#162 Bruce Ferber talks Home Improvement, The Beatles, and Why He Buried Paul

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

All right, Bobby, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You got the show go and each and every week and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 162 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for another classic conversation with Bruce Ferber. Oh yes, Bruce Furber is here Emmy nominated television writer and producer showrunner for Sabrina the Teenage Witch and home improvement. We're going to talk about a bunch of his writing jobs, one in particular on Buddhism buddies. Bruce also shares an incredible story that he shared with former guests Billy band sands while they both worked on the TV show nurses and of course, we're talking Beatles lots of Beatles as we dive into Bruce's brand new novel I buried Paul I buried balls the name of the novel, but don't worry, ball is not actually dead. This is a story. It's a love letter to the power of music. It's humorous, got all the fields, you're gonna love. It follows a story of a Beatles tribute band. So we're talking we're talking all things Beatles. You're gonna love it. And that's coming up in just a few seconds. In these few seconds. If you're new to the show, I hope you caught last week's episode with Tamar Catan. I hope you dive into all the many, many episodes we have so many great episodes. Tamar is a comedian, international comedian. So many great stories. Comics are so fun to talk to. And there's tons of great guests. So dive in, follow the show, do all those things. And the meantime, let's get to my conversation with Bruce Ferber. He shares a lot of great stories about Tim Allen. There's a Jason Alexander in there, and there's a pop quiz at the end where you have to answer did Bruce Ferber like Webster or not the TV show that is so much to take in and of course his book I buried Paul we're talking Beatles I buried Paul the book a thoroughly enjoyable read. Beatle fans will love it. So Stevie Van Zandt, I just wanted to read that quote on the book so I can brag to have mentioned to Van Zandt and the first three minutes of the podcast. All right. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Bruce Farber. Enjoy. Alright, everyone, I'm excited to introduce you to my next guest novelists Emmy nominated television writer, producer. credits include Bosom Buddies, growing pains, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch coach, Home Improvement, author of many novels, including the one we're going to focus on today, his brand new novel, I buried Paul, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. Bruce Ferber. Hello.

Bruce Ferber 3:23

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, please, a little lower. I can't hear myself think but I will try.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:31

Well, I will try and keep keep it down everyone Bruce can't think, Bruce, I want let's start with a highlight of your own your highlights of your career. You've worked with both Woody and Buzz Lightyear impressive. On to have great, great shows Bosom Buddies, which I know is like where you kind of got your start writing and then a show runner of home improvement. I love to kind of dive into what was the path to booze and buddies? Because I assume Yeah, there was something that sparked you as a writer that led you to working with that great team.

Bruce Ferber 4:07

Yeah, let me just say that that was my first writing job in Hollywood. And I was not a staff writer on the show. My van writing partner and I got hired to do two episodes. We knew one of the producers on the show and he showed the executive producer our spec scripts, and he said okay, let's bring them on to do an episode and they liked it enough that they hired us to do another one. I only met Tom Hanks once at a party when he was doing the show. He's a great guy, Tim I know a whole lot better from home improvement because I worked on the show for six seasons. I was the showrunner for the last three we had many many encounters.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:45

That's awesome. I need to focus on Tom Hanks for a second so I boozing Buddies is one of those shows that it wasn't even on that long but as you've contributed to something that for some reason, that's one of those shows that is still in the zeitgeist like people know but I should probably be cuz it wasn't one of those old Tom Hanks shows. But yeah, there's a lot of things that stars do that people don't remember there was just something about that show that was just

Bruce Ferber 5:07

well, you know, it was it was the thing that got him started and made making made people realize how funny he was the show had some really great stuff and had some not so great stuff to it, where they had to dress in drag and all this stuff. It was a very, you know, very high concept thing that they had to do that to sell the series and then they realized that Tom Hanks and Pierre Scolari were so brilliant together and so funny that they didn't even need to do that as much so that people remember it because it was it was well written, it was kind of a subversive show in its own way. And it was a good a good starting point for Tom Hanks, I thought

Jeff Dwoskin 5:44

has one of the best openings of any show. And just still minds. I rewatched it today just what and and I had a Billy Joel song, so you can't my life. So you can't. So it's a very memorable thing. So when I, when I saw that you had contributed to that that was exciting for me. So the path to being a writer, when did you realize this was your destiny? You know,

