This episode is brought to you by TaxACT. This tax season Tax Act has your back with their deduction maximizer and a hundred K accuracy guarantee. You can feel confident. You're getting the most out of tax season learn more about how to maximize your deductions and your refund and get 25% off federal and state filing attacks act.com gimlet. That's TaxACT.com gimlet for 25% Sent off federal and state filing. Okay. So you're one of the best improvisers in the podcast game. And so we thought it'd be fun if you and I played an impromptu game. So I look some up and I want to try this one where we speak only in questions. I I'm game. Let's do it. Okay. So wait, can you start it? Should I start you start dare you Started I got thinking about oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. So, um, Beautiful weather outside today, isn't it? You think so, huh? Could you could you ask for Bluer Skies? What good would it do? Has anything for me ever been more difficult. How should I know? I really the only question is I think like that question I have is like I was going to say the next question I have is literally how soon can I stop this experiment was a success the success y'all was a success I didn't die won't you tell me? Oh, are we still doing I don't know where we were from game with media. This is sampler. I'm your host pretty loose and that much. Much much better improviser. You just heard with me is our guests for this episode The truly versatile Paul F Tompkins. So Paul is one of the funniest and most prolific people in the world of podcasting. Like I mean, this guy's done like dozens of shows in between his like television and movie projects like he's done Comedy Bang Bang at least 10 million times. He's even had multiple podcasts of his own from the dead authors podcast, which you heard in the the very first episode of sampler to the Pod F Tom cast to Paul's most recent show the heavily improvised spontaneous Nation. So part of the reason why Paul has found himself in like almost every nook and cranny of the podcast world over the past decade or so is his ability to just kind of show up and take a conversation and places that nobody ever thought. It would go. Let me play you guys a clip of Paul pretending to be defamed. Every composer Andrew Lloyd Webber performing a rap based on one of his most famous musicals opening song Jesus Christ who was dial. Oh my goodness. Here we go. Yes, here we go. I'm about to drop some religion. All you eat. It is Rex's map nizam where my name is Jesus Christ and I'm here to say it's fun to wrap in a spiritually ambiguous way. We got a best mate named a Judas had occasion recently to say to him. You despicable swine you betray me to the feds. See if I ever turn your students to breads. I'm just a young ji from Nazareth, nothing front and Pharisees which to put me to death and for what for befriending a prostitute or forgiving evil. Temple moneylenders the books. All I'm trying to do is wrap to folks about love and to question the design of a God above now his crucifixion time. So I've got to Jet by loud when It's Album haven't got the blues yet. I do have to say it spoils the plot a little bit what the bit about the crucifixion. Yeah. I have a hard enough time getting in front of a microphone every week just as myself how the hell does this guy perform at least weekly as all of these different characters while making up entirely fictional stories. I absolutely just had to get him in the sample studio and learn more about his crazy ways. Paul of Tompkins welcome to sampler. Thank you for having Brittany. It's been said that you were like the mayor of podcasting somebody told me recently that I am approaching 10,000 hours of podcast. Wait, that means that you're like like Lil Wayne because the he wasn't he wasn't that great when he first started out and he's like 15 and then like maybe yeah about like after about ten thousand hours. He just All the time and then he just got way better. There you go and almost good at this. Yes. I mean, I think you're pretty good at it. Well, thank you. Yeah, but yeah, basically, I mean you've been doing this for like like you haven't just like done so many shows are recorded so many hours. You've also been a part of podcasting for a long time. Yeah. I guessed it on a bunch of podcast before I even created my own. I was really intrigued by the form pretty quickly and a big Turning Point. The biggest turning point for me probably was Comedy Bang Bang my friend Scott Aukerman was hosting the show. He was hosting a live show in Los Angeles that was a sort of stand up and character showcase and then started doing it on the radio and then the station folded and he started doing it as a podcast and I was living in New York at the time for a job. I remember him calling me up and asking me if I wanted to phone in to the show and he said and you know, you could be anything you could be yourself or you could be a character, but Was the first character that you shut up S. I think it was iced tea. I