Carol Leifer
Appearances
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah, that was third year. Yeah. So was your audition in one of those chorus line rehearsal rooms like I saw them?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
When did you audition, Spade? When was yours?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Oh, wow. But you thought that night you hadn't done well, right?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
You mean the set that I did for The Tonight Show?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Well, you know, the weird year, it was like, I don't know that I want to be a part of it.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
But, you know, I feel like that year I had one foot in and one foot out because I really wanted to concentrate on my standup. So, uh, yeah, I, I don't think I, I just, on the weekend, you know, weeks off I'd be doing sets and all that. So, um, Yeah, no. Certainly, maybe if I had been on a more successful year, I would have dreamt about it.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Well, it's a bit of a saga because, you know, Letterman saw me on the big New York laugh-off.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Exactly. So I always felt like if I had to take for my act, dig away. Because if it keeps you alive at the show.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And I just, sorry, I'm show dropping the Oscars a couple of times.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
John Lithgow was presenting this year, and I saw him, the writers hanging out in the green room, and I saw him and I said, you guest hosted the year that I wrote on SNL. And he was like, oh, you know, he like, well, he was very sweet. He was like, oh, you must have been a young child when you worked there. I said, yes, of course, child labor.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
But no, I told him that, you know, he was such a great host. He learned every writer's name that week. And he was incredible. And he remembered the sketch that we had written for him.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, in our day, that's how you got people to pay attention to you. You did podcasts. And he saw the Big Laugh Off. You know, that's the one where Eddie Murphy came in fifth and I came in fourth. Yes. So he had seen me on the Big Laugh Off and he recommended me to Jim McCauley, as you know, the talent booker for The Tonight Show. And then they passed.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. Yeah. So he was he was amazing and still is.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And then this is my 11th time. I was part.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
No, Conan has his own team of people. And then there's a show team that I'm part of. Okay. I don't know if you guys know this guy, John Max. He's a head writer of many, many great. He's the guy to go to for your award shows. And yeah. And then we.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
No, no Bruce Blanch. But yeah, it's a good group and it's fun. You guys know it's fun writing.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yes, I wrote for Billy a couple of times. Billy's great. I'm going to say on this podcast. They've all been great.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. Well, Troy Miller used to direct.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And I loved Conan's substance parody. How funny was that?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
but even his, I loved his, um, his musical number was a lot like, uh, it reminded me of the great Billy stuff too, like that.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. It was, uh, Look, funny is funny, but I agree that- I'm saying I'm just surprised.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yes, I heard it. It was great. Yeah. Jerry. Jerry. Jerry, uh, he is a great guy. He made all my dreams come true a couple of weeks ago because I was in New York and, um, As you can see, I'm a big Beatles fan.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. And not only did I go with him to see McCartney at the Bowery Ballroom, but afterwards there was a little after party and he introduced me to him. that's as good as it gets yeah and he said my name he said hello Carol and kissed me on the cheek whoa he kissed you on the cheek kissed me on the cheek yeah
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And then probably when I saw you, Dana, they saw me again and they passed. And I auditioned 22 times until I finally got the Tonight Show in 1992, right before Johnny left.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I was introduced... No, um... You know, I have an older sister who's five years older and a brother who's 11 years older. So I heard their music a lot as a kid and remember the Ed Sullivan show, them coming on, going crazy, you know, what a happening it was. It's hard to explain to people how revolutionary their haircuts were. I mean, it was like, what?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. My brother was home from University of Chicago. And the night of the Beatles concert, he said, because we lived on Long Island. Hey, hey, squirt. You want to go see the Beatles? And I was like, yeah. And drove to Shea. Whoa. Tickets that night. My sister, who had gotten tickets six months before, she was like four rows in front of us. And saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I kind of am very wedded to their early stuff because it reminds me of the mania and of first seeing them and all that. So, like, I saw her standing there, you know, that early, early stuff. But I'm also a Wings fan, you know? Yeah, me too. And I just worked with Lawrence Juber, who was like his guitar player in Wings. So I run the gamut, you know, with McCartney.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. But he was talking about, you know, they didn't, people couldn't have their phones that night. At the Bowery Ball.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
But it was great because they were, and to watch the show, because we were up in this little, you know, I mean, maybe has like. 300 people in the whole place. But to watch a concert now with people not having their phones, it was such a joy because it's like, oh, right, people actually experience it and not wanting it for later.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
But what was happening also was... It is that, you know, I was doing Letterman a lot during those years. So Tonight Show also saw me as a Letterman act. So that did in my way, but it just became like, I don't know, should I wear a dress the next time? Okay. Oh yeah. Like it just became a bit of like, okay, I guess I'll go out there again.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
