Rick Overton: The Spontaneity of Improv

Rick Overton joins us for a captivating exploration of improv comedy, offering a fresh perspective on the spontaneity and creativity that fuel not just comedy, but all performing arts. Imagine a comedy world where a tech support call spirals into a masterclass of wit and timing—Rick shows us how embracing the unexpected can lead to comedic gold. With a nod to the past, he challenges the idea of originality by encouraging performers to balance influences with their own unique voices, proving that even the most spontaneous acts are rooted in a blend of preparation and improvisation.

Voiced by Brian Plaideau

Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999, specializing in personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously.  If you have been injured, Jana is offering a free consultation AND a reduced fee for fellow members of the Lousiana film industry, and she will handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at janamccaffery@gmail.com or 504-837-1234. Tell Her NOLA Film Scene sent you

Transcript

The Art of Improv Comedy

Speaker 1 0:04

Hey, I'm Rick Overton and I've done a couple of movies. You can check the IMDb to find out. And I want to say it's a pleasure to be here with these fine gents on NOLA Film Scene.

Speaker 2 0:27

Hello, welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ and Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Plato.

Speaker 1 0:33

So great to have you, rick. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, so I have a problem with my dongle. Now, you are both accredited Apple genii Is that the plural? You are Apple geniuses Now that I've made it all the way down to the store. Right, you are here to help me with that, right? That's right, we'll help you get what you need today. Okay, now there's something I was told wrong with my dongle. What do I do about my dongle? Hmm, we might have to clean that off a bit. Oh wait a minute.

Speaker 1 1:01

Who's going to do that?

Speaker 2 1:02

Well, I also. You know my second job. I work at the hospital, so I can get you a shot for that.

Speaker 1 1:07

Oh, okay, good, yeah, I don't want to transfer a virus through my dongle.

Speaker 2 1:11

We'll check your connections. We'll make sure all the ports are clear.

Speaker 1 1:14

Dongle viri are the worst. I know, don't set your expectations too high at my age. I can't ask too much of my dongle at this age, but just the same, I want to think I walked out of here a satisfied customer. Anyway, okay, and scene and scene Bravo.

Speaker 2 1:30

Bravo.

Speaker 1 1:31

Improv, I think, though, is fun. At virtually no point in your life are you not doing it. There's another way to look at it. Yes, sir, I hadn't thought of it like that. Yeah, that way it gets you used to doing it for free, for no pay. Get used to that, and real life will dial you right in, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:48

We're not going to be rich by doing improv. Son of a.

Speaker 1 1:52

That's rare. It's rare and it's brief and everyone who does improv, it's important probably to know how to go out of a script. As well as no harm in that, combine the two, because I think even when you're doing Shakespeare and you're trying to stay as close to the letter and the word as you can. The improv part is it's your voice doing it this time, you with your timing, with your body type, right, that's a good point. You're not just a digital reproduction of the last person who did it.

Speaker 2 2:17

Right. And when something goes wrong on stage, a chair falls, a sword doesn't cut, doesn't fake. You can't just ignore it, you have to react to it.

Speaker 1 2:26

Yeah, and if you don't, the only thing worse than it happening is you didn't react when it did. That's a good point. The same thing with a comedian doing a stage act and their act is so structured that they have a part in their act where they go sure you laugh, but I'm the one still sitting in the cab, and that only works if they're laughing. It looks really bad with a sure you laugh if he's just yeah, and so a lot of times that's what happens when you're so stuck in your left brain that it can trap you, and when the people say well, I'd rather just go into writing, but what?

Speaker 2 2:54

is writing.

Speaker 1 2:54

What are you doing? You are either improvising or you're plagiarizing, and there's no third option. It's one of those two.

Speaker 2 3:00

Wow, you just broke my brain. Yeah, I had never thought of it that way either. Interesting and it's perfect. It's all right.

Speaker 1 3:06

Of course we're using English. We're stealing from our past knowledge of words and phrases and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 3:12

So you know, sometimes I would describe improv as like the second hardest job in the world is being the first impressionist abstract painter, because no one knows what the hell you're doing. The first hardest job in the world is being the second abstract painter, because now everyone's comparing you to the first one and it's only 10, 20 artists. Later they go oh, this is about the separate brushstroke and the individual personality coming through, or whatever. It takes all these layers to see it, but it's all improv. Taking one abstract to another artist's hands is an improv and we are all thieves thieves of culture, thieves of language. It's why someone understands a single thing we're talking about as a comic. It had to have a recognizable. I took that and then put it into my mix of well, hopefully, enough improv that. It's something that you'll see, something familiar in a new way.

Speaker 2 3:54

Oh, wow, yeah, and I was starting to tell Rick before we got on that I've been a fan of comedy since the eighties, when down here in New Orleans we've got HBO and we got comedy central in the nineties and I was obsessed watching-up. It's one thing I haven't tried yet, but I tend to be quick with it. I can be funny, you know, not breaking my arm, patting myself on the back, but I also find myself I'll say something and people might laugh and I go oh, I heard Rick say that in the 80s and it popped out of my head. So plagiarizing, but not meaning to plagiarize it kind of.

Speaker 1 4:21

I've absorbed and then it came from, I wouldn't spend a ton of time chasing it. You'll go crazy. Yeah, it'll break you. You'll absolutely lose your shit over this. You know, yeah, every guy that said a word.

Speaker 2 4:36

You know, I'm sorry, man, I don't want to say stole it but I also say the word the in my act, and you know, just don't use the, and that's all I ask you use both.

Exploring the Nature of Creativity

Speaker 1 4:50

Now you're plagiarizing, that's it. I put the play back in plagiarism. I would hope that when we are improvising, we're trying to surprise ourselves. You know, it's supposed to be the first time. We heard it too, and you're gonna. Something's gonna sneak in every now and then. It's the way the brain works. Oh, this other thing works perfectly there. Bang, put it in. But it's this thing. That means it's from the past and it's like you just do your best around it. We are very past oriented people. As much as we have gadgets that look like the future, we don't think in terms of where we fit in that future at all. We leave ourselves out of our equation. So the only thing that moves forward is improv, really, and seeing everything in life doesn't have to be a funny improv, that's true, real life is sad.

Speaker 1 5:34

Improv drama improv ho-hum. Improv security cam improv.

Speaker 2 5:41

I think security cam improv is called being a robber, being a thief.

Speaker 1 5:44

Yeah, and that's why we got to start a union, a performers union for them, called RAG Robbers Actors Robbing Actors, Guilt Now.

Speaker 2 5:53

I agree with you. I used to wear a convenience store graveyard shift and they had a guy came in and he's wearing these blue pants with a yellow stripe down each side and a T-shirt and he walked in and he was wide eyed. He went over to the beer, picked beer, picked it up aim, I didn't have to check his id, he was old enough, paid, and then he goes, start to walk out and there's an end cap and he's in the middle of the aisle it's not blocking him and he's steps over the end cap, which wasn't in front of. Then, as he got to the door he slammed his foot on the mat and jumped back and then he did it again. He thought it was an automatic door.

Speaker 1 6:24

I I was like like those old fashioned pressure plate mats. Right, I remember those when I was a kid. Yeah, get the door in your face and parents would sit back and see if you're smart or stupid.

Speaker 2 6:37

Well, I told this guy, I said no, it's just regular door OK. And he walks out and he's still all wide eyed. I'm like, huh, that's weird.

Speaker 1 6:49

The next day I see on the news someone had escaped the mental institution. You're brushed with celebrity.

Speaker 2 6:52

No one could improv like him.

Speaker 1 6:55

Every moment is an improv. Yes, but you'd be amazed at how much someone in that level of distress is almost pure past the entire, every waking split second. It's a recycling of an event that broke him. Oh yeah, in every so it improvs into that, but it's completely based on something that's not here today and that's like. Being schizophrenic is not your multiple personalities. Being schizophrenic is you are absolutely convinced of something that has no evidence of it like anywhere.

Speaker 2 7:21

Wow, yes, you're hitting us with heavy thoughts, and it's good, it's good.

