Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Ed Driscoll: Run your own race, follow your own path. Don’t worry about what other people are doing, and especially now, ‘These kids are, they’re doing that.’ And don’t get worried about, ‘Oh, what’s this guy doing?’ Or, ‘What are these people doing?’ It’s like, keep your vision in your heart of what you wanna do. Don’t try to be what you think somebody else wants you to be. 

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how Masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment.

Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Ed Driscoll, is joining me for this second time on StoryBeat. Ed’s an Emmy award-winning comedian, writer and producer who’s worked with some of the biggest stars in the entertainment industry, including Billy Crystal, Joan Rivers, Michael Buble, and Dennis Miller, to name just a few.

Ed’s produced material for variety shows, sitcoms, movies and live theater, and he’s been a standup comedian for over 25 years. Ed has authored five critically acclaimed books, Spilled Gravy; Looking to Click; Laugh, Dammit; Unmoved Chess Pieces; and Cracking Up. I recently read Cracking Up and can tell you it’s a laugh out loud compendium of stories from Ed’s highly memorable showbiz career.

If you like hilarious real life Hollywood stories, I highly recommend Cracking Up to you. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m truly delighted to chat once again with the comedian and comedy writer, Ed Driscoll. Ed, welcome back to StoryBeat. 

Ed Driscoll: Thank you Steve. I was, you know, it’s only been three years since I was on the show, so I was wondering if you were gonna have me back.

Steve Cuden: And here 

Ed Driscoll: we are. Yeah. So, good deal. Nice to see you. And congrats on the success of, uh, a story beat as you know. Listen to it too, actually. It’s really well done. 

Steve Cuden: Thank you. Uh, 

Ed Driscoll: you know, now sadly, we’re putting an end to it with my appearance here tonight. 

Steve Cuden: So we’re likely to stop recording the show totally after we’re done with you.

Uh, no, we’re, no, we’re 

Ed Driscoll: Why wait till the end. We’re, let’s do it right now. 

Steve Cuden: Alright. So look, I know that you are still out there cracking people up in doing standup. What in the world keeps you going back to face audiences? 

Ed Driscoll: Boy, don’t I ask myself that like every time, right? But you know, it, it’s been nice now that I’m doing, you were nice not to mention that book Cracking Up and that’s the one man show I’ve been doing in developing over the last two, three years.

So it’s not standup per se, you know what I mean? It’s not like set up punch, set up, punch it. It’s those stories that like about three years ago or actually during the pandemic, I, it was just recalling some of the things, you know, you finally have a little chance to rest. ’cause all of a sudden there’s no work coming in and you’re sitting there and I’m kind of thinking about, you know, you can never rest when you’re in Hollywood.

’cause like, you go to this project, to that project, to this project, to that project. ’cause you, you just got to it, right? It’s what we do. 

Steve Cuden: Yes. 

Ed Driscoll: But then when you have a forced to downtime kind of, and I thought you start thinking about some of these experiences and stuff I’d had and as the years like fly by and I was like, boy, for like 25 plus years and like, oh yeah, remember this story.

Remember that story. So I just started jotting ’em down thinking, I don’t know, it’s gonna be a book or something at some point. And I started putting ’em down and I was like. Oh my God. And then remember that one, it would lead to another. So I was writing all these stories down. 

Steve Cuden: So you started doing this around the pandemic then?

Ed Driscoll: Yeah, I wanna say around, yeah. Yep. That was when I first, ’cause I was like, oh. And then I was like, you know, my memory’s increasingly going, which comes in handy sometimes if you don’t want to think about the show the night before. But I thought like, ah, I just want to jot this down. But then I kind of got excited.

I was like, well, it’s like a book or is this a show? And it’s like, well this might be both. And then so I just kind of kept doing that. And so really long answer to what you’re asking about, but facing audiences. But this has been really fun because it was such a different thing for me to, I’m not just doing standup comedy.

Here’s my jokes, B, B, b goodnight, which nothing wrong with it and I still enjoy that. But before I did it too, so, you know, with the pandemic and stuff, I didn’t step on stage for about a year and a half, which is probably the longest time off of a stage I’d had since I was about 20. 

Steve Cuden: Did you feel Rusty when you went back?

Ed Driscoll: Well, I wasn’t, you know, so I wasn’t sure. So I’m prepping this show, so now I’m writing these stories down and I’m, I’m gonna just tell these stories. And then I, I thought, you know, I gotta remind myself that this is gonna be different. And don’t be afraid of the silence as you, ’cause I thought, you know, I’ll be telling these stories and there’s plenty of humor in all the stories, but it’s not like set up punch.

Set up punch. 

Steve Cuden: Exactly. 

Ed Driscoll: And as a standup comic, you can get a little nervous going like, Hmm, I haven’t had a laugh in 30 seconds. I gotta get this. So I kept reminding myself going like, look, just be relaxed with it. You don’t know what they’re gonna like and what they’re not, and. In my mind, I really didn’t.

I was like, I’ve told these stories to my friends and to people here and there, but I’ve never really told them on stage. And I really had no idea how they were gonna react. 

Steve Cuden: It’s, it’s more autobiographical. Even though you, I assume your act all along has been somewhat from your life, from your actual experiences.

You’re not making up, you know, fiction. But nevertheless, this book, if this is the reflection in your, uh, your act as well, it’s more autobiographical than it is, as you say, set up punch. Set up, punch. 

Ed Driscoll: Right. Right. ’cause I’m like, here’s the story and here’s what happened. And you have these setups and, and again, I wasn’t sure if anything was gonna work, but at this stage I was like, my batting average is pretty good in my mind.

I’m like, well, I think these are really good stories, but you just never know what people are gonna do. But I was just anxious to jump on stage again after all that time. And I wondered like, am I gonna feel rusty or whatever else. And, uh, but you know, I didn’t for one second. Wow. Which kind of blew my mind, but I’ve always been.

The reason I knew that I may not have any trouble with this is that, uh, I’ve been a guy, like if I work to do too many shows, like in a row, I can get robotic. And my agent used to always say to me, he is like, you know, you’re sounding board with this. I’m like, well, I am, but I, I get your point. And so I gotta, and I do good with little times off, like a couple weeks.

I’m talking not like a year and a half. But I, I thought that like, you know, I, I, I think this is gonna be real natural and it’s just stories and reminding myself, ed, this is you talking to your friend, telling these stories. So I went out there and, you know, went really. Well, I felt terrific, like it was, I was a little shocked that I didn’t have one bit of nerve, but you know, you’re coming through the pandemic and stuff like, what else am I supposed to be afraid of here?

This is the only world that I feel like I can control sometimes. Well, that’s 

Steve Cuden: just another way to die is on stage. Right, 

Ed Driscoll: right. Masked up people. That’ll be good. How about some muffled blasts and some people were wearing masks and I didn’t, but I thought like, well, as I get big, get one of those big shields in front of me or something in case they’re throwing stuff.

I used to do that before the pandemic. 

Steve Cuden: You should actually do the show over camera with a video screen and then you don’t have to worry about that at all. 

Ed Driscoll: Well, my God, right. Wasn’t that coming up a lot and, and then some people do do little things, but I’m sorry it’s, it’s not the same. And I 

Steve Cuden: what, what kind of exchange of energy do you get from an audience?

Is it very helpful to you when you are in front of people? Do you get that energy back from them? 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s gonna, like I say now at this stage. I have a pretty good idea going, this is probably gonna work good. Who knows? With this? And my, and my batting average is, is pretty high in my head to what actually happens.

But ultimately they gotta kind of tell me. And especially with these stories, and just like with jokes, sometimes you write something, you go like, this is great. And then like, I don’t know about this one. And you’ll get hardly anything on the one you loved. And then a big laugh on the other. And you go like, Ooh.

Like not often does that happen, but once in a while you get surprised. And this happened with the stories too. I’d like tell this story and it’s like, I don’t think they dug that one, but you know, you start 80% of it hit or whatever, which I was pretty happy with. And then, this is funny, the guy that was producing the show, Frank Meier for me, so he came there first night we did the show, we get on and he goes, I gotta tell ya.

Uh, when you told me you weren’t trying any of this material anywhere else and had never done it, I thought, oh, this is a bad, bad thing gonna happen. Yeah. I was like, well, I’m glad. And I said, I’m glad you didn’t say anything to me beforehand. I said, you know, I, I don’t think it was arrogance or stupidity or whatever, but I just felt like I know how to tell stories.

These are funny stories. I’m gonna go tell some stories. But I said to him, I’m like, well, thank you for holding that in, because he was like, boy, yeah, no. ’cause that was great because he had said to me once in a while was like, you wanna pop up and try something? But at that point I was like, no. 

Steve Cuden: So, you know, if you told your 10-year-old self that you’d be writing and performing comedy for this length of time in your life, would you have believed it?

Or what would your 10-year-old self have said to you? Forget it. You’re crazy. 

Ed Driscoll: Wait, so like 15 was old at 10, right. So I, I think that’s the thing I’d have the most trouble with. Um, I might have mentioned it on the last time we were on, but I don’t know really young. I was probably 10, or it when I just seemed to have this weird knack for cracking up kids and adults.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Ed Driscoll: I had it in my mind from about the time I was that, that like, you know, I, I didn’t know where it was gonna take me exactly, but it’s like, I’m gonna be doing standup comedy, writing funny stuff somewhere in there, and if it means I’m an accountant in the day or something, I’m doing something else.

But it was always in my head as a little kid. 

Steve Cuden: But you knew early, early on that you were funny. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. You know, just because of the reactions of, of other people. Even teachers, like, I never wanna run, I’m the funny guy. But you just start to notice that like, oh, adults are kind of laughing too. And I ha you know, I always had that old man’s mind even when I was a kid.

And I think my, I had a sense of irony even when I was a little kid and it would make adults laugh, so I thought, well, there’s something different here. 

Steve Cuden: Were you nervous back then when you were in front of people? No, 

Ed Driscoll: not, not, you know, that’s, it’s funny, I was talking to somebody today about that, who, it’s my neighbor who’s, um, he’s really gregarious and great and like one-on-one, but he has to, he has to give a speech.

And he was talking about how he’s nervous. And I said, I know that’s the natural thing. I, I always have been. The more people there, the better I kind of feel. Really, I’m more awkward in social situations of two, three people I don’t know or whatever. So as, as a kid, like if I was in front of a bunch of people, it was not a problem.

Steve Cuden: I think that’s true for a lot of comedians actually. You know, Johnny Carson used to talk about he could be in front of a crowd and it wasn’t a problem, but in a, in a party he was very shy and reserved. Yeah. And I think a lot of comedians are like that. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. I, yeah, I would probably, ’cause I’m thinking, well, the only time I see comedians out, we see each other.

And so we’re all being idiots together. But I’m not, I’m, I’m glad to hear that actually. 

Steve Cuden: What’s the largest crowd you’ve ever performed to? 

Ed Driscoll: Uh, not counting like television millions. No, 

Steve Cuden: no, no. I mean live like it was in an arena. Arena or a huge theater. What 

Ed Driscoll: Easton I, I opened for her and, uh, New York State and uh, uh, Saratoga.

It was 20,000. 

Steve Cuden: Who was this? Sheena Easton. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. I did a few nights with her and those were always crowds of about 20,000. And then Dennis Miller and I did some shows and I remember there being about 15 at those, those were like the biggest in person kind of things. And I’m saying I like talking in front of people, but those, those were a bit nerve wracking.

’cause that’s a lot of fricking people. 

Steve Cuden: So that’s intimidating when you get in front of a huge crowd. 

Ed Driscoll: Well, it could be, I don’t know, intimidating, but a little more butterflies than I would normally get. Mm-hmm. And especially, you know, because I remember just thinking like, first time I’d never been in front of a crowd that big and in front of Sheena Easton.

And you walk out there and the thought occurred to me that, boy, if they don’t like ya. 20,000 people could make a lot of noise. It’s not like six people in a comedy 

Steve Cuden: club. No, that’s right. That’s right. 

Ed Driscoll: You know, it’s like, oh my God. They could brush the stage with torches. So I remember, so there was some definite, um, butterflies, but then I, you know, what I did and, and others had told me about it, was just like, I just looked at the first few rows of people and kind of pretended, Hey, I’m talking to 500 people here, or not.

Looking in that upper deck. And I first got out there, and I’m telling you, I remember the very first time I faced a crowd like that, my leg was shaking just a little bit. I could feel it. I was down. I was like, uh, uhoh. But then I relaxed and relax and relax and then so it was going nicely. And then I made the mistake and I got a little cocky, you know, or whatever.

And then I’m like, let’s take a look. Uh, let’s not do that again. ’cause like when I looked up into the, up the rafters and saw those people, I could feel it again. It was like, okay, don’t do that. Don’t do that again. And I just concentrated on those first few rows. So 

Steve Cuden: I would think the scary part about that is if they, all those people went silent, that would be scary.

Ed Driscoll: I don’t, for some reason, I, in my weird imagination, you know, I was, I was more worried about, like, they attack me and ride me out with pitchforks or something. So, you know, the silence not to bother me, that was, but they, they were nice, you know, and you know that they’re. Wanting to see the other act too. So that’s, that’s the thing.

Steve Cuden: Well, they’re not there to see you, right? Correct. They didn’t correct. You know, they, there might be one or two or four people in the audience that you invited. You might maybe, but everyone else is there for Sheena Easton. 

Ed Driscoll: Right. And, and especially for musicians opening. ’cause that, that’s something you can walk into.

Like, when Dennis and I were doing shows, well, you knew they were, his audience and his audience is kind of mine too. Not to put myself with him, but, you know, I, I love to work smart and pretty clean and stuff. So his audiences were mine. And so I would always go out and do really well there because they, you know, and then they still knew Dennis would, would crush it.

But I always felt pretty confident in front of his crowds. ’cause I thought people are coming to see him will like me too. And 

Steve Cuden: so when you were coming up in the business, at what age were you when you first started doing the clubs? When did that start for you? Boy, 

Ed Driscoll: let’s see. 

Steve Cuden: Were you still in your teens?

Ed Driscoll: Uh, close. Like maybe about 20 

Steve Cuden: Uhhuh. Can you believe it? 

Ed Driscoll: Five years that I’ve been doing this, Steve. It’s just amazing. 

Steve Cuden: It’s only been five years. That’s really, yeah. 25. You’re an amazingly experienced person for only five years. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. I mean, you told me the camera’s not gonna be on for the, this is just audio, so they, they could think I’m 25.

Steve Cuden: Everybody, ed is only 25. Thank you. In his own mind, I wish, are you still friends with people you came up through the business with? 

Ed Driscoll: Oh, absolutely. A lot. Lots of folks. And then, you know, she passed away lately, Steve, as I talk about in my show, but you know. All these guys, my dear friend, Louis Anderson, norm McDonald, Bob Saggot, Richard Lewis, all these guys that I know and was friends with, you know, it’s scary.

I mean, and they weren’t that old something, you know, Newhart passed away. And I, and I said, well, you know, the guy was 95, so that wasn’t as much of a blow, but it was really sad. But then seeing some of these other folk that are, you know, my age or whatever. 

Steve Cuden: Uh, so my question is, I assume that there were any number of folks from back in the beginning of your career who did not persevere, who did not succeed in some way, who didn’t become famous or, or work in the business after a while.

I assume there’s some, and you have persevered all this time. And I guess my question to you is. What do you think of your perseverance and what is, how important is that to sustaining a career to think in a perseverant way? 

Ed Driscoll: Boy, you know, I mean, that’s a good thing to point out and I, I wish I could honestly say I was always just, but I just kind of put one foot in front of the other.

I think, you know, my career kind of went along pretty smoothly, especially like the first, I don’t know, 10, 15 years or whatever. Uh, just things kind of fell in place and you have little disappointments, but I just was kind of rolling with it to, to see what happens and then, you know, and then when some things happen in the strike and this and that, and I was like, oh, I remember saying to some friends, I’m like, well, this is kind of crappy.

And then they canceled that show I was gonna do, and they’re like, ed. I hate to tell you, but it’s like now you’re catching a little what everybody else was here. You’ve had a nice little run for like, and it’s like, well you’re, that’s kind of true. And not like I was getting everything I wanted, but it was following a nice path.

I had very few professional setbacks it seemed like, for like a chunk of time there. So I was like, okay, you’re right. I mean, you pay dues as a comic coming up, but you don’t care. You’re in your twenties, you’re sleeping on couches, you don’t care. Of course, crap. To me it’s when you get out into Hollywood and you start doing the stuff in LA and really getting involved and it went pretty nicely.

Like, so that’s, so did I persevere? It’s like, yeah, but I was blessed that, you know, I didn’t have to persevere too hard. 

Steve Cuden: They kept coming to you, you didn’t have to go seek it. Yeah, 

Ed Driscoll: it was kind of like that, which is, you know, and I wasn’t arrogant about it, but I kind of got used to that. 

Steve Cuden: I think one of the hardest things in Hollywood to do is to be in the writing business, especially the comedy writing business sitcoms and so on, because you are not likely to last for 40 years in that it’s going to probably be somewhere if you’re good at it, somewhere between 10 and 20 years.

If you’re lucky, you got a little bit longer than that. Right. 

Ed Driscoll: Well, and then I do spin a lot of plates, you know what I mean? And that’s what I told people. ’cause look at, I, you know, when we went on strike and I couldn’t write, but I did stand up. 

Steve Cuden: Right? 

Ed Driscoll: I just tried everything and most things worked for me.

And so I was lucky that way. Like I have some brilliant writer of friends, as I’m sure you do, that. Like they can write sit concepts, but they can’t write variety or 

Steve Cuden: Absolutely. Right. Yes. Or 

Ed Driscoll: do that. I kind of was pretty good at, you know, I started out in Variety and then I was like, sitcom. I don’t know.

Can I do it? Oh, I can. And I spun a lot of plates and as you know, the cycle would come through. Like sitcoms are big now and all the variety writers are outta work. And then it shifts again and it’s uh, varieties in and sitcom workers are outta work. And I would like, because I was doing both, I stayed pretty steadily employed.

And if a show went down as they do even a successful one, I’d be like, okay, well I am, uh, I’m gonna write a book. And so I wrote my first book and I liked writing stuff and doing stuff, and I would tour as a comic and I’d do that. So I kind of kept moving. And you know, people are like, that’s great. You’re talented and driven.

I’m like, well, who knows? That’s probably fear at some level to where you’re just like, I’m gonna do everything. ’cause you don’t know what’s going away. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah, but you’re, you’re self motivated. Nobody is pushing you to write your book. Correct? 

Ed Driscoll: Well, it’s true. I, um, it’s 

Steve Cuden: not a work for hire. You’re actually generating it on your own.

Ed Driscoll: Well, that’s true. So creative work, I, I enjoy doing. And so, yeah. You know, I always thought I was this lazy guy and it’s like, well, I can be, ’cause like if you want me to go out in the middle of the yard right now, I’d probably don’t want to do that. But for with creative stuff, I’ve never had issues of, of, you know, writer friends and you probably know a ton, but I’ve never been like that as far as they’ll be like, oh, I can’t have solitaire on my computer.

’cause then I get this and I, I don’t get distracted. It’s like they used to laugh at me because I would, you know, they’d give us like five days to come back with a script when they’d send somebody out in a sitcom, go, you write this whole episode while we do this, then you bring this back and we’ll work on it.

I would always jump right into it and most guys would like put it off or whatever, but like, I guess, and the other way, I didn’t like that hanging over me. 

Steve Cuden: I’m with you. I don’t like it hanging over me. I like to get it done and outta the way. And I like the opportunity if I feel like I need to keep revising it for some reason, I want that extra time.

Ed Driscoll: Yes, sir. I’m, I’m right with you. But it’s funny, right? You probably know, like, so many of my friends would always be like, ah, I, you know, I get distracted and I was like, ah, just like you. It’s like I don’t, I gotta get moving on it. 

Steve Cuden: Do you think of yourself primarily as a writer before being a performer? 

Ed Driscoll: I don’t really sit around and think about it to be honest.

You know what I mean? Well, well 

Steve Cuden: here, here’s your chance. 

Ed Driscoll: No, I’d rather not. Uh, it depends on what I’m doing, right? When I’m performing, I’m a performer when I’m writing, and then what am I writing too? So 

Steve Cuden: you don’t think of yourself as being one or the other. You think of yourself as being all of the above 

Ed Driscoll: comedic artist.

Oh God, how pretentious does that sound? 

Steve Cuden: That is really snooty. 

Ed Driscoll: So snooty. But, but dammit. That’s who I am. 

Steve Cuden: Would you prefer to write on your own? Do you prefer that over writing on a staff with a bunch of people? 

Ed Driscoll: Uh, I kind of like it all. So that’s another one. I, I like being in the room with people, but I also at times, like writing, uh, on my own.

So lucky for me, like I said, I kind of enjoy all the different angles of that and not network notes and stuff like that. Hey, let me tell you, you, you’ll appreciate this. It reminds me of, ’cause you’re somebody who likes to jump right into the script. So I was right in a pilot and, uh, it was an actor attached, a really good, good guy, but I won’t talk about it ’cause of the network and stuff.

But at any rate, he brought me in, he is like, Hey, this guy’s gonna write my P out. And they’re like, great. And then so he was like, me and you work like a man. So he and I sat down, we’re like, bangy bang, you know, and we had this really good script in like three days and we brought it in, you know, and then the, they were like.

Okay, well this, you know, you obviously didn’t put enough work into it. It was like that whole thing. We’re like, well, why don’t you read it? So then he, he then he run it and he is like, no, it’s really good, but I’ll bet it can be even better. Take five days next time. So, you know what we did? We pounded it out in two days and for, waited three days and then handed it in.

And he is like, see, see what that extra time does. Like, yeah, we went golfing those extra times. You idiot. You know, 

Steve Cuden: it’s, this is a, this is an important lesson for the listeners to, to pay attention to. If you work too quickly and turn it in too quickly, people assume you didn’t spend enough time on it, they just assume it and it doesn’t matter what the quality is.

I will tell you, David Mammoth, the great writer, David Mammoth, uh, famously would write something in a few days because he’d be on assignment for a studio and he’d put it in a drawer for a few weeks and then he’d turn it in. 

Ed Driscoll: I did not know that. But yeah, that’s the kind of, and even my manager and I get it, but I like to work fast.

Like even if it was something that’s kind of a one-off or. Right after write up a monologue. 

Steve Cuden: And in Hollywood, you know, no matter what you turn in, they’re going to give you notes to change things, so why kill yourself over it? 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. And it’s just like, well, I’m so sorry to get this done really quickly and really well, you know?

Steve Cuden: Exactly. 

Ed Driscoll: But it’s a strange phenomenon. Like they think it’s just the time spent or what have you. And, and no, it’s, you know, some people like to pound away at the stuff and, and, and do it. 

Steve Cuden: Do you think that the way that you write or how you come at it, your process of writing has changed since you first started in the business, or is it pretty much the same way?

It’s always been. 

Ed Driscoll: That is a great question. Um, 

Steve Cuden: sometimes I get lucky. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. I wasn’t expecting that. I gotta go. I don’t have any answers for that. Thank you very much. No, I, well ’cause I’m thinking now on it and stuff. I’m going, I think it’s always been kind of, it’s the stuff you and I are talking about.

Like I was always somebody, I’m diving right into this, like I get a call that afternoon. I’m like, Hmm, I’m gonna start thinking about this now and sit down on a pad and do I do more on my computer in the last 15 years or something? Probably. But I still do some long hand and jotting down. Because I like to 

Steve Cuden: do that.

You’ve always had a certain level of confidence about what you’re writing. That’s my assumption that when you’re working on material, whether for yourself or for a show, for someone else, that you’re not sitting there and, and kind of agony over whether it’s great or not, you’re just moving forward and have confidence in it.

Ed Driscoll: I try not to worry about it. I don’t know if it’s confidence, but you know, I mean, I just push ahead like I’m driving ahead. And then here’s another one you may have discussed, I don’t know, before on, on a show, but the whole idea of, you know, some people wanna go line by line and really like, I will blast through.