The VIPs, like Jerry and his plus one, were up on a balcony, you know, on the top. So we were standing. But you wanted to stand. Everybody was standing.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Well, we really go so far back as to when I auditioned at the comic strip along with Paul Reiser and Rich Hall. Paul Reiser? Wow. Yeah. Jerry was the emcee and he put us through the auditions. And then when I auditioned to catch Rising Star, Larry David was the emcee and he put me through that audition. So I go back to my first days at these clubs with them.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
But what happened with Larry and Jerry was weird because I remember they I got a call from both of them and it was like, why are my friends calling me together? You know, I mean, you know, in 93, that was probably like, you know, conference call like that, you know, be on the same phone. But it's like, why are they calling me? And they were like, hey, do you want to write on Seinfeld?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
It's like, yeah. But my advantage was and I think other writers advantage was they didn't want people who'd written for sitcoms before. because Larry hated all other sitcoms. They wanted people new to the task. So I was lucky that way. So that's how I got hired.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
You know, in a lot of ways, it was like SNL to me because you had to pitch your ideas to Larry and Jerry. You would go in and... It was set a time to go in and it was like two sentences kind of max, you know, like, um, like I went in, you know, Elaine thinks the Korean manicurist are talking about her behind her back. Um, at the nail salon, you know, and that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
We're doing that. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. And then you'd pitch other ones and he had this habit of like rolling a shield and going, no, no, no. I can see that on another show now, you know.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah, he would be like, if he liked something like that, or like Elaine thinks there are skinny mirrors at Barney's, you know, he would go, yeah, yeah, I love that. But, you know, come back with like a George, a Jerry and Kramer story, you know, that kind of thing. But it was the same thing. Like if you pitched ideas and it was a lot of, I don't know, you sort of started to get anxious about it.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
But when he liked something, he was so effusive about it, it lifted you to go off and do it.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I do think, and let's go back to the Beatles here.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
What made the show great was the two of their sensibilities together, right? I always call it kind of like Lennon and McCartney, you know, Jerry, the more kind of pop sensibility, you know, friendly Stan and Larry being more the Lennon, you know, the curmudgeon having the edge and that together it made it a lightning in a bottle.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And even working on Curb, I know Larry so well from Seinfeld that it was the same thing at Curb. You know, you'd go in and pitch ideas and he would love them or not like them.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
It was always Macaulay, yeah. I mean, you remember how powerful he is.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
But when he loves something, he was, he always, like, I remember the first time I pitched him Curb ideas, I said, you know, when you are with regular people, and by regular people, I mean not comedians, and you make a joke and one of them goes, ba-dum-bum.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
You know, the equivalent of saying the N word, you know, and he was like, he loved that, you know, so when he loves something and you're on a good roll, you can.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And isn't it amazing that she's Lorraine Newman's daughter?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. And sometimes when she delivers lines, it's like I totally forgot her name.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And he loves all that small stuff. Like, he loved, I had a pitch about, you know, you pitch something to TV people, execs, and they go, you know, I don't love it. Yeah, I don't like it's like, no, I don't love it. And, you know, that's the kind of thing he sparks to like.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
He would totally, he would have totally made something about that. Totally.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Have you talked about the SNL 50th ad nauseum spade?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Oh, well, I wanted to know. I was only there for the concert, so I didn't see.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Even with my shitty seats, it was amazing.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I was like, hmm, maybe this would have a better view at home.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
You know, you have 12 years of experience, as you know. I mean, you get better every year. And at that time in New York, I mean, you guys didn't come up in the New York scene, but you could do eight sets on a Saturday night.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Well, the next night, the Saturday night, was the Writers Guild Awards.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I do have an Emmy, but it's in the other room, but I think it needs to be on camera.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah, yeah, no, it's... It's a good streak.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
You guys know as well as I do, to be in a room with other funny people is just... it's just the greatest. I mean, as much as I love standup and I saw you recently Spade at, um, there's, there's nothing better to me than being in a room with funny people. It's just the greatest thing.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
It's like, I always think it's like, you know, you go to a foreign country and say you're there for like a month, like Italy and you know, everybody's speaking Italian and nobody speaks English. And then like an American comes in and you're like, Oh my God, you know, and you just, to me, that's like with any comedian, there's always this kind of just instant bond. And yeah.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I really have a great affection for my first letterman. which was in 1982, just because, you know, your first time, like, oh, my God, I'm on TV and people are seeing this. And what I dreamed about, to me, that's like my most precious kind of memory.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
On March 20th at Comedy and Magic Club.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Also with the great Kathy Ladman. So three funny ladies all together. I see Wendy, she's great.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
You know, with all the different comedy clubs, I mean, you'd have, you know, a seven, 10 here and eight, you know, a 15 year, it just went on and on and on. So I just was a better comedian, but wait a minute. So dating, you never did the tonight show with Johnny.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I think they're calling it the ladies of laughter.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Right? Yeah. How much time did you have to do?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
stop the show and do a sound check so it's difficult you think they do a show every night you think i think they know what they're doing and then you go oh they don't can i tell you a great story about joel rivers but that kind of stuff yes we would love it all right so i had a corporate gig in new york when i was coming up and uh they had booked um
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Joan Rivers to just open the show and introduce me and leave. So I get there, you know, before her, obviously. And, you know, like you guys, you know, you don't travel with your agent or manager for these times. So I show up and I see that there's no spotlight there. So I say to the guy, the tech guy, yeah, I'm the comedian. I see you have a mic, but you don't have a spotlight.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And he looks at me like, oh, sorry, we don't have your spotlight share. You know, like I'm some diva. I was like, yeah, people need to see me. Yeah. You know, and he just like blew me off. It was so brilliant. So then Joe Rivers gets there, says hello to me. And she goes, where's the spotlight? And I go, I know. So, and the, you know, the tech guy was like hanging his head in shame.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
She literally went on stage and she was like, yeah, she did her bit, you know, cue you doing your Joan Rivers impression. But she goes, listen, I'm going to bring on the next act, but you be very nice to her, all of you, because there's no spotlight and it's very unprofessional. And it was, I mean, I mean, I love you, Joan Rivers. May you rest in peace.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
The comedy condo was the worst experience of my life ever. I did a gig. It was in Phoenix. It was a comedy condo. I was doing it with my friend Sue Kalinsky. We get there and we go to this disgusting comedy condo. And there's the other guy there. Disgusting. If you want to go, whatever. So about 7 o'clock, Sue and I get ready. We're getting ready to go to the gig.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And we yell up to the guy, well, we're an hour away from showtime. If you want to come down now, we're going. And the guy comes down. He's like, oh, I'm not a comic. I just live here.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. Had just one of their friends living in one of the rooms. I mean, if you don't call 9-1-1 then, I really don't know what.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Before it gets too late, fellas, can I promote my new book?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. It's called How to Write a Funny Speech for a Wedding Bar Mitzvah Graduation and Every Other Event You Didn't Want to Go to in the First Place.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
How to write a funny speech for a wedding or a mitzvah, graduation, and every other event you didn't want to go to in the first place.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah, no one has. I wrote it with my comedy writer friend, Rick Mitchell. And no, no comedy writers have written a book like this. A lot of stiffs, you know, from the, you know... Corporate headquarters or whatever have written it, but no.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Right. We're tired of going to events where someone just stinks up the room with their horrible speech, and we felt like we could give them some help.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And most comedians' greatest fear is not speaking in front of them.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah, stay on Amazon. You can just click.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Oh, I wanted to ask you, Spade, because when I saw you, I loved your bit about Amber Alerts.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
It was definitely something. And I learned in many different languages. With all of the camp. But I think by 92, you know, I remember it was just, I had done the new year show with Leno before. And I just feel like they kind of felt like, Oh, we got to put her on. I mean, this is ridiculous already.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Elaine Boosler was actually not my female peer. She was before me. Yeah. And she, I got into standup because one of the big reasons was because of Elaine, you know, I'm sure people have talked about on your pod that not, not really enough. Not much.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
She was the, yeah, the top, the female standup that when I was in those early days, she was, she was on the cover of New York magazine and funny girl. And it just kind of changed everything. I was like, oh, if this woman can do it, maybe I can do it. I remember Seinfeld and I talking about that cover.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
It had an impact on him in wanting to go into stand-up because it was a new type of woman and person going into stand-up.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yes. Joan Rivers was great. But I think what differentiated her from my generation was, you know, it was a very like, am I right, ladies?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Rosie O'Donnell came a little after me, but you know, my peers were like Rita Rudner and Paul Stone. But I remember with Rita, because we went on a Catch a Rising Star together, you know, in those days they wouldn't put two women on after each other.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
It was like horrifying, horrifying, you know, like, okay, there's the singer, then the ventriloquist, then the monkey act, you know, it was just, how are two women on the same show?
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. She is one of the all time best.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I have seen the documentary on what is affectionately, unaffectionately called The Weird Year of SNL. Yeah. When Lauren came back. And I remember I auditioned at the comic strip to be a performer. And Al Franken, the great Al Franken. Yeah.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
And Jim Downey, as you know, famous head writer came to first showcase and I did well. And they came over to me afterwards and they were like, would you want to think about being a writer? And I was like, what I want to be. Yeah. So I lived in California and they said, well, come in and have a meeting with Lauren. So I came into New York.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
So I'm ready for my, you know, I had it all planned, you know, an hour of what I could say to, you know, perspective, perspective questions, blah, blah, blah. And it was literally, Lauren was auditioning talent in that big kind of like studio room in Broadway. I don't know where they held the auditions.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
it always looked like where they put audition dances for like a chorus, you know, like, no, and two, three, four, you know, but, and I came and they said, okay, Lauren's going to meet with you now. He came outside and, the door of the audition room. And he said, you know, they've said very good things about you. I said, Oh, thank you. And you know, the job, I don't do a good Lauren impression.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
So somebody could do this for me, but.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Well, it was almost exactly like that. You have been told that Tuesday nights are late and you, you work very late. And I went, yeah, no. Okay. So it lasted about a minute.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. It was a crazy, I love that documentary about, uh, the year because it was crazy and it was nutty, but I still, you know, I always like to tell young people, you know, we wrote a long hand on yellow pads. Yeah.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. Um, so that was it. And then I was really the only woman writer that year, but you know, it was amazing. Uh, like murderer's row of writers, like Smigel was an apprentice.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. I always teased him. Apprentice means you need to wear goggles in the writer's room. You know, John Swartzwelder and Jack Handy and George Meyer. Meyer and Don Novello. And it was just amazing, but I've heard a lot of stuff on, I have to say, I look back and it was like, I got, you know, I wrote a lot with Franken. We did this sketch. Yeah.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
You know, a lot of people don't know, as you guys know, you can write a sketch and have it at read through. And if they pass on it, you can bring it back a few more times.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Yeah. And then Tom Hanks finally. Yeah. Put it over the finish line.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
cast well it was um dennis miller of course right yeah okay thanks for the call shout out leafer okay good um you know it was nora dunn joan sack uh denitra vance um Then the guys. Was it Terry Sweeney? It was Terry Sweeney. It was Randy Quaid.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
Anthony Michael Hall. Robert Downey Jr., who I just saw at the Oscars.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
It's like, I remember you skateboarding down the halls of the 17th floor. Yeah, no, it was, you know, they talk about in the documentary, Lauren hired actors more than comedians. And it's that sort of, oh, and Lovitz, Lovitz was a cast member and he did really well that year. I think he and Dennis were the, and Nora were the only people that were brought back after that.
Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade
Carol Leifer
I wish I remembered who wrote that. Yeah. And then do you remember when Madonna came back the next year to host? She apologized for the entire 85, 86 season.