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So, apparently Bob Dylan wrote and pitched a slapstick comedy to HBO in the 90s

Aside from his dry, sardonic wit, you’d hardly call Bob Dylan a comedian. However, a recently unearthed interview reveals that he did, in fact, pitch a comedy show to HBO in the 1990s.

Bob Dylan HBO

An unearthed interview has revealed that Bob Dylan once wrote and pitched a slapstick comedy to HBO in the 90s.

As NME note, the discovery was made by Comic Book Resourceswhich dug up an interview with Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm writer/director Larry Charles from November 2014, who reveals that he teamed up with Dylan to pitch a slapstick comedy to HBO.

In the interview, Charles describes the experience as “very dreamlike”, saying he only initially met with Dylan so he could brag to his friends that he’d done so. From there, he says it only got weirder.

“He brings out this very ornate beautiful box, like a sorcerer would, and he opens the box and dumps all these pieces of scrap paper on the table,” Charles said. “Each little piece of paper had a line, like some kind of little line scribbled or a name scribbled – ‘Uncle Sweetheart,’ or a weird poetic line or an idea or whatever – and he was like, ‘I don’t know what to do with all this.'”

HBO actually green-lighted the show, despite Dylan being particularly awkward in the meeting, dressed in “a black cowboy hat, a black floor-length duster, black boots.”

Charles says he spent the entire time with his back to the executives staring out of the office window.

“We go into the meeting and Chris Albrecht who was the president of HBO says ‘Bob, oh, so great to meet you, look I have the original tickets from Woodstock’ and Bob goes ‘I didn’t play Woodstock’ and then he walks over to the other side of the office which has floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city and proceeds to have his back turned to us for the entire meeting.”

Somehow, however, they managed to get the idea over the line. Unfortunately, Dylan lost interest pretty much immediately.

“The three of us are elated we actually sold the project,” Charles said, “and Bob says, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore. … It’s too slapsticky.’ He’s like not into it; that’s over. The slapstick phase has officially ended.”

Oh, Bob. You fickle man. Listen to the interview here, it’s actually hilarious (story starts around 1 hour and 26 minutes).