Yesterday Chris Gethard posted a bizarre clip from this week’s TCGS showing what appeared to be a brawl with an angry public access producer named Smith, which turned out to be an elaborate stunt he planned with comedian Brett Davis. Gethard explained the behind-the-scenes process of the segment in a new post on his blog, where he breaks down the origins of the idea, who knew about it beforehand, and the resulting backlash by some TCGS fans who felt duped. “What you saw on last night’s show is what happens when one of the most committed comedians I’ve ever seen plays it as real as possible,” Gethard says in the post. “That’s really all we were going for – not to deceive or sadden or anything else – just to execute what we thought was a funny idea while handing it off to one of my favorite comedians in NYC right now.” Here’s what Gethard had to say about some of the less amused responses to the bit:
I have seen online that some of our fans are pissed at us and feel like we tricked them. We weren’t setting out to trick. We were setting out to put on a good comedy show. So I don’t really feel like I should apologize, so much as I should say that I am even more in awe of the comedic abilities of Mr. Brett Davis now than I was heading into last night. He nailed it to the point that people were writing essays and debating the meaning of community. That’s good comedy.
Read the rest of the post over on Gethard’s blog.
