Part 2 of Lisa McDonald’s Interview with Rick Green

Lisa McDonald sat down with writer, actor, producer and musician Rick Green recently to explore the inner workings of a man that has so many times caused us to smile, laugh and tap our feet. This is the second of a two-part interview, timed to coincide with the release of Frantic Noises, the new Frantics album that will be launched at The Royal in Toronto tonight, Monday, December 7.

Part Two of 2

Rick Green is a Canadian comedian, actor, satirist, writer, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Waterloo.   From 1975 until 1979, Mr Green worked as a presenter at the Ontario Science Centre where he developed numerous plays, programs and exhibits. Following the OSC, Green brought his gift for comedy and his love for performing to numerous Toronto stages by joining Paul Chato, Dan Redican and Peter Wildman in the enormously popular sketch comedy troupe, The Frantics.   The antics of the troupe were displayed on the award-winning CBC Radio show Frantic Times and the television program, Four on the Floor.  In 1987, Rick Green won two ACTRA awards for Best Performer and Best Writer of an Entertainment Feature for the 13-part CBC series, The Frantics Look at History.  From 1989 to 1994, Rick was writer and host (Commander Rick) of TVOntario’s Prisoners of Gravity, a show that explores literature, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comics.

At the same time, Green joined creator Steve Smith to co-write eight seasons, direct four and perform in 173 episodes of The Red Green Show as the hapless klutz, Bill Smith.  The Red Green Show is one of the longest running prime time series in North America. In addition to the television series, Rick co-wrote and illustrated several Red Green books. Rick then began developing a fast-paced comedy series called History Bites for the History Television channel. Each episode of History Bites focuses on a different historical event and imagines what it would be like if television were there to cover it.

As creator, writer, director and performer, Rick Green brought History Bites to its 5^th season.  Over the years, Rick has written and directed corporate videos, television commercials and films, written for stand up comedians and dozens of magazines and newspapers, as well as taught classes in writing and physical comedy. The multi-talented artist has been nominated for over a dozen Gemini Awards and is currently immersed in developing a website called Totally A.D.D., which not only stems from the award-winning documentary A.D.D. and Loving it?!  for which Green wrote, produced and directed for Global TV along with actor, comedian and host Patrick McKenna.  But this project specifically draws upon his own battle with A.D.D. and his passion for education and personal commitment to transforming our view of mental health. Unbelievably, Mr Green has found a moment in his busy schedule to chat with me extensively about Attention Deficit Disorder, his past achievements and current endeavours as well as the upcoming Frantics reunion show at the Royal on Dec 7, 2009.

The Rick Green Interview Part Two…

Your phone must ring off the wall.

It doesn’t ring at all.  I think everyone assumes I’m too busy.  But perhaps it’s because I’m not in the schmooze circuit. I don’t do stuff for publicity and promo purposes.  I don’t think of those things. Especially not while I’m doing a series like History Bites where I’m working three different jobs; I have enough to think about.

Do you find one role more challenging than the other?

That’s a good question.  I’ve never been confident with my acting ability.  I played a mafia accountant on Train 48; an accountant who was being blackmailed for having done something nasty with a young girl.  People I worked with were complimentary toward me but, I wasn’t comfortable playing a pervert.  It was a stretch.  But I don’t think I’m necessarily all that funny either and yet, when editing my comedic stuff people roar with laughter.  I remember one time shooting The Adventures of Bill.  We were shooting outdoors and being the film was silent, we never had to stop for airplanes and we could talk freely on set.  After the first shot was set up and Steve was ready, I made my typically crazy entrance in a car and Steve dodges me to avoid getting hit. With no audio to worry about, I got out of the car and exclaimed, “How ya doin’, ya stupid fat fuck!”  A little smirk would spread across Steve’s face and the entire crew would be howling.  And away we’d go!  The fun would begin!  But unlike the clip I saw of Charlie Chaplin doing take number 280, we didn’t have the privilege of that kind of time.  The budget was so low that often things were done in one take.  And the mistake I sometimes made was over-shooting.  We’d shoot so much material.  The Frantics radio show was the same way.

Dan Redican told me he learned not to get so egotistically attached to material when working on the radio program.

The context is always what makes the audience laugh the most.  If they laugh, they’re going to tune in next week and if they tune in next week, you get more money to do another show.  Being egotistically attached to material could be destructive to that.

But who determines what will get the biggest laugh?  What you may determine funnier might not necessarily be the same as what I would determine funnier.

There’s some level of that but as we went along, we got better at judging what worked and didn’t work.  At the beginning of Red Green, we’d be right approximately a quarter of the time.  Later on, we’d be right forty or fifty percent of the time.  We also did stuff that was deliberately so bizarre that it was anti-laugh.  In the Frantics, Dan did some sound poetry for instance that was not what I would even call dramatic.  It was just odd; odd stuff that went on and on. But what I love about writing is being able to hand it over and provide work for all the wonderful people involved.

You trust them?

It’s more than that.  It enables them to do what they love to do.  There’s an actor by the name of Peter Oldring who is known for being profusely thankful and at the end of shooting, he’d come up and say, “This was so much fun.  I will do this any time, please call me.”  Peter Oldring is good.  He should have his own show.  But he worked with us that day, horsed around and had fun.  When you get to showcase a talent who takes your material and goes beyond it, making it funnier than you could ever imagine…

People must really like working with you.

I guess.  There’s an incredibly good lighting guy I work with who leaned over to me one day and said, “Don’t tell my wife, but I could work someplace else making three times as much as money.  I stay here because I love this. It makes me laugh! ”

If we could all be so lucky!

If you can feed yourself doing what you love, you’re fine.

With your role as the hapless klutz Bill Smith in mind, who are your role models?

For that character, it would be Benny Hill.  And there’s definitely some Harpo with his off-to-the-races grin.  There’s a scene in one of the Marx Brothers films where Harpo is walking along the hall and a woman is walking by from the other way.  Harpo doesn’t say anything to her; just stops and stares at her with that grin.  She screams (laughs) and runs off with Harpo chasing after her.  It’s the stupidest thing, but not threatening at all.  My character Bill has that same level of, when the brick falls down on his head and makes him go down too; he pops right back up saying, “let’s try a different size brick!”  One of the things about A.D.D. is the ability to forget.  Like the gambling addict who forgets the two hundred times he’s lost but, remembers the one time he won.  I like to bring that element of joyful childishness to the character.

The klutz thing makes me think of Jerry Lewis.

Harpo wasn’t a klutz but, he was a gifted physical comedian.  Harpo was a role model for me, as was Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton.  Not so much Charlie Chaplin but many of the silent actors too.  And I can’t forget the physical comedy of Warner Brothers cartoons; the flexibility, the timing, the beat, walking off a cliff, looking up, looking down, holding a sign that says “oh dear!”  To create that kind of timing is astounding.  And it’s drawn!

And I think of Lucille Ball when I think of physical comedy.

And Laverne and Shirley.  But what happened in the eighties were shows like Seinfeld.  Seinfeld came along where you had a stand up comedian who was not physical but, had Michael Richards complimenting the ensemble with his own brand of physical comedy with the character of Kramer.  It definitely added to Seinfeld’s success.

When you’re writing for an actor, are you thinking of yourself?

If I’m specifically writing for myself, then yes.  I write keeping my strengths and limitations in mind.  I don’t have such terrific balance but I know I can fall anywhere and not get hurt.  I can run up to a car, jump on the roof, slide down the other side, roll up, and walk away in winter.  It looks hilarious. But if you’re not writing for yourself, it’s better to have someone else in mind.

So you never get hurt doing these stunts?

Well, sometimes I do.  I remember Jim Carey asking me, “how do you do that without getting hurt?!”

You’ve worked with Jim Carey?

Yes, I wrote the first movie he ever appeared in.  I can’t remember the title of the film now or whether I’m credited as Rick Green or Enrico Gruen, but occasionally the film shows up on the Drive-in channel.  The premise is a movie director who wants to do a thing on orphans but, everywhere he goes they want him to do porn, or something about nudity or strippers (laughs). The actual producer of the film approached the Frantics as writers, and the other three guys said, “I’m not doing this!”  But me, I was like, “this could be fun!”  I wrote five or six scenes for the film that I thought were hilarious.  But the lesson I got from Carey was in the joy of wanting to be there.  When I was back stage at Yuk Yuk’s with the troupe, it was tough because there’s four of us alongside a lot of stand-up comedians.  And as you’ve mentioned, a lot of comedians are dark; dark, gossipy, suspicious and even at the age of 22, quite cynical and resigned.  I see Jim Carey over there on his own and when he gets up on stage, he just stands there grinning, looking totally happy to be there.  And as I watched him, I thought, I want it to always be that way for me.  To be up there glowing like that!  It’s a fucking (pardon me) powerful opportunity to give one of the greatest gifts of all, which is laughter.

You got a sense of Carey’s genuine joy?

He was just grinning; standing there grinning with absolutely no material.  Carey had a way of making it look like he’d dislocated his shoulder and he’d throw his arms around and make it look creepy and funny but, basically he had no material.  It was the same with Howie Mandel.  Mandel would get up with no material either.

Perhaps the physical comedy they were doing was the material.

And the pleasure and joy of that was palpable.  I realized I didn’t want to take the time for anything that wasn’t just that.  There`s a phrase I heard recently from an old guy on the street after my wife asked him how he was doing.  He said. “any day I’m on this side of the sod is a good day”. And I thought that’s it!  I know people who are generous.  I know people who are love.  That’s who they are.

Some people say we can choose to be happy simply by telling ourselves, “I’m going to be happy”.  I have trouble buying into this.

Well, it’s not easy.  The voice in your head will say you can’t.  It would take other stuff, bad stuff to happen before you could realize this statement.  Have you read the book Night by Elie Wiesel?

No.

It’s about a guy in a German concentration camp who realizes he has no control over what’s going to happen to him.  The only thing he has control over is how he’s going to take it.

But I still have difficulty with this because you make it sound like a choice.

It is a choice.  He could stand there in the concentration camp screaming, “this isn’t fair, just because I’m a Jew!  What has happened to this great country? This is not right!” Or, he could say, “the sun is up and the sky is blue. I’ll be a leader today and inspire happiness in someone”.

Sounds like Roberto Benigni’s character in the film, Life is Beautiful.

For a long time I didn’t understand it either.  But now, I get glimpses of how I’m being.  There was a point where I suddenly realized I could be where I am, have everything I have and everything I don’t have, and be totally okay.  And I could get there without all the unnecessary worry.  Rather than, “yea, it’s a nice day but there’s a shop we have to get to, oh my god, c’mon, let’s go!” why not say, “Yes, there’s a shop we have to get to.  But it’s a nice day.”  There is a choice in how you’re being.  I believe everything I do is a choice.  I no longer say, “It’s shoot day. I have to go and shoot the tv show”.  Of course there’d be consequences if I called up and said I wasn’t coming, but nobody forces me to do anything.  I don’t have to be a father to my kids.  I could walk away.  People do.

People walk around carrying a lot of hurt.  The sadness prevents them from being happy.

Absolutely but, as Buddah says, “All unhappiness is due to unfulfilled expectation”.  It’s the simplest thought and it’s the most profound.  So when you look at the Frantics as they say, “Oh, we’ll never be on Letterman or Carson”.  I say, “But we’re on stage tonight in front of people who are falling over laughing.  Why be concerned with three years from now and potentially not being on the Letterman show?”  It’s not always as simple as that, I know.  I myself was a master of worrying.  Like when my kids were born, the worry was the worst.  It’s taken some doing but, I have trust in the universe now.

And how do you gain that trust?

It came through good courses and books which helped me see the chatter in my own head.  I realized I could interrupt the flow of chatter.  The chatter is never going to be reality.  First of all, there is no real reality.  I mean, you could argue this chair is made of wood and I would agree with you but, “is it ugly or is it beautiful?  Is it a treasure or an embarrassment that should be replaced?  Are they nice? Does she like me?  Is this a great room?  I could walk into your house and have an opinion on everything.  But do I have any ideas?  That’s the issue.  Most of the world is stuck on opinions.  Everyone has an opinion on the government, the TTC and Harper and Afghanistan and that’s okay, but what ideas do you have?  I’m interested in people who let go of opinions and are willing to say, “I don’t know”.  I can look at things now and say, “I don’t know”. I can look at things and say, “I’ve got no idea”. And I’m willing to say, “I’m an idiot”. The more I learn about psychology, the more I realize we decide stuff within thirty seconds, based on appearance, movement and timber of voice.  Our minds follow this by generating all the reasons why.  We don’t listen, reason and then decide.  We decide within seconds.  Like when I walked in here tonight, your mind was probably going a mile a minute in one long sentence, “What’s this guy like?  Is he this, is he that, he’s got white hair, is he a goof, physical comedy, History Bites, is he good, Red Green, la la, la….”

(laughter) That’s just the kind of chatter that keeps me up all night!

And it won’t stop until you’ve got something bigger on your plate.  There’s a great phrase, “if you’re problems are stopping you, you need bigger problems.”  I didn’t get it right away either but, it got realized the day I went to pick up my daughter and she said, “I can’t come out, I haven’t got my hair done and I have no makeup on.” She was fifteen and stuff like this matters at that age.  But the reason for it is, “what would people think?”  A bigger problem would be, her brother is on the front yard choking.  How she looks now would no longer matter.  Whether she was dressed wouldn’t matter.  She’d be out that door trying to save her brother.  You can wait until life thrusts bigger problems on you like choking or cancer or something, or you can choose bigger problems now.  I started watching people around me who I really admire and soon noticed my brother.  My brother has all this stuff going on but still took on this charity that does micro lending in third world countries.  It’s a huge undertaking, yet he chose to jump into it anyway, despite his busy schedule.

Well, I definitely have more opinions than ideas.

What happens when you lean toward ideas; you let go of cynicism and resignation.  You’ll be able to dream again.

Years ago, I may have listened to what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t have heard.

I know.  I wouldn’t have heard it either.  I would have thought, “what are you talking about?  The world’s not safe! “ And someone else would say, “yes, it is safe”.  Some people look at roller coasters and have very different opinions on whether they’re a good thing or a bad thing.  Some people have no fear of them and some people, like my wife, would say “you’ll have to shoot me before I’ll get on that roller coaster”.  It’s the same roller coaster with the same level of safety but, people have different beliefs.  And there’s people who smoke and tell me they only drink bottled water.  And I say, “you’re inhaling arsenic but you’re concerned with chlorine in the water?”

(laughing)

Sometimes I get really impatient.  What I learned from one of the courses I took was, if you are able to say “I blew it” or “I’m an idiot”, you will be liberated.  It gives permission to allow humanity.  I really understand now that a fourteen year old, or a seventeen year old, or someone of any age really, can say, “my parents don’t know me.  They don’t know anything about me!”  And ten minutes later, that same person will be saying, “I tell ya, I know my parents!”  But you don’t know your parents any better than they know you.  Nobody really knows anybody.  We have shields up and defence systems in place.  And when we come home at night, it’s no wonder we’re not satisfied.  We’ve met thirty people at a party and although some of them were interesting, we basically spent the night bumping into masks.

As a writer, I expose myself all the time.  I hope it does liberate people.  I know when I read someone who exposes their flaws, it endears me to them.

The humanity of that and the compassion of just allowing ourselves to mess up, is good.

The Red Green Show was well-received.  To what do you owe the show’s popularity?

I think the characters allowed us to say things about men.  During the show, Steve gave everyone a copy of the book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.  And with every page I turned, I got 99 ideas for different skits.  It’s a funny read from that point of view. It sparked one idea after another.

And didn’t duct tape have something to do with the show’s success?

When viewers send photos in of all the things they’ve done with duct tape, you know it!

Duct tape must have been flying off the shelves.

Steve went to 3M one day and said “we’ve been selling a lot of duct tape for ya!”  And 3M went, “thank you”.

Did you write and illustrate books to accompany the Red Green Show?

Yes, two or three.  I did most of the illustrations in them.  I use to paint but I haven’t in a long time.  My wife would like to see me get back to it.

History Bites has an interesting premise.  “Creator and host Rick Green takes viewers on a journey up and down the television dial for a hilarious look at what Regis Philbin might offer a peasant during the reign of Vlad the Impaler with pronouncements by Judge Judy for blue collar Transylvanians.”

History Bites was a great way to comment on the modern world.  It was a pleasure to read through history books to find just the right parody.  We did a segment covering the first Thanksgiving as All in the Family.  We only spent about four hundred dollars on the set, but the actors were so good.  They were so funny.  I won a Gemini for directing History Bites.  Many winners at the ceremony got up and said, “I’m so glad my mom’s here to share this with me.  When I got up there, I said, “What an honour to finally win this.  I wish my mom was here to share it but, its $220 a ticket!  My mom said, “Screw that!” After running a few one-hour specials, History Bites is nominated for a Gemini again this year.

(laughing)

But I think the award that meant the most to me was the CAMH award for Transforming Lives.  It’s given to one celebrity and seven or eight other people who make a difference around mental health.  And it was the first time A.D.D. was recognized.  When a guy from BMO Financial handed me the award I said, “I’m the only person in North America in the last twelve years to thank a banker!” It was great to win for A.D.D. and Loving it?!  Having never done a documentary before, we made one that’s not only funny but with subject matter that people carry very strong opinions about. In my acceptance speech I said, “we did this so 10,000 children don’t go to bed at night staring at the ceiling, eyes wide and moist, terrified there’s something wrong with them.”  My own embarrassment about coming out with A.D.D. pales in comparison to these kids; they are the bigger problem.

The Frantics made household names out of characters like Mr Canoe Head, Canada’s aluminum-headed crime fighter.  But then there’s Hoverboy; a superhero with a bucket for a head who has hovered his way through animated shorts, radio, and comic strips, and straight into the life of Rick Green.  Who is this Hoverboy, and what is his relationship with you?

Hoverboy is the most over-exploited, under-rated lightening super-hero ever.  Hoverboy started as an animated cartoon and then went to comic books.  Hoverboy is the Spinal Tap of comic books.  Working with Hoverboy is as much fun as working with the Frantics.  It’s the structure.  There’s this whole gay sub-text that’s hilarious.  We just finished doing 30s-style radio shows with Hoverboy.  Our friend Bob Segarini took part and he was very funny.  The next step will be a screenplay for Hoverboy and a cartoon.  And if you visit his website (see links at the end of this article), he’s got new stuff coming up all the time.

Are there many other projects you’ve been working on to keep your creative juices flowing?

It’s mainly been about the website for A.D.D that’s driving me.  Every two weeks we’re posting another hour’s worth of material up on the site.  There’s lots of interesting scientific information and videos that help the 40% of A.D.D. people who also have learning disorders like dyslexia. I’ve also been doing comedic rants on the website.  I have a whole series of proposals in the works for different things because I have so many different interests.

So when you go home tonight, what will you work on?

Tonight?  Well, I might putter about in the basement with my model railroad.  Or I’ll cut out ads from these hilarious 1950s magazines I have.  I plan to make a big collage of house wives from the 50s holding everything from batteries to vacuum cleaners.

Do you ever watch television?

Not really, but I should.  My wife and I haven’t been keeping up with television.  I think when you edit and stare at a screen all day, the last thing you want to do is watch television.  I’m better off going to the Art Gallery or goofing around with poster paints and a big pad of paper.  I think everyone should play with Leggo for at least two months of their lives; Leggo or Tinkertoy.  I’m a big believer in trying everything.

Sounds like you’ve never grown up.  But in a good way.

In some ways I’ve grown up a lot but, in other ways I give myself the freedom not to; and not to be embarrassed for playing with model railroads.  A lot of people roll their eyes when they see some of the detail I put into it.  But I chose to turn off Sonny and Cher and play with my model railroad.

Are you looking forward to the Frantics 30^th anniversary show at the Royal on Dec 7^th?

It’s going to be fun!  We’ll pull out some gems and share stories from the road.  I was thinking about projecting old images on the screen behind us while we’re talking.  I don’t know if the Frantics will go anywhere beyond this reunion but if we do, I’d like to see the Frantics do radio again; radio comedy on the internet.  We have plenty of material that’s never been used.  And I’d like to re-write some of the old stuff.  It’s been thirty years and we’re far better writers now.

Will you be delighting us with your creativity for many years to come?

I know I could churn out tons of material.  I could churn out 15 seasons of something right now.  I know I could.  It’s not arrogance.  It comes from years of experience. But it’s got to matter.  It has to be meaningful to me. When I find something interesting that makes a difference, I will do it.

Do you find you have to make yourself happy first?

Always.  I wouldn’t want anyone not to.  I wouldn’t want my kids to do something with their lives that didn’t make them happy.  It’s hard to appreciate when you’re in your twenties, but your teens don’t come back.  When you’re in high school, childhood is gone.  Every step your child takes is another milestone.  One door closes and another one opens.  They’ll never cling to you the same way again.

And the thing that gets you up in the morning?

I think it’s a huge level of curiosity.  I’m willing to try things and I’m willing to fail.  It’s painful when you fail but, regret will stop you from appreciating what can happen.  A defining moment for me was ten years after my dad passed.  I was still suffering.  There’s a difference between pain and suffering.  Pain is, “I miss him” and suffering is, “my life has never been the same”.  When I finally told my mom, “I suffer because I never got to tell dad I loved him”.  She said, “oh, he knew!” Hearing that, tears poured down my face and I let go of the suffering.  I understand there may be a hole when I’m gone.  Being a comedian, I’m larger than life to my family in some ways.  But I look at my kids and I know they know.  So does my wife.  I tell them I love them.

Tickets for the Frantics at the Royal on tonight are $15. Doors open at 7:00 pm.

http://www.thefrantics.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Green

http://totallyadhd.com/

http://news.globaltv.com/Loving/2009300/story.html

http://www.redgreen.com/

http://www.historybites.com/

http://www.hoverboy.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25814835749

About Lisa McDonald: “I’m a city girl. A vegetarian who enjoys yoga, pilates, and cycles to keep active but live music is my real passion. All things music really, and I’ve been known to write about it.. I value a strong work ethic and good manners, but what really turns me on is confidence and experience.”