![Find Misery Loves Comedy on Amazon](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODM0MjExMzkxNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzM1Mzc3NDE@._V1_SX300.jpg)
Misery Loves Comedy Page #3
It just came up.
in gibberish.
We had an argument over
the tomatoes in gibberish.
We ended up singing some sort of
gibberish folk song together
and just improvised
and played and for me,
that's, like, one of my most
joyful moments with him.
It's the fun part
about being a dad,
because there's nothing funnier
than a little kid
really hitting it right.
And so my son, I remember is he
would try to do a joke in the room,
when he was like five,
he'd go...
he'd try to do a joke, he'd look at
me at go, "It didn't land, did it?"
And I'm like,
"No, it didn't land.
It didn't land."
Take your desk, take your chair,
sit in the hallway.
And I'd sit in the hallway
of an elementary school
and people, you know,
teachers would walk by
and they'd go,
"Why are you out here?"
And I'd go,
"'Cause I killed in there."
If you were making
who became
a stand-up comedian
and you put this into it,
people would go,
"It's a little on the nose."
The only way I could get
attention as the fifth of six
was to do my bits
and, literally, my dad
would have his friends over
and I would get to get
out of bed and come down...
"Do Nixon!"
And I would do it and I was
eight, seven, eight years old.
I mean, there's an old picture of me,
you know, wearing Groucho glasses
and, you know,
holding a bottle of booze
and, you know, they used to have
a little bar area in their den
and I'd go back there,
I'd try to make...
What he used to tell me
to do is like, the...
You know, because he sold,
you know, appliances,
you know, he was always
on the cutting edge of things
and you know, I think
he was one of the first guys
to have his television
in a wall,
so the TV in the den
was in the wall
so the back of the TV was there
and I would go in the closet
and I would stand behind the TV,
you know, and my grandfather would go,
"You're on the television!
I see you on the television!"
He was a very funny fellow.
There was a moment when I was
little in elementary school
when I realized,
I'm not good at sports
and this is a daily humiliation.
They would pick sides,
I'd get picked last,
after the girls,
after disabled kids.
twice a day,
in gym class and at lunch.
And I just remember
putting rocks up my nose
and pretending
I was a slot machine
and having people,
like, pull my arm down
and then opening my nostrils
so rocks fell out.
That was... I don't think
that made me any cooler,
but at the time,
it seemed like a good strategy
to distract from the fact
that I was not
a good soccer goalie.
And then I started doing
impressions of people,
you know, around the same time,
like, junior high.
And that's the first time
I ever thought of myself
being funny that way.
Probably around when I was 15,
that's when I realized,
like, this is... I'm good at this,
I can do this.
I just annoyed people
endlessly from then on.
It was just way too much fun
and I couldn't understand
Like, I would, you know,
I was pretty relentless.
I could even just pick one person
out from the crowd of kids
and I would try to crack that person
and make them laugh, you know?
I knew if I could make
this kid Damien laugh
"Oh, yeah, that... he killed."
But I thought I was a nice kid.
In my heart, I looked at myself
as a nice, sweet kid.
So when a guy would frown
or, you know, even seemed sad,
I'm like,
"What's wrong with you, man?
This is funny. You're a 12-year-old
guy and you have breasts.
I mean, come on, why isn't...
And you know once you kill,
you want to, like, leave the room.
You know, you have a great joke,
you're like, "Oh, that was great.
I gotta get out of here now."
It's, like, 'cause that was so funny.
You were aware of you need
to exit after the laugh?
Get out, 'cause that's... Yeah,
'cause if you stay too long, it's like,
"You want me to do
that bit again?"
I don't remember how
I found this out,
but I could make a sound
that was essentially
a ventriloquism sound
that the teacher thought
was coming from another place.
Like another student?
Or just another place
in the room?
Another student
or another... yeah.
And I didn't...
I don't know, to this day,
I know conceptually
what ventriloquism is,
but at the time,
I just came upon this.
And I could make this sound...
I'll make the sound,
it might be...
just warning the sound people,
um, which was,
if I can still do this...
Ahem, I don't do this anymore,
I should tell you, because...
- So...
- What the hell?
and the teacher would
throw a kid out, not me.
It wasn't really
even for attention,
because I wasn't
getting attention,
it was more for,
I guess I was...
couldn't come to grips
with the idea that they were
trying to teach something.
with an enormous tape recorder
from the AV squad
and I would lie and say
it was a real radio station.
And when I got there, a child,
you know, had just shown up
and they would
realize they got duped,
but they would talk to me anyway
'cause they were really nice.
And I would just
say to Seinfeld,
"How do you write a joke?"
to walk me through it.
Or Harold Ramis...
"How do you write a movie?"
And those interviews
changed my life
because they really told me.
It was my college, I had my college
in junior year of high school.
I was just so obsessed.
So I thought,
"I'm gonna try to interview
every original writer
from 'Saturday Night Live.'"
So I interviewed Al Franken
and Tom Davis and...
You can't just call
these people up.
Well, what would happen
like, Alan Zweibel.
I'd interview him and then he
would take out the phone book
and say, "I'm gonna
hook you up with this person."
And he would start
giving me all the phone numbers
and I was obsessive.
I was always trying
to get Andy Kaufman,
but I couldn't get him
because at the time,
he was down South wrestling,
and I would call his management
office and they would say,
"We don't even know where he is.
He's off the...
he's off the grid."
He was off the grid
before there was a grid.
And then I was watching Richard
Pryor with my parents on HBO,
it was "Live in Concert"
from Long Beach.
And that was when I knew, like,
"Oh, that's what you do
with being funny."
that my parents and I
were enjoying
the same thing so much.
That's the first time I can remember us...
me saying, "That's what I want to do,"
as far as it related
to my family.
I mean, as far as
I mean, I've... I've been
a little pervert my whole life.
I've had that whole weird
addictive personality thing
since very,
very early childhood.
And being funny
was just kinda...
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Misery Loves Comedy" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Aug. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/misery_loves_comedy_13834>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In