Hound
For Glory
Fresh from burying his latest bone, Conan O’Brien’s
studly correspondent TRIUMPH THE INSULT COMIC
DOG ^ives us the straight poop. BY BRIAN M. RAFTERY
Night Live alum—he still contributes
animated shorts like The Ambiguously
Gay Duo—and occasional actor (The
Wedding Singer) had developed an in
sult-puppet routine years earlier for his
stand-up act, it wasn’t until he found
the rubber “Yugoslavian mountain
hound” that he decided to try his hand
at it again. Adding a gold bow tie and
cigar (“Triumph’s a class act,” Smigel
notes), he then perfected the dog’s
thick, guttural, totally hostile accent.
“For years, dogs have been made out
to sound like Huckleberry Hound or
sad-sack basset hounds,” Smigel says.
“Well, no—the fact is they’re Eastern
European. That’s one of the reasons
Triumph’s so popular—he actually
sounds like a real dog.”
But the voice is perhaps the least
surprising aspect of Triumph’s shtick,
as some celebs have discovered. “Most
of the guests have no idea what Tri
umph wall say,” says Smigel. “Some of
them, though—a guy like Tesh or Has
selhoff—are really willing to be pooped
on. They understand that there’s a
camp element to their popularity and
they might as well nan with it.”
Still, not every couch warmer can
take a libbing. When Triumph boasted
about his fake breasts—“Jennifer Love
Hewitt, top these, baby!”—Smigel says
he was forced to dub over the comment
due to objections. In fact, sometimes he
has to keep the pooch on a short leash.
“[Triumph] wanted to tell Shatner that
his hair looked like a Yorkie [that he]
banged,” says Smigel, who was told by
O’Brien no dice. Says Late Night head
writer Jonathan Groff: “It’s smart and
stupid. He’s enjoyable if you know the
heritage of Borscht Belt comics, but he
has the carnal, rade interest of a dog.”
Smigel has high hopes for his pup
pet protege: an “album of really blue
material” and a movie that would shed
light on Triumph’s background (appar
ently, he was a Catskills comic thrown
off The Ed Sullivan Show for—what
else?—pooping on stage). To keep
from getting too old too fast, though,
Triumph will appear only three or
four times each year, giving Smigel
time for another dream project: “An
Art Linkletter kind of show, with Tri
umph talking to kids.”
Brazen Puppets Say the Darndest
Things? Sounds like a great idea—for
me to poop on! • • •
BONE APPET1T Triumph works
his ma-pic on a French poodle
IN HIS THREE-YEAR TELEVISION
career, Triumph the Insult Comic
Dog has called Shannen Doherty
“a hot bitch,” bragged to William
Shatner that he read the actor’s sci-fi
novels while being paper-trained, and
told Tom Arnold that insulting him
would be like “pooping on poop.” Such
disses don’t make for typical chat
show fodder, especially when they’re
coming from a $10 hand puppet.
The creation of comedy writer
Robert Smigel, Triumph is a corre
spondent for NBC’s Late Night With
Conan O'Brien, where he berates
celebrities, dogs, and—occasionally—
celebrity dogs. His all-too-infrequent
appearances, both in the studio and in
remote segments, are punctuated with
the generous use of the bon mot “...for
me to poop on,” and often conclude
with Triumph mounting his subjects.
“I started [my career] saying I was
going to write satire,” says Smigel, 40,
“and now I’ve happily devolved into
puppet animals humping live ani
mals.” Not that the humping hasn’t
paid off: Triumph has amassed a cult
following, with compilation tapes ac
tively traded over the Internet,
thanks in part to the breakthrough
1999 bit that saw him providing off
color commentary at the Westminster
Kennel Club Dog Show (he was
thrown out for harassing a poodle).
He returned to the event this year,
only to be ejected again—despite be
ing “disguised” as Ed Bradley, in a
mustache, bushy wig, and glasses.
Smigel discovered Triumph while
. i . browsing in a Manhattan furniture
store in the early ’90s (the shop inex
plicably carried a small number of ani
mal puppets). Though the Saturday
PHOTOGRAPH BY PATRICIA McDONOUGH