“Workaholics” and “Pitch Perfect” star Adam Devine said comedy has always come naturally.
“I have a weird, big, dumb face that can move in all sorts of different directions,” he said in a phone interview. “I think that sort of helps me out.”
Devine is bringing his signature s**t-eating grin to Thursdays at 12:30 a.m. on Comedy Central with his new show, “Adam Devine’s House Party.” The show is framed as a stand-up showcase featuring up-and-coming comics mixed with Devine’s own brand of sketch comedy, with all the raunch and saltiness we’d expect from a “Workaholics” star.
The premise of the show revolves around Devine as he hosts a stand-up showcase in a Hollywood mansion with a massive party budget provided by Comedy Central. The show will also feature live performances from indie bands Trash Talk and Palma Violets.
Devine said the show is partly based on the wild house parties he threw with his fellow “Workaholics” stars when the show first began filming.
“It’s kind of nice if you can just get a giant bathtub and fill it with ice and a ton of Busch Lights and get wicked,” he said.
House parties, he said, are right up his alley. He prefers them over the hip L.A. bar scene, where $15 drinks the size of thimbles and pretentious fedora-wearing bartenders are commonplace.
“[The show is] just sort of a conglomeration of all the crazy house parties I’ve been to where you find someone’s pooped in your closet,” he said.
Devine said he wanted to frame the show in a way that would allow the viewers to see more of the stand-up comedians — there are three stand-up acts per episode — outside of their solo performances. The comics who perform stand-up also make appearances in the party-scene sketches.
And not to worry, “Workaholics” fans — his costars from the show that launched Devine’s career will be making cameos later in the season, although he maintained that “House Party” is his own side project independent of his first show.
“This is sort of my thing I was doing outside of the group,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be too meta — like, a behind-the-scenes of ‘Workaholics.’”
The show, with its unique structure of stand-up mixed with sketch comedy, is a risky endeavor. But Devine has the chops to pull it off, and fans of old-school Comedy Central will rejoice the return of stand-up by newer comics.
“I hope it’s the tightest of b-holes,” he said.
A version of this story ran on page 8 on 10/31/2013 under the headline "‘Workaholic’ no more: Watch ‘Adam Devine’s House Party’"
Adam Devine’s new Comedy Central series, “Adam Devine’s House Party,” airs Thursday at 12:30 a.m. He hosts a stand-up showcase.
