While Mo Rocca’s gig on “The Daily Show” made him famous—that, and coming up with the term “Obamarama” while a flack for CNN during the 2004 Democratic Convention—he has fingers in so many pies, it seems, that now he’s working on his toes. That is, as he makes his Broadway debut playing the vice principal in the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
NYPress: You’ve been on “Iron Chef America,” VHI’s “I Love the 70s” and “I Love the 80s,” you’re one of those “newsbloggers” for AOL, you’ve got a Sirius radio show, you contribute to the Huffington Post, you do commentaries on “CBS Sunday Morning” … I mean, for God’s sake, Mo, Broadway?
ROCCA: I love musicals and I love Broadway and I always have. A lot of people like to make fun of musicals but, my goodness, I got my first two cast albums in 1979 for my birthday—Evita and Oklahoma!—and I was disappointed because it was the Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae movie soundtrack. Cast albums, soundtracks and playbills were catalogued very strictly in my room. And I knew every one of Che’s lyrics. I got it in my head that if I could sing and tap dance, I could be on Broadway.
But Che doesn’t tap…
This is just something I’ve always wanted to do. [Director] James Lapine emailed and said, “Do you want the part?” It’s a good show with a great pedigree.
And fiercely funny—you play Douglas Panch, one of the people that asks the spellers to spell, which is perfect for a humorist.
My father, who died a couple of years ago, liked the idea of being a humorist, and I kind of do, too. It’s like, saying “I’m a satirist” just sounds pretentious. “Satirist” sounds so “Oy, I’m changing the world with my comedy!” You know?
I personally think you’re at your weirdly funniest on “Whoa! Sunday” on Animal Planet when you talk to people in the street and offer bizarre facts. Except I guess you can do retakes and on Broadway you’re live.
What’s really tricky is live TV, especially when there’s no studio audience. One of my favorite gigs was doing “The Today Show,” doing water cooler pop culture stuff with the anchors. The crew—and it happens increasingly on these shows—was the de facto audience; these crews are like barometers for everyone else at home. So, if you can make the crew laugh, you’re fine. When you’re live in a theater, you’ve got to be a little less arch.
So many mediums … so little time …
I also do a lot of live shows on campuses—what I talk about is largely based around my love of marginalized history. Like, I’ve visited the homes and gravesites of virtually all of our ex-presidents—you know, visiting the Benjamin Harrison house in Indianapolis and asking to use the bathroom.
Factoids, like … I don’t know, Marie Curie or whomever?
Oh, Marie Curie! She discovered radium and was a total slut. She was like the Paris Hilton of the whole European scientific community. Yes, factoids like that.
When aren’t you funny?
I don’t like when I’m clearly not thinking about what I’m saying, or when I rehearse something too much. If I see myself thinking about what I’m supposed to say, that’s not a good thing. When I did man-on-the-street stuff on “The Daily Show,” we’d always get bigger laughs from the studio audience if we used the first takes of interactions with people. Even if the jokes on paper didn’t quite work or the question was asked in a clumsy way, it always got a better laugh. Audiences instinctively know what’s a real interaction and what’s not.
All right, so here’s what I think everybody really wants to know: Does the food ever suck on “Iron Chef America”? Honestly, is it all that good?
I have a craving to be liked and seek approval, and I’m kind of hardwired to be complimentary—so when you’re given free food, you tend to be gracious. Um, look, I do think Jeffrey Steingarten has a corner on the bitchy commentary; it would be too much if everyone did it collectively. Not the way Steingarten, you know, laid into Mario Batali once.
So that means … yes, you’ve tasted food that sucks on “Iron Chef America”?
No, actually, that’s never happened. If you’re watching, though, and fish is the secret ingredient, a fish dessert—“the shrimp parfait”—almost never works.
[At this point, Rocca manages to deliver his 14th crack, approximately, about George W. Bush.]
So you’re saying when fish is the secret ingredient, it’s the soft bigotry of low expectations?
It’s the soft-shelled bigotry of low expectations.
I am so using that. Now, since I don’t know if James Lipton will ever have you on “Inside the Actors Studio,” what’s your favorite curse word?
I’m very fond of something my mother says: virgin santisima, which means “holy virgin” in Spanish. I’m half-Colombian.
And finally, a philosophical question: What is funny?
I think getting people to seriously discuss what Heather Mills should do with her leg if and when it falls off on “Dancing with the Stars” is incredibly funny.
