Tonight Show, Take 2

Peggy Hill (probably): “In my opinion, standup comedians who want to be successful should perform their acts on television and get what I like to call, ‘national exposure.’”

MAY 1996

I’d been doing standup comedy for about six years when I got to do my first ever TV appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show (TS), then hosted by Jay Leno.

Knocked it out of the park. A childhood dream come true. Just ask me.

Or read about it here.

The success of that first TS set proved to the insecure part of me that I did in fact belong in the entertainment industry. Plus, thanks to that set, comedy clubs began to consider me a ‘bona fide’ headliner, my weekly pay nearly tripled, and some previously closed doors began to crack open. I even got a manager out of the deal.

The second time I got to perform on the Tonight Show didn’t go as well.

That’s the story I want to tell you now.

It’s a comedy tale filled with Mind-F’s galore. Still, it became the best thing that ever happened to me.

You know, like life-saving brain surgery or a timely shot of penicillin.

Anyway, cut forward to…

JUNE 1996

It was a week or so after that first glorious TS set.

The show’s booker, Jimmy Brogan, had congratulated me afterwards. He’d also invited me to put together on tape another five minute set to submit for a possible follow-up appearance.

“Absolutely,” I told him.

Slight problem.

I didn’t have much A-material left because for that first TS set, I’d already done my best bits.

Cruel Alarm Clock. Bed Seduction. Golf Suck.

Those were my comedy Billie Jean, Born to Run, and Uptown Funk. More or less.

At that point, the bulk of my 45-minute act was built around those three anchor bits that I’d stripped down for that first TS set. That meant all the other sub-jokes surrounding them were also useless since I had burned their premises, too.

Oy. Total TV rookie mistake.

I could have turned those three pieces into three separate 5-minute sets. Nope. Instead, I shoved them all into one mega set like a triple beef/chicken/shrimp burrito, hold the veggies and sauce.

So then I had to sort through what was left of my act – my comedy B-sides – for any potential ‘Hound Dogs’ and ‘Revolutions’ that I could lump together into another clean set.

Totally doable.

First, though, there was a…

Mind-F

That same year, I was also working for Chicago’s Second City Theater in one of their touring companies (GreenCo). They (and iO) taught me yes-and-ing, heightening, and finding the game, skills which remain critical tools in my comedy utility belt.

One of my Second City buddies at the time was nicknamed Raj, but you might know him better as Horatio Sanz. Back then, Raj and I spent some quality drinking time together plus we occasionally did some stage work whenever I was invited onstage to play with his ETC cast.

Raj’s professional opinion meant a lot to me, and I suspected that he thought I was funny. So when I asked him for his feedback on my Tonight Show set, I was creatively and emotionally expecting to have my comedy horn properly blown.

Instead, Raj told me how he really felt, in one elegantly truthful sentence.

First, he said, “You really want to know?”

“Yeah. Tell me.”

Raj smiled like he was breaking character.

Then he dropped a bombshell:

“You had the entire world’s attention, and that’s all you had to say?”

Ouch.

Awkward silence.

I tasted bile.

My comedy horn had just gotten trampled by a pro I admire, and I couldn’t understand why.

My first thought was, ‘But I killed, goddammit! Didn’t you hear them laughing? And applauding? Even Jay f’n Leno was laughing, you dick…’

But instead, I said, “Um, I guess so.”

Raj just smiled and shrugged, then our group ordered another round of pints.

That critique hit me hard.

Raj was calling me out for doing fluffy material instead of more pointed stuff the way the Second City and iO encourages us to do.

The superficial struggles I was comedically exploring – early mornings, golfing, male-pattern baldness – apparently didn’t measure up to the critical issues Raj felt I should be tackling.

What, maybe animal poverty? The irony of the decaf industry? The unbalanced distribution of sporks?

I could have debated Raj over why the everyday struggles I mocked were valid comedy fodder, because technically everything is.

Except a deeper part of me agreed with him.

Truth was, like many newer comedians, I wasn’t necessarily passionate about what I was mocking. I was just trying to score big laughs from paying, buzzed strangers as best I could. That’s what Raj was really calling me out on, and I subconsciously knew he was right.

My best self: “That’s a true friend.”

My ego: “Yeah, but what a dick!”

My comedy: “Thankfully.”

At that time, I had no clear Comedy Lens, so my jokes came across as random and ‘fluffy.’

Even though I was funny, I was a comedian with no consistent or relatable point of view. Just a jokester who always had something clever to say.

I was nuttin’ but a…

CORNER QUIPPER

Arguably hilarious (just ask me), but somewhat forgettable after the laughs grew quiet.

All our favorite comedians have clear and memorable Comedy Lenses, but I did not.

Burr is an angry truth teller. Dangerfield got no respect. Pryor was a gritty city storyteller. Seinfeld makes a big deal out of nothing. Barr was a domestic goddess. Steve Martin was a wild and crazy guy.

But Lukas was just a tall, bald comic.

So it made sense that the 5-minute set I started to assemble for my follow-up TS appearance was just a rag-tag collection of funny bits with no real or relatable interconnecting theme.

Breaking up with someone you live with.

Slow drivers.

My balding head.

It was a comedy garage sale with the used suit jackets thrown next to the webless catcher’s mitt and the chipped coffee mugs resting on a three-wheeled skateboard.

Thankfully, Chicago had plenty of open mics and proper comedy showcases available. So, for a few weeks I made my way around the circuit doing my new five, trying to find the thread. I video-taped every attempt and studied them all afterwards. Gradually, I hammered out a set I liked. But if I’m honest, I was new to being on TV, so I had no real clue what I was doing.

Finally, I got a version on tape good enough to submit to Jimmy, which I overnighted via FedEx.

Then a few afternoons later my phone rang.

“Hi Mike, Jimmy Brogan here.”

Hot damn, that was quick.

“Hey Jimmy, good to hear from you. I take it you got my tape.”

Awkward pause.

Uh oh.

“Unfortunately, Mike, it’s not good news. Tell you what, why don’t you keep working on that set and send me something else whenever you’re happy with it.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Ah, sorry about that, Jimmy. Will do. Thanks again for the consideration.”

“Looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

Click.

Dang. Another Mind-F.

The best of my B-sides cross-stitched together were apparently not good enough for the Tonight Show.

Hello, of course they weren’t – it’s the big leagues.

My job had been to create a new set that topped the first one. Instead, I had handed them a five-minute funny Frankenstein made out of random parts dug up from my corner quipper’s graveyard.

But I still had a chance. I was still in the game.

My only hope was to upgrade that set by getting back to the…

CRAFT OF COMEDY

Slight problem.   

Technically, craft-wise, I had no idea what the F I was doing. I was just naturally funny.

All my hilarious material had been birthed out of six years’ worth of organic stage moments. I came up with those bits nightly in front of live crowds thanks to whatever circumstances were happening in the room. It would take me another six years to do it again that way.

And unfortunately, I wasn’t very good at writing jokes sitting at my desk.

In fact, I sucked at it.

Found that out over the next few weeks as I wrote out ten thousand lame jokes and weak segues and did a million different versions (more or less) of the set I had in mind.

Deep down, I started panicking, but I kept at it.

[In the movie version, this would be where calendar pages of multiple days flip by interspersed with a close-up of Jimmy Brogan frowning, shaking his head, and me scrambling in a backyard pen trying to catch a rubber chicken.]

It took plenty more guest spots at countless open mics and club shows to re-shape that five minute collection of misfit toys into what I considered a professional TV showcase. I felt the version I finally got on tape was better than that rejected one and as good as I was ever going to get it.

But what did I know?

I overnighted it again to Jimmy at the Tonight Show.

TONIGHT SHOW TAKE TWO

Then I waited.

And faced a hard truth: if this set wasn’t it, there’d probably be no third chance. Yikes.

Then after what seemed like the better part of a decade, maybe two weeks, the phone rang.

“Hi Mike, Jimmy Brogan here.”

Please, oh please, oh please…

“Hey Jimmy. How are you?”

“Good. (pause) I think we got it.”

Oh Hallelujah, thank Carlin. The ghost of Lenny Bruce be praised.

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

“I’ll have my office set something up. See you in a few weeks.”

“Can’t wait, Jimmy. Thanks.”

Wow. Set approved. What a relief.

A week later we set up the date of my second appearance, and I bought an airline ticket to LA.

Part of me was thrilled to be performing on national TV again but I was feeling way more nervous than I had the first time.

Do I even belong in this conversation?

Can I really top that first set?

Is there a cure for flop sweat?  

I kept hearing Raj saying, “You had the whole world’s attention, and that’s all you had to say?”

Truthfully, the second set I had planned wasn’t saying much more than that first one did – just five more hilarious minutes of corner quips that made my audiences belly laugh.

Oh well.

BACKSTAGE AT NBC

For my first Tonight Show experience, I had invited my comedy friend Graham Elwood to join me backstage. I thought it might be fun to give a different friend the chance to tag along for this second ride.

Big mistake.

While Graham was forever upbeat and ready to do bits with me and put me in the mood to kill, the guy I had invited this time – let’s call him Glen – was going through a depressing midlife crisis. Unbeknownst to me, all his Hollywood dreams had just been shattered and he was questioning his comedic existence.

Basically, I had traded glad Graham for glum Glen.

For a pro, that shouldn’t matter. Looking back on it, though, I see how a difference in backstage co-pilots had affected my comedy energy. Before that first Tonight Show set, glad Graham and I had laughed in the dressing room, and that kept me distracted enough to relax. Whereas before the second set, glum Glen and I didn’t have much upbeat dressing room banter, which gave me plenty of time to dwell on the nationally televised set I was about to perform.

So what, right?

It’s a pro comic’s job to bring the funny even when it’s raining sad turds.

But it sure helps to have a cheerful umbrella along.

THE TONIGHT SHOW TAPED WEEKDAYS AT 5:00 PM

That afternoon at NBC Studios was an adrenaline-fueled blur.

I remember watching the start of the show on the monitor in my dressing room with glum Glen. There was a digital clock on the wall above the TV screen and we saw the minutes go ticking by. While my thoughts raced and my tummy gurgled, there were fascinating guests, a funny sketch, some live music, and I can’t remember any of those people by name.

Suddenly it was 5:55 pm.

My set would take five minutes, so I did the math and realized I was about to get bumped.

Happens all the time, just never to me.

Hello, Mind-F.

The floor director peeked into my dressing room and said, “Sorry, Mike, we ran out of time. Can you come back tomorrow and try again?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “No problem.”

“We’ll put you up in the Sheraton tonight so you’re close by.”

“Right on, thanks.”

So glum Glen and I got a quick dinner. Then he went home and I crashed early in my hotel room.

The next day I woke up to another Mind-F, this one a…

PIERCING MIGRAINE

That morning migraine came complete with a blinding visual aura.

My set was in about six hours. The left side of my head was a split log and retinal fireworks blocked half my vision. Oh, and all light was painful, and I felt ready to hurl.

Typical for me the day after an adrenaline-laced event; except the actual event hadn’t even happened yet.

I decided it was still early enough in the day to smoke some weed to medicate the pain and relax my body. So by the time glum Glen returned to the Sheraton at four pm, morose Mike was baked and drained of energy with the subtle undertone of a throbbing headache.

Didn’t matter – pro comedians do the job regardless.

DANCE, SHECKY, DANCE

About ten minutes before I was to go on, the sound engineer came into my dressing room and attached my lavalier microphone. The guy wired it underneath my shirt from the neckline to around the back where he clipped a battery pack onto my belt.

When the floor director came and got me, glum Glen said, “Good luck,” and we probably high-fived.

In the dark backstage, I heard Jay start to read my introduction, so I readied myself to go on. I told myself, “You got this,” and in that moment I truly believed me.

What did I know?

“My next guest is the host and co-writer of a show on A&E called The Straight Dope, you can see him this weekend at Zanies Comedy club in Chicago, please welcome comedian Mike Lukas.”

The curtain sprung open, and the television lights hit my migrained eyes like a billion slivers of glass. The crowd cheered and gave me a thunderous applause.

Then someone in the audience blasted their mini-airhorn. Literally.

All part of a…

SERIES OF 3 MORE MIND-F’S

Three more Mind-F’s rapidly unfolded as I took the Tonight Show’s stage.

Mind-F 1: Someone in the TS audience had snuck in a mini-airhorn like the ones you hear at high school basketball games. This person kept secretly blowing their horn throughout my set. Not sure why. Thankfully, the TS team was able to edit out most of the horn blows for the final broadcast (though you can still hear it at times) but that periodic airhorn blast was distracting.

Mind-F 2: The month prior, my first TS set was on a stage that was close to the audience’s front row, so it felt familiar, like I was performing at a comedy club. For the second set, I was on a different stage that was situated about two hundred miles (more or less) from the audience. That put a gigantic chasm between us that made it feel like I was doing my act on delay from the lobby.

Mind-F 3: During my final bit about slow drivers, I pretend to jog next to one on the highway. Well, my flailing body must have loosened the lavalier battery pack from off my belt. Right while I was performing, the metal pack suddenly broke free and began swinging around wildly by its cord like an angry tetherball and I was the pole. Mid-bit, I had to catch it and simultaneously yank off the mic clipped to my shirt collar. I tossed the entire wiry device to the side and relied on the boom mic above.

Pro comics are paid to handle any or all of those Mind-F’s – but the newer you are, the tougher that is.

When I rewatch the tape of that second TS set, I can tell my energy and timing are off. I seem angry instead of goofy. Dark instead of light. A couple of lines that usually land, didn’t. I still got plenty of laughs and applause breaks, but it was clearly not at the same level as that first set. I knew my job had been to top it and in that respect I’d failed.

An unwritten law of comedy cause-and-effect is that after a mediocre set, nobody talks to you.

That’s what it felt like in the NBC studios afterwards and all the way back to Chicago.

BIT BY A DOG

Soon after, another Mind-F piled on when I saw my comedy buddy Bobby Slayton at Zanies.

I had successfully middled for him six months prior – he’d even taken me out to eat an Italian dinner with his wonderful mother during the week. So when Bobby returned to Zanies again I came out to say hi. I ran into him before the show at the back of the club.

“Hey Bobby, Mike Lukas, we worked together last summer. Good to see you again.”

Silence.

Does he not remember me?

Unfazed, I made a newbie mistake by attempting to impress the grizzled vet with my rookie accolades.

“Bobby, I got to do another Tonight Show set. Did you happen to see it?”

More silence.

Hm.

Then Bobby Slayton, the Pitbull of Comedy, turned and made full eye contact.

He barked, “Yeah. Maybe next time try doing some jokes.”

Then Bobby just stormed away.

Ouch.

Now my poor brittle comedy horn got bit by a Pitbull.

Bobby Slayton, a notorious joke craftsman, called me out for being weak at my craft.

Another pro I respected telling me I wasn’t doing my comedy right.

Now I realize that back then I had a habit of skipping setups and jumping straight to punchlines and that’s probably one of many things Slayton didn’t appreciate.

Didn’t matter that I was still getting big laughs – Bobby felt I wasn’t writing ‘proper’ jokes and he had the sack to tell me that to my face.

My best self: “That’s a true friend.”

My ego: “Yeah, but what a dick!”

My comedy: “Thankfully.”

DOOR CLOSED

A final Mind-F came when I called the Tonight Show back to get rebooked a third time.

Turns out Jimmy Brogan had stepped down from that job and a young woman I didn’t know was now booking the comedians for the show.

When I asked her about a return engagement, she was blunt.

“Actually, Mike, we’re going back to using more ‘traditional’ standups now. Hope you understand.”

Oh, I did.

Thanks but no thanks. Next!

Soon after I did the Montreal and Aspen Comedy Festivals, and I even performed a set on Conan O’Brien’s show. That was followed by a yearlong run in Las Vegas with the Second City and then several years of producing and co-hosting a weekly comedy show on CBS Radio in LA called Crackin’ Up.

For a total of twenty-four years I got to perform my comedy on TV and Radio and at some of the nation’s top comedy clubs and theaters and cruise ships. Eventually, though, I got tired of leaving my wife and two babies at home every week, knowing the harm that might do to our relationships.

“It’s me, kids, your daddy.”

“Um, remind us…?”

In 2014 I hung up my standup comedy cleats for good and gave freelance writing a fulltime go.

During that time, I’ve also begun helping a few newer comedians learn the craft and I gradually turned that process into my first humor writing book.

WINDOW OPENED

The ongoing struggle to discover my true laugh-creating strategy inspired me to write the book, Finding Your Funny Muscle: How to Create Laughs Like a Pro.

It’s the game plan I wish I would have had before I got my big break because it teaches the two things I could have used back then:

• First, how to find your Comedy Lens, the twisted porthole through which you look at life to find your humor.
• Then, how to use that lens with the Humor Blueprint to create original laughs like the pros do.

There is a method to the madness of creating laughter. I call it ‘Finding and Flexing your Funny Muscle.’ Anyone who learns and practices it can become funnier the same way learning and practicing a guitar can make you more musical.

I have a clear Comedy Lens now – I’m the clumsy Aspie-hole, an ‘on the spectrum’ guy without the physical (or emotional) skills to live up to his own rigid demands.

“My glass is half empty. The waiter should do his job.”

“The glass was actually mostly full until you knocked it with your elbow, dad.”

Oh, clumsy aspie-hole.

Now my audiences get a better idea of where my humor comes from so they can relate to it more and remember me. And with the Humor Blueprint I can flex my Funny Muscle even when I’m not onstage.

Had that second Tonight Show topped my first one with less Mind-F’s and airhorns along the way, I might never have learned exactly where my comedy game was lacking.

Yes, when Bobby and Raj called me out, it pissed me off hurt my comedy feelings.

So what. I’m a pro. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Tough love from two comedy dicks friends who expect my best, always.

APRIL 2023

It’s 2023, and my comedy career is rebooted and running in a brand new direction. With my clear Comedy Lens and the Humor Blueprint in play, I’m excited to share all the hilarious new content (audio blog posts, video bits, and standup comedy) I’m cranking out at FunnyMuscle.com.

Also, Finding Your Funny Muscle: How to Create Laughs Like a Pro becomes available in May.

Anyone can use it to learn to be funnier – it’s just a matter of discovering your own Comedy Lens and putting the Humor Blueprint to good use in your own hilarious world.

The laughs you’ll create will (literally) do you good.

Peggy Hill (and Mike Lukas, probably) “I am finally getting the recognition I have always given myself.”