S2E2: “What’s Funny Is…”

With Guest David Brecher

The creative process is entirely unpredictable. Even creatives who genuinely aspire to produce greatness every time out can’t predict that they will produce greatness. It’s always a crap shoot. So it is with podcasts as it is with movies and with TV shows. In this episode, Gil and I set out to talk about “writing funny” with Gil’s old friend DAVID BRECHER. David’s worked with and around comedians his whole career. He toured for years with Bette Midler. He’s well versed in everything funny. That includes Life, There’s nothing funnier than Life.

Turns out, what’s really funny is the paths we all took to show biz success.

Gil began his professional life as a production accountant working for a guy named Sid Finger in New York. Gil produced plays. He produced a reading early on with a very young unknown named Robert De Niro. And he produced a very funny show that he brought over from the Edinburgh Theatre Festival called “El Grande De Coca Cola”.

“El Grande de Coca Cola was the first show Alan ever saw in New York. The circle is complete!

Meet Our Friend David Brecher

At present, David owns a teleprompter company that provides teleprompters (and David as the teleprompter’s operator) for, among other topline projects, “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” and “Saturday Night Live”. Did we mention that David’s been around funny people most of his life? Running teleprompters for many of them the past few years has given David some fascinating insights. Funny people are notoriously unhappy. It’s probably related somehow.

From Off Broadway to Australia, from Hollywood to the Carnegie Deli, from Sid Caesar to The Crypt Keeper to Superman Returns. This one goes a lot of different places and covers a lot of ground. Life is endlessly funny. But, what’s really funny is how fast it goes.