|
TOO BAD WE CAN’T FIRE THE TERRORISTS FOR SAYING THE SAME THING ABOUT HIM ...
Bill Maher, who was essentially fired by ABC for saying that the September 11 terrorists were not “cowards” (in the President’s word), and boldly continuing the logic by suggesting that surgical strikes at civilians might be more so, concludes his six-year run on that network of “Politically Incorrect” on June 28th. Arianna Huffington credits the First Amendment values of the show with her own transformation from political wife of closeted gay Republican Michael Huffington to free-thinking progressive activist -- and bids “Politically Incorrect” a fond farewell at: http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/061702.html.
Dialogue with Bill Maher
Hollywood Reporter Online
by Scott Collins
LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) -- Even for someone paid to say provocative things, Bill Maher has had a rough year. His controversial remarks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on “Politically Incorrect,” the late-night talk show he has hosted since January 1997 on ABC (and before that on Comedy Central), led major advertisers and affiliates to abandon the program. After ABC’s failed effort to woo David Letterman, the network pulled the plug on “PI,” which ends its run tonight. Maher, who recently launched his own Web site, www.billmaher.tv, spoke with The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Collins about “PI” ’s cancellation, his relations with ABC, and his beef with Ted Koppel.
The Hollywood Reporter: Will you have any special message for viewers on the last show?
Bill Maher: (Laughs) You mean like, my next move? Is that what you’re asking, sneakily? That’s what everyone keeps asking me. (The last show is) gonna be a very intimate, personal, sentimental journey, I think. I’m gonna be sitting there with the four people who became my best friends from the show, which was hard to narrow down because I made a lot of good friends on this show.
THR: Will (ABC entertainment chairman) Lloyd Braun be there?
Maher: (Laughs again) Lloyd Braun is not my enemy. Everyone thinks he should be. But my suspicion is that he was just carrying out an order from higher than he. He’s got a boss, too. I’m sure more than one because ABC has a lot of executives. You could never quite keep track of how many executives, you know. As I’ve said before, I cleaned out my office in September. I just knew that they were gonna get rid of me.
THR: What did you think of the “Nightline”-Letterman fiasco?
Maher: I was insulted on behalf of my audience because the press wrote about everything except the fact that it also affected us. You would think that we weren’t half of the “Nightline” hour.
THR: And about Ted Koppel?
Maher: Well, Ted Koppel was obviously never much of a friend to our show. When we were brought aboard by ABC, there was a big corporate synergy hullabaloo that was going on: “Oooh, this is gonna be a great seamless move, right from the real hard news of ‘Nightline’ to the comedy news of ‘Politically Incorrect.’ ” It was a good idea, but Ted never really played ball with that. I remember even in the very beginning having discussions about, “Gee, maybe we should talk to ‘Nightline’ every night and find out what issue they’re doing because then we could do the same topic.” Looking back, it’s like who was kidding who? Can you imagine how David Letterman’s head would explode if CBS said to him, “Dave, the show that’s on before you is gonna run over pretty much whenever they feel like it.”
THR: So you never really formed your own relationship with Koppel.
Maher: No. We tried at first, and it soon became apparent that the relationship was pretty much going to be: “We’re gonna go over (schedule) whenever we want to, and now that you’re bugging the network about that, you’re our enemy.” But I refused to take it lying down. We would complain.
THR: To the network?
Maher: Absolutely. But it’s funny: Ted Koppel was this sacred cow. It struck me that they wouldn’t even really address it with him. And then suddenly, this year, when they’re losing a fortune, suddenly he becomes a cow that’s not sacred anymore; in fact, it’s one we can slaughter.
THR: How much do you think your remarks on the Sept. 17 show -- when you said that the U.S. launching of missiles from 2,000 miles away was “cowardly” -- had to do with your show being axed?
Maher: One hundred percent. I had lunch with the president of the network shortly before that, and we had a nice discussion.
THR: This is Alex Wallau?
Maher: Yes, who I like a lot also. And it was a very nice lunch. We kind of talked about some of the things that I didn’t think I was getting that we needed in the show, in a very friendly way.
THR: Like what things?
Maher: Well, like promotion. Like the fact that there was six minutes of commercials between “Nightline” and us. The fact that we weren’t cleared in Chicago, the second-biggest market. “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was on between “Nightline” and us. We were not cleared live, which is ridiculous for an O&O. I said, “You know, the show can’t ever get much bigger as long as there are no or very few promotions for it.” What he basically said was, “Look, we understand that the show can only get so big with what we’re doing for it. But we’re OK with that.” And I said, “Well then, I’m OK with that.”
THR: And after Sept. 17?
Maher: (Laughs) Well, I got fired. So obviously, do the math.
THR: What messages were you getting from the network after Sept. 17?
Maher: There were no messages. After 9/17, it was like I didn’t really exist anymore. We went from very few promotions to none. Like we were some sort of mistress who they were still keeping in an apartment but they didn’t want anybody to know about. Which was a shame because there was nothing ever to be ashamed of. In fact, they should have been more proud of the show than ever.
THR: Before Sept. 17, had the network ever asked you to tone down your opinions?
Maher: Yes. There were four or five times. I don’t want to go through the things I said because I don’t want to dig up all the old graves. But yeah, there were times. They didn’t say it directly, but they told my producers, and my producers said to me, “They really think that that was inappropriate.” And I was like, “Well, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make anybody’s job harder, but that’s my belief, and I’m gonna have to say the things that I believe.” That’s sort of the show they bought, and I guess they thought I was kidding with that title when they bought the show. But I wasn’t kidding.
THR: As the controversy broke, how did you feel? Were you depressed?
Maher: I wasn’t depressed. I was angry that (critics) were twisting my words and taking advantage of tricks to get rid of me, and that it was working and that it did work. People should be angry about that. The thing that made me most angry was that I was probably the most pro-military commentator on television for all my years on the air, way before it was cool.
THR: What about White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who when asked about your comments said that people needed to “watch what they say.”
Maher: Right. And years from now, when they forget what I said, they’ll remember that much more. It’s coming from the White House, and it’s one of the creepiest things that has ever come from a White House in a democracy.
THR: Do you see a parallel with the Smothers Brothers, who were canceled 30 years ago by CBS partly over their political humor?
Maher: Yeah, it’s sort of similar. I think the interesting point about that and what I said is that timing, timing is really the key point when you’re discussing free speech. It’s not that the Smothers Brothers said something that everyone in America doesn’t agree with today. What they said was, the Vietnam War is a waste, and we shouldn’t be there. But it’s funny: When you’re ahead of your time with what you say, nobody really pats you on the back when they all catch up. It’s not like they turn around and go, “Oh, you know what? You actually were right. Come back to work.”
THR: After 9/11, pundits said irony was dead and Americans would start caring about world events. Turns out they were wrong. Why?
Maher: Because it’s gonna take a lot more than knocking down the World Trade Center and bombing the Pentagon for Americans to change. And there’s a truism that people get mad at me for saying, too, but it’s absolutely true. I mean, my God, we’re back to worrying about sharks and Gary Condit, for crissakes.
THR: What will you do next? There’s talk of another cable series.
Maher: That is just something -- I’m not being coy -- I just can’t talk about.
THR: Can’t because you don’t know, or can’t because you don’t want to?
Maher: Part of it is I don’t know, and part of it is I don’t want to. It’s premature, and I just can’t at this point. And really, what I want to do is take a long vacation.
THR: You picked four guests for the last show: Arianna Huffington, Ann Coulter, Christopher “Kid” Reid, and Michelle Phillips. Why them?
Maher: Because they’re the people who became my best friends (on the show). Could we have booked four bigger names? Yeah, but that was never what the show was about. People in the press, especially, often missed the point of the show because they often criticized or looked down their nose at “Boy, they don’t get the A-list celebrities.” Well, not very often, but we got A-list people.
THR: Are you sorry to be leaving ABC?
Maher: Sorry? No. I’m not sorry. But I’m not in the least bit bitter, either. I had a real good run there. And I do not lose sight of the fact that that was a great piece of real estate in television.
THR: Do you ever think you’ll see a piece of real estate like that again?
Maher: I think I could see a better one.
NEXT ARTICLE |
