TV INTERVIEW: PAUL F. TOMPKINS

Talks 'Best Week Ever'

By: Ben Kharakh

October 24, 2008

After four years on the air, VH1's Best Week Ever is going through a radical format change that entails comedian Paul. F. Tompkins taking the reigns as the show's sole host. It can be said that Tompkins, who has been with the program since the get-go, has been preparing for this moment over the course of his 20+-year career. Starting in Philadelphia before moving to LA, Tompkins first came to prominence for his work with HBO's cult favorite Mr. Show. Since then, he's filmed comedy specials for Comedy Central and HBO, made over 40 appearances on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, became a favorite amongst comedy club-goers nationwide, and released the critically lauded comedy album Impersonal.

Regardless of where you've experienced Paul's comedy, one thing is certain: it's never enough. Five minutes, ten minutes, even 45 minutes leaves audiences wanting to get Paul's thoughts on every topic imaginable, which is why having half-hour of Tompkins every week is such a treat. Especially considering that, starting tonight at 11:00pm EST, he will, at last, be forced to comment on everything.

Ben Kharakh: I read the article on you in The New York Times, and it seemed like, for the past 15 weeks, one of the biggest things that you've been working on is getting the staff of the show to write in the voice of Paul F. Tompkins. That’s the sort of feat that takes a comedian their whole careers. What has this process been like?

Paul F. Tompkins: It’s not been too bad, I have to say, because these guys have been watching me for the past four years. They see the raw tapes that come in for the Best Week Ever interviews, so they have had a lot of time to get it down to a science of knowing the type of thing that I go for and that I respond to. They have a handle on my phrasing. I, of course, get to tweak things to make them fit in my mouth a little bit better, if that makes sense.

BK: What are some things that you wouldn’t joke about or types of jokes that you wouldn’t make, aside from puns?

PFT: Boy that’s about it. Once you take puns out of the mix, it’s wide open. I think that my goal is to not just make a joke for the sake of meanness -- to kind of catch somebody when they’re down -- but to also add a little extra something in there to make it a little more satirical rather than just fun for fun’s sake...although there will be plenty of fun for fun’s sake. There’s going to be plenty of silliness. But it’s nice if you’re doing a show that’s about pop culture, which everyone is aware of and is a part of our daily life, to make some small commentary on it and be funny at the same time. That's something I’m looking forward to doing.

BK: What sort of relationship did you have with the entertainment news and pop culture covered on Best Week Ever before joining the program?

PFT: Very little. I guess I’d watch Entertainment Tonight if it was on in a hotel room or something, but I didn’t seek it out in things like Us Weekly. I’d just turn the pages in a dentist's office, but that was really about it. Living in Los Angeles, you certainly hear people talk about super famous people whose trials and tribulations are well documented and discussed. There is a part of it that you just naturally can’t help but hear, but certainly not to the degree that I am briefed on for the show.

BK: What are some things that surprised you, once you got really connected to that world?

PFT: How much people care about it and how really invested in it they are. There’s obviously a bit of voyeurism in everybody, for the most part, but there are some people that really follow this stuff as if it’s people that they know. They get off on the gossip angle of it as if it’s someone that’s in their lives, and that’s a little weird. That’s a little further than I like to take it.

BK: It’s interesting -- people seem to care more about someone like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian than they do about the 40 million uninsured Americans, the people that they pass on the street, or maybe their own neighbors.

PFT: A friend of mine and I were talking about Project Runway -- my girlfriend and I watch that show together -- and I was saying how much I disliked Kenley, one of the designers. My friend pointed out how, on the second to last show, she didn’t have any family, her grandmother had just died, and she was still young, adding, "Maybe she's had a hard life.” I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t want to judge her as a person, but I still want to be able to judge her as a character on reality TV.” I don’t fault people for enjoying the ups and downs of Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian in that way, since these are people that wanted to be famous, and if you want to be famous, you are treated like a character. You do forfeit a little bit of your humanity, I think, especially if your thing is just being a famous person. Like, “I am just famous. I am on television and I am on television because I’m on television.” As opposed to, “I have a talent," or, "I have something to offer.” If you just want to be in the public eye and that’s it, then I think it’s fair game at that point.

BK: I think the everyday person wouldn’t be able to get away with that.

