#72 Rick Overton Is Making It All Up

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Looking to sound like you know what's going on in the world, pop culture, social strategy, comedy and other funny stuff. Well join the club and settle in for the Jeff Dwoskin show. It's not the podcast we deserve. But the podcast we all need with your host, Jeff Dwoskin.

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All right, Paul, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody, to Episode 72 of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin.

Great to have you back for another fantabulous episode. And we have cranked up all the knobs of fantabulous ism to bring you the most fantastic episode ever with actor and comedian Rick Overton. That's right, Rick Overton is here ladies and gentlemen. We're gonna talk all about his setlist special that's out right now. So exciting, so amazing. And we're going to talk about all the cool projects Rick's been a part of over the years and I can't even name them all Willow Groundhog's Day Miss Doubtfire, the office Seinfeld he was the Drake love the Drake. And we also talk about his amazing friendship with Robin Williams and so much more amazing conversation. So excited to have Rick with me this week. And that's coming up in just a few minutes.

Rick is one of the funniest human beings I've ever met. It was such a joy talking to them. And as a follow up to last week's episode, where I said I started watching the Comedy Store documentary after Rich Shydner and Steve bluestein had mentioned it so many times. And I had said I hadn't seen it finally saw the whole thing all five episodes Written and directed by Mike binder. It's amazing. I loved it. It was so great. Definitely recommend it. If you have Showtime check it out. It's totally worth the investment of time.

Also, I know you love listening to my podcast and thank you so much. But I do want you to check out the commercial break. It's another great podcast with my friend Brian and Krissy. They do it twice a week every week. And they're good friends of the show. Brian's a regular guest on crossing the streams. My weekly live show that I talk about all the time where we talk about cool TV shows you should be watching. Follow my YouTube channel to stay on top of that show. But definitely check them out and get them on your podcast rotation list.

Also, if you haven't Definitely check me out on the social medias at Jeff Dwoskin show on both Instagram and Twitter. Follow me there. I love hearing from you. If you listen to an episode, and you're like Jeff, I just listened to your last episode with Dedee Pfeiffer from Big Sky. I thought that chat was so inspirational. Thank you for that awesomeness. Yeah, something like that. Go ahead and tweet that. I know it's incredible how I weave in promotions from previous episodes into my normal yackety Yak. I know it's a skill. Anyway, check it out. I love to hear from you. Comment your posts on Instagram or Twitter or watch them. I'm always there. I want to hear from you. Also, if you're looking for the world of Jeff Dwoskin, head over to Jeffisfunny.com or JeffDwoskinShow.com but Jeffisfunny.com is so much easier to spell and tell your friends. You can listen any episode there. You can sign up for my mailing list. You can buy me a coffee, all the good stuff that you're like thinking about right now, in terms of how can I have more live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show in my life. There you go. I'm just spoon feeding it to you follow me on any of the podcast apps, apple, Spotify, good pods, anything, whatever you desire, whatever your heart desires. I Heart Radio, then listen to me there. I'm everywhere. All right, well, thank you in advance for telling all your friends and family about the show. And thank you for coming back week after week. You're so cool.

And now it's time for the social media tip. This is the fun part of the show for me where I get to share a little bit of my social media knowledge with ya little 411 I heard on the street. I've run social for a billion dollar company. I've been in the social media space for so many years. And I just like to impart a little tidbit each week so that when you listen to all the episodes, you can string them together and be the greatest social media expert in the world. But But per design, you got to listen to every episode. I know I'm tricky. My first observation on social today isn't so much tip but some of you might quickly be realizing that Twitter has updated their entire look on their feed. It now looks like you're on Instagram. And I honestly can't tell the difference when I'm on Twitter now versus on Instagram because it's not Twitter's now wider. It fills up my whole phone so it has much more of an Instagram feel. I kind of like it. I just got to get used to it. The retweet button now is farther away. So I think I'm gonna That ended up hurting my thumb at some point stretching it for retweeting while either heard it or are the strongest thumb in the world, and I'll be able to enter thumb fighting contests. So I guess Thank you Twitter for that. But my tip, my real tip is, is consistency. So you have to on all the platforms, you just have to be consistent, you can't disappear, can't post a tic Tock and then disappear for two months. I know because that's what I do. But that's bad. So it's also important to pick the social platforms that you can be consistent on on most consistent on Instagram, and Twitter, like on Instagram Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, that's when I post always so you know, something's gonna pop up Twitter, much more frequent and get more daily with it, you have to be consistent. People have to know that content is coming, so that when they're following you, they can react and expect things and not be surprised if something just pops up out of nowhere. So social media tip for today, be consistent. And that's a social media tip.

Let's hear it for my improved singing voice. Thank you very much. 15 lessons. I hope you enjoyed it a little more singing. I got lots of letters saying Jeff, we need more singing. I said all right. I'm gonna do it for you. My fans. Speaking of my fans, I can't thank you enough for all your support of the sponsors week after week. Oh my goodness, you keep coming back. I get letters from the sponsors, overjoyed with the response I get from all of you. Thank you so much, because when you support the sponsors, you're supporting us here at live from the droid, the Jeff Dwoskin show, and you have no idea what it takes to put this show on. We got a staff of 45 working non stop 24 seven, so every little bit helps. So thank you very much. Speaking of which, this week's sponsor asks, Are you looking for amazing dining experience? Who isn't Am I right? Well, if it's a relaxed atmosphere and incredible accusing you're looking for then you need to make a reservation at bridges restaurant and bar. That's right. And that's all within the charming and vibrant East Bay enclave of downtown Danville, California. so vibrant. so charming bridges, distinct atmosphere, amazing menu, and top notch service will keep you coming back. Consider bridges restaurant for your next business meeting or family celebration, or if you have both going on at the same time bridges is perfect for you. Our bathrooms are big enough for any quick change necessary to bounce between parties. There's simply no doubt every visit the bridges restaurant or bar will be a memorable one. All right, well, if you live in California, definitely check out bridges restaurant, give him a call Tom live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show sent you if you use code Jeff is funny, you will receive nothing you will not receive anything so don't you can give him the code but don't don't expect anything return. Sorry about that. So if you're living in California, check out the delightful bridge's restaurant.

Speaking of delightful, who's ready for my conversation with Rick Overton one of the funniest human beings in the world came to visit me on my podcast and I'm about to share that conversation with you right now. Enjoy. Alright everybody, welcome to the show. I am so excited to introduce you to my next guest, comedian, actor, Emmy Award winning writer ladies and gentlemen the legendary Rick Overton. How are you? Hey,

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thanks so much for having me on Jeff. This is great, man. Appreciate it.

8:34

Oh, it's my pleasure. It's so excited to have you on I can't wait to talk about all the exciting things you've done your I was looking at your IMDb I don't even know that you could fit everything you do on a CVS receipt. I mean it's

8:48

well been added a while I had a lot of lucky breaks. I timed it pretty good

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right now you have something exciting out it's an hour long special. Yeah, the setlist

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setlist is a game where they put a screen behind you and they project topics that you've never heard of a thought of and they're not easy topics not like airline food or dating. This is like blended words accounting instead of accounting. So you have to come up with putting the two premises together into one they go 567 usually in a normal set and I thought why don't we just do an hour and make a special out of it. And so it's Rick Overton's setlist special and it's on Comedy dynamics calm, but you can see it on prime, you can see it on Hulu, and on YouTube, you can rent it. So hopefully the first of many specials like that because you don't need to work a whole year of building up for it. The person writing the questions might have to put a little extra work into it, but you don't get to see those till you're up there. And so that was how I thought some old man's gray beard old man is going to introduce himself back into the biz again, might as well just something kind of different and interesting.

9:48

It was great. I watched it. I watched on YouTube for anyone listening I that's a cue. That's where I caught it. Most of the time when people watch a comedy show it's scripted material. My They've been working on it for a year. 10 years even right? This is entirely improvised, but 45 minutes of the hour. That's it. Yeah. And then brilliantly the last 15 minutes is you sitting with Tony and Paul provenza. And kind of they replace him the clips. Then you go into your thought process of while you're up there.

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Yeah, Troy Conrad is the inventor of the game. He's the actual the created setlist and provenza produced it, and we thought we'd better do some explaining about what the hell we're trying to do here because it's so weird and different that we thought we'd better go over the actual dynamic and the challenges involved because it's not like normal, and it is scary. But if you like that kind of scare, it's like the greatest thing in the world. It's exciting. It's adrenal,

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I gotta say is a comic watching it. I think I had a little bit of stress during the 45 minutes because I was picturing like, what would I be doing over there? Yeah, like a master I mean, you just never missed a beat and then the last 15 minutes I really loved the deconstruction of all of it.

11:01

For you, that was for you. That was for the comics. We did this for the gang for our friends so that you see when you do it, take some of this with you when you go to play but you should play it you should do Did you have you played setlist?

11:12

I have not played setlist now Yeah, I'm assuming they didn't edit too much of it. Meaning like bite is like just the way your brain works so fast is absolutely incredible. It's just so everyone knows. So Rick would be up there kind of doing something and he would kind of say, and that would lead to and then he would turn around and they just have some random phrase or something out there like practice funerals. These are the ones that he had the reactive Amish nightmares, post resurrection poetry. That one was brilliant, by the way, actually, counting you mentioned four plays songs of Elvis, there's 20, some of these

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20 and you got up and I try to string them together. I think the top version of the game is somehow you tie this in it's liar's club, they give you some stupid item in your hand, you have to pretend it's from ancient Mesopotamia or something like that, and make up a history for it and defend it somehow, and go back and see which lies you have to double back on and stuff like that. So I try to get myself in more trouble by absolutely committing to something I'm saying and I turn and it has nothing to do with what I've

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taught. It's brilliant. It's absolutely.

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Thanks, man. Thank you. improv is really helped to find my life.

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How did you get into improv? Do you consider yourself because you do stand up also? Right? And yeah, yeah. So I mean, to me, though, they're like completely different animals. You know what I mean? Yes. How did you start down the path of I'm assuming he may be started in stand up comedy. And then improv became a natural extension of that.

12:40

Yeah, I won't say that. There were such hard lines to things you get up and you kind of make us when I was a kid, my dad hit me to Jonathan Winters

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of Jonathan Winters, who

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was a verbal jazz musician. He was an improvisational genius. incomparable, you know, he's like a Robin was like that. As a kid, I thought that was the coolest thing in the world, you could just still make them ups and characters and be anybody you wanted at any time and get laughs and you didn't have to rehearse and follow this sort of oppressive regimen to get to a thing. Now I could just do I can just do that. And a lot of people think, well, I could never do that. And I say, well, you probably never gave it a real chance. Cuz I think lots of people could do it. I think this isn't a lot of people, but society and the parents and the work situation and or whatever it was that addition of life events did not equal sign and you get to do improv, even though have been the entire time. This isn't you didn't get a script for this. We're improvising right now. We're doing fine.

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Exactly. Life is one giant improv. Yeah, Jonathan Winters. I don't remember where the skit was from. But I distinctly remember him being handed a stick. He went on for five minutes. Just

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imagine that now late night TV and the host hands you stick and you just start riffing with the stick. It was a different time, and people just never seen anything like that before. Now, I wonder if they would watch with the same innocent perspective or what a more jaundiced eye take over and go, Oh, someone doing this or that, but it's only because of repetition. It was brilliant than it is brilliant. But people see it in a different way. When they've seen too much of it.

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It's saturation. Robin Williams definitely kind of took baton on that.

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That's just that he took that stick. He took the stick for sure. and ran with it. Yes. Our friendship was bonded over Jonathan Winters.

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How did you meet Robin Williams? You have decades long friendship with Robin right?

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Yes. Through Elaine booster at catching the improv because they were hanging out those two for a little while and I knew Elaine and then I got to meet Robin and he and I had similar loves of not only Jonathan Winters, but also Peter Sellers. Nice and all the different characters and stuff because it was all jumping around and doing characters. Thanks. And Peter did a lot of improv too.

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I didn't I'm not as familiar with Peter seller. I mean, I know the, you know, the Pink Panther stuff, as I am with, like just seeing Jonathan Winters because I think Jonathan Winters, I got to know probably because of Robin Williams. I mean, Robin Williams brought him on to market Monday. And like, he was always talking about Jonathan Winters. And so I think my heightened knowledge of Jonathan Winters is because of Robin Williams, Robin Williams zone was, I don't wanna say an extension of Jonathan winter, but like, he definitely took that ball and kind of ran with it.

15:32

He would always be the first to admit that there's been a very positive influence from Jonathan. And there's no denying, and why bother? It's a badge of honor, I would think.

15:43

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So you guys did shows together, you would improv together?

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Yeah, it was amazing. And at first it would be about how well you could sort of chase plane behind him. He was the X 15. I was just the regular jet, you know, and then we started going a little more neck and neck, you know, it was never about Oh, I'm gonna outdo my friend Robin was all we had a good time boosting each other. Because a lot of it is a throw him a good idea. And he runs with it, and then you add on to it. And that was your day. That's awesome. No, no, that's not bad.

16:16

How did your friendship evolved from just being introduced by Elaine boozer to doing like these shows together and then probing together and just kind of going down that route,

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you knew I would sort of horse around a little bit with my own act. I was in a team for a while. And then when I broke with the team, I was looking for someone else to play with, because they kind of missed that part of partner back and forth. It's it's just such good stuff. It's, it's acting, you know, and so I would just leave spots open. So when he wouldn't come up and riff one night, and he did he the first few times, he would just take over, and I'd sit back and laugh, you know, and then I poke in little here, little there, and then more, stay there, poke and stay, and now stay and initiate, initiate and run. And those are the steps building.

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How many shows would you say you did with Robin? I mean, uncountable,

17:04

it's incalculable. And the amount of hours is incalculable. The throckmorton alone, one for two throckmorton. Have you done the truck? I've not said Mill Valley, Marin County, just across the bridge, and it's an extraordinary space. I hope they reopen soon in the vaudeville that's been around forever. It's been over 100 years, and Charlie Chaplin perform, they're doing vaudeville. I mean, Good God, it has history. And so much hilarity on those planks.

17:30

That's an incredible branch of the eye, you know, and when Robin Williams passed away, I think it was the only time like a slayer. I was driving. I remember the exact moment I was too. And I had and I pulled over I had to pull over.

17:43

I stopped in Trump. But I noticed cars were stopping everywhere. In the middle of the street everywhere.

17:48

It was like one of the biggest shocks because he was only like 63, right? I mean, it was it was he was very young, I just remember is hitting me so hard. Not like anyone else.

17:58

There was a rough on mine. That was rough. That was rough. But I'm very grateful for the amount of time I got to spend hanging out with him to be friends with him. And to see him be such a good guy. He would take the time to stop or anybody on the street and not just them. Just your friend want to picture how you guys want to picture and it doesn't matter how late he was for something else. He would stop and make sure everybody that like because he knew these people got him there. It wasn't just an executive stroke of the pen. These are the people that built him up and he loved them.

18:29

That's awesome. He's from Michigan. He's one of our claim that names him and Pam dava. Or

18:35

my dad my dad was from Kalamazoo.

18:38

Oh, nice. You didn't grow up in Michigan, though. Did

18:40

you know dad lived in New York by the time I was born in 1954.

18:45

Okay, and your dad was a big band arranger. So you come from a pedigree, both your parents were very

18:51

musical musical. And so I guess I use rhythm slightly differently,

18:54

right? Kind of that's what comedy is. Right? It's just it's his rhythm. Yeah. But man,

18:59

let me tell you dad was a jazz guy. He worked with felonious monk. And there was a lot of improv involved. That's another reason he loved Jonathan so much. It was the verbal version of jazz. I lucked out, man. I know, I thought a lucky series of breaks. I know it, but um, you know, I try to use them. And I try to help distribute that information

19:17

there. Hopefully your mom also your mom was in the Corps dads.

19:20

Yes. The second incarnation when they one of the gals got married and pregnant and can't zip into the gown. So mom took over. It's like, what happens? A lot of four person groups Inc, spots. They franchise, they branch and franchise, and then one of them starts another version of them. Right. Right. Right. And so but mom wasn't in that she didn't start a group. She was the first replacement into the original group. Right? She would do live shows I got a great story. It was I think it was the Ohio State Fair. I'm a little kid and all my heroes were there. And I got to meet Jackie Leonard. And I told him Oh, I think you're really funny. Well, I certainly hope so for yourself. Looking at my mom like, was that no, that's a joke. Oh, okay. All right. Then James Garner, Maverick. And he took his magazine, his popular faces magazine rolled over, hit me on the head. I did a stunt I went back, like that. And then I'm feeling pretty good, right? I'm feeling my oats. I go outside. It was crazy. There's one of the formative things to make me think about showbiz. I'm outside, and there's a 1961 or 60, or something, and maybe, maybe 62. And I'm at the putting green outside, and I don't know what maybe just go. And I wailed on that ball and it went into the pool. So this old man who was just crispy brown from suntan, and completely bald dives into the water pops up just as I get there is a golf ball young man, George Burns, I was flipped out at George Burns hands me the golf ball. And then as he's signing it for me, I said a joke. I said, Wow, I'm pointing to his skin. I go George really burns. And they went, Oh, and that's like, you don't know how much that means to get an oil from George Burns when I'm trying to see if I have any chops, you know? Oh, I gotta do comedy.

21:23

That's awesome, man.

21:25

That's got it. That's what that's that's not the that's not the only thing but man that was a big one that day.

21:30

That's really cool. Another version of this story is You almost killed George Burns with a golf ball.

21:37

Say good night Gracie. thought of it that way. Yeah. That would have been a different story altogether. But that is the time when I yes. I was a child. They couldn't prosecute me because I was a child but I I killed George Burns. I did it.

21:58

It's kind of surreal. Mr. Sandman, which is one of the cadet signs. I mean, that song is used in so many movies. So do you just get a kick every time that song comes up?

22:07

Yeah, a lot of times they use covered groups. There's times when you know, especially with certain things when it was dodgy who got the royalties and the rights to it. Just do a cover group let's not mess with it and legal.

22:18

Oh, so if they do a cover cover of it, then they don't

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Yeah, then you don't have to deal with then you just have to deal with one thing for the rights of the song but not for each artists voice and

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got it I heard Louie ck tells a story that he was trying to get in first show. Right, which was based on the old song and he couldn't find someone to mimic it right. And he hired the actual guy to resync to get around other costs. I

22:43

didn't ever hear that story. That's a wild story, man. Wow, Is he back?

22:47

This is before everything went down.

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They rehabilitated george w bush dancing with Alan Everything will be fine.

22:56

Alright, so you're entertaining. George Burns? You're making George Burns laugh

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just a little kid man. Just tested my chops. Did you test your comedy chops? And you were a little kid? Yeah. Didn't you do that? Yeah. Then you see if you could get that one girl in the class to giggle? Didn't you see if you could get your teacher to laugh? Yeah, you ever tried to get and then you found the one teacher that could and you just stayed with it. When the other teacher was being shitty to you. You'd go to the nice teacher get the laugh again.

23:20

When I went to school, I was the the dork right? So nobody. I was very quiet in school. Towards the end of my high school. I took a mass media class. This is what I remember. I wrote all that. We did a news broadcast. I wrote this comedy routine. And the teachers in the back room and all my high school peers are sitting there. I'm doing this thing and they're just staring at me. The teacher walks in Rolling laughing like this is the funniest thing he's ever heard. But he walks no room where nobody's making any noise. Oh, man. So yes. Okay, so, alright, so you get the chops. George Burns, you don't kill George Burns. He gives you the confidence. And then later in high school when you're much older. You start a comedy team.

24:05

Yes. A decade later, I started doing a comedy team with Tom t. o n. Pastore. PDI, s t o r e and we were over 10 pet store. And we did assemblies with sketches like we would be the morning helicopter traffic report team and the engine on the copter dies while we're doing it and I'm trying to restart the copter out the door that we tell everybody to try to avoid route bore. There's about to be an accident. And that would be like one of the bits we would do in our assemblies and there'd be blackouts and stuff and we have to please get the lights right please don't hang us. You know. So we did about four sketches. And we had some fun man and then his life took him to Florida to get into the unbelievably regular pay lucrative meat distribution for grocery stores business with his father. And to this day, he is one of the kings of it. And I think if he'd stayed in comedy, he wouldn't be anywhere near all that. He went where he had to be. But I had to find a new summer rather, right. So I look for a new partner. So I found Roger Solomon. My buddy bill Spitz put me in with this guy. He says, like Marty Feldman, he's a wild man. And he just goes everywhere. And Roger and I did over to this element for five years. But man, let me tell you something, your artists right up and did everything. Oh, you were brilliant. No, you were more brilliant until they start paying you, then it's whose premise was more important than whose punchline that long infinity drive home

25:34

money ruins everything.

25:36

It gets like a marriage, the money destroys the marriage. It's destroyed this comedy team, it just becomes Tucker, they don't pay you twice for the amount of time you're up there, right? You get paid once for the same increment of time as the solo. So I, that's not why I broke up with him, necessarily, but it made all the pressure that did and it was also because he didn't love to improvise. He wanted it to be we write this sketch, it is a perfected thing. And we do it perfectly every time I want a play, man. So that's what really I think the bottom line is that tore it apart. And then I was floating around and Chris Albrecht picked me up. Thank God for that he is at ICM at the time. And I think it just starts now. He brought a whole bunch of the comedians out to California for the comedy boom and working with Budd Friedman on evening at the improv. Oh, wow. That was really a lot of people don't point that out. That's one of the markers for the comedy boom was evening at the improv. Because whereas you would see a comedian every now and then on Johnny, or Merv, or something like that. This was comedy comedy with all comic all through, and sometimes five nights a week or whatever it was at a certain point. And yes, we did burn through our material more quickly. that did happen, but that's going to happen anyway. So made you write faster. And that's again, where improv comes in. It deserves the credit for the place that it has in comedy history. That really was one of the marker points evening at the improv,

26:58

and that was in the early 80s to early 90s. Right?

27:03

That's right. You got it. And then comic strip live and a lot of other people picked it up. And that was also really good,

27:08

because people could rely on seeing stand up comedy and trying to understand who comedians were.

27:13

There wasn't a saturation point yet where they just okay with the comedians yet? could put five in a row five nights a week. I'm not sure that's that's what you could do today. For evening

27:24

in the improv. You may you were on seven times. Is that right?

27:29

Maybe more? Last drag. Hey, what are you doing this week? Can you do an evening at the improv? a notebook notebook notebook? Because it got little mark did it did it already don't do it again. Okay, okay. I got it. I got it. No, the dentist. Okay. The dentist.

27:45

This cell had to be extremely Evie friendly, right? I mean, how much should they kind of want to see your set ahead of time for all these kind of make sure it didn't spark a controversy?

27:56

Great question. And at first it was really fiercely observant. And then once they got to know you, they figure you've kind of got the idea. We don't have to spend a ton of time because we have 10 other people we do have spend that you're an old regular now so we won't focus on that with you. We'll just trust it. Don't fuck this up. And don't focus on where there

28:14

was this sort of like the exposure because you were on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson as well. Right in the middle of this one time, but one time, one more time than me.

28:24

Let me tell you the one time Well, this is an unusual story. You'd like stories, right?

28:30

I love story. I

28:30

got a I got a beauty. You know the controversy with Joan Rivers. Yes, you know that there was a big problem with her Jonnie feeling betrayed that Joan cut a half hour into his time but that's out of her hands. The network brings you an offer is not that much you can do about it this you can only say yes or no to some things. You can't control all the details in between. She wanted to get her own late night shows. She spent years working on that and she believed in me and she brought me on to the tonight show because they were a little wary of me because I do kind of edgy not sure what I'm going to do material. So the she just said screw it bring him on. And because she does that she was a man. She was a fighter and she had brass ovaries. She was a scrapper, man. Oh, I love to jump. I was on the show adequate set ready to Cordova was going over every single word. And by the way, I I'm basing my encounter with Freddy decordova for the NAT experience for my character as the comedy Booker on I'm dying up here, but that's for nothing. And so being at the notes and stern intimidation. Oh god. So you remember hearing about that night there was a big fight at the Tonight Show with Joan Did you hear about that?

29:44

I know she left to go to I think Fox right and then right

29:47

Fox had the cutting half into Johnny time. So he was furious about that and Friday was through the roof angry about it. There was a sort of there had to be her last night there because of the fight. Guess who was on that night?

30:01

I'm gonna guess Rick over then

30:03

guess is associated with that night. That's right. That's it for me over there. I'm a friend. But thank you Joan.

30:11

God bless Joan Rivers Joan Rivers was one of us Joan Rivers. Joan Rivers was one of the comedians that I grew up really liking. I think I've cassette Stover is in the basement because my parents love Joan Rivers.

30:21

Oh, man, she was fierce.

30:25

Yeah, she was great, splendid, so good.

30:28

And so I have a sort of an odd piece of comedy history there. I have another piece of art history. You know who Tony Clifton is?

30:37

Absolutely. Tony Clifton Andy Kaufman Tony

30:39

Andy Kaufman's Alter Ego character, the mean? sleazebag guy, and at first when he was test, prototyping it, he didn't have any makeup. He didn't even have a tux or anything. He had a T shirt and he would just do his hair out like this. And you had to treat him like he's Tony Clifton, when he comes into the club. Hi, Tony. Anything you want Tony, but he pulled me aside. And he said, and this way wasn't Tony. He was supposed to be but he was like, Okay, I need you to be in the audience tonight. And I go, oh, okay, I got I'll give up my set then. Okay. So I told Roger. Now I'm going to do a thing with Andy Knight. I'm sorry, man. And so you know that bit rate pull someone up? Yeah, you'll want to know what's funny. I'll show what funny is. Yeah. And he pours the water on the guy's head. Sure. Sure. I was the first guy to take the water on the head. Amazing to test it out to see what the crowd would do. Right. And you remember that? Did you ever go to the improv in New York?

31:32

I have not.

31:33

Did you see it before closed?

31:34

No

31:35

the stage had a door an exit door right out to the street right off to the side of the stage, right on the 44th. And so he'd sploosh He goes, Hey, this is bullshit. I'm gonna talk to the manager bang out the side door. And then I get back and I watch the rest of the show. I can see what's gonna happen next. You get off the stage, and then he gets the bomb go. make you laugh. Remember that bit he did with a cry? And he'd win him back. He stopped being Tony and he'd win him back. I just never seen anything like that before. I've never seen anybody be that hated. And then that loved instantly.

32:16

So cool. Those are two huge comedy moments for you right there. And I know of a million I'm sure. A little moments. Those are pretty cool. Those are awesome. Emmy Award winning Greg overturning you spend time with Dennis Miller and Dennis Miller alive. You want Yes.

32:35

Very proud of that. I mean, it was an honor. But certainly it is the cumulative effort of that team is why I have it. I'm not taking any individual credit for any of that. I did contribute. It was used it got last I was on that team. But that team was splendid. And each one of them was brilliant.

32:49

Love Dennis. Dennis 80s 90s. Dennis Miller was huge. I love this area live years like those fierce intellect so smart. And then I remember the very first ever kind of comedy routine I did before I knew I was gonna be a comedian was a camp and they had a talent show. And I did Dennis Miller and I wrote news jokes, you know, based on and so I remember doing that and like, I have photos, but it was way before you would have video or anything. But yeah, huge, huge. I remember seeing him in concert and Rita Rudner open for him. Oh, wonderful, wonderful time.

33:22

Oh, that's very cool.

33:23

What's it like working? Like it's cuz it's a grind, right? Working for shows like this where you're trying to come up with news.

33:29

Oh my god, you want to know about the grind. This show was on Friday night Monday. That means every late night show god, there's like you're the last wolf on the carcass. And it's just this shit hanging off the ribs at that point, all the good stuffs gone, man in your judgment. And so what you had to do is get to get really inventive with what those little nibbles were. Because you're watching Oh, that was a great joke. Oh, that was the one joke for you know, sometimes some subjects that have the one joke and honest son of a bitch got the one joke ahead of us. Yeah. All right. Let's see if there's a fifth joke for this until a lot of time is training your brain to look for alternate ways to do things and adding character pieces and embellishment and stuff like that. Because the other world's got it already. You don't have a choice that

34:14

at least back then you were just competing with the other shows nowadays, you'd have to compete with Twitter as well kind of scooping up all the jokes. I mean, just people naturally kind of going all in

34:26

those comics, not on staff just advertising their wares in a way. Yeah, I can't blame them. That's not a bad idea. It's the only other way to do it. It has social media has clobbered the publicity business. I have to say those poor folks have had to find a way to retool their existence because this plan A isn't doing it

34:44

can rougher and rougher. It's getting rougher. So of the many amazing things that you've done. Well, let's talk about Ron Howard for a minute cuz you at least off the top of my head. I think you're too gung ho and Willow three, what was the third one

34:58

Ed TV and it was A wonderful time every time he's a vet, you know the stories about rod What a great guy he is. You've heard all of that. So, just add my name to the list. He is that great a guy in real life. And you can really see the influence of his wonderful father, Rance Howard, who was a was a prince of a guy, just a lovely fella. And mom to sweet. He just comes from a sweet family.

35:22

Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah. Anybody I think who goes from one thing and the cultural psyche, like, you know, ob, and then Kenny ham and then, like one of the become one of the most renowned directors, right. I mean, it is. It's an incredible path.

35:37

That's quite the journey, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. He's left a lot of indelible work and still doing great stuff.

35:43

Absolutely. So let's talk about Willow, especially working with Kevin Pollak,

35:48

having worked with me in gung ho. He said, Who do you Who do you think would be funny to work with as a frickin frack? And I thought of a couple of people. So what about Kevin Thomas, and we came up with those little voices together, we got to actually design some of our own wardrobe a little bit. I came up with the idea of having a yuppie folded sweater sleeve with the rat skin on my back because he's sort of this imperious douchebag you know, with his crown king of the of the forest thing, and Kevin came up with his balls at the end with the red head comes off. That was his gag. He wrote that we put it in so it was great.

36:20

Now Kemmler and Warwick Davis, they never made sequels to that movie, you think that would have been a good one to kind of

36:26

it didn't do very well at first and America was uncomfortable with a little person being a lead but a silly thing to put in the way of such a wonderful project. And he's hilarious. He's hilarious. This guy is hilarious. Did you've seen him do the the other comedy stuff? life's too short. He's just as funny as any of the comics.

36:45

Yeah, Mark Davis is awesome. I'm a big fan of that. And the leprechaun movies Big Band turns a willow I hear they're bringing it back as a TV show or something on Disney or

36:56

Yes, they're gonna they're they're talking about a willow series. But just like with Mandalorian, doesn't mean they'll use a lot of the old books. Right. I ran into Kevin at Whole Foods down the street, and I asked him about it. He said he hadn't heard anything directly about it. You talked to Ron,

37:11

I worked with Kevin Pollak once nice guy at a charity event. It was cool. I got him to sign my usual suspects and a few good men. bvd. Wonderful. Yes. So you were in the Rockets here. Yeah. And I hear their brain. They're gonna do a sequel to that they may need you to announce it's the Rocketeer. Again, I was

37:30

just going down to the set. Joe just said, Hey, do you want to see the clamshell scene where he's flying around in the bandshell? And I said, Oh, yeah, I'll come down tonight. Because what size are you? Oh, I know what that leads into. And I gave him the sizes. And so when I got down there, just how would you like to be in the movie? I said, Yeah, you bet. How'd you like to be in the trailer? Hold on. How can you guarantee that? You're saying the title of the movie?

37:53

Mm hmm. That's right. Oh, thanks, Joe. saved for us right now. Rick.

37:59

It's the Rocketeer with the Mid Atlantic it's the Rocketeer

38:04

is Miss Doubtfire The only movie with Robin that you did? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. I mean, if you're gonna pick one, that's pretty cool.

38:11

Oh, we were doing there's some improv in the gesetz the blu ray you can see it cinematic scenes where we were coming up with stick where where he's getting drunker and running back and forth at bridges restaurant where I'm the maitre D. And he is flipping me money to not say anything. And everything is just going back and forth. And so there's a lot of it didn't make it in for pacing, but we did some funny stick. That's hilarious.

38:33

It must have been so much fun. You were in like, so many like would be considered iconic movies. Beverly Hills Cop Eddie Murphy airplane to the sequel? Yeah,

38:45

I gave Steve Stucker one line which one he opens. He's typing on the old royal iron typewriter and then he I can't flip the lid up like there's a mirror and so he flips the lid where the where you replace the ribbon. He goes, Oh, look at me. I'm a mess like that. And then right back to typing again. So yeah, Steve and I were buddies.

39:04

tasm Earth girls are easy with Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey. Gina Davis, Julie Brown, Julie Brown road are girls are easy, right? So cool. Julie Brown. The homecoming queens got a gun. One of the greatest bits ever. She's hilarious.

39:20

She has such a dark sense of humor. Oh, I

39:22

know. She's so cool. Groundhog Day ramus

39:27

Sure. A second city man. Thank you for letting us play. You know a lot of that drunk by the car and I got to throw up. We were winging all that. But bill, you came up with a lot of improv for that awesome because Harold was a second city man. He said let's see what we could get.

39:41

That's that's one of the best movies. Really. And then in sitcom history, the office, Pam Beasley's father That's it, and the topper would be Seinfeld you were the Drake love the Drake.

39:57

The Drake just keep saying that. Keep saying the Drake I got to throw in the crying that wasn't in the script because those guys exhibit enormous discomfort around emotionality. So I thought why not just make them want to crawl out of their skins as black blood? Oh, Gagliano, they're pretty good the entire time. I want their shoulders up like that. And Larry's that, yes, let's put that in. So it's knowing where to put improv in. It doesn't hurt the scene if you know where it goes. And if you study improv long enough, you guys will have that and they'll give you a little I won't say it's carte blanche, but it's a lot more freedom than just robot with script.

