David Cross is an essential part of the collective American comedy consciousness. Cross is one of the many talented people who, like a phoenix, rose from the ashes of The Ben Stiller Show to become a significant force in comedy. He teamed up with former Ben Stiller Show cast member/writer Bob Odenkirk for a series of stage shows named Mr. Show, which eventually was brought to TV by HBO and enjoyed an extremely funny run. Mr. Show kept up the tradition of the anarchist spirit through sketch comedy. Their sharp biting parody and satire cut America to the roots but was under-watched by the public until the pair ended it in 1998. Since then Cross has appeared in a number of blockbuster films such as Men in Black II, Scary Movie 2 and Dr. Dolittle 2. He also is a recurring member of the cast of the critically acclaimed FOX sitcom Arrested Development.
But to experience the true Cross oeuvre you must experience the experimental comedy DVD that he recently released through Sub Pop Records called Let America Laugh. This isnt your usual paint by numbers traditional George Carlin comedy concert experience. On this DVD we see stage comedy in nearly every major city in America interrupted by idiot hecklers, drunk girls yelling and managers who just dont cotton to Crosss sense of humor. The DVD is a unique experience for any fan of comedy and if you really get Cross humor then you will be in heaven. Now David is on a new career path because he plans to release more albums through Sub Pop, he has an appeared in the highly anticipated Charlie Kaufman film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Arrested Development just got picked up for a new season and he is highly active in the New York City comedy scene by hosting the show Tinkle.
I got a chance to talk with David at a downtown coffee shop where we chatted about his writing processes, what he thought of Melvin Goes to Dinner and of course his love for the Suicide Girls.
Check out Sub Pop Records website for David Cross.
Daniel Robert Epstein: I just watched your DVD again last night. What made you want to do it in that fashion instead of a HBO or Showtime special?
David Cross: I didnt think about the opportunity. I dont think HBO would want to do anything in conjunction with Sub Pop but I never asked either. But I was not interested in just a visual record of what one would already have on the audio CD. I know some people really dont like the DVD.
DRE: It was so different from what I expected that it was a shock.
DC: I made sure that Sub Pop put something on the cover of the DVD saying This is not a concert film. Also I didnt really put anything in it that showed me in a particularly good light like the dealing with heckling and such. I didnt want it to become this unnecessary vanity project. There is plenty of that out there already. There is nothing interesting about just seeing me doing the show then seeing the fans and how much people love me. Who cares about that, that shit is a dime a dozen. I dont care about that, so I dont think anyone else would. I thought it would be way more interesting to show the drunk people, the hecklers. Its not about trying to be funny all the time. Its more of a document that hopefully is funny.
DRE: Were you unhappy with the HBO standup special?
DC: I wasnt unhappy with it. But I was a little disappointed because I didnt think I prepared for it the way I should have. I learned a pretty valuable lesson though. I wont make that mistake again.
DRE: What werent you prepared for?
DC: Being on the stage. Not that this is a viable excuse but I was asking HBO forever to do the special and I was in the middle of shooting a movie for three and a half months. Then HBO said I could do it so I went to Seattle which is only an hour and half away and I did about two weeks of intensely working in clubs in San Francisco and places like that. But I really didnt put the proper amount of time and effort into it. It could have been better.
DRE: Its pretty obvious you wanted the DVD to be a more DIY type thing and it definitely feels more intimate.
DC: Yeah thats totally what I wanted. Im not trying to make a concert film.
DRE: How was it directing those office scenes?
DC: It was great. All those guys were so good, those three people, the mom, the kid and the boss. I got them because Im friends with people over at [Late Night with] Conan [OBrien]. They are people who appear in their sketches. They showed up just ready to work and I had a bunch of friends help me out. This guy Hamid was my director of photography and we did all that in 8 hours. That came after I was editing all the footage and I knew it wouldnt hold up on its own. I needed some kind of thread there to make it feel a little bigger. So then we shot the office stuff on high definition video.
DRE: On the DVD the kid who came to interview you was really funny.
DC: Yeah I ran into that guy at a party.
DRE: He seemed really stoned when he showed up to interview you.
DC: I dont think he was stoned but maybe hes just a goof. I really dont think he was high, maybe he was high.
DRE: It seemed like he was waiting for you to pull out the bong and say I dont do interviews the traditional way.
DC: Yeah but thats just one example, I get that a lot.
DRE: Right like college papers and such.
DC: Yeah or someone who has a comedy paper thats half ripping off The Onion and E! Entertainment magazine.
DRE: Very often your comedy is quite political. But on the DVD every time you would get to a subject like that a heckler would interrupt you. So it seemed less political.
DC: That wasnt intentional. Maybe it was something I was happy to do because I cant listen to it anymore. Some of those heckling parts are just great on their own plus they happened at that moment so we had to include it.
DRE: You mentioned SuicideGirls in a Playboy interview.
DC: Im sure I could have. Im a fan of the site. I know Patton [Oswalt] and Bob [Odenkirk] have been interviewed for the site. I also like the concept of it a lot. I will also be photographing one of the girls for a set. It was an awful arduous task to go through them all and pick one out. I have a very specific idea and Ive narrowed it down to the people that can pull off the look. Theyre amazing girls but at least half of them are not my type.
DRE: After you go through all those girls, check out the archive. Its a secret part where you can find more girls. But youre not punky or gothy yourself?
DC: Im also almost 40 years old but there was a time when I was 18, 19 [counting on fingers] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 where I leaned more that way.
DRE: Are you still with [FOX sitcom] Arrested Development?
DC: Im waiting to find out. Theyre shooting right now in LA. With every passing day I dont hear something I assume I am not going back.
DRE: Is it fun?
DC: Its great. I enjoy working with everybody.
DRE: Did you audition for that?
DC: No they called me. Originally they wanted me to be Buster but I really like the Tobias part. I thought it would be good to be reoccurring so I dont have to go to LA as much.
DRE: I read you really dislike LA.
DC: Ive got a lot of friends there and there is stuff to do but as much as I dislike LA I really like living and working in New York City. My girlfriend, my apartment and all my stuff is here. I lived in LA for almost nine years and if I never went back there again it would be fine.
DRE: What did you think of [Bob Odenkirks feature directorial debut] Melvin Goes to Dinner?
DC: I didnt really care for it. I thought Bob did a good job of taking what was basically four people sitting down and talking and turning it into something that was interesting visually. I guess what I really didnt like about it is that it was presented as this conversation where somehow truths were being revealed and people were getting to the nitty gritty. That whole conversation they were having and everything they were bringing up was kind of repressed and its not truthful, its fake truth. Thats not how people talk, thats how people in movies talk. I didnt find much truth in the movie. I thought that the way these conversations were restrained and mannered might be commented on. I really despised all those characters. If I found myself in a situation like that as the Melvin character, within seven minutes I would be goosing it like crazy. I would be pushing people and my motivation for that would be like You guys are full of shit. You really think youre being truthful? Maybe thats just me though.
DRE: I think that is what the overlying joke was for Bob.
DC: Well I expected a comment on that. If youre going to ask me to sit through an hour and a half of this banal "pretend titillating" conversation, this cheap bullshit philosophizing, then at least let me know that you feel the same way as I do, otherwise I can't connect to anybody involved. Not the screenwriter or the director or anybody involved with the movie. Nobody.
DRE: Patton Oswalt told me not to mention the words alternative comedy to other comedians I talk to. I mentioned a comedian I like to him, Jake Johannsen, and he thinks hes just ok. But I can really see the difference between someone like Jake Johannsens standup and yours.
DC: I think hes really funny. The only distinction to make is the style. There are really funny alternative comics and really funny straight comics who write and perform traditionally. There are also really shitty alternative comics and terrible awful traditional comics. Its just a matter of approach and style. Its just an easy catchall to describe a style because there are a lot of alternative comics who are completely different from each other.
DRE: How do you write standup?
DC: I do it onstage mostly. Ill think of the idea and then Ill write something down, then within that there will be a joke or two which is the original thing which I thought was funny. Then I will go onstage and expand on it especially if Im working towards something like a special or a CD. Then I will tape the sets and even though Im not very successful sometimes I will try to cut out the fat and put the jokes closer together. I also try to think of ways to articulate the joke more economically. Its just laziness really. I work a lot and I like to get out and work but the work I do to make the other work work Im not very good at.
DRE: But on Mr. Show you did write sketches in a writers room.
DC: Yes but thats completely different. Sketches have characters, exits, entrances and are vastly different. The other stuff is more conversational and more me.
DRE: [Director of Run Ronnie Run] Troy Miller told me that he made up with you.
DC: What does that mean? Did he send me a fruit basket?
DRE: He said that you and he settled your differences. Bob said that wasnt true for him but he didnt want to speak for you.
DC: Well Troy is one of two things and neither one of them is good. Hes either lying or deluded unless hes mistaking restrained civility for friendliness. I havent talked to the guy since Sundance two years ago I think. Howwhy? Theres no making up to be done. Its over, its done. Its indefensible and unforgivable. He single handedly fucked that movie up [Run Ronnie Run]. Some people like it and its definitely got some funny parts in it. But just to not even be given the raw materials to make improvements solely because I feel like he didnt think we were capable of doing that. Bob and I disagree as to his motives but I honestly believe that he felt in a kind of friendly well meaning authoritative way, like a parent who smiles at a child when they want to do something grand and says Momma Im going to build you a guest house. And the mother says Oh sweetie you dont have to do that. She doesnt want to say, you cant build a guest house because youre not physically capable of constructing and architecturally designing one. She finds a way to get her child to not do it. I think Troy was looking at us in a way and thinking that these guys are talented and well meaning but they cannot tell a story on film like I can. I have to keep them out of here because they will try to inject their sensibilities which is all about humor and funny. Theyre going to destroy the story. I think he was thinking along those lines. I think he made a terrible mistake that will never be rectified and he probably didnt realize how immense the ramifications were going to be. You can trace it, he destroyed some friendships, destroyed a great working relationship trio and released a shitty movie that went straight to video for a reason. If youre going to tank your movie, at least make it the funniest fucken movie you can. If youre going to struggle with a studio head over at least youll be able to point to it in two years and go, hey man we put that out. But you cant do that with this movie, the first twenty minutes of that movie are fucken painful and awful.
DRE: It really is too bad because after you ended Mr. Show you and Bob must have had some leeway to do something big.
DC: The leeway ended when Michael DeLuca, who was the one guy who kind of championed us, got fired. That happened maybe two weeks into our pre-production and I guess the people who replaced him didnt care for it and were lying to us.
DRE: I read this somewhere. You were going on to do standup in Atlanta and you wrote be nice on your notes.
DC: I actually found those notes just recently in my office.
DRE: I know youre from Atlanta. Was that why you wanted to be nice?
DC: It has nothing to do with the place. I just often find myself getting shrill, angry and the jokes get more incredulous. I stop being clever and funny. You have to have some level of attachment, you can still have passion and believe but it has to be softened somewhat. You cant just yell jokes at people. Now Im used to my daily, almost hourly, outrage at whats happening in this country. How people are allowing it to happen because they dont care. I can deal with it better. But back then I was like What the fuck is wrong with you people? I dont mean this to sound hyperbolic but there are increasingly, albeit really minor, similarities between now and how Germany was lulled into what happened pre-WW2. How people are now giving up the idea of the individual to the government. We need to wear this, not say that, take it on good faith that they know whats best and that they should keep secrets from us. Thats what really happening and Ive never experienced that in my adult life. All I have is history books and there are similarities.
DRE: Many people feel that once we sent out troops in we should support the government. We should support the troops not the government.
DC: You can do both but thats a red herring. That argument is specious and doesnt have anything to do with what the real issue is. Go ahead support the troops, how does my getting upset and trying to bring them home not supporting them. Besides if people really want to support the troops they would vote democrat. If you want to reinstate the 14.4 billion dollars that Bush cut out of the veterans program then vote democrat.
DRE: Whats it like having some fans collect every piece of video footage youve ever been in?
DC: I dont think there is that. Its flattering and its scary at the same time. Half of that shit later on Im sure Im going to wince at and realize that it does not age well.
DRE: Are you still doing Tinkle?
DC: We will if we are all together in the same place. I left for LA so it kind of disbanded.
DRE: I missed that cruise they did.
DC: That was a lot of fun. I love Tinkle, its really the most fun Ive had in years. Its like doing Mr. Show when it was first a stage show except its even looser. I love doing stuff with Todd Barry and Jon Benjamin. We give the stage to good bands and funny people.
DRE: Bob Odenkirk told me that you and he are working on an all-out sketch movie.
DC: Yeah were going through our fourth overhaul on it. Its got connections from sketch to sketch, its really funny but it still needs more work. We need to edit some scenes that are too long and we need to find a funny thread to go through it. We want to make it simple and shoot it really cheaply. Weve already been rejected by 15 different places. People think its easy for us to do shit but everything has been a struggle. Ronnie Dobbs was an immense struggle to get it greenlit even at its $5 million budget.
DRE: What do you think of Broken Lizard putting out Super Troopers?
DC: I saw the trailer for it and it didnt look very funny.
DRE: It was surprisingly funny.
DC: Ill check it out.
DRE: What else is coming up?
DC: I just recorded another CD for Sub Pop.
DRE: How did you get hooked up with Sub Pop?
DC: They found me. I was on the way to the last gig on this one tour and my phone rang in the van. They asked me if I wanted to do an album so we did it.
DRE: So its not like the Friars Club when comedians get together.
DC: Like what group of people?
DRE: Like after Tinkle for instance.
DC: Oh yeah we just get together and fuck around. Were just funnier than most other people. In New York its quite different than it is in LA. In New York there isnt that weird palpable competitive thing where its friendly but everyone isnt trying to top one another with jokes when youre just hanging around. There is also a kind of mean-spiritedness with LA comics. Ive heard people say the nastiest rudest shit about people that I know are their friends. Theyre not ripping their character but are saying mean-spirited jabby things. I hate that shit.
DRE: Do comedians even laugh at things anymore?
DC: When we were on the bus doing the Mr. Show Hooray for America Tour there was a lot of laughter and a lot of pot smoking and a lot of speed metal listening and video game playing. Of course that was all Brian Posehn.
DRE: I could of course talk about Mr. Show for hours, but I wont.
[David nods his head appreciatively]
Who wrote the sketch with the pharmacist selling medical marijuana? Someone once told me that when its about marijuana its either you or Brian Posehn.
DC: My first guess when you said that was Brian but I really dont remember. I could be wrong but maybe its Brian or it could be Dino [Stamatopoulos]. I do know that the Electric Underwear was something I said as a joke. I remember leaning in a doorway, I think in Bobs and my office, there was the line about Cmon its like electric underwear and I swear to god I did not expect this to be a real link I said And speaking of The Electric Underwear. Ive got two tickets for tomorrow nights show. That is one of my favorite lines. Its such a subtle thing like so many things on Mr. Show. The camera movement apes exactly the camera movement from this fucken ridiculous commercial I saw for Anacin that I saw at the Museum of Radio and Television on this tape of a show I was watching from 1976. It starts on some bad fucken cheesy commercial band that is up on this stage. It pulls back to this woman and her friend on the balcony sitting down. The music is like these cheesy guitar riffs and the bandleader is wearing this cheesy cape with fringe on it. The woman is massaging her temples and says to her firmed This headache just wont go away then her friend gives her Anacin.
DRE: What do you feel Mr. Shows point of view was?
DC: I dont think I can summarize it. I cant tell you too easily what our theories were, what we wanted to stay away from and what we wanted to embrace. I guess you can distill all those philosophies Bob and I had into a sensibility. Just service the comedy, no ego for anybody whether its the writer or the performer. Its just about making that sketch the funniest possible. Though its not imperative hopefully the sketch has something to say.
DRE: Did you and Bob have real conversations about what you were trying to do?
DC: We never sat down and said Thursday at 1 oclock were going to sit down and discuss what we are going to do. But it came up. Dont forget all this grew organically after Bob and I riffed around at parties. Bob riffed the whole pots and pans sketch with his brother Bill at a party. We were fucken dying seeing that. I think I came up with one thing in there where the guy gets angry and says Kiss the pan. Then Bob had the idea of something from my standup he had the idea of Ronnie Dobbs. Hes the one who said we need to give that guy who gets famous on COPS a name. Thats just us sitting around riffing. We wrote those things and made sketches. It all took things incremental but important steps to getting on TV.
DRE: How was it improvising with the Upright Citizens Brigade in Martin & Orloff? I heard you were one of the only people to improvise for that movie.
DC: As far as the improvising thing, I enjoyed working with those guys, even though the movie sucked. They're all really funny. But I can't imagine that I was the only person to improvise, that can't be true.
DRE: You produced Tenacious Ds HBO show; can it work as a feature length movie?
DC: As for Tenacious D, of course it could work as a full length movie; all it requires is a great writer and great director with an ability to think outside of conventional film comedy.
DRE: How was it doing the voice work for Aqua Teen Hunger Force?
