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It wouldn't have been much of a show if it weren't for... The Writers
Steve Higgins - Head Writer Steve appeared in many of the bits with Jon, most notably "Dr. Jimmy & Raymond". Steve went on to write and produce for Saturday Night Live. Chris Albers Chris went on to write for Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and was on Conan's writing team for the 2006 Emmys. Dave Attell Dave has had a very successful standup career. He was the "Ugly American" in the early days of the Daily Show, and hosted the popular show Insomniac on Comedy Central. Janine Di Tullio Janine went on to write for Conan, and has done some voice work. Brian Hartt The former Kids in the Hall writer went on to be a writer and producer for MadTV, the Jamie Kennedy Experiment, and Blue Collar tv. Often responsible for making Jon wear a dress. See interview below. Tom Hertz A writer for Dennis Miller Live and the Stephanie Miller Show in the mid-90s, Tom is now a bigshot in the sitcom world. His producer credits include Spin City, Less Than Perfect, King of Queens, and Rules of Engagement. Alan Higgins Brother of head writer Steve Higgins, Al wrote several episodes of Malcolm in the Middle and is a writer/producer a variety of other projects. Jeremy Hotz Jeremy is a very popular Canadian stand-up comic, now based in LA. Josh Lieb Went on to write for Newsradio, and wrote the 2007 Rob Schneider feature "Big Stan". Dennis McNicholas Joined the writing team of SNL, and was co-head writer from 2000-2004. Brian Posehn Possibly the most recognizable to comedy fans, Brian is best known as one of the Comedians of Comedy. Cliff Schoenberg Went on to write for Newsradio, Penn & Teller: Bullshit, and Dennis Miller. Andrew Stelle Joined the writing staff of SNL, and became co-head writer in 2004. If I'm forgetting someone, please send me an email! If you ever find yourself in New York City, stop by the Museum of Radio and Television to view the panel discussion that Brian Hart, Al Higgins, Steve Higgins, and Jon participated in. It was part of the Museum's Writing Late Night Comedy series (which also had seminars for Letterman, Conan, and SNL). Save for one militant woman wondering why there aren't more broads in comedy, every moment of this thing is worth savouring. Highlights: -It's an opportunity to see the hilarious Yorg bit, featuring Steve Higgins as a German transvestite in a film noir "home-erotic romp through the park" with Jon. Other bits shown were Evil Dave Attel with pizza, the Arctic 3-Minute Vacation, and the Forest Gump No-Money Playhouse. -"We like to do things that are structured, but within that you can improvise and screw around. We like to bullet-point it." - Jon Stewart -"Everyone knows how television is made, so why pretend that they don't?" - Jon on frequently shattering the illusion. -They explain how the writers would produce their own pieces, from start to finish. "If the piece is bad, it's your fault," said Steve Higgins. -They discussed the only bit that never made it to air at that point, because it was so offensive. Dave Attel played Hitler, coming on the show as a guest in an attempt to improve his image and make a comeback. He was the new, more loving Hitler. At one point, he started eating a bagel and said "I don't know what I was afraid of. These are delicious!". The audience booed the entire thing so fiercely that the piece was unusable, and instead they reran the Anna Nicole Smith One-Woman Show. The Hitler concept would later make its way into Jon's book, Naked Pictures of Famous People. Brian Hartt Interview - March 22, 2002. Brian Hartt performed at the 2002 CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival. He was in town for just 23 hours and performing in 2 shows, so his time was precious. Was that going to stop your trusty webmistress from snagging an interview with him? Hell no!
How did you get to start writing on the show? I met Jon at the Just for Laughs festival and I was finishing up with Kids in the Hall. His manager called me down -- I was going to be in LA -- and said "let's meet up, something might be happening". Jon was doing his MTV show at the time and then Paramount had picked him up to do a show, syndicated. So I ran into him there and we hit it off really well at the Just for Laughs festival. Had a lot of fun together playing different thing, Club Soda shows. So when he got his show, I was one of the people that he wanted to work with. To write, and be one of the staff guys to perform on the show. Between all of you who wrote on the show, were there any common partnerships or people who would work together more than others? There were some. There were some who worked together a little more, but it was more of an individual thing because when you're doing 5 shows a week which we were doing, you really had to turn over the bits that you were doing quite a bit. So there wasn't a lot of luxury to have 2 people on a piece. We had 13 writers. We would just keep rotating the bits. People would always support each other, we would always riff and pitch the ideas in a room and everyone would come up with ideas, but one person would take the piece and follow it through. Were you involved in writing any of the recurring bits, like Talk Show Jon or 3-Minute Vacation? I did some of those things, but Dave Attell was doing the 3-Minute Vacations and there were other people doing those other things. I only did a couple of [unintelligible] things, but not all that many. There was the one-man show, there was a couple of one-man shows. The Kathie Lee -- Kathie Lee Gifford Up Front and Frank! Yeah. And I did a couple of the drinking games. And I did the Jon Stewart Training Centres. 
Oh, like the Brain Surgery?Yeah, and the Private Eye. What about Meaty McGillicuddy? I didn't. That was [Dennis] McNicholas who did that. I just acted in it. That was sick. Yeah, that was pretty sick. And it was a real meat packing factory that we taped that in. Yeah, I could tell! That was disturbing. Yeah, it was kinda freaky. There were some other ones I liked... the Breakdancing one? Oh yeah, that was mine. You wrote that?! Yeah. That's my favourite! Yeah, I really liked that one. It was tons of fun. When the show was cancelled, was anyone really surprised or did you kind of see it coming? I don't know whether we were surprised or saw it coming. I think when it happened, we were like "oh, okay, this is one of those things that's happening". We had been put into so many weird timeslots and stuff. We knew that the appeal of Jon was really great. People loved the guy. But it just seemed like nobody was really reining in the show to be "here's what it is, it's on at this time". We knew that we were on at like 3:30 in Atlanta or something. And 2:30 in the morning in Houston. One night I was at a friend's place and I wanted to watch the show that night and I turned on the television and there were those bars, the sound bars and colour bars. Test pattern? Yeah, test pattern. With the "beeeeep" for half an hour before our show came on. So our lead-in was the test pattern. You kind of think it's done for us then, it's all over at that point. What was the atmosphere like in the last 2 weeks? There was a lot of great stuff that happened in those last 2 weeks. Yeah, it was just "go crazy". Jon got to do a lot of the stuff he really wanted to do. He's a great guy, he's really talented, and he ended it classy and also irreverent at the same time. So he really knew his combination of stuff. He's a talented guy, he's a smart guy. Totally fun to work with. A guy I'd totally work with again. Did everyone get offers right away? I know the story is that Janine [Di Tullio] got hired by Conan, like, the next day. It wasn't much longer after. Everybody from that show that I can think of have gone and done amazing things. I think people were totally respected from that show, and I think people thought "that was a pretty cool group of people and I think they did some cool stuff." Even though the show won't be something that we'll see a lot on television, I think you'll see a lot of those people's work over the next number of years. Jon once said that he thinks the show is remembered as being better than it actually was. Do you have any general thoughts about the experience and the show as a whole? Do you think it was your best work? No, I don't think it was my best work. But I think that in each thing that I've done, I think within that has been my best work and my worst work. I think that's just natural that when you do a project you range from your best work to your worst work. I'll put my Jon Stewart stuff up against my best Mad TV or my best Kids in the Hall or my best Jamie Kennedy stuff and be proud of it in that way. I thought it was really great. And I think it's the type of thing that Jon will probably look back on and think "wow, it was better than I thought" rather than "it wasn't as good as I thought". But I think also at the same time that Jon's a pretty humble guy. And I don't think he's dishonestly that way, like some people with the false modesty thing. I really think he knew we did great stuff. I think it's a retrospect thing for him. He'll put it in perspective down the line and go "hey, that was fun, that was when I was young and kookie and we did some really great stuff". Because it's really raw. You can't look at some of the stuff we did on Jon Stewart and compare it to films that he's done or tv shows that I've done. We didn't have the budget, it doesn't look as good. But the rawness of it I think is just as good. I'll leave you alone now. Okay!
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