Alan Zweibel

In his five-and-a-half-hour interview, Alan Zweibel talks about his early years, and becoming enamored with The Dick Van Dyke Show as a child. He recalls learning how to write jokes from watching shows like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Dick Cavett Show, and coming up as a comedian with Richard Lewis and Larry David. He details at length his time as a writer for Saturday Night Live, where he partnered with Gilda Radner to write many of her most famous characters, including “Roseanne Roseannadanna.” Zweibel speaks of working with the entire early cast and writing staff of Saturday Night Live, as well as producer Lorne Michaels. He chronicles developing the groundbreaking show It’s Garry Shandling’s Show with Garry Shandling and serving as the series' showrunner. He opens up about the death of friends and collaborators Gilda Radner and Garry Shandling, and how he coped with the loss. He discusses his time writing for Curb Your Enthusiasm for Larry David, and working on the play 700 Sundays for his friend Billy Crystal. He recalls several of his feature films, including Dragnet and the infamous feature film North. He concludes by discussing what he enjoys about being a writer. Dan Pasternack conducted the interview in a joint venture with the Writers Guild Foundation on November 7 and November 22, 2017 in New York, NY. 

In his half-hour, remote Zoom follow-up interview, Zweibel discusses his then-new book, Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People be Funnier, the challenges of promoting a book during the COVID-19 pandemic, the then-recent death of his mother, and his thoughts on comedy during hard times. Please Note: this was the Interviews' first attempt at remote interviewing, and there were some bandwidth issues. Please excuse the bumpy video. Jenni Matz facilitated the interview conducted by Dan Pasternack on May 6, 2020.