Alan Zweibel - Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier

Other Books by Alan Zweibel

North

Bunny Bunny: Gilda RadnerA Sort of Love Story

Our Tree Named Steve

The Other Shulman: A Novel

Clothing Optional: And Other Ways to Read These Stories

Lunatics (with Dave Barry)

Benjamin Franklin: Huge Pain in my (with Adam Mansbach)

Benjamin Franklin: Youve Got Mail (with Adam Mansbach)

For This We Left Egypt?: A Passover Haggadah for Jews and Those Who Love Them (with Dave Barry and Adam Mansbach)

A Field Guide to the Jewish People: Who They Are, Where They Come From, What to Feed Them and Much More. Maybe Too Much More (with Dave Barry and Adam Mansbach)

Copyright 2020 Alan Zweibel

Cover 2020 Abrams

Published in 2020 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019939897

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3528-8
eISBN: 978-1-68335-683-7

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For my sister

Franny

I loved making her laugh

To make it in the writing biz, just stay
incompetent/unemployable at anything else.

M ARY K ARR

CHAPTER
The Catskills Comics (Writing for the Wrong People)

CHAPTER
The Club Year (A Large Jew Sweating)

CHAPTER
Saturday Night Live (The Early Part of the Early Years)

CHAPTER
Saturday Night Live (The Later Part of the Early Years)

CHAPTER
Former SNL Writer (Looking for New Voices)

CHAPTER
Lightning Strikes Again (Its Garry Shandlings Show)

CHAPTER
Good Sports (Writing for the Wrong People Again)

CHAPTER
Crashing and Burning in Another Genre (North Goes South)

CHAPTER
Bunny Bunny(Even in Death Gilda Saves My Ass)

CHAPTER
700 Sundays(Billy Crystal and the Rise of the One-Man Show)

CHAPTER
Unfinished Business(Saying Goodbye to Garry)

CHAPTER
Another Kind of Collaboration(Dave Barry and Others Who Spend Their Days Alone)

CHAPTER
Giant Shadows(Lessons from Heroes)

CHAPTER
In Progress (Here Today)

Billy Crystal

Writing a foreword to a great friends memoir is not unlike trying to write a perfect eulogy. The difference, of course, is that Alan Zweibel is very much alive, and whoever will read this is not grieving and hoping that there is going to be good food at the reception at the house after, or, if youre a comedian friend, youre not praying that I dont reference something you have in your eulogy forcing you into a rewrite on the spot so here goes.

Ive always been amazed that in this world there is someone who is skilled at something that others cant do. Plumbers plumb, sculptors sculpt, painters paint, weightlifters lift, bronco riders ride broncos, watchmakers make watches, surgeons surge, welders weld Alan Zweibel writes. He writes all kinds of wonderful things. Starting his career with jokes for cummerbunded comics, to sketches and character monologues for the funny people who changed the face of comedy altogether, to wonderfully witty and telling short stories and novels and hundreds, maybe thousands, of after-dinner talks, lectures, television appearances, benefits, tributes, small-claims-court pleas, Bar and Bat Mitzvah speeches, the ones he gave and the ones he wrote for his kids, childrens books and grandchildrens birthday cards and humorous tweetsare all attacked with the same fervor and dedication to making it funny, and grammatically correct to boot.

I love working with Alan and watching his focused mania/glee in putting words in the right order. I think that is what makes him the happiest, and that is what this book is about. I watch him scrutinize a word, a verb, a noun, a parenthetical, an exclamation point, even the amount of in-between words that would show a character hesitating to find the right word.

We started out as stand-up comedians in our twenties and have grown older together in many of the shared galaxies in the comedy universe. When we were puppies, I would pick him up at his parents home in Woodmere, Long Island, in my $2,100 VW bug and wed make the hour drive into New York City together. Wed hope to get on to do a set at a reasonable time at Catch a Rising Star, which meant by 1:00 A.M., and then wed drive home together listening to our cassette tapes of our sets and help each other get better.

He is in some ways not your typical Jewish comedy writer. First off, hes over five foot seven he doesnt smoke or drink, looks bad in baseball hats, will buy retail, and is now vegan, but does like his carrots lean.

He is also a great person, a unique friend, and a loving husband, father, and grandpa. I dont know of anyone who doesnt have a kind thing to say about Alan except Alan.

Sometimes he will joke about his Ice Capades charactersize head or his terrible sense of direction. He must have been a direct descendant of the ancient Jews who took forty years to go from Egypt to Israel when WAZE basically said go straight for three days, part the Red Sea, and youve arrived at your destination.

If life were a forties movie, Alan would be called a big lug. He is a large man with a sensitive persona and a heart of gold. His instincts about people and his humanity are why I asked him to work with me on 700 Sundays. Sharing my lifes journey, my joys and sorrows, was the task at hand. I had been thinking about a one-man Broadway show that would confront my complex relationship with my late father, who died when I was just fifteen, and the ensuing time with my grieving mother. I thought if I could discuss my grief and still have it be funny and moving, it could be special. I had a four-page outline for the play, as this was not an evening of stand-up but rather a two-act play that had me reliving funny and painful moments as well as portraying a myriad of relatives and characters, including my late parents. I trusted Alan with them. He will bring you his perspective of the experience in chapter ten, but I will tell you that he became a brother to me. Able to confide in and trust and laugh with Alan as we created not just a Tony Awardwinning show but a moving and important healing experience for children of all ages is one of the great highlights of my life.