The Merry Pranster

ERIC ANDRE’s hidden-camera comedy is vile, shocking—and surprisingly sweet. He told us about his closest calls.

If you see Eric Andre on the street, run the other way. In the 38-year-old comedian’s new prank movie, Bad Trip, he gets attacked by a gorilla at the zoo and is chased at knifepoint while his penis is stuck in a finger trap—all in front of unsuspecting marks on camera.

Since the 2012 debut of The Eric Andre Show on Adult Swim, the “benevolent attacker” (as he calls himself) has been flinging his (usually naked) body into potentially life-threatening situations for the sake of comedy. Andre’s 2020 stand-up special, Legalize Everything, elevated his demonic sense of humor to mainstream status, and with the Netflix release of Bad Trip in March, he is well on his way to becoming a household name.

In Bad Trip, Andre and costars Lil Rel Howery and Tiffany Haddish use hidden cameras to pull pranks on unwitting bystanders that advance the narrative of the film. Behind the bizarre, often scatological stunts, Andre’s comedy is unexpectedly profound. While Sacha Baron Cohen’s hidden cameras expose our worst biases, and the pranks in Jackass veer toward masochism, Andre tends to portray a ticking time bomb that only innocent onlookers can defuse— and they almost always do.