Big Think Interview with Josh Lieb | Big Think

Big Think Interview with Josh Lieb

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A conversation with the author of “I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President.”

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Josh Lieb:

Josh Lieb is the former Producer and Show Runner of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. His credits include stints as Executive Producer of NewsRadio and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He won 7 Prime Time Emmys as a producer and writer for The Daily Show. In 2009, he published a young adult novel, I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President, which was a New York Times Bestseller.

Lieb was raised in Columbia, South Carolina, and graduated from Harvard, where he was an editor of The Lampoon, the college humor magazine. After graduation, he found work writing for Twisted Puppet Theater, The Jon Stewart Show, and NewsRadio. He subsequently worked as a producer or consultant on shows including The Simpsons, Drawn Together, Sirens, Nikki, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Lieb's tenure at The Daily Show lasted from 2006 to 2010, during which he also served as Executive Producer of “The Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear” and as co-editor and co-author of Earth: The Book.

In 2013, he wrote and directed a series of comedic shorts to raise money and awareness for the charity Water.Org. Stars featured in the shorts included Matt Damon, Jessica Biel, Sir Richard Branson, and Bono.

Penguin/ Random House released Lieb's second novel, Ratscalibur, in 2015.

In October 2016, NBCUniversal announced an exclusive writing deal with Lieb.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Is the book autobiographical in any way?

Josh Lieb: I’d say, in my book, the mother character is lovable, but a complete dimwit. My mother is also lovable, but something of a genius. So, I want to put that right out there. And also makes a mean grilled cheese sandwich. My father is much more likeable, much, much, more likeable than the father in the book. It’s not autobiographical. And I don’t know, this is probably one of the most annoying things any writer gets asked. Is it autobiographical? Or, I see where that came from. And it really doesn’t come from anywhere. We’re good a making stuff up. Very few things I think that actually end up getting produced are in any way autobiographical. You might pick up a line here or there, I had an uncle I heard him at the dinner table once say, “Bettin the girls get on me for pickin my nose, but I gotta breathe.” Now, I couldn’t write that. Like that’s beautiful, that’s not only funny; it’s poetry. It’s just perfect. That could be a title of a book, that could be a chapter in a book, that’s just fantastic. But generally, when someone comes up to you and says, “I’ve got a great sketch for your show. A person who sells cemetery plots.” It’s not that interesting. And also, you’re not – generally, as a writer you’re not interested in stuff unless you think of it yourself. We’re selfish that way, and we’re narcissists that way. It’s like, if I think of it, it’s a good idea. And if someone else suggests it, I’m probably not going to like it as much.

Question: Were you ever class president?

Josh Lieb: I was never Class President. I was Secretary Treasurer which is the most useless of all useless Student Council positions. It means nothing. We didn’t have any money, there was nothing to transcribe, and it’s just that you are supposed to have a Secretary/Treasurer so you did it. And I got that position by insulting the two people who were running against me, in my speech. The next year I tried to run a serious campaign for Vice President, and that didn’t work at all.

Question: How does your 12-year-old billionaire protagonist reflect today’s society?

Josh Lieb: Today’s society—I can’t say that we’re more money obsessed now than ever, but we probably are. I mean, I haven’t been around forever, but it certainly seems like our culture is fixated on cash more than ever especially in the current economic climate people want money. People always want money, but people really want money now. I also, you know, it’s a standard child’s power fantasy of, ‘I’m powerless, I’m weak, but actually I have this superpower.’ But the superpower of this day and age seems to be a billion dollars.

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