I’m gonna write the whole scene. And I know that joke wasn’t so great, but here we go. Here we go. I wanna complete the scene. Now I’ll go back and do it. And some people would, you know, no, let’s get this line right. It’s like, no, let’s push through. No. 

Steve Cuden: I’m a proponent of a believer in, as many writer friends of mine are of the notion of what they call purge drafts or vomit drafts.

You just put it out and then you worry about revising it after the fact and you tweak and plus and so on. Uh, no, I believe you need to go through it as quickly as you can and get it out. I, I will tell you why. Because you are actually making the clay that you have to then mold, 

Ed Driscoll: right? Yeah. And it’s, and you know, you get some shockingly good stuff too.

Correct. They’re going like, Hey, that’s good, and the rest has to. But I, that’s why, I mean, I guess I, I’ve never understood the whole writer’s block thing because. You just go, right? And it’s like, well, and it may not be great, but you just go. And that, that’s always how I’ve kind of worked. So not confidence per se, but like my mind is ready and it’s like, what are you thinking of?

And I just start putting it down and I could be way off. I could be sort of close as you know, but then it’s, yeah, writing is rewriting. 

Steve Cuden: Alright, so you’re spending the last four or five years writing, cracking up, not knowing that it’s going to be a book or an act, you don’t know it’s either one. You’re just writing stuff down in the hopes of it turning into something.

Yes. 

Ed Driscoll: I would say within about six months, as I started looking at all these stories, I was like, okay, what? What is this? And I thought like. This is a show, it’s a book. It’s both. So I kind of knew and it also was like, made me feel good ’cause it’s like, Hey, I’m doing this so double duty here. This may not work as a story to tell on stage, but it works really well in print.

And then some are like, eh, that’s, I don’t know if that goes in print, but boy, that’s funny. Out outline. So it, it kind of felt like there was no wasted stuff. Right. 

Steve Cuden: Could you tell as you were writing it that these things would likely land 

Ed Driscoll: it? Like I was saying before, like you have a decent idea and you, you never know for sure.

And I was right. 

Steve Cuden: You know, and it’ll be, it’ll be different from audience to audience too, I assume. 

Ed Driscoll: Well, there’s always that danger too, but muscle, the stuff seems to go consistently and yeah, there’s some things I might have chickened out going like, oh, that was so quiet. I don’t know if I even wanna try that again.

But there were other things that was like, I think that’s good. I wanna try it again. They just didn’t like it. And then you find out one way or the other, you know? So, but you’re right with the audiences being different. 

Steve Cuden: If you made a decision or someone hired you either way to do an entirely new standup act, about how long do you think it would take to develop it?

Ed Driscoll: God, that’s a great question too, because it would really depend on the performer, you know? Mm-hmm. How quickly they assimilate stuff, how you, well work well with them. ’cause you know, you’re not writing in a vacuum per se. So working with the individual would be a, you know, it’s impossible to say. 

Steve Cuden: How about for, how about for you?

Ed Driscoll: Oh, for me to write what, 

Steve Cuden: for yourself, if you were gonna write your, a new act for yourself, like when you first started out, how long did it take you to get, let’s say, 15 minutes of material? 

Ed Driscoll: Gosh, I don’t know the answer to that. It has been so long since I initially had my, like first 15, you know, and you’re always tweaking and dropping and hopefully getting better.

So I mm-hmm. Have an answer on that. Uh, for 

Steve Cuden: and, and when you’re out on stage, do you, are you then coming off stage and thinking to yourself, I need to change that, or I need to eliminate this or add here? Are you always going through that process? 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. You know, at times it’s kind of a pain in the butt.

It’s like, ed, you’re allowed to enjoy this. But I get on and I’ll be like, oh, I forgot that one line and I did this ’cause Right. That’s, it’s what you’re doing. And I try not to let it torment me, but it pops into my mind or I’ll be like. Boy, that was kind of surprising. You can’t help but kind of start doing an instant review.

But that’s, I record the shows and it’s like, we’ll go through the agony of doing my least favorite thing, which is watching and listening to myself. But to see like, oh, did I flu that? Or, oh, they did like that. That’s weird. 

Steve Cuden: Uh, well, you’re in really good company because that’s what Steve Martin goes through when he’s doing standup.

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. Alright, so there you go. Me, that’s, that’s on me. And Steve roll. 

Steve Cuden: Just the two of you. If you only could do that with him. Uh, alright, so let’s talk about cracking up. Why did you decide to finally just put it out now? Why now? Why not three years ago? Why not next year? Why now? You know, 

Ed Driscoll: I think it really was, like I said, when the pandemic rolled around and I had to kind of stop and like, you know, when you’re in Hollywood, you’re just in it, it’s project.

That’s a funny story, but I’m not writing it down. Like, oh, remember what happened? But I finally had some time to kind of sit, almost forced to reflect, and I just started thinking and I’m, you know, it’s, it is, yeah. So you’re sitting there. It gave, it was the first chance I really had to kind of start looking back over these decades there, because I was always busy and always doing something.

And then again, like I said, I was like, I’m gonna start writing this down. Uh, you know, so I don’t start forgetting stuff and, and this and that. And I just kind of wanted this as a. It’s a little legacy thing, right? You get a little older, but going like, I want these stories to be out there. I want my kid to know like, this is the stuff we went through and, and it was really fun.

And you don’t think of it right at the time of going like, wow, that’s amazing. We just did this, or whatever. You just kind of move, move, moving. So of course chance to kind of look back and go, oh, that was sweet and that was kind of bittersweet and to kind of like review things. 

Steve Cuden: Well, are you like me when you’re writing material for yourself?

Particularly, do you think of it as being dispensable that it’s doesn’t really have any value until you look back at some point and go, wow, that actually had value. Is that work for you that way? 

Ed Driscoll: Well, it depends on what it is, you know, but, and that’s why I like this as more legacy. Like a friend of mine describes like when you’d write for variety shows, he always described it as skywriting.

It’s true. What does that mean, skywriting? Meaning it goes up there, it’s gone. Somebody says it and no one’s thinking about it maybe ever again outside of, you know, in big, but a lot of times, 

Steve Cuden: and it’s topical, so it’s right now, 

Ed Driscoll: right? And the ethos and it’s gone. So like those things like that I don’t worry about, but more of my own stuff too.

It’s like, I don’t know, I feel like I kind of do want to just lay out, you know, I’m not planning on, on any, uh, deaths soon, hopefully, but you just want to kind of start putting down and going, oh, this is what I did and I want my kid to see that and remember, and it’s fun. It just, the timing was right, but I, I honestly think it was the pandemic, so as if the pandemic didn’t inflict enough pain on America to begin with.

They got my book afterwards. But no, that was really the time where I started doing this and I’m really glad I did it. I’m really enjoying this show. I had not done a show filled with just stories and not stand up and I’m, it’s really fun and I have some visual things that I do, so it’s, it’s been exciting.

To me, and I’m fortunate right now, I don’t have to do stuff I don’t wanna do right now. I’ve been lucky. I’m very blessed with that. You know, once in a, I’ll get an offer from Hollywood or if there’s something and it’s like, it’s really at this point, gotta be something I really wanna do. Right? And if it doesn’t, I don’t get, you know, and it’s nice to be in that position when all I took everything I could, which is why I had no time to even think about it till the pandemic.

But now it’s a little bit like I’m, I’m doing on the back nine of my life and career here. I want to, uh, do stuff that I really wanna do. And I’m really enjoying putting that book out. 

Steve Cuden: In the book, you, uh, talk about many different experiences that you had in Hollywood. It’s not just one thing, it’s many different things.

Explain to the listeners what the difference is from your perspective of writing on a variety show versus writing on a sitcom. What are those big differences? 

Ed Driscoll: Well, for instance, like Dennis Miller Live, that show is live. And it’s like, here we go. And I kind of liked that part because right, unlike a movie or a sitcom, we don’t have to keep going through.

You’ve got all this time, so just keep shooting to a certain point. I’d be like, what’s so great is at Friday at eight o’clock, this is as good as we got and here it is, people. So I liked that about, and a lot of variety shows go live or stuff like that. And as you know, in movies can be torturous because they’ve got, we’ve got months, so let’s just keep screwing around.

And you’re like a YY and sitcoms. A little bit more of that too. Mini movies, but a little more of that. More network notes, more delay, because you have time to do stuff. The schedule, 

Steve Cuden: but faster than a movie on a TV series. 

Ed Driscoll: Oh. Oh. A TV series is faster. It depends on, I guess it depends on your director and everything else, right?

You get somebody who likes to move. But a lot of the times, you know, they wanna just keep trying stuff on movie sets. TV moves faster than most movies. Mm-hmm. I think. But you still have more time than, like I said, I like some of the pressure, you know? And Oscars too, we close in. It’s like, we’re going live tonight guys.

Boohoo like, you know, in two weeks, like, we’re gonna be done with this. And they can’t come in and go, let’s keep rewriting just because we want to feel like we’re paying you guys for something. 

Steve Cuden: Well, l Lauren Michaels, who for most of 50 years, has produced Saturday Night Live. He famously says, when we, the show starts at 1130, it’s not that we’re ready, it’s 1130.

Right. So you just go, right. Uh, it’s not like you’re doing it live and you’re improvising. It’s, there’s a lot of material that’s been churn out. 

Ed Driscoll: I, I don’t think I’ve ever, quite honestly, that’s, to me it’s, especially, it’s like we could have gone two days ago. Like, usually, you know, and especially in Dennis’s show, we’re like, we’ve got this packed show.

Let’s, let’s go. Let us out here. This is really good. I, I can’t remember many shows of anything that I did that I was like, Ooh, we’re not ready for this, but we gotta go. Like, it just wasn’t like that when I worked on it. You know? I, 

Steve Cuden: well, that’s why you have a staff. It’s not one person churning it 

Ed Driscoll: all right.

But you know, this is people that pull at threads. And again, well, I talk about executives a lot in the book, and I’m not so afraid to trash them now and say, I don’t trash them by name, but just the notes and the dumb stuff and them feeling like, well, you like the guy saying to us, take five days instead of three.

It’s like, no, we’re, you know, do you like the script? It’s really good. So you, you hate when you have to do stuff like that. 

Steve Cuden: What’s your philosophy on taking notes when someone’s giving you a note? If it’s a great note, what do you do with it? If it’s a really stupid note, what do you do with it? 

Ed Driscoll: Great notes.

Please hit me with as many as you can because it’s not my egos, like I’m trying to get the best product together here, and that’s what we’re all supposedly doing. So helpful notes are great, but unfortunately, or at least in my experience, and I would guess most people’s, uh, experience that a lot of the notes aren’t good and sometimes they’re really bad.

And I’ve never understood why some executives, like, you know, like, I don’t know anything about cars. I can’t fix a car at all. That’s why I bring it to a professional. They fix it. I don’t stand behind him as he is doing it, going, ah, do this or that. You know, I let him do his thing. If there’s a problem or it’s like, Hey, it’s still clunking, you go back to the pro.

But these people come in. They all think they’re creative or whatever, and you know, it’s no sin to not be creative. But these people come in and they just start pulling, try this, try that. And then you’re trying to explain to ’em too that especially in a half hour, hour long show and nothing happens in a vacuum, you’re pulling it all these threads in the first act, this story’s gonna fall apart.

That’s right. See it. And the thing we’re like, we’re trying to, oh, I just did the slap there. Did you hear? It was on my own knee the last time I was on Steve’s show. I was pounding the table for emphasis and stuff. And he’s like, ed, I’ve gotta pull all those out. So I have no table here, but I just slap my knee.

But you’re a knee slapper there, Steve. 

Steve Cuden: I, I’m slapping my knee here. I’m just doing it quietly. 

Ed Driscoll: But no, so, you know, so they would, but then who gets the blunt? They like pull, pull, pull at all these threads and we’re trying to tell ’em this. And then the story collapse and they’re genuinely perplexed going, wow, why doesn’t this work?

And it’s pretty frustrating. You know, they’re signing in the checks and you’re like, because you wouldn’t let us. Do our work. 

Steve Cuden: That is the example that you’re saying, which is repeated every day in Hollywood over and over and over again, of people justifying the pay that they’re getting for their jobs.

And so they have to give you something or otherwise why have them? So they give you notes and then it’s on you to figure out whether the notes have any value or not. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah, and you can usually tell, and it’s funny because my first experience in was, uh, with Carolyn Strauss from HBO. It was on Dennis’s show.

She was fantastic. Like plenty of times she’d be like, Nope, you guys are good to go. Or Oh, and whenever she had a suggestion it was like really helpful. So in my head, you know, I’m thinking like, oh, this is what executives are like this is great. And I, and I thought, geez, why are so many of my compadres, they’re always bitching about notes.

Then I get onto a sitcom and I’m like, oh my God, this is what they’re talking about and they’re just ruining the show. So my first experience you 

Steve Cuden: got spoiled 

Ed Driscoll: was misleading. ’cause I thought like, oh this is really good. And she was one of the handful of executives I worked with who was like really helpful.

Steve Cuden: Alright, so let’s go back to your standup act Now. Your act, nobody’s giving you notes on that except the audience. Right? 

Ed Driscoll: No, a great point. Another thing I’m really enjoying, right, is like I’m gonna live or die on my own instincts. Yeah. And that’s something I always did like about standup. It’s like nobody, you know, I’ll take suggestions from other friends and everything else, but nobody’s coming up going, you should do this or that.

And same with the one man show too. It’s like somebody like you or somebody I know who knows this stuff, I would love, you know, I love their feedback, but you don’t have some guy who’s basically an idiot and, you know, in his first suit, uh, coming out and saying like, oh, do this or that, and it’s like, oh, you know.

Steve Cuden: Did you have an editor on the book? 

Ed Driscoll: Uh, this one I did not. So yes, I should make one up so to, to blame, but I, but you know, this was like my fifth one. I had a great editor named Helge Shire and the very first one I did, ’cause that’s the first book I’d ever written. And oh my gosh, she was so awesome. So she did the first couple of my books and then I was doing ghost writing for some people’s books and editing other people’s books.

So I got really experienced in it and I, this one here is like, it was all such a personal project and I’m writing. These stories and putting ’em on stage and just putting ’em in the book and you know, then I’m horrified too, like, oh my god, there’s, you know, some people proofread and they, they missed, there’s a couple little typos, which drive me nuts, but I, you know, I blame myself.

It’s like, oh my God, how did I not, it’s the forest through the trees kind of thing. 

Steve Cuden: Well that is, once you, I go through that all the time where you’re writing and writing and writing and writing and it’s the same thing. You’re revising and revising and the next thing you know, you hand it in to someone and the next day you look at the first page and there’s a mistake on page one.

Right. And you go, how’s that possible? Right. That, that’s really common. I think that’s so common. I’m curious, you’ve obviously written for a number of really famous people. Do you have to do something in your own mind’s eye to get into their voice? 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah, it seems, it’s nothing. I sit there and go like, okay, now I will channel Morgan Freeman.

Or, you know, it’s just meeting them and kind of getting their rhythm. And that was something that I discovered too. It’s like, oh, can I write in other voices? And first it was other standups. I just was kind of able to do that. I get a sense of their rhythm and it just seems to kind of naturally flow. And then the more you work with ’em and stuff too, and it’s like, oh, I see how they think here.

And so it’s like not a conscious thing where I like do it, but it just sort of happens. 

Steve Cuden: Do you find that you have to write a little bit of material to kind of get into that rhythm? Do you have to work your way into it? 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. And you know, some people are more distinctive than others as far as, well, sure.

Right. At least like Marsha Gay Harden, who’s a wonderful actress and I wrote some stuff for her, but. It’s like, well she’s, she reads people’s signs and like there’s not a character there in my head of going, this is what, 

Steve Cuden: oh, she’s an actress. Right, 

Ed Driscoll: right. 

Steve Cuden: She’s not a personality. 

Ed Driscoll: Right. Right. And that can be trickier because I sit and go, Hey, you comfortable with this?

Or I don’t get to know them. Whereas opposed to, well, somebody like Dennis too, really easy to fall into his, you know, I walked around talking like, Dennis, that was a bad thing. We’re all like talking and hey, chat, chat. I’m like, this is really bad. You know, we all Snarky. Snarky. I remember. And boy. I, I remember then the first time and we would savage each other.

Oh my God. We were the meanest staff to each other, but it was hilarious. We just, but this is when Dennis is like, everybody just crapped all over everybody. And then you’d have to remember to not take that home with you. Because I remember on there, I’m with my fiance, I get home walking, I was working, I’m like B, BB, BB, and I’m like, what the hell?

And I’m like, oh geez.

I savage line. I was like, oh, that just came up because I’ve been defending myself all day against all these other guys. And 

Steve Cuden: were you doing that too, Dennis? 

Ed Driscoll: Oh yeah. He loved, you know, we all just are crap all over each other all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. 

Steve Cuden: So you were actually doing Dennis Miller to Dennis Miller.

Ed Driscoll: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We’d always do that to ’em. 

Steve Cuden: That’s hilarious. So you have also written for non-performers, like athletes. Is there a difference in doing something like that where, you know, they’re not trained? 

Ed Driscoll: No. That can get challenging or depending, and Right. And some people are more naturally skilled with stuff, especially all the sps I did where you get different athletes and some people, 

Steve Cuden: who was the hardest, who was the most difficult to write for?

Ed Driscoll: Boy. And by difficult I guess you mean just trying to get their, 

Steve Cuden: get them to, to actually be able to say the word so that they had some kind of, 

Ed Driscoll: well, I’m trying rhythm 

Steve Cuden: to it. I’m 

Ed Driscoll: trying to remember now. Because, you know, some, some of the guys, hey, they’re athletes, they’re not, remember my dad used to get mad when a, when an athlete wouldn’t be articulate in his thing.

I always be like, dad, that’s not what he does. You know? 

Steve Cuden: Exactly. No, I’m saying, I’m saying I’m curious. I don’t, I don’t mean to, to be smart to anybody. Yeah. I’m 

Ed Driscoll: trying to think of it because, you know, some people were shy than others and you’d just give him a, you wouldn’t challenge him too hard, uh, with stuff.

And then some people surprised me. Like, I wrote this guy with Joe Heisman. I, I had no idea if he. And, but I had him, the whole premise was that he was. Desperately following a, um, Samuel Jackson around wanting to be part of the show. And he, and he was blowing him off and I didn’t even know Thaman, I write this thing, but I know Samuel and I’m like, oh, this is pretty funny.

Then I realize it’s like, wow, I have painted Thaman as this, like pain in the ass guy who wants to do stuff and no one wants him to. So I mean, the first time we get on the phone and he is like. Wow, ed, I don’t know. What do you think of me? And you know, and I was like, oh Lord. I said, well, Joe, you know, I just, uh, figured you have a great sense of humor.

And he was outstanding. He was so good like that. He was hilarious. Like as, as the guy, he’s in there washing the mirrors in the bathroom and like everywhere Samuel went, he was like in his face and he was, and I had said like, oh, you know, yeah, we really did make him look like his egomaniac to where he put on his full uniform and he’s standing there in a hallway like selling his DVDs of his Super Bowl highlights.

And I was like, you know, you write that down and thinking like, oh, that could be kind of insulting. But I’ll tell you, he took it and ran with it and he was hysteric. 

Steve Cuden: Did you have to tell anybody famous that what they were doing wasn’t working and you don’t have to name any names? 

Ed Driscoll: Well, yeah. You know, that comes up and, and you know, yeah.

And you have to be as kind of, uh, as example how, how, 

Steve Cuden: how brave do you have to be? You have to be pretty brave, I would think. 

Ed Driscoll: I don’t know. Be on a certain point, I’m like, what are they gonna do to me? You know, it’s like directors really have to go through, that’ll be like, oh, you know, let’s simplify this, or let, let’s maybe try this.

You know, I, nobody was like, too much trouble. But yeah, you get worried ’cause they’d go like, oh, this could have been really good, but this, this poor guy, it’s not what he does and he sucks at it. So it’s like, you know, once in a while you’d get somebody too that really was like, I don’t want to be funny.

I’m like, no problem. I got you covered there. But I appreciated people like that, that weren’t, you know, I remember one time they had me write some really straight copy for Joe Mont, who I love. 

Steve Cuden: Not Joe Montana. Joe Mont, 

Ed Driscoll: Tanya. How does he say it? Mont Mont. You’re right. Not the football player. The Joe Mont, uh, the guy from searching for Bobby Fisher and 

Steve Cuden: all the others criminal minds.

But they 

Ed Driscoll: were saying, I, I love him and it’s funny, but they said, oh, don’t give him anything funny. He doesn’t wanna do any funny and this and that. And then so I wrote that and then he’s watching these other people get jokes. He’s like, to me, he’s like, Hey, can I get some funny stuff? Yes you can. I can’t tell you, I think I wrote about it in the book, I don’t remember ’cause I haven’t read it in a while.

But the fact that all of a sudden these publicists started getting in the way of, you know, you’d work directly with people on these Friday shows and you hear from the publicists, she doesn’t like this, he doesn’t like that. And I’m like, really? And then I sit there and think like, I don’t know, those are pretty funny.

And then you’d run into the the star themself and I would just pick, I would always have the stuff and I’m like, oh hey, how about something? They’re like, oh, that’s great. I love that. And you realize the publicist didn’t show it to ’em. They all of a sudden, a lot of ’em wanted to be these gatekeepers. Like, do they 

Steve Cuden: gatekeepers?

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. Get the hell outta here. 

Steve Cuden: What do you do as a producer with a gatekeeper like that? What do you, how do you handle that? 

Ed Driscoll: I go right past him that that’s what I was doing. Find the producer. I was just like, oh, okay. He’s like, he doesn’t like it. And I’m like, well, okay, I’ll, I’ll get him something. Let’s, uh, I’ll, I’ll meet with him on the stage, you know, and they would be, 90% of the time they had never even seen it, you know?

And then some people or jerks, and we won’t name them. Like, they would come in and be like, you send it like 10 times. And they were saying they signed off on it, and they come in like, what? I’m not saying that. And you’re like, okay, well, but that was the, I gotta say, 

Steve Cuden: what was, and again, no names, but what was your philosophy on handling jerks or difficult people?

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. What you, it’s like, well, what are you looking for? And it was like, okay, well how about this, this? So, so what 

Steve Cuden: you’re saying is, is you had to go with the flow to a certain extent. 

Ed Driscoll: Oh, yeah. Like, unlike my own standard, whatever, not my decision. It’s like you, what do you wanna say? I always think too, it’s like, I could make you look better, but okay, if you wanted, this is what you wanna do or what do you, it’s like, okay, you do that.

And then it’s really fun though to see people that, like, I think I wrote in the book about it was, uh, Jeffrey Tambor and um, Noah Wiley, who had never met each other, but they were giving out this, these things. I was like, they’re pretty good actors. So I wrote, you know how they always have the stilted.

Conversations of those award show, like, I really enjoy your work. You as well. So I, in my mind, I was like, this would be funny. They’ve never met, but they should act like, oh, I’m a big fan. I’m a big fan. And then finally they’re kinda like, you’ve never seen my show. I was like, no, I’m, no. Who are you? I don’t even know who you are.

Let’s just get this over with. And I thought like, funny idea. We’ll see. Oh my God, did they nail it? And that’s when you feel so good. It’s like you guys, it was funny on paper, but boy did you hit that out of the park and you’re really appreciative of that. You 

Steve Cuden: know, being around as many excellent performers, actors, comedians as you have, ’cause you’ve been around quite a few.

Can you put your finger on, do you have any sense of what makes them special? What makes them, and it doesn’t have to be any particular individual, but in general, what makes. Someone who becomes a star. A star, do you have a sense of it at all? 

Ed Driscoll: You know, I, I, I think it is that it factor, that vague thing.

Mm-hmm. But I’m talking about Samuel Jackson, so this is funny. So in that sketch that I had written, I put myself in as the producer. So I have one little scene with him, you know, and I’m kind of nervous. I’m, I’m not an actor and I’m studying this, and I’m like, oh, I gotta make sure I have this. And then we’re getting to the point where we gotta shoot that.

And then Samuel was like, oh, hey, do you have, yeah. And I’m sorry. Do, do you have the script? I, I just need, he looks at it for like 30 seconds, just like, oh, okay, good. And he, you know, he just nails it. And I was like, wow. That, like, as an actor, he hadn’t studied. I was studied. I was so glad that I didn’t screw it up.

We did it in one take, but in my head I was like, oh my God, if I’d started messing up. But I remember looking at that and going like, wow, that’s just somebody who’s got something, man. Like, 

Steve Cuden: do you, do you think he has a photographic memory? 

Ed Driscoll: I think it’s some of that, I don’t know. And some of it is, some of it is just.

I don’t know. Right. It’s that it factor where like he’s just naturally him and it was great and he so relaxed and you know, obviously a pros pro who’s an award winner. Absolutely. But I remember looking at that and going like, see, there’s something different about this guy than most people that can do something like that.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that that’s what I was trying to get at. I, I, I think it’s almost impossible. It’s intangible, but there is something that separates people who become stars. I don’t mean necessarily celebrities, but stars, actual stars. They have something that others just don’t. Yeah. Sean 

Ed Driscoll: Penn. Or like, how in the hell is he so good?

I don’t know. Like everybody studies and there’s good actors, but some of these people, man, or they, and they have no fear of the cameras or whatever it is. They just deliver. And you know, you’d see it on sitcom sets a lot too. Sometimes we get guest actors and they’d be pretty good in rehearsal, but they get out in front of the crowd and stuff and it’s, you know, you see they’re just not as good.

They’re nervous. Some people are just the naturals. 

Steve Cuden: Tell the listeners the story about working on the highest rated show and the lowest rated show in the same week. 

Ed Driscoll: Pretty cool, right? Like once I put that together, it’s like, I’ll bet nobody’s ever done that. I, I would bet. I’m pretty willing to bet nobody has ever done that besides me, and nobody ever will.

But yeah, I was. It was the first Oscars that I did with Billy in the daytime. I was working on Nick Freno, 

Steve Cuden: Billy Crystal we’re talking about. And 

Ed Driscoll: uh, yeah, it would, it, so I was working on Nick Freno and then I’d just written some stuff for Billy for Comic Relief and he got his like eighth time of hosting Oscars.

And he asked me to write it with him, you know, and I was like, oh, this is great. But in the all day I would work on Nick Freno, this little sitcom and, you know, it was okay. It was just a little sitcom. And at night I would do, uh, go and work with Billy. And so I was kind of moonlighting and doing this and yeah, just funny that first when it came out and Billy sent me a, I, I show it on my show.

I, uh, he sent me the LA Times would always put the ratings up, and he sent me a plaque ’cause it had Oscars number one and Nick Fino dead last. And, you know, and, and that’s another one that like, oh, that’s, that’s cool. It’s a nice gift. But. Until I had some time to kind of sit back and go, you know, that’s pretty fricking amazing.

And I seriously, do you think anyone’s ever done that? That you don’t have the opportunity to do 

Steve Cuden: that? And how many people have had a plaque sent to them, you know, custom made by Billy Crystal? 

Ed Driscoll: Well, and I sent him one first. See, that was the thing. That’s another thing I talk about in my act, but that we, he and I always reenact Oswald and Jack Ruby, so it’s a long story I won’t get into, but anytime I see him and stuff too, he tries to surprise me.

He comes up as Ruby and I strike the pose and we do it in front of people and they’re confused 

Steve Cuden: because you unfortunately look a little bit like, 

Ed Driscoll: well, this is, I don’t know. I’m telling you one time, you know, I walked in his office for some reason. Yeah. He goes, Hey Eddie, you look like Oswald. Then I just said, well, I am him.

And I struck the iconic pose, which they can’t see, but you know, you’re thinking of you grabbing your stomach ’cause you’ve been shot by Jack Ruby. And we laughed and for some reason that became our thing. And we do it in front of him. And one of the best ones was, we do it to this day, but right before the Oscars, he was supposed to go out in his curtain.

And I’m standing back there and there’s a couple security guards, and me and Billy, he’s just about to walk through the curtain. He whips around trying to catch me off guard with the gun. And I’m right there. I do the Oswald. And he goes out on stage and the two security guards are standing there and they go, is that Oswald and Ruby?

And I go, yeah. Like, why wouldn’t it be? And so the, the plaque I gave him was that, that famous photo, but with my face and his face photoshopped him. Oh. And on the back I wrote, uh, Billy, you slay me. And then, so that’s when he sent me, uh uh, the other thing, and that’s still up in his office. I have friends that will go and they’re like, Hey, I had a meeting with Crystal.

I saw you up on the wall getting shot. I said, well, that’s my legacy. 

Steve Cuden: That’s in an office somewhere. Not his home, I assume. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. In in Beverly Hills. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. ’cause unfortunately he lost his home now. I know. Caught in the big fire. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. Terrible. I mean, 

Steve Cuden: that is horrible. Just hor horrible, you know? 

Ed Driscoll: And then when people, they always, they’re rich and this and that.

It’s like, look, he, he’s grateful. He knows he has money to be this and that, but he’s a really good guy and a sentimental guy. And they lived in that house for 46 years, so all his memories ran there. So it was, 

Steve Cuden: it’s horrible. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. It was a terrible thing. 

Steve Cuden: Too many 

Ed Driscoll: friends 

Steve Cuden: truly devastating to him. And who knows how many other thousands of people.

Ed Driscoll: Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Uh, Tru truly, truly devastating. Sure. Like 

Ed Driscoll: you, you probably, I know, I know about eight or nine people that I 

Steve Cuden: know, several people that went through it. It’s, you know, there’s nothing, there’s nothing you can say. It’s just 

Ed Driscoll: awful. No, no. 

Steve Cuden: I am curious, one question here about, you’ve obviously pitched lots of jokes.

You’ve pitched lots of stories, and pitching a joke I assume is a little different than pitching a story. What are your thoughts on. How one successfully pitches something, is there a way to do it? 

Ed Driscoll: That’s really interesting. Different people like to work in different ways, right? Like for instance, a lot of times with Billy that we’d come in and you’d have jokes and you’d read ’em out loud to him as like how he liked to do it.

Uh, Dennis used to like to read the jokes himself on paper and then might come and talk to you about it. And then there’s times where stuff just pops out, uh, too of your mouth and like going, oh, I like that. Or, because you think of something and it’s not on the page. So everybody likes to work a little, uh, differently.

The nicest, ’cause I’m looking, I just realized that, that the Barry Manalow, uh, thing is there, but he, I told him, he, that’s the nicest guy who ever at turning down like jokes. I told him ’cause he would sit there, you know, and he’d look and go like, ah, it’s really funny, but I don’t think I can do that. And I was like, 

Steve Cuden: so just so the listeners know, there’s a, there’s a framed image of Barry Manalow behind Ed with a bunch of, I guess, CDs or DVDs on it.

It has to be to commemorate large sales, I assume. 

Ed Driscoll: Yeah, it was, uh, I helped, uh, I’m looking up at it now. The Manalow Music and Passion live from Las Vegas. When he started, first opened his show there, I helped him with it. 

Steve Cuden: Did you write his act? 

Ed Driscoll: I, I helped him with the jokes. Uh, yeah, for the first, uh, a couple weeks there.

And they were nice enough to send this to me. I was like, I had nothing to do with how many you sold their guys, but I appreciate it. And, but I’m, he was about the sweetest as far as, um. Going like, oh, it’s real funny, but I don’t think I can say it. It’s like, God bless you. And then, well Dennis, but we all were savage each other anyway.

You know, sometimes Dennis would just be like, how dare you run that dog crap past me? He’d say that like, being funny. But you know, it was like, so people take different, uh, 

Steve Cuden: did anybody take umbrage at that or did everybody just get it? 

Ed Driscoll: Well, on Dennis was show we got it. ’cause that’s, that’s how we treated each other.

It’s terrible, but like, you know, you’d never wanna do that in the outside world. But everybody was just, I still, I still laugh. Then it was just the one time somebody there to joke and it didn’t make much sense and it’s just hanging there and tennis just goes.