Speaker 1 7:26

Well, that's, people get the phrase wrong. Schizophrenic is a firm belief in something that isn't happening, a separate reality playing in their head like a movie. And to them, it's like you, if you're watching with their vr goggles, you'd say, oh wow, I see why the guy's making that face. And they're finding these things out partly with psychology and partly with just letting people wear the goggles and say, yeah, that looks, that looks like the other shit. Oh well, now we know that experience. It's weird. So the future doesn't completely suck, it, only 75% sucks.

Speaker 2 7:55

I'm speechless. Give me, speechless is a feat, sir.

Speaker 1 8:00

I'm just trying to find things to joke about. Yeah, yeah, no, to look at and to joke about, and sometimes you stumble on I don't know where the jokes are here to joke about and sometimes you stumble on you.

Speaker 2 8:10

I don't know where the jokes are here. Look what the hell I found. Oh my god, reality is getting too weird to just.

Speaker 1 8:12

Reality is catching up with crazy. That's a fact.

Speaker 2 8:16

Yeah, the steeplechase tj, if you got some, I I'm formulating the question but I'm we'll leave this in my brain is broke. He looks like it. Looks like that guy maybe it was me.

Speaker 1 8:29

I was jiggling the mouse. I I thought brian was. I thought his screen was frozen for a second there. He was just trying to wrap his head around.

Speaker 2 8:38

Well, whatever you do, don't tell my wife how you did that, because she's been trying to find a way to shut me up for years oh, oh, yeah, well, I love you know. Okay, is that at Brian's house or Rick's? That's not a NOLA cop. I think that might be over in the other alley, oh, that's the big hook and ladder.

Speaker 1 9:02

You can hear the when it slows down. That's the big diesel, yeah.

Speaker 2 9:07

This show is just fire it's fire dog.

Speaker 1 9:11

Is dog still okay? Is it still okay to call a man a dog in the Western world?

Speaker 2 9:17

I guess not. We were just censored by something. Rick, can you move to your right a little bit, right there? Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 9:24

Oh yeah, perfect You're dead center.

Speaker 2 9:25

Now I don't want to say dead, but Well, there goes my question what we like to ask people, entertainers, artists, what inspired them to get into the biz or whatever part of the biz they're in? Can you remember? I always say the moment that sent you down this path, or a few moments, Nope.

Speaker 1 9:47

No, I don't think it's. You can't always look for a moment. Slow cumulative decisions arrive as well. You know it's not always lightning bolt Right. I know it makes a great story, but in real life don't place your creative expectations on things like that. I would tell you not to go there as a creative because you'll be disappointed and you'll give up.

Speaker 2 10:04

That's a good point.

Speaker 1 10:05

It is Stay with the game when it goes high. Stay with it when it goes low, especially if you think it's your nature to do it. Your nature comes with highs and lows. Just because you're in your nature doesn't mean everything goes perfectly. But when you land in your low, you're doing so in your nature. The only thing worse than that is you're not even in your nature. When you land there, you don't know what the hell to do, because you're not in your nature anymore. You don't know who you are. So how can you fix it?

Speaker 2 10:29

I got you. I got you. Yeah, I was saying in high school you did your first play and then you loved entertaining For me. I kind of always loved watching. And then Kevin Smith came to town and asked people who wanted to be extras in the movie and that sent me on the path. I started loving background acting and then I did Bill and Ted. I was Death's photo double in the third one and then I started taking acting lessons. So the bugs bit me there. Do you have anything like that?

Speaker 1 10:52

My dad loved Jonathan Winters, yes, sir, and so I loved Jonathan Winters, yes, sir, and so I loved Jonathan Winters and do and got to be friends and Robin Williams and I befriended over the love of Jonathan Winters. Nice, jonathan was such a big inspiration that I almost just wanted to do that and see what happens. Career wise, I don't know, because if you follow Jonathan's career, it went up and down, acting wise. He wasn't a steady working guy but he was always a very charming guest. But no one could find the niche or category for him, really, because they didn't understand he is the category.

Speaker 2 11:23

Exactly.

Speaker 1 11:24

You meet his standards. It's not the other way around. That helped me, I think, even though his phrase was he said if your ship doesn't come in and go, swim out and get it or just be okay with what you're doing, because he had, he didn't, he swam out and got it.

