Comedy

Dan Rupple is the “real” deal. He has worked in the comedy business from a variety of perspectives, performing live and recorded sketch and improv comedy, writing and producing sketch and sitcom for television, and even some radio along the way. He is married to his “first wife” Peggy, and they have three terrific kids. He is a man of wit, but more importantly, real integrity.

Kathleen Cooke: How did you get into comedy?

Dan Rupple: I saw the Dick Van Dyke Show, and that set the call to my whole life because I saw two things in Rob Petry. One, he was a comedy writer in television, and I thought, “I want to be a comedy writer and I want to work in TV”. The other thing was that he had this fabulous suburban home life with a perky wife, and, by the way, my wife looks a little like Mary Tyler Moore. That basically is what I wanted. God has been so good and I’ve been able to do exactly that. That was really a blue print for my life.

In high school I formed an improv team. As we started to develop an act, a number of high schools asked us to do assemblies. Then, we were getting good enough that we decided to try our hand at performing in clubs in Hollywood. I’d have to lie about my age. I didn’t know the Lord at the time. We did that for a number of years and were getting fairly successful; opening for Lily Tomlin and others who went on to do Saturday Night Live. During that time, we shifted from an improv group to a sketch group. That’s where I began to learn how to write comedy.

In January of 1977 I went on a spiritual journey. I kept hearing a voice in my heart saying to seek God. I couldn’t shake it and the first thing I did was get into spiritualism. My uncle was a spiritualist and he used to go to a medium, so I started talking to him. It just didn’t make sense to me, and it seemed really dark. Then, I got into the Bahai faith, and started reading everything I could. But again, I soon realized that their beliefs didn’t make a lot sense either.

I was alone in my house one night, and this same voice I felt told me to read the Bible. I had a Bible that was given to me. I remembered that the red letters in the Bible are what Jesus actually said, so I found the biggest red parts. I was reading the “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew where Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” It so impacted me because I came to the realization that my life was great, but I was bankrupt in my spirit. I was lacking and needed a savior. I literally fell on my knees and wept.

Later that week, I showed up for rehearsal and I was going to tell the guys that I was quitting because I couldn’t reconcile my new faith and the type of comedy material we were doing in clubs. My partner, Dave said “well since the last time we were together I became a Christian and I was going to leave the group today as well”. Then we turned to my other partner, Larry, who said “Well I walked closely with the Lord in junior high school and I turned away, but I rededicated my life last week”. We decided that maybe we didn’t have to quit the group, but somehow do our style of comedy with a Christian perspective.

We started writing and wrote our first album in a matter of a month or so. We, in some ways, invented the contemporary form of what you would call Christian comedy today. We were told that the “church” isn’t going to like this, but we found the exact opposite to be true. They were dying to laugh. They were hungry for humor and were so responsive, that our first album sold 120,000 units, which in those days (1979) was unheard of. Our group, Isaac Air Freight, took off. We did 8 albums, doing about 150 shows a year all over the US and Canada.

I did that for 15 years and by the end, I was married with 3 kids. I was getting worn out being on the road, but I also really desired to do television. I left the group not having a clue about what I was going to do. I told my partner on a Sunday, flew home, and on Monday KBRT radio in southern California called me and wanted me to consider hosting the morning radio show. I did that for 2 ½ years. I did the morning show and got to interview great people like Bob Hope, Phil Donahue, and Pat Robertson.

During this time, I had been teaching an adult Sunday school class at my church, and one of the guys in my class was director of operations at CBS. I knew he worked there, but didn’t realize he was so high up! I called him and had dinner with him one night and asked him if he could help me out. He was able to get me a job as supervising producer on the Price is Right. It was supposed to be temporary, but I ended up staying with the show for 10 years. On my down time, I would work on other shows. I did a lot of pilots, game shows, and talk shows. I worked the Prime Time Emmys, sports shows and events and even news for CBS. The real jewel on my crown was in 1994 when David Letterman signed on with CBS. He wanted to do a week of shows in LA. I got the assignment over guys who had been there for 20 years. God gave me favor with the Letterman staff. For 8 years I did everything Letterman did outside of NY.

KC: Why do you think you were so successful?

DR: I think the reason I made a difference was because I tried to be a person who genuinely cared about people. I was openly a Christian, but I kept my faith low key. I wanted the people I worked with to know and understand me for who I was, not their pre-conceived idea of Christianity. I had a hundred people under me when I was doing the Price is Right, and everyday I would go in a circle around the studio and try to greet every single person on the crew. I would sincerely ask them how they were doing. I tried to show them that I cared

In turn, sometimes the crew technicians and stagehands would ask to be scheduled on my show. I got a reputation around the producers that I got some of the best crews. A few years later, when my wife was diagnosed with cancer, that created so many inroads into my coworkers lives. They saw us hang in there and trust God to come through it. I stayed at CBS until 2000. And then God told me he wanted me to move on.

I went into one of the VP’s of CBS at the time, and I told him I was resigning to be a pastor. He was an older man and three times during the conversation he got up out of his chair to get tissues. He said, “Dan three times in my life God told me to do something and I didn’t do it. I’ve lived with regret. I am glad you are following God’s leading. I want you to know, as you leave, you have every resource at CBS at your disposal.” They were my family.

After leaving CBS, I was a pastor for 3 years. Then, wanting to get back involved with Christian comedy, I started my own comedy company, Seriously Funny Entertainment and, along with a number of other comedians, formed the Christian Comedy Association. One night I was on the radio talking about Christian comedy and a guy heard me talking and hired me and my oldest son Nathan to write and produce comedy videos for the internet. We did 35 videos for him, then left to begin our own company, Padded Room Entertainment…Insanely Creative Digital Storytellers. We are presently doing short comedy videos for 3rd screen media (the internet, cell phones, etc.) as well as broadcast and cable TV.

KC: Is comedy something you can learn?

DR: Yes and no. I teach a class at Biola University in Southern California, every other semester and I equate comedy to learning the piano. Anyone can take piano lessons, and you’ll always get better. The more lessons you take, the more you know and the more you practice. However, if you don’t have an innate talent for piano, you are never going to be great. That part can’t be taught. It is the same with comedy. You have to have an innate sense of humor. It’s in the timing, and the attitude. It’s your “comedy lens,” the way you see the world. Yes, you can learn the rules of comedy and structure, but you have to have a God given talent to really excel.

So much of comedy is about attitude. What would Steve Martin’s attitude be on this one? Or what would Dennis Miller’s attitude be on that one? Know your attitude, it is one of the most important keys. Begin developing your own “attitude.” When someone laughs at something you said, or something you did, ask yourself, what was my attitude?

KC: Is it important to have a college degree?

DR: No, but on a side note, almost every comedian I have ever met is highly intelligent. Letterman, Seinfeld, Steve Martin, the Monty Python guys, etc. You don’t need a college degree, but the more education you have, the better you are because it gives you a greater awareness of the world. A large part of the comedy writers in TV are from Harvard. That is what motivates me to teach at Biola. With encouragement from the church, and education from our Christian universities, young comedy talent can make an impact on Hollywood.

KC: How does a comic personality keep the faith?

DR: When you become a Christian you have to be even more creative. Profanity in humor is used for two reasons. One, to color it with the sound and vocabulary of the street, and two, strictly for the shock value. Since the Christian doesn’t want to use the cop-out of relying on profanities for an easy punchline, he or she is forced to come up with something better, more creative and funny.

Working in a club environment wears you down. Through the Christian comedy association I encourage people to have accountability and a Christian support group. Clubs are pretty dark. They want something funny for people to laugh at while they are getting drunk. That’s how they make their money, and that’s why they prefer the dirtier humor. It’s tough for a Christian to enter into that. I would tell a Christian comedian to make sure they are strong in their faith. But when approached properly, I’ve seen many talented Christian comedians be a welcomed presence in a club environment.

KC: How do you know if you are good at writing comedy?

DR: When people laugh. Actor Edmund Gwenn said, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard!” Comedy is the most subjective thing in the world. Everyone has a different sense of humor, and finds different things funny. When you’re performing live you know if they laughed, it was funny. But, when you’re writing or in production, you don’t know. This is where your insecurities step in, and you start playing the guessing game. Someone critiques you and you think, “Did she not think it was funny because it isn’t funny or is it just not funny to her?” So you go back and forth. I am fortunate that I played clubs and performed for 15 years. That gave me a lot of experience to pull from about what kinds of things people laugh at. I remember the jokes that bombed and the ones that worked and filed them away in my mind. For the novice that’s difficult because you don’t have those years of experience. So you just have to write and get some people that you like and trust to read it and tell you if they think it’s funny.

The comic performer is very vulnerable on stage because you don’t have anything to hide behind. But rejection of your comedy is not a rejection of you. You can’t take it personally. A lot of times it’s the audience, or the room is too hot or cold, or it’s the sound system, or just a different audience that night. Cultural awareness plays a major part in the response. The way I’ve dealt with it is through maturity. I understand the subjective nature of comedy. Sometimes it’s me…but not always. Keep learning and you’ll get better every time. Eventually, you will click.

Another thing - it is hard to get comedy off the page. So much happens with a look in the eye or an attitude, or a vocal inflection. So much is in the performance. You can read a comedy script like an episode of Friends or Seinfeld and it can seem to dry. But, suddenly when you have brilliant performers, it comes alive. They just take your words and make it gold.

The more performing experience and improv training you have, the better the comedy writer you are going to be. I know a lot of comedians who weekly get together with people and just have improv nights. started by writing jokes, and then I wrote monologues, then I got into sketches and sitcoms, and now digital media.

KC: What is appropriate for Christians to do on stage?

DR: I get asked this constantly. First of all, a lot of what you do is going to be dictated by your audience. So the most important thing is to know your audience and what would be appropriate for that audience. I hope to challenge sacred cows and disbelief, but I’m not looking to offend someone else’s sensibilities just for shock’s sake. I’m looking to uplift an audience, not make them feel uncomfortable.

When we talk about appropriateness, more often than not, we are talking about sexually related material. While I think that who better to talk about sexuality from a moral perspective than Christians, I have found that most churches are highly uncomfortable with that kind of frankness. People often site Ephesians where it says “there should not be course jesting among you”. I believe course jesting is taking anything God calls Holy and defiling it or making light of anything God calls Holy. Later in that same passage in Ephesians, Paul mentions sexual immorality. I believe the sexual act between husband and wife is Holy, but what the mainstream comedian often does is approach sexuality in such a way as to defile or make profane what God has set apart as pure. I love the sexual bantering on the Everybody Loves Raymond show. It is all done in the context of marriage, and it is all based in truth. That’s the kind of talk that husbands and wives have. I think it is hysterical, and I am not offended. Comedy must always be based in truth. I think that we can approach any subject comically, the guiding line is not what we can talk about, its how we talk about it. God created it all. I can talk about anything, but I am always going to come from the perspective of truth. I am not going to profane what God has called Holy.

KC: Can you recommend a book that would help someone getting into the comedy business?

DR: I wrote a book called “It Takes a Village Idiot,” and you can get it on my website, SeriouslyFunny.cc. Also, the “Comedy Bible” by Judy Carter is really great for stand up joke structure. I use “The Comic Toolbox” by John Vorhaus in my class when I teach, and Sol Saks has written several books that are great.

One last thing: Comedy is the great equalizer. It breaks down the walls of fear, prejudice, and preconceived ideas. When people are laughing hysterically they lose their guard and facades. It is a disarming tool. We are a funny people. God created us funny. We need to stop taking ourselves so seriously and be able to lighten up and laugh at ourselves.