Ensconced in a four-star hotel in Pasadena, the Upright Citizens Brigade is on a mission to undermine society and create chaos. And while they’re at it, the Chicago-trained, New York-based comedians — Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts and Amy Poehler — might as well put one over on the TV critics assembled for a fall preview session.
In the ballroom, the ornate chandeliers are dimmed as Comedy Central’s lanky programming “vice president” gets on stage to promote “Upright Citizens Brigade,” its new series that debuted last Wednesday after the network’s hit “South Park.”
“Ladies and gentlemen…” he begins. A reporter’s hand flies up. “Is it true that you’ll be fired from your job, that a sexual harassment suit has been filed against you?”
Another man grills him, “What were you doing with that boy at the zoo?” A woman identifying herself as a local TV news anchor stands up and confirms she was the willing object of his so-called harassment. The rep pleads, “What’s that got to do with Upright Citizens Brigade?”
Everything. Because this was Upright Citizens Brigade, planted in the audience, disrupting the media routine. And just as it begins to dawn on the assembled reporters, the sketch veers off into a surreal finish when, it turns out, all four fakes gather for a hug on stage after they realize they’re all family members.
Whoa! Mission accomplished. The comics are tired, but it’s a happy tired, as they schmooze later in the abandoned ballroom wearing borrowed clothes. “Our whole premise is (that) UCB is in the world and we bring chaos to the world,” says Besser, who could be mistaken for someone’s caddy had he not pretended to be the cable guy onstage.
Past stunts have included ditching their audience on a Chicago street, trying to persuade Manhattan Realtors not to sell to astronauts, pretending to be a Hong Kong circus act on a TV talk show. Their live shows have been stopped by police five times for pouring out of the theater and continuing their act in the streets, such as the time their audience mimicked a mob and wound up scaring passersby.
UCB was signed to the Comedy Central deal in March, two days after winning an award for best alternative/sketch act at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. The lead-in from “South Park” has to be regarded as a vote of confidence and, like that little cartoon show, UCB has anarchy in its heart.
Monty Python meets Andy Kaufman. There’s surreal bits about big body parts, some kept in a room at the Vatican, and one wonders whether UCB will be too bold for TV. But there’s nothing so blue in the first episode that “Seinfeld” hasn’t touched.
“Comedy Central has stayed out of our way,” says Poehler in a Holly Golightly tangerine sheath and coat. “We’re doing a sketch show. It’s funny and that’s our first priority.”
Walsh, who with Besser loved to be gross at Chicago’s Annoyance Theatre, fields the raunch question. “The shock value (is that) we believe there are no bad ideas. There’s nothing at stake. We’re here to attack the status quo, and everybody’s sensibility is fair game,” says Walsh, a native of Darien, who looks like a young vaudevillian in his two-tone loafers and red tie. “We’re apolitical. We go after anyone who deserves to be messed with — the vain, the wealthy, the ignorant, the pompous.”
“`The Harold,”‘ Walsh says, referring to an improv style where seemingly unrelated scenes ultimately must merge, a technique they learned from Improv Olympic co-director Del Close, “that’s the influence. Expand the long form, write on your feet, support your partner. You always start at the top of your intelligence and then a scene becomes odder and odder. We are not just going for the joke. We’re not just saying `f’ the rules, screw the scene. I play an ugly woman who is actually a man, injured in a softball accident, experiencing late onset testicular feminization. It’s not just another sketch with a man in a dress. We have an appetite for the horrible and we explore that. We expect it to be uncomfortable.”
Roberts, rubbing his self-shaved buzz cut, chimes in, “The world is boring, the world needs us. We’re trying to blow out the paranoia. We’re not benevolent, not malevolent. We’re pranksters on a grand scale.”
The show films all scenes on location in New York without an audience. For the troupe, which has performed live together six years — four in Chicago and the last two in New York — “TV is a challenge,” Poehler says. “It’s like a mini-movie. There are no sets, we’re on location, and there’s no live audience. We tried an audience for our pilot and we’d have to pause for laughter. It didn’t work. Laughter takes away from the reality.”
While they owe much to sketch shows like “SNL” and “Python” before them, a show like the satiric “Larry Sanders” (which didn’t use a laughtrack) also paved the way for “UCB” on television.
The first episode makes it clear we’re not in sitcomland anymore. A suburban house hunting couple inspects a domicile complete with cathedral ceilings and a bacchanalian party room the Realtor calls “the hot chick room” (though “they’re left over from the ’80s so they’re not quite as hot,” he discloses). Oh yeah, there’s also a Bucket of Truth that sends people who dare stare at it screaming from the room like their hair’s on fire.
The four UCB members play all the characters, including the gay “Unabomber,” lisping Girl Scout, stoned Bong Boy whose dysfunction is that he can’t differentiate between reality and reality-based TV, and a sexually and accent-challenged surfer living at home with his father.
UCB was hatched with help from Improv Olympic founder Charna Halpern and Close at the theater, a pie’s throw from Wrigley Field. “We taught them how to think in a warped manner. And (comedy) is a thinking man’s game like chess. But then they just went on with their own ideas,” Halpern says. “I don’t want to take credit for their insanity. They had just the right chemistry. Their success comes as no surprise to me.
“Matt Besser would go to Wrigley Filed and do an anti-Cubs skit. They’d go up to innocent people on the streets who don’t know what’s happening. They’d do a performance, make the audience leave the theater with them, then ditch the audience.”
In an homage to their teachers, Close was chosen to do the introductory voiceovers for the series “From deep within the earth’s crust, a secret organization…” and two characters from the show’s debut are named Charna and Del.
Halpern thinks the time is right for their brand of arresting TV (the four once were hauled off to jail). “We’re ready for the bad boy and girls of comedy and they’re it.”
“You want to know how I’m absolutely sure UCB is going to be a hit?” Halpern adds. “Del reminded me of this … we shot a pilot here (in Chicago) that we couldn’t sell. It starred Chris Farley. Then we tried to sell another pilot and couldn’t. It starred Mike Myers. Then we did a pilot that featured UCB and we couldn’t sell it. They’ll be big.”
