Here’s an interview with Colbert Report executive producer Tom Purcell, on growing up in a horrifyingly racist town and starting out in comedy. It’s pretty cute that his comedy hero is still the kid who wrote the best articles for the high school comedy paper when Purcell was a freshman.
He goes on to talk about his experiences performing at Second City in Chicago for no money, moonlighting as an on-foot messenger for a law firm, and living in a converted bedroom/unheated porch. Not surprisingly, these experiences involved getting pneumonia twice in one winter. Ah, what people do for the love of comedy! Chicago is cold, man.
