Have yourself a merry little Denis Leary interview
Dan Melnick
Issue date: 11/16/05 Section: Diversions
Christmas comes early this year - Nov. 27, to be exact. Denis Leary is hosting a Christmas special on Comedy Central. The Phoenix had a chance to catch up with him and ask about this eccentric special.
Phoenix: Where did the idea for the special come from?
Leary: We had put out the Christmas song ["A Very F#%$in' Christmas"] a year ago this past summer and it was one of those things we were playing around with and Chris Phillips who wrote [songs] with me [and] who plays in my band we just thought, "Oh, we wrote a Christmas song." Then we sent it out as a Christmas card to a bunch of people, a bunch of friends and business associates. Everybody came back and said "Man, that song is hilarious." So then we said, "You know what? Let's make a video." And we were going to animate the song like one of those "claymation" videos from back in the '60s. And when we started doing that, I said, "You know what? No one does Christmas specials anymore. We should do the ultimate anti-Christmas Christmas special." I called Comedy Central and said "What do you guys think?" They said, "Yeah, it's a great idea."
Phoenix: I see that you cast Billy D. Williams and William Shatner as your evil elves. How did they get involved with this project?
Leary: Well, William Shatner was probably the second guy we thought of when we conceived of the special, just because he's sort of an icon and he has this sense of humor about himself in the last few years, so we wanted to do something really evil with [him]. He not only came through, but he added a couple of his own evil touches that we didn't even think of.
The premise is that he's reading letters from poor [children of] war-stricken countries, to very wealthy people in L.A. and it's really, really sick and twisted. I came up with a bit called "Colt 45 D," the premise being that instead of "NyQuil," you drink a six-pack of Colt 45 which knocks you [out] for, like, 12, 14 hours. Of course back in the '70s when he was at his leading-man peak, Billy D. Williams was doing commercials for Colt 45 malt liquor in a really suave, debonair way with this great funk music behind him. I thought, "You know what? If we can really get the guy to endorse this fake product it would be hilarious." We called him up and he said, "Yeah." We played it in front of a live audience in the studio who for a second thought it was an actor playing Billy D. Williams, but when they realized it was him they kind of gasped and then laughed at the punch lines.
Phoenix: Where did the idea for the special come from?
Leary: We had put out the Christmas song ["A Very F#%$in' Christmas"] a year ago this past summer and it was one of those things we were playing around with and Chris Phillips who wrote [songs] with me [and] who plays in my band we just thought, "Oh, we wrote a Christmas song." Then we sent it out as a Christmas card to a bunch of people, a bunch of friends and business associates. Everybody came back and said "Man, that song is hilarious." So then we said, "You know what? Let's make a video." And we were going to animate the song like one of those "claymation" videos from back in the '60s. And when we started doing that, I said, "You know what? No one does Christmas specials anymore. We should do the ultimate anti-Christmas Christmas special." I called Comedy Central and said "What do you guys think?" They said, "Yeah, it's a great idea."
Phoenix: I see that you cast Billy D. Williams and William Shatner as your evil elves. How did they get involved with this project?
Leary: Well, William Shatner was probably the second guy we thought of when we conceived of the special, just because he's sort of an icon and he has this sense of humor about himself in the last few years, so we wanted to do something really evil with [him]. He not only came through, but he added a couple of his own evil touches that we didn't even think of.
The premise is that he's reading letters from poor [children of] war-stricken countries, to very wealthy people in L.A. and it's really, really sick and twisted. I came up with a bit called "Colt 45 D," the premise being that instead of "NyQuil," you drink a six-pack of Colt 45 which knocks you [out] for, like, 12, 14 hours. Of course back in the '70s when he was at his leading-man peak, Billy D. Williams was doing commercials for Colt 45 malt liquor in a really suave, debonair way with this great funk music behind him. I thought, "You know what? If we can really get the guy to endorse this fake product it would be hilarious." We called him up and he said, "Yeah." We played it in front of a live audience in the studio who for a second thought it was an actor playing Billy D. Williams, but when they realized it was him they kind of gasped and then laughed at the punch lines.