Bruce Ferber 6:08

I fooled around with writing. You know, in high school, I didn't really take it that seriously. I just I liked doing it. But then I went to NYU film school. And we had to write scripts for our short films and stuff. And when I was at NYU film school, I think it was a lot different than it is today, there weren't very many writing classes, there were a couple are nowhere near enough to teach us that if you don't have a good script, you don't have anything. I mean, basically, when we were young kids in film school, it was so exciting to get our hands on the equipment. Because remember, in those days, you couldn't shoot a movie with a with an iPhone, you needed a separate recorder, they called it a Nagara, which was a reel to reel tape recorder for optimum sound, and you had an Aeroflex or a Bolex, or whatever camera you were using, and you had a whole group. And then you went into the editing room where you actually cut the film and all this kind of stuff. And for somebody like me, and most of the people I would say in film school at that time, it was just like, so exciting to be around the tools of making movies that we tended to I think the scripts all got short shrift, you know, and how important the writing was in those days. So we made our little films, and then we graduated, and we had to get jobs. And the one thing that I knew that I could get a job at was being an assistant editor. And that's how I made my money. When I came from NYU and came out to California, what I would do is I would work for six months. Usually if you worked on a show or a movie, you're in the editing room for about six months, then it would end, I'd go on unemployment insurance. And I would consider that my national endowment grant to write and so I took six months to write until the money ran out. And I had to get another job. So this kind of went back and forth and back and forth. Until finally I got the opportunity. I'm Bosom Buddies kind of took

Jeff Dwoskin 8:00

off from there. You mentioned you weren't on staff on Bosom Buddies. So when you write a script, and you're not like how much control is the writer? Do you have?

Bruce Ferber 8:09

None. I mean, basically, you go in for the meeting and the executive producers there and you you break the story with him and the other writers on the show. And then you turn in your outline and then you turn in your first draft and maybe they have you do a second draft and then it's out of your hands. It's all in the hands of pretty much the executive producers, the one who calls the shots as to what the final script is going to look like. And that's just the way it was you know, and when I was the executive producer on home improvement I was the final say so you kind of learn the ropes when you're working in TV as as part of a team

Jeff Dwoskin 8:44

very cool. And then the Vernon surely you got to you wrote a script for learning Charlie,

Bruce Ferber 8:49

that was another you know, freelance script. I barely remember writing it. I barely remember pitching it, but also fun to do all fun stuff.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:56

Did you get to work with Garry Marshall?

Bruce Ferber 8:58

Not at all not my partner and I were pitching to the guys that he had hired to run the show. And you know, we wrote our freelance script and that was

Jeff Dwoskin 9:07

it. I don't know if it was in Buddies is in rotation now I'm sure Laverne and Shirley as you ever like you ever like watching TV and one of your episodes comes on if any one of these kind of shows that home improvement because you did you were part of most of that by like, random facts of life or a website or something? Oh,

Bruce Ferber 9:25

I avoid those. I'm sorry.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:31

Does your family know which ones you know uncle Bruce, grandpa? Yeah, do they know?

Bruce Ferber 9:38

But those are those were the pay the rent job.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:40

Okay. All right. Well, I mean, it's a good list. It's a good list, which I was gung ho pay to rent to all these gone.

Bruce Ferber 9:46

Oh, was actually super fun to do. I don't know if you ever saw the movie Gone Home.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:51

Like a long time

Bruce Ferber 9:52

ago. Yeah, the movie was pretty good. And it had Michael Keaton and it had these fabulous Japanese actors playing you know the people in the car. company that took over the American car company. It was a very controversial subject at the time, because nobody wanted to see this show. Or, you know, they saw the movie, which they saw at once. But the show was like an ongoing show about the Japanese about Americans working for Japanese people, not exactly what Detroit or anybody wanted to see in America. But these Japanese actors, we had Gary won a knobby 16 candles. I mean, he was fantastic. And then all the other Japanese actors on the show were great. And we had Scott bacula in the Michael Keaton role. So that was a really fun show to do, actually,

Jeff Dwoskin 10:36

while we're the other kind of pay the rent wines, because you have Simon and Simon house calls when you are in house calls was that the Sharon glass years or prior?

Bruce Ferber 10:44

Yes, it was a Sharon get plus years. And I had a blast working on that show. Because it was my first time working at Universal I'd only worked at Paramount. And there were there wasn't a big writing staff or anything like that. And it was the first single camera show that I ever worked on where it wasn't shot in front of an audience. And it was just different for me. It was fun and wrote a lot of episodes and worked with some fun people Ray buck to Nico, who had been on Rhoda as I think they was Brenda's boyfriend or something like that. But he was big on house calls. And he was fun to write for. And so I actually really enjoyed that one, too. Oh, cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:19

Yeah, I talked to Sharon glass. That was one of her kind of early shows. And then for the big Cagney and Lacey. Yeah, fine, just to kind of go through the Rolodex growing up and watching. Questions. So at what point were you not just paying the rent and like, it became like, alright, I don't have to worry anymore. Now, this is my full time. You know, they were pointed that you mentioned some of these were kind of pay the rent jobs. And so

Bruce Ferber 11:42

some of them were paid. Yeah. And then, you know, it's like, it's a very fickle business. As you probably know, at one point, I was at Paramount for like six years, everything was cool. And then I had a development deal. And I didn't sell a show that year. And lo and behold, my deal was not picked up. So I had to go back out into the world and take another pay to rent show. So I did that. And I did that for two years, then Home Improvement came along.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:10

Alright, so it's just like anything just up and down. Hey, everyone, just wanted to take a quick break. Thank everyone for the support of the sponsors. When you support those sponsors. You're supporting us, Eric classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. Now back to my amazing conversation with Bruce Ferber are about to dive into home improvement. And we're back with home improvement. You said you were there for six years? Yeah, you came in, the characters are established, what's it like kind of coming in into a show that's somewhat has had some roots, and then kind of taking it from there and making it your own?

Bruce Ferber 12:48

Well, it was an interesting situation, because the three guys who created the show, they left after two years, they were still kind of around, but they weren't actively involved in the show. So somebody new came over. And he hired me his mandate, he felt his mandate. He wanted it to be his mandate, which was to open up the show, give Patricia Richardson some of her own stories. And Tim to his credit was open to that. And we just kind of broaden the show a little more, we found new ways of telling stories that service the other characters and let them show off what they could do. So that's what we started doing in season three when I wasn't the show run runner. And then when I took over in season six, I mean I was there the whole time. I just kind of continued to try and find new avenues for stories and you know, new ways of doing things.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:40

Like was there any kind of change or anything like that because Toy Story hit like in the middle right so Tim Allen star like blue blue?

Bruce Ferber 13:47

You're forgetting the Santa Claus? Oh, the Santa Claus, right? Because I don't remember exactly the year the first toy store. Do you know, the year I

Jeff Dwoskin 13:56

think they were almost back to back 9495 9495

Bruce Ferber 14:00

And Santa Claus. The Santa Claus was right around then to it was

Jeff Dwoskin 14:04

94. And then Tim and then the next year was Toy Story, at least in terms of release date. Yeah,

Bruce Ferber 14:09

yeah. So for us, the big thing was the Santa Claus because he was doing live action when he was doing Toy Story. You know, he was a voice actor, but when he was doing Santa Claus, he was actually filming movies in between seasons of the show. So we used to go one year we went to Toronto to pitch him the stories for the next season. That's where they were shooting the Santa Claus. So that was more that affected us more than actually the whole Toy Story thing, which was great for him and incredible movies.

Jeff Dwoskin 14:40

I just was curious you know, we got to focus more on Tim now. Get it back and then the sun went on to be Lion King lot came out of that show a lot game show. And then I don't want to talk about Home Improvement without mentioning your acting debut as man and long and winding road Part Three.

Bruce Ferber 14:58

Oh my god. I Man was a great part. Yes, I played man. And the thing is that there, there doesn't seem to be any record any surviving record of my performance as man. Because as you may or may not know, when you do a show for network and then have to re edit it for syndication, you have to make it shorter because there are more commercials in syndication. So we got to syndication and my performance as man was the most credible thing of that final episode. So now I'm in the final episode of one of the most popular sitcoms of all time, and I cut myself out in the syndicated version, I aired live, you know, for America to see and I you know, that was great, but the bummer is, I have no there's nothing there's nothing surviving when they did the DVDs. They did it from the syndicated cut. And they didn't do the original, I wish, you know, I wish I could see myself as man one more time, but I don't think it's gonna happen.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:03

Oh, perhaps one day they'll find the lost footage. And we can they can do a whole special around it. Because it's, it's a shame to have something like that lost lost forever.

Bruce Ferber 16:12

I agree. Especially since the role that I played I was a chair rental delivery man. So and I, I have at one point, you know, I may actually have this right here in this room in my closet, the wardrobe that I wore, and I worked for a chair rental company called sit on this, and it had my logo of the company and all that stuff. So right anyway, far too much talk about man.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:39

Nah, you know, it's the last roll because you know, people watch the episode and they're like, Wait, this, the chairs just showed up? Somebody had to have delivered these chairs.

Bruce Ferber 16:48

There's man they're all asking for man. What How did

Jeff Dwoskin 16:50

these chairs get here is like it's taken me right out of it. I so you are showrunner for Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and home improvement. So what is that job? Actually? Like? I know you're the big cheese and you're in charge of everything. But does that mean you get to decide the plot lines? Or, you know, like the whole story arcs? Like what? What is that job?

Bruce Ferber 17:12

Okay, imagine what you just said that you get to decide everything, but you just have to run it by some people first. That's what it is. So you get to decide everything. But the network wants to hear what your stories are. Usually the studio may want to hear it. Other executive producers who may not be writing producers need to hear it. In the case of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch that was Paul Hart, who was who was Melissa's mother, who was an executive producer on the show, she started it up. So whenever I had stories, I would run them by her. And she usually, you know, we got along really well. And then we pitch them to the network. And you know, on that show, everything went super smoothly. I mean, they'll seem to like what we wanted to do. And it was just it ran like clockwork it was it was really fun. But yeah, so the big cheese makes all decisions. In the end with casting this net, the network can Nix your casting if they want but usually they don't do that. If you're just talking about episode two, Episode A, let your hire your guest stars. A lot of times though, they say we want you to hire promotable names. So they'll give you names. If you're doing a show, like Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and you have a heart for guests are they'll be shoving you people in that 18 to 34 range or 12 to 18 year old range that they think will appeal to their to their audience

Jeff Dwoskin 18:32

got it. So on both of those shows, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and home improvement on Sabrina Carolyn Ray, and then on Home Improvement, of course, Tim Allen. So was having like these top line comedians on the show, would they be a little more picky with the scripts or like, hey, this joke isn't working, or were they were they lending their insight. And so that type of stuff is at the type of environment and might have been, I think

Bruce Ferber 18:59

both I mean, Tim was used to doing stand up, he liked to improv, and he had very specific things that he didn't like, and it wasn't always easy to know whether he would like to joke or not like a joke, but if he didn't like the joke, he would let you know at the table reading because he wouldn't even read it in a way that might get a laugh. He would let you know that this is not something I want to do. I have a funny Tim Allen story about something like this because he loves to improv. So if you remember, most people who watch the show, remember that we did a segment called Tool Time. We were doing a tool time segment about door locks locks for your house right? And we had some silly joke about he said, you know, you can have all different kinds of locks. You know, you can have your police locks your deadbolt locks your bagels and lox, and you know, and that was the silly joke. And then he started going on and on and on. About bagels and hawks as we were shooting the show, he was improperly, right? So we were in the producers booth and we had the director give Tim a note, you know that he was like going off a little too much. And the note was a little locks goes a long way. So we basically that was our way of telling him to do the job because written we do the next take. And he says, you know, you have you your police locks, your deadbolt locks your bagels and lox. And remember, a little locks goes a long way. He thought we were giving them a line of dialogue, and it got a huge laugh. So we just throw our hands up and said, Whatever this guy says, you know, as long as he says it, you know, with conviction and doesn't go on too long. It's gonna get an enormous laugh from the from the audience.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:39

That's impressive because Tim Allen's not Jewish and to make a solid lox joke like that is dead on that was dead,

Bruce Ferber 20:47

dead on dead on and the way well, the bagels and lox joke was was written for him. And then a little locks goes a long way was not a joke. He was just saying he was he was saying a direction as a line of dialogue. And because he said it, the audience went crazy.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:04

Well, I'm just saying, as a as a Jewish person, when I first when I hear that I can paint you can picture my parents or my grandparents, you know, because lox is like $500. So as I got a little boxes, this is fine. This is other people.

Bruce Ferber 21:18

He was just reading the line that he felt was aligned, that wasn't aligned.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:21

Right? It's good. It's good. You must have had Jewish people on on staff because lox is a very Jewish word. And smoked salmon is the non Jewish version of it. That's it. That's a great story. Let's talk about your books. Let's do it. Let's do it. So you have four books, would you transition to novelist I imagine, like you said, as as executive showrunner, you get to be the boss, but you get to you just have to run it by a few people, I would imagine as a novelist, you get to be the boss, and you're the boss. Yeah.

Bruce Ferber 21:51

And you and you're just begging for people to run, run it by because you're so sick of being with your cell phone. You know, I mean, what I always tell people is that I, you know, I liked the job, I just don't always like the company.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:03

It's always an office party, a one person office party, right? An office

Bruce Ferber 22:07

party with that guy, you don't want to run into me.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:10

What made you kind of walk away from the grind of you know, just producing shows, and kind of just focus on novels,

Bruce Ferber 22:18

couple of factors are more one of which when I finished doing home improvement, the kind of pilots that kind of shows the network's were buying, they all wanted the next clone of friends, because friends was a big hit show. And in those days, I mean, there was not one person, one show, not one example of somebody who tried to replicate friends, not one show that worked. In my knowledge, they figured out a bunch of young people, they're funny, they you know, they live together, they do this, they do that, yeah, we can come up with a funny show, get the right writer and all that stuff. So I found myself going in and trying to pitch versions of that. And he didn't even want to write that it was not where my head was at at all. And finally, I just said, you know, I don't really need to do this anymore. And I'm gonna take a break. And one day, my therapist said to me, or ever thought of writing a novel, and I said, I couldn't do that. And then one day, I started writing this character. That was the character from my first book elevating Overman. And this is about a guy who was about my age at the time, and looking to change his life as I was looking to change my life. And so I wrote three pages of this about a guy looking to change his life. And I really liked writing this character. It was really, really fun. But you know, I didn't really know what the story would be all I knew it was that there was this guy and he was kind of failed. He had a failed marriage. He wasn't his kids weren't talking to him anymore. He wanted to change his life. And one day, I went to my mailbox, and there was a copy of the Pennysaver. You know, those, throw all the ads in it. And there was a big ad for life changing LASIK surgery, $250 and I, and I said, Okay, I am running with this. So, in that story in that, probably the first chapter, the guy, you know, wants to change his life, he picks up the Pennysaver. And he says, You know what, I got a lot of bigger things I want to change, but why not start small, I've been wearing glasses my whole life. Let's see what happened. And so he has the LASIK surgery, and sure enough, his his life starts to change. And he sees the world differently. He sees it not only with better vision, but he sees it in a deeper way. So that was the beginning.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:30

