Eat More Butts
By: Mike Martens
Tags: The Chris Gethard Show, Chris Gethard, Punk Rock, Music, TV

At the episode-124 point in TCGS history, the show’s starting to transform into what will ultimately appear on Fusion and TruTV. Since its broadcast genesis, Gethard’s played the heart and anchor for a progressively complex, whirling multi-tier cake of sidekicks, characters, audience regulars, oft-costumed on-camera production staff, and callers with theme songs. It is (or was, until its cancellation slash creator pulled the plug earlier this year) a Byzantine sub-culture working itself into a semi-public frenzy each Wednesday night.

This thing that makes TCGS remarkable throughout its course is incredible, but it’s also about 65% too unwieldy for a public access show that — by this episode — has an eye on earning a slot on cable. And the development of a pilot by the creative team brings some polishing of the format into the live experience.

In episode 112 for instance, Murph begins opening the show, hyping the energy and introducing the regular cast for nascent viewers. Little touches like this can be difference makers in building the consistency needed for a big-time production. Ironically, the introduction of this new element also comes with Murph’s mic being turned off for the entire thing. J.D. Amato, TCGS’ director, writes in an overlay for this particular opening’s archived video, “I despise this and I will not stand for it. The road to immortality is not paved in mistakes. I would know.”

But by episode 124, Murph’s intro is running smoothly, complete with coordinated camera pan. Murph full-throats his way through the night’s cast: the greatest house band in the history of public access The LLC, internet liaison Bethany Hall, creature from the sea the Human Fish, random person no one knows but who will be featured on the show for the customary 15 weeks Random Sandy, of course Murph, jams-pumper Jeff Rosenstock, and your host Chris Gethard. The LLC flows into the show’s theme song, with the entire studio singing along.

Then. The audience begins chanting.

This happens sometimes. Usually it comes in refrains of “sandwich night” — in reference to the show’s annual punk-comedy Thanksgiving analogue. Tonight? “Eat more butts.”

“Eat more butts.”

“Eat more butts.”

Gethard dares the studio audience with a twirl of his finger and raise of his hands. The LLC lays in some backing rhythm. The crowd stands.

“Eat more butts.”

“Eat more butts.”

Five minutes in, it starts to feel like this might never end. Will it? Is this the episode? Was there ever a time these comedy geeks weren’t demanding I eat more butts? This is unusual.

There’s often an Andy Kaufman element to TCGS, an “is this real do i care if this is real maybe but probably not” sensation, especially as you’re learning the tells of the writers and cast. But this, I’m 65% sure, is not that … and in the very least, has sprouted obtuse goose wings and is flapping in wild rhythmic strokes out of whatever nest hatched it. And it’s already holding together better than Episode 95’s creator-devised, crowd-improvised hour-long song.

The Hour Long Song — Episode 95

“Enema.”

The chant shifts into a harmony-laden groove.

“Enema.”

What we’re seeing at this point, though, highlights one of TCGS’ other signatures, the loose format’s ability to run off the rails and just. keep. going. To fuck it up and do it live. The kind of thing that once broke down Bill O’Reilly is the thing that makes Chris Gethard’s wild contraption bleed.

On some scale grander than it should be taken, Amato’s joke was wrong: The immortality of TCGS is constructed with boundless mistakes. But Amato knows this: Even in its most processed state — the first season on Fusion, with the hour-long live format transformed to a 30-minute distillation of numerous hours of pre-recorded studio footage — the beauty of TCGS shines in its vulnerability and the glimmering insanity discovered by following it. The set in the Fusion era looks like a quarter-finished basement, with decor concepts started and aborted in favor of other half-baked ideas. (Minutes after the show returns to a live format, a guest takes a chainsaw to one wall of the set.) Mistakes and mayhem pave The Chris Gethard Show’s golden brick road.