When Steve Dildarian worked as an adman, his voice was heard by hundreds of millions of viewers. As a rising animator whose quirky new show, “The Life & Times of Tim (right),” debuts at 10 p.m. Sunday on HBO, however, he’ll settle for a healthy fraction of that. Dildarian hopes that Tim, a low-key, 25-year-old dude with a penchant for outrageous social situations, will strike a chord with viewers who like their humor sliced sly and deadpan. Dildarian, 38, recently discussed his road to “Tim.”
In terms of influences, in “Tim” we can see a little Ben Stiller and a lot of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Are we getting warm?
For sure, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is the first thing [I] go to. That show and [Larry David’s] sensibility, I just really reacted to that. … Watching that made something click in my head — just him walking around and talking. It made the idea of writing a TV show seem that much easier. I hope people don’t think my work is a rip-off, but that feels like my show. It feels like he’s doing me. … A year before I ever saw that show, people kept telling me: “Oh my God, you ARE Larry David.” He’s a kindred spirit.
Is Tim totally autobiographical and an avatar of you?
Well, it’s hard to deny it. It doesn’t help that I drew him to look like me.
So you wear Banana Republic like Tim, then?
Maybe I do favor Banana Republic and Gap more than I like to admit.
So while an adman, you were the Budweiser donkey. Was that a highlight — your voice heard the world over in a Super Bowl commercial?
I had never done a voice-over when I did the donkey. But for whatever reason, I laid down a “scratch” track. We couldn’t have tried harder to replace me, and [we tried] hundreds of actors. [Anheuser-Busch executive] August Busch made the call. He said: “This guy [Dildarian] sounds the most like a donkey.” After that it encouraged me. Soon, I was a talking toilet in an Ace Hardware commercial.
