Featured: Jeff Siegel, Mitch Hedberg, Lynn Shawcroft, Jack Vaughn
What’s in This Episode
- 20-year anniversary of Mitch Hedberg’s death
- Upcoming Mitch Hedberg documentary by Jeff Siegel
- Mitch Hedberg’s three albums and posthumous release
- Mitch’s career timeline and rise to fame in late 1990s
- Concerns about Mitch Hedberg’s cultural relevance fading over time
Questions Answered in This Episode
When did Mitch Hedberg die?
Mitch Hedberg passed away around March 29-30, 2005. The exact date has some confusion, with some sources listing March 30th and others March 29th, and the announcement possibly coming on April 1st.
Is there a documentary about Mitch Hedberg coming out?
Yes, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Jeff Siegel is directing an upcoming documentary about Mitch Hedberg. Siegel has spent nearly five years on the project and interviewed over 200 people involved in Mitch’s life and comedy.
How many comedy albums did Mitch Hedberg release?
Mitch released three albums: ‘Strategic Grill Locations,’ ‘Mitch All Together,’ and a posthumous album ‘Do You Believe in Gosh?’ The posthumous album came from tapes that Lynn Shawcroft provided to Johnny Mac, who connected her with Jack Vaughn at Comedy Central Records.
When did Mitch Hedberg’s big break happen?
1998 was the year Mitch blew up, when he appeared in Time magazine as ‘the next Seinfeld,’ got a development deal at Fox, and did multiple Letterman appearances. However, his Comedy Central albums didn’t come out until 2003.
Did Jeff Siegel actually meet Mitch Hedberg?
Yes, Jeff Siegel met Mitch Hedberg four different times. The first was in 2002 when Siegel drove three and a half hours as a high school senior to see Mitch perform at the DC Improv, and they spoke after the show.
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Caloroga Shark Media. And I’m Johnny mag and this weekend not really comedy news. We will celebrate the life and career of Mitch Hedberg, who passed away twenty years ago this weekend. I’m even struggling how to get into the Show’s part of it is, I’ve heard various dates for when Mitch passed away. If you google it, it will come up as March thirtieth.
Some sources will say March twenty ninth. I’ve heard anecdotes where it was March twenty ninth and not announced to the thirtieth. I’ve also heard versions where it was the thirtieth and then not announced until April first, which made people think it was a prank. Personally, you’ve heard me talk about it several times this week. I remember being at the auto show with Brewer when we heard the news, and I just now went to look to see when we did the Auto show broadcast, and I can’t find it.
So we’ll just celebrate Mitch this weekend. Mitch Hedburg was born February twenty fourth, nineteen sixty eight, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Three albums, one of them posthumous. We’ll talk about that the first two strategic Grill locations, and Mitch altogether the posthumous one do you believe in Gosh? I have shared my story where I was sitting with Lynn Shawcroft and she had some tapes and I said to her, you’ve got an album here, and I connected her with Jack Vaughn at Comedy Central Records.
That’s where that came from. My guest today is filmmaker and Hepburg documentarian Jeff Siegel. Yeah, Jeff is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker and the director of an upcoming documentary about Mitch. I can’t wait. So I reached out to Jeff and I asked him, Hey, will you talk Mitch Hedburg with me?
And today I will share that conversation. So why Mitch Hedburg? What do your life about Mitch Heedburg? Wow? Why Mitch Hedburg?
That’s a loaded question because I’ve spent nearly five years piecing together his whole life story. My entry point to this was getting to meet Mitch at a very formative time. In my life. And it wasn’t just on one occasion, it was four different times. And it could always be dicey when you get to meet somebody who you really look up to, and I’ve never met anyone quite like Mitch.
He was one of the most sweet, genuine, incredibly kind, humble, hilarious, complicated people. He bundled up so many different things, all in this unique package. And I don’t think it’s just me who felt it, that this incredibly unique aura and desire to know more about him and this vulnerability it was all. There was just a lot of different things that you felt when you were around Mitch. And some of that came through from his comedy, from the records on TV and everything, But when you actually got to sit there with him and chat, even if it was just fleetingly, he made an impact on you.
And he definitely did on me.
And now I’ve spoken over two hundred people who were a part of his journey th…
It is amazing the effect that he had on people and continues to have on people, even though he’s no longer with us. Was he Midwester or nice? Was he stoned? Was he all of that at once? Or Hey, mister Hdberg, big fan, Nice to meet you.
