Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (33 page)

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Weird Al”: Ha! Yeah, how do you entertain teen boys without using pornography? I’ve never been able to figure that out.

Corey: But you do.

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Weird Al”: Then I have figured it out! Pornography, well, um, what was the question again?

Corey: Why do you think you’ve stayed successful without getting dirty?

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Weird Al”: I just write the type of comedy I think is funny. I tend not to work blue. I want to put out sort of a family-friendly vibe. That attracts a pretty wide audience group. My humor isn’t squeaky-clean; there’s sort of an edge to it. I was hugely influenced by Mad magazine at that age. It’s not meant for young kids; it’s meant for people with an irreverent sense of humor. That really kind of translated into my own brand of sense of humor. People have referred to me as audio version of Mad magazine. That’s pretty cool.

Remember the love goddess? Because she remembers you, petite flower followers.

Judy Tenuta may not be sporting dark, flowing tresses these days, but she had added a special feature for her legion or worshipers—she can legally hitch you.

Yes, the sprightly comedienne who can turn her sweet, Glinda the Good Witch persona into a demonic hell-raiser with one squeeze of her squeezebox got herself ordained in order to better serve her marriage-bound fans.

She has fond memories of performing in St. Louis, and recalled something called the Freedom Show at the Gateway Arch where she was in the dressing room with former First Lady Barbara Bush.

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So the makeup lady said, ‘Barbara, what can we do for you?’ She said, ‘I’d like to look like her.’ Yeah, that can happen,” Tenuta laughed.

Corey: Looking at recent pictures of you, is there a portrait hanging in an attic somewhere that is gradually aging?

Judy Tenuta: (laughs) Oh, thank you. As you know, modern technology, Photoshop. Yeah, I think I look better than I did in those days. As a woman matures, it’s more complimentary to not wear our hair jet-demon black. Maybe Elizabeth Taylor could take a hint and stop looking like Grampa Munster.

Corey: Do you ever get blamed for things, like God does? God made me do it. Or Judy made me do it?

Judy: I get blamed for good things, like, ‘Oh, how do you like my hot, round butt? I was doing some squats, just like the goddess!’

Corey: So I love that ‘Weird Al’ is your No. 1 friend on your MySpace page.

Judy: Oh, yeah, I love Al. I’ve done so many fun things with ‘Weird Al’ including ‘The “Weird Al” Show.’ I also did two music videos with him, ‘White and Nerdy’ and also before that one I got to play Lorena Bobbitt.

Corey: I understand one of your excited fans crashed your stage dressed as a flower?

Judy: He had decided that his member should be out as well. I go, ‘Great, a petal? Or is this self-watering? What is this?’

Corey: The festival you are headlining is sponsored by Bud-Light.

Judy: I’ll say, ‘Hey, I got pregnant from one of your Clydesdales while I was performing under the Arch.’ They should have to pay something at least.

Corey: Why did you decide to start marrying people?

Judy: In case anyone wanted to be married in Judyism. … I tailor it to the couple. Say you have a couple who says, ‘We love polkas. We love sauerkraut.’ I would make sure to play the wedding polka at their service. A lot of people want to write their own vows. I would have to find out some personal information from them.

Corey: So if it would be on a nude beach, you would be game?

Judy: Oh my God, I love that! A nude beach. The goddess has to have some coverage. Let me be honest with you, I did a movie in Jamaica. It was so wrong because all these old fossil fuels were walking around in a banana hammock in line at the salad bar. I was like, ‘You, put that in a cage and not near my food!’ It’s a fashion sin, really.

Those of us who grew up in the ’80s will always giggle with glee at the oh-so-wrong-it’s-right satire in each and every episode of “The Family Guy.” And good for creator Seth MacFarlane—and his $100 million deal—for getting a second chance after cancellation to dominate primetime animation with loads and loads of dick and poopy jokes.

Corey: Watching these episodes, I’m thinking ‘Get out of my head!’ Who else knows these pop culture references?

Seth: That’s what we tried to shoot for—hit the more obscure ones that no one else was hitting.

Corey: What would be one of the more obscure ones you pulled out?

Seth: That William Shatner version of ‘Rocket Man’ is in there with Stewie singing. There’s also the Kool-Aid guy.

Corey: The one that really got me was the very special episode of ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ with Arnold and Dudley and Mr. Bicycle Man.

Seth: Right, right.

Corey: We had been waiting for ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ to come back on TV for so long, and my buddy called me at 3 o’clock in the morning to tell me the Mr. Bicycle Man episode was on and he recorded it.

Seth: (laughs) That was one that disturbed us all as children.

Corey: With all the different references, is that what you absorbed growing up?

Seth: Yes, it’s sort of a melting pot of what all the writers absorbed. There’s about 16 writers, and everyone has their own, obscure childhood references included in the show.

Corey: Why did you go ahead with the decision to give Peter and other characters testicles for chins?

Seth: There’s really no explanation for that. It was sort of a design choice. With the ‘Family Guy’ characters I voice, the voice really came first, and then I designed the characters to look like what I thought the voices sounded like. There’s no reason Stewie had a football head. It’s just the way the character sounded. It’s sort of the way I draw fat guys. We did an episode where we made reference to it. Peter is stroking his chin and suddenly gasps and says, ‘My God, how did these get up here?’ and he pulls his chin off and puts it back down in his pants where it belongs.

Corey: Speaking of something like that, how were you able to get stuff like that on network television? I mean it is Fox, but …

Seth: It is Fox, but I think we had a very good relationship with the standards and practices department. They really went out of their way to try and find ways to make things work that were funny. If something was funny, they would take that into account. ‘It has that word in it, but it is a funny gag, so what else can you give us in return?’ There really was a lot of give and take. The key really was our willingness to sacrifice some things for other things. It really was about quantity with Fox. If there were a whole lot of offensive things, it was worse than if there were just a little.

Corey: Was there anything that they said absolutely no way?

Seth: Yeah, most of them had to do with religion. There was one where there was a Last Supper gag where they all start to drink from the goblet, and Jesus says, ‘Drink this, all of you, for this is my blood,’ and they all just do this spit take because they’re just disgusted and horrified. That one didn’t make it in.

Corey: There are quite a few religious references that did make it in. Did you grow up in a religious family?

Seth: No, not really. My only experiences with very religious people have been troublesome ones. I was in a church choir when I was a kid, but that was about it.

Corey: You won an Emmy for the vocal work. Where did you get your vocal training, and how did you start doing different voices?

Seth: I used to do stand-up when I was in college, and my sister and I did local theatre. I took many years of vocal lessons, however that contributed. It was something I had always done. It just sort of felt like the right thing for the series, rather than trying to communicate to another actor what I wanted, it was just easier to get in there and do it myself.

Corey: You do various voices for the show, and they’re all different. For example, where did Stewie’s voice originate?

Seth: I’m a big Rex Harrison fan, and that’s pretty much all that is. A lot of cartoon character voices originated that way, doing an impression of an old-time actor. That’s where a lot of the Hanna-Barbera voices came from. They evolve into their own thing as the show goes along. That’s what happened with Stewie. He was just an evil Rex Harrison. He sort of became his own thing.

Corey: There have been other characters in other shows that have done talking babies or talking animals, but you’ve got both.

Seth: It’s weird. I come out of the animation world so it’s something that always felt, what’s the big deal? It’s a cartoon. It was something that differentiated it from a lot of shows. Oddly, the Stewie-Brian pairing, I hadn’t even anticipated would be received as well as it was. They turned out to be the two most-popular characters. Stewie was really an afterthought as I was creating the show. That was something of a surprise.

Corey: Are there any episodes that didn’t air?

Seth: There’s one that was deemed to offensive for Fox.

Corey: What was that one about?

Seth: It’s sort of the bigot story. It’s like a reverse Archie Bunker. Peter thinks things would be 1,000 times better if he befriends a Jewish guy. Peter gets him to do his taxes and help his kid with homework. He immerses himself in the Jewish culture thinking it will improve his life. How could that be offensive? I guess they figured just the subject matter alone was too intimidating.

Corey: There are plenty of references in there—as funny as they may be—that could be offensive to some. Have you gotten some letters?

Seth: We’re shielded sometimes by broadcast standards which is actually very nice of them. There’s some strange ones that come in now and then. We got one from the American Fascist Association. They were upset by the language in the show. They didn’t like the use of the word ‘bastard’ and ‘bitch’ and ‘hell.’ I dunno, maybe Hitler never swore like that.

Corey: Apparently, he had a clean mouth. Is there a real Quahog, Rhode Island?

Seth: No, but I spent a lot of time in Providence, which is where I went to college. Initially we had it set in Providence, and we were advised by Fox that we would be able to do a hell of a lot more if we created a fictitious town. In a real town, every ancillary character, you would have to look up and see if there’s an actual person that could potentially sue. We’ll just say they live next to Providence.