If you talk to Eric Andre and ask him what he’s working on, it’s clear that he’s staying very busy. He’ll casually mention that he’s in the live-action remake of The Lion King, which comes out this month and might be the summer’s most anticipated non-superhero movie.
He’s got a narrative prank movie, Bad Trip, coming out in the fall, something in the vein of Bad Grandpa. He’s also got a comedy tour slated for the fall that will see him performing stand up all over Europe. But in typical Eric Andre fashion, what he was really excited to talk about is a beer can that’s also a video game controller.
“Elon Musk is going to be on suicide watch when this thing comes out,” Andre told Uproxx by phone. “He’s gonna be like, ‘NOOOOO, why didn’t I invent that?’”
The invention, of Miller Lite’s creation, is extremely questionable in a lot of ways. But a 10-button controller, a Cantroller, if you will, is what got Andre on the phone in the first place. And as strange as brand deals can be, Andre saw getting the call for this one as a high honor.
“They were like, ‘If there’s anybody who would release a video game beer can controller it’s you,” Andre recalled. “And I was like, ‘Say no more.’”
In a world of ever-weirder brand endorsements, the guy known for saying “Coachella sucks this year” while on location at the 2016 Republican National Convention getting an endorsement like this is a bit strange but certainly welcome.
“This is a pretty sweet gig,” Andre admitted a few days before he played Street Fighter while button mashing on a light beer can. “I just get to play video games with a beer can. It’s surreal that someone is paying me to do that.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_TqvP7ZrnU
Life online in 2019 is full of reaction GIFs and memes, and Andre’s work on The Eric Andre Show has created a bumper crop of absurd clips people break out when life gets a bit too surreal, particularly one where he asks Amber Rose “Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?” Ever online, Andre has noticed that people have connected with the absurdity of the moment, and he’s all for it.
“I think that’s a sign of success when something is being heavily quoted of heavily memed, that’s the highest form of flattery,” he said. “I’m all in support.”
I asked Andre if the world going crazy has made his job harder, and it was a bit strange to hear him pause for a moment and get serious.
“The world has always been crazy. And I think that there’s never been a political climate that’s been tough to satirize or poke holes in,” Andre said. “It might be particularly crazy in the present but that doesn’t mean it was sane before.”
It was refreshing to hear him say something so controversial and yet so brave.
