Bobcat Goldthwait to make rare appearance in ChicopeeDate: 9/23/2016 CHICOPEE – Bobcat Goldthwait is making a rare appearance when he performs at the Cabot Comedy Club in downtown Chicopee on Sept. 25. The standup comedian who is very busy with his second career as a film and television director told Reminder Publications he usually just performs either in New York City of Los Angeles these days where he is a very active director.
Goldthwait, whose last film was a documentary about Boston-based comedian Barry Crimmins, “Call Me Lucky,” said there was a period when he didn’t perform in clubs.
Goldthwait became a star in the comedy scene in the 1980s and ‘90s with a persona that was arresting to watch. He was manic, almost at times seemingly incapable of speaking and stuttering and shrieking in a voice that went from a high laugh to a low growl.
He explained he started stand-up at age 15, traveling to Boston at age 18 to appear in clubs there and then at age 20 he made his first appearance on David Letterman’s TV show.
The persona on stage was coupled with Goldthwait’s envelope-pushing humor that could be very dark and political. The result was a success with Goldthwait headlining his own comedy special as well as being an actor in popular films such as three of the “Police Academy” franchise, “One Crazy Summer,” “Tapeheads,” and a starring role in “Hot to Trot.”
The persona became a “crutch” for him. “I thought I didn’t like stand-up. I didn’t like being stuck doing that [the character],” he said.
The problem is that for a while, audiences expected him to be the character they had seen on TV or the movies. He lost weight, changed his hairstyle, wore glasses and grew a goatee and he stopped using his trademark voice. He even taped a comedy special in 2011 called “You Don’t Look the Same Either.”
He continued an active career as a voice actor for animation and started directing television shows and films.
“I pursued what makes me happy,” he explained.
He began directing in 1991 with “Shakes the Clown,” a film in which he starred as a children’s performer with a drinking problem in a surreal town where clowns were a major industry. He recalled with a laugh his cinematographer said, “You’re filming everything you’re not suppose to put in a movie.”
Goldthwait wrote the film as well.
He said his career as a director would have been better off if he had done “a teen comedy or something with broad appeal around a character people know.”
Although he had been told that “Shakes” was a “really angry movie,” he said his intention was to create a parody of standup comedians.
His directing career was stalled until 2000 when Jimmy Kimmell asked him to direct segments of his hit Comedy Central show “The Man Show.”
“That got things going again,” Goldthwait said. He directed segments of the acclaimed “Chappelle Show” and came back to film with the indie comedy “Sleeping Dogs Lie” in 2006.
“That got me behind a camera. It’s pretty much full time now,” he said.
He is currently writing and directing a new anthology series for truTV, where he has directed episodes of “Those Who Can’t.”
Goldthwait explained his goal as a filmmaker is “to make a movie not like the one before” and his feature films certainly have fulfilled that objective.
His 2009 film, “World’s Greatest Dad” starred his friend Robin Williams and told the story of a father who altered the way people think about both him and his late son by creating a fake suicide note. The film was very well reviewed, as was his next movie.
“God Bless America” (2011) is also as dark and funny. Joel Murray stars as a terminally ill man who decides he can’t take rude people anymore and goes on a shooting spree. He teams ups with a teenage girl who feels the same. “I was thinking of Bonnie and Clyde,” Goldthwait said. “It’s a very violent film about kindness. It’s the only movie I’ve made with pop culture references.”
Comparing it to more recent films, Goldthwait said, “It feels almost tame.”
In 2013, Goldthwait made his first horror film to date, “Willow Creek.” He had attended a Bigfoot convention in Ohio and was inspired to make a “found footage” movie centered around a couple who go into the forests of northern California to seek evidence of Sasquatch.
He explained he wrote a 20-page outline with the first scenes highly scripted and that rest of the film his lead actors adlib. He recalled how the 11-hour drive to the location allowed the actors to “flesh out their characters.”
His documentary on Crimmins came about through his friendship with Williams. He was thinking about making a narrative film about Crimmins and how he fought child abuse. He had been thinking about such a story since 1995 when Crimmins testified against the chat rooms pedophiles had set up on America Online.
Williams convinced Goldthwait to make a documentary and gave him the start-up funds.
“I wouldn’t have made it without Robin,” he said.
He recalled with a laugh how he met documentary filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival and compared notes. Some had worked on their films for seven years. Goldthwait shot his in 10 months. “They said, ‘Good luck with that!’” Goldthwait recalled with a laugh.
He called documentary filmmaking “hard work.”
With a full slate of directing work, Goldthwait said, “Creatively I’m really at a good place. I’m really happy. It’s been a while to get here, but the workflow has been as heavy as it can be.”
He said he is “very comfortable on stage for the first time in his life.”
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