Watch or listen to the stand-up comedy special 'Comedy Central Presents Mitch Hedberg' (1999) by Mitch Hedberg on Comedy Buff. Transcript available.

Mitch Hedberg

Comedy Central Presents Mitch Hedberg

Tonight, from the palace in Hollywood, California, Comedy Central presents, Mitch Hedberg. Thank you. Hey, welcome to my half-hour special. Does anybody know who I am? Why did a bunch of people who don't know who I am show at my special? I used to live here in Los Angeles on Sierra Bonita, and I had an apartment, and I had a neighbor, and whenever he would knock on my wall, I knew he wanted me to turn my music down, and that made me angry because I liked loud music.
So when he knocked on the wall, I'd mess with his head. I'd say, go around. I cannot open the wall. I don't know if you have a doorknob on the other side, but over here, there's nothing. It's just flat. I like an escalator, man, because an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign. Only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
I rent a lot of cars, you know, because I go on the road, I rent cars, and when I drive a rental car, I don't know what's going on with it, right? So a lot of times, I drive, like, for 10 miles with the emergency brake on. That doesn't say a lot for me, but it really doesn't say a lot for the emergency brake. It's really not an emergency brake. It's an emergency make-the-car-smell-funny lever. You know, you can't please all the people all the time, and last night, all those people were at my show.
To do this show, I had to, like, take a physical. They asked me a bunch of medical questions, and they were, like, yes and no questions, but they were very strangely worded. Like, have you ever tried sugar or PCP? When I was a stand-up comedian, I got into comedy to do comedy, which is weird, I know. But when you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things besides comedy.
They say, all right, you're a stand-up comedian. Can you act? Can you write? Write us a script. They want me to do things that's related to comedy, but not comedy. That's not fair. It's as though if I was a cook and I worked my ass off to become a good cook. They said, all right, you're a cook. Can you farm? This show's going all right, I guess. I'm trying to feel it out. I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one, so I got a cake.
I went to a concert in New York City where I live. It was a heavy metal band called Monster Magnet. They were heavy, boy. The singer had no shirt on and leather pants, and he was playing like a flying V guitar. And he stood on the monitor and he yells at the crowd. He said, how many of you people feel like human beings tonight? And then he said, how many of you people feel like animals? And the thing is, everyone cheered after the animals part.
But I cheered after the human beings part because I did not know there was a second part to the question. I said, yes, I do feel like a human. I do not feel like a tree. I don't have a girlfriend. I just know a girl who would get really mad if she heard me say that. I got into an argument with a girlfriend inside of a tent. That's a bad place for an argument because then I tried to walk out and slam the flap.
How are you supposed to express your anger in this situation? Zipper it up really quick. I like to drink before the show. I have a couple drinks before I go on stage. Every time people applaud, I'm always going, no, no, no, hold on. But alcoholism is a disease. But it's like the only disease that you can get yelled at for having. Provocative. Dammit, Otto, you're an alcoholic. Dammit, Otto, you have lupus.
One of those two doesn't sound right. I want to be a race car passenger. Just a guy who bugs the driver. Say, man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Well, we got to keep going in circles. Man, you really like Tide. I play golf. I'm not good at golf. I never got good. I never got a hole in one. But I did hit a guy. And that's way more satisfying. You're supposed to yell four. But I was too busy mumbling.
There ain't no way that's going to hit him. I bought a donut and they gave me a receipt for the donut. I don't need a receipt for a donut. I'll just give you the money. You give me the donut. And the transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I just can't imagine a scenario where I'd have to prove that I bought a donut. Some skeptical friend. Don't even act like I didn't get that donut.
I got the documentation right here. Oh wait, it's back home in the five. Under D. For donut. We all know what D is. I like baked potatoes, man. I don't have a microwave oven. It takes forever to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I'll just throw one in there. Even if I don't want one. But by the time it's done, who knows? I throw a potato in it and go on vacation. My friend did this to me.
My friend came up to me and he said this. He said, hey, you know what I like? Mashed potatoes. It's like, dude, you got to give me time to guess. If you're going to quiz me, you must put a pause in there. I had a box of Ritz crackers. And on the back of the box of Ritz crackers, I had all these suggestions as to what to put on top of the Ritz. So try it with turkey and cheese. Try it with peanut butter.
Oh, come on, man. They're crackers. That's why I got them. I like crackers. Now, there ain't no suggestion. Put a Ritz on top of Ritz. I didn't buy them because they're little edible plates. Sometimes I go to, like, a craft fair. I see a jar of jelly beans. It says, guess how many jelly beans are in the jar? And you win a prize. Oh, come on, man. Let me just have some. I'll tell you what. You guess how many I want.
If you said a handful, you are right. I have two sisters, and one of them is named Wendy. And if you asked Wendy if I was weird, she'd probably say, yeah. But that's backwards, because she's weird. Because she has, like, a husband and two children. And they have a family photo on top of their VCR. Well, they're all looking slightly to the left. As though something is going on over there. The camera is right in front of you.
