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Looking for some quality comedy entertainment to check out?
Who better to turn to for under-the-radar comedy recommendations than comedians?
Underratedis a chance for comedians to share hidden gems with the Vulture audience.
ButTim Heideckerloved the Cory and Brendan videos so much that he started developing material with them.
Branchburg is the exact midpoint between New York and Philadelphia.
There is literally nowhere more suburban.
The absurd humor plays out on a bleak, flat Jersey landscape.
That was one of the things that drew Heidecker that the aesthetic matched the humor so perfectly.
We talked with Heidecker aboutBranchburg, the absurdity of small-town mayors, and how online is too online.
How did you come to find out about Cory and Brendan?I think it was through Vic Berger.
He posted on his Facebook; I think it was the Christmas Tree video.
And I watched it and loved it.
What did you love about it?I liked a lot of things about it.
I liked the environment that they put themselves in.
Also, their writing is good.
But theirs had a thoughtfulness to it.
There were some surprises to it.
They were just both very likable right away, too.
The whole thing felt kind of timeless.
One of the little non sequitur asides is that one of them is the brand-new mayor.[Laughs.]
Mayor is such a funny job to have because its almost enough power.
But its also so small.Yeah, I think theres a lot of comedy to draw from that.
Especially when it comes to these sort of quasi-towns that dont have a lot of identity to them.
Like, what do they do?
Im sure they do a lot, though.
Something that I really liked about that video was the way their relationship is left so vague.
It made me think about how dudes use small talk to hide the fact that they are complete strangers.Yeah.
I picked up on that, too.
A lot of your work can be seen as a deconstruction of a certain jot down of toxic male.Yeah.
Would you consider your character inUsto be part of that?Oh, yeah, I guess so.
Theres an entitled and comfortable quality to that character that we talked about.
It doesnt get a lot of time to develop in the movie, but its there.
The digital release has outtakes that further amplify that.
So I reached out.
I said, Wed love to see what we can do to help you guys.
It started from that.
So the audio is a little better and youre not just shooting it on your iPhone.
And thats what they did.
And then whose idea was it to start the podcast?It was mine.
At some point, we hadthe Branchburg pilotthat we used to sell them around town.
But everyone was still feeling like these guys were a little too young, too weird.
And the environment for that on cable right now for the moment, everyone feels a little risk averse.
Theyre not super excited to try weird comedy.
Lets talk a little bit more about theBranchburgaesthetic.
I grew up in Allentown, in a lot of development and fields.
When we first started talking to them, they asked, Should we come out to L.A.?
If were going to shoot something, where would we shoot it?
So much of the tone that I see in them comes from the environment.
I dont see it on TV either the suburbs done the way they shoot them.
No leaves on the trees.That was one of the things I really loved about them.
It was something I hadnt seen.
Maybe inWelcome to the Dollhouse.
Youre constantly encountering highways and impassable interchanges, distances of fields to get places.
But I felt that their work didnt necessarily play to that.
With better gear, you could tell their stories similarly.
It would capture their environment better.
These guys know how to frame, how to direct, they just didnt have the gear.
But you dont want to slow things down, bog it in a bigger production.
Thats something that Ive always appreciated in your work that you match the aesthetics to the comedy.
Trying to find which tone works.
On your new album, it feels very Harry Nilssony.Thank you.
Its the kind of music I love, and I dont think I can make anything else.
I make a run at do my best version of it.
Its all I can do.
What exactly inspired you to write a breakup album?A few things.
Partly just that I like those kinds of records.
I like sad songs.
Ive had my own experiences with breakups.
Not necessarily always romantic breakups, but changes of life in various forms.
They used this rumor that my wife had left me because of my anti-Trump protest.
They had gone so far as to doctor up divorce papers and put it up on 4chan.
It became this weird burn that they would use at me.
Like, Oh, is that why your wife left you?
Maybe feed them a little bit with it.
People are like, Is this a joke?
Is this a meta thing?
People like Randy Newman, or even Bruce Springsteen.
I dont think Ive found the correct balance.
I think that its a disease, the amount of time spent looking at Twitter and reacting to it.
Ive taken breaks in the past and will attempt to do that more.
But it also kind of fascinates me.
The other night, Donald Trump had started fighting with Bette Midler.
The whole thing is strange but also interesting to me in a way.
People are out there, and I can communicate with them almost like in a chat room, instantly.
Theyre just out there.
Theyre people sitting at their computers just like I am.
Theyre not that awful.
