Name: bill burr discusses F Is For Family
Uploaded: 2016-08-04T09:18:12.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'bill burr discusses F Is For Family' from Comedy of Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-08-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'bill burr discusses F Is For Family' from Comedy of Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2016-08-04. Transcript available.

We're laughing already because here in the Cayman Islands Interview Lounge
because
comedian Bill Burr has stopped by this morning. Bill, thanks for coming to the
Cayman Kind Studio. Oh, thank you for having me in the Cayman Island Memorial
Studios.
That's what it is. We're glad to have you. You got a busy week. We're just
looking at
your schedule. You're going to be on Fallon and Conan, right, this week? I'm
Media Boy
this week. I got a new animated show or a cartoon, as I still call it, coming
out
on Netflix called F is for Family. Six episodes. It's about this family, the
Murphy family. It takes place in 1973 and it's the 70s as far as how me, Mike
Price, one of the co-creators of the show, how we remember it. And your voice
of the
dad. I'm the voice of the dad. It was an amalgam of my dad, Mike's dad and
everybody
else in the writer's room. It's basically we set it back where that time where
you
could, you know, you know, kids today, you know, they wear helmets when they
ride
bicycles. They have play dates and all that. And back then it was, they just
sent you
outside. Like, get out of here. Go outside. Yeah. You could, you could
literally bring a
gun to the airport back then. If you had your briefcase, as long as you didn't
wave it
around. It was fine. It was just like a different time. And I just, um,
throughout
my career, I've been telling like family stories on, uh, on stage and they
always
did well. And then somewhere about eight years ago, as that, you know, play
date
generation came of age, it started getting like, not groans, like sip, like, oh,
like
started going like that. Even though that they, they had dads like my dad,
right? Like
that dad still exists and mom still exists. But now it's like socially this
whole, oh, that's bullying. Oh, that's traumatic for the kid. And it just
became
like this overly thinking things. And, um, so I just got frustrated and I
stopped
telling the stories, but I knew they were still funny. And one day I was
walking my
dog. I was like, what if I just animated them? And I just was going to do these
little five minute vignettes on my website. Like, you know, Burr family goes to
get a
Christmas tree and then all the dysfunction. Of course, being a comedian, I
procrastinated and I never did it. So then one day I had a meeting with, uh,
Vince Vaughn's company, Wild West. And I just sort of just threw it out there
and
they were looking to do the show. Then we got in business with Netflix and
Netflix came up with the brilliant idea to serialize it, which I didn't know
means have one episode leading to the next one, which really took the writing
to
another level. And, um, and then here we are four years later. Is it? Yeah. No,
I
mean, we, we had a chance to watch it today. First of all, you know, it's, it's
called efforts for family, but probably not for the family. It's, it's an adult
version. Well, it's not for kids. Right. Not for kids. Yeah. But families will
totally
be able to relate to this. If you want to go and yeah, if you had any sort of,
uh, I
don't know, family that I, you know, I grew up in. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Well, how
close is it to, to your family? Like how many kids were, did you grow up with?
Oh, no,
it's it's if we had, we had six kids. Oh, there's only three kids. Maybe I can
have six
different kids and drama. It's not like a top cat where you can have 20 cats
running
around. It becomes a pain in the butt. So you just sort of like, I took pieces.
Yeah.
Pieces of all, uh, you know, just pieces from my life. Every writer. What I
like about
it is my family can watch it and not be like, Oh my God, you put all our dirty
laundry out
there, but they, they will see elements and hints and stuff like that. And
sometimes it's just
a 10 speed bicycle. Other times it's like a catchphrase. Like my dad saying, I'll
put
you through that bleeping wall was something that he used to say. And, uh, you
can't say that now.
Dad's kids. Yeah, you can. You can do all of that stuff. This is whole like,
this is whole chicken
little, the sky is falling and that people believe you can't say things like
that stuff you were talking
about. Like the polar bear with the Starbucks. Yeah. That is one of the biggest
non stories I've ever
heard in my life. Like it is, it's throats flashed. No, it's a scarf. We
screwed it up. It's supposed
to be a scarf. Oh, okay. That's what it should be. It's supposed to be flipping
out. Half of those
people flipping out about the, uh, the polar bear, you know, they have iPads
and flat screen TVs that
all end up in the ocean, which is why those polar bears are drowning. That's
why, but you're going to
see, you're not going to adjust that part of your life, but you're going to
bitch about the cookie.
Right. Yes. But yeah. Yes. Uh, but F is for family. What is it available on
Netflix? Uh,
December 18th. Okay. Um, all you can binge watch all of binge watch, but it
took us over a year to
draw and do all that. And you can watch it all in about two hours, 40 minutes
and be like, Hey,
when's the next six coming out? But I'm really proud of it. Uh, it's not just
like, you know,
we can curse on the show, which we obviously, that's what I meant by saying for
the kids. Yeah.
But there's still a lot of, we, we still, there's that baby of the greatest
moment in the end,
like when it always came back. And I just remember with my family, we're going
to get a Christmas
tree and there'd be all this traumatic dysfunction of trying to get the army of
kids and everybody
into the car and having the whole thing. Yeah. And then, uh, but then in the
end, you know,
the fire's going, you're decorating the tree and everything settles, the dust
settles down again.
Yeah. It was very, uh, no, no, the show is great. And we really enjoyed it. And
it's funny. And it does
have that, the, uh, that honeymooners kind of like you said, baby, you're great.
Yeah. But it's a really
cool to watch it because to me, it's a period piece. I grew up in the seventies
phone on the wall.
Like you said, you know, the stingrays, the 10 speed bike. So it's, it's going
to be fun. And I think
even for a younger generation to look back and go, wow, that's, that was
probably a cool time to grow up.
But also, I think a lot of them can also relate to the same stuff. I mean, we're
going to have, you know,
kids want to, you know, taking out the family car, kids trying to hook up, you
know, and, uh,
you have some big stars, some big voice, you know, voice stars. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Uh,
Laura Dern does the voice of, uh, Susan, uh, Frank's wife, the character that I
play. Justin
Long does Kevin, uh, Haley Reinhardt from, uh, uh, American Idol. Yeah. That's
the voice of me.
Uh, little me, I should say. Oh, is that right? Debbie Derryberry. If you watch
any Pixar movies,
she's probably in all over it. Uh, Gary Cole, Dave Koechner, Sam Rockwell.
How does that happen? Like, how do you get these people on board? You know what?
We wrote a great
script. Right. That's what happened. We wrote a really funny script. And then I
forget who signed
on first, but once you bring one of them in the boat, then all of a sudden it
becomes,
oh, this is a real thing. And, uh, it was probably the most exciting thing was,
was getting people that
I have all that respect for to actually react to what we all wrote. And, you
know, um, you know,
we had a great writer's room, Dave Richardson, Emily Towers, uh, Tom Giannis.
And we just,
I just remember laughing the whole time. I mean, there's obviously, you know,
it's always hard when
you first start an episode, you know, just getting the rock moving up the hill.
But once you got that
first draft and after the second punch up, that's when it really got fun. And
that's when you could
really tighten it up and really, how many episodes? There's six. Okay. So they,
they kind of gave us
six just to see how it does. And if, how it works at Netflix is they put the
whole thing out at once.
And then if people respond to it, then they just do an order of the second
season. So when that's
going to happen, I don't know how soon that happens. You need views, right? I
mean, that's, yeah,
that's how it works, right? Yeah. And we're also coming out the same day as
Star Wars.
That's right. You can't get tickets to Star Wars. So yeah, maybe people will
watch,
people are telling me, I'm going to watch while I stand in line for Star Wars
and I'm going to binge
watch this stuff. But that's what people do now. Christine is, you know, like,
uh, got me into
Walking Dead and that's how you guys watch it. Just binge watching. Oh, I
watched, uh, uh,
Bloodline and I watched Peaky Blinders. I'm watching Fargo. It's too easy. I
mean,
because the next one just rolls and rolls. Yeah. Next thing you know, it's four
in the morning.
