It’s safe to say that Dave Foley has made his mark in the annals of comedy greatness: The Kids in the Hall, News Radio, A Bug’s Life, and (yes) Celebrity Poker Showdown. Why, might you ask, would such a royal comedic personage as Dave Foley want to visit The Screen Savers? Well, he also happens to be a tech geek who watches the show. We managed to snare Dave as he waited in the Green Room and we asked him a few questions.

Word has it that you are technologically oriented. Is this true?

Yes. “Oriented” is a polite way to put it. I am a bit of a gadget aficionado. I have fallen behind the times in my gadget-owning in recent years because I have a baby and wife and a house. Right now, the Treo 600 phone is my favorite gadget in the world. But, for example, I don’t have an iPod and I should. There is no excuse for me not having an iPod. It’s one of those things that I keep holding out for myself as a treat I’m going to give myself, and yet I haven’t actually been able to convince myself that I deserve a treat since they came out.

What type of gadgets appeal to you?

I love wireless things. My AirPort base station changed my life, and my wife’s, and my children’s. I’ve got the whole house wired up through the AirPort base station. I’ve also got an adaptor from Radio Shack that runs my computers though the house phone line to the TV, so I can run Internet radio on the TV. I like gadgets that do things, especially entertainment gadgets. I have two of the DirecTV TiVo combo boxes, which I am a little annoyed by because you can’t do the Home Media option on them. There should be a bright red sticker warning you of that when you buy it that you can’t do the Home Media option even though the boxes are built for it. They’ve blocked it somehow.

What shows does Dave Foley TiVo?

A lot of science and technology programming. A lot of news and documentaries. Then shows like The Shield and Nip/Tuck – those are the only fictional TV shows that I TiVo.

You don’t find yourself watching comedies?

Almost never! Except for The Daily Show – that’s the only comedy show I TiVo. Which I think is a brilliant show, almost an essential show, in fact, right now. Jon Stewart is actually the only person doing his job as a journalist, oddly enough, in American media. He won a Peabody Award for journalism, which is just sad – you know, Jon is a great guy, and he’s a very smart guy, but a comedian should not be winning Peabody awards. But you watch him and his questions and analysis are much more incisive than, say, Paula Zahn’s, or any of them, really. He even pushes a little harder than Tim Russert or Bob Schieffer – they may follow up once, but he’ll keep pushing. It’s shameful, but thank God he’s doing it.

Where do you side on the Great Mac vs. PC War?

I’m a Mac user going back to my 512 in ’84. I’m a Mac proselytizer – I love Macs, I love Steve Jobs… I think he’s a great person. Any time I do find myself using Windows, it’s like nails on a chalkboard using that operating system. Everything feels just slightly irritating. It’s not like any part of it is really horrible, but just everything about it is slightly less than comfortable.

What kind of system do you have now?

Crappy, really. Right now I have a 500 MHz dual-processor G4 with a 20" Cinema Display, and three G3 laptops lying around the house in various states of usefulness. And that’s it right now. I really need to upgrade soon – but I can’t because I’m waiting for a reason to treat myself. But I get scared – when I bought the 500 MHz dual-processor G4, a month later they came out with the 800 MHz dual processor. So now I’m waiting for Mac to stall a little bit – it’s probably safe to get a G5 right now.

Do you play video games?

I don’t, really. I watch my kids play them. And I try to play them sometimes, but I think I was married too young so I never really had time as a single, young man to learn. I tried to take it up when I got divorced; I thought maybe the time had come. But I was in my 30s, so it was just too late.

Do actors all across Hollywood just sit on the edges of their chairs waiting for calls from Pixar?

I know I do. Actually, I’ve got a great relationship with Pixar ever since I did A Bug’s Life for them, so they call me when they’re in town or have a new movie coming out. But they’re the greatest people on earth. You go to their studios and everyone there is happy. They are what the myth of Disney is – where Disney is very far from it. But it is like people who make movies just because they love making movies, and everyone there has a real child-like quality to them.

Have they ever talked about A Bug’s Life sequel?

No! They had to make Toy Story 2 because they were contractually obligated to do it, and they really didn’t want to do it, but then as they started it they wound up liking it and making it really good. But when we were doing A Bug’s Life, Jon (Lasseter) said, “You know, I hope we don’t do one, because there was never a Snow White 2.” In principle, he doesn’t like doing sequels. So other than Toy Story 2, they haven’t done a sequel to any of their movies.

How did you get drawn toward Celebrity Poker Showdown?

Really, they just asked me. And it came at a time when, just coincidentally, I was asked to play in a world poker tournament. I had never played poker, certainly never played Texas Hold ‘Em or even heard of it. But they gave us a tutorial, and I played down at the Commerce Casino, and wound up being the last celebrity in it. I played 12 hours straight, finishing in 10th – and I played against pros all today, not against any other celebrities. Ben Affleck was out after a couple of hours, Tobey Maguire was out, and all these other people who were actual poker players were disappearing. So I thought, “Maybe hosting that show might be fun.” I went down, talked to them, and it worked out – Phil Gordon and I seem to get along pretty well, seem to have good chemistry. The games last about five hours, so there’s plenty of time to loosen up. So I get to really sit and adlib and say whatever I want. 

Do some of your comments ever get edited out?

I’m more surprised at how much stuff makes it on air, stuff that I actually thought, “Oh, maybe they won’t like that.” But a lot of it gets in. Early on, there was an ad-lib joke I made about Lauren Graham’s charity that she was playing for, the Revlon UCLA Cancer Research Foundation. And I just said, “They don’t want to cure cancer, they just want to make it look better.” I thought that would get cut out, but it didn’t! So that was when I thought, “Oh, I guess they’re really going to let me say whatever I want to say on this show.”

You currently have a movie in production now?

Yeah, I’m working on a Disney picture, Sky High, about a high school for the offspring of superheroes. I’m playing a former sidekick now teaching in the sidekick stream of the school. He’s really bitter and broken. Kurt Russell plays The Commander, my superhero that I worked with, and he basically dumps me when he meets a female superhero named Jet Stream, played by Kelly Preston.

Any Kids in the Hall news to impart?

Well, Kevin MacDonald is also in this movie, so I shot a scene with him a few days ago. Other than that, I know the Season Two DVDs are coming out in November. And then there’s always some talk of us going out on tour again, maybe next year. That’s all I know.

Related Sites:

http://www.kithfan.org

http://www.bravotv.com/Celebrity_Poker_Showdown/