Brendon Small – It’s A Small World

Q) What are the current projects that you are working on?

A) I am working on right now a show called “Deathclock.” It’s an animated show for Adult Swim and it’s all about metal. It’s about this half American and half Norwegian band. They are brand new to metal and they are the biggest band ever. There is going to be a lot of murder, it’s going to be very loud and there is tons of original music.

Q) “Home Movies” is starting to air again on Adult Swim. How does that make you feel, especially after saying in a recent interview that you didn’t see it fitting into their lineup?

A) I don’t think it really fits into their lineup. I don’t know why they are airing it now. They sometimes air it and sometimes they don’t just because they have it sitting there. I have no idea! I talk to Adult Swim all the time and I am working with them on this new show. I think it sticks out like a sore thumb. I think that’s what I said, but I am not sure. I am glad their airing it! I think “Home Movies” was a very unique show and that most people who know about it like it simply because Adult Swim has aired it so many times that they’ve gotten used to how odd it is. You kind of have to learn how to watch the show. It’s not like a regular show. At first, some people think it’s just boring conversation, not that it isn’t, but it takes a little getting used to.

Q) Where did you get ideas for your storylines?

A) Most of the stuff I drew was from me growing up or me being an adult, anything that I had some kind of connection with. I don’t think I could write anything that I don’t really know about; otherwise, I’d be kind of lying. The episode where Brendon got hit by a car happened to me when I was about fourteen. There was an episode where there was a school fight and I remember being in second grade and having this big fight. It drew a huge crowd and it was kind of advertised and everything. There was one episode that was about my love for food. I love food and I love eating food all the time. I definitely have to keep that in check so I wrote a lot of episodes about having food issues. There was an episode where Brendon and Jason enable each other and become fat. Everything I wrote, I believe I had some kind of connection to. “Home Movies” each had theme driven episodes.

Q) Some characters share their name with the actors that voice them. How was that decided?

A) There was almost no decision about it. “Home Movies” was developed in a very organic way, in the way that when we were figuring out the show I just went in front of a microphone and figured out what I wanted to say. I would improvise by myself and the co-creator, Loren, was just calling me by my name. We just figured “Brendon Small” because he is small for his size. We just called each other by our names because we were in the booth. We couldn’t call Jason by “John” since his other character on “Dr. Katz” was called John. It was basically about being creative and also it was something that they did on “Dr. Katz” and we just kind of stole it from that. Also, everyone just found it interesting that my name is Brendon and we named the character Brendon, too.

Q) What was it like working with Paula Poundstone?

A) It was brief. We only worked a few episodes together. All I remember is that she was very pleasant and very funny. Everybody liked her and she was nice to everybody. I think sometimes people search for stories because there are weird things going on, but she was nothing but cool. She was easy to talk to and I remember having dinner with her a few times and she was very nice.

Q) Why do you feel that people have taken such an interest in the show?

A) I think that “Home Movies” was a show that was designed for a specific audience that understands dry conversational mannerism based humor. Some people are just not into it. I get a lot of emails from fans saying that when they first started watching the show they hated it, but then it became their favorite show on television. For some people, they just get it and for some people it takes a little bit of time to understand the mechanics and rhythm of it. You really have to recalibrate your comedy meter since it is a different kind of comedy that we’re going for rather than traditional TV comedy, which I am not a huge fan of. I am more of a fan of comedy where things just happen naturally, rather than forced. It’s just personal preference. We were making a show where we would care about and not a show that a network would care about. It’s amazing that it lasted as long as it did because we weren’t considering the audience at all. We were just considering what we thought was good. It’s a nice artistic way to make a show, but it’s not a very great business model.

Q) You’ve been a writer/director/lead actor. What else would you like to try your hand at?

A) What I am kind of taking from “Home Movies” to my next project is the music part. I graduated from music school in Boston and I really loved the music on “Home Movies,” too. The next stage for me is all about getting the music together and still having the comedy, producing, directing and acting. The next thing I am going to do though is pretty much submerging myself in all different kinds of metal, like really heavy stuff. That’s what I listened to as a teenager. I was kind of more like Dwayne from “Home Movies” as a teenager than Brendon. I would stay in my room, didn’t talk a lot, practiced guitar all day and sort of isolated myself. I did study music and that’s what I went to school for. That’s the kind of next stage for me.

Q) How did you get your start in comedy?

A) I graduated from music school and I was kind of getting tired of learning about music. I was ready to take a break from it for a while. I wanted to take a little music vacation. I ended up in what I do now, which is comedy. I went to music school and was taking other classes, like writing for TV and sketch comedy writing classes at Emerson College, which was also in Boston. That encouraged me to actually go on stage and perform. It took a while for me to not be terrified, but I learned how to play confident. That’s how the whole thing started. I kind of drifted more towards character driven comedy and doing weird characters on stage. The co-creator of “Home Movies,” who was the producer of “Dr. Katz” (Loren Bouchard) at the time, saw me in my first year of doing standup and it was one of the few good nights that I had. Every other night you would foul up on stage, which was a good learning experience. Loren saw the show and that got me a pretty good break. That’s how everything started, luckily!

Q) Do you prefer writing as a team or on your own?

A) Well, for the first few episodes of “Home Movies,” Loren and I got together and wrote a lot of outlines. Then we decided to write scripts. We had no scripts until the sixth episode, which was the Kafka rock opera episode. We started writing scripts and Loren wanted to bring on this guy named Bill Braudis, who worked on “Dr. Katz.” What would happen is that I would go off and write a script and so would the other guy and we’d kind of meet up after a week to see what the other person had so far and kind of punch up each other’s script a little bit. For the most part, I mostly wrote by myself. Actually, it’s a lot of collaboration when you do any kind of piece of art. When it’s a group of people, you have to consider everybody and it’s really great to have someone who has a better idea than you contribute. Sometimes your own point of view can get boring after a while. “Home Movies” was the ultimate collaboration, in that we would write a script and then we would improvise on top of it so all of the actors are contributing, too. Then the animators would contribute ideas and scenes and all of that stuff. It’s the same thing happening with the new show. It’s just a gigantic collaborative process. You really do nothing alone. You surround yourself with people who you trust comedicly and structurally and just go for it! You don’t really write by yourself. People that write by themselves usually come up with a pretty dry project.

Q) What do you do in your spare time?

A) I went to Disneyland yesterday. Lately, I don’t have a lot of spare time. I perform comedy in a weekly show out here in L.A. I have been so busy with “Deathclock” that I haven’t done as much performing. I love to see movies. I love documentaries. I like to buy a lot of documentaries on DVD. I have a dog named Ernie and I hang out with him. What I’ve been doing in my spare time is just playing a lot of guitar and writing a lot of music. It’s kind of not free time since I am technically doing it for work, but it’s also a lot of fun so I enjoy it.

Q) What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

A) I would like to say thank you very much for discovering “Home Movies.” It’s a very specific show and the people that get that kind of comedy are pretty unique people. I think it’s awesome if you like the show. Check out my new show, “Deathclock,” it’s going to be different. It’s going to be cool!