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Chapter 1: What insights do Kevin Bleyer and Doug Abeles share about living in New York City?
Hello.
Testing.
Testing.
Hi. Hi. Right. A Polpero Pasty keyring you're holding.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's nice.
It's lovely. It's a pain in the arse, but I keep, because it takes up loads of space, but I still take it everywhere with me. Who says I don't open up?
So who's on today, Joe?
We've got two New York bigwig comedy writers.
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Chapter 2: What is the experience of writing for The Daily Show like?
Doug, we want to take that one?
Feel free. So Kevin and I prior agreed to like have a chat just so we could test, talk a little bit about what was going to happen. When Kevin popped on my screen in the background, he had like all these Emmy awards.
Okay. In my defense, in my defense, I am the one who said, oh my God, that's going to make me a twat in your world. And so I said, I'm going to change 90 degrees.
Can you bring one into focus for us to see? You've got one as a paperweight next to yours.
This is wildly embarrassing, but only because, as they say, never meet your heroes. I'm meeting my heroes right now. Sure. Can you see me now? Yeah.
Okay, that's enough. There's a cure of them.
Does it feel nice having those there?
You guys have put me on the back foot now. I was already nervous.
Now I'm a bash.
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Chapter 3: How does the writing process work for Saturday Night Live?
And here I am. Who are you talking about? Stop that now.
I genuinely don't know if you're winding us up.
No, don't back me up. Not at all.
I assumed you were talking about Douglas.
I almost backed out because I thought these two guys, I'm so eager to please these two guys, I almost backed out. Like, I don't think I could possibly manage to rise to the level. Yeah, I know. I don't know which two guys now.
I'm really serious. Are you talking about you and Douglas? Are you talking about yourself and Douglas?
Yeah.
I don't think we're needed here, to be quite honest with you.
Fair enough. I'm turning off my, all right. The only way, Kevin and I talked about this, and the only way I think we both agreed to do this is if we would both do it together because we were too terrified to... I'm on bio.
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Chapter 4: What are the differences between writing for The Daily Show and SNL?
Just for the listeners. Oh, yes, for the listeners.
Sure. Like now?
Yeah. Like, who the hell are you, Doug?
Context. I deal with who am I every day. I'm trying to figure that out.
As in, like, a nine-to-five... What's your CV?
What do you like eating? I'm no longer writing on late night television here in the States. I've kind of pivoted and I'm working on a book right now, a narrative nonfiction collection of short stories based on my life. And then this is going to probably sound crazy, but as sort of a side hustle, I work as a background extra on various TV shows.
Oh, this is lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely. I want to know about that as well.
oh yeah like literally yesterday i was on set working on on uh the penguin Penguin. Yeah. With Colin Farrell? With Colin Farrell, yes. Colin Farrell.
Oh, it's Batman, Penguin, Joker.
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Chapter 5: How do comedy writers manage stress and deadlines?
And yet it can be still somehow dirty, beautiful. Right. Yeah.
And on the day, on the daily show, you, a producer and a writer.
Yeah.
the daily show i was i was going to say just a writer but that dismisses the writing right uh yes i was uh i was just a writer on the daily show for about 10 years and to be you know doug's pr rep is i guess about nine years to be doug's pr rep a bit on his behalf he was on the s on snl for almost a decade as well oh my god he was doug was oh right at the same time i was in the daily show so we we both kind of moved out to new york for those gigs
Because we had actually met out in working on a show, Bill Maher, out in L.A. Or as you might know it, Joe, La La Land, Tinseltown, the coast, SoCal. California. Hollywood, California. There you go. Doug, that's a callback from an earlier episode. Yeah, great episode. Yeah, yeah.
Don't worry, guys. It drags.
It really drags. Yeah. But we worked on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, which is the show that he had before the show he has now on HBO. So and that was now 20 years ago. My God.
And did you come through it, come to it through stand up or anything or performance? Yeah.