That's very cool. And then when I was reading about that Jason Alexander did the audio book and it was going to be a TV series. It's still in he and

Bruce Ferber 24:40

I were you know, we were developing this first as a movie and then in then as a TV series, and he was locked in for it. Whenever if we made the sale. So we we had a couple of a couple of bites, one in movie form, and one in TV form that never really panned out and And then we never really went out and, and pitched it in a big way. I mean, Jason is the busiest man in America. He's he's not doing a Broadway show, you know, he's directing Broadway shows, he's he's just always, always active. And unless I was the one setting up all these meetings, at a certain point, they weren't going to happen because he had other opportunities he had to go after. And at that point, when I started writing novels, I wasn't with my big CIA agent anymore. I couldn't, I didn't have those connections to set up the meetings we needed to have. So I just went back to my computer and just kept reading my books. And people would call me occasionally saying, hey, what about this? What about that? And I said, sure. You get it together on there. So that's where we're at. Very cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:48

Well, I hope it happens. One day, I saw a little trivia I found is he did the audio and did all the voices, that he was inspired by listening to Jim Jael, who did all the Harry Potter books and did all the voices for Harry Potter. And so that inspired him to want to do that for your book.

Bruce Ferber 26:07

Right, which is kind of the way a lot of people do audiobooks. Anyway, this new book that I have the guy who did it, he did great voices. And because it's about the Beatles, we wanted somebody who could do a liberal Liverpool accent and he got that, right. And then he did something that I've never had done in a audio book before for me anyway. And I told somebody about this. And they said, Wow, that's really cool. And what happened was, so I have this one character, and in the book, I describe his voice. This is the guy who speaks as John Lennon. He speaks in a Liverpool accent, but I describe his real voice as a cross between Judge Judy and a queen's taxi cab driver who bought his medallion in 1965. So heavy New York accent basically. Right? So somewhere in the book, there's a conversation between the main character Jimmy on the phone between Jimmy and Jean, the guy who has the New York accent, and so he put not only did he do the action really well, but he put it through a phone sound effect like a futz he did. Not only the voice but the phone call sound effect and it was fantastic.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:15

Oh, that's so cool. It's yeah, it was great. I buried Paul is your new book. Sorry to interrupt this amazing conversation with Bruce Furber. But we have to take a quick break. And we're back with Bruce Furber about to dive even deeper and I buried Paul and to all his amazing novels and we're back I buried follows a love letter to the power of music, a humorous yet moving exploration of the sacrifices it's disciples are willing to make and service to it's magic. I love the book. I thought it was great. But let's let's just tell everyone about your other books, at least really quick, if we want to just yet cascade Falls was your second book. Right? And then you had the way we work on the job in Hollywood. That's a nonfiction book. That's an that's a series of essays and got a bunch of people, including Billy Van Zandt, friend of this podcast of Bill Van Zandt, kind of just talking about Hollywood sort of an insider's look into

Bruce Ferber 28:12

I was the one who got Billy Van Zandt to write his book to make sure his book got done. Many moons ago, Billy gave me a draft of that book. I mean, many, many years ago, and he had mentioned to many people in the business by name, and he thought that the book wouldn't work if he had to cut out the names. And I said, You're crazy. It'll work if you cut out the name. And then I put together this book of essays, and I remembered Billy's book that hadn't yet been published. And I asked him if I could put the Lucille Ball essay in my book, and he said, Sure. And then from there that inspired him to do his book, which is great.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:49

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, getting the car Jane is. It's great. It's a great book. It's so good. Do you guys ever compare notes show runner notes and all that kind of stuff cuz he's got to go to shows you got to cool this. This shows the two of you together via a hell of a panel.

Bruce Ferber 29:03

Oh, we were you know, we were on a show together. That's that's how we met. This was one of the pay the rent jobs, right. And Billy and I would be on this show till three o'clock in the morning every night. And it was just held. And at one point, I think Billy put this in the book. At one point, Billy looked across the table in the writers room, he looked across the table at me and said, Bruce, I want you to go out to the parking lot. Get in your car, drive it through this building and run me over and I said to him only if you guarantee that I die in the accident. That's how bad

Jeff Dwoskin 29:36

was that Martin? Okay, that's the only one I recognize that that I knew from crossover but

Bruce Ferber 29:43

okay, that's how we met and we've been really good friends ever since. Great guy.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:50

That's a funny Do you not want to tell me what show was? It was nurses. Oh, nurses. Okay, NBC nice.

Bruce Ferber 29:56

Why do I care now? What are they gonna do?

Jeff Dwoskin 29:58

Nurses was before my Okay, NBC

Bruce Ferber 30:00

doesn't even remember that it did that show.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:04

Right, right. I don't think anyone but then you guys worked on Martin together. And that was a better. Martin.

Bruce Ferber 30:09

He worked on Martin and he hired me to do a script,

Jeff Dwoskin 30:11

right. You've worked out you did a script. So you guys got to work together there. Okay, so nurses supervising producer for 20 episodes. So it's like you were there while

Bruce Ferber 30:20

I lasted maybe seven more episodes and Billy, something like that on nurses. I did a lot of housecleaning with me, they traded me to a different show that year. So

Jeff Dwoskin 30:30

got it when this release is the show notes are gonna pick up in SEO and nurses are going to start trending. And everyone's would be like, oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Everybody. Alright, so let's talk about I buried Paul. So are you obsessed with the Beatles is that what kind of drove you to the what drove me

Bruce Ferber 30:45

to this is I'm sort of obsessed with music. And I love the Beatles, I grew up with the Beatles. And you know, they're appearing on itself and all this stuff. But I'm obsessed with music. And one of the things that made me write about the made me use the Beatles as part of this book, is that I went back to Long Island for a wedding, where I'm from, and one of the guys I went to high school with was playing in a Beatles tribute bands. And they were pretty damn good. You know, I had known about Beatles tribute bands and the Fab Four and all this kind of stuff. But I didn't realize that there were so many of these. And there weren't that many back then. But that there were these people doing this on a local level in like a county park. And they were good. And then somewhere in watching them, I saw the van with all the wigs and stuff. And I said, Wow, this is crazy that you know, these guys who are like at that point, I guess they were in their late 50s Dressing up like the Beatles and wearing wigs. And this is just weird. And that just kind of stuck in my memory. So when I decided that I wanted to do a story about a musician trying to make a living in today's world, I thought may have him beat Paul McCartney and a Beatles tribute band. Because this is actually a job that Pete that musicians can get if you're good enough, I'm on these Beatles tribute band sites. You know, I see these ads, you know, in Barcelona looking for a Paul from August to October guaranteed gigs. They're looking for a John in Australia. You know, I mean, this is who ever imagined that this world would ever exist. And it's fascinating.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:22

That is one of the takeaways I took from the book. I was like, Oh, my goodness. And I'm sure that we don't want to give too much away because the books brand new, but like one of the things is a Beatles Battle of the Bands plays into it. Right? When I read that, I was like, Oh my God, that would be amazing. I've always wanted to see rain, they always come to Detroit, they buy the Fox Theater, I've always liked that would be really cool, especially with like, Oh, we're doing Abbey Road, or you know, like a predict. And I was like, That would be fun to go to. But I've never never actually done it. But like the idea of going to a Beatles battle of the band would be incredible. That was like, That's my kind of

Bruce Ferber 32:59

you can do that. You know, they have a big beetle fest every year. There's one in Chicago, I think that's this year, like somewhere around now. And then there's one in New Jersey next year. And I think they they may have these things if they do, it's probably on a slightly bigger level than mine. Although mine I took to the most absurd places because as I told, you know, I've been kind of now involved with some of these Beatles diehards from the podcast and the and the and the websites and stuff. And one guy said, Well, you know, in your book, you know, you went a little crazy with the tribute bands. I said, dude, for me, it's all about the music. I have total respect for the music, but the minute the wigs come out, it's fair game for comedy. So I ran with that and had a lot of fun with it.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:43

And you're 100% right, the fast.com that's the website that I found battle the bands Chicago this year. And then there's something coming up in New York as well. And it's been going on since 1974. So longest running Beatles thing.

Bruce Ferber 34:00

Yeah, I don't know how long the battle of the bands had been going on. But

Jeff Dwoskin 34:03

the fast has been going on since 1970.

Bruce Ferber 34:07

But the whole Beatle thing has gotten, you know, so out of control, the tribute thing is so out of control. If you look at all these bands, I mean, they just some of them look so creepy and so weird with the wigs and stuff. But again, you know, and I say this in the acknowledgments of the book that the musicianship in a lot of these tribute bands is just great. So more power to them, right.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:27

Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, when you think about like a body of music that even just evolved right as much as the Beatles evolved their music. I that's one of the things that was interesting in the book when they were kind of determining what got you know, strategizing and going in early Beatles, mid bird Beatles late Beatles. As it's like almost different bands. I mean, it's like, you know, it's so I mean,

Bruce Ferber 34:49

it's all my stuff, you know, and you know, somebody asked me what are the IDS all real beetle trimarans I didn't know I made I made them up, you know, because if you can't be free writing fiction, to make up tribute bands. There's something wrong.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:03

So how much of this does you pull from yourself? I mean, are you a musician yourself or

Bruce Ferber 35:07

I'm a very amateur musician, I love to play. And I know a lot of musicians, I see a lot of music, I just have a really taken, it really made an impact on me how many fantastic musicians there are in Los Angeles studio musician quality that really struggle to to make a living at what they do. And they're good enough 20 times over to be doing this professionally.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:32

It's a good time to be talking Beatles too. I mean, I mean, I don't think it's ever gone away. But we'll get back. And just before that McCartney three to one, there's been a lot of focus on the early Beatles creation of the Beatles, all that kind of stuff I saw in the book I read in the book you referenced get back as well. So it was obviously going on as you were writing it.

