Katz Joins Comedy With Therapy

Please Don’t Disturb! Session in progress with Jonathan Katz, standup comic and Emmy-winning creator of the very funny “Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist:”

Mr. Katz, you lend your name, voice, looks and sensibility to Dr. Katz, the animated-cartoon hero of your show (which airs on Comedy Central each Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern time, with additional playdates during the week and a marathon this Sunday from 2-7 p.m.). Do you have a special affinity for psychiatrists?

Katz: “I am surrounded by them. In the town of Newton, Mass., where I live, there are more psychotherapists per square block than anywhere else in the country. That is a fact. And all but three of these guys are licensed.”

But why Newton?

Katz: “It’s the Home of Gravity. Also the home of my in-laws. My wife grew up there. We were living in New York about 10 years ago and we had a 2-year-old at the time. We wanted to go someplace where she couldn’t find us.”

Have you ever seen a psychiatrist?

Katz: “I’ve been in and out of therapy a few times in my life, but I think the real reason I cast myself in the role of a therapist in the show is because of my emotional range as an actor.

“I’m never cast as a biker, for instance. But from time to time, people have me come in and read for shrinks for movies and TV shows. It has to do with my approach to language and the rhythm of my speech.”

Suffice it to say that with your dry-witted and laconic presence, you are never up for the same roles as, say, Sean Penn.

Katz: “Exactly. Or Sean Young.”

So how did the show come about?

Katz: “Now in its second season, it began as an experiment between me and my collaborator Tom Snyder, who is not the talk-show host. We decided to present comedy in a new way: in animated form, in the setting of a therapist’s office.

“That allows other standup comics to tell us their act as if they were talking to a psychiatrist during a session.”

(“Garry,” Dr. Katz says to “client” Garry Shandling on this week’s edition, “is it important that you and your partner finish together?” To which Shandling replies: “I think it’s more important to start together than end together.”)

It’s interesting how this becomes a showcase for you and other standup comics to interact, all within the context of a story.

Katz: “Yes, but we had one very liberating realization, which was that what goes on between me and my guest ‘patients’ doesn’t have anything to do with what that particular episode is about. That made it a much easier show to produce.”

When he gets away from his office and smart-mouthed receptionist, Dr. Katz also has a personal life. He gets a quick one after work at a neighborhood bar. He’s divorced, with his 23-year-old, unemployed son living with him. That’s where each episode’s story arises.

Katz: “….. Yeah.”

The animation, which amounts to mostly static scenes that sort of throb before your eyes, is done on a computer, right?

Katz: “Yes, we call it ‘Squigglevision.’ All the animation is done on PCs in Massachusetts. Unlike traditional animated shows, all the dialogue we ship out to Korea.”

Do you have any sense of how good a therapist Dr. Katz is?

Katz: “He’s mediocre. The best thing he does is shut up when he should. If he really helps anybody, he’s sort of gotten lucky.”

Will Dr. Katz’s clients ever come from outside the world of standup comics?

Katz: “I’d like to experiment with other funny people. I’d love to have someone like Carrie Fisher on the show. Or one of the Roche sisters (a singing trio). Any of the Roche sisters would drive my wife nuts. She has decided to be jealous of them.”

What, she thinks you might run off with one of them?

Katz: “Yes.”

Would you? Katz:

“No. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.”