#254 TV Writing Legend Chris Cluess

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:28

All right, Jennifer, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get this show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 254 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for what's sure to be another classic episode for the ages. My guest today is legendary TV writer Emmy Award winner executive producer, Chris Cluse. loved his work on Mad TV SEC v. Cheers nikecourt so many amazing stories coming up in just a few seconds. And in these few seconds. I just wanted to remind you, if you haven't got your groove on if you didn't go all Brady rific Susan Olsen, Cindy Brady. My interview on episode 252 awaits you. We dive deep into the Brady Bunch variety hour, one of the craziest shows ever to be on TV, and we dive deep. And we're diving deep today. Chris Clews. Amazing writer, executive producer and amazing storyteller. tons of stories are right now. Enjoy. All right, everyone. I'm excited to introduce you to my next guest producer writer, Emmy Award winner. You've loved his work and mad TV as CTV chair Simpson nikecourt. So many classics, we'll see what we can get to in this time. Welcome to the show, Chris Cluse. Hey, good day. Good day. Hello. Hello. Hello, Chris, your your writing and producing career. It's like it's a greatest hits of everything I've loved.

Chris Cluess 2:09

You know, it's funny. I've done a couple of these recently. And that's what everybody said. So that makes me happy.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:15

I don't even know where to start the show. We start with a tour tallies. I don't know.

Chris Cluess 2:21

That was the worst experience. So thank you. Let's get that out of the way. My dog is barking in the distance. Yeah, let's get the tortellini out of the way. It was the worst. Okay, so that's it over.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:34

That was a spin off of cheers, which I assume I hope was a better experience.

Chris Cluess 2:40

But what happened was we had gotten to what they used to call, I think they still have them but because something called an overall deal at a studio. So you'd make a deal. And you were exclusive to the studio. And they would set you up in offices and pay you fairly handsomely for doing basically nothing. It was compelling. High end welfare. That really was great. And I was so sorry to see it go. But we had that deal with Paramount, we being my partner, Stu Kreisman, and myself. And we had the deal at Paramount. And part of the deal was we could be asked to consult on current programs. So we met with Glenn last Charles and Jim Burroughs who were the brains behind cheers also behind the tour tallies, and asked us to join the show because they needed a little bit of help as what we were told. So we went there. As I said it was a nightmare. And so we did the inverted route to cheers instead of going from from civilian life to cheers. We went from civilian life to the tortellini is then begged the Charles brothers to fire us from the show because we couldn't get out. And they instead brought us over to cheers for the rest of the season. So that's, that's how we got there.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:59

So you are with your so you wrote one episode, but you are

Chris Cluess 4:02

consultants on that show? Yeah, we would come to pitch meetings and writer writer meetings. And that was it was so wonderful. I mean, they had such a wonderful people there and, and the show itself, as you, as you know, was just one of the classics of American television history. Some people think is the best sitcom that ever existed in they could be right.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:25

Yeah. And in season five, it's really long. So

Chris Cluess 4:28

Shelley is an old friend of mine. Our kids went to preschool together. That was after we did the time on cheers. And part of the reason that not the reason so much was part of the MO behind. The episode that we wrote for the show was they wanted to test out how the show would play without her because she was planning on or threatening anyway to leave the show after the after that season and her Her contract was up, they began to really take her seriously. So they we pitched an idea to them and they bought it and we wrote it. And she read it. And she said, Where am I and that forced the entire thing to be rewritten. So what was going to be a test case on the Shelly less cheers turned out to be Shelly was in it. So we never found out till she left.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:25

I was gonna say I watched the episode she was definitely Anatolia was an original attempt to backdoor kind of see how the show would do.

Chris Cluess 5:33

Ilana? Yeah. Which, which just didn't, it didn't happen because she, I think she got got a great strong sense of it. She was in the opening scene, and then she was gone. And next thing you know, she's back in.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:45

Is that why it's called The Godfather? Part three, called The

Chris Cluess 5:47

Godfather Part Three, because the character of jewel Yeah, her name was Joyce was, which is also oddly enough, my wife's name, and the coach who had passed away was her godfather. No, I'm wrong. Sam was her God. Sam

Jeff Dwoskin 6:05

was the guy. Okay, got it. And was the godfather. Right. Joyce was coaches. Nice.

Chris Cluess 6:09

Yes, that's right. Joyce was coaches. Nice. So she came, and as you know, gets hooked up with Woody and it was a really I thought was a really funny episode.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:18

And what's a really fun episode? Yeah, but he has a now you, you watch. They all cheer as you like. He was really really really funny.

Chris Cluess 6:25

He was really funny. And what he's very underrated guy. He's a I think he's a great actor. Be sure was great on that show. No question about it. It was completely different thing. Nick who play coach, he was that wonderful kind of naivete that, that just plays you know, because he looked at a set it and he, you know, just everyone fell in love with Woody.

Jeff Dwoskin 6:48

Like, it's one of those cases where that character gets replaced, or, I mean, Coach died. So it was by like, it comes in as its own thing. Yeah. It wasn't

Chris Cluess 6:57

really yeah, really opened open the show for a lot of stories. Were you

Jeff Dwoskin 7:01

there during the transition then to Kirstie Alley? Oh, that was

Chris Cluess 7:04

I came the following season. And we were doing pilots at Paramount at that time.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:09

Your start, though, back in New York was at the National Lampoon as tributing editor.

Chris Cluess 7:15

Yeah, yes, it was, and still something I'm very proud of, and very pleased to have been a part of. So we arrived in what I call the golden era had just kind of passed when Michael O'Donoghue and, and beats and some of the other writers from the magazine left for the Saturday Night Live. We arrived afterwards. So what I call the silver era, not quite as exciting as the goal, but still pretty good. We had Sean Kelly and Tony Hendra and PJ O'Rourke and Ellis wiener and Jeff Greenfield and John Hughes. And so it was we went back.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:56

And it sounds like a nice lineup.

Chris Cluess 7:58

It was a very good lineup. I have a great story about we how we got there, if you'd like to hear it.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:03

Oh, yeah, I like to focus in on all the great stories. So please,

Chris Cluess 8:07

yeah, it's a pretty good one. Stu and I were trying to be writers together a writing team. And we had spent, I don't know, maybe a couple of years, we both worked at CBS in New York. And we had these kind of administrative jobs. And we would write in the evening together or on Saturdays, or whenever it was, sometimes they work whenever we could get the time to do it. So we compiled a rather thick book of sketches that we had no idea what to do with, you know, we were writing spec sitcoms, we wrote a spec sitcom for we wrote a spec Barney Miller, and managed to misspell 85% of the character's name. So that was not one of our high moments. But we had this thing in the bag. And we had it and we wrote all these sketches. And then along comes Saturday Night Live, or as it was known then the first week, NBC Saturday night, sun Sunday morning, I called him at his house and I said, Did you see that thing on NBC last night at 1130? And he said I yeah, I was just amazing. I mean, that's really what we should take are great sketches down there, and they could hire us and he said, Yeah, that's it. That sounds like a good idea. So that Monday on our lunch break, we scurried over from CBS to NBC to Rockefeller Plaza rockville center, and 30 Rock and went into the lobby and walked up to the desk or the these two guards sat one doing the crossword puzzle, not looking at us at all. And the other guy kind of bored looking. We walk up and we say, Excuse me, can you tell us where Saturday night is? Well, that sounded like a feel physical question to this guy, I think and the other guy, we did not respond and the first guys seemed confused by the question. And finally, the second guy who never looked up from his crossword puzzle said, third floor. And this guy, the other guy had no idea what we were talking. So we left behind this confused security guard went to the third floor, watched furniture being moved around by Chevy Chase and Al Franken, and then all these guys that we would come to know later, although we knew Chevy, but that we come to know later, we walked up to this woman whose name was Kathy min kowski. I will never forget her as long as I live. And she was Lorne Michaels assistant. I remember Chris, she had a little nametag that said that we said, Hi, we are the weird guys from Hulu, you should be reading our sketches because we've written these sketches over the last year or two. And they're really great. And we think you should hire us. And she said, You seem charming and nice and everything, but you need to leave because I can't accept any unsolicited material. So I said, How do we get it solicited? And she said through your agent, and I thought, well, we're dead. We don't we don't have an agent. And she said, Well, that's that's a problem. You need to go get an agent and then have them submit your material. So we said well, look, we You said we're chart, we're nice. We're charming. I'm telling you, we're really funny. And you should read this. And she said, I'm telling you that if you leave this with me, I'm going to have to put it in the trash. So we looked at each other. And we kind of challenge that and say, Well, you know, we'll take that chance we're gonna leave this with you gonna, and we're gonna bet you're not going to put it in the trash because you're going to reopen it up and read it, you're going to laugh and then you're gonna go I gotta give this to my boss, and he was gonna read it. And then we're gonna get jobs here. And she said, that's not going to happen. So don't leave it. So we left it and we went to the elevator convinced, and once Adela elevator door opened, he walked in convinced that we would never see that again. And they were never going to call us and we had just really screwed this whole thing up. So we're going back to our jobs at CBS for the rest of the afternoon. Steve had a car. He was going to drop me off at the subway station on Seventh Avenue, and he was going home to Long Island. And when we got to the corner of 57th Street and Seventh Avenue right up from Carnegie Hall. He's talking about his career in the sports world as a sports caster. And I'm looking past him and a door opens up and out of that door walks Danny Ackroyd, John Belushi and Garrett Morris, this was Kismet. This was meant to happen. They walked directly in front of students corner and into a waiting taxi cab in front of us. And for the first time in my life, I actually uttered the phrase follow that cab, and he followed the cab all the way down to the Atlas statue on Fifth Avenue across across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral in front of 30 rock cap pulled up and he pulled a car up behind him and he said if you're ever going to make an impression on anybody do it now. So I got out of the car completely nervous to step towards the guys as they began to get out of the cab. There were probably 1000 people on that street because it was just around Thanksgiving time. People were shopping and looking and doing I walked up to them and at the top of my lungs. I said stop. I'm not going to hurt you. Well, what they heard in New York in 1975 was stop. I'm going to hurt you. So Garrett Morris ran away. Balu she covered up and Ackroyd took a fighter stance. He was going to fight me right there on Fifth Avenue. And I said hold on, hold on, hold on. No fighting. Here's what happened. I told him the story about Kathy Minkowskian leaving the stuff and going brokenhearted home. And I mean to back to work and now going home and then running into them because we believe that was Kismat. Well, Lucci just looked at me like I was the biggest asshole he had ever seen him, believe me, he'd seen some big animals, and accuride just kind of scratched his head. He said, Yeah, this sounds real somehow. So he gave me a card out of his pocket and a pen. He said, Write your phone number down on this. So I did. I wrote my phone number down, and then he left and they both went into the building. And as they were leaving blue, she looked at me and said, You are an asshole. And I said, Oh, thank you so much. And then he left and Steve had to go around the block about four times because the cops wouldn't let him stop. So he stops he picks me up. He says what happened? I said I told him what happened. I don't know what's going to happen. But boy, that was weird. That night at 1130 on that Wednesday night, my fault. Monday night, my phone rings, and it's Danny Ackroyd and he found the sketchbook in the trash. So he pulled it out of the trash, took it to his office, leaf through it and called me And he said, listen, some of this is okay. A lot of this is crap. So well, you know, thanks for calling that was really nice of you to call. And then he said, but the stuff that it's good is really good. So why don't you come in and see me tomorrow after you get off your work, which we did. And then we spent the next two weeks every day coming to visit Dan Ackroyd at Saturday Night Live. He gave us notes on all of our scripts. That's amazing. It was amazing. And we went away and we rewrote everything. And then he we gave it to him, he put together a pack. And he presented it to Lorne Michaels. He said, I really think the guys could do the show. Lorne Michaels said to him, we're barely breathing. We're not doing any more hiring this season. So Danny called and told us that and we were so happy that he had done all that for us. And he said, But and here's the point of this long story. He said, let me call Sean Kelly over at the Lampoon, I think they could use you. And he called him up. And sure enough, we set out about appointment went over to lampoon and we were there for the next three years, I quit my street job, and we were off and running. So that's, that's a story. That's incredible. Yeah, it really is. And I've told it so many times, it's, it almost sounds wrote to me, but every once in a while I listen to what I'm saying and realize how lucky we were.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:22

So what was it like working with accuride during those weeks, like getting notes, and

Chris Cluess 16:27

it was great. We actually became very good friends. I mean, he was so friendly to us such a good guy such a good human being, you know, just rocketing to they were all rocketing to stardom. He took so much time to do that with us. Years later, when we were at Warner Brothers. He approached us he said, I've got a pilot at CVS that I would like you guys to write. And we were doing our own thing at that point. But we because it was Danny, we took the assignment, and we wrote a pilot with Danny and that was really fun. But the really cool thing, and now we were hanging around that he had an office very close to us. And we used to go and play cards. We were you know, very friendly with each other. The first time we saw him after that Saturday Night Live thing was in 1982. At the Emmys. We were nominated for Emmy for SCTV. He was Catherine O'Hara's date and sitting directly behind me at the ceremony. Candy was on my left Ackroyd was right behind me. And I turned around and sue was down the robot. And I turned around, I said, Do you remember me? And he remembered everything that happened. And he said, I can't believe you're getting you might get an Emmy tonight. And we did.

Jeff Dwoskin 17:43

You did get an Emmy, they'll be dead. That's a pretty cool story. How like certain people in your life and can pop up at certain times. So the Emmy that of which you speak for SCTV Yeah. You shared with Catherine O'Hara

Chris Cluess 17:58

with all cash. And I think there were six or seven additional writers.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:04

It's crazy when you think like that was Catherine O'Hara was only me up until the point where she won the Emmy for acting and shits Creek. She had never done an actual acting MH. Only a writing me when I shared with you.

Chris Cluess 18:17

Yeah, well, I don't look at it as only writing me. Well, no, no, I

Jeff Dwoskin 18:20

mean, I mean, I mean, for Catherine O'Hara. Oh, I know. Yeah. I mean, she. She'd never one word for act. You'd never want one for acting. That's all I met.

Chris Cluess 18:30

No. And no one none of that cast was ever nominate. We remember this, though. The show was only to NBC seasons. And then there was a big lag and then they did Cinemax. And so the two NBC seasons, they were nominated Tony, for writing, I think a total of five or five times. And they won. I won both years. I can't remember anybody being nominated as an actor from the show. And they should have been all nominated for that.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:02

Yeah. Great. Sorry to interrupt, have to take a quick break. I want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors. You're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my fabulous conversation with Chris close to dive into the first time he worked with Catherine O'Hara and we're back. But you worked with Catherine O'Hara, even before SCTV which is in something called from Cleveland. Well, boy,

Chris Cluess 19:31

you've done your research. Yes. There's a very fine and great TV producer director named Rocco RBC on the very first TV show we worked. He was the producer, the creative producer. We did a couple of projects with him right away after that the very earliest, our earliest days, so 1980 9079 the end of 79. He said um, I just sold a concept at CBS. And the concept was that put together a an act and you Know a troupe of writers and actors, and we would travel around the country and do a duet late night show once a month from different cities. And I remember not saying anything, but just thinking to myself, This is the worst idea I have ever heard. And I didn't say to him because I loved them. And he said, I'd like you guys to be part of this. And we said, of course, we would love to do that. So in the right at the end of February in 1980, we went off to Cleveland, Ohio, where we I didn't probably didn't need Ohio. It's like Paris, France. You don't you really don't need France we generally made of his Texas as one thing, but so we went off the SCTV cast without John Candy, and this was before Miranda's, so it was everyone else Dave and Eugene, Catherine, etcetera, etcetera, Joe Flaherty. So we went often date in a place called Swing goes and you got to hit the G it's important swing goes celebrity hotel, and there were plenty of celebrities there at that time. It was a Blackstone, the magician was there. The Boomtown Rats were there and one night while leaving my room, forgotten the guy's name you serve somebody rather who started Live Aid, but he was this this British Rockstar. I walked past him and he was wet and nude in the hallway, cursing the Coke machine. And then I knew rock and roll was the life for me. Bob Geldof Yes, Geldof right? And now he also said to me as it was going to the elevators, no filthy welder in his folk in place, okay, then there may be clothing, so you might want to try that. So we stayed in this hotel and we everybody in showbusiness, I'm gonna come through in the month we were there, and we wrote every day and then we go go and shoot the stuff that we wrote and we shot probably, I think we shot three hours of a show. And when it came time to compile it, Rocco tried his best he said, I can't link any of this. The sketches are so desperate, I can't Lincoln. So somebody suggested maybe Oh, actually was his idea. He was going to get this guy, Kid Leo, who was the number one rock and roll disc jockey in Cleveland, which is saying a lie because Cleveland was a capital of rock and roll at one time. And so he's gonna get kid kid Leo. And by the time we got back, and he was working, he was at back in California. And he was putting the show together, Kid Leo just kind of disappeared. So we were stuck without a narrative. And I suggested to him that we Bob and Ray, because we had had a quite an afternoon with him once. And he said, If you could get those guys, that will be amazing. And we got those guys, we got them to come out to Santa Monica and record the stuff. We need them record on video and audio. And that show was well put together. And surprisingly, I mean, I'm shocked to this day at CBS didn't pick it up because it really was crazy. And you can see it by the way on a YouTube you can look at from Cleveland. So that's where we first met Catherine and the whole guy. Yeah. And it was because of that connection, because we did that show that when NBC picked up SCTV they called us in and wanted to wanted us to come to Canada, and we did

Jeff Dwoskin 23:20

awesome. Yeah, I watched some of it on YouTube. There was a really funny sketch with Eugene Levy And Dave Thomas acting as homeless people. We wrote

Chris Cluess 23:28

that we're still when I wrote that. That was that was the opening of the show. Yeah. Really? Really? Yeah, guy. So I'm going to the boat show or whatever.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:37

This watch. Okay, so Alright, so that was before season three of SCE so then as Season Three happens, and then NBC pulls it over for season four. Right? Right to replace the Midnight Special.

Chris Cluess 23:52

Yes. Which Rocco also had produced which I loved.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:57

Now John Candy's back right now. It's 90 minutes. It's now SCTV network

Chris Cluess 24:03

network 90 network 90 had everything everything that it was it was in their title.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:09

The whole kitchen sink. So I mean, an insane cast. And then towards the end of this year is when Martin Short joined

Chris Cluess 24:18

well join the next season. He wasn't what no you don't he did show up at the very end. You're right. You're right. Because he was in a sketch that we wrote right at the end. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 24:28

cuz he's listed with your me too. Oh, no, no, he's not. That's Michael. Oh, he's his brother Mike. Michael short his brother.

Chris Cluess 24:34

Yeah, yeah, it was hilarious and just a fine human being.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:39

Dave Thomas at the time is the head writer showrunner. No, there was no showrunner the

Chris Cluess 24:43

show. That show was run by chaos. And I don't mean Maxwell Smart. Thanks for getting the reference. Yeah, but it really was a chaotic, free for all without a producer. There was a producer named Ellen Rucker who was a very fine guy who was on the show, but he He was doing it was more or less doing line producing. He wasn't really being a creative producer. And there was another guy named Patrick Whitney, or Whitley. And he was also a producer, but didn't know what the hell he did. And then there was that was it. Then there was the cat on he had solids, and they were never there. So now Andrew Alexander, so none of there was no real producer input by anybody. And so Dave was kind of anointed head writer. But then that went away. And then Dick was Suchi. And Paul Flaherty got it, then that left and then it was back to Dave, and then it was Joe. And then what it came down to, they would write, everyone would write, they didn't write as a group, generally, they would, you know, go away and write and then put it in a pack, just like any other sketch show, and read everything. Those who were, you know, then any politic, they would politic for their pieces, because they were unofficially, the producers of the show. And so there was a lot of chaos. But I think out of that chaos came amazing creativity. It was almost like, can you top this,

Jeff Dwoskin 26:07

it's fine, like on IMDb design 39 episodes, CTV I was surprised my son and um, I would have expected it to be so much higher, but there was years that it spanned it wasn't necessarily on every year of that duration.

Chris Cluess 26:22

No, it was on the first two seasons. First season was, I think they made the entire rundown. I don't know how many episodes or were, but I think they made the whole thing for about $400 There was no money and there was no sponsorship, and they were lucky to survive. The only thing they had going for them in a crazy way was their incredible creativity. Anybody who saw the show was enamored with it, and was amazed by it. Because you know, you know, knew there was no budget and you knew there was nothing really, but they would just create amazing characters in great situations and, and do them on a cheap, but that was what sort of made this show because the whole idea of for those who people who are not are not familiar with a CTV, the idea was simple that it was a small television station, somewhere in the world in North America. It had no budget, and it was just a place like a little TV station that could and that was the idea. And that's what kind of gave license to all of the amazing creative things that they did. Because it was, you know, the basis was this place run by a guy in a wheelchair who didn't really need the wheelchair. So that's pretty much all you need to know

Jeff Dwoskin 27:40

that so flattering. Exactly. The low budget was the low budget

Chris Cluess 27:44

made it Yeah. And then later when NBC started pouring money into it was like they would look at each other and go, I don't know, we could do that. You know, they could do the Watergate Show and The Godfather, and that would never been able been done as well as it was done before. So there was a real blessing to increase budget, but maybe a little bit of the charm was missing, but didn't matter was still great. It was fantastic.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:09

Do you have a favorite sketch that you created? Yeah,

Chris Cluess 28:13

I got a couple of one. Well, there's so many while we were there are none of ours are made my top list, but they did Polynesia town, which absolutely kills me, because on that show, they couldn't just introduce music acts, they felt that they had to work them in organically. So for instance, John says Name doc, Dr. John appeared in that sketch, and it was all revolved around a parody of Chinatown, where Catherine plays Faye Dunaway and Johnny Maru is John candies Jack Nicholson's character, and the schnuck is played by Joe Flaherty who plays a character named Vic hedges that is one of the funniest characters I've ever seen in my life. But the sketch was known to people who love the show, and real aficionados as the the boom boom shot of the crane shot, that's what it was that there was a crane shot. They spent so much money on the crane that it became legendary. They someone made up T shirts, it said I had nothing to do with Polynesia town, we would wear them around the office.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:27

Would you that you would rank that as one of your career highlights?

Chris Cluess 29:31

Probably creatively number one, but I think that goes for everybody who was associated with it. You know, we only did one season, I believe 12 episodes. It's

Jeff Dwoskin 29:43

sort of a magical show in the sense that when you think about those, just every one of those Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moran and Catherine O'Hara, Dave, they John Candy, they all just kind of just blew up with

Chris Cluess 29:55

us. 1981 1981 and I I think Rick invented MTV, you know, with his DJ with his video DJ character, and then would do his own music videos that were just the best. He's a brilliant guy, Rick Maraniss? Yeah, he's really we did a sketch kind of helped him write it. But more importantly, we're in it Scott's called the Larry Siegel show. He had a meeting in LA with a movie producer named Joel Silva. He was so taken with this the characters character that he met, and he came back and he was working on an impression on him. He said, I don't know, we're not sure what we can do with him. So someone suggested I think it might have been my partner that put them in a talk show is the host of the talk show. Because once we saw how funny the character was, and so opposite of what a what a talk show host would be. So it became the Larry Siegel show, and we appeared as the comedy team of Dennis and David, the whole idea behind Joe Segal is no a Joe Silva, Joel Siegel is that nobody gets a word in. And that was just we sat on that stage, and we had to stop tape about 18 times because we would just laugh in the wrong places. And it's just, you know, purpley Lee hilarious, and it was great. So that was another of my favorites. I love that one. I love well, though, you know, we weren't there for the Godfather, but that certainly is one and there's so many, so many.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:27

So much greatness, no matter how much greatness can a person take I google though, Larry, the whole shebang. I watched it yesterday. It was yesterday. Is that what are you gonna do watch reruns of the Fonzie?

Chris Cluess 31:41

What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do the same five minutes that was screaming at us. We didn't know what he was going to do that. And that's what was so funny about it is he just let go and it was so full of anger, you know, so full of anxiety. And that's who later on, we got a call. My agent got a call to Joe Silva would like to meet you guys. So we thought, oh, maybe this is the right one of his crappy movies. So we went over to Paramount again. And we met with Joseph, who sat in exactly the same way in the seat that Larry Segal did. And he said, So I was asked to be in a sketch with the guy playing me was like, oh, you know what a question. You don't have a ready answer for that. Other than it was great. Yeah, it was great. I love that I love that couldn't believe he was doing me. I couldn't believe it. We were Yeah, we're not because we want that movie, you know? So he's talking. We're not anywhere agreeing with everything he says. He says, I get the fuck out of here. And that was it. So only one dude was talking about himself.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:47

What do you do? That's fine. Let's move on to some other cool stuff that you've done. Other highlights? Do you have two shows that you created? Although I write with my with my

Chris Cluess 32:57

Bialik and we discovered a 19 year old Jennifer Aniston. That'll Jennifer and I have a funny story about that. Yeah. Well, here's the story. So our casting person brings us this nice cast. I mean, we had some really nice people in there. Pamela brule was in it and my mom and and she was 10 years old. And she was very funny. A very good little actress. She just come off a movie called beaches with wish she played a very young bet Midler. So she was she was a little bit hot. She had an eye. She had a deal with Fox, it was laid off at Warner Brothers Warner Brothers did a pilot of sorts. And that just failed and was pretty awful. And then they still had the commitment for six episodes. So they said, Would you guys do this? And we said, Well, we haven't ever run a show before. And he said, Well, could you redevelop it then? So we did we redevelopment it changed everything. And just the only thing the same was the title. And then they asked us to run it. We figured what the hell. So we go to casting at Fox because it was it was one of like four shows on Fox. They had some kind of cop show. And then it was something else. And it was married with children. And there was this. And they were I think they were living on three nights a week. I mean, it was really minor league baseball in those days. So it was a good training ground for us. So we go to see Peter Chernin, who was then running the TV division at Fox, and who I'm sorry, who was running the network at Fox. So we go to see him with this cast. And we have read and fallen in love with this 19 year old kid we just come out from New York name was Jennifer Aniston. We bring everybody in to read now what we did with her was he made sure we had somebody who there'll be no way that this guy would choose her over Jennifer impossible. If we could have gotten away with bringing in someone with some awful condition. We would have you know, but just to assure that she got the gig. So we walk in with this deck. Casting, casting and casting and he's sort of paying attention. And oh, yeah, it's fine and moving along. And then it was time for the sister who was played by Jennifer. So we, of course, bring in the other person first, who stinks it up. We're looking at each other smiling, you know. And this the casting director is smiling without him seeing us. And then she leaves. And he says, kind of like her. Oh, no, you're not. No, you're not supposed to like her. With the like, are and incomes, Jennifer? And she is funny. I mean, she's really funny. I don't have to tell you. She comes in at 19. She hits the ball on to the poor. And then he nods, and she leaves. And he said, I liked the first one better. And he thought, Oh, my God, this is impossible. How could you be this blind? So he said, Well, you know, let us bring in somebody else. Because we don't want you know, we don't want her so we leave. And Jennifer was waiting in the hallway. And I looked at her and just shook my head, no. And she burst into tears. And she runs out. And we're looking at each other. And our secretary is in the hall. And she says, if he didn't pay any attention, why don't you bring her back tomorrow? So well? Not a bad idea, except she's going to look exactly like she looks. And she said, No, she's not because I'm going to take her to what we used to call and she did call the beauty parlor, and we're going to hand out her hair. And I said, whatever that is, that sounds good. So we got another locks to bring in. And we brought in a head, Jennifer, who comes in and does exactly the same as she did the day before. And he says while she's even in the room, you're great. You got it. You got the part. Exactly the same thing. That's incredible. Yeah. And so that was her first job in television. And she was great.

Jeff Dwoskin 36:53

She is one of the most naturally hilarious sitcom actresses like she's just she's got a knack for that you does her timing is so she's so funny. And it was that good when she was 19. I'm a big fan of her leprechaun movie. Oh, yeah.

Chris Cluess 37:06

By the way, did we have busted her balls so many times over that?

Jeff Dwoskin 37:12

I went through a leprechaun movie phase right. Which I was obsessed. Yeah. As movies. fades. Yeah. I love that. I love those movies. The other TV show that you created was to Madman of the people. Right, Dabney Coleman. The must see TV. That's the main

Chris Cluess 37:29

story in my book when I write it. That was the hardest year of my life. The whole from conception conception was easy. I'm not going to bore you with all the details. But conception was easy. The casting was so hard NBC would not we we wrote it with Judd Hirsch in mind, because it was supposed to be kind of a a non New York liberal guy who wrote for this magazine like Pete Hamill, or Jimmy Breslin, or one of those guys, you know, so we thought John Hirsh would be the Jewish version of Breslin but real New York and the guy was angry and somewhat angry anyway, the world but he had his lovely home life and the concept was that his daughter becomes a publisher in the magazine. So he has to work for her. Okay. It's not the most original one, a great premise. But the late Jamie Tarsus saw her own story on it when she was the buyer at NBC. Because when you pitched it to CBS, and we got a pass and then we pitch it in BC and we got an immediate buy, they bought it in a room, they she loved that. And it became very clear. Her father was Jay Tarsus, who is one of the legendary situation comedy writers. And she had a kind of an interesting relationship with him where he he had worked for her and when she was an executive, so she bought the concept. And right away, I was very, very high on it, but also had to get we had to get the casting. Right. And it was a real struggle to get that done. We ended up with Dabney Coleman, who got to be honest with you, nobody really thought it was right. But he got it made. And we you know, we got it on in this end, the pilot was tested. The only pilot that tested higher than that on NBC in preceding 10 years was the Cosby Show, and a pilot went through the roof and we got picked up for the for a season. And it was the worst year of my life. It was a horrible struggle was really awful. So thanks for bringing it up.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:31

Oh, I'm sorry. It does have the distinction of being one of the highest rated show so ever to get

Chris Cluess 39:37

rid get canceled. canceled. Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing was that it premiered the same night, as two shows. You may have heard of an ER which of those three shows do you not remember? That's right.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:49

Okay. Well, they were they ended up replacing your time slot with friends. So this was my tie back, which was you created the juggernaut of Jennifer Aniston.

Chris Cluess 39:59

Yeah. was all my fault.

Jeff Dwoskin 40:02

Alright, let's talk nikecourt Let's, let's go into happier times.

Chris Cluess 40:05

Listen, that was there was a lot of happy times you had wonderful writers on the show and it was was a really fun show to do expect except if you had to deal with a certain person on the show, but it was, you know, it was it was it was good, but it really don't it put me in the hospital woke up one morning in the middle of the season. And I had a what is called hummingbird heart was 178 beats a minute. Wow. Yeah. So I rushed myself off to I was rushed off by my wife to the hospital, the cardiologist who had to treat me because he had to get my heart rate down. He said is you have no heart disease, you have nothing wrong with your heart. This is pure anxiety. And he said, Dude, what do you think is causing it? I said, Well, it could be my job. He said, then you need to quit your job. Now we didn't until it was too late. Anyway, moving on. Well, I'm

Jeff Dwoskin 40:58

glad you're okay from that, or fine. Another classic Nightcore. You were there in the beginning. And then at the end is showrunner

Chris Cluess 41:05

began with the idea of four seasons out of the nine, the first two and the last two, we'd written a movie for Columbia in 1982. When we came back from SCTV, we pitched them a baseball movie at Columbia called MVP. We sold it and they they wanted us to write it specifically for Bill Murray, who was literally left SNL and they wanted to make into a movie star, which happened without their benefit. I mean, I don't think they they were necessary. So we wrote this, because we also he, we knew that he had named his son, Homer banks, Murray, and bank system. Ernie Banks, the Chicago shortstop and Homer, of course, was what you do in a baseball game. So we wrote it for him, and specifically, and we turned it into Columbia, and they they called us up and said, Yeah, we this is great. We love this. And we're gonna go to Bill with it. And they did. And Bill, to my knowledge, and this is now 42 years later, has still not read it. So when he does, it will be the 70 year old rookie on the baseball team, funny story affiliated with that worked on a TV show with a guy named Michael Leeson, who very good comedy writer on a show that he created. We were kind of consulting on the show, and I told him that story. And he said, I got a better one than that, because you always have to talk everyone's stories. So his his is this. He wrote a spec script called the survivors. And he sold it at arm out and it was they wanted Bill Murray to do it. Bill Murray wouldn't read it. And Robin Williams got the part and Walter Matthau and it was a bomb. And many years later, when blockbuster was still around there. It was a yellowing of VHS copy of it sitting in the 99 cent bin when Michael Leeson gets a phone call from Bill Murray saying I'll do it.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:06

That's amazing.

Chris Cluess 43:07

Yeah, I got a lot of amazing stories.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:11

So nikecourt Same thing with chairs out.

Chris Cluess 43:15

Why I said that because the this the MVP script, got to write a little wiggy we had never done a sitcom. And so he had read it, someone gave it to him and he read it and he loved it. And he called us up he said can you come here and then we went there and then he said I'd like to make you guys staff writers and we said that sounds like something we could do.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:34

And that's what happened. Did you enjoy the time at night kart two of

Chris Cluess 43:37

us and a guy named a lovely guy and a great talent named Tom reader. So it was the three of us with Ronnie that did the whole the first 13 episodes and it was so much fun to do

Jeff Dwoskin 43:48

night cards. Again another one of those classics and then I rewatched quadrangle quadrangle of love i It's such a great I love Harry Anderson I was always a huge Harry Potter fan and all of them and this has dama diamond and and who was amazing is home Mel Torme, a thread loving Mel's right and not being able to get tickets to the concert. And then the scalper comes in and has 30 tickets but he can't take the ticket because their evidence. I think we wrote that scan that That episode was one of yours. Yeah, okay. Yeah, for sure. And so it was it was just great. Sorry to interrupt, have to take a quick break. And we're back with more nikecourt Talk to me about the end though. Yeah, what I read was like at the end, they're like we're done wrap it up. Oh, no, we're gonna do another season and then it kind of screwed everything up. Well, as I said, you

Chris Cluess 44:39

know, we were on this deal or development deal now at Warner Brothers. And we had two pilots. This was in 1989 into 90 they were doing their seventh season and Stu and I and at the end of season two, we looked at each other and said this is going nowhere. Let's get the hell out of here. And that was wise. We left and we did, you know, ended up doing all those other things and do hard and cheers and was other shows. But probably if we had stayed there we would have been fine, but we thought it was not going anywhere. And then five years later, Warner Brothers asked us to take it over after the previous show runners who had replaced the original Reinhold wiggy. Were kind of shown the door by the cast cast had taken over the madhouse. What happened was I ran into John Larroquette, in the men's room, outside of studio, a stage nine and eight, when we were doing Malloy on stage eight, they were doing a nikecourt in stage nine, and he said, What are you doing here? So we'll do it and show next door. And the next thing I know, my agent gets a call from our agent. It's a call by Broder from Harvey and president of Warner Brothers who says that, not Weinstein, by the way, Weinstein, he says, Warner Brothers would like you to run the last season of season eight. And we said, No, we're not interested because we have these pilots. And he said, No, no, you didn't hear me, you're interested. And so he renegotiated our contract that day with Warner Brothers adding two years to the deal, and then paying off the old, the old deal in one day with just a single check. So we were in, we were willing to close it down and season eight. We had a funny thing happened. They put it back on Wednesday nights. And the rating started going up in the show was was really had already kind of felt like it was washed away, you know, but it wasn't there was enough strength fair that the audience grew. And because of that, they picked it up for a ninth season. So we were surprised. We had hoped that they would pick it up for a 10th season. And they told us they were thinking strong, NBC was thinking strongly about it. So we didn't write a proper ending to the to the show, and which, by the way, became the subject of an episode of 30 rock. Yeah, I

Jeff Dwoskin 47:03

was gonna ask you what you thought of that episode. Leave me

Chris Cluess 47:06

sit I sitting through that was painful, because they were right. Anyway. But I gotta tell you something that as opposed to those a couple of other bad experiences, that was the best experience on a job of any kind in my life. We had a wonderful crew who was so happy to have producers who, who respected them. You know, one of the first things we did was have lunch with all the all the department heads who never ever spoke ever to the previous guys. We tried our best to charm everybody. We took every cast member out to lunch, and we couldn't get Marsha Warfield she was not interested. I'm not sure why she wasn't she didn't seem to like us very much. By about week three of season eight. She had two sweatshirts made up for us. And the sweatshirt set on Marcia made a mistake about you. That makes

Jeff Dwoskin 48:02

her like really, really cool.

