Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 444: Phil Proctor: A Journey Through Comedy, Resilience, and the Art of Reality

Transcript

BPS 444: Phil Proctor: A Journey Through Comedy, Resilience, and the Art of Reality · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four forty four.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: breath and try again.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: When we really should be working on that next draft.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: on the kind of project you are in the goals
• 0:59
  Speaker 5: of the project you are, so we actually break it
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market, and
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: reader that's used to reading temp pole movies when your
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars,
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof script coverage,
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, w MEE, NBC, HBO, Disney,
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com.
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:39
  Speaker 6: On this episode, I have a hell of a guy.
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: He is just full of life. He honestly, he just
• 1:45
  Speaker 6: brims with life and I love having people like this on.
• 1:48
  Speaker 6: He is a founding member of the legendary fire Scign Theater.
• 1:51
  Speaker 6: He is a voice actor in movies like master Z Inc,
• 1:54
  Speaker 6: Toy Story, Inside Out, TV shows like The Rugrats.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: He was philin Lil's Dad Howard.
• 2:00
  Speaker 6: He does video games that call Duty Events, Warfare, Assassin's
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: Creed Brotherhood.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: He's even embedded into the Apple os.
• 2:07
  Speaker 6: Can you believe that he actually pulls out the phone
• 2:09
  Speaker 6: and we're gonna go over that too. I didn't ask
• 2:11
  Speaker 6: me if it gets free iPhones, though I probably should
• 2:13
  Speaker 6: have asked that.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Damn. Without further ado with guests, Phil Proctor.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: We thank you very much. It's really good to be here. Well, actually,
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: it's always good to be here because I'm at home
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: today here in Beverly Hills, adjacent in a nice overcast
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: Los Angeles weather.
• 2:34
  Speaker 6: It isn't technology wonderful, phil Where you can do interviews
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: from the comfort of your own home, now, it's amazing.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, Not only that, but you can do auditions
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: from your laptop, which I do regularly now for voiceover
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: work or animation work. And I've actually which we can
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: talk about, I've actually done jobs for movies from other
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: parts of the country on my laptop, which is unheard of.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: You know, like five six years ago, you'd have to
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: go to a studio and have a link up with
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: the satellite to be able to do, you know, a
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: commercial or something if you were in New York and
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: they wanted to and they cast you from California. But
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: the technology has really taken over the industry, and sometimes
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: for the good, sometimes for the worst.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You're very very Philly.
• 3:26
  Speaker 6: It's technology can be a double edged swords sometimes, and
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: you know, I do want to talk about, you know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 6: obviously doing things for movies from across the country because
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: I've kind of gotten to that point as well, where maybe,
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: like you know, I can help out somebody from like
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: for instance, and I'm not to segue too far off,
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: but I've been able to actually help friends of mine,
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: not even you know, not even just like you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: maybe recording something, but actually being able to help them.
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: And they're across the country filming a movie and you
• 3:53
  Speaker 6: know we kind of like, you know, do a FaceTime
• 3:55
  Speaker 6: chat or something like that.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: And I'm able to actually do stuff like that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: Yep, that's very true of actors audition now by not Skype,
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: but they'll record their they will record their audition, you know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: using the camera built in to their machine, and then
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: send it to the Cashi record. I just had lunch
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: with a fabulous friend of mine named jim Meskamon, who,
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: if you know his career at all, is a master
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: of a million voices. Jim Meskamon, if you want to
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: google him, you'll be constantly surprised and amused. And he
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: got a job doing a Johnny Carson imitation in a
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: film about Gore Vidal with Kevin Cotton, not Kevin Cassner,
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: with a famous star whose name will come to me
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: in a minute. And he did it, you know, remotely
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: by sending in a tape. They cast him off of
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: the tape and he flew to Rome and did you
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: know two and a half days in this film, So
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: all those wonderful things can happen now, and here comes
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: the garbage.
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: They don't recycle me, No, Phil, they will. You're a treasure, Phil,
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: They won't. They won't take you away.
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: Can you hear the wonderful sounds of the garbage truck
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: in the back?
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I absolutely can. This is funny to see. This is
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: kind of like Steve Allen's Man on the Street. It's raw.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Anything would happen you.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: I often feel as though my whole career is recycled.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: You know. I've been in the business for sixty about
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: sixty five years. I started as a child actor on
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: a television show in New York called Uncle Danny Reads
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: the Funnies. Elliott Gould was also on that show, and
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: we basically would improvise in this little kind of a
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: closet of his studio with a big old Dumont camera
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: with three lenses on it, and we talk about the
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: cartoons in the New York Daily News. Okay, and there'd
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: be a girl and a guy and a guy and
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: a girl, and that's how I got my start on
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: local television, local live television.
• 6:12
  Speaker 6: So anyway, well, I mean that's something I wanted to
• 6:16
  Speaker 6: actually talk about too.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Phil.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Was you have such this illustrious career.
• 6:19
  Speaker 6: I mean, you've been in the business for over fifty years,
• 6:22
  Speaker 6: and I mean you've seen, you know, all sorts of things,
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: seeing the ups and the downs. You've seen, you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 6: how things have evolved where you know, I mean, let's
• 6:30
  Speaker 6: just you know, like like Uncle Dudley reads the Funnies,
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: you know.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: That that was.
