‘I Think You Should Leave’ Star Tim Robinson Began Performing Comedy After Watching VHS Tapes Of Chris Farley’s Best ‘SNL’ Sketches

If you’re only a casual comedy fan, then Tim Robinson’s name may not mean much to you, and while you may find his face familiar, you might not be able to pin down where you know him from. For the true comedy connoisseur, however, Robinson is a well-known, well-established entity, first for having been a writer and featured player on Saturday Night Live, and then for having co-created and starred in the Comedy Central series Detroiters. Now, Netflix has given the guy his very own sketch comedy series, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, which gave Decider the perfect opportunity to quiz him about the sketch comedy series that made him the funny man he is today.

DECIDER: So what was the most influential sketch comedy series for you?

TIM ROBINSON: Wow, that’s… [Laughs.] It’s so hard now to trace back and say there was, like, one. I mean, like most people, my first samplings of sketch comedy were probably from SNL, so… Yeah, I’d probably have to say SNL, because that was my introduction to it. You know, having those “Best Of” VHS tapes – like Chris Farley – when I was a kid. So it’s gotta be SNL. I know that’s not a deep dive or anything to go with one of the most famous sketch comedy shows in the country, but…that’s it!

If it’s accurate, then there’s no need for a deep dive. You mentioned Chris Farley a moment ago. Were there particular sketches by him that really proved to be formative for you?

Well, I had this tape, and I don’t know how many people know or don’t know about these “Best Of” tapes, but they’d have a montage on there. You know, they had full sketches, too, but then they’d do this kind of super-cut of moments from sketches. Not the whole sketch, but just some key moment from a sketch. That’s probably the part that’s still in my brain. I just remember these chaotic moments of him, like, falling through a coffee table or screaming. It’s just gutturally funny. And even when my son watched the 40th anniversary SNL special – and this was a couple of years ago, so he was a lot younger – my wife texted me and said that he’d laughed out loud. So one of the first times he laughed out loud at TV was watching a Farley montage! [Laughs.] You know, when you’re a kid, you don’t generally laugh out loud at TV, but he did. There’s something that’s just so gutturally funny about those things.

So did that serve as a gateway drug for you into SNL? Or did it just make you want to investigate more Chris Farley material?

I think – although I don’t know for sure – that it made me interested in looking more into SNL, but it also made me wonder, like, “Where’s Farley from?” And then I found out he was from Second City, that he started at Second City in Chicago. And I was only in middle school at the time, but I was talking to my teacher about it, and she was, like, “Oh, yeah, there’s a Second City downtown!” Because I was in the Detroit suburbs. And I went, “What?!” [Laughs.] Second City only had its downtown Detroit location for 10 years, but it just so happened to be during that time, and I was so excited. So when I was in high school, I started taking classes at Second City. I was lucky enough that there was one in my backyard where I could go study and take the classes and stuff. But it was only because of that Chris Farley tape that I even found out about it!

I’m trying to think of some of the big sketch comedy series during the ’90s. The ones that leap to mind as something that would seem to match your sensibilities are The State and Mr. Show with Bob and David.

I didn’t have cable growing up, so The State is one that I missed when it was on. But the stuff that friends have sent me or shown me, I thought it was awesome, and I’ve been so intrigued by it. Somebody also showed me these videos the Stella guys did that they would just give to their fans, and I was just blown away, it was so good.

Mr. Show was something I got into later. Because of not having cable, it wasn’t until I was deep into doing Second City that someone asked me, “Have you seen Mr. Show?” And they gave me VHS copies that they had recorded off of HBO. [Laughs.] That’s all they had! But that’s how I saw Mr. Show, and I was blown away. It’s, like, once you’ve seen SNL and you’ve been introduced to sketch comedy and you love it, and then you see Mr. Show, which pushes it even further. Some of their transitions between sketches… They’re mind-blowing!

Do any particular Mr. Show sketches stand out as favorites?

Oh, there’s really so many. The easy answer is “Audition.” You know that one? Where David Cross is auditioning for a part, and every time they think he’s stopped, it’s still part of it? [Laughs.] But, no, you know, it’s probably “Story of Everest.” When I saw that for the first time, it was incredible. It was just so funny to me.

A few years ago I interviewed Jay Johnston, the star of that sketch, and he said it was his favorite one that he ever did for the show.

Oh, it’s so funny that he does this huge thing, but all anyone wants to talk about is this one small thing. It’s so great.

When I first watched that sketch, I was immediately reminded of Monty Python’s sketch about Kilimanjaro. Not that they’re anything alike, but, y’know, they’re both about mountains.

Oh, yeah? I never really got into Monty Python. What was that sketch about?

Basically, Eric Idle answers John Cleese’s ad about a mountaineering expedition to Kilimanjaro, and after it becomes apparent that Cleese is seeing double (“One at a time, please!” “There is only me, sir…”), he reveals that the purpose of the expedition is to find any trace of the previous year’s expedition, which was attempting “to build a bridge between the two peaks.”

[Laughs.] That sounds great!

Monty Python is one of those things that I initially thought was weird, and then I realized that what I loved about it was the weirdness. I feel like you can relate to that concept.

Absolutely! Did you ever see Will Forte’s potato chip sketch on SNL? If not, you should look it up as soon as we hang up. He works at NASA, and he’s interviewing somebody, and he says something like, “I have to leave the room for a minute, but don’t eat any of my potato chips.” And Sudekis – he’s interviewing Jason Sudekis – eats one of the potato chips. And when he comes back, he’s about to start the interview again, but then he counts the potato chips, and he says, “Oh! You ate one of my potato chips!” And then he just absolutely freaks out. I remember when I saw that, I was, like, “Oh, my God!” It’s so weird, but it’s so funny. And Forte is hilarious.

Now, whenever I hear about a premise like that on SNL, I have to ask: was that a “10 to 1” sketch? [For the uninitiated, there’s a longstanding history of the show’s weirdest sketches being the last sketch of the night, which means that it usually runs at approximately 12:50 am., which is ten minutes to 1 A.M.)

It absolutely was. [Laughs.] It absolutely was. That’s where all the best ones live!

I feel like they’re missing an opportunity by not releasing a “10 to one” compilation.

Oh, man, that would be so great. I really wish they’d do that! Because there’s a lot of people who watch the show… I mean, that’s their favorite part! That’s the one where they’re, like, “Yes! Yes!” So I would love that. When I worked there, a lot of the stuff that Zack Kanin and I wrote were in that spot. Which is scary, because when you’re in that spot and the show’s live, you don’t know if your thing is going to actually be on TV or not. Once a thing stretches, another thing stretches, and they start cutting off the end of the show. It’s an honor to be there, but when you’re in the moment on a live show, it’s very scary, because you don’t know if it’s gonna happen.

Thankfully, YouTube has inspired them to start uploading the “Cut for Time” bits.

Yeah, and that’s so great. It’s so cool, because there’s so much good stuff on that show that just literally doesn’t make it because of time, and it’s hard to bring stuff back at that show. So it’s nice that there’s a way that people can see things that were really, really good but just didn’t fit into the show because of time.

Seth Meyers has also started doing a feature called Last Chance Theater. Do you have a sketch that you’d pick?

Of mine? Oh, wow… That’s a great, great question. There was one that I talked about on Seth’s show before, one that Mike O’Brien and I wrote for Zach Galifianakis, and it’s a lawyer… [Starts to laugh.] It’s a lawyer who confuses his briefcase with his roommate’s White Castle Crave Case, but he doesn’t realize it until he’s in court and about to deliver the evidence that will exonerate his client. He says, “I have all the evidence right here in my briefcase… Ohhhhhhh, crap: I accidentally grabbed my roommate’s White Castle Crave Case!” So he just has a box full of a bunch of hamburgers. That’s one I’d love to try.

Lastly, not long before you got your own Netflix series, you were on an episode of The Characters. Did you have a favorite bit on there?

Probably the very first one, the “Sammy Paradise” one, with the Sinatra-type guy who comes in and he’s singing, and then he loses everything on one roll and he completely flips out and demands all is money back. [Laughs.] Yeah, that’s probably my favorite.

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)

Stream I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson on Netflix