Mouthing Off: Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait headlines the Laughter Arts Festival at the LBC.

Hard Laughter

A long, winding conversation with comic Bobcat Goldthwait

Bobcat Goldthwait has a 400-foot penis. It’s in storage somewhere in Los Angeles with a lot of other props used in The Man Show, the crude but addictive Comedy Central show starring Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel for which the adjective-defying Goldthwait has been directing episodes.

That’s right. Bobcat’s a director.

Though best known for his unshakable appearances in offbeat films (One Crazy Summer, Burglar, Scrooged, Hot to Trot, Blow, and the Police Academy movies), and his death-defying standup routines (anyone remember when he set fire to Jay Leno’s chair?), Goldthwait has been gradually moving behind the camera, directing episodes of gleefully tasteless TV shows.

Then, of course, there was the legendary Shakes the Clown, which Goldthwait wrote, directed, and starred in, a film so critically reviled it was destined to amass a huge cult following–which it has.

But back to that penis.

When Goldthwait, 39, calls up from his home in Los Angeles–ostensibly to talk about his Jan. 26 appearance at the Luther Burbank Center’s big Laughter Arts Festival comedy event–I have to ask about the interview I once read where Bobcat signed off by saying, “I gotta go. I have to figure out how to stretch a penis 400 feet.”

“That episode actually aired, too,” he now says with a laugh. “It was a spoof of a scene from the movie Porky’s–the one where the lady gym teacher grabs the guy’s penis after he sticks it through the hole in the locker room wall. So we shot that version, and Jimmy Kimmel was playing the guy with his penis in the hole.

“But in our version,” he continues, “the gym teacher actually runs out the door with the penis, and she hooks it to the back of a truck and then drives around the block with it. Whatever. Eventually, I digressed to having kids skipping rope with it–which is kind of creepy, but that’s what we did.”

“Wow. What did you use for the penis?” I ask.

“Many, many things,” he replies. “Our effects guy is like Q from the James Bond movies. He brings me in one day and shows me all these penises. One was just a regular hose painted pink. Then he had stuff made out of Silly Putty. One was a big cloth penis, which was pretty elastic, actually.”

There is a short pause.

“Hey,” Bobcat says, “I’m just doing God’s work here.”

“You know,” I suggest, “after Survivor Africa ended, they auctioned off the props for charity. Maybe you should do that with The Man Show.”

“You mean auction off the 400-foot penis? Yeah. I’m sure someone would buy that. I know Jimmy bought Rosie O’Donnell’s bondage gear from that terrible Garry Marshall film, Beyond Eden or something.”

“Exit to Eden,” I report. “It was awful.”

“Was it ever,” Bobcat agrees. “I’ll use one of my stock jokes: That movie was so bad I can’t believe I wasn’t in it. I’ve actually been saying that lately about Snow Dogs. Have you seen the commercials for that thing? It really looks like something I should have been in.”

At least doing the voice of one of those damn dogs.

“You know,” he says a few moments later, after learning that his hell-bound interviewer is the proud owner of a brand new Jesus Christ action figure (with Miracle Gliding Action!), “for years I’ve been wanting to make a movie called Teen Jesus. It’d be, you know, about Jesus during his angst-ridden teen years. Kind of a Dawson’s Creek meets The Greatest Story Ever Told thing. It’s something I’ve always wanted to get going. And from what you tell me, the action figure’s already a done deal, so I’m really encouraged about this now.”

An attempt to swing the conversation back toward his LBC appearance fails. Instead, Goldthwait slides into a discussion about standup comedy in the post-Sept. 11 world.

“You know, after any tragedy, you can crack jokes,” he says. “After. The problem with 9-11 was that we were still in the middle of it for a long time. We still are, I guess, but people have gone on with their lives, so some things are kind of funny again.

“When you’re in the middle of something that has not ended, you can’t laugh. When my mom passed away, I still found myself cracking jokes and stuff at the wake, you know? But while she was actually still dying, I wasn’t too hilarious to be around, that’s for sure.”

“They do say laughter is a healing thing,” I offer.

“Laughter is healing. Yeah, right!” he says. “I really don’t believe laughter is a healing thing. The majority of the laughs I’ve had in my life were based on cruelty. I don’t know how healing it was whenever I was getting ridiculed. Or when I was ridiculing someone else. But sometimes it was real fucking funny.”

At last he gets around to talking about coming to Santa Rosa.

“The comedy show, yeah,” he happily grouses. “They’ve given it some hacky acronym–the Laughter Arts Festival, I think. Which seems to suggest they were desperately scrambling for something that spells ‘laugh,’ though in this case it’s ‘LAF, ‘ without a U, a G, or an H. But with an F, and where the hell that came from I don’t know–though I am pretty fond of the letter F.”

Admitting that he’s been doing a whole series of these comedy events around the country, with different comedians at different times, he asks who else will be on the bill. Told that he’ll be performing alongside Richard Lewis, Kevin Meaney, and Jake Johannsen, Bobcat says, “Oh, wow, that’s a whole new

lineup.” Pausing a beat, he adds, “Forget it. I’m not comin’. I don’t like those guys.”

“So,” I ask, “assuming you change your mind and do show up, what can people expect from the experience?”

“Uh–me,” he replies, “regurgitating old routines from the ’80s, basically. That’s my act in a nutshell. I’ve been doing standup for years, and I have a certain act now. I hope people like it. Though when I play in the Midwest, people are sometimes kind of freaked out, ’cause I guess they expect me to be the guy I played in the Police Academy movies. So they’re shocked that I don’t just stand on stage and scream for 45 minutes.”

“You actually have something to say?”

“Hell no. I don’t have anything to say,” he laughs. “But I have taken the time to write a few humorous jokes.”

The Laughter Arts Festival takes place on Saturday, Jan. 26, at 8 p.m. at the LBC, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. Tickets are $33—$38. 707.546.3600.

From the January 17-23, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Mad about Mamet

Fine cast distinguishes AT’s ‘Speed-the-Plow’

By Patrick Sullivan

Ever wonder why Hollywood churns out so many crappy movies? David Mamet knows the answer, and in Speed-the-Plow, which kicks off a Mamet festival at Actors Theatre, he reveals all. Sort of.

Mamet ought to have plenty of insight on this subject. After all, while he made his bones in the theater with landmark dramatic works such as Glengarry Glen Ross, he scored the big bucks by writing screenplays for films ranging from The Postman Always Rings Twice and State and Main to Hannibal and Heist.

In Speed-the-Plow, Mamet gives us all of Tinseltown compressed into one room: the new office of Bobby Gould, the freshly minted head of production at a big film studio. The promotion has put Bobby (played by Joe Winkler) in a position of power, but he’s been around long enough to know that it also makes him a target.

And sure enough, before you can say “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille,” Bobby finds himself at the center of a peculiar battle of wills between two of his underlings.

Think back to those old Heathcliff cartoons, where an angel and a devil whisper conflicting advice into the titular feline’s ear. Bobby’s shoulders are just as crowded. On his right, pitchfork gripped firmly in a hammy fist, sits the production boss’ right-hand man, a hard-charging Hollywood insider named Charlie Fox (Robert Conard). Wearing the angel costume is Bobby’s idealistic new secretary, an attractive young temp named Karen (Heather Siglin).

The fight is over which script the studio will next produce. Charlie wants to make “great big jolly shitloads of money” with a prison movie featuring action superstar Dougie Brown. Karen, who appeals to both Bobby’s conscience and his eye for beauty, wants to save the world with The Bridge, a script by a highbrow novelist that would, as she says, “teach people they don’t need to be afraid.”

The AT production of this morality play offers an excellent cast. Winkler and Conard are big, very physical guys with hugely expressive faces and voices–perfect for a Mamet play. Both actors also have a flair for the kind of macho comic dialogue that pervades Speed-the-Plow. Pondering how Bobby should decorate his new office, Charlie offers this advice: “Why don’t you paint it with broken capillaries, decorate it like the inside of your nose?”

Heather Siglin brings the necessary physical beauty to the play, but unlike actresses sometimes chosen for this part, she also achieves the potent mix of intelligence and naiveté crucial to making her appeal to the cynical Bobby believable. Confronted by her sincerity and simple questions (“Why must it all be garbage?”), the two men are often reduced to babble. And Siglin even manages to make a halfway compelling case for the quality of the play her character has chosen to champion–which is no easy task.

For Mamet has certainly stacked the deck in this contest between conscience and commerce, as might be expected from a Hollywood insider. Are there good scripts the movie biz will never touch because they don’t feature enough quivering bosoms, raging gun battles, and thinly disguised racism? Sure, but The Bridge ain’t one of ’em. Charlie has great fun giving comic readings of lines like “He thought of architecture.” And, really, the script sounds no better than his prison movie.

Speed-the-Plow also bears the Mamet trademarks: a raging case of sexism and a lot of irritatingly repetitive dialogue: “This morning a man came to see me.” “A man came to see you?” and so on.

But it’s generally a funny play with a compelling conflict, and the cast assembled by director Brian Newberg manage to wring nearly every drop of comic juice to be found in the script. Just leave your sensitive side at home.

‘Speed-the-Plow’ continues through Feb. 2 at Actors Theatre, LBC, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. For details, call 707.523.4185.

From the January 10-16, 2002 issue of the North Bay Bohemian.

© Metro Publishing Inc.