LOL WITH IT: Sketch comedians Meg and Rob say farewell

One of Philadelphia's sketchiest comedy duos, Meg and Rob, performed their final show last weekend; Meg is moving to California. But before she ships out, we caught up with them for a brief exit interview.

options

LOL WITH IT: Sketch comedians Meg and Rob say farewell

POSTED: Friday, March 11, 2011, 2:00 PM

Filed Under: Comedy LOL With It

(megandrob.net)

Every Friday, Ryan Carey takes a look at who and what’s giving Philly the giggles …

City Paper: How long have Meg and Rob been performing together.

Rob: We got started doing short films and writing bits for puppets at Puppet Karaoke (it’s exactly what it sounds like).

Meg: Our first official, booked performance was in late 2006; we did a sketch with puppets at a Pixies tribute night. We started performing sketches consistently and without puppets in mid-2007.

R: I’m not good at math. Let’s just pretend Meg & Rob have always existed... like math.

CP: How did Meg and Rob get started?

M: We met while working in the same department at QVC, and we became friends while bonding over relationship problems. Rob was so lost and confused at the time; he tried to grow a mustache.

R: This was before the great ironic mustache boom of the late 00s.

M: We started going to puppet karaoke just because it sounded like a lot of fun, and we both loved building puppets. When one of my friends was booking bands for a Pixies tribute night, she asked Rob and I to perform that little conversation on Surfer Rosa using puppets. It seemed kind of foolish to just perform for 30 seconds, so we wrote a larger sketch.

R: We did the "You Fuckin' Die" studio banter from the end of "Oh My Golly".

M: Then we started performing together regularly the next year. This came after I asked Rob and some other people at work, "Hey, does anybody want to start a sketch group?" Rob was the only one brave enough to work with me.

R: ...and attractive enough.

CP: What were the highlights of Meg and Rob's career.

M: We've had the good fortune to travel to a lot of comedy festivals -- the Chicago Sketchfest, Boston Comedy Festival, and North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival, among others. And performing with wonderful people in Philadelphia has always been such a pleasure. One of my favorite highlights from the past few years was when we won the Chip Chantry's One Man Show (with Special Guests) moon-sketch contest. That night was such an amazing testament to how funny people in Philadelphia are, and it was a huge honor to win after seeing so many hilarious sketches.

R: I’m always incredibly happy when we travel and have successful shows. Traveling has been a highlight because it proved our comedy has legs outside of our fair city.

CP: To what extent will Meg and Rob still exist after Meg Moves to California? (Can we expect occasional reunion shows?)

M: We're definitely going to keep working together in whatever capacity we can. We hope to do reunion shows, and we've already discussed the possibility of creating videos together where we both film on green screen. I'll also be in Rob's wedding, which I intend to make some manner of show, no matter what his fiancé says (such as "no" or "please don't do that").

R: You’re out of the wedding.

M: Please don't do that.

CP: Why is Meg moving to California?

M: Like so many other jerks who end up in LA, I'd like to have more people look at or read my comedy, preferably in one of those pay-for-work situations (I believe it's called "a TV writing job"). I'm also the editor of Wise Bread, a (rather awesome) frugal living and personal finance website. The website's founders are based in LA, so I'm going to join them out there and eat oranges, or whatever people live in California do. Also, I have had enough of this winter crap. I am ready to ceremoniously burn my long underwear.

R: I think she likes the thrill of living on a fault line.

CP: What will Rob be doing after that?

M: Being incredibly awesome, as he has always been and always will be. Like math.

R: I'll continue hosting a monthly comedy show at the Shubin Theater through PHIT called "TV Party!" with Paul Triggiani (of the sketch group Secret Pants). It’s a combination of MST3K and what Exhumed Films has been doing in the city (just a trashier, junk food edition). I’ll also be doing comedy in some form or another, whether it's performing or making videos. And my current employment involves producing reality television, so as long as America keeps the bar set low, I'll keep doing that.

CP: Any other fun trivia worth mentioning?

M: Um...I was pretty convinced Rob was going to show his d*** to the audience during one of our first performances.

R: Primarily because I showed too much by accident during a practice in front of Meg’s friend.

M: By "too much" he means "a lot of shaft." Also, when we met when working at QVC, one of the first things Rob asked me was, "Do you like indie rock?"

R: I know the shorthand to girls' hearts…

M: The second thing he said was "I just figured because of your hair and your glasses."

Posted by Ryan Carey @ 2:00 PM Permalink | Post a comment

Comments (0)

What we're trying to do this weekend
Behind the scenes of local film A Man Full of Trouble
CONCERT REVIEW: The Postal Service @ The Mann 6/17
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Sunny, Tony and the return of Do No Harm
NOW SEE THIS: Salinger film trailer
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Indian fare rules, Dunder Mifflin lives on, Tom Jones is a god
REVIEW: Archer Live! @ the TLA 1/11
CITY PAPER WRITING CONTEST 2013: Send stories! Send poetry!
CONCERT PHOTOS: The National/Dirty Projectors @ The Mann Center 6/7
ICEPACK ILLUSTRATED: Pink. Diner en Blanc 2. Breaking Glass and Milkboy at the movies. And so on.

About this blog

Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

Follow Critical Mass editors Patrick Rapa and Emily Guendelsberger on Twitter:

@mission2denmark | @emilygee

Search this blog:

Topics:

Blog archives:

June
May
April

March
February
January

Past Archives: