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Comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney love getting into character. Oh, Hello, their new Broadway show coming to the Lyceum Theatre, begins previews this Friday. We had a blast talking to Kroll and Mulaney, two old friends and old New Yorkers—you can read that interview here. After we spent a certain amount of time musing on their philosophies of comedy and career ambitions, the three of us were joined by two crotchety Upper West Siders in their 70s, Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland, the cohosts of Too Much Tuna. They answered our burning questions.
TONY: What are your favorite Broadway shows?
George St. Geegland: You know, I’m a big fan of 1776. That was the better Hamilton; honestly, it’s cooler.
Gil Faizon: We consider ourselves the Aaron Burr to Broadway’s Hamilton.
GSG: We’re petty, we demand attention, and we do own a handgun.
Have you made any special requests for your dressing room?
GSG: Oh, sure. Well, there are a lot of Leroy Neiman paintings being brought in to spruce up the place. These are such funny paintings. Paintings should be funny.
GF: We don’t want club soda or sparkling water. We want seltzer.
GSG: It’s different.
GF: We’ve asked for a 100 bottles of warm seltzer.
GSG: A vintage seltzer, flavored, meaning not-that-well flavored.
GF: Also in lieu of a shower, we’ve requested Dr. Brown Cel-Ray soda, which we wash with.
GSG: It’s an astringent.
What kind of bagels do you like?
GF: We stocked up on H&H before they closed [on the Upper West Side].
GSG: Went to the dumpsters. We dove. We wanted people to think we were mice, so we dressed up like Fievel, and we tried to dive into the dumpster. But we did a Greg Louganis, smacked our heads, and we passed out. When we came to, there was some blood on the bagels, but they were good.
GF: Yeah, we just said, “Oh, those are the raspberries.” I personally like an everything bagel. I want big chunks of onion stuck in my molars. And we do a scallion cream cheese.
GSG: I do a little Selsun Blue shampoo. It’s good for you.
Do you make your guests pay for their own tuna sandwich?
GSG: Well, they ordered it.
GF: We do think that the tuna sandwich is the funniest sandwich to serve someone—it’s the wettest of all sandwiches.
GSG: Yes, the bread gets moist like a couch when you sit on it in a bathing suit.
GF: A tuna sandwich is structurally unsound. If you showed the blueprints to an architect, the guy would be like: This is no good.
How about go-to spots in town—have any favorites?
GF: Oh, my God, well, we love the Strand, which is eight miles of books.
GSG: And 12 miles of loneliness.
GF: We love Zabar’s, obviously. We go every day for day-old bread.
GSG: I love that hotel across from Penn Station—I believe it’s called the Affinia? There’s a bathroom on the second floor that you can get to without a guest key. You can really do damage in there.
GF: And this is the difference between us: I’m a Milford Plaza guy.
There are two New Yorkers running for president. Any political thoughts?
GSG: Who’s the second New Yorker?
GF: That’s right, she was a senator from New York.
GSG: She lives up in Westchester.
GF: And the other one: People don’t know this about Trump, but he actually started his career as the big fat orange fish that sits in the deep corner of the Chinese-food restaurant aquarium.
GSG: Gil’s mother lived in a Fred
Trump Queens building. She complained about a draft once, so
he lit her on fire.
GF: He lit her on fire and threw her out the window, but luckily, she was able to land on a bunch of asbestos and survived the fall.