E-mail a friendTim Reid, Tom Dreesen
airdate October 14, 2008
Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen met in '68, working on a school antidrug campaign. The pioneering duo went on to become one of the first interracial comedy teams in the U.S. After breaking up, they each found individual success—Reid as an actor and co-founder of Millenium Studios, the first full-service studio complex in Virginia; Dreesen as a stand-up comedian, who opened regularly for Frank Sinatra and has worked with such acts as Bon Jovi and Elton John. Their book, Tim and Tom, is a social history of race in entertainment.
Comedian-actor Tim Reid shares a story from his childhood involving his mother and a nun. (2:18)
Full interview. (16:20)
Tim Reid, Tom Dreesen
Tavis: So in the late 1960s, Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen formed the first interracial comedy team in American history, and for five years they toured the country in an age of racial turmoil and political change. The terrific new book about their time together is called "Tim and Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White." I love the title - Tim and Tom, glad to have you both here.
Tom Dreesen: Thank you, good to be here.
Tim Reid: (Unintelligible.)
Tavis: I'm glad to have you here. You guys were on the radio show a few weeks ago; we had a great conversation, and I'm so delighted to have you on the television show. By the way, loved you on "Letterman." That was so great - a lot of fun.
Reid: Yeah, a lot of fun - yeah.
Dreesen: Thank you, yeah. He's the first one to read our - he read the manuscript.
Tavis: David did?
Dreesen: On an island in - where he goes to hide. And he called, he said, "I couldn't put it down."
Tavis: So does that explain why his blurb is atop mine on the back of the book? (Laughter)
Dreesen: Yes.
Reid: Yeah, he's got an island. If you had an island, you first.
Tavis: It's because he read it first.
Dreesen: He was the first.
Tavis: Yeah, I know you're not comparing my audience to Letterman's audience - come on. Anyway, I love that guy. We're both from Indiana, so that's all that matters. Going through the - speaking of the book, going through the manuscript, though, the thing that - one of the things that got my attention was the extent to which - and I didn't realize it, even in our radio time, the way I do now - the extent to which your childhoods played into your act.
We're all the sum total of our experiences, but let me start by asking just the top line on your childhood, what it was like growing up as a young Tim Reid. I love the story of your mama beating up the nun, but I'll let you take that, yeah.
Reid: Yeah, my mama was a bit emotional. (Laughter)
Tavis: What was it like growing up for you?
Reid: Growing up was constant change, that's all I can think - and survival. We were poor, I guess - well, actually, we were just po' - we couldn't afford but two letters, P-O.
Tavis: (Laughs) Just P-O, yeah.
Reid: And we were always moving. Every time the rent'd come due we'd have to move. My mother was - I was a bastard child, didn't know who my father was at that time, and my mother had remarried, and we lived in Baltimore. And it was a very difficult time.
And I think what I learned from those experiences, being with a very emotional and frustrated mother - lovely woman, but just could never get it quite right, couldn't get in that groove, couldn't find a man that really treated her with the respect that she should be given - and so it was very difficult.
But you learn to survive. You learn to - somehow you go to sleep at night and you wake up and you say, "Today is the day that it may be better," and you keep going with that hope.
Tavis: Yeah. And since I mentioned it, they're going to say, "You didn't ask about the - " tell the story about your mama and the nun.
Reid: (Laughs) Oh, the nun.
Tavis: It's a funny story. Since I put you out there like that, you might as well (unintelligible).
Reid: Well, you put me out here, and I'm going to - the Catholic Church will send letters. (Laughter) But anyway, we know that nuns can be a bit aggressive. When we were kids, they'd beat the hell out of you, really. (Laughter) And I was - my mother put me in Catholic school. I was born Baptist, but she put me in Catholic school because it was one of the better schools.
And we had this nun. Boy, she was like a drill sergeant. And there was an area - I was in the third or fourth grade - there was an area where the younger kids were not allowed to go, and there was an opening that you could go around. And all the old kids would go there and of course they'd get back there and tell dirty jokes and smoke or whatever, and all the young kids, of course, we'd want to be there.
Tavis: Right.
Reid: So we would all sometimes sneak back there during the recess. She came up one day, blocked the opening, and she said - let all the older kids out and said, "All you young kids, I'm going to teach you a lesson. You'll never come in here again. She pulled up her dress, her habit, whatever you want to call it, opened her legs, and said, "Come through."
And as each kid would go through, she'd whack them with a strap. (Laughter) Whack, whack. Now, me being I don't want my butt beat, I'm trying to not go. I can't climb over the fence; I don't know what to do. So I'm the last one, and I wouldn't come. And she said, "Come on." I was so afraid. And finally, I went. Well, now she's angry because I didn't come. So, just as I was going in, she locked her knees around my neck (laughter) and gave me a good going-over.
Tavis: I guess so.
Reid: Now, I don't want to tell my mom, because my mom is really reactive. And so she's bathing me and she sees these welts on my back, and now she's angry. "What happened?" And I tell her what happened. She couldn't sleep. She was dressed at 3:00, sitting at the door, looking at it, waiting for the sun to come up. (Laughter) She grabs me, literally, I was drug all the way to school.
She just dragged me down the street, she was so angry. They had recess about 8:30 in the morning, where all the kids get in line, and there she was. My mom went up and grabbed this nun by the habit -
Tavis: And wore her out.
Reid: - swung her around, and wore her out. And as she was doing it, "You will never hit my kid again." (Laughter)
Tavis: Yeah. That's when you know she's Black, when they beat you and talk at the same time.
Reid: And then from then on, that nun loved me, gave me bean shooters and slingshots. (Laughter)
Tavis: That's a great story, I love that. And I'm trying to contrast that experience with Tom's growing up, and all I got to say to you is, Gucci and Tutu.
Dreesen: Yeah, God bless him. Gucci's passed away; Tutu's still out there somewhere, probably watching this show right now. (Laughter) But Tutu and all the guys. All the brothers in my neighborhood had a nickname - Snake, Link. They always had a nickname.
Tavis: But you had two brother friends named Gucci and Tutu.
Dreesen: And Tutu, yeah. Gucci - Everett Nicholson (sp) - he was my - when I was a little boy, I was the only White kid in this all-Black situation, so I'd shine shoes in neighborhoods, in the bars, and sometimes on the way home there were some brothers who would say, "Well, I think we'll just take that little White boy's money," and they'd jump me. (Laughter)
And I'd fight, and one day, Gucci, who was the toughest guy in the neighborhood, he said to them, "From now on, when you beat up that White boy, you got to do it one at a time." (Laughter) And that sort of gave me a little reprieve. (Laughter)
Reid: Good looking out.
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughter) One at a time.
Dreesen: The word was all over the neighborhood that oh, he's Gucci's boy, he's Gucci's boy. And I said yeah, and I'd follow Gucci wherever he went. And we became the best friends. He was older than me, and God love him, he became part of my act and everything.
Reid: He brought him to Vegas when he appeared in Vegas. Were you with Sammy (unintelligible)?
Dreesen: Yeah, when I first went there with Sammy Davis. And I used to do routines about him, and when I introduced him to the audience, when I said, "And there's my friend Gucci," Sammy came running out of his dressing room because he wanted to meet Gucci. (Laughter)
Tavis: Take me back - you talk about it in the book, of course - how this came to be. How did this act come to be?
Dreesen: I had just gotten out of the service, and the Vietnam War was raging, all that stuff, and the students were protesting in the streets, there were riots all over America. Anyhow, and I was in the Jaycees, a civic group, in Harvey, Illinois. And Tim graduated from college, Norfolk State College, and E. I. DuPont recruited him into Chicago, and he joined the Jaycees.
And we wrote a drug education program teaching grade school children the ills of drug abuse with humor, which was way before its time, because at that time they weren't teaching drug education in colleges or high schools.
Tavis: This is long before "Just Say No."
Reid: Oh, yeah.
Dreesen: Oh, "Just Say No." We did it in elementary schools, and we'd try to get the kids laughing, we played music and got the kids laughing, and then eventually we would start planting the seeds. And we were so funny; we played off of one another. One day, a little eighth grade girl simply said, "You guys are funny, you ought to become a comedy team."
And there had never been a Black and White comedy team before, and ironically since. So we became America's first Black and White comedy team.
Reid: And we listened to eighth graders ever since.
Tavis: I was about to ask, yeah.
Reid: An eighth grader tells me something, I'm on it. (Laughter)
Tavis: Did the eighth grade girl get a little check?
Reid: We're going to send that eighth grader to Washington.
Tavis: Yeah.
Dreesen: By the way, we were doing a book signing in Chicago just like a week ago, and she came. She wrote a letter to us, the woman - she's a grown woman, obviously, now.
Tavis: Oh, she came to the -
Dreesen: Yeah, she came.
Tavis: Oh, how cool is that?
Dreesen: Yeah, that was really (unintelligible).
Reid: Yeah, she says, "I'm the little girl."
