Comedy Central show plays off 'The Office' setting with hilarious, real-life experiences
For Blake Anderson, Adam DeVine and Anders Holm, the stars of Comedy Central’s “Workaholics,” the network’s Tuesday night slacker TV show, life is a party.
Their characters on the show are named after the actors and their antics — living the college party life and disregarding the restraints of their working lives as much as possible — and based loosely on their real lives.
When asked Thursday afternoon what they liked most about working with Comedy Central, the unanimous response from the show’s founders and stars was twofold: “free beer” and “free catering.”
The three, along with co-creator and director Kyle Newacheck, held a press conference over the phone with college newspapers across the country, ranging from UC Santa Barbara to Cornell to South Carolina.
Holm said he sometimes had trouble remembering which real-life experiences had been turned into situations written into the show.
“We juice them up a little bit for TV,” Holm said. “But that’s what makes the characters seem real — stuff from real life. Last week’s episode (“Totally Sober for a Week”), where we woke up hungover and couldn’t remember what we’d done the night before — everyone’s done that.”
“Have I dyed my hair?” he asked, with a silence to imply it had been embellished.
Viewers of the show’s first season this spring saw the lovable trio try to pass a drug test at work, attempt to impress girls, trip ’shrooms and go on strike for not being allowed to celebrate “Half-Christmas,” among other hilarious behavior. This season has been no different; in the most recent episode the three swear off alcohol for a week and end up having a sock puppet argument in a therapist’s office.
“In season two, we do a lot of the same,” Holm said. “We’ve got some cool guests — Taco (Bennett of alternative hip-hop group Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All), Lawnmower Man — we’ve been meeting some heroes of ours, so that’s been really cool.”
When asked to compare the show’s brand of comedy to other situational office comedy shows and movies like NBC’s “The Office” and “Office Space” (1999), the three again showed off their smart-aleck humor.
“It’s the exact same,” Holm answered. “If you like ‘The Office,’ you’ll like our show. It’s ‘Office Space’ meets ‘The Office.’”
“There’s an office,” DeVine said. “There’s people in the office working.”
“We all have a stapler,” Anderson added as they all laughed. “Heavy on the stapler.”
“There’s one here somewhere,” DeVine said as they could be heard opening and slamming drawers. “There’s a silver one. Right here.”
On a more serious note, they said Larry Davis was a main influence, and Anderson added that he likes cartoons and that they direct his humor to some extent.
“[I like] anything that uses imagination and creativity,” he said. “I’m a fan of seeing people take risk. Even stuff that’s not even comedians, the ‘Jackass’ dudes — it’s fun to watch people have fun.”
The conversation jumped around from topic to topic: Amy Winehouse’s death, each of the three’s previous jobs, the show’s airing after “Tosh.0,” the effects of fame (including a stage-five clinger in Wisconsin), each’s favorite James Bond actor and Anderson’s hair were all touched on, with all three weighing in humorously.
Their advice for college students was to “stay in school — don’t ever leave it.”
“More important than going to class — make friendships,” Devine said seriously.
He said those friendships can sometimes become more important than your major when it comes time to get a job in the future.
As for the future of the show, Holm said he doesn’t know what it will hold.
“We’ll do this as long as it’s fun,” he said. “This is something you build to over a career; the weird thing is I’m already doing it.”
“Workaholics” airs Tuesday nights at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central after “Tosh.0.”