Robert Smigel is launching a podcast in which he and his comedian friends — including David Letterman, Bob Odenkirk, Ellie Kemper and Jim Gaffigan — try to help zhuzh up the hilarity of everything from a eulogy to a Tinder profile.
Smigel, a writer, producer, actor and director best known for his “TV Funhouse” segments on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” is the host of “Humor Me With Robert Smigel & Friends.” The weekly podcast, from iHeartMedia and Will Ferrell’s Big Money Players Network, premieres May 8, with new episodes airing on Fridays. The show will be available on the iHeartRadio app and other major podcast platforms. (Listen to the trailer below.)
On “Humor Me With Robert Smigel & Friends,” Smigel and a rotating panel of his friends assist people seeking help in making something in their real life funnier. For the show, iHeart set up a website (speakpipe.com/humorme) where people can submit requests for comedic consulting. Smigel said they’ve received several hundred so far.
Among other things, the team brainstormed ways to add comedic zest to a best man’s speech, a fan letter, a sermon and an apology. “We’ve had several rabbis wanting help with sermons,” Smigel told Variety. “There was a woman who wanted to break up with her mom group in a diplomatic way that was still funny.”
Originally, Smigel’s idea for a podcast was to assemble a writers room for a fake TV show. “The only germ I had was how much fun I have in writers rooms,” he told Variety. “Because almost the most fun part of being in comedy is just generating ideas. And then you actually have to execute them. And that’s where the pain comes in.”
Then his wife, Michelle Saks Smigel, who is credited as the show’s creator, had the idea of making it interactive — to help out people who wish they were funnier. That’s the concept that was pitched and sold to iHeart.
The first episode features Smigel collaborating with longtime “Saturday Night Live” cast member Mikey Day and his writing partner Streeter Seidell, who’s a head writer on “SNL,” along with a “surprise colleague” of theirs. In the episode, they help an a cappella group make their banter between songs more amusing.
Additional comedians and comedy writers appearing as guests on “Humor Me” include David Letterman, Jim Gaffigan, Dave Attell, Ellie Kemper, Andy Breckman, Jim Downey, Michael Koman, Bruce McCulloch, Alex Moffat, Bob Odenkirk, Colin Quinn, Rob Riggle, Eric Slovin, Dino Stamatopoulos and Mike Sweeney.
Some of the requests that came in over the transom for “Humor Me” were… strange.
One guy was looking for help writing an apology to his co-workers after taking a crap in the boss’s bathroom that stunk up the place, and he was thenceforth dubbed “Big Dumper” by his boss. Said Smigel: “We helped him write a appropriately self-deprecating, but also humorously defensive, speech that he did at the Christmas party, of all places… We have a recording of how it went, and it seemed to go very well.”
Another man wanted to write a eulogy for his dying father-in-law, said Smigel, “and he said everybody hates his father-in-law. So we wanted to make a eulogy that would be appropriately funny and be able to get away with it. So we did that.” The kicker is that the father-in-law hasn’t died yet, so the outcome on that one is TBD.
The initial run of “Humor Me With Robert Smigel & Friends” is 10 episodes, after which Smigel hopes to record another batch of 10. The show is produced in partnership with iHeartMedia and Big Money Players Network.
“In a funny podcast, there are bad ideas,” Smigel observed. “And that’s what makes them good. If they’re funny bad ideas, that’s just as entertaining as a good idea. And on a lot of these shows, we’re goofing around and, you know, we’ll toss out a lot of nonsense before we actually get to the point and help people. But that’s how comedy writing rooms are. Half of the stuff is nonsense, but it’s the stuff you laugh at the hardest.”
Smigel’s “TV Funhouse” cartoon shorts on “SNL” have featured the Ambiguously Gay Duo, Fun With Real Audio and the X-Presidents. He’s also the creator and voice of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the foul-mouthed puppet who has mocked everyone from Star Wars and Bon Jovi fans to Eminem and Ted Cruz. Triumph was a staple of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” for which Smigel served as the first head writer/producer.
Most recently, Smigel co-wrote, co-directed, wrote songs for and voices characters in the animated Netflix movie “Leo” starring Adam Sandler, Bill Burr and Cecily Strong. (He’s currently writing the script for a sequel to “Leo.”) Smigel also co-wrote and produced Sandler’s “Hotel Transylvania,” “Hotel Transylvania 2” and “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.”
Listen to the trailer for “Humor Me With Robert Smigel & Friends”:
English (US) ·