Vic Michaelis has places to be.
Not least of all, proper subsequent door on the aquarium — the host of the web discuss present Very Important People hasn’t been again to Toronto in over three years, and has some websites to showcase.
That lengthy absence makes a sure sense: the improv comic and actor is on monitor to nab an Emmy later this yr, whereas additionally turning into one of many extra famous Canadians (to be honest, Canadian-American) that nearly no Canadians have ever heard of.
But they’ve finished it by heading south of the border to craft their sudden web-based fame because the host an web discuss present sequence that now boasts hundreds of thousands of views throughout YouTube and TikTok.
Coincidentally, as filming for the second season of Very Important People begins subsequent month, it is also the following place they’ve to get to.
Controlling the dialog
A form of elevated reboot of an older CollegeHumor sketch, Very Important People duties improv comedians with giving spur of the second interviews after sitting via some actually unbelievable makeovers: ones that throw costumes and even prosthetics at blindfolded company, leaving them remodeled into aliens, misshapen physique builders and, often, screaming cavemen.
That leaves Michaelis because the host: a personality additionally named Vic Michaelis, although right here they’re taking part in a journalist who is by no means, they stress, the identical particular person as themselves. That unflappable cable access-esque character is drawn from Michaelis’s love of TV personalities from Carol Burnett, to Mary Tyler Moore, to Lucille Ball: all of the “very physical femme comedians.”
It’s additionally helped them develop into a grasp of not solely comedy, but in addition of controlling the dialog. I strive to glean the place they’re from, and am immediately, skilfully, deflected by their pitch to go see Twisters, in theatres July 19. It’s the start of a seeming obsession with catastrophe films that runs via our chat. (“I’m not associated,” they shortly clarify. “But I’m really trying to make Twisters 3.“)
Later, I study they had been born in New Jersey, earlier than transferring across the Illinois space for years and ending up in Kleinberg, Ont., at 15 — then on to a brief stint on the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus. It was there that Michaelis constructed up the “Canadian style comedy” that also lives of their work: an unshakeable dedication to “whatever absurd premise is happening.”
But after I ask their pronouns, I’m kindly disregarded (“they/them, she/her, not really a wrong answer on that one,”) earlier than Michaelis congratulates me on overlaying off the pre-interview requirements. When I ask them what roles they’d like to play, they shortly flip the query round on me. I can solely grunt out the primary reply that comes to thoughts: “stunt actor.”
“So I asked what kind of actor you would want to be,” they lower in, staring with faux — however piercing — depth, “and you said: ‘One where I have no lines, and my face is not on camera.’ “
There’s a silence. I blink.
It’s that full bodied inhabitance of the character that has constructed the fictional Vic Michaelis up right into a type of legend: one the place followers make dedicated detective pages attempting to work out the character’s arcane backstory gleaned from hints dropped all through the present. Does Vic actually have a twin sister named Katie who’s a vlogger? Does Vic actually not know what “pleasure” is? Is their ninety fifth birthday truly arising? Are they secretly a hen?
It’s an intentional component of their present — discovering non-traditional methods to have interaction with an viewers that watches conventional TV much less and much less. In this occasion, the unusual mannerisms and odd particulars dropped all through the chaotic present had been intentionally designed as half of a big and full secret character bio shared between Michaelis and the manufacturing employees.
Vic Michaelis, comic, improviser and host of Very Important People, is identified for difficult their company with absolutely improvised interviews. This time, CBC’s Jackson Weaver flips the script, placing Vic to the take a look at in a recreation of True, False or Challenge.
While Michaelis will not present me that bio, they’ll share one facet of the character: “Bird, confirmed.”
They additionally be aware that the deliberate lunacy of the present, which pits them in opposition to their equally looney company, usually has them scrambling for a response — or scrambling to get away as company throw heavy props, or stress Michaelis to do issues like take faux however unlabelled medicine or eat very actual dry protein powder.
Their response to these conditions is a results of the steerage they obtained from an appearing workshop trainer years in the past, which ultimately led them to the technique they nonetheless use.
Michaelis says that in that appearing class, their function was that of a sufferer. “They said ‘We think you’d be really good at being like somebody that gets killed on a procedural.’
“It’s just like the physicality — the dying scene, the drama of it. And in order that all the time lives at the back of my head. Like, ‘Oh, yeah, that is enjoyable. Maybe I can be — What would a sufferer do on this state of affairs?’ “
It is, to be frank, a truly insane character choice to guide one’s career by — especially for a second degree taekwondo black belt, who lists their father as their best friend and whose other major acting role is in the time-travelling, Hallmark Hanukkah movie Round and Round.
Emmy aspirations
But that instinct has led Michaelis to a prime spot, and the next place they plan to be: on the Emmys stage come September, holding a couple of trophies that not only validate their journey, but the shifting landscape of network TV, talk shows and entertainment.
“It is so cool and loopy,” Michaelis said, “watching this, like, area of interest web firm enterprise into an award house with like a few of these large streamers.”
They’re referring to Dropout, the 25-year-old production company known as CollegeHumor until its Sept. 2023 rebrand. The new name denotes a pivot to more awards worthy content, as opposed to the inane Jake and Amir skits and videos featuring messages from panicked CEOs of companies like Skype, Oreos and Tide that the brand was once known for.
Michaelis first got involved in the company as a member of Upright Citizen’s Brigade, the Los Angeles sketch and improv comedy group — and contributed to some of the lesser known, lesser watched content.
But after a recent rebrand and the launch of a self-contained streaming service called Dropout.TV, the company’s outlook changed, and therefore Michaelis’s did, too.
Michaelis’s work transitioned to smaller CollegeHumor videos, to bigger and bigger Dropout roles — as the service itself positioned itself to take over prestige TV — angling directly for younger online audiences, and the respect that comes from traditional awards shows.
Very Important People is now gunning for (and is predicted by Variety to receive) a coveted Emmy nomination for short form comedy — along with other eligible online shows like Hot Ones that are challenging the staid and flagging talk show format.
And its sister show, Game Changer — where Michaelis got their start — is aiming to invade the game show category and upend Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, which together hold more than a century of airtime.
The success or failure of that attempted invasion will be a test of several things. First, whether eschewing traditional cable models in favour of self-contained entertainment hubs can pay off. Also, whether the answer to a lack of young people watching TV is just to bring the TV to them — as Michaelis does with Very Important People.
“So a lot of media is additionally assembly folks the place they’re at, proper? And form of difficult them to strive new issues and take a look at new issues in a approach that additionally feels comfy,” Michaelis said.
“As opposed to, I believe, preventing in opposition to on-line tradition and TikTok and Instagram reels and issues like that — why not use these so as to get folks to assist what you are doing.”
But outside of the internet — the final place they want to go?
“People preserve being like, ‘Well, what would you need to do after this? Like, what is the dream?’ And I’m like, this is the dream. This is what I might need to do,” they said.
“I actually do not know what else I might ask for — aside from to ultimately be in a catastrophe film.”