Often coined as an ornery comic from Boston with a penchant for ranting about everything that has gone horribly wrong in today’s society, Bill Burr is a bit more layered than you would imagine. While nodding to the idea that he knows nothing, Burr often delivers his act from the historical lens of comparing then and now, usually relying on specific examples from his early family life and experience growing up to show his audience why such awful things are funny. His style has changed very little from when he began doing stand up in the early 1990’s in New York City. Throughout the ’90’s Burr gained popularity as a guest on Opie and Anthony, The Joe Rogan Experience, The Adam Corolla Show, and later on Chappelle’s Show. After grinding and touring for years, in 2008 Burr recorded his first hour-long special Why Do I Do This? in New York and his career began to take flight.
Burr is truly a stand up comedian. Not many people can hold the attention of a room for over an hour, all the while taking them on a psychotic adventure through the misplaced guilt and blemished social nuances of their upbringing and family. This style on stage translates well to other types of productions because it is who he it, and not an act. Before everyone with WIFI access had their own podcast, Burr was doing his Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast, which started in May 2007. Burr’s podcast essentially allows listeners to sit in on his unsupervised therapy session where he simply talks about what is going on in his life and what has piqued his interest. Though it sounds boring, the Grammy nominated comic makes his trips to Target and learning to fly a helicopter worth listening to. Over the years of producing his own podcast Burr is known for butchering the ads he is contractually obligated to read during the show— often creating bits on the spot while mocking the things he’s getting paid to peddle.
Moving Into Acting
In 1996 Billy Burr made his first network acting appearance as a main cast member of the show Townies alongside Molly Ringwald, Jenna Elfman, and Ron Livingston. The show is about five young adults living in a small coastal fishing town with big dreams of making it to the big city. Ultimately the show was an empty dream that didn’t track well with audiences, but it did propel Burr to stick around in his new home in New York. Burr is often asked about his transition from comedy to acting. In an interview with Conan O’Brien, Burr discussed how actors like Anthony Hopkins and John Travolta would study the way a person walked to get into character. Burr then stated, “all my characters walk like me. All my characters have a Boston accent… I’m just trying to be believable.” He acknowledges that it took some time to get into acting explaining that comedians often get pigeonholed into romantic comedies and simpler roles because they are known only for their comedy. However, Burr’s ideology is to find the scripts and projects that are well written and have promise of being a quality production, and to shy away from simply taking every role that is offered simply to get noticed as an actor.
After Townies, Burr seemed to follow his own advice, because his next big role was in the most popular TV series at the time, Breaking Bad. From 2011 to 2013 Burr made several appearances on the show as Kuby, a Swiss army knife man who knows how to con. His demeanor and cadence fit perfectly into the role, helping to tell the incredible story within the show onscreen, and moving his acting career forward offscreen. In December 2019 The Mandalorian was released, in which Burr plays Migs Mayfeld. The morally ambiguous Migs seemed to be a perfect fit for Burr in the series. Burr was met with praise and surprise for his role on the Disney+ series, but per usual, he was also met with criticism. The main criticism came from the online community saying that they had never heard a Boston accent in outer space. Burr responded to the criticism on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon saying, “What about English? Isn’t it a little weird if you went to a ‘Galaxy far far away’ and you get off and everyone is ‘Hello, how are you doing?” I am not sure the critics were aware that criticizing ridiculous points based on a fantasy is Burr’s strike zone. The Mandalorian season three is set to premier after the new year, but it isn’t clear if Migs will make it back into the series, as he was sentenced to 50 years of service in the close of the second season.
Burr’s Evolving Comic Act
Between landing small parts in large productions, Burr has continued to tour and release stand up specials. His most recent special, Bill Burr: Paper Tiger, debuted three months before The Mandalorian in 2019, with much support from his fanbase, and equally as much criticism. It’s no surprise that an hour-long comedy special that digs into topics like cultural appropriation, feminism, and white privilege would receive mixed and some outright angry review. However, this is exactly who Burr has always been when he has had a microphone in his hand—an unrelenting interrogator of what American culture is participating in. In the age of cancel culture, Burr butts up against the notion that a mob of people who all think relatively the same way should be passing judgement based on something that they didn’t like hearing, that they chose to watch. It’s a hard sell, but he lives by it even in his interviews. Burr explains his stance saying, “these people on the extreme left and right only make up about 15% of the population… and anytime you become extreme you inevitably become intolerant… and I just feel like 85% of the country is just sitting there waiting, ‘when are mom and dad going to stop screaming at each other.”
After noticing that much of his older material, often dealing with the harsh realities of neglect and abuse which Burr jokes he dealt with growing up, Burr decided his act had to change. In order to not lose this part of his comic chops, Burr decided that the perfect medium to discuss and further explore the jokes and realities of growing up in the 1970’s would be an animated adult comedy. Burr alongside Michael Price wrote and created F is For Family and launched it in 2015. The show just released it’s fifth season on Netflix on November 25th, 2021. Burr along with Laura Dern, Justin Long, Sam Rockwell, and many others voice the characters of the show about a time when parents hit their kids, color TVs were very expensive, and the quickest way to contact someone was on a landline. If you are looking for a little more context to the personal histories in Bill Burr’s stand up act, F is For Family is a good place to start.
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