Eugene Mirman knows what you’re thinking. Last we heard from the “Bob’s Burgers” star a little more than a month ago, he had just been in a terrible car crash that had engulfed his car with flames. It looked pretty gnarly. But yet, here he is on the phone, promoting his new comedy special “Here Comes the Whimsy” — premiering May 5 on YouTube. How is he back on the promo circuit so soon?
“I know, I obviously went through an insane accident,” he told Variety. “For the first few days, people didn’t know it was me! But I am doing really good. I was injured, but not nearly as much as probably the images that were out there in the world potentially made it seem. So I’m doing not bad. I was just at the Lego store for ‘May the Fourth’ with my son, looking at Star Wars Legos. So I’m back in life.”
Mirman joked that this is hopefully his “only near-death experience. I guess I would say I’m doing pretty good considering how insane it was.”
Mirman sustained serious injuries and was transported to a hospital after crashing into the Bedford Toll Plaza on New Hampshire’s F.E. Everett Turnpike on March 31. As his car burst into flames, he was pulled from the wreckage by a group of witnesses including a state trooper on the security detail of New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayotte, who happened to be nearby.
Mirman said he doesn’t remember the accident. “I don’t know what happened or caused it, though I am trying to figure out or do anything I can for myself to avoid anything like that,” he said. “Mostly I’m sort of happy to be here.”
That also means he hasn’t looked at footage of the accident, other than brief images of his face next to the car on fire. “What you’re describing sounds awful, and yeah, I don’t have an interest in seeing that,” Mirman said. “I remember certainly being in the ambulance andseeing a little bit of fire. I don’t know exactly when it started. I know that obviously the vehicle was was quite engulfed in flames, but I wasn’t burned myself — which is obviously incredibly lucky. The amount I feel fortunate is huge. But I haven’t watched the videos, and I’m not interested yet. I don’t know if there’ll be a time when I’m 78 and like, ‘oh, you know what? I should really look up all those videos to see how truly traumatized I should I should be moving forward!’”
Mirman said he wound up breaking his wrist, some ribs and suffering a concussion, which is probably why he doesn’t remember the accident. “It was a huge accident, but in the big picture, I’m sitting and doing an interview a month later, so I’m okay,” he said.
The comedian, who voices middle child Gene Belcher on “Bob’s Burgers,” was scheduled to do a recording session for the animated series the day after the accident, which was postponed. But by the following week, he was ready to get back to work.
“Fox and Disney, everyone reached out,” he said of the support he got from the show and its producers. “But the next week I got to record, and recently I was in LA and got to record in studio. I have a guess of what the images they saw were, and I’m sure they were terrifying. And I feel bad that everyone was put into an emotional place of being so concerned. Ultimately, I’m just so incredibly thankful to be OK.”
And that brings us to “Here Comes the Whimsy,” his first new comedy special in a decade. “Here Comes the Whimsy” previously premiered on the comedy streaming service Veeps, and now will get much wider distribution via YouTube.
Mirman noted that during those years he took some time off from touring due to, of course, the pandemic, but also after his first wife passed away from cancer. “Life changed in certain ways,” he said. “But I adored standup. The truth is, I really adore the whimsy of stand up. I do kind of thrive in the silliness of stuff. And not that I don’t have anecdotes, and you’ll get some new things. But I think so much of what I love is these sort of absurd takes everyday things.”
As pandemic restrictions loosened, Mirman did some short tours and began working on material for “Here Comes the Whimsy,” which as described in the special’s logline, features the comedian’s “trademark playful spirit to reveal a series of mild grievances through anecdotes from fatherhood, insights from travel, dress-code trauma, rental car disputes, and more.”
To promote the special, and its accompanying album recording, Mirman’s team also came up with some whimsical items: “We made a lot of sort of very silly packages,” he said. “I made bags of flour that I drew a face on and put a little speaker on that has me saying something silly. You could buy that. We sold packages where I would write someone’s obituary in advance, and they could use it whenever they want. So we kind of coupled these weird gift packages with the vinyl and the special and different things.”
Mirman, whose other credits include “Flight of the Conchords,” “Delocated,” “Archer,” “Broad City,” “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” “Inside Amy Schumer,” and “Confess, Fletch,” is back out doing standup. That means he’s also deciding whether his recent accident — and the headlines it generated — will make their way into his act.
“I will probably do stand up about this. It would be probably odd to not mention it,” he said. “I’m going to be doing stand up in the coming weeks, and I’m sure I’ll talk about it and try to work out material. Ultimately, that’s what comedians do. It is funny to be like, ‘I’ll hopefully turn this near death experience into 15-20 great minutes!’ Or four extraordinary minutes. We’ll find out!”
Watch “Eugene Mirman: Here Comes the Whimsy” on YouTube below: