CollegeHumor Interview

The BustedTees Girl. Everyone knows her. She lives inside the ad boxes on your computer. In fact, she’s probably in an ad on the top of this page right now. Every day we get creepy e-mails asking for her personal information. So we figured it’d be much easier for Erica’s stalkers to learn about her by doing a public interview. Here’s what we talked about:


Do you wear BustedTees when you’re not modeling them? All the time

How many BustedTees do you actually own? Every single one ever made, and some duplicates.

Do you have a favorite? I like the “second amendment” one with the bear arms. I gave the shirt to my dad and he wears it all the time. I also like “Jersey Girls Aint Trash, Trash Gets Picked Up” because it’s true.

Least favorite? “Jesus Hates the Yankees”, because if Jesus hates the Yankees, then I hate Jesus.

Medium favorite? “Stewart/Colbert”, because I would totally support it, although it makes no sense whatsoever.

Where are you from? Madison, Connecticut, hometown of THE Streeter Seidell

How old are you? 20 and ¾.

Does it ever freak you out how many people look at you every day? Not really because I don’t see them look at me. If they were to all look at me in person in one day, I might be freaked out.

Be honest, how good of a chance do our readers have of getting with you? Not very good at the moment, I’m spoken for.

Have you ever been recognized anywhere? When I first started, I got recognized a lot when I was on the nyu campus, but now people don’t really come up to me.

How did you react, was it a strange feeling, or flattering? It was strange and flattering. Someone once asked me if I wanted to look at collegehumor.com with him one day. That was strange.

What do you do when you’re not modeling hilarious t-shirts? I go to school mostly, and frequent seedy dive bars in the village. Most of the time I am just sitting on my couch watching Law & Order.

Do you ever come to CollegeHumor just to admire your ads? No, I don’t look at the pictures, I just really like to read the articles.

What’s your favorite movie? Pretty Woman, PCU, or Caddy Shack, it’s a three way tie.

Recently I got the chance to interview the super sweet, super nice and super hot Big 10 Playboy girl Jamie Graham, a 21-year-old senior and Marketing major at Ohio State. We chatted it up on the phone for a bit, then after I thought she was getting a tad bit too into me, I just had to end it. On my terms.

Do your parents have any idea you posed in Playboy naked for the Big10 issue?
Umm…my mom does and I’m telling my dad tonight. I’m actually calling my dad after this interview to tell him.

We recently got a very interesting email here at CollegeHumor. We realized right away what kind of opportunity we had. I scrambled to write questions, questions I have been dying to ask. 24 hours later here I am. Posting an interview with I had with this guy.

When did you make the jump from one collared shirt to two, two to three, three to four? Was it a gradual process with steps? Or did 4 come out of nowhere?

Trust me, you don’t want to make the jump straight to 4, it could kill you. It’s a long and grueling process to get up to 4 shirts, and so far I’m the only one with enough coolness to get there.

How hard is the final shirt to put on? Do you need to buy your shirts in varying sizes?

They are all size small, to accentuate my already bulging muscles. In order to get the last one on, I had to have several women rub me down in corn oil. It took about 7 hours, plus 2 for the corn oil to dry.

How many collared shirts do you own?

Hmmm. How many different polo shirts has Abercrombie & Fitch made? Multiply that number by 4. That’s your answer.

Whose idea was it to come up with the Fleshlight?
Mine. Where it came from was my original patent in ’95 was on sexually usable body portions. I got that patent in ’95, and it was basically a silicone body portion of a girl, from the belly button to a couple of inches into the legs with the vagina removed. It was that material that I had formulated to replicate human skin that was the key. An issue came up; a very close friend of mine, a really successful businessman, looked at the product and he wanted me to send him the insert part, the sexually usable part, to his house. I said, “Sh*t Bob, you’re my friend, I’ll send you a body. Which one do you want?” And he said, “Oh God, no! Don’t send one of those bodies to my house!” So obviously, I realized at that point that if I couldn’t give them away to a friend, how the f*ck could I ever sell one of the things? So I had dropped him off at the airport, and on my way home I worried about this product that I had spent already $750,000 on developing, but I couldn’t sell.

Weird Al has adapted to the Internet better than any other artist from the 80’s. His Chamillionaire parody “White and Nerdy” has over 50 million views on YouTube, and is currently one of the site’s most popular videos of all-time. The song was his career peak, going all the way to#9 on the Billboard Hot 100 (his previous best – “Eat It” at #12 in1984). Since then he’s explored digital distribution which, for the first time in his three decade career, has allowed him to parody current events and songs that are popular right now. Really, it’s hard to believe Weird Al survived at all – much less thrived – before iTunes and YouTube. He recently released The Essential Weird Al collects 38 of Al’s best songs into two discs.

CollegeHumor: How did you decide which were the greatest hits from your distinguished career?

Weird Al: It was tough. I’ve got twelve studio albums of material and I did have to leave off a lot of stuff that some fans think should have been on the essentials collection. There’s some historically important ones missing. “My Bologna,” isn’t even on there, which was my first pseudo-hit. Even though My Bologna was historically important, it wasn’t so brilliant I would consider it among my best work. So I had to weigh fan favorites with what I thought were songs that actually merited being on a best-of compilation.

CH: So you hand picked the songs yourself?

WA: I did, yeah.

CH: When you were going through your earlier albums, did you rediscover any material that you’d forgotten about?

WA: I don’t think I’d actually literally forgotten about any of it but it was kinda nice to listen to some of the old tracks again that I hadn’t heard in a while. It also was an opportunity to clean up a couple things. This new collection is completely remastered. It’s not remixed, but we cleaned it up. I won’t mention where exactly because I don’t want people to obsess over it the way I did, but there were a couple songs that had a few little pops and ticks and just little things that probably most people have never heard before in their life but they’d been bugging me for 25 years.

It’s hard to be a normal human being and become famous on the internet. In most cases, you have to be an overweight preteen tweaking out over videogames, a ninja, a baby singing rap songs, or a groin injury. Mr. Chi City is none of these. His videos involve nothing out of the ordinary: freeze pops, parking tickets, and chrome garbage cans. He has acquired millions of hits on YouTube and CollegeHumor, yet he remains just a “regular dude who happens to own a digital camera.”

I spoke to the self-proclaimed “realest dude on YouTube” last week about how to get women, keeping anonymity in his videos, and why he thinks his videos are so popular.

How did you begin making the videos?
You know what, man, I had a friend who was in a -they don’t call them halfway houses anymore, now they’re called transitional houses- and he had internet access. I guess you could call it good behavior, where as long as they wasn’t in there clownin’, they would let them watch TV and have internet and stuff like that. So he wanted me to e-mail him and keep him updated on what was going on, and I was like, “If you got the internet, look, I’ll post a video about my Chevy on YouTube and then you can just check it out.” And he hit me up the next day like, “Man, we really liked seeing your car… could you post something else, just going around where you live at?”
So I was like… “A’ight.” [laughs]

Now that the third season of The Sarah Silverman Program is well underway (Thursdays at midnight on Comedy Central, y’all), the eponymous star was gracious enough to sit down and answer some of our most thought-provoking questions.

CollegeHumor: What was the first movie you remember thinking, damn, this is funny? What was the last?

Sarah Silverman: The Jerk or Sleeper were the first. The last… hmmm… maybe Observe and Report? Or – Alec Baldwin in It’s Complicated was kind of genius.

CH: You were 22 when you were hired on SNL. Any insight to explain your fairly precocious ability to write comedy?

SS: I officially can’t explain my ability to write comedy back then because I recently looked at my old sketches from that year (1993/94) and they were ALL extremely terrible.

CH: Former writers of SNL seem to either love or hate their time there. Where do you stand? Who did you connect with while you were there?

SS: I actually liked it. It was very overwhelming and scary, but also amazing and I beamed with pride that I was there. I would find ways to manipulate conversations with cab drivers so they’d ask me where I worked. I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. I’m still very close with Kevin Nealon. I’d be super tickled to bump into anyone from that time — Adam Sandler was always so kind and warm to me — but I’m probably closer now with the people in the present cast.

CH: You’ve made appearances on some classic comedy programs, including SNL, Seinfeld, Crank Yankers, The Larry Sanders Show, and of course Mr. Show. Which was your favorite to do?

SS: They all represent such different places in time. Larry Sanders and Mr.Show were the most special to me I’d say.

If you are anything like me, you grew up watching Nickelodeon gameshows. Double Dare, Guts, Nick Arcade, and of course Legends of the Hidden Temple. It is without any hint of sarcasm that I say that this interview with Legends of the Hidden Temple host, Kirk Fogg marks one of the highest points in my life.

How many migraines did you get per day, on average? My head held up pretty good, it was my back that killed me. Standing on a cement floor 14 hours a day will do that- Oh wait, I forgot. Once I smacked my head going into the swamp on the day I made my attempt to get through the temple (I made it by the way.)

What made you decide to go with khaki shorts verses jeans on a given day of shooting? Well, I thought everyone could tell that the khaki shorts were the first season. After that they put pants on me. I think they were frightened by my large calves.

Why did you give away trips to Universal Studios Florida? Weren’t you all already there? TALK TO THE PRODUCERS. I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT!

What happened to kids after the temple guard got them? There was only one disembowelment that I know of. Otherwise they all were sent back to their mothers, some crying harder than others.

Some of the kids must have misbehaved or been a pain otherwise. Any memorable horror stories? Let me think… Everyone was cool. I think the toughest thing was that we shot 4 shows a day doing all the moat crossings first, then the steps, then the games, then, finally, after 12 hours- the temple run. Kids were generally wiped out so keeping their energy levels up was difficult especially after lunch where they were always given pizza. I believe that slowed them down. Only one real horror story, Olmec got pissed one day and ate part of the ledges.

Amir, Jeff, and I are Simpsons nerds. Many times at parties we’ve sequestered ourselves and just started quoting Simpsons lines back and forth until everyone else is annoyed with us. So when we heard author John Ortved had written a comprehensive oral history of the show, The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, we invited him over to talk about the’s show’s 20-year history, how Springfield has changed over the decaded, and of course our favorite characters. —Pat Cassels

JEFF RUBIN: Favorite Simpsons secondary character?

JOHN ORTVED: I’m cheating a little bit cause he’s not around anymore, but Lionel Hutz.

JR: Mine too.

JO: I think that’s as perfect as a secondary character can get. And I think part of the reason is they never had the opportunity to ruin him. In the early years they’d take a secondary character like Apu or Burns — Apu has the immigration episode, Burns has the Burns bear episode — where they’d get a little back story in there and give that character a little more residence and you’d love it. You’d fall more in love with that character, or they would make a little more sense to you. In later years they take their secondary characters and they try to fill them with back-story, Comic Book Guy, et cetra. And they try to make these fully rounded characters and falls completely flat.

After a sucessful stand-up career and finishing the first season of Important Things With Demetri Martin, his highly rated Comedy Central series, Demitri Martin is making his foray into feature films with Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock.

This is new territory for you. Was there a personal decision to seek out more dramatic film roles?

No, this was just lucky. I was contacted because James Schamus (the producer) had seen a clip of me on YouTube, thanks to his daughter. I guess the wheels started turning in his head and he thought, “We might be able to use this guy.”

What was the biggest adjustment, working on a film of this size?

I quickly learned I wasn’t going to be improvising in this role. They had a script, and they wanted me to do things a certain way. In my own show, I’m free to improvise, and if it’s sh*tty, I’m free to edit it.  In the movie, after a scene, the script supervisor would come over and say “You forgot to say and.”

