John Hodgman on The Daily Show, and growing up in Lovecraftian hellscapes

By: Daniel Gerichter (@ZenDonut) –

John Hodgman. (Photo: Bex Finch)

H ow do you describe John Hodgman’s career? He’s not a standup comedian; he’s an uproariously funny storyteller. He’s not an author; he’s a master (faux) historian. On the Daily Show, he had the ‘walking/talking encyclopedia of incorrect knowledge’ role on lock and, frankly, his mustache is a force of nature. Even now, with a mind-boggling number of projects on his plate, Hodgman’s latest is a tour entitled Vacationland – a series of stories recalling the time he spent growing up in Maine, which he describes as “like any of your (Canada’s) Maritime provinces, but nowhere near as majestic.” Such was the tone for our conversation. 

“Areas of my Expertise” is almost a decade old. What was the impetus to create it?

The impetus was that I legitimately thought I would work as a writer for the rest of my life. Now, that happened, but I also have 35 other part-time jobs. I’d read far too many books where the author just wanted to write a book – instead of having had something to say.

Around the same time, my editor asked if I’d be interested in writing a book of trivia, which I definitely was. The People’s Almanac and The Book of Lists and William Poundstone’s Big Secretswere really important to me as a kid because they taught me about secret histories and surprising facts. Using those as an influence, I pitched the idea of “amazing fake trivia” or “incredible true (fake) facts”, where I’d create a surreal, fake world. For example – instead of ’10 presidents secretly addicted to cigars’, I wrote ’10 presidents who had hooks for hands’. I’m glad this ended up more in that format, than as the original ‘trivia’ format.

What did the experience teach you about sticking to your vision creatively?

Well, this wasn’t so much about ‘sticking to my vision’ but more about doing what I felt compelled to do. I rolled with it, and all the while I hoped it wasn’t a dead-end creatively. In the end, this was a trilogy that was full of lies, but I was still being as honest as possible. In other words, there had to be a kernel of truth – or something truth-like in everything I wrote. With the presidents’ top-10, I based it on these insane secrets of British royals I’d read about, bounced against FDR having polio. Both of those were things nobody talked about at those respectivetimes. So the joke was that FDR had hooks for hands, but nobody ever knew, because they only ever shot him from the wrist up.

That’s the basis for pretty much all comedy.

That’s right. I think there has to be something in the act that the audience recognizes. Even when it something that seems arbitrary, like Andy Kaufman reading The Great Gatsby cover to cover live on stage, or Reggie Watts just being Reggie – the audience may not understand what’s going on, but they at least understand that the guy on stage does.

John Hodgman’s “Vacationland” tour kicks off Sept. 12 and runs to Nov. 7.

Can an audience tell when a comedian isn’t compelled?

Oh, definitely. Sometimes you’ll see a comedian on stage who’s telling funny jokes, or what they think are funny jokes and the audience isn’t reacting as well as you think they should be. The performer still has to be the one to guide them to the punchline, no matter how much sense it does or doesn’t make.

 “Areas of my Expertise” was the basis for your first Daily Show appearance.  How did you deal with the challenges of shifting written humour on the page to spoken and physical humour on-screen?

There had always been a performative nature to my life because I’m a ham and a narcissist. Even when I was just doing book tours, I would dress my good friend Jonathan Coulton like a feral mountain man and had him do a ridiculous musical intro for me. In terms of the Daily Show, the most brilliant comic minds in this hemisphere surrounded me. That of course included the greatest and most important satirist in modern times; Jon Stewart. You can’t help but evolve when that surrounds you. The biggest adjustment at the Daily Show was managing one important factor: sheer terror. And that’s something you overcome by doing it over and over and over. So, for me, the Daily Show was a litmus test to see whether my sense of humour worked in front of a large audience.

How did your creative process change after you became a permanent writer there?

Adapting my writing to the Daily Show was a challenge because I had to go from writing for myself and by myself, to writing with another person. Sometimes it’d be Jon, or sometimes it’d be a genius like (13-time Emmy winner) David Javerbaum. I learned that collaboration meant letting go of your own bad ideas no matter how fundamental you thought they were to the overall piece and how to let the other writers take the creative lead. I wouldn’t be the same artist, writer, comedian or what have you – without the skills the Daily Show taught me.

The material in your Vacationland tour is entirely based on your summers in Maine. How would you sell New England as a vacation spot to a Canadian who’s never been there before?

I call the show Vacationland because that’s what Maine calls itself on its license plates. I guess because “the land of really painful beaches” wouldn’t fit. I always found that nickname ironic, because while Maine is beautiful, it’s also very rugged. The water is not a pleasure to be in; the ocean is unusually cold and the lakes are Lovecraftian hellscapes, full of hideous muck, mire and freakish clams the size of footballs. So never mind selling Maine to Canadians, Maine is hard sell for Americans as a vacation spot, because very light research proves there are much nicer beaches pretty much anywhere.

After every show, you engage and interact with your fans. What’s the most heartening thing a fan has said to you during one of those sessions?

You seem to be under the impression that at the end of a show I’m discouraged and in doldrums,whereas in fact the opposite is true. After every show, I (and the fans would agree) am a living God who is capable of doing all things. So what I mostly hear is “I’m sorry sir, but I can’t look directly at you. You’re shining too brightly. Please take a picture with me.” The thing that reallyheartens me the most is when I see younger kids there with their parents. The parents see my act and it dawns on them: “I have raised a very strange child.”

What was going through your mind the first time you arrived at the Daily Show studio?

The first time I arrived at the Daily Show, I thought “This is so weird. Everything is backwards” because I was experiencing all of it from the other side of the lens. It was as close to a Through the Looking Glass moment as I’ve ever had. And yet, it was remarkably similar to the feeling I had when I was there for Jon’s last show, which was one of disbelief. I couldn’t believe I had the privilege of having been in this room so many times. I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to have worked with Jon, and with all these other extraordinarily talented individuals. I couldn’t believe I was instagramming Bruce Springsteen from 5 feet away, while Jon Stewart dances with his children. I couldn’t believe these very intimate memories belonged to me.

I’ll be totally honest. There was a moment that was a bit less storybook-like during all of that, but one I will also remember fondly. I arrived earlier on to catch Springsteen’s soundcheck. While I was feeling overwhelmed, I was also feeling hungry. So one of the key moments of that last taping was making the very important decision to split that key time between Bruce Springsteen’s soundcheck – and slamming back pastrami sandwiches with Lewis Black. I feel like I chose wisely.

Want to meet John? He’ll be hanging out and signing autographs after every show on his Vacationland tour. See tour dates here.