Mitch Hedberg was one of the greatest comedians
of all time.
He might not be a household name like George
Carlin or Louis C.K., but he'll always be
remembered for his signature style and one-of-a-kind
delivery.
"I bought a two-bedroom house, but it's up
to me how many bedrooms there are though,
isn't it?
This bedroom has an oven in it!"
Unfortunately, before he could truly break
through and claim the fame he deserved, Hedberg
died of a drug overdose in 2005.
Although his time here was sadly cut short,
let's take a look at the life of the amazing
Mitch Hedberg.
Minnesota Nice
When you think of Mitch Hedberg's laidback,
west coast stoner vibe, you might be surprised
to learn that he actually came from the Midwest
— Saint Paul, Minnesota, to be exact.
Despite the fact that middle America is generally
a pretty conservative region, Hedberg never
really tried to hide his liberal drug use.
"I used to do drugs.
I still do, but I used to, too!"
It was early in his life in Minnesota that
he and his family discovered that he had a
heart defect.
His mother claimed his condition often caused
him anxiety.
Although the coroner's report ruled that Hedberg
died of a drug overdose, it's possible that
his heart condition may have contributed to
his untimely death.
The acting bug
Hedberg got his first big break on the Late
Show with David Letterman.
This led to an appearance at the 1998 Just
for Laughs festival, where he really made
an impression.
Fox jumped on the Hedberg bandwagon and signed
him to a $500,000 development deal to try
to come up with a TV show.
Unfortunately, Fox and Hedberg never found
a project that worked, so he was dropped from
his deal.
But the next year he went on to write and
star in his own movie: Los Enchiladas!, a
film about workers at a Mexican restaurant
in Minnesota.
Jay Chandrasekhar of Super Troopers edited
the film and said on a podcast that Hedberg
was great, but...kind of hard to work with
— because he and his co-star would get too
high to remember their lines.
"By take four, they're kinda looking at each
other.
They're being recorded, right?
By take six the two of them are literally
just standing there looking at each other."
The film premiered at Sundance in 1999, but
that was about the end of it.
Los Enchiladas! was never released to DVD,
and it's only been shown a handful of times
since its premiere.
When his movie failed to gain any interest,
Hedberg's acting career kind of fell apart
as well.
After being cast as a stoner on That '70s
Show, he made a brief appearance in the film
Almost Famous and later took a small role
in Lords of Dogtown before his death in 2005.
Comedy Central blow-out
Mitch Hedberg's first Comedy Central Presents
special was a big deal, but he struggled to
win over the audience.
His material was just too different from what
they were used to at the time.
"I don't have a girlfriend, I just know a
girl who would get really mad if she heard
me say that."
The edited version of the special makes it
look like Hedberg nailed the set, but the
unedited version is totally different.
At one point, he just sits down on stage,
looking defeated, but keeps going.
In the end, he won the crowd over, but it
was hard work.
"And Pringles is a laid back company, they
said f--- it, cut 'em up!"
A helping hand
Even though his Comedy Central special was
disappointing, Hedberg still had plenty of
success on the road.
TIME magazine even went so far as to call
him "the next Seinfeld."
But even in the midst of his growing fame,
he never forgot the underdogs.
When Mike Birbiglia was still early in his
career, Hedberg went out of his way to help
the new comedian out.
Hedberg performed at Birbiglia's CD release
party, but he didn't just perform: he flew
himself there and refused to be paid.
And when Hannibal Buress was just starting
out, Hedberg did him a huge favor, too.
When Hedberg played a weekend of sold-out
shows in Chicago, he let Buress and few other
inexperienced comedians go on stage during
his set.
As Buress put it, "That's unheard of.
Comedians just don't do that."
But Hedberg was apparently happy to give any
stand-up a chance.
That one act of kindness kick-started Buress'
career as a stand-up comedian.
Never say no
Toward the end of his life, Hedberg was constantly
touring.
He'd do three shows a night, then go to the
next place and do another weekend of shows.
His wife said Hedberg never passed on a job.
He'd been rejected so many times, he felt
like he had to accept while he had the chance
— or else all the rejections could start
coming back.
Even at the peak of his fame, he never seemed
to feel like he'd been accepted, so he relentlessly
traveled and performed until his last days.
He had severe stage fright
It's strange to hear that a guy who made his
living performing in front of people was also
terrified of doing so, but Mitch Hedberg was
just that.
He told Time journalist Joel Stein during
a 1998 interview, "I don't like to connect
with the crowd.
I find that if you look at people's faces,
you see a disappointed face."
And so, the prototypical Hedberg performance
involved dark sunglasses, long hair draped
over his eyes, and set-long staring contests
with the floor.
He also, as the New York Times put it, "sometimes
closed his eyes as he performed."
Remember, the guy pretty much always wore
sunglasses.
And he would still close his eyes to keep
the crowd away.
He would criticize his own jokes onstage
Every comedian messes up a joke on occasion.
They're human, too, after all.
But for the most part, comedians tend to ignore
their flubs, moving right on to the next joke
like nothing happened.
Not Hedberg, though — he tended to ruminate
on his failed jokes, criticizing them onstage
on a level that few comedians could ever get
away with.
"Dogs are forever in the push-up position.
Okay that joke is dumb, I'm aware of that."
Deadspin likened it to him breaking the fourth
wall, turning from comic to critic if a joke
didn't land.
In an odd way, it made him more endearing
and relatable to his fans.
It didn't hurt that far more of his jokes
landed than crashed.
He thought he could moderate his drug use
Rather than kick his longtime drug habit,
Hedberg attempted to moderate it.
In May 2003, the comedian was arrested for
heroin possession, which is often a wake-up
call for people to stop what they're doing,
or at least try to.
Hedberg had other ideas.
In a 2004 interview with Las Vegas Weekly,
Hedberg claimed he was going to do much less,
so people couldn't associate him with drugs
anymore.
As he said, "You can't do copious amounts
of drugs and stay alive … so not all drug
use has tapered off … but I've learned just
to stay under the radar."
He thought the plan might help his career,
theorizing during that interview that since
he got arrested for drugs once, any mistake
he makes in the future will get blamed on
drugs.
So, to make himself look better, he was planning
to do less drugs and be really quiet about
the ones he did do.
Sadly, the plan was doomed from the start.
Arrest and hospitalization
Hedberg's drug problem was never a secret,
though most people didn't realize how serious
it was.
Although he was open about smoking weed or
doing acid, he kept his heroin addiction out
of his act.
Then in 2002, he was arrested for heroin possession,
and soon after, he wound up in the hospital.
His leg was so infected from injecting heroin
that the doctors almost amputated it.
"It was 13 hours of surgery.
They took muscle out of his back, and transferred
it to his leg."
Once he recovered, Hedberg returned to standup
— and sadly continued his drug use.
In 2005, he died of a drug overdose.
"This morning, we've learned a popular comic
from St. Paul has passed.
Mitch Hedberg has died in a hotel room in
New Jersey on Wednesday.
Though he had a tragic end, Hedberg was one
of the most interesting comedians of his time
and will be remembered for his exceptional
delivery, timing, and creative one-liners.
He might not have been the new Seinfeld, but
he never needed to be.
He was Mitch Hedberg.
"I like to take a toothpick, and throw it
into the forest, and say 'you're home!'"
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