STAND-UP TUESDAYS: Mike Trainor

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny.

This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Mike Trainor’s new web series. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

We all have our guilty pleasures, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who enjoys watching people make fools out of themselves. That’s why, this week, we’re putting down the mic and logging into YouTube to check out the new web series from “truTV Presents: World’s Dumbest” writer and comedian Mike Trainor, called “Will It Suck?”

The series offers viewers Trainor’s initial assessment of upcoming movies, as judged solely on the trailer alone. Without any further knowledge of storyline or details, Trainor helps his audience decide which movies will be worth it, and which will undoubtedly suck.

Trainor theorizes on the fates of films such as Les Miserables, The Last Stand, The Hobbit and more, and recently chatted with me about the web series, as well as the brand new season of World’s Dumbest, which is set to premiere on Thursday, February 28th.

Angie: “Thanks for talking to me today, Mike. I have to say, I love the ‘Will It Suck’ series.”

MT: “Thank you very much. We’ve done a bunch; I think we’re going to wait a little bit until movies get a little better. We’ve found that how many hits we get has a lot to do with how big the movie is, so we’re going to wait until we have blockbuster after blockbuster coming out in the summer and really hit it hard then.”

Angie: “Now will this solely exist on the web or are there any plans to get it on the air?”

MT: “For now it’s just on the web. If someone wants to put in on TV we’ll let them – definitely open to that idea.”

Angie: “I love the concept, especially with some of the movies that are coming out. They’re just ridiculous.”

MT: “Yeah, you know, when the trailer comes on in the movie theater, everyone kind of forms opinion. Right as the trailer ends and the next one’s beginning, you always hear in the crowd what the verdict is. Some folks enjoy it; others are laughing when the trailer ends and that’s not a good sign.”

Angie: “So World’s Dumbest is coming into a new season?”

MT: “Yes. New season, we start on the 28th of February, and we’ve already made eight episodes, and we’ve got eight more to do. Well, we’ve actually done nine now, so, we’ve got seven more to do. It’s a lot of fun; we’re always trying to make the show new and make the new shows look different and better than the old ones. That’s kind of the challenge we have.”

Angie: “I have to say, you guys have sort of the cornerstone of that type of show and there’s been a lot of copy cats, but I don’t think anything comes quite as close.”

MT: “Yeah, a lot of shows tried – I mean, Tosh.0 gets a lot more viewership because it’s on the network that it’s on. But our show’s been around longer and has its audience and it does well; the network’s happy with the ratings. They run it all the time. Also, our show airs at any point during the day, so I think we probably have more restrictions than Tosh.0 which can be frustrating, but, you know, we work within what we have to work within. Working on the show as a writer is also exciting, like we spend all day looking at clips – in any other office, it’d be us goofing off, but here it’s like all the writers are passing them around, looking at them…it’s fun. It’s a nice way to make a living, absolutely. And I get to be on TV, too. I’m the only writer on the show.”

Angie: “And that’s just kind of a testament to the creativity as well.”

MT: “Absolutely. There’s a lot that we can do but sometimes we’ll have a clip that we really want, and because it’s just like, people having sex or something crazy the network says we can’t do it. Then it shows up on Tosh.0 and we’re like, ‘Ugh, we could have had that.’ But it’s part of the deal. We’re happy to be in the creepy clip business; there’s certainly no shortage. Every time we have to do a new episode on certain themes, twenty clips come together pretty quick.”

Angie: “People will never cease to be stupid, so there’ll be no dearth of material.”

MT: “And there’s just more and more places that have cameras, which I think is also helpful. Like, in Russia, it’s become a standard thing to have a camera always recording on your car. There’s so many crazy accidents that for insurance purposes everyone just has it, and so they’re catching all this amazing shit. There was that meteor that fell in Russia, and it’s on their dashcams – on their car. In a way it’s kind of a creepy society with everyone recording everything, but for our purposes it’s terrific.”

Angie: “That’s got to be a Die Hard promo.”

MT: “Yeah, absolutely. I haven’t seen it yet; I was just talking to a guy who saw it last night and he said it was just awful. I want it to be good; I’m definitely going to be rooting for it. I’m definitely going back on some of my verdicts after seeing the actual movie, like Les Mis. I thought it was going to be great and then I saw it and was like, ‘Hmm, this isn’t that great.’

Angie: “And you guys get so many different comedians coming through, it’s a good showcase for them as well.”

MT: “Yeah, we just auditioned six or seven comics that might get used on the show. So we’re always looking for fresh faces; people move on to other things, so we have slots to fill. We’re always looking for people who can tell a good joke but are also going to come at it from their own angle. You don’t want to look through all the jokes and see everyone making the same jokes. You want people to say stuff that no one else would say, and we’ve found a good group to do that with.”

Going to the movies? Be sure to check in with Mike Trainor first to find out, “Will It Suck?” and be sure to check out the brand new season of “truTV’s World’s Dumbest”, premiering on Thursday, February 28th at 9:00 p.m. EST.

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