I Booked the Worst Comedian Ever

And lived to tell about

In the early days of Jimmy Kimmel Live, we were struggling to get any attention.

In 2003, my job was to book the human interest guests and I was failing. Nothing caught on. On the comedy side, comedians were not doing well. We quickly got a reputation of being a show where you will bomb on national TV. The comedy producer, couldn’t figure it out. They tried moving the comics on the left side, then the right side, closer farther… nothing seemed to work.

In a meeting of all the bookers, the EP told us he wanted some pitches that were outrageous. “I want you to book something so unique and so crazy that I’ll think you’re crazy. Something so insane, I might even fire you for it.”

I knew exactly who to get.

Like most younger siblings, my music and comedy taste was formed by my older brother. Luckily he had wild tastes. He found a comedy CD put out by a rock label. It was a live show from a guy I’d never heard of. There was a good reason for that — Neil Hamburger didn’t exist. It was a creation of comedian Gregg Turkington. He recorded “Neil” telling the worst jokes ever, and added a disapproving audience. Neil’s whole act was anti-comedy. He was intentionally terrible, offensive, and awkward.

He put out “live” albums where you could actually hear audience members near the mic saying, “This guy sucks. He’s terrible.”

[ALSO READ: The Strangest Guest I Ever Booked ]

I was dying at my job. I was hoping they would fire me for pitching this guy. I thought of Neil as a “Screw You” pitch. “You want outrageous? Here it is!” I think I found footage of him online, or I played the CD for my boss. He didn’t fire me. He didn’t hug me either. He wasn’t sure, but played it for Jimmy anyway. Jimmy got it right away. It was his sense of humor.

I never talked to Neil/Gregg before pitching. I did see him live at some cool rock club in Silver Lake. Half the audience got what he was doing. The other half hated him with all their might. His material wasn’t just not funny, but very gross. Testing people’s tolerance for (very) bad taste.

I tracked Neil down through his GeoCities website. He called me back from Australia a few days later while he was touring with a rock band.

Neil was surprised — confused, even — by my offer. He didn’t think his intentionally gross-out material would pass our censors. “Send me your best five minutes. Don’t censor yourself. Just give us the real set and we’ll let the network tell us what not to do.”

He sent over some really crazy stuff. Jokes about Michael Jackson and things I was sure they’d flag. Somehow, every single bit went through.

The night of the show, the atmosphere was tense.

The woman running the booking department was terrified. She was having trouble getting celebrities on this unknown show. Now we were going to have this guy say awful things in front of her — and even worse, the publicist.

“You better not mess this up. We have Poppy Montgomery on the show tonight, and if you embarrass me, we might never book another guest again.”

I remember thinking, “Who cares about her? If she doesn’t get it, that’s on her.”

Luckily the lead guest was Yoko Ono. Yes, the Yoko Ono. She had a new dance CD out and she seemed like someone you want to talk to. She wan’t the third lead on a cop show, but iconic and interesting.

Before the set, I went over and whispered to Yoko, “This guy is a dedicated performance artist.”

She lit up. That was her world. I knew this would put Neil on her team. She would be expecting something.

I told Poppy it was an “act.” She was fine either way. Nice lady. Not the uptight Margaret Dumont type I was led to believe was coming.

In order to mimic the “live” audience on his CD, the director had cameras ready to get shots of disturbed audience members. Show people just hating the set.

One of the people in the audience was former football player and former star of the TV show Hunter, Fred Dryer. He was drinking buddies with the guys in the band and wanted to check his friends out in action. He stood out like a sore thumb because he was both giant and a recognizable face. Random, right? It was kind of perfect.

Neil went out there in his dated and disheveled tuxedo, his comb-over soaking wet, carrying about eight rocks glasses of liquor tucked under his arm. He was spilling them everywhere as he walked.

He launched into his act:

“Why did the farmer start a punk rock band? Because he was tired of hauling oats.”

Half the audience was confused. We even caught a shot of Fred Dryer in the crowd looking completely bewildered.

But the other half, including Jimmy, loved it.

Our audience actually laughed at him like he was a real comic. The reaction shots of horror we were looking for turned out to be people laughing. Like really laughing at his jokes.

It was an amazing moment.

Jimmy loved it, Yoko appreciated the art and really liked it. Even Poppy got what was happening and enjoyed the set.

It felt like Neil broke a curse for us.

Before that, stand-ups had a reputation for eating it on our stage. After Neil Hamburger, the comedy sets finally started to work.

After that, I always made sure to have at least one “they’ll never do this” pitch ready. Sometimes I’m right and we all laugh. Sometimes I’m wrong and I have to go produce it.*

But Neil Hamburger taught me something I still use: don’t decide what’s too crazy before the room does. The worst they can say is no. The best that can happen is Fred Dryer ends up in the shot looking confused on national television.

*More on that later.

(I haven’t rewatched the set or the interview. I hope it’s the way I remember it.)