Tim And Eric’s Tim Heidecker On Boring Comedy Podcasts, Weird Ads, & Creatives Who Steal Their Style

[Update August 11]: Tim and Eric have announced a tour of Australia and New Zealand in December; tour details are at the bottom of this piece.

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The Abso Lutely Productions offices in Northeast Los Angeles are teeming with equal parts youthful energy and bizarro hedonism. On the surface it seems you could be entering any creative production office in the city — it’s slickly furnished, with excellent art (including a custom piece by uber-hip Jen Stark), and brimming with cool kids — but then you catch a glimpse of a framed still from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and remember all of the freakish things that have emerged from this place. No, this is not like any other production office.

Founded in 2007, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s company has been responsible a slew of great comedies, including Nathan for You, The Eric Andre Show, Comedy Bang! Bang!, and Check It Out with Dr Steve Brule, as well as the duo’s classic absurdities: Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, Tom Goes To The Mayor, and their latest program, Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories.

Tim Heidecker is sitting with me in his office, drinking La Croix and showing me photos of his daughter. He’s warm, listens intently and seems three steps ahead of what I’m saying. I ask him how his staff might describe him as a boss: “You’d have to ask them,” he retorts. It seems a little short, but he’s just being real — he’s no nonsense. “I’ve gotten this reputation for being rude, but I only do that on stage. It’s a character — ‘fuck you, get the fuck outta here‘ — but if you’ve ever met me one-on-one, I try to look you in the eye and smile and shake your hand and thank you and be respectful.”

Heidecker describes the evolution of Abso Lutely: “We set this company up to make our own shows, and in the process of doing that recruited this great group of people who just learned how to make television our way.” But he finds it hard to define exactly what ‘their way’ of making television is. “When we started making our shows, we didn’t know what we were doing, so we made up our own system. Everybody that works here cares about the product a lot. It’s a family environment. It’s full of like-minded young people who don’t have the baggage of years of working for network television, where they’re bitter or cynical about entertainment or comedy.”

The shows they produce, Heidecker says, are all about the individual at the centre of the production. “It’s usually something like Nathan [Fielder] has an idea for a show and that’s his show and it’s his vision, and he has people that come in and help him. Or Scott [Aukerman] for his show [Comedy Bang! Bang!, which started with a high-rated podcast]. Eric and I stay largely out of it,” he explains. “The most I’ve ever gotten involved would be if Nathan in his first season feels weird about something to do with the network or the promotion or something. I would then have the experience to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’ve been through this before. Here’s what I would do if I were you’. ”

While Heidecker collaborates most notably with Wareheim, he’s also worked closely with Gregg Turkington (On Cinema, Decker) and Brett Gelman (Tim and Gelman have Lunch). He finds the dynamic of a comedy duo helps him to be funnier. “If I’m by myself, I just sit there and stare at the wall. But there’s something that happens — and it happens with Eric, and it happens with Gregg and Brett and a few other people — there are sparks in the room and stuff comes out of my head. A lot of it, for me, is just trying to make that person laugh; trying to get them excited about something. With Eric sometimes it’s that we have an opportunity to do something. We get ourselves in positions where we pitch a show based on nothing — “Let’s make a show!” – and then we’re in a room and we have to come up with the show. And it happens. It always somehow happens.”

The pair’s latest collaboration is their colourful debut book  Zone Theory, which was released in Australia this week. Self-described as “a brand new, inspirational, and game-changing life system that promises to instantly provide wellness, happiness, and total, absolute fulfillment”, it comes filled with an array of design elements — charts, photographs, sidebars, and “advertisements” — parodying the ‘self-help’ genre, new-age religious movements, and life in Los Angeles more generally. They recently completed a small promotional tour for the book in character, dressed in all-white as cult leaders on a journey to heal, with “BA’HAAA!” their rally cry.