After starting as a stand-up and one third of sketch group Human Giant, Aziz Ansari is kiling it. He turned his small role as the comedian Raaaaaaandy (eight “A’s”, FYI) in Funny People into a viral sensation, and he currently stars in NBC’s hit sitcom, Parks and Recreation. On January 17, Comedy Central will air his stand-up special, Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening.

The web shorts you made about your Funny People character, Randy, became viral hits in their own right. Was that unexpected?  

I sound like I’m saying this because we’re plugging the DVD, but the Randy documentaries that [Human Giant director] Jason Woliner and I wrote and he directed, I think they’re are some of the best stuff I’ve done. We were really happy with how they turned out and they were so fun to make. I asked Judd, “Hey man, I had a really fun time doing this Randy character. What if me and this guy Jason did little documentaries about him, and put it on the DVD?” And he said, “Yeah, go for it.”

Those were great. I was actually a little disappointed that there wasn’t more Randy in the movie.

People would say, “Man there’s so much Randy online, you must be in the movie as much as Adam Sandler.” But there are some cool Randy deleted scenes.

Randy, one could almost argue, started off as a parody of hack comedians, but he’s actually pretty funny all on his own.

Yeah, it is kind of fun in a weird way. I could never talk about the stuff Randy talks about, but it’s fun to act like that. I think those jokes do work, there’s a lot of jumping and yelling and stuff, but they’re funny jokes. People just wouldn’t laugh if I just jumped up and was like, “I’m holding my dick.” Although though that does sound like it would be hilarious.

Many of you remember the show Salute Your Shorts. And many of you remember all your favorite characters; Budnick, Sponge, Donkey Lips, etc. What are some of these people up to now you ask? Well I have an answer. I lived my childhood dream recently by talking to Michael Bower, who played Donkey Lips. Here’s what he had to say.

Who were you closest with on the set of Salute Your Shorts? The craft service table, ABBA ZABBA WAS MY ONLY FRIEND.
 
Why the nickname Donkey Lips? You would have to ask the writers that question, but Kevin Smith recently showed us why everyone loves a good donkey show.
 
What’s your best memory on the set of Salute Your Shorts? Just being a kid and getting to film some real cool and funny scenes. So my memories are more like dreams coming true.
 
Is there an episode that you find to be particularly meaningful? The episode where I had to build bird houses, because in that episode the nerd became a CEO. Plus I went to the hospital with a head freeze disease from all those ice pops
 
Did playing Donkey Lips ever help you get chicks? Well Playboy models always say they want a man that can make  them laugh- and to this day I have never once made a Playboy model laugh into my bed (and I’m a pretty funny guy)
 
Were you friends with any other Nickelodeon Stars? Clarrissa and I  go way back but we had a falling out due to a certain hottie on Kids Incorporated (don’t want any  drama—noo no no  drama) Fergilicious -true story
 
What, exactly, is an Awful Waffle? It’s making a human waffle. Take a round tennis racket and some maple syrup, rip a nerds shirt off, force the tennis racket into his stomach creating the round waffle effect and pour the syrup. You become a human waffle and it feels awful- hence the Awful Waffle.

The people want more Sarah Schneider. And even though it’s really awkward to interview someone you work with everyday, the people get what they want. Check out my interview with Sarah!



Who is the second funniest girl on the site (You being number one) Oh, stop. Definitely Elaine Carroll. I have such a crush on her. Melanie Ethand is a close second, and Dan Gurewitch is third.

You are one of five girls in an office of forty, what’s it like being such a minority? See for yourself.

Who is the creepiest writer to work with? Probably Streeter, but only because he offers to show me his balls every five minutes regardless of what we’re working on.

He does that with me too… What’s your favorite part about your job here? Being able to wear Heelys all day.

How many people in this office have you banged? Does anal count? Jay kay, none.

How about made out with? 40.

Usually when you smoke marijuana and make a point of talking about it a lot in public, you’ll eventually get arrested. Unless you’re Doug Benson, in which case you convince a camera crew to follow you around for two months and make a movie called ‘Super High Me’. Benson, who regularly appears on VH1’s Best Week Ever and was voted Stoner of the Year in 2006 by High Times Magazine, talked to me about his starring role in the cockumentary (comedy/documentary) that details the process of obtaining medical marijuana and then smoking it backstage with Sarah Silverman and Dave Navarro.

Zach Galifianakis is what you call an alternative comic. When you think of most standup comedians, you imagine stale comparisons between males and females, and what the deal is with parking tickets. Not so with Galifianakis, who states his joke and then quickly moves on, sitting calmly at a piano in front of the waiting audience. Discussing topics such as the difficulties of quitting cold turkey itself or wondering “if deaf people have a sign for ‘talk to the hand,’” his quips seldom last more than a sentence or two.

In 2005, he appeared in “The Comedians of Comedy” alongside Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford and has since released a live standup DVD. Last fall he appeared in the Sean Penn directed “Into the Wild” and stars in “Visioneers,” an upcoming indie film.

Galifianakis is the only person in history to appear in music videos for both Kanye West and Fiona Apple.

How did you get into doing standup?

I moved to NYC after failing my last course in college by one point. I had a nervous breakdown and then moved there with my cousin Dean who was going to NYU.  We shared a closet for a bedroom. I moved to Manhattan in hopes of finding a great acting teacher who would change my life. Instead I met too many drinks.

Hey, you know that program you watch on the scrambled HBO channel when you go to your parents’ house for the weekend? The one with the scantily clad, sweaty people rubbing themselves all over each other. No, the other one. The one that can sell action figures. To kids. OK, the WWE. I sat down with WWE Superstar Melina and talked about rabbits, broken bones, and how similar your family is to behemoths dealing near-lethal blows to each other on a canvas square.

What’s the worst wrestling-related injury you’ve ever sustained/inflicted?

Well, thank god I haven’t inflicted any kind of injury to anybody, that would sit on my conscience forever! While I was training, the worst that happened was I broke my hand. I went for a drop down and my hand bent backwards right in the middle. That was the only bad injury I’ve had under contract with the WWE. But 8 years ago in my first match ever, I had a partner and we did a tag move. He landed me and I went sideways on my knee and dislocated my kneecap. That hurt.

Of all your wrestling moves, what’s your favorite one?

Of course my finisher! I’m still trying to think of the perfect name for it because to me, my finisher is different, it’s my own. So that’s my favorite, because it shows not only that its impactful, but its trademarked to me, because I do the splits!

What’s the most insane fan encounter you’ve ever had?

Well, nothing to crazy-crazy, but a guy came up and said he was a big fan and just did a split right in front of me! And two people wanted me to autograph their arms, and then they went and tattooed it. That’s the only two really different things that have happened.

Seth Green and Matt Senreich started producing their Emmy-nominated stop-motion sketch series in 2005. Additionally, many thanks to the lovely Miss Sarah Schneider for conducting this interview with me.

Robot Chicken is famous for its pop culture parodies. Do you feel that being on Adult Swim or working with action figures lets you get away with more risque material?

Seth: Absolutely, both of those things. Adult Swim gives you a lot of creative leeway because of the time slot and the targeted demo. And [the toys] are so relatable, it’s something you physically held in your hand as a kid and that makes what it’s doing inherently funny. There is no sexualization of a toy unless you apply it.

The show also taps into some pretty dark territory. Having a guy get jerked off through a video game stands out.

Matt: I would like to point out that that is a puppet of our co-head writer Doug Goldstein. Maybe it’s a true story, maybe it’s not.

The production process is so intense, too. You have to be pretty specific about what you want the animators to do.

Seth: It’s really long and you don’t have the opportunity for retakes. You start making concrete decisions very early on and then you have to live with them for the next 11 months.

With the season premiere of Always Sunny mere hours away (tonight at 10pm on FX), I sat down with Charlie Day (Charlie), Rob McElhenney (Mac) and Glenn Howerton (Dennis) to talk about the show and find out which shirt they’ve chosen as the winner of our Always Sunny T-Shirt design contest.

Are you guys excited for the new season?
Glenn: Oh hells yeah.
Rob: Can’t wait.

Is everything all done?
Charlie: No! Not even close. Everything’s shot, we’re cutting it all together.

It must be hard to edit. I feel like you guys are always cracking up on set.
Glenn: It’s pretty bad sometimes.
Charlie: We’re like, as bad as Jimmy Fallon.

Is there a particular scene that you guys remember just not being able to get through?
Charlie: Glenn and I laughed a lot in season 2 where he improvs the writing of the political speech that I had written for him. We couldn’t get through that.
Rob: We laughed a lot through the scene in ‘The Gang Dances Their Asses Off’ where we’re eating the chips. Where we’re talking about the cream rising to the top, and basically talking about Mac’s semen. But yeah, we couldn’t get through that scene.

I know a lot of the show is tightly scripted, but are you improvising a lot while you’re filming?
Glenn: The episodes are written to be pretty tight, but we improvise a lot when we’re writing and rewriting scripts. A lot of the improvising gets written down, and then when we’re on the set we’ll do things word for word. If they’re funny and they’re working, then it works, and if not we’ll go off the page. It’s always fun to switch it up on the day.

As the name behind Saturday Night Live‘s short-but-hilarious “Deep Thoughts,” writer Jack Handey has become synonymous with the art of the bizarre one liner. Since leaving SNL (where he also wrote several memorable sketches, including “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer”) in 2002, Handey has contributed humorous essays to The New Yorker, and in April, published What I’d Say to the Martians and Other Veiled Threats, a collection of his writing. Below, he talks with CollegeHumor about comedy and car-driving felines.

What I’d Say To The Martians includes both essays and Saturday Night Live scripts. Are either of these formats more difficult than the other?
Both are hard. To me, the best humor pieces are written from the point of view of a specific character. So when you’re thinking of ideas, you think about what your character would be interested in, what he could pontificate about. In TV, you’re just trying to come up with a funny ideas. Also, in TV you’re thinking visually. I do, anyway. I try to think of a funny image, and then what might explain that funny image.

For sheer writing, doing a humor piece is probably more difficult. But physically, TV really wears you out. Saturday Night Live, anyway. There the writers produce their own pieces, so you have to make sure the sets, props, sound effects, etc., are right. By the after-show party, you’re ready for that beer.

What do you associate with beer pong, besides getting belligerent in a moldy college basement? Ever thought about tossing together a tournament in Las Vegas that would grow to house over 400 teams? How about whipping up a $50K grand prize? Of course not, you lazy jerk.

Billy Gaines and Duncan Carroll helped take beer pong from an excuse to black out to a legitimate sport by co-founding The World Series of Beer Pong and Bpong.com. I recently got to ask them how the tournament came to be, what winners do with their prize money, and the best distraction they’ve ever witnessed.

Usually when someone is really good at beer pong, they are considered to have a drinking problem. Is each yearly winner guaranteed to be a raging alcoholic?

If beer pong was just a college game, then perhaps your perception is correct – what college student is not a raging alcoholic?  What we’ve done with beer pong, however, is brought the game out of your college frat house basement and turned it into a sport. At the World Series and in any game a player is not required to drink any alcohol if they so choose. WSOBP official rules also have the back four cups filled with water rather than beer. Those that attend our events view beer pong as a sport and are there with a number one goal of winning their games. As such, I suspect the odds are against the winner being a raging alcoholic.

Is there a favorite type of beer to play with in the tournament?