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Immoral Compass is a frequently shocking and consistently hilarious new sketch series debuting on Roku. Stemming from the minds of Tyler Falbo and his team of gifted comedy writers, the series explores the sticky, dark impulses and lingering thoughts that fill people’s lives and threaten to ruin them. Anchored by Bill Burr as the show’s framing device — a man speaking into a camera while smoking a cigar and reflecting on his life — the series is a hysterical reflection on how deep of a hole someone can dig themselves into in life.
Ahead of the show’s Nov. 5 premiere on Roku, CBR sat down for an exclusive interview with Tyler Falbo and Bill Burr to delve into the difference between the show’s uniquely dark comedy. Burr and Falbo also spoke about their perspective on “cringe comedy” and whether or not Immoral Compass fits in that subgenre.
CBR: Starting off, the show — wow, that gets so dark and wild so quickly, I love it.
Bill Burr: Nice! That’s the dream reaction. This is the reaction we were [looking for].
Listen, I found out about Tyler Falbo… I watched Tyler’s short film and I was blown away. He really is a ridiculously talented writer and director. As an older fella, I also like that in this little, this short, dark movies… I got a sense of his generation, their outlook on the world a little bit. I thought it was interesting because all old people think younger people are all coddled and all this type of stuff. They have a pretty interesting take on all the crap that we’ve done, the earth that we’ve left them with. So, I’m excited to be a small part of it.
Tyler Falbo: I’ve heard Bill say that before, and I’ve never thought of these as a reflection of my generation… I think he might be right, but I always thought I was the weird one. I didn’t think this was about our generation, but I think he might be right. I’m just happy I’m not alone.
Tyler, a definite difference between what I think people refer to as “cringe comedy” and what this show does — which forces you to cringe from the sheer horror of what’s happening to these characters, typically as a result of their own actions — is that it’s all so self-inflicted.
Tyler Falbo: That’s totally true… We never intended to just do gross-out humor or cringe comedy. I think that the comedy in this always comes from what is the worst possible thing that could happen at this moment, and that is inherently hilarious in life? I think we should all accept that. I think that it’s all stemming from someone’s very morally-ambiguous decision, and now they’ve gotten themselves in a terrible situation that, usually, in this show, it’s all their fault.
On top of Bill, this cast is also incredibly stacked with living comedy legends. What was that like to see these performers bring these sketches to life?
Falbo: Bill’s a huge reason for that. ATC — All Things Comedy — produced this. They have a crazy network of people. I’m happy that they wanted to do it. My experience directing all these people was insane. We shot the show pretty fast, and one day we had someone and I’m like, “These are all guys I grew up watching on TV.” And it’s like, “Oh, nice to meet you. Let’s shoot this thing for five hours. Thank you so much. Goodbye.” It’s a whirlwind.
Burr: Yeah, but I think the reason we were able to get some of those bigger people to do it is because of what Tyler wrote. It was strong. He just knew it was going to be funny. And then we also had some clips of some of these short, little dark things that he makes, so you could see that he could execute the things that he had written on the page. So, I think everybody that is in Immoral Compass was really excited to do it. They were thrilled with the final product.
I’m just really hoping that people are going to get on Roku and watch this thing because I really think that this is unique and different. I really believe in Tyler and his talents. It’s going to be one of those underground, word-of-mouth things, and then everybody is going to, hopefully, go over there. We’ve had quite the journey getting this thing made. We sold it. We pitched it all over town, and we ended up selling it to Quibi right before the pandemic, and they loved it. They were all behind it. We were like, “All right, man! We did it!” We’re all high-fiving, and then, two days later in the trades, “Quibi goes belly up!” I’m so glad that this thing’s going to get out there because your reaction to it is what everybody’s going to be saying. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.
Falbo: Bill’s right. It’s the exact reaction we want. The funniest stuff that I like is stuff that usually gets a groan or a “holy shit” from the audience. That is what we’re going for. All my favorite SNL sketches did that. All my favorite moments in comedy movies did that. I think if we can pull that off, then we succeeded.
Burr: Everybody, get onto Roku and watch Immoral Compass, written and directed by the absolutely brilliant, Tyler Falbo. I am so proud to be a small part of this thing. This is really a unique, unique, hilarious dark comedy. I love everything about it, support it 100%, so I hope you guys will too. Thank you.
