WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1643 - Carol Leifer
Thu, 15 May 2025 07:00:00 GMT
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Carol Leifer has been a standup comic for almost 50 years, but the knowledge she can impart from her lifetime of experience isn’t limited to the standup stage. That’s why Carol co-wrote the new book How to Write a Funny Speech, applying the building blocks of comedy to weddings, graduations and anywhere else one might speak in public. Carol and Marc talk about how to be funny at a memorial, her experience writing for the recent Oscars, and how she’s tapped into the current zeitgeist thanks to her teenage son. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chapter 1: What has Marc been up to lately?
Ich weiß, dass wir das schon lange zurückgebracht haben, aber du warst im Stand-Up. Ich erinnere mich an dich, als ich jünger war. Und dann warst du für immer Schriftstellerin. Ja. Aber was war dein erstes Schriftstück? Mein erstes Schriftstück war bei SNL. Oh. Ja, 1985. War das das seltsame Jahr, als Lauren weg war? Ja, das seltsame Jahr. Und wer brachte dich ein?
Es gab eine Veranstaltung bei The Comic Strip und Al Franken sah mich mit Jim Downey, dem Hauptredakteur von Endemir's, und sofort nachdem sie mich anrufteten, sagten sie, wir würden gerne, dass du auf der Schriftstelle bist, wenn du es magst, oder ob ich es mag, du musst einfach Lauren treffen. Also, ich war bereit, aus L.A. zurück in New York zu kommen, um das zu tun.
Und ich habe mich vorbereitet, um mit Lauren zu treffen. Und ich hatte alles geplant, mein Outfit und das ganze. And I went to this rehearsal hall to meet him, where he was auditioning cast members for that season. And he came out and he said hello. And then he said, I don't do a good Lorne. He said, Jim and Alf said you'd be great for a writing job. You know that it's a lot of late nights.
And I said, yeah. And he said, okay. And he went back to the room and that was my meeting with Lorne Michaels. And then he was gone though? Did he leave? Was that the year he wasn't around? No, no. That was the year he was around. It's just a story of, you know, my 32nd meeting with Lorne Michaels to get a writing job on SNL. Oh, you had met him many times before? No. Never? No, that was it.
And how long were you there? I was there that season. That was it? Yeah. What happened? They got rid of most of the cast and most of the writers after that season. But I was part of a murderer's row of writers that year. Who was there? Smigel, Don Novello, John Swartzlander, George Meyer, Jack Handy. Yeah. Yeah, it was... Pretty great crew.
It's so wild, man. Because I'm just starting to feel this sort of, I'm 61, so I'm just starting to feel like, holy shit. And because of COVID, I theoretically should be 58. All of a sudden I'm like, what happened? It's like, we lost three years. But now I'm looking around and I imagine it happened for you. It just happens where all your peers were like older people. And it's bizarre.
Because you hold them in your memory like you're young people. Und jetzt schaue ich auf meine Vertreter, wie David Cross oder Todd Berry, die Leute, mit denen ich angefangen habe. Und ich denke mir, wir sind die alten Leute jetzt. Was ist passiert? Es ist verrückt. Es ist verrückt, absolut.
Und das andere, was wir vorhin gesprochen haben, was ich bemerkt habe, nachdem Richard weggeflogen ist, weiß ich nicht, was genau passiert ist. Ja. Ja. Ja. Yeah, screw your act. Yeah, we solved this problem. There's meds. Exactly. But I don't really know what happened, but I guess like lately, I've been kind of nostalgic for it.
Because I don't see, anytime I see somebody who is fundamentally Jewish, like have you seen Robbie Hoffman? She's on Hex's season. Yes, yes, yes.
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Chapter 2: How does Carol Leifer approach public speaking?
Yeah, wanted to make it easy. Oh, that's good. Easy for people. It's very helpful. Because it's one of those things I would think this book would sell, because it is the most terrified, the scariest thing. It's the top of the list most of the time. Right.
Most people's greatest fear is talking in front of large groups of people. But comedians' greatest fear is not talking in front of large groups of people.
Or bombing in front of large groups of people. Yeah. Das ist der größte Angst. Ich kann von anderen Menschen sprechen, aber da ist das Moment, wo du denkst, ich weiß nicht, ob das zu weit geht. Because we know what we're there to do. Yes. And you see the challenge of it and you're like, oh, fuck.
It's odd that no matter how long you do this, like there's that sixth sense that happens when you're backstage and you're just like listening or assessing an audience. You're like, that table. That's going to be a problem. You can tell.
You can. Yeah. It's crazy. It is really. Like there's an energy in the room. You're like, there's something wrong over stage right. Yep. What is it? And then you're like, that's that guy. Yeah. Du kannst nicht, es ist wie ein Radar, das wir haben. Das ist verrückt. Und das nächste Set danach ist gut. Also fast garantiert.
Oh ja, ja. Findest du das auch? Ja, weil, weißt du, was auch immer du rausgibst, es passiert so, wenn du einen Spot im Comedy-Store im Hauptraum machst und dann hast du einen Original-Spot im Hauptraum, kann der Hauptraum irgendwie entweder gehen, weil es ein großer Raum ist und egal, wie viele Leute da sind, kann es weniger entspannend sein.
Und du hast vielleicht einen schwierigen Zeitraum, sich zu verbinden. Aber wenn du zwei in der Nacht machst und du hast dich bereits so rausgezogen und du musst dir das kleine Stück Armut anziehen, das du immer gemacht hast. Ja. Weißt du, die nächste Saison, du wirst sagen, fuck you. Exactly. Exactly. You're not going to do that to me. Or I'm not going to do that to myself.
Yeah, but there is that idea where you're excited to do it and you know you're good at it. And then it's just part of the job. You go out there and it wasn't good. And then you're like, oh, fuck. And then you got to go at the next one a little harder. Absolutely. You know, until you find the zone where you can let it down a little bit.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What are the essential elements of a funny speech?
Kannst du mir einen deiner Tricks erzählen? Oh, Pauli tötet nicht unbedingt, aber er ist Pauli. Ja. Und er ist einer dieser Jungs, es gibt eine Tradition in der Komödie, dass manche Performer die Lichter einbringen, um den Spotlight zu haben, anstatt den vollen Stagelight. Und er ist einer dieser Jungs. Er und Argus, sie machen dieses Ding. Alan Stevens hat das gemacht.
Aber sie haben eine Wahl, also bekommen sie den Spotlight, anstatt den vollen Stagelight. Ja. Also er macht sein Ding und die Leute sind gespannt. Er war ein großer Star. Und dann kommen die Lichter wieder raus. Und dann bringt er mich hoch. Und generell, um den Weg klar zu machen, sage ich, Pauly Shore, meine Damen und Herren. Und dann sage ich, ja, das ist, wie er sich jetzt sieht.
Ich benutze die gleiche Worte für Spade, auch. Well, there you go. Now you're off to a good start. You're in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Or if I have to follow Whitney Cummings or Eliza Schlesinger, I always get up and go like, okay, let's just take it down a notch. Or I'll say, let's shift from, you know, whatever, whatever to cranky Jew. Like anything that'll get me, you know.
Oh, that's really smart. Yeah, because you only got 15 minutes. Yeah. See, I can't, I don't work at the store. I can't get on there. Really? Yeah. They just changed bookers. I don't know what's going on there. Where do you work? Improv? I work a lot at Comedy and Magic Club. Do you live over there? No.
Well, I live on the west side. Well, that's good. Yeah. For me, that's like a different state to me. I'm like, do you ever work there? I'm like, I don't even know how to get there. Well, it's in Hermosa Beach. I know. Yes. It's like an hour from here. And I do the Laugh Factory a lot. You know what I love to do is Kevin Nealon's New Material Night. Have you done that?
Oh, really? Where's that? At the Laugh Factory? At the Laugh Factory. But you have to go up and it has to be all new material. How great is that for us? That's great. Comics. And how's the crowd? They're great. They're great. And just, you know, normally when we have to go up and shoehorn in a new bit here, shoehorn, you know, between two... So you can bring your notebook if you want?
Absolutely. Yeah, someone does that in the belly room at the store sometimes. I think Fahim does it, where you can just work out shit. It's fantastic. It's a great world we live in now because of podcasts and everything else is that people like to be part of the process. That was unheard of before.
Yeah.
You know, I used to bring notebooks up and people were like, no, what the fuck is he... Is he going to school? Yeah, doesn't have this shit worked out already? We paid for a pro show. Does he do that every week? He does it once a month. Oh, he never asked me. He asked me to go on his hiking show, but he doesn't ask me to do his new material.
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