Mr. Show with Bob and David: Genius or Overrated?

xp to rob, that might be true about the dated approach to racial/identity satire, but compared to a lot of comedy, they don't go there all that often? At least that's how I remember it.

According to wikipedia Johnston was part of the creative team behind Moral Orel, so I would imagine the brainworms had not yet set in at that point. Or I need to rewatch that show with a different lens.

Wait. So it's been confirmed or not yet?

well, at this point there has been plenty of time for him to deny it.

who knows, it's all so weird. Upthread someone shared a Tim Heidecker tweet where he confirmed it, but uh now:

i deleted the tweet because its was a reply to someone who asked and shouldn't be used as some kind of official source of information or verification.

— Presidant of Hei Network (@timheidecker) March 5, 2021

Which doesn't exactly deny it either...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jay-johnston-capitol-riots/

You know who could clear this up?

Which is why I'm tempted to believe it is him.

One of the complications of the Dipshit Riot is that not only was it a Trump “Stop The Steal” thing, but it was also a Q thing, which at one point was a distinct vibe until lately. Not to say this was excusable at any point, of course, but Hollywood people getting sucked into Q shit is not unprecedented.

yeah, the lack of any denials of this from, well, anyone is very telling at the moment. Seems like a lot of his co-workers/friends don't wanna confirm it and get him arrested.

This is adding a whole new layer of weirdness to my already kinda weird "Jay Johnston randomly came to my moving sale and we re-enacted a picture we took together at a Mr Show DVD signing 13 years earlier" story.

Yeah I think part of why this stings (if true) is that, while I'm not familiar with all of his output, I never got anything but positive vibes from him as a performer. There are like eight million comedy dudes who I'd be not terribly surprised to learn were shitheads irl but he definitely isn't one of them.

sorry, was the initial FBI post, which showed a picture of a dude without a mask and one with...were those both from the same day? because the unmasked picture didn't even look like him to me. For one thing his hair appears to be curly these days, and it's not there. dunno.

I don't know for sure, I don't think the original FBI tweet asking for into gives any further context. The insinuation is that both photos are from the 6th.

So those pictures only bear a vague resemblance to him to me. Am I face blind?

Seems p damning to me that there still hasn’t been any denial.

with mask on: it's the king slayer!
with no mask: i am certain that is him.

It's very probably him, but it's also crazy to expect a formal denial of some unsourced tweets. Dude himself tweeted eleven times in 2009, then never again (there's one spam tweet that hijacked his account in 2015, which currently has replies saying things like "So no statement from you about the #FBI pic. Guess that’s pretty much an admission of guilt, huh?"). Even people who are on twitter shouldn't be expected to reply to friendly messages, let alone issue denials to either wild or to accurate accusations.

I know he deleted it but I think Tim Heidecker confirming it pretty much seals it for me

Also the picture definitely being him

pretty weird

xpost sic - I guess I was just thinking about the lack of denials or clarity from anyone at all. Didn’t necessarily expect him to tweet out a denial himself, but figured there might be at least something from one of his (semi) famous friends if it definitely wasn’t him. The silence says a lot at this point, IMO.

I meant that a handful of tweets also aren’t anything that a publicist ought to issue statements about, either. If he wasn’t there, no point in giving it oxygen. If, as ppl who know him tweeted, he was there but didn’t intend to storm the capitol, better to argue that to the FBI than to the press. (If he did storm the capitol, same deal.)

Like, before Twitter, we might expect to hear something either way in 2-3 months.

yeah exactly - if i were him there would be no way that i would engage with this publicly, whether its true or not.

He's a comedian! If I were him and it wasn't me I would make a funny joke about it. If I was him and it *was* me, I would remain dead silent, because I am either lawyering up, turning myself in to the FBI, both, or fleeing/hiding like a fugitive. He's got so many famous and funny friends and colleagues who are very vocal, and very present on social media, and the fact that (for once) they haven't said anything, either (other than to initially confirm it), really says it all.

Like, in what world does an actor and comedian get accidentally branded a wanted fugitive by the FBI and *not* say something? If it's not true, that shit is kind of funny. At the least I wouldn't want to be accidentally captured by some comedian bounty hunter.

Let's stop kidding ourselves, it's him. And all his peers have remained silent because of course they will. As someone said above the silence speaks volumes here.

At the least I wouldn't want to be accidentally captured by some comedian bounty hunter.

Updog's methods are brutal but he gets results.

I imagine Updog the Bounty Hunter looks a bit like buff Carrot Top.

so Carrot Top then

I'd run from him for sure.

So it doesn’t seem like those that identified him originally actually denied it, they just backtracked a bit so that someone else would have to do the official identification.

Essentially, yeah.

People claiming it isn't him seem to be conveniently ignoring the other piece of damning evidence, appearing on a Proud Boy podcast.

Maybe he was doing a bit.

positively Lunar

Ah, yes, the old pretending to be a Nazi troll with the Nazi trolls to own the, er, wait who now?

Tim's backpedal/deletion is pretty shitty, reeks of omerta. He's more than happy to pick his targets but when one target is too close to home he chooses to self-censor.

maybe he just doesn't want to have to deal with the FBI

Yeah, I read it more as a, "oh shit, maybe I should just stay out this" than anything else. But, who knows.

Sam Seder and Andy Kindler (who also do voices on Bob's Burgers) talked about it on air and were pretty positive it was him. Seems like they wouldn't have touched on a co-worker if they weren't sure.

I don't think Tim wants to be "the source" but it's already too late. Appears as simple as that.

yeah Tim is pretty online savvy, I think he might've assumed this was gonna be confirmed right away and when it wasn't he didn't want to be on record as the guy saying it. don't think it has anything to do with protecting him, otherwise he wouldn't have said anything in the first place

the thing I am finding weird is the need for confirmation from comedians who weren't there when we have pictures of him there, you can see him, he's there. It's not like he doesn't have a distinctive look.

Various other comedy people have posted that Johnston has rabbit-holed in concert with a drug and alcohol problem.

I just think it's kinda funny that reddit basically figured out 75% of the people photographed by like the 8th of January, but this has been out for 4 or 5 days now and the collective response is still, "welp, sure looks like him, but we'll never know".

I don't think Tim wants to be "the source" but it's already too late. Appears as simple as that.

He specifically said so in a patreon blog.

Boy it really looked like him! So I sent it around to a few friends, and wrote Nick... "is it him?" He said he thought it was, and had heard it was confirmed through a friend. I was feeling impatient and couldn't find anything more official on the internet, so I went to twitter to ask if it had been confirmed or debunked. a few minutes later I got a DM from a friend who is (was) friends with Jay who confirmed it, telling me Jay had sent pics from the Capitol on the day... So, in my replies someone wrote to me that it wasn't him because of the shape of his ears or some shit... anyway, I wrote back saying it was him, and somehow that became the official on twitter! The verified proof that Jay "Mr Show" Johnston has the FBI on his tail!

well, I also think the confirmation issue based off just the picture is kinda complicated by the Chuck Norris look-alike who was there, but which was very quickly squashed after it started trending on Twitter with a formal denial/alibi from Norris himself, which surely hasn't happened in this case.

xps

I just think it's kinda funny that reddit basically figured out 75% of the people photographed by like the 8th of January, but this has been out for 4 or 5 days now and the collective response is still, "welp, sure looks like him, but we'll never know".

yeah it always bums me out when ppl (often reddit) exhibit the thinking "[performer x] would never do that - they were on such-and-such show, and i imagine that everyone involved in that show is basically like me!"

"if you closely examine the subtle curvature of the left ear in photo #2, its proof that everyone who does a voice on bobs burgers would totally be my friend if we knew each other in real life!"

yeah shit like that happens sometimes. I happen to have a friend who looks very much like Nic Cage (though he's about 20 years younger) and he gets hounded all the time about it. in fact, many people don't believe him when he says he ISN'T Nic Cage, because they assume the real Nic Cage would say that as well. so yeah while it's very very likely it is him there's a small chance it wasn't. that said the fact that this guy hasn't put out a statement or had one of his friends do it says it all - I don't care that he's off Twitter, obviously he knows this is happening

your friend is totally Nic Cage