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By
Suzanne
Interview with Darryl Hall and
Mike Henry of "The Cleveland Show" on FOX November 18th, 2009
SPEAKERS
Hailey St. Phillips, FBC Publicity
Mike Henry, Co-Creator & Executive Producer of The Cleveland Show
Daryl Oates, Guess Star, The Cleveland Show
PRESENTATION
Moderator Welcome to The Cleveland Show with Daryl Hall and Mike Henry
conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only
mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions
will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being
recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host,
Hailey St. Phillip. Please go ahead.
H. St. Phillip Hello, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for joining us for
The Cleveland Show conference call with co-creator and exec producer, as
well as voice of Cleveland Brown himself, Mike Henry, and special guest
voice, Daryl Hall, of Hall and Oates. Daryl Hall and John Oates guest
voice appearances debut this Sunday, November 22nd, at 8:30 p.m. in a
very special Brown Thanksgiving episode on Fox. As a reminder, Hall and
Oates have just released their first ever box set, and Daryl is
currently working on his monthly Internet series called Live from
Daryl’s House. At this time, I’ll turn the call over to Mike and Daryl
to introduce themselves, and then we’ll start with our first question.
M. Henry This is Mike. I’m also Cleveland from The Cleveland Show, and
we are thrilled to have Daryl and John on our show, and I’m thrilled to
be on the phone here with Daryl, who I’ve been a fan of forever. And I
don’t know if you want to say hello, Daryl, and then I can give a little
pitch on the show.
D. Hall Yes. I’m glad to have been asked to do it. It’s been a great
experience. I hope we do more of them, and it’s a great show, and John
and I are both having a lot of fun doing it.
M. Henry Cool. Yes. Having my own show, so to speak, not that it’s
literally all mine, but being able to kind of reach out to people that I
personally am a fan of or admire the talent of, it’s just a thrill to
have Daryl and John. Basically they play an angel and a devil over
Cleveland’s shoulders, and they give Cleveland conflicting advice on
what to do about kind of a touchy situation, if you will, in this
episode. There’s a relative of Cleveland’s wife, Donna, who has come to
town, Auntie Mamma, who is voiced by Kym Whitley, a very funny
actress/comedian. She is a little bit larger than life, and let’s just
say that Cleveland’s dad, Freight Train Brown, who is voiced by Craig
Robinson, who you all most know from The Office and pretty much every
Hollywood comedy that comes out right now.
Freight Train is kind of a tough guy and is not real nice to Cleveland,
and is immediately enamored with Auntie Mamma. And Cleveland finds out a
secret about Auntie Mamma, which I’ll leave for the on air audience, and
he’s having a dilemma as to whether or not he should tell his dad about
it, and Daryl and John play an angel and a devil over his shoulders, I
believe Daryl tells him to go ahead and tell his dad and stick to
honesty in the relationship, and his dad will respect him. And John goes
ahead and tells him to let his dad go ahead and get into some trouble.
I don’t want to give too much away about the episode, but I will say
that it is personally my favorite so far, and I think the funniest so
far, and it will be on at 8:30 eastern on Sunday on Fox.
D. Hall I think I’ve been totally miscast as an angel.
M. Henry Yes, you know, one of the writers pitched that you were the
angel, and I was like, it seems like Daryl may have had more fun along
the way, no offense, John, but yes. I don’t know if….
D. Hall No worries.
M. Henry I don’t want to give too much away about the episode, so it’s
hard not to give it away, but maybe Auntie Mamma has got a penis. Let’s
just say that. There. I’ve given it away.
H. St. Phillip I think we can open this up for questions.
M. Henry Yes.
Moderator Your first question comes from the line of David Martindale
from Hearst Newspapers.
D. Martindale Hello, guys. Thanks for doing the call. I was going to
open with the devil and the angel thing. Was there really a discussion
about whether I get to play an angel or whether I get to play the devil?
Did you fight over it? Tell me more.
D. Hall Not really. The script was given to me and John, and we just
went with it. I figured, as I said a couple seconds ago, it’s a little
stretch for me to be an angel, but I can be an actor.
D. Martindale I think it was the blond flowing locks that….
D. Hall That’s it, of course. I look angelic, of course.
D. Martindale That’s right.
M. Henry Let me just say, I first met these guys in Las Vegas about a
year ago. My wife and I were there for a weekend, and our casting
director, Linda Lamontagne, put us in touch with these guys, and we went
back and talked to them after the show and had a nice chat, and they
were interested in doing this, so we wrote the part and sent it on over.
D. Hall You planted the seed a year ago saying, hey, would you like to
be on the show that’s not on TV yet.
M. Henry Pretty much, but we do have a built in audience from Family
Guy, so that’s a huge advantage for us, and I think we’re being pretty
well received as far as ratings go. And critically being different from
Family Guy, and we’re in the middle of production on our second season
already, even though only six have aired. They have committed to 34
episodes, so we’re feeling good.
D. Martindale Mike, why did Cleveland get his show as opposed to any of
the other characters on there? Why not Stewie, for example?
M. Henry Well, Stewie kind of has his show, and that’s Family Guy. You
know, when we were looking at spinning off, Cleveland was kind of the
only character ever mentioned. A spin-off is a dicey thing because you
don’t want it to be a clone of your show, and Cleveland really is kind
of a step removed from all of the other characters on Family Guy. He’s a
little more thoughtful and kind of a nice guy. So we figured we could
kind of easily make it more of a family show. He’s the kind of guy that
we’re hoping people are rooting for because he’s doing things out of the
goodness of his heart. He’s not just bumbling into situations like Peter
or Homer Simpson, you know, just kind of being idiotic or not caring
about whatever, and then here we go. But Cleveland gets himself into
situations by trying to do the right thing.
D. Martindale Yes, this is true. Thank you much. I’ll let some other
people ask questions. It’s been a pleasure.
M. Henry Thank you.
Moderator Your next question comes from the line of Angela Henderson
from The Herald Dispatch.
A. Henderson Hello, guys. Thanks for taking the time. Daryl, this
question is for you. No doubt you’ve heard some talk lately that Hall
and Oates is becoming cool again or that you guys are making a comeback,
and those of us that are fans know you guys never went anywhere.
M. Henry Amen.
A. Henderson Does that kind of talk bother you guys at all about making
a comeback?
D. Hall Yes, of course. Well, it doesn’t bother me, but you said it
yourself. We never went anywhere. This sort of concept of mass
popularity in our careers has come and gone more than once, and we take
the ups and downs of the masses in stride. That’s not what we’re really
all about. We’re musicians. We’ve always been musicians. We always will
be musicians, and we just do good work or do the best work we can. If a
lot of people like it, that’s good, and I’m glad. I think circumstances
have come our way and a lot of old battles that we’ve fought, we’ve long
won, and we’re just happy to be intergenerational.
A. Henderson Mike, you said amen to that. Would you like to add
something there?
M. Henry Amen. Yes, I mean, as an artist, Daryl and John obviously
experienced success relatively early on. Would you say that, Daryl?
D. Hall Yes, well, I mean we were recording together about five years
before we really had success as far as commerciality….
M. Henry Right, so that’s some chops right there, but then once you hit
it, then everyone is expecting something – I mean, I don’t even know
what people are expecting, but I think just – and you can speak to this
much better than I. You hit the mainstream, and then….
D. Hall Every artist has to hit the mainstream. That’s part of a career.
M. Henry Right.
D. Hall We did it a number of times. You know, I don’t care what kind of
music you make. You have to be a pop star at some point, whether you’re
Bob Dylan or Daryl Hall. So, I mean, that’s just all part of it. But
we’re not really attached to any era. People try and tag us in the ‘80s
because we had success in the ‘80s. We had success in the ‘70s. We had
success in, you know, more recent times. You know, it’s hard to put us
in any kind of place.
M. Henry I think you can, too, as an artist, you can only control what
you put out.
D. Hall Sure.
M. Henry And whether it’s received by a relatively small, enthusiastic
group, or the whole country or the world, it’s really, it’s a fickle
thing, but I’ve always loved your guys’ music. Individual songs take you
back to a certain time, and I wonder if that’s why people are feeling or
are expressing what you’re saying, which I actually haven’t really
heard.
A. Henderson Mike, let me amen at your comments that any time you guys
can be on TV, Daryl, for anything, it’s great, and we look forward to
seeing it on Sunday. Thank you, guys.
D. Hall Thank you.
M. Henry Thank you.
Moderator Your next question comes from the line of Reg Seeton from
thedeadbolt.com.
R. Seeton Hello, guys. How are you doing?
M. Henry Great.
R. Seeton This question is for Daryl. Walking into The Cleveland Show,
is it easy to throw your act away and have some fun even though you’re
playing yourself?
D. Hall I’ve tried to figure out what my act is for a long time. You
know, I don’t actually have an act. Maybe that’s something unusual about
what John and I do. We’re just ourselves. Because of that, I think that
I can sort of stretch in any direction. I love doing comedy. I did a
show called Z Rock about six months ago that was a lot of improv and a
lot of fun, and I’ve done other things, even back to SCTV back in the
early ‘80s, so this is one of those things I like to do occasionally. I
think John is the same as me. We really feel sort of comfortable with
this comedic thing, and we like to stretch.
M. Henry Let me just say that they’re real good at it too. It didn’t
take much to get what we wanted. I think we knew how to write for them,
and they knew how to deliver, so it was certainly not one of these
things where we just started trying to shoehorn somebody in. It was
really just kind of the perfect thing. From our end, they were right on.
R. Seeton Great. This is another one for Daryl. Given the huge success
that you and John have had, can you talk about the challenges you’re
faced with today as an artist? Is it easier or harder than it was?
D. Hall What I’m doing right now, what I’m doing musically right now is
actually easier. I think that the way the world has gone in, i.e. the
Internet and sort of the demise of powerful record companies and all
that kind of thing is very much in tune with the way my brain works and
the way my artistry can flourish. I think that that’s a big part of why
there’s such an interest, a sustained interest in what it is that I do
and what John does.
If there’s a challenge, I just take it in stride. I love challenges. The
web show that I’m doing, Live from Daryl’s House, is a gigantic
challenge because I was creating something that nobody had ever really
done before on the Internet, but I really enjoy stretching myself and
applying myself to situations.
R. Seeton Great. Thanks, guys. It’s been a pleasure.
D. Hall Sure.
M. Henry Thank you.
Moderator Your next question comes from the line of Nancy Basile from
about.com.
N. Basile Hello, guys. Thanks for having the call.
D. Hall Sure.
M. Henry Sure.
N. Basile My question is mainly directed to Mike. I think it’s kind of
funny that you just described Cleveland as the nice guy when Sunday
night, one of the ways he got his wife out of a sticky jam was hiring
two hookers and promising to wear a condom.
M. Henry Well, let me just say that you can often take liberty with what
we call a show blow or an act blow, which doesn’t really, you know. In
our minds, he’s not really going to go do that.
N. Basile Right.
M. Henry Yes. He got into a sticky situation because his wife was in
kind of a secret club of single women, and he outed her by being her
husband, and so he was trying to do her a favor and get her friends back
by acting like a jackass with a couple hookers, and then as a parting
shot, he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll wear a condom.”
N. Basile And it’s left to the imagination. My main question though is
how do you work towards differentiating The Cleveland Show from Family
Guy, because of course everyone is going – you know, the spin-off, all
that stuff. How do you, in the writer’s room, work towards making it
different?
M. Henry Well, I think it’s just, for a lack of a better term, it’s a
little bit sweeter of a show, and Rich Appel is my creative partner in
this, along with Seth MacFarlane, but Seth is kind of not really
involved on a day-to-day basis, so Seth has a certain sensibility, which
is Family Guy. And we have a certain sensibility, which is The Cleveland
Show, and I will say that going into that, as Rich and I both have kids
and, frankly, we’re both divorced and remarried, so we have empathy for
a blended family or for this type of situation. It’s a mixed blessing
coming off a show that the standard of comedy is so high with Family Guy
that expectations are high. Frankly, I think we’re meeting them and
surpassing them.
Certainly in the episodes that are in production now, we’ve really kind
of hit a stride, and you’ll see Sunday night. There’s no lacking comedy,
but you’ll just see – we won’t tell a rape joke. We won’t tell an
abortion joke. We won’t have Cleveland punch his daughter or
stepdaughter. We won’t do the things that Family Guy will do just
because we don’t need it. That’s kind of where we’re different, and we
won’t take an awfully mean shot at a celebrity like Family Guy will.
N. Basile Great. Thanks for answering, and I’ll leave room for everyone
else.
M. Henry Thank you.
Moderator Your next question comes from the line of Marie Cartel from
Hollywood Outbreak.
M. Cartel Hello, guys. Here’s my question. We talked about being the
devil and the angel and everything, but what sort of – you know, so
often actors go into animation, and it’s more difficult than acting. The
same thing for singers, so you’re used to actually performing in a
studio, but what was the experience of animation? What were the
challenges for you creating, you know, your animated self?
D. Hall Well, we were sort of coached through it. John and I did it
separately, and we were sort of coached through it. I didn’t see the
animation. I wasn’t working to the animation. We were just working to
the script.
M. Henry Yes.
D. Hall It was really just me reading it my way, and if the inflection
that I put into it or whatever was different than what was required,
then we talked about it, and I would change it. I would do it a couple
times, so it really wasn’t that hard. It was really just doing and
re-doing the lines until we got what Mike was driving at, and so it
really wasn’t that hard.
M. Henry No, we just wanted them to be themselves, and essentially in an
argument bickering at each other, and threatening….
D. Hall …by the way.
M. Henry What’s that?
D. Hall We’re good at having an argument.
M. Henry I can’t imagine.
D. Hall It was not a stretch.
M. Henry Yes, I cannot imagine working together for that long and not
having plenty of arguments, but we just pretty much wanted them to be
themselves, but then get pissed off at each other, and as Daryl just
said, that was not a reach.
D. Hall Yes, you know.
M. Cartel Did you feel your body language change as you were doing it?
Mike, did you see his body language change?
M. Henry I did not see his body at all. We were on the phone.
D. Hall Yes. We did all this in my studio, and I was getting my
directions over the phone. I don’t know. I don’t know if my body
language changed.
M. Henry It probably did.
D. Hall It probably did.
M. Henry Most people who are acting, and I definitely use a lot of
expression when I’m trying to reach for different things.
D. Hall True, you get into a character.
M. Cartel The last question is for you, Mike. How many actors or
musicians are coming to you wanting to be part of the show? And what
determines when you’re going to say yes?
M. Henry Well, you know, yes, we hear pretty often that so-and-so wants
to do the show, and it’s frankly just writing a part for someone that
it’s kind of hard. Right now, we just don’t have a whole lot of huge
guest starring roles, so you don’t want to go to some big star and say,
can you play man number three in this incidental scene. So early on, you
know, when we were putting the DNA of the show together, that was right
at a perfect time when I met Daryl and John, and so we were able to work
that angle and make that a component of the show. But there’s literally
a list of people on the board in the writer’s room who we’re actively
trying to write parts for that have approached us or that we like and
want to become part of the show. It really is just a matter of finding a
part or finding a story that has a part big enough to go out to
somebody.
We had Carl Reiner in a few weeks ago recording next year’s holiday
Christmas episode, and that was a tremendous thrill, and that episode
was actually quite a departure from most of our episodes, as it was
Rallo, a young African American kid, and Murray, who is the character
that Carl Reiner played as an 80-something-year-old man in a nursing
home, and they take racial jabs at each other, and then they come
together, and it’s kind of a really sweet episode next Christmas. But
that was kind of a departure for having such a big role.
M. Cartel Very good. Thanks so much.
M. Henry Thank you.
Moderator Your next question comes from the line of Alice Chapman-Newgen
from the Times Courier.
A. Chapman-Newgen Hello. Thanks, guys. Thanks for taking the call.
M. Henry Sure.
A. Chapman-Newgen Mike, I was wondering, could you tell us a little bit
about some of the upcoming episodes?
M. Henry Sure. Well, the Thanksgiving episode is coming up. I touched on
that briefly. We have a wonderful Christmas episode coming up where, as
you know, Cleveland and Cleveland Jr. are in a blended family now with
Donna and her two kids, Roberta and Rallo, and as part of our Christmas
episode, Rallo is missing his real dad who lives in town, and he’s
voiced by Corey Hokum, who is an absolutely hilarious standup. Rallo’s
real dad, Robert, is kind of a bad boy, and so Cleveland sets out in the
middle of the night on Christmas Eve to try to find Robert to bring him
home for his stepson on Christmas morning. There’s a great blend of
sweetness and Christmas carols and everything else. And kind of a – I
don’t know – just a cede nightlife where Cleveland goes into a strip
club where they’re playing a honky-tonk Oh Come All Ye Faithful, looking
for Robert. And it’s kind of a blend of sweet and kind of hard jokes, so
that one in particular I’m very excited about.
A. Chapman-Newgen Sounds good. Daryl, I was wondering, was there any
funny or memorable moments that took place during your voice rehearsals
or taping in the studio?
D. Hall No, not really.
M. Henry It was pretty straightforward.
A. Chapman-Newgen It was…?
D. Hall Yes, it was straight ahead. I got on the phone and Mike told me
what he wanted. We read the script, and got it the way he wanted, and
that was it. You know, business as usual.
M. Henry Yes. Pretty much two takes on each line, one nailing it and the
other just for a backup. It was easy breezy.
A. Chapman-Newgen Cool. All right, well, thank you, both of you.
H. St. Phillip We have time for one last question.
Moderator That question comes from the line of Nick Zaino from TV Squad.
N. Zaino Hello. How are you?
D. Hall Good.
M. Henry Great.
N. Zaino I was wondering how much screen time Daryl and John have on
this. Is this just a cameo, or are they weaved in throughout the story?
M. Henry I’d say it’s a scene that’s about a minute, I guess. It’s kind
of a cool thing. It’s a recurring thing in our series where, from
time-to-time, they’ll pop up when Cleveland is in a dilemma. So it’s a
nice shot of Hall and Oates, a nice boost of Hall and Oates, including a
little bit of a riff of one of their classics, so that’s the screen
time.
N. Zaino Daryl, were you a fan of the show or did you watch Family Guy
and The Cleveland Show?
D. Hall I especially liked a certain classic casting scene that
occurred….
M. Henry That’s right.
D. Hall I was very flattered.
M. Henry Yes. That was very funny, and that was actually pitched by Alex
Borstein, a female who voices Lois Griffin. Yes, that was hilarious. I
should add that John Oates’ son, Tanner, is a huge Family Guy fan.
D. Hall Yes.
M. Henry I think that was a lot of the reason that we got our toe in
with these guys.
N. Zaino Just quickly, Daryl, do you have any plans on making any sort
of cameo on J Stash?
D. Hall J Stash, no, I think I’ll let John’s mustache speak for John,
you know, no plans.
N. Zaino You don’t think your hair and his mustache would be a good
crime fighting team?
D. Hall No, I don’t think so.
N. Zaino Thank you.
D. Hall One never knows.
H. St. Phillip Thank you everyone for joining us today. As a reminder,
The Cleveland Show airs on Sunday nights at 8:30 p.m. on Fox. I hope
everyone has a great day.
M. Henry Thank you.
IT'S AN "OUTRAGEOUS"
THANKSGIVING ON AN ALL-NEW "THE CLEVELAND SHOW" SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, ON
FOX
Daryl Hall and John Oates Make Guest Voice Appearances
Cleveland celebrates his first Thanksgiving with his new family,
including his own parents Cookie (guest voice Francis Callier) and
Freight Train (guest voice Craig Robinson) as well as Donna's Auntie
Momma (guest voice Kym Whitley) who all make a surprise visit to shake
things up in Stoolbend. However, the holiday gets complicated when
Roberta and Federline (guest voice Jamie Kennedy) decide to celebrate on
their own, and Cleveland discovers a surprising secret about Auntie
Momma that changes his impression of her forever in the all-new "A Brown
Thanksgiving" episode of THE CLEVELAND SHOW airing Sunday, Nov. 22
(8:30-9:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. (CLE-109) (TV-14 D, L, V)
Voice Cast: Mike Henry as Cleveland Brown/Teenage Cleveland and Rallo
Tubbs; Sanaa Lathan as Donna Tubbs/Teenage Donna; Kevin Michael
Richardson as Cleveland Jr. and Lester; Nia Long as Roberta Tubbs; Seth
MacFarlane as Tim
Guest Voice Cast: Jamie Kennedy as Federline Jones; Kym Whitley as
Auntie Momma; Craig Robinson as Freight Train; Francis Callier as
Cookie; Daryl Hall as Himself; John Oates as Himself
BIO INFORMATION:
MIKE HENRY
(Voices of Cleveland, Rallo and others; Co-Creator/Executive Producer,
THE CLEVELAND SHOW)
Mike Henry grew up in Richmond, VA and attended Washington & Lee
University, where he was Class President for his final three years.
After a brief stint in advertising, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a
career in comedy. He performed stand-up and improv and acted in
commercials for several years before meeting Seth MacFarlane in 1995.
Henry was a writer and producer on FAMILY GUY for the series' first six
seasons. He voices many of the characters he created, including
"Cleveland," "Cleveland Jr.," "Herbert," "The Performance Artist,"
"Consuela" and "The Greased-Up Deaf Guy."
His additional acting credits include "Scrubs," "Gilmore Girls," "Yes,
Dear," AMERICAN DAD and "Robot Chicken." Henry and his brother are the
creators of the internet-based series "Kicked in the Nuts.
Henry lives in Los Angeles.
DARYL HALL
Daryl Hall and John Oates are the NUMBER-ONE SELLING DUO in music
history!
Hall & Oates have sold more albums than any other duo in music history.
From the mid-'70s to the mid-'80s, the duo would score six #1 singles,
including "Rich Girl" (also #1 R&B), "Kiss on My List," "Private Eyes,"
"I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) (also #1 R&B), "Maneater" and "Out of
Touch" from their six consecutive multi-platinum albums-'76's Bigger
Than Both of Us, '80's Voices, '81's Private Eyes, '82's H2O, '83's Rock
N Soul, Part I and '84's Big Bam Boom. The era would also produce an
additional 5 Top 10 singles, "Sara Smile," "One on One," "You Make My
Dreams," "Say It Isn't So" and "Method of Modern Love."
On May 20, 2008, the duo was honored with the Icon Award during BMI's
56th annual Pop Awards. The award has previously gone to the Bee Gees,
Crosby, Stills & Nash, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, Willie Nelson, James
Brown, Ray Davies, Carlos Santana and Dolly Parton.
Daryl Hall's latest project is a monthly Internet series, Live from
Daryl's House
http://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/ . "It was a light bulb moment,"
he says of the show's genesis. "I've had this idea about just sitting on
the porch or in my living room, playing music with my friends and
putting it up on the Internet."
Past episodes of Live from Daryl's House have featured a mix of
well-known performers like Smokey Robinson, The Doors' Robby Krieger and
Ray Manzarek, Nick Lowe, K.T. Tunstall, Todd Rundgren, Gym Class Heroes'
Travis McCoy, Finger Eleven's James Black and Rick Jackett and the Bacon
Brothers, along with newcomers such as Philly soul singer Mutlu,
Canadian
techno-rockers Chromeo, MySpace pop-rock phenom Eric Hutchinson, Cash
Money rocker Kevin Rudolf, Wind-up Records' Chicago rockers Company of
Thieves, Bay Area singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson, Charlottesville,
VA's rising Parachute, Chicago rock band Plain White T's and highly
touted tunesmith Diane Birch.
In the Fall of 2008, John Oates released his critically acclaimed solo
album, 1000 Miles of Life.
Most recently, Daryl Hall & John Oates released their first box set, Do
What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall & John Oates.
The box set marks the first comprehensive multi-CD, multi-label deluxe
box set compilation ever assembled from their entire career's work, four
CDs containing 74 tracks (16 of them previously unreleased).
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