Winding up his seventh season of “Real Time With Bill Maher” on HBO, the straight-talking comedian (or is he a stand-up pundit?) started the season soft, but found his footing round about the time his ardor for President Obama finally started to dim. This season his guests have included Jay-Z, Michael Moore, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Thomas Friedman and Sarah Silverman.
Sharon Waxman got to grill the politically incorrect oracle on David Letterman, Roman Polanski, why Bill Clinton won't do the show and if Maher has ever hosted while high.
So what happened to the show this season -- you had panels with two people, and then switched back to three. Was this a failed experiment?
No, we just don’t have that rigid a format. Some weeks it’s three guests, sometimes it’s two. We did change. We used to have the two single interviews, almost always by satellite. We like it better when it’s live.
No, we just don’t have that rigid a format. Some weeks it’s three guests, sometimes it’s two. We did change. We used to have the two single interviews, almost always by satellite. We like it better when it’s live.
Well, what’s up with interviewing Ron Howard?
That was a whole different type of show. In the first six seasons we had to take a giant break in the middle of the year budgetwise, we could only do so many shows. So we’d go from mid-February to mid-May, and be off till September. Every year we thought, "It’s such a drag when you take a big break like that, some of the audience goes away. You have to get them back again, do all the talk shows.’”
That was a whole different type of show. In the first six seasons we had to take a giant break in the middle of the year budgetwise, we could only do so many shows. So we’d go from mid-February to mid-May, and be off till September. Every year we thought, "It’s such a drag when you take a big break like that, some of the audience goes away. You have to get them back again, do all the talk shows.’”
Mmm. You must hate doing talk shows.
It is a drag to always have to be priming the pump twice a year.
It is a drag to always have to be priming the pump twice a year.
Do you think the show is more challenging because of the left-wing Obama lovefest? You’ve been pretty slow to criticize him.
Not over here I don’t. We were the very first place to get on his case. Three or four months ago I was being booed by my own audience for doing it. Quickly everyone else was doing it, and I wasn’t getting booed by my own audience.
Someone has to go first. Obama has been a big disappointment to progressives. We all thought it was going to be a new day.
You’re not really that hard on him.
I have been as hard on him as anybody – of the people who voted for him. Of rational people who are not insane.
I have been as hard on him as anybody – of the people who voted for him. Of rational people who are not insane.
I thought the first 100 days would be a time of enormous change, radical change. And it looks just like business as usual. Corporately controlled type government that we’ve had forever. It’s still early, but it doesn’t look good.
The fact that health care lobbyists wrote the bill -- isn’t that what we were rebelling against? Corporate lobbyists writing legislation?
If he passes health care, will you change your mind?
It depends. If he passes something that says health care on the cover but underneath it’s a mess, I don’t think that’s very good.
It depends. If he passes something that says health care on the cover but underneath it’s a mess, I don’t think that’s very good.
