The title of this entry is gross and disgusting, unless you’re familiar with Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog. And anyone who attended the Robert Smigel panel Friday night is now very familiar with him.

Triumph is the brain-child of SNL turned Conan O’Brien Head Writer, Robert Smigel. Made from a commercially available hand puppet that his wife had bought for him, Smigel turned a one-shot appearance at the Westminster Dog Show into a recurring character. Friday night, he brought down the house as Jerry Beck attempted to introduce the evening, only to be interrupted by Triumph, who called him the biggest nerd in the place. He then turned on a pretty girl, shouting, “What the hell are you doing here?” And to a portly fan on the aisle, he proclaimed, “Look at this guy! He’s in love with the Fantastic Four… food groups!” Triumph then proceeded to incite a riot by having the audience follow him to the room next door to interrupt a Klingon play, only to find out that they had already vacated, much to his dismay. He warned us not to tip them off and he would try it again next year. I think I can say with some certainty that not many Klingons read this weblog.

After that, Smigel got down to the actual reason he was there, promoting the DVD release of his Saturday TV Funhouse cartoon compilation. He showed some of his favorites, including The Cluckin’ Chicken, The Disney Vault and The Ambiguously Gay Duo. He also screened three shorts that the network has pulled and will never air again, like The Michael Jackson Show, the opening of which is a parody of The Yogi Bear Show.

He also showed Fun With Real Audio, where he takes on hypocritical religious leaders like Robert Schuller and Pat Robertson and finishes with a tribute to A Charlie Brown Christmas, which Smigel sincerely called the best program ever made. He even had Schulz’s widow, Jean, in the audience.

He finished with scenes from his very short-lived sitcom which starred Adam West, Lookwell, and a pilot for Fox that never aired for a show that was a parody of the Bozo show that used to run in Chicago.

Smigel, who actually called himself the biggest nerd in the room, seemed to have so much fun that he promised to come back next year. That should be a good one… for me to poop on!

Robert Smigel and Jerry Beck. If you look carefully at the lower left corner of the picture, you can see a piece of Triumph!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 24th, 2006 at 9:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.