Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 783: Phil Proctor: A Journey Through Comedy, Resilience, and the Art of Reality

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IFH 783: Phil Proctor: A Journey Through Comedy, Resilience, and the Art of Reality · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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