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

Date: Mon, 1 Jun 92 15:34:51 CDT

Subject: Yep, more articles....

From: Minneapolis Tribune

Date: March 18, 1984

Headline: Three Area Comedians Think Los Angeles is the Way to Go

Subline: Welcome to Hollywood

Subline: COMICS: 'Time bomb' created a hubbub

Photo(s): Photo for the Star and Tribune by Jackie Sallow. Jeff Cesario, left, and Joel Hodgson in front of the Comedy Store. [Hodgson looks *very* shy!]

Author: Bream, Jon

Many comics try to get discovered at the Improv or other L.A. comdey sweatshops. But this is the story of three comedians--Joel Hodgson, Jeff Cesario and Louie Anderson--who left Minnesota and visited [Mitzi] Shore at the Comedy Store.

Joel Hodgson is one of the hottest new comedians in Los Angeles. He's been on "Late Night with David Letterman" twice and "Saturday Night Live" three times. In fact, he may be the only unknown comic to turn down an appearance on "SNL", but more on that later.

"He's going to do well," predicted Shore. "He's univeral and appealing. He underplays a lot."

Hodgson, now 24, came to L.A. in October 1982. He figured he had done everything he could do comedy-wise in the Twin Cities. He had just won the local comedy invitational comepetition and all his buddies from Bethel College in St. Paul were travelling. One was headed to Alaska, a couple to Europe, so Hodgson decided to go to the mecca of comedy and explore the possibilities and "see if I had the goods."

The week after he arrived, he was booked into the Magic Castle to deliver his deadpan survey of offbeat props--both found and homemade--that he pulls out of an old leather satchel. At the Castle, Hodgson met a producer of a cable TV special.

"His wife's cousin was a producer at "Letterman"," Hodgson said. "And I asked him to send him my tape."

Letterman's producer liked Hodgson on tape and the comic auditioned for the producer a few weeks later in L.A. Three months after landing in L.A., fair-haired, squinty-eyed Joel Hodgson, from Green Bay, Wis., by way of Eden Prairie, Minn., was set for network television.

He later moved on to Showtime and HBO comedy specials; the talent coordinator for one of the programs was a cousin of the talent coordinator for "Saturday Night Live". The door opened last fall.

Twenty-five million people would see Hodgson on "SNL", and he would end up on the front page of the New York Post two days later. It had to do with one of his props, of course. The "SNL" prop department built him a sophisticated-looking bomb. During his routine, he pulls out a time bomb and asks the producer how much time is left. Then Hodgson set the device and announces, "I guess we all have three minutes."

Afterwards, he took the bomb back to the hotel. He dismantled it for packing the next morning but it wouldn't fit in his duffel bag so he just left it in his room at the luxurious Berkshire Place. A maid discovered it ticking. The bomb squad was called and three floors of the hotel were evacuated.

"It made the front page of the Post and it was on the evening news," Hodgson recalled. "The whole thing about a comedian bombing. At first it was pretty scary. The Berkshire Place was suing NBC and my agency, which is in New York and L.A. I didn't think it was funny at all. I just needed to be home. They were calling me saying, 'We need you to come to New York tomorrow to clear this up with the police.' I was just going crazy. It got too intense.

""Saturday Night Live" wanted me to come back the next week 'cause they wanted to do a skit around it. I told them no 'cause I needed to be home with my family to get a bearing on things."

It's [sic] wasn't exactly big bucks he was passing up--$700 plus expenses. ("Letterman" pays him $500 plus expenses.) But Hodgson has his pride.

He now finds himself on the fast track. He's going to become a regular on "Letterman" (appearing every four to six weeks) and will have a budget to build props. He will be on the last "SNL" of the season in May. He gets desirable slots at the Comedy Store. He shares a manager with Gary Shandling, the only person besides Joan Rivers to sit in for Johnny Carsonon "The Tonight Show" in the past year.

Nevertheless, Hollywood hasn't changed Hodgson. In fact, it's turned him against the system. "In a way, I want to fight Hollywood," he said over Mexican food before going on at the Comedy Store one night. "I like Minneapolis and I don't like Hollywood right now. I'd love to short-sheet it somehow. I go into readings for movies and TV shows and they're used to talking to actors who'll do anything to get on a TV show. I don't care that much. I'm not an actor. I'm detached from having to need to get work. There's something's [sic] real wrong with Hollywood. That's why TV and movies are so bad. It's the bottom line. Money and *this* will sell to Middle America. So I'm frustrated with what it is right now. My act is based on anti-show-business. It's still possible to be honest within the boundaries of the system. But a lot of people aren't doing it." Hodgson said he loves to create but doesn't like the attention that goes with stardom and media exposure. Anyway, he doesn't think stand-up comedy is for him. He wants to explore comedy video. He's doing a treatment for a 10-minute Joel Hodgson variety series for Showtime. He's also planning to build a collage sculpture on the roof of his apartment building in Los Angeles.

"I'm real glad people can embrace this thing I do," he said. "I like to come up with ideas and show people what I'm thinking. It's fun now. But I think I want to go back (to Minneapolis) in a year or so. I still get more stimulated there than I do here. Ideally, I want to move back to Minneapolis and make comedy video."