George Wallace: Johnny Carson, Jerry Seinfeld and ‘Clean Slate’
The Last Laugh
The Daily Beast
4.6 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Comedian George Wallace has finally become the lead of his own sitcom at 72. And all it took was convincing Norman Lear to reimagine ‘Sanford and Son’ with Laverne Cox as his character’s trans daughter in the TV legend’s final project. In this episode, Wallace talks about everything that went into making his new series ‘Clean Slate’ happen—and what he hopes it teaches the most ignorant members of MAGA nation. The stand-up comedian also looks back at his more than 50 year career in show business, from the racist undertones of his early appearances on Johnny Carson’s ‘Tonight Show’ to his lifelong friendship with Jerry Seinfeld, who he says he still competes with for laughs to this day. The prolific tweeter also takes time to sound off on Elon Musk, who he believes should “go to jail just for creating that Cybertruck.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Last Laugh. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and this week on the show, we have a true stand-up comedy legend, George Wallace. |
| 0:15.4 | George has been performing comedy for nearly 50 years at this point. |
| 0:19.4 | But unlike his very famous best friend Jerry Seinfeld, |
| 0:22.9 | it took him until he was well into his 70s to land a leading sitcom role in the new Amazon Prime |
| 0:29.3 | series, Clean Slate. On that show, which he originally pitched to Norman Lear as a reboot of |
| 0:35.2 | Samford and Son, with one very big twist, |
| 0:38.7 | George plays the small-town Alabama father of an estranged child who returns home after |
| 0:44.1 | 23 years away to reveal herself as a trans woman, played by Leverne Cox. |
| 0:50.4 | It's a very progressive premise in an oddly traditional feeling sitcom format that showcases George's unique comedic talents in a way that he has struggled to make work on anything but the stand-up stage over the course of his career. |
| 1:03.8 | And he is clearly thrilled about this late in life success. |
| 1:08.1 | This was an incredibly fun and funny conversation with tons of comedy history |
| 1:12.5 | that I think you are really going to enjoy. But before we get into it, let's listen to a clip |
| 1:17.8 | from Clean Slate of Leverne Cox's Desiree returning home to meet her dad, played by today's guest, |
| 1:24.7 | George Wallace. |
| 1:29.3 | Wow, this place looks exactly the same. |
| 1:33.3 | Well, you know what they say? |
| 1:35.3 | If it ain't broke, don't fix it. |
| 1:39.3 | Ooh, that's broke. |
| 1:41.3 | I gotta fix it. |
| 1:43.3 | Oh, you all right? Ooh, that's broke. I gotta fix it. |
| 1:48.0 | You all right? Ain't nobody sitting that chair for 23 years. |
... |
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