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• Q & A with Mr. Short
• Jimmy Glick in Lalawood
• Comedy Central's Primetime Glick

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Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Martin Short to this program. The talented comedian and actor first gained fame here in the U.S. courtesy of the hit Canadian series 'SCTV,' which I watch on TV Land now every night. From there he went on to a memorable run on SNL playing characters like Ed Grimley, Jackie Rogers, my favorite Jerry Lewis, and also Katharine Hepburn. His latest character is the fictional celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick. After a successful run on Comedy Central, Jiminy Glick has hit the big time with his own feature film. The movie currently in theaters opened last week. Here now, a scene from 'Jiminy Glick in Lalawood.'

Jiminy Glick: My God, I had this--this--this dream where I woke up and I was--I was lying in bed with Miranda Coolidge. It was a dream! Remember, I said it was a dream. I was having a dream.

Dixie Glick: Yeah, OK. Yeah.

Jiminy: But it seemed so real, you know? So, OK, so I wake up and I'm next--lying beside Miranda Coolidge-- It is a dream!

Dixie: I'm sorry.

Jiminy: I'm dreaming!

Dixie: I'm sorry.

Tavis: Ha ha! Just a dream, it was just a dream. Martin, how are you?

Martin Short: Good. How are you doing?

Tavis: I'm good, man. Nice to have you here.

Short: Thank you very much.

Tavis: Let me start with--I was traveling last week and actually missed this, and I've actually requested a tape which I hope to get sometime soon here. I heard that you killed on 'Larry King' last week--last week, so the character Jiminy Glick was the host of the 'Larry King' show?

Short: Yeah. He took over for the show. He interviewed Larry and Shawn King, and Bill Maher and Nancy Grace and Anderson Cooper, among others.

Tavis: And how'd it go?

Short: It was--well, it was, you know, it's that insanity where you can say whatever you want because it's not you. At one point, uh, Larry was talking about how I asked Shawn King--Larry's wife--what was the most romantic thing Larry had ever done. Larry's sitting there beside her, and she said, 'Well, one time I looked-- On Valentine's Day, I looked out the window and the whole garden had been formed in the shape of a heart, and all roses in the middle.' and I said, 'Isn't that romantic? Isn't that wonderful that Larry would do that?' Meanwhile Larry, all he went is, 'Jorge, flowers.' because, let's face it...

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!

Short: ...Larry wasn't on his hands and knees and, you know, planting bulbs. No.

Tavis: I'm not sure that I would subject--Larry's much braver than I am 'cause I've seen Jiminy Glick, and I'm not sure that I would subject myself to being interviewed by Jiminy, for an hour, no less.

Short: No, no, no. Well, uh, here's the thing--first of all, Jiminy Glick does not go after the real problems, you know what I'm saying. If he was--if he was interviewing Bill Clinton, truthfully, he would not bring up Monica Lewinsky.

Tavis: He'd ask the stuff that is totally irrelevant.

Short: You know, he'd say, um, 'Are Eskimo Pies exploitive?' you know, or, uh--

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!

Short: Or, 'Should Shannen Doherty work more?' I mean, that's what he cares about, you know, about his life.

Tavis: Exactly. Tell me how you created this character. I know you've been asked a thousand times, but for those who don't-- who love the character but don't know how this actually came into existence, tell me how you created Jiminy.

Short: Um, you know, I started in--when I was doing my talk show in 2000. I wanted to create a character where I wouldn't be recognized if I walked down the street. And I'd made a film in 1991 with Danny Glover called 'Pure Luck,' and at one point we were in an airplane, and I got stung--

Tavis: The bee sting.

Short: And my face swells up, and I remember when I shot it I couldn't recognize myself in there. So I thought, 'Well, that's a good look.' and then there was a guy, you know-- there's a little bit of Merv in there, and then there's, you know, there was a guy I-- When I was growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, there was a guy who, you know, if all the kids--when we were on the street--if all the kids stayed off his lawn for a whole year, he'd, you know, allow them--he paid for them to go to the movies, and he'd always say, 'I just seeded my lawn. I don't want any of you ruffians on it,' you know. So I kept thinking, 'This is a strange sort of... I must put that in the back of my head.' You know, 3 decades later it will pop up.

Tavis: I wonder whether or not, when you're watching television, not to out anybody 'cause I might be on this list, for all I know, so as not to out anybody or cast aspersion on people, you ever watch television and think that there are too many people who do what I do who are like jiminy that just are asking stuff that's totally irrelevant? And I ask that 'cause you and I were talking before we came on the air about how much we both love Tivo, 'cause Tivo allows us to create what we want to create. I want to ask in a minute what you create with your Tivo, but this other question first. You see people on TV that remind you of Jiminy, asking stuff that's--

Short: You know, I would say not particularly. I mean, I've seen, obviously, you know, in my day, celebrities being interviewed by people and I think, 'They don't want to be there.' And the person interviewing them is a moron and we all know it. I mean, it's old news. But they're there because they have to be there. So what's kind of interesting to me is the person interviewing them, the kind of moron with power. But that is so not necessarily related to journalism, 'cause I've had, actually, a very easy time in my life, so I have no issues there. But I look at--A moron with power could be the boss of, you know, the head of PBS. It could be, um--

Tavis: Martin said that. Pat Mitchell, that was Martin Short, not me.

Short: But I'm saying it could be the principal of your kids' school, it could be, you know, look in Washington, pick people in the Bush administration. I mean, we can't find more blatant examples.

Tavis: Yeah. All right, so back to TV 'cause Jiminy Glick is funny television. I love to watch it for escapism if nothing else, but it is funny. So we both love Tivo. So what do you create with your Tivo, since you were telling me earlier you think TV is so bad these days?

Short: Well, I just think that you--I think that it's gotten so dumb, you know. I mean, as far as reality television, which is just around humiliation and-- and so it's kind of constantly playing to the lower end of-- of the cleverest American. And, uh, so that sometimes through Tivo and through, you know, cable and HBO and stuff like that, you can create--you find what you want to see. Um, you know, there's also some brilliant hour shows, but the reality television does--it doesn't play to the brightest of us all.

Tavis: What do you make about that? I don't want to get too serious with the guy who plays Jiminy Glick, but I'm fascinated by--by how the serious part of your brain works.

Short: Hey, I can think.

Tavis: Yeah, OK. Ha ha ha! Let me make you think for just a second. To your point about how bad television is and your indictment of reality television, somebody out there likes it. It makes a ton of money. And even with one network last week going after the other network about 'American Idol,' so you know this scandal, which is boring to me, but they got a scandal on 'American Idol' on one network, another network goes after that network, and even after this network goes after-- network 'B' goes after network 'A,' the ratings of the network that 'American Idol' appears still go up. Somebody likes this stuff, Martin, so...

Short: Hey, isn't that fantastic? But you know, someone likes 'Jerry Springer', too. 'That woman was my lover and you know that!' Now, we can say, "Isn't it amazing that people watch it?" But you can't honestly tell me that people watching that show and riveted by it are the brightest of the bulbs? I understand the concept that, you know, you're tired at the end of the day, you don't want to think, and you want to turn on something that just exists and you don't have to think. I get that. I judge not lest you be judged. I'm simply stating that these--that these shows do not play to the, you know-- when you look at 'The Bachelor' and 'The Bachelorette' and--'I am so mad because Stephan was mine--I mean, he so clearly liked me, and I'm like, oh, my God.' it's a long, long way from the time when, you know, Jack Paar would be in primetime for an hour talking to Richard Burton and Malcolm Muggeridge. It just--what existed once under the guise of primetime can't exist anymore because it won't be watched.

Tavis: That silliness--my word, not yours--that silliness might not, um, be the best that television has to offer, but for some people it is funny. I distinguish that kind of funny, that kind of silliness, from comedy, which I think does have a role to play, does have a place in our lives. From your perspective as a comedian extraordinaire, tell me the role, you think, comedy plays in the world that we live in today?

Short: Well, I think it's just hugely cathartic, and I think that people--and that's what I'm saying about reality television. For some people who want to just chill and not have to use their brain at all, reality television is very effective. For some people who are sad and unhappy and need an escape, comedy can be the greatest medicine in the world. There's no question about it.

Tavis: When did you know you were funny?

Short: Um, you know, I guess, like, in school.

Tavis: You were a class clown?

Short: If the teacher was weak--

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha ha!

Short: If the teacher was weak and vulnerable and hanging on by a thread, I was--

Tavis: Just tore into them, huh?

