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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 2000)
Monday, t'cbruary' w idaq fl l;irlcm,uhojoim: uisc parties werehdi ound die state so porters could watct n television andli telephone call Iron ank all of you,” the the short call troma e minutes after he is because of your it mitment to thiscamjjl ve such a great begrf, ia\ e shown Giu!ians| Clinton ;uidninnin£f emale voters. Thai'si ago w hen sx mpath) i Monica Lewinsky c ed her well aheadt!: toming talk shous'j ewers of Clinton'sis k fKditics. >1 success comes® experience, backgr. ice as a lifetime res N.nd on CHS' "Fa; thda I ouKn hat The Dm cei\ e 5,(KX) applhilj before it will be si AGGIELIFE Monday, February 7,2(XX) THE BATTALION Page 3 El tat 1 comm UJITH THE BAIT “Upright Citizen’s Brigade” is dangerous sketch comedy that airs weekly on Comedy Central. At the beginning of their third season, the show is quickly becoming an underground success. In a recent exclusive interv iew. The Battalion spoke with the troupe about their secret plans to destroy the world. Q • Do you guys ever do pranks for fun—when you’re • not even recording them? Q • Are you guys on the set right now ? No, we’re actually in Upright Citizen’s Brigade HQ, 10.(K)0 miles below the surface ofthe earth. Q * Really? I thought you guy*, r Hlkicked out of there. Mjjw It's a ditferent one. It's a differentiolcamybj Q • Does y mir increased celebrity status make it hard- • er to do the pranks that y ou do? aeed. said library > in the context ofRffiM )elu\e withannUiB from college; a OrB eworkedonhisfisn'H oyce silver Wraith(B v married. Yeah, it really does actually. Sometimes we dress upas n(jr- inal everyday people mid some days we dress up as one of our freakish characters. The other day I was dressed up in full hock ey regalia cause 1 was a new character that was a fairy liockey player instead of a fairy godmother and I go up to guy s who are in times of need, w ho need to go for it and 1 give them bee# and I get them to chug it so they can go for it. like asking a girl out or asking her to go to bed w ith him. So I was going around differ ent places on the New York University campus and almosfevery- where I went, as soon as I w alked in, people were like “hey man, I like your show.” So 1 was literally having to sneak upon peo ple and scare the s—t out of them to get the desired effect. I think we all do pranks spontaneously that have no pur pose, like yelling in a movie theater or something, but we try to record all our pranks. Pranks are really hard to record because people aren't in on it obviously, they aren’t making conditions optimal, so they tc not standing in the right light or there might be a radio playing really loud or they might not be speaking up very much. It takes a lot ol diltereni conditions for the prank to be recorded well. One time we pranked Vanilla lee on the tour ofhn new speed- metal baikCyWe went dressed as "The Tittee Brothers ” andj brought a!< mg a manager and a publicist. All four of us w ent hack-; stage to talk to him after the show and we were totally, messing H with him, telling him he should open for us on tour and stuff. It was really funny, we had a Vanilla Ice doll ifom the ’80s there and we got him to sign it. He Was reaflv embarrassed about it. But the light was horrible and it didn’t come out at all. All we had was the audio from it. It was pretty disappointing. Q Does every one you prank have to sign off on it? Yes. Riglit Afterwards. Q • So everyone knows afterwards that it was a • prank? Yeah. Some people get outraged. We’ve had guys readv to Tehtus. shed outdoors rson, the news* ng editor, saidNel ed at the Timm and was toW% Q Do you guys do pranks every week? Q • Have you had any interesting viewer reactions? Oh yeah, we’ve increased our pranks like three fold what it used to be so it’s at least a prank a week. We just got some photos in the mail today about our second episode this season where we had this scene about the mafia do- UDriaht Citizens F ■ylPfg 9 jpf* Tgi 1 1 Uf 10306 J 1 9 Interview by Juan Loya PHOTOS COURTESY OF COMEDY CENTRAL nating sperm to people against their will. We had people leaving free cups of sperm all over their towns. One kid sent up pics of him leaving sperm all around Santa Cruz — at statues and stores^ and display windows. Q • Is the RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan going to make • any more appearances? Yeakj we’re always asking the Wu-Tang.tocome back. We’re going to have a final «pis«xle. a Thunderball episode w here we were going to ask any of them who want to come, they, always seem to have fun. * So Thuaderbail is an old skit you guys did? Yeah, we actually did it a long time ago in i hieago. We were going to do it as a show pur first season, but that movie BASEket- ball came out and we didn’t want people to think we stole their idea, so we put it off. It’s a lot different from />’ I.SV-.C ihail except in the idea that it combines a lot of different sports. I hundeiball is more violent and it’s more like a game of cock lighting rather than some fun game that becomes the national pastime. For us it’s more like tins underground thing that people hav e io go to spe cial places to v ievv. so it’s kind of a different feel. budget look great. Compared to major network shows, our bud get is nothing. But compared to other shows on Comedy Central, yve have a huge budget. So it’s kind of a relative thing on TV. We havespecial effects and stuff and we’ve been lucky with that. It hasn’t been a radically bigger budget this season, though. Q Do you feel you guys are a lot more successful and are more known? I think we have a hard-core cult following from people who are really into the chaos, underground, ‘Illuminati’ side of it and 1 wish more people would be into it because it’s a good sketch show. That's our focus this year, to tell people this is a sketch show, not some crazy science-fiction show, it’s just good sketch. We want to appeal to people who are 40 [years old] as well as people who are in college. Q Do you guys have any projects outside the show? Q • Have you guys ever participated in Improv • festivals? We’ve participated in the Chicago Improv festiv al every year ihev’ve done it. We’ve done a lot of improv festivals. Q • It looks like “Upright Citizen’s Brigade” got a # bigger budget for your second season. Is that the case? Well, I have to give credit to our directors for making a small We have our own Website, uprighteiti/ens.org. vv Inch isn't the Comedy Central one. We want our Website to be a viable source of entertainment in itself instead of something that just services the 'TV show as an information site. We want it to he something for people to hang out and have fun with. We have Bians for putting a lot more video, audio mate rial on It. Of course we have our movie, book and CD-ROM ideas hut we don’t have time to work on all that while we’re doing die TV show. Do you think Upright Citizen’s Brigade would ever come to College Station? We’re going to tour soon, probably late April or early May. If people at Texas A&M are interested, get people to contact our Website or Comedy Central’s Website and request us and we’ll come there. ; in journal©, that passkrtt4 nent watchdo|a|> »f the First AreT •son said. “Hei'i 5 a veteran Colors® had also worked! til and the Alai , Anderson said Tate and workec|| ?rs Ferry Herald'm ally Bee and e.J Observer be' les-Call, he said lian Restaii Buffet :00 - 2:30, 5:00 -10$ Church St. i»e Station, TX 0-7475 I FLORIDA 1 BAHAMAS 1800648-4 Coll today! Space is li# ! ’'| Earn Trips ’ Sell Cash • Go Free !!i| TALIOW m Mohiuddin itor in Chief '5-4726) is published daily, all and spnng semesteis and W il | le summer session (except Unt**| ;) at Texas A&M University. Wi#l I *| fltion.lX 77840, POSTMASTER STl ttalion, 015 Reed McDonald ?e Station,TX 77843-1111. ■ is department is managed ty iversity in the Division of Sl#'B artment of Journalism. Newsof^H Id Building. Newsroom phone:PH E-mail: Thebattalion@hotiTiai t! 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Buck Weirus Spirit Award Applications are now available for undergraduate and graduate students at the following locations: President’s Office, 8 th Floor Rudder The Association of Former Students Reception Desk Vice President for Student Affairs, 10 th Floor Rudder Office of the Dean of each College Office of Graduate Studies Student Activities Office, Suite 125 Koldus Building Multicultural Services Department, Suite 137 MSC Commandant’s Office, 102 Military Sciences MSC Student Programs Office, 216 & 223 MSC This award recognizes students for their outstanding contributions to the quality of student life programs at Texas A&M and honors Richard “Buck” Weirus ‘42 whose dedication and leadership established this award to promote the success of our students in “the other education” while completing their academic education. Questions regarding application completion may be directed to Sandy Briers (862-1973). « Applications are due by 5 p.m., Tuesday, February 8th, 2000, at the Clayton Williams Alumni Center Reception Desk. he says, "I’d coll the uys back Ome and describe my Si moves i i * she says, "I’d coll my sister in Topeka to bout the 3/ - i i_ i who It on meat the party WHfiT WOULD YOU DO WITH FREE LO N G - D I SIR N C E ? www.telegeo.com WE’D LIKE TO KNOW. Register now at & receive up to 200 FREE minutes. TeleGea is about instant, on-line communications that save you time and money.