Reiss Pieces


Realizing that I was going to miss the world premiere of Mike Reiss’s new comedy Comedy Is Hard at the Ivoryton Playhouse (it closed a couple of weeks ago), I instead binged on podcasts which featured Reiss as their guest.
Both are available on iTunes. One is Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast (a favorite new show for me; I posted something about the Danny Aiello episode here just last week). The other is called The Writers Bloc.
Reiss tells almost exactly the same stories in both podcasts: How he’s from Bristol, Connecticut .How he went to Harvard and didn’t learn anything there. How wrote for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show and for “the worst sitcom in the history of television,” 9 to 5. How he was there at the birth of the Simpson series and still is a part of that show. (He was involved in over 500 of the 554 episodes made so far.) How’s he’s proud of his icebox.com/Showtime cartoon Queer Duck.

He doesn’t mention his recent move towards playwriting at all on either show. Reiss has had two plays staged in Ivoryton: I’m Connecticut (which also played the Ct. Repertory Theatre at UConn in 2011) and now this “affectionate look at the relationship and rivalry between a retired stand-up comedian and a classical actress.”

Comedy is Hard seemed tailor-made for the Ivoryton Playhouse, which has a grand legacy of TV and movie stars treading its boards. The world premiere production of Comedy Is Hard at Ivoryton starred Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees and Joyce DeWitt of Three’s Company.

If want to choose between the two podcast appearances, the Gottfried one is longer and funnier.