Speaker 1 11:38

But then there's times when he didn't, he stayed and he just did his thing. And you go to him, don't swim anywhere. You either find it or you don't. And so maybe I didn't have that success orientation in my head in the same format as someone who just wants to get to the top and they'll do anything. I won't do anything, I'll do what I do. I do my thing. Yes, sir, yeah, see where it lands when you do your thing. And so if someone wants super success, I'm not sure my advice is the go-to, but if what you call success is you know, you found you, I think that's a success. Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:08

And where does it land? I think you land more authentically wherever you do, when it's actually yourself you. Yeah, that's a great point. It might take longer, but you like your own company.

Speaker 1 12:18

And other people kind of like you too, that helps, but usually if you like your own company, other people catch on. They get it. Yes, they go. Yeah, dogs like you and they get it. Animals are hip too, when people are in tune with themselves. You want that. You just want to find you Improv. Get you there quick, because all the characters you're doing, they're all parts of you and you're just getting to see them at the speed of light. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 12:43

I know when I'm on stage I can be too controlling of the improv, but it's magic when you can just let it go and be and never chase the laugh. You get a great reaction from the crowd. You're like I want to do that again.

Speaker 1 12:54

Got it, yeah yeah, you never chased yes, never chase a laugh, that's right, it will betray you. It can't wait. That's setting you up. Oh, this next one's gonna be great. Now, lucky three, step on it one more time crickets, crickets, crickets boom, you're bombed, yeah.

Speaker 1 13:11

And also because it's going in the opposite direction of improv yeah, repetition like that no there are people that get a running gag and the improv is where they put the thing in again and again. Yeah, because also improv is music and it's highly like a percussion instrument kind of music, very rhythm based, and so you can see comedians who have a musical background of some sort. That plays into the way they do their comedy and they get timing in a great way.

Speaker 2 13:35

I had never thought about the musical timing versus comedic timing that way. That's brilliant.

Speaker 1 13:40

Oh, thanks, I just added a while, so I noticed it. Just, it's just comparisons of things you, you would have seen it just the same as me. Anyone would you can see hey, this kind of looks like that and that's using rhythm influences people's responses. You can. It's like hypnosis is use of rhythm and comics are hypnotists, and so are musicians and actors, and an actor who uses his voice like this is still using rhythm.

Speaker 2 14:11

Yep, when doing my audition classes I got in the note a couple of times. Don't be one note. Yeah, it took me a while to figure out that I was playing the end of the scene at the beginning, or just trying to play the scene instead of just being Letting emotion hit me and carry me in highs and lows. But it's all music, that's right.

Speaker 1 14:28

Yeah, the control thing started out as your friend. It saved you when you were little. It was your best friend. And now, as life gets more complex, it's like, hey, man, you're not using me as much as you used to Remember. It was like me and you. We were like the team man Control. We had the situation down Right, but these are more complex times. Yeah. Yeah, I know, man, and I'm going to catch up, I'm going to learn how to control that too. It's something you can't control. No, don't start ditching me now, man. I've been your friend a long time. Don't fucking jump me roadside now. And it's kind of like a George and Lenny moment. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 15:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:02

He was too rough with the rabbits and now he got. You know we got to decide what you're going to do with that part of yourself. If you think about it, I'm 70. Now, how many versions of you have died so far? How many?

Speaker 2 15:16

dead. You's, do you have? Uh, I've reinvented a few times. Yeah, so I'm playing high school, so I'm not a musician anymore in that way.

Speaker 1 15:24

I was gonna be more than that the way you thought about the world, not just a set of activities, it's like the whole. I don't act like that anymore. I don't think like that anymore. Yeah yeah that guy's gone at least five yeah oh yeah, at least five.

Speaker 2 15:37

We should can. Oh yeah, at least five.

In Conversation With Comedic Minds

Speaker 1 15:42

Can you find them? I mean, if you look for them you could find it, but I don't even remember the completely, the way they talk or anything as a kid. Oh, you know that version of me, a young man, that version of me, I know I have video of it, but I'm saying my brain isn't wired like that completely anymore. I have some of the things that I have from my youth and certain things that I like about art or whatever that is, or music, but in the accumulation of time I've added things that I mostly think you should do. You should have added things. Oh, you didn't evolve. What do you come here for? Using up everybody's time? And you didn't evolve.

