0:00

Sing us a song. Steve, all right,

0:02

let's see mmm, how

0:07

to sell an air conditioner?

0:09

That's un lesson for today,

0:13

Mrs housewives coming to

0:15

the door. Let's hear what you're gonna

0:18

say? How to do nice

0:20

day work? Happen to him? Now? It's

0:22

hot. What you gotta sound? Bye

0:25

chance, it's air conditioning doing

0:28

pretty well. I'm Alec Baldwin and

0:30

you're listening to here's the thing.

0:34

I saw a documentary last year

0:36

called Bathtubs Overbroadway.

0:39

It's so beguiling, so funny

0:41

and charming, that I had to meet its subject,

0:43

Steve Young. Young is

0:45

the world's foremost collector of

0:48

recordings of industrial musicals.

0:53

One model that Steve

0:56

Young may not be a household name,

0:59

but his work was certainly in my household.

1:02

On the David Letterman Show, Young

1:04

was the brains behind such bits as Todd

1:06

the Intern and Strong Guy, Fat

1:09

Guy Genius. It was

1:11

at Letterman that he discovered the joys

1:14

of the industrial described for

1:16

people what was an industrial An industrial

1:18

show or industrial musical was

1:21

a live musical theater

1:23

production that, in many ways resembled

1:25

a full fledged Broadway show, privately

1:28

staged for an audience of

1:31

salesman or executives within

1:33

a corporate industry. People. Yes, it might

1:35

be a show written for Coca Cola

1:37

bottlers and the entire audience is Coca Cola

1:40

bottlers. But then once you're in there, oh

1:42

my god, it's a dazzling, enormous

1:44

production with singing and

1:47

dancing and props, and often

1:49

a full book and storyline and characters

1:52

about the business that you were

1:54

in. I'm

2:01

a bottler, but believe me, it's no bed

2:03

of roses. But with all the different sized packages

2:05

on the market today, they keep me on

2:08

the hot seat. It's

2:10

a rough seat. It's a hot

2:12

seat. Here we sit

2:15

and daily tangle with problems,

2:17

really rough to wrangle with, yet

2:19

we can't see any other way.

2:23

With all management decisions,

2:26

making day to day revisions,

2:28

it's here you'll find dust each and

2:30

every day. Recall

2:33

it a hot seat. It's as

2:35

dazzling, enormous production

2:38

with all the singing and dancing

2:41

and props, and often a full book

2:43

and storyline and characters about

2:46

the business that you were in and how

2:48

your daily struggles were noble

2:51

and and the purpose of it was what

2:54

it was usually to introduce new

2:56

products and get you excited about them and

2:58

get you in the would have that engine,

3:01

that that's going to be a great seller. And

3:03

these lyrics about here is the new suspension

3:05

and here's the fenders

3:08

do turn up a lot, but it's also about here's

3:10

the marketing plans, and we're going to have great advertising.

3:14

And the

3:16

better versions of these things were

3:19

just high octane, great

3:21

songs and great production value.

3:24

I mean, I'm listening to it decades later. I

3:26

have no skin in this game. I'm not going to try

3:28

to sell a tractor. I don't care how good the new

3:30

engine is really. But I was

3:33

so drawn to it because this seems so

3:35

improbable. How could this have ever

3:37

existed, how could it have been

3:40

recorded? And how could I

3:42

have found it? And then we're down

3:44

this rabbit hole of improbability

3:46

on top of improbability. Describe what

3:48

happened. So when I first started

3:50

finding these souvenir record albums,

3:53

when I was working on Dave's Show, collecting

3:55

material to put on the Dave's Record

3:58

Collection segments, just anything that that was

4:00

your I got assigned to

4:02

that early on and turned

4:04

out to be a good match for me. I would

4:06

go to record stores and try to

4:08

find something that seemed ridiculous that we

4:11

could make a joke about. But I found these

4:14

souvenirs from corporate

4:16

events, and by the time

4:18

I've had like six or seven of them, I

4:20

thought, is this actually

4:22

a genre? How can this

4:24

possibly be? It's weird enough that there's one

4:26

or two of them, but I keep finding them, not

4:29

every time, but I keep finding them.

4:31

And then it's years

4:33

later now and we've uncovered

4:35

this enormous stealth

4:38

part of American history and culture that

4:41

really was in danger of just getting

4:43

away from us entirely because it was

4:46

never something that the public would Is

4:48

that what you did? You feel some aspect of that?

4:50

Is there a custodial aspect of stewardship?

4:52

You feel, oh, absolutely not that the

4:55

world will rise or fall on whether

4:57

we know much about industrial

4:59

show are not. But then you start meeting the

5:01

people who wrote them and

5:04

performed in them, and they had

5:06

long since resigned themselves to being

5:09

anonymous in this regard and no one

5:12

will ever know what this stuff world.

