#02 Sexy Boomer Show - Harry Shearer
Ted Bonnitt: [00:00:00] I hope this works. Phil, have we lost you, Phil?
Phil Proctor: [00:00:03] There's silence.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:00:04] Oh, geez. Okay. Okay.
Phil Proctor: [00:00:07] Is Harry still there?
Ted Bonnitt: [00:00:08] I'm hearing Harry fine,
Harry Shearer: [00:00:10] Harry Fine. That's the missing stooge right.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:00:12] Thanks Harry. Thanks for your patience with this.
Harry Shearer: [00:00:14] This is like when the, when you're trapped on an airplane, you've, they've arrived early and they haven't got a jet way for you and it's been a long flight and you're just sitting there and they say.
Thank you for your patience. It's not patience, right.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:00:28] It's captivity.
Harry Shearer: [00:00:30] Thank you for being a hostage. Alright. I just, I just started recording, so I'm going to do a countdown so you have something to sync with. Yeah. So five, four, three, two, one. Start
Ted Bonnitt: [00:00:44] good. Got it.
Phil Proctor: [00:00:45] Launch.
A E Guy: [00:00:48] Welcome to Phil and Ted's sexy boomer show with your host, Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt. Phil and Ted's guest today is comedy Renaissance man Harry Shearer, who shares show business stories spanning his amazing career. From the credibility gap to Spinal Tap and from Saturday Night Live to The Simpsons. And now your sexy boomer hosts Phil Procter and Ted Bonnitt.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:01:15] Hi Phil.
Phil Proctor: [00:01:15] Hi Ted. How are you today?
Ted Bonnitt: [00:01:17] I'm okay. How's the bunker?
Phil Proctor: [00:01:19] Oh, the bunker is, uh, uh, I just cleaned it. I hosed it down inside here and I wash my hands afterwards. And so everything's looking, spic and span.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:01:30] Here we are in patchwork bunker to bunker Phil and Ted, sexy boomer show, welcoming our special guest Harry Shearer. Calling from his bunker.
Harry Shearer: [00:01:39] Hello.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:01:40] How are you, Harry?
Harry Shearer: [00:01:40] Uh, I'm bunkerific.
Phil Proctor: [00:01:42] Wonderful. Uh, you just, you made it back to the States from, uh, Australia where Judith was doing a tour, right?
Harry Shearer: [00:01:49] Yes. I was her bass player. and, uh, we, uh, she had gigs, uh, first of all, at a place that sounded so unutterably twee. Uh, but it turned out to be quite fantastic. The Port Fairy Folk Festival.
Phil Proctor: [00:02:07] Oh, Good heavens.
Harry Shearer: [00:02:08] Yeah. You see what I mean?
Phil Proctor: [00:02:09] Yeah, I do.
Harry Shearer: [00:02:10] But on a port fairy is a lovely little town of 3000 along the Southern coast of Australia. Where you know, if you can see the next land, uh, beyond the water, it would be Antarctica. Um, and it's, a festival has been going on for 44 years at the town, as I say, a 3000, uh, an incredibly swell restaurant for dinner and a brilliant breakfast place.
They make it a civilized endeavor and three totally professional stages and a wow. And the best part of the story. Is, it's all run by the town and all revenue goes to the town. No, AEG, no, a live nation. What a good idea. So she had, she had two gigs there, and then we went to a Melbourne. Um, and we, uh, she had a gig in Sydney on the Saturday night, and she did that at the opera house, the smaller room in the opera house, which was fantastic.
Yeah. And then I was supposed to be part of a comedy benefit for the bushfire victims on the steps of the opera house. They had just finished building the stage, which faced the steps when they announced the cancellation of the benefit. Right. And then they canceled Judith's gig in Melbourne, and so we decided, let's, let's get outta here.
Quanta's parked 90% of its international fleet the next day.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:03:31] This is fall. Now they're right. It is early.
Harry Shearer: [00:03:34] It's late summer. Early fall. Yeah.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:03:36] The fires are pretty much out now.
Harry Shearer: [00:03:38] Long, long over, they had a big, they went through the California show, a hustle as I like to call it, which is they had the big fires and then they had the floods cause the rains came.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:03:47] Wow. So now you decided to get back state side, uh, given the pandemic, and was that difficult for you?
Phil Proctor: [00:03:54] Well, actually not, uh, the flight was fine and it was, we had seen the pictures of O'Hare, if you remember a couple of weeks ago, these pictures of people coming back to the States and it looked like, you know, any refugee picture anywhere in the world just jammed together a good place for the virus to spread.
And we thought, Oh God, that's what we're in for. And it turned out that LAX was the fastest we've ever gone through an international airport anywhere. Wow.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:04:21] You're spending time in new Orleans, chiefly also London, and, and here in Los Angeles. And you were thinking about going over to new Orleans as soon as you got back, but then you had second thoughts, right?
Harry Shearer: [00:04:33] Well, basically it was as simple as, uh, we'd just been on a flight and the idea of getting on another plane was not that appealing. And then of course, as the situation in new Orleans unfolded. It just seemed a wiser. Our situation in LA is such that, uh, there's nothing, there's nobody to avoid where we are.
It's basically self isolation is the way we always live. When we come to LA.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:04:58] So we live in the same neighborhood and, uh, I know your salvation is the beach. Mine is the bike path. It's all closed now because the County of Los Angeles has shut it down because too many people were coming out there on the weekends, uh, as if nothing was going on. So they've shut everything down.
Harry Shearer: [00:05:14] You know, the, the, there is a little, uh. Patch of green between where we are and, uh, the ocean. And, uh, there were guys out there yesterday boxing, boxing,
Ted Bonnitt: [00:05:25] This reminds me of what it used to be in the nineties before the first big tech bubble.
Harry Shearer: [00:05:30] Yes. Yeah. I mean, this is what LA looks like right now in terms of, uh, I haven't been into the city, but, uh, just looking at the sky, uh, reminds me of when I was growing up here.
