'Nuts Enough for You?': Q&A with 2010 Keynote Speaker Bill Scheft
groups submitted questions for Bill Scheft, author of Everything
Hurts and Friday evening speaker at the upcoming 2010 Erma
Bombeck Writers' Workshop, April 15-17. We got multiple
questions from some members -- some serious, others foolish
and even a little bit nosy, one from Germany and all answered
below by Bill.
Q: What kinds of humor traditions do you belong to and how are
I am a monologue joke writer for Letterman, and I write novels that
ideally have plenty of comic subtext. So, right there, those are two
long-standing traditions. And when I appear at an event or on TV, I try to tell funny stories, which would be the earliest humor tradition. In terms of trying to advance the field, I just try to do good work, get better and develop a singular voice.
Q: Where is humor going, and what's bending it in that direction? -- ET
When I was a stand-up, there were two things you didn’t joke about: Abortion and the holocaust. That’s gone. I think like any art form, society will keep erecting taboos or righteous boundaries, and the art form will keep trying to subtly chip away at them, or deftly knock them down.
Q: Do you prefer writing alone on books or in group settings like Letterman show? -- E. Mitchell
I write alone at the Letterman show, so you are asking me if I prefer writing in my apartment or in my office. The coffee’s better in my apartment.
Q: Johnny Carson routinely used the daily news to get most of his material. Do you find that's the freshest and safest formula for success? -- Randy Rogers
Absolutely, when you’re doing a daily show, you have to rely on that day’s news. Not exclusively, though. Some news has a longer shelf life than others. I’m sure they’ll be making Bill Clinton bird dog jokes long after I’m in assisted living.
Q: Since you don't have an Improv type of setting to try things out in, how do you test to see if a bit will come off as funny as you thought it was when you first wrote it? -- RR
There is no guarantee, but you do have the experience or reference of what type of thing has worked in the past. Sometimes stuff fails, and I think people enjoy seeing that as much as material that scores. I mean, how great was it when Johnny’s monologue would start bombing and he’d do the soft-shoe?
When you do a show every night, there’s an urgency. You don’t have the time to run down the halls trying out jokes on your co-workers. (Although, don’t get me wrong, I have….)
Q: Do you employ a scoring system to rate the acceptance of the humor by the audience? Is it based on the amount of laughter generated or some other metric? -- RR
We use the “Spectacular 7” scoring system employed by jai-alai. Two points for the first round, one point for each additional round. First one to 7 wins….
You just know if something works. We can’t see if the people at home are laughing, but we can tell if we’ve executed the premise well. The results are the results.
If the studio audience laughs, it works. If Dave laughs and the audience doesn’t, it still works. Because, at the end of the show, the audience leaves. I see Dave every day.
Q: Do you have a post-mortem session to judge what bits worked and which ones didn't, and if so, is it possible to make subject-matter adjustments? -- RR
Sometimes, the head writers will meet with us and discuss why certain pieces were cut (time, editing, subject, etc.). Scripts are edited and changes made right up to show time. After it airs, you can’t get it back, so you just go to work on tomorrow’s show.
Q: I'd love to hear about the gags you didn't use ... because they were poorly timed or in poor taste or just plain awful. How did you decide to drop them and did you regret it? Were there any that you used and then regretted? (And, no, I'm not talking about the Palin incident.) -- Kevin Cummings
The easiest way to answer that is for every joke you hear or piece of tape you see, at least ten other jokes or tape pieces were cut. We generate mounds and mounds of cole slaw to get one good serving. The head writers and Executive Producers are instrumental to shifting through it all, but ultimately, it’s Dave’s call. If Dave does 20 jokes in a monologue, he’s looked at 400, If Dave does a Top Ten, he’s writtled down that list from at least 200 entries. I know what you’re thinking, “You mean those are the best ten items?”
By the way, thanks for using the term “gags.” Is it 1955 already?
Q: Would your Letterman material work for others, being generally funny, or must everything be created with David Letterman in mind? -- Roberta Beach Jacobson
Some of the more concept-based material would (God knows, Conan and Jay have been using our ideas for years). It’s TV, it’s visual, so you want to come up with stuff that looks cool. That transcends the personality of the host. But if the host doesn’t think it’s cool, it won’t air.
Joke-to-joke, you’re trying to write in Dave’s distinct voice. It must be plausible. It can be hilarious, but if it’s not the kind of thing that Dave would say, he ain’t gonna say it.
Q: Yeah, I got a question, Professor Funny Boy. What does you have against 49ers coach John Singletary? I believe that's your voice screaming in the background. -- Danny Gallagher
We have nothing against Coach Singletary. We just have a guy on our staff who kind of looks like him, so Dave said to me, “Let’s write something for Art (Kelly) where I’m interviewing Coach Singletary and he’s insane.”
Q: Because of the timing, many actors have said that a successful comedy role is the hardest to perform well. Can you relate to the same complexity when it comes to writing comedy? Do you think it is also harder (in some ways) than writing the "straight" stuff? -- RR
Woody Allen said it best about writing comedy, “If you can do it, there’s nothing to it.” Actors say that about comedy being hard to perform because to do it well, you have to not take yourself so seriously. Try asking an actor to not take himself seriously.
Q: Is there any difference, in your opinion, between American and European humor? When I watch the few American shows broadcast in Germany, I think that there is a difference (David Letterman is shown on German TV). My feeling is that European and especially German jokes are more political. Americans "play" with jokes. Is that correct? Best wishes from Germany! -- Silke Porath
Normally, I try to avoid giving information to Germans, so I will just say this: You are absolutely right. American humor is much more based on wordplay. We use the language more. Europeans use the high and low of culture more. More political, but more broad.
Q: They say that humor evolved as a coping mechanism due to emotional trauma, generally the result of not being loved. Just how screwed up are you, who did it to you and what are you trying to resolve? (I.e., Do you have to be neurotic to be funny?) -- ET
You have no idea.
Q: In your own personal life, what is your comic perspective? What is your way of seeing the world, and all the people in it -- as fascinating, although a little nuts? -- ET
My personal comic perspective is very simple: “If you ever forget you’re a Jew, a Gentile will remind you.”
I don’t think of myself as particularly observant. I have a point of view. I get my energy from within, not from other people. It’s not how I view the world, it’s how I observe my reaction to the world.
Is that nuts enough for you?
Q: How would you describe your love life? Are you a normal character in a comic world, or visa versa? We want details. -- ET
I’m 52 and married 20 years. What love life?
The serious answer is of all the choices I’ve made, the best one was that I married the right girl. The fact that she is a brilliant comedian and artist makes my normal world comic, and my comic world quite normal.
Q: When did you realize that you wanted to be a writer? And more important, when did you realize that he could be funny? -- Pamela Goldstein
I have wanted to be a writer from the time I was 8 years old and found out my uncle (the legendary New Yorker writer Herbert Warren Wind) made his living that way. He was incredibly generous to me about showing me the possibilities of a writer’s life, especially when I moved to New York in 1980.
I knew I was funny when I realized I could make my mother laugh. Once that happens, if you’re any kind of self-hating Jew, making other’s laugh as you made your mother laugh becomes your life’s work.
I don’t know who said this, but someone said a person becomes a humorist the same way a woman becomes a hooker. You start doing it for one person, then a couple of friends, then you realize you’re good enough to get paid.
Q: How did you get to write for Letterman? What has your career path been like up to working for the show? -- Michele Wojciechowski, writer of Wojo's World
I was a sportswriter for two years after I graduated from Harvard. I moved to New York in 1980 and became a stand-up comic. I made a living at that for 12 years until I was fortunate enough to get hired by then LATE NIGHT with David Letterman in 1991. (Note to those who think I had it knocked: I was rejected FIVE previous times for writing jobs on the Letterman show over seven years before I got hired.)
I started writing novels in 1995. Didn’t sell my first novel, but sold my second (The Ringer, 2001), my third (Time Won't Let Me, 2004) and my fourth (Everything Hurts, 2008).
The best advice I ever got I pass along freely: WRITERS WRITE.
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Copyright 2009, University of Dayton
