This Saturday, November 23, Jim Gaffigan will do two shows at the Peabody Opera House (1400 Market) at 7 and 9:30 p.m. The shows are part of his “White Bread Tour” and will feature an entirely new hour of material.
Gaffigan is well-known for his unforgettable bit on Hot Pockets, as well as for his eternal love of bacon. He’s also written a book, Dad is Fat (2013), and is an actor, producer, and a father of five. His book actually features stories about his children and his experiences as a father.
“As a comedian, I didn’t want to end up being the guy who only talked about his kids,” Gaffigan admits. “I wanted my material to have a universal appeal, where everyone in the room can identify. When I started standup, there were a lot of comics who had material on their husbands or their wives or kids and I didn’t want to do that. So the book was kind of the outlet for all of this material that I’d amassed.”
His tour, though, is entirely separate from his book (which begins with a letter to his children: “If you are reading this, I am probably dead. I would assume this because I can honestly foresee no other situation where you’d be interested in anything I’ve done. Right now, you are actually more interested in preventing me from doing things like working, sleeping, and smiling. I’m kidding, of course. Kind of. I love you with all of my heart, but you are probably the reason I’m dead”).
When asked during an interview why his tour was called the “White Bread Tour,” Gaffigan responded, “I’m this Midwestern guy, and I saw a couple articles where I was described as white-bread. So I thought, “Yeah, I am white-bread. So I’ll just use that as a tour name.” I thought it would be kind of funny.”
Well, of all the breads, that is probably the best one.
It’s the closest to cake, right? So why not?
I can’t even imagine how you swing it all, being a father of five, doing a national comedy tour, being on television and in movies and writing a book.
It’s pretty crazy, but I love it. These are good problems. The standup is just so fun and so rewarding. To get to a point where I have a new hour…it’s great to get out there and do it. There’s something about standup where I think it spoils creative people because there is an immediacy of feedback, whereas with writing, you can think you hit the mark, but you can be way off and waiting for feedback from an editor; or if you submit a script, it can take a while. With standup, you can come up with an idea and do it on stage right away.
At the same time, isn’t it a little terrifying? What if you tell a joke and nobody laughs?
You know, it’s weird, because I can totally understand that perception of standup being terrifying—believe me, I was terrified the first 10 years I did it—but after you’ve been doing it as long as I have, you have this bag of tricks and you can sort of figure it out. The first time…is intimidating, but now it’s easier. You gotta know who you are and what you do.
You have a couple movies and television shows in the works, right?
Yeah, I’m working on a TV show, and there’s always some indie films that I’m lucky enough to get cast in, but who knows what happens to those? I get a small part in an indie movie and three years later, they’ll ask me to tweet about it. I’ll be like, “I didn’t even see it, but sure, fine.”
Do you ever regret making the Hot Pocket joke?
There is part of me that doesn’t want to be known for one joke, but there’s also part of me that knows, in a way with that Hot Pocket joke, I caught lightning in a bottle. It was right when Hot Pockets were gaining popularity, and I think it is something that everyone has been exposed to or can identify with. I certainly don’t need more drunk people yelling “Hot Pocket!” at me at one in the morning, or people in the airport doing the same, but it’s contributed to the fact that I’m performing in theatres, so I don’t have that negative feeling towards it. I used to be worried that I would just be known for the Hot Pocket joke, but for a while I was known for the bacon joke, and now I’ll do shows and people will say, “You didn’t do the camping joke, I wanted you to do the camping joke.” So now, whatever gets people to the party is fine by me.
So people yell “Hot Pocket!” at you at the airport?
Yeah, but I was in Super Troopers, so people will come up to me and say “Meow,” too. There’s something about being a comedian…since it is a performance without a fourth wall, standup is so much of a conversation that I think when people meet you, they assume that you’re just continuing the conversation you had. Luckily, the people that enjoy my standup are pretty decent people. They’re not wildly obnoxious people. I have friends that make jokes about drinking, and they just attract massive drunks.
I know you hate the term “family-friendly,” but you do have a show in which you don’t curse. You don’t resort to that to get an audience.
As a comedian, I think you just want to be known as funny. I really believe that comedians just do what they do and they either get credit or criticism. I don’t think there’s any calculation. I could curse occasionally, but I started removing it when—I mean, I don’t curse that often—but it started 10 years ago when I was doing Letterman and Conan sets and I would have to adjust a joke. Now, a compliment that I love is when people say, “I didn’t even realize you were clean.” I’ve got little kids and so I understand the idea of watching something with your parents or children and not wanting it to be awkward or weird on either end. I think I just got lucky that way, that that’s how it comes out. In the end, I’m just not someone that feels comfortable cursing in front of a room full of strangers anyway.
For more information on the “White Bread Tour” or to purchase tickets, visit peabodyoperahouse.com.
