Comedian Michael Jochims shares his personal brand of insanity at Tampa Fringe

What if you could build a giant robot to take revenge on all the people who’ve wronged you? That’s the premise behind Michael Jochims’ new sci-fi comedy, “When We Finish Our Robot,” at Tampa Fringe.

And if you’re thinking, “Well, that’s different,” so is Jochims.

Being unapologetically different is challenging in a world where everyone else tries to fit in. As a person with autism, Jochims often feels misunderstood, but he’s not looking for you to feel sorry for him. Jochim copes with his differences and how others react to them with humor.

“The idea of the show is that I and the other anti-social aggrieved get together, look at polite society and normal people, and are like, ‘Okay, they need to die,” Jochims told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.

The concept started as a throwaway line, an off-the-cuff reaction to a joke gone wrong.
Jochims was onstage riffing his way out of a hole when he said, “I get that you guys aren’t into this. I’m not going to take it personally. I’m not going to go and build a giant robot and get revenge.”

Unlike the one before, that joke worked, so he built on it. Now, Jochims is finally building that robot.

It’s absurd, dark, and risky. That’s Jochims’ brand of comedy.

“I get a lot of satisfaction from making an effective joke out of dangerous material,” he explains. But it doesn’t always fly at a traditional comedy venue.

“Doing stand-up, I don’t get to be at my most ‘me’ until a crowd’s warmed up enough that they’ll put up with me,” Jochims wrote CL. “In a lot of rooms, I have to ‘work’ the audience into shape with my most accessible material and the more generic stand-up moves and energy.”

By contrast, Fringe audiences are more accustomed to genre-bending weirdness.
“Fringe is giving me a chance to unapologetically lean into my personal brand of insanity,” says Jochims.

Jochims is also leaning into the science fiction portion of his plot, which, with the most recent AI explosion, is starting to feel more like reality than fiction.

When he’s not working a press (his day job) or writing new material, Jochims is training AI chatbots on his brand of comedy.

When he wrote to tell me he was busy “designing a very labor-intensive merch product that gives audience members permanent access to AI chatbots from the show,” I thought that perhaps I was becoming the butt of a joke, but Jochims assured me that these AI comicbots are really happening, and they’re mostly benign.

Despite the shocking premise, Jochims says, “When We Finish Our Robot’ is cute. It’s funny. The mood is upbeat.”

Michael Jochims’ “When We Finish Our Robot” premieres at Tampa Fringe Fri. June 7, 8:45 p.m., with additional performances Sat. June 8, 3:30 p.m.; Sun. June 9. 6:45 p.m.; Mon. June 10; 7:15 p.m. and Sat. June 15, 4:45 p.m. at Screen Door in Kress Contemporary. 1624 E 7th Ave., Ybor City.  Tickets are $15.
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