Original subtitles

In comedy, we try to get laughs because that's how we survive.

You get paid to be a certain guy.

They don't want to see me doing Othello.

My wife says when I put this bad boy on, I turn into a wild,

hairy, disgusting ape. Wuh!

Comedians, we tend to talk about our failures, not our successes.

I wish I could walk in there and tell my boss off and quit.

You're self-employed, Mr. Carlin.

I know.

I was a trailblazer, too. I made the trail wider.

I'm going on a diet, Dan, I'm startin' right now.

Go. I'll be here when you get back.

Every morning I get clean clothes and an apple.

And I'm happy.

"Pioneers of Television" was made possible by

contributions to your PBS station

from viewers like you.

They paid their dues by taking a chance.

When I first stepped on stage as a comedian,

I really had no idea if I was funny or not, I mean none.

You know, sometimes audiences don't laugh, did you know that?

I know that.

In the beginning of standup,

it's the hardest thing in the world,

because you are not good.

It takes thirty years to make a great standup comic; it does.

Are you a housewife, too?

I hate that word and I hate the word "homemaker," too.

I wanna be called "domestic goddess."

They brought their characters to life

in our favorite sitcoms.

The character is about 85% me,

the other 15% being an extremely sick mind.

Emily, this may come as a shock to you, but...

in high school I was considered great looking.

You're kidding!

I cannot tell you and describe it beautifully,

the camaraderie we had.

♪ I want you by my side ♪

♪ And I want you to keep, oh, keep me satisfied ♪

Through drive, intelligence and creativity,

they've kept us laughing decade after decade.

Because funny is smart, for the most part.

It's pretty hard to be funny and a complete moron.

Nothing matches better than vanilla and chocolate.

And yet, still somehow,

racial harmony eludes us.

I got a goal in mind. I want to do Johnny Carson.

I want to sit there on that desk.

I want him to do this and invite me over to his desk.

In my core, I felt like this is what I was kind of meant to do.

This is what I do the best.

- Oh, now I don't love you. - You don't say it.

- I do. - No, you don't.

- I do. - When do you say it?

With my eyes!

What people think of me is often not what I am.

Together, these standup comics redefined the American sitcom.

They are the pioneers of television.

In the spring of 19 7 6, Jerry Seinfeld

told a joke on stage for the very first time.

I really had no idea if I was funny or not, I mean none.

A shower is the only break you get, isn't it?

When you're asleep, people can bother you.

In the shower, they can't get to you.

They call up, "I'm sorry we can't reach him.

He's in the shower. There's nothing anyone can do.

He's five feet away, we can't talk to him,

we can't get a message, we can't do anything."

You come out, "I can't talk now, I just got out."

This got a huge laugh.

And I was so shocked, I was just shocked.

I was shocked.

I heard this laugh just hit me

like a bucket of water in the face.

That's what it felt like.

From that moment forward,

Jerry Seinfeld's singular focus was standup comedy.

I go, "I want to be in this life."

And this is really the key aspect of a comedian...

Is that you want to be this

and you don't care about anything else.

Five years later, Seinfeld reached

the holy grail for standups...

A shot on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show."

To get asked to be on that show was like,

"Do you want to play in the World Series?"

Have you ever seen the guy who's got the record

for fattest man in the world?

It's an amazing thing... Bob Hughes, 1400 pounds.

Ladies and gentleman, the man has let himself go.

I used to feel bad talking about him on stage,

'cause somebody... but you could weigh a thousand pounds

and go, "He's not talking about me!

This is a man with a serious weight problem."

It went well. It went well.

I had a different image of it in my mind.

I had never been in front of 500 people before

and that was the biggest audience I had ever seen

at that time.

So, I was nervous for a million reasons,

but that was very overwhelming to me.

You're so in shock at the time.

Jerry Seinfeld. Thank you, Jerry.

Take a bow.

He was saying, "Great job, Jerry," as I left.

And he gives you the big "OK" sign,

which was a very valuable thing...

We'll be back in a moment.

That I realized, oh, he liked me.

He liked what I was doing.

The success of Seinfeld's talk show appearances led

to a meeting at NBC to discuss a potential sitcom.

They called me in and they said,

"What is it that you have in mind?"

And I said, "Nothing.

I don't have anything. I didn't have anything in mind."

I actually believed maybe they had something in mind

since they had the big building with the logo on it...

I thought, "Maybe that's what they do here.

Maybe they come up with TV shows and they take talented people

and say, "We have a show for you," but they don't do that.

They don't do that.

Jerry may not have had an idea for a sitcom,

but his friend Larry David did.

Before long, the two comics had worked up a premise.

The whole show came from the way Larry and I related

and that's why I asked him to work with me on it.

Because I liked the sound of the conversations

that he and I would have.

And he had a lot more ideas than I had

about what we should do and shouldn't do.

So he really helped structure the whole thing.

The first decision was to create a scenario

that wasn't too far from Jerry's own life,

a New York standup comedian who hung out with his friends.

There's nothing, pretty much, that TV Jerry would do

that I wouldn't do and vice versa.

But "TV Jerry" wasn't as successful or smart

as real Jerry, and that was the source

of much of the series' humor.

What happened Tuesday night?

I saw your act.

My act? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, to be honest, it just didn't make it for me.

It was just so much fluff.

I can't believe this. So what are you saying?

You didn't like my act, so that's it?

I can't be with someone if I don't respect what they do.

You're a cashier!

For Jerry Seinfeld, the cluelessness

of the sitcom characters is what made them funny.

Go talk to her.

Elaine, bald men with no jobs and no money

who live with their parents don't approach strange women.

Well, here's your chance to try the opposite.

Instead of tuna salad and being intimidated by women,

chicken salad and going right up to them.

That is one of my favorite lines of the show,

when I say to George, "If everything you do is wrong,

then the opposite would have to be right."

I should do the opposite.

If every instinct you have is wrong,

then the opposite would have to be right.

It's just completely stupid, you know.

But he's stupid so he believes it.

Yes, I will do the opposite.

I used to sit here and do nothing

and regret it for the rest of the day.

So now I will do the opposite.

It sounded good, you know, but it doesn't make any sense.

My name is George.

I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.

I'm Victoria. Hi.

What I love about that is that

that's an eternal comedic device.

Two idiots trying to work something out.

It can't be done, huh?

The switch?

The switch.

Can't be done.

I wonder.

That is an ancient comedic device.

Do you realize, in the entire history

of western civilization, no one has successfully accomplished

the roommate switch?

In the middle ages you could get locked up

for even suggesting it.

They didn't have roommates in the middle ages.

If two guys are stupid,

watching them try and be smart is going to be funny.

If you haven't got the stomach for this,

let's get it out right now and I'll go on my own.

If not, you can get on board and we can get to work.

Now what's it gonna be?

Alright, dammit, I'm in.

I couldn't do it without you.

The Seinfeld sitcom was known

for its seemingly unconnected storylines

that merged at the end.

When Kramer was hitting golf balls on the beach,

George was pretending to be a marine biologist.

What's going on over here?

There's a beached whale. She's dying.

Is anyone here a marine biologist?

We were doing those stories before we saw

that there was a connection between them.

That, what if the distress of the whale

was caused by Kramer's golf ball?

A huge tidal wave lifted me, tossed me like a cork,

and I found myself right on top of him,

face to face with the blow hole.

I could barely see from the waves

crashing down upon me but I knew something was there.

So I reached my hand in, felt around

and pulled out the obstruction.

We were way, way deep into making that show.

We might not have even noticed it.

Just, somebody went, "Wait a minute.

What if that's what the whale's problem was?"

What is that? A Titleist?

A hole in one, huh?

We wrote that the night before

and just laughed ourselves silly writing that.

But that's about my most favorite thing

that we ever stumbled upon.

No show of the era produced more water cooler talk

than Seinfeld, knitting countless catchphrases

into the American fabric.

You mean shrinkage?

Yes.

Significant shrinkage.

He recycled this gift. He's a re-gifter.

So you're still master of your domain?

Yes, yes I am master of my domain.

I met this lawyer, we went out to dinner,

I had the lobster bisque, we went back to my place,

yadda, yadda, yadda... I never heard from him again.

But you "yadda yadda'd" over the best part.

No, I mentioned the bisque.

Coming up with a half-hour of memorable comedy

each week isn't easy, especially for a standup comic

who isn't used to managing people.

The difference between the stand-up and a sitcom

is you're going from the least collaborative medium there is

to the most collaborative.

The reason you become a comedian is

you're not a good collaborator.

You're not good with people.

You're not good in social situations

or professional situations.

You're not really good at anything but that.

When Seinfeld ended its network run,

Jerry was content to leave behind the team environment

and return to his first love, standup.

I just can't drive around there.

You know how the old people drive,

they drive slow, they sit low.

That is their motto.

The state flag of Florida should be just a steering wheel

with a hat and two knuckles on it.

People always say, "Why don't you do another sitcom?"

I think, "If I could do another sitcom that good,

yeah, sure I'd do it."

You can't. I mean, I can't.

Often forgotten in the Seinfeld saga

is the story of the series' first years,

when it was almost cancelled,

crushed in its time slot

by the other '90s powerhouse sitcom,

which also starred a standup comic who had brought

his act to television.

Fall of 1984.

