Carol Leifer
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Who is Carol Leifer and what is her connection to comedy?
It's a good word for Obama. Folks are hurting. Folks, folks aren't sure how to pay the bill. That's what folks are doing. Folks are feeling the pinch. Folks are feeling the pain. Folks, it's definitely a lot of politicians use it. It's kind of a homey thing. But folks, we have a super guest today on super, super fly on the wall. Carol Leifer is with us, who's a mainstream of comedy host. From 1981 or two, she was on David Letterman, and she's worked as a stand-up. And also, David, her writing career.
Huge writing career. Seinfeld. From Seinfeld to Hacks presently, where they're winning Emmys over. Hacks is always doing well. Yeah.
Good friends with Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, and she has some interesting takes on their relationship. Teaser alert.
She has a book out, Dana, it's called How to Write a Funny Speech for a Wedding, a Bar Mitzvah, or Birthday, or any other... event you didn't want to go to in the first place by caroley for we laughed a lot during this one because she's a stand-up that you knew in the old days i've known her recently and i just saw her at the laugh factory actually so very funny uh great storyteller exactly what we want in this show
Yes. And also one last thing, the, the sort of famous season of 1985, she was there writing and she'll talk about at SNL, Robert Downey jr. At like 19 years of age, skating down the hall and stuff like that. So, so it's really fun. She's super likable. I've known her for longer than I want to remember. Please enjoy the one and only Carol. Leave her.
You mean the set that I did for The Tonight Show?
Yeah.
Well, it's a bit of a saga because, you know, Letterman saw me on the big New York laugh-off.
Oh, the laugh-off.
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. 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.
Never even heard of that. That's that many times I've never heard of that.
Over a decade? Or what's the timeframe of the 22 auditions? I would say from 1980 to 92.
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.
And it's always Macaulay.
It was always Macaulay, yeah. I mean, you remember how powerful he is.
Of course.
He puts great and powerful odds.
I didn't even try. They just like, you don't got it. Don't even audition. Just, yeah. Well, I was doing characters and stuff, and they like jokes. I was just going to ask you from a personal point of view, what kind of stand-up in your head were you in 92 compared to 1980? Well, I was much more...
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.
I don't do that in a year.
It sounds preposterous, but it's true. Yeah. I've heard that. I've heard that. Yeah.
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.
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