Last Comic Standing: An Interview with Dave Mordal

As Jay Mohr has mentioned when promoting Last Comic Standing, one of the true benefits of the series is giving America a chance to be introduced to funny comedians they might never have gotten a chance to see otherwise. To find the perfect example of this idea, one needs look no further than that of Dave Mordal. Mordal, a resident of Elk River, Minnesota, almost didn’t even bother trying out for the series, but in the end he became one of the true breakaway stars of the show.

Consistently funny, both in the house and on stage, Dave was serious about his comedy and his moments with Rich Vos were some of the funniest in the series. When the taping was finished of the final episode, many of the five remaining comics gestured for him to join them on stage, and the applause from the audience was deafening as he was given a standing ovation. There’s no doubt about it, Dat Phan may have won the competition, but Dave Mordal won a legion of fans throughout the country.

While visiting Las Vegas to see the final episode, my wife Jill and I had a chance to sit down with Dave Mordal on Sunday, August 4, at the open-air bar at the Paris Hotel and Casino. He talked about a variety of topics, including why he almost passed on the show, his strategy when going head-to-head with Dat Phan, and why he hopes we never get a chance to see any more of “The Dave and Rich Show.”

Dave: So what would you like to know about the show?

RealityNewsOnline: One thing I’ve found so far in talking to the comics is that a lot of people were reluctant to do the show.

Dave: I was REAL reluctant to do the show. REALLY reluctant. The owner of the club that I usually go to in Minneapolis called me like three or four times going, “You should go and try out for this.” Three or four times I said, “No, I shouldn’t. This isn’t anything I want anything to do with.” And finally he convinced me, he said “Look, this is kind of seat-of-the-pants comedy, which is what you do when you’re down here horsing around. You should really go and try out.”

So I drove all the way to Chicago from Minneapolis. It was 30 degrees outside and they made us wait in line for like four hours. And three times down there I almost left and went home. Finally I got in, I was one of the last people to get in for the auditions and they picked me for a second audition, which I was astounded by considering you’re just doing comedy for two people from the Tonight Show. It’s not an audience or anything, So they brought me back for a second audition and they picked me out of a hundred and some comics, which I couldn’t believe and still I was a little reluctant.

Then they wanted to do a criminal background check on me and I went, well, that’s it. That’s going to take care of it, I’m not going to have to do this show. And I still made it through the criminal background check even though I have a HORRIBLE past, which was really funny to me. They actually had to call the Sherman County Jail where I lived, and my brother was working because he’s the Sherman County jailer. He’s the one that sent the mugshot, which I didn’t know anything about until that Tuesday night. It was hilarious to me. That’s a long way in my past, but it was still very hilarious. So, yeah, I really didn’t want to do the show and then as I got further into it I went, “well, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.”

RNO: When you went to the New York show [Episode Two], I heard it was five-six hours long.

Dave: That thing DID take a while. We were at Caroline’s from like 9 in the morning to 2 am – that’s not how long it took, but there was a lot of sitting around waiting, which will make you crazy. I thought, “I’m up against a lot of NY comics; this is going to be tough, really tough.” And they picked me out of there. I couldn’t believe that either, because you didn’t see anyone perform, so you didn’t know what you were up against. So I made it there. I made it to Vegas [Episode Three], up against however many here, 25 maybe? And I had a feeling once I got out there, I felt very comfortable on that stage. Phyllis Diller seemed to like me. I thought, you know, I might have made this. And then I made it. It was amazing.

RNO: Had you seen any of the other comics?

Dave: None. Not a one of them Every time someone performed, we were either outside in 30 degree weather, or you were backstage at Caroline’s. So you didn’t see anybody. The closest I came to seeing someone was here, and you still couldn’t see anybody but you could hear the audience. And that’s as close as you came. Made it kinda difficult in the house as to who’s funnier than who, because you haven’t seen anybody. Ralphie had seen a few people. Rich knew Cory. But I’d seen NOBODY work.

RNO: How you got into comedy?.

Dave: I was 34. I was divorced. I was running heavy equipment for a scrapyard – you know, the big cranes with the big magnet for picking up metal and cars? That’s what I did. And I had nothing to do at night, in Minneapolis there was this small little weird college thing – it’s not really a college, it’s night classes. There was one down there for ice-climbing. I wanted to rock-climb but I also wanted to ice-climb. So there’s a class on ice-climbing. I went down to sign up for that and the class was full. And I thought I was already down there, is there anything else? There was a class called “Be a Standup Comic!” It’s something that I always wanted to try and I took the class, and the woman teaching it was SO unfunny, and so HORRIBLE, and I thought if she can do this ANYONE ON EARTH can do this.

And it was $35. It was worth the money just to find out about the open mikes. I didn’t know how you became a standup comic. It went really well from there. I did amateur nights, stuff like that. It was . . . well, here’s saving you $35 from taking her class: Write down what you think is funny and perform it. That’s basically this woman’s class. I went, “wow, you are a ripoff artist. You have no idea what you’re doing.”

Dave, continued: It went really well from there, and a year later I quit my job. But I was later in life starting, which I think is an advantage in a lot of areas. I feel sorry for an 18-year-old who doesn’t have much life experience. He doesn’t have anything that’s really funny yet except old hack standby things. On the other hand, I’m also older, and the networks look at that and say, well, he’s older. The networks aren’t going to find an 18-year-old that’s hilarious, I’m hoping they finally figure that out. There was one, his name was Eddie Murphy. The only one I know who was that hilarious at that age and I haven’t seen one since. Not that they won’t BE funny some day, but it’s really hard to find an 18-year-old who’s absolutely hilarious.

RNO: Some people have mentioned that they really like how you write comedy. Have you ever thought of writing something other than your standup?

Dave: It’s really hard – I wouldn’t want to be a writer because there are no famous writers, not comedy writers. There just aren’t. Some of the big comics have writers and no one knows who they are. I’d rather make the money writing and performing my own comedy than to write for somebody else. I guess there’s good money in it, but still, nobody knows the writer. Unless you’re like Steven King, which is just writing, it’s not comedy.

I didn’t realize that my writing was that good. I heard about it since I started doing comedy, “you’re a really good writer.” I never had any classes in writing, I just write it down the way it is and I’ve had some help. My very good friend and fellow comic Dwight York is a one-liner guy, and he taught me how to take out everything that isn’t funny. Nothing wordy, just get right to the point; it’s helped out so much. If there is any advice for comics today it is tear out the long. There’s so many comics that do that. They just go on and on and on, and finally a punchline. That’s why they’re losing the audience. You got twenty seconds at most to keep their attention

RNO: When you got into the house – by the way, Sean says “Hi.” I talked to him a couple nights ago.

Dave: Good, Sean is wonderful, I hope he’s feeling better.

RNO: All the stuff with Sean, what was he really like in the house?

Dave: For whatever reason, Sean was really annoying. He just needed stuff constantly from the production staff: “Oh, I need water, I need someone to go and get some cough medicine . . .” You’re just going, “COME ON!” Maybe it’s because I’m so self-sufficient and always have been in my life. You just go, “you’re acting like a huge celebrity. You’re just a guy in a reality show. Leave the staff alone.” So I think Vos kinda – I didn’t want to smoke in the house. There’s no reason. We had all of L.A. to smoke in, and we had a beautiful pool area. That’s one thing they don’t show. I said, “Vos, there’s no reason for us to smoke in the house. None at all.” I think he was just trying to anger Vos a little bit, and it worked, but there was never a time I said, “yeah we need to smoke in the house.” No, it was mostly non-smokers. We would never have done that.

RNO: But it was edited so it looked…

Dave: Yeah, if everyone got along this would be a very boring show. Very boring.

RNO: What did you think about doing the competitions?

Dave: I was actually really happy with the competitions, you mean the head to heads

RNO: Yeah.

Dave: It was a great way to do it. That’s why I really liked the writing on the show. How it’s done is you go to Weakest Link and you watch that kind of show and they vote off the smartest guy first or they vote out the dumbest guy first – the people voted off don’t have any recourse. That’s why I liked this. Even though you’re voted out, you have a chance to redeem yourself in front of an audience. I thought that was a cool way of doing it. Imagine how awful that show would be if they just voted out the funniest people every time. They did such a great set-direction job, it really looked nice in that warehouse, it really did.

RNO: When you actually did the competitions, Sean thought there were a lot of technical glitches.

Dave: There were.

RNO: He thought that kind of threw everyone off.

Dave: It threw me off too. And to be honest, it has a lot to do with what I did against Dat three weeks later.

When Sean and I went up, we were the first ones to go up. It had never been done before, with the comics anyway, maybe they had practiced it with someone else. Jay was having trouble with his lines; they had some trouble with the prompter, as to what should be said; and it dragged out. We were standing on the grates for probably 45 minutes to an hour beforehand. It just happened. It’s TV and there’s bad things that happen. You’re the first ones going up and that’s nerve wracking alone, then there’s problems, and it probably did throw him off. And I know it threw me off.

Now when we got to Dat and I going head-to-head, I chose to go first, which is really a mistake, now, looking back. But I felt that we were going to have the same technical problems and I wanted to get it over with. Because there was nothing worse – Sean went first. Then there was a lag between us, because of some technical problems and I really thought that was going to happen again. So I wanted to get the damn thing out of the way. But, unfortunately, by the time Dat and I went head-to-head, it was running reasonably smoothly and Dat went right back up. I went, “Oh, Christ. Dammit.” So I’m sure Sean has a legitimate point. But that’s part of competitions – things go wrong.

RNO: But you can be gracious about it. And Sean was when we talked. I don’t want to give the impression that he was whining about it.

Dave: Like in the Super Bowl: you can throw a Hail Mary pass and the wind can catch it just a little bit wrong, whose fault is it? No one’s. There’s nothing you can do.

RNO: We heard from Ralphie that by the time your competition with Dat happened, you were ready to get out of the house

Dave: I was VERY bored. We were at the end and you get really bored in a house like that after a while. I was just trying to shake up anything, you know, so I picked going first. I wanted to make sure that I absolutely positively did different material every time I went up. I don’t know if I could have won or not. Dat is really good at what he does; he’s very high energy. If I had chosen to do some material that I had done before, maybe it would be a different story. But I told myself going in that I would never repeat jokes. I had two hours I can pick from, so that’s what I did.

RNO: Are you happy with the attention you’re getting from the show?

Dave: Yeah I’m happy. Not a lot of people recognize me, though. I look like your average white guy. But when I’m with Vos, people notice us; and they REALLY notice us when we have Ralphie with us.

It’s done some really good things, and I’ve had to make a lot of decisions. My kid – I don’t want to move my kid for any reason, so if anything came out of this where we had to do any filming or anything like that, I would never move to L.A. or N.Y. We’d go out for a month or two, do whatever we needed to do, and he could fly out and see me on the weekends. But he’s still more important in my life than ANYTHING. Anything at all.

RNO: Talk a little about the exemption challenges.

Dave: That’s another thing – the first one was we went to Studio City and we had to come up with things to make money: they didn’t write anything for us. We had to go out and do whatever we wanted to do, and I thought this can’t get any worse. I’ve never been like that in public, but then I thought “you need to try it.” Even though I only raised six bucks, I had a great time doing it. I loved getting out of myself and going, “you know what, you’re going to sell fake celebrity autographs, and have a good time doing it, it’s only a half hour out of you life, no matter how stupid you look.” I just went, “nobody here knows you, you’re going to act like an idiot for thirty minutes and be done with it. ” And I really did have a good time, because I’ve never been able to do anything like that in my life. That was my favorite one.

RNO: Those were some of the funniest parts of the show.

Dave: I thought they were. Some of them. Especially where it got to where Vos and I were trying to come in last every time. Because we’re not those people. Dat’s into that stuff and we’re not. We came in last every time.

RNO: Were you surprised at how you clicked with Rich Vos?

Dave: I was very surprised. The first time I met him in New York, I probably didn’t say a word to him, and I thought, “Oh, New York a-hole.” Then when I got to know him I thought we got along SO well. So well indeed. That was nice. That house would have killed us if we didn’t get along so well. We got along really well, and still do.

RNO: I know you’ve done at least one show together.

Dave: And we’ve got Atlanta coming up next weekend, and New Jersey the week after that.

RNO: Would you like to keep doing that?

Dave: Yeah, we go and do our separate things, then we go and do a big show somewhere at a comedy club, and I do enjoy that. If we had to tour together every week, I don’t think we’d enjoy that very much; but here, there, then back is good. We have several things I have to do and then I’ll meet him in Atlanta, so it works out well.

RNO: What do you think about Vos’ comments when you left, “like having your girlfriend leave?”

Dave: [Laughs] I kinda felt the same way. We got along so well as two guys who just enjoy humor, and we’re both reasonably quick-witted, it was a separation. We were having such a good time; when I blew it, I ruined it for everybody. I really DID feel bad, when they brought us back in the house that next day, for the next challenge, as I’d never seen people like that. They were [grunt] and it wasn’t because of me, it was because of the chemistry me and Vos. And we were upbeat in there – even though we’re mean people – it was still kind of upbeat in the house, because we were picking on things.

RNO: What did you think of people on the internet who said, “Dave’s gone now; I’m not watching the show anymore”

Dave: I never – the only thing I’ve gotten was emails like that. I’ve never been to a message board, I’ve never looked at anything online that had anything to do with me. I just can’t do it. I’m grateful for all that’s out there and all the people that had message boards, but I just can’t look at them. I can’t explain why, I just can’t.

But it is amazing. I don’t know how many times I had to type back, [monotone] “It’s just a TV show. I’m doing well, things are fine.” I’ve had people write, “Don’t quit.” Don’t Quit?! What? Why would I quit? I’m making five grand a night, I’m not quitting anything! I hadn’t planned on quitting BEFORE Last Comic Standing. I’m still doing really well, so this has helped a lot.

It’s always funny when they do that. “Don’t quit!” I’m not quitting! Are you kidding me, I made it into the top ten!

RNO: You talked about Rich. Is there anybody else that when you went into the house, your opinion changed of them by the time you got out? Were your first impressions pretty much right?

Dave: No, I changed my feelings about Dat, I really did. It’s like, I don’t know how funny he is, but I will tell you that he’s REALLY a performer. To watch that transformation of him doing nothing in that house that was funny, to turning it on when he goes onstage, I was, “Wow, I wish I had that.” I’m me all the time whether I’m on stage or not, I don’t have a switch. He does have a switch. He’s a really good performer, He’d probably be a really good actor if he gave it a shot. So I will say that that did change. Is it funny? To some people, sure, but I mean he’s really a good performer. And with a good writer, he’d be doing really, really, really well. But I’m not writing for him. [laughs]

RNO: Did you watch the show when it was on?

Dave: Yes, yes I did.

RNO: Did you think the show was a fair representation of what went on?

Dave: Yeah, I thought it went really, really well the whole time – you’re being filmed 24 hours a day, and the rude awakening is when you watch that first episode and you go, “Wow, they have so little TV time to air what we did.” I don’t think anything that we were worried about going on would even possibly get on. Moments that were completely unfunny although we were trying to be funny, we were always worried, “oh, we’re going to look like idiots,” no, that goes out because they don’t have time for that. They only have 40 minutes in an hour because of commercials, I was really happy with what came out, and I was really happy with how I did. It wasn’t a smash success, with ratings, but…

RNO: Was there anything that you thought to yourself, “I wish I hadn’t done that, I wish I could change that?”

Dave: No, nothing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have said it. That’s another thing, when I went into the show, a lot of other comics were going, “oh, they’re just going to make you look like an idiot.” Well, they can’t make you look like an idiot unless you act like one! I always felt that, they can’t make you say something stupid. You have to do it on your own. I say that to myself, “no matter what I say here, it could possibly go on the show.”

[The staff at RNO wishes to take this moment to applaud Dave for this comment, which should be a golden rule about all reality shows.]

You have to edit yourself, and I was really clean for that show. I knew it was NBC – they’re not going to bleep things, they’re just going to cut it. There were a few people on there that really had a problem not swearing, and I was going, “oh, they’re not going to bleep you, they’re just going to cut it.” So there’s no sense in even doing it. It’s network, it’s NBC. It’s not HBO, or cable; they’re not going to bleep a whole lot, they’re going to cut it and there it goes.

RNO: Was there anything in the house that you wish they would have shown? They showed a little bit of you and Rich doing the talk show. I thought that was great.

Dave: That’s just the opposite – that show was SO HORRIBLE. That was our biggest worry. We worried about that for about five months that they would air “The Dave and Rich show,” which was so horrible.

One night we were very bored, it was probably 11 at night and we had nothing to do and we decided that Rich and I would put on the R&D show. All we were going to do is interview people in the house and make fun of them and they could make fun of us. The production crew got a hold of that, and said, “hey, why don’t you do that tomorrow night and we can make up a set.” Well, of course it becomes overproduced and unfunny. Had we done it immediately that night, I know it would have been hilarious, but since it was overproduced and everybody was now thinking about what they were going to do, it wasn’t funny.

We were so worried they would show it, because it sucked. It was so bad. Ralphie was going to come up and do five minutes of material, and it sucked so bad he refused to come on our show. It was hilarious, in a way.

RNO: And the bathtub scene?

Dave: The bathtub scene. I was so happy with the way they edited that. We started out sitting in the bathtub, but I had Rich say, “I hope they don’t edit this to make it look like we’re in the tub together.” That line got cut out, but the way they did it, I really enjoyed it. Nobody saw that coming at all. It was just one guy talking and suddenly there’s the other guy. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really funny.

I’m sure there are some things that were really funny that didn’t make it in, but… maybe fixing the shower. We had a shower that would not shut off, in the girls’ bedroom. It was one of those California showers; this thing obviously goes through like twenty gallons a second! It’s a really crazy shower, and it wouldn’t shut off. The valve had broken inside, so I got in there fully clothed and had to fix the shower. Tear it apart and take the valve out, and Vos is taking credit for it the whole time, standing very dry behind the shower. That got cut out because they didn’t have time.

RNO: How do you think the show as a whole came off? Do you think it was a good representation of what comics are like?

Dave: Yeah, I think it did. I really do. We argue with each other, most of the time egos get involved and we think we’re funnier than everyone else. Sometimes we don’t think we’re that funny. You’ve got neurosis like I’ve got, Rich’s got, and there’s other people who are WAY full of themselves, without the talent. I think it really does portray what goes on, and it proves that we’re not ALWAYS funny, always on. Because I’m never been like that, you know. The ones that are on all the time are usually not funny, they just need attention. I think it did portray it very well.

RNO: If there is a second season and you could tell them to change something about the show, what would you change?

Dave: If I could change anything in there, I would take a two-day break in the middle with no cameras, no nothing, go and do whatever they need to do, and rejuvenate. Because after three weeks all the funny is sucked out of you. It just is. When I got home, I thought, I am so glad that’s over. And two days later, I was back going, “oh, I wish we’d done this… I’d love to go back in there and do that.” So I think they just needed a two day break in the middle.

And they have to trust these people. It’s THEIR career, it’s not like they’re out telling – people didn’t know about the show, so who would you tell, to begin with, what’s going on, it hasn’t aired. So they’re worried about word going around about what was going on, but nobody listens to you anyway because they’d never heard of the show. So I think a two day break in the middle just to get everybody to clear their head and you hop right back into it. I would be very interested to see LCS2 just to see what others do with it.

RNO: People complained that they didn’t see enough of the comics actually performing.

Dave: Yeah, again, time. I would like to have seen more of the comics too. I got a lot of emails saying “Did you just do a three minute set?” No, it was a full ten minute set, and they had to cut it down because of time. So to have a lot of standup comedy there you’d have to have two hour episode every week, which is hard to do, I don’t know if people would be interested in that or not. It’s something they can look at. It’s just so amazing with all that is filmed and you watch it and go, “that’s all the time they have, there’s nothing you can do about it.” I heard that a lot too, that a lot of people would like to see more of the standup comedy there, and I would have too, but they just don’t have time.

RNO: Seeing the full ten minutes sets might have helped to understand the voting a little more. Because the editing was of some of the best bits of both comics, when someone got 70% and someone get 30%, people wondered how that was possible.

Dave: That would have been interesting to see too, and there’s another thing to change, is that they might need to do the voting in between the comics. They do that in a lot of competitions: comic 1 goes up, the audience rates it on a scale of one to whatever, with originality, performance wise, applause, whatever, and then the next guy goes up. The audience will always remember the last guy best, just because of memory problems. That’s what it is on my end, anyway.

RNO: Do you think it might have been more advantageous for some of the comics to not have to do a competition?

Dave: Yep. It was. Rich made it in, never did a head-to-head, Tess made it through, never did a head-to-head. And that’s part of the stress of the house is you don’t know who’s really, really funny onstage so you’re going “I don’t know if I should challenge this person.” So it is advantageous not to go up.

There’s also drawbacks. People got to see a LOT of my material, and that’s helped me out a lot. I get emails all the time going, “you did different material all the way through, we really enjoyed it, I’d love to see it when you come to a comedy club.” I’d never seen Tess until last Tuesday. I had never seen her and I didn’t get to see it live here, we were sequestered backstage, so I had never seen her do anything other than the little snippet during the auditions during the first episode. So it’s a double-edged sword. You make it in to the finals but nobody had really seen you through out the whole thing. I had a lot of emails going, “I wish you’d get challenged again, early on, because I really enjoyed what you did.” But I got a lot of time because of it. You might make it into the finals but you didn’t get that much airtime, you get challenged a lot, you take the risks but you do get a lot of airtime.

RNO: Do you think appearing on the show helped your career in the long run?

Dave: I think so, and to be honest with you, getting voted out, like I did, created a real controversy to people watching the show. Not to America; it’s just a reality show, we’re not curing cancer. People really enjoyed the show, it really created a lot, I think it helped, I think it was better TV, not that I would have taken a dive or anything, but uh, it shocked the hell out of a lot of people. My family had no idea, absolutely no idea. They were SURE I was in the finals and it was just a formality, they were absolutely positive, even my own son did not know. I think it made good TV. It’s easy to say because I lost, but it did make good TV.

RNO: Jay mentioned you voting out the weakest first.

Dave: I think it did work out that way, and I don’t know why. Well, I guess, for obvious reasons. Don’t know, but it did work out that way

RNO: Cory thought it had something to do with working for so many years, compared to people there who had only worked two or three years.

Dave: Yeah, that might have been a little bit of it. The ego and the seniority thing. And it’s just easier to take someone out that was really new to it. Or you would think. Not in my case, but you would think so.

RNO: Anything you’d like to let people know who will be reading this?

Dave: I’d like them to know that this is done so well for me, and I’m so pleased that they’ve watched this thing. I’ve never been a hype guy – if it was funny to you, it was funny to you. I’ve never been one of those guys to go on a talk show to say “Oh, you’ve got to come out and see it, I’m the funniest.” No, I’ve never been that way. If they want to come out, they come out. I usually have a good time, but this has done so many wonderful things for me even though I didn’t make the finals.

I don’t want anyone worried about me. AT ALL. I’m sure that I’ll be coming to their state on tour, either by myself or with Vos or with Cory. I’d like them to know it did really well for me and I’m really grateful that they watched it. Cool. Excellent.

RNO: Thanks, Dave, for taking the time out of rehearsals to sit and talk with us!

Special thanks to Mike DeGeorge for transcribing the interview.

You can e-mail Dale about this column or his other projects at justabob@iglou.com. You can also click here to buy his book, The Urban Legends of Rock and Roll: You Never Can Tell, or any of his other books.

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