Howie Mandel: AGT Criticism, Stage Moms + Acting Tricks

Now really really, now really.

Hello everybody.

I am Jason Alexander here with my best friend Peter Tilden.

Oh is that that's Peter Tilden?

I was else, you're judging the way I said, welcome to really know really the podcast where Peter and I discussed things that make us.

Say really, no, really really.

And usually there's a bell here that I would ding, but my producer Lori Cremey doesn't like the bell, so ding today we have a very interesting topic. This one scared me a little bit because this is a world that I kind of live in.

Right.

So I was reading in a in a paper that there was a dance company, I think maybe a ballet company in Germany, and there was a new program and the one of the critics, I think a person named weep ke Huster, I think it was the name of the critic, wrote a negative, perhaps scathing review.

I'm not sure. I didn't see the review.

Well, it did say that the dancers feel like they were going insane or being killed by boredom.

Ah, so that's not a great.

Review, not a great review.

And so the choreographer or the manager of the ballet company felt that that was excessive and that it needed to be addressed, and they addressed it by when they next saw Weepee Huster, they took dog feces and smeared it in her.

Face in an audience. In the audience, Yes, in the audience. And we went and I.

Got us talking about criticism because you and we'll talk about that later, you've been criticized because you're in a broadway and you get reviewed.

Anybody who's performing in the public arena in any way doesn't have to be in entertainment radio.

For my entire life, on radio, you get ratings, and you get critiqued, and you get called in all the time.

You're constant critiques.

So we wanted to get on somebody who has to give criticism often as they're living. And Howie Mandel is somebody who has to criticize and give axe feedback.

Because tenure to judge on America's got that.

So let's welcome mister Howie Mandel. Good.

Can I just say that opening of this do you want me to critique episode of first?

Really?

That's the opening?

Really? Really?

Really?

You you have me on and it's a show on criticism, And I love the thematic. Yes, the booking the thematic booking. Yes, criticism, and you have a talent judge on but I have I don't want to follow a story about ballet dancers who get wiped in their face. Well, I don't think that's a good I don't think that's a good entree.

And we have Howie Mandel, here's a story of Eric.

You think you're bigger than dog feces being smeared in the critics face.

That's the kind of ego that you have. Bill to a doge are you doing?

I don't know that is somebody.

Somebody says Jackie Mason.

I think.

Was Jackie.

It's also a little bit Max Moments, a little bit of the Producers, which you.

Did very well, by the way, you're very kind.

Was that a criticism? It was a wonderful I did not get a good review in the La.

Times, so you remember you can get That's the thing about criticism is that you couldn't have standing ovations. You can be loved by millions, but you get one little negative, one little gray area, and that's all you remember.

You crushed it on Broadway.

I know that, and I read a lot of it, and everybody loved.

You in that play.

In the producer.

But you remember an La times.

Absolutely, and not only that, not only do you remember or I find that you remember the bad ones disproportionately. I don't remember the good ones the good ones feel like. And that may be a character thing to me. When people are complimentary to me, I tend to thank you, thank you.

You know, I can't quite.

Know what I think take it in.

I think it's the imposter syndrome. I think it's all of us. And I don't know if you feel this way too.

How are you?

I know you're a long time, You've had successful animated shows, you've hosted a talk show, you've launched success. But I think criticism hits us all because all of us have a bit of that imposter syndrome. So it taps into that. Oh they get what's in my head as far as how I feel about myself. Yeah, and it just nudges that thing.

You know.

I don't know if anybody.

Well, when you talk about criticism, I think that is the fuel of life. I think anybody, even in and out of this business, is concerned and believes that there is a critical narrative going on in a room when they walk in. You comb your hair, you dress a certain way, you show up at a party, you show up at an office. In your mind, everybody's looking at you and critiquing. I don't think anybody steps out of their house or into an office or into a workplace

Well, yes, and you have to do it. You've done it for how many years on America's got talent?

I've done it.

Fourteen fourteen years and it's really hard. That was the hardest thing. Two things were hard for me. And you know, as somebody who like you guys, you know, entered this business not only for whatever we entered it to do, to be a broadcaster or an actor, a comedian or whatever, but we also needed to be accepted and loved and you know, respected by people that will probably never meet.

Right.

It's like, I love that people that.

Don't have the need to be in this business it's to be so it would lift a weight off my shoulders to wake up and not give a shit about what people thought of me.

Except today it's not about the influencers. Everybody because of bar Soolo Howie, everybody there's a new entry into that field of I want people to love.

It, right, But it's also very easy to read your analytics.

You know, you got how many.

Likes you get, how many views you get, how many listeners you have, So everybody is chasing that critique, and whether you hear the words or whether somebody shows up to wipe dogs in your face, it feels exactly the same to not have any views, to not have any listeners. Absolutely, So the hardest thing for me was I entered into this business to garner laughter and love and acceptance from people I don't know. And then the first day that

I don't know if people.

Remember at the beginning, you know that we're like American Idol. We're coming to you from Dallas, or we're coming to you from and we used to travel around and find local talent and then bring it you're going to Hollywood.

I remember the first time. I don't think I.

Was that critical, but I didn't love a song choice that somebody, a singer was on stage and I said, you know something like you have a great voice, but you know, I don't think you chose the right song. I mean, there was no range in that song. And I said something that wasn't totally positive, and the entire audience, because this is their hometown boy or girl, the entire audience bowed me. And I had this negative criticism just wave over me, and I thought, oh my god, what

But I know Laurie took away the bell.

I don't know if she took away the bleep we have we have a like, okay, all right, but but you know, I thought, what the hell have I done? You know, like, I'm on a thing where everybody like they don't even like what I'm saying. It's not like I'm trying to entertain. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm not trying to get a laugh. I'm just being honest and I'm just being howey. And that hurt more

And that wasn't even that audience response. I wouldn't even put that under critique. That was, I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to hurt you, Howie Mandel, because you did something I don't approve of and I don't agree with, and I feel you're hurting someone else. So in the guys a protector, I'm going to boo you and hurt your feelings.

I'm going to diminish you.

And you don't think that's what a critic does to you about your about your performance.

I've received many different kinds of critique.

There are some critique that is not.

I wouldn't categorize it as positive, but it is helpful, yes. And then there's critique that goes, I do want to hurt you. I feel that you need to be harmed.

And that's why, as a judge on these shows, my empathy precedes my professionalism. I am somebody who is on stage. I am somebody who is in front of an audience all the time, and I'm very cognizant. I try to be as cognizant as I can be about how I would feel. You know, it's kind of like do onto others as you would have them do unto you. So when I tell somebody something that isn't positive, there's this weight, and the weight is because you just you just alluded

World criticism, Yeah.

But it does.

And I'm cognizant of the fact that people are listening to what I'm doing and taken being entertained by the criticism. So therefore I feel obligated to be honest, and I feel obligated. It's really easy, but also boring and not entertaining to just be nice for niceness sake. Wonderful, that was wonderful, and it was horrible, but I'll never say it was horrible. I will say I'll try to be as constructive as possible. I'll say listen. Opera is not

So I listened to when I was preparing for this and thinking about criticism because I had to help a judge in the past on another show who called me and said, I need to come up with X amount of week. Can you write some right, some write some criticism. In other words, get me. You have to come up with so many ways to say something's bad after fifteen years. Do you have to come up with a novel idea or are you processing it as it happens.

I don't want to do that, So then it's I don't want to write critique.

No, no, but you know them, But you know what words you can use or what things you haven't said before, a way to say it differently.

You know, that's the biggest issue that people have. But then you become like, he just said pitchy. You're making fun of a gentleman that was on idol, right, he always said it was pitchy.

Listen, dog, it's pitchy.

But the point is, so then I'm internalizing and I know I don't think about saying it in a different way. My whole goal on that show is to be a real human being and to be authentic in the moment. And even if I feel that I've repeated myself over and over, I say wow, and I say I am amazing way too much, and when I listen to it, I go, oh my god, I'm just repeating that.

But that's okay.

That's my criticism, my self criticism, which is the biggest critic in the world. I have a tough problem with myself. I'm my worst critic. I suffer from depression and anxiety and all these things because I am a critic living in a very sensitive body. But the truth of the matter is, I'm just I want to be honest and I just want them to know that.

It comes from a place and.

A good place. I don't want to what you just said, Jason.

I don't want to hurt anybody, and the last thing I want to do is hurt you. But my job here. You're a person who shows up on this show. You know that that's the game you're playing. It's like I want to go play tennis, but I don't want anybody hit a ball back to me. It's like, you got

Or opera fan.

I did.

Those are two things that I would never buy a ticket to go see I would never.

Buy a mime show.

I won't. I run from mimes whenever the street.

This made me remember I went to Stomp, and I took super day to stop to Stomp.

It seems like.

And we're sitting in the back we got less mian of seats that somebody gave us, and he said, yeah, I want to go, and we're watching Stomp and he waited.

Half an hour in he goes, these seats are so bad if they're lyrics, if they're saying I'm gonna sue you.

Well, I sat.

I had a five hour flight sitting beside Marcel Marceau.

No, I didn't say.

But I hate mine and I tell people, I tell people on the show. I just don't like it. I don't get it. It annoys me exactly what you just said. A mime is never nothing good is happening to a mind that's always too windy their trap.

Do you think there's a mine who's putting an act together saying, you know what, I'm going to do, an act that's going to change the world.

No, but there is a mind that I ended up loving, and I changed it changed my mind there's a guy by the name of Tapeface who is now performing in Las Vegas, who was one of the funniest, most innovative mimes I've ever seen.

Well, you must enjoy Billy the Mime. Have you seen Billy the Mime? Look him up on YouTube. He does the most versus.

I'm not interested in seeing any more mine than than mime is put in front of me.

He was the mime in The Aristocrats. He told the Aristocrats joke. In my mind, Oh wow, then I know I'm in that movie.

We're in that movie. Oh wow, the my Aristocrats. Now we got to see that.

Now I'm gonna watch that.

So let me go back on.

So you you don't like mime, you don't like opera. But here's the thing for me, and I wonder how you address it. So you have many singers, you have many dancers on the show. You're not a trained singer, you're not a trained dancer. So but you you do like those things, and you will critique them. What's the difference, if there is one in your mind between what makes you able to critique a singer or a dancer.

You have no background, you.

Know, but I am. I don't know how much you know about me. I'm brilliant and I didn't know yet. No I am, I'm brilliant and I'm no. The truth of the matter is this, if you are a singer and you show up, you know I'm somebody who has a modicum of intelligence, who has been in the business for over forty years, who understands.

Marketing, marketing.

I think I can understand why what you're doing is marketable and why some people would love it. And even though I don't love it, I mean, I can hear that you're hitting notes that and I could hear that your original I can hear that you're powerful. I could look at you and say that you own that stage, and you have such confidence and there's a magnetism. I don't want to buy your record, I don't want to stream your music, but you're really good. I get why

I understand.

You know, I never watched soap operas, but that is I understand that's a rabid audience. And it's really good and is the more melodramatic it is, the more they entice that audience. So I think, as an intelligent person who is in the entertainment industry, I have a right to give you my opinion, and you have a right to go, well, you don't know what the work.

Yeah, you don't know what ahead? Thank yous on that. Do you know we pay for if you if you had to come to your right now, I don't need your Jason taught me this.

At the end of every scene in soap opera, they go to commercial and the person is standing there and they focus on their faces and.

I go, what is it? What's the trick?

Well, this was a director that I worked with who directed a lot of when they do those pushions that they end never seen. The scene could be mother died, the scene could be Jeffrey's missing, the scene could be we'll do it tomorrow. But there's this ten second push right, say what do I do? What do I do with that? What do I play? And the director said, very subtly but very real, play who farted?

It'll cover any situation if you do that.

It's this, it's this, you go, that's even that's two over the time. If you're really put I'm going to do it to this camera who farted mother Jeffrey died.

It's very and it will work every time. I'm so glad I brought.

That better than well I'm going to critique. It was wonderful. I didn't know you kind of take away from the critique by telling me the mechanism that it was. But that was an amazing That's why they say, I smell emmy Simon.

You've got into riffs with him. Yes, hey, I guess they got to be honestly real. But the other interesting thing is I looked up reviews of America's Got Talent, and there was a review recently by a guy named John Dudley who said America's Got Talent would benefit from more negativity and all those amp up the criticism. What's interesting is when Simon cow first hit America, right, people went crazy, He's mean. Oh my god, he's so mean. Today it doesn't seem mean. And I'm wondering if that's

To what I think the digital age kind of led us into reality. And you know, Simon was the first person. And I've talked to Simon about this. We become really good friends. Simon was a record producer and in the record business. He's told me, I'm not in the record business. I can't tell you how many people would come into his office or his building and sing a song and he'd go, you know what, I'm gonna be honest with you. It's like cats screaming. You know, It's like it's it's

Tower yeah, I saw that live when I.

Was a kid. My parents took me.

Whoa, yeah, I'm old so so.

But everybody was always nice, and it was always considered, even on the Gong Show, the worst thing you got to god, but it was it was with a laugh, you know, and it was it was all in good nature. But he was the first one that went, oh, this are you kidding me? And they purposely for entertainment. The producers would like William Hung. Do you remember William So William Hung got cast? Do you think he got cast?

But the point is Simon was just himself and.

That caused a lot of people, like you said, negativity and criticism online and when people are mean online and on YouTube and on Twitter and on that.

That stuff blows up. And that's what blew that show up.

Because Star Search with our Sinio Hall, you know, premiere the same time as American Idol. American Idol and Star Search had bigger you know, our Sinio. That was his next show after our Senio Hall show. Our Sinio was the host. I can't remember, but you can look it up. I can't remember who the panel was, but there were much bigger stars than Paula Abdul and Randy and Simon wasn't even known right, right, And why did Idol blow up and go through the stratosphere because we went, oh

What the is that?

Does this guy think?

This is? Like?

What is that?

And he was willing to say it like he would say it in his office. The truth is that what's good about America's got talent. They don't cast a lot of people like William Hung, but there are those people. And because We're a variety show, I believe, and so do our producers, who are mostly English.

We love and that's kind of gone from our world.

When I was growing up, I loved Professor Irwin Corey. I loved these weird you know, the the Charros when she was just a guest, I loved I'm trying to think of other weirdness that was, you know, on the Murk Griffin Show, Missus Miller, who was always funny with Missus and you know, I used to argue with Howard Stern even when I said, I love this. I love because I think there could be a show around this. I think, who did who did Letterman have as a what's his name?

Remember Letterman?