Take The Money And Run

Not satisfied with their adventures in TV, film, music and now literature, Tim and Eric have also dipped their toes in the ad world, most memorably with their involvement  in campaigns by Absolut (‘A Vodka Movie’), a series of viral ads for Old Spice, and GE’s Jeff Goldblum ad. Their unique, surreal tone and over-stuffed editing style is cited as a reference in the creative world so frequently that one would assume they’re flooded with offers to appear in or create commercials. “No,” Heidecker laughs. “No, no. Most of these rats probably just think they can do it — ‘We’ll just rip them off’. Which is, whatever, as long as you’re not taking our direct ideas; you can’t really copyright a style. And our style didn’t come out of the blue, it’s a development of other stuff.

“As we get older, we get less didactic about our own work; we’ll go ‘Let’s just do this’, take the money and who cares. We’re not communists — we’ve been making television on a network that airs commercials during our show — so, whatever. And if we can be subversive within that system, then great.”

Most recently, they did a seriously demented commercial for pizza brand Totino’s, which felt very close to the absurd fake infomercials that dapple Awesome Show, Great Job!; their disgust for commercial exploitation is palpable. “The thing with that was — you’re going to give us money and we’re going to make whatever we want, and what we make is going to be horrifying and disgusting and it will make your product look like dog food. And if you have no problem with that, then we’ll take your money and make it,” Tim says. “We’re obviously not going to appear in a car commercial and say ‘buy this car!’ and not say anything else. I don’t think anyone wants us to do that. Our audience is mostly smart enough to know when they’re being marketed to, and they can do with that what they want.”

The Comedy Podcast Wars

Heidecker recently mentioned that, back in 2011, it felt as if “every comedian had their own podcast and …  there was a lot of hot air and lazy, empty podcasts.” If that was the case in 2011, it’s arguably tenfold now — entire comedy podcast networks like Feral Audio have cropped up since then. He believes this largely comes down to the low stakes of the medium, which mean there’s less incentive to experiment. “In comedy, for me, there are not a lot of funny things happening with podcasting. There’s not a great boom of using [the medium] to be absurd and funny in a new way. In the ‘70s, there were great comedy records —  Albert Brooks and Monty Python put out records, Derek & Clive, Bob & Ray, The National Lampoon records. There was really funny audio [out there].

“But now the comedy people seem to be saying, ‘Let’s get together and talk about our childhood, let’s analyse ourselves and talk about what comedy means’ — there’s all this dissection and naval-gazing. I’m not interested in most people talking about that.”

A particular culprit of this happens to also be the most popular. Comedian Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, which began in 2009, was many people’s introduction to podcasting as a medium. Maron is renowned for his revealing interviews with high-profile entertainers, and his distinct style has earned him many loyal listeners — but WTF is often joked about as a therapy session for comedians. “He has had people on that I’m interested in what they have to say — [but only] 5% of his guests qualify,” Tim says. “That introspective chat is just not entertaining to me. It’s a little lazy and self-indulgent. I listen to podcasts and they tend to be history, or informative, documentary-style. I don’t have anything against podcasts, it just seems like comedy has gotten into a little bit of a wormhole of its own self-importance.”

Heidecker, who turns 40 next year, is introspective about what his career might look like going forward. “I work in an industry where the traditional models to make money simply don’t work any more. I live in a city that could turn to dust in ten years. I wonder if people are thinking about that or doing something about that — or is it just me that stays up at night thinking about it? I think about my daughter and what sort of world she’s going to grow up in. Do I want to start acting in small parts in dumb comedy shows? Do I want to retire to a farm? Actually, retiring in Australia sounds pretty nice,” he says. “These are the things I’m thinking about.”

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Tim And Eric’s ‘Stralia Zealand Experience

Perth: Tuesday December 8 @ The Astor Theatre

Sydney: Friday December 11 @ The Enmore

Brisbane: Tuesday December 15 @ Brisbane City Hall

Melbourne: Wednesday December 16 @ Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

Auckland: Friday December 18 @ Auckland Sky City

Tickets on sale from 9am on Friday August 14, from here.

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