Why Comedies Suck Now - Judd Apatow - #1033

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
You said your parents' divorce bought your house and cars.

**Judd Apatow** (0:03)
That's true.

**Chris Williamson** (0:04)
How so?

**Judd Apatow** (0:06)
It's funny because when I first started doing stand-up, I remember writing in a notebook, and this is years, actually years before I ever got on stage, some joke about how Richard Pryor's grandmother ran a brothel. Like he grew up in a brothel, and all I had to work with to be a comedian was my parents getting divorced. Like it wasn't enough to be a genius. It was just enough damage to get you in the game that I wished my grandmother ran a brothel, and then maybe I would be more messed up.

**Chris Williamson** (0:42)
You wanted more trauma.

**Judd Apatow** (0:43)
I needed more trauma, but it was enough. It certainly was enough. But back then when people got divorced in the early 80s, people who just fought, they really fought. People weren't aware that you should keep it away from the kids.

**Chris Williamson** (0:58)
Oh, it was all out in the open.

**Judd Apatow** (1:00)
Yeah, too much involvement.

**Chris Williamson** (1:01)
It was trench warfare and you were in the middle of it.

**Judd Apatow** (1:04)
Too much of us knowing what was going on. And we had really thin walls. I remember I would hear them arguing. So I knew they were going to get divorced way before they told me.

**Chris Williamson** (1:13)
It was a protracted dispute.

**Judd Apatow** (1:16)
Yeah, and the funny part was they sat us all down. I remember sitting me and my brother and sister down on the brick next to the fireplace and telling us they were getting divorced. And then six months later, they got back together. And then a year and a half later, they sat us down again.

**Chris Williamson** (1:34)
Oh my God.

**Judd Apatow** (1:35)
So I had the double divorce.

**Chris Williamson** (1:36)
They got divorced twice.

**Judd Apatow** (1:38)
Yeah, I mean, they broke up and then they finally did.

**Chris Williamson** (1:41)
Yeah. Yeah. A start. And then a small, whatever, treaty between the two and then back again. Certainly, a lot of the comedian friends that I see are working with, and actually this is the same for music as well. Discomfort and pain seems to be a real creative catalyst. Yeah. Some people turn it into trying to earn money and make a business. Some people turn it into trying to make people laugh. Some people turn it into beautiful chords and lyrics that make people cry.
Is it difficult to be a funny comedian without a ton of trauma?

**Judd Apatow** (2:21)
There was a really funny conversation that Gary Schaenling had about this with Jerry Seinfeld. They were talking about, do you need pain to be funny? Jerry Seinfeld says, well, what about talent? What about just talent? And Gary went, why are you so angry?
But it is true that when you go through something, it just makes you more sensitive. And I think you just pay attention in a different way to the world and you don't feel safe. And you're looking to understand why the world is the way it is. So I think it makes you an observer in a lot of ways because you feel like, wait, this isn't working out the way I wanted it to. Why?

**Chris Williamson** (3:04)
Oh, that's so good. I think you're really right, though. I think the hypervigilance that people usually try and deprogram once they've gotten a little bit of success, if they look back at where the success came from, it was the level of obsession and observation and detail that they were looking at stuff with. They couldn't not. And that's why they saw in that one interaction between an air hostess, stewardess, and a passenger, something that went on to be a really funny bit. Or in their breakup, they tried to work out, why did this happen? I didn't feel safe. I was dissatisfied with the world. I don't want it to happen again. I'll obsess and think and ruminate and reflect, oh, out of this is born a beautiful lyric or a harmony or whatever. And that is my song that, you know, breaks through. So yeah, I see exactly the, I've never, I've always realized that pain is a genesis of creativity, but I've never worked out the mechanism. And I think that's a big part of it. That's cool.

**Judd Apatow** (4:00)
Well, definitely, I thought, I need to figure out how to survive in the world. What am I going to do? So it made me more obsessed with the one interest I had, comedy, and trying to figure out, well, how do you get a job? How do you get in? So I had way too much energy as a really little kid to figure out both the creative side and the business side. You know, how does an open mic night work? How do you get hired to write a screenplay? How do you become a director or an actor? And, but that was safety, like, because I thought, I don't know if I can trust the people around me to take care of me. And so I'm gonna have to take care of myself. And that was probably a big exaggeration, but as a little kid, it felt very visceral.