Vanity down with the heavy stars rock and rolling through the cool guitars shops got the questions digging so sharp, feeling back layers hitting the heart.
Hello, hi, Larry, how are you good? Yeah, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Very grateful, because you've been on some big shows, so the time to do mine is a very grateful,
Sure, no problem. Yeah. I really enjoyed
your interview with Bill Maher. That was on club random. That was really good. Oh,
thanks. Yeah, that was, I think, about a year ago now. Yeah, that was fun,
really. Okay, wow,
yeah, yeah, last summer, okay, yeah, because it was, it was around the time during the Republican Convention, because I did his show at around the time, yeah,
oh, okay. And then you just, I think Neil Brennan, that was just a few weeks ago, right? It's just in his Yeah, that's fun. The interesting thing that I, I thought when I when I saw the club, random one, was when you were talking about how you were kid, I think we were a kid. You were talking about reading a book about Harry Houdini, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers and The Beatles, and you were so fascinated by what made people big, and that's like me, I'm so fascinated by
that. So what conclusions did you come from all that, those rabbit holes?
So have we, have we officially started here,
or, yeah, yeah, is this,
yeah? Just didn't know. Didn't know if we run uh, you know, it just became, they became mini obsessions, you know, that just never went away like these attachments that just became not just fascinated with their journeys, but also in love with them as artists too, you know? So it was a combination thing. And, you know, I'm just enamored by they just each of those examples just had something that was a little
different, a little special. And then the the combination of, you know, the events around the times or whatever that made them what they were, I just find all that interesting, you know. But, um, other than them being collected into my group of favorites, you know, no other big extrapolation, or anything like that. So there wasn't,
like, a common theme that you discovered, that they were a way, a technique or something that they used that made they made them so successful?
Well, it wasn't so much what made them successful in terms of what they did. It's more so why did they become successful in their times? What was it about the zeitgeist that they happen to connect with, or what was, what was the intersection at the time, you know, that made them
big? You know, like in Houdini's case, nobody had really promoted themselves like Houdini had done, you know, not quite to that kind of self promotion and the spectacle of being able to just escape from anything, had a a fascination for people, you know, the fact that he could just show up at a jail, you know, any jail, and challenge them to lock him up. I mean, think of the fantasy that is for people at the time, that you couldn't be locked up. Here's a super human being that you
couldn't lock him up. I mean, he captured people's fascination and imaginations at the time. So it's more than he wasn't just a magician. He did something else to capture the imagination of people that then resonated and pushed him to just made him even bigger, and the times were just right for it. You know, he was a man of his time, because you had promoters before, but they weren't quite promoting the right thing. You know, that lined up with the Zeit guys. You
have a group like the Beatles. I mean, of course we had rock groups and all that stuff. And, you know, pop groups or whatever. You know, you had the phenomena of Elvis Presley. You know, that had happened before the Beatles, before that was kind of Frank Sinatra. You know, these little 10 year periods where another person would pop up. So it's like, well, the Beatles are the biggest example of that, and they have yet to be passed. In my estimation, people can argue about that. Some
people say Michael Jackson. I still don't think he passed the Beatles. I think he may, because I don't think his music as is as important as the Beatles. I think his fame was as big, but not his music, you know. Um, music was good, but it's just not the Beatles catalog, you know. And the Beatles catalog is still enduring. So here's like, why did that happen at that
particular time? You know, no one bet their money on them a year and a half early, no one was willing to bet their money on that group, like no one, you know, it was Brian Epstein, just, you know, might have been attracted to them. Might have been some homoerotic thing going on with John at first. Who knows? You know, but. Yes, but he definitely saw something
special about them. And the thing that Brian Epstein saw that was special about them, he was right, and it was the thing that people connected to that you can't bank on. So, like the Beatles, didn't plan on that. They didn't know that they would hit America right after the death of John F Kennedy, that the country would be mourning.
And this excitement that they brought was kind of a salve to, you know, kind of this thing kind of hanging over in the air, and it happened at a time when the Cultural Revolution, like all those things, line up, right? So it's like, who could, who could plan that nobody can. The Beatles didn't plan that. It was an accident for them. But I'm fascinated by the zeitgeist itself, that the zeitgeist chose that group, you know, the right thing at the right time and
launched it, you know. So that's why it fascinates me, kind of from a historical standpoint, you know,
tell us almost about timing is what you're saying, yeah, it's everything
lines, like, it's the confluence of things. It's planets lining up, you know, it's like, yeah, it may happen once in a million years, but sometimes it happens the planets, I know. I mean, we throw out that expression, so I'm just kind of fascinated when that happens, you know. And why does it happen? Who did it
happen for, you know? And the fact that it caught me up and it two years later, like I didn't become a fan till after Lennon's death, but I was caught up in the same way that people were before, you know, and I'm like, why is that? What happened? Why am I caught up in this? You know? So
part of it's too I think it's emotion, right? All those Houdini and Keaton and Marx Brothers Beatles, it all like it brings some sort of emotion to the surface for people. There's
something, yeah, I think it's different in each case, you know, I think the Marx Brothers, the Marx Brothers certainly weren't as big as the Beatles, even though the Beatles were compared to the Marx Brothers, ironically, you know. So there was some connection there. But, you know, the Marx Brothers hit at a time when the country was probably at its lowest in terms of how it felt about itself, you know, the Great Depression and all that
stuff. But there was a new phenomena in movies called talkies, talkies, you know, because before that, it was all silent, and so we're used to physical comedy, you know, like we go back to Keaton and chaplain and that kind of stuff, almost like what cartoons kind of took over that realm from those movies, a little bit. But people weren't used to the type of humor the Marx Brothers brought that was this anarchy, kind of against institutions and
that type of thing. It kind of broke down form grouch of dared to say the things. And that energy is still there. It's still in the Marx Brothers films. You know, when they had the revival in the early 70s, it was huge with showing animal crackers on the big screen as raw movie as that is the counterculture at the time, related to the Marx Brothers.
You know, whereas you could have showed the Three Stooges, who wouldn't have had that reaction, or any other group, and I, and I'm like, why are the Marx Brothers resonating for so long? Like, what is this thing grouch is doing that is resonant over such a long period of time, you know, that still has resonance. You could show the revival of those early movies right now, and it would still get big laughs. You know, people would
still laugh at them. I don't understand that, you know, it's just interesting to me.
Oh, yeah, no. All that stuff is so fascinating because I interview so many people, and you see so much talent, and especially with musicians, you see people that are so musically talented, but for some whatever reason, they never made it. They never their stuff, never resonated with people. They never had that hit song. And yeah, yeah,
so talent is not the thing, because you're right. So many people are telling me it's the zeitgeist. You have to line up, be lucky enough to line up with the Zeitgeist and just have what The Zeitgeist needs at that time, you know,
yeah. Do you think, as part of a member of The Daily Show, the original Daily Show? Do you think part of that success was the timing, because John Stuart, and then you had Bush as the president, and like, his reactions to everything Bush would say. I mean, he didn't even really have to write a joke. He'd just show a clip of Bush, and then you'd show Jon Stewart face and cracking up. It's
such a great example too, because nobody cared about the daily show before then, you know, yeah. And I always say the Daily Show was more of a parody show at first. It was kind of a parody of the news, you know, and John slowly turned it into a satire of the news. So where the daily, the initial Daily Show, focused on the form of news shows and made fun of it, where John focused on the content of new shows, you
know, and commented on that. And he did it at the right time, because nobody, you know, for the Smothers Brothers did that in the 60s, but people stopped caring about that after a while. So nobody cared about what comedians had to say, content wise, for a long time. You know, in terms of the way they cared about the Smothers Brothers at that time, right? So when John did it, it stuck. It started
fresh again. And the whole zeitgeist of it all is the controversy of the 2000 election, where people thought, you know, Bucha wasn't a valid president, and all this stuff, he had all this anger from people who was invalidated, and now this war starts. So here comes Jon Stewart mocking these things that you know is supposed to be given to us as truth that we're supposed to accept. And like both Democrats and Republicans, voted for this war.
Jon Stewart is against it. Who the fuck does he think he is? You know, so he became an avatar for all that energy that felt like they weren't being heard. Remember, there's no social media at that time. There's no real way for people to be part of the conversation, really, unless legacy media was willing to give them a voice. But legacy media is like, sorry, you know, yeah, it's
interesting, because I remember when I was a kid, Jon Stewart was on MTV, and he had a show, and it was really good, and I really liked it. And then so CBS, I think, picked him up and they and but then his show bombed on CBS for whatever reason, and then he went to The Daily Show. And then, you know, he's it, he became, like the best talk show host at the time, I think,
yeah, so that's kind of interesting, too. So he definitely lined up with the zeitgeist for sure. You know, created a whole new kind of avenue for comedians to critique in their comedy, I guess, which, you know, of course, existed before, but you know, people cared about it differently. I guess you could say,
yeah, no, it's and then I feel like what happened was, then there's all these copycat shows, and all these people were trying to do the daily show, and it just, it never, a lot of those, it just never resonated with me. I was like, No, Jon Stewart is, like, that's he's just being himself. I don't feel like he was trying to play a character. He was just reacting to stuff naturally, and that's what was made it so
funny. No, you're right. That is John's personality. In fact, it's even hard for John to recreate that himself on The Daily Show after leaving, coming back,
right? Yeah, because now he's back as like, once a week, or something like that, I think, but it's
still not quite what it was. Yeah, because it can't be, you know, because it's at that time and everything, you know, it's like with the Beatles put out a new song now, basically, it's just not the same as, hey, June. It just because it can't be. It's not the right, it's not the same time. You know, the zeitgeist has moved on and chosen other people, but you still have that special place, but it's the time just isn't right.
Yeah, who do you what do you think are the successful people now that you find so fascinating in 2025
that's a good question. It's funny, and I've never been asked this type of question. You know, sometimes it's kind of hard to know, but if we just look at who are the biggest people, we can start to ask the question, Does their success, you know, go beyond our understanding of it, maybe. Or go beyond mere like, popularity? Is there something else going on? I guess the two biggest examples, maybe Taylor Swift and Beyonce from different points of
view, you know. So we may look back and go, what was going on with it, and they both have had pretty good runs, you know, pretty good runs at being at the top and having those kind of audiences. So those might be two examples where we might look back or something and think about, what, what is it about that? Why are they? Why are they held up there? They're untouchables, both of them, you know, and have been that way for a while. Yeah, it's interesting.
Yeah, because I when I think there's so much more poppy and but then again, maybe the Beatles, they started out that way too. So maybe Taylor Swift and Beyonce will have that Sergeant Pepper's album type of thing
or not, you know, because different times wanting different things, you know, we may be in the time where the zeitgeist just wants us to be in a relationship with people for a while, you know, where the Beatles were not just changed music, but they changed their music, you know, but that's what they did at the time. So it was their evolution itself which kind of mirrored the cultural revolution that was happening,
so that's where it lined up. If they had just stayed as she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, and not really change that style, they would have been gone in a couple of years, because it was changing so fast. But they ended up leading the culture by doing Sergeant Pepper or revolver and those type of things. Sergeant Pepper was way ahead of the culture at that time. And then the culture had to catch up to the Beatles, you know. So I don't know if you could say that about nothing in Taylor Swift
and Beyonce. I don't know if they're leading the culture in that same way, you know, or by their I don't know if their content has the same effect. I think their fame is similar. I'm not sure if the content is I could be wrong on that, but, yeah,
what do you think about Kanye? Because, like, he is seems to be going off the deep end a little bit lately. I feel like he started out with some very brilliant music, and then he's just gotten so bizarre now that, I mean, I honestly like worry about him, like his mental health.
I'm not worried about him because I. Don't care about him that much, you know, so to a worry means that I would still care about him, you know, I think, you know, he was such a narcissist, you know, that it, I kind of think it kind of overtook his good instincts and turned them into bad instincts. It seemed like, over time, brilliant artists, though, no doubt about that. You know, his his early stuffs is still good music. You can still put it on
late registration. College Dropout still sounds it doesn't sound dated, really, you know, which is, how do you do that? It's pretty good feat, you know. But you know, the stuff he's putting out now, it's a, it's a reaction to something that no one asked him to react to. That's what it seems like. Okay, okay. Well, then down with the Jews. Then, like, what do you what exactly you're reacting to? Because I don't think we asked for this reaction. You know, no one's asking you to fight the
Jews. Kanye, you know you're doing you've just made that, you made that fight up in your head, you know? So who knows? It's the opposite of the Zeitgeist thing. I think it's in an upside down way, you know?
Yeah, well, so with your own career, do you feel like you because you've done so many amazing things, and you've acted, you've done comedy, you've done, you know, The Daily Show stuff, then you do the producing and the writing. Do you feel like you're just constantly reinventing yourself?
Um, I don't know if I'm reinventing but I always try to evolve and try to keep going forward. I don't like to stay in the past some things. So like, for instance, let's so a show doesn't go or something like that. I don't keep trying to do to do it. I really I move on so fast and just try to go to the next thing and think of something else. And I keep trying to refresh what I care about, what's interesting, what what do I want to dramatize, what I want to talk about, you
know? So it's always a moving target for me. Whereas some people, they'll have an idea that they're working on for 20 years, you know, bring it to the screen. And I give those people a lot of credit. You know, it's great. You know, some ideas I've had for a long time, and it takes a while for them to go but, but I also move on quickly, too, because I want to make sure
that I the thing I'm doing. I have a point of view on I have a passion, and there's a reason why I wanted up there more so than just the flattery, that it's something that I thought of that's really not good enough. There's got to be something else, you know. Yeah,
how do you continually get all these, all this work? I mean, just so many shows that you've worked on, is it just once you've kind of gotten that in, then you made these connections? And because some people, like, teeter out after one or two things, and then that's the end of their career. Well,
I think, I mean, I appreciate the comment, but I think when you look at it over time, it looks like, man, there's so much stuff, but really, in the scheme of things, it really isn't a lot of things. There's just a lot of varied things, you know? So I have varied interests, and so I figured out that there's no reason to not explore the varied interest that I have just figure out the the lane that I have to put it in at a certain time in
order to do it, you know. So I started off as a pretty much a stand up and an actor, and when I started writing for TV, it was really as a way to create material for myself, because I just felt like I was different in Hollywood, just wouldn't find me. So I did it purposefully, this other lane, and then the performing I just did occasionally, and then I realized that I really liked the writing, producing, got good at it. And so the more I did it, the more I just thought of my
careers. How can I do the different things that I'm interested in, and what lanes can I put them in? I have to make time for this and that. So everything kind of happened as a result of wanting to do different things, and not just one thing, you know, and occasionally something lines up with that. But then there may be a period of time where it doesn't, but I'm doing these other things. So when you look at it together, it looks like all of that happened at once, but it really didn't, you know,
separation in it. So is
it is a lot of you knocking down doors, like within living color. I don't that was, maybe you consider that maybe one of your first big writing breaks, absolutely, did they? Did they offer you the job from your comedy? Or did you, like, bug them and say, Hey, give me a shot. Or, how did that work?
Yeah. So that was me doing my due diligence and making a change in my career at that time, because I was mainly a performer, and that's when I first had the thought, I don't think Holly was going to find what I'm doing. I got to figure out. I got to create a space for myself. So I decided to try to get a job writing and television. The first job I had was at Rick D's into the night. It was this late night show. I
don't know. He was a DJ, yeah, you know, Rick D's is a, he actually had a song called, uh, Disco Duck. Disco
Duck. Yeah, that's Rick D's in the weekly top 40. Yeah, right.
He was the, the bland case of, case of, I guess he's
brilliant. Casey case is pretty bland too, isn't
it? The Casey. He said, at least he had the voice always coming in it. Number one, you always talk like that, but so when I got on in color, that was me. I reached out to them for sure, you know, because I wanted to give, wanted to keep getting jobs in television. So I impressed them enough that they hired me. But that was intentional on my part, to get into that world, you know, and go down that road. So it's time that that happened. Very
intentional. When I started creating shows, you know, co created the PJs and then created the Birmingham act show, my first two big ones, that was intentional. I didn't want to just be a staff writer on someone else's show. I knew in order for me to survive in Hollywood, I had to start creating stuff. You know, my joke when I was in the PJs, I said, if I had not created the PJs, I never would have been hired on it. Because, just my opinion, honestly, I have to create shows in order for me to
be hired on these shows. Yeah,
so how did you reach out to Eddie Murphy? Or did he reach out to you? Or they don't.
At that time, Eddie was working with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. They had just done Apollo 13, and Eddie was doing nutty professor. And they had were producing with Eddie. And Eddie had looked at Apollo 13, and he was remembering this show called the Thunderbirds that had these puppets in it and everything. And he had top brands, so it'd be fun to do a show like with puppets or something, you know, puppets in the projects, or something like that. Anyone do
something different. And then one of the executives that imagine had heard this, and I had a deal at Disney at the time. It was like my first deal, trying to create a show. And she had called and said, Hey, Larry Eddie Murphy, wants to do this animated show, you'd be interested. And first at that, she meant, like, a Saturday morning cartoon, like, I don't want to do some animated show. Like, what are you talking about? And then the more she talked about that, oh, that
sounds interesting. So then I took the meeting with Eddie, and really kind of impressed him in the meeting, made him laugh, and that kind of stuff. And so that's how I ended up doing and called in a buddy of mine to help me do it. That's really how it happened. Happened that simple that somebody who I had a meeting with a couple of times had remembered me and thought I'd be the best person to kind of fulfill that, because it was just a whim of Eddie's saying puppets in the project. Yeah,
that sounds funny. That's how things happen sometimes, you know. But it took me and Steve Tompkins, who did it, to take that and create a world for it and start developing with it. And the Will Vinton company was attached. They did the California Raisins and that sort of thing to kind of do. We figured out doing a stop motion, because that's what really, the type of feel Eddie wanted to do would make it really a different thing on TV that just wasn't
there. So that's what that's kind of how that kind of form. So once
you're kind of in that world, and then you just kept kind of parlaying everything. But
I've always been intentional about it. It doesn't mean things are going to happen, but I've always been intentional. So I've always sought that type of thing, or those type of interactions or collaborations and trying to find something new to do and that kind of stuff. It doesn't
always work out. Though there's, there could be years where that's not going on, but you keep busy doing other things, and then sometimes it can line up, you know, I've been fired from things, you know, I've certainly had many lows in it. But you know, I've had, I've been fortunate. You know, I've had a lot of highs in it, too. So how do
you get through those lows? Like, do you ever think of giving up or quitting or many
times, it's not easy. I got when I did the bring him back show, I won every award to possibly win, including an Emmy for writing. You know, which I was the first, you know, black writer to win that Emmy Award for writing. You know, half hour shows, very historic. We want to, want to Humanitas, a Peabody Award. We got a TV Critics Award, and Fox fired me. They just never, never quite understood what I was doing, you know. And I would have battles with them all the time, you
know. And, and it was real down for me. I didn't know. I thought, you know, can I work again after something like this? But I have to tell you, so many writers in the industry reached out to me and gave me COVID. Said, Larry, your show is brilliant, you know, stick in there. I'll never forget, uh, James L Brooks, you know, who was almost fired from The Mary Tyler Moore Show when he did the
pilot. And the network hated it and everything, you know, and they almost fired them, and at the last minute, Mary tell more, kind of saved their jobs. And of course, we all know what happened. Became this huge hit, but they didn't like it at first. That the pilot they hated while that they were watching, you know, just didn't understand it. They thought it was not good. And it's it. This is all in the DVDs of it. He tells the story, and for him to reach out and tell me to hang in there.
Steven Bucha, who had created Hill Street Blues and all that was another writer who reached out to me so many so it was the encouragement I got from my peers that gave me kind of lifted me up at that time. And I know I said it became a badge of honor. You know that those. People who supposedly know better, and a lot of them aren't even in the business anymore, by the way, and I'm still going, you know, yeah, that's crazy, because then, like,
your net was your next job the office, or that was, like, a couple years later, right? Which is, like,
that's pretty much, pretty much, right, after I had gone to NBC, I did an overall deal there, and I ran, Whoopi Goldberg had a show in New York that I ran for a bit. She was like in a hotel, and it was a little rocky. So I was developing a pilot at the time, and after I did my pilot, the pilot didn't end up going, but the pilot didn't end up going, but at that time, they were about to do the office, and so I was at NBC, and I knew Greg
Daniels already. He when He was doing king of the hill, I was doing the PJs. We were kind of both in an animation category, and I would see him at the Emmys and that kind of stuff. And kind of got to know him. And so I kind of went in the office as, really a consulting producer. I was still trying to create shows and stuff. See, in those days, like a lot of the shows I came up with didn't quite go, but I was doing the office, so that's
what I mean. So you're doing these things that are not going, not going, but then this other thing you're on, you know, and you're a part of. So I was there for the first three seasons of the office. In the beginning, nobody thought it was going to do anything, you know. So it was real interesting to be on that train. Yeah, it was fun.
That's crazy. You still get paid for the stuff that doesn't make it, though, right? Like, if you make a while you're doing
it, sure, but you're also, like, it's frustrating, you know, because, of course, you believe it and everything, but sometimes it'll lead to to other things. You know, one of the pilots that I wrote was one of my favorites at the time. It didn't end up going but different execs read it over the years, and it opened up some doors for me. It was, it was called Fat Man, skinny wife. Was the title of it. It's a great title. Yeah, I love the title. And it was my take on on the
sitcom trope. You know, was always a Batman, skinny life, but it was a sitcom, and it was really about kind of the Bernie Mac show, and I was the showrunner and all that. And then it was all my jokes about network execs, everything in there was in it, you know, and working with this big star, it was really funny and and the network really did like it a lot too, you know. But at the time, here's what I was up against.
The other show that was being developed at NBC at that time was a little thing called 30 rock. And then the other and a drama they were producing was live on the Sunset Strip. The thing that what's his name, David from West Wing, that was kind of his behind the scenes look at Saturday Night Live. So here I had another behind the scenes look at a show. So mine was a commercial one that didn't go so I ended up going over to Fox. They didn't do it, but they liked it a lot, but that was a
disappointment. But for years, I was able to use that as a sample that people read, oh, this is hilarious, you know. And so sometimes the thing that doesn't go can be used as something, you know, of an example of something, wow, that's
really cool. Well, yeah, I know you got to get out of here in a couple of minutes. But, uh, yeah, it's, you have to come back because you have someone. I was gonna bring up your book. It was so good. The Oh yeah, that was, I was laughing so hard, so that I'm kind of like, wait, is he kidding, or Is he serious? But I was laughing. It was like, the black people and UFOs. I thought that was hilarious. And, yeah, it was great stuff. And about
the book, which came now it seems so long ago. The original concept of it was kind of half in theirs, but it,
there's remnants of it. But the original concept was that there's, I have, this fictional Larry Wilmore, and that me, the real Larry Wilmore had collected his black thoughts over the years and kind of put all these black thoughts in a book, you know, and and I did that as a courtesy to the audience, you know, not knowing, not knowing quite what happened to this fictional Larry when I did quite
pull that off. I don't, you know, it went away somewhere, but as you read it, you can see remnants of that idea in there, and that's what that collection is supposed to represent. You know, the time he had a radio show, you know, the time he wrote this, you know, the time he did an essay, you know,
yeah, no, that was great stuff. What anything else you have to promote right now? That's, I mean, besides, you have your own podcast, and what else back in the air is
my podcast. I pop up on TV here and there. There's a show I'm producing, a Hulu called reasonable down to produce with Kerry Washington, we're doing the third season. It's a fun it's, it's not quite what people would expect in my lane, necessarily, because it's kind of that soapy thriller, that type of thing, you know. But it's really a lot of fun. But I'm always working, trying to bring something to the screen, you know. And you know, something, there's always
something different I do. A lot of people didn't know I'm also an amateur magician, and I'll do magic shows. Many times I remember the Magic Castle. So there's a lot of lanes that you know like to occupy. So there you go. Yeah.
Do you ever you still tour? Do you do shows? Or is it just more in the LA area? Or I did
last fall, I did a short tour where I come by. Time, kind of my political observations with the magic show, trying to get people to something different. It was so much fun. I hadn't really been out on the road in a while, so it was great seeing fans again, you know. And just, I would love to take the podcast, though, on the road again. I haven't done that in a while, where I've done it on the road, because I love that kind of interaction too.
Especially I love having conversations like, I'm sure you love it too, you know, just it's so much fun talking to people, because you sometimes you never know where the conversations are going to go. You know, even though you may have a structure for breaking the structure is so much fun when you have a really interesting guess. You know, absolutely, I love doing that, so I may figure out a way to do some more of that.
Okay, sounds good. Well, thank you so much for doing this, and I'll get this out soon. It was
my pleasure. Nice being nice to meet you. All right. All right. Take care, from
the rockers to the wise men. You