In terms of every day, it's clear and sunny. And you know, given the time of year, it's a little brisk. But aside from that, you know, and China, I don't know if you saw, uh, air pollution was way down, and as soon as they started opening back up to get people to work after the first wave, before the second wave started, um, air pollution went back up.
So, you know, uh, if you want to be. Um, like we were in the sixties about stuff. Uh, this is nature's message to us. Stop doing what you've been doing. Look, i
Ted Bonnitt: [00:06:18] It's sort of like a, a natural pause button. It's been struck and I am an environmentalist scientist's dream. Uh, you know what a fantasy, they would say, God, if we could just shut everybody down for a week or two just to see what the results would be as a control baseline. Yeah. Well, now they have it.
Harry Shearer: [00:06:34] Yeah. The amazing thing is that the response of the environment is every bit as, uh. Surprisingly quick as a response to the virus.
Phil Proctor: [00:06:44] Interesting thought.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:06:45] Phil, and I've been talking about it too, is I, there are some upsides to this terrible situation and one is an opportunity to stop, reconsider a runaway situation that we're dealing with environmentally.
Heard on your show last Sunday, you were talking about microplastics going to be booming because of the mask production, which uses those types of plastics.
Harry Shearer: [00:07:08] The phrase, the phrase is melt blown fabrics.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:07:12] Yes. Melt blown. And there's a Chinese mogul of melt blown plastics who's now seeing competition for the first time.
Harry Shearer: [00:07:20] Yeah. It's been pretty sweet for him thus far. Yes, and the fact is now a year from now, we're going to be hearing about all the additional microplastics that ended up in the ocean because of this upsurge in plastic production.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:07:32] Have you thought at all about possibly some of the opportunities this situation is presenting us as a society as far as, um, what we could do w how quickly the earth responds?
Harry Shearer: [00:07:45] Um, mainly I had a sketch on my show about, uh, uh, the first startup to come out of this situation, which is, uh, a service that, uh, since the only way you're allowed out of your house, uh, in most places is if you're walking your dog, what do you do if you don't have a dog? They come bring you a dog.
Hey everybody. It's another time at bat for the Entrepod. The podcast for would be entrepreneurs and people who want to be one. And, uh, we got a new sponsor today, the guys at sheet heads who say, what good is the best mattress in the world if you don't cover it with the world's best sheets? And I almost forgot tonight to introduce myself.
I'm Adam Buchholz, uh, not recording this as usual in my parents' living room, uh, because it's now their office or their workplace or something. So I'm in a Buckholtz garage, squeezed in between the Honda. And the vintage Plymouth van, yet upon blocks, but not on blocks, at least I hope not. As my guest today.
He's a creator of a startup, so new, it doesn't even have its certificate of incorporation yet, which to me is like so cool. Biggie, you've hit the marketplace like a cat five tsunami with your idea. I mean, a. Everybody on my Slack is talking about it. Uh, it's pretty huge. All right, Adam, and it's, it's just a result of sitting in the tub for a couple hours while I'm trapped in the house.
I guess we all know that one. I just asked myself, uh, people who are being told to stay in the house unless they have to go to the doctor, buy supplies or are not. Oh. Unless they have to walk the dog. Yeah. I know. I used to have to walk Seinfeld when I was a kid, which sounds cool. Unless what if you don't have a dog?
What if you could order a dog via an app for your walk? Wow. An app dog is delivered to your house. You get to stay outside for up to an hour. The dog is picked up. Rinse and repeat. That's the whole idea behind Barkz with a Z. Oh, I love the Z. So you're getting the dogs from like the pound adoption services shelters, right?
They're relieved. The dogs have something to do all day on those. Some of them, the older ones need a day of rest every once in a while from all the walking, and you're never going to run out of dogs. They're always. Saying how full of shelters are, although, uh, we never found Seinfeld. Actually, you, our first couple of markets, Sacramento and Portland, Oregon, we are beginning to see the bottom of the barrel of canine availability.
So, uh, we've set up a research lab as are great to work with, uh, some robotics companies on prototyping a mechanical dog that at least. Walks like a real dog. You know, if this thing goes on, and as long as they say, that sounds exciting, maybe down the road people would actually get, the mechanical dog says their pets.
That would be a whole new disruptive that we'd started running out of those too. Yeah, that's, that's why you're the startup guy, and I'm. The guy who would have used thought of guys, you're essential to. So when does barks break out to more cities? We're getting arrangeable fish round of funding this weekend and then we go wide and I'm trying to figure out what role do algorithms plan all this post routes to take and dropping off and picking up the dogs.
Sweet. Just one final question. Were your parents big hip hop fans. No, it was a fat baby. Okay, so watch for barks when it goes live near you and join me next time, maybe a hopper cord in the driveway for another edition of the Entrepot. Until then, I'm Anna Buchholz saying, my new sign off. Go start something so long.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:11:34] Barkz with a Z Barkz with a Z. Very catchy.
Phil Proctor: [00:11:38] And listen, Harry, these days, they could bring you a plastic dog.
Harry Shearer: [00:11:41] They're working on that. Yes. Yeah. It would just excrete pellets directly into the ocean. Right. Those would be the pellets that, uh. Dissolve the microplastics from the masks. Now you've got to say,
Phil Proctor: [00:11:54] now you got a nice little circle going.
Harry Shearer: [00:11:57] Yeah.
Phil Proctor: [00:11:58] I'd like to talk a little bit about, uh, your life very, here I am on Benedict Canyon, and it was, your show has been on the air for what, 17 years? Since 1983, right? Yeah. Yeah. But of course when we, we've been friends longer than that and we've been professional associates longer than that. Cause we go back to the very early days of the credibility gap on KRLA, right?
Yes. And you've actually been in my house and have sat upstairs. Uh, in, in our living room, which is pretty much the same, you know, and, and so it, to me, it's absolutely amazing after all these years that you have been so creative, you know, I mean, you, you do a show every week and it's always just full of inventive, creative ideas.
Your music is amazing. I mean, you, you must feel in a, okay. Some of my friends are the flying Karamazov brothers. All right. They're jugglers and they're great. Oh, they're fantastic. And, and I've asked Paul, I said, after all these decades of juggling, what, what does it feel like now? And he actually said to me, I'm still refining my technique.
Well, yeah. Yeah. You know, that's what I, I get from, from you. I find you very, your career is very inspirational and I think out of all the people that I know who are very talented, you been able to somehow exploit. You're, you're different talents in a very unique way. I'm sure some of it is luck, but a lot of it I think is sheer talent and the fact that you've always kind of gone your own way.
Now. Am I right about that?
Harry Shearer: [00:13:41] Uh, thanks for the compliments, Phil. Yeah. Um, uh, uh, I'm going to quote. Oh, uh, it may take too long to tell this story, but, uh,
Phil Proctor: [00:13:53] We have nothing but time. Now, Harry, we have nothing but time.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:13:56] We did rule out your resume because we figured that would just take two hours alone.
Harry Shearer: [00:14:00] Yeah, no, that takes too long. This is a story from my friend Paul Shaffer, and you'll see where it goes. It goes exactly to what, but your question was, uh, Paul was working on, uh, uh. Really horrible idea for a TV series called a year at the top where, uh, and it was a coproduction of Norman Lear and Don Kirshner. Wow. And, uh, the premise of it was these two kids wanted to become rock and roll stars.
And the devil, they do a deal with the devil. They get a year as rock and roll stars. But of course, the price is they've sold their soul to the devil. And. The third member of the cast is Mickey Rooney who is playing, I'm trying to remember. He wasn't, he may have been playing now. He wasn't playing the devil.
Anyway, whatever he was playing. He, so Paul is on the set. They're rehearsing, and Mickey Rooney jr walks in visiting his dad. And, uh, so they have a conversation in front of everybody apparently. And, uh, Mickey senior is sort of, uh. Impatient with us and what are you doing? What are you doing? What Mickey Rooney jr I think was wearing a buckskin fringe jacket, you know, like a cowboy.
What are you, what are you doing? What are you doing? And Mickey Rooney. Jr says, dad, I'm doing my own thing. And Mickey Rooney at some high volume, I don't want to bust. The limiter. Says, yeah. Yeah, you're doing your own thing, your own broke thing. And so, yes, Phil, I've been doing it my own way. My own broke way.
Phil Proctor: [00:15:35] Um, well you, you broke, you broke away from the credibility gap at a certain point.
Harry Shearer: [00:15:40] No, I didn't break away from it. It broke away from me. They went and joined Laverne and Shirley. Um, they were Lenny and Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley and I was sitting there going, what the hell happened to Tuesday?
Phil Proctor: [00:15:50] Um, that's right. That's right. Got it. Woo. Yeah. You must have a pretty good, uh, setup down there in your home. Do you use it for any other, well, you must use it to make your records and stuff, but have you used it for any other unique purposes and the international purposes or anything?
Harry Shearer: [00:16:08] That sounds like you're fishing for porn. Yeah. Phil, I have this project I do for the Jap. You know, the Japanese have interesting fetishes. No. Um, seriously, uh, you know, I, I was always kind of a tech head. Uh, when I was a kid, my dad had a tape recorder reel to reel and I got a bunch of kids together and we, we made some sketches. Uh, I mean, I shutter to think what they sound like now, but I mean, we were kids.
What, what did we know? But I learned to be...
Phil Proctor: [00:16:43] Hey,
Harry Shearer: [00:16:43] Harry. They're
Phil Proctor: [00:16:44] all online now. They're all online. I was listening to him last night, you know, and they're illustrated still pictures of you as you grow up. Oh, you haven't been there yet? Oh.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:16:55] I actually transferred a three and a half inch reel to reel that I found the day that my parents got us a reel to reel recorder.
I was seven years old and I just, I just digitized it and my mom's 40 and I'm listening to my grandparents and my sister. It's, it's a very, very interesting to hear all that.
Harry Shearer: [00:17:14] Oh my God. How fortunate are you? I was, I was, I told somebody this last night. Um, I have, as Phil probably knows, a huge collection of recordings, mainly video recordings of all sorts of people, Mainly, a lot of them just waiting to go on television and, uh, and a lot of people talking and you know, various things.
And I realized maybe two weeks after my mom passed, the only person I never got a tape recording of her talking was my mom. So I have to sum it up, her voice inside my head. But, um, my point was that the, starting from when I got back into radio with a Credibility Gap, I was always, everybody was else would leave after we finished the last show of the day.
We did three shows a day. We must've been fools and I would stay all night long, you know, fooling around in the studio, learning the studio, learning, you know, stuff to do in a real radio studio. That sounds weird to say, doesn't it now? Real radio studio. Yeah, so that's where that started.
Phil Proctor: [00:18:15] But I did the same thing. Harry. I would, I would record funny pieces usually by myself, but I also, I recorded a Bob and Ray faithfully every day. Yeah. Oh, good. And then I would edit them down. In fact, the, the tape that I put together of what I call the best of Bob and Ray, which was when they broke one another up or they broke Peter Roberts up.
You're right. That that became part of Larry Josephson's collections of Bob and Ray. Wow. I know. And, and I used to also record Ernie Kovacs off the TV. Oh my God. And I, you know, I loved his surrealistic approach to things. Yeah. So from an, from an, yeah, so from an early age, the tape recorder was an instrument that helped really define my, my own comic sensibilities.
Obviously that happened to you too. Well, I have to say one other thing. One of the skits when you were on Saturday night live that I loved the most. No, really, was. Disc jockey you were interviewing. Right. Tell, tell me about that. But that, that's setting up the records and listening to him. It was it, you know, I've been there.
Harry Shearer: [00:19:30] We've all been there. That's what that, that's where it came from. Howard Hesseman was the guest host that week. Oh, good. And he was, uh, so I wrote a sketch with him nd for him where, uh, they were changing the time slot of a WKRP in Cincinnati, and he was supposedly doing a promotional tour to announce that.
And he ends up being booked on this morning drive radio show with an inseparable guy. And. I think I had just been through or heard about, I think I'd actually experienced that. A guy in San Francisco named Ted Blue. And, uh, I was basically just, uh, kind of digesting and distilling what Ted Blue did for an hour, which is just not talk to me, but, you know, touch, touch base with me every few minutes.
But he's got the commercials, he's got the traffic, has got the weather, he's got the, you know, the time, the temperature and all that stuff. And so. You know, it's the guy who's, who pretends to be listening, but he isn't, which is, of course, most interviewers, um, and Howard was great in it as well. Um, but you know, it's, it's remarkable to hear you talk about that because, yes, Ernie Kovacs and, and Bob and Ray were touchstones of my childhood.
Let me tell you one story cause sure. This was like the moment where I thought life can't possibly get better than this. I'm 18 years old. I get a summer job. Working at Young and Rubicam, the advertising agency in New York. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm a copywriter and one of the accounts they give me to do is this local New York beer.
Called PIELS. P. I. E. L. S. O. Yes. And the spokespeople for peels, beer where two cartoon characters, Bert and Harry Piel, thePiel brothers. That's voiced by Bob and Ray. Bob and Ray. And so it is that at 18 years old. I was in a recording studio producing a Bob and Ray session.
Phil Proctor: [00:21:26] Wow. Oh Harry. That is so touching.
Harry Shearer: [00:21:30] How can it get better than that?
Phil Proctor: [00:21:31] I agree. And the first time, here's another odd parallel. The first time any of my comic writing was ever performed on the air was by Bob and Ray. Oh my God. Because I was just a fan, but I'd, I'd send them funny postcards. Okay. In one of them I said, get well soon, and they read my postcards on the air.
Wow. Are we brothers? What is this? What's going on here?
Harry Shearer: [00:22:00] It is amazing what you do. Remember there was a guy from the Chicago Sun Times who came out to California December of, I think. A certain year name you're not to be named now, uh, to avoid embarrassment. But he came out to California and he wrote a column about, uh, this radio show that he'd heard.
And, uh, the, he, he so the first half of the column is about the credibility gap radio show. And then he says, I'm not only that, but these guys have made a record. And he then reviews the Firesign Theatre record. He thought we were the same people.
Phil Proctor: [00:22:42] Well, in a way we were,
Harry Shearer: [00:22:43] because we were four guys. We were four each, four guys, each on the radio.
You guys were on KPF K and we were on KRLA. And, uh, I just thought that, well, you know, if no better people to be conflated with than you guys.
Phil Proctor: [00:22:56] Oh, I agree. Likewise. But, but we did actually, we were both on KRLA for a while. At the same time weren't we?
Harry Shearer: [00:23:04] Were you on KRLA?
Phil Proctor: [00:23:05] Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Bergman's Radio Free Oz Show. Uh, got onto KRLA. In fact, we were interviewing Dave Osman, uh, for one of our shows. My partner over 50. And he, he talked about the fact that we were kicked off of KRLA. Everybody was furloughed because it turns out that the station was scamming people or something.
Harry Shearer: [00:23:30] Oh, you mean, you mean when it lost its license? Yes. When it lost its license. Oh, I can tell you what that was. Okay. Because of course, I worked there. I got into the lore of the place. They had run a contest, uh, a D they were bringing in a new DJ, uh, right. Uh, Perry Allen, God, why do I remember that name? And he was a, and so they were, uh.
Touting it with a big contest. Find Perry Allen, and they were giving clues all over Southern California as to where you could look to find Perry Allen. And the problem was Perry Allen was in Buffalo,
Phil Proctor: [00:24:11] so they were buffaloing their listeners. Indeed. They were. Yeah. It literally, they got caught. Wow. I you see, I always thought it was because Bergman, uh Oh he, you know, he would improvise the commercials that they were giving him cause it was a commercial station and he wants got this commercial for a Toyota and he improvised this line.
Put your hand up the skirt of a Toyota and you'll never let go. Right. Cause that was their motto. You get your hands on the Toyota, you'll never let go. That's why I thought that we were fired from that station, you know? But radio is a heartbreak. Oh yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, you really work hard. And what I admired about what you guys did was we do a show and you know, it was basically Bergman driven cause he had, he was a master rapper and, and a con man.
And then you guys would be in the studio live right after us doing topical comedy based on the news and music as well. And that was, I thought it was a great, uh, uh, time together.
Harry Shearer: [00:25:17] Actually. It was, it was amazing, you know, uh, a work pace that only people in their twenties can keep up for any, like the time.
Phil Proctor: [00:25:26] Don't you know it? Don't you know, it, I know
Harry Shearer: [00:25:28] we started, uh, taping our shows and. Uh, we taped so close to air that, uh, I remember this particularly of the three o'clock in the afternoon show, cause it was after lunch. Uh, we, so that we did, we'd take like an hour to at the Pasadena Hamburger Hamlet and, uh, and then, you know, a little time to medicate self-medicate and to get back to the station, have to write that final show of the day.
So we were really close to the wire a lot. And, uh, there was a 30 second, usually a preparation H commercial that, uh, came in the middle of the show and more than a few times. We had done the first half of the show up to the commercial break where the production studio was in the second floor, and we would toss that reel of tape down to the, uh, master control engineer and then go back in and, and try to finish the rest of the show before the preparation H commercial had run in the show.
It was just the most frantic thing imaginable.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:26:34] What year was this?
Harry Shearer: [00:26:35] That was 68 69
Ted Bonnitt: [00:26:37] this was the infancy of FM free form.
Harry Shearer: [00:26:39] Oh, this, this was am radio we were on. Then we got fired from there. We moved to the only other station in Pasadena, which was on FM and
Ted Bonnitt: [00:26:46] It was FM and was undiscovered and unmonetized and ended up being completely free. In more ways than one. Yeah, and if you were willing to make it an avocation where you could, I mean, I did that for years. I have a day job, you know, doing something. But then to support the habit of going on radio and doing comedy addiction of radio, that's why I did a show on WBAI for 10 years was because in return for not having pay, I was able to do whatever we wanted to do.
Harry Shearer: [00:27:15] Yeah, that is the deal. You're only free when you're free.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:27:18] Yes. And it was truly free. And I always said, you know, that radio was a better avocation than a vocation. The internet. There is a say a sense of the same freeform that we had. It doesn't have necessarily the immediacy and localization that radio offers, which is like priceless for, for live energy.
But you're doing it now with Harry shearer.com how does it relate to you? You know, the difference between then and now?
Harry Shearer: [00:27:42] Well, I mean, you know, the radio show has, has been a podcast for quite a while now, but, uh, and I, you know, I, I've always. Uh, as a person on the consuming side of the media, uh, been obsessed with being able to see and hear things that I like when I want to, you know, like Phil recording Bob and Ray to hear it later, or, uh, when I got a satellite dish, being able to see twin peaks.
On a network feed two days before it went out on the air, you know, so everybody now has that flexibility. The, the entire audience now can, uh, see and hear things when they want. And so I can't, uh, uh, do anything but, uh, say, see, see, see, see how good it is. On the other hand, um. There is something about talking to a large group of people at the same time and knowing that they're hearing you, uh, in the same.
In the same moment of space, time, energy, you know, where right. And radio is still the King of that. I mean, uh, there's a, a sort of a unfortunate example in my backyard because I used to share a radio home with Warren Olny who did a great a daily. A topical news discussion show on case I am not even going to mention the name of the station.
And then shortly after they fired me, uh, they, they told him, well, you know, you can still do a podcast of a topical news discussion show. Uh, jeez. Well, he's great at, but I, I, you know the thing about radio. Uh, in addition to everything else is that it becomes a habit. And you know that at the same time, every day or the same time every week, this is going to be there.
And with a podcast, if you don't check or you don't have notifications, and who to, who doesn't have enough notifications, you just, it slips away. And the topicality, uh, slips away as well. So there's still things that only radio can accomplish.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:29:47] You're listening to Phil and Ted, sexy boomer show with our special guest Harry Shearer.
We'll be right back.
Firesign Theatre: [00:29:54] You had no, yeah, I think that's me. Well, I've been drinking this brand, the beer pretty near hundred years.
SI'm still so depressed. How me to realize dice, you boil it down into dumpsters because your adult beverage is only an alcoholic, enhanced dietary supplement come your shoe. Yeah. Take a swig of what my grandkids put me on the last round up. I'll try and polar pro.
I do feel a whole lot less suicidal. And I've got the Texas trots.
Polar Pro A prescription beer for older Americans with natural Alaska, bear urine and Prozac. Consult your doctor if you're pregnant over 80 and operating heavy equipment.
A E Guy: [00:31:06] You're listening to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show with your hosts. Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt and their special guest comedian Harry Shearer.
Phil Proctor: [00:31:17] Firesign Theatre had a very unique. Situation, Harry. Uh, we, after we did our first album, uh, in 1966 or something, 67, uh, waiting for electrician or someone like him, uh, it didn't sell that many.
I mean, good heavens, we were doing revolutionary, longterm, long form comedy was all totally surreal and. Crazy
Harry Shearer: [00:31:39] and no audience, which comedy records had up to that time.
Phil Proctor: [00:31:42] Right. And, and, and radio wasn't playing comedy records and we were, we didn't get on television. So basically they were going to drop us at Columbia records, but there was one guy who.
Uh, stood up for us, and he signed us to a spoken arts contract. Now, now what that meant was that in exchange for a gasp, reduced royalty, we had unlimited free studio time.
Harry Shearer: [00:32:11] Oh my God. Oh my God.
Phil Proctor: [00:32:14] See? So, so we were given this extraordinary opportunity to, to, to do really whatever we wanted. Cause we produced the albums primarily ourselves, uh, wrote them ourselves and everything and that, and then when FM radio started and people. especially in college stations could play an entire side of one of our albums, right. Minutes or something like that. That is when we took it took off. Yes. Yeah. Very unique opportunity, you know?
Harry Shearer: [00:32:46] Yeah. It's, it's very similar to what happened to a spinal tap, which, which, uh, flunked out at the box office and its first theatrical run.
And then only because at fortuitously, shortly afterwards, home video became a thing. Uh, did the, the movie, you know, climb back out of obscurity. So, uh, unusual things have to take unusual path, I guess is the lesson there.
Phil Proctor: [00:33:09] Yeah, it's true. You know, spinal tap was, was really, I think the first mockumentary.
Right. And, and, and everybody, everybody in it. I mean I'd love for you just thinking of various seeds. Cause again, when, when a thing attains a cult status, it, it becomes part of your consciousness. Right? Like it or not. And, and so, everything that you guys did became a model for future adventures. It kind of inspired people to be able to go in those directions, you know, just like Firesign.
Harry Shearer: [00:33:49] Well, Ricky Gervais', uh, came up to Chris and me at one point and said that, uh, the whole premise for The Office was based on him having watched spinal tap. Now the interesting thing about that is. We, uh, Chris and I, I think, uh, both assumed that, uh, among the things that he meant by that was that the office was improvised cause it sure looked like it was, he and Steven wrote every word.
Oh my goodness. And then amazing.
Phil Proctor: [00:34:13] Wow. Yeah. It is amazing and beautiful. Beautifully executed.
Harry Shearer: [00:34:17] Really. No kidding.
