Sick In The Head: Conversations About Life And Comedy Part 21

Judd: I love people almost getting in fistfights over jokes.

Jimmy: What is wrong with people?

Judd: Your show seems so well run. I guess my first question-as somebody who had to run shows when I didn't know how to do it-would be how, in the beginning, did you know how to set up your show, not only for it to work comedically, but for it to be a place that was happy and functional?

Jimmy: We just went in knowing that we might get canceled. And if you're going to go down, you have to go down doing what you like doing and what's fun for you, because I don't ever want to do something painful and then have everyone go, "Hey, that works. Keep doing that painful thing for years."

Judd: SNL is famous for being a survival-of-the-fittest atmosphere. It's almost built for people to turn on each other because everyone is under so much pressure to get on the show. But all these other shows that Lorne produced seem like happy places.

Jimmy: It's so-I watch SNL all the time and I see a new cast member, and I think, Oh, man, no one's going to write for that person next week. Because they scored too hard.

Judd: (Laughs) Jimmy: Got to take them down a notch.

Judd: You're very close to Lorne. What is the thing you think people don't understand about him?

Jimmy: Maybe that he does not care about money. He's very successful, so he doesn't need money, but it's like-if it was anyone else, they would have made some contract deal where they would get five percent of every person who leaves to become uber-famous. Will Ferrell would be giving Lorne five percent after the next Anchorman. But Lorne doesn't care. He's proud of the people who do something else off the show. It makes him happy.

Judd: What was exciting about SNL-well, I'm a little bit older than you, but when SNL was originally on, it was before the VCR was something that most people had. And when SNL was on, you really thought, I may never get to see this again. You had to watch it because there was no way to know if you would ever get another shot at it.

Jimmy: I taped every Sat.u.r.day Night Live as soon as I could afford videotapes. I taped every episode that I could tape. Then I would go to my friend's house with the tape and show them the best sketches-you got to see Chris Farley and stuff like that, you know. I was like the human Funny or Die.

Judd: Where did you grow up?

Jimmy: Saugerties, New York, which is Woodstock.

Judd: Did you have friends who loved comedy? Because I was totally alone. No one gave a s.h.i.+t.

Jimmy: I had a good crew of maybe like five to ten kids I could watch the tapes with. They'd have a party and sneak booze in the bas.e.m.e.nt or something and I'd come in with a tape and show a couple of funny sketches, and they'd all laugh, and we'd just hang out and listen to music and stuff like that. I was really into it. And then my dad bought a VCR, because he wanted the video camera that came with the VCR that attached with the wire- Judd: Yeah.

Jimmy:-and you had to carry around a box.

Judd: (Laughs) Jimmy: He used that to tape home movies, but I used it to tape Sat.u.r.day Night Live. They had like a weird rerun thing of Sat.u.r.day Night Live that was on in the eighties. I taped Sat.u.r.day Night Live as well, but they also ran old ones from the seventies.

Judd: I remember that.

Jimmy: And so I used to tape them, but I couldn't always play the tapes back because that was the only VCR we had in the house, so what I would do is play back Richard Pryor's monologue, and record it on a reel-to-reel that I bought at a garage sale. Then I would go up in my room and play it and lip-sync Richard Pryor's monologue in the mirror.

Judd: Oh my G.o.d.

Jimmy: I did Steve Martin, too. I would do all of their bits and lip-sync them like they were songs.

Judd: I'm always fascinated what draws people to doing any of this, but you seemed to have super-cool, healthy parents.

Jimmy: They're not healthy, but they are definitely- Judd: You liked them?

Jimmy: They were great. I had a great childhood.

Judd: Are your parents still around?

Jimmy: Yeah, I talk to them almost every day. They are great. They belong in a mental inst.i.tution, but besides that, very nice people.

Judd: (Laughs) Jimmy: They were funny people. We were an Irish Catholic family, so we'd have parties. My dad loved to listen to music, so we always had the radio on, and so they would have parties and people came over and after a couple of hours people would stand up in front of everybody and sing a song. And then everyone clapped and then someone else would go, "No, you sing one," and then someone would sing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," and then someone would sing "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," and then my grandfather would get up and sing last, some song, and everyone would start crying because it was a really sad Irish song. And that was the end of the night. But we'd all have a good laugh, my grandmother did bits-my grandparents lived right next to me, almost in my backyard, in a little guest house almost. They kind of helped raise me. I really got a lot of my sense of humor from watching them do bits, but we would listen to comedians on Sunday mornings. They would play this channel, an AM radio station that would play comedians, and we would listen and-it was fantastic. We used to listen to the radio and just laugh, and go, "Oh my gosh." And then I started getting into it. I really loved comedians, so my dad would buy an alb.u.m like Rodney Dangerfield, No Respect, and he would-I remember this-he would take a key and scratch out any of the dirty words, so that when I played the record, it would skip over the curse word.

Judd: That is hilarious. And you were never a dirty comedian.

Jimmy: I never was a dirty-no, I never was.

Judd: But your show now, in a way, is like sitting around, singing songs at the piano, enjoying people. Is that how you see it? I mean, the idea of my crazy Jewish family sitting around, singing a song, is unfathomable.

Jimmy: This was a weekly event. This would happen all the time, and everyone would get involved. My sister wasn't as into performing as I was, but we would play "King Tut" and come downstairs in my mom's dresses-the ones that looked kind of Egyptian-and we would dance and lip-sync "King Tut."

Judd: See, I did all that and no one cared and I was alone.

Jimmy: (Laughs) Judd: It's like we have the same story-if everyone ignored you and you just watched Love Connection alone in your room every day for seven years.

Jimmy: I look back, I mean there are tapes of me doing Pee-wee Herman and impressions of people, Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy- Judd: I remember meeting you when you first got to SNL, I remember seeing you there. And I remember you did an impression of Adam Sandler.

Jimmy: That was my breakout episode. Ben Stiller was hosting.

Judd: That's right. It was the Stiller episode. That's why I was there.

Jimmy: It was a Halloween episode, Ben Stiller hosted, and I remember Ben said to Higgins, "Hey, this kid does a great Sandler." They go, "Yeah, yeah, we've seen it, but Adam doesn't have a movie coming out, so we'll wait until something-" and Ben goes, "No, it doesn't matter. You should have him do it." So we wrote up celebrity Jeopardy, where I did Sandler and Ben did Tom Cruise and Daryl did Sean Connery. That same episode is when I played guitar and did guitar impressions with Colin Quinn on "Weekend Update."

Judd: Yeah. Wow.

Jimmy: Usually, if they know that a bit is going to kill, they'll put it at the end of "Update," but they didn't think I was going to work that well, so they put me in the middle-and I crushed. It was a good bit. I did impressions of Alanis Morissette and all this stuff and no one knew-I was brand-new. It was my third episode, I think.

Judd: That's the biggest moment, when you realize you've found something that will make you break out a little bit.

Jimmy: And that was it. I was the impressions guy. It all started happening from that one episode.

Judd: You try so hard to figure out what will make people notice you- Jimmy: I remember I called Adam before I did it, because I wanted to make sure I had his blessing. They called him and put him on the phone with me, and I was so nervous. I was like, "Hi, Adam." He goes, "How ya doing, man? Let's hear it." I go, "Okay." I go (making funny sounds), I go, "All right, I talked to my mother the other day and she said, "What is wrong with you? There's something wrong with you....'" And I was doing this whole bit, and he goes, "All right, that's good. That's good. You gotta do it." He was awesome.

Judd: That's because no one ever calls or shows any respect in that situation. I remember Dana Carvey did Shandling on Sat.u.r.day Night Live. It was really mean, and not a great sketch-I think Carvey called Shandling up after and was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry," and Shandling wasn't thrilled about it. Garry just said, "You know what? We're going to do a Larry Sanders episode about it." And then they wrote an incredible Larry Sanders where Larry was mad when Dana Carvey guest-hosted-he did an impression of him and tore him apart.

