Judah Friedlander on '30 Rock' and 'How To Beat Up Anybody'

When I called up comedian and '30 Rock' star Judah Friedlander for an interview last month, he stopped me cold, wanting me to look over a copy of his book, 'How To Beat Up Anybody,' before we continued. That was fine with me, but before I hung up, I wanted to get his opinion on '30 Rock's' shift to 10PM starting January 20. Friedlander didn't mince words, lacing his jokey response with thinly-veiled bemusement.

"I was hoping we were going to get a 1:30AM slot, but I'll settle for the 10PM slot," he said. "I think they should just keep moving us around, keep Americal guessing. Why settle in on one timeslot that works?

"Yeah, (the timeslot) sounds stupid," he continued. "But it's not an issue because everyone acts like, 'This is the new schedule and its set in stone.' No, the schedule was 8:30 and they changed it; they'll change it again. If the new lineup ain't working, they'll just shuffle the timeslots. That's the way TV is. That stuff is out of your hands."

After a few rounds of e-mail and phone tag, and a perusal of his very funny book, I was able to get Friedlander back on the phone to talk more about the show and his book, where his "World Champion" persona shows the reader how to beat up everyone from roving gangs to Bigfoot.

On whether '30 Rock' will address the time shift on the show: "Oh definitely have one or two funny jokes about it. I know that."

On whether his '30 Rock' character of Frank Rossitano is going to have a story of his own this season: "I haven't really had an episode this year where it's just about me. There's been some where me and the writers have some story lines. But I haven't had like my own specific one ... That still might happen, but it has not happened yet."

On what he likes to write about in Frank Talk on NBC's website for the show: "Yeah, I write it all in character. And I often put up bad art that...not bad art, but weird art that I find. And I talk about that. And I usually kind of weave in something about my character or the story line into that.

"Mostly when I write the blog, they (the show's writers) give me free range. So I just come up with all kinds of crazy stuff. And then usually, you know, I know the characters well, so what I do in the blog usually is, I'll come up with something crazy about my character, and then I'll sort of write in there how other characters on the show have reacted to what I've done. Because I kind of know how they would probably respond, whether it be Jack Donaghy, Tracy Jordan... If I write about some chick I think's really hot, I might be like 'Yeah, Tracy thought it was awesome, Jenna was disgusted, if Grizz finds out, I'll probably get fired.' You know, stuff like that. But yeah, I pretty much make stuff up. But I kind of keep it within the crazy '30 Rock' world, you know."


On what he's seen from Frank over the years: "One thing about Frank is, he has pretty much no backbone at all. I think of Frank as a very solid character, but he's really not, you know? I mean, he turned gay one episode, he dropped everything and tried to become a lawyer like Alec Baldwin one episode and go corporate I mean, someone with a solid backbone doesn't do those kind of things. Frank is always having identity issues. I mean, it looks like he has this really solid identity, but he's actually quite easily changed."

On how the writing has tightened up -- for the better -- since the first season: "I remember when we were doing the first season, sometimes they'd ask us to sort of improvise around a little bit at the end of a scene, or at the top of a scene. And we don't need that now. It's all in there. If you start ad libbing around something, you're gonna probably mess it up. Whereas before, sometimes for time, they'd sort of leave maybe an extra little line or gesture or something. But now, it's just so tightly written, you know."

On how long he's been working on 'How To Beat Up Anybody': "I have a lot of ideas for the world champion stuff, but they're ideas that would work really ideally in book form, not in standup form. So that's why I started working on the book. I started working on it on my own about 7 years ago. And I was going to do it whether I got a book deal or not. And then about 2 years ago, a few book companies started approaching me. So then when I got the book deal, that's when I really started working on it a lot. It was a hell of a lot of work and I did it all myself. And I either took or directed all the photos. So it was great. Everything in the book, there's only 2 jokes in the entire book that are from my standup act. Everything else is brand new. Brand new jokes.

On the process of taking photos for the book: "The book is a mix of jokes that were completely pre-planned out, and then some were ones that happened and I realized... You know, I probably took 30 or 40 thousand photos for this book, and about 500 are in the book. So when we did those Bigfoot photos, I think we took around 400 photos. It was like, I don't know, you know, I can't remember...8 hours...6 hours...of doing all that.

"So you know, the book is a whole mix of being very tightly pre-planned to improvising things right on the spot, and then improvising jokes afterwards, when I'm looking at the photos on the computer. So yeah, so those photos that I showed on that Bigfoot (chapter), like the one where I'm choking him and he's looking up at the sky, that one was pre-planned. The one where the camera's blurry, that was not pre-planned. And then I think as we were doing it, it was getting dark, and that's when, on the spot, I came up with the idea of oh, let's get a dark one too, and then I'll have this joke where I'm up in the air for 4 hours straight. Yeah. So that was something that I hadn't planned that morning, but I thought of it as we were taking it. And then some of the other additional jokes were thought later. So it was a whole, you know, it was a layered process for making the book."

Comedy Lessons From Judah Friedlander - How's Your News? from How's Your News? on Vimeo.

On people's reactions to the book, especially those who have never seen his stand-up act: "Some people are in hysterics laughing immediately, and then some people are confused. I think some people's comedy IQ's aren't as high as other people's, so they don't really know what's going on. Or they think they know what's going on, but they don't really.

"It's like in standup, you can't start with your more complex jokes at the beginning. You have to start with jokes that are a little more simple at the beginning, and then build towards more complex jokes. And it's kind of like that with the book, where it's like...because it starts, you know, it starts very heavy immediately. It doesn't start with simple jokes. It starts heavy immediately. So you kind of have to...if you know my standup act, you'll get right into it. And I think some people, I think it's a book everyone will eventually like, but some people may get it faster than others initially. But once people do get it, they'll love it."

"Some people think it's a real karate book, you know. Some people think...I've had some people look at it...I remember showing it to a drunk guy on the street outside a comedy club, and he was getting all pissed off because he was like...he thought it was this real karate book. And the guy like follows karate. And so it pissed him off. He's like, 'I'm an ex-Marine and I studied karate 20 years' and he's getting all angry and confused. And then, you know, you're not supposed to be...he's f--king drunk, the guy. So his brain's not working very well.


On drunk comedy fans: "But anytime you hear a comedian say audiences are better when they're drunk, you're talking to a bad comedian. OK? If you're funny, you want people to be at their strongest mental capacity, not their weakest mental capacity. Same thing with getting high. People say oh, that movie's so funny... if you're high. Guess what? That's not a funny movie, you know? No one's getting high and watching '30 Rock,' you know what I mean? You need to be at your most alert, most mentally aware state to enjoy '30 Rock,' and that's because it's a smart show, it's loaded with jokes. I mean, I'm on the show, and I read the scripts, and sometimes I don't even get all the jokes until I see the show. And sometimes even once I, when I watch the show a second time, I'll pick up on nuances of someone's performance and a line that I didn't see initially in the script. So it's, you know, it's a very dense, layered show, '30 Rock.'"

On the critics' grumbling about '30 Rock' over the last few seasons: "I remember when there was some article that I think came out at the beginning of the third season or something, and it was saying how '30 Rock' jumped the shark... they think it jumped the shark and 'We'll see if that happens this season.' So it was just kind of weird. It's like wait, you're saying we jumped the shark, and you haven't even seen an episode this season? Wow. How is that possible? You know what I mean? So I think, you know, because the show got a hell of a lot of praise up front, and I think we were sort of prepared for a little bit of a backlash, you know, and I think it's having a resurgence again this year in the show."

On where you can find him doing stand-up: "You know, I still do standup several times a week, so if people want to see where I'm playing, or just see new weird jokes and regular jokes I write, check out my Twitter, which is JudahWorldChamp. And the book is now on sale on Amazon for $12. And like I said on the Jon Stewart show, it has a street resale value of $14,000. So who could've asked for a better stocking stuffer than that?"

(Follow @joelkeller on Twitter or at www.facebook.com/joelkeller.)