Stand-Up Guy

Comedian Drew Carey on network censors, Hollywood guilt, and why he likes eating at Bob's Big Boy.

Nick Gillespie & Steve Kurtz from the November 1997 issue

(Page 4 of 5)

I'm glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. But I don't want to lose touch with things like eating in Bob's Big Boy. I feel comfortable here.

The show is very easy to relate to [in that way]. I wanted to do a show based on what my life would be like if I had never become a comedian. I would have had some bullshit degree, some general job, going nowhere. People laugh to forget their troubles, and to forget their troubles they like to look at people who aren't doing better than they are. Nothing's funny about someone who's successful. People who are happy and adjusted just aren't funny. Even when people are rich and successful on TV shows, there's always some trouble--you have to poke holes in them, throw them out of a job, put a pie in the face.

Like I said, all comedy is based on exaggeration, big or small, whatever you can get away with. In a promotional bit for the show, Mimi [a character from the show] and I are walking down a dirt road with fishing poles, like Andy and Opie on The Andy Griffith Show. The original script was that she would push me in the water and I'd be floundering like I couldn't swim. When we did the filming, I said, "Wouldn't it be funnier if I just floated like I was dead?" And it's funnier that way because it went the extra mile.

What also helps our show is that we never take ourselves seriously. Here's a show that can wink at itself. Everyone involved knows we're just a sitcom. You'll never see a "very special episode" of the show. The episode featuring Speedy the Crippled Dog is the most we're going to do.

Reason: Your book is different from most celebrity tomes. It's not simply an autobiography or a reprinting of your stand-up routines, although it has some of both. You've got a half-dozen short stories, a section on how the network censor operates, an entire chapter devoted to penis jokes, and then some. How did the book's form come about?

Carey: I didn't want to do what every other celebrity does. I couldn't imagine sitting down and writing my thoughts on the universe. Who cares? Really, who gives a shit what a comic thinks about life in general?

I only wanted to do short stories. I loved the old stories in National Lampoon, like the original story the movie Vacation was based on. I used to laugh at them until I cried. I like short stories, and I don't think I'm good enough to write a novel (laughs). The publisher was hoping to get Drew on beer, Drew on dating, that sort of thing. I wanted to do the stories, and I wanted to do a chapter on how ABC's standards and practices works. So I gave the publisher some of the other stuff to make them happy. The important thing is that it's all meant to be funny.

Reason: You cast aspersions on celebrities who unveil dark secrets, but you also mention that you were molested as a boy and that you tried to commit suicide during your Vegas years.

Carey: The reason I mentioned that stuff is that I wanted to tell people that you can get over it, that you don't have to be embarrassed by it. I mean, I'm very well-adjusted in real life. Well, pretty well. Most parts, anyway. You could ask my girlfriends (laughs).

What I don't like are celebrities who use it as their crutch all the time, who use it as a calling card: "Hi, I'm fill-in-the-blank and I was molested." Shut up already, man. It's one thing to mention it and move on. I have two pages on being molested when I was 9 in the book, and The Globe had this big story: "Drew Carey Bombshell!" They didn't mention one thing about the chapter called "101 Big Dick Jokes."

Reason: You have the only hit show on ABC in recent memory, but you've also been quick to point out that network shows are nowhere near as big as they used to be. Why is that?

Carey: DirecTV, maybe. The network shows are fine; it's just that there's so many other things to watch. We'll never see national shows with 45 shares again. Before, you never had a choice. You had to watch M*A*S*H, or whatever was on the three big networks. Now, if I don't come across a regional sports show or a history special I want to watch, maybe I'll watch M*A*S*H, or whatever's the best of what's broadcast. I don't even watch the local affiliates here in Los Angeles anymore. When I first got DirecTV, the installer told me I needed an antenna to pick up the local broadcast channels. I had him put one in, but I never turn them on.

Reason: How are the networks responding?

Carey: They can't assume everyone is going to watch the new "fall season," that people will tune into something right when it goes on the air. My show was like that. You have to get used to it; some people still don't [like the show], which is fine with me. We had kind of a slow growth in audience. The TV season is a year-long thing now, and the networks are starting to look at it that way, thanks to cable, satellites, and competition.

Reason: A lot of people in your position must hate the competition. Since viewers have more options, they're tougher to hold onto.

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