Comedian Pete Holmes on His New Late-Night Show on TBS

10.28.2013

Sure, you may know his voice as the E*trade baby and you may have heard his standup act or his podcast "You Made it Weird," but Pete Holmes is now about to take the stage as the host of his own late-night show on TBS.

Through more than 180 episodes of his intensely personal podcast, Holmes has talked to the likes of Sarah Silverman, Marc Maron, , Zach Galifianakis, Aisha Tyler, , Joel McHale, , Jon Hamm and the Nerdist's own Chris Hardwick. During those interviews, he's also revealing about himself, covering such topics as a comedian's ego, blackout drinking, religion and his own divorce.

Now he hopes to apply that same personal format to "," following (and endorsed by) on TBS, premiering Oct. 28.

Holmes has been hyping his show through Comic-Con, #MeetPete Facebook/ questions, and "Ex-Men" videos online (in which he fires useless superheroes). Holmes spoke with Brief's Jennifer Konerman about how his "personal and transparent" brand will mesh with TBS and its growing late-night lineup.

Brief: You have a very distinct brand that you've created for yourself, with your podcast, your standup - how do you portray that in the TBS show?

Pete Holmes: I think what will make the show stand out is how personal and transparent it is in representing that brand that you're talking about. Because if there is a brand - which I agree with you there is - it's been built upon the idea that I've kind of offloaded my everything for people's entertainment. People that listen to the podcast know everything about me. And similarly, as well as we can in a late-night way, we would like to inform people and let people into that parasocial relationship, which can be a lot of fun - for me and for the fans.

When you think of a monologue on a late-night show being like pulled from the headlines - set up and punch line - I think that that's the first way where we're going to really set ourselves apart, where we might reference my divorce, or some weird New Agey thing, or some nutritional thing, or whatever it is that's going through my brain at the time.

How do you think "Conan" as your show's lead-in will lend itself to that?

Holmes: That's everything to me - Conan has always been my late-night hero and one of my comedy heroes, and our sensibilities at their core are very, very similar. We both like to do comedy that isn't against anybody. Even if it's somewhat edgy or interesting, it's still at its core not just shitting on someone for the sake of shitting on them, or putting someone down for the sake of putting them down.

I think too often people lean on the "why everything sucks" trope. And one of the things Conan and I have in common is that we like to embrace the silly side and the fun side and the goofy side, and just relax for a minute, and go to a silly, safe late-night place.

It seems like you have a more personal take on it, and I think that works really well with TBS' brand. What do you think is TBS' perspective? Why do you think they want you as part of their late-night brand?

Holmes: I'm not entirely positive, but I will say I keep getting surprised at how supportive and wonderful Turner is. I keep waiting for someone to come along and say we shouldn't have asked Rachel Maddow if she's ever done mushrooms, which is something we've done. But so far, I'm so thrilled to say, they get it - Turner gets its, Conan certainly gets it. And everybody knows when you see something that's authentic. I'm not just trying to be something that I'm not. It's not a prank show, I'm not trying to get a rise out of people, I'm just being myself.

One of my favorite Bill Hicks quotes is "Be yourself, because no one else can be yourself as well as you can be yourself." I think that's what TBS is acknowledging and I think that's why they're allowing me to do kind of whatever we wanted to do, because it all comes from an authentic place.

You recently had a panel at NY Comic-Con. What else did you do while you were at Comic-Con to promote the new show?

Holmes: I went out on the floor, and I think this is an interesting thing that's informative about how our show is a little bit different, is we weren't doing the sarcastic or snarky thing of like "Look at these grown people that are dressed up, isn't that stupid?" We were going on the floor to say, "We're grown people and we're dressing up, isn't that the best?"

Not because we were forcing that perspective, but that's actually my perspective and that comes across. Every interview we did on the floor ended with a weird hug. And I think that's a little bit indicative of our tone. We're not trying to go against people, we're trying to be a little bit more celebratory.

I was just watching your #MeetPete contest YouTube videos - can you tell me a little bit more about why you chose to do that leading up to the premiere?

Holmes: We asked people on Facebook and Twitter to use that hash tag and then we got some of the best ones and made these videos, just because a lot of this has to do with trying to bring people up to speed - as much as the podcast is popular for a podcast, a popular podcast is a failing television show. We need to get the people who will be watching the show familiar with who I am, so we're meeting that head on with "What do you want to know?" and answering it.

You've had your standup and your podcast, now it's all coming together with the show. What are you most excited about, having this whole platform for your ideas and your personality?

Holmes: I'm excited that now when we have ideas, they have a place to go. When you're just a renegade, loner comedian guy, when you have an idea, it could take six months before you shoot it. Whereas, now when we did "Good Will ," where we put Batman in "Good Will Hunting," I woke up on Monday and I don't know if I dreamt it or whatever, but then we shot it that Wednesday, and it was up the next Monday.

That's what I look forward to the most and what I appreciate the most, is having this resource. That's what was so hard in between the pilot and getting the show picked up was that I missed that kind of magic chocolate factory feel, where you have an idea, and instead of saying "That's great, let's wait until we have the means and opportunity to do that," we can just shoot it the same day. So that's kind of my favorite thing.

But I'm also just interested and excited to get stuff out there. As silly as it sounds, I really believe that comedy can be a positive force in people's lives and I would like to get it out there and see if it can find its audience, find the people that agree that this is funny and enjoy it, and then just see how that affects people.

What was your favorite question you got from your submitted Facebook/Twitter questions on YouTube?

Holmes: Someone said "are you still divorced?" And they knew. They knew. And the answer is just me staring for a couple minutes.

[Images courtesy of TBS]