History of Comedy (2017–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - History of Comedy - full transcript
Are you wondering how healthy the food you are eating is? Check it - foodval.com
---
Remember when comedy meant
males doing jokes about females,
like wives and mothers-in-law?
Well, the tables have turned.
The idea that chicks
aren't funny --
I hate to tell you,
it's still very much a thing.
There are some people
that can't get their heads
around what they don't know.
I said I wanted
to be a comedian.
She said,
"Or maybe it's better if
you just die."
I think they thought of women
as a different species.
Very few ladies
are capable of being a comedian,
and so everybody sits right up.
Here's somebody
that thinks she can do it.
This is a great argument
that women are doing
much better work than men.
You're welcome.
What's the hardest part
about being a female comedian?
What is it?
What's the hardest part?
Like, what would you guess?
Um...
Well, it's the rape.
Um...
I have a deep camaraderie
with tough, hard-core,
funny-ass female comedians
because it's been a long road
for all of us.
What would make a woman
turn from some decent thing
like housewifing
or cashiering
in a five-and-dime store
or dental hygiene
and turn her to comedy
as a career?
It's definitely easier
for us now
'cause we've pushed our way in,
but back then, there was
one of them, two of them.
People try to analyze it.
"Are women not funny?"
It's like, "No, they're
oppressed, you dumb idiot."
I really stopped
a great career there.
and I'd do it again.
I'd much rather be your wife
than amount to anything.
Of course, there have
always been funny women.
It's just a matter
or whether the society
that they were in was willing
to let them be funny.
We have with us this evening
an international star,
Miss Fanny Brice.
It wasn't until the late 1800s
and the early 20th century
that women
started becoming really famous
as comedic performers.
A lot of them
were comediennes --
a woman who gets up onstage,
is funny, but she sings
and she dances.
Hey, wait a minute.
The music stopped.
Well,
I didn't hear it.
she didn't hear it.
She's more of an entertainer
than just the straight comic.
That was kind of
what was allowed.
It was not really accepted
for a woman to stand onstage
and tell jokes
and give their opinion
to a bunch of men
until Jean Carroll.
Most fellas, they have
a tough day at the racetrack --
they get nasty, but not my Jack.
He's so sweet.
Nothing bothers him.
He drinks. And, of course...
Well, he doesn't drink
'cause he likes it.
He drinks to steady his nerves.
The other night, they got so
steady, he couldn't move at all.
Jean Carroll
was in a comedy team
with a guy named Buddy Howe,
who she ended up marrying,
and then Buddy Howe
went off to war.
So Jean Carroll
rewrote their act
so that she could do it
by herself
and became a solo stand-up.
This guy ate like
he was going to the chair.
I mean, as for manners,
you know?
I've seen people eat
with their hands before,
but not soup. And that's --
She got rave reviews.
She was playing the same venues
as all the biggest comedians
of the late 1940s
and getting bigger laughs
than the guys.
Welcome to
"You Bet Your Life."
Say the secret words
and divide an extra $100.
It's a common word,
something you always
have with you.
Phyllis Diller,
let's start with you.
Now, Phyllis,
what do you do
to break up
the monotony of housekeeping
and taking care
of five small gorillas?
Well, I'm really not
a housewife anymore.
I'm an entertainer.
Phyllis Diller started comedy
at 37 years old with five kids.
She was cutting-edge
because she was doing something
that no other woman
had done before.
I love to go to the doctor!
Where else would a man
look at me and say,
"Take off your clothes"?
In those days, so much of comedy
was just straight-up sexist.
"My wife is a battle axe."
Phyllis Diller
switched it around.
Now it was about
her horrible husband.
Fang -- That's my husband.
He went to the dentist
the other day.
The dentist told him
he's got the worst set of tooth
he ever saw in his life.
For a woman to go
onstage and complain about that,
it was emancipation, in a way.
You sure
you're a marriage counselor?
Of course.
Don't I have a sympathetic face?
Well, your face
has my sympathy.
The self-deprecating woman
was very popular
in the comedy world.
Back from the beauty shop,
where she's just had her head
tarred and feathered,
here is Miss Phyllis Diller.
I think when it came to women
doing comedy,
certainly stand-up,
you had to dress
in a way that was crazy.
You had to work
within the confines
of what guys
would accept you doing.
What in the world?
Is that a riot?
I tucked that in
in the dressing room,
and it fell out again.
You're basically saying,
"I'm coming up onstage.
Don't look at me as a woman.
Look at me as, like,
a funny person."
Just looking at
the two outfits here --
Moms' and Woody's.
I would like
to wear Moms'.
And I'd like
to wear yours.
Moms Mabley, who was a great
comedienne of the '30s and '40s,
'50s, didn't become known
by white audiences
until the '60s,
when there were
more black faces on TV.
I've been accused
of liking young men.
And I'm guilty.
She was very sexual,
and she was also
very blunt and raunchy.
Moms Mabley as an old woman
was not considered a threat,
so she could get away with it.
When did you get married,
then, Moms?
I was young,
son.
And I married a man --
98.
He didn't live
but five days.
It took
three undertakers a week
to get the smile
off his face.
She was more than just,
you know,
another woman in comedy.
She was much more of a pioneer.
It's very hard for a woman
who has been brought up
to be sweet and clingy
to stand up in front of
2,500 people and say,
"Okay, now, listen to me."
It's a tremendous --
You really have
a tremendous sense of power
when you're standing up
and commanding them
to listen to you.
I wouldn't be single again
for anything in the world
'cause I was the last girl
in Larchmont, New York, to go,
and I was desperate.
When I say -- I was desperate.
My parents
had a big sign saying,
"Last girl before the Thruway."
I mean,
that's how desperate I was.
Joan was the real deal.
She's, like, a badass.
She grew up in the gritty
New York City scene,
and she was breaking ground
by just talking about her life
honestly.
This is an era where
women just didn't do that.
A girl -- You're 30 years old,
you're not married --
You're an old maid.
A man -- He's 90 years old, he's
not married -- He's a catch.
It's a whole different thing.
She would push
the boundaries constantly.
The edict was, "If it's making
people laugh, then it's okay."
I think you can tell
what kind of a lover
a man is gonna be
from the way he tinkles.
Who said that?
If a man in a room
that is fully lit
cannot hit a hole
this big around...
I'm gonna ponder
on that one.
There are some people
who say that some of the things
that you do or say are vulgar.
Does that --
Life is vulgar.
Life is outrageous.
I find what's made my comedy
work as much as it's worked
is I say things that
everybody else has thought
and not
really verbalized.
When you die,
whatever you got out of him,
you have buried on you,
and the next bitch wants it,
make her dig for it.
Sure!
Joan Rivers was,
at no point in her career,
not funny because
she changed with the times.
I mean, she was an evolving,
writing-every-day,
real-life comedian.
Don't you think men
really like intelligence more
when it comes
right down to it?
Please, are we gonna
go back to that?
Yeah, sure.
Are you kidding me?
It's a brain, you know,
a caring person.
No man
has ever put his hand
up a woman's dress
looking for a library card.
I am sorry.
I'll tell you
it's such a hat show, Fred.
I think I'll get
another station.
As our first offering
this evening, we -- Stop that!
Go back
and sit down!
When I was growing up,
I was an "I Love Lucy" freak,
could lip-sync it.
I love
that I can turn on something
that's over 60 years old now
and go,
"You can't beat these jokes.
And you can't beat
these characters."
This is a woman in a time
where comedy was
completely dominated by men.
Not only does this show
become the comedy show,
they then create
the modern model
for all the sitcoms to follow.
She's an absolute titan
of comedy.
To have a woman
be not only a comedian
but a solid business person,
she broke ground
for generations of us.
You don't see
too many beautiful women
be clowns like that,
and she was, indeed,
a beautiful woman.
You know, she was
a movie star at MGM,
and nobody ever knew
she could be funny.
Mugging and
doing pratfalls and doing things
that maybe nice little girls
weren't supposed to do
at one time.
I have never thought of it
as a hindrance,
as something
that we shouldn't do.
We just go ahead and do them.
We don't think how we look.
Is it easy, for instance, say,
to be sexy and funny
at the same time?
Yes.
Very easy.
It may be easy for you,
Carol.
Carol Burnett is the single
most talented woman,
or performer, ever.
She could do everything.
She started on
the "Garry Moore Show"
and became a big star.
What have I done?!
People forget just how much
she was a part of the culture
at one point in time.
I did not think
that I would want to ever --
could ever host a variety show.
Welcome to our first show
that we're doing.
I'm real excited
and very, very happy
that you're all with us tonight.
Looks like we got
a nice, full group.
Could you bump up
the lights so I can see --
Gorgeous!
They had an image of a fella
in a tuxedo coming out
and doing a monologue,
and, "How will a woman...?"
You know, "Will they
take a woman doing this?"
And we said, "Well,
I hope they'll take me
at least for 13 weeks."
And it worked.
It worked for 11 years.
I never thought
it would go that long.
I knew I wanted
to do musical, comedy.
I wanted guest stars.
Excu-u-u-se me!
I wanted to do sketches.
I wanted a rep company
the way Sid Caesar had one.
Curtain, you fools!
Curtain!
There were 10 variety shows on
at the same time
that Carol Burnett was on,
and there were approximately
10 comedy writers on each show.
And I was the only woman
out of all of them.
The funny thing about
female writers in television
was that in the beginning,
I would not say
they were very welcomed,
although there were certainly
exceptions.
I interviewed
for the "Carson Show."
And I called my agent.
And I said,
"I think it went really well."
And he said, "I'm sorry, honey,
but they just called and said
they would not feel comfortable
with a woman in the room."
Being a comedy writer
is not the most
macho profession,
so I think there was
a certain defensiveness
and overcompensation.
I like that inside track
of getting to hear
how men talk
if women weren't around
'cause it was almost like
you weren't around.
It was filthy.
The language was disgusting.
I loved it.
You'll have such a time,
such fun, such --
You'll --
I have to warn you, though.
There's a street
down there in Rome
where it just
isn't safe for a woman.
Where?! Where?! Where?!
When you get to
"Your Show of Shows,"
you know, that's a very famous
writer's room,
and you had two women
who worked at separate times.
The first was Lucille Callen,
and the second
was Selma Diamond.
It was always right
to have the woman's viewpoint.
And who better than women
to say,
"Women will laugh at that"?
And so when I put together
the characters
for the "Van Dyke Show,"
I said, "We need
the woman's viewpoint."
And when I told my agent,
he immediately said,
"Rose Marie."
It's a beautiful
piece of writing.
It really is,
but you know Alan.
If he doesn't get a laugh
every 10 seconds,
he calls the cops
and has the audience arrested.
Rose Marie on
the "Dick Van Dyke Show"
was great for women
who might aspire to
being in the writer's room
because that was
the first glimpse we got
maybe that that was possible.
It's not like there were
plenty of career women on TV.
Women were mainly housewives
in the sitcoms,
or they were secretaries
and teachers.
They weren't writers.
You mean to say that you'd
give up your job for us?
Yeah.
Compared to you,
I'm a rat.
Compared to a rat,
you're a rat.
My mother
didn't want me to be funny
because how was I
gonna get married
and be funny at the same time?
But here was Rose Marie.
She was blonde
and pretty and funny,
and I kind of liked that idea.
No, don't --
don't bother to send it, Mom.
I don't think I'm going
to Mexico, after all.
Um, hang on there,
Mom, will you?
Newsroom.
Hello, Mary?
The "Mary Tyler Moore Show"
changed everything.
They brought a lot of women
into the business.
Here we go.
Ready? Action.
They wanted to make
a truthful story
about a single woman
in her 30s,
and I think that Jim Brooks
and Alan Burns realized
that if we want to have
the right details,
we have to ask women
what the stories are here.
You look different.
I like it.
Well...
Yeah.
I like it
back here, too.
I have a feeling
he's gonna kick my tires.
Women are so important
in the bigger world of comedy
because our experience
is different,
and there's that much more
to mine for humor.
I don't know
what you two are laughing at,
but I'll take a chance
it's dirty.
Betty White
on "Mary Tyler Moore"
is one of my favorite characters
of all time.
I mean, what a viper.
Wherever did you find
a party hat made of skin?
Sue Ann Nivens
was sort of fun to play
because something that Betty
might be shy about doing,
she would do in a heartbeat.
Tell me one good thing
about me -- Anything at all.
You're attractive.
Very attractive.
Sexy, provocative.
A tawny, sensual beast.
Yes, a beast.
I think it was important
to all of us
to try to reflect
what was happening with women
during that time.
Things were changing so quickly,
and we were
right in the middle of it.
It was an explosive time
with situation comedy,
and I think many more women
started working at that point.
Did you find it fun to be
the only girl writer around?
With some men.
Some men are secure enough
to accept it.
A lot of them
gave me a lot of trouble,
and they're running
candy stores in Brooklyn.
No, no,
that's true.
Insecure people
don't get anyplace.
You've got
to face it.
Women are here
to stay.
Welcome to Long Dust.
Can I help you?
Yes.
I...I read your ad.
I- I'd like to know
about the $65 funeral.
I see.
Was that
for yourself?
Mike Nichols and Elaine May
met in Chicago
at the birth of improv.
They didn't write jokes.
They wrote situations
that were just
hysterically funny,
but that you could relate to.
Would you be interested
in some extras
for the loved one?
What kind of extras?
Well,
how about a coffin?
My life changed
the day my parents took me
to see Nichols and May
on Broadway.
Before that, all I saw
were comedians talking about
how bad their wives were
or how bad
their mother-in-laws were.
Take my wife, please.
And then all of a sudden,
the sky opened up,
and there were Nichols and May.
And I thought to myself,
"Now that's funny."
Well, tell me, how do you
put your sketches together now?
Do you outline them,
or are they fairly
well written out?
Well, we don't ever
write anything down.
And we don't ever
outline them.
It's a terrifying process.
What kind of
an excuse is that?
Well, it's --
What do you mean?!
Well, I mean,
all the other scientists
have mothers, I'm sure.
And I'm sure that they all
find time after breakfast
or before their count-off
to pick up a phone
and call their mother!
Elaine May was always
the writer of the two.
I don't think she's given enough
credit for being kind of
one of these foundational people
of improv.
She was smart. She was witty.
She was sexy.
She was everything
that female comedians
up to that point
weren't allowed to be.
Well, thank you
very much, Jack.
That's okay.
And that's when
I realized it's possible.
You have to write to the point
where you get respect
'cause nobody's gonna hand it
to you as a female.
Come on, Lily.
Lily Tomlin.
What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna do
a lady tonight
who's an employee
of one of America's
most beloved institutions.
Phoenicia?
Phoenicia, this is Ernestine.
I want you to send out a service
check on all the circuits at --
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Well, because, honey,
it's almost impossible
to get through to that man.
In the '60s,
"Laugh-In" was one of
the hottest programs on TV.
And all these famous characters
we associate with Lily Tomlin
became famous then
and turned her into a huge star.
And that's the truth. Pbht!
She was hip.
She was not doing material
about being a frustrated wife.
She was doing
character material,
and it was really new
and different and brilliant.
Mama said
you went to college.
Mama said that?
I'm not going to college
when I grow up.
No. No.
'Cause I seen pictures
where they shoot you
in college.
Her characters were no longer
just innocuous,
wacky, and weird.
They started
to become characters
with a subtle
political point of view.
Recently, I did my most
eloquent sculpture to date.
I used four gallons
of vanilla ice cream,
and I molded the first family.
And then I invited
some of my friends over,
and we sat around
and watched them melt.
She was a very dominant
voice at the time.
I mean, you can find
Rolling Stone covers
where it was, like
Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin,
and they are our most
dangerous comedians
doing the most dangerous stuff.
They both immersed
themselves in characters.
The very first Lily Tomlin
special on NBC, 1974,
they both won Emmy Awards.
So did its producer,
a guy named Lorne Michaels.
And based on the strength
of that special,
the "Lily" special,
he got the pilot
for "Saturday Night Live."
"Dear Roseanne Roseannadanna..."
I don't know where you get it,
how you get it,
or who actually milks
the dogs,
and I don't care
to know.
Hi.
"Saturday Night Live"
definitely early on --
amazing that
right out of the gate,
it was Laraine Newman and
Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner.
Now, Candy, Candy...
They could definitely
hang with the guys.
They were just as important,
and they were hilarious.
Hey, stud muffins,
want to make bouncy bouncy?
They had three female performers
and three female writers,
which, if you look
at the comedy landscape
at that time, is unheard of.
What made "Saturday Night Live"
different from
those other shows was,
our show was the first one
to really have a voice
for a younger generation.
Then the man...
Ew!
Ew!
Yahhh!
That's disgusting.
And then you scream,
and then he screams,
and then it's over.
The early days of "SNL"
were a tale of two worlds
because you had these great
female writers like Anne Beatts
and Marilyn Miller
and Rosie Shuster.
But then you had --
Like, John Belushi
didn't want to do sketches
that were written by women.
I like sirloin steak.
I like American food.
Wrap it up.
Don't push me, Curtin!
I mean it!
John used to regularly ask
for the women
to be fired on the show
because chicks
just weren't funny.
Awful! Awful!
Awful!
Couldn't be worse!
Really enough to make you
want to puke your guts out.
It was an uphill battle.
Lorne used to come 'round to me
and Rosie and go, like,
"So, what have you got
for the girls?"
We felt an obligation
to cover them
since the men didn't write
that much for them.
But seriously...
They started to write
more for Gilda
because Gilda was
very outgoing, you know,
and she was more of
a proven laugh-getter.
That's the...
No! I'm gonna have to...
When I saw Gilda Radner,
my mind was blown.
There was just something about
her that was really magnetic.
She committed to it so hard,
and she wasn't afraid
to not be dainty
with her character work.
What is that bewitching scent
you're wearing?
Vicks VapoRub.
There was never a moment
when you thought,
"Wait a second.
These women
don't deserve to be there."
What do you see?
Wax buildup.
The stuff they were doing
was as edgy
as what the guys were doing,
and a lot of the sketches have
withstood the test of time.
I love him!
I love him!
I love him!
And where he goes,
I'll swallow,
I'll swallow,
I'll swallow.
It is possible --
but just barely --
that one of the people
waiting in line
outside this New York nightclub
is a future star.
It is certain
that each one thinks
he or she is star material,
talented,
and just waiting
for the right break.
In the '70s, when the stand-up
comedy boom is starting,
women definitely
had a tougher time.
Only a very few,
like Elayne Boosler,
managed to crack
the stand-up comedy clubs.
Do you know that people
have donor cards
on their driver's licenses,
that if they have an accident
they will leave parts
of their body to someone?
Who would want
to receive the eyes
that didn't see the car
in the first place?
Elayne Boosler
was a game-changer
because before her,
there hadn't been
a young, single,
female comic who went out
onstage with no apologies
for who she was and just
kind of told it like is.
I guess maybe breasts
are the most important part
of the body,
when you think about it.
I mean, without them,
employers just wouldn't know
who to give the
smaller paychecks to, so...
I came along in '73 and started
to reflect the times I lived in.
Women were starting to work.
The pill was here.
Single women
were starting to have sex.
You weren't labeled anymore.
They think we're dumb,
so they put too many directions
on the products.
Like, on the home
pregnancy test, it says,
"For use in the privacy
of your own home."
Good.
I was gonna drive
to a crowded shopping center.
That was a little threatening
to some men in the audience
and even for some club owners.
Everyone in the business
tried to talk me out of it.
"You can't be pretty
and do comedy.
You can't do it."
And my best line in those years
was,
"I'm just a human being
trapped in a woman's body."
And I really believe that
summed up my approach to comedy.
Way back when,
when I started
doing comedy in 1979,
there were only
six female comedians
working on the circuit,
only six, and it was really odd.
We didn't know each other
because the club owners
would never book us together
'cause it was such a rarity
to have a female comic
to begin with.
In fact, I remember
when I'd go to some clubs
around the country,
whenever I performed,
the emcee would go,
"You're not gonna believe
what we have coming up next!
You're not gonna believe it!
It's a female comic!"
Like it was some sort
of estrogen freak show.
I have definitely heard some
crazy intros over the years.
Sometimes I'll go up on shows,
and there will be
sort of an apology, like,
"You guys, she's really funny.
She's one of my good friends."
"We got a lady coming up next
who tells jokes.
How about that?"
So, I'd get up there,
and I'd be like, "I know.
What's with the jokes
and the vagina?
Am I right, fellas?"
Stand-up in general
is a hostile environment,
and I think if you were a woman,
that hostile environment
just was like up times 10.
You know, professional sports
just don't do a thing for me.
I like to --
Good point. My mistake.
Of course, I enjoy you
very, very much, but...
When I was coming up,
I could always tell
if I saw three or more
young guys in a group,
I could kind of
set my watch to it and go,
"When I go onstage, those guys
are gonna give me a problem."
All right.
If that man screams
one more time,
I'm gonna whack his peepee.
Do you understand
what I'm gonna do?
When guys give you a hard time,
you should just
go right for the jugular,
which is basically...
"Hey, buddy,
I don't go to your job
and knock the dicks
out of your mouth"...
which I think is
appropriate and funny.
Mister, I don't have time
to tell you all the things
that are the matter with you,
but let's start with that
checkered bell-bottom suit.
You had to learn to deal with it
if you wanted to make it
in the clubs,
and the best ones did.
Hi, pigs.
I don't know how to say this,
but I want to be on you.
I dated
my last boyfriend for two years,
and finally,
I gave him an ultimatum.
You know, I said, "Listen,
either you tell me your name,
or it's over."
This is my long,
luxurious, blond hair.
Ain't it pretty?
Yeah!
I could put it in a ponytail.
- Want to see?
- Yeah!
No.
Whoopi Goldberg
always thought of herself
as an actress
more so than a comedian.
She was very much
in the spirit of Lily Tomlin,
more so than the stand-ups
of her era.
And they said, like,
"Are you a Valley girl?"
And I said, "No, I'm a surfer
because before
there was the mall,
there was the ocean, okay?"
I, like...
It was so much more
than stand-up.
She was commenting
on the world we're living in
in a really interesting way
through these
different characters.
I passed this big dude
walking around the circus
with a picket sign,
talking about,
"Stop abortion."
I said, "I have the answer
to abortion."
He said, "What is it?"
I said, "Shoot your dick."
I was always an actor,
and one of the reasons
I started doing the monologues
was because
I couldn't get any work
'cause people
sort of look at you
and decide what you can do
and what you can't
or what they think
you can do.
What does it take
to become successful,
and how tough is it for you
compared to men?
I think it's harder to be
a man comic, actually.
Yeah, 'cause they're generally
not funny or intelligent.
"Roseanne, don't you think
we should talk about
our sexual problems?"
Like I'm gonna
turn off "Wheel of Fortune"
for that.
Roseanne was the big
'80s comic who came out.
She was the kind of woman
that when you talk to people,
they remember Roseanne.
They remember
what her persona was.
She had a clear point of view.
I never get out of the house.
I never go no place.
I never have no fun ever,
ever, ever,
ever 'cause I'm a housewife.
I hate that word.
I want to be called
"domestic goddess."
It's so much more descriptive.
Roseanne Barr took
the classic "housewife" stance
and turned it on its head.
They come up to me.
They go, "God, Roseanne,
you're not very feminine."
They say that.
Can you believe that
they would say that to me?
Can you even believe that?
"You're not very feminine."
So, I say, "Well, suck my dick!"
She took off like a rocket.
She really captured
what most great stand-ups do
that connect
with the bigger, wide audience.
She was authentic.
Please.
If I came out --
Come on. Women have been
the butt of male jokes
for two million years,
and we've always laughed.
And now I come out and I make
a few crummy little jokes
about you and your penises
and you can't take it.
Roseanne...
Listen to this.
You'll have to.
My grandmother --
...she started walking five
miles a day when she was 60.
She's 97 today.
We don't know
where the hell she is.
In the '90s club heyday,
the clubs were so crowded
because everybody
in the world thought,
"I'm gonna move
to California or New York.
I'm gonna do three funny minutes
and then get my own sitcom
like Jerry Seinfeld."
That was the downside
of that era.
They really just didn't
really have room for me
or the likes of me.
Who could start off
the sex category other than --
yes, you know it --
Miss Kathy Griffin?!
I'm gonna tell a story
that I told once before --
only once before.
It is not the time
I fucked the midget.
It is -- Sorry.
That's another party.
These were people
that didn't have
as much success
in mainstream clubs
because mainstream clubs
had mainstream comedy.
They didn't necessarily
go for weird.
So they started their own rooms
with their own crowds.
I'm not --
I'm not telling the story
for any kind of shock value
or anything like that.
I'm just telling a story.
The original stand-up
from the late '70s
was all setup,
punch line, setup, punch line.
That's all anybody was doing.
And the alternative-comedy scene
suddenly was all this
personal storytelling.
There's five kids in our family.
I'm the oldest.
And my brother who's the
fourth child got lymph cancer.
Hope for laughs. And, um...
You could just be talking
about what happened that day.
It was like somebody coming up
and reading their diary.
I'm sorry.
I didn't study theater
for 12 years
just so I could go,
"Rambo, no!"
We kind of free-formed it
and more of
a stream of consciousness.
And that really caught on
with audiences
and created its whole new
wave of comedians
and women comedians.
This alternative-comedy scene
was happening
alongside the rise of women
at "Saturday Night Live."
Backflip!
Mary, Mary, stop it.
Backflip!
Stop it!
Mary, stop it!
Backflip!
You had Molly Shannon.
Simmer down, now!
And you had Cheri Oteri,
Ana Gasteyer.
I think we both assumed --
and I think wrongfully --
that a baker
of your generation
might tend towards
a more dry or crusty muffin.
And then Tina Fey
was brought on as a writer.
In the 25-plus years
of "Saturday Night Live,"
you are the first
female head writer.
I heard, "That place
is a boys' club. It's horrible.
It's horrible."
And when I got there,
my experience
was that it was not that bad.
I think I've been very lucky
to get places
kind of
as they change.
I quit being head writer.
We all sat in the room,
and I go,
"Clearly it's Tina Fey
who should succeed me,"
and everyone went, "Yup!"
We all knew Tina
was the sharpest,
kind of strongest writer
coming up.
Research is being conducted
on the world's first
contraceptive patch for women.
The patch is approximately
three inches in diameter
and reads, "Get off me."
Once she became head writer,
she was in a position
to advocate
for the other women on the staff
to kind of explain to men,
you know,
why something was funny.
Introducing Kotex Classic.
This is the original.
I love the belt.
It's so complicated.
I think women really have
the market cornered on irony
because we're subject
to so much bullshit.
Maybe what bothers me the most
is that people say
that Hillary is a bitch.
And let me say something
about that.
Yeah, she is. Yeah.
And so I am.
And so is this one.
Yeah.
Deal with it.
Yeah.
You know what?
Bitches get stuff done.
And all of a sudden,
badass women
were the force of that show.
My God!
What am I, the police or
something? You know what I say?
Smoke 'em
if you got 'em.
Smoke 'em
if you got 'em.
Do you love nice presents?
Do you?!
You look at
"Saturday Night Live"
when I was a kid,
the names you knew were, like,
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd,
Chevy Chase, John Belushi.
You always knew
the dudes' names.
And now
when you talk about "SNL,"
the names that pop up --
Tina Fey, Amy Poehler,
Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones...
If you want to see
Leslie Jones naked, just ask!
...and Kate McKinnon.
The alien showed my mind
the furnace of all creation,
what we could call God.
What?
These fancy cats
are seeing God.
Meanwhile,
I'm starting phase two,
which is me sitting on a stool
while 40 gray aliens
take turns gently batting
my knockers around.
And then it spread into movies.
Suddenly the biggest
comedy stars in the world
are Melissa McCarthy.
They're, you know, Kristen Wiig.
This is some
classy shit here.
Jesus, Megan.
I'm s--
I want to apologize.
I'm not even confident
of which end that came out of.
"Bridesmaids" came out,
and it was like,
"This is gonna be
the definitive answer
as to why women are funny."
Now, I had known
women are funny for years
'cause I have a vagina, but...
My -- Okay.
No.
...they just hadn't made it
to the big screen
in the way that they did
with "Bridesmaids."
It's happening.
It's happening.
It's happening.
It's happening.
It showed studios that you could
make money with that.
And it opened that genre
of women behaving badly.
Officer Doughnuts, why don't you
go back into your squad car
and go save a kitten
from a tree?
'Cause these pussies
are doing fine.
These women are so good,
you cannot ignore them anymore.
You want to stay with the
"best you've ever had" guy.
No. You don't.
That's a creepy guy.
"Best sex that you've ever had"
guy is in jail.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But I've been thinking about
maybe reaching out to him.
There's a lot
of creative freedom.
Yes!
There's a lot embracing
of diversity in stories
that haven't been told yet.
So, I think it's a great time
to be a woman.
What are those?
What -- What are those?
Stop.
Stop it.
They're my Spanx.
They hold everything together.
Why? What's gonna f--
come fucking popping out?
I was trying to describe
your humor, and I was thinking,
"Well, 'irreverent'
isn't really strong enough."
So I came up
with the word "demented."
I like "demented."
Because --
Yeah. I like "demented"
because I've been trying
not to say "retarded"
because I do feel like
it's not nice.
"Demented."
Yeah.
Does that work for you?
Yeah.
"Demented," "ridiculous."
I was licking jelly off
of my boyfriend's penis,
and all of a sudden --
...all of a sudden,
I'm thinking,
"My God,
I'm turning into my mother."
You know? It's like...
When you think of comedy
as being something
that pushes boundaries
and that's commenting
on society, on a certain level,
what does a white man
have to say anymore?
And men -- you guys
are catching hell.
You're probably not feeling
any better, right?
'Cause every other commercial
is for broke dick.
If you look at the culture,
who's changing
the culture right now?
And I don't know
if there's a male equivalent
to what a lot of hilarious,
thoughtful women
are doing right now.
No, no. Shh.
Hush. Hush. Hush.
It's been quite a --
The point is
that I'm doing fantastic.
She's doing great.
He's a 6.
Totally a 6.
Yum.
He's a 10.
I mean, look at him.
I hope he's like
seven inches, max.
Inches? I thought we were
rating them on hotness.
I thought we were
rating them on dick size.
Why would we be
rating them on dick size?
Ladies,
your staring is making
some of the guys
feel uncomfortable.
Seven. Seven.
I think it's really fair to say
that it's never been better
for women in comedy, absolutely.
It has gotten a lot
better and could get even...
more better? Mo' better?
I think feminism
is the worst thing
that ever happened to women.
Our job used to be no job.
Then all these women
had to show off and be like,
"We can do it.
We can do anything."
Bitch, shut up!
Everywhere I look, I see
amazing women doing comedy,
and there are more venues
to do comedy
than there have ever been.
They're afforded
all these platforms.
They can make their own stuff.
They don't have to
answer to anybody,
so their content can be
just what they want it to be.
Mwah!
Is it someone's birthday
or...
We're celebrating
Julia's last fuckable day.
- Yes. Salud.
- Whoo!
I love watching
these young women
be unabashedly feministic.
It's great that they can be loud
and proud about these issues.
Also, they're real issues.
The best comedies
and the best television now
is all being created
and show-run by women.
I have my own sho--
It's about time.
I have mild,
extra mild.
I have no idea
what that one is.
And I hear really good things
about that English banger.
Actually,
you know what?
I think I'm kind of done
with sausages.
Late night
is one of the last places
where it still feels
very much a men's club.
So it's great
to have Samantha Bee.
Is that okay for you, that he
is representing the country
in an old-timey
racist way?
If it is a negative, I would say
it's like a minor negative.
I'm so confused
by you.
Watching someone choke down
a piece of their soul
just to belong
broke my fact checker.
You can do this.
Samantha Bee is the best
political show on television.
I don't think anybody
cuts to the core like she does.
But to see her do it
and shove it down their throats
'cause they have to take it
from a "girl."
She's brilliant.
We do stories on the show
that we feel passionately about
in the moment,
and we just
see the world differently.
Anybody have any questions?
Yes.
Is it hard
breaking into the boys' club?
Okay --
What's it like
being a woman in late night?
How can I watch your show
as a man?
What's it like to be
a female woman?
I think we're at
our greatest point
for women in comedy,
I would guess,
but we still have
a very long way to go.
The fact that people have to
keep talking about
women in comedy indicates
that it's not equal.
I guess it's a normal question.
Is it harder for female comics?
Is it harder? It's not.
Like, they think
we just get up here
and just bleed
all over the stage.
I'm just, "My ovaries.
How do I keep them in my body?"
People will always want
to talk about women in comedy.
I mean, you guys
are doing a documentary,
and you're doing a segment
on women in comedy.
The fact that it's 2016
and "women in comedy"
is still a topic
is so embarrassing.
I'm sorry. That just
drives me fucking crazy.
It's a different kind
of patriarchal society
in the '50s
as opposed to sexism now.
They didn't know
any different then.
But you're so pretty,
see?
Is that what it is?
Yep.
And that's the way it was.
Now they know better,
and they want to stop it.
Now when you hear men
say women aren't funny,
I just think,
"You sad old man.
Get on -- Get on your
little glacier and just die."
Do you think most women
sell themselves short?
Yes.
Most women have been told
to sell themselves short.
See, I think women
are brighter than men.
I think women
are more sensitive than men.
And I think women
are stronger than me.
Plus, we have that
extra little layer of fat,
so if we ever fall in the water,
we live longer.
She's one of them girl comics.
Them -- Them ain't that funny.
They got a --
They got an extra gland
down in their hoo-hah,
and it filters
the jokes through.
It ain't funny.
I read it in the science book.
It's science.
You can look it up.
There was a whole episode
on "Planet Earth"
they did about women
and their anti-joke "vaginers."
It was in HD, too.
It was horrifying.
---
Remember when comedy meant
males doing jokes about females,
like wives and mothers-in-law?
Well, the tables have turned.
The idea that chicks
aren't funny --
I hate to tell you,
it's still very much a thing.
There are some people
that can't get their heads
around what they don't know.
I said I wanted
to be a comedian.
She said,
"Or maybe it's better if
you just die."
I think they thought of women
as a different species.
Very few ladies
are capable of being a comedian,
and so everybody sits right up.
Here's somebody
that thinks she can do it.
This is a great argument
that women are doing
much better work than men.
You're welcome.
What's the hardest part
about being a female comedian?
What is it?
What's the hardest part?
Like, what would you guess?
Um...
Well, it's the rape.
Um...
I have a deep camaraderie
with tough, hard-core,
funny-ass female comedians
because it's been a long road
for all of us.
What would make a woman
turn from some decent thing
like housewifing
or cashiering
in a five-and-dime store
or dental hygiene
and turn her to comedy
as a career?
It's definitely easier
for us now
'cause we've pushed our way in,
but back then, there was
one of them, two of them.
People try to analyze it.
"Are women not funny?"
It's like, "No, they're
oppressed, you dumb idiot."
I really stopped
a great career there.
and I'd do it again.
I'd much rather be your wife
than amount to anything.
Of course, there have
always been funny women.
It's just a matter
or whether the society
that they were in was willing
to let them be funny.
We have with us this evening
an international star,
Miss Fanny Brice.
It wasn't until the late 1800s
and the early 20th century
that women
started becoming really famous
as comedic performers.
A lot of them
were comediennes --
a woman who gets up onstage,
is funny, but she sings
and she dances.
Hey, wait a minute.
The music stopped.
Well,
I didn't hear it.
she didn't hear it.
She's more of an entertainer
than just the straight comic.
That was kind of
what was allowed.
It was not really accepted
for a woman to stand onstage
and tell jokes
and give their opinion
to a bunch of men
until Jean Carroll.
Most fellas, they have
a tough day at the racetrack --
they get nasty, but not my Jack.
He's so sweet.
Nothing bothers him.
He drinks. And, of course...
Well, he doesn't drink
'cause he likes it.
He drinks to steady his nerves.
The other night, they got so
steady, he couldn't move at all.
Jean Carroll
was in a comedy team
with a guy named Buddy Howe,
who she ended up marrying,
and then Buddy Howe
went off to war.
So Jean Carroll
rewrote their act
so that she could do it
by herself
and became a solo stand-up.
This guy ate like
he was going to the chair.
I mean, as for manners,
you know?
I've seen people eat
with their hands before,
but not soup. And that's --
She got rave reviews.
She was playing the same venues
as all the biggest comedians
of the late 1940s
and getting bigger laughs
than the guys.
Welcome to
"You Bet Your Life."
Say the secret words
and divide an extra $100.
It's a common word,
something you always
have with you.
Phyllis Diller,
let's start with you.
Now, Phyllis,
what do you do
to break up
the monotony of housekeeping
and taking care
of five small gorillas?
Well, I'm really not
a housewife anymore.
I'm an entertainer.
Phyllis Diller started comedy
at 37 years old with five kids.
She was cutting-edge
because she was doing something
that no other woman
had done before.
I love to go to the doctor!
Where else would a man
look at me and say,
"Take off your clothes"?
In those days, so much of comedy
was just straight-up sexist.
"My wife is a battle axe."
Phyllis Diller
switched it around.
Now it was about
her horrible husband.
Fang -- That's my husband.
He went to the dentist
the other day.
The dentist told him
he's got the worst set of tooth
he ever saw in his life.
For a woman to go
onstage and complain about that,
it was emancipation, in a way.
You sure
you're a marriage counselor?
Of course.
Don't I have a sympathetic face?
Well, your face
has my sympathy.
The self-deprecating woman
was very popular
in the comedy world.
Back from the beauty shop,
where she's just had her head
tarred and feathered,
here is Miss Phyllis Diller.
I think when it came to women
doing comedy,
certainly stand-up,
you had to dress
in a way that was crazy.
You had to work
within the confines
of what guys
would accept you doing.
What in the world?
Is that a riot?
I tucked that in
in the dressing room,
and it fell out again.
You're basically saying,
"I'm coming up onstage.
Don't look at me as a woman.
Look at me as, like,
a funny person."
Just looking at
the two outfits here --
Moms' and Woody's.
I would like
to wear Moms'.
And I'd like
to wear yours.
Moms Mabley, who was a great
comedienne of the '30s and '40s,
'50s, didn't become known
by white audiences
until the '60s,
when there were
more black faces on TV.
I've been accused
of liking young men.
And I'm guilty.
She was very sexual,
and she was also
very blunt and raunchy.
Moms Mabley as an old woman
was not considered a threat,
so she could get away with it.
When did you get married,
then, Moms?
I was young,
son.
And I married a man --
98.
He didn't live
but five days.
It took
three undertakers a week
to get the smile
off his face.
She was more than just,
you know,
another woman in comedy.
She was much more of a pioneer.
It's very hard for a woman
who has been brought up
to be sweet and clingy
to stand up in front of
2,500 people and say,
"Okay, now, listen to me."
It's a tremendous --
You really have
a tremendous sense of power
when you're standing up
and commanding them
to listen to you.
I wouldn't be single again
for anything in the world
'cause I was the last girl
in Larchmont, New York, to go,
and I was desperate.
When I say -- I was desperate.
My parents
had a big sign saying,
"Last girl before the Thruway."
I mean,
that's how desperate I was.
Joan was the real deal.
She's, like, a badass.
She grew up in the gritty
New York City scene,
and she was breaking ground
by just talking about her life
honestly.
This is an era where
women just didn't do that.
A girl -- You're 30 years old,
you're not married --
You're an old maid.
A man -- He's 90 years old, he's
not married -- He's a catch.
It's a whole different thing.
She would push
the boundaries constantly.
The edict was, "If it's making
people laugh, then it's okay."
I think you can tell
what kind of a lover
a man is gonna be
from the way he tinkles.
Who said that?
If a man in a room
that is fully lit
cannot hit a hole
this big around...
I'm gonna ponder
on that one.
There are some people
who say that some of the things
that you do or say are vulgar.
Does that --
Life is vulgar.
Life is outrageous.
I find what's made my comedy
work as much as it's worked
is I say things that
everybody else has thought
and not
really verbalized.
When you die,
whatever you got out of him,
you have buried on you,
and the next bitch wants it,
make her dig for it.
Sure!
Joan Rivers was,
at no point in her career,
not funny because
she changed with the times.
I mean, she was an evolving,
writing-every-day,
real-life comedian.
Don't you think men
really like intelligence more
when it comes
right down to it?
Please, are we gonna
go back to that?
Yeah, sure.
Are you kidding me?
It's a brain, you know,
a caring person.
No man
has ever put his hand
up a woman's dress
looking for a library card.
I am sorry.
I'll tell you
it's such a hat show, Fred.
I think I'll get
another station.
As our first offering
this evening, we -- Stop that!
Go back
and sit down!
When I was growing up,
I was an "I Love Lucy" freak,
could lip-sync it.
I love
that I can turn on something
that's over 60 years old now
and go,
"You can't beat these jokes.
And you can't beat
these characters."
This is a woman in a time
where comedy was
completely dominated by men.
Not only does this show
become the comedy show,
they then create
the modern model
for all the sitcoms to follow.
She's an absolute titan
of comedy.
To have a woman
be not only a comedian
but a solid business person,
she broke ground
for generations of us.
You don't see
too many beautiful women
be clowns like that,
and she was, indeed,
a beautiful woman.
You know, she was
a movie star at MGM,
and nobody ever knew
she could be funny.
Mugging and
doing pratfalls and doing things
that maybe nice little girls
weren't supposed to do
at one time.
I have never thought of it
as a hindrance,
as something
that we shouldn't do.
We just go ahead and do them.
We don't think how we look.
Is it easy, for instance, say,
to be sexy and funny
at the same time?
Yes.
Very easy.
It may be easy for you,
Carol.
Carol Burnett is the single
most talented woman,
or performer, ever.
She could do everything.
She started on
the "Garry Moore Show"
and became a big star.
What have I done?!
People forget just how much
she was a part of the culture
at one point in time.
I did not think
that I would want to ever --
could ever host a variety show.
Welcome to our first show
that we're doing.
I'm real excited
and very, very happy
that you're all with us tonight.
Looks like we got
a nice, full group.
Could you bump up
the lights so I can see --
Gorgeous!
They had an image of a fella
in a tuxedo coming out
and doing a monologue,
and, "How will a woman...?"
You know, "Will they
take a woman doing this?"
And we said, "Well,
I hope they'll take me
at least for 13 weeks."
And it worked.
It worked for 11 years.
I never thought
it would go that long.
I knew I wanted
to do musical, comedy.
I wanted guest stars.
Excu-u-u-se me!
I wanted to do sketches.
I wanted a rep company
the way Sid Caesar had one.
Curtain, you fools!
Curtain!
There were 10 variety shows on
at the same time
that Carol Burnett was on,
and there were approximately
10 comedy writers on each show.
And I was the only woman
out of all of them.
The funny thing about
female writers in television
was that in the beginning,
I would not say
they were very welcomed,
although there were certainly
exceptions.
I interviewed
for the "Carson Show."
And I called my agent.
And I said,
"I think it went really well."
And he said, "I'm sorry, honey,
but they just called and said
they would not feel comfortable
with a woman in the room."
Being a comedy writer
is not the most
macho profession,
so I think there was
a certain defensiveness
and overcompensation.
I like that inside track
of getting to hear
how men talk
if women weren't around
'cause it was almost like
you weren't around.
It was filthy.
The language was disgusting.
I loved it.
You'll have such a time,
such fun, such --
You'll --
I have to warn you, though.
There's a street
down there in Rome
where it just
isn't safe for a woman.
Where?! Where?! Where?!
When you get to
"Your Show of Shows,"
you know, that's a very famous
writer's room,
and you had two women
who worked at separate times.
The first was Lucille Callen,
and the second
was Selma Diamond.
It was always right
to have the woman's viewpoint.
And who better than women
to say,
"Women will laugh at that"?
And so when I put together
the characters
for the "Van Dyke Show,"
I said, "We need
the woman's viewpoint."
And when I told my agent,
he immediately said,
"Rose Marie."
It's a beautiful
piece of writing.
It really is,
but you know Alan.
If he doesn't get a laugh
every 10 seconds,
he calls the cops
and has the audience arrested.
Rose Marie on
the "Dick Van Dyke Show"
was great for women
who might aspire to
being in the writer's room
because that was
the first glimpse we got
maybe that that was possible.
It's not like there were
plenty of career women on TV.
Women were mainly housewives
in the sitcoms,
or they were secretaries
and teachers.
They weren't writers.
You mean to say that you'd
give up your job for us?
Yeah.
Compared to you,
I'm a rat.
Compared to a rat,
you're a rat.
My mother
didn't want me to be funny
because how was I
gonna get married
and be funny at the same time?
But here was Rose Marie.
She was blonde
and pretty and funny,
and I kind of liked that idea.
No, don't --
don't bother to send it, Mom.
I don't think I'm going
to Mexico, after all.
Um, hang on there,
Mom, will you?
Newsroom.
Hello, Mary?
The "Mary Tyler Moore Show"
changed everything.
They brought a lot of women
into the business.
Here we go.
Ready? Action.
They wanted to make
a truthful story
about a single woman
in her 30s,
and I think that Jim Brooks
and Alan Burns realized
that if we want to have
the right details,
we have to ask women
what the stories are here.
You look different.
I like it.
Well...
Yeah.
I like it
back here, too.
I have a feeling
he's gonna kick my tires.
Women are so important
in the bigger world of comedy
because our experience
is different,
and there's that much more
to mine for humor.
I don't know
what you two are laughing at,
but I'll take a chance
it's dirty.
Betty White
on "Mary Tyler Moore"
is one of my favorite characters
of all time.
I mean, what a viper.
Wherever did you find
a party hat made of skin?
Sue Ann Nivens
was sort of fun to play
because something that Betty
might be shy about doing,
she would do in a heartbeat.
Tell me one good thing
about me -- Anything at all.
You're attractive.
Very attractive.
Sexy, provocative.
A tawny, sensual beast.
Yes, a beast.
I think it was important
to all of us
to try to reflect
what was happening with women
during that time.
Things were changing so quickly,
and we were
right in the middle of it.
It was an explosive time
with situation comedy,
and I think many more women
started working at that point.
Did you find it fun to be
the only girl writer around?
With some men.
Some men are secure enough
to accept it.
A lot of them
gave me a lot of trouble,
and they're running
candy stores in Brooklyn.
No, no,
that's true.
Insecure people
don't get anyplace.
You've got
to face it.
Women are here
to stay.
Welcome to Long Dust.
Can I help you?
Yes.
I...I read your ad.
I- I'd like to know
about the $65 funeral.
I see.
Was that
for yourself?
Mike Nichols and Elaine May
met in Chicago
at the birth of improv.
They didn't write jokes.
They wrote situations
that were just
hysterically funny,
but that you could relate to.
Would you be interested
in some extras
for the loved one?
What kind of extras?
Well,
how about a coffin?
My life changed
the day my parents took me
to see Nichols and May
on Broadway.
Before that, all I saw
were comedians talking about
how bad their wives were
or how bad
their mother-in-laws were.
Take my wife, please.
And then all of a sudden,
the sky opened up,
and there were Nichols and May.
And I thought to myself,
"Now that's funny."
Well, tell me, how do you
put your sketches together now?
Do you outline them,
or are they fairly
well written out?
Well, we don't ever
write anything down.
And we don't ever
outline them.
It's a terrifying process.
What kind of
an excuse is that?
Well, it's --
What do you mean?!
Well, I mean,
all the other scientists
have mothers, I'm sure.
And I'm sure that they all
find time after breakfast
or before their count-off
to pick up a phone
and call their mother!
Elaine May was always
the writer of the two.
I don't think she's given enough
credit for being kind of
one of these foundational people
of improv.
She was smart. She was witty.
She was sexy.
She was everything
that female comedians
up to that point
weren't allowed to be.
Well, thank you
very much, Jack.
That's okay.
And that's when
I realized it's possible.
You have to write to the point
where you get respect
'cause nobody's gonna hand it
to you as a female.
Come on, Lily.
Lily Tomlin.
What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna do
a lady tonight
who's an employee
of one of America's
most beloved institutions.
Phoenicia?
Phoenicia, this is Ernestine.
I want you to send out a service
check on all the circuits at --
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Well, because, honey,
it's almost impossible
to get through to that man.
In the '60s,
"Laugh-In" was one of
the hottest programs on TV.
And all these famous characters
we associate with Lily Tomlin
became famous then
and turned her into a huge star.
And that's the truth. Pbht!
She was hip.
She was not doing material
about being a frustrated wife.
She was doing
character material,
and it was really new
and different and brilliant.
Mama said
you went to college.
Mama said that?
I'm not going to college
when I grow up.
No. No.
'Cause I seen pictures
where they shoot you
in college.
Her characters were no longer
just innocuous,
wacky, and weird.
They started
to become characters
with a subtle
political point of view.
Recently, I did my most
eloquent sculpture to date.
I used four gallons
of vanilla ice cream,
and I molded the first family.
And then I invited
some of my friends over,
and we sat around
and watched them melt.
She was a very dominant
voice at the time.
I mean, you can find
Rolling Stone covers
where it was, like
Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin,
and they are our most
dangerous comedians
doing the most dangerous stuff.
They both immersed
themselves in characters.
The very first Lily Tomlin
special on NBC, 1974,
they both won Emmy Awards.
So did its producer,
a guy named Lorne Michaels.
And based on the strength
of that special,
the "Lily" special,
he got the pilot
for "Saturday Night Live."
"Dear Roseanne Roseannadanna..."
I don't know where you get it,
how you get it,
or who actually milks
the dogs,
and I don't care
to know.
Hi.
"Saturday Night Live"
definitely early on --
amazing that
right out of the gate,
it was Laraine Newman and
Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner.
Now, Candy, Candy...
They could definitely
hang with the guys.
They were just as important,
and they were hilarious.
Hey, stud muffins,
want to make bouncy bouncy?
They had three female performers
and three female writers,
which, if you look
at the comedy landscape
at that time, is unheard of.
What made "Saturday Night Live"
different from
those other shows was,
our show was the first one
to really have a voice
for a younger generation.
Then the man...
Ew!
Ew!
Yahhh!
That's disgusting.
And then you scream,
and then he screams,
and then it's over.
The early days of "SNL"
were a tale of two worlds
because you had these great
female writers like Anne Beatts
and Marilyn Miller
and Rosie Shuster.
But then you had --
Like, John Belushi
didn't want to do sketches
that were written by women.
I like sirloin steak.
I like American food.
Wrap it up.
Don't push me, Curtin!