think it was iced tea and I think it was there was a running gag where iced tea was starting these businesses that all had unfortunate names. I took a big hit on my first business venture which was iced tea lemonade, which was a alcoholic soft drink. I tried to Market when I didn't understand I didn't I didn't think ahead that the name iced tea lemonade were not conjure up a Hard Lemonade. No, I buy me ice everyone. Just thought it was an Palmer yeah. Yeah. It's like I wish I thought the make up a drink that's named after me in the first place. I wouldn't call it that. Yeah. Yeah seems like Ice Ice Tea's Iced Teas would have worked better. So anyway, then I had this other idea for modular Furniture in the style of Ikea called ice cubes. Then that was doubly confusing because people thought that I was marketing, you know ice cubes which is dumb people, too. Have them in the home already, but then also that I would be confused rapper and actor. Yeah, the rapper and actor Ice Cube people people thought that was you instead of iced tea, you know, you're a white guy and yes, you're impersonating this you're impersonating is black man, who is you know, like like a famous rapper but like you do such a good job impersonating him in this way. That's not disrespectful. Do you know what I mean? It's like something that like that. Like that me is listen. I don't have to like pause. I don't have to like groan. I don't have to roll my eyes iced tea found out about your impression of him. Yeah, and you are actually on his podcast Ice-T: final level. Hello. Yeah, I like speak to Paul Tompkins, please. This is the Z height is I see how you doing before we actually get this conversation started and stuff. I wanted to know from one professional to a comic you know, where you were going with Ice-T stuff. Could you do a little like sample and stuff so I can hear what you sound like. This is this is the moment that I dreaded. I understand that but I really want this I want to hear this from you because I remember, you know, absolutely. Absolutely in my universe you are a guy who is very into specifically science fiction and then some fantasy like you make it very clear that it's like not a lot of stuff. There's a little bit of overlap. So like you if you were pitching a movie it would be okay. So it's like this guy the vampire, but then he Also part cyborg. So he's got like 99% vampire. Then you've got one robot foot. So he that makes him able to walk around in the daylight. Right? Right. Yeah, I see where you're going with that part, but I want to hear the ice tea from you know, I just did it. Oh my God, that was terrible. Oh, please walk me through how you felt. Well at first I was very excited. I was you know contacted through my agents. Hey iced tea would like to have you on his podcast. So let's talk to you and I was like, oh, this is great. I love that. He's a good sport. And so I get off the phone and I think wow that was crazy, you know, then the next day it was a Comedy Festival that in Downtown LA and I run into this guy says hey, thanks for thanks for On our show yesterday. I'm the producer. We yeah emailed I said, oh thanks for having me. He was really cool. And he was it wasn't him. It was a it was a prank and he said are you are you are you mad? I'm sorry and I said well Nomad is just kind of disappointing. Yeah, and it all and then later like as I thought about it like oh that's embarrassing. Like I because I totally thought it was I see this guy does a great I see impression very good. And so then I listen to the episode. load And then iced tea was so funny talking about it and was so like loved that this happened. It was such a good sport about all of it that I I was like, okay fine. I'm glad that it happened. This guy named Rockwell who can actually do my voice pretty well called up Paul left Tompkins and had Paul F Tompkins thinking he was talking to me, but apparently Paul have Tompkins does an impersonation of me. So there you got to fake Iced Teas talking to each other. You know, they say that you know, when people impersonate you Curry is the best form of flat and I look at that as flattery. If I see is happy I am that's how I approach all things. Is it a great that you're in you're at a place to say that about your professional life advice to you as happy as she is happy. I'm happy. I'm happy so you obviously do a great Ice-T impersonation, but you also do a lot of other people too. Is there any character that you do that's like a favorite It's tough because they're all people that I enjoy. I wrote a thing for a vulture recently. And after the passing of Garry Marshall the guy who directed like Happy Days Pretty Woman. Yeah, and it was something I never thought about and I realized in the writing of it as I'm wiping away tears as I'm sitting at the airport gate like before I flew here on writing this thing and I got unexpected it affected me more than I thought it would as I'm like writing my thoughts about this. Man that I met one time. Yeah, very briefly and I realized wow this guy, you know contributed so much of the entertainment of my childhood like had a profound impact on me in a way that I'd never really thought about intellectualized until now. Let's actually hear a little bit of your Garry Marshall impression on Comedy Bang Bang Yes. I direct a pretty woman. I think nobody wanted to they said hey happy days. That's what they called me. It's insulting but I took it as a compliment because it was a successful. Show they said a happy days. They threw the scripted it be of the chest to fell on the ground and they made you pick it up. They may know I picked it up of my own volition. Nobody makes Garry Marshall But That's My Name by the way. I don't know if my name was said yeah, we should say. Hey everybody its and be Gary Marshall. Larry Marshall is here. Thank you for your applause. I realized like imitating him felt in a weird way like spending time with that person. Mmm, like spending time with him, you know because I because I'm working very hard to capture his Essence and and how he sounds how he expresses himself how he would react to things. I'm trying not to react as myself. I'm trying to react as this character, you know, and I'm very protective of of this character because it's a real person that I have an admiration for. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but when we get back Paul's going to tell us what he thinks about lazy comedy. This episode is brought to you by TaxACT. This tax season Tax Act has your back with their deduction maximizer and a hundred K accuracy guarantee. You can feel confident. You're getting the most out of tax season learn more about how to maximize your deductions and your refund and get 25% off federal and state filing attacks act.com gimlet. That's TaxACT.com gimlets 425 percent off federal and state filing welcome back to sampler. I'm here with my guest actor comedian noted podcaster Paul F Tompkins aka the mayor of podcasting who is also known for his character work and impersonations been your I have to say you just seem like you're having so much fun. When you're playing these people. It's a lot of fun and it came to me relatively late in my career. It was I did not start out as a character guy and and even though I had done sketches. And everything I just never was attuned to that and the thing that probably brought that into my life was a show called best week ever on VH1 and I was the host of that show for a year and a lot of times that required me playing characters, you know, we would review the week in pop culture. We have clips from TV shows and and so sometimes rather than just do a traditional joke. I would act something out be a character and that was that was where I first did Andrew Lloyd Webber which became a standard Erica mind Cake Boss which became a standard character iced tea with the first time I did iced tea. That was the first time you didn't yeah. Yeah, and I always did voices when I was a kid and everything, but it was not a part of my comedy and so it was podcasting that really made me reconsider that and embrace it in a way that I just never had before and that led me to improv and led me to start an improvisation podcast of my own. It is called spontaneous Nation. It is an improv based podcast, which I'm doing the opposite of what I've always done which is do something extremely produced that takes a long time and a lot of Anguish and I'm doing something that's all in the moment and fun with some of the best fun in the moment people around we take you now. Do the underwear department at Macy's? Dad, I couldn't mom come with me. Well, I she's very busy and your mother does a lot of stuff around the house that I can't do. I don't know how to wash wash a dish. I've never known. It's very difficult. Do you need any help? Oh, look at this woman. Yes. Hello. My my daughter here would like to buy some food. Just say it. I don't know please. This is your mother's departure. Tonight dainty under yes. That's exactly right. He's just here weird wolf who I had a growth spurt, and I need panties. Yes. My daughter you see is a 12 years old now come down this aisle. It's very thin. You might brush against all the panties as you go down honey. I think maybe you better just go down that aisle follow this obvious woman down the aisle yourself Dad. It's just satin and lace top here. So say good, honey, please please. Please take my daughter Megan to the secret places that you women go to you have to come with us. That's a weird policy why it was exciting to be discovering new thing and exciting to be learning a new thing and to be able to to learn on the job, you know surround myself with good people so that in the room where we're all improvising. I always make sure that I am the the weakest link, you know, so that everyone around me is A solid improvisers been doing this for years and really funny people so that if anyone's going to be week it's going to be me and then people will forgive me because the other people are so good. I just love this attitude of generosity that you have not just for like the people that you're performing with on your show and I just for your guests but as listener, like I feel like you have it for your audience you really tend to steer clear of like stereotypes or Offensive jokes and you've even said like in other interviews that like minding political correctness, like being a politically correct comedian keeps your comedy fresher. Mmm. How did you arrive at that? You know, I I started going to therapy because of a bad relationship that ended in 2002. My therapist is a woman and so I was exposed to she just like so matter-of-factly and thoughtfully would show me other points of view. And so I remember having an argument with two female friends of mine. We've seen the movie election the Alexander Payne right? I think so. Yeah with Reese for this musical. Yeah, fine and Yea and my female friends were saying I thought that movie was kind of sexist and I liked the movie. Hmm. And so I was trying to argue that it was not sexist. So I'm trying to argue to two women that they're they were seeing this incorrectly. Yeah and I was bothered that they were sort of seen it seemed like they were ganging up on me. Yeah, as I share the story and my therapist said, well, you know for them, they have a different experience of this movie then you do because they're women and you're a man so they're going to see this differently and so they're not trying to tell you that you're a bad person for liking this movie. They're just trying to tell you this was their experience and I come back to that exchange so often Because it's the key to everything if you want to understand what's going on with our country right now and why people are so angry and all that's because no one no one wants to feel bad. They don't want to feel that they thought incorrectly or evilly or they were inconsiderate or whatever. It's a very to me a very childish worldview to be talking about being anti PC. And that we need to be more anti PC. It seems very emotionally stunted. You know, I also think I think it I think it makes for like lazy comedy like one of the things 1,000% the whole anti PC thing really just means I don't want to be called on my shit. I don't want to have to think differently. I don't want to have to rewrite this bit because it already gets laughs. You know, it just became like a Monumental not just professional laziness, but a moral laziness that said, You're too worried about having to think about your actions and how they might affect other people about hurting someone's feelings. And you also don't want to seem uncool to the people that you think are cool. How do you manage that as a host when you're bringing in people who have a variety of different approaches. They have a variety of different backgrounds different personal limitations. Absolutely. How do you account for that in a group? That's that's the challenging part of it. Honestly for me. The fine line is this is supposed to be An entertainment program this is not supposed to be. Hey, we're talking about current affairs and we're going to get down to brass tacks and really discover what is wrong with society today. So I leave the door open for the possibility that maybe I'll talk about social issues in a comedic way in the future, you know, because my my style has evolved over the years and maybe that's where I'm headed years down the line. Yeah, you know you perform so many different roles on all the different shows that you're featured on, you know, Like you're not only a host you also like are sometimes the guests. Sometimes you yourself and then a lot of the time you are playing all of these different characters. So like how do you move between all of those for then? Which one is your favorite? Hmm. I think I like hosting the most because I genuinely like interviewing people. I really enjoy asking questions and I enjoy finding the common ground, you know, and I love when people are great. Storytellers and and people that can surprise you. I had Nathan Lee Graham who's a film and Stage actor. Most people probably know him as Will Ferrell's assistant in Zoolander. He was somebody that you could ask him a question and he would always have a great answer and a really funny thing to say the interview goes unexpected places and he he was just delightful. I did Priscilla Queen of the Desert on Broadway. I played misunderstanding. Mmm. She was the Tina Turner roll. I opened the show is on 12 minutes a 12-minute opener at The Palace Theater where Judy Garland the pool and I was amazing what I didn't know what I didn't know was that I'd have to be in The Ensemble as well and doing The Ensemble work was a piece of shit. I hated I was a cupcake at once and one point. I was a cupcake they sing MacArthur Park is melting in the door. Talk like I'm out in the cupcake outfit with with all of my other friends Nathan Lee Graham is a cupcake now, it's fine. If I'm doing the come back which I did and I'm a cupcake but not on the path and not at the palace. What was it was a it was a cupcake costume hard to get it was hard to get into we had wonderful dresses. Let me tell you something. The crew is amazing the people I did the cupcakes with our amazing, but just personally personally it was not a high point. Who are you doing? Well too. Were you able to mask your displeasure? Yes, because of the lighting because of the lighting on the stage. It was all a dream sequence. And so I actually lied to people and tell them that I wasn't a cupcake but now everybody fucking nose. Would your friends say hey were you in right? And then you would say no. The key to hosting a thing is to assume that everyone you ever are going to talk to is an interesting person. Even if you have a prejudiced thinking this is going to be boring. You have to trust that everyone has a story and it's just a matter of getting to those questions that unlock the interesting person inside what is perceived as a dull person. Do you have like a go to question? Honestly emotional questions, I think are the best ones when you ask someone on how that made them feel if you can relate a thing like, oh I felt this way when this happened when I was a kid or whatever. I find that that really gets people to open up. That makes me think about a particular appearance that you had on a podcast mental illness happy hour besides listen to the episode three times in the past week and you talk about how you started going to therapy after this really difficult breakup and I myself am a huge fan of therapy. So I love finding that out. But you also talked about how you used to kind of have like a bit of like a mean streak in your comedy like they're you A little bitter and therapy major realize that you needed to change. Yeah. Yes. Let's actually hear a little bit of that. Now it's you on mental illness happy hour talking to the host Paul Gilmartin. Would it be fair to say that you wouldn't be doing the comedy that you're doing right now? Were it not for therapy? 100% Okay, as I improved my own life my Outlook my art changed. Yeah, and for the better. Oh, Absolutely, you know, I feel like it got I got I realized through therapy man. I have not been I have not been taking anything in my life as seriously as I should be taking it. I have been blinding myself with booze, you know, checking out, you know as much as I can and telling myself who I am as opposed to finding out who I am. Does that make sense? It does make sense and sometimes what we think is a disaster is the necessary path to what we want. It just has to circumvent. Vent through. Yeah, maybe hitting a bottom. The worst thing that could happen for us is for us to be given what it is that were fantasizing about at the time that were fantasizing about it because we wouldn't be able to handle it. Yeah, there's always something more that you're going to want. I went through a period of bitterness not that long ago where I was in a I was in a really dark place. It was it was all about, you know, entering into middle-age turn getting into my 40s where it's like Holy shit time is going by so fast so fast that all I can think about is I'm almost dead. I am almost dead and where am I and what am I doing? You know, I did not realize how great my life was I couldn't see it and I try I was trying to see it. You know what I mean? Like at this point. I'm a married man. I'm a professional stand up comedian. I'm having like a really good year financially from all these different things. I'm working on. All these other projects that are towards my goal, but I was still at this point where everybody else is doing better than I was I was I was not any closer to achieving this goal that I wanted to achieve. It was never going to happen and but really what it was about was mortality. It's that time is too short. It's never going to happen and it's embarrassing that I can't provide for my wife better it It's it's embarrassing that I have. I have fucked up my career with this dumb behavior in the past that now I'm never going to be where I want to be not even where I want to be but to a point where I can breathe, you know, it's always going to be like this. I'm always going to be on the fucking hustle. I'm always going to be traveling around and we can be packing that goddamn suitcase crazy. It was terrible. It was terrible because I can tell you Paul from your as a peer reviewers, and I know there are tons of other Here's that feel the same way. We look at you and think if I could only get to where we're and and that ladder I think never ends unless you can say I'm happy to just be on this journey the ladder never ends because you're always building the fucking ladder. Yeah, you're always adding the rungs on there. It's always you. How have things changed since that conversation it goes back and forth living in Los Angeles being in this weird little bubble of show business because the whole town is about that. Yeah, it's hard sometimes to keep perspective because no matter where you are. There's an idea around you that you should be somewhere else that wherever you are. It's like that's not good enough. Yeah, and so there are times where I can get down about not getting a certain job or something or not being considered for a certain job or something like that, but then It takes some doing sometimes to get back to a good healthy perspective of I have a really good life and I am you know employed doing this thing that I love to do, you know, if it's I'm having fun doing it and the hours that I've spent in those rooms in front of microphones are some of the happiest hours of my life where it is just it's just fun and to be doing something with other. People to be working together me and friends of mine who do comedy podcast their people the right to us all the time saying you guys help me do my job because I'm stuck at a desk all day and I'm looking at a monitor. And without these shows I would go crazy and it's like you guys are my friends that stuff man that really it really makes a difference. It really helps is podcasting. Like is it a tool for self work for you in a way? Hmm. Um, I I mean not consciously I think that if you have a if you have a job that That you love doing. I think it can't help but be that it is a thing where I can be having a bad day and then go and do that for an hour. Yeah and feel a lot better. Yeah, and it might not turn my day completely around depending on whatever it is. That's bothering me but man at least for an hour. I was having a good time. Yeah, and tomorrow is another day. So like what do you hope for that and the future of the medium and how do you see yourself fitting into that? I hope there will always be a place for me in it. I hope that it continues to flourish. I hope that will always remain in the hands of the people. You know, I do a show that's for a podcast Network. And so I get paid to do that podcast and I think that's great. And I hope that that I hope that that continues and so that more people can make a living doing this. Yeah, but I hope I hope I hope whether it's you know the absence of some you know. In regulation or people being squeezed out because they can't compete with podcast networks, whatever. I hope that people will always be able to make what they want to make. That's beautiful there really was I'm so glad that you don't understand. I'm so glad that you came. Do you are like a Cornerstone of this here industry, and I'm so honored that you came in here to talk with us today. It was absolutely my pleasure Brittany, but us with me there's oh it's just me in Royal us exactly. But thank you so much. This is a great of course. Probably John C. Reilly is probably the closest that I get to sounding like the other person your John C Reilly and yeah sure. Did we just hear just a little bit of that everybody awesome to be here. Listen, thanks a million shows. I'm always happy to talk about podcasts and I know there's a lot of people think like, that's awesome. And so it's cool to be here. To recap the clips featured on the show today the Andrew Lloyd Webber rap, Garry Marshall and Ice-T Impressions were from Comedy Bang Bang with Scott Aukerman the prank phone call from an iced tea impersonator was from the podcast Ice-T final level Nathan Lee grams cupcake story was from spontaneous nation and Paul's commentary. I'm growing older was from the podcast mental illness happy hour special thanks to Earwolf. This episode was produced by Kate Parker. Sam Morgan Sarah of drammen Rose Reed and myself it was edited by a Nero Strasser and Peter clammy. Our theme music was made by my Cavalli and our ad music was made by Mark Phillips additional music in the show was by talk star the show is mixed by Hayley Shaw and Bobby Lord sampler is a production of gimlet media.
Comedian and actor Paul F. Tompkins joins Brittany to discuss his prolific podcasting career. Also, Paul explains why he loves playing characters and hates "lazy comedy." **Warning, this episode contains adult language** Episode #25 features clips from the following episodes (please go to our website www.gimletmedia.com/sampler for links to all episodes):  Comedy Bang Bang, "Episode 303: Puttering Around"  Comedy Bang Bang, "Episode 31: Happy Black Friday"  Ice-T: Final Level, "Episode 2: Coco's Butt, the Secret to Success & Advice for Bieber"  Comedy Bang Bang, "Episode 91: Garry Marshall Presents" Spontaneanation, "Episode 0: Paul F. Tompkins Presents Spontaneanation" Spontaneanation, "Episode 68: Paris with Nathan Lee Graham" Mental Illness Happy Hour, "Episode 34: Paul F. Tompkins"  The Facts:  This episode was produced by Kate Parkinson-Morgan, Sarah Abdurrahman, Rose Reid and Brittany Luse. It was edited by Annie-Rose Strasser and Peter Clowney. Our theme music was made by Micah Vellian and our ad music was made by Mark Phillips. Additional music in the show was by TakStar. The show was mixed by Haley Shaw and Bobby Lord. Sampler is a production of Gimlet Media. Our Sponsors:  Audible - Go to http://audiblepodcast.com/Sampler for a free 30-day trial and a free audiobook. 