My Favorite Mistake: Business Lessons from Failures and Success When Bill Maher Wanted Me Fired From Comedy Central: Founder Art Bell
Apr 12, 2021
42:21
Creator of Comedy Central, author of the book Constant Comedy
Notes and links: https://www.markgraban.com/mistake57
My guest for Episode #57 is Art Bell, the creator of The Comedy Channel (which later became Comedy Central). He's also the author of the book Constant Comedy: How I Started Comedy Central and Lost My Sense of Humor, and co-host of the podcast “Constant Comedy.”
Today, we talk about Art's “favorite mistake” (it involves the comedian and talk show host Bill Maher) and topics and questions including:
- The ad campaign for “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” and how that ended up leading to an award
- Why it's bad to surprise the talent
- Did Al Franken walk out on “State of the Union: Undressed” because he didn’t know it was going to be live??
Was that show a better fit, the next year, for Dennis Miller?
- Having to often talk Nancy Grace into going on the air on Court TV
- Is it risky to write a memoir like this? Did you need lawyers involved to make sure you weren’t making a mistake?
- Jon Stewart – on “Short Attention Span Theater, was it a mistake to fire his co host Patty Rosborough without taking to him? – telling or asking? He was surprised…
Mistake for them to not make him the original host of The Daily Show?
- Mistake for Michael Fuchs to say the programming quality was a 2 or 3 out of 10?
You decided quickly it was a mistake to say you were quitting?
- New York mag called the channel “the biggest flop in years”
Making adjustments?? PIVOTED and made changes as quickly as we could
- Getting fired from Comedy Central and lessons learned