Interview: Derrick Comedy

If you’ve been familiar with the internet for at least a few weeks, then you have most likely heard of Derrick Comedy and have probably seen some of their videos.

But if you aren’t familiar with the sketch comedy group by now, you best start recognizin’. The individual member’s résumés already include appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, video production with Blue Man Group, touring the nation as a stand-up comedian, performing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York, directing the sketch comedy troupe Hammerkatz, appearing on MTV, and writing for NBC’s popular 30 Rock.

I recently sat down (and I mean that quite figuratively) with the four guys from Derrick Comedy to see what their biggest achievements have been so far and how they plan to take over the world through controversial topics, effective audio editing, and enough YouTube subscribers to outnumber the small, Pacific country of Palau.


First of all, who is in Derrick Comedy?

DC: Derrick Comedy is Dominic Dierkes, Dan Eckman, Donald Glover, and DC Pierson. Dom, Donald, and myself write and perform everything, and Dan directs, shoots, and edits it.The fifth Derrick is Meggie McFadden, our producer, who has also appeared in a bunch of our videos.

Since none of you guys are named Derrick, where does the group’s name come from?

DC: The three of us (Dom, Donald, DC) were applying to the Three On Three improv tournament at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater about two years ago, and our team needed a name. Dom and I decided to try and think of the lamest D name possible.
Donald: Apologies to any dudes named “Derrick” out there. I’m sure you’re awesome.
Dominic: One time we did a project and the people running it kept calling us “The Derricks.“We kept correcting them, but then someone else on the project would call and ask for “The Derricks.”
Donald: I’m sure The Derricks are a great band somewhere. Check out their Myspace.

How and when did Derrick Comedy come together?

Donald: Dominic, DC, and myself used to be in a larger sketch group called Hammerkatz. It was a professional comedy group as well as a college group, and the three of us ended up directing the college group’s shows.
Dominic: We were writing a lot together and just really dug each other’s voices. A lot of the sketches we did on-stage with Hammerkatz became Derrick films (“Girls Are Not To Be Trusted,” “Opposite Day”)
Dan: I was directing the films for the college group as well as the professional group.
DC: The four of us changed our names to things that start with “D,” and the rest is history.

A lot of you guys have backgrounds in improv. How scripted are your videos?

Dominic: For the most part, our videos are heavily scripted. But once you get up and start shooting, you might realize something that on the page isn’t working on film, so we definitely leave a lot of room to play and change things.
Dan: We try to strike a balance between not being too married to anything in the script that ends up not working in front of the camera. But you also have to be careful not to fall too much in love with anything we think is funny on-set just because it’s different from the thing we’ve just done fifty takes in a row.
Donald: If you ever see us live, it’s probably going to be improv, because we are too lazy/busy to rehearse.

Some of your best sketches include drunk babies, rape, hat makers, and a spelling bee word that CollegeHumor probably won’t let me repeat.

Why are those videos so hilarious when the same topics in the real world are generally not as enjoyable?

Donald: It’s exactly because those things are so awful that they’re hilarious, if you put them in the right context.
Dan: There are a lot of people who think that (blank) can never be placed in the proximity of humor. Whatever that may be: rape, abortion, the Holocaust. It’s a common misconception that if you are talking about any of those things in a humorous context, you’re making fun of those things or somehow robbing them of their importance.
DC: Right. When in reality (ideally) hopefully you’re laughing because that thing is, indeed, horrible, and should be nowhere near the mundane things we’ve placed it with in the sketch. Dave Matthews is silly and trivial. Rape is awful. The contrast between silly and awful is where comedy lives.
Dominic: The most controversial of those topics you listed is probably “hat makers. “We really had to sit down before we did that sketch and ask ourselves: “Is it too soon after 9/11 to do a sketch about a guy who makes hats?”

In one of your newest sketches (“Guns”), you guys are running around on the street with tons of different types of realistic looking guns. How many times did you get the police called on you while you were filming that day?

Dan: Meggie called the police department of the town we were shooting in (Manchester, NH) and told them where and when we were gonna be running around with fake guns. They were surprisingly cool about it.
Donald: They even sent a patrol car out so that any OTHER cops who rolled by would go… “Okay, this thing is under control,” and wouldn’t shoot us onsite.
DC: This is in no way a comment on the professionalism of the Manchester P.D. We appreciate their support for one-minute internet videos about guns that make silly noises.

DC: In New York, not so much. But when we go on the road, especially to colleges, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people have seen the stuff.
Donald: Our only problem is that it’s all dudes that recognize us. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an awesome honor to get recognized, but one “I recognize you!” from a cute girl is worth ten “I recognize you!“s from dudes in Aqua Teen t-shirts.
Dominic: When we do get recognized by a girl, it’s because she has a boyfriend, and he makes her watch the videos.
Dan: That poor girl.

When will you guys start letting all of this hardcore fame get to your head?

Donald: As soon as we start getting anything resembling hardcore fame, we plan to become HUGE dicks.
DC: To prepare, I am workshopping some things to yell at the paparazzi. The one I think I will get the most use out of is, “Leave me alone!Can’t a guy eat a nice quiet brunch of dolphin-steaks with three of the Pussycat Dolls without having his picture taken?”
Dominic: I have already forgotten my roots. It helps to have really boring roots.

What is Derrick Comedy currently working on? Is it true that your group is in cahoots with Comedy Central?

DC: We developed a pilot for Comedy Central, which they ended up passing on.
Dan: Currently, we’re shooting sketches, and pursuing some things that will give us money, all of which we’ll be putting into projects we’re super-excited for but can’t talk about yet for fear of jinxing them.
Donald: Basically, we’re doing work to get money and then putting that money back into more work. Drug dealers call it “re-upping.“Our entire business plan is based on crack-rap and HBO’s “The Wire.”
Dominic: We’re going to get shot…we hope.

What do each of you guys find hilarious?

DC: I think the more you do comedy and think about what’s funny the more you think really inane, stupid, childish shit is funny. Which, of course, it is.
Donald: Me and DC were talking about how when we make up these inane, childish stuff, they’re actually just our brains resetting. Going back to that fourth grade mentality of “a fart sound = funny”.It’s a good way of not getting caught up in your own jokes.
Dominic: We like people who stubbornly stick to their point of view and go through horrible pain and humiliation rather than just admitting they’re wrong. In our improv shows, these people usually somehow end up getting their dicks ripped off.
Dan: If we ever get any sort of budget, expect us to go back and re-edit all of our sketches so they all end with a bloody, ultra-realistic dick-ripping.

Using exactly four words, what is Derrick Comedy’s biggest achievement to date?

Dan: The Maury show contacted us and wanted to put “B-Boy Stance” in a little best-of-the-web segment they do. They said it was going to be hosted by New York from “Flavor of Love.“I’m not sure it ever aired, but just because the whole thing was so fucking surreal, we’ll go ahead and say “MAURY SHOW, NEW YORK.”

True or false: you now have t-shirts available for sale on your website.

Dominic: True. We have “STOP BRO RAPE” t-shirts, as well as Derrick logo tees, and more are on the way. They’re relatively cheap, fresh to death, and all proceeds from the shirts go right back into us making more videos.
Donald: So if you like our videos, send us money, we’ll send you a shirt, and we’ll use that money to make more videos.If you don’t like our videos, send us money. If it’s a large enough amount of money, we will stop making videos.
DC: It would have to be like, over a thousand dollars.
Dan: At least.