Short: I was just genius. But if the teacher was strict, then I was just as good as gold because I didn't want to get sent to the principal's office. So I took advantage of the weak, and I still do.

Tavis: I had--I'm trying to think of who it was--somebody from the European comedy troupe that was on the program a few weeks ago. Huh?

Short: Cirque du Soleil?

Tavis: Who? Eric Idle. Thank you. Eric Idle was on this program a few weeks ago, and I was asking him a question about how he thought comedy in Britain differed from comedy here stateside. You're from Canada, obviously. You and John Candy and others I mentioned earlier were discovered, you know, through opportunities in Canada. Is there a difference between-- you made it obviously in both places--but is there a difference between how comedy is received or perceived or created north of our border than it is here?

Short: I think that, um, you know, in Canada they--they-- there's just more television. There are more--we get, you know, Canadian television and American television, British television. So I think, uh, the character work that has happened, there's a greater tendency for the character comedians to be from Canada because they observe and satirize and, uh--so, I don't know. I guess that--I used to think that Canadians and Americans were exactly the same, but I guess they are different. They do have--Canadians have a vantage point to make fun and parody so much.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. Um, a lot of comedians I talk to--I didn't ask Eric Idle from 'Monty Python' this question, but a lot of comedians I talk to, I discover that they found their way into comedy out of tragedy. I mean, this isn't rocket science to you. Most comedians, you know, end up going into comedy because they've had some tragic experiences. Was that the case for you?

Short: No. I actually think it's an overrated--

Tavis: You think so?

Short: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's just kind of more intriguing, you know. If you find out that the clown--you're sit and watching as a kid and the clown is--and you find out that he just, you know, his family just got wiped out in a horrible accident an hour before he came in a little car and sprayed seltzer water, well, it's just more dramatic. Isn't it amazing? 'The clown cries on the inside.' You know, that kind of thing. But the reality is, most people I know in comedy are actually--just did it because they were funny, there was joy in the house. That was the case of my house. I was the youngest of 5, and everyone was funny, and it was like trickle-down comedy. And because I was, you know, coddled and never put down and, you know, nurtured so much as the youngest is, I just--goes with that territory sometimes as confidence, so I'm just like ripping off my siblings and my parents comedically.

Tavis: Right.

Short: But I just have the confidence to do it.

Tavis: Where did that--where did that confidence come from, because it seems to me that of all the professions, and I laugh about this often with my African American friends who are comedians because it seems to me that comedy at the Apollo is different. I mean, you guys got it easy, man. If you're a brother or sister and you tank, you really tank. You gotta make--brothers and sisters have to work harder for that dollar to give you when you're on stage.

Short: Why? What's gonna happen to them if they tank?

Tavis: Oh, they throw stuff at you, they call you names. They talk about your mama. They get up and they walk out. They ask for their money back. Oh, it gets ugly--you've seen the Apollo, it gets ugly up in that place.

Short: Well, you know, uh, you know--for me they can cancel the check.

Tavis: White folk are much more polite, Martin, that's what I'm trying to say. They're much more polite than brothers and sisters are. I raise that only because I'm curious as to the best story you have about having tanked somewhere. I know you don't do it anymore. It's probably been so long you may not even remember it. Tell me the story about when you tanked one time.

Short: My whole career has been a--

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!

Short: Tank to tank, it's hard to know--to know where to begin. I wish you'd ask the opposite, tell me about a success.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha!

Short: One time I was, you know, I was--I was--when I'd left Second City Stage, which is improvising, and this friend of mine Carole Pope was--had a punk rock group called Rough Trade, and so she was gonna open at this place called the edge, and she wanted me to, she said, 'why don't you do a little stand-up, you know, and then we'll follow you.' and I had never done stand-up, so I thought, 'oh, sure, that's simple.' so I went home that weekend and typed up some stuff, you know, and references to Camus. I thought I'd be kind of, like, the thinking man's Dick Cavett or something, and, uh-- and, uh, you know, wacky anagrams. I don't know. I typed it up. I'd never done it. And I came out, and the audience was like, they were just for her and Rough Trade. They were all like, all, their parents tattooed in their arms and hatred and drugged and flippant. And I was just booed and screamed at, and I hadn't even left the dressing room yet. I was still, you know. And finally I was doing this piece on a rabbi speaking why you have to be Jewish to be funny, a guy threw a beer in my face, and then in the end Carole came backstage and she's all upset, 'oh, my God, I feel so badly. You know, tomorrow night will be so different.' And I said, 'Yeah. You know, tomorrow night will be different because I'll be home watching Jack Klugman and 'Quincy.' I'm not--I won't be here, I'll tell you that much right now.'

