AVC: Does that make it easier for you to deal with the fact that a lot of people didn't like that movie?
BO: If I was an unequivocal fan of the movie, that would make dealing with the criticism a lot easier. The fact that I think it has crucial problems makes it much, much harder. It's one thing to go, "Look, I love it, you don't love it, I'm sorry you don't love it. I can't help you, 'cause I think it's great." I read criticisms all the time. For some reason, I went on amazon.com and I read the reviewers' remarks on Tom Goes To The Mayor, which is a show I just love, and of course, out of 10, there's two are like, "This is just a piece of shit. There's nothing funny about it at all." It's very easy for me to read that, and it doesn't shake me up at all. It hurts a lot more to think, "Yeah, you're right." I can't even say I didn't see it coming. I had stomach problems working on that picture. But there is an element of, you go out on a limb with all these projects.
I was pretty sure of myself with Mr. Show. Somebody asked me, "Did you think you'd get laughs with that stuff? How sure were you?" And I remember us being utterly certain that these sketches were hilarious and that we'd get these laughs. I guess I've had to re-learn to trust my gut and believe in myself in this new venue. And also, there's another crucial test that that movie did not pass. It's an old Mr. Show test. We would ask ourselves, if we did material that was crude or kind of grotesque, "What is this about? Who's the victim of this joke?" There was stuff that made me feel a little uncertain, a little queasy—like the retarded parents. We talked about, "Well, we don't want the big target in this to be retarded people." We made it about a true thing, which is that, I think, six of the past seven Best Actor Oscars had gone to people who portrayed people with mental or physical handicaps. We made it about something else that was worthy of pointing out.
Not that people aren't enjoying watching retarded parents, 'cause that's funny as shit. But it's also funny in a bigger context, and you can feel like, "I didn't just go, 'Hey, look at me, I'm being retarded.'" [On Let's Go To Prison], we didn't ask the question, "What is the big target of this satire?" We really didn't have a target, so it did break down to just being, in a lot of ways, kind of darkness to no end. When people go to the movies, they want to laugh and smile and be happy, and one thing I feel great about with The Brothers Solomon is it's an extremely likeable film. The characters are really upbeat. They're impossibly upbeat.
AVC: What drew you to Web video for Derek & Simon?
BO: Just the artistic freedom. Those guys basically let us do whatever we want. Super Deluxe is really cool. It's very short-form, so that we can go out and shoot a couple of them at a crack, and I can fit it in between my efforts at these bigger projects, screenplays and films, which take a lot longer to develop. You can just go knock some of these out. [Super Deluxe] came to us and said, "Would you do some of these for our channel?" I didn't actually go out looking. I really think Super Deluxe is handling this very well. They came on months ago with no promotion. They just let their channel exist and let these comedians and writers make their material without a lot of interference and without a lot of fanfare and without a lot of pointing at them saying, "Look, watch this now!" They let them grow a little, let us find our way in an organic, natural way, and I think that's the way to go. I think Derek & Simon is in some ways a little more refined than some of the other stuff that's on the channel, but it's great that there's a platform for young comedians and directors and writers to work their ideas out.
AVC: How'd you start working with Derek Waters and Simon Helberg?
BO: Derek is represented by my wife, who's a personal manager. Simon was a fan of mine who shared the same agent, and she asked if he could meet me back when I was doing Mr. Show, and he came in and we talked. Years later, my wife said, "Derek and Simon are friends, these two guys are very funny together, you should meet them." We sat and talked about a show they could do together, and we were actually talking about some high-concept TV shows, and I said, "You guys are so much fun to talk to. You're so funny together. Let's just have it be you and girls." They had so many great stories about stupid, bad, embarrassing moments with women. That's really all there is to it. Guys and girls and embarrassment.
AVC: So how off-the-cuff is the process?
BO: Most of the episodes are written out, some of them are just sketched out. I talk them through it, and we refine lines, we do multiple takes, and we do writing meetings. We put effort into it, but it looks very off-the-cuff. That's just how it's performed.
AVC: Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim worked more closely with you on Tom Goes To The Mayor than on Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
BO: Yeah, definitely. I was really involved in Tom Goes To The Mayor. We did a lot more talk before [Tim And Eric] came on about what was the show, and how to construct it. I did the most work on the pilot episode, where they showed me the script and talked about what it needed, and they really did pursue all those things that I suggested. Beyond those big choices in creating the show, I've really just been stopping in and saying what I like and helping with cuts and fun stuff. But now, they really have it down, so they're just doing it on their own.
AVC: Does it surprise you that shows like that are attracting prestigious guest stars and a slightly wider audience?
BO: That's a strange thing, but I know all these people from a million places. I know John C. Reilly from Mr. Show, and then he was on Tenacious D, which I produced. There was one where I think Tim and Eric finally did cold-call people. It is a surprising and funny occurrence. Tim and Eric and I were saying how they went and saw John at the set he's on right now, and he can't wait to do Steve Brule again. Then you see the other side of that, which is all these celebrities did it because they love a chance to just be crazy. Tom Goes To The Mayor wasn't a hard production. You just walked in and went in the room and read your stuff and posed a few times, and it took a total of 40 minutes to do your guest spot, which is very rare and not how most things are done. I don't think there's a great proliferation of shows like that, so I don't see that things are too different overall.
I think the biggest change is the Internet and Funny Or Die and Super Deluxe, because Super Deluxe is not found video and it's not one-offs. It's not kids in their dorms eating as much baloney as they can, and saying, "Watch me change T-shirts 100 times." It's people making shows, and it's not just regular people, it's people in the comedy scene in L.A., and most are interesting people with funny, interesting points of view. That's the big new step, to me.
AVC: Are you going to do anything with your Super Deluxe space apart from Derek & Simon?
BO: I'm gonna do some Comedy By The Numbers pieces—that's a book that McSweeney's is putting out that a Mr. Show writer [Eric Hoffman] co-wrote. There's a sketch group in England that I really like called Straitjacket that very few people have seen that I'd like to try to get on. And David Cross and I took a sketch from our Mr. Show sketch movie, and we're gonna try to produce that for Super Deluxe. It's called "Fagit And Morello," and it's about a comedy team like Martin and Lewis.
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