Jenny Slate Emerges From Her Shell ... As A Shell
The Comedian On Her Ridiculously Cute Web Series "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On."
By Alexis Swerdloff
Photographed by Mimi Ko
This past August, Jenny Slate was feeling small. After a year on Saturday Night Live, the 28-year-old comedian was waiting to find out whether she'd be returning for a second season. So along with her boyfriend, filmmaker Dean Fleischer-Camp, she channeled said smallness into the funniest, cutest thing that has graced the Internet, potentially ever. "Marcel the Shell with Shoes on" is a short video of a wee shell with one googly eye and pink shoes who scuttles around talking in a nervous, nasally voice about how small he is: "Guess what I wear as a hat? A lentil."
"I recently watched the footage of us making it," Slate recalls, "I'm on the couch in my underpants and Dean is interviewing me. I was at a point where I was so tired of being told what to do creatively or that anything was weird. I looked feral; I'm talking in this little voice and staring off into space." While Slate did not ultimately get asked back to SNL, and the above image is a bit dark, the video is anything but. And from it, she and Fleischer-Camp are developing a Marcel-themed children's book and TV show.
As a child, Slate knew she wanted to perform. "I didn't want to be like Harriet on Small Wonder. I wanted to be like Suddenly Susan." So instead of taking the child-star route, she focused on school and attended Columbia. After graduation, Slate and classmate Gabe Liedman formed the comedy duo "Gabe and Jenny" (of which she is still a member). Throughout New York's alt comedy heyday of the mid-aughts, they performed with folks like Aziz Ansari, Demetri Martin and Nick Kroll. In the summer of '09, Slate landed "her life's goal": a part on SNL. After dropping the F-bomb on her first episode, Slate quietly dazzled throughout the season. (Remember her "New Doorbell" sketch?) "Andy Samberg once told me, 'you are a real odd bird, Jenny,' and I thought that was such a compliment." Of her tenure on the show, she says, "It was like a summer romance that you just kind of have good memories of."
In addition to working on her various Marcel projects, Slate is reveling in her recent scene-stealing turn on Bored to Death, performing a weekly comedy show, lending her voice to the 3D CGI adaptation of The Lorax and going on auditions. Would she ever move out to L.A. for a part? "I hate driving... but I like being driven around. I'm like a dog in a lot of ways; I'm way too friendly and trusting. Oh, and I poop outside."
★ JENNY SLATE'S "BIG TERRIFIC" COMEDY SHOW TAKES PLACE WEDNESDAYS AT CAMEO GALLERY, 93 N. 6TH ST., BROOKLYN. ★
"I recently watched the footage of us making it," Slate recalls, "I'm on the couch in my underpants and Dean is interviewing me. I was at a point where I was so tired of being told what to do creatively or that anything was weird. I looked feral; I'm talking in this little voice and staring off into space." While Slate did not ultimately get asked back to SNL, and the above image is a bit dark, the video is anything but. And from it, she and Fleischer-Camp are developing a Marcel-themed children's book and TV show.
As a child, Slate knew she wanted to perform. "I didn't want to be like Harriet on Small Wonder. I wanted to be like Suddenly Susan." So instead of taking the child-star route, she focused on school and attended Columbia. After graduation, Slate and classmate Gabe Liedman formed the comedy duo "Gabe and Jenny" (of which she is still a member). Throughout New York's alt comedy heyday of the mid-aughts, they performed with folks like Aziz Ansari, Demetri Martin and Nick Kroll. In the summer of '09, Slate landed "her life's goal": a part on SNL. After dropping the F-bomb on her first episode, Slate quietly dazzled throughout the season. (Remember her "New Doorbell" sketch?) "Andy Samberg once told me, 'you are a real odd bird, Jenny,' and I thought that was such a compliment." Of her tenure on the show, she says, "It was like a summer romance that you just kind of have good memories of."
In addition to working on her various Marcel projects, Slate is reveling in her recent scene-stealing turn on Bored to Death, performing a weekly comedy show, lending her voice to the 3D CGI adaptation of The Lorax and going on auditions. Would she ever move out to L.A. for a part? "I hate driving... but I like being driven around. I'm like a dog in a lot of ways; I'm way too friendly and trusting. Oh, and I poop outside."
★ JENNY SLATE'S "BIG TERRIFIC" COMEDY SHOW TAKES PLACE WEDNESDAYS AT CAMEO GALLERY, 93 N. 6TH ST., BROOKLYN. ★
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