Sam Morril Creates A Love Letter To New York City (and Buttholes) in His New Hour, “Up On the Roof”
Sara Dahms is a comedy superfan/comedy nerd who started writing about comedy after taking a long series of dream comedycations. Once it became impossible to travel all over the country to watch the best comedy everywhere, she began using her skills as a student counselor to talk with comedians all over the country about their latest projects.This week, Sara talked with Sam Morril about his brand new special- his second this year- Up On the Roof.
You can watch Up on the Roof on YouTube, for free, right now. The special is self produced, and filmed outdoors, on rooftop locations throughout New York City with small distanced audiences during the Covid-19 quarantine lockdown. You can support it by donating to Sam’s Patreon.
The Interrobang: It’s so good to speak with you again! Congratulations on your new special! The last time we spoke was when you came through Zanies in Chicago. It was around the time you put out your special, “I Got This” on YouTube. Even though you had all of that material, I was surprised by how much hilarious new material you had in your act as well.
Sam Morril: Zanies is a great club and if you’re going to be at a club that good, you don’t want to waste those crowds by only delivering the stuff you know is going to work. You’re grateful for the types of people who come out during weekends in Chicago. They are willing to go places with you and your material so even if the material is not all the way there, weekends like that are instrumental in figuring out the next hour.
The Interrobang: And that next hour is your new special, “Up on the Roof”! I’ve never seen a special like this ever before. “Up on the Roof” is not a straight up traditional comedy special; it was much more of a “docu-special.” Filming over a bunch of different rooftop shows and then cutting them up to create this special was a genius way to deliver stand-up comedy content during the shut-down. Where did the idea to film this way come from?
Sam Morril: I think it came from the fact that I was out of practice and rusty and with something going wrong every show, whether it be the mic going out or the lights not working, it was hard to get a straight hour where it felt perfect. Usually, when you tape a special, you get two shows in one night so if you mess up a bit, you’ll get it in the next show. It was hard, even doing this many shows, to be satisfied with the laughs that certain jokes got. I had some of these jokes from before the shutdown so I knew what the huge laughs they’d get sounded like, and in my mind, that’s what I thought they deserved. Unfortunately, a huge laugh outdoors on a rooftop doesn’t even compare to a bad set indoors and that was tough to accept. I’d write a knew joke and be like, we have to film one more night! I had no real game plan, I just knew I needed to keep recording.
The Interrobang: Normally, a comedy special is an event; two shows in one night and that is it… All of the shows you’ve done up to that point have basically been rehearsal for the special. However, “Up on the Roof” was totally different. That’s why I call it a “docu-special.” We get to watch the shows you’ve done along the way and collectively, they become the special.
Sam Morril: Docu-special sounds better because with a special, you picture a theater and curtains and this was grungier… but I liked that. My director Matt Salacuse is a native New Yorker we were talking about the opening of the movie Manhattan and thought filming it on rooftops would be very New York. Then, we’d have weird things happen on the street and I’d want to leave it in. Like, even the pizza guy at the end, I was like, you have to keep him in. It was hilarious how he zinged us. How New York is that shit?! I love that about New York!
The Interrobang: Yes! I loved it when you broke the 4th wall! That’s another element that made this feel like more than a just a special. It completely translated that New York vibe I know and miss so much! Seeing this reminded me of how great the New York comedy scene really is.
Sam Morril: Thanks. I think Jermaine Fowler did something where it was a lot about his parents and his upbringing and Gulman was more personal with his recent special. I think the big thing that made this special different was the roofs. There has never been a special shot on a bunch of roof tops in New York or anywhere before.
The Interrobang: How did you manage to find all of these different rooftop shows?
Sam Morril: It was almost unsafe. I went through my Instagram DMs to find these roofs. There’s a scene in the special where I’m on Instagram stories going, “You guys got a roof, cool friends, a good view, White Claw a mic and amp? I’ll be there. If you build it, I will come.” It became a rush but also terrible for my anxiety. I was really thankful for having a director like Matt whose esthetic was so important to what this was and he brought his friend Dominick Mull who brought a drone camera and made this whole production look so much more high tech. We literally had a drone flying over peoples’ heads.
The Interrobang: How many nights did you guys shoot for?
Sam Morril: I don’t really know exactly but I want to say maybe, 10? It all started because someone paid me to do their roof and I was with this guy Josh Spear who would film my shows to document this crazy time we’re in and he saw a video of Mark Normand’s and said, “Wow, who directed that? It looks beautiful.” I looked it up and it was my friend Matt Salacuse. I’ve known him for years so I got Matt to direct my special and he brought Dom on. We got to the very first roof we ever shot at and it was the scene where the guy is screaming at us out of his window. I knew right then that we had to keep going.