Phil Proctor: [00:34:19] I'm going to ask you a question about your voices. Okay. Now, now, obviously you had an enormous success, uh, for a long time now and probably unexpectedly with the Simpsons. Right?
Harry Shearer: [00:34:32] Well, you know, just let me interject for a moment.
People would always ask, you know, uh, when I was doing interviews about the show, uh, early on. How long do you think the show will last? And I got into the habit of saying, uh, I think it'll be on the air until Fox finds another comedy hit at eight. So in a way, I was very prescient cause they never have, uh,
Phil Proctor: [00:34:52] talking about the Simpsons. The fact that that core group has been together for such a long time is also, I think a very unique factor. You know, and it's success. And also in, uh, uh, an unusual opportunity for all of you guys to grow in your roles. It's very unique that, you know, I did the rug rats for 14 years, Howard on the rug rats, and that was pretty good.
But, uh, nothing like how many years has it been on the air now? Harry?
The season
Harry Shearer: [00:35:25] that's running right now on television is 31. And we're, we're working on 32 right now.
Phil Proctor: [00:35:29] Wow. That's astonishing. Yeah.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:35:31] That goes back to, um, when we first met, uh, when we were working on HEAT with John Hockenberry, I started working with both of you separately.
We did topical shows and we did a show on family dynamics. Someone had sent us a VHS screener of a full length, uh, iteration of what was on the Tracy Ullman show, the Simpsons, and then I called, uh, Matt Groeing, who was working out of a trailer on the Fox lot. And I asked him, you know, if he would be interested in doing a segment with us about family dynamics given the Simpson's launch, which was still hadn't happened.
And he said, sure. He said, I'm going home though. I think he's from Washington State. Uh, and he said, I'm going home for the weekend. They're naming some hospital wing after me. Yeah. He said, would you mind if. We do it from like my family's house, my rumpus room. I said, well sure, that's perfect. He said, would you mind calling my dad and making sure it's all good?
And I said, sure. And uh, his name is Homer. I said, Homer. I said, Marge, cause that's my mom. I said, huh, Lisa is my sister. And I said, well, who's Bart? He said, well, Bart's me. It's sort of an acronym for brat. I called Homer and he's a hello. And I said, this is Homer. He goes, yeah, but I'm not like him. He was very funny and Marge was delightful too.
And um, we ended up doing this show from the rumpus room. Wow. It was just an amazing thing, and then it just never ended.
Harry Shearer: [00:37:02] But you know what, has what has ended, nobody has rumpus rooms anymore.
Phil Proctor: [00:37:05] Oh, that's right. You have, you have, uh, what do you call them? Home theaters. Well, and you have man caves, of course.
Right now, do you have some, some new personal projects that you're working on? Any, any more films or records or anything?
Harry Shearer: [00:37:19] I have a film, which has been approaching the preproduction stage for a millennium now, but was supposed to start shooting in a. June or July of this year. Uh, but that's on hold for the obvious reason.
Not on hold is I realized about. A two and a half months ago that, uh, I had been writing, uh, and doing what are basically demo versions of, uh, a bunch of songs in the voice of Donald Trump. And I thought, I've got enough for a record. This is an election year. Oh, yeah. Uh, so, okay. I'm working on that.
Phil Proctor: [00:37:54] I heard the show the week before last and was that you doing Trump?
Is that your Trump?
Harry Shearer: [00:37:59] So we'll see. It's going to be incredible. That's my feeling. That the fire chief, I know Tony has other more scientific feelings, but uh, we'll see. Next question. No, no, not you. You're nasty. Excuse me. You're very nasty. And your paper is, Oh, I'm sorry. You're one of us. Go ahead, mr.
President, you may. In fact, uh, I think this is a nasty question, knew it. I know, but it really isn't sure. I think a lot of people may be wondering about this. It's interesting because. When you mentioned a lot of people, I know a lot of people and they're very impressed with what we, and I mean all these extremely talented people up here are accomplishing, especially the ones who are nodding.
But go ahead. You've said many times, sir, and this at this podium that nobody could have seen something like this coming yet. There was a report on your desk when you came into office warning about a possible pandemic. But simulation at John Hopkins last October have a serious pandemic. So I was right.
Again, very nasty question. He didn't even finish asking it, but just the first part was so nasty. If you would, I'll tell you what I had in case you haven't been paying attention to the last couple of years, which knowing your reporting is so very, very possible. And maybe you forgot. Who knows? We'll see.
But I had Democrats and their friends right here in this room. Pushing one hoax after another. Somehow I'm supposed to see these old reports and something at Johns Hopkins, and I mean, I'm sure they're doing terrific work. Very incredible people down there, but I'm supposed to stop keeping very close watch of the coverage of the hoaxes?
Then I get criticized from the other side. Right. Well, Sir it's not exactly. Shush. Quiet, quiet. Excuse me. Excuse me. Did you even get the temperature test. I don't think so. Let's get him out before he infects the rest of us. Very dangerous. Yes, you hit the unfair one. Thank you, mr president, not you. The other unfair one behind you.
Thank you. Mr president. Yes, sir. Do you think it's right to be constantly criticizing and criticizing us at these pressors while there's a national emergency going on? That's a nice question. I've never heard that one before. And when you say constant criticism. I have to say, I know what you're talking about, even though I may not, because nobody gets more constant criticism than me.
And a lot of it from the very same people who have been kicked out of this room, mr President, excuse me, excuse me. Many people ask me why I put up with it and I say, I don't know. All I do is good things. And then, uh. When, whether it's the, this hoax or that hoax, or like in this case, a total non hoax, which we could have known sooner even sooner.
Thanks to the Chinese, I get the same people just trying to get partisan advantage out of trying to, uh. Trying to tear down your favorite president, not you as I know, but maybe soon. Even you, I, I have to go negotiate a new deal about my hotels. I mean, my kids run them, but in a way they're still mine. The hotels and also in a very real sense, my kids.