Tavis: So Tim, tell me about the act, then. How did this actually work on stage?
Reid: Well, we knew nothing about comedy. There were no comedy clubs back then. There was only one in all of America, Improvisation in New York, and you had to work there for free. And so we knew nothing about comedy - we were salesmen. I'm DuPont, he's Columbus Mutual Insurance, and so we used those sales techniques.
We went out and we bought all these comedy albums, we started hanging around any time a comic came to town - Dick Gregory, whatever, and we'd sit and talk to him. And we started writing stuff - just writing an act. We didn't know how to do it. Do you do a straight man-funny man? What do you do? Sketches? What do you - so we just kind of put together this act, and I think what people saw right away was that we were comfortable in our skin.
We were Black and White in a sense of the act because of the times and where we were, but basically he and I were guys who were just both out there doing it, and very naively thinking oh, this would be funny - they'll laugh at this. And we didn't use race as the punchline. Race was the vehicle. The irony of race was where we were going with the humor, and people began to respond to that - slowly but surely they began to like what we were doing.
Tavis: What was the funny? What did you find funny during those very difficult times?
Dreesen: Well, what was funny is if you were to - if Tim were to tell me all the stereotypes Black folks have about White folks, and I'd tell him all the stereotypes White folks have about Black folks, and then somehow in our act we would play off of those stereotypes and people would laugh, but on the way home, they'd go, "You know, that is kind of silly, isn't it?" We could do that.
We just had - the best thing we had at first was the chemistry. We liked one another; we had fun onstage with one another. We were having a discourse they wouldn't have. In my neighborhood, the Black guys used to say to me all the time, "Tommy, do all White folks think like this? Do all White folks think like that?"
Then the White kids, knowing I knew Black kids, they'd say, "Do you think all Black people think like this?" They wouldn't have the discourse. Tim Reid and I were the discourse they wouldn't have.
Reid: And nothing was sacred. Whatever it was that was going on or what we thought we could work with, and we did that in all-Black clubs, in all-software clubs.
Tavis: I was about to ask - nothing sacred, even depending on who the audience is?
Reid: No. But it had to be in context. It had to be in context.
Tavis: Because Black folk, you got a bit of a different kind of funny than White people.
Reid: Yeah, but as long as it's in context, as long as they don't think that they are going to be the butt of the joke, especially back then. Now they expect it, because it seems to be that's the way comics work. We did the first Black Expo before about 10,000 people at (unintelligible). We followed Stevie Wonder, and I taught him how to be Black on stage. This was 1969. Brought the house down.
Dreesen: It was part of our routine, yeah.
Tavis: Wait, wait - you followed Stevie?
Reid: Followed Stevie Wonder.
Tavis: Ooh. (Laughter)
Dreesen: But wait - I know what happened with Tim and Tom - whatever happened to that guy Stevie Wonder? (Laughter) Is he still in the business?
Tavis: You're supposed to get on before Stevie, not after Stevie Wonder.
Reid: We followed Stevie Wonder.
Dreesen: Well, that was - it was an all-day show, and so as you know, every five minutes, there was another act. And so the comics, if they had a singing act, they needed to strike the stage, and sent us up to do -
Tavis: I was about to ask, you guys opened and closed, you performed before and after so many people - was there a particular kind of act that you fit better with? You mentioned Stevie, but was there -
Dreesen: Well, with Black audiences, White audiences, we know how to adjust our material.
Reid: I tell you who we didn't fit with - Sha Na Na.
Dreesen: Well, at that time, they were - they were a biker group at that time.
Reid: Man.
Dreesen: Before they became on television, they were a biker group and they had, like, wild, crazy biker.
Reid: They threw bottles. (Laughter)
Dreesen: Beer cans on the stage, and the guy told us - this was a funny part - in those days, Tim and I were - he had a wife and two kids, I had a wife and three kids, and we had to make a living. We got $70 for that night - $35 apiece - and the guy said, "All right, I'm going to tell you right now. There's a group on in front of you, they're an a capella singing group. When they're done, you do 17 minutes. And I don't mean 18 and I don't mean 16 - 17. Because when you're out there at 12, I bring out our boys out here, and they - " so you had to do 17 or you ain't getting paid.
So we're out there, we walk out, and they booed us from the moment we went out there. (Laughter) We were out there, we did, like, eight minutes, I thought we were out there an hour and a half. (Laughter) We're both sweating; we have nine minutes more to go.
Reid: Or we don't get paid.
Dreesen: Or we don't get paid.
