“I’ve been doing standup for a long time, 5,000 years now,” says comedian Jim Gaffigan, a man not prone to exaggeration. If he’s learned one thing over the millennia, it’s to pay attention to his instincts. Even when they’re wrong.
“The irony,” he explains, “is that I come up with material where I kind of go after something, and then I explore it … and then I end up enjoying it. Like I had all this material on how I hated hiking. Then I was like, ‘Oh, so you walk around, you get exercise, but you don’t have to sit on a treadmill? It’s actually brilliant!’”
It can work both ways, Gaffigan relates. He once railed against seafood, referring to shellfish as “bug meat,” and pointing out that crabs share a moniker with a certain sexually transmitted disease. New England Clam Chowder, he’d say, looks a lot like a big bowl of vomit.
The reality: “Like, I was never really that against seafood. I was never somebody who would eat mussels. But as I wrote about it … now I can barely eat crab.”
Named by Forbes in 2016 as one of the world’s highest-grossing comedians — hey, he sold out Madison Square Garden and opened for the Pope — Gaffigan will perform at Tampa’s Amalie Arena on New Year’s Eve.
Gaffigan, his wife Jeannie and their five young children are spending the last week of the year in Florida, by design. They usually holiday in Milwaukee, her hometown, but this time around Gaffigan scheduled a warm week of shows in the Sunshine State.
Family is everything to Jim Gaffigan. Jeannie, his wife of 14 years, is his co-writer, muse and soundboard.
Together, they created and produced a semi-autobiographical sitcom, The Jim Gaffigan Show, for two seasons on cable’s TV Land.
“There’s a time when you want a sitcom,” he explains. “There’s a time when you want to be a cast member of SNL. You almost grow through these aspirations — and on the other side you think, ‘Well, that doesn’t seem appealing at all.’”
It sounded like a good idea at the time. “The initial idea of the television show was, ‘This’ll keep me in town, and we’ll have more time with our kids.’”
The Gaffigans were adamant that their TV counterparts — he played himself, while actress Ashley Williams stood in for Jeannie — reflected their own feelings and beliefs. “Like, I didn’t mind if my character was dumb,” Gaffigan says. “I just didn’t want him to complain about being married.”
Although ratings and reviews were strong, The Jim Gaffigan Show “ended up being a huge burden.” He enjoyed some aspects of the experience, but… meh.
Dropping the axe “ended up being a relatively easy decision. What we learned is that doing stand-up, I have more time with my children than doing a television show. And my wife was the executive producer and the show runner, so that wasn’t ideal either. There were no problems — it was just like, ‘Why risk it?’ It was not worth the risk or the stress.
“I’ve been kicking around long enough where I’m not dying to be more famous. I would love to have better opportunities, but I’m not somebody who just wants to be at an event so I can be at an event. Maybe in my 20s I was interested in that. But now I know it’s all nonsense.”
The Gaffigans’ idyllic family life took a hit last April when Jeannie underwent emergency surgery for a brain tumor.
She’s doing great, reports her husband. “She’s at about 95 percent. Her 95 percent is me in my most productive time I’ve ever been. She’s a trooper, and that’s a constant reminder of ‘Oh yeah, that’s right, she did have a brain tumor removed eight months ago.’”
Gaffigan’s fans know his “greatest hits” — the routines about food, fitness (or the lack thereof), TV binge-watching and mouth-burning Hot Pockets. They also know that he comes back with all-new material each time he visits.
He’ll talk onstage about Jeannie’s diagnosis, surgery and recovery. “My wife is my writing partner, so she’s contributing to it,” he says. “And it’s cathartic to talk about it, and to make things funny. There is something about the tension surrounding something that makes it funnier, right? It’s a balancing act, but that’s the fun of it.”
Observational comedy works best when the audience finds something they can relate to.
“You want to be respectful, but the reality is that everyone has gone through this with a loved one,” Gaffigan continues. “Different scenarios, and different moments of relief or grief. Humans live in this mode of ‘We’re gonna live forever!’ and then we’re shocked when we’re hit with reality. When we deal with tragedy, we’re allowed a certain amount of grieving or recovery and then we’re sent back on the path of ‘Everything’s fine! Everything’ll always be fine!’”
Coming this spring is Chappaquiddick, director John Curran’s drama about Ted Kennedy’s 1969 scandal involving the drowning death of a young campaign worker; Gaffigan plays District Attorney Paul Markham. “Chappaquiddick, obviously, was a horrible tragedy,” he says. “But in this ‘Me Too’ era, it’s even more powerful to see what things were like in 1969.”
Gaffigan enjoys acting — he’s in four movies currently in post-production — but, at heart, he’s really just a stand-up kind of guy.
He’s working up a new bit about museums. “I think intellectually I like museums, but emotionally I find them annoying,” he says. “Physically, I find them taxing.
“You don’t want to be the guy going, ‘I don’t like museums! I don’t like culture!’ But there’s something authentic in examining that, so I’ve been kind of working on not being a heathen, and also not being somebody who’s anti-culture. Because obviously I understand the value of it. But also taking an honest look at it — which I think is funny, in some ways.”
Bill DeYoung was born in St. Pete and spent the first 22 years of his life here. After a long time as an arts and entertainment journalist at newspapers around Florida (plus one in Savannah, Ga.) he returned to his hometown in 2014. He is the author of Skyway: The True Story of Tampa Bay’s Signature Bridge and the Man Who Brought it Down and the forthcoming Phil Gernhard, Record Man. Learn more here.
This article appears in Dec 21-28, 2017.