the guys at the at the at smart Tech,
they don't just make they don't make fun of him. Some of them
do, some minor characters who we see for a second, but the main
three buddies seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Rominy Malco. They're out to
help him. It's actually a very heartwarming and an inclusive movie about about growing
up and transformation. So so to me, those those are movies. When
I go to the movies and I see something that's not not really a transcendent
experience, I often have to go and watch something else that I think I
think is. And it could be something as as classic as Shop around the
Corner, or You've Got Mail, which is the same story but updated,
or it's a wonderful life or Meet Me in Saint Louis. These stories that
combine comedy with heart and and a point of view and an idea in their
head. You know, you mentioned The Fairly Brothers. One of my favorite
movies of all time, by the way, is Dumb and Dumber. And
you know, because you also mentioned Dumb and Dumber. I don't know if
you met that on purpose, but you know what I mean, And so
I just wanted to say, what do you what do you think of Dumb
and Dumber? I think it's one of the things that when I when I
talked about movies that are just kind of designed to make you laugh and not
not a lot else. That's one of the movies that succeeds wonderfully because they
they have this silly premise where these two dumb guys are going to go on
this road trip and they just keep on finding inventive ways to keep it fresh.
And one of the ways that they do it is by uh, at
any one point one of them, one of the dumb guys is slightly more
aware and smarter than the others. So it's this wonderful Abbot and Costello,
Laurel and Hardy routine all the way throughout. But they but they switch it
enough so that it doesn't become repetitive or predictable. So I I I love
I Love Dumb and Dumber and uh, and I think it's it's it's one
of the it's one of the few movies that I think tries to be funny
from beginning to end and then succeeds. But it's really really hard. And
if and if you want proof of how hard it is, take a look
at The Fairly Brothers Three Stooges, which is you know, listen, these
are the same guys. They're talented guys. Bobby read my book and wrote
me in nice note about it, which I love, you know, which
I liked. But the Three Stooges, it only works sporadically because there's not
you know, because there's really no story other than hey, we're doing the
Three Stooges and and it's got some silly plot, but you don't really care
about them the way you care about the characters in Dumb and Dumber or or
more, uh, even more the characters and there's something about Mary. Yeah,
and you know, that's kind of one of the hardest things to do
for writers, right, is to create empathy for a character, so so
the audience, you know, they they not only they don't sympathize, but
you know, sympathy is feeling sorry for somebody, but empathy is putting yourself
into their shoes so you can see things from their point of view. And
that's kind of one of the hardest things that I think for writers to do,
because it's what Pixar does so well. Will be right back after a
word from our sponsor, and now back to the show, which is,
you know, right off the bat, caring about characters getting involved in their
story so you actually give it damn if they succeed, if they succeed or
not. Well, in a way, it's actually the easiest thing to do
because all you have to do is tell your own story. One of the
things that Pixar does so well is they spend so much time on story and
they're willing to throw out years of work, hundreds and thousands of dollars worth
of work, in order to get the story right in inside out. For
instance, at first it was going to be Joy, the character of Joy
and Fear going on that journey, and then they spend a lot of time
trying to make that work, and it didn't work, and ultimately they had
to go. They had to realize that what Joy needs is her opposite.
Joy needs sadness. And the way you get there is not by intellectualizing,
by going you know what, I think joy should be what you do,
what you get. How you get there is by sharing your own feelings,
sharing your own sense of what's happened to you as a person. I can't
remember exactly who on the creative team it was, but somebody had the experience
of leaving Minnesota and going to a new city as a kid, and that
became the movie. So it's not a matter of how can you make a
character empathetic, Tell your own story, be honest in the fictional in that
fictional world, tell your own story. Somebody once said that all fiction is
autobiography. Every piece of fiction is back as actually telling you more about the
person who's writing it then about the characters who are in it. And I
think that's true. So in There's Something about Mary, there's this wonderful moment.
It's not the first moment in the film, but it's one of the
flashback moments when we see Ben Stiller as a teenager with really terrible graces.
Go to pick Mary up for the prom, and he rings the doorbell and
this the door opens, and I forget the name of the actor, but
the actor is Africdavid. Keith David, Right, Keith David opens the door,
and you know, Mary's not African Americans. So he's confused for a
second, so he kind of peeks up at the door number for a second,
and then the guy says, what are you here for? And he
says, I'm here to pick up Mary for the prom. And Keith David,
because Keith David's this practical joke, he says, all Mary went to
the prom twenty minutes ago with a boy friend Woogie. And there's this moment
where you see Ben Stiller's face just just you know, fall apart. You
know, he's and he's trying, you know, he's trying to hold it
together and just goes kind of okay, and he's about to walk away,
and yes, then the mom comes in and says, oh, he's kidding,
come on in. But in that moment, we confronted all our disappointments
from adolescence. Everybody who's ever stood up or or didn't have a dat or
had a bad date or or or was passed over for being picked for volleyball.
You know, we we all empathize with that moment. And it's not
saved the cat. It's basically the cat scratched me, and and and and
it's a universal feeling. So what happens, what happens in the comedy is
you want to make sure that the more the more exaggerated and ridiculous event that's
going to happen later on in the movie. That means that you have to
be more honest and real earlier in the movie to make us care, make
us care, because eventually later on in that scene, Ben Stiller finds himself
in a bathroom and he zips up too quickly and he catches a very important
appendage in a zipper, which is ridiculous. I mean, it's it's just,
you know, flat out silly. But if we don't care about the
character, that's all it is. It's just silly as opposed to us,
us kind of putting ourselves in his shoes and going, man, what else
what else wrong could happen today? And and basically, you know, well
you always said Steve the the in like an action movie, the hero has
all the tools. But but in a comedy, the hero has no tools
whatsoever. Well, not not no tools, but the hero lacks some,
if not most, of the tools. I mean, Woody Allen's very very
witty and very bright, but he's a physical coward. So you can't it
can't be a total normally, it can't be a total loser. But but
somebody who lacks some, if not, if not all, the skills.
I mean. One of the in working on the comic Hero's Journey, which
was taking a look at the hero's journey from a comedy point of view,
one of the things that we that we came to in the beginning was the
fact that in a in a drama, in an action film, the hero
has all the skills necessary. Sometimes they're hidden within. They have greatness hidden
within, only they don't know it, perhaps like Luke Skywalker. But in
a comedy, your character shots the movie off with, well, there's no
greatness within there as far from greatness within as is humanly possible. And basically
the story of a comedy is a story of a character who is comfortable.
Youse too, has has resigned themselves to being this imperfect person. In fact,
most of the times they don't even know that they're imperfect, and something,
some impossible or improbable thing happens to push them out of their comfort zone
and they're forced to transform. And they do transform because they because like in
Big where he wakes up, he's thirty years old. In Groundhog Day,
he's waking up, it's the same day over and over again. There's no
choice but to transform because their circumstances have changed so that they're our characters in
a comedy, become somebody who is a more actualized human being. It has
more skills, but they start off as big zeros what we call you know,
take you know, taking your zero and making him into a hero.
