Name: Louie Anderson Talks About How He Channeled His Mom for His Role in “Baskets”
Uploaded: 2021-05-31T17:00:36.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louie Anderson Talks About How He Channeled His Mom for His Role in “Baskets”' from Bob Saget on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-05-31. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louie Anderson Talks About How He Channeled His Mom for His Role in “Baskets”' from Bob Saget on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-05-31. Transcript available.

Louie Anderson Talks About How He Channeled His Mom for His Role in “Baskets”

Hey everybody, it's Bob Saget's here for you. That's my full name. I've legally
changed my
name from Bob Saget to Bob Saget's here for you. This is a show I think your
kids can listen to.
I don't think we're going to curse because it's Louis Anderson and he is
America's sweetheart and
an old friend of mine because we started kind of at the same time at the Comedy
Store in LA. He's
so amazing. He is a true stand-up, an exceptional stand-up, which we're going
to talk about because
I've known him since he came out to LA and also three-time Emmy Award winner,
right? For his
animated series Life with Louis and of course for Baskets for playing Zach Galifianakis'
mom
so beautifully. It's seamless except for the things he wore. I'm sure they had
extra seams,
but we'll talk about that because I want to do that joke again for Louis and
have him go,
oh, Bob, you can do better than that. Anyway, rate, review, subscribe.
Subscribe, subscribe,
subscribe. That's how you keep a podcast going. And I love doing this one. And
we're coming up to 100
shows and I'm so happy to have Louis on today. If you're going to see his tour
schedule, it's opening
up. I know he's got some dates in September coming up, but any chance you have
to see Louis Anderson
jump at it because he's just one of the most wonderful stand-ups and such a
great person and so loving and so
just damn wonderful. Here he is, my friend, Mr. Louis Anderson.
Louie, I'm really good. Maybe tilt it down a little. I like glasses. Tilt it
down a little. So there's a little less. That's my director thing. Oh, you look
good.
Good. This is very Alistair cook. Like I also can do this. I like the glasses.
I do too. Let's see if we can. And do you want to, you want me to clean it? I
have a, I have this, I have a microfiber.
I'm sure you do. Look, finally, you do the first dick joke. I didn't even touch
it. You love your coffee. I just watched you with Conan. I hadn't seen the last
appearance where you did it zoom wise.
Oh, that was fun. It was fun. And they, what's great about Conan. And I think
it's missed, uh, is that it's a 25 minute interview when he loves somebody, he
runs the whole damn thing.
And yeah, that was so much fun to watch. And I, I feel like I caught up with
you through that, but I've been catching up cause I love baskets, but I haven't
talked to you about it.
Not the show. I just like baskets.
One time I was in, I think I was in Ohio. They have a building that is from a
basket company. I'll have to send you the photo. It's an actual basket, a giant
picnic. It's a picnic basket.
It's because they make baskets. Huh? They make baskets. Yeah. I think they make
baskets, but it's an older building. And I just went, Oh, that's a basket.
You know, that dumb thing. You know, I'm a Midwestern. So I go, Oh, this will
make a great photo.
Do you do selfies?
Here's to you, Bob. Here's to you.
Here's to you. I've got a, a sparkling. Do you drink sparkling as well? Or do
you love, here's to you, Louie. Congrats on everything.
I love sparkling. I love sparkling.
Me too. It gives me the bubbles I need.
Yeah. Like I need bubbles.
You're bubbly.
You look very young.
Well, I lost weight. I lost weight by, uh, worry. And, and my wife, I'm, I just
turned 65 and my wife is 42.
So people will give me crap. Cause not people, kids on the internet. Cause that's
a big age difference, uh, to people.
But it's not to me. Cause that was kind of always, I'm always been, I guess,
younger in my mind, but.
You're a comic.
I'm a comic.
You're an entertainer. You know, we're just, we're not built for older people.
That doesn't sound, it sounds wrong, but it's not.
