Muse

From PRX.

Dave Mandel and Warren Light, the makers of Veep and Law & Order and other hit TV series, share their expertise of some classic finales. And some even more famous show business friends of the show come back for a last round. A fellow talk show host. I am crestfallen that you're not doing this anymore. And a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter.

You have led me and many millions of people to lots of places we would never have gone.

That's all ahead on the final Studio 360 for all time. Right after this. This is Studio 360.

My favorite thing on the show is that it can give me a new way of looking at things.

I like putting art into context.

I guess I would say serendipitous.

How about eclectic? We sort of like try to be irreverent.

Seems unexpected because you're always trying to tell stories about someone else. But in the end, you find yourself.

Don't go anywhere.

Anything could happen.

That's all, folks. Welcome to episode 1008. Our very last episode. This show has been on the air since 2000. Almost 20 years. Which is hard for me to get my head around. And so many memories are now flowing around my mind. Cheesy song, I know. But our very first episode aired in 2000 right after Cats closed on Broadway. Because back then, let alone fact, Cats and Studio 360 were not permitted to inhabit the same universe. I joke. In fact, we'd started work on this show a whole year earlier. At the tail end of the 90s. And now in retrospect, looking back, professionally, it was a kind of manic decade for me. Doing one thing after another I'd never done before. Like some kind of crazed Daffy Duck. So at the start of the 90s, I was running Spy Magazine, which I'd co-founded. And we sold. So then I was the design critic at Time Magazine. Then co-wrote an off-Broadway play. Then became editor of New York Magazine, from which I got fired for displeasing the billionaire owner. And became a columnist for The New Yorker. Then published my first novel, Turn of the Century. At the turn of the century. And then, in late 1999, got a phone call out of the blue that changed my life.

I'm Melinda Ward, the former chief content officer for PRI and was the original creator of Studio 360.

She asked if I was interested in helping create a new show. Yet another job for which I had no training or experience.

He'd written plays. He'd done work for television. I mean, he just was a renaissance person in the arts and in journalism. And that was exactly the kind of person we were looking for. He hadn't done radio before. But as with everything else, he jumped in with both feet and was willing to take a lot of direction and learn the craft of radio.

So talented producers and engineers who knew how to make radio were hired.

I'm going to write a show for us. How about it, kids? We'll get every kid in this town on our side. We'll start right now. What do you say? Right now. Come on, kids.

Let's go.

And we crafted our mission to cover anything in the culture that interested us. Focus on ideas. Go deep into the creative process. Every medium, any genre, high art and pop culture, cutting edge, as well as the excellent old. And try to be smart and fun. So the early 2000s weren't that long ago. But combing through the archives, turns out, yeah, they actually were. I mean, in 2003, we still felt obliged to explain what the Internet was. You probably used the Internet. And if you used the Internet, you probably conduct searches with a search engine. But if not, for you Luddites and my mother, here's a primer. And a couple of years later, heralding the birth of YouTube. There has been a whole lot of media chatter lately about MySpace.com and teens being teens on the Internet. And, oh, gosh, what does it all mean? Well, I don't know. I don't know.

of a more vivid glimpse into the wired teen world circa spring 2006 than a homemade web video somebody sent to our Forward This department the other day. Yeesh. Eventually, I got better. And, lucky me, got to have all these long, complicated, human conversations with a thousand, more than a thousand authors and musicians and composers and poets and actors and directors and designers and makers and thinkers and storytellers, really, of every kind about how and why they make what they make and think how they think. I got to meet and talk with, I don't know, at least a hundred actual heroes of mine. It's really a staggering list, like just the four people I interviewed who happened to be named Smith, the playwright Anna Devere Smith, singer Patti Smith, the novelist Ali Smith, the poet Tracy K. Smith.

Love. The heart sliced open, gutted, clean. Love. Naked almost, in the everlasting street, skirt lifted by a different kind of breeze.

Love is a banquet on which we feed. Come on now, try and understand The way I feel you when I'm in your head

And I was paid to do it. Public radio money, but still. I could spend the rest of this hour playing favorite bits of favorite interviews and stories, and you'll hear a few later. But an important confession, compared to writing books and every other kind of work I've ever done, this job was actually easy, because I just had to read and look and listen and think and talk. Extraordinarily talented producers did all of the difficult, thankless work.

We few.

We happy few. A full-time team, a couple of dozen people over the two decades, making up for my blind spots, coming up with ideas and themes and guests and getting them here and taking this show with all of us to all kinds of places that I never could have done alone. And, of course, did all the meticulous engineering and gorgeous sound design. And went out and produced so many fantastic stories of their own. Half this show has consisted of their stories. And those by dozens of independent producers as well. That is the great thing. Studio 360 has been a show all about creative makers by creative makers. Such as our Peabody Award-winning American Icons show within the show. In this hour of Studio 360's American Icons, we're looking at a house. A single story. Villa. Virginia brick and white trim. Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Virginia.

If you want to understand this country and what it means to be optimistic and tragic and wrong and courageous, you need to go to Monticello.

Dozens of full-on documentary hours and stories exploring everything from Disneyland to Monticello and I Love Lucy to the autobiography of Malcolm X. And all those, incidentally, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which the current administration has just once again proposed shutting down. Please make sure that doesn't happen. Thank you.

Baby, it's over! We're on a road to nowhere.

So, you can keep listening online forever to all 1,008 Studio 360 episodes we've made, but after 20 years, this is our last waltz. I hope you enjoy it. Oh, and by the way, that first Broadway production of Cats, it only ran for 18 years. So, we win.

We're on a road to nowhere.

I'm Leetal Malad, and one of the highlights of my experience at the show is I got to take a trip with Kurt to Japan. Thank you. Studio 360 in Shibuya. Our main guest for that show, our kind of cultural guide, was named Lisa Katayama, and so she said, well, one of the things that you must understand to understand this culture of kawaii, the cult of cute in Japan, is I have to take you to a purikura booth.

This is called Purikura no Mecca. Sticker picture mecca.

Like photo booths.

Yeah, photo booths.

And it's what all these preteen and teen girls were crazy about at the time. We go into this place, which kind of feels like a casino, but a casino for 12-year-old girls with flashing lights and pink and kitty cats and...

and all these images flashing all over the walls, and music blasting out of these little booths. And so Lisa and Kurt go into this photo booth. There's the camera.

And so do we get to choose anything?

Yeah, we have to make a lot of choices.

Okay.

Do you want to be a sweet, beautiful girl or a colorful, beautiful girl?

I think it's a sweet, beautiful girl.

So they were doing all these poses and picking little cats and stars and flowers, and everything was pink and sparkly.

You have to do that pose.

And that's just step one.

Oh, hello.

Now it's time to decorate the photos.

All right, so now you grab a pen.

Okay.

And just go to town on this photo.

So there's little bugs, little mushrooms, little rabbits, all these little... He was just like, this is cool.

Now we've solidified our friendship and this day on sticker picture.

Friends forever. Coming up, the next guest on Studio 360 with Kurt Anderson is, yep, Kurt Anderson. When you started out, how would you describe Kurt Anderson at the mic in the beginning? My exit interview, conducted by Alec Baldwin. That's next.

Studio 360. Studio 360.

As I said earlier, I've interrogated lots and lots of people on this show. So for this final episode, we decided on a role reversal. Today, in my chair for a while, is Alec Baldwin, who, in addition to acting here and there, also hosts a podcast called Here's the Thing. And here today, conducting my exit interview. Alec, we have known each other for a long time, but I don't... I can't really recall.

Hey, how did you meet? I don't know. I think I walked into a restaurant with like an Elaine's type of place, if not that. And you were there with a bunch of people that was really no place for me at that table. It was all the elite of the literati.

I think you've made that up. But I do remember another restaurant where, sometime in this century, where I was coming in and you were going out and you said, hey, hey. And you said to me, I want your life. I want a radio show and to write books. I said, okay, all yours. Yes. And then... Guest hosted the show. And then a few years later, in 2010, you guest hosted this program and... And launched my career. Launched your radio career, your podcast radio career. We had never had a guest host, and here's you being me.

This is Studio 360. I'm Alec Baldwin. And Kurt Anderson is recuperating from a costly, painful, and completely unnecessary dental procedure. I'm Alec Baldwin, sitting in for Kurt Anderson, who is locked in the trunk of my Toyota. Kurt Anderson will be in next week, assuming he gets the anti-venom in time.

I loved all those. And I didn't know about them. I didn't write those, by the way. Well, I LOL'd each time. So, you've written books since then, one with me.

And you wrote a book and I put my name on it.

You wrote a book and I helped you sell it. Well, and sell it we did, that parody memoir by our current president. If he gets reelected, we're going to go to Broadway.

Really? We're going to do... Oh. Oh, I think we'll do the show.

If he gets reelected, we have a choice. So, there's an upside. There's an upside. I'm heartened. I'll have a career after this program. I got you covered. So, now that you're a skilled and successful podcast host, here you are. And it's all yours.

Take it away. No, but when you started out... I mean, this is a cliched question, but when you started out, how would you describe Kurt Anderson at the mic in the beginning? And what was he like?

It's hard. I mean, the first few years, I've occasionally listened back to those and, yeah, I didn't know quite what I was doing. I was tentative.

On my show, what I tried to get to was what I call the billiard break. What's the question that opens up the table for it to run the table? How do I ask the question that's going to open up that person to feel comfortable, to feel safe?

Yeah. Not very many years ago, I realized, oh, what this is like, having, I say, having not been on a date in 40 years, is it's like a first date that will never have a second date. But you want to impress them on the first date, and you want them to love you, but you know it's not going to go anywhere because it's not a date.

It's a first date with no hope of a second date. Yeah. What about somebody who was a dream get, and you got somebody, just somebody you thought, oh, God, wouldn't this be great?

There are many, including you, Alec. However, Susan Sontag, who had been a hero of mine, and early on in the show, when we were about to invade Iraq, and I thought, oh, we're going to invade Iraq. Let's try to book Susan Sontag, who's been in the Balkan War, written about war, was a lefty and now is okay with certain wars. Let's have her on as my guest for the whole show, and we'll do a bunch of pieces about war. And she agreed. Oh, my gosh. I don't think I've ever researched more for a guest than I did for Susan Sontag, because I didn't want to disappoint her, basically. And then, like two days before she's coming on, her assistant calls my producer and says, you know.

Ms. Sontag does not suffer fools. Like, what? What on earth would they have suspected they needed to say that to you of Oprah?

Well, it was early on, you know, in the show, so who knew? And she came on. We disagreed about things, but we had the best two hours conversation. It was a dream.

And I think people do feel turned off or indifferent to images of horror and war and suffering that they see and that they feel indignant about.

So in a sense, your change of heart about the power of images to portray war and atrocity represents kind of a disillusioning or a reillusioning.

Well, that's a very clever way of putting it. A disillusioning, yes, the disillusionment. That's right. That's absolutely right.

Plus, afterward, she, I think, of the thousand people or whatever that I've interviewed on this show, the only handwritten thank you note I've ever received. Yeah. Another dream guest was Tom Hanks, somewhat less daunting because I'd actually met him before he was on the show. Back when I was a journalist writing for The New Yorker, I did a profile of him. And years later, at some screening of some movie, he came up to me and he goes, Kurt Anderson, the great writer Kurt Anderson, blah, blah, blah, blah. In the middle of this crowd. And I thought, my gosh, what a nice guy. What a mensch. What a mensch. And then I've asked him on the course of Studio 360 to do something. Most recently on this two-hour documentary we did about 2001, A Space Odyssey. Yes. Which I knew he was a big fan of. He came on and was amazing. He did the music by rote. And did the opening, thus spake. The Strauss. Exactly. What you have to start with is the wham.

Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham.

Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham. Wham. Another memorable, fabulous guest was the illustrator Ralph Steadman, who, of course, was the partner in crime of Hunter Thompson and Rolling Stone. And I encountered that when I was 16. And it was, whoa, my life has changed. So, Ralph Steadman walks into the studio, this jolly 78-year-old, and with his bottle of indelible ink and pen, just starts drawing directly on this nice wooden desk.

Well, I'm making an attempt to draw Kurt here. Oh, you've got some hair, though. You have got good hair. That's what they say. Listen, this is really something. I look like a pig now. Yeah, I know. It's unfortunate, but...

Ralph Steadman. Oh, that's a pleasure. I didn't... It was a total pleasure. And I have never been so happy at an act of vandalism in my life.

Oh, it's happy vandalism today, isn't it?

Then, speaking of like, oh, who was great? I expected nothing of, for instance... Not I didn't expect nothing of him, but Matthew McConaughey. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you're good. Fine. Great. Come on. Well, I felt seduced. I felt like, wow, I'd go to a room with you now. I want to be him for a month. Definitely.

Magic Mike. What I did in that for a lot of people was I popped the proverbial balloon. I kind of took some of what was my image of, hey, man, you're in shape, shirtless on the beach every day and going running. And I said, well, let's go to the Smithsonian with this. The wardrobe was so much fun in that. They had all these sweats and Rydells and Champion sort of sweats that people would wear to the gym. And I was like, no, no, no. This is Richard Simmons meets Baryshnikov.

Yeah. Spending an hour talking to somebody that you'd never met about their life, about work, about ideas, about how the creative process works.

And knowing you probably would never have another opportunity if it weren't for this show. Correct.

I mean, I take advantage of the show. And you might meet them at a dinner and have a nice five-minute encounter, but that'd be that.

They're not giving you an unbroken hour to talk to them.

And the opportunity to be impertinent. You know, not mean, because it's a first date and you want to make an impression, but to be impertinent. That is the beauty of the journalistic part of this. It's not just warm bath and massage. It's also like, hey, I can ask you something that I would feel uncomfortable asking probably if I was seated next to you on a plane or at a dinner. For instance, I think of the end of my interview with Angelina Jolie.

Well, most of my tattoos are, a lot of them were done in different countries or some of the, a lot of the coordinates when I met my kids, they're all symbolic of my family. That's nice. My mom, before she passed, always said it was like a totem pole of my history. There you go. You seem like a totally sane person.

Again, not that I expected a non-totally sane person, but you seem like you have a head on your shoulders. Well, thank you very much.

Now, one last question I have for you is, do you ever think of interviewing somebody who is a personal character in your life, if they were alive?

Thank you.

your parents, your wife. I actually, both of my daughters in various incarnations as they were growing up when they were little.

He kind of spaces out some, but not in a negative, bad way, just kind of a child-like cute kind of way.

Aw, Lucy. She and her sister Kate were also on, like, just a couple years ago together discussing kids' books. And Kate, you are now a true adult. You still read a lot of fantasy fiction.

I read a lot of the books that would make you cringe on the subway. No, no. You read a lot of fantasy fiction. Books with maps in them.

And does that feel like, oh, I'm still holding on to some child part of myself to you, or just, these are the books I like?

No. I mean, not consciously. We can examine that later, but I just like those books. In therapy, you mean? Yeah, exactly. You know, your wife reads those books, too.

And Lucy, when are you having children, by the way?

Okay.

I'm going to finish with this, and I hope to God your producers make sure that they include this in the show. And I said this to you, I am crestfallen that you're not doing this anymore. My routine is, I'm up early, I brush my teeth, I take my kids, we go downstairs, we feed the kids when we're in East Hampton, click, you come on the air, I listen to your show. And you're so good at this, and your show is such a great show, and you should be so proud of yourself. I mean, I've told this just before. You're so... Not enough. Well, you're... You're just still bitter than I can. You're darling. You're darling. You're darling.

Well, being in your slipstream when we went on a book tour for a few weeks was one of the great experiences of my life.

You don't want to be me even for 10 minutes.

Well, I don't want to be you, but I want to be your wingman. I want to be your wingman and get those...

You want to be Matthew McConaughey, but you don't want to be me. I get that, I get that, I get that. Yeah. I'm going to say this to you. Now, I hope to God we don't do this. I hope to God we're not faced with the situation. I hope to God someone else is in the White House at the end of this year. But if for some reason we are condemned to another four years of this, it is I who will be paddling in your wake. It is I who will be paddling in your wake. Because you're going to write that whole show, pal. And I'm just going to come out there and go, good evening, everybody. Good evening. And that's it.

Deal? Deal? Completely a deal. Although now you've cursed me with mixed feelings about November 3rd.

I think that... I guess it'll be a consolation prize. Exactly. It'll be the ultimate consolation prize.

What a pleasure. You too, buddy. You can listen to Alec Baldwin's Here's the Thing on WNYCstudios.org or wherever you get podcasts.

My name is Sean Ramasver. We had so much fun making Studio 360 in my time there. It is almost impossible to pick one or two projects to showcase. But here's an attempt. They both relate to stuff that we discovered through you, our listeners. They used to have rock band back in high school. I don't even know what it is. But you've got it.

It's 2, 3, 6, D.

I don't love the high school band. High school band.

High school band.

High school band.

Excellent! Yeah! Yeah!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

We asked you to send in the music that you made in high school and then asked Andrew WK and Tao Nguyen to pick their favorite songs. I couldn't believe I was getting paid to come into work and listen to the music you made. It was such a joy. I don't know if it's just evolution of the species because a lot of these more recent high school songs really blow away the quality on every level. It's inspiring. I got paid to reach out to Wes Craven, the master of suspense, and ask him to judge our Scary Short Film Contest.

Hello?

Wes Craven presents... Welcome to my nightmare. Studio 360's Scary Short Film Fest.

You guys see my shorts?

I'd love to. I thought it was kind of scary.

It was incredible, astounding. We couldn't believe the stuff you sent. Long live Studio 360. And I hope the entire archive ends up in the Library of Congress where it belongs.

Coming up? Look, I know how tough it is for you to say goodbye, so I'll say it.

How the people who make long-running TV series do their final shows, according to people who write and produce long-running TV series.

I was in high school when MASH ended, and I feel like they didn't give us homework that night so that we could all go home and we could all watch it. I'm not quite sure at this point there's any show that would get that. You know what I mean? Two showrunners, Dave Mandela, Veep, and Warren Light of Law & Order SVU, on the art of the finale.

Thank you. That's next on this very last segment of this very last episode of Studio 360.

Studio 360.

So here we are on the last Studio 360 ever. However, we thought we'd take a look at how that works in fictional broadcasting on the ends of TV shows, like when major characters leave or seasons end or, most of all, when there is a finale of a show. I think when you're talking about TV shows that ended 10 or 30 or 50 years ago, saying spoiler alert is kind of ridiculous, but OK, multi-spoiler alert. So, Warren Light, old friend, welcome back. Dave Mandel, slightly less old friend. Welcome back as well. So, Dave, you're Mr. Half Hour Comedy King, including Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm and Veep. And Warren, you're Mr. New York Hour Drama King, including two different lawn orders. Sure.

And a boxing show and a psychiatry show.

Right, in treatment. But it's this West Coast, East Coast thing. So, Biggie Tupac, do you know each other? I don't know anyone.

Yeah, I'm a shut-in. I wish I was Mr. New York, though. I lived in New York for many years. I was never Mr. New York. I wish I was that. But hello, I'm actually a big fan.

Yeah, it's mutual.

So, I want to know, as craftspeople, as showrunners, as writers, your personal experience of writing endings of things.

Dave, you go first. Oh, I've had sort of two experiences, which were both sort of very interesting and very different. I was sort of a passenger, if you will, when Seinfeld ended. I was a writer on the show. But Larry David actually came back and he and Jerry did the finale together. And so, you know, we were there, we were pitching, you know, jokes here and there, but it was very much their baby. So, if you remember, there was, you know, a lot of the sort of old characters coming back to testify against the gang, basically.

I was in Schnitzer's Bakery when I got accosted by that man.

Let the record show that she's pointing at Mr. Seinfeld. How did she try to kill you? She tried to smother me with a pillow.

Murder! He killed our daughter! He knew those abobs were toxic!

Put her in this court!

You know, it was like an anti-it's-a-wonderful-life ending, right? They all come back and say anti-testimonials. It's a terrible life. Yes, yes. These guys were awful to me and they are bad people. It almost began with a whimper and ended with a whimper. It was actually oddly true to itself, the Seinfeld finale.

Yeah, and ultimately very much a show about sort of, you know, true to its form of no learning, no hugging. It was a group of people that sort of, you know, what do you have to say for these nine years? They learn nothing. I mean, that was my take on it. So, that was sort of experience one. And then last spring, I got to sort of end Veep myself, you know, really in the driver's seat, which was really sad and fun to do and obviously a lot more active, I guess.

Let's describe it for those few listeners who didn't see it.

So, basically, we had spent the season with her running for the presidency and our final episode was the convention, sort of a brokered convention and she's trying to make her moves. And basically, at the convention, she does a bunch of horrible things.

In exchange for your support, I will outlaw same-sex marriage. Governor, can I get an amen?

You can get an amen and I'll throw in a hallelujah.

I love it.

And my endorsement.

Thank you, sir.

And she gets what she wanted, I mean, in a horrible, horrible way. And we do two sort of forward jumps. One, we jump to the White House after she's been inaugurated. And we sort of see her alone there and realize that in a weird way, even though she got what she wanted, she's sort of suffering. And then we jumped to the future, to her funeral.

Live coverage of the funeral of Selina Meyer, America's first woman president.

And then as the news coverage is covering her funeral, Tom Hanks dies.

I'm sorry. Breaking news. I've just been told that four-time Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks has died at the age of 88.

Which is a callback to the first episode where they hypothesize that maybe if Tom Hanks dies, it would knock a bad story out of the news.

Let's not make it the story in panic, okay? What if Tom Hanks dies? What? Dark.

Now he really dies. And you realize at this moment that history is already beginning to forget Selina Meyer.

She stood for nothing, accomplished nothing, and left. But I thought that V-bending was organic and also absolutely brilliant.

So, Warren, have you, I mean, you've obviously written and overseen the writing of season finales. Are you ever, like, working on writing a season ender, not knowing yet if you've been renewed? And so, who knows?

Often. I ended one season with Mariska and I.

on SVU. Mariska Hargitay, who plays Detective Benson on Law & Order SVU. Yeah, she comes home, she puts the groceries on the counter, and there's a gun to her head.

Look.

Welcome home, Detective Benson. It's the evil character of William Lewis, the most psychopathic guy we've ever had, and he has the gun to her head, and we went to Black, and we hadn't been picked up yet. It was a little bit of a, I dare NBC to end this series on that note. That could have been the series end, and now it's like, you know, 36 seasons later, and we're still going.

Now, I mean, both of you obviously have encyclopedic knowledge of television. I want you guys to talk about some of the conventions of the form of the finale.

I think a biggie these days is usually sort of a little bit of a world change. You know, someone's hired, someone's fired, somebody's moving, someone gets a new job. Even, I guess, in drama world, there can be sort of the crime versions of that. You know what I mean? Like, someone gets arrested, someone leaves town, but, you know, there's something that sort of changes the status quo out of nowhere in the finale. The end-of-an-era finale, right? Yes, exactly. It's like, this time together is ending. You know, and it starts even going back to Mary Tyler Moore.

Oh, Mr. Grant, what's the news matter anyway? It's our last day together.

Remember Friends, which I thought was almost diabetes-inducing ending, but it was, the apartment was over.

Ross and Rachel are together.

Yeah, no, and they're all hugging.

Right, but she has, like, a new job, and they're gonna go, she's gonna leave town for the new job or something like that. Yeah.

Monica and Chandler have twins. Look around, you guys. Worst fake babies I've ever seen. This was your first home, and it was a happy place, filled with love and laughter. But more important, because of rent control, it was a friggin' steal.

But it ended on that apartment. The apartment was empty, and they're gonna start their new lives. There has to be closure and a little bit of, we're opening another door.

The other one, which, by the way, we were guilty of on Veep, is the jump ahead a million years. Again, I like to think I used it okay, but I do think it's become, you know, semi-standard.

Like Six Feet Under before you and, like, Silicon Valley after you.

And by the way, I made a point of watching Six Feet Under knowing that they jumped ahead to kind of remind myself, like, what did they do? And the fact that it was more lyrical, and I guess I felt like, well, we've got a joke at the end of ours, the Tom Hanks death. I felt like, okay, I can do this. But boy, I was worried about it for about a second or two until I rewatched it.

I had, can I ask one question today? Do you think it's easier to write the finale? You didn't create the series. You took it over masterfully and seamlessly. But I wonder if it's harder for the ones who created those characters to let go.

It's interesting. For whatever it's worth, I had a different relationship with the characters and the thing because I was a big fan of the show before I ever worked there. And so maybe my perspective on it was different. But I will also tell you, by the end of the four years, I was every bit as possessive as the man who created it. So, you know, I don't know. It didn't seem any easier from that perspective.

I don't know. I just, I wondered, because it's one of the best finales by somebody who adopted that show and made it his own. And some of the less successful finales have been by the originators. I wonder if that's why David Chase just ended abruptly.

David Chase, maker of The Sopranos, which had this ending, people are divided about. Was it brilliant or, come on, I want a real ending? What do you think?

I always really liked it. I mean, what I remember about that season was I remember the conversation that they had about what it's like to get whacked, basically. And they sort of talked about how you're just sort of there and then all of a sudden it kind of just happens and it goes black. And so when I saw it, I just, to myself, I went, this is what that is. And I love it. And this is wonderful. That after all this time and us living with him and all his foibles and whatnot, there's this moment and the four of them are there and somebody does it. Whether it's the guy in the plaid shirt or whatever, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, that is the end of that life and that's what it is. I think maybe people were infuriated in a weird way, those that didn't like it, by the refusal to definitively go, yes, he is dead. No, he isn't.

I remember watching thinking, my cable just went out. But I will say, first of all, it's the one finale everybody still talks about and still remembers the beats of. The daughter parking, the song on the jukebox, the guy coming in. The way the diner looks. The cinematic quality to that last scene, the jingling of the bells when people...

And by the way, for people who haven't perhaps seen it, it's the four of them sitting there in a diner, the family, the Soprano family eating and nothing happens and it ends.

Don't stop.

It cuts to black, though. It just dramatically cuts off. And so I assumed, oh, he just gets whacked. And I thought, that's nice. We don't have to see it. We know where it goes. And just cinematically, I think it's one of the most beautiful last scenes of it. just so much going on and it was bold. So what about comedy versus drama on this score? Presumably it's a different challenge doing comedy finales. I don't think so. No? I know. I think they're the

same in terms of what do you want to say about your character? Yeah, but doesn't comedy, Dave,

have more at least leeway to like do something self-referential and goofy like Seinfeld,

like the Newhart endings? It definitely does, but I could go to the St. Elsewhere ending, which is one of my all-time favorites that basically, you know, ends, you know, the regular show ends very dramatically with, you know, the corporation that had taken over the hospital leaving and I think a couple of people had died and a whole bunch of different stuff. But, you know, there's the birth of the new day and as they walk away and it snows, they pull back and it's the autistic son Tommy or whatever his name was looking in a snow globe. The exact snowy scene

we've been watching all episode long as viewers is what this kid is looking at inside his snow globe.

I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. Here's my son. I talk to him. I don't even know if he can hear me. He sits there all day long in his own world staring at that toy.

And you kind of go, oh, the whole season was this autistic kid and he's just been staring into a snow globe and I laughed out loud and sort of never forgot it and that was about as dramatic as it got on St. Elsewhere. That sticks with me more today than perhaps maybe the Friends finale. Yeah. You know, I think you have choices when you do these things. How much you want to please your audience, how much you want to please yourself and where those lines are. And I think some people want to wrap everything up in a very pretty bow. And I guess I choose the autistic snow globe version of life. So there you go.

My sense or my memory as a child, the finale episodes weren't a big deal until The Fugitive.

Tuesday, September 5th, the day the running stopped.

In 1967, 12 years old.

I remember watching that with relatives. It was one of the few times my family got together. It was a major event.

And then they became a thing. MASH and Mary Tyler Moore and the rest. You know, it's like it's like television suddenly decided, hey, we've been missing a bet here.

But I think you had to be a certain kind of show. I mean, those these shows that we're talking about were already, I don't want to say they were phenomenon unto themselves, but these were very popular shows. I mean, MASH obviously.

Tomorrow, the tents of the 4077 will be coming down for good.

I mean, I remember, I guess I was in high school, the very beginning of high school when MASH ended. And I feel like they didn't give us homework that night.

Look, I know how tough it is for you to say goodbye. So I'll say it. Maybe you're right. Maybe we will see each other again. But just in case we don't. I want you to know how much you've meant to me.

They literally bent the school year to the MASH finale so that we could all go home and we could all watch it. And then there was time to discuss it the next day. That's so cute. I'm not quite sure at this point there's any show that would get that, the sort of no homework thing. You know what I mean?

One of the great finales was the postmodern end of Newhart in 1990, back when we called things postmodern. Newhart's character wakes up in the dark from a dream.

Honey. Honey, wake up. You won't believe the dream I just had.

And then the lights turn on and we find out that he's in bed with his wife from his previous sitcom, The Bob Newhart Show, which ran back in the 70s. And it's now an exact recreation of that bedroom from that older show. So the studio audience, like all of us watching at home, went nuts when we see Suzanne Plachette, who had played his earlier character's wife on

the old show. All right, Bob. What is it?

So this entire show, Newhart, had been a dream within this other show that had ended more than a decade ago. It was genius.

Because that was a show with not a lot of ongoing storyline. You know, over the years, you know, the characters got married. But other than that, it didn't really, each season didn't have an arc the way at least we try to do on Veep and obviously Warren does. And so those episodes were more standalone. And so to be able to kind of craft that dream ending was really, again, I think very special. Whereas I think other standalone shows have ended over the years without people taking as much notice. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I mean, that may, for my money, win the prize for certainly comedy ending in that category. Oh, it was-

It was brilliant. I always felt bad for the second wife. I always felt like it was...

She got chilled off. And I was married to this beautiful blonde.

Go back to sleep, mom.

Good night, Emily. It was a little bit of a diss. Like, the second marriage was meaningless. I'm still in love with... And we're all still in love with Suzanne Plachette. So I understood. But in terms of it was the craziest dream, there was this guy here that was... It was brilliant.

Yes, indeed. Now, you guys are scripted show creators. And writers and showrunners. Since this show is more of a talk show, and since, like, Johnny Carson, I grew up in Nebraska, I'm thinking, what did you think of Johnny Carson's last Tonight Show in 1992, 28 years ago?

And now, here's Johnny!

I believed it. I thought it was so heartfelt. I remember Mark Shaman playing piano for Bette Midler.

Well, that's how it goes. And, John, I know you're getting anxious to close. So thanks for the cheer. I hope you didn't mind me bending your ears.

Again, I don't think anybody will ever mean as much what Johnny meant to us kids growing up then. He was so private, but there was that little hint of maybe not a tear, but something in his eye. But it was absolutely beautiful television. It stays with you. I think one of the tests is which ones stay with you, you know? Right. I think that was one of those national farewells.

Warren Light and David Mandel, I so appreciate you coming.

Warren and I have prepared a song for you, Kurt. Good. For your final episode.

There you go.

I didn't want to bring it up, but we have spent weeks. We have Mark Shaman.

So climb up on the table here. We'll meet again.

Da-da-da. Something. Yeah, we got nothing for you. I'm sorry. This is a pretty terrible finale. I apologize.

I tell you, both of you being here was more than gift enough. Thank you very much.

We're drinking, my friend, to the end of a sweet episode. Make it one for my baby and one more for the road.

My name is John Delore.

I'm Julie Lowry Henderson.

I think my favorite Studio 360 memory is from when Julia Lowry Henderson and myself went to Tony Morrison's apartment. I was just about to hit stop on the recorder, and Tony Morrison said,

Now, Mr. Engineer, you have a little chore.

And I let it keep rolling.

Over there in that corner, with that little lamp and that little thingy, there are bottles of vodka.

Yes.

She asked me to pour her a glass to celebrate the interview.

You may join me if you like. You're welcome.

A basket?

No, just pour me a drink, is what I'm saying.

It was the middle of the afternoon. Technically, we were working.

Both of you have some. You've done well today.

But who's going to say no to Tony Morrison offering you a vodka shot, not me?

That was really something.

Cheers.

Here's to our success.

I am now here with the fabulous Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, Roseanne Cash, along with her husband and guitarist and producer, John Leventhal. Welcome back.

Hi, Kurt.

The cynical, funny thing that people say about the ends of things these days is, no, it's all about the friends you made along the way. But then I realized, of all of the hundreds and perhaps close to a thousand people that I've had in here, talking to, having conversations with, there's only one person I've actually become a friend of and with as a result. And that's you, madam. You're going to make me cry already. Well, that's the intention. So, no. And I don't know why that is. I mean, I am not the warmest and fuzziest human being on Earth. Some would say. Some would say.

I know why. I partly know why it is. Why is that? Because you and I are really similar in why we came to New York. And we've never actually talked about this. But I think that you and I both were New Yorkers before we got here. And we came from places that were incredibly different from where we are now. And that we came to find out who we were, really. Like, we saw ourselves in the mirror of New York. And I think that drew us to each other as friends.

Well, as long as we're talking about meeting.

on this show, we have actually a piece of the tape of that meet not so cute moment from the first time you were on here in 2004. When the shadows lengthen and burn away the past. And Roseanne Cash is here with me today to talk about the challenges of being a creative child of a big time creative family. Roseanne Cash, welcome to Studio 360.

Thank you, Kurt. It's a pleasure.

You sing good. That sounded wonderful.

So, in other words, I chose the right career. Or the right family or both, I guess. The right DNA, maybe.

See, it's nice hearing those things. It's literally like maybe the first moment we ever met, but I sucked, man.

You did? That's what I was thinking about myself.

I was thinking, like, how fakey was that introduction? I could hear it. I've learned how to fake sincerity in this course of this job.

It's the hardest thing to fake.

It is. But the most important.

I thought I sounded a little nervous. You were making me nervous. Sometimes you still make me nervous, Kurt.

Beyond simply being the only person I've made friends with of all the hundreds and hundreds of famous, talented people who've been here, I counted up and realized that in the 20 years we've done this show, you hold the record for guest appearances on this program.

I did not know that.

Five. And then your husband here had his own sixth as well. So, I don't know if we count that added to your number or not.

No, we'll count it. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's very flattering. Yeah. But you have led me and many millions of people to lots of places we would never have gone. And we're the better for it, you know. You ennoble me and all of your listeners by how curious you are.

Oh, shucks.

No, you do.

I appreciate that. As I was also thinking about, ah, how do we end this thing? And I thought, like, well, I can get a twofer. I can not only have the one friend I made off of this show come in, but also, if you would agree, sing a song and bring your husband along to play it on the guitar. So now, will you do that?

Yeah. Talking about endings. Well, I'm honored that you asked me to do this.

And what is this song?

The song is The Parting Glass. The Celts, the Scots, and the Irish have great ways of saying farewell. Of all the money ere I spent, I have spent it in good company. And all the harm I've ever done, alas, it was to none but me. And all I've done for want of wit to memory now, I can't recall. So fill to me the parting glass. Good night and joy, good night and joy be with you all. If I had money, enough to spend, and leisure time to sit awhile. There is fair maid in this town that surely has my heart beguiled.

Good night and joy be with you all. Good night and joy be with you all.

Good night and joy be with you all. Good night and joy be with you all. Good night and joy be with you all. Good night and joy be with you all. That I should rise And you should not I gently rise And softly call Good night and joy Be with you all Good night

Goodnight and joy be with you all. Thank you for that gift. Thank you for the gift, Kurt. That was Roseanne Cash with John Leventhal on guitar. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is it. Ta-da! Studio 360 has been a production of PRI, Public Radio International, recently in association with Slate. Closing time. Open all the doors and let you out into the world. Our fabulous current production team consists of... Jocelyn Gonzalez. Andrew Adam Neumann. Sandra Lopez-Monsalve. Evan Chung. Zoe Saunders. Sam Kim. Morgan Flannery. Tommy Vazarian. And I am Kurt Anderson. Listeners, thank you so much for listening today. And if you've been along for the ride, for these last thousand shows together. Now, that's a wrap. Stay here. I know who I want to take me home. PRI. Public Radio International.