Originally from Houston, Texas, T. Sean Shannon performed as a stand-up comedian, early in his career. From there, he was hired to write for such shows as In Living Color (1990), The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), House of Buggin’ (1995), Vibe (1997) and The Colin Quinn Show (2002).

Shannon particularly made a name for himself by writing for one of television’s most popular shows: Saturday Night Live (1996-2006). At SNL, Shannon was honored with three Emmy nominations, winning the award in 2002. He was also honored by the Writers Guild of America, in 2001 and 2007.

During his time with SNL, Shannon created his signature properties, in short film form: The Adventures of Harold (2004) and Bear City (2004 -). The earlier of the two projects was later brought to the big screen via Harold (2008). As for Bear City, Shannon plans to revisit the location this fall, to film a movie about the cultured creatures.

Shannon and I recently discussed the history of his latest directorial venture, Harold. The writer/director also provided details on the Bear City film as well as his upcoming vampire movie, Blood.

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Josh Armstrong: What was life like for you when you were doing stand-up?

T. Sean Shannon: I went all through the small cities and big cities, in the south. It was fun!

I was never a big ‘road monkey.’ I went out for three weeks once. It was just so emotionally crippling. I only went out for two weeks after that. It was fun, though. I just didn’t like being away from home for three weeks. That was too much.

JA: When you were doing stand-up, were people generally warm to your comedy?

TSS: Yeah, they dug my comedy! I’m funny! S**t, what’s not to like? [laughs]

It was fun, because I used to p**s the audience off. I wouldn’t do it on purpose. I would just be doing something, and I would lose them. Then I worked real hard to win them back. When I would do that, I would go, ‘Ha, ha! You don’t even like me, and you laughed again!’ That would p**s them off even more!

I look at it as art. I thought each performance should be the most special I could make it, even if it was weird.

JA: How did you become a writer for such shows as The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live?

TSS: When I started out, I met a lot of comedians, on the road doing stand-up. Through that, I had a network of friends. I met this guy Paul Provenza, at Catch a Rising Star in New York. I was just getting started, and he was an established comedian. He watched my set and dug it, and we ended up talking.

Then, about a year later, he got a TV show. He was looking for writers. He remembered me, and I got a show on Comedy Central. It was called Comics Only. This was in ‘91. From that one job, all of my other jobs kind of sprang up after that.

I worked with a really good crew of people who were union writers. They got a waiver from this show. They would get offered other gigs that were non-union and couldn’t do them, and they would recommend me. Just from building on that, I went to write for an MTV show. I wrote for another Comedy Central show and a show on TBS. I just started writing for all these different cable shows.

I landed on a Fox slot, for a show called Comic Strip Live. In Living Color was there at Fox. I submitted to In Living Color one year, and I think I got passed on. The next year, I submitted again. Then they accepted me. I started writing on In Living Color.

From there, I wrote for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. They started this new talk show. I went over and did that. Then I went to Saturday Night Live. It all built from this one show [Comics Only], which was very strange.

JA: One of the things I admire most about writers for shows such as those is that you guys have to write a lot of good material in a very short amount of time.

TSS: Especially Leno. We call it ‘the machine.’ You’ve got to shuffle coal into the machine. It never ends!

I was lucky, in that I did bits and not monologues so much. All of my stuff didn’t have to be topical. That makes it easier to write every day. That’s why the monologue guys have such a tough job.

JA: When did you begin working on Harold?

TSS: I wrote it in 2001, with a guy whom I worked with on In Living Color, named Greg Fields. He was my boss. He wrote Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield.

We wrote Harold over the summer, when I was on break from SNL. You get the summer off. It’s like school. It’s wonderful!

We put the script out right near September 11, 2001. That just killed everything. We were so happy with the script. Then that hit, and the project disappeared for like a year. But it slowly made its way back.

People were really digging the Harold script. But no one really wanted to make the movie. Then Cuba Gooding Jr. got on board. With his name, he helped raise the money.

JA: Wasn’t Harold adapted from a short you did for SNL?