Jimmy: I remember that. It was a great one. Out of all the things I watched to get ready for this job, Larry Sanders was the ultimate-that's the ultimate piece of advice I'd tell anyone to watch if you're doing a talk show. It's so real and so well done. That's how a show gets made.

Judd: It seems like effortless, the way you generate all this material.

Jimmy: Well, I think you have to keep trying and keep swinging and get up to bat and try a different type of joke, because you don't know which one is going to connect. We try a lot of stuff that doesn't work, and you go, like, "Wow, that one did not work," but we tried it. And that's what you have to do. I remember-it was the first season of Late Night, and you were nice enough to come on the show and you go, "This is great, this is fun, but honestly, remember these years because you will not be doing this much pre-tapes and stuff down the road because you guys will burn out. There's no way." And I really took that to heart. Every time I'm like, "We don't have time to do that," I think, No, you know what, I'm going to make Judd Apatow proud and I'm going to stay late, I'm going to stay till two in the morning. I swear to G.o.d, I think about it all the time.

Judd: Because Letterman, there was a moment when he just stopped going to New Jersey and knocking on doors, doing bits.

Jimmy: But that was the best part.

Judd: It was. It was incredible. And I felt a deep sadness when I heard he was not going to do remote pieces anymore.

Jimmy: He was the best at it.

Judd: It must have been odd to go up against Letterman, since he's the one that made us all want to be funny.

Jimmy: Yeah, but it's just the way it worked out.

Judd: Do you ever interact with him?

Jimmy: I don't. You know, we started joking back and forth a while ago. He would say-he would try to tweet me. Almost like he didn't understand Twitter. He's like, "I'll tweet Jimmy Fallon!"

Judd: That's funny.

Jimmy: It was a funny bit. Then, I would try to teach him how to tweet through Twitter, and then I think CBS asked him to stop.

Judd: (Laughs) He was sending too many people to your Twitter account.

Jimmy: Yeah. They were like, just stop saying his name. I think they have a blanket rule, CBS isn't allowed to talk about me or something. So silly.

Judd: Everyone in late night right now is great. It's a weird moment, as a fan of comedy and good things: You go, What am I going to do, get up every morning and watch five hours of talk shows?

Jimmy: You can't do that. That's a waste of your day. But the b.u.mmer for me is that I can't watch anyone else now because I don't want to take any of their bits. Being an impressionist, I imitate everybody, so if I watch Letterman every night, I would start doing him in my show, and if I watch Kimmel, I'd do his bits, you know. So I get nervous and I just can't watch anyone.

Judd: Is there a part of this job that still blows your mind? For me, watching your show, when you're standing next to Bruce Springsteen singing a song and doing a bit, I think, there must be a feeling of nirvana in that moment that I can't even imagine.

Jimmy: But when it's happening, you don't feel it. The idea of it happening-it's almost happening, it's about to happen-that's the excitement. Once it's happening, you just don't want to screw it up and embarra.s.s him and I want to make sure he's having a good time, so I'm really kind of nervous and just want to focus and do well.

Judd: The one that made me laugh was when you were singing with Paul Simon, and I realized, oh, there's no joke here. Jimmy just forced Paul Simon to sing a song with him.

Jimmy: (Laughs) I will never do anything like that again. I did that once and I sang "With a Little Help from My Friends" with Ringo, and that was the last time I'll ever sing.

Judd: No, you have to keep doing it. It just made me laugh so hard. This is a fun moment in late night. I would watch The Tonight Show, I never felt I was like Johnny Carson, but it's funny for me now to have almost all those late-night slots filled by people I'm friends with or know a little.

Jimmy: Yeah, you know them, and you're like, wait, what?

Judd: You can't imagine Carson being as excited about doing his show as you are and we are. Like I don't think Carson ever thought, Oh my G.o.d, I can't believe Dean Martin was here tonight.

Jimmy: (Laughs) Judd: Those shows were driven by such darkness. Carson was funny, but he also looked like there was so much more going on here, which we didn't understand. And I guess Letterman is that way, too. We were fascinated to see how these guys would interact with people because, on some level, we thought they were miserable.

Jimmy: Yeah, well, you could tell when Dave hated somebody or when Johnny hated somebody.

Judd: I think that people are generally struggling, and a lot of people are having a hard time and are miserable. To watch someone who is genuinely enjoying themselves is an elixir, and it shocks people. I think they watch you and think, I wish I was that f.u.c.king happy, and they get a real-it gives them a break. I think we watch Letterman out of our angry side some of the time.

Jimmy: That's not my style, so I'm not good at that.

Judd: It taps into the national neurosis in a way, where people are so happy to not be unhappy. You know, we all want to be around the piano, singing the song.

Jimmy: I don't know if you had this, but I always wanted to please everybody. I always wanted to make everyone proud of me and happy.

Judd: Yeah, but what is different for me is that, when I go home, I feel shame at the need to make people happy in order to feel good. I don't know how you are afterwards, but it doesn't feel like you have the bad aftertaste.

Jimmy: When it's the TV show, I don't really, no. But if I'm at a party or a wedding and I have to get up and do some bit that I think is funny-and if it goes well-I just go like, Why did you have to do that at the guy's wedding? Can't he just get married without you being the big star?

Judd: How is the social part of this life for you, where you get to know all these people that you look up to?

Jimmy: It's odd, but you get used to it after a little while. I don't know, all of this is fun and surreal, and it's just been getting crazier and crazier.

Judd: And now you have two kids.

Jimmy: I do.

Judd: You have two girls?

Jimmy: Just like you. I'm like, I finally get it now. It's like, this is why you're doing what you're doing. This is the future. And also, G.o.d, it's so worth it. It's just the greatest feeling in the world. The little arms, they hug you and it's like, ugh, it's a crusher and I'm a mush. I'm an Irish emotional mess.

Judd: You understand how people get needy with their kids because you're like, "You're still going to talk to me when you leave, right?"

Jimmy: Totally. It's so embarra.s.sing. And you always say, "Well, I won't do that, I'll be the cool parent." But you can't help it.

Judd: You can't and you just-that balance of how do I give them rules, which they want to fight me on, and guarantee they want me to be their best friend at the same time is impossible.

Jimmy: You invented this human, so you're like, I made the best human I can make. This is my Sistine Chapel, and I should be able to appreciate this. Not someone else.

Judd: And then there's that weird moment-and everyone tells you about it your whole life and you think, No, that will never happen to me-where, for a year or two, your kids tell you to f.u.c.k off.

Jimmy: Yeah. It does happen. Right around twelve or thirteen is what everyone's telling me.

Judd: That little kid who's just, like, "I want to show you the teddy bear I bought"-twelve years later they're like, "Get the f.u.c.k out of my room!"

Jimmy: "Get the f.u.c.k out."

Judd: I have the thing with my daughter where I hate any boy that comes by-like, in my bones, I hate any boy that is circling.

Jimmy: Yes.

Judd: But there's one kid that is like a super-goofy, nerdy kid, who I realize, Oh, that's me. That's exactly who I was in high school. And I'll say, "What about dating that guy?" And she's like, "Oh, he's such a nerd." And I'm like, "You don't understand him. He's special. He's going to fill out one day. He'll show everybody."

Jimmy: (Laughs) Judd: I'm like, "How come you don't want to date my doppelganger?"

Jimmy: But she will date someone like you.

Judd: That's the scary part. I wish I had self-esteem so she would like a guy with self-esteem.

Jimmy: I'm going to be so b.u.mmed out because my daughter is going to marry some feminine guy that laughs at himself too much. And I'm going to go, That's me. She did it.

JON STEWART.