Tavis: Um, OK, on the exact opposite, since you wanted me to ask you about a success--I want to come back to the point about improvising. It seems to me, again on the outside looking in here, but I love comedy, but when I watch people who do what you do--I have great respect for comedians, period, for just having the courage, as I intimated earlier, to get up on stage knowing that there's a risk that you may tank on any given moment or might not connect with this audience. But I especially have respect for comedians who get up and improvise. I don't know how one stands up and just off the cuff makes this work. How difficult is that?

Short: You know, I just think it's a talent that some people have. I think that you can be the greatest actor in the world, you can be Robert De Niro, you can be Denzel, but if they don't feel comfortable without a script, you know, they're not gonna want to do that. And, um, I think some people have an ability and a talent to make it. You know, people like Christopher Guest and Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy. They just have that ability to speak as the character and the words flow out and it's all sincere and often funny.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. Take me back, I want to go full-circle now, let's go back to Jiminy Glick. Tell me what the, uh...'Jiminy Glick in Lalawood,' tell me what the premise of this movie is.

Short: The premise is that Jiminy and his wife Dixie and their 2 children, Matthew and Modine, go to the Toronto Film Festival--

Tavis: Matthew and Modine?

Short: Yeah.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha! Matthew and Modine.

Short: He was a big fan of the film 'Birdy.' So, uh, I think they conceived the children during a screening. And so, uh... So anyway, so they go to the Toronto Film Festival and he's there to cover it for a small station in Butte, Montana. And they meet this odd guy at the bar, and it turns out to be David Lynch the director, played by myself. And we realize that Lynch is creating his next movie, and after that, uh, it becomes a David Lynch movie.

David Lynch: I'm a director.

Jiminy: Well, who isn't, dear? And I bet you have a treatment.

Lynch: As a matter of fact, I do. I--I like the idea of a dark road, um, for I know that darkness is like a magnet.

Tavis: It seems to me that hiding behind a guy like Jiminy Glick, behind this costume, to your point earlier where people can't really see you behind it, allows you certain freedom and flexibility with this character that a comedian who is not in disguise might not have.

Short: Well, whenever you play someone, you have greater freedom 'cause it's not--it's not coming from you.

Tavis: Well, do you have more when you hide behind the fat suit and the--

Short: Well, I think that, probably, more than ever, but generally I don't know if I need a fat suit to be able to say that the character I'm speaking as is not me, therefore he has-- he can be dumber or more arrogant or more preposterous.

Tavis: Uh-huh.

Short: The fat suit allows me to fall easier, you know.

Tavis: Where do you come up with the material that jiminy does? The stuff you come up with kills me.

Short: I don't know. It's just kind of--it's improvised in the moment. You know, we do these interviews that we tape longer, and then we edit so we all look better from it. But, uh, you know, it's just--one time I was talking to Edie Falco and she was in the middle of answering a question. I just went, 'Shh! Just because I ask you a question does not mean that I need the answer.' she was actually thrown for a loop, and I thought it was even odd for jiminy to go there. I said to Mel Brooks, 'What's your big beef with the Nazis?' You know? So he's--he's not afraid to go to the subjects.

Tavis: To that very point, anybody that Jiminy has offended, I mean, when you guys--you mentioned earlier you tape a lot of stuff, you go back and you edit it later. Because you're improvising and just hitting stuff off the cuff, do you ever hit a nerve with somebody?

Short: No. You know, these people know, they know me. We're already talking before we start. It's explained to them that this is like a movie, you know? Um, I think you'd have to be, you know, quite thin-skinned to take Jiminy Glick behind the latex terribly seriously.

Tavis: Speaking of being thin-skinned, you made a comment a moment ago that I just stuck away back here 'cause I wanted to come back to it. You made a joke--'cause you're a comedian-- you made a joke about the fact that your career has kinda been like this, up and down. What do you make of that? Why are you still in this? What do you make of the interesting trajectory that your career has...

Short: Oh, I think that's any career.

Tavis: Yeah.

Short: That's any career. Any career is--is...I think the worst thing you can do, particularly in comedy, is worry about the admiration of strangers.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Short: If you start adapting your odd sensibility to what you think will play in Peoria, um, you're usually frozen. You don't know what to move next. I think the best thing is to just ignore reaction. And reaction will always be reinterpreted 8 years later anyway.

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Short: 'I love that movie.' or 'I love that thing you did,' you know? Often it's the thing that people didn't love initially.

Tavis: That's an awfully adult way of looking at it. Maybe in part it's retrospect that allows you to see it that way, but you're telling me in those moments where the career is not at this level, you've never thought about, 'Maybe I--this ain't what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe...this dry spell has gone on too long.'

Short: Well, I guess because there's never really been, uh, a real dry spell to make you go to that place. You know, as a Canadian actor, I learned early, which was great because it was the way--I mean, it was the way I spent my first 7 years just in Canada, and that's what you did. You do 3 mediums at once. You never sat there and said, 'I'm a film actor. I'm a television actor. I'm a stage actor.' so, if you don't have a film to do, you go and do a Broadway show. If you don't have a Broadway show to do, you do a television show. So it's never really--I've kind of been able to control my own career, you know? And at a certain point, you're not working for rent money anymore. You're just doing this to keep yourself interested. And if you're uninterested...I don't know. I think that I, you know, I've been very lucky again from being the youngest of 5 kids and given a lot of confidence growing up. I never was--my ego was not defined by where my stock was in show business.

Tavis: Mmm. Maybe that's my problem. You're the youngest, I'm the eldest.

Short: Yeah, you see, that's why--that's why you're so filled with anxiety, I can see-- I can see the flop sweat, I can see it all.

Tavis: Yeah, if I were the youngest, I might have more confidence.

Short: Exactly. You know, it's gonna be fine.

Tavis: OK.

Short: You're not gonna last in this forever, obviously, but you're gonna parlay that, and you never know what you can do. You just now know what you can't do.

Tavis: Martin Short busted my chops. I love it. Tell me right quick what 'SNL' meant to you. I mean, that is such a seminal show, and for anybody who's had a chance to be a part of it, I suspect there is something meaningful about that experience.

Short: Well, it was just--it's just--it was huge, you know, for me because I had done 'SCTV' for a few years. I went to 'SNL' right away, which was a very odd perspective to be in one show and then the other. And, uh, they were really, really kind to me. You know, some people have bad stories about that show. Mine were only fantastic. And I did it one year, and, uh, from there I was asked to be in movies. I mean, was a big, big, uh, uh, stepping stone-- whatever the term is.

Tavis: Springboard.

Short: Thank you.

Tavis: There you go. I don't have a career in this, but I do know English.

Short: Beautifully, by the way.

Tavis: Um, so what's next for Jiminy? Are we gonna see, like...if this does well, will there be another, a sequel?

Short: I don't know. I think that Jiminy--I think that it's-- you know, I did 3 seasons of 'Primetime Glick,' and then I did this movie. And like all things, you kinda say, that's--I think that's it. And then you move on to something else. But the, um, he'll be, like, in that retirement home for characters in New Jersey, you know. Ed Grimley lives there, and Jackie Rogers and, you know, 'That's the ticket,' the liar kid. They all live there--wild and crazy guys. They swing.

Tavis: Well, don't retire him anytime soon 'cause he's funny.

Short: Oh, thank you.

Tavis: Glad to have you on the program.

Short: Pleasure, Tavis.

Tavis: 'Jiminy Glick in Lalawood' opened last weekend, in theaters now. It is funny. Run out and check it out. Martin Short, nice to have you on the program. You're welcome back here anytime.

Short: Pleasure.

Tavis: Or as long as my talent holds up for me to--

Short: You know, well, I won't be that long then.

Tavis: Yeah, OK, well... That's-- Gotta invite Martin back real soon then. That's our show for tonight. A reminder, you can catch me back on public radio this weekend and every weekend on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. I'll see you back here next time, though, on PBS. I hope, I think.

Short: Oh, he did fine.

Tavis: Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching. And keep the faith.