PFT: No, not at all. Well, then again, that’s what reality shows are for. That’s what any kind of contest show is. People on Big Brother are on that show primarily, I think, because they like the attention that being on a reality show brings. They’re all performing for the camera, and I think most of those people are not there because they need to pay off a mortgage. If you just want to become famous, there’s a way to go about that, and that is being on TV, allowing yourself to be humiliated, and creating your sort character -- the guy you love to hate, the sweetheart, the funny person... There’s a way for anybody to become famous now.

BK: That’s a good point. Interestingly, though, when I spoke with Joe Rogan, he said some people did go on Fear Factor because they desperately needed the money.

PFT: Oh yeah. That’s a much quicker thing. I don’t know much about the show, but I think that it’s not ongoing; you’re not on the show for the whole season, right? It’s all decided in that one episode?

BK: Yes.

PFT: So you think, “Here’s a quick way to get this money,” but then it gets into, well, how did you get yourself in that situation in the first place -- that this was the answer to your financial problems? Maybe you have to be a little bit smarter early on, but then I’m not a regular viewer of Fear Factor so I don’t know what happened to those people that lead them to be on there eating various anuses.

BK: I guess if they're in that situation, it’s better than robbing a bank, for example.

PFT: Yes, I suppose so.

BK: You mentioned that if someone goes on Big Brother, there’s a lot of humiliation that’s involved in doing that, and it’s interesting that they’re willing to sacrifice dignity -- something we value so much -- to get fame.

PFT: Yeah, it’s insane -- people’s desire for fame and attention. Obviously, my occupation involves getting as many people as possible to look at me. And whatever demons I had that caused me to get into this business in the first place have been dealt with to a great extent. Now, it’s a fun way to make a living and I do enjoy it. The new worry is about career longevity. I have to make sure that the show gets ratings. I have to worry about that now, it’s not like just going and doing stand-up some place. I have an active concern in whether or not people watch this show, so that’s where the business picks up. If you want to be able to go into a bar and have people buy you drinks because they recognize you from something, if that’s your goal, then Big Brother makes sense for you.

BK: You’re also co-executive producer on the show. What does that entail?

PFT: Well, that means I get my own office. I also have a great deal of creative input for the show. I can’t control everything and I can be voted down, but people will listen to me and they will take my concerns into consideration. I have really good bosses and a great team here, so I feel taken care of and comfortable in this situation.

BK: What were some of your concerns?

PFT: Well, just like I said earlier, I don’t want things to be too snarky and smarmy just for the sake of that. I don’t want it to be about being superior, and I don’t ever want to be picking on the little guy, because I think that’s the lowest form of comedy -- comedy that points downward as opposed to pointing upward. Although this is not a super political show, I think there is some social commentary that can be made. I’ve said this before: I think it’s better to go after Dina Lohan than to go after Lindsay Lohan. It’s better to go after a grown-up who is not above exploiting herself and her children, as opposed to a kid that has grown up being exploited, to a certain degree, and is having some growing pains figuring her life out in her early 20s. I think it’s much better to go after the source.

BK: I guess that’s a microcosm of what’s happening on a larger scale in America today with the subprime mortgage crisis.

PFT: Yeah, you read between the lines correctly. That’s exactly what I meant. No, but that’s not to say that we won’t make jokes about Lindsay Lohan or Brtiney Spears, but there’s a difference between making fun of a Britney Spears’s video that’s kind of goofy. She’s got this video out now, and the song is a super-repetitive song. There’s plenty to be made fun of in the video. But Britney Spears, at some point, is this person that is very troubled, and I don’t think you really focus on that. You don’t have to. There are plenty of people doing that, and I would rather that the show not be as mean as some other shows can be.

BK: How do you feel a show like Best Week Ever compares to a program like The Daily Show, in terms of the seriousness of the subject matter?

PFT: John Stewart is interviewing people in a real context, although it’s on Comedy Central, and the primary goal of that show is comedy, but he is able to be serious in a way that I’m never going to be on this show. This show is not about that. We’re just a silly show. We’re making some jokes. We are not trying to speak to people in that way. I think if you have a show that’s about politics, that’s about the news, and it’s a smart show, you’re going to have more opportunities to be serious than we are. We’re talking about show business. We’re not going to get into policy and stuff like that. So yeah, it’s different in that there’s never going to be a very special episode of Best Week Ever.

BK: What would have to happen in the world for there to be a very special episode of Best Week Ever?

PFT: I think every other show would have to go off the air and then we’d be forced to pick up the slack a little bit.

BK: It does seem like the news and politics are handled very much like entertainment or showbiz.

PFT: Oh absolutely. The amount of coverage in the news of show business is absurd. Anytime I see on the news that there’s something about Madonna getting divorced, I feel like that’s a waste of everyone’s time. There are plenty of places to go for that. There are whole shows that are dedicated to entertainment, and I understand that the news needs ratings and everything, but the quest for ratings has gotten so bad that the news is, by and large, a joke. And this is nothing that hasn’t been said before and it’s nothing that’s not getting worse, and it’s been analyzed by people a lot smarter and professional than me, but yeah, it’ stupid when you see entertainment news on the news. I think this campaign, especially, has gotten so out of control, it’s gotten so sensationalistic that, in a way, it was a relief when the economy crashed and people started talking about that. Like, "Hold on a second, here’s something that actually will affect people, so let’s discuss that." It was a refreshing change of depressing pace.

BK: How does information like that affect you when you’re out and about in your day?

PFT: It makes me scared and I walk around scared.

BK: Do you think that something serious, like the economic situation or things like racism -- do you think there’s humor even in those things?

PFT: Oh, absolutely. And that kind of stuff is certainly not beyond me and not beyond our show. You have to make light of that as much as you can, because it is so grim. It’s the catharsis and it’s part of the grieving process, and I think anything that’s sad, there’s laughter surrounding it at some point, at an appropriate amount of time. I think for personal tragedies, you never know when that’s going to be -- the death of a loved one or something -- the humor will come out at a time when you’re not expecting it, and I think that’s why you find it funny. With national stuff, certainly with things like money, when people are worried about money, you do have to joke about it. With something like a president being assassinated, I think that’s something that's on an individual basis. There’s the famous story of Lenny Bruce who, after JFK was assassinated, was going out and making a joke about this guy Von Meter, who was famous for making these comedy albums about the Kennedy White. He imitated Kennedy and everything. Lenny Bruce’s first joke onstage, after Kennedy was assassinated, was about Von Meter being screwed because now Kennedy was dead. I think this was in a day or so of Kennedy being assassinated, and that’s a personal call. You make that call as to whether or not you’re going to go out and do that, and it’s also a personal call as to whether or not you find that funny. But yeah, with the stuff that’s happening in politics and the economy, you need people making a joke about it because you’re hearing about it all day long and you’re thinking about it all day long.

BK: Some people take bad news as a sign of even worse things to come. There are people who talk about the peak oil crisis, for example, and they say, “Our civilization as we know it has run its course and soon we’ll be back to living on farms.” Do you think, in that sort of situation, you would still be a comedian?

PFT: Wow, that’s a really good question. I have not been asked before if I would be a post-Apocalyptic comedian. I like to think that I would. I like to think that there is still plenty of stuff to joke about in an Agrarian society. “How about those plows? They’re the worst.” I think that I would. I think that the damage has been done and I am, for good or ill, a comedian for the rest of my life.

BK: Do you see yourself performing 20 years from now?

PFT: Oh, absolutely. I can’t imagine ever giving it up. I can imagine slowing down as I get older, but I can’t imagine giving it up.

BK: In the past you, mentioned that you planned on recording a follow-up to Impersonal. Is that still something you’ll be able to do, or will this put a delay on that?

PFT: This has already put a delay on that. I was planning on doing that November 6^th in Chicago, but then I got this job. That was a gig that was on the books before this job was confirmed, so I do have to reschedule that, but I’m definitely going to reschedule that because it’s very much something that I want to do.

BK: Best Week Ever has been a great move for you career-wise, but were there ever any things that you’d done that didn’t really get you anything, or perhaps something that you regretted afterwards?

PFT: Oh, probably everything else. No, I don’t regret anything. I’ve had a lot of fun and I’ve managed to make a living being an entertainer, and some experiences have been better than others and some things have been more fruitful than others, but I really do look at it like I’m at this point now where everything that I’ve done has, in a way, led me to where I am. That, to me, is life. Your experiences lead you to where you are, wherever you are in that moment in time. You can plan all you want, but there’s no guarantee that your plans are going to work out. You just go; you live your life.