5:16

And just the

5:18

feeling that I could bring

5:20

them out of that complete darkness

5:24

and say someone cares about what you did

5:26

and it was really good and

5:28

it's worth hearing, even outside of its original

5:30

context, because you do such

5:33

great work that it holds up even though it shouldn't

5:35

hold up because it's about diesel engines, but

5:37

still it I find

5:39

it compelling. So I was thrilling

5:41

for me that I was able to find

5:44

so many people from this world who expected

5:47

never to hear from anyone about this. And then

5:50

I was the guy calling and saying I'm a big fan

5:53

of your fluorescent

5:56

light Fixture show, and they would say, how

5:58

did you know about that? No should know

6:00

about that. There was a point

6:02

which I realized, I'm not interested

6:05

in this for the show anymore.

6:07

I'm interested in this for me. And

6:09

at one point I put together a

6:11

list of all the albums I had bought with the

6:13

show's money, and I

6:15

noted down what the titles were and how much I had paid

6:18

for them, and I asked the show, I

6:20

would like to own these myself. Can I buy

6:22

them from the show? And they were very kind

6:24

and they just said, oh, you can keep them.

6:26

But I felt like that was a turning point at which

6:28

I realized this was this

6:31

was my own project. Now what year did all

6:33

this kind of commence for you? There

6:36

was a little bit pre Internet when it was

6:38

just like cold

6:40

calling record stores, just like, al

6:43

right, here's one in Boston. I've managed somehow.

6:49

I had a CD ROM that had

6:51

like millions

6:53

of phone numbers of businesses or something. I don't

6:56

even remember how I got started, but I would just cold

6:58

call record stores and you sleep at night,

7:00

do you're up all night with this stuff? I haven't

7:02

slept in years, just

7:05

cold calling places and trying painfully

7:07

to explain what I was looking for, which was

7:09

always a very high hill decline because

7:11

it's just so off the radar of what people

7:13

have ever heard of. Once in a great while

7:16

I would get lucky. But when eBay started.

7:18

I got on eBay around nineties seven,

7:21

and it wasn't well categorized

7:23

at first. It was just like records

7:26

stuff. Every kind of record,

7:28

from classical music to the Beatles to everything

7:30

else where, was all just in one category, and you'd scroll

7:33

through thousands of listenings and

7:35

again, once in a while, the needle in a haystack would

7:37

work, Oh my god, the ed Cell show. But

7:41

eBay became a huge source. But I also

7:43

just worked connections with record dealers

7:45

that I would meet and say, if you

7:48

find anything like this, give me a call

7:51

now, because I want to mention what I've

7:53

experienced has taken its place and

7:55

my participation. Okay, when I was

7:58

in the business in the beginning, I come into

8:00

New York and I'm doing voiceovers and things

8:02

and starting out in and

8:04

it was the end of that era. And I

8:06

remember driving around

8:09

the country hotel you know, welcome

8:11

phil Co Dealers, you

8:13

know, and the big sign on the marquee there.

8:16

But what's replaced that is

8:18

this thing I do now, which is they've replaced

8:20

the show with just performances,

8:23

like musicians come and play.

8:25

They bring me in to do the tired kind

8:27

of celebrity Q and A. I

8:29

still do a few of these a year, but this

8:31

is what we placed that organized

8:34

production. Yeah, I have a DVD

8:37

I think of like eighty

8:41

nine and Anheuser Busch convention show.

8:43

And they got Frank Sinatra, they

8:45

got lizam Man, Nelly, they got Sammy

8:47

Davis Jr. And I was watching this

8:49

thing saying, please start

8:52

singing about beer distribution, and

8:54

they never did. They just were doing there. So

8:59

you could do well in this business. I think you have a flair

9:01

for it. But everybody who was doing these

9:04

shows during what I would call the Golden

9:06

Age, has remarked on.

9:10

It was excellent money by the

9:12

standards of struggling

9:15

to mid range singer,

9:17

actor, dancer. You got treated

9:20

beautifully, oftentimes flown around,

9:22

put up an excellent hotels,

9:24

and you worked with terrific

9:27

people. They hired a list directors

9:30

and choreographers and big orchestra. Yeah,

9:33

these people would shuttle back and forth between

9:35

Broadway and a lot of performers,

9:38

doing this as an alternative

9:40

to waiting tables or driving a

9:42

cab. It was not what you thought you would

9:44

be doing necessarily when you decided you wanted

9:47

to go into show business. But it

9:49

was an excellent training ground

9:51

because you had to be really good at

9:54

a big set of skills and keep

9:56

getting better well knowing that

9:58

it's private, knowing that there's a

10:00

little likelihood this thing is going to see the light of day.

10:03

I wonder if there are people who just to grab the money, the

10:05

short end money where some performers you noticed that we

10:07

became industrial whoors who showed

10:09

up again and again. Well, there were

10:11

people I'm talking about lower

10:14

lights, like names. Yeah, there were people

10:16

who became

10:20

reliable midrange people, and then once

10:23

in a while they would vault out of that like how

10:25

Lindon was doing a lot of this stuff in the sixties.

10:28

He's on Broadway wins It Tony, and then

10:30

he's then he's Barney Miller. He

10:33

has graduated from industrials.

10:35

But at some point Ford Motor Company

10:37

decided, you know what, we want

10:40

how Linden to be the MC for our

10:42

big introduction show in the early eighties.

10:44

So he is lured

10:46

back. And I don't know whether it was because he had a

10:49

sort of residual fondness for Oh, I remember

10:51

the old days. But uh. And Cheetah

10:54

Rivera when she was starting out, she

10:56

was doing shows as just a

10:58

sort of background dance or featured player,

11:01

and then she got really famous. And then

11:03

sometimes companies would say,

11:05

let's let's see if we can dangle

11:07

enough money in front of a big star to have them come

11:09

in and be our famous person in

11:11

our industrial show. So obviously

11:14

collecting anything is challenging

11:17

in New York. Where does Steve

11:20

keep all this material in his New

11:22

York home? And I was get

11:24

a locker somewhere well, luckily for

11:27

me, living in a modestly

11:29

sized apartment, I,

11:32

through accident or subconscious

11:35

impulse, decided to collect one of

11:37

the most compact forms of

11:39

things that you can collect. I have

11:43

my collection of two

11:45

hundreds something records and also

11:47

now stack of films, and then it just fits

11:50

in a couple of cabinets. I decided

11:52

not to collect antique gas

11:54

pumps, which I think would have been a problem.

11:58

Yeah, World War to helica ways, those

12:01

are those are heating up in the marketplace.

12:03

I can put you in touch with somebody if you want

12:05

to come. Well, it's funny the collecting thing. I'm

12:09

I'm in a market. I'm

12:11

in a flea market in

12:14

in Paris, and I

12:16

stumble around this market there and

12:18

I see a

12:20

yeager lekutra or they say, let

12:25

um folding travel alarm

12:27

clock beautiful with the air

12:30

mez case. Which is the which is the this

12:32

is the this is the the

12:34

great quest is the

12:36

in the kuta vein

12:39

you want the me And

12:41

I find this thing which is the size of this phone,

12:43

smaller, folding, travel longer beautiful,

12:45

and I go, oh my god, this thing is I mean, I don't

12:47

know what it was. And know you

12:49

talk about I'm a clock nut. I collect clock so I'm

12:52

like in I collect weird a little

12:54

winding clocks and travel alarm clocks,

12:56

not big, you know, fancy expensive

12:58

clocks. I should send you a tape of the West t Clocks

13:00

show. You should and

13:03

uh and I start that

13:05

was the beginning. I picked up that clock clocks

13:08

are you know I've got clocks? My wife Laria,

13:10

she literally wild look at me, like, you know, like what's wrong

13:13

with me? Like what's what's what? What is the manifestation

13:15

of this mental illness I have with all the clocks everywhere,

13:18

and I still collect him. I just brought a small little bachelor

13:20

the other day. But there you go. There are a million

13:23

little categories like that with passionate

13:25

experts, and they lead seemingly

13:27

normal lives and then they have this little uh

13:31

side area of their life. My brother,

13:34

my father, and mother, everybody in my family has

13:36

gotten very deeply into different collecting.

13:39

What's the weirdest collection you've come

13:41

across? You hear about weird little

13:43

things like um, miniature

13:47

ceramic thimbles. Uh,

13:51

But I can't think that any of this is weird,

13:53

because if

13:55

if what I think is interesting is

13:58

has all the depths that I've found to it, there

14:01

may well be that for

14:03

for everything that seems

14:05

weird to me. Whenever someone's hunting

14:07

for something. Whenever they're involved in

14:09

a process, a hobby of vocation,

14:12

with his hunting involved, as I believe you're

14:14

thing that's a component of it, they're really

14:17

hunting for something else. What

14:19

are you hunting for? Well, I've

14:21

read and it does seem true to me that

14:23

collectors are,

14:26

in some symbolic way, trying

14:29

to impose

14:32

order on a chaotic universe.

14:34

Even if it's just all right. I can't

14:36

fix most of it, obviously, But

14:38

if I take this tiny little corner of

14:41

human endeavor and say I'm going to

14:43

get this part straightened away, then I can

14:45

feel like I can relax,

14:47

because not everything is chaos.

14:50

If we can understand and categorize

14:52

and absorb what

14:54

has been done in some tiny sliver, then

14:56

that will symbolically help me feel

14:58

like life is not pure chaos.

15:01

How does the film happen? Bathtubs

15:04

over Broadway? Bathtubs over Broadway.

15:08

When I heard the title, I was like, what

15:10

that? For the life of me, I couldn't even figure it. Can

15:12

you know me? I could maybe get it? What the hell

15:15

is that? Well? I think that's good because

15:17

it made you curious. Well, the film

15:19

is wonderful films fantastic. The

15:21

title's great Bathtubs over Broadways.

15:23

It says bathtubs over Broadway. Then you

15:25

show up people like, wait a minute.

15:28

And then by the end you're convinced, hopefully that

15:30

we're gonna talk about the end. We're gonna get

15:32

to that. The end is mesmerized. The

15:35

end is like you are the Tony Randall of industrials

15:37

men. You are incredible. So so who approaches

15:39

who? Who decides this is a film?

15:42

Did you decide to write it? No, well, I'm

15:44

I'm not the writer or director

15:47

or producer or anything. I'm I'm

15:49

the guy who you follow. Now

15:52

we're heading up to Buffalo Grove to

15:55

track down the elusive Sid Siegel.

15:58

I had tried to find said many

16:00

times over the years. I thought I had

16:02

missed my chance, wrote the immortal

16:04

lines. My bathroom

16:08

is a private kind of place, they

16:10

say, don't meet your heroes, said.

16:17

I had written a book a few years

16:19

ago with a friend of mine on this

16:21

topic, and we decided,

16:24

all right, we think this is the time,

16:26

and we have a great publisher who's

16:28

going to do a great job with this, and we wrote this book

16:30

called Everything's Coming Up Profits, which

16:33

is actually the title of a floor

16:35

tile companies show h

16:38

and it kind of tells you the whole story

16:40

there. It's a Broadway reference, but it's

16:43

been twisted for some internal

16:45

corporate infotainment

16:48

purposes. So we put out

16:50

this book. It was late two thousand thirteen.

16:53

It was well received. It's a

16:56

beautiful book. We're thrilled with it. A

16:58

couple of people started approaching me to

17:00

say, this seems like it could be a good

17:03

area for a documentary film.

17:05

And by this point I

17:08

had been friends with Deva, the director,

17:11

Dava wizened as the director that's

17:13

right. So I asked, Dava, can

17:16

you tell me if these people

17:18

who are approaching me seem

17:20

like they'd be a good match for this, because you're

17:23

now in the documentary world and I don't know anything

17:25

about it. And she said, well, if there's

17:27

going to be a documentary film, I would

17:30

be interested in in working

17:32

on it. And I said, oh my goodness, that would be

17:35

better than I could have hoped for. I didn't even think that

17:37

would be possible, but that's that's what we

17:39

ended up doing. How long

17:41

did it take to make the movie. It's just

17:43

about four years, which

17:45

is not that extreme. I

17:47

guess in the world of indie, it's

17:50

a lot of time for film film,

17:53

you know, but it took a long time to get

17:55

all the pieces in place and find all

17:57

the people that we needed to talk to. Do you

17:59

see any parallel between yourself as

18:02

an individual and industrial musicals themselves.

18:06

Yeah, the majority of

18:08

these shows were never recorded. I think,

18:11

even though I have this big stack of them now,

18:13

it's I would guess probably

18:16

one percent of what was ever done. Most

18:18

of it just disappeared into the ether

18:20

and was gone forever. Working

18:22

on the Letterman Show, most of what was

18:25

written never sees the light of day. So you

18:27

have to keep pushing out new material

18:29

and hoping inspiration strikes and

18:31

doing your best. But most of it you have resigned

18:33

yourself to accepting is not

18:36

really going to ever make a mark anywhere.

18:38

And the people who were doing these industrials

18:40

really also had to resign themselves to this

18:43

maybe an astonishingly

18:46

tuneful, catchy show, and

18:48

the only people who are ever going to hear it are these

18:50

three hundred people here at eight in the morning,

18:52

and then it's going to be gone forever. So I felt

18:55

empathy for these creators

18:57

who had to keep working

18:59

on stuff that they knew was going to be

19:01

forgotten. Wow,

19:03

let's go. I'm told

19:06

you say we're gonna do some songs. So we have a couple

19:08

of clips that I edited off of actual

19:11

may the assumption that the keyboard out there someone I

19:13

thought you were gonna get the pay No, we don't

19:15

want that. The first

19:17

clip will have is from a show called Diesel

19:19

Dazzle Detroit Diesel

19:22

Engine Division of General Motors en

19:24

sixty six, beautifully

19:27

produced show. The music

19:29

is by a gentleman who I am friends with

19:31

and we have collaborated together on music.

19:33

He's ninety one now, but this is right

19:37

Hank Babie Hank.

19:39

He's in Portland, Maine, and

19:42

uh, I've become very

19:44

close to him. He's a great friend and mentor.

