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Bankrate: Your stand-up material is actually pretty adult-oriented. Do you ever get complaining parents after a show?
Howie Mandel: No. There are usually signs posted, and if we
see kids in the crowd we'll send somebody out
and say, "Listen, there's language. I don't think
this is appropriate for children." If they make
the choice to stay, they're not gonna complain,
but it's not comfortable for me if there's young
people in the audience.
Bankrate: Your career has taken some sharp twists and turns. To what extent were these planned?
Howie Mandel: I owned carpet stores in Toronto, and then I got into stand-up. If you had said, "Are you gonna be a dramatic actor?" I would have said no. That came by accident. I was pursuing a sitcom, because I thought that's what you should do, and I got on "St. Elsewhere," and I was happy to do that and stand-up.
Then people saw that I did voices, so I started doing voice-over. I was Gizmo in "Gremlins." Then, when Fox was putting together a Saturday morning block, they approached me to do my "Bobby" character, and that show was on for nine years.
Then my friend Michael Gelman,
who produces "Live with Regis and Kelly," had
me fill in a lot for Regis, which I still do,
and then I got offered my own daytime talk show,
which I wasn't looking to do. And then, if you
would have asked me two and a half years ago if I'd be a game
show host ... well, I was asked, and I said no.
So every day, my wife and I look at each other and go, this is 180 degrees from where I believed I would be. I never dreamed of being in show business, or of doing anything I'm doing, including stand-up.
Bankrate: Besides the show, what else do you have coming up?
Howie Mandel:
I'm trying to relaunch "Bobby's World," so I'm
in the midst of that, and I've got a production
company at NBC/Uni (NBC Universal), so I'm looking
to do more projects that I'm just going to produce,
shows I'm not necessarily in but want to be part
of, in genres from drama to reality. So I'm busy.
Bankrate: At this point, is there anything you'd still like to do in this business that you haven't done yet?
Howie Mandel:
No. People always say, "What do you want
to do five years from now?" I hope I continue
to be busy, and I hope that I have the foresight,
or am around people who have the foresight, to
allow me to take these dangerous steps into blind
opportunities, careerwise.
Because my first instinct with
this game show was to say no, and I don't know
what the next offer is gonna be. It's scary to
say yes, because in this business, if you succeed,
it's great, it's like a big celebration. But if
you fail, it's incredibly public. And it's scary
to say yes to things because everything is a collaboration,
and you don't have control over anything, particularly
how it's perceived.
I think the show I'm on right now
is one of the best-produced shows. If you really
look at it, there's a lot of work in picking the
right contestants, and the look of the show. I
feel like this is my lucky day. So I hope I keep
taking all these opportunities and don't get scared.
And the more success you have, the scarier it
is, because I'm gonna wanna match this kind of
success with the next thing, and that's gonna
be hard to do. Nothing lasts forever.
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