Tragedy Strikes at the John Hodgman Variety Hour

It was all going so well. The John Hodgman Variety Hour had made a stop at Town Hall, chockful of songs, tales of hobos and molemen, and anecdotes on being a famous minor television personality. Jonathan Coulton and John Roderick guitar-dueled to the death in a feral mountain man-off, while John Hodgman and Sean Nelson cerebrally engaged in a tweedy intellectual-off. Their internal disputes resolved, the foursome were ready to don their matching white bedazzled jumpsuits and perform a well-choreographed ukulele version of "Love Will Keep Us Together."

And then tragedy struck. Tragedy in the form of a Town Hall Q&A.

We have endured terrible Town Hall Q&As before. Participants tend to ask long-winded, pat-on-the-back questions in order to clearly indicate their superior intellect and political ideology to the speaker, as well as the rest of the audience. But not so on this occasion, for this was an entirely different breed of awful. No, this Town Hall Q&A featured a parade of the autism spectrum disorder, culminating in a young man named Will who started off with creepy jazz hands and describing himself as a Daily Show stalker before inquiring about Jon Stewart's penis size, and finally, regretfully, asking John Hodgman if he was gay.

This was awkward beyond belief and far too weird for the sake of weird--even Larry David and Ricky Gervais would've cringed--but the Hodg handled it well. (Personally, we would have leapt into the audience and shredded the questioner with our badger-like claws.) Instead, John toyed with the man, engaging in some playful back and forth, before answering to the negative, and sending him on his merry way. Later, he announced that on his forthcoming run for the presidency, he would pick Will as his running mate, no questions asked. What could possibly go wrong? Bringing forth triumph from tragedy: truly, this is the Hodgman way.

"John Hodgman & Friends @ Town Hall" care of Seattlest Flickr pool user iamdonte