Q&A: Jim Gaffigan may look ordinary, but his comedy is anything but
An enormously successful comedian, actor and author who has opened for the pope, Jim Gaffigan is also the star of TV Land’s “The Jim Gaffigan Show,” in which he plays a less enormously successful version of himself: a middle-aged, lazily observant Catholic comic living in lower Manhattan with his large family. The series’ second season concludes Sunday.
Gaffigan, who writes the show with wife Jeannie Gaffigan (played onscreen by Ashley Williams), is rightfully proud of it. But he worries a little that “the adjectives you would use to describe me – comedian, clean, five kids, likes food, Catholic – all those things are possibly the most unsexy descriptions, things that would make a lot of people go, ‘No thank you.’ But the show is not that.” In fact, it’s a smart, dry and delightful mix of old-fashioned dopey-dad sitcom and meta-fictional experimental comedy, studded with guest shots and cameos that this season included Jerry Seinfeld, Will Ferrell, Tig Notaro, John Mulaney and New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan (as a bartender).
“I wanted every story to have an impact,” Gaffigan, 50, told me recently in the midst of his “Fully Dressed” tour. “I wanted it to say something a little more than ‘Jim loses a pair of shoes.’”
Q: You play your dad in a couple of episodes this season. Is that a good impression?
A: It’s a good impression. It’s exaggerated. I mean, he’s the pre-Phil Donahue dad. He was definitely gruff, but it was the era of children should be seen, not heard. You had kids for a lawn crew. Kids were kind of a nuisance. It’s not the dad of today. I’m sure he never changed a diaper. And he never felt any guilt about it.
It’s interesting because we wrote a book, my wife and I, “Dad Is Fat,” and we wrote about my dad. And I sent the initial version of the essay to my brother, and he was like, “What the hell, Jimmy?” And I was like, “What?” And he’s like, “This is just mean.” But it’s point of view, right? It’s from the child’s point of view.
Q: When did you start writing with your wife?
A: I guess about 14, 15 years ago. She was running an inner-city theater program, and I had met her a couple of days before and saw her directing 100 eighth-graders with the help of a friend or two, and I was pretty impressed. But I was very reluctant to – I mean, I know some comedians that get so successful they just hire writers, but it’s a very personal thing. Even when another comedian will give you a line, you’re usually like, “Yeah, that’s not going to work.”
I knew I was dating her because I thought she was funny, but I didn’t imagine that we would be this writing team that would write books and eventually episodes of shows. Initially, it was bouncing around a joke or two, and then her saying, “I really have a problem with this joke – it doesn’t work, it’s not clear.” So some of it was directing, but I think when we were writing the books, that’s when it really kind of reached its peaks. In the television show, we have battles, but we can really kind of figure it out.
Q: One episode this year, “The Trial” – in which you’re thrown into Social Outrage Jail and found guilty of being “a dumb, ignorant, stupid, white guy” – is based on the overwhelmingly negative reaction to an actual tweet of yours from 2013: “Ladies I hope getting your nails done feels good because not a single man notices you got them done.”
A: There are moments where you’re like, “Oh, I don’t want to be famous; I don’t want to be under the microscope at all.” I enjoy the fact that people like my stuff, but I’m certainly not a flamethrower. But comedians do have a tendency to be flamethrowers, to say outlandish things. Still, I wanted that episode to be less about the crime and more about the punishment. It’s like, we’re all reasonable here; we don’t want to be sexist or homophobic, but if we step into it, we can go, “Hey, sorry, my bad,” and people should say, “OK.” But every now and then, people are like, “No.”
Q: In the episode “The List,” after not making a list of the hundred best comics in New York, you go deep into Queens and the depths of alternative comedy. Do you feel commonality with 20-year-olds, that they get you? Or is there a new kind of comedy that’s funny in a different way from what you do.
A: What I love about stand-up, and I’m going to eventually contradict myself, is that it’s a meritocracy. You either do it and you’re good at it and the crowd responds and they come and see you, or you don’t. There might be flashes in the pan that are big for about a year, but in the end, it is a meritocracy.
There are kind of these waves. When I started in stand-up, there were maybe 80 comedians in New York City – maybe. And everyone knew everyone. And now it’s grown exponentially. So there’s times I go into clubs, and I’m a comedian, and I don’t know any of the comedians. And that’s very strange. And there are references that are just lost on some people. The age thing, it’s weird because I think in your 20s, everyone’s all the same age, it seems like; and your 30s and 40s, it’s all the same. But it reaches a point where it’s like, “Oh, wait a minute, I’ve been doing this for 25 years.”
I did a benefit with Ricky Gervais, and I got offstage, and he goes, “Oh, you’re just out there doing jokes.” I go, “Yeah. That’s what I do. That’s what all of us do.” In the end, it’s the Borscht Belt show in the Catskills. It’s either funny or it’s not, you do the job or you don’t.