At the Goodyear Tire Company in Akron, Ohio,

a local comic has been hired to tell a few jokes

at a sales dinner, but no one's laughing.

No one's even listening to a guy named Tim Allen.

No one was listening.

All these guys were just eating their steaks

and talking and smoking at the time and it was,

"Arr, arr, arr..."

Don't think your old man grunts, give him a steak.

"Honey, you like that?" "Mm, uh, mm, uh, mm, uh...

Arr, arr, arr, arr, arr! Eh, eh, eh, eh!"

"You want the butter or the salt?"

"Arr, arr, arr!"

I decided, perhaps, that would be

the only way to get their attention, if I talked

like men talk when they're grumbling, they're,

"roa, grr, arr, arr"... And I started doing that,

and it was clear that that was a very big deal,

'cause I got drunk salesmen, smoking, going, "Arr?"

Tim Allen recognized that success in comedy

would mean expanding beyond his Midwestern base.

So he transitioned to Los Angeles,

where his career accelerated,

including a Showtime special and packed houses

at bigger and bigger venues.

Men like doing things women don't like.

Go to a guy's house and say, "Did you build that table?"

"Yeah."

Go to a woman's house and say, "Did you make that dress?"

She'll knife you right in the heart.

By 1990, Tim Allen was offered his own sitcom,

by the head of Disney... Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Allen said no.

Katzenberg offered a different sitcom.

Allen said no again.

I had had a career touring.

I was making great money,

and really doing what I wanted to do,

so I didn't need the gig.

So when Jeffrey called, he said, "We want to offer you this,"

I said, "Well, I don't think so."

And if you don't know Jeffrey Katzenberg,

I'll tell you, he doesn't like being said no to,

especially when he's being nice and sweet like he is.

And he said... he called me at home, he said,

"Maybe you didn't hear me." I said, "Yeah, I heard you."

What Tim Allen wanted was to create

his own show from scratch, based on his standup persona.

Katzenberg agreed, and Allen's sitcom began to take shape.

I like "This Old House" a lot, so start with that.

But make me just a jerk, always screwing up his work,

and then I want a neighbor that you can't see.

Somehow, I had neighbors in my life that were like,

on acre plots in Michigan, I never even...

I still don't know what he looks like.

- Wilson? - Howdy, neighbor.

Always, from his car to his house, "Hey, Paul."

And he'd have groceries by his... I never saw him.

Still, to this day, he's still there,

I still own that same house. I wanted that and three boys.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Truckenstein vs. Fordzilla at the Silver Dome!

The biggest monster truck rally in Detroit history!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

What will I wear?

I didn't get you a ticket, honey.

House to myself

on Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

ABC still wasn't sure Allen could translate

his standup persona to a sitcom character,

so they sent him to an acting coach.

We went through all these, "Oh, please,"

all this Shakespeare, and I had to beg and cry and emote,

and it was like, "What are we doing?"

He said, "To be honest with you,

they're wondering if you can memorize.

That's all they want to know is,

are you a person that can't memorize?"

Which means it's a problem,

because it's 40 new pages every day.

Tim Allen soon proved he could memorize

and he could act.

But like all standups, he knew he'd get his best performance

in front of a live audience.

In a television show, you got the audience,

but it's manipulated.

You only get one try.

As soon as you give the audience where the joke lands,

then you do the second take, it's phony,

because they know, "Oh, this is where we're supposed to laugh."

"Home Improvement" was a success

from the first episode and grew to become

one of the most popular television shows of the 1990s.

But Tim Allen had one goal left unfulfilled.

Like all comics of the era, he wanted to do standup

on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show."

Now, he'd finally get his chance.

I bombed.

I went on there and didn't have my glasses, which I wear.

He said, "Do you see where you're standing?"

He just quickly opened the curtain,

and I lied because I wanted to be a pro.

I said, "Yeah"... I had no idea where he was pointing.

So when they opened the curtain, I walked out and stopped.

There's booms moving and cameras adjusting, because I didn't...

And that took me, I go, "Whoa, what's happening?"

This is his first appearance with us on the "Tonight Show."

Would you welcome Tim Allen.

Tim Allen!

Oh! Hi, there. Thank you for having me, nice to be here.

And had to start my act, I got off on the wrong foot,

and I just died, it was just death.

Why do you listen to shop teachers?

Half of them are missing fingers, am I wrong?

Hey, boys, watch that sabre saw.

It'll kick back on you, I'm not kiddin' ya.

I'm not kiddin' around, I'll tell you that right now!

Let me pass out those test papers, there you go.

Thank you all very much. I'm Tim Allen.

Then Johnny, he sits down,

and in between the break, he said,

"You got to be funnier than that."

Tim Allen recovered from the "Tonight Show" misstep,

and by November 1994

he had the number-one TV show, number-one book,

and number-one movie, simultaneously...

An unprecedented accomplishment.

Tim, do you ever listen to me?

It was the last thing I said to you in bed last night.

No, I believe, if you recall, the last thing

you said to me in bed last night was, "No!"

You're thinking of tonight.

Throughout the series' eight year run,

Allen fought for good stories,

believing comedy would flow from the situation,

not the other way around.

It's called a situation comedy.

It's not a comedy situation.

So it can't be bit to bit to bit.

Yellow, see... the sun is yellow and heats the ground.

That's how they name stuff.

Is that car running?

Tim Allen's role as one of America's favorite dads

led to movie roles playing Santa Claus,

and other "good guys" and father figures.

But he came to learn that it was hard to escape

the goofy dad persona he had so carefully developed

on "Home Improvement."

Even when parts were offered,

he thought twice about venturing too far.

You get paid to be a certain guy.

They don't want to see me doing Othello.

Tim Allen built a career drawing humor

from his take on the American dad.

At the same time, another breakthrough comic

was doing the same thing for the American mom.

Growing up in Salt Lake City, young Roseanne Barr

didn't spend much time with her father,

but they did watch TV together,

whenever a comic was on.

My father wanted to be a standup comic himself.

He understood comedy like almost nobody else I've ever met since.

By her mid 20s, Roseanne found herself working

as a waitress at Bennigan's in Denver,

married, with three children, and very little money.

One night, she signed up for an open mike at a local club

and suddenly everything changed.

The first time I got

a laugh from an audience,

I was totally hooked and had to continue.

It's hard to be married a long time

and everything like that, you know.

It's really hard and everything but they do bug you.

This is what gets me, is that they always think

that you're going to be the one that cleans everything, huh?

Like they think that's your destiny to clean.

And I guess their destiny is to have a couch

surgically implanted on their behind.

It energizes you to go, "They're going to love this,"

and it's like, boom, you're giving them a gift.

You may marry the man of your dreams, ladies,

but 14 years later, you're married to a couch that burps.

And they give you a gift back by laughing at it.

So it's like you want to give.

And it's a cool give and take thing,

an exchange of energy.

Roseanne spent the next few years honing her act,

perfecting her standup character.

It's really fun to do that,

and to be inside your brain when it's working like that,

you're going to feel very alive.

In 1985, Roseanne moved to Los Angeles

and her career accelerated like no one's before.

It was like, wow. It was instantaneous.

My first time on stage,

I did five minutes for Mitzi Shore at the Comedy Store

on Sunset Boulevard and that night she took me

into the main room and told me to do 20.

Within weeks, Roseanne Barr was booked on the "Tonight Show."

Have you ever noticed that fat people

don't think like skinny people?

We have our own way of thinking.

Like, did you ever ask a fat person for directions?

'Cause that is when the difference in thinking

really shows, you know.

'Cause you go up to them on the street and ask 'em

where something is and they tell you like this.

"Well, go down here to Arby's..."

My first time on the "Tonight Show"...

That was just a dream come true,

and it went almost exactly the way

I hoped and dreamed it would.

It was just a life-changing, exciting, fantastic night.

But it's good that I'm fat, though, because I'm a mom,

and fat moms are better than skinny moms.

'Cause what do you want when you're depressed?

Some skinny mom, "Well, why don't you jog around awhile

and that'll release adrenaline in your blood

and you'll better cope with stress?"

Or some fat mom, "Well, let's have pudding,

Oreos and marshmallows."

He asked me,

"Do you write your own material?"

And I said, "Yeah," and he said,

"Well, it's very good and I'm telling you

you're going to be the biggest woman ever in standup comedy

and you have my personal guarantee for that."

I was like, "Duh!" I was agog.

It wasn't long before Roseanne had a deal to do a sitcom,

but she was determined to create something different,

to make a statement, to influence the culture.

When I used to watch all those television shows and sitcoms

myself in my home and just go, "You've got to be..."

I don't want to swear, but you've got to be

me with this crap.

And it made me angry.

From day one, Roseanne had to fight hard

for her vision of TV's Roseanne Connor.

It came from here,

and I didn't want to turn it over to anybody

who had no idea what it was about.

To the show's early writers,

a feminist character was intrinsically anti-male,

but Roseanne's take on the women's movement

was very different.

They thought that

saying something feminist or something pro-woman

was the opposite of saying something pro man and it isn't.

It isn't at all; in fact, it's almost the opposite.

The issue nearly came to blows

when shooting this scene in the first season.

Tell me, miss.

Will you still respect me in the morning?