Not me. No, there are, of course, plenty of writers on these shows that are stand-ups. Yeah. But, Doug, I don't mean to speak on your behalf, but I don't think you had done stand-up before then. This was kind of one of our first TV gigs. He had worked on a couple more before me. But, no, there are certainly stand-ups on these writing staffs. But there are also people that...
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Chapter 6: What happens during a typical week leading up to a live show?
Oh, wow. Big compliment.
It set me up faxing in jokes to Norm Macdonald at Weekend Update. And so before I started doing that, I kind of studied... norm mcdonald i would um record uh you know vidi on v on a vcr you know record him doing update each week then i would sit down and transcribe each of his weekend update segments
I would transcribe it and I would read that transcription over and over again until like I really did have his voice in my brain. So that when I sat down and went through the newspaper to find topical stories to write jokes about, I was it was as if I was reading those stories from his mindset. And and I was able to kind of capture his sensibility, his voice.
in in in my jokes and then I when I started submitting to him it still took a couple of months but then there was like this one and they would never tell you in advance if they were going to use so you used to watch and hope I was watching at home I was watching by myself and lo and behold you know he ends up doing a joke that I wrote word for word and I was you remember it The gist of, sorry.
It had something to do with the American figure skater, Tanya Harding, who she's the one that bashed the knee of Nancy Kerrigan. And she sort of became a black sheep in the, of the Olympic team. Why would that be? She was making a comeback. This was like the next Olympics. She was making a comeback.
And I think that punchline was something that she was going to be representing the Republic of White Trashistan.
I like the massive shake of the head afterwards.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Kevin, how did you get on The Daily Show then? Was it a similar thing since...?
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Chapter 7: How do writers handle the pressure of live performances?
Yes, please don't.
Okay, fair enough. More, more, more. Yes, please, more. Do not stop. Please, more. Wonderful. A wonderful more. There we go. A wonderful more. The Scottish moor.
And so, certainly I was exhausted, but I was also unemployed. I had nothing else to do today but sit in a coffee shop and write a bunch of jokes.
Can I ask you, sorry, that offer you got from the agent, what are we talking financially if you get the job? Oh, I had no clue. I had zero clue. I didn't know what they... If you're a writer on one of these shows, you're like, oh, I'm sorted now for the next, however.
Well, you're not sorted because you don't know if you're going to be employed for two weeks or eight years.
Over here, we have this magical... We think that you guys have got like... They're right on that. They can retire within six months.
Some can. If you're a long journeyman on any of these shows, sure, that's a good chunk of change. I'm happy to tell you details. But it is the case that most of these contracts begin, at least they did 20 years ago, I think they still do essentially, on 13-week contracts. So while you're making a good weekly salary, you only have a guarantee of three months.
And it is the case on many of these shows. that some people only last 13 weeks. Some others last 13 years. And I also, I mean, after I got the job, I was somewhat reassured in that as soon as I arrived, most of the people had stayed around on The Daily Show for a long time because it was, when I arrived, a very well-oiled machine. And they took great pains to hire and did not hire, you know,
you know just they didn't they they like i said they put me through the bases i imagine they put a lot of people through the paces um to make sure that they were hiring somebody that they could rely on yeah not a lot of people came and went on the daily show in the on the writing staff um during my era now that was 10 years ago so i don't know how things are are now
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Chapter 8: What are the memorable moments from working on iconic comedy shows?
And you say the grind of it was like, we have to do it every day. But that also, oddly enough, it depends on, I guess, the personality type. It takes a little pressure off of it because if everyone is on the same page and believes, all right, we're all trying to get to this end zone, even if we fail to get there and it's not grade A premium stuff that day, you get another chance the next day.
It's not, you know, if I may, it's like how you guys felt when you went from five days to three.
Can we pop the jingle in there, James?
There we go. Yes. May I say that? James, can we put the jingle in there? Thank you. Now I feel part of the Chattabix lore there.
We'll be right back.
Doug, do you feel slightly left out during this bit?
Have you utterly clueless?
You're the healthier of the three, by the way.
Yeah, absolutely. Here, here.
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