For two weeks in January 2011, I lived on an RV for The Chris Gethard Show Cross-Country Adventure. The experimental, confrontational midnight UCB talk show hit the road on a Kickstarter-funded tour of comedy venues while being filmed by a small documentary crew. I, a 21 year old improv student, was invited along after proving my knowledge and dedication to the show as the host of their one-year anniversary show.
My role was to be The Watcher. One fan tagging along with the thirty-something oddball improv comedians he watched every month. But against the show's wishes, I threatened to unleash my very dumb, very annoying sketch comedy character: Vacation Jason.
Performing as Vacation Jason for the cast of TCGS set in motion a wild chain of events that influenced my comedy career for over ten years to come. Long before the outlandish full-circle stories I told about performing on live TV for Method Man would happen, I would improvise the original Vacation Jason stage act on this 2011 tour. As behind-the-scenes tension amongst the TCGS crew came to a head, a perfect storm broke in Austin. An exhausted, frazzled TCGS cast amidst a rowdy Texas crowd gave way for Vacation Jason to stumble into an unexpected 20 minute improvised stand -up set, the facetiously released Texas is an Island.
In this interview from 2021, I join TCGS Producer "Jersey Dave" Szarejko and Showrunner JD Amato on Planet Scum's Saturday NOT Live to recount the origins of Vacation Jason, my involvement on The Chris Gethard Show, and Texas is an Island.
So if you're interested in lore, here's lore.
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