Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (11 page)

Corey: You must not have had any qualms about taking shots at everybody. You took on Sinatra, Ronald Reagan. Is there anybody you’ve ever thought, ‘I’m not gonna go there’?

Rickles: If the Pope showed up, I’d have to think about it. But I might say something if he’s in the audience. I’m very respectful. I even kid people who have a problem with their physical being, if they’re sitting in the front—and they love it. I go into ‘Walk on, walk on,’ and I start to cry like Jerry Lewis. That’s a joke. I don’t cry, but I do that sometimes.

Corey: Who makes you laugh?

Rickles: Well naturally, Bob Newhart does. I don’t like to pick out people, but Jerry Seinfeld is very clever. I got to know him, and his performances are always funny. There’s so many other guys that make me laugh for different reasons.

Corey: Being so known for your ad-libs, has it ever been tough for you to stop laughing, since laughter is contagious?

Rickles: I always laugh at myself, because I can’t believe I’m that funny. Oh sure, I enjoy myself. I make fun of myself as well as the people around me. You’ve never seen me?

Corey: Just on TV.

Rickles: OK, come backstage, and I’ll give you a slap. If you haven’t read the book, don’t come backstage.

Corey: I’ll bring the book, and I’ll even dog-ear some pages.

Rickles: Come backstage. How old are you?

Corey: 32.

Rickles: Aw, jeez. Still lock yourself in the bathroom. Yeah, I know you guys.

Corey: With the younger generation, if your legacy is a potato from the ‘Toy Story’ films, are you going to be all right with that?

Rickles: Sure. It keeps my grandchildren alive and they know they’re in the will.

Lisa Lampanelli doesn’t really have hate in her heart. What she says onstage—while to the naked ear might sound offensive—is an attempt to bring everyone together, down to the same level.

Lisa’s known for playing with existing stereotypes—lazy blacks, thieving Hispanics and slutty gays—and cranking them up to 11 with a bawdy Italian bravado. She’s an Equal Opportunity Offender and no one’s safe: gays, Asians, Latinos, blacks—even soccer moms.

As an insult comic, she has claimed the throne for roasts on both coasts, shredding celebrities and lesser-known comics in her wake. She typically goes last because no one wants to follow her. Lisa’s seat-wetting machine gun sets during Comedy Central roasts for the likes of Pam Anderson, David Hasselhoff and William Shatner helped make her a household name and even given her some Hollywood cache.

With her self-esteem raised to astronaut levels, Lisa Lampanelli ranks with top male comics—and she knows she’s the funniest woman working in America today.

Just ask her.

Corey: Do people on the street want you to start roasting them?

Lisa Lampanelli: People started slipping me money to roast their dumb, awful friends at the clubs. I don’t want to be indebted to any douche bag who wants their friend to be made fun of. Suppose it doesn’t come up, and I’ve already taken their $100? I’ll feel like an a-hole. I just say, ‘Whatever, dude,’ and I do what I do. It was pretty funny though.

The best thing that came out of the Pam Anderson roast—besides making the jump to theatres and stuff—is that people don’t make fun of me anymore. The audience—they’re so retarded—they think that because I’m an insult comic that after a show they can say, ‘Hey, you fat whatever,’ or ‘Hey, you loudmouth cunt.’ It hurts my feelings because I’m a nice person. Now with the Pam Anderson roast, it got me more to a level of respect. They’re like, ‘Hello, Miss Lampanelli.’ I’m like, ‘Keep calling me Miss Lampanelli; I love it.’ And nobody insults me anymore; it’s the best.

Corey: I can’t imagine people being ballsy or drunk enough to mess with you after a show.

Lisa: It’s a death wish to mess with Lisa Lampanelli. ‘You think you amateur, drunken whores can go up against me?’ Some girl tried it in Kansas City. Let’s put it this way, she didn’t try it again. It’s so funny to me when people think that’s a good idea. Now I get good heckling like, ‘We love you,’ or stupid shit that they yell. It’s hard to say, ‘Shut up. You love me? Oh, sorry.’ You have to shut them up enough that they’re not cock-blocking the punch line. You gotta give ’em a little love, because they’re not yellin’, ‘You’re a loud-mouthed whore.’

Corey: I watched the Pam Anderson roast, where you closed, and at the William Shatner roast you closed. How did you end up being a roast closer?

Lisa: How do you think, bitch? Who can follow me? It’s like me and Don Rickles, that’s all that counts when it comes to insult comedy. I’ll be honest with ya’, I’ve had guys tell me—I’m not lying—two guys told me, ‘We have it in our contracts; we do not follow Lisa Lampanelli.’ It cracks me up because, how did these guys become such babies? I know I’m good, but ‘Wah, wah, wah.’

Corey: How much prep time do you get, and how early do you know who else is going to be on the dais?

Lisa: Oh! It’s horrifying. They start off a month in advance or so with a list. That list will change. This year Sharon Stone had to opt out because, she, um, her father had cancer or something, so we couldn’t do any Sharon Stone jokes. But I’d already written like a ton of them, but I’ll use them some other time when her father has gotten his cancer together. They change who’s on, who’s off, what the roast subject says we can’t talk about.

