Over the course of more than two dozen appearances on the Adult Swim series Tim and Eric Awesome
Show, Great Job!, John C. Reilly bewildered and delighted audiences as the unforgettable
Dr. Steve Brule, who offered viewers life tips in a segment called "Brule's Rules."
"I'm Doctor Steve Brule, with another Brule Rule for ya.
If you're raking the leaves and it gets all over your driveway, just hose it off, dummy!"
The character proved so popular that Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, and Reilly spun off the character
into his own series, Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule.
Here's just about everything there is to know about Dr. Brule.
"Check it out!"
Birth of a dingus
In early 2006, this unlikely trio of collaborators met at a bowling alley during a birthday party
for comedian and actor Ron Lynch, who'd appeared in Tim and Eric's cult hit cartoon show Tom
Goes to the Mayor.
At that time, John C. Reilly was already a well-respected character actor who'd even
earned an Oscar nomination for Chicago.
The three hit it off, and Heidecker and Wareheim invited Reilly to be on their show.
Reilly accepted the invitation, playing a crazed version of himself that Tom meets on
a social networking site called Friendship Alliance.
"Tom!
No!
NO!"
Tom Goes to the Mayor wrapped up a few months later, and Tim and Eric moved on to their
next show.
Reilly arrived with costume and character in tow.
Eric Wareheim later told Reddit:
"Brule was John's idea completely.
He improvises most if not all of what he does—he even brought his own outfit (along with the
hair) to the show."
Heidecker and Wareheim just set Reilly free to do what he wanted.
"In 1971 Bill Grates invented Michaelsoft.
Wouldn't it be cool if I could remember my dingus password for my email?
That would be cool!"
Brule is real
We know that Dr. Steve Brule is portrayed by John C. Reilly…or is he?
"John, that's clearly you."
"Nah, he was wearing glasses, Conan."
Reilly has insisted that his relationship to Brule is as executive producer of Check
It Out!, and that he's never even met the doctor in person.
"Are you trying you trying to say that you're not Doctor Steve Brule, that Doctor Steve
Brule isn't you?"
"No, he's a DOCTOR."
However, Reilly will occasionally let the veil slip: he told Esquire that he didn't
really create the character as much as he just showed up for an Awesome Show taping,
saying he:
"...started channeling that guy.
I don't know where he came from."
"I think of him as real, and anytime I start to analyze him, it gets really boring."
"Some things are just better left mysterious.
I'm not really interested in picking it apart."
"Got ya.
Check it out."
Doctor to doctor
The Brule experience is more than just John C. Reilly.
On Check It Out!, he interviews business owners, craftspeople, athletes, artists, and more.
If they seem uncomfortable or flummoxed by Dr. Steve, they're not faking it.
Tim Heidecker told Entertainment Weekly that they're all completely real, saying
"...the comedy is not necessarily about fooling these people.
It's more the character of Steve Brule being completely clueless and a really strange guy."
"You have pretty hair like a lady!"
"Thank you!"
Tim mirrored the same sentiments that Eric expressed in his Reddit AMA: they don't want
to make the participants the butt of the joke, but they want their genuine reactions.
The confusion of the guests is heightened, Reilly says, by the show's lack of "pre-interviews."
When viewers see Brule talk to people, they're really encountering one another for the first
time.
For Denny's sake
"... watching the hands come out."
"Well, all this talk about chips is making me hungry.
Denny, give me some chips!"
Throughout Check it Out!, Dr. Brule barks at a guy known only as Denny.
"Denny, you're a dirtbag, mugger guy.
And you're gonna come, and I'm gonna keep you off of my case, man."
According to Reilly, Denny's the person that "does the technicals"—he's responsible for
the sound, camerawork, and editing.
The reason he doesn't seem to be particularly good at any of it is because Denny "has a
lot of jobs."
"Here's ol' Denny, he has a workshop making all of these DVDs for you dingos."
Another one of Denny's jobs is being Steve's handler.
Furthering the illusion that Dr. Steve and John C. Reilly aren't the same person, Reilly
and his collaborators say they get in touch with Brule by paging Denny.
Denny then faxes Steve, and then Steve sends a fax back to Denny.
Bagboy
In 2015, Adult Swim aired a Dr. Steve Brule special called Bagboy, presented as a sitcom
pilot created by and starring Brule as an inept grocery store worker.
It wasn't really written by Brule, of course, but by Tim, Eric, and Reilly.
Before they began, Heidecker researched real supermarket-set sitcoms to nail down the characteristics.
As it turns out, there haven't been too many, but the first and most prominent one Heidecker
could find was a 1980s Canadian sitcom starring Don Adams.
Its title?
Bagboy was based heavily on 1980's Check It Out, down to the attractive checkout girl
and the inept security guard, and the rest is very weird history.
For your health
Doctor Brule is no stranger to monkeys…
"What kind of animal you want to be, dingus?"
"Probably a dog."
"Nope."
"No?"
"That's not it.
You'd be a dangatang.
That's what you'd look like."
...and in the 2017 blockbuster Kong: Skull Island, Reilly plays an Air Force lieutenant
named Marlow, who's been stranded on Skull Island for three decades.
The movie also features what's got to be an allusion to Dr. Steve Brule: Reilly's character
wears his old military jacket, which displays the name of his squadron along with the words
"Good for your health."
That can't be a coincidence, right?
"For your health!"
Brule's rules
There's one big, lingering question about Dr. Steve Brule: how does this guy have a
doctorate in anything?
"I don't have to say anything.
I'm a doctor too."
According to Reilly's Reddit interview, Brule just might not be a doctor at all.
He revealed that his mother may have actually named him Doctor Steven Brule.
It's wouldn't be the weirdest thing his mother did to him…
"I got locked in a basement.
Mommy fed me raisins."
"And that's all she wrote!
I'm Doctor Steve Brule, for your wine."
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