Tracy Morgan and Terry Gross

Posted by Maximum Fun on 20th November 2009

This is old news now, but I hadn’t had time to give it a proper listen yet.

A) I feel that Tracy’s emotion is very real in this. Some people have suggested it’s a put-on of some kind. Tracy is obviously kind of a ridiculous guy, but he’s a sincerely ridiculous guy. And I think Tracy talking about appreciation of someone caring about his story for real is true.

B) Terry Gross’ greatest strength as an interviewer, among many strengths, is her humility. She doesn’t make any assumptions, she just asks sincere questions. Which was exactly the right thing to do in a situation where Tracy is a little uncomfortable and not afraid to poke her a little. And that’s why he responded so honestly.

C) There is a moment where Morgan starts to break down. There’s an eternity of silence (in radio terms – long enough that it may have been longer in real life, because they couldn’t have left it any longer on the air or people would think their radios were broken). Then Terry starts to ask a question, then asks if Morgan is OK. I’ve heard criticism of Gross’ approach here. I think it’s worth remembering that they (I presume) weren’t in the same room, and it was a very tough situation for Gross to read and navigate. I think she did a great job.

D) Morgan’s analysis of his work in SNL is very trenchant. Tracy Morgan has *always* been as funny as he is on 30 Rock. Always. He was also very tonally different from the tone of SNL when he joined (like many of the show’s black castmembers have been), and he isn’t a writer. He talks insightfully about how Lorne Michaels changed the course of his career – taught him that he had to stretch. He gives great credit to Tina Fey for finding a way to put what’s funny about Tracy on the air. He admits that he had to learn to collaborate with people who were very, very different from him to share that. Those are great insights, in my opinion.

E) As someone on Twitter shared with me, anybody dissing Terry gets The Gas Face from me.