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OFF THE RADAR

By Thom Fowler

March 21, 2003

Andy Milonakis Takes The Stage

The Upright Citizens Brigade is being infiltrated by the infectious, uncanny talent of Andy Milonakis. For the past year, Andy has been taking improv classes with the notorious improv troupe while working his day job in information technology and spending his very early mornings working on the second year of his Internet video comedy series, ICE CREAM FANTASTIC at the ANGRY NAKED PAT website.

Some things can not be explained, they must simply be experienced.

I first met Andy in person in March of 1999 in at what is now known as The Stash Bash, a special grand opening day of Jay And Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey. The event was organized for fans of View Askew by director Kevin Smith who has organized several annual fan events since. I was instantly attracted to his easy-going, charismatic presence and at subsequent View Askew events, I spent as much time as I could around him.

Andy e-mailed me recently and excitedly told me that hits for his videos and for one in particular had flown through the roof and that his short, SUPERBOWL IS GAY, was going to be shown on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE (ABC, weekdays and midnight). Jimmy ended up showing three and soon, Andy will make an appearance in person on the show in Los Angeles.

I was excited for him but also a little confused. How did this happen?

I had to interview him for OFF THE RADAR so I could indulge my ongoing Andy obsession. Andy is one of the most consistently entertaining people I know and I feel fortunate to be able to rub shoulders with someone with not just natural talent, but the ambition to work to use and shape that talent. His videos speak for themselves and they are, like Andy, best appreciated without too much explanation.

So we just talked about the origins, his reaction to his sudden notoriety and then I pick his brain about cartoons, Greeks, and hip-hop in hopes of finally cracking the mystery that is Andy.

Thom: How did ICE CREAM FANTASTIC start?

Andy: I don’t know. Basically, I was talking to Brian Lynch for a while before he started up the ANGRY NAKED PAT website. And he basically saw the child-actor parody that I made and he liked that. I pretend that I’m a child actor and I fake all these acting jobs, because I couldn’t afford an agent or to get to any auditions. Basically, it said that I had done a bunch of commercials for Campbell’s soup. I typed the whole thing out like I was a retarded 12-year-old trying to break into the acting business. I had different faces. I had a bunch of pages of that written really retarded-like. Brian saw that and he thought it was funny and he told me he was starting this site up and he wanted me to do a comic strip, a photo comic strip that was kind of like my child-actor bit, a photo and then a caption. But instead have it in comic form. So it would be three different pictures and each picture would have a paragraph telling a story.

Thom: Didn’t you do that for a while?

Andy: Yeah. I did that for four or five months and then the last one I did of that, I wrote this three panel picture rap in a hooded sweater. I thought, this isn’t as good as a comic, it would be better if I did the actual rap, so I took the comic that was written and I shot that with my web-cam. I thought that was much more fun and it got a better reaction. I borrowed a DV camera and started doing videos. Brian said he was cool with it and he said that instead of doing the comics I could do the videos. That’s how I started doing them?

Thom: I’m going to ask you the question that people will ask you over and over again. Where do you get your ideas?

Andy: Sometimes I sit and think of an idea but they don’t tend to be as good as the ones that just come to me. A lot of ideas come to me when I’m just waking up because I’m still kind of delirious. Like, right when I wake up sometimes I think of weird things and I just start laughing like, “That’s fucking retarded.” I just put the camera on and shoot it. My hair is never combed or anything but when you see a lot of my videos, I look tired and my hair is out of control because some of the videos I do, I do twenty minutes after I wake up. I guess some things inspire me. I’m inspired by the old Tom Green skits. I don’t think my videos are the same as Tom Green but some of his wackiness is like … I like his old stuff a lot.

Thom: I don’t know what happened to Tom Green but it seems like he lost whatever it was he started out doing.

Andy: I don’t think he lost it. I think the stuff he’s doing now, he can’t be himself. I think if he was still doing those type of thing, I don’t know if it would be played out or not but I still think he has the same sense of humor. But when he’s doing movies that other people are writing, you can’t really do your own type of comedy if you take on these Hollywood movies. They give you the dialogue and they make you whatever character they want. In the movies, that’s not really Tom Green.

Thom: Were you making the videos before you started training in improv?

Andy: Yeah, I did it for a year before I started taking improv classes.

Thom: Has the work changed since you started doing improv?

Andy: Not really. Sometimes, I got bored of doing the long-format videos. Once in a while I do stuff that’s more thought out, like a 30-second video that takes me a couple hours to complete with a couple edits and some music in the background. I want to do more of that eventually. I don’t want to stop doing the little ones in my room. I want to still do that because those are the ones that get the better reaction. I want to do some more thought out stuff and maybe eventually write a couple of weird shorts that I get people to star in, just to have a variety of stuff. Like right now I’m just lazy and I want to just do stuff in my room.

