From: jenkins@mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu (jenkins lisa)

Subject: Various articles from print media about MST3K

From: Interview

Date: December 1984

Headline: The Seven Faces of Comedy

Photo(s): Joel Hodgson photographed by Frank Schramm [Joel in glasses,water goggles, shirt and tie, spewing water from his mouth]

Author: Borns, Betsy

Page(s): 68-69

The new, multifacted nature of comedy has rendered the concepts of "comic" and "comedian" obsolete. To use the same terms for impressionist Jim Carrey (who does a better Henry Fonda than Henry Fonda did) and prop comic Joel Hodgson would be like saying that Twinkies and truffles are both "just food." Humor now has more variations than cable has channels, and the days of "the one about the traveling salesman" and "these two guys on a bus" are over at last.

Joel Hodgson

A familiar face on "Saturday Night Live" and "Late Night with David Letterman", Joel Hodgson is also known by his alias, "Agent J." When not turning toys into automatic weapons and sawing himself (and others) in half, this bizarre 24-year-old resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he lives the glamorous life of a "prop comic." Questioned further about what this entails, Joel said, "I sit in my garage and build stuff." Who says comedy is not pretty?

BETSY BORNS: How do you get the ideas for your props?

JOEL HODGSON: I just make stuff that occurs to me. I was really into magic as a kid--all those contrived boxes and things that really have no meaning except to show the trick off. Magicians never admit that, so what I do is just invent stuff that doesn't mean anything.

BB: That's certainly true about the "unknown mammal." Can you explain that?

JH: It's this thing that looks like a jet pack and it has a huge trunk. Then all of the sudden this helmet flips open and there's a big eyeball with a duckbill, and all these snakes come out so it looks like a big octopus.

BB: And what do you do then?

JH: I just stand there.

BB: Do you ever feel strange carrying all of your props from one place to another?

JH: Well, all my life I've been transporting strange inventions. In the sixth grade, I built this electric chair that worked. I remember building a gallows for social studies class once.... I felt a little strange carrying those to school. After a while you get used to it, though. I just accept it as a part of me, even though all of my life I've been hearing people say, "Joel, don't you think you have enough props?"

BB: What was your first invention?

JH: In the second grade I built a "cracker cracker." It was a piece of wood with a hand that would crack crackers so you wouldn't have to do it yourself.

BB: Are you ever overwhelmed by all of your objects?

JH: Yeah, sometimes I get tired of having my apartment filled with junk. I have piles of stuff all over. I guess to most people it would look messy.

BB: Why do you bill yourself as a "comic, magician, spy"?

JH: It's my way of saying there's no more to what I do.... It seems that it's too easy to qualify people's work most of the time. I don't wantpeople to look at what I do and say, "Oh, this is what he does, and that's all there is to it." The words "comic" and "magician" describe what I do and the word "spy" is a disclaimer to that.

BB: Do you use your props in a different way than other comedians?

JH: I'm basically a prop minimalist. I only do one joke with each object, other people try to squeeze five minutes out of each thing. I don't like to exploit my ideas. I want it to be a tip-of-the-iceberg sort of thing where people look at what I do and say, "Maybe there's more to this than what we're seeing," and there is.

BB: What's the strangest prop-related experience you've ever had?

JH: The first time I did "Saturday Night Live" I used a prop that was a time bomb with dynamite sticks. I'd go on stage and say, "How much time do I have left?" and they'd say, "Three minutes." Then I'd pull out the time bomb and set it and say, "Oh, I guess we *all* have three minutes." The prop guys at the show really made me a great bomb, but they did something with the pin so you couldn't turn it off. I brought it back to the hotel with me, and I was trying to fit it into my suitcase when it was time to leave, but it was a pretty big bomb. I was *not* going to go on a plane carrying a bomb in the open! I just figured that it's okay to leave stuff on a hotel room floor--napkins, trash, bombs--so I left. When I got back to Minneapolis, my agent called and said, "There's trouble. They found your bomb at the hotel and had to evacuate three floors." It was a mess, but it eventually blew over.

BB: That's wild. All in all, do you feel like all of this building and carrying has been worth it? Can you give me some insight into the private thoughts of a prop comic spy?

JH: You make a lot of sacrifices to be known. You trade away a lot of things in order to be able to fill up a club. Sometimes I wonder why I work to get on TV to show a million people my act, when I always come back to the same 30 people for a response. I used to see fame as a goal. Now I only see it as self-indulgence. Even if you see someone on TV and they make you happy, eventually they're going to want something from you. Maybe they'll want you to buy trash bags, maybe cereal. I just don't want to lose my identity to a million people. Being an oddity doesn't bother me, as long as I'm a thought-provoking one.