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The professional
For six seasons, his Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist was a Comedy Central hit. Now, Newton comic Jonathan Katz is using humor to tackle a new challenge: multiple sclerosis.
BY TAMARA WIEDER

JONATHAN KATZ may have multiple sclerosis, but save your pity for someone who needs it. "Comedy," says Katz, "is kind of my salvation."

It’s not surprising; the 58-year-old Newton resident has made a living from being funny for decades, and has been a veritable comedic staple since his Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist debuted as Comedy Central’s first animated series in 1995 — and won the network its first Emmy Award. Nine Letterman appearances, several David Mamet films, and numerous awards later, Katz’s working life should’ve been smooth sailing. But his 1997 MS diagnosis provided an unexpected wrinkle. "I was afraid that no one would ever hire me again," he admits.

He needn’t have worried. Katz’s first book, To-Do Lists of the Dead (Andrews McMeel), was published in 2000, and he’s currently working on his autobiography; he’s made frequent public appearances to talk about living with MS; he continues his cinematic career, appearing most recently in the 2003 Eddie Murphy film Daddy Day Care; and he brings his new show, 75 Laughs: An Evening with Jonathan Katz, to Somerville this week.

And despite whatever physical challenges he faces as a result of his illness, his sense of humor remains blessedly intact.

Q: Do you mind if I turn on a tape recorder?

A: No. In fact, I wish you would. Do you mind if I record my end of the conversation?

Q: Why’s that?

A: In case I say anything funny. Hasn’t happened yet. I mean, it’s happened in my life, but not today.

We are rolling. A guy walks into a bar ...

Q: When’s the last time you told that joke?

A: I think it was the last time I saw a guy walk into a bar, actually. I’m very literal.

Q: Tell me about the show you’re doing at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway.

A: It’s so complex. It’s called 75 Laughs. Even the name is very deliberate. It has to do with the fact that in comedy clubs, if you’re a laugh-a-minute guy, you’ll get fired. And I didn’t want to feel that kind of pressure, because I don’t want to promise more than a laugh a minute, even though I suspect that will happen. I know there are going to be guys in the audience counting. Like my father-in-law.

Working in a theater for me is really exciting. This is a very ambitious production for me.

Q: Why?

A: Because I’m not just doing my act, I’m staging Dr. Katz live, some of it. I’m showing clips from other animated shows. I’m talking about living with MS. I’m reading excerpts from my book on tape, which is kind of a very subtle joke, reading excerpts from a book on tape. Because I had made a book on tape, I printed it out, and I’ll be reading from that. But it’s not that good a joke; it just happens to be subtle. I’ll be doing a live radio show. I’ll be doing stand-up.

Q: You haven’t done stand-up in a while. What have you been up to?

A: For a couple of years, I made a living talking about living with MS, and I was on the payroll of a drug company. I developed this odd sense of competition with other people who did the same thing, who were celebrities — which I am, kinda — who would talk about living with MS.

Q: Who else was talking about it?

A: David Lander, the guy who was Squiggy on Laverne & Shirley. Teri Garr. And Teri Garr and I became good friends, because we’re part of a very small group of people. One day I said to her, "Teri, I’m going to make you wish you had lupus."

Q: And does she, do you think?

A: No. But those are the kind of jokes you get to make if you’re working on the disease circuit.

Q: What makes a good stand-up audience?

A: When I worked in clubs, I used to feel like I was wearing a tutu performing for pirates. That would constitute a bad audience. So I guess no pirates.

Q: Keep the tutu?

A: I’d take off the tutu. I’d put on something slinky.

I guess [an audience with] a good attention span is a big help for me. My comedy is pretty slow-burning. Oh, please don’t fall asleep. My style of comedy, it’s not for everybody, it’s for everybody else. I mean, there are people who will never find me even slightly appealing, and there are other people who will travel hundreds of miles to see me bomb.

Q: Are you the hit at dinner parties, or the irritation?

A: You tell me. We went to a dinner party two nights ago. On the way there, some very aggressive woman cuts me off in her Mercedes. I gave her the finger. Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting opposite her at the dinner party. But my short-term memory is so bad that I can’t remember if I gave her the finger. So I gave it to her again.

Q: How do you think Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist affected the world of comedy, and specifically Comedy Central?

A: Well, the world of comedy, I think there wasn’t much of an appetite at that time for adult animation. And I’m using the word "adult" advisedly. Because I went to an adult book store the other day.

Q: Whole different thing.

A: Yup. Totally. And I consider myself pretty grown up.

Dr. Katz began as interstitials on Comedy Central. And then we discovered there was an appetite for what we were doing. I’ve said in a glib kind of way that I put Comedy Central on the map. I didn’t really put them on the map, but I did nothing to remove them from the map. We won their first Emmy Award. Cable Ace Awards, a Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting. And, what other people don’t know is that we won three soccer awards. We had a soccer team.

Q: You did not.

A: No, I made that up. I was just on a roll.

Q: Tell me about your MS diagnosis.

A: In ’96, I was working on a sit-com called Ink, with Ted Danson and his wife, Mary Steenburgen. And after every show, we would take a curtain call, and I noticed it would take me a little longer to get to the audience to bow. I called my doctor and I said, "I think there’s something going on." He said, "Well, you’re probably not having a heart attack, but I would like you to see a neurologist when you get back." And then a few months later I was diagnosed with MS. [My wife] Suzy and I saw a neurologist together, and I said, "What does a 49-year-old guy do when he finds out he has MS?" Because I really didn’t know what it meant at the time. And he said, "Well, some guys have 10 affairs; other guys climb Mount Everest." So we talked it over, and we decided on one affair and three romantic dinners.

Q: And no Everest.

A: Yeah, because I’m not an outdoorsman.

Q: Initially you kept your MS a secret?

A: Yeah. I was afraid that no one would ever hire me again. I was producing a TV show called Raising Dad in LA, and the physical demands of the job were really wearing me down. Even harder than having MS is pretending not to have it. I was constantly covering my tracks. At one point I was telling people I had plantar fasciitis, and then I started saying eggplant parmesan, because it sounded a little bit similar. But they saw through that scam. People are not idiots.

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Issue Date: January 28 - February 3, 2005
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