The Nerdist himself was in Tampa Saturday night, bringing all new material to a crowd hungry for points. Chris Hardwick grew up in the same era I did, a time when you had to order your comic book-related tees from the Previews catalog. A time when there were maybe hundreds of mostly male fans at the comic convention in the meeting room at the Doubletree, not tens of thousands of families at the convention center.
I first noticed Hardwick on MTV’s Singled Out, where he co-hosted with Jenny McCarthy, “before she uninvented vaccines," as he said last week on his cult hit show @Midnight. After hosting one more dating show, Shipmates, he finally made his way into the nerd culture, hosting Weird Science for PBS, writing for Wired, producing the excellent Nerdist podcast, hosting The Talking Dead and Talking Bad, and, the ultimate in nerd-dom, emceeing panels at San Diego Comic Con, the con of cons. He’s smart, self-effacing, honest, funny and approachable, so it was no surprise that his show had a great turnout.
The show was kicked off by one of Hardwick’s good friends, and fellow hilarious person, April Richardson. If you’ve watched @Midnight, you’ve definitely seen her on there as a frequent guest. She let us all know right away that she was going to be checking her notes occasionally because she was rather distracted at having recently found out that the guy she was seeing on and off for three years had been cheating on her with four other girls that he also met on OK Cupid. She told the amazing story of how they found each other and had commiserated over his weird anatomy and then let us all in on how they all “formed like Voltron” to plot revenge. She was clever and sarcastic, and I can’t wait to check out her podcast, Go Bayside, where every episode she invites over a fellow comedian to watch/dissect episodes of Saved By the Bell.
Hardwick came out next and went right into one of his favorite subjects, making fun of Florida. There were buttsex jokes, dog pooping jokes, and a story about having sex with an inflatable lady. He said hi to his brother who was in the audience, having to then contend with being lightly heckled about why he couldn't get him better seats than up in the balcony. He seemed to genuinely enjoy being with us all and getting to be paid for being who he actually seems to be.
About halfway through, Chris came down into the audience and chatted with people about what they did for a living and whether it would enable them to survive the zombie apocalypse (the butcher was a yes, the graphic designer was a no). He bemoaned never intending to become America’s zombie therapist, remarking that it was going to be crazy when they kill Daryl, which was met with gasps and boos. He quickly assured everyone that it was just a joke, and that they’d never want to cause the Great Female Riot. When he got to a high school senior (most of the audience audibly moaned when he said he was born in 1997), Chris’ first thought was pity at him having missed grunge completely.
Back on stage, Chris’ last joke was a story about a night involving kigurumi (adult animal onesies), delivery food, and a chihuahua. I don’t want to give away any specifics, since this tour is in preparation for a live special next February, but something happened to the chihuahua and the joke left off with a hilarious punchline, but no closure for those of us concerned about the dog. Luckily he took lots of questions from the audience, and I was able to confirm that the dog was okay. The Q&A session also taught us something surprising that he has in common with Tom Cruise, that Harrison Ford is a bit of a grump, that his current favorite show is Mr. Robot, and a tiny bit about why he doesn’t drink any more. A talented and experienced voice actor, Chris left us all with an insanely amazing performance of “Wanted Dead or Alive” as Bane Jovi.
After the show we went around to the back door to try and get an autograph or a picture, and even though he had to be up at 3 a.m. the next day to get on the road by 6 a.m., he took the time to take a selfie or give an autograph to everyone who was waiting. I’ve been lucky enough to meet a handful of artists, but this was one of the very rare instances where it didn’t feel like an obligation .It really felt like he was as stoked on being there as we were.
Points, Chris Hardwick. All of the points.
This article appears in Aug 6-12, 2015.
