Benkharakh.com

By Ben Kharakh

Paul Scheer of Best Week Ever on Improv, Space Ghost, Zak McKraken, fake mustaches, and the rise of alternative comedy.

When did you develop an interest in comedy?

It seemed like a fun thing to do when I watched old Saturday Night Lives and stuff like that.

What were you like in school?

I was the kid in the back of the class that wasn't necessarily the most popular kid, but for the four people around him was very entertaining.

Is school something that you enjoyed?

Yeah. It was a fine time and I got a good education.

What sort of aspirations did you have as a child?

As a kid, all I wanted to do was become the next Eddie Murphy. All I thought was, "How can I get a red leather suit and do this."

Is television something that impacted you greatly growing up?

I was a latchkey kid, so I watched a ton of television, a lot of reruns.

Were you incorporating humor into your daily routine in school and college?

When I was in college, I saw an Improv show called Chicago City Limits and I thought that it was the coolest thing ever. It was a type of comedy I had never seen before. When I was a senior in high school I started taking classes at Chicago City Limits and I was the youngest person to ever join their touring company. I toured around the country with them. My college experience was me going to classes Monday through Thursday and me touring around the country Friday through Sunday.

Did you take the classes on your own or did friends go with you?

I went by myself. I made up an elaborate lie that I was a freshman in NYU, but the truth was that I was just commuting from Long Island. One of my favorite stories about that is when I was hanging out after one of my classes with the students, who were all in their thirties to late twenties, one of the guys was smoking a joint. I was so shocked by seeing someone smoking a joint. I couldn't stop talking about it and kept asking, "Did you see that guy smoke a joint?" "Yeah, it's no big deal." It kind of blew my cover.

What did you study in college?

I studied to be a teacher. I always heard that you should have something to fall back on if it doesn't work. I got out of college as quickly as I could, in three years, by taking summer school classes.

Did you ever get around to doing any teaching at a school?

No, as soon as I graduated I started doing this professionally, with the odd job of rollerblading around New York City handing out CompuServe disks or the occasional temp job at some awful thing. I coasted on short-term jobs.

What did interning at Chicago City Limits entail?

I went there and took classes. As I took more and more classes I became a fixture at that place and weaseled my way into getting a job. It wasn't that hard. It was a pretty small operation, so I'd work the box office before the show, run upstairs and work the concession stand during the intermission, and at the end of the night sweep the theater. I was a multi-tasking person.

How long were you with Chicago City Limits before going to UCB?

I was with Chicago City Limits for about six years. Then, I saw an Assscat, which is UCB's signature Improv show. I saw that at Solo Arts Theater, which was this small theater that held about fifty people uncomfortably. I saw them and they had an audience of about five people. I thought, "These guys are amazing." I felt the same way as when I saw Chicago City Limits. I knew I had to do it. I started taking classes with them early on and continued to do Chicago City Limits because that actually paid. Then, when the UCB Theater opened, the first big one on Twenty-second Street, I was cast in a bunch of shows five nights a week. It was a decision of, "Do I tour or stay and work in the city for free at this really great theater?" I choose to leave Chicago City Limits.

What were the next several years like for you?

Actually, on my graduation day from NYU I had my first class show at UCB. I remember running from the graduation all the way over to UCB to do my first show. Over the next several years, UCB started to flourish. We had this great theater and it started off with twenty to thirty people doing every show. Then more people got there and you would do less shows, but the shows you were doing got better, I started teaching at UCB, and I formed my group Respecto Montalban. We'd been performing together for five years and we had our own show every Saturday night at ten O'clock.

Tell me about teaching Improv.

Teaching Improv was a lot of fun. I did it at Chicago City Limits and Upright Citizens Brigade. Currently I'm not teaching anymore. I felt like a burnt out on it. Improv classes are different from acting, cooking, or pottery classes because you have a whole bunch of people that are from many different walks of life. You have people who are the fifteen year old kid, like I was, the forty year old that always wanted to try it, and actual actors who want to bring something different to their performances.

What changes have you noticed in comedy since you've gotten involved?

Chicago City Limits was like Whose Line is it Anyway: very broad, light, and funny. It worked and no matter where we played around the country we had a good show, but when I saw UCB for the first time it was an alternative voice. It was darker things and pushed the envelope in a lot of different ways. The shows weren't as polished and it had this punk rock vibe to it. I think with comedians from Mr. Show to all the way down to what people are doing at UCB, a wave of alternative comedy started to grow. They were saying things and doing things that before were never done. Now it's reached its tipping point where you have Lois CK doing a three-camera sitcom and it has cursing and nudity in it, which is something you'd never expect to see seven years ago. I think right now the mainstream is skewing more alternative.

You've moved to LA recently?

Yeah, I moved to Los Angeles about a month ago.

Was that a difficult move to make?

No. I love New York City and I like LA a lot. LA could never take the place of New York, but for financial and artistic reasons, you have to be out here in Los Angeles. There are more opportunities and you have more of a chance to show your goods out here.

How would you describe the differences between the East Coast and West Coast comedy scenes?

Sensibility wise, I think that the East Coast and West Coast are the same, but in New York you have the freedom to be less polished. In Los Angeles there's always this thought that people are coming out to see a new thing or to sign something. In New York you can take a lot more chances. With the opening of the UCB out here and the Improv Olympics in LA, you can do some shows that are more niche and not for showcasing.

What different shows are you involved with now?

Right now I'm doing a show called My Space that I'm doing with all of the people that I performed with in New York in Respecto Montalban: Rob Huebel, Owen Burke, Rob Riggle from Saturday Night Live, and Chad Carter. It's an Improv show based on people's My Space profiles. I'm also doing a monthly show called B.E.A.S.T. That show is a very big presentation. Each month we tackle something completely different. It's a written show with special guests and musicians. Last month we did a pop culture game show and in December we're doing a Star Wars Christmas special. There's also a show called Trapped in the Closet Commentary where we do the commentary for R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet.

What are the differences between you onstage and off?

I'm not always on. I'm a little more reserved and quiet in real life.

How do you deal with being recognized by fans?

It's great. Best Week Ever has been an awesome and creatively fulfilling experience for me. It's kind of fun, but sometimes it gets scary. It's great to meet people that are nice and into what you do. And sometimes you get free stuff, like ice cream.

What do you mean by sometimes it's a bit scary?

I just got back from the HBO Las Vegas Comedy Festival. We were out in a casino one night and I got recognized by a gaggle of people.. You don't know what to do when they won't let you out of the circle. They're going, "Say something funny." That's the worst thing. Or, "Tell us a joke." I wish I had a good answer to that. I always feel like I'm letting them down. While I was being attacked by these people, one girl pulled down her shirt and said, "Wanna see my breasts? You can see my breasts!" I replied, "No, no thank you." And they were drunk on top of it. But when people aren't showing me their breasts, it's fine.

Did you recently have your ten-year high school reunion?

I did, but I did not attend it. I had no desire to. I loved high school and loved the people I went to high school with, but I'd prefer to remember them in the way that I remember them instead of seeing them now. It's a weird thing.

How's Sketch Off going?

It's going well. It's a show I did with Whoopi Goldberg. I developed this American Idol for sketch comedy. Unfortunately, TBS, who we shot the pilot for, is not doing reality shows right now. So we're in the process of shopping it around to other networks. Whoopi's been great to work with and really supportive of the idea. I've also finished writing a sitcom script for HBO and will be starting to work on the new Todd Philips movie, School for Scoundrels, in a couple of days. That's going to have Jon Heder and Billy Bob Thornton in it.

Tell me about Starveillance.

Starveillance is a claymation celebrity sketch comedy show that asks the question, "What will it be like to be a fly in the wall in big celebrity moments? Like, what was it like in the limo when Bruce, Demi, and Ashton went to the Charlie's Angels 2 premiere?"

What's this sitcom you're working with on HBO?

I'm not supposed to elaborate on it. It's a work place sitcom. I had a bunch of meetings with a bunch of great people and one of the ideas that I casually pitched to them was this show idea, which they got very excited about.

When will people be able to see this?

The script is written and we're taking it out to networks to see who will buy it. Right now, I'm with H.I.P, which is HBO's independent wing. They did shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Martin. This is going to be for network and not HBO.

Tell me about your role in the movie Blackballed.

Blackballed was an amazing experience. It's a group of New York City improvisers from UCB that got together to make this movie. My manager at the time had this friend who was a director who had this idea and they brought me and Rob Corddry in to flesh out this idea. Rob and I helped them cast and pretty much helped write the story arc of this film about a paintball player that's caught wiping, which is the ultimate sin in paintball. I played the referee that caught Rob Corddry's character wiping the paint off and I'm the first person he tries to make amends with. He forms a rag-tag team that tries to win the national paintball championship.

When is that going to be available for people to see?

We did the festival circuit for a year and a half. It won a lot of awards, like South by Southwest and the Lake Placid Film Festival. The film was bought by Carson Daily and he's in negotiations now to release it through MTV Films.

Did you play a lot of paintball to research this roll?

The greatest thing about this movie was the ability to play paintball. I had never played before. The director is really into it, and he brought us for the weekend, gave us this gear, and set us up against these monsters of paintball. There were tons of black and blues. It's real fun to do. Since my character is a referee, I read three books about paintball and now have a whole bunch of useless information that'll never some into play again.

Tell me about Go-Force.

That's a pilot that I have in development with MTV. It's an animated show that's in the vein of Adult Swim that's based on G.I. Joe. It's about Go-Force and an evil group called Mantis. Go-Force is a team of solders that saves the world even if it doesn't need to be saved. We're walking with Noodlesoup, who do the animation for Venture Brothers.

What did you think of the GI Joe movie where it turned out that Cobra was an ancient race from the Antarctic?

I saw that a long time ago. Those old cartoons are always the best. With much love we parody the entire thing. Personally, I was shocked that Cobra was from Antarctica and hopefully we'll have as shocking a plot twist as that.

In the original cut of the movie, Duke is killed.

I know. I've never seen that. I thought that that was a bold move for a children's cartoon. It seems really dark to kill off the lead character. But cartoonists back then were more, "Whatever, we don't care." If you watch some of the old G.I. Joe's, they're insane. There's a gigantic virus that's going across the world and the way that they defeat it is by shooting apples into it because apples have poison in them.

How do you feel about the new G.I. Joes?

I've seen in the store now the G.I. Joe Extreme. They're bulked up, harder edged now. I prefer the kung-fu grip simpler guys.

They're adapting these older TV shows and video games to the big screen, what are you looking forward to seeing?

I'm a sucker for the re-makes because I always think it's going to be awesome. The one thing I'm excited about is that they're going to make 21 Jump Street into a movie. I love 21 Jump Street and bought all of the DVDs. I think that that movie has the most potential to be great.

Live action Transformers?

Yeah, that should be great. I will fall for everything. Like, "Fantastic Four, great!" and then I see it and I have to justify why it was so good. I am so easy to please with that. I am not a purist. I have the highest hopes for things and then get extremely let down when I leave the theater, like with the new Star Wars. I feel like I'm the abused wife of George Lucas. After I'm beaten I say, "It's okay. I deserved it."

They were also talking about doing a live action Voltron.

I never liked Voltron as a kid. I was more of a Thundercats guy. It was too weird for me.

It's also not realistic because they had the team of five and then one of them was blatantly overweight, but they all ran at the same pace. How did you feel about The Centurions?

I don't know what that is.

That was a show that was around at the same time. It was these three guys that had these suits and, when necessary, a beam from a space station would shoot down and turned them into an assault vehicle that operated in land, sea, or air.

Did you like it?

I always rooted against The Centurions and it frustrated me that they'd never get shot.

So the original ending of G.I. Joe is perfect for you.

Yeah. Now, you mentioned Adult Swim. How do you feel about the treatment Space Ghost got?

Adult Swim has some of the best stuff on television. It's crazy and so short that you can't get enough of it. Space Ghost originally was just amazing. Then they outdid themselves with Sea Lab and Aqua Teen. My favorite shows are either Aqua Teen or Harvey Birdman. Birdman's great because it's all of these old cartoon characters on trial.

How do you feel about the original Space Ghost from 1968?

The original Space Ghost was boring. Those are the cartoons I had to sit through because I got up too early in the morning on Saturday. I watched an old episode of it recently and I thought, "This should be better since I've seen the Adult Swim version," but it wasn't. They have all of these weird superheroes that no one was paying attention to it. Growing up, I was much more into Snorks and Smurfs.

I enjoy Space Ghost. I think he's a great character because he's so hardcore. He's dead, a ghost even, but he's still in the game. And the villains on the show were outrageous. There was a space pirate named Tansut and he was fat. At the end of the episode, he's heading for what they called The Death Cloud and Space Ghost says, "Eh, let him go."

That's a little dark, almost in the same vain as The Watchmen, which I like now.

How do you feel about the cartoons of today?

I don't like the new cartoons because they all seem to play upon extreme sports. It's not enough for them to be kick ass superheroes. I like simplicity. I liked it better when my superheroes were just superheroes and not snapping into a Slim Jim.

Have you seen Fighting Foodons?

No. What's that?

That was this amazing Pokémon knockoff where instead of being the greatest Pokémon master they competed to be the greatest chef. They made meals that fought each other.

That sounds insane.

How do you feel about them bringing back older shows like Ghostbusters or Ninja Turtles?

I'm always a big fan of leaving the old stuff alone. Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies. I loved the cartoon and bought all of the action figures. I had one where you pressed the back of Peter Venkman's head and his eyes would bug out. I had the firehouse where you could pour slime from the top, which I always thought was a bad idea because I always thought that that would wreck my toys. I like keeping it the same way, but the new Ninja Turtles is darker. It's more like the actual comic book, which was more fun I thought.

They did this Doom movie and parts of it were like a first person shooter. How would you feel about a Contra movie that's done like a side scroller?

I would love to see Contra on the big screen. I didn't see Doom, but the reason I wanted to see it was because it looked great in the first person. The whole movie should have been like that.

The Doom movie didn't have all of the characters from the game in it, though. Like the Cacodemon, the spiked red floating head that shoots flames, was left out.

They didn't want to compromise their very detailed script. That's what bums me out. They bring the video games to the big screen and take out everything that people love.

Most of the games I played were on the PC.

The PC games I loved to play were all the Lucas Arts games, like Maniac Mansion and Zak McKraken. I played more Nintendo than computer. As a kid, the bane of my existence was that I bought the wrong thing. Like, when everyone bought Gameboy I bought the Atari Links, so I couldn't trade games with anyone. I also bought the Sega CD. I had a shitty Corey Haim game where he was trapped in a house.

Did you play the sequel to Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle?

I did. I loved it. Those were so much fun. I'd like to see a big screen adaptation, although they did make a TV show out of Maniac Mansion.

Yeah, it had Joe Flaherty from SCTV.

Yeah. The most underrated game, I thought, was Zak McKraken. Before I got my Mac, I popped in those disks. I loved that it was like twenty different disks.

Did you play Sam and Max too?

Yes. I played Full Throttle too.

How do you feel about older games, like Mortal Kombat, being bumped up to 3D?

I like stuff like that. I'm going against what I said before about cartoons. I was playing the X-Box 360 the other day at a Target and it looks great. I like the old vibes and feel of the games, but when it looks great like that it's even more fun to play. Right now, the game I'm addicted to playing is Star Wars Battle Front Two. It's the perfect game. Being able to run around the Star Wars universe, being a Jedi, and fighting people.

Has your work with Best Week Ever left you with a greater understanding of the human psyche?

Best Week Ever has taught me an important thing: everyone loves crap. Everyone loves to hear the newest thing about Paris Hilton. Britain has their royalty and we have our Paris Hiltons and Nicole Richies. The one thing I love about Best Week Ever is that I never miss a great moment of reality television. They have so many Tivos taping everything and there's one person sifting through it all, waiting for a moment when Oprah grabs someone's breast and they can say, "That's a segment."

You don't play a part in what gets discussed?

Occasionally I'll pitch something, but seventy-five percent of the time they're telling me something I don't even know.

For something like I Love the 90's are there some things that are too esoteric and end up not getting the attention that you think they deserved?

If it hasn't been touched on yet by I Love the 90's just wait six months and it'll be on I Love the 90's part five. I was talking to one of the producers and he was saying that they consciously hold back things.

Magazine-wise, why do you think that comedy doesn't get the same sort of attention as music, gardening, or cigars?

It's interesting because I think that most comedy magazines come across as lame. Occasionally you get a great comedy magazine like Spy. I thought it was a great, smart person comedy magazine. There's a magazine called Giant. The first three or four issues were hilarious, really quirky. It appealed to my sensibilities, but now they've segued more to a Maxim magazine because it's a bummer because it's so rare to get a comedy magazine and get into it. People like to look at captions and pictures. No one wants to read all the fine print.

I'm told that a big part of comedy is networking, but have you got any experience in the other type of networking: Amway?

I have not sold Amway, but I've taken crappy jobs that were equivalent to that. I was paid to rollerblade around New York City and hand out Comp USA disks. One time I wore a gigantic television on my chest and allowed people to play video games. It was for a Playstation promotion. I've whored myself out in so many terrible ways. I was an announcer for a three day X-Box release party.

Tell me about your one-man show, Unemployed.

That was a show that I did about a period of time in my life where I was totally unemployed and had all of these dreams to better myself but actually did none of them. I wanted to become a better person, go to museums, read books, when instead all I did was stay in my pajamas for the majority of my day.

I became unemployed after I worked on and off at this one job for a year and a half and I did nothing. I was paid twenty-five dollars an hour. I never had a computer or a desk. I would just roam around the office talking to people and they kept on telling me that a job would be coming in soon. I kept on getting demoted and demoted until I was sitting in a room reading old copies of Details magazine. They finally let me go and I made a big stink about it, so they paid me a month's salary.

What sort of office building was this?

They would read scripts like Austin Powers and Carrie and they would say, "Oh man! Carrie would look great in Tommy Hilfiger." That was the job. One of my best moments was that I got to hang out with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and she gave me half of her sandwich. She was waiting for a photo shoot and I was waiting for nothing.

Do you think that humor in commercials helps move product?

I think that humor in commercials actually gets people to watch commercials. I don't know if that translates into selling things. I like the Geico commercials, but I don't have their insurance. Sometimes the commercials become bigger than the product.

Are you someone who would watch those specials that they used to have like World's Craziest Commercials?

It's something I would watch as long as I could fast forward through the host banter. The thing I loved about Trio was that they would show these huge compilations of failed television shows. There was one called Samurai with Joe Penny from Jake and the Fat Man it was this guy dressed in a Samurai costume and drove a big Mac truck, but he'd only use his sword to open doors or cut rope. Never for fighting.

Have you seen this movie called Black Samurai?

I don't think I have.

It had Jim Kelly who was in Enter the Dragon. He's fighting all of these people, and then midgets come in and fight him too.

One of my favorite fight scenes is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fighting Bruce Lee. I love crazy kung fu fighting.

Did you watch a lot of Kung fu movies?

More now than when I was a kid. I didn't have any brothers or sisters growing up, so I didn't have anyone to point these things out to me. I happily take suggestions, now, for what I should watch.

Tell me about the radio show you do for K-Rock.

Every once in a while when I'm in New York I'll do it. I host it with Jake Fogelnest. Once Howard Stern goes off the air, K-Rock is going to an all talk format. It was just a regular music show and we'd do comedy pieces. Jake and I were inspired by Ricky Gervais's radio show that he did with Stephen Merchant. Using that as our base, we'd talk about the things we found interesting, incorporating our history in sketch comedy, and had our friends come on. We did a lot of bits, like have Jerry Minor call as Billy Dee Williams and then interview him.

If K-Rock isn't going to be doing alternative music, where am I supposed to go for the latest from Staind and Trapt?

What can you do if you can't hear Santeria at two in the morning?

What projects are you involved in other than what we've touched upon?

I'm going to be working on the next month or so on that Todd Phillips movie, School for Scoundrels. I'm working with all the guys in Respecto on a feature film. I'm trying to keep as busy as I can keep.

What projects are you contemplating?

I think we want to do a follow up to Blackballed. Not a sequel, but basically get the same people and work on another improvised film. We're going to work with Tom Gianas, who directed all of the Tenacious D episodes for HBO. I'm also writing my own feature just to do that.

I read that you enjoy fake mustaches.

I love fake mustaches. They're the best thing ever. No matter what character I do, I always find a way to work a mustache into it. I don't know why. I have the ability to grow the mustache, so it's not mustache envy. It gives you an air of superiority.

What is your favorite fake mustache style?

I like one that sits on your face like a caterpillar. It's a little unkempt and it's just out there. I like people that have real mustaches that look fake. I try to go in and copy that.

Like a Wilford Brimley mustache?

That's perfect.

What's the best way to wear a fake mustache?

A lot of people tell you to use the glue, but I prefer the double-sided tape. I don't like the glue because it doesn't give as much flexibility around the face.

When I'm wearing a fake mustache, I have trouble deciding on whether to approach it as I'm wearing a fake mustache, the mustache is real, or there is no mustache on my face at all. What's your method?

I think you have to wear it with pride. When I put on my fake mustache, I walk around as though it is a real mustache.

How would you compare the first Andrew WK album to the second one?

The first one is amazing. I love it from top to bottom. The second one is a grower. It's more about the ballads. But they're both great albums. If the third one's a mix of the two, we may have potential for a mainstream breakthrough.

Are you a fan of the Electric Six as well?

I'd say that more in the vain that I like Andrew WK I like the Darkness. The Electric Six have great videos, though. They're fun, but I feel like they have more of a sense of themselves, while Andrew WK rocks out and isn't ashamed of it.

One rumor I heard about The Darkness is that their base player is really Richey James Edwards from The Manic Street Preachers.

I read this rumor that Andrew WK isn't even Andrew WK anymore. That he was replaced by someone else and there were all of these comparative pictures. I love that there's all this controversy going on in rock music.

Do you enjoy being an adult?

I don't classify my life as being an adult because I still live like a kid, except I have more disposable income. As a kid, I had to wait for people to buy me Take 5 bars, but now I can do it all by myself. I can buy sugary cereals, watch things on my Tivo, stay up ridiculously late, and watch my Netflix.

You mentioned that you have Netflix. Are you satisfied with it?

I am satisfied, but I get bummed out because I have a queue with about two hundred thirty movies on it so I never get around to seeing what I want to see when I want to see it. It gives me too much angst lately.

Do they deliver everything quickly?

They do. I hear that the less you watch the faster they're delivered. If you don't watch them for a week or so they'll come quicker.

Where did you hear this?

It's an old wives tale of Netflix, if old wives talk about Netflix.

Do you partake in any sort of shenanigans when out and about?

I try to keep my shenanigans to a bare minimum.

Do you have a special message to leave our readers with?

I'm not as funny in print as I am in live performances.

Find out what Paul's up to by visiting Paulscheer.com .