Thom: Can we call your videos “work?” The Andy Milonakis Oeuvre.

Andy: I don’t want to. People hate when I say that’s it just really retarded stuff I do in my room, but that’s honestly what it is. It’s not that I’m not proud of it. I’m glad that I spent a couple years doing it because it’s really fun for me. But I really never imagined that it would have gotten as big as it did. I never really imagined in a million years that one of my weird shorts would be on TV. It didn’t even cross my mind.

Thom: I think your videos should be shown at the Picasso Museum in Paris – because they are like cubism, if cubists had video to work with, they would probably have made video art. Are your videos “art?

Andy: I think anything you do creatively can be considered art. Technically, yes. But I would never try to pawn them off on someone by saying, “I’m an actor and an artist and here’s my work.” I would feel way to weird showing these videos and calling them art.

Thom: Did you see MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING?

Andy: Yes.

Thom: What are Greek families REALLY like?

Andy: To a certain extent, they got it right. I think they totally stretched out the stereotypes. I think they had to because they are making a movie and no one wants to see real life for two hours. Well, I guess they do because of all these different reality shows but those aren’t real life. I think they did a good job. I think the accents were pretty horrible except for the father who I think is actually Greek. I would have liked them to make the stereotypes a little more subtle. It would have seemed real. To the people who don’t know Greeks I guess it was funnier to them having them be so crazy.

Thom: Do you like lamb stew?

Andy: I don’t know if I’ve ever had it.

Thom: Isn’t that a traditional Greek thing to eat?

Andy: I don’t know. There’s a lot of Greek things. I’ve had octopus, I’ve had goat, I’ve had lamb, I’ve had fish soup. I’ve never had lamb stew though.

Thom: What is Andy Milonakis’ natural habitat?

Andy: A DVD player. A nice flat screen HDTV. Three homeless women with AIDS.

Thom: Is that what one finds when they come over to apartment and poke around in your room? And over in this corner is where I keep my three homeless women with AIDS. And then they all smile and wave.

Andy: They smile with their two teeth. I need a nice refrigerator stocked with Grey Goose and Heineken.

Thom: What’s Grey Goose?

Andy: It’s a really good kind of vodka. And I need a big fat reggae collection.

Thom: What does an Andy Milonakis eat?

Andy: I like how you turned me into a species.

The last time I went grocery shopping was probably four months ago. I’m just always out, so I just eat whatever. I don’t really dig on the fast food too much but I eat like Bar and Grill type stuff. Whatever’s around. I just hate McDonalds and those fast-food places. They make me feel disgusting.

Thom: Didn’t you do a couple shorts about McDonalds food?

Andy: Yeah, I just went there, I didn’t eat the food. I think I got chicken stuff. I hate the beef stuff, it’s like fake, nasty. How could you eat that shit? It’s like, “I really wanna feel sick, so I’m going to go to McDonalds.” I don’t know how people do it.

Thom: Is Andy like The Buddha?

Andy: Exactly.

Thom: Yoda?

Andy: I’m not as wise as Yoda. I’m more like Yoda if he lost 100 IQ points.

Thom: Yogi Bear?

Andy: No.

Thom: Boo Boo Bear?

Andy: Exactly.

Thom: The Ranger?

Andy: If the Ranger was black.

Thom: Any Hanna Barbara cartoon characters?

Andy: I’m not a big fan. I’m like Elroy

Thom: How about any of the Warner Brothers cartoon characters?

Andy: I’m not a big cartoon fan

Thom: Are you at all like a cartoon character?

Andy: I’m like Elroy

Thom: Elroy from THE JETSONS?

Andy: No, Elroy from down the block in Astoria.

Thom: How often do you make an Ice Cream Fantastic Video?

Andy: I was slackin’ at them for a while when I was in my improv class. I was doing one every couple of weeks. But then once it picked up, it took priority again because a lot of people were watching so I thought I should devote more time to it. And now that things are happening, lately I’ve been doing probably one ever three days.

Thom: How did you come up with the name Ice Cream Fantastic?

Andy: That was Brian Lynch’s idea. He saw some local cable access channel that had a commercial for an ice-cream shop and it said, “ICE CREAM – FANTASTIC!”

Thom: Who drew the icon of you with the ice cream cone on your head?

Andy: DJ Coffman did. He’s [formerly] the artist on Monkey Man. I went to Friendly’s, an ice-cream place, and I made my sister take a picture of me outside in the rain. I had a rain coat on and a hood and I bought three scoops of ice cream and I put them on top of the hood and I had my sister take a picture. I had that up for a while and then DJ drew that icon based on the picture.

Thom: Do you have any idea how you went from relative obscurity to relative notoriety?

Andy: It’s weird how the Internet works. It makes sense though. You find so many things that everybody finds out about. Like that little dancing banana that goes, “It’s peanut-butter jelly time.” That retarded thing gets spread around the internet and millions of people know it. Just like SUPERBOWL IS GAY. One time you do something that someone likes and they send it out and it’s viral. It just gets spread out all over the place.

Thom: Like that Wasabi thing.

Andy: Yeah.

Thom: WASABEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Andy: I don’t know why SUPERBOWL IS GAY is the one that got popular. People who were fans of ICE CREAM FANTASTIC before were like, “Why did that song get picked to get popular? That songs not nearly as good as some of the other stuff.”

Thom: Maybe because it’s attached to the Super Bowl and most people have a pre-existing relationship with the Super Bowl.

Andy: I think it’s because it’s kind of basic. Some of my other ones are really, really weird and this ones a little bit weird but its kind of basic. Maybe it’s more mainstream.

Thom: Was there just one day when your hit counts started to get geometrically bigger?

Andy: One day was like a thousand views in a day. The next day was 7,000 and the next day it doubled again to about 14,000 and it doubled again from there and it started going crazy until I owed thousands and thousands of dollars to my ISP for the traffic.

Thom: Has it stayed consistent?

Andy: It has stayed pretty consistent.

Thom: Jimmy Kimmel now wants to adopt you. I’ll miss you but if you must go, then go. How did your videos end up on the Jimmy Kimmel show?

Andy: Basically it was a week after the thing took off and I was just doing radio interviews and a bunch of stuff was coming my way. And it was just so cool checking my email. It was like scratching an instant lottery ticket. Anytime I checked my e-mail there was something cool happening. Like, “We want you to do this, we want you to do that.” I came home from a bar and I saw the subject, “From Jimmy Kimmel Live.” And I went, “holy shit.” I was talking with them back and forth and they sent me a release form and they’ve shown three skits so far. Hopefully I’m going out there soon.

Thom: When are you going to be on the show in person?

Andy: They don’t have a date but they definitely want me there. They can’t give me a definite date.

Thom: I remember at a bar in New Jersey after one of the View Askew Vulgarthons, the bouncer gave you a hard time about your ID. He thought it was fake. People think you are a lot younger than you actually are. Why is that?

Andy: I have no idea. I don’t know why people think I’m younger than I am.

Thom: How old are you?

Andy: 27.

Thom: Oh my God, you are so old.

Andy: Why? How old are you?

Thom: 33. But 27 is older than 33 and you’ll understand that when you are 33.

Andy: Unless I die before then.

Thom: Are you going to die?

Andy: I don’t know. Wanna make out?

Thom: Just in case?

Andy: I’m just trying to live up to other people calling me gay.

Thom: Do people think you are gay?

Andy: They ask it. “Why do you sing about things gay? Are you gay? You said you were gay in the song. It must be true.” Fucking idiots.

Thom: Aren’t you doing some acting now?

Andy: I just started this level 4 improv class. It’s a performance class. We rehearse for a month and then we have month’s run at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre.

Thom: Is that in Manhattan?

Andy: Its in the Chelsea area.

Thom: So the public can go and watch you perform?

Andy: Yeah. They just got this new theatre and it has about 140 seats.

Thom: Is it hard to get into the Upright Citizen’s Brigade improv classes?

Andy: It’s not hard. This is the first class that you have to try to get into to. The guy teaching it is Paul Shearer[?]. He’s the director of the show. It’s not just a class. He’s picking people that he wants to be in the show. It’s a class slash show. But anyone can take classes to learn all the different ways of doing improv.

Thom: Is it like The Groundlings Theatre in Los Angeles?

Andy: They do short form, I think.

Thom: Upright Citizens Brigade is long-form?

Andy: Yeah.

Thom: I like the short form. I haven’t done improv in a while. I had a lot of fun when I used to do it. I keep thinking about getting back into it but then I keep thinking about doing everything.

Andy: I’ve been taking a break from my team because I have a lot of shit going on. I have a team and we are almost ready to perform in like a couple months. But I’m taking some time off to get shit straightened out. I’m still doing improv once a week. I used to do it three times a week.

Thom: Do you have an agent yet?

Andy: I don’t have an agent but I kind of have a manager now.

Thom: Can I be your agent?

Andy: Sure.

Thom: That was easy. I thought you would say no and I was going to run down my list of other options. Maybe I can just add slashes between all the roles.

Thom: How about your personal assistant?

Andy: Yes.

Thom: Propmaster?

Andy: Yes.

Thom: Can I get an autographed headshot?

Andy: For five dollars.

Thom: You’ll make me hollah?

Thom: Can anyone else get an autographed headshot?

Andy: Yes, for four dollars.

Thom: I don’t have five bucks. Can you just bust a rhyme for me?

Andy:
I’m doin’ an innaview wit Thom Fowlah
He’s the Internet Prowlah
He’s looking for kiddie porn while I’m looking for Lorne
Michaels to hire me
SNL is fuckin' shitty
But I don’t care cuz I get nitty-gritty
With my stupid rhymes
I do it on time
Cuz I’m a fat little midget
And I said I used to watch Gidget
On Nick at Nite
Yo, you wanna fight?
With me.
I’m a little albino
And I like to smoke the yo-yo cho-cho

Thom: How do feel about Eminem?

Andy: I think he’s very talented. I think he has a little bit of a shtick going on. Everybody needs their little shtick. I’d like to hear him do some crazy raps that have nothing to do with killing ladies and stuff. I guess that’s asking him to change his style. Which I guess I shouldn’t do.

Thom: Queen Latifah?

Andy: I just did a free-style about Queen Latifah and put it up on the Internet. It didn’t make any sense. I don’t even remember what I said. I don’t mind her acting. She was good in CHICAGO. I don’t like her as a rapper.

Thom: DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince?

Andy: Horrible.

Thom: Duran Duran?

Andy: I don’t really know them.

Thom: Britney Spears?

Andy: She’s nice to look at. Horrible to hear.

Thom: Missy Elliot?

Andy: I like her. There aren’t that many female rappers that I really like but I think she’s really talented. I like her stuff.

Thom: I’m really into Missy Elliot these days.

Andy: Word.

Thom: Do you like old school hip-hop, hardcore hip-hop or the more pop hip-hop?

Thom: What about underground?

Andy: I like some underground, like Company Flow. I like some commercial stuff. I like some of 50 Cent and Moz Def. He’s pretty popular now but I liked him before he got popular. And Common Sense. He’s just known as Common now. I listen to more Reggae than Hip-Hop. Maybe its equal, but I listen to tons of Dance Hall Reggae and Roots.

Thom: I never figured you for a Roots guy.

Andy: ROOTS AHND COOLCHAH.

Thom: I learn something new all the time.

Thom: How about that mix of Hip-hop, punk and metal?

Andy: It depends who it is. I think the best group to mix stuff up and have so many different genres in one are SUBLIME. Was SUBLIME anyway, because now the guy is dead. I love SUBLIME. They had such a unique style and I loved how Bradley [Nowell] had that little reggae vibe to him. He was great at doing the whole reggae thing mixed with punk and a little rock and I guess ska. There are so many different elements of music in their music.

Thom: Would you rather do a sitcom, host a variety show, or go on tour?

Andy: What kind of variety show? Would I be doing the comedy or just announcing it?

Thom: Just hosting.

Andy: I would probably take the sitcom.

Thom: Is there a DVD collection of ICE CREAM FANTASTIC coming?

Andy: I don’t know. A couple people gave me some offers but I don’t know if they are shady or not. So I’m going to send them to my manager and see what he thinks.

Thom: Have you thought merchandising Andy Milonakis rubber Halloween masks? Wouldn’t it be creepy to see the entire Greenwich Village Halloween Parade wearing Andy M. masks?

Andy: Yes, it would be it. It would be surreal. It’d be erotic. I’d jerk off to it.

Thom: Do you sit up at night wondering how exactly you are going to assimilate the Halloween Parade?

Andy: No.

Thom: I do. If I were your manager, I’d find a way. And take 30% of the gross.

Andy: You’re so silly.

BONUS MATERIAL!! Andy’s Fan Mail – I had to know what the people were saying.

Dear Andy, You are a fucking fag.
Your gay song is the most fucked up
Song I've ever heard in my life!!!
You look like a fucking dike!!!!Bitch!!
How dare you disrespect football;
You've probably haven't even played!!!
If you ever come near the Citadel I will have your fat ass bracing in my half press!!!
Are you understanding me FATBOY!!!
You are the scumb of the Earth and you eat ASS!!!!!!Bitch!
Have a Nice Day!!!

But wait, there’s more.

hey andy!
i LoVe yOu!
i'm a big fan...i just got my own cam like 2 weeks ago...funtimes! well, i'm a lot like ya, and i love your site! its so awsome! you're my superstar! hehehe, well yea, i bet u will never get to read this e-mail with all the other fan mail you get, but if you ever wanna e-mail me, feel free! :-D so, wassup?!?! how long have u been making videos? well, igotta run. i'll e-mail ya later! Hehe
your lover, ~kristen~