- What's it like when you drive by the store?
- I think of all those days that I used to stand out
in the line, hoping to get on at open mic night.
- I can't believe I've known you all these years
I've never asked you.
What was your first audition like for Mitzi Shore?
- It was at the Westwood Comedy Store, and I was late.
- You were late for your audition?
- I was late,
but I parked in the alley and I jumped over the wall,
and I was wearing a suit.
I don't even know why I was wearing a suit.
Because I just saw guys on TV, they wore suits.
I figured for my audition, a jacket and a tie,
and I ripped my pants from the knee all the way down.
- Of course you did.
Of course you did!
- And I just said, "I'm going on anyway."
And I just got very lucky, 'cause the crowd liked me
and it was the right time spot, and I killed.
- While you were killing onstage,
were you thinking like "I'm getting faster,"
or "Don't fuck this up"?
- I just couldn't believe I was killing.
I was finally out there.
I'd come all the way from Detroit, drove out there,
I was 18 years old,
and Mitzi calls me over.
She goes,
(in Mitzi voice) "You were really funny.
You can come back, you can be a regular,
but I don't like the ripped hole in the suit thing.
I don't like that.
(Bill laughs)
Lose that."
- She thought that was a bit!
- Yeah, she thought it was like my hook.
The kid with the ripped suit,
with the-
- Do you realize how lucky you are that she didn't like it?
'Cause she would be
(in Mitzi voice) "Every night you go onstage,
you'll wear that."
- I'd have been stuck with that.
- (in Mitzi voice) "I'll call you Mikey Ripped Pants."
- Yeah, that's what she would've.
(Bill laughs)
- I auditioned for Mitzi on a Monday night.
- And she stood right there, and she was judge and jury,
and she didn't give a fuck
if you were the funniest guy in Houston.
That didn't matter to her.
She didn't read your resume.
- Anybody from Bill Burr to Richard Pryor,
to you, to me, and to Jim Carrey,
had one path into entertaining.
One woman, Mitzi Shore, to make those decisions.
- I don't give advice, Arsenio.
- [Arsenio Hall] Oh, don't tell me that!
I saw you tell a girl to put on a green wig
and she'd be funnier.
- Oh, that was different.
(Mitzi laughs)
- The wonderful advice of Mitzi Shore.
- Mitzi told me I was too pretty to be funny
and there is no way in hell that...
I could be a stand-up comedian.
My grandma taught me a lot though.
She taught me how to value myself as a woman.
I'll never forget, it was my 18th birthday.
She should have told me this on my 16th birthday though,
'cause at that point I had started
renting out the property already.
(audience laughs)
- Well, she had her little weird ways,
like putting me with Joey Camen in a group,
Salt and Pepper.
(in Mitzi voice) "You're gonna be salt,
and he's gonna be pepper.
It's gonna be so funny!"
And just like, he was getting all the laughs.
And she would be in the back of the room,
laughing and giving us spots.
We'd get three spot tonight.
And then I told her, I said, that that's the first time
I got thrown out of a Comedy Store.
I'm not going to do this no more.
I didn't come out here to be "Pepper."
I'm not gonna do it.
I can't do it.
- I remember Jack Graham,
she told him you need to wear an all-yellow suit
and you need to dye your hair yellow
and change your name to Jackie Banana.
(laughs)
- Did he do it?
- Yeah.
(laughs)
(upbeat music)
(in Mitzi voice) Jackie Banana!
(upbeat music)