Dimitri and Khalid say “yes, and!” to a deep dive on the Chief Suslord of North American Comedy, Del Close, including: Del’s puckish pranks in high school, invoking demons for improv class, creating psychedelic light shows for the Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa, becoming a witch, doing LSD astronaut experiments for the US Air Force, getting devoured by the Spider King on LSD at a mysterious mental hospital, hanging out with L. Ron Hubbard pre-Scientology, becoming “chief metaphysician” at SNL in the early 80s, switching into “Devil Mode” and reveling in evil, encouraging John Belushi to do more speedballs, getting the “Clockwork Orange treatment” at the Schick Clinic, writing “Wasteland” for DC Comics, the disturbing “Retroactive Abortion” story, Del’s confusing definition of “sick humor”, becoming the Sewer Rat, dissecting your son’s biology teacher, Trump getting possessed by a Catman, the pandemic-era collapse of UCB and ImprovOlympic, and why Big Improv is probably going to be on the wrong end of the vibe shift.

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