What do I get back? First of all, I had driven without going too deep into my own personal story. He was one of those people. I discovered him like so many people on TV Comedy Central presents. At first, when you discover him, you’re just like, what is this?
The very first few seconds of being exposed to Mitch, just this isn’t another language. Most people aren’t dialed into that frequency, and it takes you a second to click into it. And once you do, boom, You’re in Mitch world and you will never see the world the same way again. You will always see it through his eyes. So I fell in love with him that way initially, you know, discovering him like so many countless other people.
But the next step was, obviously, I want to see this guy. People forget that. Twenty five years ago it was a very different world without social media and all these things. It wasn’t always easy to track these people down. So it took months of refreshing his remedial website to try to figure out, oh my god, he’s actually coming somewhere in a radius I can get to.
And I drove down with a few friends I was a senior in high school to Washington, DC to see him at the DC Improv. So that kind of set this up into more than just us going out for the night of five blocks from where we lived. We had to really make an effort to go track him down. We weren’t even old enough at the comedy club to fulfill the two drink minimum. We had to order mozarella sticks and chicken fingers.
But now knowing that was I think that was my first live comedy show ever. So it’s when you enter through that perspective you realize, wow, this is so different than what you might expect. Otherwise. We were in the front row so many comedy shows. I would never want to be in the front row.
I don’t want to be the victim of crowd work and all that stuff. But with Mitchell was so different. So yeah, after the show, we tracked him down and the venue cleared out, and we said, hey, we drove three and a half hours to see you. Oh man, you drove all the way down here just to see me. He was so humbled by that and surprised by that, and he shouldn’t be because so many people, I’m sure we’re doing the same thing, but you know, to us, he cared and he was concerned if we are you guys staying down here, do you have a place to stay?
You’re not going home tonight, are you? It was this very sweet Midwestern hospitality, like caring about and who were we? We were just a bunch of high school kids who happened to go to a show. But you could immediately feel that he was this sweet, charming, incredibly kind, nice kid from Minnesota that never left him. And at what stage in his career is this after a few Comedy Centrals He’s done Letterman and all that.
Yeah, I had no idea of his timeline until I started doing this project, but yeah, this was two thousand and two when I saw him, So he’s already he’s done a bunch of Letterman’s Comedy Central presences behind him. Nineteen ninety eight was really the big year when Mitch. Blew up and all eyes in the comedy world went to him and he was in Time magazine. They called him the next Seinfeld. You got a big development deal at Fox and that’s that was that kind of big moment.
But then it took a few years for him to really pick up, for the Comedy Central Presents, to go into heavy rotation, for Comedy Central Records to pick up his album, and then record a second album and to put those out. Those didn’t come out till two thousand and three. It was all those later years of his life when he was really picking up in popularity, and once those albums came out, it was like game over. Those things were huge, especially among college age kids. They were just being swapped left and right on campuses.
I’m sure we’ll jump all over the timeline, especially I have hedburg add As I’ve been prepping for all these conversations I’m having this week, I started to think about you just talked about it. When those albums were out, they were very quotable. I was part of the cult. If I walked up to a soda machine that was selling mister Pibb, I would take a picture and text my friend and just where I who didn’t get his degree, and we would chuckle about it. Ten years ago, on the tenth anniversary of Mitch’s passing, I felt like he was very much in the zeitgeist because of Twitter, and was either being quoted or people were quoting in his style.
Here ten years later, I’m not feeling that, and I’m worried that he’s starting to become forgotten. I was thinking about our interview this morning, and I think back to Richard Jenny, who was super popular, and you never hear anyone mentioned Richard Jenny. I don’t think Mitch’s zeitgeistniss has fallen that far, but I worry that he’s starting to become a comedian of the past. I certainly hope that’s not the case, and that’s why I’ve been trying so hard to get this kind of big project together to celebrate Mitch, to tell his unknown story, and really to introduce him to a whole new generation of people who may have not heard of Mitch and not discovered him. But the beautiful thing is that he is so instantly and forever discoverable, as Mark Maron put it in our interview with him, that he is just He’s one of those guys.
