Wednesday, February 28, 2024

RIP Richard Lewis

 


Here's the piece I wrote about Richard 15 years ago...


I’ve always considered Richard Lewis one of the funniest humans on the planet. I became a fan in the 80s when he started making appearances on David Letterman’s show. His angst-y neurotic humor always made me laugh.

I finally got a chance to meet him in the late 80s when I was the producer of Steve & Garry’s show on the Loop, and I wasn’t disappointed. He was as funny in person as he was on television or on stage.

I also discovered, however, that his comedic persona is not an act. He really is that angst-y neurotic guy. I could tell by the way he sought approval after each interview (“How did it go? Was it funny?”), but I really found out for sure the day he came in to guest-host the show for Steve and Garry.

Hosting a 4 ½ hour comedy talk show isn’t easy for anyone. Without a partner to help out, it’s even more difficult. That’s the dilemma Richard faced that day. The only person he had to help him was me. My job was to run the controls, and keep the show moving.

This was pretty early in my career, and to be honest, I wasn’t yet that confident in this role. Steve normally ran the controls for the show. The only time he allowed me to do it was the first fifteen minutes of the show every day, when he was inevitably late. I had never run an entire show before Richard walked in that day.

I only mention this to point out that I was probably as nervous as Richard was. I always had one eye on the clock, and one eye on the controls. I was responsible for getting the guests on the phone during the commercial breaks, and for running the commercial breaks. I was responsible for getting the traffic, news, and sports reports on the air too, which required calling each of the people involved and making sure they were ready to go before we went to them. And I was responsible for screening the listener phone calls, which I had to do in the studio.

If this had occurred just a few months later, all of it would have been second nature to me. Unfortunately for Richard, that wasn’t the case during his guest-hosting gig. That’s not to say that I messed up any of those duties during the show—I didn’t. The technical part of the show went off flawlessly.

The problem was that while I was so worried about performing my duties, I had forgotten who was on the other side of the console…a very angst-y neurotic comedian. It started to unravel almost immediately. He told a joke and I didn’t laugh. The next twenty minutes of the show were about the fact that he had to do a show in front of a stone-faced man.

“Are you alive?” he said. “Can we get somebody in here to check this man’s pulse?”

After he exhausted that line of material, he began to doubt himself.

“It’s because I’m bombing, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’m not funny. I can’t believe it. I’ve got four more hours to go, and I’ve got nothing here.”

I tried to concentrate on laughing, and I tried to tell him how funny he was during the commercial breaks, but I had so many other things going on, he wasn’t buying it. In fact, during the commercials I realized that he wasn’t doing a bit at all—he really was depressed because he really thought he was bombing.

And even though I’m one of his biggest fans, it was my fault.

Sigh.

It was a long 4 ½ hours.

I will say this, however. After getting to know him a little better, and after booking him dozens of times over the next twenty years, I came to admire his comedic ability even more.

Especially now that I know it’s not an act.

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