Comedy Saved Me.

This is what I love about stand up.

It's a very communal activity that you get to share with the audience.

I'm Len Hoffman, and welcome to the Comedy Save Me Podcast, where we explore the power of the punchline.

Joining us today, can't even believe it is a stand up comedian, an actor, producer, author, comedy writer, comedy historian.

Oh yeah, also on the side, a musician, an adjunct professor, and dabbler of podcasts.

You've seen him in shows over the decades, from Baywatch and X Files to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

It's always Sonny in Philadelphia, Silicon Valley Dummy.

I could go on here for the whole hour, but I digress.

We are going to be speaking with the Emmy winning amazing man known as Wayne Fetterman next on Comedy Save Me, Don't Move Comedy Saved Me.

Right, he feels like he's part of your family.

If he feels like he's part of your family, that's because he really he really is.

I mean, you've literally seen this man in every television show, movie, and commercials since the early seventies.

Comedy or drama, take your pick.

All right, it may sound like I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I feel like I can refer to him as a prolific and expert comedic entertainer who once had Jimmy Fallon as his opening act.

Wayne Fetterman, Welcome to Comedy Save Me.

It's true honor to have you here today.

Well, thank you.

You know, yes, I was doing comedy in junior high school in the early seventies, but I'm not quite that all that.

I was born in the forties or something, But thank you.

Thank you for the introduction.

Very flattering.

I love it.

It did sound that way.

But you ever walk up to somebody or see like a celebrity, even in your own business, that comes by and you've seen them in so many things, sometimes you don't realize it who you think it is.

You just think it's family, and so.

Course, yes, of course, yes, yes we have this, we have this in common where you're like, I know, is this a person?

Yeah?

Well, you are definitely the perfect guest for this show because you've spent most of your life not just working as an actor and comedian, but also teaching and studying and writing about the fine art and history of stand up comedy.

As evidenced in your recent book The History of Stand Up Congratulations, which also turned into a podcast.

Just to start us off, I'm curious in your studies as a professor at USC adjunct, did you include your studies in comedy about how it has healing powers for both the givers of the comedy and the receivers, And if so, what did you glean off of this album.

As a matter of fact, they didn't.

I just stuck mainly, I know the theme of this show is the power of the comedy.

I was more just talking about its evolution and how it went from a very small a part of variety shows to now it is the show like it used to be.

Just like the monologists, that's what stand ups were called.

We're like part of a variety show.

Even before Vaudeville they were doing it, and then eventually people really started gravitating towards what these people were saying.

And I think it's just the simplicity of one person standing on stage with a microphone and just you get this view inside their mind and they're basically tickling your mind.

They're not physically tickling.

You, but they're mentally tickling your mind with misdirections and observations and you know, embarrassing stories that you might be able to relate to.

So it's a very This is what I love about stand up.

It's a very communal activity that you get to share with the audience.

And I was just thinking about this the other day.

I'm going to go off just a little bit because I've been thinking, like I was at a street fair the other day and there was a band playing in one of the shells and there was maybe two people watching the band, but the band was cooking, and you could have like the greatest guitar solo you ever do in your life in front of one person or at sound check or anything, but a stand up you need the audience, you need the give and take.

So it's that human connection that really sets it apart from a lot of the other art forms.

Yes, that is interesting, and you know it's funny you said that.

It almost is like even when you're one on one with someone and they pull out a guitar and they perform for you, it's it's still it's not quite the same.

It's not the same thing.

Whether it's does that make.

Sense, Like you're sitting on me, you because it's there's a comedian named Dana Gould who would be a great person to talk to on this podcast because he's a very deep thinker, super hilarious, funnier than I am.

And it's just like it's just great.

And he's dealt with like kind of little more mental health issues than I have.

And he said that stand up is a conversation, but only one person is talking.

Wow, that would be really hard for me because I love to talk obviously.

Can you pinpoint, Wanne the moment when you realized that comedy wasn't just something that you enjoyed, but it was something that you needed in your life.

Clearly you needed it.

Well, I don't know, this was my thing.

My thing was I enjoyed the attention, the affirmation.

Even when I was in high school, I was a funny kid and that's when this whole dream started for me.

Really, And there.

Were other funny kids in high school, but they were very disruptive, and my goal as a class comedian or something was to make the teachers laugh as well as the students.

It was easy to make the students laugh.

You could just be you know, incorrigible against the you know, the authority.

Figure.

But if I could get the teachers to laugh as well, I was like, Okay, now at least I know I have like a an aptitude for this world, and like, let me give this, let me give this a shot.

And many teachers encouraged me.

But it wasn't like like the name of your podcast really makes me laugh.

It makes it sound like, Oh, I was an accountant and I was this drudgery and one night I did a knock knock joke to a colleague and I laughed and it saved my life.

It's not quite like that, but I did want to lead a creative life.

That was lynn that was my goal.

Well it's you know, it's funny.

You said that the funny ones were disruptive and you wanted to make the teacher laugh.

The disrupt ones were probably the ones that were just so bored.

That's all they wanted to do was disrupt.

I love that you wanted to make the teacher laugh, because a gets you out of having to study because they're laughing so hard.

I used to do that to my mom.

We had to go to bed.

I try to make her laugh so we could stay up later.

Oh I say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, all my friends who are super super smart, they were the disruptors.

And believe it or not, a lot of those disruptor kids also became stand ups.

Yeah, you're trying to say that you were stupid or something, because I wasn't.

My point I was, I was not trying to know.

I'm saying that that you could also be like a juvenile, delinquent comedian and as well.

And but I unlike.

I feel like a lot of stand ups that I talked to hated school, and I didn't.

I really I liked learning and I liked the community of it all.

But that might have to be because I came from a very tense house sold so it was like, oh, this is a place where I can really get some you know, affirmation and community and things like that.

So it's weird.

It's weird.

That's interesting.

Yes, it isn't.

How many siblings in the family do we have.

It's a lot.

It's very kind.

I don't think we have enough time to go through the whole thing.

But basically there was four kids.

I was the youngest, and then my father died very young, never knew him, and then my mom remarried four years later and had two other kids.

So I have step siblings, but I just think of them as full brothers, sisters.

It's not like, oh yeah yeah, because I never knew my dad, so and so it was a pretty big family, and you know I needed attention apparently, well I couldn't get it yet.

No, that makes that makes a lot of sense.

And you know, it's so interesting that you say, that's exact same story of my husband.

He was sixteen.

But still, it's really a hard thing when you don't know your father and didn't ever get to meet him.

And it says a lot about who you are today too.

That I like the way you in the middle of this, you have to brag that you got married.

It's fun.

Oh well I stopped him for years, so did he gave in?

Are you warmed down?

I love it?

I love it.

I love it.

Was there a specific a set or show or comedic moment where you felt like you finally belonged somewhere and you knew this was where you needed to be because you've done so much.

It's absolutely incredible and mind boggling when I go through your sizzle reel.

Yeah, how much stuff you have done?

Thank you, thank you.

No, it's so somebody, Yeah, I look at it.

I was just trying to get the next thing, like in the whole run of it.

And I am, by no means like a famous comedian.

I'm a working comedian.

And so there's a slight difference in that.

Was there a moment can you ask that question again?

Was there a moment I felt like I belonged.

That you belonged, like that you had found your niche outside the high school with the teacher.

Yeah, yeah, that side of making missus Forresburg laugh.

Wow, let me think.

Yeah, I would say.

I would say when I was there was like a comedy club that I developed at in New York City called the Comic Strip.

And when I started doing like weekend sets, which were the prime sets you could get there, and was doing very well.

On those sets.

I was playing the ukulele, I was just doing silly stuff, and I was like, Oh, I think I can.

I think I can do this because I gave myself ten years.

I gave myself my thirties before I would even think of assessing whether this could be a career.

I was like, I'm going to give up my ex year until thirty.

So my entire twenties, I would give up and to pursue this as fully as I could.

And then and by the my time as twenty seven or twenty eight, it was like making a living.

I paid off my student loan all doing comedy.

So I was like, oh, I guess I'm part of it.

It's so funny you keep asking for these specific moments.

And to me, it was more like a rolling rock kind of thing.

That just like just kept pushing it.

Yes, like momentum was going and there'd be setbacks and the rock would roll back over me and I keep going, and you know, so there really wasn't like, oh my god, this one moment I'm performing and George Carlin was in the crowd and he put his arm around me.

There was nothing like that.

No.

I mean, like I saw pictures of you with one of my idols as a kid growing up, Bob Hope and Gary Shanling and Steve Carella.

I mean, like you're just going one on one with the biggest names.

And to me, by the way, you said you weren't a famous comedian, you are a famous comedian.

I think you've just been so busy working you haven't realized who you are.

Okay, you might be right.

You might be right.

I doubt it, but thank you for saying that.

No, but what gave you that that gumption to continue to pursue each new role?

I mean it.

I'm not exaggerating when I say, if you go to Waynefetterman dot com at the d R M A N you will just be amazed.

You were part of every part of my life.

Wayne.

This is all right, now, don't make me blush.

I'm fangirling on you.

It's not going to go well for me, all right.

So what was your question?

When did I know what?

Well?

All right, it's just overwhelmed by the compliment.

So I'm sorry.

Yeah, I know I tend to do that.

I didn't mean to throw you off.

Let's just move on.

Okay, okay, okay.

How has your relationship with comedy changed over the years?

Do you ask these questions that are that have built in assumptions in them that I don't know if I agree with the built into something.

Let me think about it.

My relationship with comedy, Oh my god, I'd never even think of being in a relationship with comedy.

I just feel like, oh, I had an aptitude for this as a kid, I pursued it because I just loved the idea of it the first time, even in high school, and I went to I'm from Florida.

I'm like from nowhere, from a place called this is embarrassing, Plantation, Florida.

I know, Plantation, Florida, you know, yeah.

Oh my god.

So anyway, I'm from Plantation.

It's kind of an embarrassing name.

And I went to South Plantation High School.

I'm from the less progressive part, the south part of a place called Plantation.

There's a south part of Plantation.

Eye, yes, that's what south.

I went to South Plantation High School.

So it's just so funny.

I know, it's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

But they had this, oh my god, I wish I could remember the name of it, but like at the in the guidance counselor's office, like this book of possible professions and it was like numerous books and you would read it as a doctor, you know, had to do ant caesiologist if he didn't want to be a full doctor.

Thing and nurse assistant whatever, construction manager stuff.

And one of them was entertained.

Literally, they had like entertainer.

They didn't say stand up comedian, but they you know, and I was reading about it, I was like, oh, this, this is actually a career.

And then once I realized that making people laugh could be a career, that's exactly what I wanted to do.

And I just did two things.

I did stand up.

And I wanted to be a good comedic actor like in commercials, which I also was able to knock on wood achieve a little bit.

So that was my strategy.

So I don't know if I have a relationship with comedy, Yeah, a relationship.

Comedy hasn't called me quite a bit.

I'm getting desperate.

I keep calling comedy on the weekend break up.

Yeah.

Yeah, comedy broke my art several times.

Actually, comedy seeing another comedian it's really it's bad.

It's bad.

I don't know why you would.

So I don't really think of it having a relationship with it as more just I don't know, an absolute affinity for it because it's the best.

It's so human.

That's what I love about comedy is the human part about it.

It's like you're really it's part of the human and it goes back way before staying you know, I mean, as soon as there was even before then, like in all of these societies, like you know Inca, the Mexica that they all the Native Americans there was always like a funny person and making life is part of the human experience.

So I'm just part of a small part of this huge wave that's been part of being alive.

It's part of being alive.

No, speaking of that, do you feel that people have to be able to laugh at themselves in order to be a good comedian.

I try not to.

Again, I'm like a bad person for this podcast because I'm very much a nuanced guy for the most part.

Lynn, I do think, yes, I think, But I do know comedians that are just like to are angry at the world and have a comedic lens in which to vent that anger.

And I don't know if they have a sense of humor about themselves.

So I don't know if that's true for me, Like that's I do self deprecating comedy.

So I'm always there is no better, There really is no better.

Well, thank you, thank you.

I don't know if that's true, but yeah, so that's what I try to do.

But I can't speak on behalf of other I can't speak on behalf of other comedians.

For myself, I like making fun of myself and so much.

He once said, that's like you just can't take your you know, the whole thing is ridiculous.

Anyway, when you break down stand up, you're just like if there was an alien who came down and went walked into a comedy club and there's one person standing and everyone else and then they're making these involuntary sounds and then once in a while colapping like what.

Is happening here?

Like why are these people?

What?

It's this weird ritual that's going on with you grunting noises and things and screams, and like, okay, do you.

Do you love making people laugh?

Do you love working with other people that make you laugh?

Is that sort of part for the for your profession?

You know?

I don't know if I use the word love, but I do have an intense, intense attraction, no, a tense pashion for it.

I do.

I do, I'd love Not only do I like doing comedy, which is terrifying at times because when it's not going well, not only do you know it the audience knows that everyone in the room can feel it.

It's not great, it's not great, and I know, And so there's a little bit of like you're on a tightrope up there and you can fall and people can tell, and it's you're a wallnda brother, all of a sudden, it's not good.

It's not good.

So I do love doing it, but I also love watching it.

And I know other comedians who don't watch other don't watch comic.

They don't like it.

They just want to think about what they're doing.

Is it not because they don't want someone who's funnier that they don't want to see someone who's funnier than them.

I think partly maybe that just like cause it's I hate to say it, underneath all of this love of comedy and elevated the stuff there is there's this huge competition and suddenly, oh, that comedian's driving a Lamborghini and I'm still with the camera over here.

So it's there is that part of its no question, no question, the goals in comedy is to be big, like that's your kind of your goal.

And so it's very clear who is selling out arenas and who is you know not or playing smaller clubs or I don't even know if you know this, not to get in the weeds too much.

But there's like A clubs and then what they call B clubs and C clubs and that's and with each letter it keeps getting worse, the kind of environment you have to perform in front of.

So so no, it's and it's all getting laughs.

It's all getting from the open micer to Dave Chappelle, they're all doing the same thing standing up there trying to get laughs using your mind and your words and your thought, you know, comedic ideas that you're presenting through your what I call a specific comedy lens, like how you've see in the world.

Yeah, it's just like, oh, I see it focused tier.

You're looking there like I don't remember the.

Willing to you?

What does it feel like to you when you do that?

Like have you ever have you ever bombed and then had to recover?

Please?

Oh come on, give it to me please please?

Oh yeah, I mean I don't want to really, I will tell you.

The site of my worst show was in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, at a holiday inn.

I don't want to go into the details of it, but that's a hole.

That's how comedy almost killed me.

Should be your other podcast.

Oh No, So it was a very very I was devastating.

And some comedians have an ability like if it goes bad, they'll turn on the audience because they're like, I'm not going to be the one feeling bad about this.

You're going to be the one.

I'm going to punish the crowd.

It's really interestingly, I was never like that.

I was always, Oh, this feels good, this means I'm not funny, or I don't have the skills to do this, or I don't have it tonight, and I will tap dance my way through this the best I can put on a fake smile that everyone sees as fake and try to power through it.

And but I try not to turn on the crowd.

I try as a rule, like I can't even think of times I don't think I ever have.

And but that's a self defense mechanism for a lot of comics that they don't.

They're like, I'm not going to feel bad.

You're going to feel bad because this isn't work even if it is.

The comedians anyway, very new I've.

An audience of that, you have I have I've seen that happen before.

Yeah, out in LA one time, it was painful, like I cringed for the comedian and for the audience because it was really difficult.

And I give you so much credit for just going back at it.

And so what keeps you going in this industry?

How have you been able to collect such an incredible resume?

Great question?

I think one of my skills I got a good question after.

All this time without an assumption.

Built in.

One of my skills besides being okay a comedy and all of that, is I have an ability to recover from rejection.

I have that bit.

It's not immediate, it's not like, oh whatever, that thing, brush it off, like it takes the day or something or maybe a few days.

And if I have a bad set, it's not I really don't feel completely whole until I'm back on stage and had a reasonable set after that.

So but I do have the ability to and I've had a lot of really very devastating rejections and I'm just like, all right, this is part of this, is it?

No one No one owes you anything like show business doesn't owe me a career at all.

There's no you know, no thing.

There's no guys weighing out, oh what's fair or anything like that.

So that would be to answer your one good question this entire IM kidding.

I'm kidding.

To answer your I would say my ability to handle yes, yeah.

All right.

I got another follow up on that.

If you're okay with.

Course, I love it.

Let's follow up.

The follow up is, what would you say to a young person who's getting into the industry, who has a difficult time dealing with rejection or you know that they're heading in that direction.

What would you say to them?

What kind of advice, words of wisdom?

Sage adjunct professor.

That's good.

What would you say?

I would try again, I try not like I feel like everyone's on their own path and their own way, and just because I did it this way doesn't mean that'll work because obviously the industry changes a little every day.

Obviously it's way different now than when I started.

I would just say, you know, keep creating.

I know, not to take a person I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

Well, this is this is what's coming into my head.

Is a sidebark, because I really feel like younger people have way better connection and ability and tools to deal with negative feedback because of the Internet.

Like, I know people that like, they think it's funny when they get hate comments on their TikTok or x videos or Instagram videos.

They think it's funny.

Others even think it's great.

It's like, that's how you build an audience.

You have to have some people that hate you and some people love you.

They fight, and that adds to your you know, your outdoing or something.

Yeah, yeah, the number of impressions you make.

I'm sure you know this world something I don't know any So I actually would do with the other I think I think I could get advice from young people on how they deal with just, you know, making fun of whatever.

You're most vulnerable about it.

The way you look, the way you sound, your material, you're not funny, all of that.

I actually think usually younger people are way better at handling that than I am.

They're just like, oh, I think it's funny that I have haters, and I'm like, oh, well, I'm not that fox skin these days.

I'm not that evolved.

I'm a sensitive first, and I think you can tell.

We'll be right back with more of the Comedy Save Me Podcast.

Welcome back to the Comedy Save Me Podcast.

You had this recurring role on one of my all time favorite shows on HBO called Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Yes, And I always wanted to know how, I mean, was the whole thing ab lived?

Did you just get bullet points?

And how do you go up against these titans of television and comedy and add lib and feel confident about it?

I mean that that must have been.

Was that harder than doing a stand up show?

No?

Much easier, much easier.

How because stand up show it's all on you.

It's like the whole thing.

You get all the acclaim and you get all the blame like ite's I know that that rhymes.

I just came up with that.

So that is the you know, the high wire act that stand up comedy, like you are up there, just so you know, human beings' biggest fear is standing on stage talking to an audience, like more than death, more than dying in a plane crash, any of them drowning, it's that that's human beings.

And then to add another level when of expectation that you need to elicit laughter.

Now we're talking about a level or people are just how many times, I mean, people always come up to me and like, I don't know how anyone could possibly do.

It all right, Well you don't have to.

Luckily you don't thank you for pain to come to the show.

So uh so back to curb your enthusiasm.

That's much easier.

Yes, you nailed it.

You answered your own question.

This is your second best question because I don't have to do anything.

I just have to nod.

Yes.

There is bullet points of what has to happen in the scene, and no lines of dialogue are written at all.

All you all you have to do is just listen and react.

That's all you have to do in Curb your enthusiasm.

See, that would horrify me because I would be so worried that it wouldn't be good or up to par.

And then what does Larry say to you?

If you don't really give him what he wants?

You have to do that over again the scene.

We do it over and over and he's like each time, he's like, do more of that, do less of that.

But he kind of liked what I was doing, right, I sort of had an angle on how to play this character Dean Weinstock, and so which was I want to be the worst person in the world, but under the guise of a nice person like what they go passive aggressive, So that was like, that was just like my angle, and it was working right from the start.

Luckily.

I don't know what would have happened if he.

Had been like, oh, this is not what we wanted at all.

I mean, I guess there was that possibility, So I don't know.

I just thought it was easy, actually much easier to me than acting when you have lines that are written, because then I'm kind of worried that I'm going to forget the lines.

That's true.

I didn't even think of that at all, think.

A little bit.

Please please sorry, no love of God.

I love, I love.

Beat me up.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I'm gonna get bad review.

Yeah, so I have.

I don't know.

You've acted right occasionally not.

Yeah, but it's like when.

You act, you have to say these lines the same way and make it sound like you're thinking of them at the time, and it's.

Oh, oh yeah.

I'm a voiceover artist as well.

I do imaging for like hundreds of stations in radio and television and stuff, so I guess that would be my acting because I have to read lines and sound important.

Yeah.

Yeah, but but I'm saying on camera if you don't have the line right in front of you want to stand?

Do you clip it on or do you what's your what's your technique my microphone?

Yeah no, I mean I'm talking about the copy you have to read.

Oh my technique is I try to be like Don la Fontaine and just do one take.

It never works out that way, though, I like I try to just read cold and just go through the lines and react as I naturally am reading it, as opposed to thinking about it too much.

Well, what a legend that dude.

You should drive around in that limo to gig take?

Oh my god, I know, in the.

World, in a world time, in the world.

So so that's it.

So, yes, I found it very Actually I didn't find it that challenge.

I mean, I was thrilled at the situation I thought was funny, and and I'd known Larry when he was doing stand ups, so I had already known the guy, so it wasn't like it wasn't unknown.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

So last question, and my god, I'm starting to get a little anxiety because what I do question?

Oh, I'm sorry.

If comedy hadn't found you, where do you think you would be today, What do you think you would be doing?

Actually this is second to last question because I want more.

You can do.

You can do two bonus.

We're in the wing, going to the bonus round.

I don't care, all right, I have a hunch it would be close to what I'm doing now, which is I teach this history of stand up class at USC based on my book.

But I've I always kind of liked history.

It might have been it might have been like stayed in school and become a teacher or something.

I like, you know, I know that sounds creepy, but I like kids.

I like their energy.

I just it's you know, it's fun.

It's creepy about that.

I feel the same.

I just said to my husband the other day.

It's like, let's go to dinner with the neighbors.

They're like in their early thirties, they have four kids.

They're so upbeat.

It feels so great to be around them.

You know, there's you know, there's something to that.

All right, I'm curious where do you live?

Where do you live?

You don't have to tell me the exact street, but like.

I'm in Connecticut.

Oh, I was originally from Boston.

Oh, so I went to New York and then I ended up here like an Asella kid.

I get it.

Yeah, pretty much, Asella Dweller, I get it.

Say I know that world a little bit.

Wait what world were we just talking about?

No, you were talking about kids.

I said that I like kids and that I think sometimes that sounds creepy, but it's true.

I was a camp counselor and still friends with some of the kids that I was the counselor of years ago.

Like it was called Racket Lake boys Camp.

There was a Racket Lake.

There's a boy's camp and lake and girls camp.

On the other side.

They had socials.

It was so it was like it was like Norman Rockwell created this place.

It's up in the Adirondack Mountains.

No ragweed sometimes I have that allergy.

Oh you meant the smoking kind.

I didn't know.

No, no, no, see I'm not.

I'm the king of at again.

No, No, I get I get Do I look like a dope fiend to you?

Do?

I just occasionally, what Wayne, what do you think the world would be like without comedy?

In a weird way, because I know you also do the music one Craig Yes, yes, yes, and as much as I love comedy and I've dedicated my life to it.

I really think music as a human artistic form, despite the fact that it's not a give and take, is maybe more healing than comedy.

And let me tell you why.

Because after nine to eleven they did a concert on television, a live concert, and no one wanted to hear from comedians, But we did want to hear from Tom Petty and other you know, singing singing, because that like touches our souls, touches our soul in a way that comedy is more about the mind.

I think music is more about the soul, not that there's nothing some and some comedians Gary Goldman, I'm looking at you and Maria Bamford, they go into that world that but I do feel like music does.

And that's why when you go to see a musician, you want to hear the songs that you heard before that connected with you.

Whereas you go to see comedian, if they do a bit they did ten years ago, you're like, can you write.

Something new, please?

Please, sir.

It's one hundred percent true.

You have to have you have to have new material all the time.

And with music, they're like, please, Paul play a Jude.

Let it be Lady Madonna, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And if you were comedian and you want to see I don't know gaff again or you know Mulaney and he was doing his subway bit that he did from fifteen years ago, I don't think you'd be that.

Yeah, maybe they'd be fans like, oh, I love this bit, but it's it's a different kind of thing.

I know this is so philosophical.

I hope I'm not too much into the weeds on this.

No, I appreciate.

It's a very refreshing take because it's it's very different than other interviews I've done with comedians.

So I love hearing a totally different angle.

I tend to be more on like the agreeable side with you, because when people ask me about stuff that I do, I'm always like, so unimpressed.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I don't know how to affects people.

I'm not trying to.

I'm just kind of doing what makes me feel good.

And you know, but the success that you've had, it's a lot, and obviously you've been so busy.

Sometimes we get so busy working all of a sudden, it's like ten years ago by and you're like, what happened?

You know, what do I need to get caught up on because I'm so into what I'm doing.

But I just disagree with you about the feeling because.

You feel like stay, you feel like comedy is more for the soul than for the mind.

I just think that when you hear that song or that you've had incredible belly laughs, it's the same feeling that you just feel healed in some way.

Maybe.

I mean, obviously people get there's some Cathartis experience going on with comedy when you're just losing it and stuff.

Yeah, no, I mean.

That that is true.

So maybe maybe I'm underselling comedy.

A little bit.

I just think of it.

I think of it a little more as a less elevate.

I know this sounds horrible because I've dedicated my whole life, you know, my few hours, as I like to say, here on this planet.

To this.

It's a good question.

This is a good question.

I guess for some.

People, comedy is obviously healing and reinvigorating and life affirming, right of course, of course.

But to the level of music, I don't know.

I don't know, all right.

I don't know.

I mean it's not there's no right or wrong obviously, it's just wayn with the stupid opinions.

Well, Wayne, are you going to be teaching anytime soon a class at USC but little college out in California?

Yeah, anytime soon.

Yeah, I'll be the next week.

But yeah, well, I think you should add to your syllabus.

Tell me, I think you should add on.

Hold on, hold on, I got the paper.

Let me write this down.

No, it's not going to be that or shattering.

I just use by the way I use the Flair pen.

Are you familiar with this?

Did you do a commercial for that one time?

No?

No, I've never seen a flare pen commercial.

I don't have a flare pen.

Do you know what?

It is very hard to come.

It's really good.

What do you use?

What do you use?

What is that?

This pencils JC mobile Auto?

It's a promotional pen.

Okay, a little different world.

No, I think that in all seriousness, What if you studied a little bit of the physical effects, the scientific effects of the power of comedy?

Oh okay, you know, can you Is there any sort of research on that?

Is there any sort of science research it?

Now?

No?

No, no, No.

I thought you were like, oh, you have to study brendel Burg's paper where he talked about it.

Maybe a scientist could come in, like somebody who does study the effects of laughter and human body.

Okay, could be like take you in a whole new direction you never even thought of.

I'm writing, I wrote it down.

Yes, I think it's a good idea.

Of course.

Of course.

Well on that note, don't they always say you should go out on top?

I always heard you leave them wanting more, but you say go out on top?

All right?

Going out on top?

Well, just in your eyes, Wayne, because I do want to leave you with good feelings because I am such a huge fan and I'm so grateful to have spent this time, and you're just so easy and disarming to talk to, and you're like just normal kind of guy who's been in probably every television show and commercial and movie I've ever watched.

So I really do appreciate the time.

Well, thank you for reaching out.

I know this was this was like a month ago we were going to do this and we kept missing each other and stuff, So thank you for making time.

Oh my god, Wayne Fetterman from South Plantation High School, South Plantation Florida exactly.

If you want to know everything about Wayne, just go to Waynefetterman dot com and you will just laugh and you will just be taken down memory lane and see all of his incredible work and what he continues to do.

What else can we look for for you in the future here.

Well, I would say two things.

By the way, I'm also my favorite credit outside of Curb is there's a movie called Legally Blonde, which I am in.

Of course, one of my favorites too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's no joke.

Though.

If you were to stand here and just say the name of everything that you have worked on, I would have to time it because it would go on for a long time and you don't look old enough.

So that's another crazy thing we can talk about next time.

Thank you, Thank you, Wayne Betderman.

That's it, And there's going to be an updated version of the History of stand Up that's coming out January fifteenth.

I've added a new chapter because I ended it right during COVID, which was around two thousand, so now there's been another five years of stand up fantastic.

So are you going to have that as a podcast as well?

I mean, I mean, I do do a podcast, yes, I mean, but basically it's the book.

Basically it's the book and the audio book.

I have never released it as an audiobook, so I'm going to be doing what you do, staying in front of a mike reading thing there.

That's awesome.

We'll enjoy and if you need a stand in, I'm happy to do it.

Oh my god, you're too nice.

You're too nice.

Thank you Wayne Petterman for being on Comedy Save Me, and we'll see you next time.

Maybe you come on Music Save Me and we can talk about your musical career now is.

Not as deep as obviously my comedy career.

Thank you so much, all right, thank you again, Thank you again,