gentle music
[Attell] I love this club. It's The Comedy Store, guys.
Legendary.
[cheers and applause]
Some of you don't know it,
but I'll say it right now.
Jeff, you know this place is haunted, right?
I've heard that, actually.
Yeah, my career died here
about ten years ago, so...
[Binder] It was 40 years ago
that I spent almost every night of my life
on these stages.
- Hello. - [piano riff plays]
Wait, start it up. [chuckles]
Sorry about that. I was late
'cause, uh, I had to kill a guy.
[laughter]
I left Detroit right after high school
and came out here, got a job as a doorman,
fought for stage time, and worked my way up.
I had lied and told my parents
I was going to LA Community College,
but this was my college,
my springboard into a career as a comic,
then an actor,
then a writer and a director.
Like hundreds and hundreds of others
before me and after me,
these rooms and these hallways
were a magical gateway to show business
to anyone with a comic bent.
This building was what I called home
for many, many years.
I'm going through a breakup next week.
- [laughter] - Yeah.
My boyfriend tried to talk shit on that joke.
He came up to me. He's like,
"I don't like that joke."
I was like, "Well, a little awkward.
It's not about you." Like...
[Jeselnik] Like a lot of guys,
I'll always remember
the one time I saw my dad's penis.
I said, "Dad, don't text me shit like that."
[Binder] It's amazing to be back
at The Comedy Store all these years later,
to see it so hot again,
to see a new generation of comedians
with the same passion that I and all my friends had.
contemplative music
Marc Maron was a comic at the Store
a few years after I was there.
When his career was going nowhere,
he started a podcast in his garage that became
one of the most successful podcasts in the world.
My being a guest on WTF with Marc Maron
is the thing that reunited me
with The Comedy Store in the first place.
But did you get here when it first opened?
No. Uh, the Store first opened
in '72.
- Sammy Shore opened it. - [Maron] Sammy, okay.
- Mitzi's husband, right. - [Binder] Yes.
And he's a big Vegas opening act.
He opened for Elvis, Barbra Streisand,
- people like that. - [Maron] Right, right, right.
- Sammy Shore is... - [Binder] Sammy Shore.
And they were married at the time.
[Binder] They had four kids.
[Maron] Sandy, Scotty, Pauly, and Peter.
[Binder] Peter. And they live up
in Dorothy Lamour's old house up on Doheny.
[Maron] She kept that house forever.
[Binder] He opens it with his buddy, Rudy De Luca,
who's a big feature writer.
He opens the Store in '72.
- Yeah, they rent a room... - [Maron] Right.
[Binder] ...in what was-- used to be Ciro's nightclub,
where Humphrey Bogart
and George Raft and Peter Lorre...
[Maron] And Danny Thomas.
[Binder] ...and Sammy Davis Jr.,
It was so big that Warner Brothers
used to do cartoons
based on all their stars going there.
- [Maron] Yeah. - [Binder] And it was now
just, like, a Mexican discotheque
run by Art Laboe, and he--
he rented out the front room to Sammy.
And it was just a hangout club for comedians
who--there was no lineup.
He would just throw whoever was there
up on stage.
He would go to Vegas, and Mitzi would run the club.
Mitzi actually was the one
that came up with the name The Comedy Store.
[Maron] I heard that, like, you know, he was
away on the road, and she wanted to leave him,
and she just took it over.
[Binder] Yeah. They end up having a bad divorce.
- [Maron] Right. - [Binder] She didn't want
alimony; she said, "Just give me the club."
He's laughing about it! He--really?
- [Maron] Yeah. - [Binder] And she says yeah,
'cause she loves the comedians.
- [Maron] Yeah. - [Binder] And the comedians
love her, and she has this affinity for them.
- [Maron] Yeah. - [Binder] And she turned it
into something huge.
- [Maron] Mecca. - [Binder] Mecca for comedians.
[Maron] You have to go through--you have to jump
through the hurdles; you gotta enter the system.
- You gotta be a doorman. - [Binder] Y-yeah.
[Maron] You gotta listen to what she says
to you and about you and take her advice...
- [Binder] Right. - And work for no money.
[Binder] Yeah, but the system worked.
She changed the way comedy was presented.
Before her, stand-up comics
didn't follow each other on a show.
It was always a singer or a juggler
in between the comics.
No one thought you could just throw
one comic after another up on stage,
but Mitzi did it, and soon,
other clubs and then TV shows did it.
She went through hell, though.
The old owners threw her out of her building.
She had to figure out a way to buy it,
even though she didn't have the money.
She passed away a couple years ago,
but the Store is her legacy.
It's the epicenter
of stand-up comedy in the world.
Ask any working comedian anywhere
which club means the most in terms of bragging rights
to say you're a regular in.
Hands down, it's The Comedy Store.
spacey music
First time I ever heard of The Comedy Store,
I think I watched a special.
When I saw it, I go, "This is where I gotta be.
The Comedy Store."
I drove by it in '94,
and I was on a vacation
just to see where it was, and I'd already been doing comedy
for, like, two years, and I remember thinking,
"Someday, I'm gonna play there."
If I actually could just not
have a temper,
like, I don't even know what my wife
would be able to complain about,
'cause that's really all she has on me.
I work my ass off, I make a great living,
I'm a great dad, I do the dishes,
I like cleaning up,
I fucking handle shit, you know?
All she has on me is who I am as a person.
That's it.
[Letterman] Within two weeks of coming out here,
I showed up on a Monday night
and went on stage,
petrified, blinded by the light,
and did okay, not--not great.
I had no material.
It was at that point that Mitzi said,
[accented] "Oh, you should-- you're from Indiana.
I'm from Wisconsin."
I said, "Yeah, I recognize the Lower Great Lakes accent."
She said, "You should come back,"
and so I said, "Great!"
I drove home, and I thought, "Wow,
this is a personal breakthrough."
The next week, I came back, there was a list of people,
and my name wasn't on it, and I'm thinking,
"I think she said I should come back,"
and then finally, my friend George said,
"Dumbass, you have to call in,
and they'll give you a time."
I spent one entire week kind of...
[meekly] "Oh, I guess they don't want me."
[Cummings] I wanted to be a part of this place so badly
that I looked for apartments
that were close to The Comedy Store
that I could walk to.
Today was kind of humiliating.
I, uh--I ran into my ex-boyfriend
in the self-help section of the bookstore.
And, like, it's just-- I should've known
he was gonna be at the bookstore,
you know, 'cause I followed him there.
[Rock] I had a good set. Mitzi automatically liked me.
I think part of it, she liked me,
and part of it is she wanted someone in the club
that was Pauly's age.
This did not endear me to the comedians.
[laughs] Comedians like,
"Who the fuck is this guy?"
[Binder] What was so special about the Store?
This was a beam.
This--this was a beam from the center of the Earth
to infinite space.
Many dared step in the beam,
and only a few could handle it,
but when you--it-- you know, when it--
when it worked, man,
there was just nothing like this place.
One of the main things I wanted when I came out here was
to get my name on The Comedy Store on the outside,
'cause that would make me feel like I was a comic.
[Williams] You could come out here
and talk about stuff
that was so bleak,
but yet so funny.
Maybe it's 'cause the room is black.
I don't know. You can get away with it.
I don't even know what the idea is
behind the black. Never questioned it.
Didn't care. I just thought maybe it makes
the writing stand out in the front.
I always liken The Comedy Store
to, like, an abusive boyfriend.
You're like, "Oh, my God, this hurts so much.
Why do I stay?"
And then when you leave, you're like,
"Oh, my God, I miss him so much.
Like, I need him."
I've been doing stand-up
for about seven years,
and I came to The Comedy Store,
and it was scary.
Guys that are legit headliners,
legit successful at this business,
nervous as shit in that hallway.
I think they would murder anyone in the world
to put that OR, that jewel, in your crown.
I started washing dishes back there,
and then one night, I was working
on open mic night,
and I thought,
"I think I can do it."
I had walked on stage last night, and I go,
"Do you guys realize what-- the show you're getting?
Just take a moment to, like, be grateful,
because this lineup is nuts!"
It's nuts.
I mean, if you added up the ticket price
of each of these people on the road,
this is thousands of dollars
for this ticket that you're seeing tonight.
So I've been addicted to this game on my phone.
It's this game where you, like, set up--
everyone that sets up, like, their avatar,
and then they set up, like a profile,
and then they just try to kill each other.
It's called Twitter.
I don't think that there's a single building in America
that has affected culture more than the Store.
The list of people...
Richard Pryor,
arguably the greatest comedian ever,
home base.
Kinison, home base.
Dice, home base.
Comedy culture writ large.
Letterman, home base.
Leno, home base.
So I fly to LA, and I've got some money in my pocket,
and I--I land, and I say to the cab driver,
"Take me to the Sunset Strip."
And he said, "How much money you got?"
and I said, "I got 50 bucks."
So he drops me at Western and Sunset,
which is, like, nine miles from here, you know?
Now I have, like, 20 bucks left,
so I walk, like, nine miles,
and I get here. I don't know anybody.
I mean, I knew some comics, kind of, a little bit.
And for the first week, I slept on the back stairs
here at The Comedy Store.
I'd just go back there and lie down,
roll up my jacket... [snores]
...you know, wake up in the morning.
But I was in show business!
[Anderson] I think that we had a fraternity.
We were completely absorbed by comedy.
I didn't think about anything else,
except maybe the Popeye's chicken
or other chicken.
[Binder] When we got out here, Mitzi was basically a mom
with three kids at home...
- Yeah. - ...and a son
that had graduated college,
and she was running a nightclub,
and she loved comedians.
And she was funny as hell, and she loved to laugh.
How does it feel to be the lady who's responsible
for Jimmie Walker, David Letterman,
Robin Williams--I mean, you give these guys
a gym to work out in.
How does it feel to see these guys come through?
They're... come on, Arsenio.
Give me a better question.
[laughs] Okay, okay.
What kind of coat is that you're wearing?
[laughs]
She would look at you on open mic night,
and all she would do is just look at you
for your charisma on stage.
She didn't care a bit about your jokes.
She was honest about what she felt.
That's the one thing that I appreciate.
If she didn't like you, she just told you
she didn't like you. You know?
There was no beating around the bush.
It was [nasally] "I don't like him.
I like her. She's weird."
- [Binder] Yeah. - And you have to be.
This doesn't happen without honesty.
I wanna take you to Mitzi's office.
No one has been in there since about 2008.
She walked in there
the last time she set her pen down,
and they locked the door, and no one goes in there.
[Maron] It's like Capone's vault.
We don't know what's in there.
And with--those were never up.
No, they were never up.
It was always dark and red in here.
Oh, look at her.
That's me, Argus, Mitzi,
and Lotus Weinstock.
[Maron] Oh, Lotus!
[Binder] Look at this. Pryor Offenses.
It's a pilot that Richard Pryor wrote.
Look, this is the crystal ball she used to curse all of us.
"Maron will never become a big comic
unless he completely loses everything."
She'd come up here on Mondays, and she'd write the...
- Schedule, yeah. - ...the schedule.
- For the week. - And she took it so serious.
Let's start Karen Snow.
9:10, Dave Duggan.
and have Sparky the last up, see?
[Maron] Why did it become such a big deal?
What makes the Store such a--
a big deal in--you know, initially?
Was it just being on Sunset?
Well, no, actually, what really made the Store huge
was--was a guy in New York.
- [Maron] Yeah. - Kind of a middle-aged guy.
Had a--had a midlife crisis,
and he wanted to move to California,
sit on the beach, and go to parties,
so he moved his talk show to California, to Burbank,
and his name was Johnny Carson.
[fanfare playing]
[announcer] From New York, the world's fair city,
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
[Mandel] The litmus test for being a comedian,
a professional comedian in our day and age
was The Tonight Show.
You can't describe
what it was like in 1975.
Wherever you went in America,
people say, "What do you do for a living?"
Say, "I'm a stand-up comedian."
The next question out of their mouth...
They go, "Were you on Johnny Carson ?"
There were a lot of people who lived in New York
because that's how you got on, uh, The Tonight Show.
In 1972, it moved out here to the West Coast.
The Comedy Store opened up
right around that same time.
Wasn't long after when Mitzi took over this place.
All the coordinators came here.
This next gentleman has been the, uh--
the emcee or the host comedian for the past couple of years
at a place called The Comedy Store.
And they would hear that. You know.
"Ah, the Carson show, Comedy Store in Los Angeles.
I gotta go there."
[Carson] You're in a good mood for comedy tonight.
Would you welcome, please, Argus Hamilton?
- Argus? - [applause]
[Hamilton] I'm sitting there in Norman, Oklahoma,
and it dawns on me like the light
hitting Saul on the road to Damascus.
I'm not gonna have to go to New York.
As I drove out here to California,
I knew I was here to stay.
I saw it on the state border.
The sign said, "Welcome to California.
Do not back up. Severe tire damage."
You know, why most of us came out here
was because Carson moved out here.
So I said, "Let me get in the car
and drive out to California and go to The Comedy Store.
I heard about it on TV."
I didn't even have an image
of what a store of comedy would look like.
I came out here almost on a whim.
I didn't think I'd stay.
But I knew about The Comedy Store.
And I knew, also, if you were successful,
the next stop was The Tonight Show.
There had been this sort of invisible migration
of class clowns.
[Letterman] The Comedy Store became
like AAA baseball.
You know, the Indianapolis Indians
used to be affiliated with the Cleveland Indians,
and it was like The Comedy Store
and The Tonight Show.
We have a new young comedian with us tonight,
and this gentleman-- his name is Freddie Prinze.
He's just 19 years old.
Would you welcome Freddie Prinze?
[Dark] When Freddie Prinze came out
and he did that first Tonight Show,
it just shocked us all, because it--
it just stamped him as being a star.
I come from two backgrounds, Hungarian and Puerto Rican.
- [audience member cheers] - [cheers]
I'm a Hunga-rican.
[laughter]
It's like a very heavy title, 'cause I could never figure out
how my parents met, a Gypsy and a Puerto Rican.
I asked my mother.
She said they were on the subway,
trying to pick each other's pocket.
Most people think all we do is stand on street corners,
going [makes kissing noise] "Hey, baby!
[heavily accented] What, you can't talk with me?
I don't need you if you conceited."
You know.
[Leno] Sammy Davis was on the panel,
and Sammy was like the greatest audience member.
I mean, literally-- I mean, pounding the table,
"Call that brother over." You know, and he sits down,
and he literally became an overnight sensation.
[Carson] You're gonna do fine, really.
A lot of people started on this show,
and you can always sense when there's something there
that the audience likes them right away.
Johnny Carson was like the law of comedy.
He said, "This is the way it is,
this is the way it's gonna be,"
and everybody--Carlin, Richard,
Steve Martin, Albert Brooks--
they all got in line.
Time for the news. I'm Gary Mule Deer.
These are some of the stories making tonight's headlines.
Elizabeth Taylor went off her diet today
and devoured the centerpiece
at a Democratic fundraiser in Cleveland.
And Chrysler blows the whole check in Las Vegas.
Those stories in a moment.
Hi.
You guys are great.
I don't ever want to forget this show.
Incredible.
David Brenner always said to me,
"When you go on and do that 5 1/2 minutes,
it'll be like selling out The Comedy Store
three shows a night for 50 years.
That's how many people are gonna be watching you,
so you better fucking take every shot seriously."
This became the hottest place in the world in the '70s.
Comedy was the rock and roll of the '70s.
Every night, somebody was getting discovered.
Would you welcome him, please, on his first appearance?
Tom Dreesen.
[upbeat music playing]
Would you welcome Mr. David Brenner?
When I first did television,
which was this show...
Every comedian
remembers their birthday
and the first time they did The Tonight Show.
Now I'm sitting on a subway, and I'm all excited.
The night before, I was on The Tonight Show.
You know, I'm real excited. I'm sitting there.
And a man seated across from me looks at me,
and he goes like this. He looks at me.
He goes, "Ooh.
You're funny."
And I said, "Thank you," you know, real loud
so everyone in the car could hear me
because come on, I was proud.
The man saw me the night before
on The Tonight Show,
and he recognized me.
And then, about a minute later, he turned
to the woman next to me, and he said to her,
"Ooh, you're funny."
[laughter]
[applause]
I swear, he said it to everyone in the train,
and I was, like, the only idiot
who stood up and said, "Thank you very much."
[Dreesen] You told your whole family, all the papers
back home are writing about you, you're gonna make
your first appearance on The Tonight Show.
I was so scared, I didn't even look over at him.
Everybody said, "Oh, you should've looked at him,
'cause he would've called you over to sit on the panel,"
but, uh, I looked the other way
and got out of there as fast as I could.
My grandfather was an aviation pioneer.
He was the first luggage clerk.
He was the guy in Paris who lost Lindbergh's luggage.
[laughter]
Tried to tell Lindbergh it was on a different flight.
[upbeat music playing]
The point to remember here is, though I love to drive,
I just hate to stop,
especially for pedestrians.
But I do have a great solution.
I find that if you just tie some torn clothing
to your front bumper...
- [chuckles] - [laughter, applause]
You can fairly breeze through town.
We'll be back.
I couldn't believe
that I didn't stumble or fall down or...
people just have no idea, the pressure.
And I can't tell you how many times
Jim McCawley, who was the booker,
showed up here, saw me,
not only told me I wouldn't get the show--
he said, "You will never get the show.
What you do, Howie, is not Johnny's cup of tea."
I love the comics on The Tonight Show.
I love The Tonight Show.
I did everything I was supposed to do,
and I got said no to...
you can't get said no to more times.
Jim McCawley didn't like me.
He said to me a really hurtful thing.
"You know, you're not Tonight Show material."
[Binder] And he was so wrong.
Would you welcome, please,
Louie Anderson. Louie?
[band music playing]
Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone.
I can't stay long. I'm in between meals,
so bear with me.
People say, "Louie, why do you do those fat jokes?"
'Cause if I didn't, you guys would sit out there
and go, "You think he knows he's that big?"
[laughter]
Like I woke up one morning... "Oh, no."
That's a funny young kid.
Louie, come on out here and take another bow.
Thank you very much.
[cheers and applause]
[Carson] Now, we originally offered Byron
a shot on The Tonight Show last February,
and he turned it down.
He said he couldn't make it that night
'cause he had to do his homework.
True story.
So make him feel welcome, would you?
Byron Allen.
[upbeat music playing]
[Walker] I always hire writers.
They were all--not struggling,
but they needed cash.
The first show that I sold him was, uh,
the difference between white people
and black people when they go to a movie.
If white people don't like it, they're very polite.
"I'm not gonna recommend this to my friends."
Black people are like...
"This movie was a bunch of jive!"
You know. "Give me everybody's money back!"
[Walker] He gets to Tonight Show,
and he calls me, and he says,
"I need my joke back." [laughs]
I got out here, and I talked George Miller
into buying a joke off me.
What was the joke?
I went to a really drug-oriented high school,
High High.
- [laughs] - Okay?
It's just an awful joke, but he gave me 25 bucks.
Yeah. It's not an awful joke,
because that's where George lived.
You know. A cow on speed.
Can you imagine a cow on speed?
That'd be neat, huh? A cow on speed.
Moo-moo-moo-moo- moo-moo-moo.
- I was two weeks out here. - Yeah.
And he did it on Johnny Carson,
and I was able to call my dad and say,
"Dad, the fourth joke in is my joke."
For you, that-- that must have been huge.
Yeah, it was.
In those days, it was make-or-break.
If you didn't do well on the first Tonight Show,
you could go back to Indiana.
You could go back to Birmingham, Michigan.
You could just, uh, live in the cement river
that runs through LA. That would be it for you.
The kind of thing I'll always remember
as long as I live growing up in Indiana
is when Dad used to tease me with the power tools.
How many of you...
did you have that?
- What a guy. - What a guy.
- Sense of humor, huh? - Yeah.
I have a feeling from your shot on your show tonight,
you're gonna be working a lot outside of The Comedy Store.
Dave loved Johnny.
We'd stand in the back and watch
Dreesen's first Tonight Show, then Dreesen and I watched
his first Tonight Show in the kitchen.
Show business is a tough life,
as some of you know.
So if you liked me and you're Protestant,
do me a favor and say a prayer for me.
If you're Catholic, light a candle.
If you're Jewish,
somebody in your family owns a nightclub.
Tell them about me, will you?
[Binder] I remember watching George Miller
on The Tonight Show in the back.
I remember watching Argus's first Tonight Show.
- Oh, 'cause we all-- - [Binder] It was, like,
a black-and-white TV, wasn't it?
Yeah, absolutely, in the back.
It was a celebration
when one of our guys was on The Tonight Show.