The writers wanted the Roseanne Connor character

to make a disparaging remark about her husband.

Roseanne Barr refused.

They wanted me to say those lines, but I was like,

"That isn't how women talk.

I don't even know any men that talk that way

besides Archie Bunker."

After stopping production for a time, Roseanne won

and the scene was softened.

I'll respect you in the morning, in the afternoon

and especially at night.

These people went to Yale and Harvard.

A lot of them didn't even know what lunchmeat was.

And I remember them saying,

"What is that? What is lunchmeat?"

And I say, "It's that square meat that's pressed."

They'd be like...

So there was a lot of class issues like that.

Why don't you stack them sandwiches on a plate for me?

I've got to go to Andy J. And get some chips and soda

and all kinds of other stuff.

I see flat meat and I see bread but I don't see no sandwiches.

Oh, boing!

Did you want me to make them sandwiches?

Oh, could you?

Oh, are you kidding?

I've been standing behind a counter

preparing food for people all day and I will say right now

there is nothing more I'd rather do than

make sandwiches for you, Dan.

Why then, we're both in heaven.

By the thirteenth episode, Roseanne had won control

of her show,

a new vision of working- class women and their families.

The thing that was different

about the show was that it dealt with class in America,

class issues and women and class,

and women in their families and working class families.

None of that was ever on TV before, really.

Okay, tell Dwight to tell Dad that...

You're not writing this down at all, are you?

- Yes I am. - Becky!

All right.

Okay, tell Dwight

to tell dad that I got overtime tonight

so he has to pick up dinner for you kids.

Great! Can we get Chipper Chicken?

You can get Happy Hamster for all I care.

The series tackled a range of issues

television had largely neglected...

Unemployment, alcoholism, domestic violence,

teen pregnancy, and gay rights.

One of the best ones that I like the most

for breaking through things was where Darlene got her period.

What are you throwing all your stuff away for?

These are girls' things, Darlene.

As long as a girl uses 'em.

You love all this stuff.

That's reason enough to keep it.

I'm probably going to start throwing

like a girl now anyway.

Definitely. And, since you got your period,

you're going to be throwing a lot farther.

Roseanne topped the ratings in its first year,

and stayed popular for all nine seasons,

offering a unique perspective on American life.

You mean you don't want to spend a delightful Sunday

with mumsy and popsy?

The two most boring people on the face of the earth?

Sunday around here is death.

Will Dad have a third cup of coffee?

Will mom get off the sofa by noon?

Will you get the hell out of my house?

I did what I came to do.

I accomplished everything that I wanted to accomplish

with my comedy.

I wanted to tear down some walls and make some roads bigger

and move the center left, and I did.

In Roseanne's final years, another landmark family comedy

was making its premiere,

but the center of this show wasn't a strong woman,

it was a rather needy man...

The lovable but helpless Ray Barone.

Live from New York,

it's Saturday night!

In 19 7 5, "Saturday Night Live" premiered

and that gave one young teenager an idea.

In the basement of his local church,

he and a few friends put on their own sketch comedy show.

The leader of this troupe was Ray Romano.

We wrote our own sketches, did our own props, our own makeup.

It was a success for us. We heard laughs.

That was really where I got the bug.

In his early 20s, Romano took the next step,

trying standup at audition night

at the Improv in New York.

In the beginning of standup,

it's the hardest thing in the world

because you are not good.

His second attempt at standup went so poorly,

Ray Romano quit comedy entirely.

He studied accounting, worked odd jobs,

and watched sports,

while still living in his parents' basement.

It's Italian mother and all of that.

They're fine with you living home.

They're not trying to push you away.

Finally, two years after bombing on stage,

he worked up the nerve to try it again.

I was so depressed, I got off the stage

and I went home.

To show you how devastating it was to me,

I went upstairs and I woke up my mother and father and said,

"Why'd you leave?"

When you're new, it's just flop, sweat

and you speed up and you forget things.

Eventually, Ray Romano started getting consistent laughs,

but it took time to develop his comic persona.

I was doing material that I would never do now.

I was doing impressions, weird, goofy impressions.

I was putting hats on and glasses.

They were getting crazy laughs,

but as I grew, those things, I evolved and I found my voice.

After six years of honing his act,

Ray Romano began landing spots on comedy specials.

I have a three year-old daughter and twin one year-old boys.

That's the correct response.

Good, I'm glad.

Normally, single people clap. "Oh, twins. Yay."

Parents are, "Oh, that could have been us, oh, my god!"

Standup comics who break through on the marquee shows

often land sitcoms, but Ray Romano wasn't

getting any calls.

The weeks and months ticked by.

Four years later, still no sitcom.

Then Ray made an appearance on the David Letterman show.