Bruce Ferber 35:56

Well, I lucked out that my last edit where I was allowed to make one last bit of changes came right after get back came out. So I was able to just sort of sneak that in. I wrote the book way before get back came out. But it made sense to make it get back reference in the book. Because even storywise, I take

Jeff Dwoskin 36:16

it you watch that it was fascinating. It was fascinating.

Bruce Ferber 36:19

It was long. To me, it was kind of depressing, because I am of the opinion that no one should have to do creative work with one of the partners, significant other sitting in the room next to them, it looked like really inhibiting for the other guys, you know that they had to sit there, you know, she's sitting there next to John and not contributing anything. And it's like, you can just sense how hard that must have been, in addition to all the other stuff they were going that was going on with George not being happy that his contributions weren't being valued and stuff.

Jeff Dwoskin 36:54

I'm of the mindset that I wish there was more George, I think with Beatles songs, tell me if you if you agree with this or not at different points in your lives, you have different favorite Beatles songs, right? That's one of the kind of cool things about the band, you can love a certain collection of songs, and then a different set become really the ones that you want to hear and kind of resonate. I like I'm at the point. I love all the like, I love all the George Harrison songs. Those to me are some of the best Beatles songs. And it was maybe it's good that there were just a few, you know, just so but I love it. It's a good point with get back. It's it is annoying when people are in the room. Paul seemed to be able to rise above it a little bit. I found it fascinating. The restoration, they'll look like they film that look like they filmed it yesterday.

Bruce Ferber 37:41

It was great. Now, you know, speaking to your point, you made a great point about, you know, changing which songs you like, there's a great book by a writer named Rob Sheffield, called dreaming the Beatles. And one of the lines in one of the first chapters is for those of us who love the Beatles, he writes that your Beatles change as you change. So as you get older as you go through different things in your life, you know, you might have been like a big Paul fan early on. And then as you get older, you appreciate George's stuff more. And it was I thought a really good point,

Jeff Dwoskin 38:16

right? I think the only constant is Ringo is always great if you're drunk. We all live and he's fun. It's his birthday today. You

Bruce Ferber 38:26

didn't wish him a happy birthday. Happy

Jeff Dwoskin 38:28

birthday to Ringo. But now we updated the podcast.

Bruce Ferber 38:33

Luckily, you can you have a little edit.

Jeff Dwoskin 38:35

I'm kidding. Okay. So how would you describe the book I buried Paul to the audience, like what's your summary of the book, we don't want to give too much away. But if you had written it like a while ago, we could dive into certain areas of it. But we want people to read it. And we don't want to give away any of the plot points or the fun meat.

Bruce Ferber 38:51

It's all about the creative process. This book, it's all about it's like being it's about being a writer, being musician being an artist. It's like what does it take? What does it take to be an artist? What does it take to satisfy you as an artist and make you feel good that you're doing the best work you possibly can. And in this case, the lead character, the book is trying to be the best musician and the most creative musician he can be one of the things he must do to pay the rent, just as I worked on Webster, he works in a Beatles tribute band, except he's playing the best rock and roll music ever. I don't think many people would say that Webster was the best sitcom ever made. Maybe you but not

Jeff Dwoskin 39:31

nobody has a plan. It has a place in my heart. Okay.

Bruce Ferber 39:36

So that's, that's what it's about. For me. It's about finding your way musically, and it's really about people. And I don't know if you feel this doing what you do. There are people who feel like they can't really be comfortable unless they're creating or creating something and even you know, for those of us with day jobs or whatever, just to be able to create something of our own. We feel better for doing it, and there's some people who don't create it all. But for those of us who do, that's what really what this book is about. This book is about the creative process and realizing your dream,

Jeff Dwoskin 40:10

I agree with you 100% I'm of the L to just you have to always be doing something have to be doing something. The book is a great read. It's humorous, it's got hearts. It's a great story. It reads quick, which to me is good, because it means I mean, I don't want to, I wanted to keep getting back to it. So I enjoyed it a lot. And I, of course, love the whole Beatles, or the Beatles parts of it, you weave all that in. So it was a real fun to store in general Q. And it tugs at the heart. And there was a couple of tugs at the heart there along the way, as well. So it's got everything. Thank you, Jeff. You're welcome. I love it. What is next for you, Bruce?

