[music]
--Hi, everybody! It's me, Susan Blackwell. Today, I'm side-by-side my favorite
Broadway hain't, star of the musical Beetlejuice. Look everybody, it's Alex
brighty Brightman!
--Mwah! --Brightmonster
--I'm not supposed to use this camera but
--Give it to all the people. Tell our friends at home where we are and what
we're doing today.
--All right. We are... there's no irony here. We are at my
favorite place in New York City, maybe
the country. --Big words.
--It's the Mermaid Inn on the Upper West Side on 88th Street
and Amsterdam Avenue.
--You wrote a big check. Do you think the Mermaid Inn cash it?
--Yes. Oh, for sure, for
sure. I can't hype this place up enough.
--Great.
[music]
--I'm gonna put 30 seconds on the
clock. You have to tell me your entire life story. Don't leave out the awesome
parts, but don't include anything you've already told us.
Ready, set, go.
Born in the Bay Area. Grew up very, very short. Thought I was gonna stay very
short. Had an extreme growth spurt where I grew like feet in a couple nights. Hurt
very much.
--Come on --Stop! I'm on the clock!
And then I went to an all-boys Jesuit High School
where I played baseball and lacrosse. Loved musical theater. Did it. Went there
more than school. Went to NYU. Dropped out after two years. Have started working
since, haven't really stopped. Loved it. At one point when I was younger thought I
was gay, but I'm not.
--You have five seconds left.
--Maybe I'm still gay.
[claps]
--Hey, talk me through what we're having today.
This is this was your yeah your pick. --These are some full highlights
from this menu. Over here, this is tuna crudo. I could eat this like popcorn
at a movie. I would, a bucket of it at a movie just. These are oysters. I will say
some of the oysters here taste like in— and I say this in the best way— tastes
like you're eating it off the side of a boat.
It's like just I love. --Like a
barnacle? --Yeah.
--Talk faster. I'm hungry.
--Okay. These are the fish tacos. They're
delicious. These are Old Bay fries. They should be illegal that they're so good.
And these are the best thing I've ever eaten in my entire life. They're lobster
knuckles. They're chunks of lobster that are cooked essentially like escargot.
[bleep]
--Yeah.
[bleep]
--Let's eat. --Let's do it.
[music]
--You're in elementary school. You tell your class to call you by a new
name. [laughs]
--Care to comment, Alex Brightman? --Yes, I care to
comment. When I was in elementary school,
I made the teacher stop class so I could
make an announcement. So the whole class paid attention and I got up, and I said,
Just so you guys know I'm not Alex anymore. And I want you all to call me
Brandon. [laughs]
[laughs]
--Real. And I just said, So, that's what's going on now. It's kind of, it's kind
of everyone is calling me Brandon now.
--I'm coming out as Brandon.
--Yeah. Everyone is calling
me Brandon now. And then at recess, I was
hanging out and somebody went, Alex! And I
looked and I was like, Oh, dammit!
[claps]
--You're in gym class. You're in gym class.
--Oh, no! Wait! --You crack a fart so
embarrassing that you pretend to faint. Care to comment,
Alex Brightman?
--I was in third grade ...
I think it was third grade. We're in gym class
and we're in like the, like the little note like it's like a play big like
cafeteria. We're doing
--Sure. Cafegymnasatorium.
--Yeah. And linoleum
important part of the story because nothing reverberates sound like linoleum.
And I'm sitting there I'm stretching and I was stretching like with like my legs
out like this. And I farted so loud. But it was like at a point
where like nobody was talking. I let out a very loud, disgusting like old old man
big gut beer guy fart.
--What did it sound like?
--It was like skeeeapppp!
Like that. And then I like
froze. And everybody, like out of a movie,
everyone was like whoosh. Looked at me. And I was so embarrassed that rather than
trying to own up to it, I pretended to pass out. And it didn't work, and they
were just like that kid that passed out farted.
[laughs]
--You can create pentatonic style
backup vocals to any song that I sing. Care to comment, Alex Brightman?
--You talked to my wife. --I don't know your wife.
[sings] Said the night wind to the little lamb --To the little
little lamb. --Do you know what I know?
--She doesn't know anything at all. --Screaming
through the sky little lamb? --Mmm mah, mmm mah mah.
--Do you smell what I --Do you smell
[laughs]
That's really good!
[claps]
--Zab not...
[laughs] --Care to comment Alex
Brightman? --Me and my three still best
friends. --Yeah
--F Michael Haney, Drew Gasparini and Andrew Kober
--Yeah --We've all grown up, but
at one point we decided wouldn't dope he's an r-la are in our lives compelling
enough to write a pilot about us? And we filmed it. We filmed it over the course
of two weeks. We put a pilot together, which I am genuinely proud that we got
something done. --Great!
--And then we watched it and we were like, This is horrendous.
And in the pilot, in the pilot I play a version of myself, a very heightened
version of myself, who has an alter ego that he created when he was 18, who is this
superhero names zabnot, oh my god, who wore all purple, had of Z on his
chest. Zabnot was the name we all came up with in the room, and nobody said, Why
don't we think of another name? So we were like, Sure. It's Zabnot now. I don't
know... I don't even know where you'd be able to find this pilot. I know it
exists. Actually, I know where to find it and I'm telling you right now F. Michael
Haney, do not release the pilot!
--And I'm telling you right now F Michael Haney,
roll clip.
[laughs]
[choral music]
--Good evening!
[guitar]
--You have to fill in these blanks in song... as Beetlejuice.
--Oh. --The first song I
remember singing when I was little was..
--Come and everybody let me do that bum bum
[gibberish]
And it was also Get out of my dreams
and into my car. Dun dun dun
--The first record I bought with my own money was...
--Do you have the time to listen to me
whine about nothing and everything all at once?
Green Day!
Dookie. --My current go-to
to audition song is... --We cross the
Brooklyn Bridge about 24 hours ago. Angel
take the wheel from me
when I'm too tired to drive alone. I'm mesmerized by highway
lines flyin underneath...
It's a Gabe Dixon song. --You're a Broadway
star. -- I make money doing that voice.
--The Beetlejuice song I love is... --Hey, folks!
Beggin your pardon! Welcome to the Winter Garden! The opening.
--The beetlejuice ear worm that I can't get out of my [bleep] head is...
--The Barbara you
married, she is dead and buried 6 feet below whoa
whoa whoa whoa.
Kerry Butler. --All day long.
--All day long. --All night long.
[organ]
--Name of the game is celebrities doing celebrities, prank calling celebrities.
And normally, I'd let you choose, but today I have a special request.
--You do? -- I do. And what I'd like to do
--Oh! --Is have you call Richard Kind
as Richard Kind. --Oh, yes.
--Get ready. Decide what you're gonna say.
--Hey, I'm not home right now, so leave a message
after the beep.
--Oh, I see you're not in. Okay. I thought I'd call just to say hello. But right now
I'm just at the Mermaid Inn eating food. Nothing fancy. Just eating just with that
jeans on and with Susan Blackwell. It's a Alex Brightman doing an
impression of Richard Kind for Richard Kind. Okay, it's very nice to see you, and
I hope to see you around the block. Okay? I hope you have a fantastic day. All
right. Goodbye, goodbye. Okay good good good
goodbye.
--Impeccable
--Thank you.
[MUSIC]
--Guess what time it is?
It's time for Susan's fantasy jukebox. I
got your nose. You can have it back, but first you have to sing me a song,
any song of your choosing.
--[sings] And I don't want the world to see me
--Hey!
--Cuz I don't think that they'd understand.
When everything's made to be broken, I just want you I'm gonna get another
I just want you to know who I am. --A big can of Spam!
--I just brought you a big can of Spam!
Dun dun dun dun! Dun dun dun dun!
--This has been another amazing episode of Side by Side by
Susan Blackwell featuring Alex
Brightman. Go see him in Beetlejuice at the Winter Garden Theatre. You will not
regret it.
--Nah nah nah nah
nah nah... --Is this when we make out?
--Nah...
--And fade.
[music]
--[sings] When I look into your eyes, I know that it's true!
full of lobster.
Promise to spend a little more time
on you...
On you, on you, on you, on you.