I still love that one. I like the friends of mine type. I’m trying to think. Yeah, most people pretty nice or like, oh, I don’t know if that’s for me or, 

Steve Cuden: but, but in comedy you have to throw stuff that doesn’t work out to try to find good stuff sometimes, right? Oh, absolutely. 

Ed Driscoll: Right. And it’s like, and I never, especially to another client, submit something that like, I don’t think is least half funny.

It’s like, I don’t wanna be embarrassed. Or you’ll sometimes go like, I don’t got it, but is there something in, and you’ll talk about an area, but I, I never liked the hint and I would always, you know, look over and pull stuff out. I, I didn’t wanna. Ever give something, they’re like, oh, I’d be embarrassed to have this.

You know? And then some guys, it was funny too. They’ll, they’re like, well, here’s one guy was famous for, it’s so funny, it’d always be like 10 versions of the same joke. And, and I kinda, you know, but, and finally I’m like, Hey dude, I, I don’t need you to show your work. Can you just pick the best, you know, of one or two?

Like, sometimes you can’t know which way to do a joke, but like, it would drive me nuts. It’s like you’re just, I’m seeing how you do this. I don’t care. Like, just bring two jokes. I don’t want to hear you do 10 versions of the same joke. 

Steve Cuden: Here’s what I think is the lesson I’m taking away from a lot of what you’ve been talking about in this show is that the work that you do in show business frequently is actually not very precious.

And you shouldn’t think of it as precious, that you have to be so delicate with it. It’s just stuff. And it comes and it goes, and it’s passed. And once it’s passed, it’s done. But in the meantime, you don’t have to kill yourself over it. You put out the best that you can, and you hopefully other people agree with you that it works 

Ed Driscoll: well.

That, that, that’s what I’d like to say. That’s always my thought. But you know, there’s times where you had a joke that you thought was really good and they kicked it and didn’t use it, and it would bug me. I wish it wouldn’t, but afterwards I’d be like, you know, and one of the great Dennis moments too, I think I wrote about it in my first book, was on, uh, I don’t know, we were kicking around and I put some joke out there and Dennis was like, eh.

Then, I don’t know, I think I was just being goofy. Whatever. It wasn’t the strongest joke in the world, but I was like, I actually said before I realized it, I said, I don’t know, it’s pretty smart. And I think, you know, if, if said the in the proper way. So that was a gauntlet, you know? And he’s like, okay, put it in if you believe in it.

Just, and I remember thinking, I was like, eh, it’s okay. It’s not the greatest joke, but it’s okay. So we go out that night, you know, it was a live TV show and I have the, the, the film somewhere. But, so he goes out and he does the joke and it is silence. I, I, I’ve never had a joke do that. I don’t know, like in retrospect looking at it, going okay, it wasn’t the greatest, but holy crap.

I mean, he literally took a step forward and the crowd didn’t lean. And I’m standing up there and I’m like. And he just goes, but uh, okay, where’s fricking Eddie Driscoll, where are you? Oh my God. And it was funny. And then last he goes, yeah, you’re like, do it. It’s smart. Meanwhile, I lost a couple of heat piles there.

You’re up there having a Snapple laughing at me. And they all laughed. Uh, you know, and I was like, oh. And I kind of bad. And then afterwards, you know, sudden I was like, geez, sorry. And he is like, ah, no, it was fine. You know? ’cause he made it into a funny moment. But that’s just, it was so funny. Like I, I don’t know if I’ve ever had something missed that badly in the one time that I’m pushing him into doing it.

And it was like, oh my God. 

Steve Cuden: The great talk show host. And I think mainly about Carson lived on the stuff that, that bombed and that’s where they really made their money, is making things happen on the ball. 

Ed Driscoll: Letterman is, uh, was a little famous for that as well. 

Steve Cuden: Yeah. Also famous for it too. I, 

Ed Driscoll: I like right thumbs, but it, it, it worked out.

But it just, that was the strangest thing. And you know, I got kind of kicked out of it. ’cause I still have the, you know, you don’t, not everybody calls you out on national TV right then, but I’m standing there and I really was like, it’s so funny. I just about fainted. I was like, I, it was pin drop city. I’ve never heard anything that silent before or since.

Steve Cuden: Well, I have been having the most fun I’ve had in quite some time doing this show, uh, for an hour now with, uh, ed Driscoll. And, uh, we’re gonna wind the show down a little bit, ed, ed, in all of these amazing stories that you have in the book and in your career, um, are you able to share one with us that’s either beyond what you’ve already told us, it’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or just plain funny?

Ed Driscoll: Well, how much more time we got? No, uh, no. But when we were talking about ESPYs, it made me think of one of the more bizarre encounters I I I had, which is, um, with Dick Vital. Yes. You know how the college, he’s awesome baby. He’s a ptp, he’s unbelievable, you know, known for being a Ballant. Right. So it was, it was, uh, 95 and it was, it was just when OJ Simpson had just been, uh, acquitted in the criminal trial, the first, the big trial.

Mm-hmm. He had been found not guilty and. I remember ’cause I, when I went down to the studio that day, I was working on something, maybe SPS or something for PN and I run into Dick Vital in the hallway. And I just go, oh, hey Dick, how’s it going? He goes, oh, it’s terrible, baby. He killed those people. It’s unbelievable.

And I’m like, oh my God, this is like a bad Saturday night live sketch. Brian’s like, how would Dick Vitale react to the news of the OJ verdict? Like, oh, it’s horrible, baby. And I was like, oh my God. He’s like this all the time. Like it must be exhausting. He’s doing this, I’m going, no one would believe this.

He’s doing Dick Vitale reacting to that. So that was one of the weirder, I just didn’t even know what do. Oh, I love 

Steve Cuden: that story. That’s just what you imagine being married to him getting that all day. 

Ed Driscoll: Oh my God. Yeah. No, it’s just what he’s like. And I was like, God bless him. I don’t have that energy, but holy crap.

Steve Cuden: Alright, ed, last question for you today. You’ve given us tons of advice throughout this whole show, but I’m wondering if you have a single solid piece of advice or a tip that you like to give to those who come up to you and say, ed, how do I make it in this business? Is there something that you tell people?

Ed Driscoll: Yeah, it’s funny, I was, I’ve been thinking about this lately and it still applies to me and I have to remind myself, but just the whole. Run your own race, follow your own path. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. And especially now these kids are, they’re doing that and don’t get worried about, oh, what’s this guy doing?

Or what are these people doing? It’s like, keep your vision in your heart what you wanna do. And I have to remind myself of that too. It’s like, I wanna start doing this one man show. That’s what I’m gonna write. Oh, but maybe you should do a sit comic. Oh, that friend of mine’s doing that and you can really start getting pulled or thinking you’re supposed to be doing something else.

So I, I guess I would remind people, and I have to remind myself, it’s like, follow your vision, your path of what you wanna do, and don’t be worried about what others are are doing. You can honor what they’re doing and enjoy it, but you know, don’t try to be what you think somebody else wants you to be. And I think it took me a while to get that and finally like, okay, I’m just gonna follow my path here and, and, and do what I think I should be doing.

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that’s absolutely phenomenal advice because I think a lot of people when they’re starting out, myself included, you’re trying to please others as opposed to pleasing yourself. 

Ed Driscoll: Absolutely. Right. And that’s natural, right? But as I’ve gone along, and then again, like I said, it’s, it’s funny, even with all this experience once in a while, because I sit there like, wait, should I be doing that?

Yeah. My friend just told me he’s doing this movie with that, maybe. And I was like, no, let him do his thing. That doesn’t, you’re, you’re doing what’s right for you. And so, you know, it takes a while to, to learn that. But anytime I do that, I’m a lot happier too. Right. Just following my own path and 

Steve Cuden: a hundred percent much, much more healthy way to think about doing this thing called show business.

Ed Driscoll, this has been a phenomenal, wonderful energy filled hour on Story Beat. And I can’t thank you enough for your time and your wisdom. It’s just fantastic. Well, thank you so 

Ed Driscoll: much, man. I, you know, I always love, uh, uh, chatting with you and it’s nice to do it in front of a bunch of people too. So that’s a nice thing.

Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate it. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to. Your support helps us bring more great story beat episodes to you.

StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tune in and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.