And everyone would crowd around
and count all the laughter
and the applause breaks.
It made everybody wanna...
"Gotta get on it! Gotta get on Johnny !"
[Mandel] Joan Rivers
was filling in for Johnny Carson,
and before she did The Tonight Show every week,
she would come here to The Comedy Store
like everybody did, including Johnny himself.
Before he was playing, he would work out his act
in this room to go to Vegas.
And I said, "Mitzi, when's Joan coming in?
and she goes, "She's gonna go on at nine."
And I said to Mitzi,
"Is there any way that you can put me on,
like, at 8:45 or 8:50?"
And she said, "Yeah, I'll do that for you."
I'm walking back, and Joan passes me,
and she says, "Very funny, young man."
So I did my very first Tonight Show
with Joan Rivers.
[laughter]
Okay, how many-- how many fingers
am I holding up?
The next day, I got a call from McCawley.
Johnny Carson had been watching the show,
and he loved me,
and he asked me to come on two weeks later.
Guess who this is. Guess who this is.
Take one guess.
Ricardo Montalbán.
No. It's me.
It's Howie.
[laughter]
upbeat music
And I did it 22 times with Johnny Carson,
and that made my career,
and that would not have happened
without Mitzi, without Joan,
and without this room.
[Binder] There were two things
that made The Comedy Store blow up:
The Tonight Show and Jimmie Walker.
[Walker] She has a figure that makes the number eight
look like the number one,
and a smile that lights up the night,
and it all belongs to Kid... [claps] Dyn-o-mite!
[laughter, applause]
[Baum] Jimmie Walker was the first one
that allowed Mitzi to put his name up on the marquee.
Freddie Prinze would never let her
put his name on the marquee 'cause he said,
"Well, if people could see me here for five bucks,
why are they gonna pay 50 to see me in Las Vegas?"
When they put his name out there on that marquee,
people would line up.
The place was packed all the time.
The place went crazy.
And he'd come in with his writers,
which were David Letterman and, you know, Jay Leno
- and Gino... - [Binder] Byron?
[Dark] ...and Byron Allen.
[Allen] I'd get a phone call,
and on the other end of the phone, this--
all of a sudden, I hear this guy.
He goes, "Is this Byron?
I go, "Yeah, this is Byron."
He goes,
"This is Jimmie JJ Walker."
[Binder] This is after you-- one time on stage?
- One time on stage. - [Binder] That's amazing.
Right? One time.
The place is magical.
Right? The place is magical.
So he goes, "My man Wayne Kline says you're funny,
and if my man Wayne Kline says you're funny,
then you're funny.
Do you want to come and hang out with us?"
I said, "Yeah, let me ask my mother."
[laughs]
The reason I got guys to write for me
is because I did see a lot of good guys
that I felt maybe were a little more talented than me,
and I needed to get a little better.
We have what we call writer's meetings
or just skull sessions where we sit around,
like, five of us, and go over ideas.
But now, for instance, you can
occasionally get them jobs.
Oh, yes! Oh, definitely!
Definitely, yeah.
That's what I see on the plateau that I'm at.
I'm at a more job-getting level than they are right now.
Had a cat outside the club walk up to me.
He said, "Jim, I only got three dollars to my name.
What should I do?"
I said, "Change your name."
[Goldberg] Every star you can imagine
walked through that door.
Writers and actors and comics.
[Walker] One night, I'm on stage,
and there's this table that's just going insane.
This guy was so loud.
I finally had to go after this guy.
I love you too!
So I'm hitting him and hitting him,
doing jokes, attacking the guy.
I found out it's Stephen Stills,
from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.
So I'm doing all sorts of Stephen Stills jokes,
and I'm burying him, and people are looking like,
"Oh, wow, Stephen Stills, yay."
So he's still going on and on and on.
Finally, like a dagger, I hit him with a good line,
and the audience just applauds.
So I figure, "Okay, I'll just go on and do my little jokes."
At the Store in those days,
we had these big, heavy ashtrays
that people would steal,
and they had "Comedy Store" on them.
Out of the corner of my eye,
I spot an object
hurled at me at 90 miles an hour.
I put my hand up, and I barely caught it
right before it hit me in the face.
You know, Jimmie used to sell peanuts
at Yankee Stadium,
so he had that ability to catch and throw.
I finish my show, and I go,
"Where the fuck is this Stephen Stills guy at, man?"
So Stephen Stills, I'm looking for you, brother.
What do you know about Freddie Prinze
and Alan Bursky?
All I knew is that the rumor was that
Freddie Prinze killed himself with Alan Bursky's gun,
and it wasn't that simple,
and they were best friends,
and it was a complicated story. I remember that.
[Prinze] Would you welcome my good friend and roommate,
Alan Bursky?
[applause]
I'm not knocking old people.
I'm not. In fact, we need old people.
We do, because without them, who would feed the pigeons?
Freddie Prinze was, like, a year older than me,
and one day, he calls me.
I don't even know how he got my number.
And we start talking
to each other regularly on the phone.
[Binder] And he'd already done The Tonight Show?
No, he hasn't done it yet. He's gonna do it a month later.
[Binder] And you--but you've done it.
I've done it a couple times.
He came out here, and I'm excited.
I'm gonna meet my new best friend,
Freddie Prinze.
And I'm at the bar.
You know, I'm 18 years old.
This guy comes in.
He literally has two women on his arm.
He's 6'2", and I'm 5'5".
I'm 18. I look 14.
This guy's 19. He looks 35.
He's all dressed up, he's got the women on his arm,
he's got a cigarette in his mouth,
and he's pushing people away from the bar,
and he goes, "Alan!"
And I went, "Who are you?"
"Freddie!" I thought he was Clark Gable.
I expected a kid.
It's like, you ever notice
how ethnic groups react to tragedy?
It's like, English people are so blasé,
they kill me, because, like,
nothing bothers them. You know, you go over to them.
[English accent] "Y--Jeffrey, Mother died."
"Oh, really?
I suppose we'll have to bury her, then, won't we?"
[Dark] We were all enamored with Freddie,
and Alan was amazed with Freddie.
But he also was a kid like Freddie,
so he could talk to him on that level.
Would you welcome, please, Alan Bursky?
[upbeat band music playing]
Are you guys really roommates?
- [sighs] - When I first moved out to LA.
- My little partner. - You know, you want to know
what's really the most annoying thing
about him is? He talks in his sleep.
I mean, he doesn't t-- I take that back.
He doesn't talk in his sleep. He screams.
[laughter]
The first night Freddie moved in,
he says to me, "You have a mirror
and a razor blade?"
So I show him my electric razor.
I said, "No, use this."
He goes, "No, not for that."
I took my Woody Allen,
framed Woody Allen picture, off the wall
and an X-Acto knife.
And I said, "What is that?" He goes, "It's cocaine,"
and he starts scooping this and chopping it.
He goes, "You've never done cocaine?"
I said, "I've never seen it."
He gave me a couple of bumps,
I cleaned the apartment,
I tried to polish the air conditioner.
I take care of my uncle's '64 Chevy.
Beautiful condition.
Pom-poms on all the antennas.
Cellophane seat covers, right?
Little dog in the back window
with the head keeps rolling up and down.
[Bursky] Freddie got a TV pilot
September '74.
I got a TV pilot late '74,
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
Where's the meeting today?
- What meeting? - The big meeting!
- In the big meeting room? - Thanks.
[Bursky] One of the biggest pilots of the year.
It didn't get picked up, obviously.
My life would be very different if it did.
He lived through Freddie for that period of time.
[Bursky] There are people whose energy and personality
are so big, they will just suck it out of you,
and that's what made him a star.
At this time, it gives me great joy and pleasure
- to introduce this next... - [crowd roars]
smooth music
Ooh-la-la!
Looking good!
Freddie Prinze, ladies and gentlemen, Freddie Prinze!
[Walker] Freddie Prinze was on every cover
of all these little teen beat magazines.
What Freddie would do is go over to Cahuenga,
and they had that big newspaper stand,
and they have all these teenybopper magazines,
Teen Beat and Tiger Beat
and Teens on Parade-- whatever they would have,
and he'd stand in front of a magazine
where his picture's on the magazine,
and people would come in there and go,
"Hey, aren't you...
Freddie Prinze?"
"Yeah, I'm here reading, uh, British Weekly. "
"Freddie, could you sign my--my thing?"
"Well, all right, yeah, whatever"
So we'd sign all these things,
and he'd be there, and he'd do a stand-up.
Ba-ba-ba ba-ba-barino
[Walker] The next year, Freddie is off the covers
of every magazine.
Now it is all about John Travolta.
He used to tell me-- he says, "God, Travolta.
My God, Tim," and he'd get really hot about it, you know.
I said, "What's the matter with you, man?"
I said, "The guy-- he's just another actor guy.
Once you get your show, you're a big hit,
you know, you're doubling for Carson.
I mean, you're hanging with Dean Martin and Sammy Man.
I mean, you're-- you know, you're in the club."
But he had this, you know, obsession with Travolta.
[Walker] And he calls me.
"Going to the sporting goods store."
"Sporting goods store? You never work out.
What the hell are you doing at a sporting goods store?"
"You'll see."
Freddie goes in. He buys
a high-powered bow and arrow.
- [Binder] Like a crossbow? - Yes.
He says, "We gotta kill John Travolta."
- [Binder laughs] - I go,
"What are you talking about?"
He says, "I'm gonna kill this guy, man."
So we drive down.
Travolta lived on Santa Monica Boulevard.
And I said, "Freddie, what are we doing?"
He says, "I'm gonna go shoot him in his apartment."
"Freddie, we are not shooting
any John Travolta in his apartment.
Not happening!"
So I'm wrestling with the guy.
I say, "Give me the bow and arrow.
Give me the thing."
He says, "I'm killing this guy, man.
I'm the biggest star on TV No one's bi--"
I said, "Well, Freddie, a lot of people are on TV.
I'm on TV." He said,
"You're not bigger than me, man!
I'm the biggest guy!
I'm the best guy! Everybody knows me!
I'm the funniest guy!"
"All right, you're the funniest guy."
Bangs on the door. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Nobody answers.
I'm relieved. I look back.
There's Freddie with the bow and arrow.
He fires three shots
into Travolta's door.
And I'm sure, to this day,
John Travolta is thinking,
"I wonder what happened in Los Angeles
when a guy fired those shots into my door.
What was that about?"
deep jazz music
[Letterman] We're under a flash flood warning,
but all of that seems of little importance
once you take a look at the cloud cover photograph
made earlier of the United States today.
And I think you'll see that once again, we've fallen
to the prey of political dirty dealings.
The higher-ups have removed the border
between Indiana and Ohio,
making it one giant state.
Personally, I am against it.
We were all standing back here in this area,
and when a new guy came in, all the regulars
kind of stood back in kind of, like,
"Okay, show us what you got" kind of thing,
not really ignoring the guy,
but not paying much attention.
I'll never forget. I'm standing about in this area,
and I hear the guy on stage.
The National Enquirer. That's right.
You folks read the Enquirer?
[scattered cheers and applause]
Last week in the Enquirer, a big story:
how to lose weight without diet or exercise.
Pretty much leaves disease, doesn't it?
When I saw Letterman here, I said,
"This guy is lightning quick, man."
He--he was just lightning fast.
Just boom. And sarcastic.
I came out here.
I told my family that I was gonna be a writer
because you don't want to tell people,
"Oh, you know, I've decided I'm gonna be a comedian."
Letterman is sleeping across the street here
from The Comedy Store in a--
an apartment the size of a small closet
with a bed and a hot plate.
It was a dump. It was an apartment house
that was just deteriorating.
And then when he wanted to type, he--
he was--I guess didn't--
either didn't have enough money or enough energy
to go buy a light bulb,
and he would take his typewriter,
and he would put it on the sink in the bathroom
and sit on the toilet and type.
And they were like little boxes, right?
It was just one room and a bathroom.
So you and Letterman...
Letterman, George Miller...
I could've done all the big shows.
It's just that I've been real busy in my room
the past few years.
I loved to watch George Miller on stage
just because he was, um--
boy, he was unique.
But all George wanted to do
was sit in his room all day,
take illegal drugs,
write his jokes,
come out at night, do his jokes,
and then continue taking illegal drugs.
And this place was such a drug den, you know.
- Yeah. - But you didn't do
a lot of drugs.
- No, no. - You drank a lot.
Drank a lot. Yeah, I was a drunk.
I used to drink vodka
and Rose's Lime Juice.
And then--but to get drunk,
I would always leave and go home and get drunk.
- [Binder] Oh, really? - Because I didn't want
anybody to see me shitfaced.
'Cause I remember, you didn't hang late here.
No. I tried that once or twice,
and I just kept thinking,
"I'm sleepy,"
and so I just went home
and drank myself to sleep.
It was always apparent he was gonna do well
as a talk show host, 'cause he was so damn host-y.
He just looked host-ian...
David walks behind the stage to get ready
for his next show, and he's got his notes
for his open,
and my prop person
is putting my props together.
Well, I was living with that person.
It was Debra Winger.
And David and Debra met behind this curtain.
He says, "Well, who are you?"
I like the everyday guy thing. He was really cute.
You know, he had a split in his teeth,
and he had a wife,
and he was, like, normal.
You had some great bits, you know, that--
that--I remember the bit--
Please don't quote material...
- No. - ...I used to do.
- No, I won't. - Just describe it.
- I'm not gonna. - Just describe it, Mike.
Well, isn't quoting describing it?
It's more tolerable to me
if you just describe it, and then I'll...
- And then you'll do it? - ...I'll determine
whether it's going to be done or not.
Okay, the weatherman that had to do one of the murders.
Yeah, no, we don't want to discuss that.
- That was a great one. - No, no.
I loved that one, and--
I'll describe it. It was the idea of--
this was the advent of where everybody
on the local newscast--
friendly, happy, we're all funny,
we're all buddies, we love one another--
and something about, uh, a guy doing the ball scores.
The Cubs beat the Cardinals.
- God, you're botching it up. - The Cincinnati Reds...
- Look at you. - ...beat the Giants.
How old are you?
The, uh--the Yankees
beat the Red Sox,
and the Dodgers murdered the Padres.
Speaking of murders...
and then I would go on to describe some grisly...
- You just ruined a... - ...unpleasant murder.
...beautiful piece of art.
[laughs]
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Yeah, you had some great beats.
- No, I'll de-- - Well, I'm not gonna do it.
- I'll defer to you. - Let me just say.
I'll defer to you. It's no "High High."
It sure is not.
One day in Indianapolis, there were three murders
and the news director didn't think
it would be too amusing to have the anchorman
report all three murders back to back,
so they gave one to the sportscaster to do.
The guy was reading baseball scores at the time.
"Well, first, in the National League,
it was the Mets over the Braves, 3-2.
Reds got passed at the Cards, 5-4,
and the Dodgers murdered the Giants, 9-0.
Speaking of murders...
Looks like 45-year-old Eddie Pasteur
won't be going out to the old ballpark anymore.
[laughter, applause]
He was gunned down last night during a liquor store holdup.
Once again, final score: liquor store 1, Eddie nothing.
Now on to golf."
What did you come out to do?
[laughs]
Since I never really understood that.
Nobody's--nobody's ever asked me that question.
I--really, uh, was looking to get into insurance.
- Is that what it was? - Yes.
Yes, and my car broke down right out in front...
Yeah, right in front of the Store.
- Uh-huh. - A lot of comedians,
to this day,
never really knew what they wanted to do.
If they didn't know what they wanted to do,
why were they here? What was it?
Well, I'll give you a really good example.
One of the funniest guys I knew, Jeff Altman.
[big band music playing]
Jeff Altman just came here one night after college,
and he was sitting in this room,
and Mitzi Shore-- he heard Mitzi going,
"What do you mean there's no comedian?"
I walked over to Mitzi. I said,
"Miss Shore, can I go up on stage?"
She said, [nasally] "What do you do?"
I said, "Well, I can do a few impressions."
"What's your name?" I said, "Altman."
"All right, Altman, go up on stage and try it."
And I went up on stage and did
most of David Frye's act.
I miss Muhammad Ali.
It's just not the same without him around.
I mean, all the chatter. [as Muhammad Ali] Hello, Pam.
Some said Frazier was the greatest of all time.
I beat George Foreman, some says it was good.
I prove--[as Cosell] Slow down, Muhammad,
you're absolutely the... [as Ali] Shut up, Cosell,
asshole-breath, I don't have--ba-bam.
I got a few laughs, and she said,
"Well, that wasn't bad, Altman.
You can come back."
[imitates Doppler effect]
And that's how I started.
We spent two weeks together doing a television show.
And you'll also see the Starland Vocal Band
hard at work...
[band] Country roads
Take me home
Jeff and I were hired
to be the stooges on the show,
and before the six-week run of that show,
the Starland Vocal Band was out of business, gone,
but for two weeks, honest to God,
my sternum was sore from laughing.
Nobody really cares about your stupid cars.
We're actually interested in the Starland Vocal Band.
You'd be the first guy to come to me
with a gummed-up carburetor,
and, uh, all you had to fix it
was some kind of guitar pick or something.
You know, Billy, your eyes really twinkle
when you say something moronic like that.
Well, I'd sure like to twinkle you.
Okay, you want to put Billy back up on the lift?
On the lift? Hey.
Thank you so much, Billy.
Okay, there we go.
In 1980, I was lucky enough
to have garnered
the wonderful Pink Lady and Jeff show.
Pink Lady and Jeff, when-- ooh, when that was announced,
man, Jeff's got a show, a variety show!
Probably the biggest mistake I ever made in show business
was doing that show.
Somebody dangled a lot of money
in front of me.
You're going to star on your own show,
and it's with these two Japanese girls
that are like the Beatles in Japan.
How do you meet people in your country?
We have a thing that's a lot easier in this country.
It's called computer dating.
Oh, you date a computer?
I told you he was strange.
And they spoke phonetically, and they managed to get
through five shows that we taped.
Can't believe I'm standing on the stage
with Jerry Lewis!
What do you think I'm going through?
I don't know!
My friends out there know I'm gonna be with, uh...
Jeff Altman.
[laughter]
Hey, lady! Whoa, whoa, whoa.
I remember my manager
sitting there with the heads of NBC sitting there,
going, "Yeah, this sounds like a good idea.
This was a great... Okay, yeah, we should do this."
And had I not done that show, in my mind,
and waited to do, like, an ensemble piece
in a nice sitcom,
I think I would've had a very different career.
[Binder] What do you regret about your time
at The Comedy Store?
Stayed too long.
I had developed a little act
that I would do in Vegas or something
that was about 20 minutes long, 25 minutes long,
and I would come here and do that every night
at The Comedy Store,
and it started getting a little lame.
I never worked hard enough
on creating new material for my act.
That makes me look inside myself,
and what do I see? I see somebody who's kind of,
at least in the last 15 years, lazy,
just fucking lazy.
It was always a job, and the comedians,
successful, are the ones that worked at it.
There are a lot of really funny comedians
who would come here, and they'd--
they'd have a Comedy Store act.
They'd have ten minutes on this piece of plastic
and five minutes on--
and then they go somewhere else,
and the act didn't work.
You know, my attitude was always,
if you're any good, if you get good someplace,
get out of there and go to the next place.
- Yeah. - You know?
Just so many acts would have
"Comedy Store" ma-- and they were funny,
as long as they were at The Comedy Store.
This was like a college.
You know, I came here to go to school,
to learn, and I did learn.
It was the greatest place in the world.
smooth music
[Letterman] Without question,
Jay was the funniest of all of us.
I never saw him-- I never saw him bomb.
All the comedians would do our set,
we'd go outside, and we'd talk.
Someone'd say, "Jay's on," and we'd all run inside,
and we'd all stand in the back.
I don't know how women
talk about sex with other women,
but guys are real silly.
Like, you know, a guy-- no guy gets laid once.
You know what I'm saying?
It's always like, "Hey, Bob, how'd your date go
with Susan last night?" "Eh, not bad.
Went back to my place.
Guess we balled about 52 times."
[laughter]
Then you talk to Susan.
[feminine voice] "Well, Bob had a little problem...
guess he'd been working hard at the office."
Plus, the more guys are around, the more macho the story.
That's the big thing, you know?
A guy will never really say what happened,
even if he had a good time.
You know, a guy could've gone to the girl's house,
he might've taken a bubble bath,
had a few laughs,
hugged, went to bed. Happens a lot.
But you never hear a guy tell that story.
A guy will always say, "Yeah, I took her
back to my house,
hung her by her heels,
hit her with a gun butt a few times.
Yeah.
Fired a dumdum bullet in her brother's forehead.
Yeah, I had a good time."
Well. Mm. Mm.
What else did this guy say? Well, you know what?
You know what else this guy said?
And I thought this was fascinating.
This guy said that the average male
has 10,000 orgasms in his lifetime.
Called my doctor Thursday. I have nine left.
Now you start thinking about all the ones you wasted.
Jesus.
You know, when I was a kid, there used to be
a show called The Danny Thomas Show,
and every night, Danny would have dinner with his wife,
and he'd go, "Honey, I'm going down to the club,"
and I thought, "Well, what a cool life that is."
You know, you have your home,
and then you have the club where you perform.
You know, in my mind, this was that.
I mean, I could come to "the club" every night,
and I could hang out with other comedians.
You learn things from watching Jay,
and you could imitate them a little bit,
but because it was so of Jay that it was impossible.
I was, uh, a big--"Hey, you know, everybody cool?
Everybody all right? Blah, blah, blah."
There was a lot of physicality to it.
Like, Letterman said to me,
"How can you be so confident up there?"
And I would say,
"How do you write such great jokes?"
You know. I'm a huge believer
in low self-esteem.
I think low self-esteem
is really what helps you get ahead,
because you don't automatically think
you're the smartest person in the room.
You know, I'm dyslexic. I can't spell.
I've never written anything down.
I just try to keep it all in my head.
And that works for me, and if I assume,
you know, "I'm not as good as these guys.
I'll just have to work a little bit harder,"
that's what works for me.
I never flew Pittsburgh to Los Angeles.
This was the worst airline flight.
- I--anyway... - But you enjoyed your flight.
Well, you know what it is? It makes these stops,
and not e--it's not even like regular stops.
It's so, like, the pilot
can show the plane to his friends.
You know, that kind of...
[Letterman laughing]
gentle guitar music
[Letterman] Oh, man. Michael Keaton.
I just--I love him, loved him then...
Michael Keaton was a great comic.
A joke he used to do-- he'd make me laugh all the time
about women, the way they talk.
You almost never heard a construction worker say,
"Cute top."
He was so likable on stage.
The average four-year-old, ego-wise,
doesn't have that much on the line.
You know? The average four-year-old
doesn't have too many furrowed brows
or a look of concern...
"Jeez, I was supposed to be at the playground
at three o'clock. I'm late!"
You used to have this really funny thing.
It's funny how comedians will always remember some...
one or two or three really funny things
that maybe nobody else laughed at
that you just found hysterical.
You said that thing about your dad.
You said, "You know, we're thinking
about putting my dad in a rest home."
You go--do you remember this?
See, you probably just threw it away one night,
and I found that hysterically funny.
You said, "Thinking about putting my dad
in a rest home, and, you know,
doesn't wanna go, and he's resisting,
and I said to him, 'Come on, Dad.
- You're 42.'" - Oh, yeah, you're right.
I forgot about that. I did.
Let me explain this to you. You see, I want my dad
to go into a nursing home.
I'm going, "Dad,
you're 44 years old.
Let's wrap it up, Pop, okay?"
I was standing right here one time.
I made the fatal mistake
of eating before I went on stage.
I-I hadn't eaten all day. I was starving.
Letterman walks by me and says some smartass remark.
He was right. He looks at me.
And I'm eating a big cheeseburger,
and it was kind of like this. I go...
All right. You set it down,
and you wipe your mouth, and you go on stage.
You're horrible. You can never eat
just before you go on stage.
A lot of people go, "Michael Keaton
did stand-up comedy?" And they don't know.
- Yeah, I know. - [Binder] And it bothers me.
You know?
And then they'll go, "Yeah, no, that makes sense."
He's oh so funny in "Beetlejuice."
That is why I won't do
two shows a night anymore, babe.
I won't. I won't do it.
He was one of those guys.
As soon as he made it big, he quit stand-up.
I got hired out of here by Robert Klein
to do a pilot.
I remember him on that Mary Tyler Moore
variety show, he and Letterman
both being humiliated
within an inch of their lives.
Think I should start dating?
Came as soon as I heard.
Get out, you swinging single.
Hey, you got me all wrong.
I'm a door-to-door salesman.
- Wanna buy an encyclopedia? - No.
- Okay, wanna have sex? - Get out!
He did Working Stiffs with Jim Belushi.
All right. [grunts]
Hey, you're not sweating.
Ah, I'm trying to quit.
And then, when he got-- was it Night Shift ?
I'm an idea man, Chuck.
I got ideas all day long.
I can't control them. It's like,
they come charging in.
I can't even fight them if I wanted to,
you know? Ah!
Then Mr. Mom.
I mean, it kind of happened quick.
That kind of took his characterizations
that he was doing on stage
put it in a film,
and then boom, I'm Batman.
dramatic music
I don't know that I've ever told anyone this.
I distinctly remember the turning point,
and it was--I was in a crummy little apartment
on Whitsett Avenue in the Valley.
And I was not-- I was down, man.
I just wasn't doing anything I thought was any good.
I don't think the audience thought so, either.
I said, "This is it, man. I don't know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna freewheel it.
And I'm gonna improv, and I'm just gonna go."
And I was so pumped,
and my energy was so high
when I got here,
and the sh--there was an opening.
It was, like, a 9:30 spot or something like that,
and she said, "Go-- if you get down here,"
or when I show up, she says,
"Stick around. I'll put you up in a minute."
Somebody didn't show or something.
It was called fallouts back then.
- Do you remember? - Yeah, there was a fallout.
We had a fallout, so I hit the ground running,
the stage, and I just commandeered it.
I just took over.
And I said, "I don't know how this is gonna go,"
and that was it,
and I started to get consistently good spots.
And that was just me choosing to say,
"I gotta turn this around,
'cause what I'm doing right now is not making me very happy,
and I'm--and I'm really mediocre."
You know. Um, and then I started
writing like crazy, and I was really energized.
Michael Keaton's stand-up--
it was all conceptual.
He would read a Bazooka Joe bubble gum wrapper
that had a fortune in it.
Remember Bazooka Joe bubble gum?
[crowd assents]
I'll just read it to you. Now, you might not laugh,
but I think this is very funny.
He says--Bazooka Joe
has a clock in his hand, you know?
And Tubby says,
"What are you doing, Bazooka Joe?"
And he says, "I'm throwing a clock out the window."
And he says, "Why?"
And Bazooka Joe says,
"I wanted to see time fly."
Okay?
All right, now wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Tubby says to him,
"Time, Bazooka Joe?
That's a rather ethereal subject,
isn't it?"
And Bazooka Joe says, uh,
"Well, it depends on how one views time.
I mean, if you see time traveling in a horizontal line
to infinity, well, then, yes, I guess it is,
but outside of that, people see it broken up in segments,"
and then Tubby comes back
with, I think, something pretty clever.
Tubby comes back and says,
"Yes, but wasn't it Eugene O'Neill who said,
'Weary am I of the tumult
sick of the madding crowd,
longing for far sea places
where the soul may think aloud?'"
And then Bazooka Joe looks at him and goes,
"Hey, sorry I fucking asked, okay?"
contemplative music
[Baum] I guess we all found out
at The Comedy Store, I think.
Everybody got the wind knocked out of them.
That was the most devastating part.
He was the first...
of "The Comedy Store generation"
to make it and then die.
[woman] Come on! You're looking good!
Hey, hey, mama, so are you.
[Allen] He was something special,
but he didn't realize how special he was.
You ever think a couple years ago,
when you first walked out here, that two years,
or a little later than that,
you'd be, uh, on the top-rated show in the country?
I didn't think it would happen this quick.
- [Carson] Yeah. - And I said,
"Well, I'll make it somehow. Hey, I know people."
You know.
I was a little jealous
because he went on The Tonight Show once
and became a millionaire.
He had attained what everybody was trying to get,
so it was a warning.
[Thomerson] At that young age,
he really had the chops
to hang with Sinatra
and Dean Martin,
do those roasts with all those guys.
I mean, he was a 21-year-old kid
from the Bronx.
It was unbelievable that he had that much talent.
You got the world in the palm of your hand
but, you know, he didn't realize it.
He would be the nicest guy
in the world.
You do have a baby now. Congratulations.
Yeah, I have a son.
Did you have the baby by a natural method?
Yeah, it was natural, uh--
In--in your home, or in the hospital?
No, not in my home, no.
[host] Some people do.
We started out-- we worked on him at home,
and, uh...
But there was a tremendous amount of times
he would just come in and freak out.
[Winger] I would just slowly feel
that there was a deep sadness.
You know, all comedians like to feel
they have an open wound.
You just need to know that...
you're not alone.
Freddie Prinze loved drugs.
He was too much into them Quaaludes and all that.
I said, "This is getting weird."
You know, he thinks I'm a spy.
He thinks people are listening on the phone
because he knows who killed Kennedy.
And people would just say to me,
"You know, the two of you stupid fucks,"
or "you're just"--you know, "you're just assholes,"
or "he's fucking with you."
Nobody knew what cocaine psychosis was.
No, I've never been in here.
Everything's left the way it was?
This is like a time capsule.
That's Alan Bursky right there, on the far right.
Remember, he was really tight with Freddie.
Yeah, he was with, uh-- he gave Freddie the gun.
[Binder] Well, that's what they said,
but it turns out that he didn't,
according to Jimmie Walker.
Yeah, I don't know.
I--there's several stories.
I mean, Alan used to brag
that he was with him when he bought the gun.
I didn't give him the gun. I never--
I never even owned my own gun
till after Freddie died.
[Binder] But you guys bought a gun together, you told--
No, I went with him to buy the gun.
He comes over to my house one day, and he says,
"What kind of gun did James Bond have?
I said, "A Walther PPK,"
and he says, "Where can I buy that?"
And I say, "In this town, anywhere.
Any sporting goods store."
[Binder] And who went to buy it?
Well, I was there,
and Bursky, and Freddie.
He had an obsession with Lenny Bruce,
and he had kind of a thing
about death and Bruce Lee.
Everybody tried to say, you know,
"It isn't"--you know, "Don't--don't do that
'be a star, you know, young, you know,
live hard young and then die.'
You know, don't do this rock star thing.
Just live a beautiful, full life.
- You deserve it." - Freddie would call you
at, like, three o'clock in the morning.
He'd say, "Man, I'm depressed.
I got a gun to my head.
I'm getting ready to kill myself."
Freddie--you know, it's, like, 4:30 in the morning.
He says, "Oh, no, no, no.
If I'm dead, you know,
no big deal, you know. Whatever."
"All right,
I'm coming over."
So you come over,
and there's, like, eight people there.
You go, "Freddie, I thought you didn't have..."
He says, "I just wanted to see if you would come."
I thought he was fucking with me!
I thought this was--
Freddie liked practical jokes and shit.
It was a car wreck in slow motion
that people saw coming for quite some time.
You know what I said to him the last time I spoke to him
on the phone?
It was, you know, that--
uh, a few hours before he shot himself.
I said to him, "You know, for the love of God,
you have everything
that me and Jay Leno and Elayne Boosler
are killing ourselves for.
What is missing from your life?
He says, "I don't know,"
he says, "But I end it. I'm gonna end it now."
You know, I've heard this from him a thousand times.
And the last thing I said to him:
I said, "Look...
go in the bathroom and do it neatly."
And then at four o'clock in the morning,
my mother called me. She was in New York.
And she said, "Did--did Freddie have an accident?"
Freddie Prinze, a big success
at the age of 22,
but depressed nevertheless,
shot himself in the head today.
Tonight, the hospital says his condition is critical.
[man] He has sustained a single gunshot wound
with the bullet passing
completely through the temporal region.
Mr. Prinze remains in critical condition
in the intensive care unit.
And, uh--and he lasted
33 hours on life support.
Always be around
Jackson Browne's "For a Dancer" playing
Now you're nowhere to be found
I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it, as hard as I try
It's like a song
[Allen] The people I've met here
and the people who've become friends here
could only happen here,
and those personalities are so unique,
but that was--that was one
that just, you know, broke my heart, you know,
because he was, uh-- he was one of my heroes.
Crying as they ease you down
Freddie was so good to me, but Freddie was...
was kind of on a self-destructive kind of thing,
Well, I was too. I think that's kind of why I...
why, you know, I related to him.
Right on dancing
No matter what fate chooses to play
There's nothing you can do about it anyway
[Leno] And there was sort of that reflected glory.
"Yeah, I knew Freddie. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah, we started out together."
You know, everybody at the Store
who had ever shared the stage
or been on a stage with him at the same evening--
there's a kinship.
I had just turned 18.
I had just gotten out here
maybe the week Freddie Prinze killed himself.
I didn't know any of them.
I had just been made a regular.
They were all so close to him, and he was--
you know, he was a big success,
and they looked up to him.
It changes the whole dynamic of the place.
They were devastated.
Leno and Johnny Dark and Boosler.
- [Maron] Mm. - [Binder] Mule Deer.
Thomerson.
With Mitzi, crying.
And they'd go on stage. You know, they'd do their job.
They'd make people laugh.
And it's the first time I realized
what The Comedy Store was.
Wasn't just a nightclub. It wasn't just a building.
It was home.
It's what unites a whole bunch of us
who live all throughout the world.
That's--that's the thing that unites us all,
our time at The Comedy Store.
- [applause, whistling] - Thank you.
My luck's gonna run out sometime.
Freddie just said, "My luck's gonna run out sometime."
No, it's not. It's going good for you.
Those are funny--that's gonna become a tagline of yours.
That's not my job, man. That's not my job.
- Yeah. - Going very well.
You have Mr. Kelly's. Now, that's--
that's a step up, isn't it?
Yeah. Last time I worked there,
I was in the kitchen.
[laughter, applause]
Keep a fire...
That's not your job, man.
- It's not my job. - Not your job.
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
Along with whatever meaning
You might have found
Don't let the uncertainty
Turn you around
The world keeps turning around and around
Go on and make a joyful sound
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown