![]() ![]() INSKEEP: Let me make sure I get this right. This is another item on your list, a 1948 American musical, "Easter Parade," Judy Garland here. Let's listen to some of this and then we'll talk about it. Well, let's just go right to some dancing then. And it was those rhythms that are in that album that to me are like - that's what makes me laugh. And I grew up with a lot of voices in the backyard, eating and smoking funny cigarettes and making each other laugh. ![]() SHERMAN-PALLADINO: Yeah, my father was a Bronx/Catskills comic. ![]() INSKEEP: You know, that has a kind of Bob Newhart quality, where the pauses and the searching for the word are as funny as anything that he actually says. (SOUNDBITE OF COMEDY ALBUM, "THE 2,000-YEAR-OLD MAN") And this is Reiner, who's interviewing Mel Brooks, who's playing this 2,000-year-old man. INSKEEP: Well, when you talk about a run, let's listen to one of these runs. The jokes in that are just so - there's runs in that that just are hysterical. SHERMAN-PALLADINO: Best comedy album ever. INSKEEP: Now, when we think of vivid and realistic characters, this leads me directly into the next item on your list, a Mel Brooks/Carl Reiner comedy routine called "The 2,000-Year-Old Man." You know, I think the best dramas always have great, great comedy in it. But it had a lot of - again, because the characters were so strong - there were such great things going on - it had a lot of comedy in it, weirdly. You know, I mean he gets - he sleeps with a hooker and gets shot in the pilot. It was Dennis Franz at his most screwed-upness. SHERMAN-PALLADINO: 'Cause it was the best season of the show. Both of them police dramas: "The Wire" and "NYPD Blue" Season 1. INSKEEP: Now, you have also put on this list a couple of television programs that are not comedy, although they have their funny moments. But the backdrop of the scene, you know, she's just come in and she's thinking, do I tell him that I've just been sleeping with my sister's husband? And he's just rambling on about wrestling and TV and the ridiculous - what people watch and what they do. It's just great, and it doesn't get better than that, 'cause it's real. (SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "HANNAH AND HER SISTERS") INSKEEP: Well, it's short enough to fit on a Christmas invitation. I think I use it on a Christmas invitation once. And he's got a joke about Jesus that is just - I can listen to that. The joke with Max von Sydow when he's been watching TV, and Barbara Hershey comes back and she's just been having an affair with Michael Caine - and he's an artist, he doesn't leave the loft. INSKEEP: You flagged for us what you describe as perhaps your favorite joke of all time. In addition to the really wonderful female characters that he writes, he writes just great jokes. INSKEEP: And when you talk about dialogue that has a rhythm to it, there's great, great Woody Allen dialogue. And these sisters who are so deeply - their lives are so intertwined and yet there's a lot of jealousy and a lot of resentment. SHERMAN-PALLADINO: It's one of his classic, some say his best, about a group of sisters and their loves, lives, and it's just classic vintage Woody Allen at his like top, top of his game. One of the movies on here is Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" from 1986. INSKEEP: Well, let's go through some of this list. And there's something about having Woody Allen - very, very familiar Woody Allen going on in the background that it's somehow - it's music to me. I write a lot of rhythm 'cause it's fast and yappy. SHERMAN-PALLADINO: Yeah, to drown out the other voices. INSKEEP: So more voices is the answer to that. INSKEEP: You know, it's hard for me to imagine concentrating with the TV on right in front of me, but that is exactly what she does.ĪMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO: I can't write in silence. ![]() That includes shows she watches while writing. MONTAGNE: As part of our series Watch This, Amy Sherman-Palladino joined us from NPR West to talk about what she watches. INSKEEP: ABC Family is about to start the winter season of her new show, "Bunheads," a name taken from the nickname for ballerinas. MONTAGNE: "Gilmore Girls" helped establish the WB Network, now known as the CW. The characters are smart, witty, offbeat and fast-talking. Her ensemble casts include kids to seniors. Writer, director and producer Amy Sherman-Palladino made her name with shows in which large numbers of women interact onscreen, and large numbers of women tend to watch. ![]()
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