TSS: Well, that’s the part of the story I forgot to tell you. That’s the good part!

[SNL executive producer] Lorne Michaels really liked the script. I wanted to make a thing called Bear City. He said, ‘Why don’t you make a short of Harold?’

So I wrote three completely new Harold shorts. But we only got to shoot one of them, because the wig we were using for the kid - he wouldn’t shave his head - looked horrible. And it was a budget thing.

We were supposed to shoot three shorts over two days. Because the wig was so bad, we barely got through the first day. It was hot! The school didn’t have air conditioning. The kid’s wig would bubble from the heat.

There was just no way we could do it. It would have cost a ton more money. There wasn’t any guarantee we were going to get any more than we had gotten already. We only got to shoot one short. But at least we did get to shoot one, which aired on the SNL season finale of 2004.

Lorne was super-cool about that. He goes, ‘Why don’t you shoot Harold as a short, and this will get some attention for it.’ And it actually did! Because of an agent, I signed with a guy who saw the film. He saw the short and goes, ‘We have to do this!’ Then Cuba got on board the project.

Then, the next year, I got to make Bear City, which was fun as well.

JA: I’m glad you brought up Bear City. Where did you get the idea for that?

TSS: Do you remember [Al] Franken and [Tom] Davis? They were among the original writers on SNL. Tom Davis loves bears, and I love bears. We were talking about bears. He was like, ‘Wouldn’t you like to see an army of bears running down a hill, like in Braveheart?’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s the coolest thing ever! This is going to be pretty cool!’

I just started writing the Bear City shorts, and I filmed them one summer. Luckily, SNL bought them. I put up my own money to film them first. I shot five shorts in one summer and showed them to Lorne when I got back. He really dug them. He started putting them on the air, which was very cool. I guess Bear City is what I’m most famous for.

I’m doing a Bear City movie. I’ve written one. Hopefully, I’m going to shoot it this fall in Chicago. In the movie, the bears kidnap Fred Willard and make him do voice-over. That’s pretty exciting! I’m really jazzed about it!

JA: You’re going to try to get the Bear City movie in theaters, right?

TSS: Definitely! We’re going for a theatrical release.

JA: There have also been rumors of a Bear City DVD containing all of the shorts.

TSS: They’re all on a website. But SNL would have to do the DVD, to make it happen. But if you go to BearBearCity.com, all 15 are on there. I shot 15. SNL aired eight of them.

JA: Is there anything else you can say regarding the Bear City movie?

TSS: It won’t have a lot of talking. I just saw WALL-E. Have you seen WALL-E yet?

JA: Yes! I loved it!

TSS: It was amazing! My man Fred Willard is the only human in it, and he’s going to be the only human in my film. The thing I love about WALL-E is, in the first half hour, it’s a silent film. That’s kind of what I’m going to be doing a lot of, in the Bear City movie, with just the bears growling. You’ll know what they’re saying, but it’s not a language. WALL-E made me feel really good about knowing, ‘Yeah, this could work!’

I really like Bear City, because it’s very kid-like but it’s also surreal satire, I guess. I have fun! I just love it! I am obsessed with bears!

I got the idea for the Bear City movie when I was on a plane. I used to fly back from L.A. to New York, when I worked at SNL, in the off weeks. I was always on the plane. I never would rent the headphones or watch the movies. But I would watch the movies without headphones! You can follow everything that’s going on in a movie, without listening to one word. ‘Oh, they’re breaking up now!’ ‘Oh, this is their first meeting!’ When I saw that, I was like, ‘Dude, I’ve got to do a Bear City movie!’

I love the idea of trying to do a silent film, or trying to do something not completely silent, but completely different and really concentrate on the visual of it all. That’s my whole Bear City thing. I love Bear City.

JA: There won’t be subtitles for the bears in the movie, will there?

TSS: They play Rabbit Town in a basketball championship. When the rabbits talk, there are subtitles. When they go to a French restaurant, the French bear comes over, and there are subtitles for the French bear. So yeah, there are some clever ways I did it.

JA: Will Bear City be your second movie after Harold, or are you planning a film in-between the two?

