Over a year ago (wow has time flown by) CH wrote a 3 piece article on what a sham the reality show "Last Comic Standing" was. You can check out the 3 articles on the utterly stagnant
page. I plan on dropping the columns page when the site is redesigned (which will be soon)
There was a 4th part of the series that never saw daylight, because the person involved never got back to me to ok it. Well, I'm going to post it here now, lucky you!
"If Peter Engel was on fire, I wouldn't piss on him," states Walter Gause. Just who is Walter Gause and why is he making such a bold statement?
While collecting information on the Last Comic Standing shadyness, I kept hearing about a gentleman named Walter who created the show and has it stolen from him. After several months of digging, CH has finally tracked him down.
Let's travel back about a year in time. The initial season of Last Comic Standing (LCS) has just completed and was a smashing success. LCS brought in huge ratings, NBC is pleased, and a second season is announced.
Walter Gause is the head writer, solely responsible for the show's name, challenges and other on air concepts. After the in house segments of season 1 were done, executive producer Peter Engel brought in another writer, KP Anderson to handle the final 2 live episodes. Shortly after, Engel decided to can Walter because he quote "Didn't deliver."
How can that be? "I find it hard to believe that a person who created all of the ideas and named the show that gets picked up for a 2nd season and nominated for best reality show somehow doesn't deliver."
To this day, Engel's decision hasn't been justified. Is it because Walter is African American? "For Peter Engle to say I didn't deliver...it just makes me think that maybe my race had something to do with it."
Gause continues, "Racism is the hardest thing to prove. I made it this far in life never thinking about racism because 1) it's there, 2) it's never going away, & 3) I'm not going to ever let it stop me from getting what I want...but in this case, more people than just me have been screwed over by Peter Engel."
If Gause was a white, Christian male, would he have been canned?
Let's explain the origin of Last Comic Standing now. Gause was gracious enough to give Cringe Humor the full story:
"This girl created the show. She worked with Jay (Mohr). Jay says 'I'm not a writer, but my friend is. we'll bring him in' So they bring me in...I create this concept. I actually named the show...Barry Katz will attest to that. I still have on my computer where Jay wrote me a letter saying 'Hey Mr. writer, we're trying to come up with names,' and I gave them like 50 different names - and Last Comic Standing was in it."
What about the LCS pilot known as "Comic House"?
"I created the format. We met with Peter Engel, we met with NBC, then nothing came of it. Then one day, Jay & I were going on tour, and Jay says 'Hey meet me down in North Hollywood... we're shooting a pilot.'" Gause seemed shocked to hear the news. Mohr told Gause that if the pilot gets picked up, he's in as head writer. NBC had to hire Gause because the LCS concept was registered under him. "We put this deal together, (NBC) is like 'We're gonna do 8 shows, that's it'...we signed the deal to do the 8 shows."
Gause then explains how his role quickly changed after he was hired. "Then all of a sudden it's Peter (Engel), Barry Katz, Bob Read & Ross Mark, and all these people that go into this other room, and then they start having these meetings. I'm in my office, and then somebody comes knocking on my door saying 'Hey Walt, we need 10 more ideas.' I give them the 10 more ideas, they go in there and they start having meetings about it - without me."
Good old NBC would take Gause's ideas & run with them. "When NBC would approve of a concept, they would come back to my office and ask me 'Now how exactly do you do this Walt?' Then I would have to write out what it was, how it worked, and then it became great."
"I gave them probably 60 ideas that they approved of. Out of those 60, they did the 8 (for season 1), and then the 8 for this year. They own them now." Gause came up with several seasons worth of ideas & concepts for the show.
Enter KP Anderson. The last 2 episodes of season 1 were both live shows. At the time, Gause wasn't writing live shows, so NBC decided to bring in Anderson to handle those duties. Gause & Anderson are both friends, and KP took it upon himself to call Gause before accepring the job to see if it was cool. Gause gave him the green light because he knows Anderson has a family to feed. Little did Gause know he would end up losing his job to him. "They bring this guy in to write these 2 shows, and then they said 'Well, now we don't need Walt. We already have his ideas, so we'll just leave KP in here to write the live shows next year, and we'll keep Walter's ideas.'"
Before Gause was head writer of LCS, he spent the previous 10 years writing jokes for LCS host Jay Mohr. Walter wrote everything from Jay's stand up act, to his ESPN show, Mohr Sports. When Walter was let go from LCS, Jay had no choice but to listen to the network and stuck with KP Anderson as his new go to guy. "KP's a funny guy, but I've been writing jokes for Jay for 10 years. When you see Jay last year, and then you see him this year, he's a little off tilt, because someone else is writing jokes for him that really doesn't know his humor."
Mohr is very protective of Anderson, even crediting him in a recent interview with Reality News Online for creating all of the ideas that Gause has come up with. Since then the Mike DeGeorge piece has been pulled from the site. I have contacted RNO, and as of press time have yet to receive an explanation as to why it was yanked.
Now, Last Comic Standing is nominated for a "Best Reality Show" Emmy award this year. Gause plans to attend the awards alongside Peter Engel and everyone else at the network. NBC backed Gause 100% and he also received clearance from the Emmy Committee to be there because he was the lone writer.
Can we expect drama to unfold live at the Emmys if LCS should win?
"I don't think we'll win personally, because we're up against The Apprentice & American Idol...but if we happen to win, I'm walking that stage just as proud as any of the rest of them. And if they say 'Uhhh what are you doing here?' (I'll reply with) I wrote the god damn show alone." Gause jokes that he will mimmick Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. "The reason the Emmys don't allow me up here was there's no niggers allowed!"
Gause wants to make himself clear. "Jay is my friend, Barry Katz is Barry Katz - he hasn't done anything to me 'cause I won't let him. The reason that I'm talking to (Cringe Humor) is because Peter Engel shoved it in my ass. That's the bottom line. I'm not mad at NBC, they didn't do anything...It was just Peter Engel, he really did a number on me. Personally, I think he's racist, but that's something that's very hard to prove. That's a word I don't really like to throw around, but I know other black people he has done this to. It just seems like a pattern."
Well Peter Engel, Gause who's coming to dinner.
-Patrick Milligan
Note: Walter also asked me to give a cyber shoutout to Neil Brennan, co writer of Chappelle's Show. "I want to congratulate Neil, cause I knew he would make it. Me & Neil, from the balconies in North Hollywood, talking about this & that, I just wanna congratulate him because he was my man. He's still the man, but I just haven't seen him in about 6 or 7 years...our paths have been different."
On behalf of Cringe Humor, I would like to once again thank Walter for taking the time to explain his story to us. It's a huge honor.
