Jim Gaffigan on 'Pale Force,' Hot Pockets & Chicago stand-up shows

Few fans may realize that the idea for "Pale Force" actually came from his brother-in-law, New Yorker cartoonist Paul Nost. Gaffigan had been working stand-up and had appeared several times on O'Brien's show. After he and his wife, Jeanne, and her brothers Paul and Patrick Nost, wrote some of the stories, Gaffigan pitched the idea to O'Brien.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Gaffigan, who was born in Barrington, grew up in northwest Indiana and now lives with his wife and three kids in New York, said he never imagined when he left his job as an advertising copywriter to pursue stand-up that he would be doing an animated series.

"We did things in 'Pale Force' that was not necessarily my stand-up persona," he said, adding that he loved that aspect of the project. "I loved the episodes, but I also loved the interaction before they would air that I would set up on the show."

A year after "Pale Force" began, Gaffigan's stand-up career skyrocketed when he debuted his Hot Pocket bit on the comedy special "Beyond the Pale." He's since done several more comedy specials and tours, commercials, movies and the TBS sitcom "My Boys," which returns next year for a fourth season probably without Gaffigan. ("There's part of me that's, like, can you just not write about that?")

Gaffigan kicked off a new tour recently that will bring him to the Chicago Theatre on Jan. 29-31. (Tickets for a fourth show go on sale Thursday at Ticketmaster.) He's debuting new material about seafood, whales and Subway ("There's something fascinating how as a culture, we eat so poorly that going to a sub shop is considered healthy.") He'll definitely talk about Hot Pockets too. And it should be just as funny as always.

"If I did a theater show and I didn't do it, people would be kind of like, 'I drove an hour, and he didn't even do that Hot Pocket joke,' " he said, adding the Hot Pockets has changed his life. "That joke has made it possible in some ways for me to work at the Chicago Theatre.

"But I don't eat them, you know what I mean? That's not to say that I haven't, or that I won't, but I think I've just had too many maybe a step beyond mediocre versions of Hot Pockets. It's kind of like Burger King. It's like, do I try to avoid it? Yeah. But I still find myself ordering a Whopper."

Gaffigan talked more about his Chicago shows, his Midwest roots and, of course, food.

It doesn't sound like Jim Gaffigan will be back for much of the fourth season of "My Boys," but you never know. TBS photo

When you go to different cities, do you try to come up with special jokes?
Chicago is obviously very important to me. I've always been part of the Chicagoland metropolitan thing. ... There's something about being from Chicagoland. There's a certain kind of point of view. I'm trying to think of an example of it. Of course, I have nothing now, but my sensibility kind of matches up with Chicagoland.

You talk about food a lot, and food is a big thing in Chicago.
There's something about the whole experience that is very familiar. There's something about, I don't know. But then again, I haven't lived in Chicagoland for 20 years.

And I go back and my brothers and sisters live there and I immediately want to get deep dish pizza and they're like, "Really? What, are you like a tourist?" Do you know what I mean? And I'm like, "I need to get that layer of sausage." Or just getting a Chicago-style hot dog. There's something that I look forward to, probably because I have some strange eating disorder.

And the Italian beef thing. They don't have that in other places. They kind of do, but there's certain things.

You live in New York, where they have their own kind of pizza.
The New York-style pizza. It's just not my thing. That's not to say I don't eat it once a week...

Do you have any favorite place you go in Chicago?
Now watch, I'll butcher the name, but Mr. Beef for the Italian beef. Depending on where my hotel is is where I'll determine what deep dish I'll get, because I not only love pizza, but I'm lazy. I remember doing morning press when I used to work at Zanie's, which is a great club. I remember sitting in a Giordano's at like 10:30 in the morning waiting until 11 so I could order a pizza. So, it is a sincere love.

So there are so many things like Hot Pockets. Pizza pockets, for instance.
Oh yeah, and the Jamaican meat pies. They have them at hot dog places sometimes and they're like the spice meat kind of thing. It's like if you're going to have IBS, you might as well enjoy it, in a way.

We were having Indian food last night, and there's like an Indian dish that, of course, I've been too lazy to look up, but I remember commenting to my wife, "That looks exactly like a Hot Pocket." And then there was like another thing that looked exactly like a Hot Pocket. And you know, it had the same effect as a Hot Pocket ...

Do you ever go to White Castle when you are here? That sort of has the same effect.
I remember working in a grocery store in Hammond, Ind., and occasionally I would have White Castle for lunch and it was always just this dramatic regret that I would have around 3 p.m. You know there's something when it comes to fast food. I think Wendy's is kind of like the barometer and ... I'm writing a list and have been writing all of this new stuff and doing kind of a study on Subway.

I feel like that Subway is just kind of this garbage place that we've been lead to believe [is healthy]. It's like, "Well, we can do yoga, or we can go to Subway. I guess I'll just go to Subway. It worked for Jared." You know? Jared is like this patron saint of Subway. It's like if you make a pilgrimage here, you'll be forgiven all of your fast-food sins.

But the Subway thing is a very fun topic ... It's just even watching the clinically depressed guy make your sandwiches. It's fun. Because they're doing it right in front of you. And you'd think they'd do it with a little flare, but [they don't].

Jared is like an every man--he lost 300 pounds and he started eating Subway--but it's like he's still 100 pounds overweight now ... It's brilliant marketing, you know what I mean? But that whole "Subway Eat fresh" thing, and you bite in and it's like, not so fresh.

You're on Twitter. Do you ever hope to be the subject of a Twitter hoax?
I kind of see Twitter as, I'm the guy who writes comedy and if I have a comedic idea that might be funny, I'll put it on Twitter. But I try to have my Twitters be--like if I am announcing a show, I'll go on there and say. ... There is something about the Twitter thing where I think there's a tendency toward narcissism. So I want to hold myself back from it [and not tweet things] like, "and then I took a shower." But then again, if people are twittering with their friends and they want to keep them updated that's fine. But for me, it's just like, "I had Indian food that gave me diarrhea." You know what I mean? I just try to make it a joke or here and there.

Somebody asked me to ask which one of your personalities is on there.
My Twitter stuff seems mostly to be food stuff. But, yeah, it seems like a great outlet for observational kind of comedy. Because I think sarcasm might be lost on there sometimes.

Oh totally. Thinking of foods again, do you get facts from the "Bacon Boy?"
No, but I receive so much, like when Jonathan Brandmeier gave me a bacon wallet. It's fun, you do certain jokes--like I used to have this joke about the Manatee and people would give me stuffed Manatees, and then the Hot Pocket thing, people would--there's always Hot Pocket stuff and the bacon stuff.

It's fun to see which jokes kind of catch on and the bacon thing, there's just something about bacon that even vegetarians are kind of like, "Yeah it is good." The power of bacon is pretty dramatic.

Your observations about bacon are totally on. Everything's better with bacon.
Oh thanks.

Another Tweep asked if you've ever ordered a BLT sandwich, but held the LT?
I've never ordered a BLT and said to hold the lettuce and tomato. People have sent me bacon. I remember one time someone had sent us all these different types of bacon and so we were frying it up. I'm talking about tons of it. So we cooked it all up but you can only eat so much bacon. You know, bacon and pastrami? It's like you'd better not have any plans afterward.

If you eat a lot of bacon, it's not like you're going to be like, all right, I'll only have three bacon sandwiches and then I'll go for a jog. It's like, you have two bacon sandwiches and you're like, "All right, maybe I can watch 'Sportscenter,' but that's about it."

Speaking of bacon, do you have any fear of Swine Flu?
You know, that Swine Flu thing is--I don't know, it's like at this point I don't know if we should be nervous, or if they're just being overly cautious. ... The kids is the only reason I'm a little bit worried, but I feel like it's too bad because really the pig is such a great animal and that it's associated with a disease just seems unfair. Don't hate the pig; hate the disease. I think a famous rapper said that.

Are you coming back to "My Boys?"
You have to understand, it's like I've got three kids and I live in New York. "My Boys," it's like such a great group of people, but it's kind of like my daughter's starting kindergarten. It was kind of mutually agreed that we would kind of--I was more essentially a reoccurring [character] anyway, so.

So you're done or you'll commit to come back for a couple? Everybody wants to know.
I've worked with a lot of great people, but that "My Boys" group of actors and everyone is amazing. It's just that life goes so many different ways and it's like, I'm doing so much stand-up. So it was mutually kind of [agreed]--it wasn't a big to-do or anything.

All right. So I can say "maybe?"
Yeah.

Do you research stuff for your stand-up? Do you find a study about bacon or anything like that?
I write everything with my wife, so say when I was doing jokes on bean bags, she might find out bits of information about it and I'll be like, "Yeah, but that's not universal." So, even if there's a new Hot Pocket, I don't do research.

Some it may be because I'm lazy, but some of it may be because there has to be a universality to the piece of information or you're going to spend too much time explaining it. I might talk about being Catholic, but if I'm talking about it, it doesn't matter if you're Muslim or Jewish, it's common knowledge some of the topics that I'm dealing with.

Right. I like the couch potato stuff and being lazy. I think everyone has those days.
Thanks. Yeah, and it's the romanticizing of it: We're all so busy that we kind of long for those days when we were 23 and we could just sleep for 14 hours and then get up and watch "Magnum PI."

Can you preview the subject matter of your new material?
The thing I've been writing about lately that I'm excited is Subway and seafood and whales. When I did the CD release of this special coming out, I toast the topic they're discussing and I'm like, "It's going to sound really boring." You know what I mean?

Or very odd. Just in listing those things, you know?
Yeah. You know, shoes is the topic. It sounds like it's horrible. It's like, "Really? The guy doesn't curse and he's talking about shoes? I can't wait to go to the Chicago Theatre!" But if you understand my sensibility there's a context of it all. It's going to be some fun.