The evergreen nature of his material and the way he saw the world and processed it through his unique mind and put everything out there is that to this day, I think anybody could just pick up on him, see one or two jokes, and then absolutely fall in love. Maybe it’s anecdotal, but I have been talking to tons of people, and a lot of people are obviously connected with his story. But I feel like I’ve actually been blown away by the fact that he still remains so relevant, and even though so many people talk about how had he been around a few more years, living into the age of social media, his jokes, his material would have been so perfect for that, because obviously it’s these one liners, there’s short bites. But you know, I feel like I’ve found that even though he didn’t get to live into that era, and it’s almost poetic he was this guy. He feels from a different era anyway, and it’s almost poetic that he passed away before the whole world and the comedy world as well, but was upended by social media and just so many changes that we’re still feeling to this day.
But social media, I think has embraced what Mitch left behind. So even though he wasn’t around to put new stuff out those clips, whether Letterman appearance is Comedy Central, animated gifts, all kinds of audio animation that people have done for it, I think that there’s still a huge following that loves Mitch and is trying to keep him alive, putting him out there so that lots of new people can discover him and fall in love the same way. I was talking to someone else earlier today, And again I come at this as a big Mitch fan. I wouldn’t have stalked you if I weren’t a fan, and I was thinking in terms of modern social media and feeding the beast. I think at peak Instagram, taking a headburg one liner and putting a funny image to it was great.
I wonder now how he would feed the beast. Not really a crowd work comedian, and I broke it down and if he’s got a crowd behind him, he could say hey, nice hat and get a laugh because the crowd’s at your back. But he’s not a crowd work comedian. So would he be able to feed that constant beast that we have to feed in twenty five. I will never know, But like I said, I’m glad that we don’t really ever have to know that he could be himself on his own terms.
The big takeaways from again years of conversations with so many people are that Mitch was steadfast to do. Things his own way. He was willing. To swim up stream if he had to. He didn’t care if he was struggling to find his audience, to figure out his sense of humor.
In those early days, and nobody knows much about the early days of Mitch. It’s really a kind of an arcane thing, the origin story of where this guy came from. But he was so perseverant and so dead set on doing every single thing his own way. I don’t really think he would have necessarily bent and acquiesced into just trying to fit into the new mold just because that might drive the algorithm. I think he was going to do what he was going to do no matter what.
And I think that’s what part of what makes Mitch beloved and endearing to everyone, is that he was holy himself and not ever just trying to sell out to be something different. It’s interesting all the what ifs, and I’ll get back to reality in a second. But at the time of his passing, he was starting to really enter rockstar mode. And by why, I mean that just the crowds being raucous for him. Lyn Schawkroft told me that he was speeding up the act and it was bothering him a little bit because people were stepping on the lines.
It would have been interesting to see how he navigated that period where maybe we’re more into hey, it’s a party and Mitch Hedberg’s on stage, and that messing with the deliberate pacing and the timing is so key to what he did. Sure, if you look back to even the earliest stuff when he started, there was a distinct evolution of him finding his voice, and he used to be more long form in the early days, not rambling long stories, but longer setups to jokes, and slowly but surely those got whittled down because I think he just wanted to be more able to go into this non sequitor and throw whatever out and get through it, really boiling down these hilarious thoughts into these most efficient, compact joke delivery mechanisms, which is ultimately what he left us with, especially in those later years. But yeah, by the later years, I mean he got to the point where he was selling out theaters in an era where that wasn’t as common as it is now, again without social media and without a big network show or something that was very rare back then, and he did it. He built this following through very grassroots, onerous process over fifteen years as a stand up just crisscrossing the country, making it in small markets, not necessarily focusing on the bigger places. But really just city by city, club by club, booker by booker, winning people over slowly but surely.
And you know, by those later years, some of those last shows with thousands of people, they became very different than what the club shows were, especially with the college audiences. The last show I ever saw was a college gig, and it was a very different vibe than seeing him at the DC Improv. Unfortunately. I think a lot of the audiences were cheering him on and encouraging some of the more raucous stuff, and it did seem there’s a reason a lot of people have talked about him being this kind of rock star comedian. He certainly personified that rock star kind of vibe.
It’s interesting you say that. As I was thinking about there’s always the inevitable alignments of Stephen Wright style of comedy, and as I thought about it this morning, Stephen presents material at the audience and we take it in, and I felt like Mitch was part of the crowd. We were all in it together, and even if he busted a joke, he’d drop into the that didn’t work. Yes, we knew it didn’t work. He let us know.
He knew, and it was one big communal thing that we were in it. Absolutely. I think that’s such an important point in understanding Mitch. And yes, those inevitable comparisons with Stephen Wright again absurdist non sequitur. But I think the variable with Mitch, to your point, is this vulnerability, because he did exude that I’m up here, I’m telling the jokes, but you’re receiving the jokes.
But yes we are. It’s a symbiotic relationship here and some of his great moments, and to show you how quick and smart he was, even though some of these jokes, his famous ones were so refined and over so many years and turn into these perfect little gems that will stay relevant forever. Some of his greatest moments and showcasing how quick he was is when something didn’t work, or when he first walks on stage in a new venue, he often will break the ice with something that isn’t a joke of his, just off the cuff observation he did just for laughs nineteen ninety eight, which is the big moment when he was the bell of the ball he walked into the big gala there that was televised and his first joke was finally some Canadian television exposure. And it’s those moments show you that he was always thinking, always writing. Sorry to cut, but you just got to laugh out of me.
Now if we read the transcript, finally, some Canadian television exposure is not funny on the paper, but you nailed the delivery of how he would hang the word exposure and just he just he’s had that little touch and I think you just nailed you channeled it. Thanks again. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking of talking with people and obviously devouring and processing everything that Mitch left behind. So I think he’s rubbed off on me a bit and I’m honored by that. But yeah, to sum up what makes him great, and this is why you need to talk to so many people, And it’s so fascinating to triangulate Mitch from all the different perspectives of the people he crosspaths with in his life, from his family, from his close friends growing up, from the comedians he started coming up through, from the huge comedians who he broke out with, from the comedy industry, from people he was in romantic relationships with.
Everybody has a perspective on Mitch. And when the more people you talk to the more it fills in pixels and we can start to glean things about who he was. And again, everybody channels something different. It’s this look, it’s this delivery, it’s this manner of speaking, it’s the style of even the sense of humor of coming up with these jokes that, even though they might be in a non sequitor style. Some people equate him more as an alt comic, some people equate him more as No, he’s really in the style of Aborsch Belt Henny Youngman type, because it’s which group does he fit in.
He was embraced by everyone, and it goes back to something that’s come up a lot from people who went to high school with him. I’ve told me he was a little bit like Ferris Buehler back in that day, like he was gravitating in and out of all these clicks, but he wasn’t really part of any one of them. He was Mitch, and absolutely everybody loved him and still does. No he now you point that out, I think I talk about it on the show The brick Wall comedians don’t like the alt comedians, and then everybody gives the blue collar guys a hard time, And as I’m thinking about it. All the Camps liked Mitch.
I can’t think of I’ve never met a comedian bad mouth the guy. I haven’t heard a bad story about the guy. I haven’t heard anyone I roll as material. It’s only respect and love. And absolutely and that’s what’s so confounding, is how this person and can embody so many things and be beloved nearly universally.
Again, even his fan base. It’s it can be people of any age, any background. It’s not controversial, it’s not tied to any time and place. There’s some cursing in his jokes, but it’s all very wholesome. And I think what makes Mitch connect with so many people in such a wide swath is that there’s the vulnerability aspect, but there’s also just that he was so positive and full of love, and to me, that’s what looking back twenty years since his passing and we absolutely miss Mitch.
We adorn Mitch to this day. I really think the world needs more Mitch today. I think that, and thankfully he left so much that we can still share with people, especially in these times that are divisive, controversial, heated among so many people are just at each other’s necks about everything, and it’s just Mitch was so cool and can diffuse any situation, be friends with everybody, and just have everyone just take a deep. Breath and chill out and laugh. Laugh at the ridiculous.
That’s a thing that’s come up throughout this is his absolute love for absurdity and all things ridiculous. And even though he makes such a profound impact on everybody, it’s like, at the end of the day, there’s a value to being silly. He processed silly in such an interesting, smart way that is so unique and makes everybody absolutely fawn over him to this day. But at the end of the day, it’s just not taking things so seriously, being light, laughing at the minutia, looking at things through that unique lens, or take a. Quick break, come right back with more than Jeff Siegel talking Hedberg, you talked about leaving behind.
Last time, I was in a room with Lynn Shawcroft, and it might be twenty years ago now or no, it can’t be twenty, but it’s eighteen. She had Mitch’s notebook and there were jokes in there. We did a few specials when I was at serious comedy with Lynn involved, and if I’m remembering correctly. We did some sort of special where other comedians performed a few of those jokes. Now hopefully somebody didn’t delete the file and it’s sitting in a computer on sixth Avenue somewhere and that still exists.
But there is material out there not performed. But the thoughts of Mitch Heedburgh exist absolutely. This guy. One thing that’s come up from everybody is he was writing constantly from I don’t know the age of a year or two after graduating high school and hitting the road with his friends, before he started performing. He was just constantly observing processing writing.
There were so many things to Mitch and another. Thing that’s come up. There’s lots of material, of course, the jokes, but Mitch was creative in so many ways and a lot of people don’t get this, and a lot of people who are close with him, especially in the early years, really this is a point they wanted to make to me and make sure that people got that. While comedy is how he made it, he was an artist. He could draw the doodles.
His handwriting is a work of art to anyone who’s ever seen it. He copied the style that he learned from his dad, who was an architectural draftsman and wrote in the all caps, very angular, very artistic, fascinating way. I mean, everything he left behind is an artifact, photography, home videos, editing, all kinds of stuff. The first time he made any money doing comedy, he made a feature film that he wrote and start in with his longtime girlfriend and producing partner, Janna Johnson, and he would just do everything. They made music together.
He was so creative in so many ways, and so yes, there’s so much material, so many ideas that Mitch left behind, and we’re trying to incorporate as many of those as we can into kind of rebuilding his story from scratch and doodles and drawings that he did and getting them animated and all kinds of interesting stuff like that.
Let’s talk about the documentary what makes you wake up out of bed and go this?
I’m going to make this Why Mitch Hebburg. The last time I saw Mitch was less than a year before he passed in two thousand and four, and I spent a little time with him was the Four Step and met him and it was at this college gig and the venue was clearing out and I went backstage and was in the green room and we were catching up, and I’m sure that this happened with countless other people. Obviously everybody loved him, and I’m sure he’s made time for other people. But when I was with him, like I said, Mitch made you feel like you were really special, like you were the only person he cared about at that moment. And we had a great conversation about film and filmmaking.
I was at film school at NYU at the time, and on the way out, the college had provided to catering. It was a big party sub and Mitch said, hey, man, I’m not going to eat that whole thing. Why don’t you take some with you? And he gave me this sandwich and just a nice gesture. I wouldn’t probably think too much of it, but to me at that moment, I left there driving home, eating this ham sandwich that Mitch had given me, and just thought, I need to know more about this guy.
I am fascinated. He is so many fascinating things. Yes, hilarious of course on the service level, but so much more than that complex enigma to some degree, and you just wanted to know more about him. So I was hoping to go on the road with him and film something for my NYU Senior Thesis project unfortunately passed less than a year later, but that planted the seeds over twenty years ago that I wanted to do something, and over the years I kept once in a while reaching out to someone or chatting with people and floating this idea. And we finished a documentary project that I produced four part series for Netflix in twenty twenty called This Is a Robbery.
And I had some time on my hands and it was COVID and I just dipped my toe in the mitchwater, and I said, I had a similar thought process as a lot of people, which is I love this guy, but I don’t really know much about him, and I want to know more. And I know that is echoed by so many people out there who just are dying to know anything more about Mitch. And so I started just piecing it together and put timeline and pulling out names and calling people. And it’s a slow process when you do that, but over the last four going on five years, it has slowly turned into this incredible thing. And I’ve been met with so much love and endorsements from so many people.
Along the way. I’ve gotten to know Mitch’s entire family, and not just no, but we speak frequently. I was texting with his dad earlier today. It’s an ongoing thing, and I’ve just been going across the country, connecting the dots, trying to invite everyone on board to finally celebrate Mitch, to tell his story, and to explore everything that made him who he was. And I have been blown away.
This has been the most meaningful project I’ve ever worked on. I have been humbled by the trust that so many people have put in me. Everything we found. And people have been sharing, It’s just it’s really special and unique. And even reconnecting old people who were part of Mitch’s life and haven’t spoken in decades through this process has been wonderful.
And the best part has been that so many people have told me how therapeutic it is after a long time to finally sit down and speak about Mitch. The tragedy never goes away, but after a certain. Point it’s a little easier for a lot of people to talk about the good stuff. And there’s so much good stuff. He was an incredible human being.
