Writer, producer, songwriter, and longtime television executive Vinnie Favale joins Plot Twist Radio for a conversation spanning decades of comedy, late-night television, unexpected career turns, love, loss, and reinvention.
Vinnie takes Erin behind the scenes of his remarkable television career, from his early days at MTV and Comedy Central to CBS and his years working with David Letterman. He shares the unlikely story of how a colleague secretly entered him into a David Letterman talent audition, only for Vinnie to find himself back in Letterman’s office fourteen years later interviewing for a network executive position.
He also reveals what working with David Letterman and Howard Stern taught him about the craft behind great comedy, recalls the early days of Comedy Central, and offers his perspective on the changing landscape of late-night television and the end of Stephen Colbert’s CBS era.
But some of Vinnie’s biggest plot twists happened far from television. He shares the almost cinematic story of meeting his wife through a mistaken phone call, falling in love across the country before ever meeting in person, and proposing after spending only days together face-to-face. He also reflects candidly on grief, mortality, and how losing people he loved ultimately changed the way he approaches life.
Now Vinnie is entering another creative chapter, researching an ambitious history of Christmas music while exploring how AI can help independent writers, musicians, and producers bring ideas to life.
It’s a conversation about what happens behind the curtain of television, but even more about the unexpected moments that rewrite the story entirely.
Find out more at vinniefavale.com
[00:00:00] Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity, storytelling and the unpredictable path of the creative life all collide. I'm your host Erin Egnatz. Vinnie, welcome to Plot Twist Radio. Vinnie Favale It's great to be here. I can't wait to hear what plot twists are in store for us today. Vinnie Favale Me either. I'm super excited to have you. So before we get going, can you introduce yourself to the audience?
[00:00:24] Vinnie Favale Sure. My name is Vinnie Favale. I am a writer, producer, songwriter, all of the above. Vinnie Favale A Jack of all trades. I love it. Vinnie Favale So as I was going through your history, you know, I noticed that your plot twists, you know, life just threw on that yet seems like. Vinnie Favale Yeah. Vinnie Favale From an early age starting with loss and I can relate. I went through a similar experience and it really, thank you, it really, it shapes you. How did it shape you?
[00:00:52] Vinnie Favale Well, you know, it's not evident at the time. I only realized, you know, all the changes one day actually when I was, Vinnie Favale I was mentoring a college student. You know, I would meet with people when I was working at CBS as a courtesy. Vinnie Favale Sometimes they were friends of the family, sometimes from my college where I went, Brooklyn College. Vinnie Favale And I remember telling them my story, you know, just basically the career highlights, you know. Vinnie Favale And it's weird when you reverse engineer it. Like, I don't know how it happened, you know.
[00:01:21] Vinnie Favale So, you think about the shaping to your question, I think, later on. When it's happening, you don't even say, oh boy, this is going to be different now. Vinnie Favale You get older, you go, oh, it's going to be a different world. But no, you know, I didn't know. Vinnie Favale I didn't know what the changes were, but there were definitely changes. Vinnie Favale I know now. I have a pretty good idea looking back. Vinnie Favale Yeah, that's how I felt too. You know, when I was in the moment, you don't really think about it. Vinnie Favale But looking back, you know, 20 years past and you're like, wow, okay. Vinnie Favale Yeah, how did we get through that?
[00:01:50] Vinnie Favale Exactly, exactly. It makes you stronger. It really does. Vinnie Favale It really does. Vinnie Favale And there are moments, I call them, you know, I wrote a musical based on the losses in my life called Hereafter, which is, it's a beautiful word. Vinnie Favale Hereafter is like an underused word to talk about heaven or the afterlife. Vinnie Favale But that's not really what it means. Vinnie Favale This was a profound discovery. I was looking at a contract one time, and it was like,
[00:02:15] Vinnie Favale Referring to a company with a long name, and then it said, Hereafter referred to as initials. Vinnie Favale And I'm like, oh, Hereafter, from this moment on. Vinnie Favale And when you think about it, it's like the death of a loved one is your ultimate, holy crap, from this moment on, everything is different. Vinnie Favale So I thought that was another interesting revelation, and it wasn't even my intention when I named the show that, but it's interesting to think about.
[00:02:42] Vinnie Favale It really is. It really is. And that's an excellent name. Vinnie Favale So after all of that, you moved on into act two, as I like to call it, the David Letterman, which I have to say, I'm from Indiana. Vinnie Favale Oh, wow. Vinnie Favale We have very few people that are interesting from Indiana, so I have to touch on David Letterman. Vinnie Favale So you weren't even trying to get on the show. Vinnie Favale No, no. Vinnie Favale No, this was 1982. This is before I worked for him, right, when I did stand-up.
[00:03:10] Vinnie Favale So yeah, in 1982, I was working at the famed Rockefeller Center, 30 Rock. Vinnie Favale Great, great history, great building for a guy from Brooklyn who loved television. Vinnie Favale Now I'm working there, and down on one floor was Saturday Night Live. Vinnie Favale Another floor was the local news. Vinnie Favale On the second floor was a radio station, Howard Stern, Don Imus, the early days of WNBC. Vinnie Favale And David Letterman had just started working there, hosting his talk show.
[00:03:36] Vinnie Favale And he had done a morning show that had been canceled for NBC, which is interesting. Vinnie Favale Because his sensibility was not a morning show, but they didn't know, they know they liked him a lot, and they wanted to work with him. Vinnie Favale And I think it was like a placeholder until they gave him late night. Vinnie Favale So when he got late night, it was a big, big deal. Vinnie Favale The building was abuzz, and he was having a talent show, but knowing the way the Letterman show works, it was making fun of talent. Vinnie Favale It was like stupid human tricks.
[00:04:06] Vinnie Favale It was like, hey, NBC staff, we're going to put on a show and we want you to audition. Vinnie Favale I didn't audition. Vinnie Favale I never had any intention, but a colleague slipped my name in, and I got a call one day from the show saying, Vinnie Favale Hey, we hear you want to audition. Vinnie Favale I go, no, I don't, but if you're calling, I'm up. Vinnie Favale And it was just a silly novelty act that I had. Vinnie Favale I auditioned on an open casting call for the writers. Vinnie Favale They liked it enough. Vinnie Favale They thought it was stupid enough to bring to Dave's, and then I auditioned for Dave in his office.
[00:04:34] Vinnie Favale And you can imagine my shock like 14 years later when I'm in his office again interviewing for the job as the network executive on his show. Vinnie Favale I was like, I hope he doesn't remember I did a lame standup routine with a novelty, a novelty act with the sock puppet on his show. Vinnie Favale And he did remember, but I still got the job. Vinnie Favale That's awesome. Vinnie Favale I love that. Vinnie Favale What was he like back in those days before he really took off? Vinnie Favale I mean, was he like the same kind of guy he is now? Vinnie Favale I think so.
[00:05:03] Vinnie Favale Yeah, I think a dedication to the craft. Vinnie Favale As silly as it, my two takeaways from working with David Letterman and Howard Stern, as silly as some of that content seemed to be, you know, the stuff that Howard would do on the radio that was, you know, not safe for work, you know, that kind of stuff. Vinnie Favale And the silly things that Dave would do, like throwing things off the roof of a building or Stupor Petricks, a lot of care, passion and thought went into that. Vinnie Favale They really, really cared about it, about getting it right.
[00:05:33] Vinnie Favale You know, there's an art to all kinds of comedy. Vinnie Favale And that was my takeaway, you know, take it serious. Vinnie Favale Whatever you're doing, you know, hopefully you can be proud of it at the end, even if it, even if, if the ultimate goal was for you to just fall down in a very funny way, the way Chevy Chase would do at the beginning of Saturday Night Live. Vinnie Favale So that was my takeaway from those guys. Vinnie Favale I love it. Vinnie Favale I love it.
[00:05:55] Vinnie Favale And I was actually, I don't know if it, TikTok just figured out that I'm interviewing you or whatever, but they've been throwing, you know, the old night shows at me and I was watching a whole bunch of Letterman and it was, I think it was Don Rickles that kept coming along there. Vinnie Favale The best. Vinnie Favale The best. Vinnie Favale I still, I'll spend hours watching Don Rickles on Carson. Vinnie Favale He was great with Letterman, but Carson was like where it all began, right? Vinnie Favale For a lot of, a lot of this stuff.
[00:06:22] Vinnie Favale But yeah, it's a rabbit hole, that late night rabbit hole could keep you up late. Vinnie Favale Yeah. Vinnie Favale And they're so funny. Vinnie Favale I miss that kind of comedy, you know, where you could just like, you know. Vinnie Favale Me too. Vinnie Favale Me too. Vinnie Favale Yes, exactly. Vinnie Favale Loved it. Vinnie Favale You told me a little interesting thing about how you met your wife. Vinnie Favale Yes, how I met your mother. Vinnie Favale Yeah, it was, it was really, really interesting. Vinnie Favale It was 1984.
[00:06:49] Vinnie Favale And you know, my wife and I, we, so now it's like 40, we're 42 years from that, which I can't even believe that. Vinnie Favale That's crazy. Vinnie Favale But my wife and I, she was working for MTV in California and I was working for MTV in New York and we didn't know each other. Vinnie Favale I think I knew her name because you had the outside office. Vinnie Favale It was always like the remote office, which usually had a few people in there. Vinnie Favale You know, MTV was all New York based. Vinnie Favale The studios were New York, the VJs, but she was on the West Coast and she was
[00:07:18] calling one day looking for a colleague of mine. Vinnie Favale And I picked up his phone and I, you know, I just thought she was a bad blind date from the night before. Vinnie Favale I just thought she was someone else. Vinnie Favale And I started, it wasn't really a bad blind date. Vinnie Favale It was just like it kind of fizzled and I was just awkwardly trying to like, hey, how you doing? Vinnie Favale Last night was fun, wasn't it? Vinnie Favale That kind of thing. Vinnie Favale Sorry that it ended abruptly where I, you know, I should have walked her the equivalent of walking someone home when you're in Manhattan.
[00:07:47] Vinnie Favale There is no suburb, suburban home. Vinnie Favale You can walk them home. Vinnie Favale You're like, okay, well, you're going to Jersey and I'm going to Brooklyn. Vinnie Favale So you say goodbye on the train station, right? Vinnie Favale Like, should I have walked her? Vinnie Favale So anyway, I was fumbling this weird kind of awkward apology. Vinnie Favale And she was hip to the fact that I didn't know who she was. Vinnie Favale So she was playing along and that kind of made it fun where she was torturing me. Vinnie Favale And then once she revealed she was not that person,
[00:08:14] we started talking like two people who just met in a very cute way and maintained a phone relationship, very much like Sleepless in Seattle from April of 84 till August. Vinnie Favale And then by the time August came around, which is my vacation, we both, Vinnie Favale It was kind of said and unsaid that we were in love or falling in love and, Vinnie Favale Hey, I'm going to come out to California. Vinnie Favale We'll hang out. Vinnie Favale Like, well, I don't know what that means. Vinnie Favale You know, like, you know, how do you, like, what's your first date when you've been so intimate with someone
[00:08:41] Vinnie Favale Verbally for months and we were very, very intimate in sharing so many things about ourselves. Vinnie Favale So I'm happy to say it was a success and, you know, we hit it off in person, Vinnie Favale We did on the phone and I proposed on my last day there. Vinnie Favale And then I came home and then we got married like three months later Vinnie Favale After being in each other's company for maybe no more than a week, you know,
[00:09:08] Vinnie Favale I went to Savannah to meet her parents, her mom and her family. Vinnie Favale And then she came to Brooklyn to meet my family at Christmas and that was it. Vinnie Favale Here we are 40 some oddly years later. Vinnie Favale Wow, that needs to be a movie. Vinnie Favale I mean, I know I'm slave with Sinclair. Vinnie Favale Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Vinnie Favale No, it's wonderful. Vinnie Favale We have great memories and we played that Back to the Future game where, Vinnie Favale You know how Back to the Future where if he alters the past and the future gets altered
[00:09:33] Vinnie Favale And she had told me she was in New York like I think two weeks before our phone call Vinnie Favale And she had come down to my floor to beat my friend, my colleague, Vinnie Favale And he wasn't there and I wasn't there. Vinnie Favale We wonder if we had met each other in person that moment would it have been the same thing? Vinnie Favale Because it wouldn't have been that funny anymore or that cute meeting cute. Vinnie Favale It's just like two people meeting. Vinnie Favale I don't know. Vinnie Favale I'd like to think it would have been the same but who knows. Vinnie Favale Oh yeah.
[00:10:02] Vinnie Favale So you said her family's from Savannah, Georgia? Vinnie Favale Yeah, she's from Savannah, Georgia. Vinnie Favale I love that because my family and I'm from Vinnie Favale And my husband's family is from Chicago and when they Vinnie Favale Oh. Vinnie Favale Let me tell you about a culture shock. Vinnie Favale That is a big, yeah, yeah, yeah. Vinnie Favale You know, Brooklyn and Savannah. Vinnie Favale And for Debbie, she was living in California. Vinnie Favale She was in Beverly Hills. Vinnie Favale She had a really, really nice apartment with a roommate. Vinnie Favale And she went from Beverly Hills to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in like.
[00:10:31] Vinnie Favale That was a culture shock. Vinnie Favale I felt, I actually felt bad for her. Vinnie Favale I said, are you sure you could handle this? Vinnie Favale Because it's not the glabber life of living in New York. Vinnie Favale We were living in the basement of Frank and Mary's Brownstone in Brooklyn. Vinnie Favale Much different world there. Vinnie Favale Yeah. Vinnie Favale But I love it. Vinnie Favale I love New York. Vinnie Favale I haven't been there in a few years, but I gotta get back. Vinnie Favale Where are you now? Vinnie Favale Right outside of Chicago. Vinnie Favale Oh, awesome. Vinnie Favale Yeah. Vinnie Favale Depending on the day. Vinnie Favale Right now it's really hot I don't like that. Vinnie Favale Yeah, well, listen, I'm in Dallas and it's Vinnie Favale Oh yeah.
[00:11:01] Vinnie Favale All the time. Vinnie Favale Yeah. Vinnie Favale Yeah. Vinnie Favale Yeah, you get hotter, hotter there, don't you? Vinnie Favale Yeah. Vinnie Favale So, moving back into your career, so after Letterman, Vinnie Favale Like you said, you went on to a higher position with CVS, Vinnie Favale What was that like? Vinnie Favale Yeah, well, it took me a good three years to figure out how to do my job because it was interesting in that, like, so in television, most people think, okay,
[00:11:27] there's all these different departments. There's the development department. These guys make the shows, the comedies and dramas, and there's the specials department. They do the TV specials. There's a sales department. They sell commercials. There's a promo department. I never knew there was something called the current department, which is the group of executives who are assigned shows that they are responsible for. So, for instance, you know, I had a colleague
[00:11:51] whose job was Everybody Loves Raymond. That was her job as the executive in charge of that and how to deal with everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly, you know, was there when the scripts came out, the table read, reading the scripts, giving network notes, you know, all that. It's a fascinating job, and you're not making television. You're helping make it better. You're not creating it. You're not originating it, but you're bringing whatever instincts, sensibilities, and then business,
[00:12:21] you know, the network's business, you know. For someone like Dave, that was a crazy job because, you know, sitcoms are on, you know, the old days, maybe 26 weeks out of the year, three weeks on, a week off. With Dave, it's like a bank job, like every day, it seems like, for the rest of your life, you know. So, every day, there were ups and downs, you know. If there was something in the news that involved, like McDonald's, someone found, you know, a rodent in McDonald's, Dave's going to make
[00:12:50] jokes about that for days, and guess who's a big advertiser on the network? McDonald's, you know. So, guess who has to deal with that? Like, okay, we get it. It's funny. Could we move on? So, that kind of back and forth, and, you know, I figured out a rhythm after a while, and I realized my job is to really protect everyone, you know. Keep Dave and his producers, even when they were angry, just yell at me. Don't yell at my boss. Don't get angry. Like,
[00:13:18] you guys have a similar relationship, but just dump it all on me because everybody complained about each other to me, and then I have to sort it out, figure it out. I'm sure that was not all that fun. No, it was not fun. And it's not fun when you don't really know that's the job going in or understand it, and then you're just trying to figure out, like, I was used to always running to my boss in whatever job where there was an issue, but in this case, like, my boss was like the head
[00:13:46] of the network, you know, who had a lot of other issues going on, and I didn't want to be seen as the problem child or the problem show. And I didn't want Dave to be seen that way, too, or not Dave himself, but the show itself. I wanted to give this impression of it's not as high maintenance as people think it is, but it really was, I can tell you now. Well, I can imagine. I can imagine. So I have to touch on Comedy Central because I grew up
[00:14:13] on Comedy Central. I lived for watching Comedy Central. Oh, that's great. How far back now? Because, you know, I don't know if a lot of people realize that Comedy Central started off as something called the Comedy Channel. I did not. In 1989, HBO, which was the king of pay TV, decided they had so many, and it was my friend, actually, who came up with the original idea because he worked on HBO at the time, that
[00:14:39] so many comedy specials, like a lot of, like, you know, Robin Williams, you know, stuff like that, Blade Crystal, and they were showing a lot of comedy movies, and they said, you know, they're going to launch a comedy channel that's 24 hours of comedy. Just, you know, stand up and clips and half-hour shows that they'll, you know, license. And then MTV, two months
[00:15:03] later, announces they're going to do a comedy network called the Ha Network. And it was like, all the cable systems were like, listen, we don't even know if we want one comedy network, let alone two. So get your acts together. So MTV and HBO merged the two networks to become Comedy Central. And that happened, I think that launched in like 90, 91 or 92. So the Comedy
[00:15:28] Central, and I don't know how far back you go, but, you know, the first shows on Comedy Central were like Mystery Science Theater, Kids in the Hall, a lot of Benny Hill reruns, you know. It wasn't the South Park days, you know, now. But it was a wonderful experience. It was great. I met so many great people there. And it really set me up for eventually going to CBS and work for Dave. Gotcha. Okay. So yeah, my mom works for the cable company. So we got all the cable channels
[00:15:57] way back in the day. And you'd come in and be like, you're not supposed to be watching that. Oh, no. Four or five years old. That's incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But your generation probably grew up with comedy and then Adult Swim, TBS, you know, that was a big thing. Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah. We loved it all. We recreated it all. We got in trouble a lot for that. That's right. Like, remember Nickelodeon and Ren and Stempy? Like that kind of,
[00:16:25] it was like kids comedy for really their parents or their older siblings. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that kind of transitioned into my love for like Family Guy and stuff like that. Right. Exactly. It was your gateway. Hey, that's wonderful. Exactly. So before we get to the end of the interview, I do want to touch on Stephen Colbert because I have to say I enjoyed him. I'm sad that he's no longer on. That broke me.
[00:16:52] I have to tell you, I'm shocked that so many people seem to have bought the lie, the myth that he wasn't making money and that's why they pulled it off the air. That's total bull. And it's shocking. It really is surprising. It's also quite honestly surprising that there were still three late night shows doing the same thing when you think about it. You know, they're doing it all equally
[00:17:21] great. You know, I mean, Stephen's show was really political and wonky in a good way and all that. Kimmel didn't start that way. Kimmel was closer to like a Letterman kind of show, but then got pulled into all the badness and has been unbelievable. And Fallon still kind of maintains that old school of, hey, we're just making jokes here. Kind of the Leno world of
[00:17:45] non-offensive comedy, if you will, if you're offended by politics. But yeah, it was really disappointing. Not only that, that they canceled the show, but that they canceled the day part. Like there's no more late, I mean, there's still late night, but it's not original anymore. It's like, I think comedians talking, right? Byron Allen's show, right? So yeah. So I would, I'm not surprised that you were bummed by that. A lot of people were.
[00:18:13] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Cause you know, like I said, I, I love comedy. I, you know, we, we've always joked about politics and whatnot. That's just part of it. And I feel like we're getting too far away from the comedy now. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So look, it's, it's a reboot. I'm sure he'll go on to do some great things and wherever he ends up going, but I'm more than anything disappointed in CBS that they don't still have a late night,
[00:18:39] you know, presence. Yes, absolutely. So what would you say is your biggest plot twist from, you know, life, your career, what would you say? I think now as I get older, it's the, it's, it's the mortality of life. Just, you know, the, all those other things, the career things and, and, you know, getting married like that or having a child with special needs. I mean,
[00:19:05] those are all obviously big deals, but at the end of the day, it's to me, it's all about like life and death and living, living as, as good as you can, as long as you can. And if I didn't have those losses, I think they would have changed me. The losses changed me. If I didn't have them, I would, I would be a different person. I don't know if that's a great person or I probably am a
[00:19:32] better person because of the losses, because I take fewer things for granted. And then as I get to the final act of whatever this story is of our lives, you know, you really start thinking about it, you know, cause they accumulate, you lose more and more people. I've lost so many friends and family in the last five years. It's really, really sad. That is sad. And it, it, it's a hard thing to face. Like you said, the mortality, it's definitely something that the older I get, the more I realize, you know, we're, we're all creeping closer to it, but.
[00:20:01] I know. I'm looking for, um, an exit strategy. A healthy one, a safe one. One is an exit strategy. They tell you when, whoever they are. Right. Yes, exactly. So, um, what's up next for you? What do you have going on? Well, I talk about a plot twist for the last three years. I've been, no, maybe four years. I've been working diligently on a comprehensive history of Christmas music. Uh, not, not just surface stuff,
[00:20:30] but like deep, deep encyclopedia multi-volume, you know, and, uh, it's been incredible, but it's a lot of work and it's a lot of research in that time. This thing called AI has popped up making the research easier, but also opening all of these creative opportunities for people like me who write music,
[00:20:53] write lyrics, write comedy. But when you're a writer, producer, you need money and you need an infrastructure to produce it. And those are the two things that I can't readily have where I am, uh, you know, living, living, I'm not in New York anymore. You know, I don't have my team, people around me and I'm on my own. But, uh, so I, I made a pivot. I made a plot twist. And I told my wife, I said, I'm still going to work on the book cause I've been doing, put a lot
[00:21:20] of time and effort into the book, but I'm going to take like a month or two off to see if I could, um, really hone in on AI, on creating stuff, you know, from scratch. And I'm happy to say, proud to say that I, I'm doing it. I am like, you know, not only continuing to write music, I'm producing these big productions using this, this, this amazing software that, uh, it doesn't
[00:21:44] generate content. I'm generating it. I'm writing it, but, but it helps me produce it. And, and I'm creating, uh, mini movies and music videos to go with my music. So it's been incredible. I think in the next three months, I'm going to really see what I have and what will come of it. And I think something good will come of it. Something different. Very cool. And that's a great use of AI. Cause you hear people all the time. Oh, AI is going to ruin us. But if you work with it, that's, that's a great way to do it. Let me tell you, it does nothing on its own. It's, it's truly useless. It
[00:22:14] needs, at least for the stuff I'm doing. AI is like having this incredible employee, but who screws up so much in almost a lovable way that you go, Oh my God, if you weren't so brilliant, you'd be fired like months ago, you know, really? I mean, I, I, if you saw the thread, the conversation between me and AI, like it's got to the point right now where I was so frustrated with Gemini and ChatGPT that I went to Claude and I like Claude a lot. And now I complain about
[00:22:43] Gemini and ChatGPT to Claude. So I got like, like, like a, like a buddy that, that I know it's a robot, but, but they're, they're there for me. They're listening to me, but I vent and they try to defend the other two. But. I know. You know, that's so funny. You said that I had surgery last week and I was having so much anxiety and I was just like typing and all this stuff. And eventually it said, are you nervous? Oh, really? Oh my God. That's what Netflix says. Are you still watching? Yeah.
[00:23:07] You for, I should get up and get out. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah, they're, they're getting smart, but they are like buddies. I, I'm not going to lie. It really is. I, yeah. I don't want to disappoint them sometimes. Right. I know. Exactly. So where can the audience find you? Do you have any websites or anything? Yeah. The best place would be vinniefavalli.com and that's vinnie, V-I-N-N-I-E, my last name, favalli.com. And everything is
[00:23:35] there. My bio is there. My content, I have a YouTube channel, which you can get to from there. Uh, I love my TikTok, loving TikTok. Um, it's, it's great. Those are my outlets to put stuff out in the world that I'm, I'm, I just want to put good stuff out there. Good music, uh, um, good comedy, good thought provoking content. Yes, absolutely. And I will make sure that is in the show notes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Oh, it was so great being with you. I'm happy to do this. I was honored to be asked. Oh, I'm honored to have you.