Jay Johnston (Mr Show, Sarah Silverman Show) allegedly sighted at Capitol Riots

[Ornlu]

Didn't see a thread, perhaps due to the speculative nature of the topic, but what to make of this? I've seen a lot of reliable people on Twitter saying they've been DM'd by people who know him well/worked with him, essentially all but confirming the matter.

If only he had been there in a yellow-and-white striped Uncle Sam getup, urging everyone to get the hell out of there.

[JamesTC]

Looks like he's got himself into a real dot-nose situation.

[Famous Mortimer]

The only crumb of hope (aside from him actually saying "wasn't me") is that the person in the picture seems to have greyer hair than the Johnston that appeared on the Mr Show reunion a few months back.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

"I simply thought the barracade was a stool, stepped back and..."

[up_the_hampipe]

FBI pics for anyone interested https://twitter.com/FBI/status/1367595894829436932

Tim Heidecker tweeted that it was Jay but has since deleted it, so maybe he's not certain.

Jonah Ray and Dave Anthony inferring that Jay has spiralled down this path due to addiction https://twitter.com/justinkcomer/status/1367691780968378372?s=20

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

"I simply thought the barracade was a stool, stepped back and..."

"HOW DID YOU THINK THAT THIS WAS A STOOL-en election?! IDIOT!"

[McChesney Duntz]

I sure hope not, but it doesn't look good - if it weren't him, you'd think either he or his colleagues'd be jumping up to deny it/defend him. Thus far: tumbleweeds. GodDAMMIT!

[BeardFaceMan]

Also odd that the FBI have to ask the public to help them identify a famous actor.

[BlodwynPig]

Also odd that the FBI have to ask the public to help them identify a famous actor.

I didnt know who he was, so why would the FBi? They're not all bald and phimotic ;)

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Johnston had appeared in 2015 on a podcast hosted by Gavin McInnes, who was a founder of the Proud Boys.

[McChesney Duntz]

Tim Heidecker, from his Patreon blog:

What an annoying day yesterday! OK, so Thursday after the show, I saw Nick Thorburn post on twitter, an FBI alert for someone that looks an awful lot like Jay Johnston (former Mr. Show cast member) - Boy it really looked like him! So I sent it around to a few friends, and wrote Nick... "is it him?" He said he thought it was, and had heard it was confirmed through a friend. I was feeling impatient and couldn't find anything more official on the internet, so I went to twitter to ask if it had been confirmed or debunked. a few minutes later I got a DM from a friend who is (was) friends with Jay who confirmed it, telling me Jay had sent pics from the Capitol on the day... So, in my replies someone wrote to me that it wasn't him because of the shape of his ears or some shit... anyway, I wrote back saying it was him, and somehow that became the official on twitter! The verified proof that Jay "Mr Show" Johnston has the FBI on his tail!

The next morning I had Vulture (good name) The New York Daily News and Vice all calling me to confirm.... I declined to comment because I'd already been called a "rat" "tattletale" "snitch" "fink" "cop" 100 times by 9am.  Fuck off, I don't need that shit.  But it was too late... Snopes had used my reply to confirm it was Jay.   It's all true, and the question of whether it's or not will quickly fade away, but I was just kicking myself for sticking my nose in it to begin with. 

Why did I care at all? Well, for one, when someone you know is WANTED BY THE FBI your interest gets piqued. Ya know, that's some kind of gossip!   I of course, was a super fan of Mister Show, so Jay was major. When Eric and I moved to LA in 2004,  we were welcomed to town with wide open arms of Bob Odenkirk, but not so much from the surrounding Mr, Show alums... some were nice and friendly, but I can understand some cold shoulders for two weirdo philly kids showing up as bob's latest golden boys.  Eventually, I'd start running into Jay at various bars around East LA with my little growing group of friends/co-workers and Jay was very nice but after some drinks, he'd turn obnoxious, loud and sometimes aggressive.  He's a big guy and kind of intimidating and after some time it got to be tiresome or uncomfortable to run into him.  Thank God, I met my wife and stopped those bar hopping nights and thus stopped running into Jay as much.  I hadn't seen or heard from him in a while, but after the post, friends let me know he'd gotten into the Gavin McGuiness ( i will never spell that correctly and can't be bothered to look it up and reward him with a google search) scene and we all know where that lead: WANTED BY THE FBI  - I mean, the dude's life is fucked now. I think it was years in the making.  Terribly sad.  Like the Woody/Mia thing - just terribly sad, no matter how you slice it.

[Noodle Lizard]

That's an incredibly smug, point-scoring post from Tim, no matter how you slice it. The last paragraph anyway. Good grief.

[Goldentony]

have to guess who was a wanker from Mr Show now because of that blog post, the selfish tit

[up_the_hampipe]

have to guess who was a wanker from Mr Show now because of that blog post, the selfish tit

Probably David Cross. Also formerly good buddy of McInnes.

[Goldentony]

we were all definitely thinking David Cross there I reckon

[bgmnts]

Its almost like most of these lads are cunts.