Chris Cluess 48:03

She is so cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 48:05

She was just excited to beat the bailiff curse.

Chris Cluess 48:09

I think what really turned it on is that I soldier one day, I insist that you have a chest X ray while I figure it out, so I won't go into it, but figure it out. And she did. And then she kind of thought, okay, these guys are cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 48:24

That's awesome. So you mentioned leaving and thinking that was and then realizing I was a bad idea. So another person that did that. I have a friend of yours l gene. Right. He did that the same since he left did the credit debt and then came back and has run it for decades. Yeah, I've had algae on my podcast. So we actually grew up in the same town in Michigan.

Chris Cluess 48:42

Oh, yeah. Nice, big Detroit fan for sports.

Jeff Dwoskin 48:45

It's family had jeans hardware, which we do all the time. Right.

Chris Cluess 48:49

And he looks like a guy would work in a hardware store. Al is just a lovely guy. Lovely guy.

Jeff Dwoskin 48:56

So you wrote Donnie fatso season. 22. So this is like at this point, there's 1000 episodes of Simpsons. This was 2010 2010. Right?

Chris Cluess 49:07

Well, we I wrote it the year before what happened was another story. Oddly enough. What happened was my partnership had broken up in the year 1999. And so I had a hard time finding a gig because I had been part of a team for 25 years. And because we were part of a team, nobody knows who does what. So I had to to kind of prove myself all over again. Ended up on a show and Showtime called beggars and choosers which was a great experience, it was a single camera show that it was very fun in also kind of weird. And that led to Mad TV and mad TV led me back to seeing Mike Reese, who was has been a writer on on Simpsons for ever and was Al's partner.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:55

Mike's been on the podcast as well. Good guy.

Chris Cluess 49:57

So funny. That got me back to Seeing out. And then we're kind of hanging out with Allah a couple of times. And then came the 2008 writers strike. And I was assigned picket duty on a 20th Century Fox on Pico Boulevard, and so was out. So I would see al every day and we would talk for a half hour or an hour or whatever it was that we would walk around together and then get bored with each other and then move on to somebody else. But we did it almost every day. And so when the strike was over, after six months, or whatever it was, I got a call one day from owl. And I'm thinking oh, lunch, the gal does lunch, but okay, he says I and I said, we had such a good time. And you're so funny. Why don't you come and write an episode of The Simpsons? And I said, out, I gotta be honest with you. I'm the wrong guy. And he said, Why are you the wrong guy? I said, Well, how many episodes have you done? He said, 400. And at that point, like, 430. And he said, Yeah, yeah. asked me how many I said this to him asked me how many I've seen and it begins with four. So he said, 40 to take another shot. He said, four. I said, yeah, maybe, you know, maybe six, maybe 10. Maybe free. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I said, But I gotta tell you, I I know. It's a classic. I know you guys do amazing work. It turned out an amazing show every week, but it never grabbed me. I gotta be honest with you. i The whole cartoon thing. And so what do you think of cartoon things? That a cartoon, it's the Simpsons. It's like the greatest sitcom that's ever I said, I'll give you that. I love I love the idea of it. And I just great. I said, but I haven't. I am the least qualified guy to do this job. And so he was like, stunned or he said Ricky Gervais is doing. We do have two guests a year. Ricky Gervais is one I'm asking you to be the other. I said, Well, that was a good good. You got Gervais. He's funny. I don't know the show. So. So now I get a call from my agent who says, I just talked to Al Jean, what do you think you're doing? He said, Well, I don't know. I just tell him being I love the guy's a great guy. I just don't feel qualified to do the show. This is you qualified, call them up. So I called him back and I said, Okay, I'll do a barber says I have to do it. And this is of Jim. Thanks. You know, so I said, So what do I have to do? He said, well come in with five ideas. He said, we will have done them all is the way it always happens. We'll have done them alone. And then we'll find something we'll assign it to you or write it. Okay. That's good. He said, Come in, like next Monday's. Alright. So that weekend, I went with my wife to a conference in Palm Springs and educational economist, she's an educator. So go to the thing, and I bring the dog and I go to the blockbuster, which is the second time I've said it. Now. I go to the blockbuster in Palm Springs. And I said, Do you have any episodes of The Simpsons and the guy points to a wall of them? And I asked him if he could pick one out that was particularly good. And it was like is asked the busboy to pick out the wine because he couldn't give two shits less about what I thought was good. So he just walked over and sort of grabbed one and said, Here, take this one. It's great. even look at it said, Okay, I get it. I'm a jerk. So I take the thing and we go back, I go back to the room that dogs waiting for me and I pop it in my computer. And I'm not kidding you. I'm asleep and five minutes dead asleep to the point where my wife comes back from the conference, and I'm drooling on the hotel bed. And my computer has apparently shown me the entire DVD. So I tell her what happens. And she says, you know, we had. So what did she she said, Well, I said I can't I can't watch it. So she said, Well, why don't you just go ahead and do some Googling on it. So I googled it and ended up at the fox website where they had a list of characters, and I wrote down all the characters I knew. And I realized I know more than I thought so I'd seen probably more than four. So I came up with a story that I thought was going to be great. Then there was another one and then there was another one and then there was one it was okay and then it was Johnny fats Danny Fatso, which was last and to me my least favorite we've done on Monday and pitched the idea and he's he's guy it was their most disinterested group of people I have ever been near. I mean, they would not impolite but they were whatever is next door to impolite what they were and they are like I would say something and they would not think it was funny or they didn't even care you know, they just they pumped this stuff out beautifully and artistically magically but not interested in the outside world. So I come in I pitch first idea and they look at each other and snicker and like Alice's. I think we've done a version of that probably 18 times is it Oh, geez, this is bad. That was my favorite. So I pitched another woman and they kind of were interested in it and they had DME version of it. And then I pitched one that they looked at each other and realize they had never heard it before. I was so happy. I felt like I really done a big achievement they were going to buy that I really liked the idea. And then they said, What else you got? So it's like, Oh, no. So I pitched the fourth thing. And then Donnie Fatso, which was just what it sounds like. He said, the other the only pitch I got on my mouth was, Homer kills Fat Tony. And they said, that's, that's it. That's what we want. So okay. And then they bought the third one. I don't know if they bought it just to get it off the street, or they were planning on using it down the road, and never happened with the who bought it from me. So that was good. And then I went away and came up with an outline, as they always asked you to do and come back with outline, they gave me voluminous notes on the outline. And then I went back to my house, and I wrote the script in about four days, because the outline was was so detailed, and I delivered the script. And that was it. Once you've done the outline with notes, and you're done the script, as an outsider, you're done. So I got paid and a year went by, oh, it was, it was a January 1 episode. And it was too late to produce it. So they moved it a year. So I almost forget about it. I mean, I know it's I know I sold it, I know they bought it. And next thing I know they're making it, they doing the voices. Jon Hamm was in it, and Romain Tanya, he's a he's Fat Tony, you know, they make it and on January 1, it will never it is close to January 1, it airs and does very well. And I'm thinking oh, that was a that really was great. I'm so glad I did it. And then four months later, who you know, maybe another year later, whatever was get a call from owl analysis, guess what? And I'm thinking Let me do another episode. That was not the case. He said, You've been nominated for a Writers Guild Award. Now, I have been nominated four times before for Writers Guild Award and never once and I told him, I said, I'm Susan, I'm the Susan Lucci of the Writers Guild. I keep losing. He said, That's okay. It's fine. We lose all the time, we win and we lose. So I'm going to come to the thing and I sit at this Simpsons table, I got my wife and one of my daughters, and we're sitting at the Simpsons table, I just realized how ironic it is that we are I am and the way it started. So I brag braggadocious ly tell everybody that I'm going to win and you're not. And they think it's hilarious. And all of a sudden I'm getting laughs So up comes the award. And of course I lose, but I slammed my fists down on the table and I said, You cheated me? You bastards. I was their best friend for the rest of the night. It was just we had so much fun. And that's the story.

