Tommy Dassalo – Buckwild : MICF Interview
April 7, 2011 by Sean Lynch
Filed under Comedy, Interviews
What’s in a name? While Tommy Dassalo may a CIA enforced Pseudonym, it hasn’t stopped this quick witted comedian from rising to the top of his game.
Dassalo has written for some of the biggest TV shows in the country including Rove, Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation and TV Burp, his face has popped up on such shows as The Librarians and Sleuth 101 and his voice is now blasting the digital airwaves with the highly popular podcast (now syndicated on Barry Digital Radio) “The Little Dum Dum Club“.
WATCH OUT FOR | COMEDY caught up with the fair haired comic as he embarks on the final few performances of his 2011 Melbourne Comedy Festival run…
Tommy Dassalo - Buckwild : Buy Tickets
Since you’ve moved out of home, what have been the greatest benefits of being a young “Buck”?
Round-the-clock poon tang!
This sounds highly plausible. Any suggestions to newly out-of-homers of how to survive and what to avoid?
If you are living with people you don’t know, and you like the TV show The Shield (as I do) I would recommend making sure that you watch it when no-one else is around, as it is, at the best of times, quite an intense show.
Chilling out with a cheeky vicious rape scene on a Sunday afternoon is not the best way to establish a presence within the house.
Finish this sentence “A man walks into a bar, the barman says…. “
“Up yours, Grandma!”
What’s the best joke / bit you’ve ever heard by any comedian in the history of ever?
I would say, Patton Oswalt’s routine about a 63 year old woman giving birth.
You’ve written for some pretty high profile TV shows – do you enjoy festival time being able to deliver jokes you’ve written the way you intended?
I do, but they’re different things. With TV writing you’re working on something that will be seen by thousands of people and that’s exciting. With stand-up, it’s a way way smaller audience, but you get all the glory for yourself.
What’s the best material you’ve written that you’ve cringed at when it’s been performed on TV by someone else?
There really isn’t any, mainly because I’m always writing it with the intention of it being read by someone else. Once I’ve passed it on to whoever it’s going to, I just sort of let go and let them do what they want with it.
Very diplomatic… How do you decide what jokes work for TV or a project you’re working on and what you want to keep for your own stand up?
It’s not so much a problem for TV writing, but I do a podcast once a week, and recently I’ve been struggling with trying to work out ‘should I tell this story on stage or on the podcast?’
I try not to double up because I feel like people should be rewarded for coming to a live show by getting stuff they haven’t heard before.
That said, there is one little story in my show that has featured on the podcast, although it’s got a different ending so I think that’s enough of a tasty treat for all the die hard fans (of which there are exactly three.)
What annoys you the most about new comedians coming through trying to break into the “scene”, what mistakes should they avoid?
Finally! A forum in which to vent my anger!
Actually, I don’t know that anything really annoys me. I still feel like a new comedian trying to break into the scene. The thing I like about it is that there’s no course, no lessons, you just learn as you go along, often by making mistakes and pissing people off by accident.
But I think that’s okay and actually kind of a really nice, natural, human way of learning how things work.
The Dum Dum podcast has just moved home (from SYN to AusStereo), is it too early for people to start saying “You’ve changed man, you’ve changed”?
It is too LATE for them to be saying that; we changed halfway through our first episode.
We love viral video on WATCHOUTFOR – whats the best online viral video you’ve seen lately?
This is so stupid and may have been around for ages but it makes me and my girlfriend laugh a lot: