An Interview with Jonathan Katz.
Jonathan Katz is one of the most respected names in underground comedy around today. Starting out hustling table tennis games with his friend David Mamet, he founded the folk music group the Katz and Jammers, and worked as the musical director for Robin Williams’ stand up tour in 1979. Realising he was better suited to comedy, he started working on shows like Ink with Ted Danson and appearing in bit parts on Mr. Show and South Park, before starting the hugely popular Adult Swim series’ Jonathan Katz, Professional Therapist, and Home Movies. Most recently, he’s been hosting a podcast called Hey! We’re Back, which has recently made its debut as an animated series riiiiiight here. Read this interview though, if you’ve never sold urine to groupies.
Could you tell us more about your new installment of Hey! We’re Back?
JK: Yes.
Oh you mean now?! It is an animated show about a delusional man, me, on the radio. The first episode, “Desperado,” is about 3 acts of desperation. The first is a search for an audience, the second, a therapist, and the third, a woman. All these acts are condensed to just a few minutes.
H: You often have a varied number of guests on the show, is there a unifying theme?
JK: If you mean the TV show, “Dr Katz: Professional Therapist,” the unifying theme was, just with a few exceptions, is comedians in therapy. There is nothing you can say to a therapist that you can’t say to an audience…. And vice versa, if that means what I think it means.
H: How did the idea for Dr. Katz come about?
JK: The idea grew up in the heads of me and Tom Snyder, my friend and often collaborator from Cambridge, MA. When we met, he was an educator and the creator of a software company called Tom Snyder Productions. He was also experimenting with a new kind of animation and a short piece, that he voiced, called “Shrink Rap.” Together we created “The Biography of Mr. Katz”.
He was drawn to my comedy which he and his wife saw in the movie, “Things Change.” I was drawn to his intellect and his warmth…awwwwhhh…. He’s also an extraordinary musician and wrote and created the music for “Dr. Katz.” He reads books, I read minds, or at least I used to because it’s just so hard to tell what people are thinking.
H: How did your involvement with music start? What made you focus more on comedy?
JK: It started when I was half of a folk duo called “The Cousins” and my cousin Paul was the other half. Then came Katz and Jammers, the seminal band from the 80’s that I fronted and slowly I noticed that when I sang, people talked. When I spoke, they danced, when they danced, I swooned. So eventually I made the transition to comedy, never really abandoning music. In fact, some day I hope to release a CD of my music called “Easy Listening but not that Easy”.
H: You were the music director for one of Robin Williams’ stand-up tours, what was that experience like?
JK: He performed two of my songs for his first album, “Reality…What a Concept.” I played the guitar and sang backup. It took him a while to realize he didn’t really need a musical director because he was a comedian. He was “red hot” at the time, and still is. After the shows, I would sell vials of his urine to his groupies at a huge markup.
H: It seems like you’ve spent a lot of time trying to find an audience, which you finally have, what kept/keeps you motivated?
JK: I have no other skills and making people laugh is something that makes me happy.
H:What’s your writing process like, for stand-up and for TV?
JK: Stand up – When it’s good: Impulsive and new. TV is collaborative and requires more planning.
H: How good are you at making deadlines?
JK: I like deadlines, in fact I need them.
H: You’ve worked regularly with Loren Bouchard and Jon Benjamin, how did you get involved with those guys? How is the dynamic different when you have a regular collaborator?
JK: Jon Benjamin taught me about improvisation. He doesn’t come from the world of stand up. He’s one of two people to make me faint from laughing too hard. On the other hand, Loren understood the value of performance vs. joke, and even though we often fought, I learned from him as well.
H: The story of your professional life is very old-world, you’ve worked hard to get your break on Letterman, and then worked harder from there. Do you think with things like the internet and a bigger emphasis on comedy marketing that there’s too much of an instant fame aspect to comedy?
JK: Instant fame is not new, it’s just more instant. If you have to be famous, I recommend cartoon fame.
H: You’ve worked on a lot of animated shows, is there something about this medium you prefer?
JK: Yes. It is like radio with pictures. I listen better than I see, and it is the audio part that appeals to me the most. I have learned, with the help of Tom Snyder, to manipulate audio, which is different than being funny, but it is a very potent tool.
H: Finally, if you could be asked any question by an interviewer, what would it be? <Your response to the above question>?
JK: What would the world be like if we were all comedians? What would it be like if there were no comedians? Who are Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, and how did they influence your life and your comedy? I would pose the same for Lenny Bruce, Ronnie Shakes and Ruth Deming.
