Alumni Profile

Tech comedian finds laughter in logic, absurdity in analysis

As a professional engineer turned professional comedian Don McMillan (MS 1982 EE) is pretty much one of a kind. A lot of people use Powerpoint, but only McMillan’s slides are intentionally funny (samples are at www.technicallyfunny.com) A lot of comedians make jokes about their spouses and the opposite sex, but only McMillan’s jokes are explicitly in the context of thermodynamics or optimization. After years designing logic circuits, he found his true calling and traded silicon for silly.

What's so funny about engineering, anyway?

I think engineering is to humor as the Arctic is to oil: There are vast amounts of funny reserves buried deep down — they’re just harder to get to. What I love about engineers is how logical and practical we are about everything. We can’t stop solving problems — even when we shouldn’t. When I first got married my wife said to me, “I feel fat”. To which I (the problem-solving engineer) replied, “Reduce your caloric intake. Increase your activity.” I know now that although this is correct in terms of the conservation of energy, it is the wrong answer if you want to stay married. I have learned that whatever problem my wife brings to me, I must look at her and say, “Oh, honey — that’s horrible. I feel terrible for you. My heart aches for you.” And it’s true — my heart does ache because in my head I am thinking, “I can fix this in two seconds but I’m not allowed. Ow — I’m in pain. This answer is obvious and I have to shut up!"

Were you able to see humor in the profession when you were studying here at Stanford?

Most definitely. I was getting my MS in Electrical Engineering and my friends were predominantly EE’s as well. We went most places together — even football games. We had our own engineering cheers. Our favorite was:

“e” to the “u”, “d” “u”, “d” “x”,
“e” to the “x”, “d” “y”.
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine.
3.14159.
Binary, octal, decimal, hex,
We think math is better than sex!
Go Cardinal!

What was your first job out of school?

I worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey as a member of the microprocessor design group. I was a chip designer — the funniest of all the engineers (insert heavy sarcasm here). During my 3 years at Bell Labs, I participated in several projects. I helped design part of the BellMac-32: The world’s first 32-bit microprocessor. It’s my tiny little corner of electronics history. I worked on a very small piece of the RALU - a very small block inside another very small block in a very large design. I often wonder if there are still chips out there in systems that I helped to design. I can only imagine people calling Bell Labs with failing BellMac-32’s and asking, “Who designed this — some comedian?”

At some point you made a huge career change. What inspired that?

I’m not sure anything “inspired” it. It just kind of happened naturally (if that’s possible). The truth of the matter was that it simply never occurred to me to become a comedian until I was almost 30 years old. No High School guidance counselor has ever looked at an SAT score and said, “Let’s see. You scored 760 in math and 680 in verbal… you, young man, should become a comedian!” I was living in Sunnyvale working at VLSI Technology in the late 80’s during the comedy boom in the Bay Area. I was always a big comedy fan and I used to go to local comedy clubs all the time. One night while attending a show, the emcee mentioned an “open-mike” night where anyone could come down and sign up to do a 5-minute set. I loved it the first time I walked on stage and I love it even more today.

At least at first was it tough getting gigs as an engineering comedian?

I never used to mention being an engineer when I first started doing comedy. I was too afraid that people would automatically think, “Ooo, an engineer. This guy has got to be funny- right!” My act was mostly about being 6’5” tall, red-haired & freckled, and being a dork. I was a good comic but I hadn’t found my niche yet. I first started breaking in my “techie jokes” at one of my favorite comedy clubs in the world, Rooster T. Feathers in Sunnyvale. At Rooster T’s we always had groups from several of the thousands of high tech companies in the South Bay. I would try jokes like, “Silicon Valley is like no place on Earth. Where else can you go to a wedding and the couple is registered at Fry’s?… And only here can you go to a strip joint and get a ‘laptop’ dance?” These same corporate groups that saw me at Rooster T’s started asking me to perform at their company functions. I often heard the comment, “You’re the only comedian we ever hired that truly understood what we do.”

What does your schedule look like these days (corporate gigs, clubs, film/tv)?

