Jay Mohr

[Editor's note: This story has been extended with online bonus content.]

How’s it going, Jay Mohr?
Good.

Okay, I think we’re done here. There’s your 1 Bold Question.
Good. This is Jay Mohr. How’s it going? Good. [Laughs]

My editor will love that. You’ll have to excuse me if I barf in the middle of this interview. I just ate my weight in hot wings.
First of all, you’re exaggerating. Because you didn’t eat your weight in wings unless you weigh like 20 pounds.

Guilty.
Good. Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page here, Drew.

So, this show of yours, Gary Unmarried. How’d you end up doing that?
I always wanted to do a sitcom, because there’s not enough of them on TV. It’s a lot of one-hour dramas and things like that. You have to have such a vested interest each week. You get anxiety if you think that you’re going to be late to that week’s episode. For me, it has always been comfort food. It’s always good to come back to grilled cheese and chicken soup, you know?

What are your favorite sitcoms?
Newhart. All 44 incarnations of Newhart. Beneath the Planet of Newhart. Return to the Bridges of Madison Newhart. Pretty much everything he has ever said I’ve just cataloged and filed away in my hard drive.

Do you do Newhart impersonations?
[In passable Bob Newhart voice] Well, uh, when I first started acting I was, uh, erm, just imitating uh, him. [In Jay Mohr voice] I didn’t know how to act when I started. I was a club comic. And I had a sitcom in 1991 called Camp Wilder with Jerry O’Connell and two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank. And I wasn’t sure what to do or how to say it, so I just walked in a did a Newhart impression every time I spoke. Literally, I would walk in the room and say [Once again in Newhart mode] “I’m uh, having a ha-hard time, uh, finding the soap.” [Back in Jay Mohr voice] And then I did the Jeff Foxworthy Show, and I had superlong curly hair, and walked in and did an impression of a pro wrestler. I just screamed everything. I was like the Nature Boy Ric Flair. I would just walk in and say, “How you doin’ Jeff?! Whooooooo!” [Laughs] If you watch it, it’s astounding. I just walk in and scream everything.

Do you miss New Jersey at all?
Yeaaaah. Sometimes. Yeah, I miss New Jersey. I miss the Jersey shore. When I was a kid, I had a rowboat and would just work my lats all summer. [Laughs] But now I break it up into days. Today is Friday and so I’m doing neck. Weekends is lower legs and feet.

Your blog indicates that you have quite a distaste for the Jonas Brothers, also from New Jersey.
Yeah, it’s amazing that the Jonas Brothers and Wayne Chrebet are from the same town. That’s about as opposite as you can get. It’s an actual polar-opposite situation. One guy is half gorilla that goes over the middle, and the other three are… Well, I’m going to watch what I say here. And the other three are the Jonas Brothers!

I think they’re from closer to your neck of Jersey than mine, so I’m holding you responsible.
What part are you from?

Atlantic City area.
I got a slice of pizza. I was playing the Borgata in Atlantic City and right after the show I went down to the boardwalk and got a slice of pizza. It was late at night and I was alone, and the guy behind the counter was cross-eyed. And it was like a 22-year-old, very handsome young man, like, from Italy, and I just didn’t know where to look. So I just stared at the pizza. But that’s when I realized that being cross-eyed is the real lost affliction that no one really talks about. It’s the new thing that I will start championing. If I go on game shows for charity, it’s going to be for people who are cross-eyed.

What a hero. What other charities do you champion?
Well, without making a joke, I do believe that special-needs mental health is actually the real lost charity. It’s not glamorous. It always amazes me when when people go on, like, celebrity Millionaire and they’re trying to save fucking cats. I’m like, Really. Cats?!? All those fucking cats in Katrina? I don’t know if you realize it, but there are people with gangrene in their legs, and they’re fucking people! But good thing that you’re going to win $40,000 for cats. Animals that cover their own shit in a box.

They’re not even good animals!
No. I think cats stink. And I’m sick of those cat food commercials that start with someone wearing a chef’s hat. It’s always, like, a migrant worker with a wheelbarrow full of oats and fresh herbs, and a salmon jumps into a bear’s mouth, and there’s a lady in the kitchen with the chef’s hat, and it’s always that same stupid cat that they keep using. The white cat with the green eyes that looks like an old British queen. Like Mr. Belvedere if he was a cat. With those big green eyes and his tongue sticking out, like [In fancy voice] “Pyeahhh. Go be boooring.” [In Jay Mohr voice] And then she feeds it to the cat. Cat food commercials should not make me hungry.

Well, as food gets more expensive, maybe we should reconsider cat food as food for people.
[Pause] Goddamn it, Drew, it just might work.

I know, it’s crazy but it could. Also on your blog, I read something about you and your wife really liking documentaries. Have you ever seen Wings of Defeat?
No.

It’s about kamikaze pilots…that lived.

[Laughs] Oh my God! So in a way they’re failures? That’s kind of fascinating. It’s like how it’s against the law to kill yourself, but the only way to get caught is to do it poorly. You didn’t kill yourself right, so we’re arresting you. Get a glove and get in the game. Walk off…I have to be careful here.

Ah, a sports fan. Bigger failure, those would-be kamikaze pilots or the Mets the last few years?
Well the Mets are all from different places, and the kamikaze pilots were all Japanese and working for the Japanese. You know, I’m not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

That’s it?
I’m either going to rile Mets fans or insult Japanese people.

Fair enough.
Like, I’m pretty sure when Carlos Delgado went home, his father didn’t say, “You brought great shame.”

Well, yeah, I’m sure Carlos’s father lives in great comfort because of his son.
I don’t think the kamikaze pilots had a deal with Vitamin Water. You know, my wife and I are going to make a documentary. And this is all serious, by the way. ’Cause it’s going to sound like I’m putting you on, but there’s this bowling alley that does karaoke in the San Fernando Valley, and it’s like three-quarters special people. But it’s like a biker bar there, too. So you have Hell’s Angels, and these nitty-gritty, dirty San Fernando alcoholic bikers and people with Down syndrome singing Elton John, and they all just coexist perfectly. And they all know each other’s names. It’s fascinating. We’re going to get that rolling.

I’d watch that.
Aw, who wouldn’t watch it? You’d watch some pretty shitty documentaries to pass up my documentary. How dare you.

On your show, I understand that there was an episode with a dispute over a pool table. Is that realistic?
Well, it depends on the divorce agreement, doesn’t it? Because you’re talking to a guy who gave everything he had and put it on the table to get out of his marriage. I just wanted out. I wasn’t going to go back to the house and split CDs up.

At the end of the day, which show leaves the bigger mark on TV land: Gary Unmarried or Everybody Loves Raymond?
Right now it would be Raymond, but when it’s all said and done? I’m gonna say Raymond because they had Peter Boyle, and Peter Boyle was at John Lennon’s wedding. But wait, how do you know what the 1 Bold Question will be? Will it be when you asked, “Who do you think had it worse: kamikaze pilots that lived or the Mets that choked?” Because that’s a pretty ballsy question. Like, you’ll get letters from people saying things like, “That is the most racially insensitive question I’ve ever heard. Kudos to Jay Mohr for handling it with such aplomb.”

That’s what they’ll say, definitely.
Aplomb. [Laughs] I want to be a plum.

A plumber? Is that what you just said?
Oh, sure. When you’re a comic, there’s a complete romanticism with 9-to-5 jobs. Like, I saw the bread man in the supermarket the other day stacking the shelves and I thought, That must be so cool. You just handle bread all day. And then they pay you in bread.

Mohr currently stars in Gary Unmarried on CBS.