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I think one reason why our show is popular too is that we have relationships with all these people. They are our actual friends. We're not like show promoters where we're like, (sleazy) "Hey, come on over and do a show."
B. J. Porter -
Anyone can have bad sets. I saw one guy who I really love - I won't mention his name - gave a set that was really bad. And then one month later did the exact same set on our show and it was great.
B. J. Porter
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Comedy Central was really impressed by how quickly we got everyone to sign the releases for the CD. They've never seen anything that quick.
B. J. Porter -
There's two different disks recorded at two different shows. And they're two very different shows. The San Francisco disk was in front of 450 people and was a real professional show where people did their best stuff. So to some people that's going to be their favorite disk.
B. J. Porter -
And there's a period where everyone's buying those and it's really bad because no one is Larry David or Ricky Gervais. And then they don't work and networks stop wanting to buy them, but because they wanted to buy them before the producer wanted to make them, the producers are still hanging on to wanting to make them.
B. J. Porter -
With a sketch show, it's "a bunch of people and they're being funny." In a way that you can't really explain it.
B. J. Porter -
Some of the subject matter is a little less weighty. When we were writing for Mr. Show, we were talking about how is this going to stand up to the test of time. Every little piece had to be this brilliant comedy jewel.
B. J. Porter -
So the CD is a great way to get yourself acquainted with some people who in three years, maybe even one year, be really big.
B. J. Porter
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We're having so much writing some of the sillier stuff that never would have been on Mr. Show. And that's not a knock on Mr. Show at all, because it's my favorite comedy show of all time. Even before I worked on it. It's just really refreshing to write something so stupid and say, "We gotta do that."
B. J. Porter -
Brian Posehn went up at 4:45 in the morning. And he gets lost at a certain point. I don't know if we kept him getting lost on the CD. That joke isn't as technically well delivered as I'm sure it is in his Comedy Central special. But the whole disk has this looseness and flavor to it where anything can happen that a lot of people will prefer.
B. J. Porter -
: But the people on the CD are famous. Those people were coming out to see those people. I don't think they need that kind of intimacy with those people.
B. J. Porter -
Andy Kindler. Andy's set - somehow he slayed that night. But something weird about it that wasn't translating for the CD. I don't know what it was. But we listened to it and it wasn't the greatest audio recording - I mean, the quality of it was good. But we didn't want to put it on the record because it doesn't represent what Andy does.
B. J. Porter -
It's a very different show because of the elements that we're putting in. There's so many different styles of comedy, but Mr. Show was unique to Bob and David - two of the most brilliant performers and writers there are. Their show was based on them. Our show is a bit more broad. We have a cast of 7, we have guests. We can be slightly more topical.
B. J. Porter -
Scott and I had just worked with Jimmy Pardo doing a live show over the summer. And it was a lot of fun and we wanted to keep doing a live show. And as Scott said, we knew a lot of funny young people who needed a place to do stand-up. And we were in a place, where we were writing so much that we weren't around live comedy so much, so we kind of missed it.
B. J. Porter
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The shows need youth. All of our comics are getting too famous to do the show regularly. The people who are regulars five years ago, a lot of them have moved on and can't do the show anymore. We can't really get Jim Gaffigan anymore, we can't get Nick Swardson anymore.
B. J. Porter -
It's really important to keep sponsoring young people so the audience gets used to them and starts enjoying them. They're the only way your show can keep going, otherwise it's going to burn out in one or two years. Hopefully you're creating your headliners of the future.
B. J. Porter -
For a long time networks just wanted to buy imitations of other shows - i.e. Curb (the Enthusiasm or the Office). The word gets out that "Hey, we want to buy something like that" and every comedy producer just starts dreaming up ideas like that.
B. J. Porter -
And with this show we're trying to be a little sillier. We can do a piece like one we wrote the other day called "Ghost Busters Busters". Where would never do that in a million years on Mr. Show, but somehow on this show it's silly and stupid and a little more disposable, so we can do something like that.
B. J. Porter