Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.

At this point in his career, Eric Andre is almost a household name. He was in that last Jackass

movie, made a prank movie of his own called Bad Trip. If you haven't seen that, it is

hilarious. He even played Azizzi Bahayina in the Lion King. He is also the host of the

Eric Andre show. It was his first big project starting in 2012 and it's coming back in

June on Adult Swim. The Eric Andre show is a talk show, but it is almost a reverse talk

show. By which I mean this. Usually, the point of a talk show is to make guests comfortable.

Eric Andre's greatest pleasure seems to be to make those guests squirm or make the audience

squirm. Great talk show hosts are always in control and Eric Andre always seems to be

veering off a cliff. I talked to Eric Andre a decade ago when the Eric Andre show was brand

new. At the top of every episode, there's a montage of Andre literally deconstructing

his set, destroying it with his body. Also, eating glass, spitting blood, just sort of freaking

the heck out while a jazz combo plays the show's opening theme song.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Eric Andre show!

Eric Andre, welcome to Bullseye. It's great to have you on this show. Thanks for having me.

So this is like a defining characteristic of your television program. You flinging yourself

into things and physically hurting yourself and destroying. I'm sacrificing my body for comedy.

Everything around you. Where did this part of the show come from?

I don't know. I don't know what like this spark of inspiration was. I'm like a big,

a big GGL fan in high school. I was into jackass and the CKY videos that those guys made

beforehand. I was into bad brains and just going to punk shows and stuff like that.

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