Oh my God, I got to do radio here. Just want to see what happens in the next
episode. Okay. I'm watching
another hour. And then it goes and it goes. But I mean, Netflix is such a great
venue. They've got,
I think the most Golden Globe nominations. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Are they
not afraid to
be not politically correct? Because yeah, I mean, in parts of the show, there
was like, wow, you know,
the networks, their notes were basically push it further. It was the dream. Wow.
But that
whole political correctness, it's just, I swear to God. That's your hot button,
Bill. No, it's not.
It isn't though. It's just like people are adults. They understand. Look, if,
if animated characters
can destroy all of your parenting in six episodes, you're like the worst parent
ever. You're the worst
parent. Yeah. Or there's something wrong with your kid. He was just born with
the Damien scene or,
or whatever. It's just, you know, it was refreshing to see that, you know, you
do those things because
ironically, and I think maybe that was the inspiration for it too, is that's
what you got
away with in the seventies. You couldn't do Archie Bunker now. Maybe, maybe you
could do it. You totally
could. Right. If, if, if the networks and the advertisers could just stand up
to these, like some
of these groups, they're just bullies and they deliberately take things out of
context. Look,
I'm a believer that if you're wrong, you apologize, but you don't let somebody,
if they take something
out of it, like that stupid polar bear. Yeah. It's like, no, it's a scarf. Yeah.
It's a scarf. Yeah.
So now I have to apologize because you think we like, what kind of a dope
thinks that Starbucks is
going to have a bear with a slit throat in the holidays? Yeah. Like they sat
around and have, yeah,
that's what we're going to do. We have polar bears with its throat cut. Wait a
minute. Do we know?
No. This will, this will drum up business and, and just, and then I think it's
also,
have they apologized yet? Do we know? Because they probably, no, they haven't
apologized yet.
But I think it becomes like, it becomes like clickbait. It's, it's really lazy
journalism. And it's just,
it's an easy thing. I swear to God, like comedians get more blowback than bankers
who depleted the
savings of people who fought in wars for this country. And they're eating Alpo
now sitting in some old
folks home instead of their, their, their house that they should have had. And
those guys,
none of them go to jail, but God forbid you tell a joke in a strip mall, right?
And somebody in one
person out of like 400 doesn't like it. And that becomes a story. And they
write a blog about it.
And they treat the blogger like, like they won like a Peabody award for the New
York Times. It's just,
this is some dope in the crowd who sat there and watched a hundred subjects go
by and everything was
funny. And then it came to their part, their part of their life. Oh, that was a
statement. Yeah.
He meant that one struck a nerve. Yeah. They're babies. They're babies. And if
you just stand up to
them, they're bullies. Have you changed up your standup at all? Cause you said
you felt it happen.
Like you felt this change about eight years ago and a lot, you know, Jerry Seinfeld,
a lot of comedians have addressed this. You know, I never felt it in the club.
I just saw people's,
like, I just saw how it worked and you know, I have a, um, a podcast network.
Okay. Plug it.
The all, the all things comedy network. And when we have a friend of ours has a
special coming out,
we go, okay, we're all tweeting in three, two, one. And there's like, you know,
four or 500 of us and
we all tweet and it gets momentum. That's 500 people in a country of over 400
million can get momentum
on social media with 500 tweets at the same time. So when they sit there and
they act like the sky is
falling, everybody's freaking out. It's strategic, you know, how you get
offended, right? Like, you know,
they're on, you know, T minus, we're going to be offended and T minus, you know,
and, and well,
I go back to Seinfeld. He won't do colleges anymore. At least that's what I've
heard because
it's so PC that I don't know if he went to colleges. I saw that interview. I
think he was just,
he was making, that was another thing. He just basically said what was out
there. And then even
that was like, oh, you know, right. Is he thinking about retiring? And even
then they, they blew that up.
