Cult Comedy Heroes Have Bills to Pay, Too

Death, Sex & Money

• Episode: Cult Comedy Heroes Have Bills to Pay, Too
• Website: Death, Sex & Money
• Feed URL: http://feeds.wnyc.org/deathsexmoney
• Duration: 00:25:38
• Published: 2014-09-10 06:00

Chris Gethard is at a personal peak, but in a professional valley. Maybe you’ve seen him in brief turns on The Office or Louie, but he’s best known for his Manhattan public access television show, The Chris Gethard Show. It’s beloved by New York comedy nerds and hapless teens across the Internet, but it just got passed over by Comedy Central − and eleven other networks. Now, he's wondering whether to keep doing the show. But he can’t say it wasn’t worth it. After all, he got a wife out of the whole thing.

Hallie Bulleit is the singer for The Chris Gethard Show's house band, The LLC, along with the punk outfit The Unlovables. Until recently, she made her living as a professional dancer, who performed in popular shows like Rent and Stomp. Now that she's in her early 40s, dancing for a living is no longer possible. So she’s also questioning her professional future.

They got married this summer, and while it’s an exciting step for both, it brings a whole new set of pressures and challenges. Right before they took off for their wedding, I spoke to them about Chris’ struggles to overcome depression, the awkward start to their relationship (he was on-stage, naked, and she was in the audience), and whether they can continue as middle-aged artists who don't know where the next check’s coming from.

INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS

They were fans of each other first:

Hallie: The first one that I saw…I mean I was completely hooked. I don’t think I missed many shows after that.

Chris: No. And that used to freak me out because Hallie is the frontwoman and songwriter for this band The Unlovables that I really loved. I had been listening to her music for like five or six years before she started coming to the show, and I thought she was the coolest, prettiest lady.

Hallie's band The Unlovables performing "Today's the Day" on The Chris Gethard Show in 2013:

Chris comparing himself to his father:

I always have in my head that my dad had two kids and owned a house when he was I think 27 years old. And I’m 34, and I’m just getting married now, and I’m like, currently workshopping a joke about how I pooped my pants on a subway platform. Like that’s professionally what I’m up to right now, is trying to really tighten up a joke about pooping my pants in public. 

Hallie on what happens when your body stops supporting a dance career:

Now I’m at a point where I’m trying to figure out, okay so I did all this—had this brilliant career that I loved so much. And it’s a tough act to follow. It’s—how do I find something that I love as much as I loved what I did. That’s just the nicest thing about being around Chris is just, to use that as a model. You have an idea and you just do it.

Chris on the new kind of money fears that come with planning a family

I’ve lived this lifestyle that’s all calculated on risks. Which is pretty fun, but I legitimately don’t know how I’ll be making my rent money in November. I don’t know if I’ll have any money coming in. That’s pretty fun when you’re in your 20s, and when all you have to worry about is yourself, and where it’s like, oh well, if I need to sublet my room and find someplace not as nice to crash, that’s pretty fun. But now there are actual consequences: someone I have to come home to and look in the eye, and a small human I’m dragging into it. Who doesn’t have a choice in it, you know? It stresses me out.

You can read a full transcript of the interview. And if The Chris Gethard Show does indeed resume, you can watch new episodes along with all the archived shows at thechrisgethardshow.com. 

And here's a video of Chris doing the Carlton dance with a box of Ritz crackers in front of the Ritz-Carlton hotel: