Paul Provenza dreamed up The Green Room, first as a live show presented at Edinburgh, then at Montreal’s JFL. We recently learned that he’s taped six editions of it for Showtime. It should be interesting to watch. It will be a hipper, sharper version of similar past shows like the Robert Klein-hosted Stand Up/Sit Down or Alan King’s College of Comedy. But we don’t have Showtime. Perhaps we can score a DVD copy for review!

Emery Emery, who, readers will recall, edited that infamous Provenza project, “The Aristocrats,” is involved in the television version. (Which taped Sept. 30, Oct.1-2 at the Vanguard Theater in Los Angeles. We missed it by that much!)

Scheduled guests were: Roseanne Barr, Bob Saget, Drew Carey, Andy Dick, Martin Mull, Penn Jillette, Tommy Smothers, Patrice Oneal, Rick Overton, Jonathan Winters, Robert Klein, Rain Pryor, Bobby Slayton, Eddie Izzard and Sandra Bernhard.

Provenza explains it to a reporter for the Montreal Mirror:

Green rooms are the bowels of show biz, but theyre also where performers are at their most relaxed. The idea behind the show is to give people a behind-the-scenes look at the comedy world. The comedians I know are really fascinating people. There’s a lot more to their work than just being funny. People should see what they’re like when they’re not in front of audiences, when they don’t have to care about their ‘image’.

We had the pleasure of witnessing two installments at the 2007 JFL. (Just a couple months earlier, Provenza had written a splendid remembrance of Charles Nelson Reilly for our publication, so we were able to gain entry into the packed shows the following July!)

It was interesting, raucous and unruly. From our ’07 JFL coverage:

We hung out on Ste. Catherine, outside the Theatre Ste. Catherine, and at about a half-hour after midnight, we were waved in to see “The Green Room,” the interview show cooked up by Paul Provenza. It was a hit at last year’s Edinburgh Fest and it’s here for three nights in a row. Tonight’s guests were Jim Jeffries, three of the five Kids In The Hall (Scott Thompson, Kevin McDonald and Dave Foley) and David Cross and Bob Odenkirk.

Jeffries, readers of this mag will recall, is the comic who was assaulted onstage at the Comedy Store in Manchester. The attack was made famous via YouTube, when video was posted a few months back.

The whole idea behind The Green Room is that comics talking to comics is an entertaining thing to witness. We couldn’t agree more. WHen it was just Jeffries out there, things moved well and, by golly, it was a hoot. When The Kids emerged from backstage, and the couch was crowded with bodies– and there weren’t enough mikes to go around– things slowed quite a bit. When Odenkirk and Cross came out for the final segment, upping the body count onstage to seven (and increasing the comic to mike ratio to over 2), the wheels fell off.

To be sure, many in attendance were thrilled to be in such close proximity to their particular comedy idol(s), and it was rather interesting to see these characters in a situation significantly less contrived than that which we normally see them. But it was maddeningly inconsistent.

Which is not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable. It was. But, at such a huge fest, the onstage guest list ballooned and the concept was corrupted somewhat.

A subsequent edition was tighter. We went back for Thursday installment. Again, from our 2007 JFL coverage:

We swung through the Hyatt, picked up Matt Komen (whom we last hung with after seeing Brian Regan at the Scottish Rite Theater in Jersey in December) and headed on over to see the second installment of Provenza’s “The Green Room.” This time it was Phil Nicholl, Fiona O’Loughlin, Jo Koy and Andy Kindler, in that order, providing the laughs and the insight.

God’s Pottery opened up. They’re performing in their own show as part of the festival, over at the Mainline Theatre. They’re a couple of guys who parody a Christian musical act. One plays the guitar, the other brandishes a beatific smile. The song they played, “A Brand New Start With Jesus,” had such an infectious hook and was delivered with such subtly exaggerated sincerity, we wouldn’t doubt if they actually may have accidentally converted some of the people present! The verse, of course was riotous!

We forgot to mention Team Submarine, the comedy team that opened up Wednesday’s Green Room– two comics, Nate Fernald and Steve O’Brien, from Chicago who have very classic comedy team chemistry.

We suspect that the cable version will be tighter still, with a little post-production editing as well (provided, no doubt, by Emery.) So, it should be a boon to the public’s understanding of– and admiration for– standup comics.

And at least one episode will be worth catching if only for the confrontation described in the following video. In it, Jillette recounts an uncomfortable encounter with his hero, Tommy Smothers. We hope Emery has the sense to leave it in, in its entirety, with all the spittle flying from Smothers’ mouth, as he gets up in Jillette’s grill. Talk about compelling television!

Getting Yelled At by One of My Heroes

(NOTE: You must suffer through a Toyota ad for 30 seconds before seeing the video.)