If you ever wanted to watch Triumph the Insult Comic Dog face off with “Weird” Al Yankovic, Rob Schneider, and Mythbuster Adam Savage, good news: Comedian Robert Smigel, famous for a number of projects but perhaps best known as “the hand up Triumph’s ass,” has just released an edited version of Let’s Make a Poop, the live game show taped at the San Francisco comedy festival Sketchfest this year.
Speaking with Consequence via phone, Smigel says that while he didn’t have as much control over the taping of the show as he would have liked, “I felt like it was the most enjoyable show I’d done live in like 20 years. If I had really shot it more carefully, I might have tried to sell it somewhere — I didn’t feel it was in that kind of shape, but I still think it’s worth sharing. So I decided I would share it just on YouTube for free.”
Let’s Make a Poop lets Triumph do what he’s been doing since 1997 — deliver brutal putdowns in a wide range of circumstances, from real-life political campaigns to the line for the premiere of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. Triumph has been featured on multiple talk shows as well as his own series; the Sketchfest show stands out, Smigel says, “because it had this unusual dynamic of having ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic there and having people sing his presumed song parodies. And that all played out really well, live on stage. I had a really hot audience and a really good time, and Rob Schneider was a funny target.”
Including Schneider in the show, Smigel says, was a choice he made despite the fact that the SNL alum’s politics have shifted in a rightward direction in recent years. “I am always for putting people on, as long as there are no restrictions for Triumph,” he says. “As long as Triumph can tear into the person. And I feel like I tore into Rob pretty well. That’s kind of the point — the people you want are rich subjects.”
There was a past Sketchfest show, Smigel adds, where there were guests he wanted to feature “that were of a similar ilk, and they didn’t want them. They just were like, ‘No, the audience will be too upset.’ I’m like, ‘You don’t get it. The whole point is that I’m gonna tear into this person. And it’ll be very satisfying.’”
Smigel understands “why people have this impulse. Everything is so heightened now, and people don’t even want to give platforms to… The word ‘normalized’ is a very popular word now.”
And there is a class of person, he continues, “that I wouldn’t give a platform to, even to make fun of. People that I feel are like grifters, and are saying things that they don’t necessarily even mean — they’re saying it to cultivate a certain audience. I didn’t feel like Rob fell into that category, but there are people that do, and I wouldn’t interact with them, even as Triumph. I would just be like, ‘No, I don’t want you to get anything out of this. I don’t want you to come away feeling like you got exposure or credit for laughing at yourself.’”