The Other Late-Night Redhead: A Q&A with Chelsea Lately staff writer, comedian Brad Wollack

The latest twist in the late-night drama has been revealed: Conan O'Brien is going to TBS, and late night is coming to — gasp! — cable. Well, Chelsea Handler already knew that. Handler is the host of Chelsea Lately on E! and the best-selling author of My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands, Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea, and her most recent book, Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang. Chelsea Lately has been steadily rising in popularity since the show first aired in 2007 thanks to the program’s quick-wit, celebrity banter and I-could-give-a-damn-what-your-publicist-thinks-of-me mentality. But the half-Jewish, half-Mormon blonde (dyed) comic doesn’t do it alone. Hours before taping, in a generic conference room, fueled merely by caffeine and carbs (and, of course, vodka), are the show’s staff writers churning out one-liners as fast as Nadya Suleman does children. Zing! Mediaite’s Dana Schuster spoke to one — Brad Wollack, late night's less-Twittered-about other redhead. Chelsea Lately regulars (about 900,000 viewers per night) know Wollack, the "House Ginger," as a frequent on-screen presence, whether being dressed down by Chelesa in a performance review, looking wildly out of place on the red carpet at the BET awards, or being dissed by a baby. But Wollack has a fallback — he's a recent B-school grad and doesn't need free swag from J. Crew, though he knows how to get it. Below, he holds forth about his favorite gossip rags, who to follow on Twitter and why you should invite your boss to your wedding...plus, how people don’t consider Chelsea Lately a late night show because the host is a woman — and why they are wrong. ************ What do you think of drawing the comparison that Chelsea Lately is really just a televised, verbal blog that recaps tabloid culture? Who drew that comparison? I did. Just now. That’s an interesting perspective. Yeah, I think in some respects that’s true. Maybe we might be…it’s like a blog that actually has some credibility, I guess, just because our popularity. And you know, anyone can have a blog, but not anyone can do what Chelsea does and that’s not merely being on TV. But all of her opinions and ability to communicate her thoughts and true passions and feelings on the topics is pretty unique, too. I like to think that our blog is a little nicer than any other celebrity blog out there. At least aesthetically, we look a lot better. How would you define the show? Do you consider Chelsea Lately a late night show? People don’t give us credit for being late night because we do it a little bit differently than most. Our cold opening or our “monologue” is a bit different than the way it’s been done in late night. The round table is an extension of the normal late night monologue…you’re still getting the normal jokes. I think people hesitate to call Chelsea Lately a late night show because 1) it’s on E! and 2) it doesn’t feel like a classic late night show. And I think that’s what makes us great, and pop. We’re delivering it in a fresh way, at least to our generation. Which I think is great. But I also don’t think we get credit for being a late night show because we’re only a half hour. And lastly, because Chelsea’s a woman. And I think some people discount us because of that and that, I think, is entirely wrong. Any chance of the show being extended to a full hour? If I can recall, there was talk about there being an hour a while back, kind of a, “Let’s test it out at first for a half hour and maybe we’ll extend it after.” Which never happened. And truthfully, after a certain point, what more can we offer you for that hour? If someone says, “What do you want to watch, the first half hour or the second half hour of a late night show, it’s always the first half hour. You put all your great stuff up front. All of a sudden, we’re going 11:30 to midnight and we’re stretching and trying to fill and we’ve got weaker guests…a half hour is good for us now. Do you blog or tweet? What is the most inane thing you have ever tweeted? Yes, I twitter. My most inane tweet? I don’t know! I don’t remember all my tweets. Probably the most inane one was when I was out drinking and I wrote, “I’m out at a bar drinking, if you find me here, I’ll buy you a drink.” Didn’t say what bar I was at or what country I was in. Did anyone come to the bar for his or her free drink? No one came. Who do you most avidly follow on Twitter? I am very big on only following a few people because I think there’s a power to that. When I have, not to brag, over 10,000 followers, I want to be a filter to them to see who I’m following. I follow the other writers here at Chelsea and a few others. I wouldn’t even follow my wife if I didn’t have to, but that would cause a lot of problems at home. I’m kind of really specific about who I follow. What are the top three things that go into picking whether or not a story or piece of gossip makes it into the show? a) Whether Chelsea likes it. b) Whether our legal people will approve it. c) Whether or not it’s funny. Some stuff just isn’t funny. But (a) is the number one. Typically the more bathroom humor it has or potential for that, the more likely it is going to be in. But legal stuff, we have to be very careful about. Obviously, we can no longer cite the National Enquirer as our source. >>>NEXT: Which Chelsea Lately cast member is a former porn star? Do you ever just need to purge yourself of celebrity gossip after the show? Yes, I do! The fact that I know as much as I do about Lindsay Lohan or Taylor Swift or Jessica Simpson…that I can basically be an expert on that right now, is pathetic. I just completed my MBA! I have a lot of other things to offer in this world. But sadly that doesn’t come through. That’s why when I do stand-up, I use my Holocaust material. And I’m a Jew, so that’s okay. Out of all the tabloids and papers you flip through for the show, which one is secretly your favorite salacious rag? You know what I like to do…some of the best stories are not necessarily the celeb related ones, but just the odd news about what inanimate object someone was caught trying to have sex with. So Reuters and Yahoo have this odd news stuff that can be good. I rely a lot on The Week, too. Mediate was running on on-going series about the Aughts and I suggested that 2000-2010 could be considered the US Weekly Decade. Do you think a show like Chelsea Lately, which is so deeply steeped in tabloid culture, has legs? What happens if the US Weekly Decade dies out and people actually stop caring about celebrities going grocery shopping? I do think Chelsea Lately has legs. First of all, I don’t think celebrity culture is dying. And so I think someone like Chelsea, Chelsea in particular…if we were just a general show…like The Insider or Extra…those may eventually run their courses. But Chelsea is a dynamic person. Not only does she host the show, but she is an author and does stand-up that is totally unrelated to what she talks about on-air. She has an opinion about a lot of things. If tomorrow the Chelsea Lately producers told us we were switching to politics, I can tell you a few writers would be fired and be replaced with smarter writers, but we, the show, would survive. Is there any celebrity whose signature you would actually seek out? I’m over the whole autograph thing. I would rather have a conversation with someone. But really, the only people I think who could make me speechless or command my attention are Bruce Springsteen or Bono. Or anyone from U2 for that matter. I’m obsessive compulsive. The last thing I need is a piece of paper with someone’s signature on it. I wouldn’t really want it after a while. I’d obsess about where to put it. And I hoard. People now ask for autographs of the writers for the show. Back in the day, I used to include a self-addressed stamped envelope and the photo I wanted signed. Now people just expect you to send them a photo. That I’m going to find it and autograph it and stamp it and mail it. But I do it anyway, because I am a loser. And because it’s the right thing to do. What time do you tape the show? We tape at 3. So do you watch Chelsea Lately nightly? No…I don’t ritually watch anything anymore at its scheduled time. If I am on the show at night, maybe I will. But normally I’ll just TiVo it and watch it whenever. But I don’t recommend everyone else TiVo it…they should watch Chelsea Lately at the prescribed time! What exactly is Chuy’s job? If he were to post his job on Craigslist or Monster.com, his exact job description would be: “You have to be 4’2’’ or less and not be able to speak either Spanish or English particularly well and you just have to basically be comfortable all day while getting paid pretty well to do nothing.” Chuy is a great foil for so much and he actually is really funny, but he is Chuy! His character has evolved since the show has gone on. People love him; they flip for him! Do you consider yourself more of a writer for the show or a comedian? I’ve been wresting with this for a while. I’d like to think I do both. I think if someone asked where are you going to be in 20 years, I’d say it’d be more behind the scenes writing and producing. I just joined Chelsea’s production company, Borderline Amazing Productions, where I am producing and writing in an official capacity. I really enjoy the comedy and the on-camera stuff, but it’s not something I need for the rest of my life. Do all the writers get on-air time? Can they opt out of an onscreen bit? All the writers now get on-air time. Well, all except three, really. Our Executive Producer is also our head writer, but he is always behind the camera. Our Co-Executive Producer is a very well known stand up comedian, Sue Murphy, and she does not appear on the show, nor does she want to. And another, Steve Marmalstein appears somewhat sporadically. It’s done wonders for all of the writers’ lives. Some of us were actually really well known stand-ups and everything, but this has furthered our careers even more. And someone like me, whose stand-up career was dead, this revived it. For better or for worse. But yes, you can opt out if you want to. You’re not going to be forced to go on-air. >>>NEXT: "Did you love Loni after she rape-kissed you on television?" What is the substance of choice in the writer’s room? Well despite what many people think, we don’t really drink at work. And we don’t do drugs or any of that. So we basically rely on coffee, water, and a lot of soda. And pretzels! For some reason pretzels have become a big thing for us. And we look forward to birthdays because Chelsea loves birthdays and we always get a cake. Can you tell me a bit about the writing process/schedule at the show? We get in around 9:15 and we gather stories from the day before that we’ve compiled and see if anything has broken overnight. We gather round and watch clips from different TV things we’ve seen or are interested in viewing for our cold opening and select a clip and riff on that for a bit. Then we go to our conference room and go through the daily topics and Chelsea says yea or nay and if she says yes, we basically just start riffing jokes and it ends up being who is screaming the loudest. I would love to be a fly on the wall. All of us just screaming over one another. I know for a lot of other late night shows, the writers spend a lot of time alone, pounding out jokes before recapping with the group. Seems like this is not the case at Chelsea Lately. It’s a really collaborative process. That’s really important. I think you’re going to get better jokes that way. People always go, “Well, what would you want to do next?” I’m having a great time here. “How about SNL?” Everyone who works there says it’s miserable. Why would I want to do that? I love it at Chelsea Lately. And viewers say it shows that we have a good time together, and that’s really an important thing. It makes for a better show. Do you wish the sketch comedy bits were a more prominent staple of Chelsea Lately? Interestingly, I was a writer for Chelsea’s first show on E!, which was all sketch-based. And I loved that stuff. And the beginning of this show, during pre-production, before we went on the air, we were able to do more of that stuff. I think it is great if it is done well and you put the time into it. But it is a lot. It is a beast on and to itself. And it’s also a matter of not having Chelsea’s time. She is really, really busy. But yes, short answer. Yes, I do wish we could do more but there are a lot of reasons we can’t. Which comedians comprise your favorite round-table trio? I really like Jo Koy. He makes me laugh a lot. I really love most people. I really love Chris Franjola, Josh Wolf, Jen Kirkman, Sarah Calonna. Loni Love. I love everyone. Oh, I guess I went over three. You just know some people are going to read this and kill you if you forget them. Did you love Loni after she raped-kissed you on television? I was just bummed that I didn’t have a better comeback after I came up for breath. So I had to tweet my line instead which was: “Loni Love tongue-raped me on the show tonight it tasted like fried chicken.” How do you feel when Chelsea exposes almost nude pics of you on the show? I don’t care. I really don’t. My appearance has become a source of a lot of conversation when I’m on the show and has really become a benchmark or hallmark for my “character.” I’ve just learned to embrace it. I have an incredibly beautiful, gorgeous, caring wife, and so clearly it is not that bad. Why didn’t you invite Chelsea to your wedding? I did! I was the one staffer who did! Jen Kirkman didn’t and one of our post-production guys didn’t. So there was big trouble. I don’t know why you wouldn’t invite Chelsea! She gives incredible gifts. Plus, she is a lot of fun. My sister, who by the way, loves you as one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, has noticed that you wear a J. Crew purple checked shirt often. Her husband also has it and she wanted to know--how much do you love that shirt? I love it! And please include this in the interview. I love everything J. Crew and that’s pretty much all I wear on the show. I am basically a J. Crew junkie. Hoping to get some free clothes from this interview? They are already very supportive at J. Crew. I feel like I should pay them back. >>>VIDEOS: Brad Wollack on Chelsea Lately: Dissed by a baby, dressed down by Chelsea and blending in at the BET awards... Dana Schuster is a NYC-based writer/editor. She works at Hearst Magazines International as the International Editions Editor of Harper's Bazaar, O, The Oprah Magazine and Robb Report and has written for The New York Times, The New York Post, Cosmopolitan international, Harper’s Bazaar international, The New York Press, The Huffington Post and Time Out New York magazine, among other publications. She graduated from Yale. Some videos featuring Brad Wollack & Chelsea Lately Dissed by a Baby "Brad's Review" Brad at the BET Awards Red Carpet "Franjola of Love"

The Other Late-Night Redhead: A Q&A with Chelsea Lately staff writer, comedian Brad Wollack

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The Other Late-Night Redhead: A Q&A with Chelsea Lately staff writer, comedian Brad Wollack

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