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• 10 Questions with David Alan Grier
• Thank God You're Here

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Bringing comedy to U.S. troops in Iraq (2:24).
 

Tavis: (Laughs) David Alan Grier is, of course, a former cast member of the Emmy-winning sketch comedy "In Living Color" whose latest TV project is the improv comedy series for NBC called "Thank God You're Here." Earlier this year he traveled to Iraq as part of a USO tour, that is, visiting troops stationed in the region.

We'll talk about that more in a moment. His latest project, though, the season finale of the NBC show airs this Wednesday night. Here now, a scene from "Thank God You're Here."

[Clip]

Tavis: (Laughs) David, how you doing, man?

David Alan Grier: I'm very good, Tavis.

Tavis: Good to see you, brother.

Grier: Now last time I saw you was what? We were kicking it hard (inaudible) -

Tavis: At a Jill Scott concert.

Grier: Yes. HOB, that's what we call it. House of Blues, brother.

Tavis: House of Blues. Yeah, HOB.

Grier: Jill Scott was throwing down.

Tavis: And matter off of fact, her - I probably shouldn't say this on the air but it's too late, I've already teased it now. Steve McKeever, who is the head of Hidden Beach Records, was at my house the other day and brought me some of the stuff off her new CD.

Grier: I love her, man. I love her.

Tavis: There's a couple - I can't talk about it - couple tracks on that thing are just unbelievable. She just gets better and better, I think, with every record.

Grier: Yeah, and her show - there are so few really great performers - young performers - and she's fabulous. She's really wonderful.

Tavis: I don't know about you, there are very few people who I would actually pay to see. A lot of good performers, but to get my money to go see somebody, you -

Grier: You know what I'm saying?

Tavis: There's not a whole lot of people I go pay to see these days.

Grier: Oh, I've come down the hill a few times and been, like, I could be at home watching the video, you know what I'm saying? You really gotta throw down, man.

Tavis: For those who have not seen the show, the concept is what?

Grier: Well basically it's a show that started in Australia. Improv-based. It's called "Thank God You're Here" because that's the first words you hear from any sketch. Say if you were a guest on our show, you would come on, you don't know what you're doing. We put you in a room; we give you a costume you've never seen before.

You come on stage, you kick it with me, and I open a door and put you in a scene. The first words you here are "Thank God you're here." So you just have to improv your way out. Some people make it, some people don't.

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs) You know what, improv has got to be if not the, certainly one of the most difficult things, I would think, in comedy to do. To be funny on the spot with material you have not seen before. Let's face it - most comedians spend their time writing jokes. And they go on stage and they try them out to see if they work. If they work, they put them in the act. If they don't work, they go somewhere into comedy Never-Neverland or something.

Grier: Or we hear them again and again.

Tavis: Yeah, or we hear them again. (Laughs) And they never get funny, yeah.

Grier: No, they don't. No, they don't.

Tavis: So how have you gotten so good at this improv thing, 'cause it's tough to do.

Grier: Well, Tavis, I'm a genius. (Laughter) Which was an improv, actually. No, I never really liked improv, man, I'm going to be honest with you. 'Cause I was never in, like, a "Bucketful of Laughs." When you're in college, come see us at the bar doing our improv. But I started when we did "In Living Color," and we auditioned, and that's the first time I really did extended improvs, not since I was in acting school.

And guess who was in improv? It was myself, Martin Lawrence - who didn't get the job, Chris Rock - who didn't get the job, and who else? Someone else, but those two guys. And we were all improving and having fun.

Tavis: So you hadn't really done this before you hit "In Living Color," in that way.

Grier: No, no, no. But a lot of the rehearsal process on "In Living Color" was about improv. We would start with this sketch, but immediately we'd start throwing stuff in. You bring your stuff, I bring mine, and sculpt it and change it, and it just became about what we ended up with. And that's what Keenan really urged us to do.

Now speaking of Keenan, I read somewhere - you tell me if this is true or not; I've been dying to ask you this. I read somewhere once where when Keenan first approached you about this, you actually were not interested immediately - tried to walk away from the opportunity.

Grier: Oh, several times. It was several times, because I was, like, a bunch of - 'cause I wasn't really a comedian at that - I was funny but I wasn't stand-up. My friends were Robert Townsend and Denzel and all those guys, but no, I said, "No, why would I want to be on a show - crabs and a barrel, man, desperate comedians. I don't have all these characters; I don't want to be a part of it."

And it was Kim Wayans who called me. I'd moved back to New York and she was, like, "You have to do this." And this was a year when it was all about alternative casting, so I must have auditioned for about 35 pilots. There'd be me, a bunch of White boys, and they'd be, "Well, maybe we'll go a different way, David."

And I'm coming, I'm like - this is a rabbi. I don't really - "Well, come on. Read anyway." And I'm like, "All right." So, but "Living Color" was the most fun, and for a variety of reasons I didn't think they would do it because I didn't think a network would let us do the show that we - that Keenan had written. So I just thought it would be a futile exercise. So I'm glad I did it.

Tavis: So just between the two of us, how dumb did you feel a few seasons later when you had, like, the biggest hit on television?

Grier: No, I was happy, man. Of course, like everybody in Hollywood, I claimed all the credit.

Tavis: Yeah, of course. (Laughter)

Grier: I'll tell you who was right from the beginning. I'll tell you who was right: Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey used to sit in the dressing room the first year and he was, like, "This is history." And I'm like, "What are you, nuts? We're doing - " Well, I can't say it 'cause we on public TV, but you know.

Tavis: But it is amazing, though I assume this hits you the way it hits the rest of us. The folk who started on that show, and how they have climbed. From you to Jamie to Damon to Jim Carrey to J Lo, even. Keenan knew what he was doing casting that show.

Grier: I guess he did, man. It is pretty wild. And what's really funny is it's been 15 years?

Tavis: Has it been that long now?

Grier: We started in '90, this is 2007. So it's been more than that. But I didn't think people would talk about it. After the show went off in '94, I called my agent - my stand-up agent. I said, "I probably have, like, nine months of gigs and it's back to doing soap operas or whatever I'm going to do." And there's a whole different generation.

When I go to visit my girlfriend - she lives on the Lower East Side, and these young kids, Spanish, African American; they're like 18, 17. They see all the reruns on BET.

Tavis: I watch it every night myself.

Grier: They're all, like, movie man. TV, that's that TV dude. (Laughter) And it's pretty funny that they (inaudible).

Tavis: All right, so everybody from the show who I've had a chance to converse with - and this is the first time you've done this show - I have to ask what their favorite sketches were. So, what were your - give me a couple of your favorite sketches that included you, of course.

Grier: Okay, I'll give you one. First of all, I've really liked when all of us - it was, like, a group effort. So I wrote this thing with a couple of writers called "The Prison Cable Network," and it was all about this prison cable channel.

Tavis: I know it well.

Grier: And (laughs) Keenan was in it -

Tavis: Selling hot stuff.

Grier: Right.

Tavis: I know it well. (Laughs)

Grier: Keenan was in it and Damon, everybody was in it, jim; and it was really fun to do because we were all on the floor. And Keenan immediately, he was, like, well, you guys go do this, I'll - he wanted to be executive man. So that was one of my favorites. And also, Jamie Foxx and I would do these really bad Black barbers who always jacked up your hair.

You would - 'cause it was all about my youth. I got my hair cut at the Motor City Barber Shop in Detroit, and that was when it was all about the Afro. "I want a Globetrotter, I want it high on the top, fade on the back, put a little line in there and dip it to the side," and they'd go, "Point to the wall." (Laughter) 'Cause that was the ebony - they had the ebony Afro shot.

Tavis: What's on the wall, exactly.

Grier: "So you want number three. All right, sit down, sit down, sit down." Telling me, man, telling me. All that stuff. And that's the only way they cut hair. So it was between - and that was kind of like all that. And they talked about raising goobers. It was - they all wanted to retire and go down south and raise peanuts. And I thought that was code for gambling, or something. I'm like, raise peanuts? Come on, that is not sexy, man.

Tavis: See, I'm cracking up 'cause you're, like, running down your list and you have not yet hit "Men on Film."

Grier: Well, "Men on Film," that's obvious. That's an obvious one. It was fun. It was fun to (inaudible).

Tavis: It was hilarious.

Grier: No, it was really fun to do. And what I liked about the show - it is one of my favorites, but I try to pick other things 'cause these two other sketches were really fun, too. "Men on Film" was wild. What was fun about it is that Keenan never made us - like, he never beat a sketch to death. So that we would do "Men On" when we had funny stuff to do as opposed to like on "SNL" a lot of times, like, the liar guy or Church Lady, they would do it so that after a certain point, you didn't want to see it again 'cause it was 800 times.

Tavis: So tell me about - two things I want to ask you about. Is it "Poker News?"

Grier: No, "The Poker House."

Tavis: "Poker House," "The Chocolate News."

Grier: "The Chocolate News."

Tavis: I just fused two different projects.

Grier: That you did. I may have to take that idea, Tavis. (Laughter) "The Chocolate House," "The Poker News." Yeah, yeah.

Tavis: So start with the "Poker" project first.

Grier: Okay. "The Poker House" is actually a dramatic film. It's an independent movie that I co-wrote with Lori Petty. You probably know her; she's a well-known actress. And it's her first directing project. Lori and I have been friends forever, and she called me one day and she said, "I'm trying to write this film." And I'm like, "Well, why you calling me?"

(Laughter) She said it was about her life, her coming of age in the seventies, and her mom, her family issues, and she started telling me about her family. And I had to pull the car over. The only way I can liken this experience is if you think you know someone and they go, "No, no, no, no, no. I have a false leg. I am a gambler. My parents aren't my own."

It was like all this stuff that she had hidden, and she told me and I couldn't get over there fast enough. I was, like, "Is this real? Are you serious?" And she said, "Yeah." She said, "Yeah, but I want to write about it now."

Tavis: Now are you in this project?

Grier: Yeah, I do a small role in there, but mostly it is the story and it's her story, and how much I believed in it and wanting to be a part of this. And it's come to fruition so I'm really happy.

Tavis: And "The Chocolate News?" I'm afraid to ask what "The Chocolate News" is.

Grier: Well, brother, you need to ask, 'cause you may be involved somewhat.

Tavis: Yeah, "The Chocolate News."

Grier: Yeah. "The Chocolate News" is a project that I'm developing for Comedy Central. It's a script I've written which kind of - I describe it like if "In Living Color" had an older brother and went to grad school - something like that. It's a different generation. The basic concept is if you took, like, "Real Sports" and, say, a show like yours and, like, "Like It Is," Gil Noble from back in the day and they all had a baby with a sense of humor. This would be this show. So why you getting tense, man?

Tavis: No, I'm just looking - (laughs). When you said, "The Chocolate News," I'm like, "No, somehow - "

Grier: Uh-uh, no, no, it's good.

Tavis: I feel myself getting skewered on this.

Grier: No, no, no, because you know what, the concept of the show is we create the news and the people, so it's not - 'cause it gives us more freedom than parodying what's already out there. It's more fun to take it and make it up and stuff.

Tavis: Let me ask you right quick before I let you out of here. I mentioned at the top of the show you have spent a lot of time on the USO tour.

Grier: Yeah, yeah.

Tavis: So going over to the Middle East to entertain the troops. I was just reading an article, though, that the numbers of celebrities doing that is way down.

Grier: Oh, yeah.

Tavis: I don't think that's because Hollywood doesn't support the troops. I think there may be a lot of folks sick of this war, and as a result, the number of entertainers is down.

Grier: Well, I'll tell you - there's a couple of things. First of all, they asked me a bunch of times to go over and entertain the troops. Now, early on in the war - I am not for the war, okay? I am not a Republican, I did not vote for Bush, and I didn't want to get it confused that people would think I am supporting the war by going over to entertain.

So that's why I never went. Also, it was always, like, you couldn't control the tour, meaning it's me and a bunch of country-western stars who flood over there. And after the - we've been over it almost five years, I talked to a friend of mine who asked me to go over. And again, we talked about it and I was ready to go, but the military doesn't give you a lot of advance notice. They're, like, "Can you be in Germany tomorrow?"

Tavis: That's definitely the military. Like, now, exactly.

Grier: Exactly, why not? But any rate, I don't want to take too long, but I was able to organize my own tour. And the thing that made me go over is there are so many African American and Asian and minority soldiers over there, men and women, and very few performers - very few. Like this one comic friend of mine, Jeff Ross, he said, "Every Black comic he's asked - I think one or two went over, and there are all these men and women over there."

So I decided. I said, "Look, I'll go with a couple of guys," and I called a lot of people - a lot of well-known people - but two unknown comics are the ones that said yeah, 'cause they were young and hungry. Everybody else was, like, "Wait, hold up, man, they shooting over there." (Laughter) 'Cause I went the day after they grounded the helicopters, Tavis, and I was all brave.

I was calling all my girls and all that stuff, I was, like, "Yeah, I'm going over, so it's probably going to be radio silence; you ain't gonna hear from me in several days." (Laughter) So I got over there and they put us in the flak jacket and the helmet. I'm like, "Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." And they (laughter) grounded the helicopters, right?

So I said, “Let's do a little pow-wow - how we gonna get around? 'Cause the helicopter's down. So we probably gonna be driving, or what?" And they said, "No, you're getting on a helicopter and it's going to take off and then we're gonna go right over Baghdad." And I was, like, "What?" Yeah, it was really scary.

Tavis: Nothing funny about that.

Grier: No, brother, it was (inaudible).

Tavis: I know they were glad to see you, though.

Grier: Yeah, it was great. It was wonderful, man.

Tavis: As am I, always.

Grier: Thank you, man, it was good seeing you.

Tavis: You can come tell jokes here any time.

Grier: All right, all right, all right.

Tavis: Any time.