In Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors," a successful TV producer claims there is one inviolable rule of comedy: "If it bends, it's funny," he says. "If it breaks, it's not funny." It is precisely such mundane thinking that brought us "Suddenly Susan," but there's a bit of truth in there too. Comedy that breaks — rules, conventions, boundaries of taste — is a tricky business. Break too much, and the audience hates you. (No one has asked Roseanne to sing the national anthem or invited Andrew Dice Clay to a NOW dinner in a long time.) But break just right, and you get the deep-from-the-gut, disbelieving laughter that mere benders will never know.
It's a thin line, and Robert Smigel, the disheveled reigning king of TV comedy writers, knows both sides of it. As a writer on "Saturday Night Live" from 1985 to 1993, Smigel, 40, created groundbreaking sketch comedy, including Da Super Fans and the legendary Trekkies sketch in which an agitated William Shatner finally tells a convention of Star Trek fans to "Get a life." He was also the head writer during the schizophrenic first year of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and the infamously abbreviated run of "The Dana Carvey Show," which debuted with a sketch of the President breast-feeding puppies. "I don't think I'll ever make a bigger mistake than that in my career," says Smigel, squirming at the memory. "But, you know, tune in next month."
Indeed, Smigel is back in risky territory. In the raunchy but not altogether awful Adam Sandler movie "Little Nicky," he is the voice of the scene-stealing talking bulldog. A new comic book–style novel, "X-Presidents" (Villard Books; $12.95), co-written by Smigel, based on a cartoon about four of our former commanders in chief endowed with radioactive superpowers that he created for SNL, hit bookstores in October. Meanwhile, "TV Funhouse," a parody of an afternoon children's program, premieres Dec. 6 on Comedy Central. "TV Funhouse," which merges cartoons with talking-animal puppets, tracks the adventures of the Anipals, who appear lovable on their kiddie show but are dirtier than Redd Foxx off camera. The first episode features a puppet rooster getting eviscerated in a cockfight, and numerous Anipals visiting a bordello stocked with dolled-up live chihuahuas. This could break either way.
Growing up in Manhattan, the son of the dentist who invented tooth bonding, Smigel admits to being "a comedy bully." "I came up with funny things that caught on — nicknames and anthropomorphic cartoons and such," he says. "I genuinely liked the people I was making fun of; I just couldn't resist making fun of them. I lacked the empathy chip." His sensibility, however coarse, owes a major debt to Charlie Brown. Indeed, Charles Schulz was the first to graft existential adult thoughts into the adorable heads of babes and a beagle, and in the wake of his death some "Peanuts" fans have eagerly championed the strip's dark side, quoting Schulz's belief that "Happiness is not very funny." Smigel agrees, and while his hooker-loving puppets are just distant cousins of Schulz's neurotic gang, there is a thread there.
As he prepares to shoot a scene in which the Anipals snort a pink cocainelike substance, Smigel chuckles to himself. "I do feel like I'm devolving a bit as I get older. When I was 25, I was writing sophisticated sketches on SNL. Ever since I started Conan, I've been really silly." And lucky. After "The Dana Carvey Show" tanked in 1996, Smigel had enough money saved to write only when inspiration struck. He salvaged his "Ambiguously Gay Duo" cartoon (about a superhero combo that is really close) from Carvey and started making episodes for "SNL." That, and his work on "Late Night" as Triumph, the insult comic dog (whose catchphrase is "For me to poop on!"), spawned "TV Funhouse." "I have this strange career where I bounce around between these two late-night shows and movies and stuff," says Smigel, who just has to call O'Brien or Lorne Michaels whenever he wants to do a sketch. "I'm the only one who gets to do that. It's really great."
Smigel's clearly on a roll, whether or not the nation is ready for a necrophiliac lobster or a dog that chases its tail endlessly, shouting, "I'll rule you, wagging bastard!" But Smigel's decision to do "TV Funhouse" for Comedy Central, a network whose antic sensibility dovetails nicely with his own, at least gives the show a fighting chance. "We did Dana Carvey on ABC right after they were bought by Disney," he recalls. "It never had a shot. Now, if I was doing this on NBC, the budget would be a few hundred grand more and it would be easier to do, and it'd be off the air in about six weeks. The idea was to not be canceled this time." And if "TV Funhouse" does fail? "I'll pick up the best pieces and move on," he says. "You can kill a show, but you can't kill an idea as good as a puppet having sex with an animal."