Interview: The Daily Show's Al Madrigal
By Samantha Abernethy in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 6, 2013 10:30PM
Comedian Al Madrigal is best known as the "Senior Latino Correspondent" on The Daily Show, but he also performs stand-up, runs the All Things Comedy podcast network and has a few acting roles in the works, including a part in the upcoming About A Boy TV show.
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AL MADRIGAL: I'm a big fan of the 'ists. LAist probably gave me one of the most positive reviews I've ever had of my standup. That was probably two years ago. It was very nice. So that's why I'm a fan.
CHICAGOIST: Well, I guess that means we are fans of yours, too. So tell me about your show coming through Chicago.
AM: You know, it's hard for me to do stand-up as much as I like considering the fact that I have a full-time job at The Daily Show. I'm not doing as much stand-up as I did in the past. With taking a gig like this, it's work for me to stay fresh and also I have all this new stuff that I want to try to work on before that special airs. It's been more for me than it is for the people coming.
C: How's that so? More for you?
AM: You have to get up on a regular basis. If you aren't able to go up as much as you'd like, so I do a lot of my writing off-stage. Opportunities are not near as much as I'd been accustomed to. And I just really haven't had much opportunity to work on standup as much as I'd like. I was doing like 10 spots a week, in LA, when I was living in Los Angeles, now I'm in New York and working on this full-time job, where I wake up at 6 a.m. every morning to go to work, spend 12 hours at work. I'm exhausted, and I really don't want to go out and do three sets at night like I was doing in LA. I'm forcing myself to do the comedian thing in Chicago to work on some new jokes.
C: How does that fit in with your work with the podcast network?
AM: So in the midst of this 12-hour day job, I try to run a podcast network. It's a little overwhelming. I have a lot of stuff going on. And so standup has sort of been in fourth place in terms of priorities, so I have to force it back up to the top.
C: If you could add one more job, what job would it be?
AM: [laughter] This is what my rankings—and I've done a pretty good job of this— it sounds cheesy, but family first. And then obviously I have this show, and then I have, All Things Comedy, which is a podcast network I started with Bill Burr. We have close to 23 or 25 podcasters that podcast. We have 25 podcasts, about 30 comedians, and close to 3 million listeners per month at this point. We haven't really officially watched the whole thing, I have a video coming out on it, so I have that. I'm working on a variety of animated projects. I have About A Boy, a new TV show that starts in December. So there's that, and then a tour, a stand-up tour. So I'd love to... I'm writing quite a bit of things. One of the screenplays that I'm writing is about to be sold, so add screenwriter to the list.
C: Any high-flying dream job? Like Mayor of New York City, or...
AM: [laughter] No no, I don't have the, uh, stuff to qualify me for mayoral race in New York. No, I think if I tried to take on anything else my wife would kill me.
C: So you also have "The Minivan Men," where you talk about being a dad. Is that an outlet for you to vent? Is it sort of like therapy, or just sort of an educational parenting podcast?
AM: That started with just three comics sitting around a comedy club. We started this podcast network, and we just didn't want to do a comedians interviewing comedians podcast because I think there are plenty of those. So each of us had two kids at that point. There's a void there, and we had expertise. We all had stories that weren't in our acts, just told to each other. So I think since we're comics and dads, it's certainly convenient. It's pretty interesting, so we just wanted to present that perspective.
C: So how did podcasting become so big, and now that you're part of a network, how do you see it changing the comedy scene?
AM: As comedians you have to jump through so many hoops, and typically you look over to comedians in television or radio, we have to answer to executives. Now something comes up, we have this medium that allows us to reach our fans correctly, and it's just a mix between social media, podcasting and technology that allows us to communicate to fans directly and do the show that we want to do without having anyone chiming in creatively. It's ideal for comics especially. As a comic writer, as a comedian, it's really up to your opinion of what you think is funny, and you're allowed to put your product out there. Whether it's podcast, or short videos, so, yeah. You can make sketches on "Funny or Die" or, you know, it's just much easier for us to release our own content. It just eliminates that middleman. If any of our comics has an idea that they think is funny, who am I to tell them it's not?
C: And since you work in both this and the traditional medium of television, how do those two compare, and how do you sort of balance out the expectations of each?
AM: Well with everything being so new, I just know that—I am a comic, that's also the tradeoff. I have always wanted to, I sort of got into this to be part of TV. I don't mean that TV's dead, I think I'm into TV now more than I ever have been, and that's saying a lot. I'm just trying to juggle so many shows right now. It's amazing, there's incredible TV out there. It's an opportunity for us to start releasing our own content, and eventually you know, it's going to grow, and we've seen this with Netflix. We're going to have the ability to reach people—the playing field will be leveled, I'm not sure when that will actually happen, but I'd say between 5 and 10 years from now, I'll have the same opportunity to release my own product and have it reach the same number of people. But for now, I have the opportunity to join one of the best shows in television history, I'm very excited. I'm working on a piece right now that I'm thrilled with, and it's an amazing opportunity.
C: At The Daily Show, how much creative control do you have? I look at it from a news perspective, as there being an editor and a reporter, and then communicating story ideas, so I was just wondering how much like a newsroom it is?
AM: We have pitches for stories, and every day we have a writers' meeting at 9 in the morning to sit with all the writers and work on the material for that day. The great thing about this show is that anyone here can pitch. You know, if you're an intern, you can submit. If you're a low-level producer, you can pitch. So we're all pitching and whatever the best story is just rises to the top.
C: I also think in terms of some of the segments that are filmed in advance, they're like an investigative piece, where a reporter goes out and does all their fieldwork, and puts together a large piece. I was wondering how much time it takes to put together one of those longer pieces?
AM: You know, today we pitched a bunch of those, and it takes about, I'd say—and for some things there's a shorter turnaround—but on average it takes about 3 to 4 weeks for something like that to make it to air. You know, as creative people we're all heavily involved in that process. I'm way more involved in the field department and investigative news than I am in the rest of the other work for the show. I write all my own chats, I get to work with the writers on those.
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C: Is it different this summer to have Jon Stewart gone? Are the inmates running the asylum?
AM: Yeah no, I think with John Oliver's responsibility—you know, certainly if I was given the chance to watch the house, you don't want to screw anything up. So I'm sure they have, and I haven't talked to Oliver about this, but he has an immense amount of responsibility to keep that standard high. And so, if you watch the show, the standard, the level of which the show is operating at optimally, is exactly where Jon Stewart would want it to be. So you know, if a story is not worthy or a joke's not worthy of making it on air, with Stewart or with Oliver, you're still not making it on. We have to produce, so, no, we're not running around in underwear and riding skateboards.
C: Do you think you could ever run a talk show that way?
AM: [laughter] Like The Daily Show?
C: Just like The Daily Show. If you could make your own TV show, any TV show, just "The Al Madrigal Show," what would it be?
AM: Oh, I would take, well, the model for late night TV show—it's a script show, it's a Monday through Thursday script. I feel like it's gotten a little bit stagnant, in terms of standing up, doing a monologue, and jumping into the desk during interviews. So we'd play with that a little bit. I feel like with Jon, what's unique about our show, is that we're actually saying something, we offer a solution. I'd wanna take that. That's what I would want to take from, rather than just have something everyone else has.
This interview was edited for length. This is not a verbatim transcript.