Chances are, you either love “Mr. Show” or you’ve never heard of it.
It’s really not surprising that many have yet to discover this gem of a television series. After all, not all of us were blessed with HBO, the network that ran “Mr. Show” from 1996 until 1999. Then there’s the fact that the show has been off the air for nearly four years.
However, for every unsuspecting basic-cable viewer, there are at least two or three diehard fans of the ill-fated sketch comedy. Since its cancellation in 1999, “Mr. Show” has garnered an audience of thousands of devoted fans who frequent the official website (www.bobanddavid.com), trade bootleg tapes of the episodes and hope beyond hope that someday there will be a “Mr. Show” movie.
Well, the diehard fans and unsuspecting alike are in for a treat, as co-founders David Cross (“Just Shoot Me,” “Ghost World”) and Bob Odenkirk (“The Cable Guy”), along with several regular “Mr. Show” cast members, hit the road on the “Hooray for America” tour, a 20-plus-stop live “Mr. Show” extravaganza.
According to Cross, speaking via telephone from the tour’s Boston stop, the title “. . . is from a movie script that Bob and I wrote many years ago.”
“Mr. Show” originated in the brains of Odenkirk and Cross soon after they crossed paths in the mid-’90s. The first episodes of the sometimes-raunchy sketch comedy aired on HBO in 1996. In total, four seasons of the show aired, until Cross and Odenkirk ended the series in 1999 amidst a disagreement with HBO.
There are no hard feelings between Cross and the network now, however. According to Cross, “Um . . . we talk. HBO and I went on a kind of retreat vacation a couple of weeks ago up in the Berkshire Mountains, and we talked through a lot of stuff, dealt with a lot of residual things. But it was good. HBO and I went out to dinner, and we had a long talk.”
Since the show ended, both Bob and David have played bit parts in a few feature films and television shows. Cross also set off on several standup comedy tours, making a stop in Madison in June 2002.
There was also talk of a “Mr. Show” movie during this time off. Entitled “Run Ronnie Run,” the movie was filmed in 2000-2001, and fans eagerly anticipated its release. However, studio execs thought otherwise, and the film has never seen the light of day.
“We don’t own it; that’s the problem. We don’t have control over it — we don’t even have a copy of it, and we’ll never get access to it. So it’s not up to us,” Cross said.
There are a few bootlegged copies floating around eBay, however, with winning bids topping $75.
Cross apparently has strong feelings on shelling out big bucks for the bootleg.
“Tell them to stop — don’t do it! I’m telling you, please print in your newspaper that they should not do it — it’s not worth it. You will be disappointed,” he warned.
In fact, the only official tastes of “Mr. Show” fans have had over the past few years are a collection of videotapes distributed to a select-few video stores (including Madison favorite Four Star Video Heaven) and a recently released DVD of the show’s first two seasons.
It does seem a bit strange to have such a cult-like following of a cancelled show, but it comes as no surprise to Cross. “I guess in my experience, since I travel more than anyone else on the show, I hear it wherever I go, so it’s less surprising for me.”
Now is as good a time as any to do the tour, Cross said. “It wasn’t about starting it now. It wasn’t like we were sitting in a room waiting for a certain calendar date . . . the time was just right. We’d always talked about touring, though.”
There are also apparently no ulterior motives behind the tour, as Cross pointed out. “We’re just doing it to have fun . . . It has nothing to do with Ronnie Dobbs (main character in the never-released movie) at all.”
Fans can expect the “Hooray for America” tour to run much like a typical episode of “Mr. Show.” There will be live segments as well as some pre-taped material, although according to Cross, “We don’t really have filmed stuff at all; we just have videos that help facilitate the story.”
The live show features many former “Mr. Show” cast members, including Brian Posehn (“Just Shoot Me), John Ennis (“Malcolm in the Middle”) and standup comic Stephanie Courtney.
Cross said of his fellow cast members, “It was hard to pull everyone back together because everyone’s so busy, but also they were excited about doing it.”
As far as preparation for the tour, Cross claimed the cast prepared for “. . . 15 minutes. No more, no less. We had a timer, and when it went off, it was like, ‘OK, I hope everyone’s got their shit together.'”
So what of the future? Unfortunately for hopeful fans, when asked if “Mr. Show” would ever return as a regularly airing television show, Cross responded with a definitive “No, ma’am.”
There are, however, plans for another live tour in the near future. “We’re going to do it again . . . probably in the spring. We’re looking at probably late winter or early spring and hitting the rest of America,” Cross said.
He added, “Bob and I have plans to try to get to do a new movie, but so far no one’s asked us to come into their office and pitch them anything. We fully intend to keep writing scripts and stuff.”
Fans can also look forward to the release of another season of “Mr. Show” on DVD. “We just did the audio for season three, which should be out in the spring. Ten shows,” Cross said.
The “Hooray for America” tour is a great chance for the “Mr. Show”-naíve of the population to introduce themselves to some great comedy.
However, for the already rabid fans of the show, this tour may be just what is needed to satisfy their craving. Perhaps Cross described the fans’ devotion best: “Python was very popular back when I was a kid, and I had the same kind of slavish devotion to this quirky comedy show that maybe 15 percent of the kids at my school knew . . . but those 15 percent were hardcore. There’s always going to be that kind of audience for ‘Mr. Show,’ I think.”
The “Hooray for America” tour visits Madison this Saturday, Sept. 28 at the Barrymore Theatre. Tickets for the 10:30 p.m. show cost $25 and are available at all Barrymore ticket outlets.
