“Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus, or only a actually cool Opotamus?” That’s not a joke that the majority stand-up comics would make, nevertheless it’s the form of humor that’s immediately synonymous with the late, nice Mitch Hedberg. One of many many comedians who died means too early, the spirited Minnesotan was simply 37 when he handed away in 2005, and his surviving legacy might be explored in a brand new documentary that may hopefully be amongst different upcoming 2025 releases.
The doc’s director, Jeff Siegel, initially anticipated to be a much bigger a part of Hedberg’s life on the level through which his profession was blowing up, having met him at a number of stand-up exhibits, and hoped to accompany the comic on the highway as a part of an NYU movie college thesis venture. That tour tragically by no means materialized, however Seigel by no means stopped appreciating the surrealist comedian’s affect, and he laid out to THR precisely why followers previous and current are so shortly swayed upon seeing Mitch Hedberg for the primary time.
Mitch doesn’t appear to be anybody else. He doesn’t sound like anybody else. He’s sensible, cool, complicated, enigmatic and devastatingly humorous. Equal elements dreamer, artist and rock star, all combining in such a compelling, irresistible means that Mitch immediately seduces almost any crowd.
His particular throwback look and stuttered joke patterns had been integral to how his act advanced over time, to the purpose the place even when he appeared in scripted tasks akin to That ‘70s Present and Nearly Well-known, it was exhausting for followers like me to see him exterior of his stage persona. That’s hardly a nasty factor, nonetheless, since few comedians earlier than or since Mitch Hedberg may ever hope to realize both his stage of pure coolness or timelessness.
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Chatting with the latter level, even when a few of his wildly humorous jokes would possibly concentrate on outdated know-how or social norms, the thought course of that went into crafting the humor won’t ever get previous or expire. And that distinctive inventive means solely helps to convey new viewers and listeners to Hedberg’s too-few specials and albums.
Jeff Siegel spoke to the endlessly timeless nature of Mitch Hedberg’s comedy, saying:
Audiences instantly sense his authenticity and vulnerability, so that they root for him from the beginning. After which he unassumingly spouts off a number of the funniest, most well-crafted jokes of all time. He hits you exhausting with one after one other, seemingly out of nowhere. There’s a timeless universality to Mitch that transcends comedy tendencies and makes him infinitely sharable to audiences of all ages and backgrounds as new individuals proceed to find him daily.
One can solely hope that Siegel’s upcoming documentary, which does not but have an official title, will spark a brand new wave of obsessive appreciation for the person who adamantly disagreed with following an arrow simply due to the place it is pointing. Fortunately, the brand new venture has the approval and help of Hedberg’s sister, Angie Anderson, and can characteristic interview clips from talks with greater than 100 stand-up comedians, together with Dave Attell, Lewis Black, Margaret Cho, B.J. Novak and extra.
So maintain a watch or two out for extra updates concerning the upcoming Mitch Hedberg documentary, and remember to say sure to a proposal for a frozen banana should you suppose you will need a common banana later.