Mitch Hedberg conceived his jokes with a deliberate eye toward timelessness.
The Minnesota-launched comedy great’s widow, Lynn Shawcroft, confirmed as much during a 2013 episode of WTF with Marc Maron. And for about 15 years, the timeless comedy of Hedberg—surreal one-liners, musings, and wordplay delivered in his unmistakable stoner drawl—attracted a massive following. Jokes like, “I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too” and, “I like rice. Rice is great when you're hungry and you want 2,000 of something,” keep finding new fans through his albums and specials.
But now, 20 years after Hedberg’s death, one artifact remains frustratingly elusive: Los Enchiladas!, the 1999 movie that he wrote, directed, starred in, and bankrolled. Shot in St. Paul, the super-goofy indie comedy set at a Mexican restaurant debuted at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival; an official release has never been secured, despite Shawcroft hinting at one for over a dozen years. All fans have is a rickety, leaked workprint version that’s available on YouTube.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary* of Los Enchiladas! and to better understand its mastermind, Racket assembled a roundtable of core sources: Brian Malow, a comedian and Hedberg’s friend who co-starred and co-produced it; Jim Jorgensen, a veteran local actor who plays the over-the-top chef; Matt Ehling, a locally based filmmaker who served as co-director of photography; and Jeff Siegel, an Emmy-winning filmmaker who's currently years deep into making the definitive Hedberg documentary. (*OK, 26th anniversary by a couple of weeks—the famously chill Hedberg would forgive us.)
“I discovered Mitch's comedy in the early 2000s, and I saw that he made this movie that played at Sundance. I was fascinated,” says Siegel, who hopes his doc will introduce a whole new generation to Hedberg. “I got to meet him a few times, and I was always asking him questions about the film. I wanted to see it! Mitch signed my copy of his first album, Strategic Grill Locations, with, ‘Jeff, Los Ench is coming, 2002.’ So, I have a longstanding fascination with the film.”
Us too! Let’s dig into the world of Los Enchiladas!, and maybe, just maybe, help drum up some excitement that’ll lead to the long-lost movie’s proper release.
Hedberg’s Rise
Mitch Hedberg grew up as a shy kid on St. Paul's East Side. As he got older, he fell in love with Saturday Night Live and Second City TV, both of which inspired him and friends to write their own sketches. Hedberg was a spotty student who, by his teenage years, was already performing live comedy. When he turned 18, Hedberg hauled ass to Florida in a beat-up Plymouth Volaré with his buddy Tim Schlecht, according to this 2020 City Pages feature focused on his Minnesota ties. Throughout the early ’90s, Hedberg and his longterm girlfriend, Jana Johnson, worked odd jobs while Hedberg performed as a road comic across the country. It paid off: He eventually landed several Letterman appearances, a victory at the 1997 Seattle Comedy Competition, a “massive” TV development deal with Fox months after Los Enchiladas! wrapped, and the honor and/or burden of being dubbed the “next Seinfeld” by Time magazine that same year.
Mitch Hedberg1: I tried a couple of other [jobs], but kitchen work was the best for me, because I took to a nomadic lifestyle before I started doing comedy. If you travel and get to a town and need a job, restaurants are always there. Kitchen work, man.
Lynn Shawcroft, comedian and Mitch’s widow2: Mitch said he bombed for years and years and years. But he knew it was going to come around, he had real confidence. He goes, "I know I'm going to make money one day, and I know it's going to work out."
Brian Malow, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star: He always spent money as if he knew it was going to be OK. He would splurge. In the early '90s, when we were between gigs and had to grab a hotel somewhere, a lot of comics would grab a Motel 6; Mitch would be inclined to maybe grab a nice one. When he wasn't far along in his career, he freely spent his money with this confidence.
Hedberg3: I bombed endlessly... you just learn you have to keep searching for your audience, it makes you search harder. You gotta learn while doing, right?
Tammy Pescatelli, comedian4: I’m like 21, 22, and he’s a feature act, and he wrote a letter in crayon. He wrote this letter to the club booker, and I’ll never forget it. It said: “Hi. My name is Mitch Hedberg. I am funny.” He wrote it in that voice, too. “I have heard good things about your club. You should book me.” And then he put whatever number he had at the time, and he said, “I will see you soon. Love, Mitch.”
Arne Hedberg, Mitch’s father5: There’s a postcard, but all it says is, “I had some Indian food in Vancouver, it was great.” So that’s enough to at least let you know where he is and what he’s doing.
Hedberg3: I got enough comedy gigs to actually go on the road. I got four gigs in one month, which was $400 total, which was enough to pay rent and have a couple hamburgers. So I quit my job immediately, and just stayed on the road as much as I could. From then on, I was just able to build it. But I also had a girlfriend [Jana Johnson] who supported me so hard, man. I had to throw that piece of information in there too, you know?
Chris Riemenschneider, journalist: He was my older brother Craig's classmate, good friend, and fellow Jeff Spicoli copycat at Harding High in East St. Paul. I was living with Craig around 1995, and Mitch came by our duplex a couple times, doing multiple nights in town. Mitch had a video camera with him the whole time and was filming anything and everything. He was obviously experimenting and aspiring to be a filmmaker at that point, so this would've been the build-up to Enchiladas. He would kind of ask us random, weird stuff and then he'd direct us to do similarly odd stuff, none of which I remember.
Marc Maron, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star7: I feel like the people who locked into Mitch early on were kind of like cool, maybe slightly druggy young people who discovered him. He’s a discoverable thing. I think that’s what happened with that special, like, “Did you see this guy? Who is this guy?” We shot Comedy Central Presents the same week, and they were horrible audiences. His audience wasn’t very good either. I remember him eventually just sitting down on the stage, almost like giving up in a way. Not really giving up, but just like, “I’m gonna do what I’m doing.”
Dave Attell, comedian and Los Anchiladas! co-star4: Mitch was full tilt. What I loved about him was, everybody wanted to take care of Mitch because he was so like—I guess you could say almost otherworldly. The rest of us were up there doing the D and P jokes. You guys know. Dick and pussy. Mitch would counter with a koala bear infestation.
Jay Chandrasekhar, comedian and Los Enchiladas! editor8: He was a weird guy. He was a funny guy. The way that he spoke onstage is also the way he spoke in-person, and he wore yellow sunglasses around all the time. I loved his humor, I loved his delivery. He was one of those gutsy comics, one of those guys who's willing to speak slowly, to let you stew out there while you wait for this punchline. And when it comes, you're like, "Was that the punchline?!" And then you're like, "Oh my god, that works on five levels!"
K.P. Anderson, childhood friend and TV producer4: So, like, 1998, we go to [the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal], and that was Mitch’s year. He was the guy. The belle of the ball at Montreal. The act everybody’s talking about. “You’ve got to see Mitch Hedberg.” And rightfully so. All of his jokes are clean. He’s destroying it. He’s charming. He’s got charisma. So after Montreal, he signed a massive deal with Fox.
Hedberg3: [Time magazine] called me the next Seinfeld, I think only because I have a sitcom deal now. I picked it up in a gas station in Iowa, and I was just blown away. Everybody is looking for the next sitcom star, standup guy. They're trying to peg me as that guy. We're not really similar. People mock me now because of it, say, 'You're the next Seinfeld, eh?" I got some attention on me, and that means I gotta work harder. I gotta come up with new jokes. I just gotta stay on the ball, man. Because it's really up to me to keep it going now. They hand me some money now, I'm gonna take that money, put it in my pocket, pull the notebook out, and just keep on writing.
Howard Stern, radio personality6: Ya know Time magazine fired that guy, I think. They're like, "You know that prediction you made about the next Seinfeld? You're gone!"
Nick Swardson, fellow Twin Cities comedian and brief Los Enchiladas! cameo4: We were co-headlining. I went on first. Mitch went on second. At the end of his set, he brought me on [and fans requested a long joke]. “Dang man! You don’t gotta work that hard, dude,” [Swardson remembers Hedberg telling him]. "Just keep it simple, man. Like, I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too." He wrote like the perfect joke, and it was 10 seconds.
Shawcroft9: Mitch showed me a way to look at the world just a little bit differently. And I think his comedy did that for a lot of people. He’s often referred to as a “one-liner comedian”—and I’ll fistfight anyone who says that! To me, Mitch was a wordsmith and he was really silly, which I love.
Maron10: A very funny guy. A very original guy. The real deal.
Cooking Up Enchiladas!
Suddenly flush with cash via a small development deal, Hedberg decided to make a movie. Captured in 22 days during the fall of 1997, Los Enchiladas! featured sets at St. Paul’s Boca Chica Restaurante (dining rooms), the former Maplewood Mall Chi-Chi’s that once employed Hedberg (exteriors), and St. Paul sports bar Gabe's by the Park (kitchens). The film, which Hedberg co-produced with Jana Johnson and friend Brian Malow, was shot for just around $100,000. Boosted by cameos from future comedy stars Marc Maron, Dave Attell, and Todd Barry, Los Enchiladas! scored a surprise debut at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.
Jeff Siegel, filmmaker and Hedberg documentarian: At [the point of filming], Mitch had already been doing comedy for eight years. Mitch and Jana, his girlfriend at the time and business partner, were inseparable. They were living in New York, and Mitch's career was definitely on the rise. The second he got any money he said, "I want to make a movie."
Mitch Hedberg11: I didn't know how to make a movie, but I found a couple of guys to help me out. I always thought the idea of Mexican food in the Midwest was ridiculous. I'd thought of writing a comedy about it for 10 years.
Jana Johnson, Los Enchiladas! co-producer and co-star12: We're both from Minnesota and find the lack of authenticity in ethnic restaurants there to be a source of humor.
Brian Malow, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star: When Mitch decided to make Los Enchiladas!, he reached out to a couple of his closest friends: me, Tim Schlecht, Chard Hogan, Felicia Michaels. I co-star in the film, co-produced it, and worked with Mitch on the script before we made it.
Matt Ehling, filmmaker and Los Enchiladas! co-director of photography: Brian and Mitch hired me 'round about 1997. Christopher Haifley and I served as the co-directors of photography on the film, and we saw an ad [for the job] in the City Pages. I had no idea who Mitch Hedberg was, but Chris was very much into the comedy world and wanted to be a part of this.
Jim Jorgensen, Los Enchiladas! actor: I didn't know Mitch. I didn't know standup comedy very well. But when I saw this audition—I have a PhD in theater and I was long since out of work and retired—I thought, "Hey, I'm going to go to that." The phone rang about the next day, and it was Mitch's mother. She said, "I'm looking at your picture, and I'm saying that's your chef, Mitch!"
Malow: The whole idea of it being shot in Minnesota, that was from the beginning. There was a Chi-Chi's that we shot the outside of that Mitch had worked at previously. Mitch's dad made the gyro costume. We had help with catering from his mom. [The cast] got an apartment in downtown St. Paul and we lived there for a month.
Hedberg12: [Johnson] is talented in her own right. She was an asset to the whole situation. Jana did all the legwork and all the organization. She was able to keep things in order when they were falling apart.
Johnson12: There are always certain characters that are at every restaurant. It seems as if there's always one cook who takes his job way too seriously and wears the full chef regalia. And they're working with a bunch of kids, who are just making some money to go party.
Siegel: So much is autobiographical in this film. Not only did he work at that Chi-Chi's at the Maplewood Mall in high school, for many years on the road the only job he ever had was as a short-order cook. He worked at Chili's, Applebee's, some more local restaurants. That was his vibe from maybe '84 to '92.
Malow: Ya know what goes to the heart of it? There's a scene where a woman says the hot sauce is too hot, and it's the mild. The waiter goes back into the back, doesn't know what to do, and he cuts up some tomatoes and mixes 'em with ketchup. And that's too hot for her. One of Mitch's favorite words was ridiculous. And that's at the core of this film, too. These characters are ridiculous, the chef character is ridiculous!
Jorgensen: When I first got ahold of that script, and sat in the living room across from my wife, I'm reading it, and I'm saying, "My god... this is the role of a lifetime!" It is that good. It is so well-conceived, well-written, and well-executed. If I have a dominant personality, it's probably college professor or at least high school teacher. I don't think that chef is me at all, but, man, did I love playing him.
Marc Maron, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star10: I remember there was a big guy that played the chef. Me, [Dave] Attell, Todd Barry… we all went out there and were excited about it.
Hedberg13: I thought Attell was great in my movie. Marc Maron, great. Todd Barry, he’s great too. Hilarious. All those guys did well, but they had nice, small, juicy parts, man. I’m jealous. Marc Maron’s a cocky bitch, too. He said he’s the best thing in the movie.
Malow: We were shooting all through the middle of the night, because we could only use the restaurants when they were closed. When there was a close-up of me, I was like, “Jesus Christ, look at that bag under my eye.”
Johnson5: The first night they sent the [restaurant] manager to stay there with us overnight, and the second night they just handed us the keys.
Ehling: This was back in Minneapolis in the '90s, there were all sorts of low-budget movies going on. We made this thing in a really tight timeframe, and it was just tremendous. I loved seeing this movie as a launch pad for the next stage of [the actors’] careers. Everybody just had a ball, we were slaphappy by the end of it. It was kind of a party.
Malow: We really only hired and paid the DPs, the audio guy, and his assistant. Everyone else was kinda working for free, all of Mitch’s friends and the local actors.
Siegel: So many people who just loved Mitch came together because he wanted to do something, whether they really understood what he was trying to do. I've asked everyone involved, "Well, what were your expectations?" It's over a year before they find out it gets into Sundance. Mitch initially takes a stab at editing it, and the story is they had a really, really long cut. Jay Chandrasakhar, from Broken Lizard, [eventually] got the film.
Jay Chandrasekhar, comedian and Los Enchiladas! editor8: My manager also managed Mitch Hedberg. [He] called me up and he said, "Look, Mitch has a film... it's like 2 hours and 20 minutes long, can you help him find his movie?" So he came into the edit room, and the two of us sat in the dark, and I just went after it. We cut it down to about 75 minutes. Mitch would get up and leave every 15 minutes and come back reeking of pot smoke. I was like, "Ya know bitch, you can just smoke in here and we'll get a lot more work done." So that's what we did.
Johnson12: [Hearing that Los Enchiladas! got into Sundance] was the best day of life. When my future husband proposes to me, he better have something special up his sleeve, because it's going to take a lot to top that one.
Siegel: The industry was taking notice, and kind of knew who Mitch was at this point. But it was before he really, really broke because in 1998—after the film was shot but before it premiered at Sundance—he goes back to Just for Laughs and he destroys as like the main, big act. Off of that is when he gets noticed by everybody, hits a whole new level, and becomes kind of the "it" thing in the comedy world.
The Sundance Reception
By the time Los Enchiladas! hit the Sundance Film Festival, Hedberg’s career had caught fire. In 1998 he landed a $500,000 development deal with Fox for a show that would never materialize, and the following year his debut album, Strategic Grill Locations, hit shelves. The whole Enchiladas! cast and crew arrived in Park City, Utah, for the fest, though their movie’s lukewarm reception following its midnight screening at the Egyptian Theatre “fucked me up,” Hedberg would later admit. Happy, Texas, starring Minnesotan Steve Zahn, also premiered at that year’s fest, in addition to Robert Altman's star-studded black comedy Cookie's Fortune and horror sensation The Blair Witch Project.
Jeff Sigel, filmmaker and Hedberg documentarian: Everyone shows up in Park City, and there are sort of high hopes because this film came from nothing. I mean, this is 1999—Sundance is huge.
Brian Malow, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star: The other big film in our category was The Blair Witch Project. There was a big Robert Altman film that year, and we're like, "Man, we made this film so cheap on 16 millimeter film... and we're up against a multi-million dollar Robert Altman film?!"
John Cooper, associate director of Sundance12: Los Enchiladas! had a freshness from its regionality. These characters are universal but they bring a Minnesota-something to the film. A kind of craziness. After all, look who's their governor.
Malow: Everything in his career was going so well. He was on fire, and we get into Sundance. Every expectation is: It'll get picked up for distribution, he'll get a deal to direct movies. It was a pretty decent-sized crowd; I thought it was fine. Mitch was disappointed it didn't like destroy or something. It got shelved, and he went on with his comedy career. My guess, for all the local actors and crew that worked on it, is that was probably the highlight of their résumé—they were in a film that got into Sundance! That’s the win.
Matt Ehling, filmmaker and Los Enchiladas! co-director of photography: I think people should understand how incredibly rare this event was. I mean, for an independent film, even at this time, it was like a lightning strike to get into Sundance. Mitch did seem very down. I don't remember him being around at the end of the screening.
Mitch Hedberg11: If you go to Sundance and you don't sell your movie, it's not the end of the world, you know what I'm sayin'? I remember thinkin' to myself at one point, "You know, I don't give a fuck about losing money—I just want to make a movie, see what it's like.” And I did. You go back and forth: You get this hype thing going, you get this high going, you get these delusions of grandeur—and then you come back down. But I never cried, you know what I'm sayin'? Like, after the first screening, I didn't cry, I just had to go sit in my hotel room for a couple hours and chill.
[And how does Hedberg chill, asks City Pages writer Rob Nelson?]
By cryin'.
Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press film critic14: Original? No. St. Paul comedian Mitch Hedberg's writing/directing debut is, essentially, Clerks in a low-rent taco shop, and some of the dialogue has a punch-line mania that owes too much to Hedberg's stand-up days. But the acting is consistently bright, the dialogue has a quirky/funny appreciation of the absurdities of menial labor and, for a first-timer, Hedberg does a nice job of making sure that the movie's off-kilter rhythm supports the jokes.
Rob Nelson, City Pages film critic11: If Los Enchiladas! has a fault, it's that Hedberg the writer-director gives too few one-liners to Hedberg the comedian, here playing the loosely autobiographical part of a stoner prep cook with a finely honed habit of wandering the country. Nevertheless, the movie's mostly gentle sense of humor is tough to resist—and damned if the whole enchilada doesn't taste a little spicier the second time.
Ehling: Maybe the audience was expecting a Mitch Hedberg-a-thon—jokes through the whole movie—but it's more observational comedy, almost a surreal lens through which you're viewing the world as Mitch Hedberg sees it.
Hedberg15: I know the film will find an audience eventually. It's kind of dry humor, not rowdy or raunchy or anything, and that's what the midnight crowd was expecting. [The Sundance audience was] hyped before it started, but it just never kicked in.
Malow: The humor is subtle and ridiculous. It could be a cult classic.
Hedberg13: I think since I was so burned on my first film, that’s what fucked me up, man. I kind of just wish I would have had a smaller part, and I actually think I’d be a lot better at it now, because I’ve put that whole side of me on the back burner. I took it off the stove, to be honest with you. It’s not even on the menu, man. It’s saaad man, because I think I would have gotten better at it by now, but the stand-up side’s worked for me, and I can always go back to it.
Hedberg’s Legacy and the Possible Future of Enchiladas!
At the height of his career in 2005, Mitch Hedberg died of an accidental drug overdose inside a New Jersey hotel room. He was 37. His influence on comedy has proven profound, with Anthony Jeselnik calling him a “genius” and Bo Burnham citing him as one of his “heroes.”
"He's been dead for a long time, and I know there's talk of doing something about Mitch now. I think it's way overdue," Dave Attell said on the We Might Be Drunk podcast earlier this year. "I always see a lot of influence in people by Mitch. He really did influence a lot of people—that style, his cadence. It's like zen joke writing. His stuff holds up, it really does. I can't say the same about mine."
George Carlin, comedian16: Only the offbeat ones die young: John Belushi, Freddie Prinze, Andy Kaufman, Bill Hicks, Sam Kinison, and now Mitch Hedberg, another great one. These people all had very different universes to offer us, and they've all been taken away.
Todd Barry, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star5: A lot of times we, I think a lot of people worry what’s going to happen when we die. Some people wonder what eternal life will be. I think when it comes to comedy, the fact that he did the comedy he did makes his eternal life live on forever. Because not all comedy stands the test of time. Sometimes you see comedy 30 years later, and you’re like, “Fuck! Was that funny back then?” And you still watch his comedy. It still is hilarious. Ehh. Go fuck yourself, Mitch.
Marc Maron, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star7: There’s a lot of comics that have passed through their Mitch phase into their own voice. But he’s one of those guys that you’ll hear in other comics, just a hint of Mitch. He’s not hinged to a time and he’s not hinged to a topic. He was a real, kind of a poetic mind. So it’s a rare thing that you can sort of revisit a comedian any time and it still has a vitality to it and I think that’s why Mitch is so kind of ever-present.
Jeff Siegel, filmmaker and Hedberg documentarian: His jokes are repeatable in the way songs are. You don't get sick of it. They're such quotable, bite-sized nuggets of comfort food. You can see his influence on so many people to this day. He's irresistible, as a lot of people have said. Mitch has been introduced to a whole new generation of people—his jokes have found new life on these social media platforms.
Dave Becky, Hedberg’s manager17: I truly believe we've only seen the start, and he's going to be a comedian remembered for years to come, because his material was that good. And maybe someday there'll even be a movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Mitch Hedberg, or something like that.
Lynn Shawcroft, comedian and Hedberg’s widow9: When Mitch died, it sent guilt, shame, grief, regret, and fear coursing through my body every second of every day. I have no idea how I survived it. Almost overnight, I became an obsessive hoarder. I was terrified of throwing anything away in case it held a remnant of Mitch and his existence. Old magazines, gum wrappers, withered receipts—I kept it all, because in some way it all connected me to Mitch. The good news, though, is that along with the garbage, I also hoarded every single bit of Mitch’s writings and recordings. I kept everything, and everything is a lot.
Siegel: For the last few years I've been developing a documentary about Mitch and talking to everyone, probably over 200 people. I've been piecing together Mitch's life and story, connecting dots on a lot of things. I've tried to give a lot of attention to Los Enchiladas! and that period of his life because, while the film hasn't officially come out, it remains a fascinating artifact of Mitch.
Shawcroft18: Since he's passed away, it sort of falls in your lap to take care of something like that. I've talked to [Jana Johnson], and we're trying to get [Los Enchiladas!] out there. I'm trying to get some licensed music. But here's the fucking rub: Last week, some kid uploaded it to a torrent website. Mike Birbiglia helped me deal with it. We found out it's this kid... I say kid because they're all like, "Hey man, I found the copy, I can fucking do what I want." I got in a fight with this guy on a message board about it, and I was saying stuff like, "I'm so glad you're taking care of Mitch Hedberg's legacy... it's killing me."
Siegel: The version that's leaking around is doing the film no justice. It's just a very bad, old-looking, almost bootleg workprint of it.
Matt Ehling, filmmaker Los Enchiladas! co-director of photography: As a fan watching this film, you can really appreciate the worldview he brings. It's sort of the film version of what he sees, I think, and it's really complimentary with what he has done over the course of his career. I would love to see it out there in the public.
Brian Malow, comedian and Los Enchiladas! co-star: Maybe, once [Siegel’s] documentary comes out, it paves the way for everyone getting to see Los Enchiladas! How many people have this experience, that all of a sudden a finished film from 25 years ago might surface?
Siegel: Nobody who worked on the film is holding their breath for money or anything. It all goes back to the reason they showed up to begin with: Because everyone loved Mitch, and did whatever he wanted to help him explore the next level of his creativity. In the subsequent 25 years since the film, and 20 years now since he's passed, that hasn’t gone away at all. Everybody still loves him just as much, if not more. The person is gone, but the phenomenon of Mitch remains, and that is heavily steeped in the fact he was such an incredibly sweet, generous Minnesota guy. That piece of him never left.
Shawcroft9: It’s taken me a long time to get to this place, but I think I’m finally ready to become a better widow. And that means at some point soon, all of you will be hearing and seeing Mitch again. And I’m betting he’ll still make you look at the world in a slightly different way.
Additional Sources:
- A.V. Club, 2006
- What’s So Funny? podcast, 2012
- Diamonds In the Rough TV show, ‘90s
- The Comic's Comic, 2016
- City Pages, 2020
- The Howard Stern Show, 2005
- Vice, 2016
- The Comic’s Comic, 2017
- Hollywood Reporter, 2018
- WTF with Marc Maron podcast, 2013
- City Pages, 1999
- Associated Press, 1999
- Chicken Scratch Comedy, 2013
- Pioneer Press, 1999
- Austin Chronicle, 1999
- Playboy, 2005
- Star Tribune, 2006
- SiriusXM, 2011
