Broken Lizard co-founder Jay Chandrasekhar admits that when writing jokes, it's much easier to get raunchy than to avoid it.
"We try mightily to come up with bits that are clean because it's the only way you can get on Kimmel or Letterman," he said by phone. "You can't get on with most of the bits that we write. [But] it's a struggle to come up with clean stuff."
We caught up with Chandrasekhar, a Chicago-area native who shot to fame with Broken Lizard in such cult classic movies as "Super Troopers,""Beerfest" and most recently, "The Babymakers," who returns to Chicago on a five-city stand-up tour with a show at Laugh Factory-where he won't have to censor his humor.
---
Jay Chandrasekhar Live!
Go: 8 p.m. Friday at Laugh Factory, 3175 N. Broadway
Tickets: $20-$30; 773-327-3175; laughfactory.com
---
Where do you like to go when you're in Chicago?
Lately, I've been coming through for such short periods of time. But last summer, we were promoting 'The Babymakers,' and we went to the Cubs-Cardinals game--and a lot of screenings and a lot of bars. I'm just very at home in that town. I love how sports-crazy it is.
You tweet often about Chicago sports teams.
I'm fully obsessed. I'm one of those people who without it, I don't know who I would be. I used to have to go to bars to watch the Bears games-and WGN was pretty good, you could get a number of them. But once these [cable] packages [became available]-I mean, there have been years where I've watched 100 Cubs games-and it's, you know, starting at midnight! [Laughs.] And of course I've watched every Bears game for 25 to 30 years and the Bulls as well. And frankly, I've got the hockey package; I've been watching the Hawks. But you can't do all of it. [Laughs] I skip the commercials, of course, but it takes a lot of your life away. But I couldn't care less about college [sports], so I'm at least comforted with that.
You grew up in the Chicago suburbs with parents who are doctors. How did they react to your career choice?
They reacted well, actually. Initially, I told them I wanted to be a doctor. I think they had a hunch that I probably wasn't terribly committed to that and that it was more of like a kid trying to be what his parents were. I took organic chemistry in college and I got a C-minus and that was it. I'd been in a lot of plays and I had gotten a fair number of laughs with my friends. And I'm like, 'I'm gonna go downtown and do some stand-up and see if I can make strangers laugh.' Chicago's a town-when you grow up in it or near it-people from there end up making it in show business. Through 'SNL' and the various other things that people have done, you get the feeling like it's possible. And so I went down to-it might have been called The Matchstick; I don't think it's there anymore-they had an open mic. I wrote 10 minutes of material and I said it so fast, I did it in about five minutes. But I got some laughs. I went back to Colgate [University] and I started a comedy group, which became Broken Lizard. The goal was always to try to do what Monty Python did, which was to make movies and perform live.
Broken Lizard was originally called Charred Goosebeak-interesting animal names there. What names didn't make the cut?
We [were at] an apartment in New York. We filled up the bong and we just sat there for about three days and told jokes and tried to come up with names for the group-'cause Charred Goosebeak is still going at Colgate [University], so we couldn't be that. At one point we decided, "OK, it's going to be Four Whiteys and an Injun." We were also going to be the Chocolate Speedo Team-that was the name we all agreed to when I went to the printer. I got to the printer and I'm like, "I don't know the Chocolate Speedo Team?" [Laughs.] And after three days where we were working on the name, I unilaterally changed it to Broken Lizard, printed the posters and came back. I'm like, 'Here's our new name, fellas!' And they're like, 'Oh, OK?' And I'm like, 'It's kind of like Monty Python-Broken Lizard, you know?'
What material works better on screen versus on stage?
The truth is, in normal life, people don't tend to speak in monologues. You end up kind of chirping over each other. There are certain gags that are really observational. Comments in films have to be a little more few and far between because you want the dialogue to feel like the thoughts are coming to the actors right then and there-if every single thing one person says is hilarious and insightful, then it just doesn't feel right. Films are situational more than, "You know, the funny thing about people with toupees is " You can have a guy with a toupee and you can have someone make a little comment about that but you can't go into a riff about it, in my opinion. A lot of comics have tried to do some version of their stand-up act in a film and I don't believe it's really worked. I think Louie CK has done some interesting stuff with his stand-up within his show but I think he made that same determination-that he wanted to make those observations-and so he made his character a stand-up. [Laughs.] We write jokes all the time and now I'm writing a television show that I'm in the middle of negotiating and so some of those jokes, I think, "Oh, I'll put them in that show. This other joke could be in 'Super Troopers 2.' This is more of a stand-up joke." I'm trying to write a book, and I have some things are more like, "OK, I'll try and put that in the book." Between those four things, the joke usually finds the right home. Occasionally it will be in the stand-up act and a more situational version in a TV show or movie.
Do you prefer to save the raunchiest stuff for the movies, since in that case there aren't people sitting right in front of you when you're talking about (insert bodily function here)?
It feeds on itself. In show business, you succeed when you give the audience what they want-what they expect to some degree and something new as well. Our reputation-because of what has happened for us in the movies in the past, there's a certain amount of raunch people want. And you can't suddenly make a movie without it, I don't think. [Laughs.] I think, in truth, that stand-up is an inherently dirty way of communicating. If you break stand-up down, it's really just standing in a bar and drinking and telling jokes. The difference is, you have a mic in your hand and you're in front of an audience, but you're basically in bars, still. And most of the jokes you hear-except if you're talking to a child-they have a little bit of edge to them, a little bit of dirt to them.
What does it take for a personal experience to make it into your stand-up?
It's got to be something that you haven't heard before-you wouldn't hear us do "the difference between cats and dogs." So how does it make it in? It's sort of clear as day in your head why you think it's worth trying. 'Cause the truth is, if you get up there and you something that's 1) not funny, it's [laughs] emotionally painful to listen to the silence; and 2) if you feel it's unoriginal, it's hard not to put yourself in the audience's head and be like, "Well, that feels a little trite." It's just not what I'm in it for, you know? It's just not.
Any other insights into the comedy process?
Comics succeed best when they have chosen a character that fits them and then go with it. I know a lot of them personally; they're not the character they are onstage. Like Dennis Miller-we're not friends, but I've talked to him quite a few times. He has this [onstage] persona that is like, "Well, I know everything about everything and here's this reference to the 15th Century monks." [Laughs.] But I doubt that he's like that when he's with his sons.
What Chicago-centric material will make its way into your Laugh Factory set?
I've been working on a joke where I reference the Bears' new tight end-his name's Martellus Bennett and he calls himself the "Black Unicorn,"'cause it's very rare. [Laughs.] So I've been trying to think of a way to get him into my act.
You tweeted a photo of you and Willie Nelson with the caption, "'Potfest' script meeting." Is that film actually underway?
We got to be good friends when we made the film, "Dukes of Hazzard," [which Chandrasekhar directed] and then he was also in, of course, the end of "Beerfest." The interesting thing is, we get so many [requests]-right after, "When is "Super Troopers 2" coming out?" is, "When is 'Potfest' coming out?" And most interestingly, I hear it most from the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] guys. They're just like, "Oh, dude, when is 'The Weedfest' coming out?" It's amazing. It was a joke at first that we were going to make "Potfest," cause you know, how could you write a competitive pot-smoking movie? We figured out a way. We've written about 15 pages of it and we're going to do it. I've run into so many different people who say they will be in it, like Cheech Marin and Snoop Dogg and of course Willie, and we're hoping to get Michael Phelps in it. There are a lot of stoners out there that I think would enjoy seeing it-and being in it.