The Interrobang: Using footage from multiple shows gives you so much more freedom in the editing process. You have so many more options to choose from as opposed to editing traditional specials that usually only have two shows for each joke. What was the editing process like for this special?
Sam Morril: It was awesome but it was also a ton more work. With the other specials you know the order and you’re not really going to change the order. If there’s a funny moment here or there, I might use it but I don’t even think there was any crowd work in my last special at all. Editing that special was pretty painless, where this special was literally digging through stuff as we figured out the order. So much of that work was done by Dom who was the editor as well as the drone operator. I was going to have another editor but we were at so many shoots together, I needed someone who had been there so if I referenced something, that person would know where to find it and thank god, Dom knew how to edit. That definitely saved us a ton of time. Figuring out the order was very hard and there were a lot of changes made before it was finished. I was afraid that it wouldn’t come together in a way that would make me happy. That was very scary.
The Interrobang: Would you give notes to Matt and Dom after each show of what you wanted to make the final cut from each performance?
Sam Morril: I’d take everyone out for dinners and we’d talk about the shows. One time, when Phil Hanley was opening for me, we went out for dinner and I was telling the story of how I met my biological father and Phil made everyone laugh so hard, I made him retell the joke with the cameras rolling!
The Interrobang: I’m so glad you did because I actually wrote a note on how Phil’s joke was a hilarious segue to your material on your bio dad and being legally adopted. It was perfect!
Sam Morril: It just worked out that way. Some nights the shows would be bigger, some would be smaller; some nights were cold, some nights we’d just get drunk at dinner and we’d blow off steam from all of the stress. It was a special experience to share with all of these guys.
The Interrobang: How did you and Matt Salacuse become friends?
Sam Morril: My friend Jessica Pilot, who I think is still the Colbert booker and who works on like 20 projects at once, including working with Larry Charles for Netflix and with Alec Baldwin on his podcast, did a docu-series on me called, “This is Stand-up” which is on YouTube. She also would do some man on the street stuff with me back in the day and Matt would sometimes come and film it. He’s such a great guy that we hit it off. He’s obsessed with movies and we could talk about movies for days. He’s a great photographer and to work with someone with that eye was huge. It completely changed the special.
The Interrobang: That is so cool! Now you have your crew.
Sam Morril: Yep, Matt, Dom and Josh who was doing a lot of the behind the scenes stuff. It was a great group and Ian Fidance did an amazing job with warm up and Phil Hanley who doesn’t really host but is so disarming and good at crowd work was unbelievable at it. It was nice to share those nights that are stressful with people who put you at ease.
The Interrobang: I’m sure it was a ton of work but it all came together beautifully and the fireworks were a perfect ending.
Sam Morril: To Matt’s credit, I didn’t know if it was such a good idea but he was like, “Trust me. It’s like ‘Manhattan’, man. We gotta do it!” We did them on Josh’s roof that last night and I was afraid we would get him in trouble but once they started going off I was like, “Fuck it! This is cool!” and you can hear me and Ian giggling like idiots. We were going to cut it but I thought it was kind of funny so we kept it in.
The Interrobang: I’m glad you kept it. That was such a funny touch to end on. This entire special was awesome. Do you have any segment or joke that you are particularly proud of from this special?
Sam Morril: The silly ones make me happy. I love the Stu story but for some reason I really love my butthole joke. I love a broadway/Les Mis reference mixed into a butt-play joke. I like that it makes fun of homophobia and is a butthole joke with a lot going on. I also really like the joke about meeting my biological dad for the first time with him petting a cat, which is true, then he tells me that he rescued the cat from the side of the road and nursed it back to health. I also really liked the free speech joke I put in the trailer. If it were a different hour and I could have run it more through clubs, that chunk probably would have been longer.
The Interrobang: I loved that you opened with those jokes and that the only political material you had was making fun of the celebrities who were soliciting us to vote and about free speech/racism. I thought you had the perfect amount of political content in this special.
Sam Morril: Is there anything worse than those celebrity promos? Do they really think that anyone in a MAGA hat saw Gal Gadot and was like, “Oh shit… she just sang Imagine! I’ve got to change my ways!” It’s so condescending and out of touch; I just think there are better ways to reach people.
The Interrobang: Speaking of better ways to reach people, there is something I wanted to ask you but I wasn’t going to bring it up unless you brought up your butt joke and since you mentioned it, I have to ask… Is the male G spot really in the butt and do you actually know or did you just say that for the joke?
Sam Morril: Oh, I know….and it is…. Lol
The Interrobang: Well thank you for setting that straight for me! This was so much fun! I hope you continue to put out specials and I hope I get to talk to you when you do. Congratulations, Sam!
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Sara Dahms
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