These days I mostly perform at corporate events. I did about 70 last year and I am on a pace to do that number again this year. Corporate shows take a lot more work than your average comedy club show. I don’t just come in and do “my act”. I always research the group and the event. I write jokes specifically for that group, their event, and their industry. I’ve written jokes about everything from 45 nanometer semiconductor technology to Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance. I incorporate their jargon and I use the names of people in the group wherever I can. Basically, I really try to give them their own special customized comedy show. One of my favorite things to do is to take their jargon and tell them what it really sounds like. For example: “XML” sounds like “the newly discovered size between Medium and Large”. “VoIP (Voice over IP) sounds like “talking on your cell phone while in the bathroom.” “MP3” is 3 o’clock in the afternoon to a dyslexic.

As for comedy clubs, I still perform at clubs occasionally and I try to book 6-8 weekends a year. I only do clubs that I really enjoy and, of course, they have to have PowerPoint capabilities. I will be performing at the San Jose Improv the last weekend in July. It’s a beautiful club and we get the best techie audiences in the world. I have also developed a large part of my PowerPoint act for the non-nerds among us. I basically have examined my relationship with my wife from an engineer’s point of view. I have graphs about “Chances of Don Winning an Argument”, “Couch Selection versus Price”, “The Electronics/Furniture Tradeoff”, and “Frequency of Sex versus Years of Marriage.” Sure it’s still technical, but I find that just about everyone can relate.

When it comes to TV, I continue to audition when I can. My real goal is to finally get an engineer character to break through the glass ceiling of network TV sitcoms. Aside from Dilbert (a cartoon character), there has never been a sitcom based on an engineer (unless you count “MacGuyver”). It’s about time an engineer was the star of a show, not just the nerdy sidekick with no social skills. The show I have been pitching is about a company’s best problem-solving engineer who uses charts, graphs, and strict scientific analysis to figure out his marriage, love, relationships and raising children. It’s based on someone very close to me.

How did you land that series of Budweiser beer spots a while back?

It was a complete case of being in the right place at the right time. The ad agency went to eight cities around the country and saw literally hundreds of people. They said I looked exactly like the guy in the storyboard their artist had drawn. They also said in the audition (where my character had to “calm” a little lost bottle of Bud who had been separated from the rest of his six-pack), that I was the only guy who talked to the bottle of beer like I had done it many times before. In fact, I had.

What do other comedians think about your engineering niche?

There seems to be two schools of thought on my “engineering niche” among comedians: One group (most of my friends) thinks that is both smart economically and creatively challenging to have discovered a way to make a really good living doing comedy for corporations. The other group seems to think that I have sold my soul to corporate America and I am nothing but a mouthpiece for the capitalist devils who want to take everyone’s money and starve little children. I like to think the first group is correct — I like kids.

Do you still delve into engineering and technology, even if just to find new material?

I have always been a nerd and, I believe, I will always be a nerd. I still play with electronics for fun. For instance, I relax by reconfiguring our home network. I’ve set up a wired & wireless system in our home so that I can transfer between any of our computers (laptops & desktops) and our 3 TiVo’s at speeds faster than real time. So, now my wife can pause a show on the TiVo in our family room, go up to bed, and pick up right where she left off on the bedroom TiVo. I also love to keep up with all the new technologies. I book myself at the Improv in Vegas every January during the week of the Consumer Electronics Show just so I can check out all the cool stuff. Also, you can occasionally catch me reading a Scientific American when no one is looking — I keep it hidden in a plain brown wrapper underneath my bed. Please don’t tell my wife or Mom.

How do you feel about comparisons to Scott Adams and Dilbert? Do people make those?

I sometimes get the comparisons to Scott Adams and Dilbert although I don’t think I look like either one of them. I’m complimented by the comparison, but I think the only thing we have in common is that we find humor in the workplace. I think Scott is brilliant and I enjoy reading Dilbert, but he focuses more on the absurdity of office life & politics. I think my humor is based more on an engineer’s view of the world. At least that’s what the memo from my boss told me to say if anyone asked me this question.

Know any good Cal jokes?

At the risk of losing future corporate work from Cal alumni, I have written a few Cal jokes just for this interview.

I don’t want to say that Berkeley is “under funded”, but when the Cal football team somehow manages to win the Ax, their facilities people actually use it.

Statistics:
96% of Stanford students have jobs awaiting them upon graduation.
96% of Cal students have seats on BART awaiting them after graduation.

Q. What is the longest mass transit system in the world?
A. BART from San Francisco to Berkeley. It goes from 2007 to 1967 — that’s 40 years long.