Jeff Dwoskin 57:38

Interestingly enough, that episode is considered non canon.

Chris Cluess 57:41

Yeah, I know which is fine. While I was non canon.

Jeff Dwoskin 57:46

It means I can pretend that the events did not happen if they contradicted at some point. It was great. It was a homer goes under cover to get Fat Tony.

Chris Cluess 57:55

Yeah, we'll have to because of these break some laws on the first of January when the law is changed. He didn't know it, and he gets thrown in jail. And so the Jon Hamm comes to him the FBI character comes to him and says we'll make a deal with you got to help us get Fat Tony.

Jeff Dwoskin 58:10

Which by the way, when I was watching that there's a new show called Blackbird on Apple TV the exact same plot but it's it's based on a true story. You I mean, you did it 12 years earlier, but But it happens to be really good if you watch it and be like, Oh, this is like a live action tiny

Chris Cluess 58:27

home or in fact Tony actually in it because then I would say they ripped us off.

Jeff Dwoskin 58:31

No, no different different. Oh, okay. I don't think it said story inspired by I've kept you so long. I thank you so much for all these amazing stories. It's fun. It's

Chris Cluess 58:42

you know what, no one likes to hear me more than I do. I gotta be honest with you know,

Jeff Dwoskin 58:48

well, you've had an amazing career. You got some exciting stuff coming up.

Chris Cluess 58:54

I have a movie that I wrote, oh, god in 2009 that has been on the precipice of being produced over the many years. involvement from everyone from Will Ferrell and Josh Gad with Josh Gad. Yeah. And so and some other producers and directors and John Carney and we were ready to go and then and 17 Along comes Harvey Weinstein, who takes a big crap on show business. The movie was just about to go into pre production director walked away and Will Ferrell who is going to play the lead walked away because it was considered risque. Do you wish it's the story of Russ Meyer, who invented the American duty film and the year in 19 6970, where he made a movie called Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with his young screenwriter Roger Ebert. It's such a great story and I must say it's a it's a really good script. It was shut candid in 2017 Because of that, and I thought, well, we'll never see the likes of that again, and And during the pandemic, I talked to the one of the producers who had stayed with the project since 2010. And said, I want to take some time because the pandemic is driving me insane. I want to be able to concentrate on something, I think I want to solve the problem of this script. And I did problem was solved by the addition of the female character of Ross's wife, who I had the wit just divorced prior to this story, and I brought her back in and made it kind of a feminist tone. And with this kind of weird thing that had happened to the script, I sent it back to the guy and he sent it to STX studios who had been interested in making the film in the first place in 2017. And they said, Let's do it. And they've just gotten into business with Lionsgate on it. So those two entities will produce it. Josh Gad is still attached. So keep your fingers crossed for me.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:00:57

I'm going to because the article I found on this movie was from 2015

Chris Cluess 1:01:02

project, not a long time. Yeah. Gotta be patient, you know.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:01:07

Well, Chris, thank you so much for spending all this time with me.

Chris Cluess 1:01:11

Thanks, Jackie. It was really fun. And it's nice to talk because I don't know if you know, but I've been doing a bunch of these. And it's nice to talk to somebody who has done a little homework so you don't have to explain everything. And you just tell those savory stories, you know,

Jeff Dwoskin 1:01:26

that's what I shoot for. I appreciate you noticing. You achieving so much. Thank you. All right, everyone. That was Chris Cluse. Such an amazing body of work. So many fun stories had a great time talking with Chris earlier this year. Hampel, he the interviews over at means another episode has come and gone. Where does the time go? One more huge thank you to my special guest, Chris glues. And of course, a huge thank you to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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