Billy Eichner is New York’s answer to the Tasmanian devil. A cyclone of snarkiness, pop culture riffs and unbounded energy that has in recent years been assailing the city’s sidewalks in aid of vox-pop comedy quiz Billy On The Street. The Fuse/Funny Or Die series sees the comic – often with a celebrity in tow – loudly bombard passersby with often nonsensical questions about film and TV. It’s an approach that has earned him the ire of a fair few New Yorkers but also acclaim, a recurring role on Parks And Recreation as the over-caring Craig, and most recently, Difficult People, a Hulu sitcom exec-produced by Amy Poehler. Here are our five favourite Billy Eichner moments. Warning: you might want to turn the volume dial on your device down a few notches before proceeding.
Would You Have Sex With Paul Rudd
The perfect intro to Billy On The Street, in that it has all the show’s recurring elements: a famous person, a smattering of smut and – of course – Eichner screaming at bewildered passersby. The paltry prize, in this case a dollar, is a recurring theme too: other prizes Eichner has handed out include a lamp and paper. Just lots and lots of paper.
Christmas Carols With Amy Poehler
Poehler is the best of Billy’s celebrity accomplices, proving remarkably up for whatever embarrassing task Eichner has her do, even if it’s running around New York wearing a Pitbull mask. Even funnier is this segment where she and Eichner dress up in festive garb and challenge people to loudly sing the correct lyrics to Christmas carols. Eichner is at his disdainful best here, particularly when he finds out that one of the carol singers named her baby Arrow.
Quizzed In The Face - Elena
As enjoyable as the famous person cameos in Billy On The Street are, the show’s real star is New York itself – or rather its inhabitants. Elena was just someone Eichner found on the street one day to play his quick-fire Q&A Quizzed In The Face (this is a show that loves a tawdry pun), but who proved so recalcitrant, singular and funny that Eichner has had her on several times since, most notably when she faced off against Lena Dunham in a heated buzzer quiz.
Billy Argues With A Woman About Denzel Washington
The best Billy On The Street segments often see Eichner go off piste completely, jettisoning his questions to just loudly berate someone instead. Take this For A Dollar segment, in which he has a protracted argument with a woman about whether Denzel Washington starred in The Phantom Of The Opera – Billy was right. He didn’t.
The Emmys Seth Myers Segment
In a special edition of Billy On The Street, shown as part of this year’s Emmys ceremony, Eichner asked folks on the street whether they knew who was hosting the awards, while that very person, Seth Myers, looked on sheepishly in the background. Inevitably quite a few of them didn’t, though Myers took it like a pro. Easily the highlight of an otherwise soporific ceremony, it proved a hit on social media, and made it acceptable to run around screaming “Dinklage vs Patinkin!!!” at passersby.
