Steven Wright

Episode notes

(Photo: Courtesy of the guest)

Ask just about any alternative comic from the last twenty years to name their influences. Ask 100 of them. Put in one of those little word clouds people used to make in 2011.

The name you’ll see over and over again, front and center in big, big letters in that little word cloud, is Steven Wright.

Go see him on stage. It’s joke after joke after joke. But not rat-a-tat, like an old Borscht Belt comic. He’s quite the opposite. Wright’s comedy is slow, steady, and sometimes surreal.

His delivery? It’s that classic Steven Wright deadpan. A voice that’s served him well not only as a stand-up but as an actor in films like Reservoir Dogs and (this is important) Babe: Pig in the Big City.

Lately, Wright’s been changing things up a little. He just wrote his first novel. It’s called Harold. 

Harold is a book about a seven year old boy. It’s not really a coming of age story or anything like that. It’s pretty light on plot, in fact. Instead, it’s an interior monologue. A day in the life of a dreamer. The kind you’ve got to imagine Wright was when he was young. It’s a wild and fun ride. 

Steven Wright joins the show to talk about the new book and how much coffee he needed to drink to write it. Plus, he gets into his comedy career and how he landed his first stand-up spot on the Tonight Show.