It's just constantly, I think because there's so many places to watch and
listen to things now,
if there's anything, if there's any ripple, you have to make it look like, oh
my God,
what is this? And try to try to like, just, just pumping everything up and
making a story even when
there isn't one there. So it's a cartoon. It's adult humor. There's adults,
nothing bad is going to
happen. ISIS doesn't get stronger. Just relax. Just sit down and watch it. If
you don't like it,
don't watch it. If you do watch it. Binge it. If you do binge. Yeah. It's fun.
It's, uh, F is for
family. And again, it's available December 18th on, on Netflix. And yes. Yeah.
And, uh, again,
depending on the fact that I know you have mature adults listening to this and
they'll be able to
listen to it. They'll love it. They'll love it. They'll love it. It's the most
of them grew up in
the seventies. It's going to be, oh, I have a homecoming thing. There you go.
Bill,
thanks for coming in. Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Bill Burr
in the studio,
everybody.

bill burr discusses F Is For Family

We're laughing already because here in the Cayman Islands Interview Lounge
because
comedian Bill Burr has stopped by this morning. Bill, thanks for coming to the
Cayman Kind Studio. Oh, thank you for having me in the Cayman Island Memorial
Studios.
That's what it is. We're glad to have you. You got a busy week. We're just
looking at
your schedule. You're going to be on Fallon and Conan, right, this week? I'm
Media Boy
this week. I got a new animated show or a cartoon, as I still call it, coming
out
on Netflix called F is for Family. Six episodes. It's about this family, the
Murphy family. It takes place in 1973 and it's the 70s as far as how me, Mike
Price, one of the co-creators of the show, how we remember it. And your voice
of the
dad. I'm the voice of the dad. It was an amalgam of my dad, Mike's dad and
everybody
else in the writer's room. It's basically we set it back where that time where
you
could, you know, you know, kids today, you know, they wear helmets when they
ride
bicycles. They have play dates and all that. And back then it was, they just
sent you
outside. Like, get out of here. Go outside. Yeah. You could, you could
literally bring a
gun to the airport back then. If you had your briefcase, as long as you didn't
wave it
around. It was fine. It was just like a different time. And I just, um,
throughout
my career, I've been telling like family stories on, uh, on stage and they
always
did well. And then somewhere about eight years ago, as that, you know, play
date
generation came of age, it started getting like, not groans, like sip, like, oh,
like
started going like that. Even though that they, they had dads like my dad,
right? Like
that dad still exists and mom still exists. But now it's like socially this
whole, oh, that's bullying. Oh, that's traumatic for the kid. And it just
became
like this overly thinking things. And, um, so I just got frustrated and I
stopped
telling the stories, but I knew they were still funny. And one day I was
walking my
dog. I was like, what if I just animated them? And I just was going to do these
little five minute vignettes on my website. Like, you know, Burr family goes to
get a
Christmas tree and then all the dysfunction. Of course, being a comedian, I
procrastinated and I never did it. So then one day I had a meeting with, uh,
Vince Vaughn's company, Wild West. And I just sort of just threw it out there
and
they were looking to do the show. Then we got in business with Netflix and
Netflix came up with the brilliant idea to serialize it, which I didn't know
means have one episode leading to the next one, which really took the writing
to
another level. And, um, and then here we are four years later. Is it? Yeah. No,
I
mean, we, we had a chance to watch it today. First of all, you know, it's, it's
called efforts for family, but probably not for the family. It's, it's an adult
version. Well, it's not for kids. Right. Not for kids. Yeah. But families will
totally
be able to relate to this. If you want to go and yeah, if you had any sort of,
uh, I
don't know, family that I, you know, I grew up in. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Well, how
close is it to, to your family? Like how many kids were, did you grow up with?