It is wrong. No, it isn't. I mean, you know, it doesn't matter.
No, it's that energy. It's our energy. It's the energy. You give out the energy
of a kid.
When I look at you, Conan said this about you, like he sees a baby's face.
But I think of you as the kid that, that I did his first tonight show.
I saw you right at, you know, like a day after you did it.
You saw me that night, I think, cause you were at the store.
Yeah. Yeah.
The best thing happened to me that night for my ego.
Um, you know, I, of course I, I did the tonight show and I went to the store.
So they, you know, they played outside.
I knew it was coming.
Right.
You know, it was a really big thing for me.
It's the biggest thing up till then that I'd ever done.
And, um, you know, I'm feeling great.
You know, and how great I am and all that bullshit.
And, uh, a guy comes up to me and he goes, Hey, are you Louie Anderson?
I go, yes, I am.
And I stuck my hand up.
He goes, I don't want to meet you.
Can you move your car?
You got me panned in.
And you literally, I just watched that set.
I, I haven't seen anybody crush like that, where the, every single, everything
aligned, everything,
every joke you teed up, you hit over the park.
And you did some of those jokes on the recent Conan because they are like my
first six minutes.
I did them for 10 years.
Cause they were, they were me.
You know, that's the great thing.
Like, uh, we were, I had nine tonight shows prepared by the time I got my first
one.
Um, that's why you're Louie Anderson though.
You know, but I know, but I mean, I was just like, I'm going to do Johnny.
I'm going to do that show.
I want to do the anniversary show.
I want to host a show.
I want to get my own show, you know, cause I was in a very small, uh, goal
thing.
Get on the comedy store, my name on it.
Right.
Yeah.
On the tonight show.
Um, get, um, out of bed without help.
No.
Um, no, no railings.
No showers without rails.
Um, uh, but the third thing that people might not know about is I wanted to be
a talk show host.
I suspected that you had, you, you, did you do the, was, did you do a talk show?
Was that a Louie show?
No, I get Joan's husband, God rest his soul and her soul, uh, had, had, uh,
committed suicide
and Joan took some time off and they offered me a week or a few days or
something.
And they offered Arsenio a few days and I did it for a few days.
And I said to myself, Oh, I can't do this.
This isn't me.
I mean, you know, you have to make people so interesting.
Yeah.
You know, actors and actresses and nothing personal, but comics all have jokes
and a story.
And, you know, and I went, Oh, I, I don't want to, I like this.
I love that.
Come and sit once in a while and do it, but no, I don't want to do this.
I don't want to do this.
It was a hard decision in one sense, but it was the right decision.
Well, Gary Shanley made the same decision.
I mean, he had the offer and, uh, and decided I can't do it.
And then he went and made Larry Sanders years later, which was, I mean, that
was a full circle
of how you can accomplish it without doing his version of it, which was brilliance.
That changed TV, that show.
It did.
That was the first Larry David show in a sense.
It was the first, that was the first, every, that was the first everything.
I'm going to, of course, somebody is going to say, no, this was the first.
Well, they'll say, they'll say Dick Van Dyke showed the writer's room.
And, but, but it was still this was, this was like single camera film, uh,
inside the minds
of what these people are in complex personalities and what a comics like.
This is the first time we knew the person that was doing that.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, you know, Dick Van Dyke and all those, but we didn't know him.
Or Jack Benny.
Maybe actors knew him and that, but we didn't know them.
Like, you know, we knew Gary and we, and he wasn't him exactly himself, but he
wasn't
exactly not himself.
No, no, it was, it was a strong hybrid version of him.
Were you influenced by him at all?
You know, you'd already been Jack Benny, right?
You, you'd already.
Yeah.
I've been Jack Benny, but I used to stand in the back and go, ah, I can never
write a joke
that good.
And just honestly.
Oh, that particular joke.
I wrote it for him.
That, that one, that joke.
No, I, he's the first friend I made in LA at first.
Yeah.
