We Got This Covered: Alright, so if one of your wives gave birth to a devil baby, how would you handle it?
Robert Ben Garant: Well we’re going to send it off to school…
Thomas Lennon: What you do is send it off to Switzerland.
Robert Ben Garant: We actually, my wife and I, we, well, she, got pregnant during the filming.
Thomas Lennon: Well, you helped.
Robert Ben Garant: Right, I helped. I hope I helped.
Thomas Lennon: It was kind of during pre-production, in New Orleans.
Robert Ben Garant: Anytime little Abigail is screaming at three in the morning, she blames me because we had our child during the filming of a movie called Hell Baby. She thinks that’s my fault. Anytime the kid is being good, that’s her doing. Anytime the kid is being bad, it’s because we were in New Orleans shooting Hell Baby.
Thomas Lennon: By the way, this is a universal thing. Ladies love to tell you that the bad child is your fault. That’s classic stuff.
Robert Ben Garant: But it’s also because of filming the movie Hell Baby, she thinks we made a Hell Baby.
But anyway, Switzerland. Boarding school in Switzerland. So even if they are a Hell Baby, they’re far away, and in a different time zone.
Thomas Lennon: Yeah. And the fact is, there are no babies from Hell. All four year olds are. I’m just saying – I’ve got one flying in tonight, and he’s mine. Well, he says he’s mine at least. It’s an eerie resemblance.
Robert Ben Garant: I think it’s either yours or a relative of yours.
Thomas Lennon: It’s either me or one of the Kids In The Hall.
Robert Ben Garant: [Laughing] Ohhh, he does look like [Dave] Foley a little bit! He does.
We Got This Covered: The film definitely focuses on comedy more than horror, but was there ever a point where you imagined Hell Baby being a darker movie?
Thomas Lennon: I think it would be more horrifying if, for example, the Mrs. Nussbaum suit, who is based obviously on the old lady in the bathtub in The Shining, if that suit worked better, I think the film would be more horrifying.
Robert Ben Garant: Yeah, the scares at the beginning would be a little creepier.
Thomas Lennon: The [Hell Baby] puppet – here’s a real piece of advice. Never name your movie after a prop you haven’t built yet. We called the movie Hell Baby, and we were like, “Later in the act there’s a baby from Hell that’s going to bite off people’s faces.”
Robert Ben Garant: The puppet almost never worked, and you can’t cut it out because it’s the name of the movie.
Thomas Lennon: It’s not called The Startling, it’s called Hell Baby. Yet, the baby eating people’s faces is my favorite scene.
Robert Ben Garant: As the cast lined up, and as we realized how funny – everyone we asked said yes. There was no process of vetting who to ask. It was just, “Hey, let’s get Huebel and Scheer,” and they said yes. As the cast stacked up to be as funny as it was, I think we realized this was going to be a funny movie. It wasn’t going to have dark stretches. Cops aren’t going to be serious…
Thomas Lennon: I think we probably thought coming into it, it’d be 50/50, but now the only spooky thing is you tilt the camera over and Keegan is sitting there saying “And you know another thing…”
Robert Ben Garant: Our boss at The Vatican was originally going to be a horror actor. We were thinking of a horror movie guy, like do we get Ron Perlman or something to be that guy, but we got the hilarious Dave Pasquesi. That was the last bit of the movie that might have ended up dark, and we got this great, funny guy, so we just steered it into comedy.
We Got This Covered: So what can we expect to see next from you guys?
Robert Ben Garant: We’ll do something like this again soon.
Thomas Lennon: These are very good for your mental health. They’re not amazing for your bank account, but that’s alright. Anyway, I’m on the new Sean Hayes show (Sean Saves The World), starting October 3rd on NBC, and [Robert Ben Garant] has Jessabelle coming out January 10th…
Robert Ben Garant: Paramount keeps threatening to make Baywatch…
Thomas Lennon: Baywatch: Red Tide, which is the full title, seems as if it’s full speed ahead. Keep in mind, movies fall apart like a macrame sweater, but for the time being, Baywatch certainly seems to be happening.
We Got This Covered: Any plans to return to Reno 911! in some capacity?
Thomas Lennon: You know, I don’t know if we’ll ever do another Reno 911!…
Robert Ben Garant: But, Ken Marino has cracked a The State thing. Like, he’s finally figured out a way that The State might be able to do something together.
Thomas Lennon: This is real news. This is not a joke.
Robert Ben Garant: Ken Marino pitched us all a version of The State that we might actually be able to do, and everyone said yes.
We Got This Covered: As a film?
Robert Ben Garant: We’ll see. Let’s see how it happens first.
Thomas Lennon: A The State thing is more plausible than it’s ever been.
Robert Ben Garant: It’s everybody. If we do it, it’ll be available, and watchable, and it might actually happen. Like not a tour, but a thing.
I’d like to thank Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant for taking the time to talk, and be sure to catch Hell Baby right now, which is out on all Video On Demand platforms!