INTERVIEW: Lori Beth Denberg takes Loud Librarian on the road for new ‘All That’ tour
Photo: Nostalgia Personified: The All That Edition features Danny Tamberelli and Lori Beth Denberg. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by press rep with permission.
Nostalgia fans take note: Nickelodeon’s Danny Tamberelli (The Adventures of Pete and Pete) and Lori Beth Denberg (All That) have teamed up for a comedy tour of the Northeast, and they promise to bring plenty of the jokes and characters that made them beloved names on the 1990s TV scene.
Tamberelli, who also starred in All That, has been podcasting and touring with his Pete and Pete co-star, Michael C. Maronna. For this run of shows, he has employed the help of Denberg and labeled the Nostalgia Personified tour as the All That Edition.
For the uninitiated, All That was a comedy variety show that played on Nickelodeon in the 1990s and early 2000s. The program was sort of like Saturday Night Live for families, and it was so successful that it lasted for 10 years on the airwaves. Now, in 2019, a reboot of the show has launched, and All That’s enduring quality still continues.
“I am so frigging excited I can’t even tell you, although you’re interviewing me, so I probably will tell you,” Denberg said in a recent phone interview about the new tour. “Danny and Mike Maronna, the titular Pete and Pete of The Adventures of Pete and Pete, have been doing these for a while. They have their podcast together, which is awesome, and I’ve gotten to be on it a couple of times. And they started doing these shows around Pete and Pete, and those have been really popular. And so Danny got this idea to do one with me, an All That version, so he just pitched it to me. And I thought, well, I’ll do anything to hang out with Danny.”
Denberg said this type of live show is going to be completely new to her, and she cannot wait to see what happens in front of the audience. The anticipation of the unanticipated is what excites her most.
“What I’ve been led to believe, there is very little nudity, and there is us on stage,” she said with a laugh. “We watch old clips, old clips of us together, old clips of us separately, kind of Mystery Science Theater them and make jokes and give the behind-the-scenes take on what’s going on. And there will be a Q&A from the audience, and we’ll be doing meet-and-greets. It’ll be just like hanging out with me and Danny, which is always really fun because I give him a really hard time. I’m really good at giving Danny a hard time, and it’s always a lot of fun. We laugh a lot.”
When Denberg was on All That, she didn’t realize what a cultural phenomenon the skit comedy show would become. Children and families grew up and grew together watching this one hour of laugh-out-loud comedy, and it was truly a novelty on television with few shows as direct competitors.
And it worked. The show not only grabbed plenty of ratings for Nickelodeon, but it made stars out of its cast members, including Denberg, Tamberelli, Amanda Bynes, Nick Cannon, Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson.
“At the time, we were having fun,” Denberg said. “We were enjoying the sketches. We could tell it was different than other kids’ shows that were pandering. … We were doing some edgy stuff for kids, which ended up working because then the parents enjoyed watching it as well. I hear from a lot of parents that say, ‘I had to watch a lot of crap with my kids, but I really enjoyed your show.’ That’s always really nice, but to think 25 years later that it would still be such a thing is really kind of amazing. The resurgence of the ’90s kids and how much they love it and how much part of their zeitgeist All That is is pretty phenomenal, but at the time it just like let’s have fun doing this show.”
Denberg is known for several characters on the show, but perhaps no character more popular than the so-called Loud Librarian.
“You can say that some of the characters that came along were inspired by our personalities, by our strong suits, but I didn’t come up with the Loud Librarian,” she said. “They gave me the script, and I said, ‘I can yell.’ And then I did.”
She actually revived the character on the rebooted version of All That. It’s quite the full-circle moment to be back on television in 2019 playing a character she portrayed more than 20 years ago.
“I’ve come to do some sketches,” Denberg said of her time on the new All That. “There’s a whole new cast of kids. They’re so awesome. I love them. I just want to hang out with them 24/7, but I’ve come back, some of the original cast members as well, to do old characters. And I’ve done a few Loud Librarians, and I’ve forgotten how physically taxing that sketch is. It’s like the sweatiest, most-out-of-breath-iest character because I’m always dealing with a bunch of different props, crazy setups. … On top of that, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, so I do love it. But it’s also a total workout. I have to stop in the middle of the sketch sometimes and be like, OK, all right, let’s get myself together. But it’s very fun. People love it so much, and it’s just so crazy. You go, she’s not a good librarian. This librarian is not fun to go to. I do enjoy it very much, but it is a killer of a sketch.”
When Denberg was on the 1990s version of All That, she and the other cast members would take part in a read-through on each script. They would rehearse for a couple days, receive script changes and then run sketches by the network and producer.
“It’s just about what gets a response and what works,” she said. “The librarian works. It never failed to please, so they can say, ‘Let’s do another one. Let’s do another one.’ There’s plenty of things that I’ve done in the past that just fall flat, and you’re like, all right, maybe this one is not coming back. Or maybe this one is not even getting shot. If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but it’s based on the reaction it gets from everyone that’s working on the show. And then, of course, once you air something, you get feedback from the audience. You can really see what people pick up on, what kind of moves them to glom on to a character and say, ‘We love this one.’ All of those things go into what becomes a recurring character and what is just a one-off.”
Growing up, Denberg was interested in theater, and she remembers that in first grade she performed in a bunch of plays. At that time, she would memorize everyone’s lines, not just hers.
“I was so into it and put all of my energy into it,” Denberg said. “Then I would do chorus, and I would do plays in schools and plays in community theater and stuff like that. … I remember I was at summer camp, and I was probably 12 or 13. And somebody said to me, ‘You’re really funny.’ I was like, ‘I am?’ It was sleepaway camp, so we’re all sitting eating dinner together around the big tables, and I remember I was just talking, saying whatever. And I looked around the table, and everyone was laughing. I was running the conversation, and everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves. It was the very first time that I was like, OK, this is a skill. This is something I can do that maybe not everybody can do, and it’s so funny that I remember it so clearly.”
Today, those initial comedy encounters have transformed into many successful characters and shows over the years, including Nostalgia Personified: All That Edition.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Nostalgia Personified: The All That Edition, featuring Danny Tamberelli and Lori Beth Denberg, will play several Northeast dates through December. Click here for more information and tickets.
