Greg Proops: Last Week on the Road: "Pre-Christmas 2007"
On December 18, 2007 Gleib drove Greg Proops to a show. He recorded their conversation. Here is that recording… This was actually a podcast that Gleib intended on releasing back then, called “Gleib Drives With…” but his iPod was stolen before he ever backed them up. This is one of the few surviving episodes, and has never been released until now. On this “Last Week on the Road” Proops and Gleib discuss…The influence of Mad Magazine and the political origins of Spy VS Spy, how Gleib got creative freedom for The Gleib Show, how Greg started out in comedy, the history of Abbot & Costello, Gallagher’s disastrous show in Mexico, hosting school events and joining improv troupes in college, Greg working with comedy greats early in their career and seeing Jake Johannsen’s timing develop, what Greg and Gleib want at their funerals, Steve Allen’s influence on talk shows, meeting Red Buttons and Milton Berle, and how Berle started out, how Proops and Gleib prepare their acts and whether brevity is important, the difficulty in booking TV sets, how Proops got cast in the British “Who’s Line is it Anyway?” and what the cast of the show was like, some great Clive Anderson stories, how England’s class system affects their accents, and what performing comedy in foreign lands is like. ***Sidenote: A controversy came out last week alleging that Seinfeld’s new web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” stole it’s premise from the UK web series “Carpool.” Well, before both of those web series, Gleib recorded 11 episodes of this podcast “Gleib Drives With…” which then became a web series for comedy.com called “ComedyJuice Carpool” which was broadcast and pre-dated Seinfeld’s series, as well as the UK “Carpool” show. And it’s the same premise. But who’s counting, right? 😉
