Features

The Detour Conversation with Michael Showalter

Posted by: Johnny Loftus on February 4, 2008 at 5:00 pm

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This past November, comedian, writer, and actor Michael Showalter spent a few days tearing through a cross-section of music, media, and pop culture blogs as an everywhere-at-once guest contributor. He hit the usual suspects — My Old Kentucky Blog, Stereogum, EW; he even wrote the memorable “Bill Belichick is a Surly Dick” post for the Gawker Media sports outlet Deadspin. The blog tour was a promotional stunt for Sandwiches and Cats, his new comedy album. But it was brilliant as that, because if you know anything about Showalter, a veteran of such esoteric and laugh-out-loud projects as “The State” on MTV (”I wanna dip my balls in it!”), “Stella” on Comedy Central, the terrific summer camp send-up Wet Hot American Summer (which he co-wrote), and The Baxter, his directorial debut, you know that his comedy often bleeds from the everyday, gets kind of cerebral, then coagulates in a weird mess of superintelligence and dick jokes. Here’s a dick joke costarring Michael Ian Black.

Showalter is currently on tour with fellow State alum and frequent VH1 pop culture commentator Michael Ian Black — you can read all about what’s gone wrong for him on it here — so we thought it was a good time to get him on the phone for a chat. Turns out he doesn’t compare touring live to touring blogs (shocker), he has some theories about how his own comedy is perceived, and he’s very concerned about bandwagons. — Johnny Loftus

Does having a laptop on stage make you the Girl Talk of standup comedy?

“For me personally, the laptop is sort of like a security blanket,” Showalter says. He often performs with his trusty iTunes nearby, paging through tracks or letting the grating post-grunge simplicity of Creed’s “My Sacrifice” blast into the room as a kind of sonic joke to riff on. “I try to imagine that I’m alone in my apartment,” he says of the style. “That’s kind of my concept. It’s not necessarily stage fright. It’s just a way of relaxing, and freeing up to say whatever’s on my mind.”

“But in the case of Creed,” he continues, “I actually like Creed. Which isn’t my way of saying ‘Stop talking about Creed.’ It’s just that there’s no accounting for taste. What is one person’s cup of tea is another person’s bowl of gruel.”

What about bandwagons?

“There are a million things people absolutely love, bandwagons they’re on, that I don’t get.”

Like “American Gladiators”?

“No, that’s kitsch. Things like that are in a separate category.”

So…

“Let me think…I want to think of a good example. I’ll think of something and let you know.”

How has the reception for Sandwiches & Cats been?

“I’m really happy with the album. I really didn’t have any expectations on how it’d be received. Actually, I’m kind of used to things I do not being well received, so it’s a new thing to have something be well liked.”

“Pretty much everything I do is presented in a work in progress stage,” he continues. “I was reading a review of my album, and it said something to the effect that it, like everything else I do, is a minor achievement. But I actually agree with that. ‘Stella’ was the one thing that we attempted to do that was opus-like, well, and The Baxter. But everything else — Wet Hot, my standup — is sort of elliptical.”

So, bits evolve on the road?

“I’m always adding to things, and subtracting; bits change a lot. But if I’m not being funny off the top of my head, I can always start playing music.”

Back to bandwagons…

“People love to get on top of a bandwagon. People like to look around and see what other people like, and that’s what they like.”

Is your comedy the opposite of that? Does it demand more of an investment from the audience?

“”No, I would love to be less marginal than I am. I didn’t choose to be marginal. Everything I’ve done with the exception of Sandwiches & Cats – i knew it wouldn’t have mainstream appeal — but The Baxter, “Stella,” and Wet Hot, I went into those saying ‘I hope this happens.’ I didn’t go into them anticipating a very specialized audience.”

And the blogger world sighs, for they are no longer Michael Showalter’s special friends.

“Everybody has their own taste,” Showalter says. “I really love “Lost,” “Heroes,” “American Idol”…People love “Grey’s Anatomy,” and I don’t get that. Everybody has their own taste. But more than that, once something is liked, there’s a tendancy to want to repeat it, and that’s the bigger bandwagon issue. When There’s Something About Mary came out, for five years after it every movie studio was attempting to make the next Something About Mary. And that continued until Wedding Crashers, and now everyone wants to do what Judd Apatow is doing, as opposed to just doing something on their own. How many of the Something About Mary movies can people even remember? None.”

Michael Showalter is on tour with Michael Ian Black through April.

[tags]Michael Showalter, Sandwiches & Cats, The State, Stella, The Baxter, Wet Hot American Summer, Judd Apatow
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