Robot People Magazine

By Zach “Capek” Seemayer

**TRUE** <-- Entries marked with this notation really are true. Not like the other "true" stories. This one really happened.-->

RPM: You’ve been on the Kevin and Bean Show for over 10 years. What are some of your favorite segments that you have done in the past.

Oh wow, that’s a hard question. Like I said, I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years now and so you can imagine we’re doing 4 1/2 hours of live radio every day, that’s a lot of material to churn out.

RPM: Yeah, that seems like a next-to-impossible amount of stuff to write every day.

Well, the pressure to do it is a great motivator. The stuff comes much more easily now after doing it for years. It’s just keeping it fresh for your self and the people you work with that’s the hardest part.

RPM: I’ve noticed that the bits that are often the funniest are the ones that sort of fall apart at the end.

Yeah, that’s sort of a signature on our show. Sometimes they just peter out at the end. But I think the beauty of our show is that we don’t take ourselves too seriously and we don’t pretend to be slick or polished. People know were out there winging it sometimes and I think they get a kick out of hearing us struggling.

RPM: As Bean once said, “Never leave a Kevin and Bean bit because you never know where it’s going to go.”

And also we don’t know where its going to go. When I started I used to script everything out. And Kevin and Bean aren’t really actors so I have to just let them ask questions that they want to ask and I just have to improvise. We often do know where it’s going to end up. Sometimes it’s gold and sometimes it’s crap, but it’s always fun getting there.

RPM: Your impressions are always so funny and you take them with such a grain of salt that the lightheartedness seems too translate well to the audience.

Yeah, I’m not much of an impressionist REALLY. I can do a close approximation but I have to give it a strong caricature to make it work. But as long as people get the general impression and there is enough funny behind it, they can be very forgiving.

RPM: Well, the impressions and the bits you guys do, they also seem to get you in trouble sometimes. More than they really merit.

Well the bitch of it is we get in trouble with our own lawyers and our own management much more than we do from any outside source. We get very few serious complaints. Sometimes we’ll get email from people who say they were offended or that something was over the line but no ones really ticked off. The only people who seem genuinely frightened are our management and our lawyers and I think that’s because of the political climate we live in. Although the show has never in its history been fined by the FCC or investigated by the FCC, the management is very concerned about that kind of stuff.

RPM: One thing you got in trouble for was the parody song ‘Lean Like a Homo.’ Apparently you weren’t allowed to air it because a single person complained.

Well, it was a very public one complaint. The guy sent a letter to the editor of the gay magazine and so that got it a lot of attention.

RPM: Well, obviously, because you were joking about sex means you hate all gays.

[laughs] Yeah, exactly… The assumptions people make when it comes to this kind of stuff are just ridiculous.

RPM: Well, if people are so offended about sex they must have been really offended by your segment Sex U. [In this segment, Ralph would take a topic about sex, such as the truth about the porn industry or the proper use of sexual aids, and answer callers’ questions about all aspects of sex.]

We never got a complaint about Sex U, not even once. Everyone was very flattering and very complimentary about the work that I did with that segment. That was probably my proudest achievement on the show. I was able to impart some actual information and at the same time sort of make it entertaining.

RPM: So what caused the end of Sex U?

Janet Jackson [at the Super Bowl.] It’s a scary time we live in when special interest groups wield all this clout over the FCC. It’s very uncomfortable.

RPM: It’s scary that words can cause people to hate so much. That words of humor and sarcasm can make people so riled up and make them call for censorship. Censorship is my biggest pet peeve.

I think it’s always about intent. If you’re saying words in a hateful way, then there is a legitimate complaint. But if it’s done in an innocuous, harmless way, I find it scary that a person with a political point of view or a religious point of view can just stifle what someone else wants to say.

RPM: There is a big difference between Lean Like a Homo and Dog the Bounty Hunter’s private conversations.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

RPM: Why do you think people get so upset and fiery?

There are people who will laugh at anything, as long is its something they aren’t. They stop laughing when it hits close to home. What cheeses us off is when our own company won’t back us because they are worried about the ramifications. The corporate mentality is to always be on the safe side, and that is so counter-productive to creativity, especially comedy.

The Kevin and Bean Show airs Monday through Friday, 6 am to 10 am on KROQ FM 106.7 in Los Angeles. Trust me, its hilarious!