Right, And to go along with where you just said, you know,
you're right, I misspoke when I said lack of lack of skills, right,
No, or sorry, it has zero skills because you have to have
at least one trait for the audience to be like, maybe this guy has
a shot at something. Yeah yeah, so so you know, you see
that's where my head's at. Steve. I'm always like, look, just
so let's just give them nothing and go from let's go for no, no,
give give them something. I mean, uh, In Bride's Maids,
Christian wig is Is is totally messed up, but at least she has a
good best friend in Maya Rudolph, even even though she doesn't have a job
and she doesn't have a boyfriend and John Hamm is terrible to her. So
so so our our heroes, our comic heroes start off with something, but
most of the time that they're they're they're not aware of how of how bad
their predicament is, or how uh what what their what their minus is,
their negative is, and and most of the time times our comic heroes start
off with a short sighted goal. You know, uh, Bill Murray and
Groundhog Day only wants to get a job at a at a bigger station where
it can be newscaster. Uh. Steve Carrell in The fourty year Old Virgin
Only he just wants to continue what he thinks is a great life. You
know. He makes an omelet every morning by himself, and he plays with
his dolls, and he he has all his h his his merchandise still in
their original packaging, and he watches Survivor with the elderly couple upstairs. He's
to him, that's okay, I'm not he's not. He doesn't complain,
and he's not even totally conscious that he's that he's unhappy. But what happens
as our characters transform is they get what we call the discovered goal. That
in comedies, our characters discover a goal halfway through midway through that that that
then becomes their ultimate goal, their their outer goal in order to accomplish whatever
they're trying to accomplish in the in the movie. Because like in four year
Old Virgin, you know, if if it were to be like let's just
say, you know, real life, and and you know that main character
never ever realized how unhappy he was. You know, he was always forty
uh, he was always just going to do the same old thing essentially.
You could see that he would never change his routine and he would just kind
of you know die so to speak, physically, and it was just surrounded
by that stuff and he would never there was an issue. Yeah. So,
and then again when when you're just going back to the four ye old
Virgin, when when his whole goal was just to get laid at first,
and then he realizes he's found somebody he actually loves. By the by the
yeah, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
back to the show. So the first thing he says is I respect I
totally respect women. I respect them so much I stay the hell away from
them. And then later on it's like, no, I don't want to
go to bed with the girl from the bookstore. I I I love Trish
played by Catherine Keener. And and he he does something which is way outside
his comfort zone. He races after her on his bike, uh to you
know, to get the girl of his dreams. So so there there are
a lot of there are some similarities between the hero's journey and the comic hero's
journey. You know. You often at the end of an action film,
you have the race to the finish. Uh. In a comedy, you're
you're seeing character transform go from uh, you know, uh a zero to
a mensh and a mention's Yiddish word that means like a good man, uh,
a complete person. And so in an action film, Bruce Willis is
going to kick ass from the minute he shows up on screen screen to the
end. But our heroes in a comedy, uh, they're not going to
kick ass in the beginning. They have to learn, they have to gain
skills. They have to gather allies, and they have to become better,
better human beings in the world, more more comfortable, more integrated into the
world that they live in. And you know, we've kind of been,
you know, talking sort of in a round about way about the comic hero's
Journey. So let's look about your new books, my new books. Funny,
you should mention that that's my new book, The Comic Hero's Journey,
Serious story structure for Fabulously Funny Films, now published by Michael We see productions
now available in your local Amazon. Well, you know it's funny. I
look down by my foot and there it was, just sitting there. I
was like, hey, wait a minute, here did this get here?
But you know, we would you know, talking you know in a right
about way about you know, creating characters and you know, finding out their
their sort of wants and needs and goals, and you know, so what
was sort of the impetus for you to sort of write this book, uh,
you know, for for the Comic Here's Journey. Well, I had
been I had written my previous book, They Hidden Tools of Comedy, which
was which were specific tools and principles that you could apply towards film or television,
and I would be teaching these workshops and people would say would say,
well, how would this happen at this part in the movie. And it
just made me think, Okay, there are all these books and and and
about story structure, and and a lot of my friends have written books about
story structure, like Michael hay and and and John Truby and Chris Boebler,
And I thought, well, well, is that how the how is that
story structure that the three act format or the sixth uh you know, plot
point turning format. How does that work for comedy? So I started to
explore that, and I realized some of it is similar, but there are
important elements that are completely different and that that are different in a comedy than
than in h than in a dramatic or or action film. And so I
started working on it. I started, uh, and I pitched into my
publisher and I I mentioned it to Chris Foebler, who's written the you know,
the Writer's Journey, which is based on the Joseph Campbell work The Mono
Myth and The Hero of a Thousand Faces, And I said, uh,
Chris, do you mind? I'm going to steal your title and and your
idea. I'm going to use it for comedy and and after a moment he
said, okay, only only only mention me as you're doing it. So
I did, and so I and so this is a template for writing a
comic feature. It's not it's not the only way to write a comic feature.
It's not uh the uh, the end all and be all of how
to structure a story. But it's one way of taking a look at the
hero's journey and seeing how that that mono myth works for comedy and and the
the I think one of the big differences is understanding that your hero starts off
at a loss, and you know that we talked about, and understanding that
the funny thing that happens to them at that what we call the comic premise,
the impossible or improbable thing is the only time in the story that you
can make ship up, that you can lie that. After you impose that
impossible or improbable event or or happenstance, then you have to play honestly,
develop the develop the narrative, honestly true character and truth theme. We talk
about the fact that that characters are transforming, they have a discovered goal uh,
and then we talk about the fact that and this is uh to me,
this is almost uh. It goes without saying, but I found out
that that it was a little bit of a revelation to people that I was
working with or talking to in workshops, is that in order for the comic
hero's journey to work, there has to be real pain and real loss.
There has to be there has to be honest moments where where you where you
drop into drop into drama. Otherwise it doesn't it doesn't mean anything, it
doesn't matter. So so that's that's a part of the of the comic hero's
journey that's essential for comedies. And I can think of a good comedy in
which there isn't some moment where we're all where the healer, where all is
lost, you know, the the the hero seems that they've given up,
that they're not going to achieve their goals, that that the story is not
going to end end happily. And it doesn't mean you have to have a
happy ending, but it does mean that you have to allow your character to
experience not funny loss and pain, but real loss and pain. Right,
So there actually has to be some real stakes, some actual losses, so
you know what I mean. So it has to feel like you feel real
and feel that there's actually something at stake here rather than just kind of like
going, oh, you know, it'll it'll work out, or or it's
all silly, so don't worry about it. You can't be It can't be
a bugs Bunny cartoon where where you shoot bugs in the face with a shotgun
and and hey there's when the smoke clears. He just has, you know,
a bad complexion, but everything else is okay. So so one of
the one of the things that I've noticed in examining a lot of movies to
write the book is not only are there moments of loss and pain near three
quarters of the way through, but a lot of movies start off with the
characters having having dealt with loss and pain, or dealing with loss and pain,
starting with you know, Sleepless in Seattle, where it starts off following
the death of Tom Hanks's wife and now he's a widower or spy with Melissa
McCarthy, where in the first ten minutes, uh the hero of the movie
her the person she idolizes, Jude Law, who's this very James Bondian kind
of spy is is killed spoiler spoiler alert, seemingly killed right right in front
of her ears because she's she's monitoring everything back back in Langley, Virginia.
That that a lot of the comedy comes out of real loss and pain as
opposed to, well, it's a comedy, so nothing serious can really happen,
you know, and there's a you know. It was a great example
was the Hangover because you kind of felt and as some actual pressure there,
and you know what I mean, because because hey, look there's a groom
that we have to find because you know, and we're the guys that lost
them. Right. Actually I like parts of The Hangover, but I wasn't
crazy about the Hangover precisely because, uh, those the you know, especially
the Bradley Cooper character, was so a moral is like this teacher is drinking
and let's just go off and do this thing and let's just party. And
their relation, none of their relationships, I mean, certainly the who's the
guy who lost the tooth at Holmes right, the Aed Helms character, his
his relationship is horrible. You don't want him to end up with her.
So so so one of the things that that that I was not crazy about
in The Hangover was the lack of of empathetic characters and and and and thematic
uh, thematic development and resolution. We'll be right back after a word from
our sponsor, and now back to the show. But what was brilliant about
The Hangover was how it melded a frat boy Las Vegas movie with a mystery.
