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Is Dave Attell Really That Miserable?
January 4, 2008

Comic legend Dave Attell’s HBO Comedy Special, Captain Miserable, premiered on the premium cable channel in December, with the DVD release hot on its heels a few days later. I spoke with Attell (late of the wildly popular Comedy Central TV show Insomniac with Dave Attell and currently out on the road tearing it up in comedy clubs and theaters across the nation) about the Miserable project, his first-ever hour-long show for HBO.

 

VB: It’s been years since we’ve seen you doing an extended stand-up show on TV, but Captain Miserable shows that you’re still at the top of your game when you’re live and onstage.

ATTELL: Thanks! Yeah, it’s an hour-long special and it took some time, but HBO really gives you creative freedom. I go way back with HBO. I did a half-hour for them, and I did a “Young Comedians” special years ago with Garry Shandling.

VB: What’s changed about you and your act since then?

ATTELL: Well, this one’s an hour long. And when I did the half-hour one, I actually had hair.

VB: Did you make any special preparations for this special?

ATTELL: Going into the show, I wasn’t sure of the order of it. Going on Letterman, you can get the order down—it’s only a seven-minute set. For this show, I had all the material and I had a beginning and an end. But for an hour-long show, there are so many twists and turns and you have to plan it out. I want the audience to get to know me, then I want to do my harder material, and then a certain amount of sex material, but not to much, and so on. My jokes usually connect to each other, and the stress is in making the connections work.

VB: You make it look effortless, but it sounds like a lot of work.

ATTELL: Yeah, it’s work. I had a lot of respect for George Carlin before and I have amazing respect for him now. This guy has done something like 20 hours for HBO. That’s beyond the limit. I did one hour and I’m still exhausted.

VB: Alright, I’ve got to end this interview about your Captain Miserable special with the kind of question that you’d get from People or US Magazine. Here it goes: are you really that miserable?

ATTELL: I’ve never been more miserable. But it’s a delicious misery. I’ve got a job where I get to travel, drink, chain smoke and make some pretty good money. I can’t believe I’m miserable—I’m totally an American. I’m not happy and I’m living 90% of the world’s dream.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on January 4, 2008 | Comments (0)