The Underappreciated Comedians Series: Demetri Martin

Demetri Martin's comedy is a wonderful mix of absurdity, childishness, verbal dexterity, and hipster cool. He's very funny. Check out his 3/22 appearance on the Daily Show (where I guess he is a correspondent) titled "Viacom sues YouTube." I first saw him at the UCB Theater in New York, where he performed pretty regularly. He's on TV now often, so I guess he's sort of famous. But still, underapreciated.

BLVR: Where, as a little kid, did you get a gorilla suit?

DM: No, no, no. I did that in law school.

BLVR: You need to explain that.

DM: Oh, I had it in college, too. I had the gorilla suit in college because when I was a little kid, I always thought it would be funny to ski in a gorilla suit. Because when you’re wearing an animal costume and something bad happens, your facial expression doesn’t change. The animal is deadpan the whole time. If you’re skiing in a gorilla suit and you fall, you just see a gorilla who has no emotion. It’s just a stoic gorilla, wildly falling down a hill, out of control. I was like, “That’s fucking hilarious.” I love Buster Keaton and I love physical comedy when it’s done in an emotionally understated way. I just like to play it, and I needed the attention. So I got the gorilla suit in college and I’d wear it when I went skiing.

BLVR: So this isn’t something you rented? You owned this.

DM: Yeah, I got it for Christmas. That was my ski suit. The head, the hands, everything. A full gorilla ski suit. You couldn’t see my face and I could barely see. There’s no peripheral vision because I’m looking through gorilla eyeholes. The best thing about it was when I was in the lift line with my friend and this guy said, “Hey, Willy! You want a banana? Ha, ha!” I got really irritated and I told my friend, “These people are assholes. They won’t leave me alone.” And he said, “You’re the asshole in the gorilla suit, man! You chose to wear a gorilla suit on a snowy mountain.”

BLVR: So you wore it to law school?

DM: Yeah, I was bored. It was probably nearing the end for me in law school. One day I was skipping class and I had my gorilla suit on and I was like, “Fuck it. I’ll go down to school.” So I started walking around campus and I went into classrooms. I didn’t jump in and go, “Hey!” I would just open the door in a subtle way. I’d walk in and be like, “Oh, this is the wrong room,” and then just leave. Once I looked at the professor and she stopped, like “What the fuck?” And I left. The door closed behind me and I could hear the laughter as I walked away. It was so fun.

from an interview in The Believer.