But I guess something happened to the left that made everybody happy. They said, my sister is cross-eyed. So she can't quite pull it off. One eye is right on. I was at a casino. I was standing by the door. And a security guard came over. He said, you're going to have to move. You're blocking the fire exit. As though if there was a fire, I wasn't going to run. If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.
I hate turkeys. If you go to the grocery store and you're standing in front of the lunch meat section for too long, you start to get pissed off at turkeys. You see, like, turkey ham, turkey pastrami, turkey bologna. Somebody needs to tell the turkeys, man, just be yourself. I already like you, little brother. You do not need to emulate the other animals. You got your own thing going. I used to draw you.
You know, if you had a couple fingers missing, you would draw a screwed up turkey. That turkey was in an accident. I go to a lot of bars when I'm in the world. A lot of bars have black lights. And when a bar has black lights, everybody looks very cool. Except for me. Because I was under the impression that the mustard stain came out. I think Pizza Hut is the cockiest pizza chain on the planet. Because Pizza Hut will accept all competitors' coupons.
That makes me wish I had my own pizza place. Mitch's Pizzeria. This week's coupon, unlimited free pizza. Special note, coupon out, go to any of the Mitch's Pizza locations. Free pizza oven with purchase. I was small coke. Two for Tuesday. Buy one pizza, get one franchise free. Whenever I walk, people try to hand me out flyers. And when someone tries to hand me out a flyer, it's kind of like they're saying, I can't floss my teeth, man.
I can't get into the flossing thing. People who smoke cigarettes, they say, man, you don't know how hard it is to quit smoking. Yes, I do. It's as hard as it is to start flossing. You seem jittery. Yeah, I'm about to floss. I like cinnamon rolls. That's why I wish they made like a cinnamon roll incense. Because I don't always have time to make a pan. Perhaps I'd rather light a stick. And then have my roommates wake up with false hopes.
I played in a death metal band. People either loved us or they hated us. Or they thought we were okay. A lot of death metal bands have intense names like rigor mortis or mortuary or obituary. We weren't that intense. We just went with injured. Later on, we changed it to acapella. As we were walking out of the pawn shop. I smoke cigars at kids. I don't know a lot about cigars. Like a man at the cigar store, the man behind the counter says, what kind of cigars do you like?
Uh, it's a boy's. I was at a bar. I was minding my own business. No one was talking to me because I just did a show. This guy bumped into me, which is cool, but he didn't apologize. He said, move. And I thought that was rude, so I said, go to hell. Then I started to run. He caught up with me. He had a mustache, a goatee, a pair of earrings, a pair of sunglasses. His hair was in a ponytail, and he was wearing a hat.
He said, hey, you got a lot of nerve. I said, hey, you got a lot of cranium accessories. This is a smart crowd. When I played the dumb crowds, I had to say, you got a lot of on your head. Acid was my favorite drug. Acid opened up my mind. It expanded my mind. Because of acid, I now know that butter is way better than margarine. I saw through the bulls**t. When I was on acid, I would see things like beams of light.
And I would hear sounds that sounded an awful lot like car horns. When we were on acid, we were going to the woods because when you're in the woods tripping, there's less likely a chance he'd run into an authority figure. But we ran into a bear. That was even more of a buzz kill. My friend Dwayne was standing there raising his right hand, swearing to help prevent forest fires. We got him away from the bear.
He put his arm around my shoulder. He said, Mitchell, Smokey is way more intense in person. I went to England to tell jokes, and I wanted to do my Smokey the Bear joke in England. So I had to ask the English people if they know who Smokey the Bear was. But they don't. Because in England, Smokey the Bear is not the forest fire prevention representative. They have smackied the frog. It's a lot like a bear, but it's a frog.
And I think that's a better system. I think we should adopt it. Because bears can be mean. But frogs are always cool. Like never has there been a frog hopping toward me. And I thought, man, I better play dead. Here comes that frog. I've never said here comes that frog in a horrifying manner. It's always like optimistic. Like, hey, here comes that frog. All right. Maybe he will settle near me. And I can pet him.
And put him in a mayonnaise jar. With a stick and a leaf. To recreate what he's used to. I wear v-neck shirts always. This is a v-neck I got on. My neck is so fragile, man. I can't wear a regular neck shirt. It hurts. And I especially hate turtlenecks. Like, wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy. All day. Like, if you wear a turtleneck and a backpack, it's like a weak midget trying to bring you down.
You know when you go to a restaurant on the weekends, it gets busy, so they start a waiting list. They start calling out names. They say, like, Dufresne, party of two. Table ready for Dufresne, party of two. And if no one answers, they'll say the name again. Dufresne, party of two. But then if no one answers, they'll just go right on to the next name. Bush, party of three. Yeah, but what happened to the Dufresnes?
No one seems to care. Who can eat at a time like this? People are missing. You people are selfish. The Dufresnes are in someone's trunk right now with duct tape over their mouth. And they're hungry. That's a double whammy. We need help. Bush, search party of three. You can eat once you find the Dufresnes. I think Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day t