Joe Bill 3/20/06 Part 1
Joe Bill is one of the country's most experienced improvisers. He started in 1977 and soon after began studying at Indiana University, where he met several of his fellow Annoyance Theater co-founders. He has since taught at Improv Olympic, Second City, the Annoyance Theater and in workshops around the country.
Josh: Where were you born?
Joe: I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1962. My dad was in the automotive business and coached us in sports, and my mom was a teacher.
JF: Indianapolis is a pretty big city, right?
JB: It’s the biggest in Indiana. I want to say it’s like the 15th biggest tv market in America. I guess that’s my reference point for how big a city is or isn’t. [laughs]
JF: What were some early influences on your sense of humor?
JB: The earliest influences were probably George Carlin, Bob Newhart, and Bill Cosby. I remember when George Carlin’s ‘The 7 Words You Can’t Say on TV’ came out and that was like fucking earthshaking. My mom was also the principal in C.C.D. and I guess that’s the first time I realized [how powerful comedy could be.]
I was also a big Rocky and Bullwinkle fan. I loved that, but I think I only loved it from a kid’s perspective. It was kind of funny and goofy, and didn’t get the adult humor in it, but I think when I started watching George Carlin the light went off over my head that comedy could be subversive and challenging, as well as straight out funny. So, it kind of made me go back and watch Rocky and Bullwinkle differently, and think that maybe there was another message that I wasn’t getting. He really opened my eyes.
In 5th or 6th grade, I heard Richard Pryor for the first time. I was also watching Monty Python and Benny Hill and Dave Allen, and that’s when I went, ‘yeah, man, this is something I’m totally into.’
JF: Have you tried to be subversive with your own comedy?
JB: Um, I don’t know if it’s necessarily subversive, as much as it is like challenging.… Well, fuck, I’m assuming we’ll talk about the Annoyance in a little bit, but the Annoyance was always branded as subversive theater, and being one of the co-founders of that I suppose subversion was in my cards or on my menu.
I remember George Carlin doing the riddle about asking the Priest ‘if God is so powerful, can he make a rock that’s so big that even he himself cannot lift it.’ I loved that, because I hated the dictatorial, ‘shut-up and believe it’ nature of the Catholic dogma that was being shoved down my throat at the time. So, I guess that’s a long way of saying ‘yes, I have let it flavor my comedy.’ [laughs]
JF: How did you get involved with improv?
JB: I took my first improv class in theater class in my first semester of sophomore year [in high school] in 1977. We learned improv games, like freeze tag, ‘emotional rollercoaster,’ which is like ‘emotion option’ now. We would do silent scenes. They called it improv mimes. Those are the ones that stick out.
I started out there and my high school in Indianapolis ended up becoming the performing arts magnet school in Indy, but that was after I left. But even at the time it was a very popular school for theater. That’s when I ended up quitting my basketball team. I was captain of the team my junior year, and I quit the team my senior year to do a show. My coach wouldn’t let me out of practice. I wanted to get out of practice an hour, half an hour early for three weeks or something so I could make it to rehearsal. He was just like ‘you need to make a decision,’ so I decided I would get applause without running windsprints. So, I did the theater gig, then that basketball team went on to win the State High School Championship in Indiana when all the schools in the state where competing for that one Championship, and that was enormous.
There’s been like twice, and I’ve said this in monologues in ASSSSCAT before, there’s been twice when I’ve thought about quitting improv or comedy or this business, and because I don’t have a State Championship ring, I feel like I owe it to myself to stick with it. So, if you’re doing the math, I guess that means next fall I will have been doing improv technically for thirty years.
JF: What effect did that high school class have on you? Were you immediately taken with improv?
JB: I liked it a lot. I liked improv because I didn’t have to memorize lines, I guess. I liked the attention. There was a group called the ‘Off Broadripple Company’ that did some sketch and a little bit of improv, and they’d perform around town, and that was what I wanted to be in my Junior year. And I got cast in that my Junior year. Then I had some success and in that and got popular, I guess, that way, and it pretty much sealed the deal. I was pretty into it. That and I also had a cousin who was the lead in ‘Auntie Mame’ and she was so awesome and I was like ‘I want to do that.’ So, that’s the gay part of me. [laughs]
JF: What was your major in college and did you intend to pursue improv while you were there?
JB: I went to Indiana University to study Radio and TV. I ended up being a double minor in Theater and Psychology, and I only did one play while I was down there, but during the summers I was in this improv group in Indianapolis called ‘Mixed Nuts,’ which was mostly made up of radio and TV people that were either in production or sales. And I was kind of the kid in the group. They did basically short form games. I was like a big wise-ass kid, so I kind of wanted to do that. Then I also did other performing stuff.
I guess in my Junior year, at the theater in Indiana, I noticed an audition notice up for an improv group. That’s when I met Mick [Napier] and a guy named Dave MacNerland. They were casting for a group that I ended up getting into, called ‘Double Take’ and that ended up being sort of my comedic obsession my Junior and Senior year. That really was where a lot us that started the Annoyance first found each other. And people like Brian Stack and Paul Gilmartin were down there who didn’t do stuff with us, but were also talented. It was weird that we were all at that same school and how everything worked out.
JF: So, it was more than you and Mick from that group who were involved in starting the Annoyance?
JB: Yeah, it was me and Mick. …Well, we always mention Mick first because he’s the one who put his ass on the line, but it was myself, Mick Napier, Mark Sutton, Faith Soloway, Eric Wadell and Dave MerNerland who were the six who moved up over time to found what ended up becoming the Annoyance.
JF: So, you and Mark Sutton have been together since college, that’s pretty incredible.
JB: Yeah, that’s basically true. Mark actually moved up to Chicago after the rest of us. I was the first to move to Chicago out of our group. I had moved up there to study at Second City, and I was dating Faith at the time and Faith was from Chicago. Then I had a buddy who told me about Del, and I was kind of interested to see what his deal was. So I made a trip up in Senior year to check it out. Between 85 and 87 everybody but Mark had moved up. He ended up marrying his first wife I think in 86, right after he got out of school, and he actually moved to [a town], Indiana, taught high school, and I think he like sold shit that went in food vending machines or something during the summer time. But we didn’t convince him to come up until, I want to say like 88 or so.
JF: So you made the first trek to Chicago in 86 you said?
JB: I moved to Chicago in June of 1985. I got a job at Bush McGuire’s on Division St, then started studying at Second City in July and started studying with Del in like August. That’s back when Second City only had 3 levels and Del and Charna were IO. So I had Charna for like 8 weeks and I had Del for like a year and a half.
I think Del had done Saturday Night Live in 82 or 83 or something like that. He was the guy, with Michael O’Donoghue, I think, who were responsible for trying to bring the subversive and the weird back to SNL. Charna started this whole improv Olympics thing with David Shepard, then David Shepard freaked out, and Charna ended up getting Del. I want to say IO started in 83. I think it was right on the heels of Del leaving Saturday Night Live. I can’t remember exactly, but I know I’m in the ball park. Baron’s Barracudas was the big house team, and I want to say they had been together for two years. Then I was on a team probably by the holidays, so like four or five months after I showed up there.
JF: What was your impression of Chicago improv when you got there, and how was it different from what you guys were doing at Indiana University?
JB: I didn’t really have an impression of it. I thought it was cool. Mick had turned us onto ‘Something Wonderful Right Away,’ so I knew a little bit about the history of the Second City. This guy I knew told me about Del or told me about longform, and told me about ‘the rules,’ the ‘improv rules.’ So, my first class at Second City, I liked it because I was there in the Mecca doing it, but my teacher, who’s like a legend, was Donny Depollo and I didn’t like that he just praised everything. I felt like he was blowing smoke up people’s ass.
I would argue with couple of guys that had been in Chicago about ‘the rules,’ because the way we worked in Indiana there were no rules, you just improvised and made shit up. There was no yesand or whatever. I think that was kind of the beginning of the quote, unquote ‘Annoyance Philosophy,’ which I think it at least partly routed in …it’s take care of yourself first in the scene, which is just another way to take care of your scene partner, basically. I think it kind of came from Mick wanting people just to take care of their shit, not be a pain in the ass, so you could get to work and put a show up.
Del was the most interesting thing to me when I moved up there, because he seemed to be the subversive voice of truth, and Second City seemed to be this sterile, hallowed shrine, that you aspired to have your picture hung in some day. But I was ready to endure whatever and be the advance scout for the people from our school that were moving up here. I think we were all of the mind that we would all reunite in Chicago in a year or two anyway and start performing, because we were fairly successful and popular in college.
JF: Would you say that the group from Indiana University still held onto the same initial beliefs about improv or did they change under the influence of Chicago improvisers?
JB: I did learn the value of ‘the rules.’ I think Mick says in his book, which I’ve grazed but not read, that he doesn’t see any value in learning ‘the rules.’ I see the value of learning ‘the rules’ like as a history lesson. I think that the quote, unquote ‘rules’ worked for people for a long time. It’s kind of like we taught ourselves to play piano by ear, then we had this piano teacher who said ‘no, here’s the way you do it.’ We had just learned to work in a different way, so we didn’t need yesand and all that shit.
But you needed it to advance in the institutions you were performing in, even though IO was in its very, very, very early stages of becoming an institution. You still had to, you know, agree and forward stuff. In fact, I was notorious in my first year for not yesanding, but yesbutting. I’ve gotten over that. Now, I’ve taught at all three places. I teach Harold at IO. I teach the alternate level 5 at IO now. I think my philosophy is still routed in the Annoyance approach, but it’s probably my taste in how I like to do it, how I like to see improv, rather than me thinking it’s right or wrong. I think there’s a number of different ways that you can get people to the same end, which is good scenework and advancing the art.
JF: Do you think that the IO or Second City philosophy of ‘yesand,’ and the Annoyance philosophy of ‘take care of yourself first’ are in conflict or can they complement each other?
JB: I think they absolutely complement each other. I think sometimes Second City and IO have thought that they were in conflict. I think for sure Charna sometimes thought they were in conflict, but I think everyone kind of gets it now. All those philosophical quote, unquote ‘wars’ of the past I think are over, because I think largely through the efforts of the Annoyance. Things were very fraternal in the 90’s. You wore the letters of whatever theater and that’s kind of where you stood. But by the mid-90’s, to the late 90’s, everybody started cross-pollinating. Different people would work at different places, like do an ‘Armando,’ or ‘Donkey improv’ at the Annoyance, which I think was a seminal moment at bringing the Chicago improv together. Or people just knowing each other, drinking together, and doing sets down at the Second City, I think people now get how they are not mutually exclusive.
I think the Annoyance view is more of a macro view, and ‘yesand’ and ‘the game,’ I think that’s more of a Micro view. A lot of ‘take care of yourself’ eliminates the problems that are micromanaged by the rules that have existed for 50 years or more. …All take care of yourself really means is that, the key to any great character in any scene is be confident in your choices and your ability to play with your scene partner. That’s the net effect.
JF: So what was going on with you after you moved to Chicago? Were you performing? Did you continue to taking classes?
JB: I studied at Second City for like a year. I was a member of the first level 5 graduating class at the Conservatory, which was the Training Center back then. That caught me up with some of the people at IO, like David Pasquesi, Pat O’Brien, Bonnie Hunt was in our level 5, Harry Kinowitz, who’s on the radio now, and Mark Herzog who’s a producer, and shit, some guy that was a VJ, Jim Zulevic who just passed, Christina Dunn, like a shit load of people. Great people were in my level 5. I did that and I dug it. It was cool and everything, but still [something was off.]
