"Comedian Mitch Hedberg was found dead in a New Jersey hotel room Wednesday morning, according to Minnesota's Pioneer Press. He was 37.
The cause of death has not been determined, and details concerning his death have yet to be
released. The Pioneer Press reported that Hedberg's family has been told he suffered a heart attack.
The comic ? who bore an uncanny resemblance to Rush frontman Geddy Lee and once explained the reason his was not a household name was because most of his fans lived in apartments ? spent much of his career straddling that fine line between cult status and relatively larger stardom. Born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hedberg was known for his disheveled hippie look, his relaxed, almost sedate stage manner, and his dawdling delivery ? his face forever concealed behind a pair of shades and a wall of floppy bangs.
Much like Steven Wright, Hedberg was a master of the sharp-as-glass-shards one-liner ("Rice is great when you're hungry and want 2,000 of something"; "I would imagine if you understood Morse code, a tap dancer would drive you crazy"; "When someone hands you a flier, it's like they're saying, 'Here, you throw this away.' ") His comical, almost-too-obvious observations about life's subtle peculiarities inspired Time magazine to declare the stand-up comic "the next Seinfeld" in 2000.
A frequent guest on Howard Stern's morning radio show and "Late Show With David Letterman," Hedberg's résumé also included several television and film roles, including appearances on FOX's "That '70s Show," the NBC comedy series "Ed," and the animated shows "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist" and "Home Movies."
Hedberg also lent his voice to Comedy Central's "Crank Yankers," played the Eagles' road manager in the film "Almost Famous" and wrote, directed, produced and starred in the 1999 independent film "Los Enchiladas!" The film centered on a small Mexican restaurant in Minneapolis, where Hedberg's character, a drifter, was working as a cook until he suddenly found himself in charge of the joint after the manager attacked a customer and the chef left for a better job.
Hedberg's first television appearance came on MTV's stand-up series "Comikaze," a gig he landed by personally pitching his act to the program's talent coordinator. In 1997, he won the grand prize at the Seattle Comedy Competition. Years of headlining club tours followed, and Hedberg eventually secured a development deal with FOX to create a sitcom, though that project never came to fruition. In 2003, Comedy Central Records issued his albums Mitch All Together and Strategic Grill Locations, and sponsored a tour with Hedberg, Lewis Black of "The Daily Show" Dave Attell of "Insomniac."
"He had a heart of gold," his mother, Mary Hedberg, told the Pioneer Press. "He was a brilliant comic and a wonderful person."
Hedberg joked often about drug abuse, but in a recent interview, he said he'd given up smoking marijuana several years ago. "For 10 years, it was amazing, but then I had to give it up because it didn't feel as good," he said. "The audience thinks I'm stoned all the time and I have to write my material that way ... so sometimes, when they come up to me after a show and ask me to join them, I just tell them I'm an undercover cop."
According to an article published in the Los Angeles Times in 2003, Hedberg spent two and a half days in jail, and six weeks in a hospital bed, following his arrest in May of that year for felony heroin possession. But Hedberg said he was arrested for "possession of paraphernalia and pills and things like that. My actual bust was minor. I got a misdemeanor. People used that bust to try and prove that I was busted for having, like, a kilo of heroin on me."
A posting on Comedy Central's Web site reads, "Tragically, Mitch Hedberg passed away this week. Mitch was a beloved member of the Comedy Central family, and we join fans in our sadness. He will be missed." "
--mtv.com
This guy ROCKED!!!! *sigh* He will be missed...
Mitch Hedberg Dies at 37
by Lostreality 8 Replies latest social entertainment
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Lostreality
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Brummie
Sad news, and so young too!
;(
Bru,,oe
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IronGland
That sucks. I love Mitch Hedberg. I cant believe how depressed this has made me.
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IronGland
Maybe its an april fools joke
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Lostreality
Doubtful. The reason stated by other news stations is heart failure.
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IronGland
got an ant farm. Them fellas didn't grow shit.
I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long.
Last week I helped my friend stay put. It's a lot easier than helping someone move. I just went over to his house and made sure that he did not start to load shit into a truck.
I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others.
I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.
I want to be a race car passenger: just a guy who bugs the driver. "Say man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Why do we gotta keep going in circles? Can I put my feet out the window? Boy, you really like Tide."
I got in an argument with a girlfriend inside of a tent. That's a bad place for an argument, because I tried to walk out, and had to slam the flap.
I type a 101 words a minute. But it's in my own language.
I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run. He's fuzzy. Get outta here.
I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that.
My sister wanted to be an actress, but she never made it. She does live in a trailer. She made it half way. She's an actress, she just never gets called to the set. -
IronGland
I used to be a hot-tar roofer. Yeah, I remember that day...
A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.
I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shishkabobs.
That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, "It's cool, he's with me."
If you had a friend who was a tightrope walker, and you were walking down a sidewalk, and he fell, that would be completely unacceptible...
I know a lot about cars. I can look at a car's headlights and tell you exactly which way it's coming.
I have a cheese-shredder at home, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, which is sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, and now I have little bits of sponge that would melt easily over tortilla chips...
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be messed-up.
I bought a seven dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring.
My sister wanted to be an actress, but she never made it. She does live in a trailer. She got half way. She's an actress, she just never gets called to the set.
Every time I go and shave, I assume there is somebody else on the planet shaving as well, so I say, "I'm gonna go shave too."
Why are there no during pictures.I have an underwater camera just in case I crash my car into a river, and at the last minute I see a photo opportunity of a fish that I have never seen.
I had a velco wallet in a casino. That sound annoyed the hell out of me. Whenever I lost money, and I opened the wallet, it was like the sound of my addiction.
Sometimes I fall asleep at night with my clothes on. I'm going to have all my clothes made out of blankets.
I type a 101 words a minute. But it's in my own language.
My apartment is infested with koala bears. It's the cutest infestation ever. Way better than cockroaches. When I turn on the light, a bunch of koala bears scatter, but I don't want them too. I'm like, "Hey... Hold on fellows... Let me hold one of you, and feed you a leaf." Koala bears are so cute, why do they have to be so far away from me. We need to ship a few over, so I can hold one, and pat it on its head.
I wish I could play little league now. I'd be way better than before.
I never joined the army because at ease was never that easy to me. Seemed rather uptight still. I don't relax by parting my legs slightly and putting my hands behind my back. That does not equal ease. At ease was not being in the military. I am at ease, bro, because I am not in the military.
I had a bag of fritos, they were texas grilled fritos. These fritos had grill marks on them. They remind me of something, when we used to fire up the barbeque and throw down some fritos. I can still see my dad with the apron on, better flip that frito, dad, you know how I like mine.
I opened-up a yogurt, underneath the lid it said, "Please try again." because they were having a contest that I was unaware of. I thought maybe I opened the yogurt wrong. ...Or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me... "Come on Mitchell, don't give up!" An inspirational message from your friends at Yoplait, fruit on the bottom, hope on top.
I hate flossing, I wish I just had one long curvy tooth.
The next time I move I hope I get a real easy phone number, something like 2222222. People will ask, "Mitch, how do I get a hold of you?" I'll say, "Just press two for a while, when I answer, you'll know that you've pressed two enough."
My lucky number is 4 billion, that doesn't come in real handy when your gambling. I'm gonna need some more dice, 4 billion divided by 6, at least.
A waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap.
You know they call corn-on-the-cob, "corn-on-the-cob", but that's how it comes out of the ground. They should just call it corn, and every other type of corn, corn-off-the-cob. It's not like if someone cut off my arm they would call it "Mitch", and then re-attached it, and call it "Mitch-all-together".
I like buying snacks from a vending machine because food is better when it falls. Sometimes at the grocery, I'll drop a candy bar so that it will achieve its maximum flavor potential.
On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana?
My roommate says, "I'm going to take a shower and shave, does anyone need to use the bathroom?" It's like some weird quiz where he reveals the answer first.
I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. There's a large out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside.
I wrote my friend a letter with a highlighting pen, but he could not read it, he thought I was trying to show him certain parts of a piece of paper.
I use the word totally too much. I need to change it up and use a word that is different but has the same meaning. Mitch do you like submarine sandwhiches? All-encompassingly...
I think pickles are cucumbers that sold out. They sold their soul to the devil, and the devil is dill...
...and then at the end of the letter I like to write "P.S. - this is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others.
I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that.
The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall.
My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, I said "No, but I want a regular banana later, so, Yeah."
Mr. Pibb is a poor imitation of Dr. Pepper. Dude didn't even get his degree -
wanderlustguy
I saw him in December of last year in Tampa. Man, this sucks.