Comedian Eugene Mirman

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're joined by comedian Eugene Mirman! The comedian and writer has opened for comedy duo Flight of the Conchords and played Yvgeny Mirminsky on Adult Swim's Delocated. He is also the voice of "Gene Belcher" on the popular Fox animated series Bob's Burgers. We'll talk about his latest project, a documentary titled It Started as a Joke. It's about Brooklyn's alt comedy scene as well as a personal story about his family. Eugene joins Bullseye to discuss dealing with grief, defining space in his life for silliness and why community is so important to him. All that and more on the next Bullseye!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:13.2	I'm Jesse Thorn, it's Bullseye.
0:22.2	Oddsart, you know Eugene Merman by his voice.
0:24.8	He plays Gene on Bog's burgers.
0:26.8	He was also on Adult Swims de-located where he played Yevgeny Mirminski, a Russian hitman
0:32.8	and aspiring stand-up.
0:34.8	In real life, he's a great stand-up comedian.
0:37.8	For 10 years, he ran the Eugene Merman Comedy Festival in New York City.
0:42.6	The festival was absurd and brilliant.
0:44.8	There was the time that Ira Glass got super hammered on stage.
0:48.8	There were sessions with a licensed therapist in a bouncy house.
0:53.8	The history of the festival is recounted in the new documentary it started as a joke.
0:58.8	In it, comics like Kristen Shaw, Camel Nanjiani and Reggie Watts talk about how Brooklyn's
1:04.0	alt comedy scene grew up around the festival.
1:07.8	But it's also a story about Eugene and his family.
1:10.8	When a lot of his friends moved to LA, he stayed behind on the East Coast.
1:14.8	His wife, Katie, was battling cancer.
1:17.8	She died earlier this year.
1:19.8	It's a beautiful touching documentary with plenty of laughs to make things go down a little easier.
1:25.8	Here's a bit of Eugene Merman performing stand-up at the final farewell show at the Eugene
1:30.8	Merman Comedy Festival.
1:32.8	The bread and wine recently told me that when we were in elementary school, our teacher told her
	...

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