Oh, Larry bud Melman, Right, So, Larry Bud Melman was an amazing real life character that I thought you could have done a whole show around. You could have had a Vegas show Larry Bud Melman and the Larry Bud Melman dancers, and you could have put the lasers.

But I believe that you could produce something around there.

I legitimately believe there is something wonderful and authentic about somebody who is maybe not odd, odd, but different, and we need to celebrate that. And I like that, and I still like that in our show. But on AGT and Simon talks about this. If we don't agree, we don't have to all agree. But on a lot of those shows, so there is negativity. He gets mad at me if I like somebody that he doesn't like it.

Do you ever get bumped? Do you ever get bumped by that where it gets actually lines?

No, because we feel that the criticism of each other is probably the part I love the most, because I like, I'll sit and watch TV with my wife and she'll go, you got to watch this movie, and I'll go, this is terrible, this is terrible. My wife watches. My wife is stuck on watching all these crime all this crime stuff stuff, yeah, the true crime, and I'll critique it. I'll go, like, the reenactments are always like horrible, all how is this not making you laugh? And she goes,

To do that.

But what about when you get pushed back. I don't have a woman's name, but I know the mom of.

The mom of the two kids that bothered me.

What happened so there was a there was a there was a kid that danced on the show.

Are you waving yet?

My wife?

I was just talking about her and.

She shows up. It's like she said, that's.

About what I don't like about what she watches.

And then she shows up in the room and she will contive me after about my appearance.

Really, if your wife is like my wife, the hardest critiques ever are from my wife. When my wife loves something I've done, I know it must.

Be good because she just doesn't give that up.

Very easily.

Married a fan, and she believes in me and she loves me. But she will always say that moment in the play, what choice did you make there?

And I go, yeah, I'm not really sure. She goes, yeah, we see that.

By the way, My wife a sitcom that I wrote and directed his wife on the floor of the sitcom five hundred audience members. The head of the studio, I've got a lot on my plate came down to me and said.

Are you going to really let him say a line like that? Are you going to let him say alone my wife?

My wife is very protected during the show.

Yeah, and you know what, she was right?

Yes, I think when you're married long enough, it's like that's your own personal living critic.

Yeah, you know, and my wife will you know?

Because I'm always trying to write something witty and funny, and rather than laughter my wife, everything I say is kind of followed by is that a joke?

Right?

And I sometimes say no, no, no, but it is. But I don't want to you have to ask.

The mom what happened and critique these kid dancers.

Apparently I found out later that the kid was devastated.

This is the problem. This is the problem.

This is the biggest problem I have with my show and critiques and just show business. I don't think kids should be in show business. I don't think it's a healthy place. I don't think kids need to be. This is why it's the topic of this. I think it's hard enough to get along in life and to be accepted, but especially on a show like ours, where they're going to be up against And I don't want to lie and say I loved it. I don't think I was particularly harsh with this child, but it's how the kid

Anyway, the kid was devastated.

And then the mother came on later on and let me know how devastated the child was and because of my words, and that was devastating to me.

I don't know what to say.

I said, I'm sorry, you know, I had to apologize, and I was, to be honest with you. I was publicly embarrassed because she came on national television and told me that I devastated her.

Child with By the way, Simon Fanning, that slam.

A little bit.

He thought, well, he has friends.

He thought it was funny to He always thinks it's funny to see me uncomfortable, and it kind of is, you know, I get it. Listen, humor always comes out of yes, it always is. So the sense of humor of seeing me squirm and being uncomfortable.

He liked that.

He doesn't He didn't like the fact that a child was what it was about, and the child was the center of it, and the child.

Was Here's the other feeling I have.

If your child is devastated by critique or by not doing well or by not getting a part, then I think it is the parent's obligation to say this is not for you. You know, acceptance in life is hard enough. This is a business of rejection. You're always going to and if they can't take that, and that's devastating, then that should be taken as a lesson.

A lot of times a kid will do it for the attention for the parents. I mean every time Jason and I have done a TV show. I have done a TV show and you're casting and there's a child's role and you're bringing in a kids and you're only picking one kid. You see on their face the parent brings them in or the agent brings them in, and it always bumps me every time because as I'm watching them do it, they're nervous.

They want to be pleased. Again, you said it before.

We all walk out of our houses and we want to be loved and we want to look good and all that. Those kids that's all amped up when you're a teenager or preteen, Judging those kids to do an acting scene always destroys me because I know only one kid's going to get it, and I know when they walk out and I'm not, they're not going to get it.

Guessing why they didn't get the party, their parent is critiquing them, you know, which I don't think is healthy.

You know, here's what you got to do, here's what you did.

I think that a stage parent is probably the most toxic kind of critic that somebody can have in their life.

Yeah, it can.

It really is, because it's coming from a parent who I believe and you can critique me on this, but I believe that as a parent, our job is to be the most supportive, the most coddling, to remove our children from any I mean, we could be a helicopter parent and maybe do that too much, but in this world, which is tough as it is, I think we have to keep our children away from toxicity. And I think that this business is toxic anyway.

But then there's a balance too, because I think about it, and I said, just to Jason, we'll think about growing up. And I don't know your childhood, but I'm all over my kids and I think maybe smother them too much. Because my dad never as much as I love my dad, he never sat down.

And said, what are you feeling today? Are you good?

He never asked me about emotions and feelings and how I'm doing and what It was kind of perfunctory. He was busy, I was busy. And it wasn't that they weren't supportive, it just was not feelings and emotions. Of today, parents are much more aware that their kids are going through.

Yeah, you have to let them go through roost. You're just gonna say you can't. You can't oversmother a child with affection. You can problem solve for them, and that can become your child.

You know.

Suck the Dalai Lama's tongue.

Wow, what was that?

But are you you're giving that?

Are you giving that criticism?

I'm gonna put a big X on that cancer culture.

I just had to hear that one.

There is no Usually when celebrities are criticized, they're worse.

Like I had.

Some example, Shila was criticized. I put a bag over. The reaction is not always the best. I saw that saying, and I thought, the the doll you seek truth and wisdom, And he asked the kid to suck his tongue. I didn't get what did the explanation come out? By the way, did anybody?

As I was driving in today I heard something he said. It was a joke. It was supposed to amuse, it was supposed to be funny.

And where's he from?

Originally sometimes into suck my tongue.

It's like pulifinger.

Yes, that's the only thing that would be the only explanation.

By the way, possibly even if I went to bed now and n people say, hey, suck my tongue.

I go, okay, all right, get it now.

But you know how many people are on a on a podcast right now? TI Beeth going, you know they're Americans that have children?

Can you imagine that?

I don't know is this talking about this? Because I don't know if you've talked about this before, about criticizing and doing the responsibility of that.

Well, I feel bad, Yeah, I feel bad. I don't know how I'm affected. You know, on our show, I want to tell you this. I don't know if you know this, but you said you were to judge on another show. Do you know that there is a full time employed psychologist backstage?

Do you know that?

I was wondering, Yes, So the guy that is the psychology by.

The way, sorry Laurie took it away from you, okay. So the guy that is backstage at AG he used to work for the LAPD. He was the guy that was waiting in the foyer on Roxbury at the end of the slow speed chase when they brought Oj in.

He's the guy that had to talk to make sure that Oj.

Stayed somewhat, saying as they were putting handcuffs on him and taking him in. That same guy is the guy that is backstage at agt saying are you okay with what Howie said?

I got so many questions about that. That's another episode you come back for that. I want to interview.

That he'd come in. Wow, was amazing. They and curiously do people say no, and do they yes?

So?

And and they are really busy. You know, listen, people, we humans are very uh uh complicated and and you don't what affects you might not affect me. What affects me probably doesn't affect many other people. And how you react to whatever has happened to you in the world is very unique. And these are people that are put in a very crazy think about this a lot of these people have never been on television.

A lot of people come to.

Us, and especially when you're talking about a child, a lot of people have come to us and they go, you know, this is something I've always wanted to do. My mom had cancer and I started singing, and singing helped me, and my mom always wanted to hear my voice, and I think this is my calling. And now they come out to Pasadena, California. They probably a lot of them have never even been in California, so they're fish out of water. They walk out on a stage where

But how has this sensitivity and not knowing what's going to trigger and how someone's going to trigger it. As you continue to work in the comedy world, don't you find that's the same thing with your audiences.

I'm incredibly nervous. For me. Stand up comedy was my respite.

You know.

I've talked to Peter many times over the years, and everything I've ever been punished for, expelled for, hit for is what I got paid for. The thing is, it was the first time I didn't have any friends as a kid. The first time I had any real acceptance was acting like an idiot on stage.

And my act actually came out of authenticity.

You know, when I was dared to get on stage, I didn't pursue this business. And when I was standing there, if you look at the old videos of me, I'm very different now than I was then, But it was always like, it.

Was very hyper, and it was like okay, okay, all right, all right.

It was me really legitimately being terrified, trying to think of something to do, having nothing to do. My hands were in my pocket and I grabbed my I had rubber gloves because I you know, I've always had OCD and I carried rubber gloves with me because if I had to go to a public restroom, I didn't want to touch anything. And I was terrified in front of

I go what did I do? And what started happening?

You know, I garnered an audience and people really liked me. But the truth of the matter is, critically I was killed like I didn't have an act. I was the joke for I can't tell you for how many years, and this destroyed me inside.

I'll be honest.

I was, you know, Letterman's top ten list. I was always included in that top ten list as a joke with it. They said, and we'll send you to a Howie Mandel concert.

And that killed me.

And it was funny and it got a laugh because within my own community of stand up I wasn't thought of as the wordsmith you work with Jerry. Jerry is a very articulate writer who works every word and every rhythm. And I was a guy who got on stage and just terrified and likable, you know, tried to hold on to their attention and make people like me. And it's

So I'm always aware the word to do.

So many people don't.

Like me and think I'm an idiot and think I you know, I talked to this.

I talked to carrat Top a lot.

