Bob Odenkirk talks Chicago, kid-friendly comedy and ‘Da Super Fans’

Naperville native Bob Odenkirk, best known for his roles on "Mr. Show" and "Breaking Bad," returns to the Chicago area June 18 to perform two shows at the Just for Laughs festival. Photo provided.

No city generates top-notch comedic talent like Chicago. But of all the active comic actors who can call the Chicago area home, perhaps none of them has a more devoted cult following than Bob Odenkirk.

A Second City alum and Naperville native, Odenkirk studied with improv legend Del Close and The Players Workshop in the ‘80s, writing and performing with such future comic stars as Robert Smigel and Chris Farley, for whom Odenkirk created Farley’s iconic Matt Foley character. Odenkirk also worked as a writer for “Saturday Night Live” from the late ‘80s to 1991, contributing to such sketches as the Robert Smigel-created Super Fans, about a group of delusional, diehard Bears fans with thick mustaches and even thicker Chicago accents. But Odenkirk found a more public following as a performer, first on the short-lived “The Ben Stiller Show,” then as Stevie Grant on “The Larry Sanders Show,” then most famously as one of the two primary stars of “Mr. Show with Bob and David,” a surreal sketch comedy series on HBO that maintains a rabid following, and has clearly inspired other such shows and comedy troupes, despite ending more than 10 years ago with just about 30 episodes to its name.

Odenkirk has since performed on a variety of movies and TV shows, most recently and memorably as sleazy scumbag attorney Saul Goodman on AMC’s excellent “Breaking Bad,” and directed some movies including “Let’s Go To Prison” and “The Brothers Solomon.” But despite his busy production schedule, Odenkirk still performs live comedy. Next week, the TBS-sponsored Just for Laughs comedy festival brings him home for two marquee shows. On June 18 and 19, Odenkirk and a slew of other sketch comedians perform “The Not Inappropriate Show,” a collection of family-friendly sketch comedy. Also on June 19, Odenkirk, along with Smigel, Joe Mantegna, George Wendt, Richard Roeper and Mike Ditka will conduct a live reading of a “Super Fans” screenplay that was never produced in the presentation “Da Bears Movie Dat Wasn’t.” (Maybe they’ll altar the presentation a bit to make some jokes about the Blackhawks?)

Odenkirk talked to Chicago Beat about his upcoming shows and how growing up in Chicago helped make him a comedian.

Chicago Beat: Let’s talk about the Super Fans. I never knew there was a screenplay made around them. What’s the story there? Why did it never see the light of day?

Bob Odenkirk: “The Super Fans” is a script that [Robert Smigel and I] wrote 20 years ago, something like that. Let’s say 15 years ago. 18 years ago. The characters were popular on “SNL,” and they wanted to see if there was a screenplay in there, and so we wrote an extremely long, basically a rough draft [screenplay]. … The premise was that the world of sports was overtaken by rich elitist owners and show-offy, overpaid players, and so the Super Fans had to retaliate by creating their own sport, then saving sports by winning the Indy 500 in a bus driven by Mike Ditka. … And everybody just thought it was too much of the same joke … that the Super Fans filter everything in their lives through a wildly overblown love of the football team known as “Da Bears.” … So we just let it slide. So then, I don’t know whose idea it was to do a Super Fans reading, but I said I would do it if we did it for charity because I’m such a great person. [Chicago Beat note: Proceeds for the event go to Have Dreams: Helping Autistic Voices Emerge and the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund.] Robert of course jumped right back because he likes to do work for charity too, but we don’t want people to think that we think this is a Broadway show. But it is a fun little thing to do, and it might be a fun thing for people to see. There are a lot of jokes in the script. I’ve been working on it with Robert where we’ve been shortening it and picking which jokes to read. And we’ve got a great cast and I think it will be a really fun show that will raise some money for charity. Ditka will be there and George Wendt and Joe Mantegna’s doing it. It’s really funny, and it should be great. If you’re a Chicagoan and certainly if you’re a Chicago sports fan, you should be there, I think.

CB: Did you work on any of those skits with Robert on ‘Saturday Night Live’?

BO: The idea was Robert’s. That’s the kind of thing Robert writes and picks up on. He’s really good with that stuff. So he invented those characters and I was a part of it because I love the absurdity of it and of course I’m a Chicagoan, I’m from Naperville. My grandfather grew up near Comiskey Park [now U.S. Cellular Field, where the White Sox play], and he’d take us to Bears games, Cubs games, Sox games. My Dad would take us to Cougars games, I don’t know if you remember the World Hockey Association Cougars, and he would take us to Blackhawks games. And so yeah, most of the sketches primarily were Robert’s, but I helped.

CB: What do you think it was about those characters that despite being so Chicago-centric, the comedy is universally appealing?

BO: Because every city has its diehard fans, and certainly every blue collar city with people who work blue collarish 9 to 5 jobs and sort of devote their lives to the team. If you go to Philadelphia, they’ve got those people, and Cleveland, and any midwestern city has those fans.

CB: What about Chicago itself and how it impacted you and your comedy? What do you think it was about growing up in the area that helped you define your comedic nature?

BO: I think it’s being a Second Citizen [at Second City], and a kind of a realist side of your personality that comes from that blue collar [lifestyle]. My great-grandparents, half were from Germany and half were from Ireland, and they’re part of that whole ethnic sensibility of Chicago, kind of rough and tumble and harsh about life. Life was hard on them and they looked at life with a cynical and sarcastic point of view. And I get that from my Mom and Dad and they got it from their parents, so it’s sort of a really down to earth sensibility that Chicagoans have that makes them funny, and funnier than other cities.

CB: So even though you’ve gone on to play characters from all over the world and different walks of life, do you still feel a connection to Chicago?

BO: It’s very strange. I don’t feel as connected to the fandom of Chicago – you know Cubs fans, Bears fan thing – as much as I feel connected to the sensibility of the city and the people. So I think it informs me in my life because I’m a pretty down to earth person.

CB: Something else you’re doing at Just for Laughs is the Not Inappropriate Show. How did the whole concept for this come together, and what was the challenge in trying to create a comedy show that is appropriate for kids?

BO: I have a son whose 11 and a daughter’s whose 9, and they’re very smart kids and funny and they like comedy and we talk about comedy a lot in my house, and they’ve never seen “Mr. Show,” cause “Mr. Show” is all pretty racy and there’s a lot of language in it. But they know my sensibility, and I’ve done a lot of things over the years that they can watch.

So my wife [Naomi Odenkirk] is a talent manager. She manages some great actors and actresses including Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader and Bobby Moynihan and Jenna Fischer, so she’s always going out to see shows like at The Groundlings and the Upright Citizen Brigade Theater and the Second City whenever she’s in Chicago. So she sees a lot of talent that do funny scenes that are written for an adult audience but are not crude or with adult themes. So we just decided, again for a charity event that we did on New Year’s, because there’s nothing going on on New Year’s Day and you want to do stuff with your kids and you don’t want to see “Shrek 9.” So we put it up on New Year’s and got some sketches from Groundlings, UCB and stand-up comics, and we made a little show and it was a huge success, because there’s nothing made for that audience. Because there are kids shows, but this is not a kids show. This is not inappropriate for kids. So it’s not really right for five year olds or seven year olds, but it’s great for 9-year-olds and 12-year-olds and 15-year-olds. They’re going to love it, and it’s a chance for them to see a Second City type show that’s smart – we don’t do any lampooning of fairy tales … or any call and response, or some guy in a bunny suit. … And they’re going to see a funny show and the adults are going to like it and it has the same silly sensibility that “Mr. Show” has but without the language or subject matter. …

It’s so funny, it’s hard to get across to people. To me it’s such a commentary on America who don’t understand anything in between family friendly things that are essentially for little children and porn. We don’t have any middle ground. It’s like, ‘What about all the people who aren’t little babies anymore that don’t want to hear extreme crudity?’ You know what I’m saying right. In America, movies now are rated R and they’re really crude and they look like they’re really funny and I go to them. You can’t bring your 13-year-old to those movies. Like what’s ‘Get Him to the Greek’ rated? It should be PG-13, but it’s probably R. [Chicago Beat note: The movie is Rated R.] But my son would like to see that movie but he can’t. He understands the concept.

CB: So it’s not particularly difficult or challenging to perform for a younger audience? You don’t have to change the way you approach comedy?

BO: Nothing’s different except we chose scenes that [parents] won’t have to explain later.

CB: So what’s it like to come back and play multiple shows and big venues and perform with some major actors?

BO: I just love coming to Chicago and I can’t wait to do the Not Inappropriate Show. Super Fans is going to be fun and a celebration. The Not Inappropriate Show is kind of special to me. My kids are 9 and 11, so its something I can share with them that presents who I am, so that’s kind of neat, you know? I think I’m looking forward to doing that show most of all.

“The Not Inappropriate Show” will be performed at the brand new Mayne Stage, 1328 W. Morse Ave., at 4 p.m. June 18 and 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. June 19. Tickets are $25 and available here. “Da Bears Movie Dat Wasn’t” will be performed at Park West, 322 W. Armitage, at 7 and 10 p.m. Tickets are $35 and available here.

I have more from Odenkirk about “Breaking Bad” in my article for TV Squad.