Joy Riding With Bobcat Goldthwait & Dana Gould

Every once in a while in this crazy pod­cast­ing com­e­dy web­site busi­ness, an hon­or is bestowed upon you that is so great you have to pinch your­self to make sure you haven’t drift­ed into a beau­ti­ful dream. 

Such a moment came to my pod­cast partner/​editor Valerie Lopez and myself when we found our­selves in the bel­ly of the Para­mount The­ater, tucked away in a dress­ing room inter­view­ing Bob­cat Goldth­wait and Dana Gould…at the same time! What?! How? Goldth­wait and Gould had just fin­ished screen­ing the pre­mière of their new film Joy Ride here at the Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val. Pri­or to this screen­ing, nei­ther had seen the entire fin­ished prod­uct, let alone with an audi­ence. Here comes a sec­ond pinch me moment. Ours was the first inter­view giv­en about the film. 

So what is Joy Ride? I’m so glad you asked. Gould describes it as a ​“Docu­com­e­dy”, which chron­i­cles the pair tak­ing a road­trip as they tour the Unit­ed States togeth­er doing their Show With Two Heads. But the road from their begin­nings in com­e­dy to this tour was far from fahrvergnü­gen (don’t sue us, VW). 

Goldth­wait and Gould had quite the adver­sar­i­al rela­tion­ship com­ing up in the Boston Com­e­dy scene. Gould found him­self going as far as to walk the oth­er way if he saw Goldth­wait walk­ing down the street. Look­ing back, both agree that their dif­fer­ences were as much about their sim­i­lar­i­ties than any­thing else. Goldth­wait was a close child­hood friend of Tom Ken­ny, who you may know as Sponge­Bob SquarePants. Ken­ny also hap­pened to be friends with Dana Gould. Goldth­wait says he thinks the ani­mos­i­ty began because he per­ceived Gould to be ​“deriv­a­tive” of Tom Ken­ny. Goldth­wait says, ​“Let’s go and think why am I attack­ing him? Oh, oh, some­times you’re [Goldth­wait] deriv­a­tive of Tom Ken­ny.” Gould was mere­ly reflect­ing a famil­iar insecurity.

It’s no won­der Gould would even­tu­al­ly turn that ani­mos­i­ty into a close friend­ship. As they both describe the bru­tal­i­ty of the 80’s Boston com­e­dy scene, Gould refers to it as a ​“breath of fresh air” com­pared to his upbring­ing. Time and find­ing their own style and place in com­e­dy seemed to help bridge the gap. For Goldth­wait, a noto­ri­ous­ly irrev­er­ent talk show guest (Exhib­it 1: search for ​“Tonight Show fire”), that would come in find­ing his hap­pi­er place behind the camera. 

The two now work so well togeth­er, you’d nev­er believe they had such a rocky start. There’s a warmth and admi­ra­tion between them you can sense from just being in the same room. 

But before I paint a pic­ture of Joy Ride as some seri­ous ​“com­ing to terms” doc­u­men­tary, I have to tell you it is also hilar­i­ous. Per­haps it was the atmos­phere of being at Moon­tow­er, but there were moments of the film where I for­got I wasn’t watch­ing live standup. I think the audi­ence felt the same. As Gould observes, ​“What I could­n’t tell was, what was laugh­ter on the sound­track and what was laugh­ter in the the­ater.” You will lose your­self in this film, thus mak­ing Joy Ride the per­fect description. 

With Goldth­wait tak­ing on the task of direc­tor as well as doing some of the edit­ing, he said dur­ing the post-screen­ing Q&A that he real­ized a nat­ur­al vil­lain would emerge in this sto­ry and unfor­tu­nate­ly it had to be him. I respect­ful­ly dis­agree. I think a new vil­lain emerges in Joy Ride and it’s nei­ther Goldth­wait nor Gould. You’ll have to watch for your­self and decide. Either way, I promise you you’ll enjoy the ride.

Joy Ride is in the­aters Octo­ber 29^th and avail­able on iTunes for streaming 

Fol­low Bobcat

• Twit­ter — @bcgoldthwait
• Insta­gram — @bobcatgoldthwait

Fol­low Dana

• Web­site — www​.danagould​.com
• Twit­ter — @danagould
• Insta­gram — @danagould
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​o​f​f​i​c​i​a​l​d​a​n​a​gould

Bob­cat can be seen and heard:

• Seri­ous­ly, just search his name and you’ll find plen­ty — every­thing from radio, TV, and movies!

Dana can be seen and heard:

• Dit­to + The Dana Gould Hour podcast

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