Thursday, November 5, 1998
Comedy interview about nothing
RADIO: Clever cast of ‘Laugh Dammit’ links porn to My Little
Pony
By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
They don’t claim to be the next (fill in your favorite sketch
comedy group here), but they are a lazy journalist’s dream come
true. Sitting down with most of the cast of "Laugh, Dammit!"
(Fridays, 7 to 8 p.m. on KLA) in a Sproul dorm room is a lot like,
well, sitting down with a group of your funniest friends in a
Sproul dorm room.
Second-year political science student Sean Heckman manages the
group, which includes co-founder and third-year English student
Steve Damewood (third-year, English), Tim Heiderich (third-year,
theater), Dave Viola (second-year, English), and newcomers Sarah
Fisher (second-year, art) and Greg Franzese (first-year,
English).
Laid back and self-effacing, the seven students wax comedic on
everything from Howard Stern to porn star My Little Ponies. You
might call it an interview about nothing.
How do you get your ideas for your sketches?
Steve Damewood: We have this big ball that we roll around on a
piece of paper called the Wheel O’ Comedy.
Sarah Fisher: It has subjects, verbs and action words.
Dave Viola: Also known as reruns of "Saturday Night Live."
Damewood: I want to be a writer and it gives me an opportunity
to write down all the funny, weird ideas that I’m not going to
develop into a short story or screenplay. They’re just not
developable. So it’s really just all the crap of my psyche that
goes into the show.
I’m getting the feeling that improvising and playing off each
other is not a difficult thing to do, that you do it a lot.
Sean Heckman: The frustrating thing about the show is the walk
back because that’s when everybody’s funny.
Damewood: We all have stage fright or something.
Heckman: It was really bad during spring quarter because we
turned on the microphone and nobody knew what to say. We’ve gotten
much better as the show’s gone on. Greg and Sarah don’t know about
the old days.
Fisher: Yeah, we’re new.
Tim Heiderich: Back in the ’70s. We were much more political
back then.
What’s it like for you two being new in the group?
Greg Franzese: It was hard getting jumped in. It hurt more than
I thought it would.
Fisher: There were like 10 guys and one girl (Amy Haber, absent
tonight). And on the first show they had me battle it out against
her.
Did you win?
Fisher: I did.
Is that why she’s not here tonight?
Fisher: She’s afraid of me.
Is a lot of the material you work with campus-specific?
Heiderich: Well, I know people outside of campus wouldn’t get it
and a couple of people on campus do get it …
Viola: Namely ourselves.
Heckman: We have an upcoming segment in a couple of weeks about
solicitors on Bruin Walk.
Viola: I saw some guy handing out flyers and he had a board over
his body that said, "Repent now faggots, dopers and all other
sinners." There’s so much you can do with that. Intolerance Â
so good.
Do you ever try to have a "message" with your comedy? Do you
have political humor?
Franzese: A lot of the time if you’re making jokes, you’re
making jokes about stereotypes or certain personas that are around
in society. Some people might get offended, but they might actually
think. I haven’t had anyone say they thought about life after me
making fun of Jesus freaks, but …
Heiderich: If we could reach one person. If we can make one
person laugh. Someday.
The press release is very honest about the show’s problems, and
it seems like you are too. How are you working to get past your
stage fright?
Damewood: If you tell people a little bit about yourself,
they’re much more open. So we don’t have to be funny. People love
us.
Fisher: Or if you give them free CDs.
Heckman: Also now we’ve got this digital equipment so we record
sketches, whereas last year we had to do it live. … I think
improv has just gotten more comfortable over time.
How often do you rehearse?
Heckman: Now we rehearse once or twice and then we record it. Of
course, if the recording’s bad, we record it over again.
Heiderich: It cuts down on the stuttering.
Viola: And the crying.
Damewood: Broken hearts, broken lives.
Viola: We stop looking at it as a radio show and playing
characters  we start being ourselves and talking about my
serious depression, Tim’s chlamydia.
Heckman: I think we’ve stopped caring, basically.
Franzese: What I always thought made great radio was a show
about itself. If you look at the shows that are doing well, like
"Love Line" and Howard Stern they’re about nothing but
themselves.
Viola: Whereas Howard Stern’s a jerk, I think we’re better. We
have a sweetness to us, you know what I mean? We’re like a Hallmark
special.
Heiderich: If you lick Dave, he tastes like Kool-Aid.
What other comedians do you admire?
Viola: "Mr. Show." I have every season on tape.
Heiderich: I just look up to Steve. I wish I could be as funny
as he is in maybe a couple of years.
Damewood: And I look down on you, Tim.
Heiderich: So it’s a mutual relationship.
Damewood: We get along well together. It’s a happy marriage.
Franzese: Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith is my hero. Conan O’Brien is
also really funny.
Heckman: He’s not funny, but I really like Lorne Michaels, the
producer of "Saturday Night Live."
Heiderich: I’m addicted to "The Daily Show."
Franzese: And heroin.
Heiderich: Nothing makes me laugh so hard as black tar
heroin.
Viola: It’s the pie in the face of the ’90s.
Is it hard to work over the radio where anything you do has to
be completely verbal as opposed to on TV where you can rely on
physical comedy as well?
Viola: There goes the laser show.
Fisher: It makes things easier because you can describe things
that aren’t really happening like, "Oh, there she goes" or
something like that when really the person’s still sitting right
there.
Viola: Look at that space ship.
Fisher: There’s Elvis.
Heiderich: Or "I’m feeling especially tall and handsome this
evening."
Do you guys have comedic career goals?
Fisher: I’m not quite sure yet. I like acting and working with
people.
Franzese: And prostituting.
Fisher: And prostitution.
Heiderich: They always talk about those new technology
careers.
Damewood: Have you seen those ads? "If you can work a ladder,
you can get a job with us. Do you want a job in television Â
and ladders  for the future? The American way."
What is the funniest thing about the elections?
Damewood: I think the funniest thing is that there is no one in
the world to represent my views. I’m like the only liberal left in
the United States.
Viola: I smell a grassroots movement.
Heiderich: I wrote you in, though, for governor.
Heckman: I think the funniest thing is that a one-hit wonder
from five years ago debuted over Gray Davis and Barbara Boxer at
the big rally.
Franzese: She’s not a one-hit wonder! I love her.
Viola: Lisa Loeb really showed they have their thumb on the
pulse of our generation.
Do you talk about your personal lives on the show?
Heckman: The sad thing is that nothing goes on in our lives.
Heiderich: The rest of the week we just stay in bed.
Viola: KLA isn’t the estrogen magnet I thought it would be.
Tell me about "Porn Star, or My Little Pony."
Heckman: That was a segment we did the first week … We have a
list of names that were either My Little Pony names or porn star
names.
Fisher: I thought of that connection because they do have some
funky names.
Viola: So not because of their huge genitals.
Fisher: There was something like "Honey Morning Glory" or "Wild
Berry Leaves."
Heiderich: And "Having Sex Cinnamon" and "Hung Like a Horse
Horse."
What else do you have coming up?
Viola: There’s one where one cast member will be revealed to be
a woman. I haven’t decided yet  whoever happens to be around.
Whoever I’m angry at.
Heiderich: I guess I should start rehearsing this role now.
Damewood: Can we just get a tape of this and play that on
Friday? Can you sound more like Barbara Walters?
Probably not. Do you guys do impressions?
Heiderich: Oh do we. He’s got a really good Tony Danza.
Viola: Angel-uh. Mon-uh. Jon-uh-than! … Tim why don’t you do
yours  this is stolen from David Spade, by the way.
Heiderich: "Uh, really, I don’t know."
Viola: You can put in parentheses "in the voice of David Spade
as Alex P. Keaton."
So it’s like a meta-impression.
Viola: It’s very postmodern.
Damewood: If people don’t get our jokes it’s usually because
we’re so much above them.
Viola: We’re the "Gravity’s Rainbow" of bad radio.DANIELA
DECCA
(Left to right) David Viola, Tim Heiderich, Greg Franzese, Sarah
Fisher, Steven Damewood and Sean Heckman are KLA’s "Laugh
Dammit!"
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