Under the ski mask and without the voice modulator, beyond the constant string of embarrassments and miles away from the self-manufactured mortification, you get the feeling that the man known only as "Jon" on "Delocated" is an OK guy just looking for approval. But when chatting with the character's creator, Jon Glaser, a former writer for "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "Human Giant," it seems like he's not concerned with whether you like him. He just wants to make you laugh...until you piss yourself. In anticipation of "Delocated"'s third season premiering on Thursday, Feb. 2, MTV Clutch got under the mask with Glaser.
How has the character of Jon changed?
I'm resisting doing a fake answer for five minutes: "You know, he's become into hunting, and he's become more sensitive toward animals, getting over being a vegetarian—"
Well, he did have that stint as the Dog Mayor, so...
[laughs] Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if he's really changed too much. He's still an a**hole, he's still a smug jerk. In Season 3... I don't know if there's any major changes. He's still a d***.
Do you ever worry that level of d***ishness could lose some of your audience?
Um, I've never been concerned about it, but it's certainly something that we want to make sure isn't just off-putting to the point that people are going to say, "Ugh, this is annoying." Obviously, we want it to be funny and enjoyable even though this character is a jerk. I mean, I just think of it in the same vein as other characters that are a**holes, very much like Larry David on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or Archie Bunker; characters that are off-putting, but they're at least inherently funny and enjoyable to watch.
Watch MTV's exclusive clip
The weird thing is as big of a jerk as he is, he's surprisingly successful at just about any business venture or scheme.
Well, I definitely think there are plenty of successful a**holes in the world. He does not lack confidence in himself, it's just woefully misguided and smug. It's not very surprising that he would be very successful at the things that he does--he just happens to be a jerk who is successful.
To what degree do you think about what gets "edited" out by the fake network behind Jon's show?
I don't know if there's really much thought to it at all, you know, as far as what he's doing in his spare time or what is happening when the cameras aren't rolling or what didn't make it into the scenes they didn't put into this fake TV show. I don't know if we think about it that in-depth. He just sits around and watches sports. Anything that doesn't make it on the air is him watching sports.
What kind of thoughts did you have heading into the third season in terms of the show's direction?
Well, I think the key for us--there's a couple of things: number one was, how do we do a third season as far as extending the premise? You know, the first season was basically Jon dealing with his new life and being pursued by the Russian mob who had assigned a sort of bumbling, incompetent person in Eugene Mirman. For Season 2, the thought was, "We can't be, 'They tried to kill him again! Whoops, they missed again!'" So we came up with the premise that they're going to kill everyone around Jon and drive him crazy. The third season couldn't just be more of that, and so we've added some new things--some of which you'll find out in the first episode. There are two things you'll discover in the first episode that will drastically change his life. A couple of big, life-changing events.
And what else are you working on right now outside of "Delocated"?
I've been producing shorts for this cartoon pilot, I think through Comedy Central, but I'm not even sure, honestly. It's a series of shorts, not just mine. But for the most part, I just do "Delocated," it's just full-time for me as far as being involved with the show, and I'm overseeing everything including the edit. But I'm happy to be so busy and not have time for other things, for the most part.
To put you completely on the spot, without spoiling anything, is there anything from the coming season you'd like to tease out to fans of the show?
You a**holes! How dare you put me on the spot?
That's what I do.
Janeane Garofolo is joining the cast, that's a good one. There are a whole bunch of new characters. Some characters aren't coming back from the second season, whether they were murdered or the actors went on to other, new projects, so we have a bunch of new characters.
This is something I've said at Comic-Con; I'm playing two characters this year, which has become a really fun, dumb thing to do. So in addition to playing Jon with the ski mask on, I'm playing an unmasked character who's part of the Russian mob. It's a pretty good look—I've got a pretty sweet haircut for the role. It's awesome. Also, a lot of new murders, which a lot of people expect so I know that's not much of a tease. Sex and sex scenes. A lot of good nude scenes, that's for sure. We were just editing today and I was pretty disgusted looking at my own body. [laughs]
Check out the premier of "Delocated" this Thursday, Feb. 2 on Adult Swim at midnight and pick up the DVDs of season one and two!