For Shatner, you couldn’t talk about the dead wife in the pool. I respect that. If a guy’s putting himself out there, if there’s one subject you can’t talk about, that’s fine. For Pam Anderson, we couldn’t talk about the Hepatitis C. I respect that, even though I had the best joke ever about Hepatitis C, which was that her and Tommy registered for their wedding at Bed, Bath and Beyond and Centers for Disease Control. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, because she’s a nice person. It does change literally up to the last day.

Corey: One of my favorite lines of yours from the Shatner roast is actually pretty clean: (‘Betty White is so old, on the first game show she did, the prize was fire.’)

Lisa: Yeah, I love that line. I don’t go clean because I want to, but when a clean joke’s funny, I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s surprising.’ I also loved the one—they put in some versions, but not all—‘William Shatner is better than us; he had a “Biography” on A&E. Betty White couldn’t have a “Biography” on TV because they couldn’t get the rights to her cave drawings.’

Corey: I read that you just did a Jerry Lewis roast and, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he say a couple years ago that women are not funny?

Lisa: Uh huh, and guess what, he requested me for that roast. Women aren’t funny, dude. Let me tell you something, here’s the difference—he should amend that sentence slightly—pretty women aren’t funny. Women in general aren’t funny.

How many women in comedy are funny? Like one, me, and if you’re a fag, Kathy Griffin. You know, I respect Kathy, because I love those stories about those awful celebrities. Men go to comedy clubs or any club to escape the bitching and moaning of home. They don’t want to watch a cunt on stage that they’ve paid $40 to see who’s gonna give them what their wife gives them in the kitchen, with the yapping and talking and the complaining. Go straight to me, because I’m female, but I do male comedy. That’s what I like.

Corey: Are you ever nervous about ripping on other celebrities that you’ve never met before?

Lisa: I’m never nervous about it, but guess what, I’m always surprised when somebody takes offense. I’m like, ‘You’re a little cunt.’ Here’s what happens. First of all, Nathan Lane, biggest faggot on the planet. Does he not know we know? He was actually really mad at Jason Alexander for pulling him out of the closet. Nathan Lane, your phone is covered in glitter; nobody thinks you’re straight. I did that roast with Jerry Lewis, I had a joke about Nathan Lane that said, ‘He’s seen more discarded fluids than an airport security bin.’ I said, ‘He’s such a fag, he’s been opened more times than Neil Simon on Broadway.’

He gave me the dirtiest look. First of all, you’re at a roast; you’re on a dais. You’re a big, old corn-holer. You know we’re gonna say some stuff. Why can you not laugh at yourself, stupid? Because if you watch the roasts, all I do is laugh at myself. Because everybody hits me hard, and whether it hurts your feelings or not, you make it look like it doesn’t. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that celebrities take themselves so seriously. Whatever.

Corey: How is your cheek healing from the Andy Dick lick? (He tongued her face during the Shatner roast.)

Lisa: I have AIDS. He gave me the AIDS. You know what a faggot that guy is? He’s the Courtney Love of this year. I owe a lot of thanks to Courtney and Andy Dick because people watch those roasts for those antics.

Corey: You mention your parents in your act. How often do they come see you?

Lisa: My parents always come to the roasts. Not the Comedy Central ones, because they’re in L.A., but they come to the ones at the Friar’s. That’s the kind of stuff they relate to. My parents are like 83 and 78. They remember the Dean Martin ones. They get a kick out of the celebrities. They love being in the bathroom after the roast with people gushing, ‘Oh, she was the best.’ ‘We love your daughter.’ And this and that. They feel good about that. They don’t like the jokes so much about banging blacks—not that they’re necessarily prejudiced—but they think I’m still a virgin because I’m not married. ‘Tell you what, mom, that cherry’s been popped and grown back several times.’ They’re a little nervous about the sexual stuff, but God bless them. They deal with it.

Corey: You find out you’re doing a roast. What is your approach?

Lisa: I always know I’m gonna be going last, so I know I have to get facts that people aren’t gonna touch. For instance, Pam Anderson, I had not one Kid Rock joke, not one cunt joke, not one whore joke. Let me figure out how to make fun of her without repeating all these idiots’ jokes. ’Cause how many times can you hear, ‘Her cunt’s stretched out.’ We get it already.

So I was really proud of myself for not going for any of that stuff. What I do, I research them a little. I looked up Leonard Nimoy for Shatner, and I saw he has this awful Web site with these awful photographs of fat chicks. I wrote this joke about, ‘He has this one picture of a fat chick roaming around or as Jeff Ross puts it, road pussy.’ It’s like nobody else is going to talk about his dumb photographs, but at the end of the night, they perk up their ears, like, ‘Oh, we didn’t hear this before.’

That’s why the A&E ‘Biography’ fact is always interesting. I research them, and we all have writers we work with. Comedy Central doesn’t give us writers. By the way, I hope your audience is smart enough to know that they write everything for the celebrities like Betty White and George Takei. These guys are not geniuses. They’re great actors, but this is not what they do. It’s beautifully written for them, but me and Jeff Ross and Greg Giraldo really have to do our thing. I’ve got two guys I work with intimately. I know Patton Oswalt has a couple people he works with. They get your voice and shape up your stuff to be really hardcore. It takes a month of solid work because it’s really hard. Obviously it’s worth it because everybody watches that shit.

Corey: You mentioned that there are guys that don’t want to follow you. How do you get treated by the male comics now?