Bill, you get to be the framing device for the show, effectively playing “downer Rod Serling.” It doesn’t necessarily feel like your on-stage persona, but it has the feeling of someone opening up in a way that you tend to on stage. What was that like to play with?
Bill Burr: I don’t want to give away too much because I want people to see the look, but we kind of had the idea for the look… If you see him, he’s a guy that peaked in the early 90s, and then things happen. He tried to stop them from happening and didn’t. Now he’s on the other side. I felt there’s this weird thing that human beings have that when they’ve lived for a while… You can almost be a young person and not have an ego, and then live so much life that then you start really thinking that you know everything. Like, revisiting 14-year-old you, like you have everything figured out. I think that this guy had that but in a very negative almost narcissistic way. Like, “If this stuff happened to me, it’s going to happen to you, but I’m also going to try to help steer you away from it.”
I used to work with a guy who was about six years older than me. He was such a narcissist. He’d be like, “Hey, man. You got back problems yet?” I was like, “No, nah.” He goes, “All right. You wait. You wait.” And it’s like, we have completely different jobs, completely different DNA. “Your eyes going? Oh, you wait. You wait.” He was so in his own universe that he thought, if it happens to me, surely this happens to everybody because I am the center of all of this. So, I feel like this guy had a little bit of that and thought he had stuff figured out, and he didn’t.
Falbo: I think Downer Rod Sterling is a great description because so many sketch shows have that person in between, or like Rod Sterling, other types of shows, anthology shows too… We wanted Bill to play a character. Bill wanted to play a character, but I feel like Bill’s probably one of the best people in the world at ranting alone by himself, listening to his podcast for many years. So, I felt like taking that character and applying that aspect to it was just easy money in my book. Onset, I was basically just watching Bill. It was fun to sit there and watch.
Bill, you’ve had something of a shift more towards script content in the past decade. You’re still doing stand-up, you’ve got your podcast, but between shows like this, F is for Family, The Mandalorian, there’s been a bit of a move towards more scripted material. Has that affected your views on big marquee stuff like Star Wars?
Bill Burr: How do you mean?
In terms of you, for example, having jokes poking fun at the Star Wars fandom —
Bill Burr: Oh, yeah, yeah. That kind of got blown out of proportion. It wasn’t like I was walking around hating Star Wars. I just saw a bunch of people that loved it, and it was their life, and they were so excited by it, so that just turns on the comedian light of, “Oh, I’m going to make fun of that. I have to do that.” It’s like when I go after feminists. I don’t really want women to not be feminists, but it’s just, they’re so easy to get mad. Just to stand up there and just say dumb things. I’m not saying everything I say is just for that purpose, but I’m just being a comedian. You just poke the bear. “Oh, look at that guy dressed up like Chewbacca! That’s kind of a rip-off of Bigfoot, no?” Just to do that. “No! It’s a completely original character.”
People do that to me too. They know what to do. You bring up Ulf Samuelsson and the fact that he’s in the Ring of Honor of the Pittsburgh Penguins. My buddy, Joe, whenever he wants to get me going, he’ll tell a flattering story of Ulf Samuelsson. Having said all that, I don’t think anybody has approached that franchise if that’s the right word, the way John Favreau, Rick Famuyiwa were doing it. And had I known that they were going to make something as good as The Mandalorian, I never would have made those jokes. I want to be on something as good as that.
I grew up with spaghetti westerns and stuff, watching all the Sergio Leone movies. That approach to it, whenever they’re pulled back and he’s walking across a barren landscape, that’s literally Clint Eastwood coming into town. I don’t know. Somehow, me and my big mouth didn’t screw up that gig. There’s nothing, “just,” about it. It’s pretty huge and amazing the way they did it.
I always tell this story… I’ve done two episodes of The Mandalorian. At the end of the first episode, Jon came out into what they call the volume. That’s when they display a 360 screen all the way around you. You’re talking to somebody and the background’s moving. You feel like you have vertigo. He showed the trailer on the screen. I was like, “Oh, my God! I can’t believe I’m going to be in this for three seconds.” So, I was very… I’ve just been so freaking lucky in my career if you look at the stuff that I had nothing to do with writing or creating. Somehow I get to do an episode or two of it? I don’t know why, but I’m happy it keeps happening.
Immodest Compass premieres on the Roku streaming service on Nov. 5
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