Oh, no,
it's it's if we had, we had six kids. Oh, there's only three kids. Maybe I can
have six
different kids and drama. It's not like a top cat where you can have 20 cats
running
around. It becomes a pain in the butt. So you just sort of like, I took pieces.
Yeah.
Pieces of all, uh, you know, just pieces from my life. Every writer. What I
like about
it is my family can watch it and not be like, Oh my God, you put all our dirty
laundry out
there, but they, they will see elements and hints and stuff like that. And
sometimes it's just
a 10 speed bicycle. Other times it's like a catchphrase. Like my dad saying, I'll
put
you through that bleeping wall was something that he used to say. And, uh, you
can't say that now.
Dad's kids. Yeah, you can. You can do all of that stuff. This is whole like,
this is whole chicken
little, the sky is falling and that people believe you can't say things like
that stuff you were talking
about. Like the polar bear with the Starbucks. Yeah. That is one of the biggest
non stories I've ever
heard in my life. Like it is, it's throats flashed. No, it's a scarf. We
screwed it up. It's supposed
to be a scarf. Oh, okay. That's what it should be. It's supposed to be flipping
out. Half of those
people flipping out about the, uh, the polar bear, you know, they have iPads
and flat screen TVs that
all end up in the ocean, which is why those polar bears are drowning. That's
why, but you're going to
see, you're not going to adjust that part of your life, but you're going to
bitch about the cookie.
Right. Yes. But yeah. Yes. Uh, but F is for family. What is it available on
Netflix? Uh,
December 18th. Okay. Um, all you can binge watch all of binge watch, but it
took us over a year to
draw and do all that. And you can watch it all in about two hours, 40 minutes
and be like, Hey,
when's the next six coming out? But I'm really proud of it. Uh, it's not just
like, you know,
we can curse on the show, which we obviously, that's what I meant by saying for
the kids. Yeah.
But there's still a lot of, we, we still, there's that baby of the greatest
moment in the end,
like when it always came back. And I just remember with my family, we're going
to get a Christmas
tree and there'd be all this traumatic dysfunction of trying to get the army of
kids and everybody
into the car and having the whole thing. Yeah. And then, uh, but then in the
end, you know,
the fire's going, you're decorating the tree and everything settles, the dust
settles down again.
Yeah. It was very, uh, no, no, the show is great. And we really enjoyed it. And
it's funny. And it does
have that, the, uh, that honeymooners kind of like you said, baby, you're great.
Yeah. But it's a really
cool to watch it because to me, it's a period piece. I grew up in the seventies
phone on the wall.
Like you said, you know, the stingrays, the 10 speed bike. So it's, it's going
to be fun. And I think
even for a younger generation to look back and go, wow, that's, that was
probably a cool time to grow up.
But also, I think a lot of them can also relate to the same stuff. I mean, we're
going to have, you know,
kids want to, you know, taking out the family car, kids trying to hook up, you
know, and, uh,
you have some big stars, some big voice, you know, voice stars. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Uh,
Laura Dern does the voice of, uh, Susan, uh, Frank's wife, the character that I
play. Justin
Long does Kevin, uh, Haley Reinhardt from, uh, uh, American Idol. Yeah. That's
the voice of me.
Uh, little me, I should say. Oh, is that right? Debbie Derryberry. If you watch
any Pixar movies,
she's probably in all over it. Uh, Gary Cole, Dave Koechner, Sam Rockwell.
How does that happen? Like, how do you get these people on board? You know what?
We wrote a great
script. Right. That's what happened. We wrote a really funny script. And then I
forget who signed
on first, but once you bring one of them in the boat, then all of a sudden it
becomes,
oh, this is a real thing. And, uh, it was probably the most exciting thing was,
was getting people that
I have all that respect for to actually react to what we all wrote. And, you
know, um, you know,
we had a great writer's room, Dave Richardson, Emily Towers, uh, Tom Giannis.
And we just,
I just remember laughing the whole time. I mean, there's obviously, you know,
it's always hard when
you first start an episode, you know, just getting the rock moving up the hill.
But once you got that
first draft and after the second punch up, that's when it really got fun. And
that's when you could
really tighten it up and really, how many episodes? There's six. Okay. So they,
they kind of gave us
six just to see how it does. And if, how it works at Netflix is they put the
whole thing out at once.
And then if people respond to it, then they just do an order of the second
season. So when that's
going to happen, I don't know how soon that happens. You need views, right? I
mean, that's, yeah,
that's how it works, right? Yeah. And we're also coming out the same day as
Star Wars.
That's right. You can't get tickets to Star Wars. So yeah, maybe people will
watch,
people are telling me, I'm going to watch while I stand in line for Star Wars
and I'm going to binge
watch this stuff. But that's what people do now. Christine is, you know, like,
uh, got me into
Walking Dead and that's how you guys watch it. Just binge watching. Oh, I
watched, uh, uh,
Bloodline and I watched Peaky Blinders. I'm watching Fargo. It's too easy. I
mean,
because the next one just rolls and rolls. Yeah. Next thing you know, it's four
in the morning.
Oh my God, I got to do radio here. Just want to see what happens in the next
episode. Okay. I'm watching
another hour. And then it goes and it goes. But I mean, Netflix is such a great
venue. They've got,
I think the most Golden Globe nominations. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Are they
not afraid to
be not politically correct? Because yeah, I mean, in parts of the show, there
was like, wow, you know,
the networks, their notes were basically push it further. It was the dream. Wow.
But that
whole political correctness, it's just, I swear to God. That's your hot button,
Bill. No, it's not.
It isn't though. It's just like people are adults. They understand. Look, if,
if animated characters
can destroy all of your parenting in six episodes, you're like the worst parent
ever. You're the worst
parent. Yeah. Or there's something wrong with your kid. He was just born with
the Damien scene or,
or whatever. It's just, you know, it was refreshing to see that, you know, you
do those things because
ironically, and I think maybe that was the inspiration for it too, is that's
what you got
away with in the seventies. You couldn't do Archie Bunker now. Maybe, maybe you
could do it. You totally
could. Right. If, if, if the networks and the advertisers could just stand up
to these, like some
of these groups, they're just bullies and they deliberately take things out of
context. Look,
I'm a believer that if you're wrong, you apologize, but you don't let somebody,
if they take something
out of it, like that stupid polar bear. Yeah. It's like, no, it's a scarf. Yeah.
It's a scarf. Yeah.
So now I have to apologize because you think we like, what kind of a dope
thinks that Starbucks is
going to have a bear with a slit throat in the holidays? Yeah. Like they sat
around and have, yeah,
that's what we're going to do. We have polar bears with its throat cut. Wait a
minute. Do we know?
No. This will, this will drum up business and, and just, and then I think it's
also,
have they apologized yet? Do we know? Because they probably, no, they haven't
apologized yet.
But I think it becomes like, it becomes like clickbait. It's, it's really lazy
journalism. And it's just,
it's an easy thing. I swear to God, like comedians get more blowback than bankers
who depleted the
savings of people who fought in wars for this country. And they're eating Alpo
now sitting in some old
folks home instead of their, their, their house that they should have had. And
those guys,
none of them go to jail, but God forbid you tell a joke in a strip mall, right?
And somebody in one
person out of like 400 doesn't like it. And that becomes a story. And they
write a blog about it.
And they treat the blogger like, like they won like a Peabody award for the New
York Times. It's just,
this is some dope in the crowd who sat there and watched a hundred subjects go
by and everything was
funny. And then it came to their part, their part of their life. Oh, that was a
statement. Yeah.
He meant that one struck a nerve. Yeah. They're babies. They're babies. And if
you just stand up to
them, they're bullies. Have you changed up your standup at all? Cause you said
you felt it happen.
Like you felt this change about eight years ago and a lot, y