IO was at Cross Currents at the time, which turned into Cotton Chicago, over by Ann Sather’s on Belmont Avenue. The very first time I started at IO they had a flip chart on the stage before shows. They’d have 2 or 3 groups in each show, and they’d have the group’s name in the left column of the flip chart, then like 3 to 5 categories that you’d judge the groups in. Barron’s Barracudas would always be at the top, and they would always go last, and they would always get the most points. That was sort of left over baggage from David Shepard believing that longform could work with some of the Keith Johnstone ideas, like if you had someone smoothing it together and assigning some kind of competitive score to it.
I don’t believe that Del was necessarily interested in the scoring, but he was definitely intellectually competitive. That’s what I liked about Del. He challenged [you.] I used to think it was a fatal flaw of Del’s to assume that everybody’s equally intelligent, then I realized that it was his way of being demanding, insisting that people value intelligence, not just necessarily being smart, but being well-read, having thoughts, knowing what’s going on in the world, being skeptical, and being able to give voice to subversive shit or whatever.
So, Barron’s Barracuda’s was kicking it pretty fucking hard back then. I saw where you talked to Armando and he said that back in the early days some of the shows were kind of long. That’s for sure. Some of those shows could get pretty f-ing long. But the difference was Barron’s Barracuda’s were allowed to go on longer to kind of go on longer to quote, unquote ‘find it,’ whereas the younger groups would just get cut off. [laughs] That was kind of the scene.
By 1987 most of the people that were going to form the Annoyance had moved up. Mick was like a year, a year and a half behind me. When Mick and Dave Razowski, Tim Meadows and Noah came to IO in like 86, 87, I was on my way out of IO. I did stand-up for a while. I started doing open mics and small rooms in 87. So, when those guys were going through IO, and Mick was meeting the IO people that would blend with the Indiana people to form the Annoyance, I was also doing stand-up. That was when some of the IO people, I think it was Timmy Meadows, started getting picked up by Second City. I want to say that was 87, 88.
The first Annoyance show was upstairs from IO at Cross Currents. That was ‘Splatter Theater,’ but we went by the name ‘Metroform,’ because some of us did a show about this bar called the ‘Metro.’ I don’t think we became ‘The Annoyance’ until we moved in like 1989, or 1990, when we moved ‘Coed Prison Sluts’ into a building that bore that name.
Josh: Where were you born?
Joe: I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1962. My dad was in the automotive business and coached us in sports, and my mom was a teacher.
JF: Indianapolis is a pretty big city, right?
JB: It’s the biggest in Indiana. I want to say it’s like the 15th biggest tv market in America. I guess that’s my reference point for how big a city is or isn’t. [laughs]
JF: What were some early influences on your sense of humor?
JB: The earliest influences were probably George Carlin, Bob Newhart, and Bill Cosby. I remember when George Carlin’s ‘The 7 Words You Can’t Say on TV’ came out and that was like fucking earthshaking. My mom was also the principal in C.C.D. and I guess that’s the first time I realized [how powerful comedy could be.]
I was also a big Rocky and Bullwinkle fan. I loved that, but I think I only loved it from a kid’s perspective. It was kind of funny and goofy, and didn’t get the adult humor in it, but I think when I started watching George Carlin the light went off over my head that comedy could be subversive and challenging, as well as straight out funny. So, it kind of made me go back and watch Rocky and Bullwinkle differently, and think that maybe there was another message that I wasn’t getting. He really opened my eyes.
In 5th or 6th grade, I heard Richard Pryor for the first time. I was also watching Monty Python and Benny Hill and Dave Allen, and that’s when I went, ‘yeah, man, this is something I’m totally into.’
JF: Have you tried to be subversive with your own comedy?
JB: Um, I don’t know if it’s necessarily subversive, as much as it is like challenging.… Well, fuck, I’m assuming we’ll talk about the Annoyance in a little bit, but the Annoyance was always branded as subversive theater, and being one of the co-founders of that I suppose subversion was in my cards or on my menu.
I remember George Carlin doing the riddle about asking the Priest ‘if God is so powerful, can he make a rock that’s so big that even he himself cannot lift it.’ I loved that, because I hated the dictatorial, ‘shut-up and believe it’ nature of the Catholic dogma that was being shoved down my throat at the time. So, I guess that’s a long way of saying ‘yes, I have let it flavor my comedy.’ [laughs]
JF: How did you get involved with improv?
JB: I took my first improv class in theater class in my first semester of sophomore year [in high school] in 1977. We learned improv games, like freeze tag, ‘emotional rollercoaster,’ which is like ‘emotion option’ now. We would do silent scenes. They called it improv mimes. Those are the ones that stick out.
I started out there and my high school in Indianapolis ended up becoming the performing arts magnet school in Indy, but that was after I left. But even at the time it was a very popular school for theater. That’s when I ended up quitting my basketball team. I was captain of the team my junior year, and I quit the team my senior year to do a show. My coach wouldn’t let me out of practice. I wanted to get out of practice an hour, half an hour early for three weeks or something so I could make it to rehearsal. He was just like ‘you need to make a decision,’ so I decided I would get applause without running windsprints. So, I did the theater gig, then that basketball team went on to win the State High School Championship in Indiana when all the schools in the state where competing for that one Championship, and that was enormous.
There’s been like twice, and I’ve said this in monologues in ASSSSCAT before, there’s been twice when I’ve thought about quitting improv or comedy or this business, and because I don’t have a State Championship ring, I feel like I owe it to myself to stick with it. So, if you’re doing the math, I guess that means next fall I will have been doing improv technically for thirty years.
JF: What effect did that high school class have on you? Were you immediately taken with improv?
JB: I liked it a lot. I liked improv because I didn’t have to memorize lines, I guess. I liked the attention. There was a group called the ‘Off Broadripple Company’ that did some sketch and a little bit of improv, and they’d perform around town, and that was what I wanted to be in my Junior year. And I got cast in that my Junior year. Then I had some success and in that and got popular, I guess, that way, and it pretty much sealed the deal. I was pretty into it. That and I also had a cousin who was the lead in ‘Auntie Mame’ and she was so awesome and I was like ‘I want to do that.’ So, that’s the gay part of me. [laughs]
JF: What was your major in college and did you intend to pursue improv while you were there?
JB: I went to Indiana University to study Radio and TV. I ended up being a double minor in Theater and Psychology, and I only did one play while I was down there, but during the summers I was in this improv group in Indianapolis called ‘Mixed Nuts,’ which was mostly made up of radio and TV people that were either in production or sales. And I was kind of the kid in the group. They did basically short form games. I was like a big wise-ass kid, so I kind of wanted to do that. Then I also did other performing stuff.
I guess in my Junior year, at the theater in Indiana, I noticed an audition notice up for an improv group. That’s when I met Mick [Napier] and a guy named Dave MacNerland. They were casting for a group that I ended up getting into, called ‘Double Take’ and that ended up being sort of my comedic obsession my Junior and Senior year. That really was where a lot us that started the Annoyance first found each other. And people like Brian Stack and Paul Gilmartin were down there who didn’t do stuff with us, but were also talented. It was weird that we were all at that same school and how everything worked out.
JF: So, it was more than you and Mick from that group who were involved in starting the Annoyance?
JB: Yeah, it was me and Mick. …Well, we always mention Mick first because he’s the one who put his ass on the line, but it was myself, Mick Napier, Mark Sutton, Faith Soloway, Eric Wadell and Dave MerNerland who were the six who moved up over time to found what ended up becoming the Annoyance.
JF: So, you and Mark Sutton have been together since college, that’s pretty incredible.
JB: Yeah, that’s basically true. Mark actually moved up to Chicago after the rest of us. I was the first to move to Chicago out of our group. I had moved up there to study at Second City, and I was dating Faith at the time and Faith was from Chicago. Then I had a buddy who told me about Del, and I was kind of interested to see what his deal was. So I made a trip up in Senior year to check it out. Between 85 and 87 everybody but Mark had moved up. He ended up marrying his first wife I think in 86, right after he got out of school, and he actually moved to [a town], Indiana, taught high school, and I think he like sold shit that went in food vending machines or something during the summer time. But we didn’t convince him to come up until, I want to say like 88 or so.
JF: So you made the first trek to Chicago in 86 you said?
JB: I moved to Chicago in June of 1985. I got a job at Bush McGuire’s on Division St, then started studying at Second City in July and started studying with Del in like August. That’s back when Second City only had 3 levels and Del and Charna were IO. So I had Charna for like 8 weeks and I had Del for like a year and a half.
I think Del had done Saturday Night Live in 82 or 83 or something like that. He was the guy, with Michael O’Donoghue, I think, who were responsible for trying to bring the subversive and the weird back to SNL. Charna started this whole improv Olympics thing with David Shepard, then David Shepard freaked out, and Charna ended up getting Del. I want to say IO started in 83. I think it was right on the heels of Del leaving Saturday Night Live. I can’t remember exactly, but I know I’m in the ball park. Baron’s Barracudas was the big house team, and I want to say they had been together for two years. Then I was on a team probably by the holidays, so like four or five months after I showed up there.
JF: What was your impression of Chicago improv when you got there, and how was it different from what you guys were doing at Indiana University?
JB: I didn’t really have an impression of it. I thought it was cool. Mick had turned us onto ‘Something Wonderful Right Away,’ so I knew a little bit about the history of the Second City. This guy I knew told me about Del or told me about longform, and told me about ‘the rules,’ the ‘improv rules.’ So, my first class at Second City, I liked it because I was there in the Mecca doing it, but my teacher, who’s like a legend, was Donny Depollo and I didn’t like that he just praised everything. I felt like he was blowing smoke up people’s ass.
I would argue with couple of guys that had been in Chicago about ‘the rules,’ because the way we worked in Indiana there were no rules, you just improvised and made shit up. There was no yesand or whatever. I think that was kind of the beginning of the quote, unquote ‘Annoyance Philosophy,’ which I think it at least partly routed in …it’s take care of yourself first in the scene, which is just another way to take care of your scene partner, basically. I think it kind of came from Mick wanting people just to take care of their shit, not be a pain in the ass, so you could get to work and put a show up.
Del was the most interesting thing to me when I moved up there, because he seemed to be the subversive voice of truth, and Second City seemed to be this sterile, hallowed shrine, that you aspired to have your picture hung in some day. But I was ready to endure whatever and be the advance scout for the people from our school that were moving up here. I think we were all of the mind that we would all reunite in Chicago in a year or two anyway and start performing, because we were fairly successful and popular in college.
JF: Would you say that the group from Indiana University still held onto the same initial beliefs about improv or did they change under the influence of Chicago improvisers?
JB: I did learn the value of ‘the rules.’ I think Mick says in his book, which I’ve grazed but not read, that he doesn’t see any value in learning ‘the rules.’ I see the value of learning ‘the rules’ like as a history lesson. I think that the quote, unquote ‘rules’ worked for people for a long time. It’s kind of like we taught ourselves to play piano by ear, then we had this piano teacher who said ‘no, here’s the way you do it.’ We had just learned to work in a different way, so we didn’t need yesand and all that shit.
But you needed it to advance in the institutions you were performing in, even though IO was in its very, very, very early stages of becoming an institution. You still had to, you know, agree and forward stuff. In fact, I was notorious in my first year for not yesanding, but yesbutting. I’ve gotten over that. Now, I’ve taught at all three places. I teach Harold at IO. I teach the alternate level 5 at IO now. I think my philosophy is still routed in the Annoyance approach, but it’s probably my taste in how I like to do it, how I like to see improv, rather than me thinking it’s right or wrong. I think there’s a number of different ways that you can get people to the same end, which is good scenework and advancing the art.
JF: Do you think that the IO or Second City philosophy of ‘yesand,’ and the Annoyance philosophy of ‘take care of yourself first’ are in conflict or can they complement each other?
JB: I think they absolutely complement each other. I think sometimes Second City and IO have thought that they were in conflict. I think for sure Charna sometimes thought they were in conflict, but I think everyone kind of gets it now. All those philosophical quote, unquote ‘wars’ of the past I think are over, because I think largely through the efforts of the Annoyance. Things were very fraternal in the 90’s. You wore the letters of whatever theater and that’s kind of where you stood. But by the mid-90’s, to the late 90’s, everybody started cross-pollinating. Different people would work at different places, like do an ‘Armando,’ or ‘Donkey improv’ at the Annoyance, which I think was a seminal moment at bringing the Chicago improv together. Or people just knowing each other, drinking together, and doing sets down at the Second City, I think people now get how they are not mutually exclusive.
I think the Annoyance view is more of a macro view, and ‘yesand’ and ‘the game,’ I think that’s more of a Micro view. A lot of ‘take care of yourself’ eliminates the problems that are micromanaged by the rules that have existed for 50 years or more. …All take care of yourself really means is that, the key to any great character in any scene is be confident in your choices and your ability to play with your scene partner. That’s the net effect.
JF: So what was going on with you after you moved to Chicago? Were you performing? Did you continue to taking classes?
JB: I studied at Second City for like a year. I was a member of the first level 5 graduating class at the Conservatory, which was the Training Center back then. That caught me up with some of the people at IO, like David Pasquesi, Pat O’Brien, Bonnie Hunt was in our level 5, Harry Kinowitz, who’s on the radio now, and Mark Herzog who’s a producer, and shit, some guy that was a VJ, Jim Zulevic who just passed, Christina Dunn, like a shit load of people. Great people were in my level 5. I did that and I dug it. It was cool and everything, but still [something was off.]
IO was at Cross Currents at the time, which turned into Cotton Chicago, over by Ann Sather’s on Belmont Avenue. The very first time I started at IO they had a flip chart on the stage before shows. They’d have 2 or 3 groups in each show, and they’d have the group’s name in the left column of the flip chart, then like 3 to 5 categories that you’d judge the groups in. Barron’s Barracudas would always be at the top, and they would always go last, and they would always get the most points. That was sort of left over baggage from David Shepard believing that longform could work with some of the Keith Johnstone ideas, like if you had someone smoothing it together and assigning some kind of competitive score to it.
I don’t believe that Del was necessarily interested in the scoring, but he was definitely intellectually competitive. That’s what I liked about Del. He challenged [you.] I used to think it was a fatal flaw of Del’s to assume that everybody’s equally intelligent, then I realized that it was his way of being demanding, insisting that people value intelligence, not just necessarily being smart, but being well-read, having thoughts, knowing what’s going on in the world, being skeptical, and being able to give voice to subversive shit or whatever.
So, Barron’s Barracuda’s was kicking it pretty fucking hard back then. I saw where you talked to Armando and he said that back in the early days some of the shows were kind of long. That’s for sure. Some of those shows could get pretty f-ing long. But the difference was Barron’s Barracuda’s were allowed to go on longer to kind of go on longer to quote, unquote ‘find it,’ whereas the younger groups would just get cut off. [laughs] That was kind of the scene.
By 1987 most of the people that were going to form the Annoyance had moved up. Mick was like a year, a year and a half behind me. When Mick and Dave Razowski, Tim Meadows and Noah came to IO in like 86, 87, I was on my way out of IO. I did stand-up for a while. I started doing open mics and small rooms in 87. So, when those guys were going through IO, and Mick was meeting the IO people that would blend with the Indiana people to form the Annoyance, I was also doing stand-up. That was when some of the IO people, I think it was Timmy Meadows, started getting picked up by Second City. I want to say that was 87, 88.
The first Annoyance show was upstairs from IO at Cross Currents. That was ‘Splatter Theater,’ but we went by the name ‘Metroform,’ because some of us did a show about this bar called the ‘Metro.’ I don’t think we became ‘The Annoyance’ until we moved in like 1989, or 1990, when we moved ‘Coed Prison Sluts’ into a building that bore that name.
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