New show on Comedy Central collaborates script and stand-up to bring partying to a new level
Adam DeVine is 29-years-old, and since 2011 he’s lived a good amount of his life as “Adam DeMamp.” He is occasionally a male nanny and insists that his acapella group match pitch at any given time—on screen that is.
DeVine, stand-up comedian and actor, spoke with over a dozen college newspapers about his new show, “Adam DeVine’s House Party.” The show premiered Thursday, October 24, at 12:30 a.m. and will continue to air for the next seven Thursdays to follow at the same time.
DeVine greeted the callers, “Woo! Future media moguls! Let’s do it!”
According to the Comedy Central press release, the eight-episode season “mixes scripted story lines with real stand-up, and features an exciting lineup of up-and-coming talent.”
“Viewers will find out what happens behind the scenes when DeVine is given a massive party budget and free reign of an LA mansion,” stated on the press release.
Contributed Photo / Tyler Golden
DeVine said that although he loves working on “Workaholics,” he’s lost the time to be able to perform as a stand-up comedian. Therefore, the collaboration of stand-up comedy and acting in his new show gave DeVine the opportunity to fulfil both talents as well as what he loves to do.
“It’s a cool way to be a part of the stand-up community without having to do a stand-up set every night,” he said.
Not only that, but DeVine said he was able to “get my [his] buddies and people who are really funny to be seen by more people and in a different light, more than just [as] a stand-up comedian.”
“I was like, there has to be a better way to get to know them outside of their performances, so that’s where I got the idea about a giant house party and have a little story within the context of the stand up show,” DeVine continued, “so that’s really where it came from, to give my really funny stand-up friends a shot at being actors on top of being funny stand-ups.”
DeVine said he wanted to show that, “They’re more than a guy that can just stand in front of a mic.” DeVine said he wrote the entire script portion of the show before he even cast anybody for the show. He then cast the actors and stand-ups by whom he thought would fit each role the best. With that and the assistance of Comedy Central, DeVine was able to create a cast of both new faces and old.
DeVine said he and Comedy Central have “a great working relationship.”
“As far as ‘House Party’ goes, I came in and threw the idea in the room and they said, ‘let’s do it’ and they let me cast all the comics. They had suggestions and luckily they have pretty good taste and I really like the people they suggested,” he continued.
DeVine added that with the people he did not know as well, he watched all of their sets and did some research on his own by checking out their internet sketch videos. DeVine said he then tried to depict where they would best fit between the stories that he had already written.
DeVine also expressed another reason as to why he loves and appreciates “Workaholics,” “Adam DeVine’s House Party” and working with Comedy Central in general.
“I like to smoke weed and drink booze while I work, so that’s a real bonus,” he said, “so if you can find work like that, snatch it up.”
However, DeVine made a disclaimer that his one rule is, “as long as you aren’t abusing it [marijuana] then it’s fine.”
He continued, “As long as you’re not taking giant bong rips and blowing it into a baby’s face, I think it’s cool for you to smoke weed”
Since the show is based off of both stand-up comedy and scripted story line, DeVine does play himself. DeVine clarified that his part on the show is indeed a character, a character that shows some different sides.
He said if he was completely himself, “It would be like ‘snoozeville,’ this guy’s boring, he likes froyo too much and drinks too much iced coffee.”
The actor continued, “I got a weird, big, dumb face [that] I can move in all sorts of different directions so I think that helps me out,” he said.
DeVine also made a disclaimer that his “House Party” character is much smarter than his character of Adam DeMamp on “Workaholics.”
“I’m definitely a lot smarter than him, Adam DeMamp should have been dead like fifteen times, that guy is a maniac,” he said of the college-dropout role.
DeVine said that “House Party” is not to point fun at “bros,” but to him, “it’s just so funny when someone is kind of an ego-maniac but everything goes wrong for them.”
For example in the first episode, DeVine’s ex-girlfriend shows up to the party and when he tries to impress her, it does just the opposite.
The Comedy Central star left the college newspaper writers with a final message, “Spread the gospel [about the show,] and don’t do meth, I don’t care how good ‘Breaking Bad’ was.”
Rebecca Farr can be contacted at rfarr@keene-equinox.com