19:47

And just one of the thousands

19:49

of thrilling aspects

19:52

of this for me is that I've found people

19:54

I've really developed a deep connection

19:56

with. This is a song called One Man

19:58

Operation, and it's the

20:01

lament of a woman

20:03

whose husband is overworked

20:05

at his diesel engine operation. He

20:08

did it all alone, keep

20:11

books and and ten the fool eighteen

20:15

hours every twenty

20:18

fool. But

20:21

now the one man in

20:24

my life He's no

20:27

one man operation anymore

20:33

anymore. Now

20:37

he has two mccandis

20:40

a parts and servicemen, a

20:43

girl to take the clothes and keep

20:45

the boor. Now there's

20:48

a lushness to that. This feels

20:50

like a list people, and

20:52

it actually is a very affecting song. Finally

20:55

things turn around. He hires a new mechanic,

20:57

he hires aparts and serviceman. Those

21:00

things shouldn't be in song lyrics, and

21:03

yet there they are and actually pulling on our

21:05

heart streng Yes, I'm not a

21:07

diesel engine salesman, but I feel at lump

21:09

and might throat about it. Coming

21:14

up, Steve Young tells his own story

21:17

from blue collar New England to Harvard

21:19

to the top of the comedy writing heat.

21:29

I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening

21:31

to Here's the Thing. A working

21:33

class kid from the outskirts of Boston.

21:36

Steve Young didn't believe at first he could

21:38

make a living from writing jokes, but

21:40

he got his big break almost right out

21:42

of Harvard with a job on the David

21:44

Letterman Show. You started

21:47

working with Dave and you showed

21:49

up there when you were twenty four. Yes,

21:53

it's a spring of and

21:55

you were at the Lampoon. I

21:58

had been on the Harvard Lampoon that was a few

22:00

years earlier, kicked around it

22:02

was a bartender for a while. Conan was

22:04

the editor in chief of the Lampoon when you showed up there,

22:07

that's right, was the president of the Harvard

22:09

Lampoon. And that was a really

22:12

influential thing for me to encounter

22:14

because I felt like, for the first time

22:17

I met somebody who was at a level

22:20

I had never personally witnessed before. Just

22:22

like he walks in a room and oh my god, I don't

22:24

know how or why, but everything is instantly

22:26

hilarious. Right he was funny? Oh yes.

22:29

What was the pipeline between the

22:32

Lampoon and comedy

22:34

writing, particularly in New York? You know s and l Laurens

22:36

a big he minds that quarry

22:39

if you will, for a writer's Conan

22:41

and uh uh and beyond

22:44

into Hollywood. What is it about the lamp when you think

22:46

that they've got that pipeline in it to show business? Well,

22:48

part of it is just once

22:50

you're there, you become aware that

22:52

there have been people who have gone before you,

22:55

and for the first time, maybe in your life, you

22:57

think, oh, this is something

22:59

people for a living, because they

23:01

are hilarious, brilliant, funny

23:03

people all over the place who maybe

23:05

never have that revelation of, oh, people

23:08

do this for a living. So it was

23:10

very fortunate that I got that, uh

23:13

since early on, that people go to Letterman and

23:15

S n L. And they are comedy writers

23:17

and it can be your career. Where did you study at

23:20

Harvard? I was an English major, and I don't

23:22

really know why now I think I seem

23:24

to have turned into more of an amateur historian.

23:27

And you grew up ways

23:29

outside Pepperrell,

23:32

Massachusetts. Yes, your dad

23:34

worked at Logan. Oh my gosh, you have done your

23:36

work. Yes, aircraft mechanic for USAir

23:39

or it was Alleghany at first. He

23:42

commuted in an hour to Logan

23:44

Airport. But we were out sort of the border

23:46

line of suburbia, verging into the

23:49

countryside. It was you were somebody

23:51

else. I was reading about what you said. You you didn't quite

23:53

even know where Harvard was. That

23:55

is true. I mean it was a different era in

23:59

the early DS. I thought

24:01

I was gonna, Okay, I'm going to apply to some colleges,

24:04

and I had the vague notion that Harvard

24:07

was probably in New York City, because that's

24:09

seemed to be where important people get

24:11

important things are there. I bet Harvard is there,

24:13

and I get the application it says

24:15

Cambridge, Massachusetts. Holy crap,

24:17

this is in my own state. Yeah.

24:21

It wasn't a goal. It wasn't like a burning golf.

24:23

I mean, if you did well enough to get into Harvard, but you weren't

24:25

scheming about academia

24:27

an advancement. No. It was just such

24:30

a golden

24:32

naive era when people weren't necessarily

24:35

groomed from birth for things like that. Not.

24:39

I mean, there were smart people coming out

24:41

of Pepper and doing great things, but no one had gone

24:43

to an Ivy League college for a

24:46

dozen years or some. Wow. So as a

24:48

child, what was entertainment for you? What

24:50

was comedy for you? TV? You're a

24:52

few years younger than you're born, so

24:55

you what was what were you viewing? What

24:57

were your viewing habits? They were very eclectic.

25:02

Gilgan's Island reruns and

25:04

oh it's the late seventies and look

25:07

it's uh it's Dallas and it's

25:09

a heart to Heart

25:11

and things like that. I missed enormous

25:13

chunks of pop culture that

25:15

everyone assumes I must know. Like, until

25:18

I was starting to teach a course at

25:20

n y U about TV history, I

25:22

had never seen Mary Tyler Moore. I had never

25:24

seen Dick Van Dyke. I was not like

25:27

a comedy nerd. Now

25:30

the same thing is true for me, Like I remember,

25:32

I turned off TV when

25:34

I went to college. I went to college

25:36

and seventies six, and prior to that, it was really

25:38

it was everything dopey

25:41

and silly and stupid. It was Mr Ed

25:43

and F. Troop and the

25:46

Adams Family and Beverly Hill

25:48

Billies, which I adored at age five,

25:50

and I imprinted on me

25:52

a little bit. I still find it maybe a little

25:54

more amusing than I should, just because I had this bedrock

25:58

exposure to it and early age. But I

26:01

was even in college. No, I think

26:04

we had a small black and white television. But this

26:06

image of the eighties and everybody in college

26:09

watching Letterman, I think there were people that

26:11

were doing that, but I wasn't watching the Letterman Show.

26:13

Now, when they hire you, you said you knocked

26:15

around for a couple of years before when you graduated, when

26:18

you showed up in New York to the show, Yeah you

26:20

weren't. You weren't writing I had a couple

26:22

writing jobs. I worked on, not necessarily

26:25

the news out in l A for about six

26:27

weeks. That was actually my first

26:31

I stayed on a friend's sofa. Very

26:33

kind and how did they find you? I

26:35

didn't have an agent at that point. Who

26:38

I guess got my packet on someone's

26:40

desk and they said, ah, yeah, sure, we'll give him a try.

26:42

And that was great. And I

26:45

don't think I wanted to live in l

26:47

A. So it was probably for the best that after

26:49

six weeks they said, yeah, we're having budget problems.

26:52

I'm afraid last hired, first

26:54

fired. You gotta go. Why didn't you want to live out

26:56

there? I have always felt I'm

26:58

just more of an East Coast for and I'd like to

27:00

go visit l A. But you know, as

27:02

my friend said, you know New York millionaires

27:04

and horrors on the same taxi seats all

27:07

day long, which is it's so democratic.

27:09

Yeah. I like the feeling of walking

27:11

down Lexington Avenue or Broadway or

27:13

whatever, and it doesn't feel

27:16

like we're all probably scrambling

27:18

around in the same business. It's just a thousand

27:20

different occupations swirling all around

27:22

you in the city, and you don't have to feel like, oh,

27:24

the entertainment business is what I

27:26

need to think about all the time. Once you do

27:28

something that has any residence in the business and you're considered

27:31

any kind of a star or whatever pedigree,

27:33

you're always a star out there. So like I'd be

27:35

at a table in a restaurant and I'd be with a

27:37

friend of the they go, oh, wait, there's my friend Jeff. Jeff.

27:40

Jeff was in that mini series Leave

27:42

It All on the Fields. He was very good

27:45

at that. He was so good, Jeff. And

27:47

it's like, if you did one job, you

27:49

know you were you were, you were in the firmament

27:51

forever out there. That's right, that's your anchor.

27:54

Now you're you're in the club. But I

27:56

did a Simpsons episode in the mid nineties

27:59

and that was fun. Was out there for a few days

28:01

and and the Simpsons people

28:03

said, Hey, if you want to move out here, we'd love to

28:06

have you on the staff. And it was thought

28:09

provoking. But I just thought, I don't really

28:11

think I'm fundamentally

28:14

wanting to go to l A and do that. Married

28:17

Yes, what was your um?

28:19

She had? And I had moved down from

28:21

Boston, which was a smaller

28:24

upheaval than going to another world

28:27

like Los Angeles would have been. But we both

28:29

have family in the Northeast,

28:31

and by nineties six we

28:33

we had our first child, and it felt like The

28:36

Letterman Show is going to be the good

28:38

place to stay for for a long time.

28:41

How did they find that was early

28:45

after one of their anniversary shows,

28:48

like within the space of three weeks, six

28:50

writers announced that they were leaving the

28:53

show. Anniversary show I think had been

28:55

in l a and all the writers had gone out and

28:57

secretly started to have meetings out there,

29:00

and they were the opposite of you. Yeah, and they were well

29:02

they Simpsons. They had

29:04

been in The Letterman during

29:06

the glory years, and they were ready to do something

29:08

else. So there was suddenly a bunch of slots opening

29:11

up, and the comedy grapevine around

29:13

New York was awful of buzz about, Oh, now

29:15

is the time to send in your stuff to the Letterman Show.

29:18

And I had a few good samples by this point,

29:20

and I sent some stuff in and

29:22

I got a call one day from Steve O'Donnell,

29:25

who's the head writer. I said, Oh, well, we'd like you

29:27

to come up and visit, and I'd

29:30

like to chat with you and maybe we'll have a little

29:32

talk with Dave. It was not a done deal,

29:34

but it felt like, oh my goodness, I've I've

29:36

crossed some sort of milestone

29:39

here. And I went up and chatted with a few people

29:41

on the staff and Mr Letterman

29:43

and I chatted amiably for a couple of minutes,

29:45

and then the next day I got the call, oh, well, we'd

29:47

love to have you come join us if you're interested. I

29:50

accepted. Now when

29:52

you tell that story, three things come to mind.

29:54

One is do they get it wrong? Is their turn

29:57

over there? Or are they pretty good at discerning?

30:00

You get fired for what? Did your your bits are getting

30:02

on the air. It's it's a

30:04

very strange subjective thing.

30:07

There were so many people at that show who were

30:09

there for a very long time. I

30:11

think they've liked the sense of a solid

30:14

core group that all knew what they were

30:16

doing and we're comfortable with each other. And so I

30:18

think the hope is that we build

30:21

up this long term team of

30:23

people who believe in the show

30:25

in the mid fit and there

30:27

are wonderfully talented comedy

30:29

geniuses who have been tried out at the Letterman

30:31

show didn't work out there

30:34

weren't picked up after twenty

30:36

six weeks or whatever and went on too huge success

30:39

on other ventures. So it's

30:41

not a barometer of whether you're funny

30:43

or not. It's just such a weird, narrow,

30:46

arcane window of what

30:48

you need to hit and if

30:51

you can. We have the people

30:53

already who can do what we do. We

30:55

need somebody who can enlarge the

30:59

what the show does a little bit. Yeah,

31:02

and that that that's a very hard thing to

31:04

be able to be pretty good at what the

31:06

show already did, but also have a little

31:09

extra flare of something the

31:11

show had not seen before that Dave would

31:13

respond to and want to do you started there

31:15

what year? And you were

31:17

there for how many years? And

31:20

then the to the end, Yes,

31:22

the very last day, and Letterman was

31:24

on NBC and

31:26

moved he moved to CBS what year? So

31:29

you were with him during the transition. Yeah, okay,

31:31

so this is perfect. So, uh, you know Letterman,

31:34

who I adore and I love. We ran

31:36

around the city with cameras and did these stand

31:39

ups and we're in front of Dad Steaks and we're

31:42

Alec Baldwin is riding a snowmobile

31:44

on the roof of the building, that's right. I remember that

31:46

it was a legendary one of those great nights

31:48

where just some spontaneous thing takes

31:50

off and it's beautiful. So

31:54

when I meet you in the film,

31:59

you know you you you are of a type. And

32:02

all the most like Ninja

32:04

eighth degree black belt comedy writers

32:07

that I've met either have or

32:10

create the They put

32:12

on the demeanor that you

32:14

have, which is you can't guess they're either

32:16

an actuary at an insurance company

32:19

or they're like one of the funniest people you've ever met.

32:22

They keep the soda in the can, you know what

32:24

I mean. So when I meet you, it

32:26

might be a might making sense. It's got to go on the page.

32:29

Yeah, I don't think I come across as at

32:34

insurance company. Well I dabble in that on the side

32:36

and it it's more fun than you might think.

32:38

But I do think that, Okay, yeah, I

32:40

have this very subdued,

32:43

dead pan flavor. And then for

32:46

people who are just meeting me, I may uncork

32:48

something completely bizarre and they because

32:50

it is not playing as stereotypical

32:53

comedy in the delivery. In my I'm

32:56

not making wacky faces and gestures

32:59

and all that. It takes a minute for people to

33:01

readjust to what am I hearing? Is this person

33:04

actually having a stroke or

33:06

did he mean that? Or it's

33:08

like New Heart, there's the very new hard ass. Did you

33:10

love New Heart? Because I wasn't a comedy nerd.

33:13

I knew who he was, but I don't think I ever

33:15

watched any of those shows. No comedy albums

33:17

for you when you were young. I

33:20

listened to Dr Demento for a

33:22

while late at night, but I don't think I

33:24

ever bought any comedy albums or

33:26

anything like that. Letterman,

33:29

so he changes over time. Did

33:32

you see that in the two thousands

33:35

he had been doing it for so long,

33:38

he decided, either

33:40

consciously or not, I just

33:43

want to not

33:45

worry as much every day about how

33:48

the logistics of this are going to work. And

33:50

we all found ways to make it

33:52

work like that. For him. Just bring him

33:55

material, he'll look at it, he'll pick it. He doesn't

33:57

have to read scripts in the morning. We'll

33:59

just give him various completed pieces

34:02

late. You notice the shift. He

34:04

seemed to be having more fun

34:06

in the last few years again, and he

34:08

realized he was enough he would make

34:11

it one of those magical nights that you couldn't have

34:13

planned. But it was brilliant, spontaneous

34:15

of the guests, he had everything in his pocket, was good to

34:17

go. Now, what's the other clip

34:20

you have? This is from the nineteen seventies

34:22

seven Massey Ferguson Tractor and Equipment

34:25

show, which was called World of Winners.

34:28

This is a rousing, country

34:31

tinged anthem of

34:34

excitement about the Massey Ferguson

34:36

company and what it's like to work for them.