Tavis: Yeah.
Dreesen: And it was grocery money.
Reid: Oh, they were throwing things.
Tavis: Did you get paid? Did you make it?
Reid: Oh, yeah.
Dreesen: Oh yeah. We came off and the guy said, "Great, that's really great," because we did 17 minutes. (Laughter)
Tavis: We have seen and continue to see so many movies with the Black guy and the White guy - we're in Hollywood right now, happens all the time. Why not in comedy?
Reid: That's an interesting question, because they very much work in movies. You look at Chris Tucker or whoever it is, they work, and they make a lot of money. But in comedy, we are the only ones who have really attempted and stayed together. We stayed together five and a half years. No one has ever tried it.
And I think it's a look at race relations in America. What we did at that time was historic not because of us but because of the times - in context of the times: A Black and White guy, five years removed from the passing of the Civil Rights Act, all this going on, working. We worked in Atlanta at the Atlanta Playboy Club, and down the street, Lester Maddox was selling axe handles in the store (unintelligible).
So the times, so why not now? I think the reason now is because although we claim that race is no longer an issue, we claim all of this when in fact it still is an issue, and we won't talk about it. We've taken all the humor out of it. You can't - if we did part of our act today and someone put it on YouTube, we'd be out of business. We'd be run out of town.
Tavis: So even, Tom, even with this moment that we may be witnessing with Obama, if Obama becomes president, whole lot of material. Now a lot of folk - to Tim's point, I suspect a lot of people are going to be walking that political correctness tightrope with a Black president in what you can and can't say, but I would think on the other hand that it might be a good time for some material for a Black and White comedy team.
Dreesen: Well, you would think so.
Reid: But, see, it can't be about Obama. It has to be about us, and that's the difference. You see, comics today, when they do race material, it's about the race, it's about Black, it's about White. When we did ours, race was the vehicle. The punchline was the irony. It was our reaction to race that makes people laugh or think. It's not being called something; it is why one is calling someone in context.
Tavis: I get that, but to the extent that we have this moment now where the country is more conscious of it because of this guy who may be in the White House, that doesn't portend -
Dreesen: Well, now they can attack him as the president, and God knows you can do that. But comedy - see, comedy should have no barriers. The moment you take a comedian - now, watch what I'm doing. You say to a comedian, "I want you to go out there, now, Tavis, and I want you to - now, don't say this and don't say that, and be careful, don't say this, and don't say that, and look out - don't say this." And the next thing you know, you just put him in a box.
Tavis: In a box, yeah.
Reid: All that's left is just cursing. Most comics today, even the great ones, you listen to them and even - used to be the curse word was the punchline. Now it's just conversation.
Tavis: It's gratuitous, yeah.
Reid: It's just conversation, in the middle. It's nowhere - it's not even a structural joke.
Dreesen: A sense of humor is the only thing that can save society. We're going to learn to love one another, care for one another, understand one another, through humor first. That's the way you're going to learn. A sense of humor is not when you have the ability to laugh at other shortcomings or misfortunes; it's when you have the ability to laugh at your own. And that book is full of those stories.
There's a lot of joy - a lot of heartache in that book, a lot of pain, but there's a lot of joy in that book, and it's a bonding, it's a brotherhood, it's a friendship, it's motivational, it's inspirational. I'm so glad that we did this book, because it's truly historical.
Tavis: I'm glad you did it too, and I was glad you guys sent me a copy of it in advance. I got a chance to blurb it because I think it's a great text, and what a great place to close our conversation - I like that. A sense of humor is the only thing that can save our society.
Reid: Yeah.
Dreesen: Yeah, humor. We will learn through humor, and we will learn through humor to accept one another.
Tavis: I love it. The book from Tim and Tom - that is, Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen - is called "Tim and Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White." Get it for your collection. Tim, always good to see you. Tell Daphne I said hello.
Reid: Always. Will do.
Tavis: See her on the reruns. Does she share those checks with you that she gets every day?
Reid: Yeah, I get a little something - a little nice shirt every now and then. (Laughter)
Tavis: I'm like, this is not a bad relationship. His wife, of course, played the mother on "The Fresh Prince." So every day, you're seeing Daphne somewhere, and I even see "KRP" reruns. So the checks are still coming in.
Reid: The checks come in, yeah.
Tavis: Tom, how you doing, Tom?
Dreesen: Can I come back sometime when Tim's not with me? (Laughter)
Tavis: Nice to have you both on the program.
Dreesen: Thank you.
Reid: Okay.
Back to October 14, 2008