Dan Mazer is the perfect example of immigrants coming over to America and taking our jobs. He was doing perfectly well over in the UK as co-creator of Ali G and various other characters with Sacha Baron Cohen. In fact hes even got another movie coming out in theatres soon called Borat based on an Ali G character. But no hes got to come over here, get hooked up with Comedy Central and some of OUR best improvisers and create the hysterically funny Dog Bites Man which mixes interviews with real people and improvised situations all run by a fake news team out of Spokane Washington.
Check out the official site for Dog Bites Man
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you shooting today?
Dan Mazer: Were just filming some of the last dregs of Dog Bites Man out here in LA in our pretend office.
DRE: For Dog Bites Man, did you go to Comedy Central or did they come to you?
Dan: It was NBC that came to me and said, Do you want to come and do something with us? I said, Id love to, why the hell not? We did our pilot which ultimately ended up being the first show this season on Comedy Central. I think it was a little bit too bizarre for NBC. So then Comedy Central came waltzing along and snatched us up.
DRE: Did you have to change anything about the show for Comedy Central?
Dan: The pilot was the bodybuilders episode and it was a slight disaster. We had to do re-shoots because the first bodybuilder we found was somebody called Craig Titus who subsequently committed a murder. It was deemed in bad taste to broadcast the murderer on our show so had to re-shoot one of the bits.
DRE: Im surprised you guys didnt go with the murdering thing.
Dan: [laughs] I wanted to. Me being devoid of moral fiber I was very happy to broadcast a murderer but apparently that was verboten according to Comedy Central.
DRE: Im amazed that the pilot was for NBC because it really doesnt seem like an NBC show.
Dan: Yeah, I owe credit to them because they made all the noises about being experimental and of all the networks theyve probably gone the furthest to produce comedy that I associate and identify with. I just think this might have been a leap too far or too soon for them.
DRE: Im a big fan of Matt Walsh and Zach Galifianakis but Id never heard of AD Miles or Andrea Savage before.
Dan: Andrea is an improviser out of LA and Miles is from New York. We did an extensive bicoastal troll for people and when I saw them I just thought they were fantastic. I have got a weird process where I sort of know what kind of character I want but essentially I got them to fill in the blanks for me as opposed to me dictating to them. They jumped out because Miles had this character that is pretty close to Marty. We tweaked that a little bit and came up with Marty the PA. Andrea just had all those fantastic qualities to hold her own with three very quick, intimidating and loud men. We needed somebody who had the wherewithal to thrive in that environment and she completely checked every box.
DRE: Was Zach originally supposed to play a cameraman?
Dan: Well if we had him behind the camera youd never see him. Its a slight stretch to have him out there. It is strange to have such a big and inefficient team and also that this local news crew has a budget that allows them to go off on teambuilding weekends and be in Memphis for the southern Republican conference and things like that. But hopefully well manage to suspend disbelief.
DRE: Was Matt Walsh always involved or did you find him too?
Dan: I did know of him. But it is to my constant shame that even though Old School is one of my favorite films of the last ten years I have absolutely no recollection of him being in it. Id been working with him for about three months when he mentioned that he was in Old School. I think I knew him more by osmosis than anything else. Im based in Britain so I dont know that much about the American comedy scene. I came over here pretty fresh and with a pretty blank slate so I didnt really know what to expect of anyone. I attacked it with a fresh view and found what I think are four really great people.
DRE: Ive seen Matt onstage dozens of times. Does he just blow you away every week?
Dan: Hes so incredibly sharp. There are lots of good improvisers but to be able to combine that with a character is a really unique and amazing skill. He has this totally believable persona who does things off the cuff in a completely credible way and I think thats quite a unique combination.
DRE: Is this the first time youve combined improvising with real people with a story?
Dan: This was really the first time that I attached that idea of narrative improvisation with real people because the Ali G stuff was just interviews, there was no story to it. I wanted to take that a stage further as if life wasnt challenging enough, I wanted to make it even more miserable for myself.
DRE: Is it very difficult?
Dan: Its unbelievably difficult because people dont ever respond the way you want and expect them to respond. On the positive side you come up with things that you just never could have dreamt of in the writing room. Thats what makes it exciting and different from an ordinary sitcom. These things crop up when youre out and about that you just never would have envisaged when youre in a room in Burbank. Its the ability of both the cast and myself to be able to mold that into a narrative which makes the show slightly different and unique.
DRE: Lets take an example like the gay guy that you interviewed. How long did they actually talk to him?
Dan: It is very weird actually because we would have one guy like that and wed talk to him for an hour and wed get three minutes out of it. But because there are four cast members somehow they managed to create more of a weird illusion of chaos. Therefore they can go for the jugular a bit more quickly. So we were probably with him for about half an hour.
DRE: Thats really a short amount of time. Have you interviewed someone and then just gotten nothing out of it and had to create it in the editing room?
Dan: If we get nothing out of it then Ill basically just scrap it and try and find something else. For example, we did a scene where we went to a Ku Klux Klan fair in Memphis. The idea was going to be that they went in there not really knowing that it was a KKK fair and then had to cope with it. But what one doesnt realize is that the KKK arent necessarily that happy to appear on camera, because when they go into work on Monday people will realize that the nice guy in the next cubicle is a white supremacist hatemonger. So we planned that and almost nobody wanted to speak to us so we had to cobble something together and think on our feet when we were there. While at the same time try not to be gunned down by vicious white supremacists.
DRE: [laughs] Is it easier creating the scenes where the main characters just interact with each other?
Dan: The other stuff is like running uphill with an elephant strapped to your shoulders. When it is just the four of them it is like skiing down a beautiful back run on a sunny Aspen day. They can just enjoy riffing with each other. The only slight trouble is that they enjoy making each other laugh probably more than they enjoy making people at home laugh. I tried to create a vibe where everyone can have a good time. Now theyre really good friends and the byproduct of that is that there is this sense amongst comedians with everyone wanting to be the funniest and one-up-man-ship and that translates onto screen and sometimes goes a little too far.
DRE: What made you think of Spokane, Washington as the place for the news team?
Dan: It was just weirdly expedient. We were looking for somewhere that had a non-specific accent that was a small town that could support its own news team and news crew. Somewhere that people didnt know that much about and Spokane ticked all of those boxes. I have no personal long held grudge against the residents Spokane. Although I believe that they now might have one against me.
DRE: [laughs] How many episodes are you doing?
Dan: Im doing ten.
DRE: Are you guys signed to do another season?
Dan: Not yet. The public seems to like it, which is good.
DRE: Do you go on the internet and read all the stuff people are saying about it?
Dan: You try not to but you cant really help it. Theres a part of you that wants to know. Its a rare ability now to actually be that fly on the wall and see what people are thinking about. So at 3am youre wondering what Dave in Boise, Idaho thinks about your show and you have a ridiculous amount of worry if Dave thinks its a bit too much like The Office. All of a sudden you rethink your entire career whereas you shouldnt really worry too much about Dave in Boise, Idaho thinks.
DRE: Ive talked to people that worked on Curb Your Enthusiasm and the Christopher Guest movies. They get a written paragraph describing what the scene is about and one or two lines they have to say. Do you do Dog Bites Man in that fashion?
Dan: We have a slightly different process because Im a big believer in jokes. So we sit in a room for a few days in advance of going off wherever and think of as many jokes as we can about the KKK or teambuilding or Republicans. Then I tend to keep all those jokes and then have that loose paragraph of whats going to happen in the scene.
DRE: One of the other co-founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade, Matt Besser, did this show called Crossballs for Comedy Central. They had a form that people had to sign to agree to appear on the show but the form didnt point out that it was a spoof show. Is that the same for you?
Dan: Yeah, almost identical Id say.
DRE: Do you ever let them in on the joke after you stop rolling?
Dan: No we get in a van and run.
DRE: Is this the first thing youve done in America?
Dan: Apart from the Ali G movie we did for HBO.
DRE: Are the crews for a show like this much different from the UK to the US?
Dan: Not really. TV people are the same wherever. I think British people are slightly lazier.
DRE: If the Borat movie is successful will you and Sacha [Baron Cohen] do more movies of the characters?
Dan: We never really plan ahead. We do things, take a little break from each other, then we decide whether we want to come back together again. I imagine we will do more stuff.
DRE: Are the two of you friends as well as collaborators?
Dan: Yeah, weve known each other since we were 11. We went to school together and then went to university together.
DRE: You guys must have had a hell of a lot of fun together.
Dan: Not really [laughs].
DRE: [laughs] Are you serious?
Dan: No, its true that comedy is a very serious business. It is one of those weird things where it becomes work and your laughs are work related.
DRE: Have you ever been on camera?
Dan: No, Id hate it. I hate even reading the script out loud. I used to be a standup but thats really and truly out of my blood now.
DRE: [laughs] I read about a Jack Black movie you are writing.
Dan: Yeah, possibly. It is in the works. With these Hollywood types, who knows? But Ive written a script for that. Ive got a couple of movies on the boil. So well see what happens.
DRE: Fully scripted?
Dan: Yeah, thats all tightly scripted.
DRE: Has much of what youve done thats fully scripted gotten on TV?
Dan: Not much really, Im concentrating more on this thing. The Ali G movie was fully scripted. Dog Bites Man is very stressful so please God may I go on to just fully scripted work and not to have to face the cold dark eyes of the Ku Klux Klan and Southern Republicans and irate homosexuals anymore. Lifes too short.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official site for Dog Bites Man
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you shooting today?
Dan Mazer: Were just filming some of the last dregs of Dog Bites Man out here in LA in our pretend office.
DRE: For Dog Bites Man, did you go to Comedy Central or did they come to you?
Dan: It was NBC that came to me and said, Do you want to come and do something with us? I said, Id love to, why the hell not? We did our pilot which ultimately ended up being the first show this season on Comedy Central. I think it was a little bit too bizarre for NBC. So then Comedy Central came waltzing along and snatched us up.
DRE: Did you have to change anything about the show for Comedy Central?
Dan: The pilot was the bodybuilders episode and it was a slight disaster. We had to do re-shoots because the first bodybuilder we found was somebody called Craig Titus who subsequently committed a murder. It was deemed in bad taste to broadcast the murderer on our show so had to re-shoot one of the bits.
DRE: Im surprised you guys didnt go with the murdering thing.
Dan: [laughs] I wanted to. Me being devoid of moral fiber I was very happy to broadcast a murderer but apparently that was verboten according to Comedy Central.
DRE: Im amazed that the pilot was for NBC because it really doesnt seem like an NBC show.
Dan: Yeah, I owe credit to them because they made all the noises about being experimental and of all the networks theyve probably gone the furthest to produce comedy that I associate and identify with. I just think this might have been a leap too far or too soon for them.
DRE: Im a big fan of Matt Walsh and Zach Galifianakis but Id never heard of AD Miles or Andrea Savage before.
Dan: Andrea is an improviser out of LA and Miles is from New York. We did an extensive bicoastal troll for people and when I saw them I just thought they were fantastic. I have got a weird process where I sort of know what kind of character I want but essentially I got them to fill in the blanks for me as opposed to me dictating to them. They jumped out because Miles had this character that is pretty close to Marty. We tweaked that a little bit and came up with Marty the PA. Andrea just had all those fantastic qualities to hold her own with three very quick, intimidating and loud men. We needed somebody who had the wherewithal to thrive in that environment and she completely checked every box.
DRE: Was Zach originally supposed to play a cameraman?
Dan: Well if we had him behind the camera youd never see him. Its a slight stretch to have him out there. It is strange to have such a big and inefficient team and also that this local news crew has a budget that allows them to go off on teambuilding weekends and be in Memphis for the southern Republican conference and things like that. But hopefully well manage to suspend disbelief.
DRE: Was Matt Walsh always involved or did you find him too?
Dan: I did know of him. But it is to my constant shame that even though Old School is one of my favorite films of the last ten years I have absolutely no recollection of him being in it. Id been working with him for about three months when he mentioned that he was in Old School. I think I knew him more by osmosis than anything else. Im based in Britain so I dont know that much about the American comedy scene. I came over here pretty fresh and with a pretty blank slate so I didnt really know what to expect of anyone. I attacked it with a fresh view and found what I think are four really great people.
DRE: Ive seen Matt onstage dozens of times. Does he just blow you away every week?
Dan: Hes so incredibly sharp. There are lots of good improvisers but to be able to combine that with a character is a really unique and amazing skill. He has this totally believable persona who does things off the cuff in a completely credible way and I think thats quite a unique combination.
DRE: Is this the first time youve combined improvising with real people with a story?
Dan: This was really the first time that I attached that idea of narrative improvisation with real people because the Ali G stuff was just interviews, there was no story to it. I wanted to take that a stage further as if life wasnt challenging enough, I wanted to make it even more miserable for myself.
DRE: Is it very difficult?
Dan: Its unbelievably difficult because people dont ever respond the way you want and expect them to respond. On the positive side you come up with things that you just never could have dreamt of in the writing room. Thats what makes it exciting and different from an ordinary sitcom. These things crop up when youre out and about that you just never would have envisaged when youre in a room in Burbank. Its the ability of both the cast and myself to be able to mold that into a narrative which makes the show slightly different and unique.
DRE: Lets take an example like the gay guy that you interviewed. How long did they actually talk to him?
Dan: It is very weird actually because we would have one guy like that and wed talk to him for an hour and wed get three minutes out of it. But because there are four cast members somehow they managed to create more of a weird illusion of chaos. Therefore they can go for the jugular a bit more quickly. So we were probably with him for about half an hour.
DRE: Thats really a short amount of time. Have you interviewed someone and then just gotten nothing out of it and had to create it in the editing room?
Dan: If we get nothing out of it then Ill basically just scrap it and try and find something else. For example, we did a scene where we went to a Ku Klux Klan fair in Memphis. The idea was going to be that they went in there not really knowing that it was a KKK fair and then had to cope with it. But what one doesnt realize is that the KKK arent necessarily that happy to appear on camera, because when they go into work on Monday people will realize that the nice guy in the next cubicle is a white supremacist hatemonger. So we planned that and almost nobody wanted to speak to us so we had to cobble something together and think on our feet when we were there. While at the same time try not to be gunned down by vicious white supremacists.
DRE: [laughs] Is it easier creating the scenes where the main characters just interact with each other?
Dan: The other stuff is like running uphill with an elephant strapped to your shoulders. When it is just the four of them it is like skiing down a beautiful back run on a sunny Aspen day. They can just enjoy riffing with each other. The only slight trouble is that they enjoy making each other laugh probably more than they enjoy making people at home laugh. I tried to create a vibe where everyone can have a good time. Now theyre really good friends and the byproduct of that is that there is this sense amongst comedians with everyone wanting to be the funniest and one-up-man-ship and that translates onto screen and sometimes goes a little too far.
DRE: What made you think of Spokane, Washington as the place for the news team?
Dan: It was just weirdly expedient. We were looking for somewhere that had a non-specific accent that was a small town that could support its own news team and news crew. Somewhere that people didnt know that much about and Spokane ticked all of those boxes. I have no personal long held grudge against the residents Spokane. Although I believe that they now might have one against me.
DRE: [laughs] How many episodes are you doing?
Dan: Im doing ten.
DRE: Are you guys signed to do another season?
Dan: Not yet. The public seems to like it, which is good.
DRE: Do you go on the internet and read all the stuff people are saying about it?
Dan: You try not to but you cant really help it. Theres a part of you that wants to know. Its a rare ability now to actually be that fly on the wall and see what people are thinking about. So at 3am youre wondering what Dave in Boise, Idaho thinks about your show and you have a ridiculous amount of worry if Dave thinks its a bit too much like The Office. All of a sudden you rethink your entire career whereas you shouldnt really worry too much about Dave in Boise, Idaho thinks.
DRE: Ive talked to people that worked on Curb Your Enthusiasm and the Christopher Guest movies. They get a written paragraph describing what the scene is about and one or two lines they have to say. Do you do Dog Bites Man in that fashion?
Dan: We have a slightly different process because Im a big believer in jokes. So we sit in a room for a few days in advance of going off wherever and think of as many jokes as we can about the KKK or teambuilding or Republicans. Then I tend to keep all those jokes and then have that loose paragraph of whats going to happen in the scene.
DRE: One of the other co-founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade, Matt Besser, did this show called Crossballs for Comedy Central. They had a form that people had to sign to agree to appear on the show but the form didnt point out that it was a spoof show. Is that the same for you?
Dan: Yeah, almost identical Id say.
DRE: Do you ever let them in on the joke after you stop rolling?
Dan: No we get in a van and run.
DRE: Is this the first thing youve done in America?
Dan: Apart from the Ali G movie we did for HBO.
DRE: Are the crews for a show like this much different from the UK to the US?
Dan: Not really. TV people are the same wherever. I think British people are slightly lazier.
DRE: If the Borat movie is successful will you and Sacha [Baron Cohen] do more movies of the characters?
Dan: We never really plan ahead. We do things, take a little break from each other, then we decide whether we want to come back together again. I imagine we will do more stuff.
DRE: Are the two of you friends as well as collaborators?
Dan: Yeah, weve known each other since we were 11. We went to school together and then went to university together.
DRE: You guys must have had a hell of a lot of fun together.
Dan: Not really [laughs].
DRE: [laughs] Are you serious?
Dan: No, its true that comedy is a very serious business. It is one of those weird things where it becomes work and your laughs are work related.
DRE: Have you ever been on camera?
Dan: No, Id hate it. I hate even reading the script out loud. I used to be a standup but thats really and truly out of my blood now.
DRE: [laughs] I read about a Jack Black movie you are writing.
Dan: Yeah, possibly. It is in the works. With these Hollywood types, who knows? But Ive written a script for that. Ive got a couple of movies on the boil. So well see what happens.
DRE: Fully scripted?
Dan: Yeah, thats all tightly scripted.
DRE: Has much of what youve done thats fully scripted gotten on TV?
Dan: Not much really, Im concentrating more on this thing. The Ali G movie was fully scripted. Dog Bites Man is very stressful so please God may I go on to just fully scripted work and not to have to face the cold dark eyes of the Ku Klux Klan and Southern Republicans and irate homosexuals anymore. Lifes too short.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
jksafn:
Funniest show on television, it makes me want to wear a fanny pack!
dickstarr:
This show is definately along the lines of Ali G, only the envelope has been pushed further into the right direction. I think the cast is quickly finding their niche and playing off of each other extremely well. This interview was wonderful as I now consider Dan Mazer a comedy genius. I'm also so excited to see Walsh back on the tube.
