Defeat Smash Mouth

Absurdist bizarro-comedian Neil Hamburger with the AV Club, on his fans:

AVC: You seem to have a lot of reverence for the entertainment industry, yet you do these sick jokes about celebrities. How do you reconcile that?

NH: I think it’s an honor to the great entertainers—to the Bob Hopes and the Stan Laurels—for me to keep with the times and tell the sorts of jokes these crowds want, especially when you look at the types of crowds I’m performing for. These people are druggies, they have horrible, horrible taste in music, a lot of them are suffering from chronic depression, on every anti-depressant you can think of. I’ll tell you, when James Dean died in 1955, if you’d come out with a joke about that you would’ve gone straight to jail! Now, if Michael Jackson dies and you don’t have a joke, you go straight to jail.

And the contempt he has for ... absurdist bizzaro-band Smash Mouth:

AVC: It’s even more surprising how much you joke about Smash Mouth.

NH: That’s really ghastly music, you know? And a lot of people are upset about it. There is a public consciousness of despair when anything by those guys comes on the radio. I have had people come up to me and say, “Neil, I can’t take it anymore. You’ve gotta quit comedy and devote all your energies to breaking Smash Mouth’s legs so that they can’t tour anymore.” Well, I’m not gonna do that, but I will write some jokes at their expense.