Steven Prusakowski
Mike Birbiglia’s life is like an open book, or at least it feels that way if you watch his comedy specials. His most recent special, The Old Man and the Pool on Netflix chronicles Birbiglia’s quest for self-betterment, covering a wide range of topics like existence, middle age, and his humorous struggle to learn to swim after being advised to do so by his doctor.
But his comedy biography does not start or even end there. Preceding his latest Netflix special the comedian has dived into other chapters of his life – some challenging, some inspiring, all funny – through a series of five very personal stand-up specials. Birbiglia has a special knack tackling subjects like marriage, having a child, cancer, chronic sleepwalking, pizza, and much more while intertwining it all with his unique brand of humor. By the time a special completes you may feel more like Birbiglia is a friend or family member than a performer.
For even a closer look at the man behind the funny there is the Peacock Original Good One: A Show About Jokes which is a fascinating exploration of the comedian through his work, family, and friends as they provide insights into what it takes to bring hit stand up specials to life.
The comedian sat down for a conversation on the TV Topics podcast covering his growth as a comedian, The Old Man and the Pool, and of course his relationship with television through the TV Topics questions. (What makes him laugh most? The first prime time show he remembers loving? What show makes him cry? … and more.) Like every episode of TV Topics (and Birbiglia’s specials) you walk away knowing the subject a little better than before.
You can listen to in its entirety and read excerpts from the conversation below.
What set you off this life in comedy?
Mike Birbiglia: I wanna say I was maybe 15 or 16 years old. My brother Joe took me to see Stephen Wright live, who was, if people aren’t familiar, just this amazingly brilliant, and is amazingly brilliant, deadpan one-liner comedian. And that sort of sent me into kind of a rabbit hole of writing in my notebook, like random thoughts, you know? Because it performed, what Stephen Wright does so well is he performs this magic trick of, here’s some things that I was thinking about, and I’m just reeling them off off the top of my head, and you, and it’s an illusion, because he’s written them and workshopped them, and he knows they’ll get laughs in these different places. So, I started writing a ton of jokes.
Was acting ever going to be your main focus?
Mike Birbiglia: When I got into comedy in the late nineties, the path of “success” in comedy as a standup comedian was you become a comedian and then you get a sitcom. And that was Ray Romano. That was Roseanne, Seinfeld, et cetera.
I actually was on that trajectory until about 2008 when I shot like a sitcom pilot for CBS based on my life. It was like an untitled Mike Birbiglia project. Then it didn’t get picked up. And then that’s when I went into, I kind of doubled and tripled down on making these specials. I made Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, Thank God For Jokes, The New One and then the most recent one, which is called The Old Man In The Pool. And weirdly, those became what I do. And then, and then the rise of Netflix coincided with me writing all those specials. So previous to that, there wasn’t really a universe for that.
Your stand-up specials go from your teenage years, to the early days of marriage and parenting, and now you have The Old Man and the Pool, which touches upon some of your health issues and your struggles with self-betterment. I’m wondering, is there ever a time that keeps you up at night, just thinking, ‘Yeah, this new stuff is just not landing – nothing’s coming up as organically as you’d like?
Mike Birbiglia: Definitely crosses my mind. I think that, you know, I think that the old expression, comedy is tragedy plus time. I think it is pretty much true, and there is really no escape from tragedy in life and existence. So sometimes it’s honestly waiting long enough for your life to smack you in the face to write about it later, to find the comedy in it. It’s actually kind of a sadistic way of looking at it, but I think it actually is true, and I think it really comes down to like, a commitment to wanting to continue to be better, get better, and not being complacent about, you know, because you can get complacent if audiences are coming to see your sense of humor, and then you give them a subpar version of that sense of humor, like the audience might kind of grade on a curve, and that can that can hurt people’s shows.
My brother Joe, who collaborates with me, and he always describes comedy writing as letting your mind go for a walk, and I think like ideally that’s what happens when you’re writing an hour of comedy, is like you’re letting your subconscious kind of explore like where the whole thing is going, and yeah, I don’t think it’s wise to force it.
You can watch The Old Man and the Pool on Netflix now. Also, look for the documentary special Good One: A Show About Jokes streaming only on Peacock.
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