Bob Odenkirk Gets Super, Talks To Paste

The stars of Bob Odenkirk’s Derek & Simon: The Show shorts are just “two guys hitting on girls,” but with Odenkirk behind the wheel you can rest assured that the guys’ feeble attempts will reach levels of hilarity unmatched by everyday passes at love.

In one episode called “Pity Card,” produced in conjunction with HBO and featured on the second issue of McSweeney’s Wholphin DVD quarterly, Simon takes a girl on a date to Washington DC’s Holocaust museum, rattling her sheltered notion of humanity and earning him some awkward sympathy points.

The battle for female affection continues in subsequent episodes of Derek & Simon that Odenkirk has produced for Super Deluxe, Turner’s new online comedy network. He's worked up 14 so far, the first of which debuted on May 16.

And from the computer screen to the big screen, Odenkirk’s second feature film, The Brothers Solomon, is set for release in September 2007. Starring Saturday Night Live’s Will Forte and Kristen Wiig, Arrested Development’s Will Arnett and The Office’s Jenna Fischer, it chronicles the attempts of two single brothers to somehow produce a grandchild for their ailing father.

“I don’t think I’ve figured out movies,” Odenkirk admits. “You have to make so many people happy, so many corporations happy, so it’s not just like what you want to make. Whereas Super Deluxe is, ‘What do I want to make? What do I think is funny?’ and then you just go make it.”

Understandably, Odenkirk says projects like Derek & Simon and his work on Mr. Show in the mid-90s with his good friend and fellow comedian David Cross have been far more personally fulfilling than the full-length motion pictures he’s tackled throughout his career, though he’s hopeful that with time the immense task of producing a cinematic feature may unfold more easily.

“It’s very much more rewarding to work on this kind of thing [Derek & Simon], but it’s all part of learning your way and finding your way through things," he says. "I’m trying to make my way through film so hopefully I will so that I have a better time doing that. But I’m not sure that’s possible. Because it costs so much money to make a movie, and that’s the big difference, obviously, that these things don’t cost as much, so there’s much less pressure for everyone involved. But yeah, I would say that I’m much more fulfilled by Mr. Show or Derek & Simon than some of the features that I’ve worked very, very hard to make.”

Although he is open to pursuing both small and big-screen outlets for his comedy work in the future, for now his sights are fixed on smaller projects such as Derek & Simon and, amongst others, filming companion shorts for the McSweeney’s-published Comedy by the Numbers and working on a few scenes for Super Deluxe that he recently penned with Cross.

But as satisfying as he finds these smaller projects now made increasingly feasible by outlets such as Wholphin and Super Deluxe, Odenkirk says it’s no easier to actually find people to watch his work. “No, not at all. No,” he responds when asked whether certain technology like the Internet and DVD has made it easier for him to find an audience for his comedy. “It’s hard. It’s a very small audience, and it doesn’t seem to grow. But it is a great audience that I really appreciate and that’s all there is to it. I can’t clone people; it is what it is. It kind of seems to stay the same, but that’s fine. I think it’s what is called a ‘cult audience,’ you know,” he adds at the end, sounding very much like he’s come to understand and appreciate the concept—no pity card in sight.

Got a news tip for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.