I mean it!
John used to regularly ask
for the women
to be fired on the show
because chicks
just weren't funny.
Awful! Awful!
Awful!
Couldn't be worse!
Really enough to make you
want to puke your guts out.
It was an uphill battle.
Lorne used to come 'round to me
and Rosie and go, like,
"So, what have you got
for the girls?"
We felt an obligation
to cover them
since the men didn't write
that much for them.
But seriously...
They started to write
more for Gilda
because Gilda was
very outgoing, you know,
and she was more of
a proven laugh-getter.
That's the...
No! I'm gonna have to...
When I saw Gilda Radner,
my mind was blown.
There was just something about
her that was really magnetic.
She committed to it so hard,
and she wasn't afraid
to not be dainty
with her character work.
What is that bewitching scent
you're wearing?
Vicks VapoRub.
There was never a moment
when you thought,
"Wait a second.
These women
don't deserve to be there."
What do you see?
Wax buildup.
The stuff they were doing
was as edgy
as what the guys were doing,
and a lot of the sketches have
withstood the test of time.
I love him!
I love him!
I love him!
And where he goes,
I'll swallow,
I'll swallow,
I'll swallow.
It is possible --
but just barely --
that one of the people
waiting in line
outside this New York nightclub
is a future star.
It is certain
that each one thinks
he or she is star material,
talented,
and just waiting
for the right break.
In the '70s, when the stand-up
comedy boom is starting,
women definitely
had a tougher time.
Only a very few,
like Elayne Boosler,
managed to crack
the stand-up comedy clubs.
Do you know that people
have donor cards
on their driver's licenses,
that if they have an accident
they will leave parts
of their body to someone?
Who would want
to receive the eyes
that didn't see the car
in the first place?
Elayne Boosler
was a game-changer
because before her,
there hadn't been
a young, single,
female comic who went out
onstage with no apologies
for who she was and just
kind of told it like is.
I guess maybe breasts
are the most important part
of the body,
when you think about it.
I mean, without them,
employers just wouldn't know
who to give the
smaller paychecks to, so...
I came along in '73 and started
to reflect the times I lived in.
Women were starting to work.
The pill was here.
Single women
were starting to have sex.
You weren't labeled anymore.
They think we're dumb,
so they put too many directions
on the products.
Like, on the home
pregnancy test, it says,
"For use in the privacy
of your own home."
Good.
I was gonna drive
to a crowded shopping center.
That was a little threatening
to some men in the audience
and even for some club owners.
Everyone in the business
tried to talk me out of it.
"You can't be pretty
and do comedy.
You can't do it."
And my best line in those years
was,
"I'm just a human being
trapped in a woman's body."
And I really believe that
summed up my approach to comedy.
Way back when,
when I started
doing comedy in 1979,
there were only
six female comedians
working on the circuit,
only six, and it was really odd.
We didn't know each other
because the club owners
would never book us together
'cause it was such a rarity
to have a female comic
to begin with.
In fact, I remember
when I'd go to some clubs
around the country,
whenever I performed,
the emcee would go,
"You're not gonna believe
what we have coming up next!
You're not gonna believe it!
It's a female comic!"
Like it was some sort
of estrogen freak show.
I have definitely heard some
crazy intros over the years.
Sometimes I'll go up on shows,
and there will be
sort of an apology, like,
"You guys, she's really funny.
She's one of my good friends."
"We got a lady coming up next
who tells jokes.
How about that?"
So, I'd get up there,
and I'd be like, "I know.
What's with the jokes
and the vagina?
Am I right, fellas?"
Stand-up in general
is a hostile environment,
and I think if you were a woman,
that hostile environment
just was like up times 10.
You know, professional sports
just don't do a thing for me.
I like to --
Good point. My mistake.
Of course, I enjoy you
very, very much, but...
When I was coming up,
I could always tell
if I saw three or more
young guys in a group,
I could kind of
set my watch to it and go,
"When I go onstage, those guys
are gonna give me a problem."
All right.
If that man screams
one more time,
I'm gonna whack his peepee.
Do you understand
what I'm gonna do?
When guys give you a hard time,
you should just
go right for the jugular,
which is basically...
"Hey, buddy,
I don't go to your job
and knock the dicks
out of your mouth"...
which I think is
appropriate and funny.
Mister, I don't have time
to tell you all the things
that are the matter with you,
but let's start with that
checkered bell-bottom suit.
You had to learn to deal with it
if you wanted to make it
in the clubs,
and the best ones did.
Hi, pigs.
I don't know how to say this,
but I want to be on you.
I dated
my last boyfriend for two years,
and finally,
I gave him an ultimatum.
You know, I said, "Listen,
either you tell me your name,
or it's over."
This is my long,
luxurious, blond hair.
Ain't it pretty?
Yeah!
I could put it in a ponytail.
- Want to see?
- Yeah!
No.
Whoopi Goldberg
always thought of herself
as an actress
more so than a comedian.
She was very much
in the spirit of Lily Tomlin,
more so than the stand-ups
of her era.
And they said, like,
"Are you a Valley girl?"
And I said, "No, I'm a surfer
because before
there was the mall,
there was the ocean, okay?"
I, like...
It was so much more
than stand-up.
She was commenting
on the world we're living in
in a really interesting way
through these
different characters.
I passed this big dude
walking around the circus
with a picket sign,
talking about,
"Stop abortion."
I said, "I have the answer
to abortion."
He said, "What is it?"
I said, "Shoot your dick."
I was always an actor,
and one of the reasons
I started doing the monologues
was because
I couldn't get any work
'cause people
sort of look at you
and decide what you can do
and what you can't
or what they think
you can do.
What does it take
to become successful,
and how tough is it for you
compared to men?
I think it's harder to be
a man comic, actually.
Yeah, 'cause they're generally
not funny or intelligent.
"Roseanne, don't you think
we should talk about
our sexual problems?"
Like I'm gonna
turn off "Wheel of Fortune"
for that.
Roseanne was the big
'80s comic who came out.
She was the kind of woman
that when you talk to people,
they remember Roseanne.
They remember
what her persona was.
She had a clear point of view.
I never get out of the house.
I never go no place.
I never have no fun ever,
ever, ever,
ever 'cause I'm a housewife.
I hate that word.
I want to be called
"domestic goddess."
It's so much more descriptive.
Roseanne Barr took
the classic "housewife" stance
and turned it on its head.
They come up to me.
They go, "God, Roseanne,
you're not very feminine."
They say that.
Can you believe that
they would say that to me?
Can you even believe that?
"You're not very feminine."
So, I say, "Well, suck my dick!"
She took off like a rocket.
She really captured
what most great stand-ups do
that connect
with the bigger, wide audience.
She was authentic.
Please.
If I came out --
Come on. Women have been
the butt of male jokes
for two million years,
and we've always laughed.
And now I come out and I make
a few crummy little jokes
about you and your penises
and you can't take it.
Roseanne...
Listen to this.
You'll have to.
My grandmother --
...she started walking five
miles a day when she was 60.
She's 97 today.
We don't know
where the hell she is.
In the '90s club heyday,
the clubs were so crowded
because everybody
in the world thought,
"I'm gonna move
to California or New York.
I'm gonna do three funny minutes
and then get my own sitcom
like Jerry Seinfeld."
That was the downside
of that era.
They really just didn't
really have room for me
or the likes of me.
Who could start off
the sex category other than --
yes, you know it --
Miss Kathy Griffin?!
I'm gonna tell a story
that I told once before --
only once before.
It is not the time
I fucked the midget.
It is -- Sorry.
That's another party.
These were people
that didn't have
as much success
in mainstream clubs
because mainstream clubs
had mainstream comedy.
They didn't necessarily
go for weird.
So they started their own rooms
with their own crowds.
I'm not --
I'm not telling the story
for any kind of shock value
or anything like that.
I'm just telling a story.
The original stand-up
from the late '70s
was all setup,
punch line, setup, punch line.
That's all anybody was doing.
And the alternative-comedy scene
suddenly was all this
personal storytelling.
There's five kids in our family.
I'm the oldest.
And my brother who's the
fourth child got lymph cancer.
Hope for laughs. And, um...
You could just be talking
about what happened that day.
It was like somebody coming up
and reading their diary.
I'm sorry.
I didn't study theater
for 12 years
just so I could go,
"Rambo, no!"
We kind of free-formed it
and more of
a stream of consciousness.
And that really caught on
with audiences
and created its whole new
wave of comedians
and women comedians.
This alternative-comedy scene
was happening
alongside the rise of women
at "Saturday Night Live."
Backflip!
Mary, Mary, stop it.
Backflip!
Stop it!
Mary, stop it!
Backflip!
You had Molly Shannon.
Simmer down, now!
And you had Cheri Oteri,
Ana Gasteyer.
I think we both assumed --
and I think wrongfully --
that a baker
of your generation
might tend towards
a more dry or crusty muffin.
And then Tina Fey
was brought on as a writer.
In the 25-plus years
of "Saturday Night Live,"
you are the first
female head writer.
I heard, "That place
is a boys' club. It's horrible.
It's horrible."
And when I got there,
my experience
was that it was not that bad.
I think I've been very lucky
to get places
kind of
as they change.
I quit being head writer.
We all sat in the room,
and I go,
"Clearly it's Tina Fey
who should succeed me,"
and everyone went, "Yup!"
We all knew Tina
was the sharpest,
kind of strongest writer
coming up.
Research is being conducted
on the world's first
contraceptive patch for women.
The patch is approximately
three inches in diameter
and reads, "Get off me."
Once she became head writer,
she was in a position
to advocate
for the other women on the staff
to kind of explain to men,
you know,
why something was funny.
Introducing Kotex Classic.
This is the original.
I love the belt.
It's so complicated.
I think women really have
the market cornered on irony
because we're subject
to so much bullshit.
Maybe what bothers me the most
is that people say
that Hillary is a bitch.
And let me say something
about that.
Yeah, she is. Yeah.
And so I am.
And so is this one.
Yeah.
Deal with it.
Yeah.
You know what?
Bitches get stuff done.
And all of a sudden,
badass women
were the force of that show.
My God!
What am I, the police or
something? You know what I say?
Smoke 'em
if you got 'em.
Smoke 'em
if you got 'em.
Do you love nice presents?
Do you?!
You look at
"Saturday Night Live"
when I was a kid,
the names you knew were, like,
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd,
Chevy Chase, John Belushi.
You always knew
the dudes' names.
And now
when you talk about "SNL,"
the names that pop up --
Tina Fey, Amy Poehler,
Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones...
If you want to see
Leslie Jones naked, just ask!
...and Kate McKinnon.
The alien showed my mind
the furnace of all creation,
what we could call God.
What?
These fancy cats
are seeing God.
Meanwhile,
I'm starting phase two,
which is me sitting on a stool
while 40 gray aliens
take turns gently batting
my knockers around.
And then it spread into movies.
Suddenly the biggest
comedy stars in the world
are Melissa McCarthy.
They're, you know, Kristen Wiig.
This is some
classy shit here.
Jesus, Megan.
I'm s--
I want to apologize.
I'm not even confident
of which end that came out of.
"Bridesmaids" came out,
and it was like,
"This is gonna be
the definitive answer
as to why women are funny."
Now, I had known
women are funny for years
'cause I have a vagina, but...
My -- Okay.
No.
...they just hadn't made it
to the big screen
in the way that they did
with "Bridesmaids."
It's happening.
It's happening.
It's happening.
It's happening.
It showed studios that you could
make money with that.
And it opened that genre
of women behaving badly.
Officer Doughnuts, why don't you
go back into your squad car
and go save a kitten
from a tree?
'Cause these pussies
are doing fine.
These women are so good,
you cannot ignore them anymore.
You want to stay with the
"best you've ever had" guy.
No. You don't.
That's a creepy guy.
"Best sex that you've ever had"
guy is in jail.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But I've been thinking about
maybe reaching out to him.
There's a lot
of creative freedom.
Yes!
There's a lot embracing
of diversity in stories
that haven't been told yet.
So, I think it's a great time
to be a woman.
What are those?
What -- What are those?
Stop.
Stop it.
They're my Spanx.
They hold everything together.
Why? What's gonna f--
come fucking popping out?
I was trying to describe
your humor, and I was thinking,
"Well, 'irreverent'
isn't really strong enough."
So I came up
with the word "demented."
I like "demented."
Because --
Yeah. I like "demented"
because I've been trying
not to say "retarded"
because I do feel like
it's not nice.
"Demented."
Yeah.
Does that work for you?
Yeah.
"Demented," "ridiculous."
I was licking jelly off
of my boyfriend's penis,
and all of a sudden --
...all of a sudden,
I'm thinking,
"My God,
I'm turning into my mother."
You know? It's like...
When you think of comedy
as being something
that pushes boundaries
and that's commenting
on society, on a certain level,
what does a white man
have to say anymore?
And men -- you guys
are catching hell.
You're probably not feeling
any better, right?
'Cause every other commercial
is for broke dick.
If you look at the culture,
who's changing
the culture right now?
And I don't know
if there's a male equivalent
to what a lot of hilarious,
thoughtful women
are doing right now.
No, no. Shh.
Hush. Hush. Hush.
It's been quite a --
The point is
that I'm doing fantastic.
She's doing great.
He's a 6.
Totally a 6.
Yum.
He's a 10.
I mean, look at him.
I hope he's like
seven inches, max.
Inches? I thought we were
rating them on hotness.
I thought we were
rating them on dick size.
Why would we be
rating them on dick size?
Ladies,
your staring is making
some of the guys
feel uncomfortable.
Seven. Seven.
I think it's really fair to say
that it's never been better
for women in comedy, absolutely.
It has gotten a lot
better and could get even...
more better? Mo' better?
I think feminism
is the worst thing
that ever happened to women.
Our job used to be no job.
Then all these women
had to show off and be like,
"We can do it.
We can do anything."
Bitch, shut up!
Everywhere I look, I see
amazing women doing comedy,
and there are more venues
to do comedy
than there have ever been.
They're afforded
all these platforms.
They can make their own stuff.
They don't have to
answer to anybody,
so their content can be
just what they want it to be.
Mwah!
Is it someone's birthday
or...
We're celebrating
Julia's last fuckable day.
- Yes. Salud.
- Whoo!
I love watching
these young women
be unabashedly feministic.
It's great that they can be loud
and proud about these issues.
Also, they're real issues.
The best comedies
and the best television now
is all being created
and show-run by women.
I have my own sho--
It's about time.
I have mild,
extra mild.
I have no idea
what that one is.
And I hear really good things
about that English banger.
Actually,
you know what?
I think I'm kind of done
with sausages.
Late night
is one of the last places
where it still feels
very much a men's club.
So it's great
to have Samantha Bee.
Is that okay for you, that he
is representing the country
in an old-timey
racist way?
If it is a negative, I would say
it's like a minor negative.
I'm so confused
by you.
Watching someone choke down
a piece of their soul
just to belong
broke my fact checker.
You can do this.
Samantha Bee is the best
political show on television.
I don't think anybody
cuts to the core like she does.
But to see her do it
and shove it down their throats
'cause they have to take it
from a "girl."
She's brilliant.
We do stories on the show
that we feel passionately about
in the moment,
and we just
see the world differently.
Anybody have any questions?
Yes.
Is it hard
breaking into the boys' club?
Okay --
What's it like
being a woman in late night?
How can I watch your show
as a man?
What's it like to be
a female woman?
I think we're at
our greatest point
for women in comedy,
I would guess,
but we still have
a very long way to go.
The fact that people have to
keep talking about
women in comedy indicates
that it's not equal.
I guess it's a normal question.
Is it harder for female comics?
Is it harder? It's not.
Like, they think
we just get up here
and just bleed
all over the stage.
I'm just, "My ovaries.
How do I keep them in my body?"
People will always want
to talk about women in comedy.
I mean, you guys
are doing a documentary,
and you're doing a segment
on women in comedy.
The fact that it's 2016
and "women in comedy"
is still a topic
is so embarrassing.
I'm sorry. That just
drives me fucking crazy.
It's a different kind
of patriarchal society
in the '50s
as opposed to sexism now.
They didn't know
any different then.
But you're so pretty,
see?
Is that what it is?
Yep.
And that's the way it was.
Now they know better,
and they want to stop it.
Now when you hear men
say women aren't funny,
I just think,
"You sad old man.
Get on -- Get on your
little glacier and just die."
Do you think most women
sell themselves short?
Yes.
Most women have been told
to sell themselves short.
See, I think women
are brighter than men.
I think women
are more sensitive than men.
And I think women
are stronger than me.
Plus, we have that
extra little layer of fat,
so if we ever fall in the water,
we live longer.
She's one of them girl comics.
Them -- Them ain't that funny.
They got a --
They got an extra gland
down in their hoo-hah,
and it filters
the jokes through.
It ain't funny.
I read it in the science book.
It's science.
You can look it up.
There was a whole episode
on "Planet Earth"
they did about women
and their anti-joke "vaginers."
It was in HD, too.
It was horrifying.