What took place next is the stuff of family arguments, paranoia, folklore, and urban myth.
I know you know what happened, and how it happened (how, Neil, how?!?), but let me explain how it looked from our point of view. You asked Mark for a one-dollar bill, then asked me to write down the serial number. You took the dollar from Mark, tore it up in a zillion pieces, and burned them in the fireplace. By the way, Neil, the trick could have ended there. The kids had never seen anyone take money from their dad, tear it into a zillion pieces, and then burn it. They’d never been so dazzled in their lives.
But of course, it didn’t end there. Now you reached into the flower arrangement I had specially made just for Thanksgiving, complete with a cornucopia feature and fresh apples. (Look, Thanksgiving happens once a year. Give me a break.) You grabbed an apple from the center of the arrangement, broke it in half, and pulled out a soaking-wet dollar bill with, of course, the matching serial number!!!
How did you do it? We watched you burn that dollar. And that apple dollar was wet. Soaking wet. Like it spent its entire life in that apple. And while we’re on the apple, how did you get to my cornucopia?
I was freaked out, but Mark was beyond freaked out. You remember how, at this point, he tried to put out the fire and piece together the burned-beyond-recognition dollar-bill fragments so he could figure out the trick, right? Well, to this day he’s certain you had broken into our house a week earlier and spent a week living there without our knowledge just to gain access to that cornucopia. He also accuses me of aiding and abetting, whatever that means. And that’s why he still follows you around every time you come over, by the way. He’s convinced a trick might unfold all around him.
Anyway, that’s my “you” story. You can finish interviewing yourself about your talk-show appearances HERE now. Or you can hang out with other magic types like yourself HERE. See you soon!
YOU: We’re back to The NPH Show. I’m here with Neil Patrick Harris, or “NPH,” as his fans call him.
YOU 2: Here’s a little bit of trivia: I’m known as Neil Patrick Harris only because when I first joined the union, another actor already had the name Neil Harris.
YOU: That’s right. That’s how a lot of famous people wind up known by three names.
YOU 2: Either that, or they’re assassins.
YOU: Zing!
YOU: You mentioned earlier doing a magic trick on Carson. That’s become one of your signature talk-show moves, the magic trick.
YOU 2: Yes, I’ve been doing them off and on ever since. I did one on Arsenio that worked very well. I produced a white dove out of a balloon I popped. Arsenio did most of the work and I took all the credit. That’s how magic works.
YOU: When it works.
YOU 2: Tell me about it!
YOU: No, you’re the guest. You tell me about it.
YOU 2: Oh, right. Well, one time on Ellen I brought out a big giant guillotine head-chopper onstage. (Ed Alonzo helped track it down for me.) As we’d rehearsed, I put my head inside it casually, like I was just demonstrating, and then she said “Oh, what’s this?” and pulled at a rope, at which point the blade dropped and cut my head off. It fell into a basket, while my body lay there motionless, and Ellen drily turned to the camera and says, “Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantánamo Bay is in theaters everywhere this Friday.” Well, the next day Ellen had to go on her show and explain that what had happened was a trick. She had received dozens of worried and angry e-mails from children and parents. “I’m seven years old, why would you try to kill Neil Patrick Harris?” “My kids watch this show—you think it’s funny to hack some guy’s head off in the middle of everything?!” So she had to apologize on my behalf, and show footage of me getting out of the prop to prove that she hadn’t murdered me in the middle of the show.
YOU: Yikes! Was that the only time you tried magic on Ellen?
YOU 2: No. Another time Ed and I—he’s my partner in crime for all these kinds of things—conceived this great trick. I would take a lightbulb, put it inside a small Ziploc bag, hold the bag in my fingers, and then, using just my mind, the lightbulb would start to glow. Then I would concentrate even further, count to three, and the lightbulb would shatter inside the bag. Ed and I rehearsed it, it goes great. But you have to hold the bag at a specific angle and, evidently, practice more than I did. So during the show, which thank god was taped and not airing live, I did the whole setup, put the lightbulb in the bag, made it glow, concentrated further, one two three … nothing. Nothing happened. And the audience is squirming, and so is Ellen, and I say, “Oh, well, that didn’t work.” We completed the rest of the interview with me feeling sheepish and mortified. So afterward I talked to the segment producer, who kindly said, “Don’t worry. We’re post-taping this. We can just reset it and do it again.” So they reset the mechanism that’s supposed to make the lightbulb break while I came back out and explained to the audience we were going to restart at an editing point and reshoot the end of the trick. Take two: I do the whole setup, put the lightbulb in the bag, it glows, I concentrate further, one two three … nothing. Again. I’m oh-for-two. At this point even I’m finding humor in the depth of my failure. So with the indulgence of Ellen, her crew, and the audience, we did it a third time. I do the whole setup, put the lightbulb in the bag, it glows, I concentrate further, one two three … and the bulb finally shatters! The audience goes ballistic like I’d made the Statue of Liberty vanish and reappear. It was very skillfully edited, but if you ever watch it you’ll be surprised just how enthusiastically the audience responds to a broken lightbulb.
YOU: I/you have to ask you/me: Has being on so many of these shows given you any desire to host one your/myself?
YOU 2: Well, I’m hosting one now.
YOU: Right, but for real, not as a written gimmick for an alter ego.
YOU 2: I see. Well, you know, I’ve already cohosted about a dozen Live with Kellys, and discovered it’s much more of a high-wire act than just making an appearance. It’s fifteen minutes of talking about current events, followed by sit-down interviews with three guests in whom you may or may not be genuinely interested.
YOU: [Checking watch] Mmm-hmmm.
YOU 2: But the saving grace is working with Kelly. I cannot say enough good things about her. She’s one of the smartest, funniest, nicest, most genuine people you could ever meet, which is clear when you watch her on air but even more so when you get to know her as a human being. And having such a fun, convivial time with her, I have to admit the idea of doing a show like that, where you’re essentially paid to be yourself for a few hours a day, does have its appeal.
YOU: So is an NPH Show something your fans can look forward to in the future?
YOU 2: The future? What do you think I’m appearing on right now?!?
YOU: [Realizing] Whoa. We just blew our mind.
YOU 2: I’ll say.
YOU: Well, we’re almost out of space. Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography is available online and at bookstores. Neil Patrick Harris, thanks for stopping by your show.
YOU 2: Thanks for having me, me!
The NPH Show theme song plays both of yous out of the chapter.
* * *
To flip the channel and find yourself on How I Met Your Mother, go HERE.
To flip the channel and find yourself hosting an awards show, go HERE.
To flip the channel and find yourself in one of a dozen made-for-TV movies, go HERE.
And now, one more magic trick from Mr. Neil Patrick Harris.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my mystical stylings. I will leave you with an encore. This time no cards are needed—only you and your beautiful, beautiful hands.
Hold your right hand in front of your face, with your palm facing you and all your fingers out straight, just as if you were going to read your palm. Your thumb should be pointing to the right. Now with your left hand, point to your right pinky.
In a moment, I’m going to ask you to make five “moves” from the pinky. A move
means that you’re moving your left pointer finger right or left, to the one next to the one that you’re on right now. You can only move one space (digit), but you can move up and back, right and left, as many times as you want. And remember: even though we have a different name for it, the thumb is one of your fingers, so you can move on or off the thumb.
Remember, move only one space, but you can go back and forth, in either direction, to a finger next to it.
Okay, do that with me now. Make one move. Now two. Three. Four. Five. Good. Wherever you’ve ended up, keep your left finger there.
Of course, since all of you moved in your own way, you’ve chosen different fingers. But I can tell you personally that you didn’t end up back on your little finger. And you didn’t end up on your thumb. So I want you to fold those fingers in. So now you’ve just got three fingers pointed, and one of them is the one you’ve selected.
Let’s stop using the little finger and thumb, and confine all our moves to these remaining three fingers. I want you to now move once. Just once, to the finger next to the one you’ve selected.
Have you done that?
Good. I can tell that you didn’t end up on the ring finger. That’s the one next to the little finger. So fold that one in as well. That leaves these two fingers, and you’re on one of them. Aren’t you?
So I want you to make one last move, to the finger next to it. Do that now.
Excellent. Because after that little demonstration of free will, you might be surprised to find that I knew exactly what you were going to do. It’s almost like you thought you had free will, but I was secretly inside your head, making you do exactly what I wanted.
You’ve stopped on your index finger, your first finger. That was your final choice.
I’m right, aren’t I?
Mmmmmmmagic!
[Vanishes in puff of smoke]
* * *
Sorry. The magic show is over. Please exit through the rear doors and emerge HERE.
Although if you’re still interested in doing more magic as Neil Patrick Harris, only this time on talk shows, feel free to take the secret exit leading HERE.
In 2011 Glenn and Ricky bring you back to host the Tonys for the second time. The ceremony is being held at the Beacon Theatre because a new Cirque du Soleil show has rented out Radio City for the entire summer. On the one hand it’s a bummer because the Beacon’s a much smaller venue. On the other hand it feels more like you’re doing the show in a real Broadway house rather than a cavernous spectacle room. What’s lost in grandeur is gained in intimacy.
It’s the year of The Book of Mormon. Satire and lightheartedness are in the air. You are keen to do an opening number, so you hire David (DJ) Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, the songwriters of the 2008 Broadway musical Cry-Baby. DJ is the former head writer and executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, so he represents exactly the kind of smart, sharp comedy you want. Not only for this lyric, but on any future project requiring editorial supervision.1
Anyway, at the initial meeting DJ pitches a couple of ideas for songs, including one called “Broadway Is Not Just for Gays Anymore.” You’re worried that it may be a one-joke idea, but the more you talk about it, the more it seems like a solid opener, especially as a prelude to a night likely to be dominated by The Book of Mormon. And you’re just the man to sing it. Coming from you, its message of heterosexual inclusion will feel friendly and welcoming. But you have to fight to do the song. The American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League, the two organizations in charge of the ceremony, are—understandably, given the classiness of the night and the median age of the attendees—worried about having an entire opening song about homosexuality. One executive in particular screams and yells at the very notion and swears you will have to perform it over his dead body, which would of course make the choreography very difficult.
Ultimately they trust you. You know the song will only pack the desired punch if nobody knows it’s coming, so you’re very hush-hush. You practice it in closed rehearsal spaces and have all the dancers sign confidentiality clauses. And then you take it to Gideon-and-Harper-are-about-to-be-born levels of secrecy. The song has to be orchestrated and pre-recorded with musicians in a studio, any one of whom could blog or tweet or Facebook the number “out of the closet.” So you ask DJ to write dummy lyrics for the entire song. For example, the line
Attention every breeder, you’re invited to the theater!
It’s not just for gays anymore!
becomes
I’m proud to be your greeter for the very best in theater!
Tonight at the Tony Awards!
It’s as lame as a two-legged goat. If any of the musicians leak anything, it will be along the lines of “Just recorded Neil’s opening number and man, is it going to suck.” Which is fine.
Another funny story about the lyrics: The last line is supposed to be
Come in and be inspired!
There’s no sodomy required!
A great capper. But CBS is adamant that you can’t end the number like this. They make us come up with a new ender, which they approve:
Come in and be inspired!
There’s no same-sex love required!
It’s as lame as a one-legged goat. (And really, why is “same-sex love” less offensive or scandalous than “sodomy”? “Sodomy” is a neutral term describing a physical act, a scientifically accurate word. “Same-sex love” opens the whole thing up to the possibility that gay couples might actually love each other. Shouldn’t that notion be more offensive to whatever fine upstanding Bible-thumpers happen to accidentally tune in to the Tonys for a moment while switching over to The 700 Club?)
So you approach Glenn at dress rehearsal and innocently ask, “If I accidentally say ‘sodomy’ instead of ‘same-sex love,’ what would happen? Would you have to bleep me or something?” And he says, “Well, no, it’s not a curse word. We wouldn’t be fined for it or anything.” “Okay. Good to know,” you say, and drift back to DJ.
“You know what? I think that when we do this live, I may accidentally say ‘sodomy.’ What do you think will happen?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” he says.
So when the big moment comes at the climax of the song, sure enough, oops darnit!, you make the mistake. And the first person you see backstage is Jack Sussman, who is the head of CBS Special Programming, and man, does he look pissed. He has to get on the Batphone—seriously, a special red phone—to explain to his bosses what just happened. But to his credit, Jack stands up for you, and that song is remembered not as another “wardrobe malfunction,” but as one of the great moments in Tony history. The broadcast ends up winning five Emmys—one for DJ and Adam, one for Dave Boone and Paul Greenberg, who wrote the rest of the show, one for Glenn Weiss’s directing, one for you for hosting, and one for the show itself.
And it’s fun to win an Emmy for the Tonys, especially because you can’t win a Tony for the Emmys. Or an Oscar for the Grammys. Or a Nobel for the Sexiest Man Alives.
* * *
If you’d like to host the Tonys a third and fourth time, go HERE.
If sodomy genuinely is required, go HERE.
* * *
1A choose-your-own-autobiography, for example.
And now a word from your friend …
SETH MACFARLANE
The first time I met you, I was covered in my buddy’s brain and skull fragments.
It was Guadalcanal, 1942. We were losing the battle, losing the island, and my buddy had just lost eight pounds of head-meat that he’d never put back on. Suddenly, out of nowhere came a hot-tempered corporal with an M2 Carbine in one hand and a towel in the other—you. You tossed me the towel and said, “Wipe that Iowa off your face” (we called my buddy “Iowa,” ’cause he was from Iowa) “and let’s go kick Tojo in the balls.”
As I watched you pocket Iowa’s last letter home to his best gal and charge out of the foxhole, I called after you, “I think we’re under orders to hold our positions, C
orporal … is it Corporal Neil? Corporal Patrick? Harris?”
“It’s all three, bitch! And sorry, I can’t hear you. My ears are full of revenge!”
I had no choice but to follow as you stormed uphill, into the teeth of the dug-in breastwork. And what I saw as I followed is something I’ll never forget: you were a death machine. Just an unstoppable one-person barrage of hot lead, cold steel, and ethnic slurs (it was a different time, and we were at war). At one point you pulled out a man’s still-beating heart and squeezed the contents into a tureen (“I’m gonna pour your blood on my cornflakes!”). As you kicked the squozen heart-husk over toward the buzzards that had begun to follow you, I thought, I could really see this guy hosting the Tonys.
By the time you’d killed your way to the top of that bloody hill, I’d forgotten all about poor dead Ohio (’cause my buddy, I’m just now realizing, was from Ohio, not Iowa; I always get those two mixed up), and could only think about you as this reaper of destruction, and the trail of carrion you were leaving in your wake. “Who is that guy? Where is he from? Will he someday play a kid doctor on TV?” Those were the questions I asked myself.
But then I was hit. I was hit bad and went down on top of a pile of about fourteen guys that you had just killed. Some of them had voided their bowels when they died, so it was really kind of a problem. You bent over me and tried to fish out the shells with an MRE pop-top, and as I felt the life draining from my body, this is the conversation we had:
ME: It’s … too late for me, Neil. I’m a … goner.…