anderswolleck

Scott Carter has the very important job of executive producer on one of my favorite television shows, Real Time with Bill Maher. The show has been on HBO for the three years ever since Politically Incorrect went off the air. Maher and Carter still take the piss out of all the politicians while having serious discussions with many great guests.

Carter also has a storied career in comedy. He used to do his one-man show, Heavy Breathing all over the world and hes worked with SuicideGirls favorites Uncabaret. I got a chance to talk to Carter in the off season from Real Time.

Check out the official site for Real Time with Bill Maher

Daniel Robert Epstein: How did you get involved with Uncabaret?

Scott Carter: Ive known Beth [Lapides] and Greg [Miller] since I first moved out here and I think I participated in the very first Say The Word. I still look back on it as this wonderful night which was myself, George Meyer the dean of The Simpsons writers, Larry Charles, Merrill Markoe, Laura Kightlinger and Bruce Wagner. Its hard for me most of the year to do Say The Word so I often let Beth and Greg know my hiatus times so they can book me to do it. I love for getting my own writing out there.

DRE: You are on your break from Real Time with Bill Maher, what have you been up to?

SC: Our next Real Time is August 19th so Im working on a special thats going to be a co-production between TBS and HBO about global warming which is going to be taped in November. Its called Earth to America and its going to be done from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Among the people who are going to be in it are Ben Stiller, Martin Short, Leonardo DiCaprio, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Black, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Larry David, Ray Romano, Christopher Guest, Will Ferrell, Robert Kennedy Jr. and theres other people who are going to be confirmed later on.

DRE: So you are all going to finally solve global warming?

SC: Yes, we are solving it on that day. There will be no global warming problem after we get done [laughs].

Anyway its going to be a two-hour awareness raising special with comedy and music and a lot of it will be about this topic that many people just dont know enough about.

DRE: So youre producing that and writing it, hows that work?

SC: We just filmed all day Sunday with Jack Black for a piece written by Mike White and directed by Jay Roach. Actually some of the most talented comedy writers in America are working on this project because they believe in the cause like Adam McKay, George Meyer, all of the Everybody Loves Raymond staff and Larry David of course

DRE: Larry David is going to have a writing credit on this?

SC: Yeah his wife, Laurie David, is really the producer. We hope that its something that gets this on peoples radar and then prompts politicians to pay more attention to it.

DRE: Obviously youre a political person, was global warming always an issue for you?

SC: No what happened was that the last time we took a break Laurie David called me and said Weve never really met even though Ive known Larry for 15 years. She said Look Im doing this benefit fundraiser at the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles, Tom Hanks is going to host it and weve got Leonardo DiCaprio, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, and all these people, would you like to work on this? I said Youve called me at exactly the right moment. I have one writing assignment, but otherwise Im free for the summer and Id love to do this. So we did this one event last July, Tom Hanks was the host and we raised three and a half million dollars in one night.

That was for environmental causes in general and the NRDC, Natural Resources Defense Council. Theyre the people who sue polluters. It was to raise money for lawsuits and try to prompt environmentally friendly legislation. Laurie is the one who came up with the idea of trying to get Governors across the country to make a diamond lane for people who have hybrid cars.

One of the comedy bits that Tom did is when people have adapters and its plugged in its using juice all the time. Whether or not you have your stereo or radio or whatever turned on. Its sapping electricity and just a small thing that anybody can do now is, when youre not using the device take the adapter out of the wall.

DRE: What is your exact title on Real Time?

SC: Im one of the executive producers and I was the original executive producer of Politically Incorrect. Bill and I have worked on and off since February of 1993.

DRE: What does being executive producer entail?

SC: What it means is you are ultimately responsible for everything. Youre managing every aspect of whatever happens. Youre managing what issues come up on the show, youre managing the writing staff, who gets booked and youre responsible to the network. One of the main tasks of a politicians job is to get himself re-elected so an executive producers task is to get the show renewed. When we come back in August so one of my main goals right now is to be picked up for the fourth season which would begin in January of 2006.

DRE: How happy is HBO with Real Time right now?

SC: I think that they are very happy. I would say the caliber of guests that have appeared on the show has been getting more and more impressive. This last season weve had Jane Fonda and Madeline Albright, all sorts of people who had not been available to us in the past. One of my main mandates in developing this show was to have it be distinctly different from Politically Incorrect.

DRE: No more Carrot Top.

SC: Bill often cites Carrot Top but I think Carrot Top actually is a really bright guy and always was a really great guest for us on PI. But its a bit convenient to say Carrot Top because then people sort of know what youre referring to. We would do things that would be a little bit more gimmicky on PI where we set up a scientist or politician next to a raw comedian, such as Carrot Top and it kind of said a certain something. I feel that over a period of time we used up all of the different combinations that were really intriguing. When youre working with 20 guests a week, youre saying yes sometimes when you dont want to and youre also saying yes to people who you dont know very well.

DRE: What were some of the biggest surprises this past season? Was one when you got Jeff Gannon?

SC: That was great because to my knowledge he has only done three interviews. He did Campbell Brown, Anderson Cooper and Bill.

DRE: Its amazing he did Bill because Bill makes fun of him all the time.

SC: He watches the show and after Bill has made a reference we always hear from him the next Monday. Its interesting that we were able to see that he was interested in doing that. We got Jose Canseco right when he was hot and Ward Churchill who didnt do very much. I was happy that some of these people like Maureen Dowd have become somewhat of a regular for us, where for ten years she never really wanted to do it.

DRE: Can you talk about whos coming up or do you not know yet?

SC: We know a few people who are likely, but we only have a couple of people confirmed so I actually wouldnt probably want to get into that right now.

DRE: When I lived in LA., I attended a couple of tapings of Politically Incorrect. One of the episodes that I remember seeing was Bob Odenkirk and three cops, and one of the cops was Eddie Haskell from Leave It To Beaver.

One of the issues that came up was about police treating people they dont like differently. Eddie Haskell said We pulled this one guy over and the guy pissed me off so I cited him for having a broken light. It happened the light was in his glove compartment and then during the break someone came out and spoke with him and in the next segment then he seemed to calm down. You dont really get to do that with Real Time because there are no commercial breaks. .

SC: That was probably me talking to Eddie. I was always sort of the pit crew during the commercial breaks and thats both good and bad. With Politically Incorrect we did four segments and during those commercial breaks I was always able to deal with adjustments. Wed use the commercial breaks to decide, What are we going to talk about next? The way we generally plan our shows is we try and plan a lot more things to talk about than were ever going to get to, so during the course of the show we have choices. Sometimes I knew that a guest had more to say on a topic and I would say, Stay with this subject and other times I would say, You know what, were done with this topic lets move on.

DRE: What would you say to someone like Eddie Haskell?

SC: Generally I would talk to them before the show started and sometimes what Id be doing is reminding them of things that Id heard them say that maybe theyd forgotten to say on air.

DRE: How has that dynamic of no breaks affected Real Time?

SC: Well with Politically Incorrect by virtue of having five shows and coming up with 20 guests per week every night there were people who I or Bill had just never met before. On Real Time we only have to do three quests per week on the panel, so generally its people we know really well and there isnt that kind of crap shoot that there could be on PI, where you could really luck out but you could also have the non-talker. The good part also about not having commercial breaks is that a discussion keeps going as long as its vital and then Bill will shift it when he feels like its out of steam.

DRE: How did you and Bill first meet?

SC: We actually never lived in the same city. I moved from LA to New York at the same time he moved from New York to LA but we had dozens of friends in common. I had been producing other shows first for the Comedy Channel and then it was merged with Viacom so it became Comedy Central. I had done a couple of other shows for them and Bill did a special in November on election. The network liked it so much they said, Wed like to pursue doing a series with you. He and I were paired up in January of 93 and we started working together in February and then Politically Incorrect started taping I think in May of 93 and the first show aired in July of 93.

DRE: Bill is one of my favorite comedians of all time and he has a certain reputation where oftentimes even liberals dont like him. How does that reputation rub off on you?

SC: In the last couple of years whenever I talk about the show the first reaction that everybody has is I like Politically Incorrect and I like this show even better. I just got an email from Chris Rock, yesterday about how much he likes the show and at this Jack Black taping Larry David said Its one of the few shows I watch. I think the way we describe it is theres a smaller spectrum than we would often have in 1993. Sometimes we had people on way at the ends of the political spectrum and other times it wound up that people were yelling at each other. We now have a more considerate and maybe more mature panel so its more moderate. Its the sort of dinner party you would want where you might have some people who disagree with you but you still would want to be at the table with them. To respond to your first point about some of the liberals not being on the same page with Bill. Bills a Libertarian and hes probably liberal on 60% of the issues and conservative on 40%. The good thing about that for me as a producer is it allows me to book people around where he stands and it keeps you guessing. In other words, hes not like someone on Fox News like Sean Hannity where its party line conservative on every issue, nor is it some of what you might hear on Air-America where its party line liberal on every issue. Bill will go back and forth then there are even issues where hes even shifted. Certainly hes shifted a couple of times on Iraq which makes sense depending upon where things are.

DRE: How about your politics?

SC: Let me answer this by saying that I think in the last year that I was with Politically Incorrect we did some research and we found that of the people who watch Politically Incorrect regularly, only 14% of those people describe themselves as agreeing with Bill on most issues. But what I think people tuned into and they continue to tune into was having the issues explored. Sometimes Bill will be maintaining my personal viewpoint and sometimes its someone on the panel whos maintaining it. I just have to make sure that its there, to get both sides represented.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck