He turned to the camera and shrieked, “To say the least! ” The First Lady looked startled. He used this technique when Michelle Obama appeared on “Billy on the Street,” last year, in a supermarket with Big Bird, to promote eating fruits and vegetables, via a game called “Ariana Grande or Eating a Carrot?” “You and your husband have such busy lives,” he said to Obama. One of his signature moves is to turn to the camera, mid-conversation, and take his shout to a full-on roar, as if he’d absolutely had it. When a contestant wins a prize-a dollar, a bag of Claire Danes-shaped Gummy Claires-Eichner jumps up and down, hollering with glee. He’s a walking id, quick to rage or exult. Eichner is hyperliterate in the language of pop culture, asking rapid-fire questions about Kaley Cuoco or Meryl Streep before his guests know what’s happening to them. You won’t see that on “Billy on the Street,” either. “You won’t see that on ‘Fresh Off the Boat.’ ” “I am responsible for something rare, which is three seconds of complete and utter silence on national television,” Eichner said, in reference to stumping the “Jeopardy!” panelists. He has made viral videos with Madonna, Julianne Moore, and David Letterman.
CROSSWORD QUIZ POP CULTURE SPOCK MOVIE
(A little girl who played a game called “ ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ or ‘Django Unchained’?,” in which she had to identify which plot points came from which movie, won an enormous pair of jeans.) Sometimes Eichner runs around surprising people with a movie star in tow, like Zachary Quinto, of “Star Trek.” (“It’s Spock! Do you care?”) He creates fanciful obstacle courses, such as “Leah Remini’s Escape from Scientology,” in city parks and paved lots. On “Billy,” now entering its fifth season, Eichner startles New Yorkers on the street and gets them to play games and answer questions, for weird prizes and small amounts of money. He held up a screen shot of the clue: “ GAMES OF THIS COMIC ‘ON THE STREET’ INCLUDED ‘WOULD DREW BARRYMORE LIKE THAT?’ & ‘IT’S SPOCK! DO YOU CARE?’ ”
“I was a ‘Jeopardy!’ question this week,” he told me. Eichner has excellent posture, even when looking at his phone. On a Friday night in February, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Billy Eichner, the thirty-seven-year-old star of the sui-generis pop-culture game show “Billy on the Street,” was sitting in a director’s chair on the set of the sitcom “Difficult People.” That show, about two struggling performers, a straight woman and a gay man, who are harsh about the world and affectionate with each other, was created and is written by the comedian Julie Klausner, with whom he co-stars. Though Eichner screams at his contestants, he is, in his own way, being respectful.
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