Clicking With ‘Glick’

Growing up a sickly child in Akron, Ohio, Jiminy Glick dreamed about making it big in Hollywood. But it took nearly all of his 53 years for his dream to become reality.

At age 30, Glick finally mustered the confidence to leave his parents’ home and come to Hollywood. He worked as a busboy at Chasen’s for eight years and as a personal assistant to Charles Bronson for five. Glick got his big break in 1991, when, while moonlighting as a bartender’s assistant at a party at Roddy McDowall’s house, he met former “Laugh-In” producer George Schlatter, who was looking for a host of a new syndicated interview show called “Lalawood.”

Though “Lalawood” made just a blip in the Nielsen ratings, Glick is now host of the new Comedy Central interview series “Primetime Glick,” premiering Wednesday. Glick, who weighs about 300 pounds and has a voice that would make glass crack, happens to be the most ill-prepared interviewer to get his own TV show. He refers to guest Bill Maher as Bill “Mayor,” admits to guest Rob Lowe he’s not quite sure who lives in the White House and discusses at length the joys of adult diapers with Steve Martin.

The outrageous Glick is actually the creation of award-winning comic actor Martin Short, who is also executive producer of the half-hour comedy series. Short, who came to fame on “SCTV” and “Saturday Night Live,” is responsible for creating such memorable characters as man-child Ed Grimley, albino entertainer Jackie Rogers Jr. and slick attorney Nathan Thurm.

Besides playing Glick, Short appears in the show in a variety of TV and movie parodies in which he deftly portrays everyone from Tom Green to John Malkovich.

Michael McKean plays Glick’s musical director, and Jan Hooks is Glick’s wife of 23 years, Dixie. The Glicks, by the way, live in Tarzana and have four sons: Morgan, Mason, Matthew and Modine.

Short recently talked over the phone about his latest project.

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Question: Is most of “Primetime Glick” improvised or is it scripted?

Answer: None of the interviews are scripted. And the steam room [sequence at the end of each show] is scripted but we fool around with it. There are sketches and movie parodies that are scripted because they are film pieces, like “The American Pope,” with Tommy Lee Jones playing the first American pope.

Q: So the guest stars are also good at improvising?

A: Absolutely. You kind of instinctively know where you can go [with the guests]. Using this as an example: If you had Emma Thompson, you wouldn’t instinctively go to where I end up going with Steve Martin or Jerry Seinfeld. At one point, I say to Jerry Seinfeld: “Isn’t it wonderful all the energy and strength you have and yet there is a dullness and deadness to your face and eyes.” Well, I know that he is going to come back to me just as hard if not harder, but it would be terrible if someone took your seriously.

Q: Can you discuss the genesis of Glick?

A: I created him last year [for “The Martin Short Show” talk show]. I did a character who went to Farmers Market. It was a kind of “Candid Camera”-type thing where I would be working at a fish market and handling the fish and we would see people’s reactions. We did two hours of makeup and when we started taping, people would come up and say, “Can I have your autograph, Mr. Short?” I thought, “Oy.”

Then I looked back and I remembered in this film I did, “Pure Luck,” I had had a bee sting and my face blew up. I had a photograph of it, and I said let’s do that look because it didn’t look anything like me. Then I wanted to do a celebrity interviewer, and I said let’s take this guy [and make him the interviewer]. We were going over to “Dharma & Greg” to interview Jenna Elfman and Thomas Gibson. I just improvised it, and it was fun.

Q: Glick doesn’t seem to care he’s so incompetent.

A: He is as mad as a hatter, but there is a sincerity about him.

Q: How long does it take to transform yourself into Glick?

A: The makeup is about an hour. It is almost one piece that goes from cheek to cheek. That is my chin in the middle. And then to color [the makeup], that is about an hour. It’s 15 minutes to get the wig on properly and 15 minutes to get dressed because you just walk into the fat suit and you’re dressed.

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* “Primetime Glick” airs Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central. The network has rated the premiere TV-PG (maybe unsuitable for young children).