DC: Aqua Teen Hunger Force is one of the funniest shows on TV and I was a little intimidated working with those guys 'cause you're in a sound booth by yourself and they're all in a room in Atlanta. Youre just hoping your choice is good and they're not all in their studio in Atlanta, disappointedly covering up the speaker phone and rolling their eyes thinking "What the fuck is he doing? This sucks."
Check out David Cross official website.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
But to experience the true Cross oeuvre you must experience the experimental comedy DVD that he recently released through Sub Pop Records called Let America Laugh. This isnt your usual paint by numbers traditional George Carlin comedy concert experience. On this DVD we see stage comedy in nearly every major city in America interrupted by idiot hecklers, drunk girls yelling and managers who just dont cotton to Crosss sense of humor. The DVD is a unique experience for any fan of comedy and if you really get Cross humor then you will be in heaven. Now David is on a new career path because he plans to release more albums through Sub Pop, he has an appeared in the highly anticipated Charlie Kaufman film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Arrested Development just got picked up for a new season and he is highly active in the New York City comedy scene by hosting the show Tinkle.
I got a chance to talk with David at a downtown coffee shop where we chatted about his writing processes, what he thought of Melvin Goes to Dinner and of course his love for the Suicide Girls.
Check out Sub Pop Records website for David Cross.
Daniel Robert Epstein: I just watched your DVD again last night. What made you want to do it in that fashion instead of a HBO or Showtime special?
David Cross: I didnt think about the opportunity. I dont think HBO would want to do anything in conjunction with Sub Pop but I never asked either. But I was not interested in just a visual record of what one would already have on the audio CD. I know some people really dont like the DVD.
DRE: It was so different from what I expected that it was a shock.
DC: I made sure that Sub Pop put something on the cover of the DVD saying This is not a concert film. Also I didnt really put anything in it that showed me in a particularly good light like the dealing with heckling and such. I didnt want it to become this unnecessary vanity project. There is plenty of that out there already. There is nothing interesting about just seeing me doing the show then seeing the fans and how much people love me. Who cares about that, that shit is a dime a dozen. I dont care about that, so I dont think anyone else would. I thought it would be way more interesting to show the drunk people, the hecklers. Its not about trying to be funny all the time. Its more of a document that hopefully is funny.
DRE: Were you unhappy with the HBO standup special?
DC: I wasnt unhappy with it. But I was a little disappointed because I didnt think I prepared for it the way I should have. I learned a pretty valuable lesson though. I wont make that mistake again.
DRE: What werent you prepared for?
DC: Being on the stage. Not that this is a viable excuse but I was asking HBO forever to do the special and I was in the middle of shooting a movie for three and a half months. Then HBO said I could do it so I went to Seattle which is only an hour and half away and I did about two weeks of intensely working in clubs in San Francisco and places like that. But I really didnt put the proper amount of time and effort into it. It could have been better.
DRE: Its pretty obvious you wanted the DVD to be a more DIY type thing and it definitely feels more intimate.
DC: Yeah thats totally what I wanted. Im not trying to make a concert film.
DRE: How was it directing those office scenes?
DC: It was great. All those guys were so good, those three people, the mom, the kid and the boss. I got them because Im friends with people over at [Late Night with] Conan [OBrien]. They are people who appear in their sketches. They showed up just ready to work and I had a bunch of friends help me out. This guy Hamid was my director of photography and we did all that in 8 hours. That came after I was editing all the footage and I knew it wouldnt hold up on its own. I needed some kind of thread there to make it feel a little bigger. So then we shot the office stuff on high definition video.
DRE: On the DVD the kid who came to interview you was really funny.
DC: Yeah I ran into that guy at a party.
DRE: He seemed really stoned when he showed up to interview you.
DC: I dont think he was stoned but maybe hes just a goof. I really dont think he was high, maybe he was high.
DRE: It seemed like he was waiting for you to pull out the bong and say I dont do interviews the traditional way.
DC: Yeah but thats just one example, I get that a lot.
DRE: Right like college papers and such.
DC: Yeah or someone who has a comedy paper thats half ripping off The Onion and E! Entertainment magazine.
DRE: Very often your comedy is quite political. But on the DVD every time you would get to a subject like that a heckler would interrupt you. So it seemed less political.
DC: That wasnt intentional. Maybe it was something I was happy to do because I cant listen to it anymore. Some of those heckling parts are just great on their own plus they happened at that moment so we had to include it.
DRE: You mentioned SuicideGirls in a Playboy interview.
DC: Im sure I could have. Im a fan of the site. I know Patton [Oswalt] and Bob [Odenkirk] have been interviewed for the site. I also like the concept of it a lot. I will also be photographing one of the girls for a set. It was an awful arduous task to go through them all and pick one out. I have a very specific idea and Ive narrowed it down to the people that can pull off the look. Theyre amazing girls but at least half of them are not my type.
DRE: After you go through all those girls, check out the archive. Its a secret part where you can find more girls. But youre not punky or gothy yourself?
DC: Im also almost 40 years old but there was a time when I was 18, 19 [counting on fingers] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 where I leaned more that way.
DRE: Are you still with [FOX sitcom] Arrested Development?
DC: Im waiting to find out. Theyre shooting right now in LA. With every passing day I dont hear something I assume I am not going back.
DRE: Is it fun?
DC: Its great. I enjoy working with everybody.
DRE: Did you audition for that?
DC: No they called me. Originally they wanted me to be Buster but I really like the Tobias part. I thought it would be good to be reoccurring so I dont have to go to LA as much.
DRE: I read you really dislike LA.
DC: Ive got a lot of friends there and there is stuff to do but as much as I dislike LA I really like living and working in New York City. My girlfriend, my apartment and all my stuff is here. I lived in LA for almost nine years and if I never went back there again it would be fine.
DRE: What did you think of [Bob Odenkirks feature directorial debut] Melvin Goes to Dinner?
DC: I didnt really care for it. I thought Bob did a good job of taking what was basically four people sitting down and talking and turning it into something that was interesting visually. I guess what I really didnt like about it is that it was presented as this conversation where somehow truths were being revealed and people were getting to the nitty gritty. That whole conversation they were having and everything they were bringing up was kind of repressed and its not truthful, its fake truth. Thats not how people talk, thats how people in movies talk. I didnt find much truth in the movie. I thought that the way these conversations were restrained and mannered might be commented on. I really despised all those characters. If I found myself in a situation like that as the Melvin character, within seven minutes I would be goosing it like crazy. I would be pushing people and my motivation for that would be like You guys are full of shit. You really think youre being truthful? Maybe thats just me though.
DRE: I think that is what the overlying joke was for Bob.
DC: Well I expected a comment on that. If youre going to ask me to sit through an hour and a half of this banal "pretend titillating" conversation, this cheap bullshit philosophizing, then at least let me know that you feel the same way as I do, otherwise I can't connect to anybody involved. Not the screenwriter or the director or anybody involved with the movie. Nobody.
DRE: Patton Oswalt told me not to mention the words alternative comedy to other comedians I talk to. I mentioned a comedian I like to him, Jake Johannsen, and he thinks hes just ok. But I can really see the difference between someone like Jake Johannsens standup and yours.
DC: I think hes really funny. The only distinction to make is the style. There are really funny alternative comics and really funny straight comics who write and perform traditionally. There are also really shitty alternative comics and terrible awful traditional comics. Its just a matter of approach and style. Its just an easy catchall to describe a style because there are a lot of alternative comics who are completely different from each other.
DRE: How do you write standup?
DC: I do it onstage mostly. Ill think of the idea and then Ill write something down, then within that there will be a joke or two which is the original thing which I thought was funny. Then I will go onstage and expand on it especially if Im working towards something like a special or a CD. Then I will tape the sets and even though Im not very successful sometimes I will try to cut out the fat and put the jokes closer together. I also try to think of ways to articulate the joke more economically. Its just laziness really. I work a lot and I like to get out and work but the work I do to make the other work work Im not very good at.
DRE: But on Mr. Show you did write sketches in a writers room.
DC: Yes but thats completely different. Sketches have characters, exits, entrances and are vastly different. The other stuff is more conversational and more me.
DRE: [Director of Run Ronnie Run] Troy Miller told me that he made up with you.
DC: What does that mean? Did he send me a fruit basket?
DRE: He said that you and he settled your differences. Bob said that wasnt true for him but he didnt want to speak for you.
DC: Well Troy is one of two things and neither one of them is good. Hes either lying or deluded unless hes mistaking restrained civility for friendliness. I havent talked to the guy since Sundance two years ago I think. Howwhy? Theres no making up to be done. Its over, its done. Its indefensible and unforgivable. He single handedly fucked that movie up [Run Ronnie Run]. Some people like it and its definitely got some funny parts in it. But just to not even be given the raw materials to make improvements solely because I feel like he didnt think we were capable of doing that. Bob and I disagree as to his motives but I honestly believe that he felt in a kind of friendly well meaning authoritative way, like a parent who smiles at a child when they want to do something grand and says Momma Im going to build you a guest house. And the mother says Oh sweetie you dont have to do that. She doesnt want to say, you cant build a guest house because youre not physically capable of constructing and architecturally designing one. She finds a way to get her child to not do it. I think Troy was looking at us in a way and thinking that these guys are talented and well meaning but they cannot tell a story on film like I can. I have to keep them out of here because they will try to inject their sensibilities which is all about humor and funny. Theyre going to destroy the story. I think he was thinking along those lines. I think he made a terrible mistake that will never be rectified and he probably didnt realize how immense the ramifications were going to be. You can trace it, he destroyed some friendships, destroyed a great working relationship trio and released a shitty movie that went straight to video for a reason. If youre going to tank your movie, at least make it the funniest fucken movie you can. If youre going to struggle with a studio head over at least youll be able to point to it in two years and go, hey man we put that out. But you cant do that with this movie, the first twenty minutes of that movie are fucken painful and awful.
DRE: It really is too bad because after you ended Mr. Show you and Bob must have had some leeway to do something big.
DC: The leeway ended when Michael DeLuca, who was the one guy who kind of championed us, got fired. That happened maybe two weeks into our pre-production and I guess the people who replaced him didnt care for it and were lying to us.
DRE: I read this somewhere. You were going on to do standup in Atlanta and you wrote be nice on your notes.
DC: I actually found those notes just recently in my office.
DRE: I know youre from Atlanta. Was that why you wanted to be nice?
DC: It has nothing to do with the place. I just often find myself getting shrill, angry and the jokes get more incredulous. I stop being clever and funny. You have to have some level of attachment, you can still have passion and believe but it has to be softened somewhat. You cant just yell jokes at people. Now Im used to my daily, almost hourly, outrage at whats happening in this country. How people are allowing it to happen because they dont care. I can deal with it better. But back then I was like What the fuck is wrong with you people? I dont mean this to sound hyperbolic but there are increasingly, albeit really minor, similarities between now and how Germany was lulled into what happened pre-WW2. How people are now giving up the idea of the individual to the government. We need to wear this, not say that, take it on good faith that they know whats best and that they should keep secrets from us. Thats what really happening and Ive never experienced that in my adult life. All I have is history books and there are similarities.
DRE: Many people feel that once we sent out troops in we should support the government. We should support the troops not the government.
DC: You can do both but thats a red herring. That argument is specious and doesnt have anything to do with what the real issue is. Go ahead support the troops, how does my getting upset and trying to bring them home not supporting them. Besides if people really want to support the troops they would vote democrat. If you want to reinstate the 14.4 billion dollars that Bush cut out of the veterans program then vote democrat.
DRE: Whats it like having some fans collect every piece of video footage youve ever been in?
DC: I dont think there is that. Its flattering and its scary at the same time. Half of that shit later on Im sure Im going to wince at and realize that it does not age well.
DRE: Are you still doing Tinkle?
DC: We will if we are all together in the same place. I left for LA so it kind of disbanded.
DRE: I missed that cruise they did.
DC: That was a lot of fun. I love Tinkle, its really the most fun Ive had in years. Its like doing Mr. Show when it was first a stage show except its even looser. I love doing stuff with Todd Barry and Jon Benjamin. We give the stage to good bands and funny people.
DRE: Bob Odenkirk told me that you and he are working on an all-out sketch movie.
DC: Yeah were going through our fourth overhaul on it. Its got connections from sketch to sketch, its really funny but it still needs more work. We need to edit some scenes that are too long and we need to find a funny thread to go through it. We want to make it simple and shoot it really cheaply. Weve already been rejected by 15 different places. People think its easy for us to do shit but everything has been a struggle. Ronnie Dobbs was an immense struggle to get it greenlit even at its $5 million budget.
DRE: What do you think of Broken Lizard putting out Super Troopers?
DC: I saw the trailer for it and it didnt look very funny.
DRE: It was surprisingly funny.
DC: Ill check it out.
DRE: What else is coming up?
DC: I just recorded another CD for Sub Pop.
DRE: How did you get hooked up with Sub Pop?
DC: They found me. I was on the way to the last gig on this one tour and my phone rang in the van. They asked me if I wanted to do an album so we did it.
DRE: So its not like the Friars Club when comedians get together.
DC: Like what group of people?
DRE: Like after Tinkle for instance.
DC: Oh yeah we just get together and fuck around. Were just funnier than most other people. In New York its quite different than it is in LA. In New York there isnt that weird palpable competitive thing where its friendly but everyone isnt trying to top one another with jokes when youre just hanging around. There is also a kind of mean-spiritedness with LA comics. Ive heard people say the nastiest rudest shit about people that I know are their friends. Theyre not ripping their character but are saying mean-spirited jabby things. I hate that shit.
DRE: Do comedians even laugh at things anymore?
DC: When we were on the bus doing the Mr. Show Hooray for America Tour there was a lot of laughter and a lot of pot smoking and a lot of speed metal listening and video game playing. Of course that was all Brian Posehn.
DRE: I could of course talk about Mr. Show for hours, but I wont.
[David nods his head appreciatively]
Who wrote the sketch with the pharmacist selling medical marijuana? Someone once told me that when its about marijuana its either you or Brian Posehn.
DC: My first guess when you said that was Brian but I really dont remember. I could be wrong but maybe its Brian or it could be Dino [Stamatopoulos]. I do know that the Electric Underwear was something I said as a joke. I remember leaning in a doorway, I think in Bobs and my office, there was the line about Cmon its like electric underwear and I swear to god I did not expect this to be a real link I said And speaking of The Electric Underwear. Ive got two tickets for tomorrow nights show. That is one of my favorite lines. Its such a subtle thing like so many things on Mr. Show. The camera movement apes exactly the camera movement from this fucken ridiculous commercial I saw for Anacin that I saw at the Museum of Radio and Television on this tape of a show I was watching from 1976. It starts on some bad fucken cheesy commercial band that is up on this stage. It pulls back to this woman and her friend on the balcony sitting down. The music is like these cheesy guitar riffs and the bandleader is wearing this cheesy cape with fringe on it. The woman is massaging her temples and says to her firmed This headache just wont go away then her friend gives her Anacin.
DRE: What do you feel Mr. Shows point of view was?
DC: I dont think I can summarize it. I cant tell you too easily what our theories were, what we wanted to stay away from and what we wanted to embrace. I guess you can distill all those philosophies Bob and I had into a sensibility. Just service the comedy, no ego for anybody whether its the writer or the performer. Its just about making that sketch the funniest possible. Though its not imperative hopefully the sketch has something to say.
DRE: Did you and Bob have real conversations about what you were trying to do?
DC: We never sat down and said Thursday at 1 oclock were going to sit down and discuss what we are going to do. But it came up. Dont forget all this grew organically after Bob and I riffed around at parties. Bob riffed the whole pots and pans sketch with his brother Bill at a party. We were fucken dying seeing that. I think I came up with one thing in there where the guy gets angry and says Kiss the pan. Then Bob had the idea of something from my standup he had the idea of Ronnie Dobbs. Hes the one who said we need to give that guy who gets famous on COPS a name. Thats just us sitting around riffing. We wrote those things and made sketches. It all took things incremental but important steps to getting on TV.
DRE: How was it improvising with the Upright Citizens Brigade in Martin & Orloff? I heard you were one of the only people to improvise for that movie.
DC: As far as the improvising thing, I enjoyed working with those guys, even though the movie sucked. They're all really funny. But I can't imagine that I was the only person to improvise, that can't be true.
DRE: You produced Tenacious Ds HBO show; can it work as a feature length movie?
DC: As for Tenacious D, of course it could work as a full length movie; all it requires is a great writer and great director with an ability to think outside of conventional film comedy.
DRE: How was it doing the voice work for Aqua Teen Hunger Force?
DC: Aqua Teen Hunger Force is one of the funniest shows on TV and I was a little intimidated working with those guys 'cause you're in a sound booth by yourself and they're all in a room in Atlanta. Youre just hoping your choice is good and they're not all in their studio in Atlanta, disappointedly covering up the speaker phone and rolling their eyes thinking "What the fuck is he doing? This sucks."
Check out David Cross official website.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 25 of 56 COMMENTS
cudnovati:
ahhh this is old but Mr. Cross is amazing.
tarion:
Great interview. One of my old favs 