Carratop is an amazing guy who has had the ability to have a showroom in Vegas for the last couple of decades, who not only writes material that holds and gets laughs every night, but engineers and builds props.

I don't think he gets the but he.

Does not get the respect. No respect.

He gets critiqued.

He gets criticized for doing more than what the average comic does and for having more success than the average comics have.

There's thousands of us out there.

Most of us don't make a big living, you know, most of us are just these road warriors. Look what he's doing. He doesn't deserve any critique. He deserves to be applauded for what he does. So the critiques within our community are somewhat and I've talked to him about it, debilitating and horrible. You want respect from an audience, from fellow people in your own.

As an actor.

You want other actors to go what a performance, and that also sometimes means more to you, and it is more hurtful if other actors that you respect are critiquing what you did than some guy in the paper. As a stand up that was a safe haven in a club. And now with the advent of cell phones and people, well just people and social media, people could say something that I say in a club, take it out of context, and then the world and then they criticize what they heard.

It's not even real, and then it blows up and then you're canceled, absolutely, you know.

So it's bigger now than it ever was the world and social media has become the critic so much so that average Joe Schmoe is now on social media and it's not even a real picture. They give you filters and they give you things where you can create something so that you don't get criticized.

You could change your shape. So what is reality?

And that's based on why you're changing your shape on social media so that you don't get criticized. And it's mean criticism.

You bet.

My daughter, who I do my podcast with, is a mommy blogger, was a mommy blogger. She doesn't do she doesn't put her kids online anymore because people criticized her children and were mean mean to children. I'm it's hard enough for me, who gets paid a nice dollar to sit in front of somebody who's asked me to say

It's crazy, And how's your how the kids doing? And by the way, just to sheer volume in that too, it's everybody. Now, everybody's dangerous. Well, it's after you leave. We usually take this to another level. The level we're going to take to is that it's about everybody has an opinion now and everybody's encouraged to give it, whether

Well, I remember talking about what they're talking about.

I remember it has to be fifteen years ago watching Wolf Blitzer do a news story, a news story, and at the end of it he said, we want to know what you think, so right to usaid at something, and I go, what doesn't matter what I think my opinion on This is a news story. This is a factual event that you have shared with us. Yes, it may inspire some thinking, but why is what I think need to go into the CNN public discourse sphere.

Because the new media and media is all around us. You don't have to be there. Used to be a time when we were kids where people used to they wear a fedora. That's at press, and that was a professional person. And now everybody social media, they're really boy, it's a guy in his underpants sitting in his bed in Cleveland, you know, but the.

Seems a little critical by the way engine hear then yeah, a little bit strong.

Yeah, and finish your thought.

My thought is, My thought is that in order to feel alive, the keyword in social media and everything you're doing, even this podcast is engagement. So how else do you engage an audience? How do you engage anybody? The only way to engage a stranger is ask them to critique criticism. I want your criticism. Hopefully it's positive, but it's not always positive. And the people that rise to the top, or the criticism that rises to the top, is the negative. As dark as you can get, as negative as you

You know, if somebody says.

They listen to this in the comments of this podcast, I don't know. If you read the comments of this podcast, you should say you do so that people in Ada.

I don't follow this show, so I don't know.

Well in the comments, if they go I saw the you know, I listened to their I listened to really no really last week with Howie Mandell.

That was nice.

That'll just go by, right. But if somebody goes, why the hell would you have that idiot on? I can't stand listening to a second of them. That comment will go to the top, and that comment will be commented on.

You know, So that's criticism is our fuel.

Well, you said something so interesting.

So I directed a film years ago as my first film, and we were doing test screenings, and as we would sit and watch the test screening with the audience, it was a comedy and there would be fifty big laughs and at the end we'd get a smattering of flaws from the test audience, so I go, oh, we must be pretty good. Then the focus group would happen and

So they clearly they want they want.

They must if they asked that question, they must have an inkling that there's something wrong with the lead character.

Let me think about that. Oh well, now that I think think of it.

Same thing.

We tested a TV show, our first TV show together was Bob Patterson. And in the test screenings, they have a room full of people with two buttons. I know, if you like what you're seeing, hold the left one. If you don't like what you're seeing, hold the right button. So the show starts and everybody's holding the left button, and I know, if I'm sitting in that room, I'm going to go what am I as?

Shmuck?

I'm not just going to sit here and like everything that's Let me hold this button for a little while.

Arbitrarily, I would be pushing the other button.

Well, you know I did that.

So I sold a show.

I sold a show once to a network and they do tests in Vegas at the it used to be the testing place was in Vegas at the Mote in the mall, right in the mall. So I put on a baseball cap and I took ten friends. They pay you twenty five dollars, and I said, oh, what do you do? I found out what day they were testing my show, and it was me and ten friends went in and every time there was a joke, we turned the dial up.

That's fantastic and we loved it.

What did you like?

