Paul Provenza interview, The Green Room finale this July 15

By April MacIntyre Jul 15, 2010, 3:18 GMT

The upcoming episode The Green Room with Paul Provenza episode 6 with guests Tommy Smothers, Martin Mull and Penn Jillette which airs on Thursday July 15, 2010 at 10:30pm on Showtime.

Showtime's "The Green Room with Paul Provenza" airs this Thursday with Tommy Smothers, Martin Mull and Penn Jillette for episode six.

Host, producer and comic Paul Provenza has immediate chemistry with an array of comic geniuses on this excellent series. The brilliance of this show is that Provenza took the insider knowledge of how comics really are with each other one-on-one, and brings you inside this ribald, ego-maniacal and at times touching salon of fierce, ballsy wits to see how the big boys and girls really get on with each other.

Each episode is like a treasure trove of unscripted material that hits you off-guard and genuinely entertains.  Provenza delivers us Martin Mull! Jonathan Winters! Robert Klein! Tommy Smothers!

Even "The Green Room's" stage manager is named Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd's "crazy Diamond"). This augers well for creativity unleashed.  The anecdotes are priceless for those who truly love comedy, comics and stand-up as an art form.

The show opens with either by Jonathan Winters (in character), Rick Overton and Penn Jillette, who tell the viewer to bugger off, "this is for comics only," and then Provenza comes around the corner and leads us down into the belly of the beast for a private show, only if we're "cool."

Not for the easily offended, these are uncensored, hard-core comics flexing their "I don't give a sh*t" muscle saying anything and everything.  For a half-hour episode, the cameras roll at the Vanguard in Hollywood as Provenza and the other booked comedians spitball great stories, muse their career ups and downs, relive past histories with other great comics and argue over everything under the sun including politics, race, sex and who-and what-is really funny to them.

The upcoming episode The Green Room with Paul Provenza episode 6 with guests Tommy Smothers, Martin Mull and Penn Jillette which airs on Thursday July 15, 2010 at 10:30pm on Showtime.  This week, Jillette shares a great story about Dick Smothers pulling him aside to fill him in on how to handle Tommy on stage for optimal comic timing, and much more.

Monsters and Critics lucked out and caught up with Paul Provenza this week to talk about this series, and if you love comedy and comedians as much as we do, please write to Showtime to keep it going.

Monsters & Critics: Paul, this is been one of the best series that Showtime has aired, and has delivered many unforgettable moments, especially with Klein, Mull, Winters and Smothers.  Please tell me the show will continue:

Paul Provenza: I wish I could tell you that! Showtime has a new president coming in, and they’ve decided not to make any decisions about anything on the network until the new guy is all settled in and gets to evaluate things for himself. It could be quite a while before we find out if we will ever get to do more episodes or not! 

That’s why we’re asking anyone and everyone who would like to see more episodes to write to Showtime at:
GreenRoom.Showtime@gmail.com

Every email will help. If they hear from enough people who dig the show, the new network president will hopefully bring us back for more. 

M&C:  One of the things I love about the show is how you diffuse some escalating tenser moments (Mooney and Slayton) and bring the humor back in to the conversation.  What exchange had you on edge the most for this run of episodes?

PP: A very awkward -- but compelling -- moment arises between Penn Jillette and Tommy Smothers on the episode airing this Thursday. Tommy calls Penn out for going on Glenn Beck’s show, and the ensuing discussion is very interesting.

Penn is quite taken aback by Tommy’s passionate stand on it all, and after taping the show did a video blog all about it where he grapples with the ideas Tommy challenged him with. The piece is called, “Getting Yelled at by One of My Heroes.”  (You can check it out HERE)

That’s just one instance of what I love about the show:  No other comedy show raises any of these kinds of issues, or has the comedians processing things long afterwards. So I think we’re doing something very right and very unusual in television comedy. Even during that kind of tense exchange between people, it still stays funny and opens everything up to opportunities for big, honest laughs rather than conflict.

M&C:  Have you been inundated with comics expressing interest to you to be on after seeing this show?

PP:  One of the things I’m most proud of that comedians almost universally love the show.  So many say they’re happy to see a show that’s really about comedy and the people who do it - with no agenda.

No one’s selling anything or plugging anything; there’s no subject matter anyone needs to stick to, no format to adhere to - just pure comedy and conversation between funny, smart people. Comedians appreciate seeing how authentically people get nice creative volleys going with other first rate tennis players on the show. 

There just isn’t any other comedy like it on television, and comics seem to get that immediately. Whatever faults the show has, it’s truly the only place right now where comedians can be free to just be comedians rather than serving some agenda or adapting to some particular format.

As a result, a lot of people have asked to be able to come on the show if we do more.  I’m not at liberty just yet to tell you who they are, but both great, iconic names and some of the best younger comics making waves today have said they would love to do the show-- which is why it would really kill me if we don’t get to do more episodes.

M&C:  When did you know comedy was your life's path? When did it become apparent that you were really funny and you could make some dough being yourself?

PP:  I knew I wanted to stand up at a very young age. I grew up watching Ed Sullivan with my non-English speaking Italian grandmother, and after Sunday dinners, she’d enjoy the opera singers, the jugglers, the dancing bears and Topo Gigio - and I’d be riveted to the comics Ed had on every week. I was amazed at how one person and their words could have in the palm of their hands an entire audience and millions of TV viewers.

Also, I grew up with amblyopia, or “lazy eye.” I wore an eye patch, had surgery at about 8 years old… it was the bane of my childhood. It meant that I had very poor depth perception, and I would trip over things, bump into things, knock things over, spill things… non stop through my whole childhood. 

And I remember going to see a Jerry Lewis movie with my family, and 'lo and behold, there was Jerry doing all the same things I got yelled at for - and he was a movie star and loved by millions! I decided then and there that if I was going to get laughed at for all the stupid blunders I was responsible for, I would try to make it look like it was my own idea - and get laughs instead of abuse for it. It saved my life, really.

M&C:  Women seem to editorialize in comedy more and "zing" less, like a Bobby Slayton, is this just the masculine nature of stand up? Are there any female comics you would want to book on future episodes?

PP:  I must tell you - I absolutely don’t agree with that premise. When I hear things like that, I can’t help but wonder if that characterization of women in comedy is just parroting an old canard. Roseanne and Sandra are certainly just as biting and stinging on the show as anyone else.

Sure, stand up has a masculine nature, and lots of men work that way.  But loads of women can hold their own even in that game, too.

More importantly, though, let’s go in the reverse direction, and you’ll see how the presumption of comedy’s inherent “masculine nature” is a total fallacy: Where is this particularly “masculine nature” of comedy in the work of Steve Martin? Or Steven Wright? Or Jack Benny or Bob Newhart or Bob Odenkirk or Bo Burnham or Jamie Kilstein or Reggie Watts or Mike Birbiglia or Kids In The Hall or Flight of the Conchords… ?

I can go on and on with challenges to that premise. I think characterizing stand up in those terms is disingenuous - and why people just accept that idea of a “masculine nature” of comedy is beyond me given all the counterexamples that exist. It may have been true in the past, and there are certainly examples of it today -- but accepting that as universal is just thoughtless. There are ample different styles from both men and women to disavow even the fundamental premise of that question - and there have been for some time.

And there are lots of women I would love to have on simply because I think they’re brilliant and smart and this would be a great forum to see other sides of them: Lily Tomlin, Sarah Silverman, Lisa Lampanelli, Tracey Ullman, Maria Bamford, Phyllis Diller, Carol Leifer, Joy Behar, Joan Rivers… just to name an eclectic few.

M&C:   Will you book comedians who veer to more conservative political leanings like Dennis Miller?

PP:  I already asked Dennis to do it - his representation passed the first time, but I’ve spoken to him personally since then, and if I can ever get him to leave his house he may come on.  I think it would be brilliant to see him riffing with other comics who know him - and some interesting points of view are just inevitable. He’s still a comic first and foremost, despite what one thinks of his politics.

The whole right wing/left wing thing really falls away among comics it seems. I learned that writing ¡SATIRSTAS! with co author Dan Dion. We interviewed sixty people who do satire and culturally critical, subversive comedy -- from The Smothers Borthers and Tom Lehrer to Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert, P.J. O’Rourke and Lewis Black.

We expected to have to balance out left and right - but it became clear very early on that most of them are actually independent thinkers - and take the left to task as much as the right. So once again, in the context of comedians just talking and enjoying each others’ talents, such distinctions, for the most part, become irrelevant.

M&C:  I loved comic David Feldman, will he be brought on panel if the show continues, with his "cheese cubes and resentment"?

PP:  Absolutely! He is hilarious and very, very intelligent -- and knows personally just about every comedian you’ve ever heard of, so has a lot of history with a lot of comedians that will make for good moments. Plus, he’ll say anything.

M&C:  What's your favorite comedy city? Favorite comedy room? Favorite comic (s) you love?

PP:  My favorite comedy cities are: Sydney, Australia; Amsterdam, Holland; London, England and New York, New York.

All of them are eclectic, multi-cultural and diverse.  You’re playing to disparate audiences, and speaking to lots of different types of people all the time.

The Comedy Store in Sydney is a brilliantly run room . The Comedy Store in London is perfectly designed for comedy, if you can’t kill in that room, get out of the business. Neither of those are affiliated with the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, by the way.  Toomler in Amsterdam is a one of a kind. Jazz crowds come out for international comedy, and the whole place is run by a kind of collective of young, alternative comedians - so they know how to treat both the acts and the audiences just right.

All the New York venues each have their own personalities and types of crowds - so every time you get onstage there it’s a very different experience. Los Angeles has a thriving alternative scene as well but you gotta really look to find it all. Mostly, it ain’t in the famous, mainstream clubs there anymore.
 
Sadly, the phenomenal Lakeshore Theater in Chicago has closed down. That was heaven on earth for any comic who has ever had the good fortune to play that venue.  They had developed a crowd that sought out comedy presented as a true art form rather than as just a gimmick to sell beer and quesadillas, which is what comedy clubs all too often have become. It will be sorely missed.

M&C:  Many thanks Paul, we really loved the show, and your kinetic energy; you have a wonderful delivery and really bring it for each show.

PP:  Thank you! Keep watching - and please write to Showtime and tell them you’d like to see more!