• Interviews

• All
• Music
• Cinema
• TV
• Comic Books

Sep 25, 2014 By Mike Hilleary Garfunkel and Oates

Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci would make an excellent case study in contrast. It’s not just the fact that the musical comedy duo otherwise known as Garfunkel and Oates differ from one another in looks and personality—Lindhome being tall, blonde, and talkative while Micucci is small, brunette, and admittedly shy—the L.A.-based duo have made an unlikely name for themselves delivering foul-mouthed and bitingly honest songs that guise themselves under girlishly sweet melodies. “It’s all about juxtaposition,” says Lindhome. “[Kate especially] says the dirtiest stuff with the most innocent face.”

After years on the stand-up circuit and producing a collection of comedy shorts for HBO, Garfunkel and Oates have finally made their proper television debut with their own series on IFC, seeing Lindhome and Micucci play exaggerated versions of themselves as they try to survive the climb to big-time success. Looking at their onscreen personas and the strange experiences they endure—including an encounter with a porn parody version of themselves called Garfinger and Butts—Lindhome says, “I think it’s half and half. It’s based on our lives, like we use our lives as a jumping-off point and then take as much creative license as we want from there. We don’t feel beholden to make it all truthful, but it’s also not out of nowhere.”

“I remember having a conversation before we started shooting like, ‘How do we act like ourselves?’” adds Micucci.

With an expanding catalog of material that includes such self-explanatory titles as “Fuck You,” “This Party Just Took a Turn for the Douche,” and “Handjob, Blandjob, I Don’t Understand Job,” another hurdle for the duo was just getting things cleared by television censors. “Because the show’s TV-14, a lot of our dirtier material we were not able to use,” says Micucci. “So we’d have songs where we were like, ‘How can we incorporate this into a script?’”

Fortunately for Lindhome and Micucci, lacking a Y chromosome has always allowed them to tap into a wholly unique place in musical comedy. “We do use that to our advantage as much as possible,” says Lindhome. “Sometimes we’ll ask ourselves, ‘Okay, what can only women say?’ There’s a lot of stuff men can say, but there are some things that can only come out of a woman’s mouth.” Chiming in, Miccuci adds, “Yeah, even going back to one of our earlier songs like ‘Pregnant Women Are Smug,’ a guy couldn’t write that song.”

Progressing from YouTube videos to live performances and the production of several comedy albums, ultimately Lindhome and Micucci see their television series as just another natural extension of their act, an opportune place to put their material in a new, over-the-top context. “We try to be truthful about a lot of the things we do,” says Micucci. “Finding comedy in the truth, it kind of hits a little harder.” Adds Lindhome, “It’s fun to say stuff you know you would never say in real life and that everyone’s thinking but they don’t say.”

[Note: This article first appeared in Under the Radar’s September/October print issue (Issue 51), which is on newsstands now. Garfunkel and Oates’ season finale airs tonight on IFC at 10 p.m.]

www.garfunkelandoates.com