How the most ‘incompetent talk show host’ gets guests
LOS ANGELES >> “The Eric Andre Show” is ostensibly not a series that lends itself to longevity. Its titular star, who plays a version of himself and satirizes talk shows by putting unsuspecting celebrity guests through hellish interviews, has become considerably more famous since the series first aired over a decade ago.
But through a combination of disguises and an artfully deceptive booking team, Andre is gearing up for the premiere of the sixth season this Sunday on Adult Swim, boasting a star-studded list of guests in the episodes to come, including Lil Nas X, Natasha Lyonne and Jon Hamm.
“We used to worry about, like, ‘Oh, am I going to be more recognizable?’” Andre said of his increasing fame, eventually realizing it doesn’t take much to fool people. “I disguised myself a lot this season. I rocked the ponytail and the glasses, and I would wear COVID masks sometimes.”
There is a kind of poetic, albeit sadistic, justice that comes from watching the cult show make the most envied in society the butt of its joke, including high-profile names over the years like Seth Rogen, Demi Lovato, Dennis Rodman and Judy Greer.
A few — including Lauren Conrad and T.I. — have walked off in disgust or indignation. But that number is surprisingly low given that Andre often keeps guests in emotional and physical discomfort for an hour or more, only to edit interviews down to mere minutes.
“I’m in character,” Andre explained. “I’m trying to just be the most absurd and incompetent talk show host of all time.”
Once celebrities are brought on the “talk show,” their egos are subjected to all kinds of abasements, both through Andre’s absurd line of questioning and through physical pranks — some unbeknownst to viewers and only revealed later by former guests.
“It’s a break from the kind of fictitious propaganda of traditional press, I think,” he theorized, mocking actors and the stories they share on actual latenight talk shows. “They’re like, ‘Hey, you know, on set, George Clooney played a prank on me,’ or whatever. They have some anecdote from set. It feels — people can smell it’s a little inauthentic.”
Part of what makes the pranks so impressive is Andre’s ability to pull them off, even when guests become visibly angry and sometimes threatening toward him.
“I’m calculating every next step,” the comedian said of what goes through his mind during the interviews. “I don’t want to laugh. I’ve done so much work and so much prep has gone into bringing that prank into production that I don’t want to be the one that blows it.”
Despite the fact that even he is not particularly comfortable with it, Andre’s antics often at some point involve nudity — either by him or the show’s infamous “naked PA” — a move that frequently pushes guests over the edge.
“You gotta do what it takes,” Andre, ever the showman, explained. “There’s not a lot of things that are like completely jaw- dropping shocking. So, nudity is just kind of like a guaranteed reaction.”
Although he denies outright lying to get people on the show, he concedes he and the bookers frequently “bend the truth,” and then come up with elaborate schemes to prevent publicists from seeing the torturous pranks they unknowingly walked their clients into.