And I had everybody. The show got picked up. They go it tested through the roof, like I know, it tested through the group. But everything that they sell Everything that you buy is based on criticism. Criticism is what creates this world, and that's what we live on, and that's what social media is. It makes everybody a critic. Everybody is a critic. Everybody is a judge. I say, the only people ask me about my show about agt I joined it on We're going into our eighteenth season

So let me say now to the people who agreed and said, boy, why do they have Howie on? It's horrible, it's ending, It's over. So for those people, congratulations ear Muster.

Second, thank god he was.

How is I say this.

In the Northeast.

Howie is one of the most creative I tell you.

One of the funniest jokes and I still tell people that you do it, and I've seen you do your actor a million times, is when you you did the thing we said, I'm going to do improv now and you ask people for the pot you so, I told Jason, because it's so brilliant to make you feel good about yourself. I've seen everybody, worked with everybody, and how he would ask, give me a profession, give me a prompt, give me a location, and then it's all tell me what to say.

And boom, give me no, give me okay, give me something funny to do.

And the a the balls to take everybody that down that path to pay that off is what is who you are.

That's a real good way of summing.

It up, because you've got a lot of guts with your comedy to take people on rides and it's brave.

It's I love terror. I'm addicted to you do I am. I love thrill rides. I like to feel that adrenaline. I like when it's not working and then I'm devastated that it didn't work.

Yes, but but and anytime I've worked with you, it's always been and hidden.

Howie.

The thing I tell there is you were was it a Vegas buffet? That's my favorite thing that you've ever done. Take a Vegas buffet and the guy would go and fill his plate up and he put it down. And when you talk about terror, Howie would show up and he had a band down a seat and notes how he and how he would immediately soon as a guy put the food down and turned, he would take it and dump it into the trash and the guy he was cleaning up, and the guy would go, what did

You wouldn't start.

I would.

I would clear tables. I would clear tables. I see them going, they go to their table. Then I'd go dresses and I take the plates.

And dump them.

Because I didn't I didn't finish.

You can go back and I didn't.

Even this guy though, over and over time the guy was going screaming of his mind, screaming, how would we have a guy come in a bakery no one's there, and how we would call out numbers number eight sixty two and the guy goes, there's nobody here, and how we were sure sure age sixty three.

I mean, you watched this and you're going this is really no? They would I would have.

I would be in the in the bakery. You're an ice cream store and we would.

Have numbers and I'd give an equal of number seventy two. He'd be the only one there store and I'd go six and he'd be looking at his seventy.

It no matter that people are ready to kill him.

Some guys, and I would go an hour.

I call an hour.

He goes, but there's nobody here. I go with number you. He goes seventy two. I go, wait your turn.

Your comedy is smart, howing well, their comedy is different. It's dangerous. Push the envelo. Thank you, Thank you for having me on and thank you.

I should note for people that don't know, we do our show here in your facility, and you are an amazing host and a fantastic We have to pay for.

This one because at you promoting well, there should be some sort of a rebate. I do think on this, what do I get paid for this? All with us?

Thank you?

That's brother.

Having talked about critique and the power of critique, I have been critiquing you since we began about you not wearing the really no really branded shirt, and look at.

The power of critique. It actually it came out with.

A positive powerful it's a positive change. Your handsome of powerful. I didn't want to hear it anymore. Right, Sometimes it's.

Shirt.

That's what we've learned about critics for nine dollars shirt and it's like like gold, you know what, fourteen fifty.

But that's not with the logos on the gifts. Absolutely and only if you want to return it the receipt that was the big scam, all if you want to return the received So.

Let's talk about criticism.

Why was amazing, Yeah, about if people watch those shows like America's Got Talent and you don't realize the responsibility with Great Power.

Responsibility was always clear to me, especially seeing the guests they had on because a lot of them are not professionals. A lot of them probably they're not making their living from the thing they're performing on that show, and it is a spotlight as how he pointed out that they're not used to. So it's a deer in the headlight. And you've got somebody who you came in that you're trying to impress, good, better and different, giving you feedback live in front of three thousand.

People that you know is going to be replayed all over the world.

It is the responsibility of that much greater than absolutely, and in this and particularly you know I've been I've been teaching acting students of late, and when you give feedback, it is in a way some sort of judgment. And I am I hope, I hope I have not had a student, you know, tell me anything else there that what I'm offering is always pulling them in a positive direction, asking them what they're trying to achieve, asking them if they it doesn't nearly matter.

It's how person hears it in their background, and you never know how they're going to hear. But by the way, just some interesting things about criticism.

JK.

Rowling was told that children just aren't interested in riches and wizards anymore. That was when a modeling agency told Marilyn Monroe, you better get secretary worker get married.

So I love it.

The Beatles, of course, were rejected by every record label there was. The brutal one is Barbara Streisen. Her mother says, you never be a singer and not good look enough at home when you do that, when you don't have to leave home to get kicked, and then you know what, that's pretty tough.

Well that's you know, I want to circle back, because we were talking with howy about you know, what can you do if you're a parent, or you know you got a kid that comes to you legitimately and says, Dad, I'm trying to do this thing. And I and I get asked by parents all the time. My kid is interested in the arts?

What do I do?

What do I tell them?

And I say, I try to say look good, bad or indifferent? Here's your answer. Whether you think they're talented or not talented, here is your answer. Honey, you are my child. I love you, and I cannot see you through an objective lens. I think everything you do is special and I take joy in this. So if you want an objective opinion, I'm not the person to come to me. Wow. But I believe in you and I believe in your dream and that what I say to people is, look, life is going to teach them whether

Not a drug.

I came from the non believer family. YEA, my mother said, Laurie knows this. I told her this before I said I'm gonna be on TV. You think you're good looking enough, I'm gonna be rid you think you're smart enough, which didn't destroy me. I never, it never, It's just it's just what they were. It's just who she was, you know what I mean. So and it didn't deter me. But I knew she couldn't hint it just she couldn't process that. And maybe that was her way of saying,

But there is that is a I think that is a realistic part of success because I have to tell you, and you know this, you were supported. I was supported by my no question. My parents were very supportive of me. But I've had a hugely successful career, no question about it. Many would argue unearned success, but I've had a very successful career. Ninety nine percent of my career are people saying no to me, you aren't good enough, We don't

A really bad place to try and make you.

At that point, my dad pulled me aside and said one thing that was, you know, the highs are going to be really high, but the lows are going to be really low. He was right, And I told my

Owen Gieberman of The Entertainment Week was impressed either.

He said, the kinds of characters who exist nowhere but in the minds of callously manipulative Hollywood screenwriters.

Wow, yeah, you know my Broadway debut, Merrily we roll a luge. John Simon, who was a really acerbic critic for The New York Magazine in his review, but I want to congratulate the creative team of this show for assembling the ugliest cast and brought up.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, forget you were good. You are not good. I can't stand to look at you.

Oh no, oh, who would put that face on a stage?

Yeah? It was Before we go.

To Google ham, I'll give you my favorite review. And here's a friend of ours, Leonard Malton. His complete review for the nineteen forty eight film Isn't It Romantic?

Was no? Yeah, well that's only top that.

I told you there was the most famous Broadway show. There are books written about it. The biggest flop in recent history on Broadway was a comedy thriller called Moose Murders, and it closed on its opening night. And the ten o'clock television review, which is the first one out, they said, here the show opened, and here's our critic on the aisle, and now this person has to give you a one

That was it his review? Worst review? I have no worst. It's so brilliant. Google him raps up here. What we said? What do we do wrong? What do we need to know?

First off, I just want to say that psychologists generally agree that criticism does not lead people to change behavior, but as we all know, shame does.

That might be something that people want to take advantage of. A couple of quick statistics. Apparently people are let me save it for air.

Then my parents were by the visionary's today, I shamed you did in my childhood.

My parents they were visionaries, they knew, they knew what to do. Shame your son, thank you.

But for office managers out of there, eighty three percent of employees really appreciate receiving feedback, whether it's positive or negative, and seventy two percent of employees say they get praised less than once a week. So perhaps if people, you know, manage these things a.

Little bit differently.

And although I know that Howie was not really into this whole idea. We first came, of course, to this idea after this choreographer whose name is Marco Goka.

It smeared feces onto a critic's face.

Well here's the interesting thing, Well, there's two actually interesting things about that. Goka explained that he did that because he was under pressure to create a masterpiece. He also had some personal struggles, such as an ill mother and his dog that is fourteen and a half years old.

Was coming to the end of his life. The positive note is that that dog, whose name is gustav will live on because it was his feces that were smeared in verb Kerr Housta's face.

And so that will forever be referred to as a Gustavus.

There we gotta dog was well known.

Well.

The other thing was that was his last was that is the dog's last mom, because that would have been really touching.

That would have just given that away.

In that case, that was a major you know, and you know Sleiser too, because the dog was so well he was thinking about bringing the dog and smearing it on her face.

Couldn't travel? I love that you have you're giving reasons. Yeah, oh, now I understand that.

No problem.

Didn't realize you didn't realize your mother was. Wasn't that he didn't.

Think it through.

Travel from he brought it.

My bag.

I did not realize your mom was.

Yeah.

Now, really, no, folks, that's going for us today. If you've enjoyed the show, let us know on really.

Don't say that because there wasn't business that I worked out where we were getting.

Really, I want to thank our producers laur Kribby, David Google, and I. If you're watching us on YouTube, please remember do like and subscribe.

We drop, we drop, I hate the drop.

Yeah.

After every Tuesday there's a new episode of Really No Really on the iHeart app, the Apple app, or wherever you get your podcast.

And thanks to Howiman.

Who were great. And by the way, thank you for putting on the ship. And thank you everybody. At least he took the dog stuff and bagged it. Yeah, that's right. Have a good thank you. Go on and thank you Laurie and see you. You're a very handsome man. That's a positive bring enforcement.

So you're making up for my parents for fifteen years of my parents going you're not gonna make it.