And no one really wants to talk to you on the phone

when you've got kids running around.

Every business call I try to make, I screw up eventually.

"Oh, yeah, the 15th is fine. I just need to know...

Where do you think you're going with that cookie?!

Put the cookie down!

Not you. Sorry.

Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.

Oh, I didn't know you were eating a cookie.

Take it easy."

Click.

I had a really good set on Letterman.

And, afterwards,

I just thought, "Well, here's the next thing."

Letterman's... there it is, producers, anybody.

You know, I don't know what else I can do.

If people aren't going to bite now, that's all right.

The next week, the call came in.

My wife came out in the backyard,

I was in the backyard, and said, "It's the Letterman people."

I pulled up my pants... Because it's in Queens,

it's an alley way, I'm relaxing.

David Letterman's production company offered a TV deal.

Ray Romano

was about to make the transition

from standup to sitcom.

We shuffle 'em here,

twist him like this,

give him a flippity floo, and over here.

We put him back over here.

Keeping your eye on him?

Okay. Where's Gregory?

Aha!

C'mon, it's easy.

Which one's Gregory?

Okay, don't tell your mother about this.

Ray's sitcom character

wasn't too far from his standup persona.

But co-creator Phil Rosenthal added one extra dimension...

Hovering parents, played by Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts.

Had I not met Phil, I don't think the show

is as "parent heavy."

And if that happens, maybe we're not here.

You're talking to George Lopez for an hour,

which is not a bad thing.

Do you know that the fruit keeps coming month after month?

He's got us in some kind of a cult.

It's not a cult, Ma, it's a club.

What do you mean, month after month?

For how long?

A year.

My God, are you out of your mind?

Sorry, I'm so sorry, Dad.

They got me an acting coach actually in the beginning.

It was funny because they told me,

"Do you want an acting coach?"

I went, "Well, I guess," you know.

They were like, "Because people are going to be

talking back to you now.

You're not just on stage waiting for the laughs to die down."

Because Ray Romano was largely unknown,

the first episodes faced an unusual challenge...

Finding willing viewers for the studio audience.

They would get the audience by paying them.

They would go to the elderly homes

and they would... I'm not kidding...

And rehab centers, and that was our audience.

Yes.

For Romano,

the biggest challenge of a sitcom was

letting someone else write his lines.

It was hard for me to accept that somebody else

was going to write stuff for me to say.

It was hard for me...

like, saying somebody else's words

and getting a laugh from it, didn't feel like I earned it.

"Everybody Loves Raymond"

was a ratings success from the start,

but it wasn't until the fourth episode

that Ray Romano felt the show started to gel.

It was a show about IQ,

and how I was really hoping I had a higher IQ than my wife.

And my brother was giving an IQ test to the parents and to us.

I need you to take an IQ test.

What?

An IQ test.

I'm taking a criminal psychology class

to make lieutenant and I have to learn how to give an IQ test.

Ah, I think he wants me to steal third.

It was just, I thought, at that time, our funniest episode.

I want you to know I think I might have

made a mistake with your test result.

Jumbled 'em.

What do you mean?

Well, actually, Raymond, you were the one who scored

one standard deviation higher than Debra.

What?

Good night!

And we just hit things and we hit our stride.

And it was at that moment where I just thought,

this might work.

Well, now it's a happy marriage.

There was another one where Phil

wanted me to kiss Peter Boyle on the head

and I had a hard time with it.

I go, "I don't think he would do that."

To his credit, he made me do it

and it was a great moment.

Romano played Ray Barone for nine seasons.

When the series wrapped, he was ready for a new challenge.

Under every comedian there's a lot of angst in there.

There's a lot of stuff he's working out.

So why not work it out through drama also?

Get to kiss a few women.

You go around all mopey, talking about getting back with Sonya.

Look, if you want any chance of saving your marriage...

There is no chance. There's no chance, okay?

I talked to her today and asked if we should see other people,

she said, "Yes," okay?

You guys, you know, you guys are always telling me to move on.

I'm moving on, so there's nothing you can do.

We're seeing other people,

so I can do whatever the hell I want.

Ray Romano has won accolades for his dramatic roles,

but like his peers, he can't resist the opportunity

to return to his roots, to stand alone

in front of an audience and make them laugh.

There is a rush to it that is fulfilling

and a little bit addictive.

And...

for me, it's either that or hookers.

The husband and wife duo

at the core of "Everybody Loves Raymond"

was an echo of the very first TV sitcom

based on a standup act, the husband and wife team

of George Burns and Gracie Allen.

I wouldn't let this get out of the house

because you're gonna be laughed at.

Aah, let 'em laugh.

They laugh at all intelligent women.

They even laughed at Joan of Arc,

but she went right ahead and built it.

