“The Birthday Boys has sort of a nice ring to it, ” Mike ‘Mitch’ Mitchell said about the sketch comedy group’s name. “Everyone likes birthdays and we’re all boys so it seemed to fit.”
“Jefferson Dutton thinks our name is too cutesy and we all think that at times,” Chris VanArtsdalen followed. “We sometimes get people saying ‘It’s your birthday’ or ‘Who’s birthday is it?'”
Sketch comedy group The Birthday Boys and executive producer Bob Odenkirk (Photo provided by IFC).
Mitch, VanArtsdalen, and five friends (Dutton, Dave Ferguson, Mike Hanford, Tim Kalpakis and Matt Kowalick) broke into comedy after graduating college and moving out to LA together.
After five years of writing, producing and working shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, The Birthday Boys, with the help of actor/producer Bob Odenkirk, found a home on IFC.
VanArtsdalen said they got their start at the UCB doing sketches Fridaynights during open mic sketch night.
“Eventually, we got a monthly show at the UCB Theatre, which we did for many years, until we met Bob Odenkirk and started shopping the show around,” VanArtsdalen said.
The Birthday Boys found success online, primarily through “Funny or Die.” VanArtsdalen and Dutton produced, wrote and starred in many pieces for the website, with Mitch starring in a few as well.
The guys did a talk show pilot for FX through Funny or Die called “What’s Going On with Mike Mitchell” three years ago. They have many talents that have kept them busy and working in LA.
“We did a lot of web videos as a group for Etom.com, which got absorbed into Comedy Central,” Mitch said. “They gave us a little bit of money here and there to do a couple sketches. We also do videos for other websites, like we did sketches for Yahoo! Sketchy and others.”
Mitch said that the internet helped them break into comedy.
“That was something we saw as change and happening when we were coming up,” VanArtsdalen added. “We basically saw YouTube get invented while we were in college. All of a sudden there was this new outlet called YouTube that was great for sketch comedy.”
Mitch and VanArtsdalen said that their plan was never to get a television show, and that sketch comedy was just a way to get comedy out there for them.
“Our reason for doing it was to make people laugh and we all love sketch comedy and it felt like the right thing to do,” Mitch said. “Then as time went on, the idea of a sketch comedy show comes into your mind.”
The Birthday Boys saw a lot of success through their online videos and their live sketch shows which led to some growing popularity in LA.
“For the longest time, it was we were trying to pitch a sketch comedy show,” Mitch said. “We told our managers in 2010 ‘We want to try and make a sketch comedy show if we can and that would be our main goal.’ The problem is, no one really wants sketch comedy shows.”
Mitch said it was so hard to sell their idea because for many, it seemed like everyone had a sketch show.
“When we started, we all kind of assumed that doing these sketch shows would be a stepping stone for us all to do our own work,” VanArtsdalen said. “Then as we did it together for so long, we developed this sensibility together and we worked so well as a team that we took it all the way to our own show.”
Mitch and VanArtsdalen explained the writing process for The Birthday Boys on IFC as each guy writing their own drafts for bits and bringing ideas to the meetings. The guys do table reads of sketches and see what gets laughs. A lot of editing and revisions go into scripts for various skits. 
“It’s very collaborative,” VanArtsdalen said.
“Different guys work in different ways, and that shows,” Mitch added.
Executive producers Ben Stiller and Bob Odenkirk appear in a handful of skits in IFC’s The Birthday Boys.
The Birthday Boys show on IFC is influenced by some big names, including executive producers Bob Odenkirk and Ben Stiller, both of whom have appeared in various skits so far in the first season.
“It’s awesome and it’s so cool, because we we’re all fans of Mr. Show and Saturday Night Live,” VanArtsdalen said. “Working with Bob is sort of surreal. It’s like working with someone who just stepped out of the TV set.”
Odenkirk was in the writing room with the guys almost every day and has a huge footprint on the show, he added.
“When we worked with Ben Stiller, it was really cool. He only came in for a day and he missed some of the writing because he was busy with Walter Mitty, but it was cool to see him collaborate with Bob,” VanArtsdalen said. “The two of them go way back so it was a really cool process.”
“For a bunch of guys who have never made a TV show before, (Odenkirk) was definitely like a coach,” Mitch said. “With Breaking Bad, of course, he’s starting to show he can be a good dramatic actor as well as a comedic actor. He’s really a triple threat with acting and producing.”
Mitch and VanArtsdalen hope to continue the show after the first season, and hope to work with each other on other shows as well. “I just love to work with these guys,” Mitch said.
The Birthday Boys airs Fridays at 10:30 p.m. on IFC. The season began with the first episode, ‘Paychecks!’ airing on October 18.