So Mike is going to take over after a brief pause. Thank you. Thank you everybody.
Phil Proctor: [00:41:28] Harry, that's the, that's the scariest and best Trump I've ever heard, you know? And, and, you know, my wife, Melinda, after we both listened to it, I said, man, that's really a great impersonation of, uh, of Trump. And Melinda said, it's the writing. You captured. You captured that madman so extremely well.
Harry Shearer: [00:41:52] Thank you. I, you know, I think that's, I think the first character. That I really thought, uh, I have to capture this person's unique way of talking. And, and behind that thinking was a local character in Los Angeles, uh, by the name of Mr. Blackwell. I don't know if you remember him.
He used to do the, he was famous nationally, just for every year he'd pop up and do the 10, 10 worst dressed women list. Um, but he had a radio show here in Los Angeles on. Uh, a Glendale station, um, that's now a right wing talk station. But at that time didn't know what it was. So it had room for this guy and he, uh, operated from an open air studio down in a downtown office building.
And he had this voice and I, Oh, I know, I know where I discovered him. I was poking through an old record, been in a record store. Remember those? He, cause he was a fashion designer of a sort, and he did a record of his. Show. As you know, when he chose his fashions, he had a little schtick that he did.
And it was just so crazy. And then I found out that one of the guys at KRLA had produced it. So, Oh well this is an interesting story. Oh yeah. But it was the first guy that I found. I can't write him. I have to improvise him cause it's such a weird, it's not a flow of thought. It's a a frequently self interrupting. Torrent of thought
Ted Bonnitt: [00:43:27] or series of outbursts.
Harry Shearer: [00:43:28] Yeah. And so as a writer, you can't quite make those turns as fast as if it's just flowing out of your mouth. Um, and, um, so, but I've, I've learned to write Trump, uh, but I think based on that kind of experience of just, uh, following cause re writing. You know, the hardest thing to write is the disorganized nature of most human conversation.
I mean, that's correct. That's right. You know, Beckett got to it. And a few others have gotten to it. But, uh, you know, there's, the temptation when you're writing is to be writerly.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:44:04] You know, Harry on that a bit, personifies all your produced pieces where you're, you're throwing voices, you have, uh, lots of your stuff going on in the background.
It's timed. It seems to be overdue. I've always just wondered from a radio nerd perspective, how do you produce something like the Trump conference where you're doing all of that stuff? I mean, how do you do that?
Harry Shearer: [00:44:24] Um, Ted, I've told exactly one person ever. Um, how that, how that works. Um,
Ted Bonnitt: [00:44:32] God rest his soul.
Harry Shearer: [00:44:34] Yeah. Uh, and, and I thoughts and prayers to his, uh, wife and family. It was Albert Brooks and I was producing his second record. Um. And, uh, for reasons that don't need to be explained here. He was, he, he was in need of being able to do something like that. And I just said, well, look, here's, here's how that works.
And it, I, I started it, uh, in, in an analog way, uh, when we were still using tape. And, um. Grease pencils and razorblades not on our wrists to edit the tape. No, no, no. And, uh, and it, it, it took me a while to be able to adapt it to the, the digital realm. And, uh, I was late to the digital realm because of that.
I just said to a guy who had brought me a machine that I tried doing that on. I said, when you, when you bring me something that I have to. Push as few buttons that I do in the analog space to do this. I'll get that. Cause it was like the digital thing at that time was four, four more buttons, which slows down the workflow.
Um, but yeah, uh, aside from that, and, uh, you know, Albert's out of the business now apparently, but I've never told anybody cause it's just, uh, I thought it's,
Phil Proctor: [00:45:47] it's your secret sauce, Eric. It's your secret sauce.
Harry Shearer: [00:45:50] The best thing I can tell you about it is I needed a way. To do what actors do, which is everything they say is in reaction to what they've just seen and heard.
Phil Proctor: [00:46:00] Well, you know, w for Firesign of course, there were four of us, uh, and you, you know, that dialectic as well as any anybody would. Right. And so, uh, but we still. Created so many characters that we'd have to talk over ourselves, talk to ourselves and things like that. And, and we did it. Same thing digitally, uh, not digitally, excuse me, but, but in an analog form.
Analogically and analogically.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:46:28] Someone who we all know, Phil Hendry. We had him on the show recently, and he can do it live. It's astounding.
Harry Shearer: [00:46:35] My friend Merrill, Marco told me about Phil, uh, when he was on KFI, uh, in what I think was his, his amazing glory period, uh, at the turn of the century. And, uh, I said, no, he's not, that's not all him, uh, with a good ears.
Phil Proctor: [00:46:52] Right. And so I got in touch with Phil. He said he was a fan. I said, well, the price of your being a fan of mine is you have to let me come watch you do your show. Ah, and he did. And it was, I don't know if you ever saw it. Uh,
Ted Bonnitt: [00:47:07] you can see what he does on YouTube. He posts now videos of him doing it. That is an astonishing thing that he does.
And, uh, when he did it for three hours a night, every night,
Phil Proctor: [00:47:17] he does a show every day, doesn't he? It's astonishing. It's astonishing and great
Harry Shearer: [00:47:23] and great characters. I mean, they really are different people and calling in and, uh, he reminds me in a way of, um, and Phil, I don't know if either of you remember, uh, I was listening to these guys.
Uh, coming down from San Francisco on a clear channel station, KGO coil and sharp. Did you ever hear them? No. No. Mel sharp just passed away. They, they were on every night and they went out on the street with different propositions for people to consider. Mel was sort of the amiable. A host and coil was this, uh, fast-talking pitch man.
And they just tried to convince people to do things that were preposterous, but they wanted to push it to see where someone would actually say no, you know? So they kept kept pushing and making it more extreme. And, and I bring them up because Phil. Uh, on the classic shows that I remember would very often use the same technique.