You guys are a lot alike.
You guys have a very similar demeanor.
Well.
You know, he's a little demeanor than you are, but.
You went through a lot.
His and my friendship went through a lot.
Oh yeah.
You know the story.
And it was, and I always have love for him.
And it was.
Well, you know, there's a whole group of guys.
Difficult.
I don't mean to interrupt you, but I'm gonna.
No, you should.
It's your, you're the guest.
Yeah.
I just.
But there's a whole group of you guys.
There's you.
And there's.
You know, like the guys who are monologists.
Who are, are just have a pattern.
Maybe it's New York.
I hate to say it's New York, but it's you and Kevin.
Uh, Neil.
I didn't.
Yeah.
Kevin Nealand.
And, and all those, all you guys who have that.
That Johnny liked.
I'll say all you guys that were stand up, stand up.
I was more of a character.
I think, you know, like I was a cross between Jack Benny, Bob Hope and Jonathan
Winters.
That's kind of how I always saw myself.
But it was still, you shared experience and the more you did your stand up, you
still tell
jokes, but more of you got revealed as you evolved and got older.
But you know, Bob Hope was my very first joke telling guy.
Hey everybody.
How are you?
I just wanted to let you know, I'm going to be telling a joke.
So listen up.
You know, Bob, Bob was the greatest at letting you know.
Hey everybody.
Wake up over here.
Anyway, came out of here.
Joey Edgerton, everyone.
Bring her out.
He broke the fourth wall.
He did.
He, he, he let them know it was coming.
Cause he knew.
Oh, he was just a, it was just a great deal.
He could deliver a joke, man.
Oh God.
He could deliver a joke.
I saw him once at the, you know, he never played Vegas outside of, of corporates.
I didn't know that.
He never, he never, ever had a run there or anything.
You know, he had, he was that kind of guy who just decided certain things.
But, um, so Frank Rio, do you remember Frank Rio?
Yeah.
He was an agent at triad and then regency.
And then, uh, he was my, my, my personal parents.
And he had Bob.
I said, friend, he goes, Louie, you're, you know, I was at valleys that he goes,
Bob's doing a corporate in the ballroom.
Oh, I said, okay, I'm going to come down after my show.
Can I meet him?
He goes, yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, and there, I got down there just probably 15 minutes after he started.
He did an hour.
He did 90 minutes after I got there and then brought Linda up.
Wasn't that his wife?
Right.
I don't recall.
I think it's, it was Linda or someone like that.
Um, it was a woman's thing.
Barbara.
I think it might've been Barbara.
It was Barbara.
It was Barbara.
Or Dolores.
Dolores.
Maybe.
I don't know.
It was Dolores.
It was Dolores.
Cause she would come up and sing.
Thanks for the memories.
The time I wrote a check, the time you cashed a check, the time you did that.
I fell over on the deck.
Oh, thank you so much.
And I always thought, wow, that's just so.
What a nice way to say to the audience, get ready to stand up and applaud me.
And then, so I'm backstage, you know, they put those, they built those stages
in the big
ballrooms.
You know, they're just, they're like home depot stages.
Right.
Right.
And, uh, Bob comes off.
They're screaming for him.
He's comes up and he gets to the back and there's a little three step thing.
And I'm like, how old are you then?
70.
Um, so you're a Benjamin button.
No, I think I'm, uh, I had to be in my thirties because I, I didn't get out to
LA.
I was 31.
Right.
So he's not a youngster at this point.
Yeah.
No, he, he insisted on being on risers because of the USO show.
So he wanted every show he ever did to be on just those cardboard things with
metal scans.
Yeah.
You know, I think he probably did not there, except I think he cared about
little things
like all of us do.
Right.
I want to know where this is.
Where are you going to put the stool?
Right.
Like silly things.
Or somebody with him knew Bob likes it here.
Yes.
Yeah.
Loaded 45 here in case things don't go up.
Right.
He, um, he, so Bob comes off to that