Dan Rupple

Dan Rupple is the “real” deal. He has worked in the comedy business from a variety of perspectives, performing standup, skits, and sitcoms, and writing, directing, and even some radio along the way. He is married to his “first wife” Peggy, and they have three terrific kids. He is a man of wit, but more importantly, real integrity.

Kathleen Cooke: How did you get into comedy?

Dan Rupple: I saw the Dick Van Dyke Show, and that set the call to my whole life because I saw two things in Rob Petry. One, he was a comedy writer in television, and I thought, “I want to be a comedy writer and I want to work in TV”. The other thing was that he had this fabulous suburban home life with a perky wife, who by the way my wife looks a little like Mary Tyler Moore. That basically is what I wanted. God has been really good and I’ve been able to do exactly that. That was really a blue print for my life.

In high school I formed an improv team. We started getting really good and a bunch of high schools were asking us to do assemblies. Then, we were getting good enough that we decided to try and go to clubs in Hollywood and perform. I’d lie about my age. I didn’t know the Lord at the time. We did that for a number of years and were getting fairly successful and opening for Lily Tomlin and others who went on to do Saturday Night Live. During that time, we shifted from an improv group to a sketch group. That’s where I learned to write comedy.

In January of 1977 I went on a spiritual journey. I kept hearing a voice in my heart saying to seek God. I couldn’t shake it and the first thing I did was get into spiritualism. My uncle was a spiritualist and he used to go to a medium, so I started talking to him. It just didn’t make sense to me, and it seemed really dark. Then, I got into the Bahai faith, and started reading everything I could, but realized that it was a bunch of junk too.

I was alone in my house one night, and this same voice I felt told me to read the Bible. I had a Bible that was given to me. I remembered that the red letters in the Bible are what Jesus actually said, so I found the biggest red parts, and was reading the “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew. It so impacted me because I realized that my life was really good, but I was bankrupt in my spirit, and was lacking and needed a savior. I literally fell on my knees and wept.

Later that week, I showed up for rehearsal and I was going to tell the guys that I was quitting because I assumed a Christian couldn’t do clubs and keep his faith. My partner, Dave said “well since the last time we were together I became a Christian and I was going to leave the group today as well”. Then we turned to my other partner, Larry, who said “Well I walked closely with the Lord in junior high school and I turned away, but I rededicated my life last week”. We decided that maybe we didn’t have to quit the group, but somehow do our style of comedy with a Christian perspective.

We started writing and I wrote our first album in a matter of a month or so. We in some ways, invented the form of what you would call Christian comedy today. We were told that the “church” isn’t going to like this, but we found the exact opposite to be true. They were dying to laugh. They were hungry for humor and were so responsive. Our first album sold 120,000 units, which in those days (1979) was unheard of. Isaac Air Freight, our group, took off, and we did 8 albums, doing about 150 shows a year all over the US and Canada.

I did that for 15 years and by the end, I was married with 3 kids. I was getting worn out being on the road, but I also really desired to do television. I left the group not having a clue about what I was going to do. I told my partner on a Sunday, flew home, and on Monday KBRT radio in southern California called me and wanted me to consider hosting the morning radio show. I did that for 2 ½ years. I did the morning show and got to interview great people like Bob Hope, Phil Donahue, and Pat Boone.

During this time, I had been teaching a Sunday school class at my church, and one of the guys in my class was director of operations at CBS. I knew he worked there, but didn’t realize he was such a big shot! I called him and had dinner with him one night and asked him if he could help me out, and he was able to get me a job as supervising producer at the Price is Right. It was supposed to be temporary, but Bob Barker fell in love with me and they kept me for 10 years. On my down time, I would work on other shows. I did a lot of pilots, game shows, and talk shows. I worked the Prime Time Emmys, sports shows and events and even news for CBS. The real jewel on my crown was in 1994 when David Letterman signed on with CBS. He wanted to do a week of shows in LA. They picked me over guys who had been there 20 years. God gave me favor with the Letterman staff. For 8 years I did everything Letterman did outside of NY.

KC: Why do you think you were so successful?

DR: I think the reason I made a difference was because I was a person who genuinely cared about people. I was a Christian, but I kept my faith low key. I wanted the people I worked with to know me and understand that I was a caring guy with integrity. I had a hundred people under me when I was doing the Price is Right, and everyday I would go in a circle around the studio and try to greet every single person on the crew. I would sincerely ask them how they were doing. I showed them that I cared about them.

In turn, the crew technicians and stagehands would ask to be scheduled on my show. I got a reputation around the producers that I had the best crews. And they were extremely hard working. A few years later, when my wife was diagnosed with cancer, that opened up so many doors. They saw us hang in there and come through it. I stayed at CBS until 2000. And then God told me he wanted me to move on.

I went into the senior VP of CBS at the time, and I told him I was resigning to be a pastor. He was an older man, about 80, and three times during the conversation he got up out of his chair to get tissues. He said, “Dan three times in my life God told me to do something and I didn’t do it. I’ve lived in regret my entire life. I am glad you are following God’s leading. I want you to know, as you leave, you have every resource at CBS at your disposal”. They were my family.

I was a pastor 3 years, and then left to start my own company, Padded Room Productions. I wanted to get back into Christian comedy and now I’m President of the Christian Comedy Association. One night I was on the radio talking about Christian comedy and a guy heard me talking and hired me to do comedy videos for the internet. So now, I am doing short videos for the internet, cell phones, as well as broadcast and cable TV. Internet is the bread and butter right now.

KC: Is comedy something you can learn?

DR: Yes and no. I equate comedy to learning the piano. Anyone can take piano lessons, and you’ll always get better. The more lessons you take, the more you know and the more you practice. However, if you don’t have a talent for piano, you are never going to be great. That part can’t be taught. It is the same with comedy. You have to have an innate sense of humor. It’s in the timing, and the attitude. It’s your “comedy lens,” the way you see the world. Yes, you can learn the rules of comedy and structure, but you have to have a God given talent to really excel. I teach a class at Biola University in Southern California, every other semester.

KC: Is it important to have a college degree?

DR: No, but on a side note, almost every comedian I have ever met is highly intelligent. Letterman, Seinfeld, Steve Martin, the Monty Python guys, etc. You don’t need a college degree, but the more education you have, the better you are because it gives you more awareness of the world. It helps to learn some of the things in a comedy class or an improv class. A large part of the comedy writers in TV are from Harvard. That is what motivates me to teach at Biola. With encouragement from the church, and education, we can make an impact on Hollywood.

KC: How does a comic personality keep the faith?

DR: When you become a Christian you have to be even more creative. Profanity in humor is used for two reasons. One, to color it with the sound and vocabulary of the street, and two, strictly for the shock value. Working in a club environment wears you down. Through the Christian comedy association I encourage people to have accountability and a Christian support group. Clubs are pretty dark. They want something funny for people to laugh at while people are getting drunk. That’s how they make their money, and that’s why they prefer the dirtier humor. It’s tough for a Christian to enter into that. I would tell a Christian comedian to make sure they are strong in their faith.

KC: How do you know if you are good at writing comedy?

DR: When people laugh. Actor Edmund Gwenn said, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard!” Comedy is the most subjective thing in the world. Everyone has a different sense of humor, and find different things funny. When you’re performing you know if they laughed, it was funny. But, when you’re writing you don’t know. This is where your insecurities step in, and you start playing the guessing game. Did she not think it was funny because it isn’t funny or is it just not funny to her? So you go back and forth. I am fortunate that I played clubs and performed for 15 years. That gave me a lot of experience to pull from about what kinds of things people laugh at. I remember the jokes that bombed and the ones that worked and filed them away in my mind.

For the novice that’s difficult because you don’t have those years of experience. So you just have to write and get some people that you like and trust to read it and tell you if they think it’s funny. Another thing - it is hard to get comedy off the page. So much happens with a look in the eye or an attitude, or a vocal inflection. So much is in the performance. A lot of times you read a comedy script like an episode of Friends, and it can seem to be dry. But, suddenly when you have brilliant performers, it comes alive. They just take your words and make it gold. The more improv training you have, the better the comedy writer you are going to be.

I started by writing jokes, and then I wrote monologues, then I got into sketches and sitcoms, and now digital media. I know a lot of comedians who weekly get together with people and just have improv nights.

KC: What is appropriate for Christians to do on stage?

DR: I get asked this constantly. First of all, a lot of what you do is going to be dictated by your audience. So the most important thing is to know your audience.

For instance, I’m pretty liberal in the way I approach sex. I would not talk about sex in church, but not because I personally don’t think it’s appropriate. I think it’s more than appropriate, because I think the scriptures are filled with sex, but I know it would offend people in the church, so I don’t do it. People are always sighting Ephesians where it says “there should not be course jesting among you”. If you follow that passage it talks about sexual immorality. I believe course jesting is taking anything God calls Holy and defiling it or making light of anything God calls Holy. I believe the sexual act is Holy, but what the mainstream comedian does is make it profane and defiling what God has set as pure. I think that anything we approach comically, the guiding line is not what I can talk about, it’s how I am talking about it. God created it all. I can talk about anything, but I am going to come from the perspective that I am not going to profane what God has called Holy. So I can talk about anything, but I don’t talk abut it in dirty terms.

I love the sexual bantering on the Everybody Loves Raymond show. It is all done in the context of marriage, and it is all based in truth. That’s the kind of talk that husbands and wives have. I think it is hysterical, and I am not offended. Comedy must always be based in truth.

Comedy is the great equalizer. It breaks down the walls of fear, prejudice, and preconceived ideas. When people are laughing hysterically they lose their guard and facades. It is a disarming tool. God created us funny. When someone is walking down the street and they trip, it’s just funny!

So much of comedy is about attitude. What would Steve Martin’s attitude be on this one? Or what would Dennis Miller’s attitude be on that one? Know your attitude, it is one of the most important keys. Begin developing your own “attitude.” When someone laughs at something you said, or something you did, ask yourself, what was my attitude?

KC: Can you recommend a book that would help someone getting into the comedy business?

DR: I wrote a book called “It Takes a Village Idiot,” and you can get it on my website, seriouslyfunny.cc. Also, the “Comedy Bible” by Judy Carter is really great for stand up structure. I use “The Comic Toolbox” in my class when I teach, and Sol Saks has written several books that are great.

One last thing: the comic performer is very vulnerable on stage because you don’t have anything to hide behind. But rejection of your comedy is not a rejection of you. You can’t take it personally. A lot of times it’s the audience, or the room is too hot or cold, or it’s the sound system, or just a different audience that night. Cultural awareness plays a major part in the response. The way I’ve dealt with it is through maturity. I understand the subjective nature of comedy. It’s not always me. Keep learning and you’ll get better every time.

Eventually, you will click.