Comedian Chris Gethard Talks To Mediaite About Finding The Future Of Entertainment Via Public Access TV
Mediaite: Are there other outlets of the show like the Human Fish Twitter account? Are there other ways that you’ll broaden the universe?
Gethard: Yeah, I mean I think down the line that’s the goal. Like we’ve talked about, right now the last piece of our infrastructure, as we’ve been referring to it, that we need to get going is the podcast thing. So we want that in place, we want people to be able to download every episode we’ve ever shot and sign up to get them automatically.
Mediaite: Will that be audio, or just…?
Gethard: That’ll be video. That’ll be on iTunes, we’ve been approved. iTunes is gonna let us do a video podcast and from there we’ll really be able to start to do stuff. But yeah, we’ve talked about like hosting live events, we’ve talked about trying to go on Twitter and be like, tell everybody if you’re following the show — like we don’t know what it could be but it could be the sort of thing of like the Human Fish is going to be at Union Square at one o’clock today and he’s gonna be doing something, if you wanna be a part of it get down there. And letting our people know you can be a part of it. We’ve been doing another thing, like, every time someone requests tickets, we basically, if you ever come to our tapings, which you should man, you’d have a good time —
Mediaite: I know. One of my good friends is the guy in the shiny glasses —
Gethard: So you know, like I tell people, anytime someone requests tickets, I’m like “Definitely, you’re in. Show up at this time and just so you know there’s basically two sections of our audience, one’s on camera, one’s off camera. So, if you wear something weird, or distinctive, or a costume or an outfit, we’ll put you on camera you’ll be seated in that section.” And people embrace that. Like we get the guy with the flashing dress, we get the guy dressed up as the banana, we get the dude who shows up with yeah, the kissing booth, the guy who just writes messages on his shirt in duct tape every week. And every time now after that I always write them first. “If any of you guys want tickets let me know and you’ll get them before anybody else. You’re a part of things now.” You know what I mean?
Like if the guy dressed as a banana wants to show up every week then banana guy is just part of the show. The guy with the flashing glasses, he came one week and just started dancing, and then he came back again and he volunteered to do this other bit where he’s on camera the whole time. We all just started calling him “Flashing Glasses Guy” and now I bet he knows that, any week he shows up with those glasses, he’s Flashing Glasses Guy. He’s a guy that people theoretically might know. One of my favorite things that’s happened is the only person to be recognized from being on the show so far is Random Jean.
Mediaite: Really?
Gethard: Yeah.
Mediaite: Where?
Gethard: She was just walking down the street and someone from across the street was like “Yo! Random Jean!”
Mediaite: That’s awesome.
“I have a feeling, I don’t know, but I have a feeling if you research the history of public access television I would have to imagine I’m the only person who was the star of a sitcom and then less than a year later was doing a public access show.”
Gethard: It’s like what the fuck? But this girl who just watched and called up, and is now on the show, got recognized for being on it. I think that’s a cool thing. And it was a cool thing, man. I don’t know.
Mediaite: Okay I think there’s a long line of, you know, public access shows that then became “real,” that went on —
Gethard: Legitimate.
Mediate: You know someone put a huge ton of money in your Tom Green’s —
Gethard: Your Jake Fogelnest’s, Squirt TV, he’s a friend of mine —
Mediaite: Was Mystery Science Theater public access? (ed. note: It wasn’t)
Gethard: I’m not sure if Mystery Science was. I know the big ones are Squirt TV, which featured my friend Jake Fogelnest, was a show called Beyond Vaudeville —
Mediaite: That’s the one I was trying to think of.
Gethard: Yeah and Democracy Now was actually an MNM show. So there is like, there’s the potential for it to happen.
Mediaite: I mean you’ve obviously worked in mainstream TV before.
Gethard: Yeah. I have a feeling, I don’t know, but I have a feeling if you research the history of public access television I would have to imagine I’m the only person who was the star of a sitcom and then less than a year later was doing a public access show. Which is probably a massive career downfall in most ways, but it was a conscious decision. I had a lot of people who were like, “You should move to LA and try to like ride the momentum you’ve got from stuff that’s been happening lately,” but I don’t know. I just love New York City, and I loved doing the sitcom I did but one of the experiences I’ve had, as I’m sort of closer and closer to working consistently, is just performing the parts that other people write and getting told how to do them by producers and directors. And it’s a good thing and a good job and you can’t complain about it. But I just know in my heart I’ll be happier if I can make my own thing work someday, you know? So I’m kind of trying to go all in in the next year or two, just be like this is what we’ve got.
And I think we’re getting close, you know, like seven or eight episodes in. This is a show I’d want to watch if I was a 15 year old kid. That’s my whole mentality. Would I have wanted to watch the show when I was like 15, and a loser, and home alone, and didn’t have anyone else to hang out with? For me those are like The Howard Stern Show when it was on channel 9 in New York. It’s like Beavis and Butthead and all those early MTV shows. And I think I’m building a show I would have wanted to watch when I was a kid.
