One Wainy Night: Meeting My Comedy Hero

Wet Hot American Summer is one of my all-time three favorite comedies. Not to mention Stella, The State, Wainy Days, the list goes on. So, I am thrilled to share this reflection of meeting David Wain!

Though this is not about a film or a song, I figured I’d bend the rules just this once. This is about a talented individual that definitely shaped my life in some way. It all began with two words: Porcupine Racetrack. That’s when I became hooked. I remember vividly sitting in the basement of my parents’ home, scrolling through the channels eventually landing on MTV which I did quite often. I came across something I hadn’t seen before - a new sketch comedy show called The State. Since I grew up watching SCTV and SNL with my dad, I almost couldn’t believe my eyes back in 1995.

I immediately called up my friend Matt Denny to tell him about what I had just watched. I told him that The State reminded me of what I wanted to try doing with the nonsensical, absurdist home movies that we started making. Nothing made sense. They are embarrassing now but we had fun. We rarely wrote scripts, we just improvised managing to make our friends laugh (or subjected them to an endurance test over pizza). Sometimes we tried sketches and skits but for the most part, we ended up making hour-long movies with unexpected detours, anything that made us laugh. I’d say we were just as inspired by Steve Martin, Gene Wilder, Jim Carrey and The Muppets and our favorite current comedy movies of the 90s we were seeing at the local multiplex. (If someone were to ask my earliest memory of me laughing hard around the age of 6 - Steve Martin’s cameo as a waiter in The Muppet Movie).

I wouldn’t say The State was directly responsible for my sense of humor, but I think it went into a different direction as a result. Denny and I were making strange videos before I had watched this sketch comedy team on MTV, but they definitely played a role in us wanting to up our game a bit. Yes, the majority of what we did is downright painful to watch as an adult but obviously, it feels like a slice of life from a different era. Some people played sports and got laid, we audio/visual theater nerds did something else altogether - we made movies! Cut to many years later, I never would’ve thought that I would consider one of the members of this troupe, a comedy hero - possibly the one living person I can count on to tap directly into my sense of humor in ways that consistently bring a smile to my face. His name is David Wain.

Of course, I loved The State back then for reasons I couldn’t explain - I just knew that nearly every sketch would leave me in stitches. Who could forget Louie, Doug, and so many other memorable characters. It’s hard for me to even nail down which skits I love the most but there’s something about Taco Mailman that kills me to this day. I remember telling my dad that The State along with Kids in the Hall felt like the new Monty Python or SCTV for Generation X. I just laughed at nearly everything they did. David Wain was often a huge reason for that, but I can’t deny the talents of so many - Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Tom Lennon, Ken Marino, Kerri Kenney, nearly everyone. But back to someone who I keep going back to since he went on to co-write/direct one of my top three all-time favorite comedies ever made: Wet Hot American Summer.

I recognized the majority of the cast of Wet Hot American Summer right away along with others I adored like Janeane Garafalo and David Hyde-Pierce. I had gone to the theater (I believe it was the Landmark Century in Chicago) on a whim. My dad had been recently diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer. We knew he didn’t have much time left. I desperately needed to laugh for 90 minutes, and I did. A lot. Almost more than I ever have before. I was one of the few in the theater that was overjoyed. I remember thinking, when this comes out on DVD, I am going to show it to everyone I know, especially my girlfriend at the time. It came out several months later on home video and by then, my dad had passed. This comedy became an anti-depressant.

When it came out on DVD, I showed it to a number of people and every single time I laughed hysterically nearly from beginning to end. There was this infectious ridiculousness to it all that somehow tapped into precisely what I found funny. There was a Jerk-like absurdist quality to the antics along with a sendup of movies that I saw a lot when I was a kid like Poison Ivy (w/Michael J. Fox). Not to mention I had an abysmal time a decade earlier in 1990 when I went to Fremont, Michigan for my own summer camp experience in which (surprise surprise) I got incredibly sick and anxious to the point of not being able to enjoy anything. I stayed in the cabin, read Hardy Boys books and listened to Public Enemy with the only other boy who didn’t want to be there. I remain so appreciative of Wain and Showalter’s magical script and this wild ensemble of talent (watch it today and be amazed by early roles from those we’ve come to know and love). I was finally able to laugh at my own experience while cathartically escaping the pain of intense grief and loss. Once again, movies saved me from complete and total despair consuming me whole.

Even back then, I would often say to people, “Somehow this movie is exactly what I want from a comedy in ways that defy words. It just works for me, plain and simple. If you don’t laugh, I get it but I’m so happy this exists.” I might go into greater detail about my love for it in a separate piece when Wet Hot American Summer is written about on its own, so I won’t elaborate much further but if you want to see me scream-laugh, simply put on the sequence where Janeane Garafalo and Joe Lo Truglio are freaking out in the cabin destroying everything in their path. There are lots of great moments but somehow the delivery of “the phone! where’s the fucking phone?” is pure comedy catnip in every way. It wasn’t until maybe Anchorman that I found a comedy that felt distinctly tailor-made to my taste (though now I greatly prefer Stepbrothers). Paul Rudd sure knows how to pick ‘em - especially when working with Wain.

David Wain has written and directed a lot of great comedies, mostly recently another all-time favorite of mine - They Came Together. (Which has a delightful cameo towards the end by another favorite of mine - Michael Shannon). An example of a great ensemble at the top of their game and another sequence worthy of The Marx Brothers or other comedy geniuses with a certain bartender scene. I was so happy to now just tell Wain in person that that particular moment is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. (Not too far behind is Paul Rudd’s mirror scene in Wanderlust). I probably could’ve rattled off a list of ten Wain-related creations that made me cry-laugh.

There are so many projects he’s been involved with that it’s hard to keep up with them all - even more recently, Medical Police, was something I had only recently discovered was a spin-off of the hit series Children’s Hospital. I so adored the go-for-broke out-there controlled chaos of the group Stella which saw him collaborating with friends Michael Ian Black & Michael Showalter for rapid fire gags and unexpected non-sequiturs that consistently made me happy.

There are certain lost Stella short films (though they are available now on Vimeo + YouTube) that I go back to for comfort particularly, “Saturday, Raking Leaves, Bored, Pizza” and many more. (Some of which I scarily know by heart due to revisiting them so often - Sam Rockwell’s appearance might be my favorite of all the memorable guest stars). The web series, Wainy Days is every bit as delightful with a lot of memorable moments involving some favorite actresses of mine (Season 2, Episode 20 in particular - couldn’t help but ask about working with Wain when I interviewed her).

Yes, I am also a fan of the majority of what Michael Showalter has done (The Baxter has one of my favorite Michelle Williams performances to date in pitch-perfect romantic comedy form - swoon) but David Wain is someone I am comfortable saying is my favorite comedic performer working today. There have been several from the early days of SCTV and SNL I could list but around the time of watching The State and The Kids in the Hall, I feel like I found exactly the right comedians and writers that understood precisely what makes me laugh: non-sequiturs, puns, absurdism, surrealism, random asides, R-rated vulgarity / expletives and a general feeling that everybody is having fun creating offbeat characters and situations.

So, with all that out of the way and to make a long story short (too late), I met David Wain for about 2 minutes on September 16th, 2023 - not nearly enough time to express how grateful I am for what he’s achieved and for the decade’s worth of laughter. He was recently in town performing with his delightful cover band, Middle Aged Dad Jam Band featuring talented musicians like Craig Wedren (of Shudder to Think) and the hilarious Ken Marino on lead vocals. They performed at Lincoln Hall and for a little extra, I opted for the VIP meet and greet to finally talk to David in person for the first time. His Grubhub had just arrived, so he was holding his dinner in his hand, and I didn’t want his food to get cold. Not to mention, there was a line of folks eager to take selfies and express gratitude as well. 

The only disappointment was not getting to meet Craig since he remained backstage but talking briefly to both Ken Marino and David Wain is easily one of the highlights of 2023 for me. My fandom is quite obsessive - just ask anyone. I must’ve shown Wet Hot American Summer to five separate friends in the span of about a month when it came out on DVD and each time, I laughed consistently hard. I of course loved the Netflix reboot as well. I have shared links to Stella shorts time and time again and I even went to see them play live at The Vic Theater many years ago. To be able to tell David that he is a true comedy hero of mine really lifted my spirit after a difficult week (I’m a librarian so you may have heard the recent news). 

Finally, the last words we exchanged were regarding the time he played Triviaspotting during film trivia hosted early on during lockdown by a favorite podcast of mine, Filmspotting. Wain played just the one time but during the lightning round, let’s just say I didn’t know the answer that could’ve won us the round, but David and his helper ended up winning the whole thing. Again, I couldn’t help but keep it in my personal archives for safe keeping because how many times in my life am I going to play with someone who is the equivalent to another comedy hero Steve Martin (at least for me). Of course, you’re more than welcome to download that here (yes, I am a nerd that likes to hold on to moments like this).

David’s words after we took the selfie made me laugh, “sorry that you lost.” I actually felt like I won a new memory the other night at Lincoln Hall. His band put on a great show of memorable cover songs (shoutout to their choices which included my late great dad’s favorites The Cars & James Taylor). I could not resist taking a photo with someone I consider to be a favorite creative mind - I will always cherish this memory and moment. I have about five people that I absolutely would love to tell how much they mean to me and so far, I’ve had the pleasure of telling two of them (the other being Paul Thomas Anderson). I’m not a fan of selfies (see below) but I make exceptions for those whose work continues to mean a lot to me. Wain is one of them.

I could’ve gone on and on about my favorite David Wain moments from the Stella Shorts or The State to him directly but that probably would’ve gotten exhausting and awkward. Maybe it was only meant to be a 2-minute interaction of appreciation or perhaps I can one day invite him on my podcast for a lengthy chat if he puts out a new film to promote. For now, I will say how truly grateful I am that Lincoln Hall allowed this to happen and that both David and Ken were excited to talk to fans / Wainy nerds like me. Now, I’m going to go fondle my sweaters.