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: I mean there's probably I don't know how many channels
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: when that started, and now you know, going to now
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: and now there's Netflix YouTube, and then there's all there's
• 6:41
  Speaker 6: like you know, you turn on your your your TV
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: and there's like one thousand and one channels.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: But we remember Procter and Bergmann predicted that in TV
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: or not TV in like nineteen seventy three or something
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: like that. We predicted hundreds and hundreds of channels. We
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: didn't think that there'd be thousands and thousands of channels,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: but then we didn't account for inflation. So there you go.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: For those people who might not know who I am
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: talking about and who you are talking to. I'm a
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: member of a group called The Fire Sign Theater, which
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: was a four man satirical comedy group. Sadly, two of
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: our members have now left us for parts unknown, and
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: only I and another partner named David Osman remain, so
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: we now call our group the Fire Sign Theater or
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: something like it, which is a parody of our first album,
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: which was Waiting for the Electrician or someone like him. Okay,
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: And the next time that what's left of the group,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: which had a fifty year career, is going to perform,
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: will be on September twenty eighth at the Library of Congress,
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: where David and I will be doing the history of
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: the art of radio, followed by some excerpts from our
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: home movies which have been released on a two DVD
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: set called Everything You Know Is Wrong the Declassified Fire
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: Sign Theater, and then we'll have a Q and A
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: with all of the people who are there. We're happy
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: to say that our appearance sold out in like three days,
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: which of course was helpful the fact that it's free,
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: But nonetheless we were pleased to see that there, you know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: was enough demand for us that the tickets went very quickly,
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: and it'll also be I believe, simulcast and you know
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: archive because after all, it is the Library of Congress.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: They inducted another one of the Fire Sign Theater albums
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: called Don't Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the pliers into
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: their hysterical recordings up for me their historical recordings back
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: in like two thousand and seven, and so they are
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: now in the process we hope of acquiring our archives,
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: the Fire Sign Theater archives. So if you don't know
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: the Fire Sign Theater, go to fire Sign Theater dot
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: com or just google us and who somebody just did,
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: and you'll find out all kinds of crazy things about us,
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: and you'll be able to see stuff that we've done.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: And here's stuff that we've done on the web and
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: it is And there's also twenty four hour, seven day
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: a week Fire Sun Theater radio site you can go
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: to where there's a constantly again recycled playing of our
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: radio shows and records and things and excerpts from our records.
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: We also have a book which you can get at
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: our site called A Duke of Madness Motors, which contains
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: an MP three of eighty hours of our radio shows,
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: and it's a very colorful book with interviews and pictures
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: and collages and things about our radio years, because that's
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: how we got started. We started on local radio KPFK
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: listener supported radio in Los Angeles back in like nineteen
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: sixty four or something like that.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: And that led to a career in recording with Columbia Records,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: and then touring and films and oh fifty years of
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: tom fulry and fun.
• 10:22
  Speaker 6: You know, you mentioned the prediction phil of all the
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: different TV stations. Did you ever think that that, you know,
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: there'd be so much like reality TV?
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Did you ever you know what I mean? Like, I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: don't think that that is something that came out of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: left field for me.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true. Now, I was the announcer on Big
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: Brother for three years in the early years of Big Brother.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: I think it was in their fourth season, fourth, fifth,
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: sixth season or something like that, And to me, that
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: was the best of the reality television because before it's
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: gotten very kind of convoluted and more produced these days,
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: although still a fun show, but in the early days
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: it was more about real people, you know, who wanted
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: to put themselves into this game like situation and compete
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: with other people. And it was a lot. And they
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: were all isolated in this wonderful crazy house with the
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: cameras all hidden behind it. I could walk around and
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: look through the two way mirrors and see what they
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: were doing in there. It was really a gas. But
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: reality television has indeed taken off to the extent that
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: we now have a reality president. We have a reality
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: TV president, and that is the most unreal thing of all. Right, Yes,
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: you know, the lines between entertainment and reality have become
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: a news and you name it, have become more and
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: more and more and more blurred, so that there the
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Fireside Theater asked in one of its very earliest albums,
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: I Think and Don't Crush the dwarfind Me the Pliers
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: the question what is reality? It's the It's the major
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: question you should ask yourself every day when you get
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: out of bed. What is what is my reality? Today?
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: For me? What is reality? And that's become an increasingly
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: difficult question to answer, uh in the face of our uh,
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: the the media overload, the world of the Internet. Our
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: second album is called how can you be in two
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: places at once when you're not anywhere at all, And
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: that's exactly where we find ourselves now. In fact, you
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: and I are representing it as we speak.
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, very very very true phil you know, and you
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: touched on something too. I often find, you know, that
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: comedy as a whole, you know, it can be so philosophical.
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: But sometimes you know, during award seasons and stuff like that,
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: comedy sort of gets you know, pushed aside for the
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: drama or or something like.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: You know of that nature.
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: But you know, somebody, by the way, it's somebody that
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: you mentioned in your book, by the way, you mentioned
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: mel Brooks, and you know he has taken that too
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: to say what you have where It's like, if you
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: want to, you know, you can make a really great
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: philosophical statement, but also if you wrap it in comedy,
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: I think the message just gets through so much better,
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean?
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: Yes, certainly, And of course Woody Allen is another classic
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: example of that. But mel Brooks is more of a
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: surrealist than Alan is. In The Blazing Saddles, he absolutely
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: exploded all of the precepts of the classic Western movie,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: you know, to make all kinds of wonderful social and
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: satirical points, and that's what endeared me to him certainly.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: And of course The Two thousand year Old Man is
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: another classic example of that kind of wonderful surrealistic comedy
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: that he and his dear partner Carl Reiner put together.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: We Fire Sign Theater have been nominated for Grammys three
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: times for Best Comedy Recording, and we lost to The
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: two thousand year Old Man at one of the ceremonies.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: But hey, we've lost to weird Al who's another great
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: surrealist and a friend, and to mel Brooks at Carl Ryder,
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: so you know, it's not exactly chopped Liver, It's okay.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I did a film with Brooks which was an overdubbing
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: of a very famous French comedy called The Visitors Les Visiteur,
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: which was a hit for Beaumont Production Company in France,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: the biggest grossing comedy in the history of French cinema
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: back in what the eighties maybe early nineties, and they
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: decided to overdub the film in English, so they hired
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: the mel Brooks and he cast a bunch of people,
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: a lot of my friends and myself, and he thought
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: it would be funny if we overdubbed it with a
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: French accent, because you know, of course, the French accent
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: is very funny. You know clues, Oh it's not my dog,
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: you know, he's a funny accent. So we all are
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: speaking like this with a French accent. The problem is
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: that you are putting word into the mouth of character
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: on the screen. What are all ever talking? Are already talking,
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: you see. And in this particular film, the French that
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: they were using for the most part was a very
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: fast Parisian French on Pac Disa, and so everything was
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: very fast. So we had to speak very quickly with
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: a French accent in order to make it match with
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: the moving of the lips. Well, when they finally finished
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: the film, they showed it to a test audience in
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: Encino and they thought we were speaking French. The film
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: was never released. It's it's Bell's only failure, my only failure.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: But it sure was fun to do. God, it was
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: fun working with him.
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: So how like, for instance, Phil, how would you go
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: about like even even being like approach for something like that.
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: Does Melk finds you and say, you know, Phil, we
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: got to work together on something and then you just
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: sort of go and you basically of course you're going
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: to say yes, and you just and.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: You and you just go from there. Or was there
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: like a whole audition process for that.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: It's always an audition process. It's it's it's humiliating, debilitating.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: It is seldom. I wouldn't say it's not now. I
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: think it's a little different. But back then, Uh, even
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: if they knew the fire sign theater and knew the
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: capabilities as a voice actor, there are other people in
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: the chain of command who may say the fireside, what okay?
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: So Mel said, oh you should. This guy is great,
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: he can, he'd be great for it. So we'd have
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: to do an audition, and then they could. Mel could
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: play the audition for the producers and I produced to say, okay, Mel,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: I got it. You hire it, okay, And that happened
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: more often than not now. For instance, I was in
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: a film called The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle okay,
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: which what was his name anyway, which was directed by
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: a fellow who hired me des mccannoff, that's his name.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: I was hired to read the part of Boris Badenoff
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: with various actresses who were auditioning for the role of Natasha. Okay,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: so I am doing Buddies badinoff and reading the lines
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: from the script, you know, and these and these famous
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: actresses were coming in and reading for the part. I mean,
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: top notch, a rated actresses. Renee Russo finally got it
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: and she was hysterical in the part. I think that
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: that she was probably the best thing in the in
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: the film. But I was astonished that I was reading
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: with these tremendous actresses. Some of them came in and
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: they'd memorized the material. Some of them came in with
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: just the script pages in their hand. Some of them
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: came in with the script pages written out in their
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: own hands so that they could read it more easily,
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: you know. But they were all reading for the role.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: And that's and that's the nature of it, you know.
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, It's it's amazing though, when when you just you're
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: part of the addition process and you know, you don't
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: know who's going to come through that door sometimes, you.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Know what I mean.
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: And and I've actually, you know, I've been on both
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: sides of that as well too, Phil, Yeah, and it's
• 18:31
  Speaker 6: just you know, you just sometimes you're like, oh my well,
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: this person's auditioning.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Well, my god, why don't they have more stuff?
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And it's a listen.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: There was a time. Now, first of all, I have
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: to say, uh, I don't know if you know this,
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: but yesterday Dick van Dyke performed at a club out
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: here in the valley called Vitello's with a band of
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: his own assembling. And he's ninety two years old, okay,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Dick van Dyke. But there was a time, maybe thirty
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: years ago, when I went in to read for a
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: television show which had you know, like twelve lines or
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: something like that, and Dick van Dyke was sitting in
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: the hallway with the other actors reading for this tiny role.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: So you see, it's it's indiscriminates sometimes. But as everybody says,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: what's the secret to being a success in our business,
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: persistence and confidence? Right.
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: I have that first part down, phill, But that second
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: part that's very elusive.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Well, it's like groudshow. Marx used to always make wise
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: cracks all the time. Wherever he was, his brain was
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: always in the comic groove and he was always in
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: effect trying out material. And his excuse for this was,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: you know, like being always on. Was that he even
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: though maybe sixty percent of what he said fell on
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: deaf ears, wasn't funny.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: That forty percent that worked was his trade. Okay, it
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: would go into a show or into a movie, right,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: And so in a way, you have to just kind
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: of let it flow, let it happen, and be confident
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: that eventually somebody's going to hire you. I remember when
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: I was a commercial actor, and I did a lot
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: of TV commercials and scores and scores of radio commercials
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: at the height of my career. But the television commercials
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: are the hardest because you you'd have to go in
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: physically auditioned, and the people who are casting you would say, okay,
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: you have to come in dressed like a fisherman, or
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: you have to come in your pajamas, you know, because
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: it's a And you go, why why I come in
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: looking like a fisherman or you know, looking like I'm
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: in my pajamas. But no, no, no, you know, the
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: casting director our agents would say no, no, they want
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: to see you in character. Okay, so you're doing all
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: the work for them. Well, at a certain point I
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: got burned out. I said, I just can't do this anymore.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: It's humiliating, and I wasn't getting any jobs. So I
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: looked back at my date book and I looked at
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: how many commercial auditions I had to go on camera
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: auditions I had to go on before I got one,
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: and it was something like, oh, I don't know, let's
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: say twenty three. And I looked at how many I
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: had gone on, and I'd gone on like twenty one.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: So I said, okay, I'll go on a couple more auditions,
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: and wouldn't you know it, I got the next two
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: jobs I read for. So you see, it's a question
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: of attrition as well. You see, if you go in
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: and you read for something, the guy who is perfect
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: for the part, the guy who is always in his
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: pajamas and looks like he just got out of bed,
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: he's gonna get the job. He's also going to get
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: a job as a you know, I'm talking about guys
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: who are either character actors or all American looking guys
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: and gals. Right, they're gonna get a car commercial, fast
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: food commercial, a breakfast food commercial, you name it. They're
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: gonna get it because they look the part and everybody
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: loves them all right, But then they can't do that anymore.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: They've got a car commercial, they've got a breakfast commercial,
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: they've got so and so and so and so. So.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: When you go in, if you're second, their second choice,
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: you become the first choice because they're out of competition.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: And that's how it happens. You see.
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: That's a great way to think about it, Phil See,
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: because because you've been around for so many years, you
• 22:52
  Speaker 6: know those secret ingredients, you know, persistence, confidence, and think
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: of it as a war of attrition.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to keep that fill. That's a really great
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: way to think of it.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Since I know your show, you get into the nuts
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: and bolts of various aspects of the business, the film business, uh,
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: you know, from editing to acting to lighting and you
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: name it. But the other little secret about it is
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: you have to you have to know how to use
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: a variety of skills to get the work. I would find,
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: for instance, when let's say the acting gigs dried up
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: for me because maybe the nature of television had changed
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: and I wasn't getting as many guest starring parts on
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: shows like all in the family, which I which I did,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: and other you know, top rated shows. I would say,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: what the heck am I going to do? And that's
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: when I turned my attention to voiceover work. I'll concentrate
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: on the voiceover work. I'll get myself an agent, and
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: I'll put together a tape and I'll go out and
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: I'll aggressively pursue that line of work. And then that
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: paid off for me. And when if that dried up,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: I go, well, let's see what's happening in the acting business,
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: and maybe I can get on stage in a play.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: And I got on stage and a play. Another skill,
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: I have a musical. I can sing, so I get
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: seen in a musical singing, and I get a musical commercial. Okay,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: So one you must use as many skills as you
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: have and juggle them and feel free that when one
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: area dries up, turn your attention into another. That's why
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: I've never really had a manager, which is a good
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: thing and a bad thing. But because it's good because
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: I get to keep most of my money. It's a
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: bad thing because managers can do a lot for you,
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: especially in a film career. And I regret the fact
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: that one point in my career. I turned down management,
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: but I manage my own career okay, and being a
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: renaissance man, I was able to apply my skills and
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: focus my skills to the various areas of the business
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: that seem to be opening to me at the time
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: during my long career.
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: And also too though I've noticed too is you've taken
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: the bull by the horns, so to speak. And you know,
• 25:04
  Speaker 6: when maybe you if there wasn't an audition happening, you know,
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: you worked on your own, your your own material in
• 25:10
  Speaker 6: you know, maybe you know the Fireside Theater. You know,
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: you basically you casted yourself. There was a there was
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: an episode, episode ninety nine, I had on Morgan J.
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: Freeman and he has a great saying, green light yourself.
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: He goes, if you have a script, green let it
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: yourself and don't wait for anybody else. Just take the
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: bull by the horns and just go for it.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: Absolutely correct. I saw a wonderful movie which I recommend
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: everybody called it In Search of Fellini, which is written
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: by Nancy Cartwright the voice of Bart Simpson and Nancy.
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: It is a film which is a true based on
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: a true story that she is a young girl in
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Ohio became enamored of the films of Frederico Fellini and
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: decided to go over to Italy her own, supported by
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: her mother, in order to meet the great man. And
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: this extraordinary film, which is both beautifully, beautifully made, funny
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: and heartbreaking at the same time, tells the story of
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: that adventure. Well. Nancy first translated this into a one
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: woman show maybe twenty five years ago, okay, and then
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: based on that show, which she taped and studied and everything,
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: she decided to make this movie. And now because of
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: the great success of The Simpsons, she's able. She was
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: able to create her own production company, Spotted Cow Productions,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: and she was able to put the financial energy as
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: well as her brilliant artistic energies into the creation of
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: this movie. An absolute example of what you just spoke
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: of in terms of Fire Sign Theater. One of the
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: reasons I became I committed myself to the lunacy, to
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: the mad House. Of the four other Fire Signs, I'm
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: a Leo two Sagittarians in an Ares was because we
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: could be our own boss. We were our own producers. Basically,
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: we'd hire a producer for ears and to help us
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: with the work we were doing. But we were writing it,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: we were acting in it. We were doing almost all
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: the voices except for a lot of the women when
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: we could cast women, but we did. We did a
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: lot of money python women's voices too, as you know.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: And we could control the budget, lay out the budget,
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: we could hire the studio we were working in. We
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: could control the sound effects and the music, all the
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: elements of the production so that there wasn't anybody from
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: the outside telling us what we had to do. We
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: were creating our own movies for the mind, with all
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: of our own skills, and that was very satisfying. And
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: that's one of the reasons why I gave up other
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: aspects of my career, like a movie career and more
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: television and more of stage, because The Fire Sign ultimately
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: kind of satisfied all of those cravings. Since we toured,
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: we performed all over the country, and then later as
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Procter and Bergmann, a two man act half The Witch
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: of the Fire Sign theater, we were able to tour
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: even more easily and play places like Canada and How
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: I Eat. Because in our group, one of the members,
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Phil Austin, who is unfortunately one of my late partners.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: He didn't like to fly, so he would put his
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: dogs and his wife into a van and they would
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: drive from one venue to another when Fire Sign Theater
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: was touring okay, and that meant that the rest of us,
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: the other three guys, we could fly into a venue,
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: go on a radio show, promote okay, and then Phil
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: would catch up with us in time to do the show.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: We made it work, but it's still it limited the
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: range of success that Fire Sign Theater could have.
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: So and now if you if you were to have
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: like started something like Fire Sign Theater today, you know,
• 29:10
  Speaker 6: as we talk about technology, it's almost like what some
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: others have done where you could actually just you know,
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: record an episode uploaded to your website or you know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: your stuff, like all that stuff like that that they
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: I see more and more artists doings. The guys from
• 29:25
  Speaker 6: Mister Science Theater, they've done stuff like that. But but
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: you know, but as you you know, as you toured
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: you know, all all around you know, all around the
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: country too. And then as you toured around we I mean,
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: what was your your your reaction to to the response
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: of everything. I mean, well, you were you were you
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: like just blown away about you know how big this
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: had become.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Well, it's a good question, Dave, Yes we were because
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: we didn't. Your question actually has created several little paths
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: I'd like to touch upon, and imn have to ask
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: you that ask the question again.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: But basically our success on records. We were given a
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: spoken arts record contract after our first album, Waiting for
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: Electrician or someone like Him, by a producer at Columbia
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: named John McClure, very respected producer, because they were going
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: to drop us from the album. You know, four guys
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: doing crazy surrealistic comedy, what's that all about? And he said,
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: these guys are geniuses. They're they're revolutionizing the recording of
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: comedy in the industry, and you've we've got to keep
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: them on, So I'll give them a spoken arts concert contract,
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: which meant that we got free, unlimited studio time, and
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: that's what allowed us to write our albums, go in, record,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: go back and write some more, go in and record,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: and that's why we could make these layered, complex, surrealistic albums,
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: surrealistic in the style of the goon shows. And later
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: not Ey Python, who were also surrealistically oriented. But we're
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: lucky enough to be able to do it visually. So
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: when we started to tour, because we became successful, people
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: were playing our records uncensored in their own homes. Right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: We never expected that we'd be broadcast because we were
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: using obscene language and things sweet language, i should say,
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: And our albums were very revolutionary and sometimes you know,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: touched on social issues that were touchy during the Vietnamese
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: War period. But all of a sudden, a little thing
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: called FM radio appeared, and suddenly, in college stations all
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: over the country, kids could play a forty minute side
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: of our record without commercial breaks. And people started listening
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: to us in the college dorms and saying, who are
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: these guys? Then they go out and buy our records,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: and you know, and and and we became famous because
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: of that, and that's what allowed us to tour and
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: to meet our our audience. Okay, So it was a conflux,
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: a confluence congress, if you will, of uh of of
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: technology that allowed us to reach a particular audience, which
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: I call a bad head cult. Basically, you know, hip
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: hip pockets on the backside of America all right, because
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: we were also the only comedians who were were uh,
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: reaching to a higher level of comedy nobody else was doing.
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: You know what Bergmann used to call college boy comedy
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: okay arcane comedy. Uh. And even though we you know
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: we were, we were not. We would shame shamelessly stooped
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: to punning whenever we possibly could. Most of our albums,
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: in the storytelling had were redolent and redundant, with many, many,
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: many levels of meaning and understanding. So you could put
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: our records on and play them over and over again
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: and get different messages and different meanings and different jokes
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: out of them. And this is even true if you
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: played the record in a group of people, because there
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: were people in that group who would get certain jokes
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: that other people wouldn't get, and somehow, through the brain
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: meld of being in their presence, it became funnier for
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: you as well. See. So that's why I always consider
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: what we do to be kind of mind messed, mind
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: manifesting comedy or brain exercising comedy, because we're making funny
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: connections in the comedy that we're writing. In the writing
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: itself that exercises your brain to make synapses. That is
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: the way the brain works. The brain works by making
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: unconscious and conscious connections to everything, and that's what we do.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: We do we did in our writing and Fire Sign Theater.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, comedy and you're able to put
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: that idea.
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: Like we were saying earlier, that's what I really liked too,
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: Phil is you know, you're you're you're.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Able to make a joke. But people say, hey, you
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: know what, there's some truth to that.
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: There's some truth to what they're saying, you know, and
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: then they sort of, you know, they start thinking more
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: and more, and you know, as we talk you know this,
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: you know stuff about the you know, Fire Sign Theater
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: or even as we were discussing mel Brooks, you know,
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: a lot of you know, there was there was that satire,
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: there was a surrealism where on the surface it made
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: you laugh, but then as you start to sort of
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: dig a little deeper, you're like, oh, there's a lot
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: more going on here than you But.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: One of the other things that we did very consciously
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: was to parody commerc regular commercial radio, news radio or
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: i should say news broadcasts, uh and standard forms of
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: entertainment films and television. The album that was our breakthrough
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: album was Nick Danger Third Eye, Okay, because it was
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: a parody of a noir detective radio show, and everybody
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: in our generation who grew up on the radio could
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: identify with that format. Okay. But what we were often
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: doing in all of our albums, including I Think We're
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: Allbosos on this Bus, which predicted by the way, the
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: computer revolution and was and was and picked up as
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: a fan Steve Jobs, and I'll demonstrate something bizarre that
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: came out of that. We were actually deprogramming you. We
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: were unbrainwashing you, because people who had been raised in
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: the commercial society at that time in the sixties, particularly
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: sixties and early seventies, were you know, we're taking for
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: granted in a way that everything that we heard on
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: the radio that was selling us things was true. You know,
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: we had bad breath, we had under our we stank,
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: our feet didn't smell, they smelled bad. We needed a
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: fancy car, and we needed a new refrigerator with an
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: ice maker and all. So we'd use those forms in
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: order to kind of say no, you don't, no, you don't.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: You might need something more important than that, like maybe
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: a good marriage you know, or a girlfriend you know
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: or a boyfriend I don't know, but it's yours. What
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: is reality? What is your reality now? In the terms
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: of the of the album, uh, I think We're all
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Bosa's on this bus. I'm going to I have in
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: my hand an iPhone and I'm going to ask a
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: question of Siri. Here we go, Here we go, or
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: I'm going to make a statement to Siri. This is
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: worker speaking Hello, Clem, what function can I perform for you?
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: L Hello, a Clem, what function can I perform for you?
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: Lots of laugh. This is a reference to a character
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: that I created in this album I Think We're all
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: Boso's on this Bus, which is a character named Clem,
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: and I am a The backstory is I was a
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: worker at this future fair, which is a government fair
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: that is designed to sell people on the idea that
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: everything is going great and there's no unemployment and you know,
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: there's going to be a job for everybody in the
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: world of the future. Everything is going to be great,
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: and it's like a Disneyland that the government creates with
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: holograms walking around making it happy, and all kinds of
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: rides you can go on. And I come in because
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: I've been fired, and I become a hacker, and I
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: plant a virus in the mainframe computer, which is the
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: direct readout memory computer, doctor memory, and I bring the
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: whole system down. Nineteen seventy one, we predicted all of that. Okay. Now,
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: Steve Jobs, I met him. He was a fan of
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: this work and it helped to inspire him to continue
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: to develop the home computer. Okay. And I met him
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: when I did voices for It's a Bugs Life, which
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: Dave Osman did voices for as well Pixar, because he
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: bought into he bought stock in Pixar. And I met
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: him at the opening night party up in San Francisco,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: and he came up to me, or I came up
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: to him to say, mister John's, nice to meet you,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: and he said, I'm a big fan of yours. And
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: that's when I learned he was a Fire Sign Theater fan.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: So he put this hello a clem, what function can
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: I perform for you answer into Siri as an homage
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: to the Fire Sign Theater. Talk about cultural impact.
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: I was just about to say that Phil, I've never
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: of anyone have had on the show. I've never had
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: anybody who has been embedded into the to the Apple
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: iOS or you to have you know, I mean that
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: that is that.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Is freaking phenomenal. That is mind blowing.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: It is. And the other thing, the virus that I
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: planted in our album is a question that the computer
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: can answer with a yes or a no. And the
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: question was why does the porridge bird lay his egg
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: in the air? Okay, it's a zen question. If you
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: buy my book Where's My Fortune Cookie, which will be
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: on Amazon after the twenty eighth, you'll find out the
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: reason behind that particular koon. But if you say that
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: to a Siri, she will often say to you, you
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: can't shut me down that easily. So it's really exciting,
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: you know, to be a part of the culture like that.
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely amazing. Do you like do you
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: show that like to to you? I don't know if
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: your grandkids, but I don't know if you do, you
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: show that to them?
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: Or I show it when I go in to a
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: max store.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: Anywhere in the world, you know, to get a battery
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: or something, I always show it to the people. The
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: person who's waiting on me. Okay, I share it with
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: with one of the one of the workers at the
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: back store. My grandkids. I have two grandkids, Bowen who
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: is eight and Audrey, who is six, and they live
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: real close to me now, which is wonderful. Uh. My
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: daughter Kristin, Kristin Proctor was an actress. She's been raising
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: her kids now. So but you can google Kristin Proctor.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: She was on the wire and uh even topless. She's
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: a beautiful, beautiful girl and now an even more beautiful
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: woman of my Norwegian wife. So she's you know, a
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: honey blonde. But anyway, those kids, they know much more
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: than I do. You know, their faces are in these
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: machines all the time, so much so that Jeffrey and
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: Kristen have to wean them away from the iPads or
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: from the games. You know. Their favorite show that they
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: like to watch online. I guess it is is a
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: show where these two characters, Jen and Ben I don't
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: know who they are, are talking while they're playing video games.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: Do you know about that?
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've actually I do know about that.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: Okay, that's their favorite show. That's their favorite show. Besides
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: playing video games. They like to hear these two imaginary characters,
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: these two people reality television, okay, playing the games and
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: making comments on it. So reality television has even invaded
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: that area. Now. The other thing is, of course I've
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: done voices for all kinds of video games, and my
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: longest run was as Doctor Vidick in Assassin's Creed. And
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: what was fun about that was that I would wear
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: this helmet that was developed in Montreal that has, you know,
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: a feature capturing capabilities, computer capabilities, and so my facial
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: expressions as I'd read the lines for Doctor Vidick, the
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: villain in Assassin's Creed, would be translated into a computer
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: rendering of my head and my face, and then they
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: would lay the character's face over my face. So when
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: you play that game, all the expressions that Doctor Vitick
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: is making are my expressions. That's another what is reality
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: for you? And I guess the thing that most people
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: out there would know me best for is that I
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: was Howard on the Rugrats for fourteen years. I'm the
• 42:54
  Speaker 4: father of philin lil Okay, and we did what three
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: movies and and fourteen years or we had a little break,
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: so maybe seven or eight years of cartoons on Nickelodeon.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: They're still being aired, and they're aired all over the world.
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: I get a request for autographs from China, from Poland,
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: from Russia, from South America, I mean, England, Australia. You
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: can't so many countries where unexpectedly they're showing this cartoon.
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: And I speak seven languages, so it's really fun for
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: me to be able to write back in Russian to
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: these people and communicate in all these different languages, or
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: to learn, you know, a little bit from a new
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: language so that I can communicate to them in their
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: own tongue. And it's just really fun. And I get
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: I got a stack of residuals today from Rugrats. Now
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: the residuals, because it's not a network program, are like
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: a dollar fifty six, ten, fifty nine, twelve, thirty sixty
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: two cents. You know, it does add up, and it's
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: thrilling to see that I get a stack of these
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: residuals showing that it's still playing in the United States
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: and all over the world.
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I do. I actually I was a
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: big fan of Rugrats growing up. Phil and uh, you know,
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: I I do remember you actually playing the the the
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: dad of Phil and Lil and.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: Uh, lots of other parts too that you probably don't
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: know the same. Nancy Cartwright. You know, she she plays Bart,
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: but she plays a slew of other parts as well.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: You know. They they take advantage of our voice talents
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: as often as they can and give us multiple fun
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: roles to play.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and very true.
• 44:43
  Speaker 6: I've noticed that too with kangas Area, who's also in
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: The Simpsons. And uh and obviously you know you've done
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: work on finding Nemo. Uh you know, and uh, you
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: know a couple of Disney films and I mean, you
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: know again, it's just it's you never know. That's why
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: we say, Phil, That's why I I was familiar with
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: your work and I was.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Like, you know what he does? He Phil, You've done
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: more than I thought you did. I was like, I
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: might even paying attention. He's showing up everywhere and I'm
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: not even I'm not even noticing it.
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: Well, the fun thing was besides getting a chance to
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: do the first the first Disney film I did wash
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: the what's it called the something down under the not
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: the Remainders down under the the Oh, Well, anyway, you
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: know what I'm talking about. This the DNA doas down Under. Oh,
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: I can't remember anyway. It was followed by Beauty and
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: the Beast. Okay, and Beauty and the Beast was the
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: breakthrough computer animation movie, and it was astonishing to work
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: on that film. And then the Pixar movies started coming
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: in Toy Story and as I mentioned, well, I just
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: mentioned a bunch of monsters incorporated, uh finding Nemo later on,
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: the most recent film I did for Disney Pixar was
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: Inside Out. Okay, But my days doing all kinds car
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: of animated voices and voices for movies and television ended
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: about i'd say five or six years ago. You can
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: hear my voices tired today, but that's just because I'm
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: talking a lot. But for the most part, it's okay.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: I had a terrific run doing voices. I started actually
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: on a show in New York called He I Think
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: Here and Now. No, it wasn't called You Are There
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: something like that. I did a Russian accented voiceover for
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: a segment about the Second World War, and I was
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: I was twenty two years old, fresh out at college.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: I was playing a juvenile delinquent on a soap opera
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: called Edge of Night. Okay, and then later went on
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: to understudy Ralph the Singing Nazi on the Sound of Music.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: But I go into a studio in New York and
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: I worked for fifteen minutes and I made three hundred
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: and sixty five dollars. And that's when when I first
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: went to myself, there's something to look into here. But
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: it took me many, many more years before I was
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: able to really get into the voiceover industry seriously. And
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: it happened pretty much after the Fire Sign Theater. But
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: I'm very grateful for all those wonderful years that I
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: worked with with great improv groups, adding crazy voices and
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: different languages and different accents to the Muppets movies and
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: my goodness. If you go and see my list of credits,
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: you'll see that. You can also visit me at Planetprocter
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: dot com, where I post a weekly monthly blog now,
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: but I've been doing that for twenty years and it's
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: one way of keeping up with what I'm doing. I'm
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: also on television right now. I should mention on a
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: PBS documentary about Francis Scott Key by Philip Marshall, called
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: Francis Scott Key after the song It's a three part
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: documentary done in an interview style with the ghosts of
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: famous people who lived in Francis Scott Key's time, including
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: a character named John Randolph of Roanoke, who's the character
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: I play, and Marshall interviews us as ghosts in our
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: own words. We're speaking pretty much our own words. John
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Randolph had a high voice, almost annoying, and he was
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: quite a character. He was a senator in Virginia for
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: many years and he would hold forth on the floor
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: of the Senate with his two white Afghan hounds and
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: his black serving boy, his black servant dressed in Chinese
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: in a Chinese costume. And you'll get to see all
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: of that in this amazing documentary. I can't tell you
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: when it'll be on your local PBS station, but if
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: you go to the website fs key after the song,
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: you'll find out. And it's really something something to see.
