Jim Gaffigan On Being ‘The Pale Tourist’ In Canada And Spain In His New 2-Part Special

Before the pandemic hit, Jim Gaffigan was one of the busiest comedians around, and not just because he and his wife/collaborator Jeannie were taking care of their five kids. In addition to starring in a bunch of movies — not all of which were comedic — he was constantly touring around the world, often with his family in tow. The idea behind the tour was that, after doing research, eating local cuisine, and talking to locals, Gaffigan would craft a stand-up routine that centered around that country’s traditions and food (of course, given he crafted almost a whole special around the topic of Hot Pockets).

The result was the two-episode Amazon special The Pale Tourist, where he does two completely different hours, one in Toronto and one in Barcelona. He toured other parts of the world, and the audio version of this special includes segments called Asian American and Florida Man. Gaffigan chatted with Decider via Zoom and talked about the logistics of writing a new special for each country he visited, why he thinks the idea of a “tourist” has gotten a bad rap, and some information on his first two “Drive-thru Comic” shows, where he played for audiences that were social distancing in their cars.

DECIDER: Are you still at home now?

JIM GAFFIGAN: We rented a house in the suburbs, so we’re in a rental home.

Jersey, or Long Island, or Westchester?

Westchester.

In your YouTube videos and essays on CBS This Morning, they’re all from your apartment though, right?

Yeah. I mean the last, since June, I’ve been up here. But I’ve been… So yeah, it’s like I didn’t announce in CBS Sunday, we got out. Part of me feels like I was abandoning New York City.

How are you feeling trying to promote this special while you’re still trying to quarantine? Is it weird?

Oh, it’s absolutely weird, because there’s an element of this special, which is the tourist. This is kind of a concept album, or concept special where there’s individual specials on a geographic area. So it’s weird, because I don’t know when we’re going to be able to go back to being international tourists, it might be a while.

When I was following you on social media doing the Pale Tourist Tour, I saw it was taking you to such interesting places. What was the genesis of the idea of actually crafting your stand-up to the audience, and to the culture, and the food, and the audience of where you were going to be?

Stand-up is very much, for me, self assignment. This is my eighth special. So after my first special, Beyond the Pale, my motivating factor was I wanted to do a special as good as Beyond the Pale. So that was the motivating factor. After King Baby, there was a motivating factor of, “Okay, I’m going to try to not do as much [material on] food.” So then the next assignment was, I go through a special and I’m like, “I’m dealing with my wife’s brain tumor, I’m going to be more autobiographical in my stand-up.” And then, the next assignment was, “I’m going to do more stories.” And then the next assignment was, “I’m going to do one topic for as long as I can.” So [a bit on] horses, I got it to 10 minutes.”

And so then I got done with Quality Time and I had this Asian tour planned. My family was with me part of it and some of it I was solo. It was over the course of three weeks and a lot of vacation time in there. I realized the night before my final show in Seoul, that I had 20, 25 minutes just on Asia. So I said to the promoter, “Can we get a camera and record this?” And so we got in, got a camera and we recorded it. And it’s not super high production value, I just put it on YouTube. But it inspired an idea that the next assignment would be to do specials on a geographic area, or a country, or a culture. And so I knew I wanted to do Canada. I had done a show in Spain, and the history and the culture and so many things popped out to me that I knew I wanted to do Spain, and I was planning to do Mexico, or Latin America.

I had a big tour planned down there, but the pandemic hit, so I had to cancel it after Bogota. And so that was the idea, was self assignment. And the cheat, if you will, is that, being in different countries or different cultures, so many things are new. So there’s a lot of… It’s like very fertile soil for material. So Spain being so, they have the siesta, the way they consume jamón, the flamenco, it’s like there was so many things that I knew were right.

And even though I didn’t get a chance to do South America, or Latin America, or Mexico, it’s like I know what could be funny. Like the Incas and the Aztecs, there’s some good stuff there.

Was the plan always to shoot in Toronto and in Barcelona, or was it at a certain point you were like, “Okay, we’re going to do Canada and Spain?”

Yeah, there was always going to be Canada, Spain and Mexico City.

So initially, the special would have been three episodes, now it’s just two?

Yeah. But the album was going to be five parts. Because I included Asian American, and I included Florida Man, because at Christmas I recorded, but again, not great production value, just last minute kind of thing. But the audio was something that we could clean up to make it work.

What was Jeannie’s contribution? Was it the usual level where you guys collaborated together, or did you have to do more solo writing because you were on these trips sometimes by yourself?

It was much more solo, because out of necessity. Some of it is, I’m in Valencia, or Madrid, or Barcelona by myself. I’m walking around, I’ve got to come up with ideas. I can’t call her and say, “Hey, what about this for the Caganer? I would have to explain what the Caganer was to her. But us working together has always been kind of fluid and much more complex at times. So even the CBS Sunday Morning commentaries, ideally, we would work on them together, but the reality is we’re in a pandemic and-

Five kids.

Five kids and we’re in a rental house, so we’ve got to get things done.

Take me through a little bit of the process, because when I was watching the specials, there was this fine balance that you had to strike between making the references make sense to Americans and other people watching who aren’t from those countries, but also doing it in a knowing way, so the audiences aren’t like, “You’re a complete rube.”

Well, it’s a nimble process, but it’s also, some of it is the necessity of the moment. Also, those audiences, particularly in Spain, because Canada, North America is… Canadians obviously know more about America, than America knows about Canadians. So going into Canada, having done some research, or having some knowledge about Canada was appreciated by the Canadians. In Spain, some of it was, I’m dealing with these generalities, these tourist’s kind of knowledge, and creating jokes on them.

So to your point, the statue of the devil in Madrid, no one in America, or not many people are going to know that there’s a statute of the devil in Madrid. The Spaniards know. And so I have to, in the setup, explain that there’s this devil statue in Madrid. I have to set it up that Spain is a Catholic country, it’s even more ironic, but some of it is explaining things. It’s also, even my take on the jamón, it might be rube-ish, But I do think that I like ham, but they’re-

They revere it.

Kind of crazy, they act like there’s not pigs throughout the world.

You also had the “he’s a jerk” refrain throughout the stand-up sets, which clued in the audience that, “Okay, I don’t know everything about your culture and I’m just going to make fun of myself.” 

The point of view was very much, “I tried.” Do you know what I mean? I’m not your tour guide, I’m a tourist. You know what I mean? I’m not the dumbest tourist, I’m not the smartest tourist, I’m just a tourist.

You went around and talked to locals and ate the food. Was that part of the research, as well?

Yeah. Some of it is that’s just what I would do anyway. So when I was in Madrid, I would go around and do some of these things. I would want to eat in the oldest restaurant in Spain, I would want to try the most classic meal. And some of them are tourist kind of traps, and some of it is… It’s so interesting how the concept of a “tourist” is so different in different countries.

So even within Asia, I was with my family in Thailand, but the whole concept of a tourist in Thailand is icky. Whereas, the concept of a tourist in Shanghai is someone who’s really interested in… They’re like professional tourists. So it’s different in different cultures. And obviously, the Spanish, they have a fatigue around tourists that New Yorkers might have around people in Times Square.

I’ve done a fair amount of international travel, so I get it. There’s always this distinction between tourist and traveler, and I never know which one I was, whichever country I was in. I don’t know if you felt that way, or did you always feel like a tourist?

I’m so goofy looking, I stick out. Do you know what I mean? I just know that with the exception of Iceland and Scandinavia, I just kind of stick out so dramatically that I have to embrace the fact that if there’s someone that’s trying to rip off a tourist, they’re going to try and rip me off.

Exactly. One of my proudest travel moments was when I was in Iceland and somebody confused me for a local, which is weird because I’m not blonde or anything like that.

No, it’s amazing. I had a whole joke about when someone thinks you’re a local, it’s so flattering.

You feel like you’ve had a victory. What was your most interesting stand up show during the tour?

The thing about both Spanish American and Canadian American shows is that a week before, maybe a fourth of the material didn’t exist at all. So a lot of it was pretty raw material. And hopefully I’ll have some perspective on it, but hopefully it didn’t feel… I’m kind of somebody who over-polishes jokes. But I would say that the material was very new. I haven’t watched this special in a while, but I was backstage asking Ted Alexandro how I should say something. And I can see myself thinking of how I’m going to say it. You know what I mean? So it’s a pretty absurd task.

Let me ask you one more question about your Monmouth Park drive-in show. How did that idea come up, and I saw the CBS essay about it, but how did the Monmouth Park show come up, and how did you feel doing it?

The thing about the Monmouth… I’ve done two drive-in shows, right? And human beings are pretty resourceful, so it will get figured out. But Red Bank has this amazing Count Basie Theater. They have this rich kind of… Certain communities have, it’s people that run the theater. It’s like the audience can afford to go to a show, the audience appreciates a good show. And so that was built in, in that area. And then it was somebody’s idea like, “Hey, we’ve got this horse track, we’ve got this parking lot. We can build this stage, we can build social distancing into the cars.” And so I was just following someone else’s lead. And then I did another one in Wilkes-Barre, in the parking lot in an arena. And it’s fun, but it’s nothing compared to an actual comedy club, or an actual theater, or even an actual arena.

But look, if I wasn’t allowed to eat ice cream for a year and I had non-dairy ice cream, I’d be like, “This isn’t that bad.” And that’s a little bit with the drive-in show is like. It’s like, is it the same as Ben and Jerry’s peanut butter cup? No, but you know what? I like ice cream.

So you’ll do more?

I’ll do more. The balancing act is, my wife has high risk. It’s also, we’re all high risk. So I don’t know if I’m going to get on the tour bus right away. I don’t have to be the pioneer, just because I’d rather be safe than sorry. You know what I mean? But I’m definitely open to doing more, but getting on a tour bus and doing it for a month, I don’t know.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Jim Gaffigan: The Pale Tourist On Amazon Prime Video