A guy would start out being kind of an ass. Yep. And by the end of the hour, people were screaming into their phones and him, cause he and Phil would just push it and push it and push it farther. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's a great comic technique. If you can stand in the abuse,
Ted Bonnitt: [00:48:31] he's still doing it. It's a, it's, it's remarkable. While we're on voices. I read that you, uh, met Mel Blanc and he was the voice of all the loony Toon characters in bugs bunny, and in a way that he in a way mentored you or influenced you in some way.
Harry Shearer: [00:48:45] Never mentored me. He never said. Sit down, can't, I'm going to teach how to do Porky. Um, but we were both working on the Jack Benny program. He was, uh, the voice of a lot of characters in the Jack Benny program. He was also the man who made the sound of Jack Benny's old car, the Maxwell.
Can you remember the day you bought your first automobile? I can remember driving mine home for, I had my friend Mel blank with me. Mel and I still work together.
Jack Benny: [00:49:12] And I still have the Maxwell.
Harry Shearer: [00:49:32] Oh, that wasn't a sound effects guy that was Mel with his, did all of that. But, so I knew him for seven or eight years while I was working on the Jack Benny program. He had a son, uh, my age.
Yes, Noel Blanc.
Yeah. And um, whatever happened between us in terms of he was a voice guy and now I'm a voice guy, I think was more osmosis than anything else.
It was more on osmosis than hypnosis, let's put it that way.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:49:59] While we're on voices, I'd like to go back a little bit to the Simpsons. And because you do so many characters on the Simpsons that people. have grown up with now. Did these characters, I'm sure they were written and created by writers, but it, how did you embrace the roles and develop the characters with the writers and create the voices?
Or was it just sort of, again, a nice, this natural thing?
Harry Shearer: [00:50:20] If you know anything about television, writers and actors don't work together and television. That's right. And so I'd get a script. We'd all get script, especially in the early part where we never even saw drawings. At the beginning, we started recording while the show is still being designed and drawn.
Uh, so what you saw on a script was like a one line description, you know, uh, if that, if that, and, and so it was, um, nothing analytical. I, you know, I think Phil, you know, uh, that being a smart person, the first job when you're doing, uh, something creative is turning the thinking part off.
Phil Proctor: [00:51:01] Yeah, absolutely.
Harry Shearer: [00:51:02] That's right. You know, you have to, you have to free yourself and thinking is not a freeing mechanism. So, um, I would just take a, uh, an intuitive leap, you know, and I guess he sounds like this. And if, uh, if they don't like it that, I'll stop that. And if they don't stop it, I'll keep doing it. I'll keep doing it.
It was really that, that, uh, kind of intuitive and, um, uh, just. Throw something out there.
Phil Proctor: [00:51:29] The element of improvisation, uh, you have to be kind of trained in it and you were very lucky because you, you were doing like the Jack Benny show as a child actor. Did you transition into the television? Yep. You did?
Harry Shearer: [00:51:42] Yep.
Phil Proctor: [00:51:42] Oh my God. Oh my God.
Harry Shearer: [00:51:43] Yes. I transitioned with mr Benny. He took me along to TV, and you may recall at CBS was, was a laggard in getting into color television because NBC owned the system. Of color television at the FCC at approved, and NBC was owned by RCA. And so CBS has position is we're not going to help you sell your color TVs. You do it. So they finally got dragged along. And so I was on the first Jack Benny show that was shot in color, and so they wrote an episode to show that off. Jack Benny takes the Beverly Hills beavers to the carnival, to the circus, so you can have a lot of color in it, and the lights were fiendishly hot to get color.
Right. Um, so very, very arduous thing. But you know, you did it because there was a, there was a landmark. And of course, when it goes into the syndication package. Uh, three quarters of the shows were black and white, so they just black and white at the m all. So if you see this really, Oh my God, if you see the first Jack Benny show shot in color, you see it in black and white.
Oh, wow. Oh, that's really wonderful. Yeah. So TV can be a heartbreak
Phil Proctor: [00:52:53] And radio can be more colorful than television. Well, listen, Harry, this has been really a wonderful catch-up.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:53:00] Well, Harry, thank you for joining us and good luck in your bunker and
Harry Shearer: [00:53:04] thank you. And uh. Don't touch your faces. No, no, that's right, and thanks for your persistence, Ted.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:53:10] Thanks, Harry. Take care. Bye bye. Bye bye. Well, what a treat to have Harry share with us.
Phil Proctor: [00:53:15] Well, you know, Harry is another one of those extraordinary people who, uh, with whom we've maintained not only a professional relationship, but a personal relationship. And, and I think that's one of the things that makes the, the boomer show unique from other shows that you'll listen to because we've really been through a lot together and, and you know, and have grown.
Older and wiser, or sillier and stupider together, and it makes for a particular kind of a joyful bond. When we have a chance to talk to somebody, uh, with, with the immense talent that Harry has
Ted Bonnitt: [00:53:53] And being perhaps the hardest working man in show business, you know, there are some upsides to the shutdown and being in our bunkers, right?
It's wonderful, people were able to find and talk to now and let's just continue.
Phil Proctor: [00:54:05] Absolutely. And, and on the other side, dear friends, let's hope we can all get together in person and, uh, uh, open a new restaurant.
Ted Bonnitt: [00:54:16] Stay healthy, stay intact, be happy, read, enjoy the clear air. And we will be back for another episode of Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show.
Stay
Phil Proctor: [00:54:26] tuned.
A E Guy: [00:54:30] You've been listening to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show.. Featuring Phil Proctor and Ted Bonnitt with special guest Harry Shearer. The Entrepod, barkz and Trump this week were written and produced by Harry Shearer. Polar P ro was written and performed by the Firesign theater. Maxwell was performed by Jack Benny and Mel Blank. Music by Eddie Baytos and the nervous brother. I'm a earnest guy. Join us for the next episode of Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer Show. Produced by Radio Pictures.com The makers find podcasts for boomers. Okay.
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