[McChesney Duntz]

Maybe, maybe not. (Cross got a similar cold shoulder from Odenkirk when they first met, so could be something that happens when you spend enough time in LA.) Cross did stuff in Tom Goes to the Mayor and Awesome Show Great Job!, so if that's the case, it didn't last.

(Also, I've interacted with Cross, and he couldn't have been nicer, so pfffft.)

[Goldentony]

I know but be honest we were all thinking that werent we, he was in films

[Goldentony]

Remember that album he did too where all the titles were nothing to do with the routine, kids could have bought it thinking great, Austin Powers jokes, but then get loads of grief, irresponsible IMO

[McChesney Duntz]

Shut up, you fucking baby!

[up_the_hampipe]

I love David Cross, in fact he might be one of my favourite comedians. But I can definitely see him coming across as aloof to many people, if not downright insulting (see: Charlene Yi).

[chveik]

Tim Heidecker, from his Patreon blog:

"like the woody/mia thing" the fuck is wrong with this cunt?!

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

David Cross has always been some kind of a jerk, with a short fuse. He had once a Twitter fight with Patton Oswalt about a joke Oswalt had made about Alvin & The Chipmunks that he took at face value. Amber Tamblyn has been a good influence on him, but he's still prone to some stupid and aggressive ideas.

Heidecker definitely doesn't come in a good light with his blog entry. I'd understand why he would remove a Twitter comment. This is about some FBI investigation, Johnston could be charged and this is a serious issue. Yet, what he wrote for the blog totally undermines that. Basically, he was simply tired of getting interview requests about Johnston, and he took the tweet down. And then, he throws Johnston under a bus, and uses the opportunity to complain about some unnamed Mr. Show cast members, as if he was the spokesman for the L.A. comedy scene, with some tasteless comparisons that are supposed to make us feel how hard it is to be into Tim Heidecker's shoes.

Johnston is obviously in a very bad place right now, and it took him years for him to get there, something the average comedy fan is totally unaware of. But it didn't fucking happen because he was dismissive right from the start to Tim Heidecker in 2004.

[McChesney Duntz]

Eccch. Well, my fault for sharing, I guess. (To be clear, that was not meant as any kind of public statement; it's on a page for paid subscribers to his weekly video podcast, so it's a slightly more intimate relationship, one where you might share gossip and less-varnished opinions and the sort of banalities you'd toss around with acquaintances; the paragraph before the excerpt I shared was about an egg sandwich he'd just made, for fuck's sake. So maybe cut him a little slack. Or don't, it's entirely up to you. Some folks around here seem to be a little too quick to brand people cunts, is all. Hell, unless and until I find out that Jay was actually involved in any of the violence or property damage at the event, I'm not quite ready to call him one.)

[McChesney Duntz]

Fixing ye olde edit glitch. I suppose that makes me a cunt, too. [some sort of emoji goes here]

[chveik]

it's just a silly statement really, i still like the guy

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

I'm #cancellingTimHeidecker because of his semi-public statement.

Well, if I had to cancel him, it would be mostly because of Beef House. That was some really lazy shit.

[McChesney Duntz]

Oh, almost forgot about Beef House. Yeah, fuck that cunt.

[Ornlu]

Eccch. Well, my fault for sharing, I guess. (To be clear, that was not meant as any kind of public statement; it's on a page for paid subscribers to his weekly video podcast, so it's a slightly more intimate relationship, one where you might share gossip and less-varnished opinions and the sort of banalities you'd toss around with acquaintances; the paragraph before the excerpt I shared was about an egg sandwich he'd just made, for fuck's sake. So maybe cut him a little slack. Or don't, it's entirely up to you. Some folks around here seem to be a little too quick to brand people cunts, is all. Hell, unless and until I find out that Jay was actually involved in any of the violence or property damage at the event, I'm not quite ready to call him one.)

No, thanks for sharing! To be fair though, Tim surely must have known that some of his readers would leak this 'intimate' post to a world of alt comedy fans hungry for anything resembling an 'official' update, but then still went on to knowingly throw Jay (as well as most of his indeterminate Mr Show colleagues, to a lesser extent) under the bus.

I wish his hard-headed, holier-than-thou comedic persona wouldn't bleed over into these serious semi-public statements, as it just makes it harder to convince myself that that's not what he's actually like.

[Brundle-Fly]

Maybe, maybe not. (Cross got a similar cold shoulder from Odenkirk when they first met, so could be something that happens when you spend enough time in LA.) Cross did stuff in Tom Goes to the Mayor and Awesome Show Great Job!, so if that's the case, it didn't last.

(Also, I've interacted with Cross, and he couldn't have been nicer, so pfffft.)

I once drunkenly approached David Cross in the Hen & Chickens pub on Highbury Corner.  Americans generally don't like drunks Brits but he was friendly enough. I told him 'the Audition' is possibly my favourite ever sketch. He thanked me but drily added that he'd done other things since the nineties and recommended I should watch The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret