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Lee Farber: A Few Of My Favourite Things
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The Wondros Collective comedy director talks us through some treats from his past, including a highly-coveted ice-sculptor and a one-off magazine cover with a Hee-Haw superstar.
One of Wondros Collective director Lee Farber's most recent projects was a Doc Brown-led search for missing time machines, named Expedition: Back To The Future.
Not quite needing to hit 88mph is Farber's dive into his past for this week's Favourite Things, in which he takes us through some meaningful highlights that keep him creatively driven.
Having written for The Wayne Brady Show and The Soup before embarking on a star-studded directing career, Farber's selection is an anecdote-peppered delight, covering stories of a nude-fuelled childhood, laugh-fuelled lucky breaks and whisky-fuelled obsessions.
The Seltzer Bottle
I grew up seeing the name 'Farber' displayed prominently around images of naked female breasts and buttocks.
Allow me to explain: My father, Robert Farber, is one of the world’s foremost photographers of nude women. Elegant nudes. Tasteful nudes. Romantic nudes. But nudes nonetheless. So the walls of my childhood home in New York City were adorned with posters of lots and lots of, shall we say, pink parts, imprinted with the name 'FARBER' in bold letters.
And the coffee table books… same thing. Nudity. 'FARBER'.
The walls of my childhood home in New York City were adorned with posters of lots and lots of, shall we say, pink parts.
But prior to our genital renaissance, there was another family business: Seltzer. My father’s father, Norman, and his two older brothers, Harry and Sam, were the Farber Bros., who ran a very successful seltzer business in Newark, NJ in the mid-20th Century. So imagine my surprise one day in the early 21st Century, while doing a search for my father’s work on eBay to check the latest values in nipple futures, I came across this beautiful seltzer bottle, emblazoned with the name FARBER.
Finally, my family name not surrounded by a woman’s curves, but by the curves of a vintage glass soda dispenser.
It was, dare I say… refreshing.
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The Magazine
I began my career as a comedy writer. I didn’t mean to. I swear. When I graduated from Film School at USC, where I was laser-focused on directing, I came to the unfortunate realization that no one was going to hand me a script to direct. So while I schlepped around town as an assistant, I wrote as much as I could.
Eventually I ended up as the assistant to Bernie Brillstein, the legendary talent manager and producer. Bernie represented Lorne Michaels, and sold Saturday Night Live to NBC, at which point he also managed John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner (and went on to produce The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters). Bernie repped Jim Henson from day one, and was instrumental in getting The Muppet Show on the air. Working for Bernie was a dream come true, but it was only the beginning.
I began my career as a comedy writer. I didn’t mean to. I swear.
To say Bernie and I hit it off is an understatement. We just loved each other. For whatever reason, we cracked each other up. And in a very short amount of time, he became like a father to me. One day, he read my writing and exclaimed, in his distinctive bellow, “Farber! You’re a good writer! I’m gonna get you a job!” And just like that, my career began. At the time, he was building Wayne Brady, the multi-talented comedian and performer, to be the next big thing, and before I knew it, I was writing for Wayne’s ABC variety series, which premiered in the summer of 2001.
The following year, Wayne moved into the talk show arena, and Bernie asked me to write on The Wayne Brady Show, a nationally syndicated talk show which he was producing. In 2003, we were nominated for an Emmy, and as luck would have it, we won. Believe it or not, despite being one of the defining people in the television landscape for decades, Bernie had never won an Emmy before. And here he was, on stage at Radio City Music Hall, standing with his former assistant, now protégé and friend, receiving what he so richly deserved.
They’re gonna put us on the cover of Jews With Trophies magazine.
As we left the theatre, there were swarms of photographers snapping our photo. Bernie, not one for attention, said, “Farber, what are they taking our picture for?” I told him, “They’re gonna put us on the cover of Jews With Trophies magazine.”
He laughed his biggest laugh, which, in Bernie’s case, meant he went completely silent with his face frozen in a scrunched-up smile. He had a loud laugh too, but when something was REALLY funny, he went silent.
And this time, he got silent.
A few weeks later I surprised Bernie with a framed copy of the aforementioned Jews With Trophies magazine, which I made in Photoshop, our faces proudly displayed on the cover. I couldn’t resist pointing out that with this first award, Bernie was now “1 for 48”, nor could I avoid touting his two most dubious accomplishments: creating Hee-Haw in the late 60’s, and running the ill-fated Lorimar Studios for a hot second in the 1980’s.
When Bernie saw the magazine, he once again laughed the silent laugh.
The One-Sheet
I’d like you to know that I made a movie. I’d like you to know that because few people do. It’s funny. Really funny. In my naiveté, I thought all you had to do when you make a move independently is to make it good, and the rest will take care of itself. This is incorrect.
The movie is called The Lonely Italian. It’s a strange hybrid between documentary and narrative that takes place in the world of online dating. The film is about a young Italian man who comes to America and finds himself unable to meet women in the traditional, “forward” way of his culture, because we are all so buried in our own devices, we don’t look at the world around us. So he joins pretty much every online dating sight around (even the oddballs like 'Farmer’s Only' and 'Date Me, Date My Pet'), trying to find the love of his life. And the thing is, this is a real guy. And he really did join all these sites. So the dates themselves are real. The stuff that happens in-between, the 'connective tissue' that drives the story forward, is scripted.
In my naiveté, I thought all you had to do when you make a move independently is to make it good, and the rest will take care of itself. This is incorrect.
I can’t say I advise making a movie this way, which took years to put together, nor do I suggest making a film that has no 'stars' for distributors to get excited about. But I can say that every creative individual should have the experience, at least once, of doing something without any interference from a studio or network executive.
Don’t get me wrong, many execs are great partners, and their input often drives you to even deeper levels of creativity. But to just have the experience not having to make any compromises (other than financial), is one I’ll cherish.
And I got to make the poster exactly what I wanted it to be, as seen here.
(By the way, the film is available on Amazon Prime, and I promise you, it’s the funniest movie you’ve never seen.)
The Ice Ball Maker
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It’s called 'Farbering'.
Farbering was a term coined in the late 1990’s when I was working for a producer at the Walt Disney Studios. This producer used to make very specific requests of me: *NSYNC tickets and passes for his kids, restaurant reservations at the hottest spot in town (with just one day’s notice), you get the idea. And while none of this may seem out of the ordinary for a big Hollywood producer to ask, it should be noted, this wasn’t a particularly big Hollywood producer.
So while I didn’t have this person’s name or clout to throw around, I did have the ability to interact with people in a way that was kind, devoid of bullshit, and that would endear them to my plight. I also had access to any of the resources on the Disney lot (including an endless supply of Disney swag. Who doesn’t love Disney swag?). Thus was born the art of 'Farbering': to acquire difficult to attain goods in a manner that makes the other person feel good about supplying those goods, and actually leaves they themselves better off than they were before. And screw my boss: it wasn’t long before I started Farbering for myself.
I achieved peak Farbering during the 11 years that I served as Writer and Co-Executive Producer for The Soup, a popular comedy series on the E! Network. Our show was beloved, and people often jumped at the chance to sit in the small audience for our show and attend a taping.
The art of 'Farbering': to acquire difficult to attain goods in a manner that makes the other person feel good about supplying those goods.
The host, Joel McHale, and myself were both avid fans of The Macallan, which I still contend to be the greatest scotch ever made. I’d go so far as to say that I’m actually not a scotch fan, just a Macallan fan. We devised a plan to mention the sacred beverage on the air as often as we could, either during punchlines, thrown in as asides, or used in the background as props. Before long, our surreptitious shilling was noticed by the Scotsmen behind the single malt, and Joel and I were being invited to special Macallan events and supplied with bottles of the elixir (though him being the celebrity, the bottles he was given were considerably more expensive than the ones I was handed, but you can’t look a Farbered horse in the mouth).
So there I was, with endless bottles of this delightful spirit at my disposal. And Jesus wept, for there were no more worlds to- wait, that’s not how that goes. Anyway, my eye was soon caught by a new mistress: the Macallan Ice Ball Maker. A gorgeous copper and aluminum alloy that could turn a block of frozen water into a perfect sphere of ice. Only a few had been made, mostly for exhibition at high-end watering holes, but dammit, I had to have one. It was just so… gorgeous. I made some calls to the people I had met at Macallan. Their response: Are you crazy? Do you know how much those sell for? Do you know how few there are in the world? To which I answered “Yes, yes and yes.”
Only a few had been made, mostly for exhibition at high-end watering holes, but dammit, I had to have one.
Finally, one of the Scots took me to task. “I can get you one, but you’ll have to do something for me. You see, my Mum fookin’ loves your show. So I want her to hear my name said on the air. You do that, and you’ve got your ice ball maker.” It was on! But wait, I couldn’t walk on camera and say this guy’s name. Nor would our host ever do it. But wait a minute… I wrote sketches! With characters! And these characters had names! So it should come as no surprise that the very next week, a character by the name of <SCOTTISH NAME REDACTED> appeared on the show.
Days later, this arrived at my office, along with a note that read, “If anyone from The Bellagio in Vegas comes looking for their Ice Ball Maker, pretend this ain’t it.”
(P.S. In the ensuing years, a cheaper, mass-market version of the Ice Ball Maker was released, making this a bit less of a novelty. Also I learned how much I prefer The Macallan without ice. Still, I treasure this heavy metallic monstrosity. And the Farbering continues…)