Bruce Ferber 40:48

Okay, so we talked about TV, I have this animated show I'm trying to sell that is, I think it's great. And I can say that because it's based on a book written by somebody who's not me, I found this book and I said, this is this is a fantastic idea for a series and I'm trying to sell this thing. And it's just, it's very difficult out there trying to sell television shows. It's a different different landscape. From what I remember, for one thing, all the pitches are like this, they're on Zoom, you know, and now you send them the script or the written stuff afterward. But there's something different when you're not in the room with the people you're trying to sell. So there's that. And then I also have a new novel that I've been working on.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:30

You're like the busiest guy ever novel, after novel, you got so many, but you're a writer, so you gotta get the words out. But you

Bruce Ferber 41:36

know what, the only reason that it looks like I'm so productive, and I am somewhat productive. It took me a year to so I buried Paul after I'd written it. And then I had two years of COVID, where I had nothing else to do. So I had this idea for a novel. And that's how I spent my time. You know, I needed something to do. So. There I was.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:55

I feel like I buried Paul, the whole idea of a Beatles cover band. Is that a Beatles cover band? Is that what they're called? Well,

Bruce Ferber 42:02

this is a tribute. Thank you. That's I just thought they were the outfits.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:06

Yeah, I just lost the word for like, I knew there was a better way. The whole idea of a Beatles tribute band, I think would make a great series. I think that would be hilarious. You know, because like, that would be fun. And there'll be different acts and the music it would be I think it'd be cool so we can get Jason Alexander to be John Ringo

Bruce Ferber 42:25

wig, the wig. No longer bald. He's got bangs like mo Howard.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:34

Bruce, do you hang out on any of the social medias? I do, which ones Facebook?

Bruce Ferber 42:38

I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram. I don't do tick tock. I don't dance for the camera or anything like that. I can start I suppose. But yeah, I'm everywhere.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:48

Awesome. So I'll put links in the show notes people can catch up.

Bruce Ferber 42:51

And I do have a website Bruce Ferber dotnet

Jeff Dwoskin 42:54

for all your Bruce needs

Bruce Ferber 42:56

for all your needs. And more and more. Bruce,

Jeff Dwoskin 42:59

thanks for hanging out with me. I really appreciate it. A lot of thank you

Bruce Ferber 43:02

so much, Jeff. And I'm glad Paul hooked us up.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:06

Great. Awesome. I hope I very Paul continues to be a huge success. I hope your next novel huge success. And I'll have you back and we'll talk about that one too. All righty. And we'll deep dive into Webster. We'll do a show by show breakdown of Webster you go when you

Bruce Ferber 43:21

thanks so much. Take care. All right. How

Jeff Dwoskin 43:23

awesome was Bruce Ferber great stories about being show runner at home improvement? probably no surprise. Tim Allen knows a lot about locks. Definitely get Bruce's book I buried Paul. All his books are amazing. There's a link in the show notes or go to Bruce Ferber dotnet there's links to all his books there and all his everything's all your Bruce Ferber needs as mentioned in the interview are there you love the Beatles? You're gonna love I buried Paul. That's a guarantee. All right. Well, we're the interview over I can only mean one thing. That's right it Jamba another trending hashtag and the family of hashtags. Hashtag round up, download the free o waste free hashtag roundup app at the Google Play Store, iTunes App Store, tweet along with us follow us on Twitter at hashtag round up play the hashtag games and one day one of your tweets may show up on a future episode of glass A conversations fame and fortune awaits you. The hashtag for this episode, of course is Beatles themed. You had to see that common musical hashtags did a fun one called #BadlyDescribeTheBeatles that'd be a funny one to dive into or retweet all these at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter that I'm going to read tweet your own #BadlyDescribeTheBeatles tweet with that hashtag tag us. I'll show you some Twitter love. In the meantime, thanks to musical hashtags. A weekly Game On hashtag Roundup. Let's dive into #BadlyDescribeTheBeatles the band And before wings at as a bad way to describe the Beatles second rate monkeys ah just getting worse like Spinal Tap except with the same drummer a riddles cover band the OG boy band for guys who just want to hold your hand is definitely #BadlyDescribeTheBeatles tweets so badly describing the Beatles The reason my brother's smokes weed and socks to the mailbox I'm not sure you can blame the Beatles on the mailbox part for dudes with bowl haircuts a barbershop quartet that didn't spend much time at the barber shop five guys from Manchester and our final #BadlyDescribeTheBeatles tweet the wiggles with long hair and we ah no fruit salad. Yummy, yummy. Ah, that is a horrible way to describe the Beatles. But if you need good Beatles check out I buried Paul from my special guests. Bruce Ferber. That's right with the interview over the hashtag game over where the end of episode 162 Thanks again to my special guests, Bruce Ferber can't believe all the time has come and gone. Thanks to all of you for coming back week after week. I can't thank you enough. And I'll see you next time.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai