missy

Bobcat Goldthwait mentioned to me that there are "journalists" out there who rip on the Police Academy movies. I will tear losers a new one if they ever say that to me. I was born in 1975 so those movies and Bobcat were a big part of my childhood. So watch your step!

Anyway moving on, Bobcat is hot again because he directed and co-stars in the new Comedy Central movie Windy City Heat which is produced by Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel. Windy City Heat is a real-life Truman Show in which Perry Caravello's friends/tormentors/co-stars, Don Barris and Tony Barbieri, help get Perry a role in a big movie. Hidden and "documentary" cameras record Perry's every move as he wins the lead role of Stone Fury, a hardboiled "sports private eye" in a movie called Windy City Heat. What Perry doesn't realize is that there is no movie. No one around him is who he or she says they are. Every actor, every cameraman, every PA and producer is in cahoots to manipulate the susceptible, egomaniacal, fame-hungry star.

While many think that Bobcat faded into obscurity since the release of his directorial debut Shakes the Clown. He has actually moved behind the scenes directing shows for Comedy Central like The Man Show, Strip Mall and the brilliant Chappelle's Show. He is also a mainstay at dozens of comedy clubs around the country and is releasing his first comedy album in fifteen years called I Don't Mean to Insult You But You Look Like Bobcat Goldthwait.

I found researching Bobcat a very interesting project. Apparently Tom Kenny [of Mr. Show and CatDog fame] has been friends almost since birth. It explains why Tom always seems to get the juiciest roles in Bobcat's work like Binky the Clown in Shakes and the gay costume designer who gets close to Perry's privates in Windy City Heat.

Just to shoot down many myths immediately about Bobcat. He doesn't always talk like that; he hasn't directed another movie because scripts are hard to write and he never gave his fiance, Nikki Cox, any roofies.

Windy City Heat premieres Sunday, October 12 at 9 pm on Comedy Central.

Check out the website.


Daniel Robert Epstein:Hi Bobcat.

Bobcat Goldthwait: Sorry I didn't call you at 10:30 I was still on the air in Omaha.

DRE: You were on a radio show this morning?

BG: Oh yeah.

DRE: Not your own show?

BG: No I don't have my own show in Omaha [laughs]. I do a lot of press so whenever I'm on the road I do radio.

DRE: Was it a wacky drive time radio show?

BG: Yeah but its one of the few ones I do that I enjoy.

DRE: I know you directed some stuff on The Man Show. Is how you got this Windy City Heat movie?

BG: Jimmy and I are friends from back when he was on KRock and producing his radio show. He is a fan of Shakes the Clown so he asked me to direct The Man Show. Windy City Heat was his idea so he told me I was going to direct this and I just go where I'm told.

DRE: So is Windy City Heat real?

BG: If you don't think it's real that's fine. I don't care. I wish it was fake and then I wouldn't have had to edit 300 hours of videotape for the past nine months. But I don't mind if people think its fake because then people will debate about it.

DRE: Is Perry Caravello the stupidest guy on earth?

BG: Perry is pretty oblivious and arrogant.

DRE: You can parade anything you want in front of this guy and he doesn't seem to get it.

BG: Pretty much.

DRE: You named all the crew after famous people like Francis Farmer and Roman Polanski.

BG: Sometimes he would recognize names. He would say stuff like "Roman Polanski is a very famous actor." He knew the name Burt Ward and the person we named Burt Ward would say that the real Burt Ward is his uncle.

DRE: Windy City Heat seems like it was really complicated.

BG: It was super complicated and mind numbing because there was stuff we had to really film.

DRE: Had you ever heard of Perry before?

BG: I got into Perry about two years ago. Don [Barris] and Tony [Barbieri] have been doing this stuff to Perry for about 11 years. Perry is an open mic comedian, an extra in a few movies and also works in his family's print shop.

DRE: Does he know that he rips off Sam Kinison and you?

BG: In the movie he does Kinison but Don told him that if he would add another "oh" at the end it wouldn't be ripping off Kinison. He does an impression of me but it didn't make the movie. When it was in the movie Jimmy felt it seemed like a parody of me.

DRE: How was it directing yourself in Windy City Heat?

BG: It's a weird process. I think its funny that people may think that is how I direct from the way I am in Windy City Heat. In reality I love directing. That's what makes me happy is working with comics. That's the cool part. I sit around and watch Dave Chappelle be funny, that's not a bad day.

DRE: I love the stuff you did on Chappelle's Show. I think that show is one of the best sketch shows in a long time.

BG: I like the show and I love Dave.

DRE: Did you direct the parody where the girl's boob popped out?

BG: Yeah. It's even funny that I didn't even notice that the boob popped out for a while.

DRE: I didn't know you've known Tom Kenny since you were 6 years old.

BG: Yeah I met him in first grade. Legend has it and I think I remember that a teacher kicked me out of class. Then they put me in another class because they couldn't handle me anymore because the teacher was crying. Tommy introduced himself to me at lunch because he was impressed that I made a nun cry.

DRE: Tom is one of the funniest people on earth.

BG: That's how I describe him.

DRE: Will you always work with him?

BG: Whenever I get a job I always try to get Tommy in there as soon as possible because I love watching him be funny. He and I started doing comedy when we were 16 first as stand-ups then we had a comedy troupe for a while. I'd really like to write a movie with him but he's so busy being SpongeBob right now so I don't get to see him as much.

DRE: He literally phones in his performances.

BG: [laughs] He probably does. I know my friend, Toby Huss, does voices on King of the Hill and a lot of those guys do stuff through the phone.

Tom has wanted to be a cartoon since we were kids in third grade. He was always called Tom Kenny the Human Cartoon.

DRE: Are you going to set fire to Jimmy's couch when you co-host?

BG: I don't know, maybe.

DRE: From reading everything I found about you like when you first started doing standup you cleaned and gutted a fish onstage. Do you come from that Andy Kaufman school of comedy?

BG: My early standup was me trying to make fun of standup comics. I would do stuff like the fish or read a Dear John letter and cry. Up until then I only had to do 20 minute sets then I started getting work after I was on David Letterman. But people hired me to do actual monologues at clubs so I kind of became the very thing I was making fun of.

DRE: Did you make that voice you made famous in the Police Academy movies for your standup?

BG: Yeah that was a persona I made up. I'm not so clever that I could come up with a new character every time I do something.

DRE: I know you don't think so much of the Police Academy movies but the first one you were in [Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment] is hysterical.

BG: Here's how I feel about those. I don't have a problem with them but I'm also not stupid enough to think they are great movies. Our country is fucked up so if you are self deprecating then people get nervous and uncomfortable. I make fun of those movies, I make fun of my bald head, I don't think I'm great and I don't take much of what I do serious.

I'll talk to some interviewers and they have problems with Police Academy. I'll say that I thought that movies were for kids, I didn't go see the first Police Academy and I've never been to an American Pie movie. But with that said I don't get upset about those movies, I'm not like "Why do they make those movies for teenagers!"

DRE: I want to know who talks shit about Police Academy.

BG: Lots of times people will bust my balls about them. I just think "good thing you're busting my balls about them because I was just sitting here thinking about how awesome I am because I was in them" [laughs]. That's what I'll be known for that's fine with me. I guess it's good to be a footnote in pop culture even if it's for Police Academy.

DRE: When I told people I was talking to you many of my friends accosted me and told me I must ask about Shakes the Clown. Do you like Shakes the Clown looking back on it?

BG: Why, was it a bad movie?

DRE: No but a lot of people don't think too much of the first thing they directed.

BG: REM wrote a song based on a line from Shakes and Martin Scorsese defended it when someone tried to take the piss out of it. So the fact is if Martin Scorsese likes it then hey. I run into people who say, what's the deal with Shakes the Clown? I say it's a dark movie that is trying to make fun of movies and everything about it is sarcastic. It's weird that I make a movie and I end defending it. If you don't like then it's not made for you. I think you're supposed to make big mass broad appeal crappy studio films and when you don't people get offended.

DRE: I was really excited to talk to you about Freaked [directed by Tom Stern and Alex Winter].

BG: I did a half day on it. I remember going in there and no one told me that Mr. T was crazy. I sat with him at lunch and he started talking to me about the bible and shit while he's drinking a Colt 45.

But Tom Stern plays Yuri on Windy City Heat.

DRE: Tom Stern is another brilliant guy.

BG: I love Tom Stern. I used to love those shorts he did with the chimps [The Chimp Channel].

DRE: You've got a new comedy album coming out. Have people really said "I Don't Mean to Insult You But You Look Like Bobcat Goldthwait" to you?

BG: I had a woman say that to me at the Oakland Airport. It just happened the other day in Cleveland when a woman behind the counter at Starbucks said it to me.

DRE: What do you say to that?

BG: I have no correct answer. I started laughing at the last one and said I am him and that is the name of my CD. Then she tried to cover up.

DRE: I'm not faulting you for being in the animated Disney Hercules movie. But I remember that Hercules parade they did in Times Square. That was nuts.

BG: It was packed and really weird. I remember being with [Mayor Rudy] Giuliani and [Chairman and Chief Executive of Walt Disney Michael] Eisner right where they had just cleaned up Times Square. I said "Where's the porn?" They totally kept me away from Giuliani after that. He didn't want to take a picture with me.

DRE: I would imagine you are highly respected by comedians.

BG: I don't know about that but I love working with them. I think people don't realize the potential of a comic. They think of us as wild monkeys that are going to come to set, throw our poop around and wreck shit. But I guess I perpetuate that by smashing up talk shows. I think comics are good actors. Ask them what they want to do and don't fight them. Just then try to make it what they came up with in their heads.

DRE: I was a little surprised that you called Ray Romano, "a modern-day Buster Keaton."

BG: I love Buster Keaton and I really think Ray Romano is so funny. I get so frustrated whenever I see anyone from his show and they don't thank him. They don't thank him for the job, for hiring him or anything. They seem like such an ungrateful group of fucking twits. It's infuriating.

Ray Romano is a really good actor. When I saw him on Saturday Night Live doing all those different characters I thought he was great. I'm sure people would never have figured I was a fan of his but I think he's talented.

DRE: Sweet sassy molassy, he's a great actor.

BG: That's right. He's probably so believable that people don't think he's acting.

DRE: Are you and Nikki Cox still together?

BG: Yeah recently it said on the web that we got divorced. We're still engaged. According to them we got divorced before we got married.

DRE: Did you court her as the bunny?

BG: No but I know that I'm the freak in the union. People can't understand why she would be with me. But I think people would be surprised how we got together. At a wrap party one day she told me she was in love with me. I know people think I gave her roofies or hypnotized her.

DRE: I like Hot to Trot. As mentioned in Windy City Heat will there be a Hot to Trot 2?

BG: I don't really care for Hot to Trot. In fact I wrote that joke. That was the thing about Windy City Heat. We did have an outline that was pretty thorough but then we would have to guess what Perry was going to do, say or even where he was going to stand. Tony said it best "We rehearse all day and then the leading man comes in and we do it once."

DRE: Do you still standup just in clubs or in bigger venues?

BG: I've done dates with Lewis Black and Robert Schimmel and we'll do small theatres. But I go on the road, do a lot of drifting and I'm pretty happy. Nik's new show [Las Vegas on NBC] is in Vegas so sometimes she travels with me.

The other thing I get since I've been divorced people ask me if I see my daughter. People have this vision that if you're divorced and in show business you're automatically a weekend dad. My daughter has pretty much lived with me most of the time. When I'm gone she's with Nikki.

DRE: Do you have any tattoos?

BG: No ink. My daughter was asking me if she could get a tattoo. I tried to use reverse psychology on her so I said, sure go ahead and now she's thinking about it.

DRE: What about holes?

BG: No I had an earring and now I don't.

DRE: Do you spend time on the internet?

BG: Sure. Most people in show business say they don't read the internet but I'll read what people are saying about me. What I've seen lately on the web about me has been Windy City Heat related. Like what Perry has found out. We're showing him the movie this weekend. He's been learning too much.

DRE: I still think he won't get it.

BG: I agree with you. He'll still be like "When is Windy City Heat coming out?"

by Daniel Robert Epstein