40:37

When I was looking into that some background on the Drake

40:41

there's a drag just a real Drake of Israel Drake just like there's a real Kramer and there's a real Jota bola Larry uses real names like all the time are used all the time on Seinfeld, there was a real Drake.

40:53

That is so cool. This is a funny This is a funny quote I found from an article you're writing the Drake is an extremely popular character. This may have something to do with the understated and subtle acting by Rick Overton Oh portrayed this quintessential yet meaningless character who's the who's who wrote that? That's very nice as energy

41:15

Oh, thanks a lot. He's doesn't really there is no moving the story along except that they were getting me the TV and my fiance, right who's no longer my fiance and Elizabeth Dennehy magnificently straight faced through all of that.

41:30

So it two episodes of Seinfeld, but they do talk about you in a third though. Yeah, he's a character.

41:37

Right. And by the way, in the second one, it was the second to last episode and last episode, I think 93 season. I'm there with Elizabeth since the big TV is gone. And we're watching remember the little watchmen that you hold in your hands got the little antenna sticking out? Everything you ruin everything. Nice to give us that little button tag watching the pilot so

41:59

funny. Yeah. Your comic royalty rate over 10 and I can't thank you enough for hanging out with me.

42:04

I'm lucky break. Thank you for inviting where can people keep up with you on the socials at Rick Overton on Twitter, go check out that comedy special breakover did the setlist special on Amazon Prime on YouTube on Hulu Comedy dynamics.com

42:19

I'll put links to everything in the show notes so everyone can jump to it. I definitely highly recommend the setlist special directed it is if you want to watch a masterclass and improv that is a must watch.

42:34

Very grateful. Thanks, man. And what's going on for you tell everybody what you're doing

42:38

in this podcast week after week All right. So the that's where

42:43

thank you for it right on.

42:45

Well, Rick, thank you once again. I can't thank you enough. This was so fun hearing all your stories.

42:50

Oh, what a treat talking with you about them to appreciate the appreciation. Thank you so much.

42:56

All right, ladies and gentlemen, Rick Overton definitely check out his setlist comedy special. I'll put a link in the show notes for you. A real masterclass in improv, that is for sure. Also, take a look at Rick's IMDB page, also a link in the show notes, amazing amount of projects he's done and things he's been in making us laugh for all these years. So thank you, Rick. And can you believe it? Here we are nearing the end of Episode 72 I can't believe it. But as we neared the end of an episode, we all know what that means. That's right. That means it's time for another trending hashtag when the world of hashtag around up follow hashtag roundup on twitter at hashtag round up and download the free hashtag roundup app on the Apple iTunes or Google Play Store. Never miss a hashtag game. Play along with us. And one day one of your tweets may show up on an episode of live from Detroit, the Jeff Dwoskin show, fame and fortune awaits you. This week's hashtag is brought to you by young and hard tags a weekly game on hashtag roundup in honor of Rick's amazing portrayal of the Drake on Seinfeld. I'll be reading tweets from the hashtag game #SeinfeldAMovieLine. That's right, the ultimate mashup of anything Seinfeld with a movie line a movie quotes. hilarity can only ensue. Go ahead and tweet your own. I'll check it out. In the meantime, I'm going to read some off. You know the drill that I'll be retweeted at Jeff Dwoskin show on Twitter. They'll be in the show notes show him some love one day they'll show you the love when your tweet is read on live from Detroit the Jeff Dwoskin show. Without further ado, let's get into some #SeinfeldAMovieLine tweets. Leave the gun take the muffin top. These pretzels are making me Thursday, Lisa, all right, the classic from the room. You had me at yada yada yada. What we have here is a failure to make a reservation Nobody puts Newman in a corner. Illinois soup Nazis. I hate Illinois soup Nazis. Soylent Green is people who are these people. Life is like a box of Kenny's chicken. I feel the need the need for airing of grievances. You close talking to me you close you you don't you close talking to me. We're gonna need a bigger salad. These are some amazing #SeinfeldAMovieLine mashups. The Postman Always Rings Twice. Hello, Newman, we're gonna need a bigger vodka. You don't understand. I could have had class. I could have yada yada, yada. And now our final hashtag Seinfeld The Movie Line. You can't handle the soup. Man, how fun were those? That's right. Twitter is a magical place of hashtag fun. Join along, play along tweet with #SeinfeldAMovieLine and I'll be on the lookout for it.

Well, can you believe it? Episode 72 has come and gone. We're at the end of another episode. Don't cry. Just be happy that it happened. I want to thank my guests once again, Rick Overton everyone, check out his comedy special. I want to thank all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

46:21

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Jeff Dwoskin show with your host Jeff Dwoskin. No Go repeat everything you heard and sound like a genius. catch us online at the Jeff Dwoskin show.com or follow us on Twitter at Jeff Dwoskin show and we'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai