Comedian’s Adult Swim show premieres Thursday
It was only a matter of time before Jon Glaser got his own Adult Swim show, ‘cause Adult Swim loves those alternative comedians. He’s paid his dues, too, having voiced Stroker on Stroker and Hoop, DJ Jesús on Lucy, Daughter of the Devil and appeared on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It’s just, in this share-and-play-fair world, his turn.
Glaser’s plunge into Cartoon Network’s line of “mature” audience programming is Delocated!, a live-action show where “Jon” (Glaser) testifies against the Russian mob and enters the witness protection program—with a twist. Dim, opportunistic Jon, stoked on the promise of fame and a “sweet loft,” has his family don ski masks, get surgically-implanted voice harmonizers and move to New York City (of all places) to be on a reality show about their lives. Almost-famous Glaser emailed Chunklet from his own sweet loft to talk about the show.
You keep a pretty low profile online. Plenty of interviews come up now, but for years the only hits on your name were brief items about Stroker and Hoop, Invite Them Up or an upcoming stand-up appearance. The Midnight Pajamajam site, if I recall correctly, didn’t even mention your name. There’s still no official website, your MySpace profile is private—and you don’t even show your face on your own show. It’s like you don’t want someone to recognize you.
Ha ha. Yeah, I’m not terribly comfortable with aggressive self-promotion and with the whole Facebook and My Space thing. I’m not on Facebook. I only started a MySpace page to promote the show, and I’ve never been terribly comfortable updating it. I’ll probably just cancel the whole page entirely since I’m a lazy grandpa who wasn’t that into it in the first place.
Hey… Who’s after you, man? Is this why you prefer an email interview?
Email interviews afford me the time to write, edit, re-write, and obsessively over-think my answers. It took me an hour to write this answer, but that’s also because it included the eating of an entire meatball sub, which slowed things down a bit. Mmmm, it was good. Wait, I think I mentioned a meatball sub the last time I did an interview for Chunklet. Opening my filing cabinet. Pulling out my copy. Looking for my interview. Yep, there it is. I remember that sub, it was fucking amazing.
Why the pre-episode disclaimer? Who are you protecting?
Would you believe me if I said we were protecting Bruce Foxton from The Jam? No, you wouldn’t, so I won’t bother telling you that’s who we’re protecting even though that’s the answer to the question.
Do you worry Yvgeny Mirminsky [the hapless Russkie wannabe comedian charged with gunning down “Jon”], having already senselessly slaughtered Paul Rudd, might kill Jon Benjamin?
I do worry about that, yes. I worry about it very much.
When will we see the inevitable Benjamin cameo? He’s the head of the Russian mob, or Yvgeny’s asshole brother sent to do the job right, huh?
Jon will make his cameo in the very last scene of the very last episode, in Season 5, which takes place in Moscow (already approved). It’s hard to explain, but he is going to play the ghost of Bob Lanier. Ha ha. What a dumb, arbitrary joke and reference that only a handful of people will enjoy. One of those people, however, is the President of the United States.
Tell me about Mirminsky. How much thought did you put into such a complex character? Certainly the time will come when the conflict between his desire to make people laugh and his responsibility to the Mirminsky crime family will reach critical mass. How will the drama unfold? No spoilers, please.
Here is how much thought I put into Yvgeny Mirminsky: How can I make Eugene Mirman’s name sound “Russian-y”?
How many terrorist alerts have you set off running around NYC with those masks on?
Two. The San Genarro Festival was shut down for a day, and the Brooklyn Bridge got shut down for 5 hours. Both of these stories are either 100% true, or 95% untrue.
Have you considered the possibility, since life imitates art and attention whoring is at an all-time high, that some shithead in the witness protection program already had an idea for a reality show? What if he sues?
Well, there were two movies about Steve Prefontaine within a year of each other, so I don’t see why there can’t be two reality shows about the witness protection program. Someone can be the Billy Crudup to my Jared Leto. Also, why do you automatically assume that this person is a “shithead”? Pretty rude, dude. And if anyone’s going to sue anyone, let’s hope someone from the real witless protection program sues Larry the Cable Guy.
Suppose instead that Delocated! plants a seed, and a real witness protection program-based reality show gets greenlit? As someone who clearly sees the ridiculousness of reality television, but must enjoy a good freak show/train wreck, would you watch it? Who would you root for, the witness or the bad guy?
First of all, that would be completely insane. But if it happened, I would root for the witness and the bad guy. To fall in love. Much like Eugene and I will fall in love in Season 3, Delocated: Austin. Oh, fuck, wait, I think I just leaked a spoiler.
You’re writing a book. Cool.
It would appear that this was not a question at all but I will answer it anyway. I am indeed writing a book, based on a dumb comedy bit I did a few years ago about how I discovered some letters which reveal that my dad was in ZZ Top. It’s sort of The Lazlo Letters meets Letters From A Nut, but all about music and all 100% true*. (*100% not true)
Thank you for your time.
Yes, now that I have briefly talked about my book, we are indeed done. Thank you for my time.