Built, built what?

The Ark.

The Ark was built by a man.

The person who built the Ark was a woman.

Noah.

How could I know her? She's been dead for years.

Like George Burns, Jack Benny translated his standup routine

to television in the 1950s.

He would just go, "Well..." and we'd be screaming.

Well, on the page, that's not a joke.

But it was a way he delivered everything and his timing.

Well, while you're thinking, do you mind

if I look over the clauses in the contract?

Let's see, well, here.

Thank you.

There it is, right there.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Jack Benny was a standup comedian.

George Burns was a standup comedian.

But their television shows became

just extensions of their radio shows.

Standups were largely absent from TV sitcoms in the 1960s,

but in the 1970s, the idea got a reboot

when an established comic was offered his own TV sitcom,

a comedian who first stepped on stage

more than a decade earlier in Chicago.

In the 1950s, a Chicago accountant

began to dream of something more.

Next to his adding machine and ledger book,

he kept a notebook, where he'd jot down funny thoughts.

The accountant's name was Bob Newhart.

I wasn't thinking of stand-up or anything,

I'd just get these ideas and write them down.

Bob quit accounting to pursue comedy,

but things weren't happening.

Years passed.

I was thinking to myself, "You have really screwed up,

you really have, you've screwed up your life."

Eventually a record company agreed

to record some of Bob's routines,

but even that was a challenge.

They said, "Okay, we'll record you at your next night club."

And I said, "Well, see, we have a problem there.

I've never played in a night club."

When "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart" was released,

it instantly shot to the top of the charts,

knocking Elvis Presley out of the number one position.

"Now, what's the first thing we're going to do

before we pull out into traffic?

What did Mr. Adams do before he let you pull out into traffic?

Well, I mean besides praying, let's say."

It was thrust upon me and I wasn't really ready for it.

So I had to learn my craft as I was appearing

in front of 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 people.

Uh, looking back on the Mutiny...

I think a lot of the trouble there stemmed

from the fact that you men weren't coming to me

with your problems.

Uh, as I explained to you before we started out,

the door to my office is always open.

Uh, I think you know why it's always open.

Uh, that was stolen...

When Newhart was offered a sitcom in 19 7 2,

the producers wanted a setting

that would maximize Bob's ability to "listen funny."

The first idea... make him a psychiatrist.

And I felt, well, I don't know, psychiatrists kind of deal

with seriously disturbed people,

and much as I would personally like

to get humor out of it,

I didn't think it was right for television.

So the character was made a psychologist,

which still gave Bob plenty of room

to react to unusual characters.

One time,

Jack Riley created that great character Mr. Carlin,

and I was having a conversation with him.

I said, "How did last week go?"

I only had one problem this week.

Well, why don't you tell me about it?

He said, "Saturday, I was possessed by the devil."

Yesterday morning, I was possessed by the devil.

And of course, being a psychologist, I would say,

"Well, do you want to go with that, Mr. Carlin?"

I'm glad we wrestled that exorcism thing

out for you, Mr. Carlin.

It was cold in there.

From the beginning, Newhart was insistent

his sitcom character not have any children,

but the producers pushed back, creating a script

where Bob becomes a father.

And I said, "I read the script," and he said,

"Oh, how did you like it?"

And I said, "It's very funny."

He said, "Oh, we weren't sure you were going to like it."

I said, "No, there are a lot of good jokes."

I said, "Who are you going to get to play Bob?"

He said, "Okay."

Newhart was equally strident in protecting

his unique speaking cadence,

when producer Lorenzo Music asked Bob

to pick up the pace of his dialogue.

He said,

"Bob, could you run some of the speeches together?

Because the show is running long."

And I said, "Lorenzo, this stammer has gotten me a home

in Beverly Hills, and I'm not about to change it."

W-What can I do for you?

Uh, M-Mr. Johnson, smiling and whistling while you work

doesn't seem to be a problem

you should see a psychologist about.

You drive a hearse?

That's the way I talk. It's not like an affectation.

It isn't something I created for the character.

That's the way I talk.

"The Bob Newhart Show" ended in 19 7 8,

but four years later, Bob returned with a new sitcom.

The setting was different, but the formula was the same:

Bob reacting to a range of oddball characters.

What are you confused about?

Love and lust.

See if I have a dictionary.

He was funniest when he was reacting.

Whatever you did was funnier if Bob was in the scene.

Do you know what it's like to feel wild desire?

Boiling passion?

To want carnal knowledge of a total stranger?

S-Sort, sort of, sort of.

For Newhart, the studio audience

was key to each episode's success,

a partner of sorts in making decisions about what's funny.

The writing was better and the actors were better

because of the live audience.

And the first time we used

Larry, Darryl, and Darryl...

Hi, I'm Larry. This is my brother, Darryl.

That's my other brother, Darryl.

How ya doin'?

"I threw my back out last week crawling under houses."

I throw'd my back out last week crawlin' under a house.

Sounds like a tough job.

He said, "It wasn't work, I enjoy crawling under houses."

So...

It wasn't a job, I just like crawling under houses.

And then when they leave, they get another 20 seconds.

I wish there was some way of making this up to you.

Dick, there was that dead possum out by the well.

We'll take it!

Darryl! Darryl!

Without a live audience, we wouldn't have known that.

Because immediately after the show,

I went to the writers and said,

"You know, let's write another script with these guys in it.

The audience loved them."

The most prominent standup of the television era

also created the most popular sitcom

of TV's first half-century... Bill Cosby.

He had comedic power and energy and skill

in such huge quantities

that he kind of blew everybody else away.

Cosby started in standup in the 1960s,

but his breakthrough came

when his first comedy album was released.

It just struck a nerve.

It was observational, relatable humor.

It was about family.

There is no pain in the world greater

than the pain a man gets when he goes out on a date,

plants his date down in the seat in the movie,

puts his arm around the chair in the movie and leaves it there

for two and a half hours.

The blood from his fingertips

drains to the center of his chest.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to save my wrist, what do you think?"

It was kind of an epiphany of, "Wow!

This is so..."

I connected with something so much,

and it made me laugh so much.

I remember we would just listen to it all the time.

Yeah, he was kind of, I guess, if I had to pick a person

who inspired me to do stand-up,

it would be him and listening to that album.

Bill Cosby's first try at a sitcom lasted just two years.

More than a decade later, he'd try again,

this time creating one of the biggest hits of all time,

"The Cosby Show."

Now, get your utensils, alright?

Alright...

you see, what we've got...

Dad!

Carve, not hack.

Cosby changed, he changed everything to me.

Number one, he was a really funny guy

that I'd seen... "I Spy" on up in his career...

All of the sudden, he played a great dad.

Vanessa, come here.

Come here!

Here! Here! Here!

See, there is there. This is here.

Come here.

Dad, Denise pushed us out of the bathroom

and so the shampoo's in Rudy's eyes

and she won't let me rinse it off like Mom said to

and now Rudy might be blinded for life.

If she is, can we get a dog?

Number one, he was funny, he was subtle,

and if you noticed, I think Cosby was

giving everybody else the comedy.

Boys come by the house and I bark.

Pretty soon, boys come by and they say,

"Old Yeller lives up there."

All I'm saying is that some good ones come by

and some bad ones come by.

That's who I am, Old Yeller. That's my job.

Cliff, you know at the end of that movie...

they shot Old Yeller.

As with all of his work, Cosby was trying to do more

than just entertain,

he wanted his sitcom to make a difference.

To make a TV series and make stories

from your monologues,

but these things would...

The adjustment would be to consciously

raise the awareness of the viewer.

In other words, what you're writing, what you're writing,

and what you're saying.

Cosby's decision to present an affluent black family

was criticized by some who wanted to see

a more typical setting.

But the critics were vastly outnumbered by the audience,

who made the show

number one for years.

Do you know what I think a zerbut is?

I just remembered.

A zerbut is this.

That's a zerbut! Yeah!

Right! I zerbut you.

I zerbut you!

Standup comedy isn't a job, it's a life.

While many comics are most famous for their sitcoms,

in the end they always return to the place they started,

in front of an audience, alone, in search of one more laugh.

You don't really think about, "why do I do this?"

It's just, this is what I do.

It's like fish, I'm going to swim, you know.

It's literally working without a wire,

that's what I feel like.

You're up on the high wire and this and that.

You don't have a band to cut to, you don't have any other...

No one else to help you out.

So it's a very independent art.

That's why I say, that one night at the Sands,

I became a stand-up comic, because I said to myself,

"It doesn't matter what happens, I'll handle it."

The thing that's most gratifying or touching, whatever,

is a lot of people do come up to me and say,

"You were my mom, you raised me."

I thank God for standup comedy

because it kind of set me on my path, you know?

Actually, I found something that I was passionate about.

They are the pioneers of television.

It's not hard to get a laugh.

It's hard to get a laugh at 8:00 on Tuesday

'cause that's when the show is.

That's what's hard.

A lot of people say funny things all the time

and get big laughs.

Everyone has gotten a laugh.

Almost.

You know, and...

Socially, wherever.

The hard part is doing it at a time and place

of someone else's choosing.

That's the profession,

and that takes many, many, many years.

For more insider features about your favorite TV stars,

stories you won't hear anywhere else,

visit pbs.org.