These creative guys are funny people, they just don't like to receive compliments. Regardless of what Troy Miller says he is a true comedy auteur. He started in the bowels of HBO comedy specials doing low rung jobs and over the years he has established himself by directing such cult sketch shows as Mr. Show with Bob and David, The Jenny McCarthy Show and The Ben Stiller Show. Most recently he has directed Dumb & Dumberer for New Line Cinema. It's funny that Dumb & Dumberer has come out before the Miller movie everyone wants to see, Run Ronnie Run starring Bob and David of Mr. Show fame. This movie was considered unreleasable by New Line but it is finally hitting DVD this September.
Miller's production company Dakota Films is always developing new comedy projects including dozens of pilots we will probably never get to see. But Miller mentioned Knee High P.I. about a midget detective.
Check out Dakota Films' website at dakotafilms.com.
Daniel Robert Epstein: You're like a comedy auteur. Your latest project, Dumb & Dumberer you co-wrote, produced and directed it. How did that happen to you?
Troy Miller: Well it's not always such a good thing. I think the way that went down is that there was nearly no script. I was working with a lot of punch up guys on it. When you work with so many guys no one really gets a credit so I was probably the writer that worked on it the longest. I also did rewrites during shooting so I was kind of the last man standing. That often happens in movies. I also produced the movie with Bennett Yellin the other guys were more contractual producers because they were attached to the franchise. But when you do a movie as a director you really are writing it and producing it as well, that's not the case with television directors but with all feature directors. Its such a director's medium. In the case of this movie New Line wanted me to have the credits.
DRE: What made you want to do a prequel to Dumb and Dumber?
TM: They were going to do it anyway and I was a real fan of the original but also what interested me more was the challenge of trying to do something in that genre. People have aped the Zucker Bros comedies [creators of Airplane and Naked Gun] but no one has done the Farrelly Brothers. We weren't successful but we weren't a disaster either.
DRE: The movie is probably going to end with $30 million domestically I think.
TM: That's really good but its not going to end up at a $100 million which everyone wants. The movie cost only $23 million so we're going to be in a good place.
DRE: Yeah and it's a given that the movie will be huge on home video.
I think a lot of people were surprised to see you working with New Line after Run Ronnie Run never got a theatrical release.
TM: Well it's coming out on DVD in September and I think my working with them really helped get Run Ronnie Run a release which I'm glad because that movie really is a part of me while Dumb & Dumberer is more of an assignment. If you want to direct you have to find things to direct. Run Ronnie Run I developed for three years and suffered a lot to get it made. I think it will do great on video.
DRE: Run Ronnie Run got out to a lot of fans via bootlegs. At times you weren't sure if this movie was going to come out. Did it make you happy that some fans got to see it that way?
TM: Sure. It's just unfortunate that it had to be on a shitty VHS copy. It's a funny movie. Also there are 30 minutes of deleted scenes coming with the DVD.
DRE: I did read there was friction between you, Bob [Odenkirk] and David [Cross]. Did you guys patch it up?
TM: Well David and I are fine. But Bob is too hard on himself as an actor. I think he's a pretty good actor and his work in the movie is good. We've definitely all gone our separate ways. They were at the preview and I think they are happy with the cut that's being released. A lot of stuff fell apart after New Line decided not to release the film. Then there was a lot of mud slinging.
DRE: Did the mud slinging come out of frustration though?
TM: Exactly. I tend to work the machine from the inside instead of throwing rocks from the outside. I'd rather go in and break the windows from the inside out which I did. By working with New Line I was able to get the movie released. It's unfortunate that it went down that way though. New Line market researched it and found that people wouldn't like. I think they're wrong. The marketing data didn't work out for Run Ronnie Run but for Dumb & Dumberer they knew they would make their money back on foreign alone.
DRE: Who's tougher to work with New Line executives or Don Rickles?
TM: [laughs] They're both great. Don is probably funnier.
DRE: I'm a big fan of yours. I've seen comedy specials from the early 1980's which had you listed in the credits as a production assistant and a line producer. How long have you been doing this for?
TM: Since about 1980. I've done a ton of stuff. When I was pa and a production manager HBO had just started and there wasn't all the other channels and standup comedy was huge. So my training was in the comedy clubs on a lot of HBO shows and when FOX first started. It was taking these standup comedians and making little films with them. Although I never did standup that was upbringing.
DRE: It must have been amazing time to work with all these amazing funny people.
TM: It was. It was Don Rickles, George Carlin and Billy Crystal. They are legends and then I also worked with Kathy Griffin, David Cross, Jeff Garlin and a lot of the comics now. In their own way they are just as legendary but you can't get beyond the grace of someone like Robin Williams. I produced his special Live at the Met in 1986. At that point that was probably the biggest show at the time. Now a 90 minute standup show isn't that unusual. When I was doing that they really were remarkable. I think because of those successes it gave birth to another standup craze that lasted about 15 years.
DRE: Until about 1994.
TM: Pretty much. I had a series on FOX called the Sunday Comics and when that off the air there were 10 or 11 other standup shows on.
DRE: Too many people thought it was easy.
TM: For the shows it was because you pay a comic $600 bucks and you get three minutes of program. Its easy to make shows that way.
DRE: I would imagine that when you watch sketch comedy or standup its like when Neo from The Matrix is in the computer world and it all looks like code to him. You can see how it all works. Does that make sense?
TM: Yeah and the best time is when you don't see it coming and you're laughing out loud. That is how it is. I see how the formulas in the comedy break down. We just produced a movie of the week for Comedy Central called Knee High P.I. which is basically a little person as a private investigator directed by J.B. Rogers [American Pie 2]. He's a smart funny comedy director who trained with Farrellys. It is a science because when you break down a joke for the executives its not funny anymore. Sometimes its not a subjective thing, we just know that its funny. Its interesting and I'm glad you appreciate it.
Name a standup and I'll tell you a story.
DRE: Jake Johannsen.
TM: I produced his first ever TV appearance for Young Comedians All Star Reunion and Robin Williams introduced Jake. He's such a smart guy kind of like Steven Wright with energy.
DRE: I saw him last night on Conan O'Brien.
TM: If you watch him now compared to 15 years ago, its like he's a different guy.
DRE: Someone told him to stop looking so ugly.
TM: [laughs] Yeah that probably helped him.
DRE: What makes sketch comedy work?
TM: A point of view. That's one thing that Bob and David had more than any show since Monty Python's Flying Circus and maybe Kids in the Hall. Every sketch was coming from one mind. Odenkirk is a brilliant sketch writer. He can take any sketch and put it through his point of view and aligned with Cross you can look at any of their sketches and say That's a Bob and David sketch. Whereas Mad TV their point of view is, lets throw as much stuff as we can against the wall and hopefully something will stick and be funny. Its broadminded but you can't look at a Mad TV sketch out of context and recognize it as being from Mad TV.
DRE: David Cross is a fantastic comedian but I think even he agrees that Bob Odenkirk is a genius.
TM: When it comes to sketch comedy he is. That's all I know him from, three minutes of absurdist Mr. Show sort of sketch comedy. It's hard to make a living doing that.
DRE: Did you first meet Bob and David when you were working on The Ben Stiller Show?
TM: Yeah I think I did. I didn't really come in too much contact with them though. I got in that through Ben and worked with him and Judd Apatow.
DRE: Are you someone that when you're working on a sketch you're intimately involved or are you just brought in to make it work?
TM: It changes because I'm a producer when it comes to sketch. I'm not a writer or a performer. I can do a lot for a little. Sometimes I'll come in, consult on a show and tell them how to set up their cameras. I get offered a lot of sketch shows and I do mostly consulting on them. There is this great new British sketch group called The Hollow Men which I wanted to produce this year. They're hilarious and I didn't get the gig because to put yourself into a show now you've got to have a lot of fucking money. There's not a marketplace for laughs right now because there is no success. Mr. Show went off the air after being on at midnight on Monday night and that wasn't a successful show. It was a critical success but it wasn't getting subscribers to HBO whereas Arliss was. The dichotomy of that is pretty infuriating. If SNL wanted to do a spin-off with all new people at 10 pm on FOX and was successful that could lead to other sketch shows.
DRE: Is Saturday Night Live funny?
TM: I don't know I haven't seen it for a couple of years. Cheri Oteri is in Dumb & Dumberer and she's hilarious. But I grew up on it. It was exciting back then when I was 13 or 14 I was recording SNL on audio tape before VHS. I remember Rich Hall, who is a very old friend of mine, ended up being on the show for a while. I remember going to New York and hanging out at the show. It was the best time. Lorne [Michaels] is a great guy. I've developed a few movies with him that I ended up not doing but I can see the brilliance in that guy. People rag on him but he's the reason the show has been on for all these years.
DRE: I didn't realize you and Rich Hall were friends.
TM: I was 18 years old and my very first day in the business was working with Rich Hall on Fridays [created by Larry David]. I got to know all those guys and John Moffitt [who later was also a director on Mr. Show].
Rich mentored me for the first ten years of my career. He would sneak through the backdoor at the Westwood Comedy Store and I remember seeing Jay Leno and people like that. Rich would deconstruct their act for me and teach me what worked and what didn't.
DRE: I've heard David Cross talk about fans always say he must have been high when the Mr. Show guys wrote a certain sketch.
TM: People are high when they watch it, so they think the people are high when they're writing it.
DRE: But Cross says you can't be high and write comedy.
TM: Some guys can. There are some very successful comedy writers that are always high. But I don't think they last. With the Mr. Show writers the writing was a scientific process. Those guys would work seven days a week, improving the sketches and making them better. It's a lot of hard work.
DRE: You directed some of the bits on the Tenacious D HBO shows. They're making a movie now. Do you think that could work as a movie?
TM: I hope so. I think that Jack [Black] and Kyle [Gass] have final cut. They are so smart so they might be able to keep the irreverence and appeal to a broad audience. So I bet it will work.
DRE: Did you get the job doing the Oscar parodies from doing the MTV award films?
TM: Not really. I created the MTV work like the Brady Bunch reunion. It's nothing novel but you hadn't seen it in that rock and roll style. But we kind of prided ourselves at MTV for never using footage from the movies. While the Oscars its all clips from the movies. It's the same idea of satirizing the nominated films but the execution is different. It was all Billy Crystal against greenscreens. It's such a different audience. It's so rare to find a place to even do these short comedy films.
DRE: Critics love your TV work but have not been kind to your movies.
TM: It bounces back and forth. With Dumb & Dumberer we never expected them to like it. My audience for that movie is 14 year old junior high school kids. Jack Frost got 60 percent great reviews and 40 percent less than great. Run Ronnie Run got pretty bad reviews. I think Run Ronnie Run offended a lot of movie critics. That's not the audience at all. While for the Oscars I got stellar reviews and the director of the show got a directing Emmy in large part because of what I did. That's the very easy board stuff that appeals to the critics. You also have got to tell yourself what comedies in the last ten years got good reviews. Not any Adam Sandler movie. The critics are always slamming the Austin Powers movies as well.
DRE: The only comedy I can think of is There's Something about Mary.
TM: But Dumb & Dumber 1 got slammed and that movie is great.
DRE: If had to guess some of the people you admired growing up it might be Zucker Bros, John Landis, and Monty Python. What about more obscure stuff?
TM: Bob Newhart probably. Steven Wright, Chevy Chase unfortunately and John Belushi.
DRE: Is that unfortunately for Chevy Chase or John Belushi?
TM: [laughs] Chevy Chase. That two or three years Chevy Chase was great and John Landis too. I think Ivan Reitman has got a lot of funny left in him as well.
DRE: Evolution is a guilty HBO pleasure.
TM: I think so. You won't admit you do but you'll watch it every time it's on. But I was as much of a fan of directors like John Frankenheimer and John McTiernan [director of Die Hard] so I have a split background. That's why a lot of my short films have a different look because I'm not just a child of television.
DRE: As a sketch comedy director do people outside the industry understand what you do?
TM: No, with movies its all box office. With television there are less than ten guys who get big money. It's not like in feature films where you've got all the new young guys. TV is a producer's medium first then a director is brought in.
DRE: How many pilots do you think you've done that have never gotten on TV?
TM: Probably 20. Its one out of fifty that make it on TV. We just did a pilot for MTV with Bam Margera. They came to set and saw what we did and MTV picked up ten episodes without seeing the finished pilot. Bam is great. I think he's really appealing. It's a show set in his own house with his buddies and his family. It's Jackass with story.
DRE: What sketch shows have you liked lately?
TM: Chappelle's Show is great. I hear he's not going to be doing it as a show anymore but just specials. He didn't want to do it anymore. I heard the same thing about Dave Attell and Insomniac. I wish Dave Chappelle would do a big movie.
DRE: What's your favorite Mr. Show sketches?
TM: Jeepers Creepers Superstar, Coupon: The Movie.
DRE: Coupon: The Movie didn't make sense but it's hysterical.
TM: It did. They made a movie out of a coupon.
DRE: What's your favorite kind of girl out of punk, emo or Goth?
TM: Punk for the top half and Goth for the bottom half. A nice lacy bustier but then its ok to have a Goth gown for the bottom.
DRE: Are you funny?
TM: No. I can recognize funny. When I've met funny, I said hello to him and went out for drinks but then I leave early so I don't hang out with funny too long. It's hard for me to fire funny when's he's too funny.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
Miller's production company Dakota Films is always developing new comedy projects including dozens of pilots we will probably never get to see. But Miller mentioned Knee High P.I. about a midget detective.
Check out Dakota Films' website at dakotafilms.com.
Daniel Robert Epstein: You're like a comedy auteur. Your latest project, Dumb & Dumberer you co-wrote, produced and directed it. How did that happen to you?
Troy Miller: Well it's not always such a good thing. I think the way that went down is that there was nearly no script. I was working with a lot of punch up guys on it. When you work with so many guys no one really gets a credit so I was probably the writer that worked on it the longest. I also did rewrites during shooting so I was kind of the last man standing. That often happens in movies. I also produced the movie with Bennett Yellin the other guys were more contractual producers because they were attached to the franchise. But when you do a movie as a director you really are writing it and producing it as well, that's not the case with television directors but with all feature directors. Its such a director's medium. In the case of this movie New Line wanted me to have the credits.
DRE: What made you want to do a prequel to Dumb and Dumber?
TM: They were going to do it anyway and I was a real fan of the original but also what interested me more was the challenge of trying to do something in that genre. People have aped the Zucker Bros comedies [creators of Airplane and Naked Gun] but no one has done the Farrelly Brothers. We weren't successful but we weren't a disaster either.
DRE: The movie is probably going to end with $30 million domestically I think.
TM: That's really good but its not going to end up at a $100 million which everyone wants. The movie cost only $23 million so we're going to be in a good place.
DRE: Yeah and it's a given that the movie will be huge on home video.
I think a lot of people were surprised to see you working with New Line after Run Ronnie Run never got a theatrical release.
TM: Well it's coming out on DVD in September and I think my working with them really helped get Run Ronnie Run a release which I'm glad because that movie really is a part of me while Dumb & Dumberer is more of an assignment. If you want to direct you have to find things to direct. Run Ronnie Run I developed for three years and suffered a lot to get it made. I think it will do great on video.
DRE: Run Ronnie Run got out to a lot of fans via bootlegs. At times you weren't sure if this movie was going to come out. Did it make you happy that some fans got to see it that way?
TM: Sure. It's just unfortunate that it had to be on a shitty VHS copy. It's a funny movie. Also there are 30 minutes of deleted scenes coming with the DVD.
DRE: I did read there was friction between you, Bob [Odenkirk] and David [Cross]. Did you guys patch it up?
TM: Well David and I are fine. But Bob is too hard on himself as an actor. I think he's a pretty good actor and his work in the movie is good. We've definitely all gone our separate ways. They were at the preview and I think they are happy with the cut that's being released. A lot of stuff fell apart after New Line decided not to release the film. Then there was a lot of mud slinging.
DRE: Did the mud slinging come out of frustration though?
TM: Exactly. I tend to work the machine from the inside instead of throwing rocks from the outside. I'd rather go in and break the windows from the inside out which I did. By working with New Line I was able to get the movie released. It's unfortunate that it went down that way though. New Line market researched it and found that people wouldn't like. I think they're wrong. The marketing data didn't work out for Run Ronnie Run but for Dumb & Dumberer they knew they would make their money back on foreign alone.
DRE: Who's tougher to work with New Line executives or Don Rickles?
TM: [laughs] They're both great. Don is probably funnier.
DRE: I'm a big fan of yours. I've seen comedy specials from the early 1980's which had you listed in the credits as a production assistant and a line producer. How long have you been doing this for?
TM: Since about 1980. I've done a ton of stuff. When I was pa and a production manager HBO had just started and there wasn't all the other channels and standup comedy was huge. So my training was in the comedy clubs on a lot of HBO shows and when FOX first started. It was taking these standup comedians and making little films with them. Although I never did standup that was upbringing.
DRE: It must have been amazing time to work with all these amazing funny people.
TM: It was. It was Don Rickles, George Carlin and Billy Crystal. They are legends and then I also worked with Kathy Griffin, David Cross, Jeff Garlin and a lot of the comics now. In their own way they are just as legendary but you can't get beyond the grace of someone like Robin Williams. I produced his special Live at the Met in 1986. At that point that was probably the biggest show at the time. Now a 90 minute standup show isn't that unusual. When I was doing that they really were remarkable. I think because of those successes it gave birth to another standup craze that lasted about 15 years.
DRE: Until about 1994.
TM: Pretty much. I had a series on FOX called the Sunday Comics and when that off the air there were 10 or 11 other standup shows on.
DRE: Too many people thought it was easy.
TM: For the shows it was because you pay a comic $600 bucks and you get three minutes of program. Its easy to make shows that way.
DRE: I would imagine that when you watch sketch comedy or standup its like when Neo from The Matrix is in the computer world and it all looks like code to him. You can see how it all works. Does that make sense?
TM: Yeah and the best time is when you don't see it coming and you're laughing out loud. That is how it is. I see how the formulas in the comedy break down. We just produced a movie of the week for Comedy Central called Knee High P.I. which is basically a little person as a private investigator directed by J.B. Rogers [American Pie 2]. He's a smart funny comedy director who trained with Farrellys. It is a science because when you break down a joke for the executives its not funny anymore. Sometimes its not a subjective thing, we just know that its funny. Its interesting and I'm glad you appreciate it.
Name a standup and I'll tell you a story.
DRE: Jake Johannsen.
TM: I produced his first ever TV appearance for Young Comedians All Star Reunion and Robin Williams introduced Jake. He's such a smart guy kind of like Steven Wright with energy.
DRE: I saw him last night on Conan O'Brien.
TM: If you watch him now compared to 15 years ago, its like he's a different guy.
DRE: Someone told him to stop looking so ugly.
TM: [laughs] Yeah that probably helped him.
DRE: What makes sketch comedy work?
TM: A point of view. That's one thing that Bob and David had more than any show since Monty Python's Flying Circus and maybe Kids in the Hall. Every sketch was coming from one mind. Odenkirk is a brilliant sketch writer. He can take any sketch and put it through his point of view and aligned with Cross you can look at any of their sketches and say That's a Bob and David sketch. Whereas Mad TV their point of view is, lets throw as much stuff as we can against the wall and hopefully something will stick and be funny. Its broadminded but you can't look at a Mad TV sketch out of context and recognize it as being from Mad TV.
DRE: David Cross is a fantastic comedian but I think even he agrees that Bob Odenkirk is a genius.
TM: When it comes to sketch comedy he is. That's all I know him from, three minutes of absurdist Mr. Show sort of sketch comedy. It's hard to make a living doing that.
DRE: Did you first meet Bob and David when you were working on The Ben Stiller Show?
TM: Yeah I think I did. I didn't really come in too much contact with them though. I got in that through Ben and worked with him and Judd Apatow.
DRE: Are you someone that when you're working on a sketch you're intimately involved or are you just brought in to make it work?
TM: It changes because I'm a producer when it comes to sketch. I'm not a writer or a performer. I can do a lot for a little. Sometimes I'll come in, consult on a show and tell them how to set up their cameras. I get offered a lot of sketch shows and I do mostly consulting on them. There is this great new British sketch group called The Hollow Men which I wanted to produce this year. They're hilarious and I didn't get the gig because to put yourself into a show now you've got to have a lot of fucking money. There's not a marketplace for laughs right now because there is no success. Mr. Show went off the air after being on at midnight on Monday night and that wasn't a successful show. It was a critical success but it wasn't getting subscribers to HBO whereas Arliss was. The dichotomy of that is pretty infuriating. If SNL wanted to do a spin-off with all new people at 10 pm on FOX and was successful that could lead to other sketch shows.
DRE: Is Saturday Night Live funny?
TM: I don't know I haven't seen it for a couple of years. Cheri Oteri is in Dumb & Dumberer and she's hilarious. But I grew up on it. It was exciting back then when I was 13 or 14 I was recording SNL on audio tape before VHS. I remember Rich Hall, who is a very old friend of mine, ended up being on the show for a while. I remember going to New York and hanging out at the show. It was the best time. Lorne [Michaels] is a great guy. I've developed a few movies with him that I ended up not doing but I can see the brilliance in that guy. People rag on him but he's the reason the show has been on for all these years.
DRE: I didn't realize you and Rich Hall were friends.
TM: I was 18 years old and my very first day in the business was working with Rich Hall on Fridays [created by Larry David]. I got to know all those guys and John Moffitt [who later was also a director on Mr. Show].
Rich mentored me for the first ten years of my career. He would sneak through the backdoor at the Westwood Comedy Store and I remember seeing Jay Leno and people like that. Rich would deconstruct their act for me and teach me what worked and what didn't.
DRE: I've heard David Cross talk about fans always say he must have been high when the Mr. Show guys wrote a certain sketch.
TM: People are high when they watch it, so they think the people are high when they're writing it.
DRE: But Cross says you can't be high and write comedy.
TM: Some guys can. There are some very successful comedy writers that are always high. But I don't think they last. With the Mr. Show writers the writing was a scientific process. Those guys would work seven days a week, improving the sketches and making them better. It's a lot of hard work.
DRE: You directed some of the bits on the Tenacious D HBO shows. They're making a movie now. Do you think that could work as a movie?
TM: I hope so. I think that Jack [Black] and Kyle [Gass] have final cut. They are so smart so they might be able to keep the irreverence and appeal to a broad audience. So I bet it will work.
DRE: Did you get the job doing the Oscar parodies from doing the MTV award films?
TM: Not really. I created the MTV work like the Brady Bunch reunion. It's nothing novel but you hadn't seen it in that rock and roll style. But we kind of prided ourselves at MTV for never using footage from the movies. While the Oscars its all clips from the movies. It's the same idea of satirizing the nominated films but the execution is different. It was all Billy Crystal against greenscreens. It's such a different audience. It's so rare to find a place to even do these short comedy films.
DRE: Critics love your TV work but have not been kind to your movies.
TM: It bounces back and forth. With Dumb & Dumberer we never expected them to like it. My audience for that movie is 14 year old junior high school kids. Jack Frost got 60 percent great reviews and 40 percent less than great. Run Ronnie Run got pretty bad reviews. I think Run Ronnie Run offended a lot of movie critics. That's not the audience at all. While for the Oscars I got stellar reviews and the director of the show got a directing Emmy in large part because of what I did. That's the very easy board stuff that appeals to the critics. You also have got to tell yourself what comedies in the last ten years got good reviews. Not any Adam Sandler movie. The critics are always slamming the Austin Powers movies as well.
DRE: The only comedy I can think of is There's Something about Mary.
TM: But Dumb & Dumber 1 got slammed and that movie is great.
DRE: If had to guess some of the people you admired growing up it might be Zucker Bros, John Landis, and Monty Python. What about more obscure stuff?
TM: Bob Newhart probably. Steven Wright, Chevy Chase unfortunately and John Belushi.
DRE: Is that unfortunately for Chevy Chase or John Belushi?
TM: [laughs] Chevy Chase. That two or three years Chevy Chase was great and John Landis too. I think Ivan Reitman has got a lot of funny left in him as well.
DRE: Evolution is a guilty HBO pleasure.
TM: I think so. You won't admit you do but you'll watch it every time it's on. But I was as much of a fan of directors like John Frankenheimer and John McTiernan [director of Die Hard] so I have a split background. That's why a lot of my short films have a different look because I'm not just a child of television.
DRE: As a sketch comedy director do people outside the industry understand what you do?
TM: No, with movies its all box office. With television there are less than ten guys who get big money. It's not like in feature films where you've got all the new young guys. TV is a producer's medium first then a director is brought in.
DRE: How many pilots do you think you've done that have never gotten on TV?
TM: Probably 20. Its one out of fifty that make it on TV. We just did a pilot for MTV with Bam Margera. They came to set and saw what we did and MTV picked up ten episodes without seeing the finished pilot. Bam is great. I think he's really appealing. It's a show set in his own house with his buddies and his family. It's Jackass with story.
DRE: What sketch shows have you liked lately?
TM: Chappelle's Show is great. I hear he's not going to be doing it as a show anymore but just specials. He didn't want to do it anymore. I heard the same thing about Dave Attell and Insomniac. I wish Dave Chappelle would do a big movie.
DRE: What's your favorite Mr. Show sketches?
TM: Jeepers Creepers Superstar, Coupon: The Movie.
DRE: Coupon: The Movie didn't make sense but it's hysterical.
TM: It did. They made a movie out of a coupon.
DRE: What's your favorite kind of girl out of punk, emo or Goth?
TM: Punk for the top half and Goth for the bottom half. A nice lacy bustier but then its ok to have a Goth gown for the bottom.
DRE: Are you funny?
TM: No. I can recognize funny. When I've met funny, I said hello to him and went out for drinks but then I leave early so I don't hang out with funny too long. It's hard for me to fire funny when's he's too funny.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
missy:
These creative guys are funny people, they just don't like to receive compliments. Regardless of what Troy Miller says he is a true comedy auteur. He started in the bowels of HBO comedy specials doing low rung jobs and over the years he has established himself by directing such cult sketch shows as...