Like many correspondents before him, Ed Helms has used The Daily Show's success to rise to new heights. He's also an author (America: The Book is available now) and has become so elite that he won't set foot in VH1 any time soon. Now, Ed wants to take on a new challenge: toppling Penn's a cappella groups.
I heard that 87% of your audience is stoned. Is that number too low?
I think that whoever generated those numbers was zooted at the time. Where did you read that?
I think it was Bill O'Reilly.
He was waxing philosophic about the show and pulled that number out of his derriere. Comedy Central actually did some research and found out that the average viewer of The Daily Show is more informed, more educated and more affluent than the average viewer of The O'Reilly Factor. So go figure! I don't know if that's any indication of who's getting stoned or not.
Do you think people watch The Daily Show for news?
I don't think anybody is like, "Oh I gotta figure out what's going on in the world, I think I'll tune into Comedy Central." But I do think that people who watch our show wind up thinking that maybe they get a smattering of topical information. But at the end of the day, that's neither our objective nor should it be anyone's goal in watching our show. And if it is they're sorely mistaken. But I think it's a flawed statistic. You wouldn't get our show unless you were familiar with other news outlets. Our show is funny only if you are aware of what's going on already. And if you're aware of news conventions. And if you're extremely high.
How much work did you do on the new book?
I wrote the whole thing. The whole book is by Ed Helms.
Does the "I'm an author" line work on women?
It's getting me so much trim, I can't even tell you. Girls love nerds who hole up in their offices and write things. They love that. There's nothing better to get a girl's top off than to sit in your office and stare at your computer for 12 hours and ignore all of your social obligations and your friends and your parents.
What makes up a day of work at The Daily Show?
Basically, we come in and we watch Fox News all day and then we just take all the transcripts from Fox News and we read that, but with a little twinkle in our eye. The show is literally daily, so it's a pretty well-oiled machine at this point. The writers come in early, they get assigned different headlines to work on. Correspondents roll in whenever the hangover wears off and usually we're working on a field piece ... If we're coming on the show that night doing a chat, we might jump in with the writers and help out with that, or not, depending on our availability or whether or not we have a productive relationship with that particular writer ... We're all comedians, so we're all very socially dysfunctional, so there's a tremendous amount of tension at all times.
Have you ever had any --
By the way, I was kidding about the tension. This is a pretty fun place to work.
Have you ever had any problems with a field piece subject?
Almost invariably. It happens all the time. A lot of people think they know the show because someone has told them about it or they've seen an episode or two. Even if they've seen a field piece, they think, "Oh, I'm not as dumb as that guy." But they don't realize how good we are at what we do. I don't mean that in a horn-tootin' kind of way, I just mean that we're very adept at manipulating what we want ... By and large, people like the segment at the end of the day. Even if it makes them look silly, they got their message out there and they were on The Daily Show. They have a pretty good attitude usually.
Are politicians game to joke around with you, or wary of being made to look silly?
Well, they're both. In other words, they're very wary of being made to look silly on the show, and therefore they're totally game to fool around with us, which means that we won't get anything funny out of them. If they're jokey, then like who wants to see that? There's nothing ironic or fun about a politician who wants to joke around with you. It's a little bit of a hurdle sometimes.
Do you ever think of rooting for a side during the election for the good of the show?
Absolutely not. That's not because I'm devoid of political convictions, I totally have those convictions. But the other thing ... is that no one is not full of shit. No matter who wins whatever race, be it a local school board district race or the race for the presidency of the United States, there are issues that those politicians will put forth that are nothing but bullshit. If you're asking if I root for things in order to have fodder for the show, it doesn't matter because I can count on the fact that there will always be fodder for the show, no matter who wins what. How cynical is that? Doesn't that make you want to run out and run for office?
Definitely. Do you pay attention to how much you skewer either side?
Are you asking if we're fair and balanced? Keep in mind that you're asking a comedy show if we're fair. I don't think fairness really has anything to do with what we're doing ... We like to call out people's bullshit. Fortunately, both sides are supplying backhoe loads full of bullshit. So, there's no shortage. It's not hard to stay in the middle of what's going on because you can pluck a juicy shit apple off of each tree. Isn't that a great metaphor?
Did everyone know you at the conventions?
Yeah, a lot of people at the conventions knew who we were. A ton, in fact. The thing about a convention is it's really no different from a Star Trek convention or a Star Wars convention or a Medieval Knights convention. The people who show up at a convention like that are the nerds of that particular field of interest. So, you go to either of the political conventions, you're dealing with the Republican nerds and the Democratic nerds because they're the most devoted and loyal. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way, I actually kind of mean it in a slightly endearing way ... People who are political nerds, a lot of them watch our show. Walking around those conventions, it was sometimes hard to get our work done because a lot of people knew who we were.
Have you ever been on any of the VH1 shows? It seems like there's a Comedy Central shuttle that goes there.
Well, if you look closely, you haven't seen any of us on those shows in a while. We all did a handful of them and we haven't done any of them since.
Why not?
We have a job here, so that's paying the bills. So there's not a lot of motivation to head over to MTV and do some work for free. Does that sound very mercenary? First of all, I find those shows kind of annoying, and so I don't like to think of myself as particularly annoying ... God knows I'm annoying as hell, but if I can minimize that in some way by not appearing on those shows, maybe I have a chance.
Your biography mentions your love for your banjo. Can we expect an album any time soon?
Yeah. I'm in a group called The Lonesome Trio. We have recorded some music. Don't know when it will be released, but I'm sure it will go platinum when we do.
Do you do much stand-up any more?
The Daily Show is a full-time job, it's five days a week, full day, every day, so it's difficult to do stand-up ... In the last few months, I've been making a concerted effort to get the stand-up going on again ... Is Penn looking for the comedic stylings of Ed Helms, perhaps?
Possibly, but you'll have to compete with a lot of a cappella.
I'll share the stage with four or five a cappella groups. I can hold my own. [Sings a few notes.] Pretty good, right?
You could compete. Who's the better movie actor, Steve Carrell or Jon Stewart?
Steve Carrell, far and away. I think Jon Stewart would jump at that answer as well. Steve Carrell is a hilarious actor. Have you seen Jon Stewart's movies?
Who would win in a Daily Show Correspondents Brawl?
Samantha Bee. She'd kick all of our asses. She's got this weird Canadian Kung Fu that you just can't fuck with.
