Joe Piscopo knows what you think of him. He’s heard the disses on The Simpsons (and, weirdly, in a Tom Petty song) but he’s still out there, bringing his Sinatra-heavy musical act to casinos and doing an AM radio show each morning on a New York/New Jersey station.
He’s also now a published author. Average Joe: The Memoirs of a Blue-Collar Entertainer, is, I swear to you, a breezy, readable and funny book filled with some terrific stories. (I read it in one night.) The best stuff details his time as the emcee at the Improv comedy in New York, where he palled around with Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Richard Belzer and Robin Williams. Then, of course, there were his four years on Saturday Night Live, where he was joined at the hip with Eddie Murphy. He runs some numbers; no one worked with Eddie more than he did, and the two were quite close for a while.
Then, for some reason, he became a bit of a punchline. Some of it, he thinks, is just because of the way his name sounds. But even if some people out there don’t like him, he doesn’t seem to mind. He remains humbled that he ever had a career in show business at all—though he never once considered himself a comic. He’s an entertainer. Whether you find him entertaining, especially now that he’s one of the few vocally pro-Trump celebrities, is up to personal taste, but you can’t say the guy doesn’t work hard. The conversation below been edited for clarity.
DECIDER: The book is chronological, so first up I want to ask about growing up in Newark, New Jersey, a city that doesn’t get too much respect.
JOE PISCOPO: My father always said the corner of Broad Street and Market Street is the center of the universe. Their parents came from Italy. They didn’t go to Manhattan, they didn’t go to Brooklyn, they went to Newark. We saw the riots happen in 1967 and couldn’t believe it. When things started happening for me career-wise I knew I had to give back, and this was in the tough years, the carjacking years, but we brought the cops and the Boys and Girls Club together, and put one of my gyms in there. I think the city’s doing great now. Mayor Ras Baraka has done some amazing things. It’s still got trouble—I’ve got family on the SWAT team—but those jokes about Newark won’t fly anymore.
You write in great detail about being the emcee at the Improv in the late 1970s, an incredible era for comedy. You saw everyone come through there. Who was the one guy who never missed—the Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky?
Rodney. The best of the best ever was Rodney Dangerfield.
I’m not a stand-up comic, I’m an entertainer. But a comic has to have a character, and Rodney created a character, he wrote the jokes off that character. It was genius and it blew out that room.
But what’s funniest about those years is that some of the guys who got the biggest laughs you never heard from again. How does that happen? I don’t want to mention your names, because I don’t embarrass them, but they would blow out the room, and everyone’s saying “you’re gonna be a star, kid” then … life moves on. Look at Larry David. It took him 20 years until he finally hit with Seinfeld. Now he’s bigger than anybody—and some of us are just working—but some of those cats never made it, and some were the funniest of them all.
I guess you don’t just need talent, you need luck.
Luck, sure, and also circumstance. If you want to work, you have to hang out. If you want to make it, hanging out until 2:30 in the morning, going up for three or four drunk people is part of it. Perseverance has been my credo my whole life.
Then you join Saturday Night Live, the replacement cast. And you write about how you didn’t even know if you wanted the gig. Being on SNL isn’t just a job, it’s representing New York City to the rest of the country. Was there a moment when you knew you were hitting a stride?
Yes, absolutely. I was on a street in New York—not a tiny alley, a full city block—and I hear someone shout “JOEEEEEEEY!” That’s when I knew “okay, this is gonna’ be fun.”
This was just a few weeks in?
God, no. Those first 10 shows? I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. Those first 10 shows weren’t pretty. But when we went back and Eddie Murphy and I started to click, that was when it got really cool.
Was there a sketch you were hesitant to do, that you thought would bomb, but turned out it went over well?
A lot of the esoteric impersonations went over really well. I remember, when I first hit the show, Jimmy Carter was running for president, but so was an independent guy named John Anderson. Who the heck is John Anderson? I had no idea, but I had to study him, and I did it pretty well. Unfortunately, we look alike. Also, the Secretary of the Interior for Ronald Reagan, James Watt, Was that the guy’s name? I think it was. I also did Paul Harvey. Who does Paul Harvey? But those sketches … people always know.
You describe yourself as a “utility player” on SNL, inspired by Dan Aykroyd.
I’m not a star, I’m a working stiff. I fill the void doing sketches nobody else wants to do, or that a star can’t make work. “Give it to Piscopo.” And Dan Aykroyd can make anything work, he’s my SNL hero. A utility guy is when Eddie Murphy says “I want to do a gay hairdresser and you are my partner,” and that’s how Dion and Blair started. And back then you could do it—you know, the wardrobe department loved it, everybody loved, nobody got bothered by it.
I tell the story in the book of how Don Rickles and I were doing a sketch that wasn’t working, so I get in there and slap him, and he slaps me. That’s blue collar workers—put us on, we’ll make it work.
Were you surprised Eddie Murphy didn’t get the Oscar nomination for Dolemite Is My Name?
Yes, and that he didn’t get the Oscar for Dreamgirls. That’s something you can watch again and again.
I remember when Eddie took me and Dick Ebersol to see an early cut of 48 Hours. You knew it then, the camera loved Eddie. That’s how you know a true film star.
You write about the weird moment when Tom Petty recorded the song, co-written by Bob Dylan, called “Jammin’ Me” that mentions you and Eddie. “Take back Joe Piscopo/Take back Eddie Murphy/Give ‘em all some place to go.” The weirdest thing is that it also mentions Vanessa Redgrave. As far as I can tell, you never did anything with her, so what the heck was that about?
I asked myself the same thing. Why Vanessa Redgrave? I don’t know. It was everything that was in the popular culture, I guess. But I thought it was so cool, being a Dylan song. Bob Dylan is sitting around going, “let’s write about Joe Piscopo.” I guess the “o” in Piscopo rhymes.
Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and you are part of that corpus. So, in a way, Joe Piscopo won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
That’s exactly how I look at it. By the way, when I said to Eddie that Tom Petty put us in a song, Eddie said, “Who’s Tom Petty?” He had no idea who he was, no disrespect.
How weird was it that “The Honeymooners Rap,” a gag song you did with Eddie Murphy, was such a huge hit? Growing up, I can tell you it was on the radio constantly the summer it came out.
Not a surprise, because Eddie was on it. Anything Eddie was gold, and I can’t be objective because I love him and he’s a brilliant talent. So him doing Art Carney as Ed Norton? You can’t get that anywhere else.
When we recorded it, Eddie was right across from me, and he kept saying, “I’ll be right back,” because the American Music Awards were on, and he wanted to see Prince. So he would jump out of the studio to wait for Prince. We basically ad libbed that whole record, which was then Grammy-nominated. But this is my life: I’m always out of the loop. I’m watching the Grammys with my girlfriend in New York, and they said, “now nominated for Best Comedy Album” and I was nominated. But nobody told me. The invitation went to my agency, somebody got it, and I never was told. What should I do? You get mad? You go back to work.
There’s a lot in your book about your love of Frank Sinatra, impersonating Frank Sinatra and meeting Frank Sinatra. He seemed to like you, or at least tolerate you. But you also impersonated Springsteen, I’m wondering if you ever got feedback from him.
Springsteen is the King, an absolute class guy. I knew someone who had made Bruce a red, white and blue guitar in the shape of New Jersey. And somehow it got to me. Then I met Bruce and described it to him, and he said “I think I’ll stick with my Fender.”
One of the weirdest gigs you did was as the hologram that teaches Data about comedy on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
I had the same management as Whoopi Goldberg, and she was on the show. I was asked to do it, before it had really caught on. I knew the original Star Trek, of course, but I didn’t know much about this, and I honestly think more people have seen me in this than in anything, all over the world.
I shot for only one day. I go to do the scene with Brent Spiner, he’s in the full makeup, they’ve got the 35mm camera, and Brent locks in on me. This was a serious, spectacular actor. He was Data. As soon as we started I knew he wasn’t playing.
Since then I’ve done Star Trek conventions, I’ve done Star Trek cruises. I did my show there, a typical show like I always do, then I get in the elevator and behind me is Mr. Spock. A guy dressed in the uniform and the ears. I’ve played before every audience, but that was the first time before Klingons.
I love Johnny Dangerously, which is such a zany movie. I’ve met the director, Amy Heckerling, who has a bit of a punk rock edge, and you wouldn’t think that based on that movie.
I remember how she really encouraged Michael Keaton to slam me down when he hangs me on a hook. He had to get it just right, she wanted it a certain way, and to get it right he really had to slam the wind out of me. Then I had to keep a straight face as they moved the door back and forth to continue the scene.
Let’s get back to New Jersey. What do you think about the new congestion pricing for cars in Manhattan?
Don’t get me started.
I’m getting you started.
It’s inexcusable! It’s another tax! It’s another tax by Kathy Hochul and she’s got to get it together. Kathy Hochul at first says 15% on any car that goes below 60th Street. Who comes up with this? Do you drive? Do you know how tough it is? Do you know the tolls? Do you know the property tax we pay? Do you know the state tax that we pay in New York or New Jersey? Tax us again? Tax a firefighter going to work? She says 20 bucks, then all of a sudden, before the election, it’s 9 bucks, oh, look at how much I saved you! HOW DUMB DO THEY THINK WE ARE? That’s a rhetorical question.
It should be illegal! And why a congestion tax at all? Because they messed up the MTA! Because everybody’s running over the turnstiles, because Alvin Bragg lets all the criminals out, and they just rush into the subway! They lose billions of dollars, so they think “let’s charge the drivers. We’ll do congestion pricing on the blue collar workers, the Uber drivers, the cab drivers.” This is why I’m no longer a Democrat. In my heart, I’m a liberal Democrat. I really am. Socially, I’m liberal. But all this is so illogical that I became an independent.
You want to know something else? No one’s going into New York. A million fewer cars are going to New York. I like that. I’ve got no traffic. But I can afford it! It’s not fair to the working man and woman.
You’ve also come out pretty heavy for Trump. Have any of your industry pals said to you “look, I gotta cut you out of my life now that you are a Trump guy”?
People call me from Hollywood. I will not mention names. But they tell me, looking over their shoulder to make sure no one can hear, they say “I love Trump.” We should have a secret handshake for Hollywood.
Listen, it’s common sense. Now, I’ve known Donald and Melania for 100 years. I can’t be objective. I’m very fond of the guy and respect him. If you don’t, it’s okay. I don’t hate you. But people in Hollywood, A-list, call me, they go “we love what you’re doing.” Boom. Is that the wildest thing?
I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, Republican. I don’t care what sex you are. I don’t care what you want to be, what you think you are, who you are. No one cares. No one cares. But I do love this country, in the name of my grandparents who fought so hard to come here and be American. That’s in my heart.
But Joe, you as a man of faith, as you write in your book, there must be a thing or two about Trump you don’t agree with. All the allegations. You must part company on some things. Am I right or wrong?
It is what it is, but I am about loyalty and respect and friendship. I don’t waiver. Let’s take it back to New Jersey. I needed to talk to him about the wind turbines they were putting senselessly on the Jersey Shore off Long Beach Island. Those wind turbines don’t work. It’s a ruse. We did the research. So I wanted to ask Donald Trump about it. He was going to Wildwood where he drew 107,000 people. And he found time for me. So I don’t waiver. And not only that, to your point about court and political persecution, when they took him to court, in what I think is a fiasco, I went to court not just to protest political persecution, but to show my respect back to him. So your question is warranted, and I understand it, and I have to say, with respect, I hear what you’re saying. But I don’t waver with my friends. It’s loyalty and respect.
Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets at @JHoffman about Phish and Star Trek.