And to me, that was that was what what made it very special
is that once you woke up and there's a baby and a tiger, and
how the hell did those things get there? Everything else worked because they had
to They had to go on this this mystery, you know, had to
solve this this impossible mystery. And the way that they did that, you
know, led them into funnier and funnier situations. For me, the funniest
moment is when the I think it's Ken Young, the naked Asian guy jumps
out of the trunk of the car. That was funny. But the most
satisfying moment of the movie was the was the credits where you see the night,
you know, in all those photographs, you see the night that they
went through. And and because at the heart of the Hangover is a gag.
That's why Hangovers two and three, while they might have made money,
were aesthetically not very satisfying for me at least because there's nothing there. You
know, I don't really care about those guys. Uh and and the only
guy I might want to care about, uh was in Hangover was basically on
a roof lost for for most of the movie. So so so I I
I have to be ah, somebody who is on the don't love Hangover side.
Well, I'm still a great guy, Dave, You're still a wonderful
guy. Nevertheless, oh, thank you, thank you. I'm gonna hold
you to that. Steve by the way, Okay, well, I agree
that the Hangover sequels I I I and you know this too. When whenever
there's a hit movie, you know, there's an inclination in Hollywood to say,
hey, you know, let's start churning out those sequels. You know,
let's hang Over seventeen. Sounds good to me, right, But then
again, you know, if I was in a position where somebody was like,
hey, look, davey, if you if you make a hit movie,
we'll give you a couple of million to write the sequel, I'd be
like, you know what, I'm going to write to my handfalls off.
You know, I think I think I'm with you there, but yeah,
I'm like, I'll be in my grave writing sequels to that movie as well
as you're writing checks. But hey, there's there's a comedy idea right there,
Steve. There's a comedy story somewhere in there. There's a comedy story
everywhere. That's that's the whole point. Our lives are comedies, and we
just have to be brave enough to tell them. Yeah, and you know
that's a very good point, Steve. And you know, you know,
and that's why I made sure to pick up your book, your you know,
your other book, The Hidden Tools of Comedy. By the way,
just as a quick side note, the other two episodes of the of the
podcast where you're on Steve, they do phenomenal numbers still to this day.
Wow. Yeah, so a year and a year and a hair perspectively,
are still doing great numbers, Like you know, when I when I pulled
like a three month kind of window of the past downloads, you're always in
there. Wow, that's great. Well, then we should let people know
how to get in touch with me. Where can people find you at?
Steve? People can find me at my website, which is www. Kaplan
with a K Kaplan Comedy Comedy with the C Caplincomedy or one word Kaplincomedy dot
com. Or they can email me at Steve at Kaplincomedy dot com. Or
they can frame me on Facebook at Caplincomedy and or or they can follow me
on Twitter at sk Comedy. And I'm going to link to all that in
the show notes everyone, including a link to Amazon to buy Steve's new book,
The Comic Heroes Journey and his other book By the Way, they Hidden
Cool hit they Hidden Tools of Tomedy. Did I say the Hidden Tools of
comedy? Set the Hidden Cool of Comedy? Which I like even better?
I was like, wait, it didn't sound right. Wait next printing,
that's that's going to be the new title. Wow, I think I think
I just gave you your next your next book, Steve. The hint.
I'm working on that right now. And I'm gonna link to everything we talked
about in this show notes everyone at Dave Bullis dot com. Twitter, It's
at DV podcast Steve Kaplan as always, man, thank you so much for
coming on. Thank you Dave, and be able to look out for that
jacket in the mail. By the way, okay, third time jacket.
You know they're aren't a lot of us here, There's not. It's a
rare club, Steve. Okay, I feel honored. I have a going
buddy you too, Thanks Dave. I want to thank Dave so much for
doing such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links
to anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes
at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three forty one. Thank you so
much for listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what.
I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast
at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.