Creatively Speaking go forward today with Tom Snyder , creator of one of my all - clock time favored television receiver shows , Dr. Katz .
I ’ve also choose two excerpts from sequence that make me laugh every time I see " ˜em ( recently get a hold of the consummate Dr. Katz on DVD , include commentary by Tom and Jonathan Katz , as well as some episodes that were n’t in the beginning publicise ) .
First one to right tell us what movie Ben Katz is quoting somewhere blot out in the first clip gets serious _ floss braggin rights . Another interesting bit of Katz trivia : the song the Dr. sings in the first clip was written by our interviewee today , Tom Snyder .
Dr. Katz and son Ben
DI : How did you first come up with the idea forDr . Katz ?
DI : The animation in Dr. Katz has a unique , static feel to it . Can you tell us about the proficiency call Squigglevision , which give the show its trademark look ?
TS : Well it ’s not something I ’m proud of , except that it was flash . Somepeople mention to it as the perfect law-breaking . Some the great unwashed say it causesepilepsy . But with this educational software ship’s company , I ’d come up with areally cheap room of relieve oneself illustration look animated by having anillustrator describe an outline of a character and then the computer woulddraw it five prison term over and over again with entropy bestow . So it wouldkinda curlicue . And it was really tacky because there was no animationinvolved . So we started doing it on the Dr. Katz stuff and nonsense , not reallythinking it would be enough for primetime but we stuck with it . And it wasfunny because there ’s no animation . Nobody walks anywhere , nobody strain for anything . Steven Spielberg became very interested in the effect and our comedy and so we did a pilot for Dreamworks and we were out at his office and I refer in passing that there was n’t any liveliness , that it was just squiggling characters . And he tell , ' Well that ’s not true because we just saw an episode and Dr. Katz is at the sump and then he walk over table and they have breakfast and Ben bring forth up to leave . ' And I say , ' No , actually , no one ever moves . We just cut from one nip to the next , back and forward . ' So there ’s no real animation call for .
DI : Did you coin the wordSquigglevision ?
tonne : Yes . As a affair of fact , we copyright it , thinking : everyone is goingto be doing this . Boy , how wrong we were . It had good luck charm , but I think itkept us from being as mainstream as Family Guy and other shows that cameafter it .
DI : If you had hawk the show today , do you think anyone would have even rag ?
t : No . You could n’t sell Dr. Katz today , disregarding of the Squigglevision , for the simple reason that it ’s not rough-cut enough . Even then they wereasking us if we could use the word ass more , if we could make it dirty . Even back in the mid-90s . But we said , ' Nah , it ’s really sweet . ' If astand - up laughable has a particularly funny routine , we ’ll do it . But itwasn’t what we were going for . We were n’t doing it to be rude . We weredoing it to be rummy and colloquial , and sort of dry . There ’s no room youcould do it now . My former party has a show on now predict Assy McGeefor Cartoon connection and it ’s about a cop who ’s just an ass . And fart , that ’s how it talk . That ’s the kind of stuff they ’re doing now , which Ihave no interest in , really . I ’m an old - fashioned guy . I like musicalcomedy .
DI : Much of each instalment was n’t script . Can you verbalize about the process ? How did the stories germinate ?
t : We’d give Comedy Central an precis , not a script . So the show was about 60 - 70 % off script by the time we were done . We had awfully good improvisers . For the first duet years , I ’d spell an outline about the level . Then , John Katz and I would meet in a bar and I ’d read the outline to him . And he ’d say laughable things , so I ’d jot them down . And then they became part of an spread out outline . And then I ’d go home and retype it bring it back to him and he ’d say even funnier things . So the outline would develop that way . And then we ’d bring in hoi polloi into the booth , the regulars , John Benjamin , Laura Silverman , and they ’d improv off it . Then we brought the comedian in . ab initio we ’d have them go in the cubicle with John [ Katz ] because they were in therapy . He played the healer and theyplayed the patients . We did that double , but it just did n’t work . The rhythm and pace get all f - male erecticle dysfunction up . It was n’t singing at all . So when Ray Ramono came in – one of our first affected role – we suppose , ' Ray , just come in and do your routine . And we were smart enough to land employee from my party and have them seat in the ascendency room outside the booth so Ray would be performing . comic are funnier when they have an interview . So they would do 20 minute and then we would repurpose it after they were function . We ’d have Jonathan sit in the kiosk and we ’d stop and start and stop and protrude the tape recording and have him dangle in vocal music as setups , to make it sound like a therapy academic term . And that crop like a spell for 6 class .
DI : There were so many amazing stand - up comedians on Katz ’s lounge . Everyone from Steven Wright to Jeff Garlin , from Sarah Silverman to Conan O’Brien . You also had literary luminaries like David Mamet and one of Hollywood ’s grandiloquent actors , Jeff Goldblum . How did you get all those amazing people tocome in and sit on the couch ?
Two words : Jonathan Katz . At the time we did the show , he was the guyreferred to as " the comic ’s comedian . " He ’s very impudent , very sweet , andgentlemanly , very funny and he ’d worked with everybody during the 80s andearly 90s and everyone wanted to be on the show . ahead of time on , he brought in acouple of his brother like Ray Ramono and Dom Irrera Once word - of - mouthcaught on , we could have any comic we want . Sometimes they got intouch with us , sometimes we got in touch with them . Winona Rider , DavidDuchovny , Jeff Goldblum , they all have in tinge with us . The only person wecouldn’t get , who I really wanted , was Bob Newhart . I ’m not sure he gotthe mood of the show .
DI : Did Comedy Central ever censor content ?
Not really . Although there was this one time when we had a homophile comedianfrom Boston come in with his tangible - life sentence lover to do couples therapy . Theywere both very impertinent and very singular but one of the thing that came out inthe course of their session was that not only was one of the hombre break , but he was in all likelihood going to die soon . For me it was magical - the way theywere talking and joking about it . They had just gone out shopping for anurn for the ashes and the guy wire said he ’d decided not to buy the urn becauseit made him attend wide at the hip joint . So it was funny , and moving and , at thetime , Comedy Central would put anything we did on the air travel with no tone . We had an amazing amount of freedom with them . But at last we determine not to do the episode because some of the younger producers on the show were a little embarrassed by the sentiment . That was a big disappointment for me . But all we ever hear from Comedy Central was to make it dirtier ! We were too clean for them .
DI : So what are you exercise on these days ?
TS : John [ Katz ] and I are always pitching shows . And I ’ve begin my own caller now and I ’m write and hoping to produce a musical funniness for the stage . I ’m not Jewish , I ’m not gay , I do n’t dwell in New York City - really , I have no right to be doing this . But musicals are my first love , so I ’m compose this show about a guy who ’s an super good prevaricator , an impulsive prevaricator . He ca n’t stand when people are sad around him , so he lie to make people feel good . And ultimately he acquire in bother because he ’s in over his head and falls in sexual love with someone he ’s been lie to . So it ’s the story about my life , essentially .
Jeff Garlin on the Dr. ’s lounge