Speaker 2 16:14

A lot of times I've pictured it like a big block of granite and we are our own sculptor, so we've chiseled away and found something and that's always stuck. And then, like you said, well, this looks good, oh, that looks like crap. Bam, that part's gone.

Speaker 1 16:28

It's interesting because our job is we're David in the block of marble, but David's doing the chiseling and he has to chisel his way out.

Speaker 2 16:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2 16:37

And there's one part you really don't want to knock off, but we won't talk about that part.

Speaker 1 16:40

Yeah, it almost looks like they did, cause you know it's cold in here. Come on, this whole place is marble. I'm fucking freezing. You're not going to do this.

Speaker 2 16:55

You're going to exaggerate, right? Oh, we got you, don't worry.

Speaker 1 16:57

Yeah, yeah, because, come on, guys, look at my physique. I've been working this shit out. I'm like narcissists. I'm looking at my reflection in the water. I'm looking good. Right right, you know, come on, man, give me a leaf. Will you give me?

Speaker 2 17:08

a leaf. Adam's got the. We can get you one from Eve, but you know.

Speaker 1 17:16

Yeah, oh, eve gets one.

Speaker 2 17:18

Yeah.

Speaker 1 17:19

She got three, she's fucking wrong man.

Speaker 2 17:21

Eve got three. She cornered the market on it. Can I have the snake, hey, but anyway, scene.

Speaker 1 17:29

How's the snake today? Very fresh Snake and apple. Welcome to the snake and apple.

Speaker 2 17:34

I was thinking about the apple. Why does it keep the doctor away, Anyway?

Speaker 1 17:40

how does that?

Speaker 2 17:40

affect Johnny Appleseed.

Speaker 1 17:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:42

Well, I don't think it does. Okay, it's the clothes that made that man. So where are you exactly? We're in New Orleans.

Speaker 1 17:51

I'm in the suburbs when in New?

Speaker 2 17:52

Orleans, where I'm in Metairie.

Speaker 1 18:00

Metairie, metairie, jefferson, parish. Yes, okay, I'm on the north shore. Yeah, I did storyville years ago. I worked there. Yeah, I drove around. I'm told I had a very good time in nolens. Yeah, that's a common theme we hear. Yeah, they even make the sidewalks fucked up. So you're like walking over these broken teeth to get down the street. Like you're not fucked up enough. Now the streets like throwing you side to side as a. It was like a challenge, like a Ninja challenge drunken Ninja challenge.

Speaker 2 19:03

The sidewalks on our potholes are made to only be navigated by drunks.

Speaker 1 19:08

Oh yeah, that's totally smooth and normal, right, it looks like you're driving drunk, but you're not. Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:19

Because if you're driving, drunk but you're not?

Speaker 1 19:20

Yeah, because if you're not, you're going to lose your suspension in about a minute. I always had a good time there. I've always had a good time in that town man.

Speaker 2 19:27

I met Paul Prudhomme on his golf cart. Did you eat at his restaurant or just out and about?

Speaker 1 19:32

I did eat at his restaurant.

Speaker 2 19:34

That man could cook. He could cook, he tasted everything. It was good he could cook.

Speaker 1 19:37

Yeah, he tasted everything.

Speaker 2 19:38

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 19:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:41

If I say Esplanade Mall, does that ring a bell for you? I think so. Okay, the reason I'm going to say I know I do this all the time and this person looks like that person and I'm wrong. But there was one flashback to it, late 80s, I think 88, because I was just out of high school and I'm walking through esplanade mall, which is in kenner for the people listening and I think I saw you. So it was the same hair you had for stand-up. You had. We both had more on top back then. And then you know the the 80s jacket with the sleeves rolled up and you were smoking and you might have been partying a good bit. You didn't smoke and it wasn't you. It wasn't you because I was like, oh my God, it's Rick Overton. Well, there goes that story.

Speaker 1 20:16

I had that long hair that came down to my shoulders but it was going away here. I knew it was going. I knew it was going to be gone soon, so I was going to grow the shit out of it before it was all done. So I can say I had the long hair while it held out, you know, but I probably expedited it falling out from the weight. Yeah, where sting? He went the other way.

Speaker 2 20:41

he like chopped it short so you know, you couldn't tell exactly what the hell's going on up there. That's a smart man. Yeah, his hair might be tantric too, I don't know tantric hair.

Speaker 1 20:46

That's right, it can stay up all night it's lasted a lot longer. We're like a writer's room. Now, yes, you're friends with right, uh-huh. I met her through facebook, like I met you, and we've had her on.

Speaker 2 20:55

We had a blast. We're like a writer's room now.

Speaker 1 20:56

Yes, you're friends with Stephanie Hodge, right? Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 20:57

I met her through Facebook, like I met you, and we've had her on. We had a blast. Oops, hit my camera.

Speaker 1 21:02

Please give Stephanie my very best. I haven't spoken in too long.

Speaker 2 21:06

I will send her a message today and we'll get y'all talking. But in that episode too, I just saw TJ when I start going like oh. Brian's going again there goes the mouth.

Speaker 1 21:15

There we go again, there we go again, we'll have to label them head shaker episodes. The head shakers. That's actually. You'll keep talking. I'm making notes, ladies and gentlemen, the head shakers.

Speaker 2 21:32

Hello Cleveland, are you running to rock?

Speaker 1 21:34

Yeah see Americans go like this. We're like this, you agree, we disagree.

Speaker 2 21:41

Or they do this, but on the other side of the road.

Speaker 1 21:47

I'm not on the road much, no, okay, the rarest occasion I get out there, but I just did a fun show with Off the Wall, the oldest single cast improv troupe in the history of the world. Oh, wow, they have over 50 years together. Wow, now the Groundlings. Yes, you could say the group has been around that long, but it's not all the same cast. They've run through them.

Speaker 2 22:09

Sure.

Speaker 1 22:09

Off the Wall is just these guys and ladies and they're like a machine, like you haven't seen.

Speaker 2 22:14

Yeah, Talk about a group mind.

Speaker 1 22:16

They're all completely psychically dolphin linked to each other and, yeah, it's a real treat to work with these guys. So I just did a fun couple of shows with them lately and they keep that little candle lit every now and then I'll do a standup spot, but not by much anymore. You know I got you. That whole world is slowed down a little bit.

Speaker 2 22:34

Yeah, the boom of the nineties maybe into the two thousands. Then it dropped off. Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:39

Saturation. It was rare and unique in the seventies. You had to get out of your house to see it. By the eighties it's starting to be you can stay home and see it. Right by the 90s you can be any time of day and see it, and by the aughts there's too much of it, you can't not see it. It's everywhere now. Streaming services giving out specials all over the place. Yeah, guys with fivers getting the special, you know.

Speaker 2 23:03

A five-minute set. Okay, I was like fivers.

Speaker 1 23:10

I'm all for the independence of some sort of streaming alternate media giving someone else a chance. I'm totally for that. But at the same time the people that were supposed to find it special don't have to do anything. It used to be. You have to pay for parking and a babysitter, and dinner and drinks and the show and cover and a tip and whatever else you did that night Dessert or stay home, click, put the kids to bed and watch TV and one replaced the other, just out of cold hard practicality. So there are big arena names and they're big, big recognition names. But it's an interesting time for the guys in between, certainly my guys, my age. Sometimes they go down to Florida and retirement centers where their age group is all there. We were all young somewhere else and now we're all this age here and there's guys doing boats, lots of boats. I'm not so much a boat guy with what I do. I'm not line line line joke, joke, I'm like ideas and you know improv.

Speaker 2 24:06

I was watching your specials again to prepare for this, and I don't want to call it frantic, but it was a steady stream of consciousness. It was energetic, almost to the point of overboiling you know what I mean, but you never lost control. It was incredible to watch.

Speaker 1 24:22

When I started getting the more heavy, weirder political stuff, I kind of picked up the pace because I wanted to make it. So, hey ho, he, you know, funny clown saying this shit, don't fucking whack me, you know. And yeah, I was trying to move that pace along. You got it.

Speaker 2 24:38

And you kept the golden rule of if you're going to talk about this stuff, be funny.

Speaker 1 24:45

Thank you, I tried to make sure of that too, but the power of it was the hand. The jump around. Hammy, I don't go that fast now on my comedy because it's I just can't do it. It doesn't look right. At some point you have to take your baseball cap and you just spin it around forwards, face that brim forward. From this point on in your life, old boy, you're not in the kids club anymore, and that applies to what you talk about, how you dress on stage and how you comport yourself. So you just can't picture a 13-year-old talking like this. That'd look fucking weird, you know yeah.

Speaker 2 25:13

Right.

Speaker 1 25:14

And I shouldn't be like. I'm talking like this, you douche. I made you do something, you know.

Speaker 2 25:19

Yeah, yeah, eloquent.

Speaker 1 25:21

So it was starting to turn into more character work. I would get grandpas and I would get judge and dean of the school or head of a medical department. You know those kinds of jobs for a while. You know if something comes along and you know an offer comes along for grandpa, we'll have a look at it. Funny grandpa on a sitcom. You know wisecracking, cranky fuck, whatever.

Speaker 2 25:41

We, uh, we may reach out to you in, in in the next year or something. We may have some projects where we might be able to get it no guarantees, but I think tj knows what I'm thinking of and we can definitely make you fit well, see, that's how it all comes together, boys, that's how it comes together.

Speaker 1 25:59

Well, there's certainly lots of production near you yeah, and it's starting to pick up again after the storm blew away. Everyone's rebuilding and they're getting the shows up and running again storm, you know pandemic, and it went down to almost nothing. I know, hopefully now it's coming back up, right yeah.

Speaker 2 26:17

Don't jinx it. Don't jinx it. That's like coming around the curve and going.

Speaker 1 26:20

look how great this traffic is Still smooth around the corner.

Speaker 2 26:26

Yeah, our traffic is loaded with Swifties this week, and so we understand. Traffic can change in the blink of an eye. What's that? Taylor Swift's fans.

Embracing the Art of Improvisation

Speaker 1 26:34

That's what they're called Swifties. Oh, a Swifty, huh. Oh yeah, I call them Swifties.

Speaker 2 26:40

Yeah, the Swift they're cleaning. I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 26:42

Yeah, I'm old school Tom Swift. You mean like from the books, he was a boy genius which is not electric ray gun he had a ray gun yeah, but it was like electric. He was steampunk, basically. Yeah, before it was a thing. He was steampunk. He had a rocket. I was a teenager with a rocket. That's got to be safe.

Speaker 2 27:02

Like Johnny Quest.

Speaker 1 27:03

Sure, just let him go face the frogmen, stupid Ivan by himself.

Speaker 2 27:07

You know I'm trying to think of a nice question to wrap us up, because we have thoroughly enjoyed this episode.

Speaker 1 27:13

It's been fun, guys. Thank you. It's a fine way to spend a Sunday.

Speaker 2 27:17

Indeed, they didn't know we were on Sunday.

Speaker 1 27:20

No, Thanks guys, it was fun chatting with you. Excellent, I've got another take in me.

Speaker 2 27:29

Can I do three in a row? Go ahead, let me do three in a row.

Speaker 1 27:36

Hey, it was great talking with you guys too. Hey, it was great talking with you guys too. Hey, it was great talking with you guys too.

Speaker 2 27:44

Give me one where it's not great. But you use those words when it's not what? Where it's not great? Hey, it's great talking to you.

Speaker 1 27:51

Hey guys, it was great talking with you.

Speaker 2 27:55

Thanks again. Excellent, don't get no better than that. All right, I can do dialects oh sure what you got.

Speaker 1 28:01

Hey y'all, it was great talking with you. Oh, we're glad to have you.

Speaker 2 28:06

We're glad to have you, sir.

Speaker 1 28:09

Oh, here's a good one, blimey mate. I had a wonderful time, crikey.

Speaker 2 28:16

I didn't know if you were doing Australian, but that's what it sounded like.

Speaker 1 28:18

I didn't either. Yeah, everyone go out and listen to Jonathan Winters. Watch some of those YouTube and look at the stick. You guys know the stick he came out on. I think it was the jack par show and they gave him a here. Jonathan, here's a stick. Did you ever see him do that? Yeah, as a black and white, years and years ago 65 years ago, something like that, maybe more and he just starts improvising with the stick and doing all this stuff. It blew so many young minds completely open to you. You can do that on TV. They'll let you do that. Oh, I've got to get into that and there's a million other things to see after that. But you know, all your heroes have heroes. Go to a hero's hero. Watch Jonathan Winters. It's just, it's amazing and put in your mind the framework of when he was doing this he was doing this no one knew exactly what TV was all about.

Speaker 1 29:11

He was doing this. No one knew exactly what TV was all about. That was probably a luxury at the time, right, but that level of trust, they just don't give that to anybody. What you want to do is work to the point where you get that level of trust because you've just proven yourself so many other places.

Speaker 2 29:23

Very cool.

Speaker 1 29:24

That's the way I look at it.

Speaker 2 29:25

I totally agree. I loved him as a kid, of course, from Mork and Mindy that was my first exposure to him and the Scooby-Doo when they had guest stars on. He was Maude Frick, maude.

Speaker 1 29:35

Yeah, Johnny Carson just openly stole Maude Fricker. He didn't even try to hide. That's what he's doing. That's how giant an influence he was. He's the father If we're doing improv, and especially on stage. He's the father of a good portion of what we're doing, directly to him.

Speaker 2 29:52

You couldn't control him. There was no way.

Speaker 1 29:55

Well, there was some of that. Yeah, once it started, you just had to let it happen. It's like launching a rocket. There's no off switch. Once you hit the Saturn rockets, you know that's it Off. You go. Yeah, I say go out and study it, because you don't even have to be in showbiz for it to be good for you to just have a facile mind. The improv part of your mind is the thing that makes everything new. Yeah, yeah, where is that not useful? I don't care if you're in science or you're in education or you're in the deli business, I don't know. You want to remarket yourself. There's no downside to it.

Speaker 2 30:26

When my troop did improv online during the pandemic because we couldn't finish class. We did it every two weeks and during the pandemic we were all stressed out of our minds who knows what's going to happen. But for those three hours when we did afterwards he did a little recap what you take away from the day all the stress was gone. It came back. It came back slowly, but touching that creative part pops the bubble and releases you, releases the stillness, even when things are going crazy.

Speaker 1 30:52

Improvise, be ready to get it wrong and let it happen. Like trick with part of the trick with riding a horse is knowing how to fall. It's the same with judo or jujitsu. You got to know how to roll man, because you'll never stay in the game if it throws you once and that's it. That's a good point. So learn to interpret the beating. You don't always get to stop it, but you can interpret it and eventually that gives you that sort of martial art to work around it. You have to go through it first a little bit. Be ready to have it go high and low, because the high part is so, so worth it. It's ridiculously worth it, and you'll find out soon enough whether you've got it in your blood to really do. Everyone will know, and you'll either stay with it at that point or you'll quit. You'll go on to something you belong at. But if there's anything that's worth a chance, take the chance briefly to find out.

The Dongle Discussion

Speaker 1 31:37

You conquered. One of the biggest things there is to conquer is the fear of facing other people. A, b not even having anything prepared, and C the willingness to look at. If I change this, I'm like a slightly or majorly different person. Am I willing to ditch a portion of myself for this? Because, how good it feels. Did I make that part of myself that doesn't like change too sacred? And I'm cheating myself out of this beat in this moment, right now, because there's a likelihood that that's what this is. That's what you're doing, and you didn't know it. Consider it, consider taking the chance to dive in. Don't sabotage yourself. Don't fuck it up on purpose because I knew it, I would suck Really. Embrace it, see what happens. But if you did that, imagine what else. You can fearlessly just turn and look at. It's like the man, cold horse, richard Harris, where they're hanging him by his man titties on those leather straps for the tribe to initiate him into manhood Right.

Speaker 2 32:31

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 32:32

But without that he's just talking yeah, You'll live.

Speaker 2 32:36

That's right. It's a totally different type of show, but you might be able to make a few bucks on that.

Speaker 1 32:40

Yeah, right, and we're back to the dongle.

Speaker 2 32:45

And since we've come, full circle, it's a good place to end it, ladies and gentlemen. Circle, it's a good place to end it. Ladies and gentlemen, take care of your dongle Rick thanks for joining us TJ, thank you for being here, as always. Good night everybody.