-By Ken Plume

With the 4th season of Reno 911 premiering on Comedy Central, the 3rd season hitting your local DVD emporium, and a major motion picture on the way in the form of Reno 911: Miami, we got a chance to have a nice long chat with the man behind one of Reno’s finest, Carlos Alazraqui, who plays Deputy James Garcia.

Alazraqui is also a standup comedian and an established voiceover artist, starting with Rocko in Rocko’s Modern Life and including the legendary Taco Bell Chihuahua.

Be sure to also swing by his official website at www.CarlosAlazraqui.com

 

————————————————————-

QUICK STOP: I interviewed Tom Lennon last year… a big, massive, career-comprehensive, all his secrets revealed kind of thing…

CARLOS ALAZRAQUI: I don’t have many secrets…

QS: In which he revealed that really, you’re his favorite.

ALAZRAQUI: Oh yeah?

QS: Sure.

ALAZRAQUI: Why not?

QS: Of course he would say that, right?

ALAZRAQUI: Exactly.

QS: How could he not say that?  ‘Cause clearly you’re the audience’s favorite.

ALAZRAQUI: That’s right. It’s unchallenged.  That fact is unchallenged.

QS: Until it is, it is completely unchallenged.

ALAZRAQUI: Exactly. The Earth is round, and I’m everybody’s favorite.

QS: You know what? I would put money on it right now.

ALAZRAQUI: Good.

QS: Maybe not once challenged, but right now.

ALAZRAQUI: Exactly, right now before it’s challenged.

QS: Looking over your career, it’s interesting that primarily you’ve done standup and voice work…

ALAZRAQUI: Yes.

QS: I’m assuming standup came first…

ALAZRAQUI: Standup comedy, yeah.  And then in ‘92, I was living in San Francisco from ‘87 to ‘94. In ‘92, there was a local audition for a little project called Rocko’s Modern Life.   Joe Murray and Nick Jennings, now both working solid in the cartoon industry.  I auditioned for Rocko’s Modern Life and got it.

QS: And became Rocko…

ALAZRAQUI: And became Rocko.

QS: What was it initially about standup comedy that drew you in?

ALAZRAQUI: Um, I think just the attention, you know, and thinking I could be famous and big and attract women and all those kinda things. It wasn’t necessarily that I would transition to anything worthwhile per se, but then, there was a possibility of sitcoms and all those sort of things, and making money while not having a real job….

QS: This is during the late 80s comedy boom…

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. It was pretty fascinating in San Francisco - just a wealth of talent, you know?  You had Tom Kenny and Warren Thomas and Rob Schneider and Chris Titus and Michael Prichard. and Robin Williams would drop in every once in a while, and you had Paula Poundstone, Marsha Warfield and… all these people.  It was amazing.

QS: At that point in time in San Francisco, what was the club scene like?

ALAZRAQUI: It was amazing.  It was at its pinnacle in 1989.  We had five clubs going.  We had the Holy City Zoo, the Other Café, the Punch Line, the Improv, and Cobbs. 

QS: I’m assuming that it was practically straight out of school that you started.

ALAZRAQUI: In college, actually.  I started in Sacramento State. I was doing a little standup there. I did some mime with the teacher, and I got in a comedy duo at a place called the Metro Bar and Grill.  Worked on that for about a year. Then I did some hosting at Laughs Unlimited. And then in ‘87 I decided to move to San Francisco. 

QS: So what was the duo act like?

ALAZRAQUI: It was fun.  It was a lot of stupid sketches.  We did William F. Buckley interviewing Floyd the Barber from the Andy Griffith Show on Central American policy. 

QS: And which one did you play?

ALAZRAQUI: I played Floyd the Barber.  We did Nixon talking to a gorilla at the zoo.  We did Ronald Reagan getting pulled over for a speeding ticket by Jimmy Carter.  You know, at that time it was the mid 80s… you know, ‘85.  It was very SNL-like.  One of our favorite bits was singing “White Christmas” by Devo.  Put bowls on our heads and fake glasses and did this little “White Christmas” parody. And so we just did a bunch of little, quick little sketches.

QS: I have to know - was your Floyd the Barber based on the original Floyd, or Eugene Levy doing Floyd the Barber?

ALAZRAQUI: It was based on the original. Even though I was a huge SCTV fan, it was still based on the original from the show.

QS: So does any footage exist of any of these shows?

ALAZRAQUI: I might have a video or two somewhere.  It does still exist.

QS: When was the last time you actually looked at them?

ALAZRAQUI: Oh, probably six, eight years ago or something.

QS: So looking back at those videos and those performances, how would you view the performer you were then?

ALAZRAQUI: Amateurish.  But fun.  Lotta energy.  “This kid’s got a lot of energy.”  Very green.  But good energy.

QS: What was your confidence level like at that time?

ALAZRAQUI: Pretty good, because I’m fairly athletic. I played soccer and I ran track and, you know, I had a cute girlfriend… so I was pretty confident.  Although not confident to be on my own, so I liked being in a duo.

QS: At what point did you realize the duo was something you’d moved beyond?

ALAZRAQUI: I think around ‘86, when I got a chance to be in this comedy competition by myself, because my partner didn’t like the owner of the club and I was doing pretty well.  And that’s the point I realized, like, “Yeah, I could probably go farther on my own.”  ‘Cause my work ethic was a little stronger at that time. 

QS: Did you get the feeling that it was more of a hobby to him?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah.  At the time.  Didn’t have the drive, I thought.

QS: And where is he now?

ALAZRAQUI: I don’t know.  Mark Frazee.  Very talented guy.  Played music and really just a cool guy and, I don’t know.  I think he’s travelin’ elsewhere to maybe be creative in different ways and maybe be a parent, at that time, and pursue that kind of… life.

QS: So this is like the third partner that Penn & Teller had in the early 80s.

ALAZRAQUI: Exactly.

QS: How big a decision was it for you to actually make the move up to San Francisco?

ALAZRAQUI: It was big.  It was my friend and I, John Boyle. We were the first pioneers from Sacramento to move to San Francisco.  I think we led a wave after that.  People knew that you could do it, you know? And it was big. It was February of ‘87, and I had gone into the city to visit a friend, and fell in love with it.  Even though I used to go as a kid all the time.  And having him go with me was great.  We lived in this little converted garage apartment, and it was just dark and dank and moldy all the time, and it was probably 700 square feet. Two people in one separate room with a small moldy bathroom and about two cabinets and a kitchenette.

QS: So you really felt like a performer at that point.

ALAZRAQUI: Oh yeah. We had a Russian landlord named Boris. It was awesome, man.

QS: See, that’s the kind of things that inform and forge a performer.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, and I was working at two different health clubs at the time, ’cause my major was in recreation administration.  I had worked in a health club and done my internships there. So I was working behind the sports desk and teaching Nautilus, so I’d ride by bike across Golden Gate Park and teach there on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Monday/Wednesday/Fridays I’d work the sports desk at Telegraph Hill Club.  Which is a really nice health club.

QS: How much actual performance time would you be able to fit into that schedule?

ALAZRAQUI: Five days a week.  ‘Cause I’d do that in the morning, take naps in the afternoon, and go out at night. 

QS: How would you describe your act at that point?

ALAZRAQUI: Getting better, you know? ‘Cause I was emulating all the San Francisco acts that I was watching at the time, so it was getting better and more clever, because the San Francisco scene demanded it.

QS: What would the act actually consist of?  Was it more observational, was it character-based, or…

ALAZRAQUI: Character-based.  I remember doing Larry Bud Melman singing “I’m So Excited” by the Pointer Sisters, when Larry Bud Melman was big.

QS: Oh come on, when did he ever stop being big?

ALAZRAQUI: True.

QS: What were the audiences like at that point?  Because obviously the comedy boom was going strong at that time, and a lot of people really hadn’t been exposed to standup, and particularly that sort of unique brand of standup that wasn’t just joke telling.

ALAZRAQUI: The audience was collected, very discerning. They could be tough if you were at the Holy City Zoo.  Unforgiving.  If you weren’t clever enough, you know?  So they were good, but hard sometimes.

QS: Were there any times that they actually rocked your confidence?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah… yeah.  The thing to do in San Francisco was to perform at the Other Café or out of town in Napa, or in Walnut Creek and feel good, and then go to the Holy City Zoo and do your second set that night and get shot down to earth again.  ‘Cause it’s this teeny little pub with just wine and beer, it’s where Robin Williams was the legend, and it sat about 80 people, and it’s mostly comics and people off the street, and so it was a hard, hard room to do. You couldn’t be bigger than the room.  So you’re stuff some times would not fly at the Zoo.

QS: Is there anything that you still regret didn’t fly, or did you eventually get everything to work out in some way?

ALAZRAQUI: Nah, but the things that didn’t fly I don’t regret ’cause it made me stronger.  A better comedian, I think.

QS: How caustic would the audience get? Were they a rowdy audience, or sort of apathetic…

ALAZRAQUI: The silence was bad.  It’s like “mmmmmm”… or comics talking.  You know?  So it was not the rowdiness, it was the lack of noise from the audience that frightened me more.

QS: So, really, an apathetic response was more terrifying and demoralizing.

ALAZRAQUI: Exactly.

QS:  Every comedy scene seems to have one - who was the comic that everyone looked up to as the one that was gonna rocket out of the scene?

ALAZRAQUI: Gosh, you know, we all thought Tom Kenny at the time… Warren Thomas was brilliant. Jeremy Kramer. Rob Schneider a little bit…

QS: That was a year or two before he was snatched for SNL, wasn’t it?

ALAZRAQUI: Yes. Dana Gould, we thought was brilliant.  Dana writes for The Simpsons now.

QS: Was there any point where you actually considered a different path? Or was it once you had actually gotten into that world, that was the only thing you were gonna continue to pursue?

ALAZRAQUI: That was something I was gonna continue to pursue. 

QS: Was there any point that you felt like walking away?

ALAZRAQUI: I think doing some of those first road gigs.  When you’re an emcee on the road and making no money, and people love the other acts more and you’re lonely.  There were times like that, like in Albuquerque, when I was sleeping on a couch and spending more than I was making. 

QS: And who’s couch was it, the manager’s? Is that one of those comedy flop houses that Bill Maher described?

ALAZRAQUI: As it were, yeah.  All the other acts would come over and smoke pot or get high, and I was totally clean, maybe a drink or two, and I’d have bronchitis with no health plan so I’d have to wait ’til I worked in San Diego and go across the border to get arithromiacin I knew what I needed - I just couldn’t afford a doctor.

QS: How wonderful.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. 

QS: And I know the feeling.  As a freelance writer, I know the feeling.

ALAZRAQUI: Oh yeah.

QS: There must have also been that kind of feeling towards the early 90s, when the scene started drying up.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah.  Yeah, because there were fewer clubs, the competition was greater.  So you really had to do well and there was a lot more pressure.

QS: How much of a break, then, was Rocko?

ALAZRAQUI: Incredible.  You know?  Just that I could somehow break into this world and make money doing this.  It was fantastic.

QS: Now was that the first time you had actually done voice work?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, pretty much.

QS: So it was really just hitting the ball out of the park on the first up to bat.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. Luck. 

QS: What was the learning curve for you going into a studio for the first time?

ALAZRAQUI: Um, pretty severe.  I was working with - you know, it was Tom Kenny’s first cartoon,  but we were working with Charlie Adler, who’s now a really big director, and he was an amazing voiceover guy at the time, and he was just awesome. So I learned from him really quickly, and watching Tom and the other actors that we had.  So that was a real fun, organic experience, Rocko’s Modern Life, and actually Joe Murray and Mark O’Hare and Tom Kenny and I and Doug Lawrence, from Rocko, are now working on Camp Lazlo on Cartoon Network.

QS: And you can definitely feel the same vibe to that.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, we know each other so well. Rocko’s very special.  I learned a lot very quickly.

QS: And you also have a writing credit on Rocko, right?

ALAZRAQUI: Uh, I may have a small writing credit for a bowling episode we did.

QS: How much of Rocko was pure script? How much leeway would they give you all to go off script?

ALAZRAQUI: Not a ton.  Tom Kenny did the most riffing with his character, Heifer, but Rocko was such a thread - like a Seinfeld character - that he needed to pretty much stay true.  So there wasn’t a ton of riffing.

QS: Is that something that you were comfortable with, or would you have preferred to have had a little leeway?

ALAZRAQUI: No, I was comfortable with that.  I really… I thought my challenge was to bring the lines that they had to Rocko and make them, you know, work. 

QS: What was it like then when the show actually hits?  I mean, that show was successful.

ALAZRAQUI: It hit okay, but at that time Nickelodeon was starting to pull back from what launched it, which was Kricfalusi’s show, Ren & Stimpy, and started to plug The Rugrats and go for the marketing stuff.  So I think if Rocko would have happened right now, it would have been as big as SpongeBob. Steve Hillenburg and Derek Drymon came out of Rocko - they were directors on Rocko.  And so I thought that because  Joe Murray wasn’t getting along great with the Nickelodeon brass, they really didn’t give it a due.  It’s a cult favorite right now.

QS: Certainly a cult favorite. I’m actually surprised there hasn’t been a DVD box set for that yet.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, that’s what everybody says.

QS: But I’m sure everything eventually will be on DVD.

ALAZRAQUI: I think so.

QS: Once you actually have that success, as being established within that voice world, how easy was it to parlay that into additional work?

ALAZRAQUI: It was more difficult than I thought. It took about a good four years.  Tom Kenny hit right away.  He’s always been brilliant, and he hit faster than I did from that show. It took me a long time to get to know the casting directors and gain their trust and do other things. Cat Dog was the next thing I did. But that took about four years to get to Cat Dog. 

QS: I’m assuming you were still doing standup at the time.

ALAZRAQUI: Yes, I was.

QS: At what point did doing the voice work actually become self-sustaining, where you didn’t have to balance it out with doing additional work?

ALAZRAQUI: After doing sketch comedy with Stephanie Miller on her show, I did her radio show.  Five days a week we’d go do sketches that she would put on her radio show, and I got paid a pretty decent salary, so that kept me in town. And then in ‘97 I got the Taco Bell Chihuahua voice, and that changed everything.

QS: I can’t even imagine what kind of a financial break that must have been.

ALAZRAQUI: It was just amazing.

QS: Obviously it was just another job that you went in for…

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah.

QS: At first.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah.

QS: At what point did you realize it was going to be more than that?

ALAZRAQUI: I think they booked me from the callback. They booked me, I saw the video, and did a callback and put my voice to it, and then they said, “Okay, we’re gonna do this.”  And I said, “Okay, great. Alright, I got a commercial.” And then there was, like, a couple of ads in Adweek about how great this commercial was, and I thought, “Oh boy!” And then they called me to do another one, and it snowballed and took about a month.  And that’s the point I realized, “Oh, wow, this is amazing.”

QS: What was the biggest perk you got out of that period?

ALAZRAQUI: I think being on Hollywood Squares a couple of times.

QS: Where exactly were you positioned during that?

ALAZRAQUI: Meaning within the box?

QS: Yeah.

ALAZRAQUI: I was never Center Square, of course.  Bottom center, top right corner.  That type of thing.  Yeah, I remember being bottom… as you look at the screen, bottom left corner, and having Whoopi say stuff to me. You know, it was pretty cool.  Pretty surreal.

QS: Is that where you really feel a turning point, as far as this really has become an odd career…

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, that’s sort of the epitome of surrealness…  staring out from this glowing box and seeing an audience and having somebody call your name for the block. I used to watch that… John Davidson and Peter Marshall… I used to watch that when I was a kid, so when I heard, “Carlos Alazraqui for the block” I went, “This is just way too weird!”

QS: And did you get them the block?

ALAZRAQUI: Yes I did.

QS: See, that was two dreams fulfilled.  Theirs and yours.

ALAZRAQUI: The answer was, “If you’re eating Shitaki, what are you eating?” And the joke was “You have to be careful, ’cause you can eat Shitaki and die.” I said, “You’re eating mushrooms.”  “I agree.”  “Yes, you’re eating mushrooms.”

QS: How much leeway do you have during Hollywood Squares, legitimately?

ALAZRAQUI: You got a lot of leeway. They would give you possible questions that you might have to answer, and you could accept the writer’s answer or write your own. And I wrote a lot of my own stuff.

QS: You did three appearances?

ALAZRAQUI: I did three, yeah. I did two right away, and then three after being on Reno 911, on the New Hollywood Squares.

QS: How much of the actual merchandise do you still have that spun off the Chihuahua?

ALAZRAQUI: I’ve got a swag box, but not a ton.  I gave most of it away.

QS: I’m sure you have the talking doll that came out at one point.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, I’ve got a couple.

QS: So how does that feel… since there’s no Reno 911 action figures yet.

ALAZRAQUI: No, they used some for a commercial they made, but they don’t exist.

QS: How does it feel to actually have a doll that speaks with your voice?

ALAZRAQUI: It’s kinda neat.  Again, you know, part of the surreality of it all.

QS: What was your appearance on Sin City Spectacular, the Penn & Teller show?

ALAZRAQUI: I did - as I had done on the Magic Johnson show before - Kyle Feeney, Lord of the Slap.  That’s when Riverdance and Lord of the Dance was really big.  And so it was a parody where we slapped our upper bodies with our hands.

QS: Who did you do that with?

ALAZRAQUI: I did that with some dancers and a choreographer named Tiger. Martin Olson, a writer from Rocko’s Modern Life, was writing on that show. I would just saw Penn & Teller in Vegas, and I said, “Hey yeah, I did your show once, with Martin Olson. I played Lord of the Slap.”  “Oh yeah, dude. Hey, how you doin’?”

QS: So is that a character that’s now retired?

ALAZRAQUI: That character retired, yeah.

QS: Coming off of the Chihuahua… how does it feel for when an ad campaign like that ends?

ALAZRAQUI: I had just come back from Europe in July 2000. I got a call, I think that morning I had come back from Europe, it was like on a Wednesday, and she said “Yeah, it’s officially over.”  And I was like, “Ah, oh well.”  It was sad.

QS: Was that the kind of thing that provided financial security enough to last a while?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. It helped me buy my house, in L.A.  I had already, with the San Francisco Comedy Competition money, put money on a condo in San Francisco - so I had that, but this helped me buy me house and buy an Audi TT and, you know, I had enough money now that I could get a couple of dogs, and that really provided a great base.

QS: And obviously, as with any advertising icon, there’s always the chance it could return.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. I think Clara Peller is no longer living, but the dog would have to be a different dog.

QS: But who would notice?

ALAZRAQUI: Who would notice, yeah.   It could always return, but Taco Bell was eventually sued by a Michigan ad agency and lost, so…

QS: Ah.

ALAZRAQUI: You know, maybe he could come back in another fast food chain.

QS: So really, the only way to do it is probably a cameo on Family Guy.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, exactly.  She did a cameo for Geico Auto Insurance.

QS: Did you do the voice for that.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah.  Where they were auditioning characters to be the new Geico spokesman and the dog walks out and sees the gecko and goes, “Oh great, a talking gecko.”

QS: I didn’t know you’d actually reprised the role for that.

ALAZRAQUI: I had reprised it for that, yeah.

QS: Are there any ramifications in doing that for another company’s ad?

ALAZRAQUI: Nah.  They’re cool with it.

QS: Is that something that had to be cleared beforehand to see if they were cool with it?

ALAZRAQUI: I think so, yeah.

QS: I’m assuming there’s some kind of contractual thing that still binds you.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, that probably still does exist for Taco Bell. You probably have to pay them.  They probably own it in perpetuity, even though they lost the lawsuit.

QS: Over the years, you’d also done some live action roles…

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, with the Stephanie Miller Show.

 

 

QS: What exactly was the process by which Reno 911 came about?

ALAZRAQUI: In December 2000, I auditioned for Ben (Garant), Tom (Lennon) and Kerri (Kenney) at Jersey Television for a Fox sketch show. I go to network, go to studio, go to network, I get it, and we do a table read for the pilot episode of the sketch show. They say, “We don’t want that.” And Tom and Ben said, “We’re gonna make fun of Cops. Go home and think of a character.”  So I thought of a character, we came back, we got Beth McCarthy from SNL to direct us. We went out to San Pedro, we got in our uniforms, and did all this stuff.  Fox passed on the pilot.  I thought, “Okay, that was it.” Then a year later they took it over to Comedy Central, Comedy Central purchases it from Fox, and they say, “We like it, we’ll go into series.”  That was about 2002. 

QS: When you went away and actually created that character, what were your initial thoughts on what Garcia would be?

ALAZRAQUI: Just an amalgam of all the uptight pricks I’d ever seen in a short person’s body, with the name James Garcia. And the rest came after they asked 20 questions about your character - “Would he like being a cop” and “Who do you hate,” “Who do you like” - that type of thing. Then, as we started to film, I had this natural chemistry with Cedric Yarbrough, who’s this big tall black guy, and you know already we played off the racism thing - one of the first things he did when he got in the car is he’d turn on the music and I’d say, “Do you have to put that jungle music on?”  He’s like, “What? I’ll beat your white punk ass.”  And then, you know, then it was on.  We had our relationship.

QS: But it was friendly racism.

ALAZRAQUI: It was friendly racism. It was the big brother trying to tell the little brother what to do.

QS: It was racism from a place of love.

ALAZRAQUI: Exactly, like, you know, the motto was, “I would take a bullet for my black partner but I wouldn’t tell my white friends.”

QS: Of those 20 questions, are there any more of those that you can remember?

ALAZRAQUI: “What’s your favorite pastry?”  Bear claw.  “What does cop mean to you?”  A cop is a protective rainbow that covers your county, city, country, region.  That’s what cop stands for.  Count On my Protection coming through.”  That gets reprised for the movie that’s coming out, too.

QS: What was the vibe on that first shooting day?

ALAZRAQUI: The first shooting day in San Pedro was just unbelievable. It was so fun.  We couldn’t believe how funny and fun this was. It’s like, the crew was laughing, you know?

QS: Was it something that, as soon as you walked out, instantly clicked for you?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. Especially with Cedric and I. They’d put us in the car with dash cams and we just drove around and made up shit. We just had so much fun.

QS: Is there anything that you can remember from that first day that didn’t make it on?

ALAZRAQUI: We were driving around and he threw a piece of trash out the window, and we eventually reprised it for the first episode of the Comedy Central version.  He threw a piece of trash out the window and I wanted to make him go get it, and he wouldn’t do it and he drew a gun on me and I drew a gun on him and then we started laughing.

QS: It’s amazing how many of those types of improv’d shows fail… I mean, it’s a thin line - no pun intended - on those types of shows either succeeding or failing, and it’s really based on the strength of the performers.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. It really is.  And the performers as their own writers.  We wrote our own dialogue, as it were.

QS: It’s one of those shows that you can’t find a false note in the cast either.

ALAZRAQUI: All the good stuff is saved, and there’s some bad stuff that’s edited out, but yeah, you know, we are allowed to… we can do it. We can get it done.

QS: I think the real sign of the fact that you guys can bring it more often than not is the Aspen Comedy Show.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, where we did it live.

QS: Which, you know, showed it straight through, that you can continue to produce under pressure.  I mean, I can’t even imagine… what was the pressure like on that night?

ALAZRAQUI: Pretty weird, you know, because you know there was some show business people watching us that were fans of the show.  And so that added to it, and we had to be on.  There was no editing. It was us, live.

QS: Is there any time you found yourself accidentally breaking character?

ALAZRAQUI: No, not per se, no.  I did not laugh like I do on the show.

QS: What’s the closest you’ve come to breaking up a scene?

ALAZRAQUI: I think I called Tom Lennon my name in a scene.  I went, “Hey Carlos.”  He went, what the hell? 

QS: And I’m assuming that never made it.

ALAZRAQUI: That didn’t make it. No, there’s a couple of laughs that you can really check out that you can see on some of the finished products that I’ve done.

QS: What’s been the hardest for you to contain yourself on?  Because obviously there’s quite a bit going on that could break you at any point.

ALAZRAQUI: I think it was Michael Ian Black when he played this Make a Wish patient with a dream to go out with two cops, and he was just so funny that I was just losing it. He grabbed my nightstick and banged on the police car as hard as he could.  It wasn’t like, “I’m gonna fake like I’m gonna bang on the police car.” He just wailed on it and I lost it, and then every time we tried to move him he would scream. “Aaahhh!!”  And I was just losing it. It was so good.

QS: How quickly do you feel like you get into that groove when you start shooting?

ALAZRAQUI: Takes about two takes, when you’ve been off for a long time.

QS: What’s the longest you all have been off, about a year?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. This will be the longest in-between seasons, I think.

QS: But obviously the film filled in that gap a bit.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, a bit.  But I think it’s been close to a year that we’ve been off. Yeah, that’s how long.

QS: How surprised were you by how the law enforcement community has taken to the show?

ALAZRAQUI: I’ve thought they would have a problem with it but most of them like it. They love it.

QS: Any perks or appearances that have come from that?

ALAZRAQUI: There’s been a few perks, you know.  Haven’t gotten out of a ticket, per se. But there’s been some gigs because of it and my standup money has gone up.  So it’s good. And some recognition at Clippers games. It’s nice.

QS: There must be something in your mind that also registers the fact that this is a show that has legs and will last beyond when it goes out of production.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, it will.  It will in DVD and reruns and… you know, it’s does have some legs.  So does Rocky.

QS: And you’re still doing standup at this point.

ALAZRAQUI: Occasionally I will get out there and do a gig or two, but I’m really enjoying the voice work and staying at home and really wanting to do just the private corporate gigs that pay a little bit better, rather than to do the clubs. I’m done with that.  I’m really… you know, unless the club is gonna pay a lot of money and I can work with a friend, I really just don’t need to go out anymore. Standup was always a means to an end for me.

QS: Right.  You finally reached that point to where you only do it when you want to go out, not when you need to…

ALAZRAQUI: It’s when I want to go out, yep.  Even as far as showcases here in town.  People say, “Hey, you wanna come out and do a spot?”  No.  I did cartoons all day, I walked my dogs, I’m going to the Clippers game tonight. You know, that’s my life now. I don’t need to be in comedy clubs and I’m not wanting for that type of attention. I wanna be with my dogs.

QS: How much would you say that your act has changed over the years?

ALAZRAQUI: Not super drastic, but it’s gotten more adult and more honest.

QS: When you say more honest, is it because it’s become more truthful to who you actually are?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah… my point of view, rather than trying to think of something that people will think is clever and, I’m like, “No, this is my point of view.” So if I do a Dr. Phil bit, it’s not “Here’ll be a clever way to put it…” No, I saw Dr. Phil with this lady who was addicted to Tim McGraw on the show, and his advice to her was telling her that she had to stop. And I thought, “That’s bullshit. That’s pocket therapy. That doesn’t work.” And then I liken that to a contractor on your house saying that your foundation’s all screwed up, you have bad wood and dry rot and termites, and what you need to do is paint over that and stop looking at it.  You can’t fix yourself if you don’t fix the foundation, so that’s become a really great bit, and I did that on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and people really loved that bit because it’s grounded in truth. It’s not like, “Oh it’s Dr. Phil as an airplane pilot.” No, it’s “Here’s my opinion about Dr. Phil. Here’s my opinion about cars getting way too big. To the point where you gotta build a new car called the Ford Fuck You.  Get the fuck out of the way. What about an electric car? Well why don’t you put on a speedo and slow down to Ed Begley, Jr., you poodle fucking pansy.” So yeah, you know, all that hatred and anger that I sort of feel from the American attitude of, “I can drive whatever the fuck I want, screw gas shortages,” and basically it’s saying, “Fuck you. Get out of my way, my car’s bigger than you.”  So I put all this sort of stuff in my standup, and to me it becomes a lot more honest and weightier, and ultimately funnier.

QS: So your standup has moved away from you assuming a character, into just being you…

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, I am me, but I can go in and out of character and it’s real subtle. It’s not like a Dana Carvey thing or a Kevin Pollock, when he did the impressions and stuff. It’s like I said - I don’t do a Dr. Phil, but it comes out of a point of view. If I do, it’s taking it to a preposterous end. Like talking about supermodels and how gangly and dinosauric they are, as it leads into Steve-o and, “Today we’re on the hunt for supermodels. These bitches haven’t eaten in three weeks.  They’re extremely agitated.”  So yeah, it would be character driven, but not overtly so.

QS: How different then are the corporate gigs from a standard performance at a club?

ALAZRAQUI: They’re usually set up pretty well. The money’s much better.

QS: Do you tailor your act for the specific gig?

ALAZRAQUI: You have to sometimes tailor your act a little bit. You talk about the corporation a little bit.  For maybe about the first 10 minutes. And you clean it up, ’cause it’s… a homogeneous audience, I guess you’d call it.  Right? They all know each other and they work in the same environment, so you try not to offend the boss or try not to offend certain workers or certain stereotypes, but you gotta scale it down a little bit.

QS: Is there any corporate gig that’s just gone off the rails?

ALAZRAQUI: Not that I can remember. There have been some that have been hard because people aren’t listening.

QS: Do you get the feeling sometimes, when you’re in those gigs, that you really are just a hired hand?

ALAZRAQUI: Yes. They really don’t care about your act so much, it’s just, “Do your entertainment and make fun of the boss and get out of here.” 

QS: One of the last things I should probably ask about is the Reno feature film.

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah, that was great fun.  South Beach, Miami for 12 days, 8 shooting days, and back in L.A.  Some surprise guests that you’ll have to wait for.  Just fun.  Just a lot of fun being in South Beach and have people recognize us and wearing white and blue uniforms, and, you know, getting recognized and staying out late and going to the hotel Victor and all these clubs, and it was great.

QS: Was the shooting experience essentially the same as the show?

ALAZRAQUI: It’s pretty much, ’cause we are like a film.  We shoot on location. We have craft service. We’d stay in our trailers.  We don’t have a set except for the Carson Sheriff’s station, which we used again for the film.  That’s a real working sheriff’s station. So yeah, the same experience.

 

 

QS: Is there anything that was fundamentally different?

ALAZRAQUI: Blocking.  Some blocking for the hi-def cameras. And that was about it. Making sure that we were on screen for certain scenes in the first part of the film, we had to block properly for that.  So that was what was fundamentally different.  We couldn’t be as loosey-goosey on some scenes, ’cause there were group scenes where we needed to sort of find our positions and find the camera a little bit better.

QS: Was that something that you just had to get acclimated to?

ALAZRAQUI: Yeah. There’s a couple times I was having problems with it. ‘Cause on the show we can just go.  ‘Cause it’s like Cops.  On Cops, you don’t worry about blocking.  The camera finds you. That’s the definition of it. So for the film we just had to switch that.  But other than that, the show’s the same. Film’s the same.

QS: Is it something that, should this prove enough of a success to do so, you wouldn’t mind doing again?

ALAZRAQUI: Oh, yeah, I’d love to do it again.  You know, let us be the new Police Academy.

QS: And yet no Bobcat Goldthwaite cameo.

ALAZRAQUI: And no Bobcat Goldthwaite cameo.

QS: And when does the new season start shooting?

ALAZRAQUI: I understand that it could be October or January.  We’re not quite sure which. It’s really depending I think on certain schedules, particularly Tom and Ben’s as they are involved in other films, directing and writing.

QS: And what other projects do you have coming up?

ALAZRAQUI: I have a possible project with CTV owned by my friend Jeff Valdez.  It’s English language Spanish network.  And we’ve got a project that’s almost ready to go for a pilot there, my friend Nick and I. And then I have a couple of production meetings coming up with production companies, and hopefully we can maybe get together with show runners and make something happen. Then I have my cartoons, and I have a couple loose standup dates.

 

 

Comments:

Leave a Reply Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website