Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
And because I was so naive, I believed that you just did that.
What she didnt do is tell jokes.
I have never been a strong joke writer, Garofalo says.
Garofalo bombed at all of them.
It was even worse at the Comedy Store.
She made us all listen to the Replacements, and was changing us all up style-wise.
We all cut our hair, and started wearing Doc Martens and athleisure.
She was the first person to wear athleisure.
I failed miserably, Odenkirk says.
I had my little MTV fame but I still fucking bombed, he says.
I wasnt an act you would rely on to rock the house, to put it mildly.
I could easily go in the toilet in two seconds, and it happened very often.
It was a strange time to be a stand-up.
As a result, even many relatively green performers could make a living on the road.
But by the late 80s, it had all started to curdle.
The stand-up circuit was awash in cocaine and testosterone.
Comics knew what their audiences wanted, and most simply delivered exactly that.
Comedy had been so whored out that comedy fans didnt go to comedy clubs anymore.
So for a lot of us, those clubs were just so unwelcoming, says Odenkirk.
I know Im not what youre looking for.
Im sorry I started speaking into a microphone.
I knew my flow was different, she says.
The night hardly seemed momentous at the time.
but few remember much else about the evening, beyond that there were few there to do the remembering.
Maybe a dozen people showed up, including the performers.
Still, the next week, they came back and did it again.
But those who turned up saw something they couldnt see anywhere else.
It was very informal, just people up there playing around with the form.
They were just looking for a place to make each other laugh.
I think it did start with Big & Tall, says Odenkirk.
It just felt like a bookstore, late at night, yeah, that makes sense.
People are kind of in a thinky headspace compared to a drinky headspace at the Improv or whatever.
Theyll listen to your meandering, random comic thoughts.
It was very welcoming and forgiving.
These were like the demo tapes by this group of performers.
It was a brief moment in time.
A few years later,Mr.
Showbecame a showcase for the offbeat sensibility that first began to form at Big & Tall.
Not long after that, the entire comedy world seemed to be bending in that direction.
We were doing it because a lot of us couldnt get stage time, she says.
At the time, I thought of it more as a failure of my own.
It didnt occur to me, like, Lets start a new movement!
Big & Tall Books no longer exists, and it hasnt for a while.
Today, its a sleek-looking sushi bar and ramen house.
In the early 90s, lots of young comics already lived nearby.
Garofalo shared a place with Jeff Garlin less than a mile from where Big & Tall opened in 1991.
Odenkirk lived a few streets over.
Stiller had an apartment with his then-comedy partner Jeff Kahn on the corner of La Brea and Hollywood Boulevard.
Comedians are pretty tribal, and we were all sort of loafing, says Cho.
Janeane was a hub.
Shed always have somebody with her, some comic from New York or Boston, hanging out.
Youd go meet her at the Beverly Connection Starbucks, and wed sit there and collect people.
She was the first person who told me what Starbucks was.
In 1991, one of the co-owners of Java opened Big & Tall across the street.
The new bookstore quickly cultivated a decidedly bohemian vibe.
Dudes in trench coats browsed racks of underground comic books.
Prominent shelf space was reserved for titles by independent publishing houses like Feral Press and Semiotext(e).
Toward the back of the store was a staircase that led to a small second-floor loft.
Id go up there, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and watch people steal books, says Gelfant.
But it never really got used that much.
In L.A., Quinn introduced Gelfant to Garofalo, who first suggested performing in that upstairs loft.
Wed talk about it and didnt know how.
It was really myself, Dana, and Colin, asking around places, Can we do stand-up here?
It was Janeanes brainchild, says Quinn.
She made it happen.
Jim McCauley, theTonight Showbooker, was in the audience!
Janeane was like, Where can we go and bomb if we want to?
She had the idea to do a show at Big & Tall.
He says his main contribution was to name that very first show.
Im famous for the worst titles.
It was calledCirque du Stress.
C-I-R-Q-U-E D-U … See, if I have to spell it, its a fucking terrible title.
The name lasted one show.
It immediately clicked because it was like, Hey, nobody sucked, says Gould.
For comedians frustrated by the strictures of comedy clubs, the shows at Big & Tall became a beacon.
But Garofalo lured him to Big & Tall.
She said, Its not stand-up.
Im like, Theres no microphone?
And shes like, No, just watch.
Then she just goes to one end of the room and starts talking, like, Hello, everybody!
Then theyd slowly engage.
People would come from downstairs and watch.
Fellow Groundling Judy Toll introduced her to Garofalo.
Janeane said this great thing: Kathleen, you dont care what the audience thinks, do you?
What she meant was follow your gut.
Do what you think is funny.
Keep doing it until you figure out a way the audience will get it.
Griffin became a Big & Tall regular.
Before anybody knew who I was, my act was quite a bit different, he says.
I was able to get away with opening with fake characters or saying something that was purposely confusing.
There was a little more theatricality to it.
During one of Crosss L.A. visits, Garofalo introduced him to his futureMr.
So I brought Dave to Bobs house.
Garofalo had told Cross all about her funny friend Bob and figured theyd hit it off.
But when they arrived, Odenkirk was deeply engaged in other activities.
He was watching TV and eating a sandwich, says Cross.
The screen door was open.
He wouldnt even come to the door.
He wouldnt even say, Hi.
Odenkirk admits he was rude, but says it wasnt anything against Cross personally.
I ignored both of them wholly and completely.
The shows at Big & Tall reflected the stores vibe.
It was informal to a fault.
There was no cover charge, no tickets, and comics didnt get paid.
Promotion was done by word-of-mouth and the odd homemade handout.
The lineup was determined largely by whoever was around and wanted to go up.
It only took about 25 people to make that loft feel crowded.
Wed have people standing on the stairs looking up, says Gould.
You were right on top of the audience.
It was as intimate as you could get while dressed.
There was no line between the stage and the performer.
Thats what Big & Tall was like.
A particular performance style began to emerge.
Because everybody procrastinated, everybody wrote their material that day.
That was the genesis of taking your notebook onstage with you.
It was because you didnt know the stuff.
Youd just written it.
She was sort of our guiding light.
I loved it right away.
I could do what I considered stand-up, which for me was reading my notes for possible comedy ideas.
Garofalo was one of a cohort of comics who blossomed in the low-stakes environment.
And Dana would kill me.
His comedy was all about himself and his family.
It was honest and raw yet absolutely universal at the same time.
It became a storyteller show, says Gould.
Thats where I was forced to discover my stand-up style by having to turn to stories and bits.
Kathy Griffin perfected that more than anybody.
Not every comic who flourished at Big & Tall followed the same formula.
Andy Dick had some of the best sets Ive ever seen, saysAndy Kindler.
Hes just amazing talking about his life.
And with him it was dangerous.
At the time, Dick was a startlingly original, if still sometimes disturbing, comic voice.
I wasnt known yet, so I could really fuck with people.
Or Id be a bad magician.
I tried to make a straw disappear in my nose, and crammed it up there.
My nose started bleeding profusely onstage.
It was bad for me but funny.
Andy was pretty much the same as hes always been, maybe on less alcohol, says Gelfant.
But he was always obnoxious.
Soon, a set of unwritten rules developed among these comics.
We had a no-hack rule, says Griffin.
You kind of werent allowed to repeat any material.
There was an aspiration toward less polish, less professionalism, less of everything that felt like mainstream comedy.
Disdain was often heaped on traditional stand-ups with well-rehearsed acts.
Janeane going up there with her notes is an act.
David Cross talking as a southerner for 15 minutes before letting go of that premise is an act.
But it was original and different.
Not every show at Big & Tall was a revelation.
Sometimes audiences were more interested in their coffee and their Kerouac than in seeing comedy.
But good or bad, the shows at Big & Tall always felt gleefully unpredictable.
As she began talking about how men objectify women, she also began twirling, slowly unraveling her dress.
I was sitting there with Moon Zappa and Ben Stiller, watching, says Rowe.
As this woman continued to talk about how men objectified women, shes revealing herself.
Then, shes standing there completely naked.
I looked at Moon and she just said, Nice tits.
Some even started referring to them, slightly tongue-in-cheek, as The Posse.
We traveled in a weird little pack, as everybody does at that age, says Gould.
It was right after that whole 80s everybody-doing-blow thing.
Wed make fun of anyone doing coke.
We all kind of dated Quentin, says Griffin.
He was kind of a whore.
I say that with love.
The onus to be constantly funny kept performers sharp.
That peer pressure that group put on me was a fucking godsend, says Griffin.
Everybody was working their muscle, trying new shit all the time.
They also were constantly talking shop, discussing ideas, or offering tags to jokes.
Its also very subtle one-upsmanship.
Youre always trying to best each other with tags.
The fact that women were so central to this scene helped to dial down the testosterone.
Comedy in general is such a boys club, says Cho.
At parties, bars, and restaurants, useful connections were being forged among these comics.
Gould knew Judd Apatow from performing at the Improv, where Apatow often emceed.
Apatow soon began working with Stiller and Jeff Kahn on developingThe Ben Stiller Show.
Judd met Ben, and six weeks later, he was my boss, says Gould.
Although the comics were ambitious, the scene rarely felt cutthroat.
Nobody was trying to get famous or pitch themselves as a comic actor through their stand-up or sketches.
There was none of this, Hey, there might be a talent scout from UTA!
We all better do a good job!
It was devoid of any kind of ego or machinations.
It was very nurturing.
Everybody was doing it for the love and the art of it.
The term alternative comedy wasnt much used during the Big & Tall era.
None of us referred to ourselves as alternative comics, says Garofalo.
The moniker would grow more widespread by the mid-90s but evolved into a slightly anguished term.
Mainstream comics derided it as an excuse not to have to get laughs or to face stand-ups unforgiving gauntlet.
But time has taken some of the sting out of this turf war.
Now it seems so dated: alternative comedy, the Posse.
Its like, Okay, Boomer!
The truth is, good shit is good shit.
Big & Tall wasnt built to last.
I dont have a great work ethic, she says.
Im sort of like, Oh, this isnt working.
Theres not a lot of people coming.
Im what you call a real quitter.
In fact, there was no epic collapse, no dramatic exit, just a gradual petering out.
A bevy of the bookstore regulars began working onThe Ben Stiller Show, which premiered that September.
WhenUnCabmoved to Luna Park in West Hollywood on Sunday nights, that wastheplace, says Gould.
That wasTheEd Sullivan Showof the alt-comedy scene.
Big & Tall had served a purpose, but alt-comedy outgrew it.
There were other places more conducive to audiences, says Gelfant.
In a club, people usually shut up when youre there.
Assessing influence can be tricky.
At the very least, an important idea took root there.
And that idea was that comedy could be so much more than it had been.
Moreover, comedy didnt have to be sweaty bloodsport.
Its emotional palette could go beyond anger and insecurity.
It was very much a beginning, says Odenkirk.
It wasnt a movement yet.
It was years away from being a movement.UnCabaretwaswhere it was like, Theres something really valuable here.
This isnt just a bunch of misfit toys from the main scene.
Big & Tall was just a weird start.
What happened was the mainstream came our way, says Garlin.
You had people getting jobs who were in our audience.
They got into positions of power; next thing you know, were onLetterman.
At Big & Tall, they had great faith in the audiences to follow along.
They were storytellers sharing about themselves in a way that has become really popular in the intervening years.
Cross points out that what was going on in comedy at that point wasnt limited to L.A.
So it seemed extra special, he says.
Its not unlike the places other historic artistic endeavors sprung up.
Yeah, it was.
