These days, a late night “interview” is just as likely to inform you of a celebrity’s ability to play tetherball with Heather Graham’s face as it is to reveal anything concrete about their work or life. Guest appearances are now tailored especially for the Internet to parse the next day, so if you can show a celebrity doing a particularly silly thing that’ll engage anyone with two minutes to spare, perfect. Bob Odenkirk, however, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night and asserted that he’s not having that gimmickry…sort of.
As Kimmel tried to convince him to play a game of “Heatherball,” Odenkirk put on his sourest face and protested, “Can we just talk?” In case you were wondering, Heatherball looks exactly as you’d expect it:
The whole thing was seemingly a scripted spoof, turning the viral content of late night television into more self-reflexive viral content about annoying viral content. Before his attempted Heatherball insurrection, Odenkirk did have an actual interview, though he brought his own questions. Actually, they were questions other people would asked if they didn’t ask such nice questions, like “Why do you want to steal Jon Hamm’s Emmy?” (Odenkirk was recently nominated for Best Actor in a Drama Series).
Watch the videos below (the first is the failed, absurdist game, the second is the interview):