From On Patrol #71: White Women
September 29th, 2014

At the end of our third year, Will told me that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep doing the show. I spent the summer having a panic attack at the thought of him quitting – I knew I couldn’t do it without him. At the time he said it was because he was busy, but I always got the sense that he felt underutilized – which he was, considering at this point he was everyone’s favorite part. Regardless, I hardly slept during our hiatus, fearful that I’d have to go on without him. In a really genius move on my part, I thought up the idea to have him “go on strike,” which would free him up to come and go as he pleased, and involve him more in the written material. It ended up being the best idea I ever had.

One of the biggest comments I got about the show was that I was mean to Will, despite the fact that the role had been created as a ne’er-do-well punching bag for my cynical character. But this bit gave me an opportunity to bring those thoughts to the forefront in a surprisingly therapeutic way. Everything we say here is either based on a comment I received or our past interactions: I really did bother Will with 6:50 PM texts every week, for example. I think being able to do this was a way of laughing at ourselves and whatever had built up over our two years together, even if it was all in good fun. I’d kept this bit a secret, too, so when we started doing it people actually thought it was real – I guess we really sold it by screaming at each other. I also grew a Strike Beard for that term’s arc to really give it authenticity.

I love that this is followed by another really great bit, and that they flow seamlessly into each other. I visited Morgan Ann with Anastasia Skliarova that summer and we watched this movie Cirque du Freak on TV, then kept shouting the name at each other in a southern accent. I had an idea for a guy who was obsessed with ¬Cirque du Freak – I think it was Anastasia who first thought up: “Monday, Cirque du Freak!” etc. The Ruth Bader-Ginsburg thing was a reoccurring gag since freshman year, where I was continually trying to get an interview with her and never could; and the Love Boat reference was because I spent that summer watching it with my dad every Sunday – for some reason I’d written a note in my iPhone that said: “And Sunday, well, that’s Love Boat day.” So I threw it in the bit.

But furthermore, I think one of the reasons these bits work so well, and why the final thirty episodes resonate so much, is because I began writing for a place of honesty, even if it was still comedy. Up until this point, every character and joke had one purpose: to be funny. But from that moment forward, I realized that the most humorous stuff I had to offer was the stuff I was really feeling – thoughts of not wanting to do the show, of not being funny, of no one listening, of being overweight, of the future, etc. Once I began writing from there, and trying to express those feelings through the comedy, I think the show really took off. It’d always been hiding in the material, but it wasn’t until the last year that it really took center stage – and I think it helped me focus in on what I was trying to do, which was to create an honest and open community, even if it came in the form of really dumb jokes.