We've been huge fans of Dane Cook since we saw him for the first time on
"Comics Come Home" years ago on Comedy Central, with his jokes about public
bathrooms, driving, and street fights.  Before we knew it, he catapulted
into the spotlight and is now selling Platinum CDs, selling out shows, and
playing arenas like Continental Airlines Arena in NJ.  For a long time prior
to all that, we'd been hoping he'd play one of the local NJ comedy clubs,
but instead, he started selling out huge venues.
    Rob and I met up with him backstage at Continental for an interview at
his December 12, 2005 show with Robert Kelly.  Extremely funny, cordial, and
dedicated to his fans, Dane's a rare comedian that has made it further in a
shorter amount of time than most comedians do after decades of work.  What's
next?  Well, we were hoping for an HBO special, but once again Dane went far
beyond our expectations.  His HBO special will film in April, and starting
in May, HBO will be airing a documentary series on his Tourgasm tour, and
Dane will also be working on a host of other projects with the network.
Stay up-to-date with his latest news and appearances by visiting his
official website at www.danecook.com

Rob: Hosting SNL is a goal that a lot of comedians strive for. What was it like when you got that opportunity?

Dane: ::Laughs:: I was in Vegas for the Comedy Festival, as they called it. And I was down there with most of my family, my mom, and Barry, my manager, called me up and said, “I’ve got some really good news for you, man.” And I said, “What’s that?” “They want you to host SNL.” And it was really weird. It’s something I’ve wanted for so long, and in my own head heard somebody telling me, “You’re gonna do it,” then it was kinda like, “Right.” At first I was like, “Awesome. That’s great, that’s gonna be excellent.” And then about 15 minutes later, I was in the shower, and it was like 20 years of my life just hit me because when I was in 7th grade, I saw Martin Short on the show doing Ed Grimley, I remember telling my mom and dad, “I wanna do something like that, I wanna do it on this show!” I’ve really always had it in the back of my head. When I first started comedy in ‘90 with sleepy over here, [points to Robert Kelly trying to nap on couch] we were in an improv group and we were, to some extent, the SNL of New England. We were doing crazy skits and trying to have ‘holy shit’ moments, memorable moments, every show. So, yeah, then I’m in the shower, and it really just kinda hit me, I kinda turned into a little baby, I was like, “Aw finally I did it!” ::laughs:: I immediately told my family and, just seeing they’re faces, probably they were more excited than I was. When you’re that close and you’re doing shows every night, you’re thinking this could happen, maybe, someday. You’re family’s always along for the ride, in the sidecar believing in you, but they don’t know the feeling that you have, so there’s always a question of, “Will that happen?” So telling them was probably the greatest moment of my career, next to doing the show.

R: What does it feel like to be the “boy band” of comedy? We had seen you at the Ritacco Center in Toms River, NJ, and a majority of the audience was screaming teenage “bitches,” who seemed to be there for your looks rather than your comedy. Does that ever bother you?

Dane: I kinda resent that, to be honest. I would never refer to my fans as that. I’m in touch with my fans every day, whether it’s through MySpace or emails, and I’ll tell you, it’s more than just young girls. It’s all ages. I get emails from our military overseas. I talk to quite a bit of people who are in various forms of hospitalization. So maybe at that one show there might’ve been an open to all-ages crowd, or I don’t know what the case is, but I always feel that my fans are owed a lot more respect than that, and I think that I’m very fortunate to have fans that are young girls and older guys.

R: So you’re the one that keeps up with the MySpace page?

Dane: Yeah, that’s all me. Yeah, my little sister helps me with the friend requests, but as far as the comments and updating – anything you see text-wise or photos – I still do it myself. As long as I’m able to do it, I’m going to do it.

Lisa: You have a joke where you express how insulting it is when someone calls you “pal” when they aren’t really your pal at all. I always complained about people that go, “hun” or “honey,” so I was wondering if you felt the same way about that.

Dane: ::Laughs:: Yeah, I need to do the female version of that because I know some girls don’t like when it’s like, “Baby, lemme tell you something.”

Robert Kelly: That’s why I hate broads!

Dane: ::Laughs:: I remember when the idea of that joke was sparked. I was at a place called Kelly’s Roast Beef, probably with you, [points to Robert Kelly] years and years and years ago, and I went to get some ketchup. It was kinda the same thing as the act. It was freezing out, it was an outside place, and I went up and I’m like, “Yo dude, can I get some ketchup?” And, totally like in the act, he put his finger up and was like, “One second, pal!” It was kinda locked in, like, okay, there’s something about that that is funny and observational and I think people could connect with, but it didn’t come through until years and years and years later, I mean, probably 7-8 years later that I finally one night was onstage and talked about it and then it ended up on the disc.

R: You were hilarious in the movie Waiting.

Dane: Oh, thank you!

R: How much fun was it to make that movie? Did you try to give any ideas to the director while filming?

Dane: Yeah, it was quick, it was definitely fun, but it was kinda like in and out. I went down to New Orleans. The director, Rob McKittrick, had been a fan of my stand-up, he saw me at a club that I used to work at called Dublin’s out in Los Angeles, and came to me one day and said, “I have a movie and I really wanna put you in it.” He told me the premise and I thought it kinda sounded like Office Space only for corporate-style restaurants, and having worked in enough of them, I was like, “I’ll do it, I think it’s funny.” So he asked me to come down and kinda just create the character, Floyd, with him. It was actually four little bit parts of cooks in the kitchen or workers, and he combined them into one character and was like, “If you wanna improvise with it, make it your own.” I think I was down there for just about a week and just threw on that bandanna and some fake piercings.

L: “Welcome to Thunderdome!” ::laughs::

Dane: ::Laughs:: Yeah, yeah, there was a lot of improv. And Rob, who’s a great writer, has no problem letting people know that, for a lot of my stuff, I just went in there and just threw things against the wall, and that was one of them. ::laughs::

R: Did you become friends with Andy Milonakis while filming?

Dane: I’d met Andy once before, but I wouldn’t say I’m a friend of Andy’s. Andy’s got his own thing going on. He would basically just walk around the set and make up raps about everything. And at first, you were kinda annoyed. He’d be like, “I got a hat, it’s right next to a box of Kleenex ‘cause I got a stuffy nose, that’s the way it goes, when I blows!” And at first, you were just annoyed, and then it became like this thing where you just couldn’t stop listening to him. I’ve seen his show, and he’s on his own trip, but that’s all I remember about Andy, is just him walking around and I’d be like, “Andy, you wanna get something at the crafty table?” “Crafty! They got the food, when I’m in the mood, take an interlude, Cheetos! Put it in my ‘fros!” And it was just like 42 minutes of this every day until you walked away. But you didn’t wanna walk away because you wanted to see how many things rhyme and how many things can he make rhyme? I saw him at the premiere and he goes like this – I was sitting in my seat – and we knew each other from the movie and he was talking to somebody, and I was sitting in my seat with my girl, and I’m like “Oh this is Andy,” and I tapped him on the shoulder and go, “Andy,” and he turns around and goes, “Fuck off, bitch!” Really like he meant it, like really angry, where people around me were like, “Oh shit.” Like, he didn’t make it playful. I kinda laughed, I was like, “Haha!” But he didn’t laugh, he kept me hanging there. And then my girl was like, “What was that about?” I’m like, “That’s his thing.”

R: There are a lot of rumors about his age. Is he really 16, or is he really 40?

Dane: No, I think he’s like 60 years old or something like that. He’s got like one of those Gary Coleman diseases or something. Yeah, he’s gonna look like an infant forever. I can’t sit here and confirm his exact age, but he’s not a kid. I’m not outing him either. I think he’s starting to talk about it now because everybody was online talking about how he was actually so much older.

R: On Conan O’Brien you talked about your lack of a Boston accent.

Dane: A little bit, right?

R: After listening to us talk for a while now, how bad are our NJ accents?

Dane: Not so bad. It’s not thick. You a little bit more [points to Lisa].

L: ::Laughs:: Oh, great…

Dane: Usually that Jersey accent, before you even speak, kinda like seeps out of your pores, and you’re like, “Oh, this comes from Jersey.” No, it’s not so bad.

R: Would you ever consider doing a TV show or movie that is more of a drama than comedy a la Dennis Leary?

Dane: I think that’s a great show. Yeah, definitely, if it was the right show. I think, ultimately, even though I’ve done stand-up for so many years, anything that falls under the moniker of “entertainment,” I’m interested [in]. I love music, writing, and I kinda wanna give everything a go before everything settles down. Right now, things are hot, but you never know where the roller-coaster is going to take you, so while the gettin’s good, I wanna try a little bit of everything. More stories to tell my grandkids, even though I’ll lie anyway. ::laughs::

R: There was a story you told us in our first interview with you, about 3 guys chipping in out in New Hampshire to get you off stage. Now that you’re playing large venues, I assume nobody has chipped in to get you to go away?

Dane: ::Laughs:: No, it’s funny because now I get emails and letters and stuff from people – I’ve had crazy experiences where it was two people in the audience, “Yeah, you probably remember me! I was at that gig you did in Virginia! I was one of the two people who told you you sucked!” Now they’ll write me a letter and be like, “I thought that was the coolest thing!” Even those three or four people in New Hampshire, I’ll probably get a letter from them, “We paid you to get offstage! We had to give you the money right when you finished!”

L: We saw The Aristocrats this past summer, but you weren’t in it...

Dane: I didn’t see it yet either, but I heard Bob Saget was hilarious in it.

L: It was hilarious. So I was wondering if you could us your own rendition of the joke.

Dane: I don’t know it.

L: You don’t know it!? Do you know it? [to Robert Kelly]

RK: No, no, you’re not talking to me.

Dane: ::Laughs:: He’s meditating. I’m not very good at street jokes. I don’t know it. I know a little bit about the joke, but not enough to understand the meat of it, what makes it funny, I just know it gets really dirty in the middle. I have to see the movie. Once I see the movie, then I’ll have it.

R: We’ll just close this the way we always end interviews: Do you have any plugs or words for our readers?

Dane: It’s just great that you guys are still interested in chatting. What was it 2003?

R: Yeah, September.

Dane: Cool. And, yeah, I’m gonna continue doing what I’m doing, which is just bringing the HaHa every single night. That’s it, onward and upward.