TSS: Well, I’ve written a vampire prison movie called Blood that is more of a horror film. It’s funny, like An American Werewolf in London and Pulp Fiction were funny. It’s more serious, but there are funny parts in it.

It’s about night guards at a prison, who are vampires. They are closing the prison down, so on the last night, they decide to slaughter everyone.

I’m waiting to hear about that. My next film is either the vampire project or Bear City.

JA: Is the vampire project also an independent movie you are trying to do, or is it with a major studio?

TSS: It’s another independent. We’re trying to get studios, but we haven’t had any luck yet.

The thing is, if we don’t go with a studio, I could probably get all the people I want to be in the film. I don’t have to hear, ‘That’s not a big name!’

JA: Speaking of your other projects, what can you tell us about your show Night Writer?

TSS: I shot a pilot for Comedy Central last fall. It didn’t get picked up. But it was really funny!

JA: Why did you choose Harold to be your first full-length feature?

TSS: Well, that’s the one I finally decided to make. I would have let anything be my first feature-length film.

You know what the nicest thing about Harold was? I wrote it in 2001. Back then, we were going, ‘Okay, we are doing it!’ When I went back and re-read the script, I still loved it, which is uncommon for a writer. You [usually] go back to it a year later, and you’re like, ‘Aw, it’s okay. It’s not offensive. But I’m not in love with it again.’ But I really dug this script! It never got out of my system. It was fun that I was away from the script for so long too. Then I had new eyes.

JA: Earlier, you mentioned that you collaborated with Greg Fields on Harold.

TSS: Yeah, Greg Fields. He’s my buddy. A brilliant writer. He wrote on In Living Color and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He has since passed away, unfortunately. But his kids got to be in the movie, which I thought was super-cool. And the movie is dedicated to him, which I think is groovy.

JA: Were there any storylines for Harold that you ultimately decided to drop or change?

TSS: There was one scene where Cromer the janitor helps out. Since the kid [Harold] is bald, he decides to use the kid to go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, so he can meet a stripper he really likes. That scene got cut.

We shot for 22 days. We had to lose scenes just because of our shooting schedule and our low-budget.

Also, at the end of the movie, Harold’s dad was supposed to show up. His dad was going to be Burt Reynolds. Burt was going to have a big toupee, going, ‘I don’t know what happened! How did you go bald, son? I’ve still got my hair! Look at my hair, son! It’s still thick! I’m in my early 40’s!’ But he wouldn’t do it, that m*****f*****. [laughs]

JA: So you did offer the role to him?

TSS: Yeah, I offered it to him. I tried. We had no money on this shoot. Everyone worked for scale.

I went, ‘Dude, I will write a movie for you! Whatever you want, I will write it. You can tell me what it’s about, or I will make one up on my own.’ He said, ‘Eh, I don’t want to play Burt Reynolds in a movie,’ which I understand.

JA: Was it difficult finding a studio to distribute Harold?

TSS: Yes, it was. It’s really difficult. It’s such a weird business. especially now with the independents. The big studios have most of the table room. Then, little studios have elbowed in, and they don’t want to let anybody else in. They don’t want another independent studio eating at the trough!

It’s a really tight business. Hard to break-through in. But hopefully, we will! I was happy to get a release for Harold. A theatrical release is a big deal, so I’m very happy!

JA: Is there a wider release planned for Harold?

TSS: If the initial release goes well, I think it spreads out to 20 other cities. I don’t know the whole plan. No one tells me anything. I’m just the director!

JA: What do you have in store for Harold’s DVD release?

TSS: I think we have some bonus features planned. I wanted to do a director’s commentary, but I couldn’t. It’s so low-budget, no one had the money to do any big extras. But I think there are going to be bloopers. I don’t know, to be honest with you. I wish I could go back through it and really edit it and do some stuff, because that would be fun.

The next DVD release - when they release the Criterion version - I’ll go back and find all that stuff. [laughs]

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Harold is now playing in limited release, in New York, New York; Los Angeles, California; and Miami, Florida.

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