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: It's a revolutionary documentary.
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and I'll look on the lookout for that, Phil,
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: And you know I am going to link, by the way,
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: everybody to all the things that Phil and I are
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: talking about, all the websites, everything in the show notes.
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: By the way, I'm always very good at that film.
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: I'm always very good at linking everything in the show notes.
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: Oh but by my pleasure, Phil and I and I
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: know we're we're we're starting to run out of time film.
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: So I just want to ask, you know, obviously your
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: book is coming out September twenty eighth of this year,
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: twenty seventeen, where's my fortune Cookie? You have quotes on
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: the back from from weird Al Yankovic Pendulette, and I'm
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: you know of all you know, all these these these
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: are great you know people you know have you know,
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: giving you all these these quotes.
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: Tom and Tom Heikman too.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, politically one of my heroes. And I tell
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: all these people which is great.
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's actually was going to ask you, was you
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: know of you know of all the things in the book.
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: You know, I mean you touch on so much because
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: like like for one, I mean I had in my
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: listener to talk about but I know you had amish
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: upbringing and I was gonna try to touch on that.
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: But where you know, you see how quickly these interviews go,
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: It's like your blink fill and they're over.
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm seventy seven years old. I've got a lot
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: to talk about because I can still remember it. That's
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: the good part. And yes, I'm of Amish Irish ancestry.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: And if you want to read about that, you can
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: go online and find a book called Rosanna of the Amish,
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: written by my great uncle Joseph Yoder, which tells about
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: the roots of that Amish Irish connection back in the
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: nineteenth century, which is very unusual. And I guess that's
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: why I'm so unusual.
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's always amazing tie tie in, Phil, there's always
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: amazing tie ins. And about the book too, is there anything?
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: Is there any story you know, just to as you
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: talk about the book, as we said of wrap up
• 51:14
  Speaker 6: this whole interview, is there any sort of one story
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: that really stands out that you really you just couldn't
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: wait to retell?
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Sure? Well, the fact is the book is called Where's
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: My Fortune Cookie? It has on the front cover a
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: picture of Peter Bergman and myself hiding under a restaurant
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: table with Chinese food on top of it. It relates
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: to the fact that Peter and I survived the Golden
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: Dragon massacre in San Francisco, five killed, eleven wounded back
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy seven, I think it was. And that
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: particular gang Lend shooting that we were unfortunately in the
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: middle of and not hiding under the table, occurred on
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: the same day that I learned that my Norwegian wife
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: Barbreau was pregnant with my daughter Kristen, who is living
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: nearby now. And the really weird thing about it, which
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: is all recounted in the book, is that it was
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: psychically predicted to me by a friend about a month
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: and a half before it happened. But all of this
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: is in the book. And it's called Where's My Fortune Cookie?
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: Because when Peter Bergmann, who died of leukemia about five
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: years ago, at one of his memorial services, a friend
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: of ours, one of the patrons of the Firesign Theater,
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: made it passed out fortune cookies to everybody with Peter
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: Bergman's date of birth and death and aligne a title
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: of one of the Firecient Theater albums. And I asked her,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: I said, Gretchen, that was really sweet of you to
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: do the fortune cookie thing. And I said, you did
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: that because of the Golden Dragon massacred, didn't you? And
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: she said, what I said, You know, Peter and I
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: survived a Chinese gangland shooting. She said, you did. I
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: never heard of that. I said, well, well why did you?
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: Why did you make the fortune cookies? Then she said,
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: Peter came to me in a dream and he told
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: me I never got my fortune cookie. And it's all
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: true that the book is filled with stories like that.
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: Things like that have happened to me my entire life,
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: and it ain't over yet.
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: You'll have to come back on Phil when you write
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: this sequel, for the next for the next fifty years
• 53:43
  Speaker 6: that you're in show business.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: Well, listen, when the book comes out, I'll be back
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: in town, probably at the end of October. Yeah, So
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: maybe when we get into the holiday season we can
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: figure out another excuse to talk together again.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Phil.
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: I would love to talk to you anytime, because, like
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: I said, there's a bunch of questions I didn't get
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: to ask you, But I would love to chat again.
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: And just in case people didn't hear it the first time, Phil,
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: where can we'll find you out online?
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: Planet Procter dot com is the best way. And if
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: you like what you see there and you want to
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: subscribe to the newsletter. It's free. You just send me
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: there's my email address there, and you just send me
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: your address and say I want to want to become
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: a planeteer, send me the planet and I'll see that
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: you're in a mailing group.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: And everyone.
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: I will link to that in this show notes, along
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: with the link to pre order Phil's book Where Is
• 54:40
  Speaker 6: My Fortune Cookie, out September the twenty eighth of this year,
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: twenty seventeen. Phil Procter, It has been an absolute blast, sir.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: Thank you very much. I hope I didn't talk your
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: ear off.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: No, not at all, not at all.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: Great talking to you, Dave saying.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: FO.
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: It was great talking to you as well. And you
• 54:57
  Speaker 6: know I'm going to be on the and whenever you're
• 54:59
  Speaker 6: in town, everyone to come back.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: Please let me know.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: Thank you, we'll do it again. Okay, bye for now.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Forward slash four forty four. Thank you so much for
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: listening to guys.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: As always, keep on writing no matter what, I'll talk
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: to you soon.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: dot tv.