34:38

And this is called, uh, We're Massey

34:40

Ferguson. Hit it. When

34:42

he's work in a field with a record held, he

34:45

wants to pick it clean and when harvest

34:47

comes, he's got to have a dependable

34:50

machere where

34:54

number one?

34:57

Yeah,

35:04

So stand up round to say it loud

35:10

for five minutes. I will I

35:12

will feel the thrill of being on

35:14

the Massey Ferguson team which is headed for

35:16

glory. But I just have this image of you

35:18

and you you have two daughters and your

35:20

home and your daughters are like your dad, can we talk

35:22

to you about something? And you're and they're listening to, you

35:25

know, some jaunty song

35:27

like that, like go god, Dad, stop,

35:30

turn that record off? Dead Well, they

35:33

didn't necessarily fully understand

35:35

what I was doing for a long time. And

35:38

when the book came out a few years

35:40

ago, and I was on The Letterman Show as a guest,

35:43

and we were playing some clips, and

35:47

Dave held up the Bathrooms are Coming record

35:49

and started we started playing the clip

35:51

of this beautiful anthem my bathroom.

35:54

And my younger daughter's eyes widened

35:56

because all her life she

35:59

had heard that song around the house and I'm

36:01

just singing it or my wife is humming at or

36:03

whatever. And she said, oh

36:05

my god, this song that I've heard around

36:08

our family all my life. That's from

36:10

one of your weird records.

36:12

The two enormous pieces suddenly

36:15

clicked in together for her that had not connected

36:18

before. Before you go and before you return

36:20

my jacket, could we hear just a little of the Bathrooms

36:22

are Coming just a little? All

36:24

right, let's just take another listen. Oh

36:39

my God, really brings back

36:41

memories, does it, Ladies and gentlemen, The

36:44

young mc gifted Steve Young.

36:47

So the movie ends, and I must say

36:50

that you are a dreadful

36:52

musical comedy performer in terms of the quality

36:54

of voice. We share that trade,

36:56

and yet it doesn't matter. You show

36:58

up on camera, and we've fallen in

37:00

love with you by now, this is the genius of the thing. You

37:02

have to earn that performance.

37:04

You can't just have anybody do that, and you do it because we've

37:06

fallen in love with you in the film. And I haven't been

37:09

so smitten by a guy in a musical number since I

37:11

saw Bobby Morse to Brotherhood

37:13

of Man in the original How to Succeed. You're

37:16

just there and you're so winning, you

37:19

just take over. Whose idea

37:21

was that? Well?

37:23

As the movie came together

37:26

over the last I guess a couple of

37:28

years, it felt like, I

37:30

think the director and her co writer

37:33

and other producers felt like we have spent

37:36

all this time establishing that

37:39

musical theater has a

37:42

certain unique power even if you're not

37:44

a Broadway musical fan. We believe

37:46

we have now made a case for

37:49

this stuff being able

37:51

to really reach people like

37:56

this with the twist not

38:02

open that you

38:06

may find you're doing jazz

38:08

hands when someone says

38:10

that always oh maybe

38:13

you start dancing, And when you hear

38:23

it, seemed like the only card left to

38:25

play was a all right, we

38:28

have to step out on that ledge and do it ourselves.

38:30

Now, I loved it. It was like, it's like you see a movie and

38:32

the guy and the girl. It's the

38:35

getting closer they get. By the end of the movie

38:37

they have to kiss. This is the guy

38:39

and the girl kiss at the end of the movie moment for

38:41

this movie, I don't want you

38:43

to do any more of them. Well,

38:46

the finale was movie magic

38:49

of a magnitude that I

38:51

never had dreamed of being involved with.

38:53

It was thrilling on every level. The

38:55

song, which I co wrote with my

38:58

dear friend Hank Babe years

39:01

old. He pulls this this

39:03

melody out of his subconscious

39:06

somewhere. In the first time he played it for me

39:08

over the phone, I realized, I

39:10

think we have a hit. This

39:12

movie Bathtubs over Broadway

39:15

is it's a fantastic

39:18

movie because it's it's like any good movie. It's

39:20

a well made movie. It's well cut, it's

39:23

it's paced up, it's got all the good things. You know, cinematically

39:26

wanted a dock and but

39:29

the topic is just so crazy

39:31

and the people involved, it's so eclectic. And

39:34

you're such a wonderful protagonist in the film.

39:36

You're the perfect protagonist. You guys

39:38

did an amazing job. He did a great job. Well,

39:40

it was the dream of a lifetime

39:43

to get to be involved with something like this, and

39:46

Dava and her team took at

39:48

places I could not myself

39:50

have even dreamed of. Thanks for doing this with me, It

39:53

was my extreme pleasure.

39:55

Thank you. Letterman,

39:58

writer, collector, and savior

40:00

of the industrial musical Steve Young.

40:03

The movie about his project is called

40:05

Bathtubs Overbroadway. I'm

40:10

Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's

40:12

the Thing, M