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JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally, another installment in our Brief But Spectacular series, where we ask interesting people to describe their passions.
Tonight, we hear from performer Tim Heidecker, best known for his part in the absurdist comedy duo of Tim & Eric. His latest record, “In Glendale,” was released last week.
Here he lays out why we should pay for entertainment we get online.
TIM HEIDECKER, Comedian: Hello, friends. My name is Tim Heidecker. You may not know me, but I’m sure you have seen me.
If you have ever seen the film “Bridesmaids,” I play the groom in the film, very — I think I have one line in the movie.
Your kids might know me from “Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” and a number of other Tim & Eric related projects.
People describe our show as absurd, offensive, disgusting, anti-comedy, which is something I don’t believe in. We’re trying to make people laugh, and sometimes that doesn’t work out.
I’m bit of a Twitter addict. I tend to have this bad habit of engaging only in people that hate me and my work. I want to take them out for dinner and get to the bottom of where all that anger is coming from.
A got a tweet the other day from a gentlemen who said, your “Awesome Show” is not awesome, and I regret having BitTorrented it, which is otherwise known as illegally downloading.
And it’s little bit like going into a motorcycle shop and stealing a motorcycle, and driving it back and saying you don’t care for the way it hums or something, whatever motorcycles do.
For a lot of kids, it’s so easy to just hit this button and you immediately get this thing. And you can get whatever you want. We work with costume designers and set decorators and cinematographers and editors and producers, and people that we like to pay, because they like to eat.
There’s a trickle-down effect. When you stop paying for the content at the end, you can — you have to stop paying people to make it in the beginning.
When you pay for something, those people get to have livings. And we should support that.
Hi. This is Tim Heidecker, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on why people should pay for things. And this is not a PBS pledge drive.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And we will be sure to like you on Twitter.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch more videos in our Brief But Spectacular series on our Web site. That’s at PBS.org/NewsHour/Brief.
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