Again, so many things beyond being funny. But even in the later years when he was struggling offstage. The stories that we’ve found from a wholenother generation of comedians beneath him, who idolized him and adored him, And he would do absolutely anything for anybody to help them get their footing in the comedy world, making calls, putting them on the bill, giving them time, talking them up to managers and agents. He was just an incredibly great human being, and absolutely everyone who knew him, even briefly met him, felt that and continues to feel that, And the love for Mitch to this day is enormous. It sounds like you’re on a really good path putting these things together.
You would know better than I. But a lot of times when you put these things together, you initially get there, who’s this guy? He’s just trying to make money off Mitch Hedberg. So I imagine how the parents are part of of this, or the parents are friendly with you. You can speak for yourself obviously how much they’re part of it or not.
That goes a long way.
And then I find with such projects it becomes the I call it the cool party to…
And if you have some people you can name drop? Oh okay, all right, We’re all doing this one. This is a safe space. This isn’t some sort of money grab. Can you speak to how that process has been are the Kenyans?
Are you seeing the snowball effect of Oh I talked to Maren, so someone else will do it? Absolutely if there’s so many different bins of people to connect with, Like I said, and obviously you want the big famous comedians and contemporaries who came up with Mitch, and someone like Maren or Stanhope or David Tell or Lewis Black who have so much direct crossover with him, obviously have a big personal aspect. But then you know, it’s also fascinating to talk to people who knew him a little bit, like Jim Gaffigan is in it, or bj Novak is in it. He’d never even met Mitch, but he speaks for the perspective of people who just view Mitch strictly from the fan point of view, and like what that means to people. I’m trying to triangulate it from all sides, from the people who knew him intimately well to people who just understand where he fits in this incredible pantheon of the comedy world.
And definitely the more people you get, the more you know. People are excited to be a part of it and realize that this is the chance to definitively speak about him. And everybody has something to say. Everyone has a great story about Mitch. There’s so much there, and it’s thrilling to finally accumulate all that.
And it’s going to be even better when we could finally put it all out and share it with the world. With this weekend being the twentieth anniversary of his passing. Just to get to the darker side of the story, do you have a sense of where people aware that he was struggling at the point in his life. I don’t personally know that answer. Yeah, the people who were a part of his life for a long time, especially going back into the era of his life where no one really knows much about, absolutely were aware that Mitch was having struggles.
It was a slow moving thing. People like me, People who were more peripherally connected, people like you. It sounds like fans who without social media weren’t necessarily hearing things or connecting dots back then. I don’t think they necessarily were aware. When I heard the news that Mitch passed, it was a complete shock to me.
I had no idea, But it doesn’t make it any easier when people, even though a lot of people knew that he was struggling with a lot of things, but there was this whole other, massive group who had no idea what was going on and were equally saddened when they heard the news. I remember we were floored. I was producing Jim Brewers radio show. We were at the New York Auto Show and Jim was doing a live thing in front of a crowd of people. Were there to otherwise see crowds, and Jim kept changing gears depending on who was in front of them.
Okay, there’s family people, I’ll do this, there’s adults, I’ll do that sort of material. And Jim was cranky that day because the night before Jim had to do an extra hour were because Mitch didn’t show.
And then in the middle of our broadcast we found out why Mitch didn’t show, a…
We all felt terrible on several ols. First of all, that twenty minutes ago we were like, eh, that guy, and then just oh wow, somebody that we’re fans of has passed away or somebody in Jim’s case, somebody that had worked with had passed away. It was just I remember getting the call in the middle of the show. The general consensus was people being incredibly saddened and just devastated because of the impact he made. Everyone knew what a good guy he was.
Everyone knew where Mitch’s heart was. The silver lining to me, if there is any is that his story doesn’t end. It is ongoing, and we may have to be fighting trying to make sure to post enough stuff to keep Mitch relevant. But that’s what we’re trying to do on a larger level with the film. But he is still out there making people laugh every day.
People are discovering them every day, and so many people I’ve talked to talk about how connecting with people over their mutual love for someone like Mitch. It’s almost like the password at a speakeasy if somebody immediately responds to you there in the Mitch Club, and you know you’ve got a friend, and you can bring out what’s your favorite joke, and oh, this is mine. I always talk about his jokes to this day are like these bite sized nuggets of comfort food that are also incredible trading cards of oh yeah, I’ll take your escalator temporarily stares and I’ll raise you doughnut receip And it’s like everyone gets to have a favorite and everyone gets to share them. It’s wild even to this day. Anytime anything gets.
Posted about Mitch on any Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, any social media Twitter, whatever it’s called. Now, basically the comment section is just flooded with people putting the exact, verbatim quote of their favorite joke. It is truly a phenomenon. This is so rare, and I think people don’t necessarily compreh and how unbelievably special and rare it is for someone twenty years after their passing who is a comedian who again generally very tethered to a time and a place. And a style.
But this guy was totally uniquely his own and timeless. He will work in any era to anybody because he is a genuine, authentic person that people connect with on a very deep emotional level, which is hard for some people to believe when you just see they’re just these non sequitor, absurdist jokes. He’s not bearing his soul on the surface level the way someone like Mark Marin would. But yes, I’ve had this wonderful experience as my children went from being small to college age, and we would just about every Christmas head out to Hershey Park where they sell frozen bananas. And as the years went by, it went from me just doing a half assed Mitch impression to now my daughter will ask me, Dad, do you want a frozen banana?
And she’s just teeing me up to give her the line back, and it’s just one of those wonderful moments. Or we’ll be at a subway and I’ll just do a normal dad voice. I’ll be like ducks heat for free and subway, and it’s all these little things. The mister pib, the escalator and all these things just connected with a lot of us. It’s so universal.
It’s minutia largely right. It’s these everyday, most mundane things, but thought of in such a fascinatingly different perspective that is also hilarious at the end of the day too. And I think that’s what makes it so universal and still work to this day. Again, I’m steeped in this more than most, but ten times throughout my day going around, you just you see this or that and you think of Mitch. A few people have told me too.
They always say that tree is far away, which is his whole joke about mumbling some insignificant thing that ultimately someone keeps not hearing and then having to eventually say it too loud, And they’re like, it’s just these are such universal human things that I don’t think will ever become dated. The one that always pops into my mind is when I find myself too deep into an explanation and he has the weather related joke, and I just think to myself, I should have just said, yeah, that’s just right. As you’re going through I don’t want to ask the magician to show me all his tricks, but as you’re going through things, can you tease us? Did somebody have an old eight millimeter film in the toy box? Are there things that we’re all going to be like, ooh, I didn’t know that existed?
Absolutely, man, there’s so much stuff out there when you connect the dots that people have in their attics or their basements, or someone I just emailed today told me they just found a bunch of old, disposable, unprocessed film cameras from twenty five years ago, and it says Mitch on them and they’re about to get them processed. So it’s going around, obviously from his family and from so many friends. But yes, there’s a lot out there, and part of the process here has been trying to connect all those dots and find all this stuff, dig up this material that he left behind, and there’s so much stuff, and so much of it is so fascinating, especially when you put together the timeline of his life and one thing linking to the next thing, and then everything starts to come into focus a little bit more with Mitch and Yeah and the other as wonderful of all that old archival material is and will be to share. One of the most powerful things has been the interviews, especially with people. Who are really close with Mitch, who.
When they start speaking, you feel Mitch come alive, you feel his presence. A lot of people who aren’t famous. Again, there’s big voices in this film, and they’re wonderful, but some of the real breakout, stand out people are people you’ve never heard of, who have been waiting for twenty five thirty years to talk about this guy that they knew very closely and made such an impact to their world, and when they do, you can feel it. Are you and again, if you don’t want to give away the secrets, I totally get it. Are you telling a chronological story as their narrator saying when nineteen seventy four Mitch did this?
Is it just talk heads? Is it Mitch telling his own story where you can. All I’d say for now is a combination of all of those things will drive forward the narrative. We are trying to, like I said, sort of a three hundred and sixty degree view as much of Mitch as possible. But also I think it’s really important to contextualize him through people in the comedy world as he’s passing through all these different benchmarks of those last kind of decade or so of the analog years before the whole business was up ended, and working his way through the business trying to make it, and then also obviously the personal stories of everyone, and it comes forth so powerfully the impact.
That he made on everyone and what he meant to people. How far along are you in the process and when might we see this? We’ve been working on it for a long time. I don’t want to put an exact timeline on it, but we’re hoping at some point next year to be sharing this with the world. Let me take one more break and come back and ask you a couple more questions looking forward to this one as you’ve put this together, what has surprised you about learning about Mitch Hedberg, Like, we didn’t know that he played ice hockey, or he had nine cats, or what kind of stuff is coming out that we just don’t know about the guy.
Again, there’s a lot that most people don’t know about. What’s been so amazing to learn about is that there’s just so little is known on the surface level about him. It’s he’s so funny, he’s from Minnesota, he did lettermans. We know he passed away young, and he had addiction issues, but people really don’t know almost anything about him and his story, the origin story of this sort of superhero of Mitch Hedberg, because that’s what he is in the comedy world. He is beloved, so many people put him on that Mount rushmore with some of these way more prolific comedians.
And maybe he does not. Quite Carlin or Prior, but I think he’s absolutely as influential and beloved that the people that know him absolutely love him. So there is this whole story of this guy, and I didn’t know what we would find. Like I said, I knew it was from Minnesota. I didn’t know what happened before he blew up.
As a comedian. But his story is unbelievable. It is It is a guy who wanted to live that Jack Kerouac on the road kind of life, be out there, experience everything, found his love for comedy, figured out his calling, and then again stuck to his guns and never ever for a second of his life lived on anyone else’s terms other than his own. And he was. Willing to put in the time and the struggle and barnstorming America constantly on tour.
I won’t go into details of everything, but he has a absolutely captivating, fascinating story of his journey of getting to where he ultimately went. And one thing I’ll say is in later years, I don’t know if a lot. Of people know, but Mitch did a couple of ad campaigns voiceover work. One in particular was for this hockey team in Atlanta, formerly the hockey the Atlanta Thrashers, and there’s a great story that we talk about in there where Mitch is discovered and this team is not very good and it’s a new expansion team and no one’s showing up. The whole marketing message of trying to give to the hockey team and all the fans is even if the team’s not good, we got to show our love for we’re all in this together.
It’s very much in line with Mitch’s sense of humor, persona on stage and that sort of vibe gives. So he ultimately did this ad campaign in Atlanta for the Thrashers called Hockey Love, and you can find it online. It’s amazing and it’s just like this beautiful thing in Mitch’s voice and his sense of humor, and it’s all about showing the love. And the crazy thing was that the campaign. I talked to a bunch of people who were connected with it and they talked about how it was an radio campaign and when they played it, people would call in the radio station in Atlanta and request them to play the commercial again, which is these things don’t happen.
No one calls up a radio station requesting a commercial, but they did with Mitch. That’s how irresistible he was and still is to this day. And there’s a million other stories like that. There is a most interesting man in the world. Quality to Mitch where there’s just all these fascinating little things, and he was again constantly going all across the country.
One week he’s in Atlanta, another week he’s in Houston, then he’s in Boise, Idaho. And everyone who’s meeting along the way all have fascinating stories. I will say this as an ending note. A lot of people’s most interesting night of their life or wild story is like Tuesday night for Mitch. So he packed a lot into his thirty seven years, and I hope people can at least take solace in that a little bit that he lived every day and every second how he wanted to, and the vast majority of us don’t.
I think you just nailed it, and we’ll put the bow on it right there. I’m really looking forward to this thing coming out, just trad excited. Thank you for taking your time here today. I could probably talk to you about match for another two hours. There’s just something You’ve put it up my brain now and all the one liners are coming back.
Appreciate it absolutely. Thanks so much, John, I really appreciate getting a chance to come talk about Mitch. He’s Jeff Siegel. He’s working on a Mitch Hebburg documentary. I’m sure we’ll talk about it a lot as that comes up tomorrow on this program.
Friend of the show Jason Zinneman from the New York Times, and I will discuss Mitch Hedburg a little bit more. I will see you tomorrow. Until then, follow this podcast under p podcast. All right, you know what the NHL stands for, NaSTA hockey love. Like when the Thrasher score a goal and those giant fur Hills shoot flames twenty feet out of their mouths, you can feel the walk fall over.
You can be best hockey though, holar or when a player is sent to the penalty box to think about the wrongs he has done. That is the lead version of sending a kid to a time out, done with tough hockey love in town to marry out. Sometimes in between periods they have little tights hockey, little kids playing hockey in their little Thrashes uniform. They tried so hard and their parents are so proud, so full of hockey love, talking hockey. I wish I could go out there and play against them.
I bet I could kick some at. All. Right,