Our Andy Kaufman
My friend Dianne, an agent for CAA, has been a long time supporter and friend of Zach Galifianakis and has always encouraged me to check out his shows. I’ve seen him test out his new material at Seth Herzog’s downtown comedy show, SWEET, a few times. His one liners are usually hilarious and his act is always challenging, borderline uncomfortable and memorable.
There is a great article about him in the New York Times from last weekend. His new film The Hangover comes out this weekend and from the looks of the trailer and the early word of mouth, it should be an enormous hit. Its the kind of profile the Times writes as a real “coming out” piece. The one where many, many people who have never heard of him will now check out his work. From the brief times I’ve met Zach it couldn’t be happening to a nicer guy.
I was impressed with ABSOLUT when they gave him the artistic control to create the ads with Tim and Eric that he did. He made the most of the opportunity, creating something that is quintessentially his while (whether by design or not) featuring the brand in a way that most spirits ads would never dare.
It describes the ups and downs of his career and the time it took for him to finally discover his own brand of comedy. Following the Malcolm Gladwell Outliers theory, he is probably getting near his 10,000 hours of comedic work and if you seen him live recently it shows.
What I find appealing about Zach’s act is that everytime I’ve seen him, I have had a moment of uncomfortabilty and tension during the show and without fail, I have thought about the performance for days afterwards. I will literally find myself walking by myself on the street days later and laugh out loud thinking of a bit from the show that drew complete uncomfortable silence from the crowd. Its all so considered and uniquely his and at the end of the day, most ground-breaking stuff is.
In the article he mentions that one of the funniest standup acts was Slovin and Allen’s “Time Machine” routine from the Luna Lounge shows from the mid 90s when were performing standup together. I remember seeing Eric and Leo perform there, but never saw their time machine bit. After watching it, you can tell why it was influential to him as its hilarious, smart, ridiculous, campy and kinda sweet all at the same time.
