Picture: IFC
A Visit From Portlandia was right at home at Netflix Is a Joke. For starters, the half-hour IFC comedy continues to garner new fans on the streaming service.
The series debuted over 15 years ago, but Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s series still plays fresh to new viewers. Time is already kind to Portlandia, which was properly celebrated by its creators with laughs and music during Netflix’s comedy festival.
How A Former Presidential Nominee Brought Them Together
Armisen and Brownstein first collaborated back around 2003, which was also around the time they first met. “We met at SNL,” Brownstein recalled. “I’m in a band called Sleater-Kinney. We were playing a show in New York, and Fred was on SNL. We couldn’t go to SNL and Fred couldn’t come to our show. So, he said, ‘Come to the afterparty.’ It was Jennifer Garner as the host and Beck as the musical guest. When we met, Fred was wearing a little button with my face on it – which was not scary but actually very sweet. Fred asked me to make a video with him. I assumed we were going to make a musical, but he had something a little more creative in mind.”
“I was asked by the John Kerry campaign – for real – to do a video,” Armisen added.
John Kerry was the Democratic presidential nominee running against George W. Bush in 2004. When Kerry’s campaign wanted to have fun with the Democratic National Convention, they reached out to Armisen, who wisely wanted to collaborate with Brownstein on a skit.
“I had this idea. Remember what Saddam Hussein looked like when they got him and put him on trial?” Armisen asked. “He wasn’t like the dictator [we know]; he was in a suit, big black beard and black hair. To me, he looked like a rock star – a British rock star. I thought, why don’t we make that a video? We went up to Portland.”
Brownstein played a cable access show host in Ohio by the name of Cindy Overton in the video. “I get the first post-bunker interview with Saddam Hussein,” Brownstein said.
The Return of Candace and Toni
The Portlandia creators are still in comedic lockstep. Even as they perform sharp banter, they make it feel relaxed and loose. There was nothing but glee watching these two bounce off each other live. One of the great surprises of the night was the duo transforming back into feminist bookstore owners Candace and Toni.
Behind a prop counter, they questioned the legitimacy of a guest author’s (played by Vanessa Bayer) science-fiction novel. It’s too funny to do justice on paper, but Armisen and Brownstein still have some of their signature characters available at their fingertips.
We Will All Soon Be Forgotten Bands
If there’s one bit Brownstein clearly couldn’t get enough of, it was the one dedicated to bands of the past slipping away in the sea of time. The longer the gag – or warning call, if you will – went on about how we’re all, as individuals, destined to be forgotten like someone’s favorite band from the past, the funnier it got.
Brownstein clearly could’ve spent hours talking about bands of the past we must not forget. For those curious, here’s a list of bands Brownstein and Armisen highlighted:
The Association, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Dave Clark Five, Buffalo Tom, The Petrol Emotion, FireHouse, The Plimsouls, Lone Justice, Blake Babies, Poi Dog Pondering, The Call, Guadalcanal Diary, The Sugarcubes, Possum Dixon, and Flat Duo Jets.
To turn these bands into reminders of our own fragility in the universe was pure Portlandia and a highlight of the night, full of good tunes — including a cover of Riot Spray.
Remembering Peter and Nance
Nance is the character Brownstein misses the most. Nance and her husband Peter were a wholesome duo – a feeling the Sleater-Kinney co-founder misses. “They just loved each other so much,” Brownstein said. “They were very cloying. There was no friction between Peter and Nance, which is very rare. It’s a nice space to be in for a moment, just to feel there’s a frictionless way of being with someone you love.”
When The Crew Stops Laughing
As Portlandia went on, there was less improvising on the set. At the beginning, Armisen would note whenever the crew would stop laughing after extended improvisational takes. “In the first couple of seasons, takes would be 35 minutes,” Brownstein said. “Those are long takes, especially to ask someone to do a handheld camera. Sometimes we’d have guest stars, Tony and Oscar winners, who’d come to Portland and memorize the scripts. We would throw it out immediately, and that did not go over well. We started scripting things a little bit more.”
A Thank You to Danzig!
Portlandia fans no doubt remember the appearance of Danzig, who played the beach-loving Romanian, Radu, in the sketch “Weirdo Beach.” Years after filming the sketch, Armisen and The Misfits frontman remain good friends.
“One time we were at dinner and he said to me, ‘How come you don’t have Portlandia merch, shirts and stuff?’” Armisen recalled. “I started to have an answer that was very, you know, when you don’t have an answer, like, ‘We gotta get the rights to this thing…’ He shut me down. He was kind of giving me a hard time, but in a funny way, like, ‘Oh, so you have so much money, $10,000, you don’t need any of that?’ Because of him pushing me, we have Portlandia merch. So, thank you, Glenn Danzig. Oh, and I do make so much money I don’t need $10,000.”
Portlandia Podcast Is Coming!
Do not expect a Portlandia movie. Ever. Brownstein shot that idea down fast. More collaborations between Armisen and Brownstein are coming, though – including a Portlandia podcast. “It’s really rewarding, because we’re very good friends,” Brownstein said. “We get to hang out, talk about it, and go deep into it. We have a lot of guest stars that come on and talk about their experience. That should be out in June.”
