Comedian Whitmer Thomas: The Last Nine Things That Made Me Laugh

Cute, funny, and carefree are adjectives people might commonly use to describe their childhood selves. Comedian Whitmer Thomas, on the other hand, describes his younger self as “very takable.” In his new HBO special, The Golden One (airing Saturday), Thomas tells the story of the time his dad caught a child predator carrying him down the street to a home that the police later discovered looked like something out of True Detective. But that wasn’t Thomas’s only run-in with a creep. Not in the special is the story of the time as a child, during a trip to New York just a few years later, when an older man repeatedly called his hotel room, where he’d been left alone, and told him that he was watching him and that he wanted to “f—k me in the ass.”

Thomas puts a positive, darkly hilarious spin on morbid stories like these: in his tellings, they’re testaments to how cool and desirable he was. Other experiences from his past, though, are tougher to grapple with he says—in particular, the loss of his mother, a house band singer who died a little over a decade ago.

That’s where music and documentary footage comes in during The Golden One, a must-see special. Thomas occasionally picks up a guitar and transitions from traditional jokes to laugh-out-loud emo songs. And at the suggestion of comedian-auteur Bo Burnham (Eighth Grade), the special’s executive producer, Thomas filmed it at the Flora-Bama, the honky-tonk beach bar where his mother used to perform. Thomas lives in Los Angeles, so returning home meant talking to family members he hadn’t spoken with in years while facing his past head-on—all of which he filmed and wove into the special.

Ultimately, all the discomfort paid off. Like one of its inspirations, the seminal Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, The Golden One elicits the feeling that you’re seeing something fresh, inspired, and that’s an authentic reflection of the voice at the film’s center. Here, Whitmer Thomas, who jokingly likens himself to a “pre-cum Jim Carrey,” takes us through the last nine things that have made him laugh.

Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger

I rewatched Bowfinger when I was in New York last week, and that's got to be one of the best comedies ever made. It's Eddie Murphy and Steve Martin, and Murphy plays a famous movie star named Kit. And Steve Martin is trying to make a movie with Kit, but since he’s a movie star he won't be in the movie. Steve Martin tries to film the movie without Kit knowing he's in it. So he's making Kit go insane the whole movie, because they film it in a documentary style and make him think there's aliens and all this stuff is happening.

It really gets good though when Kit checks himself into emotional rehab. Steve Martin’s character can't find Kit, so they hire a look-a-like, who is also played by Eddie Murphy. It's this really dorky, kind of funny character. It's got to be Eddie Murphy's best performance; it's my favorite of his movies, for sure. It's just so silly and fun. They don't make movies like that anymore.

Tim Robinson’s Netflix Show, I Think You Should Leave

This show is hilarious and one of my favorite things. I watch it all the time. I just like its commitment to silliness. There's no straight character in the whole show. And when you think there is going to be a straight character, they end up being a silly idiot. My favorite sketch is probably the gift receipt sketch. It turns out everyone at this party is a psychopathic idiot, and Steven Yeun, who plays the straight guy, is gaslit in a way that his relationship is ruined. But Tim Robinson is the reason the show is funny. My favorite thing in comedies is when characters are really earnest and trying really hard but they're just not the smartest. People who think they know what's going on but they don't and they're just desperate. And every sketch in this show is about a guy who's trying really hard.

My nephew learning about ATMs

I posted this video to Instagram a little while back of my nephew. He learned about ATMs but he doesn't totally get it. So he points his little finger out and then you touch his little finger and he goes, "Got some money!" and he'll take his little finger and put it inside of the ATM and then go, "Where's the money?" My nephew is hilarious. I don't know if he knows he's hilarious. He's actually in my stand-up special, at the end. He dances around.

A dynamite heckle from an audience member

The other night I was doing stand-up at the Dynasty Typewriter in L.A. and I said, "Does anyone want to see some celebrity impressions?" and someone from the crowd just said, "Please, no." The woman yelling that out killed harder than anything I said all night. So I just said, "Never mind then. I think I'm done." And then I left. It was hilarious. Which is very rare. Last night I was at a show and someone from the crowd was yelling and it was more annoying than anything. Another time, though, there was a person in the audience who had Tourettes and he couldn't help but yell out. I was talking to him from stage and I was like, "Is there a way that if I say something you can wait to have your tick?" And he was like, "Yes, yes, yes." So I would tell a joke and then I would go "Anyway, can you believe that?" and then he would yell "Fuck that, that's fucking stupid!" And it really worked out great. We were like a comedy team for about ten minutes.

Jeff Mahannah's Instagram cartoons

Mahannah is a skateboarding guy, and I found out about him because some of his older illustrations involve skateboarding and comedy, and I really liked them. He started doing these multi-panel cartoons and comic strips on Instagram that were hilarious. All of them usually involve pregnancy—someone getting pregnant by some weird object or animal or something. They all evolve into some crazy thing. And every one of them makes me laugh.

The Jazz Fan Instagram filter

My friend Clay Tatum, who co-directed my special with me, created an Instagram Story filter of a jazz fan. You point it at someone's face and it gives them a fedora and has a little saxophone coming out of their mouth. And any time I do it to Mitra Jouhari, my girlfriend, it really makes me laugh. Something about how the hat and the saxophone stick on her face is really funny. It looks convincing. She looks like a real jazz fan! It's also really funny on babies.

C.J. Toledano's "a million" bit

My friend C.J. Toledano likes to say that in comedy anything is funny if you just say there are a million of a thing. So his new style of comedy is, instead of saying "I had a fry" or "I had some fries," he says "I had a million fries." And the reason it's funny is because of how stupid and not funny it is. Just how adamant he is that it's funny. All it takes to make comedy is to exaggerate to an absurd level. The more he does it and the harder he commits to it, the funnier it is. I have a lot of those. Anytime someone says, "Hey Whit, how's it going?" I go, "Who the heck is Whit?" That's funny to me, but no one has ever laughed at it once. I also say "Slappydoo" a lot.

The marquee at The Satellite in Silver Lake

I do a monthly show at the Satellite in Silver Lake, and when they put my name on the marquee they never spell it right. They haven't spelled it right in four months. I sometimes will text them and remind them that my last name is Thomas and my first name is Whitmer, because they reverse them. Sometimes they'll add an "o" or an "e" to my name where there shouldn't be one. I don't think they've ever misspelled it the same way twice. I laugh every time I see it. Now I don't correct them anymore, and I hope they do it forever.

An un-be-lievable fart

I was at House of Pies, a late night diner in L.A., with my buddy Rodney Barry and my friend Anna Seregina one night. We were having coffee and pancakes. And there was a guy with slicked backed hair and a leather jacket on listening to headphones at the counter top, eating fruit. And at one point, he just leaned over and picked up one of his legs while sitting and farted for like 35 seconds. It was insane. Everyone in the whole restaurant heard it. But he had headphones in and I think he thought no one heard it. It was the craziest fart I've ever heard in my life... in public... and I got to share it with two of my best friends and a whole restaurant of people. It was the hardest I've ever laughed. I thought I was going to suffocate because I was laughing so hard. It helped that the guy looked like a Greaser.

Originally Appeared on GQ