Q&A: Harland Williams on playing by his own rules

‘I guess you can make anything funny, but I think sometimes comedians forget that at the end of the joke, there’s a human life and there’s some suffering.’

Image

  • Courtesy Harland Williams



Unlike the vast majority of comedians these days, <a href=”http://www.harlandwilliams.com/” target=”_blank” target=_blank”>Harland Williams doesn’t believe that being on stage gives comics the right to bully an audience.

“At the end of the day, comedy is about being funny,” he says. “I guess you can make anything funny, but I think sometimes comedians forget that at the end of the joke, there’s a human life and there’s some suffering.”

The goofy characters Williams has played on screen, from the pee-drinking cop in Dumb and Dumber to a very weird hitchhiker in There’s Something about Mary, all have a couple things in common: they are funny without needing shock value, and each are made better by Williams’ whip-fast improvisation, qualities he brings to his stand-up and weekly podcast, <a href=”https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-harland-highway/id321980603” target=”_blank” target=_blank”>The Harland Highway.

While in town for a recent gig at the Improv, Williams spoke to Creative Loafing about his wacky sense of humor, new YouTube movie, and what is off-limits when it comes to making people laugh.

? ? ?
Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.
Anything for you! Are you nuts?

So how have you been lately? To quote you in Dumb and Dumber, “Suckin’ back on Grandpa’s old cough medicine?”
Laughs It’s been treating me good, man! It puts hair on my chest. That quote actually came from my childhood. When we were little kids, my grandfather used to like to have a rum and coke, and he didn’t want the kids to know he was drinking. So he’d always say to my grandmother, “Bring me some more cough medicine!”



Ah, it all makes sense now. Do you improvise like that a lot while on set?
Yeah, that’s where that line came from. The scene was about drinking, and that memory came into my head. Most of the movies I do, I don’t really ask for permission, I just end up improvising and it usually ends up working out really good, you know?

Absolutely. So how did you get started in comedy?
I got started by being born, and then I always just liked making people laugh. I was finishing college, and I wanted to have a fun life, I wanted to make people laugh, I wanted to travel. I just had all these wants that pointed straight to stand-up comedy, and I thought, “This might be the one!”

Do you think there’s any topic that’s off limits when it comes to stand-up comedy?
Yeah, I do. I mean, personally, I think sometimes comedians use stand-up comedy as a shield. They think, “Oh, I’m a stand-up comedian, I can say whatever I want!” But I don’t particularly love when comedians go after very sensitive topics, like maybe abortion or if someone’s just been murdered. Because at the end of the day, comedy is about being funny. I guess you can make anything funny, but I think sometimes comedians forget that at the end of the joke, there’s a human life and there’s some suffering. And I don’t like that. That, to me, is like selling your laughs on the backs of suffering. I might be different than most when I say that. I don’t believe in censorship, but I guess I think it’s up to each person to think about what they’re saying before they say it.

Well, each of your characters have inspired a lot of laughter. Can fans of your movies expect the same type of laughs in your stand-up?
Yeah. You know, I like to improvise a lot during my stand-up. I like to just fly by the seat of my pants. I like to make stuff up and talk to the crowd. I still stick to a lot of planned out, written material, but I mix it with the unexpected.

You do that a lot on your weekly podcast, The Harland Highway, which is a lot less interviewing people and more of your improv and commentary.
Yeah, that’s right. I figured just about everyone is doing the interview thing. Everyone has interviewed and re-interviewed the same people over and over, and I just want to do something that’s a little more wacky. It’s more “theater of the mind” kind of stuff.

Have you spent much time in Atlanta before?
No! I did a club there about 15 years ago. The first time I was ever there, I opened for Jim Carrey. That, coincidentally, was his last stand-up performance. It was the weekend that Ace Ventura came out. He’s never done stand-up since.

Atlanta has changed a lot since then. Should we expect to see you out at any bars?
I’ll probably go out and maybe do some stripping in the street.

Good idea.
As a treat, I’ll do that. I don’t do it everywhere, but as a treat to Atlanta, you got it.

Beyond your stand-up tour, do you have plans for any upcoming movies?
I don’t have a studio release movie, but I’m planning to release my own movie that I wrote and directed, Fudgy Wudgy Fudge Face. The uncut version is almost four hours! I’m going to release it in five minute chunks on <a href=”https://www.youtube.com/user/HarlandWilliams” target=”_blank” target=_blank”>my YouTube channel, which you can subscribe to at harlandwilliams.com. Every Monday for the next year and a half you’re going to get five minutes of Fudgy Wudgy Fudge Face laughs.

What can we expect from Fudge Face?
It’s basically a movie that took me six years to make, because I shot it by myself with a couple of friends or whoever I had available on weekends. It’s a script that I wrote and directed and starred in, and I got a whole bunch of my comedy friends like Bobby Lee and Andy Dick and Tom Papa and Alonzo Bodden. It’s really a buddy movie about an alien and a hillbilly. The first person that the alien meets when he lands on Earth, who we always assume is the smartest creature in the universe, is the dumbest idiot on planet Earth laughs. The long-line of the story is that on the alien’s planet, it’s like Footloose, they’re not allowed to dance. So, he comes to Earth because he wants to go to an all night disco and do a power jam. So Fudge takes him to the disco. That’s the jist of the movie. It’s pretty twisted and demented and not for the faint of heart, but it was a real labor of love. I got to finally do a movie with no interference from an executive in a suit. It’s madness.

What’s the absolute best part of your job as a comedian?
You know what it is? It’s beyond the writing and performing. It’s the joy, the joy of hearing people laugh. You kind of get put here on this planet, and you think, “How can I contribute? I can’t invent Penicillin and I’m not a politician. I’ve never flown to the moon.” So I thought, if I can just bring joy to people and make them laugh, that’s a pretty satisfying occupation to have. I really like bringing a smile to people’s faces.