The man behind Delaware's 'Late Night' shoutouts
NEW YORK -- Ben Warheit has just finished a day of work at "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and is rushing down the stairs of his fourth-floor Chelsea walkup to perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
It's a Thursday night and the upcoming improv show isn't pressing on his mind. Neither is that evening's "Late Night" show with "Ghostbusters" star Kristen Wiig, filmed at the famed 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Instead, Warheit is talking about the two-week vacation he recently came off of – a break that landed him back home in Wilmington and visiting just about every one of his favorite sandwich shops: Capriotti's, Claymont Steak Shop and Wawa to name a few.
"I just pigged out," says Warheit, 29, as he struggles with his pants, which he realizes are a little tighter following his homecoming.
It's been seven years since the University of Delaware and Brandywine High School graduate left Delaware for New York. And in that time, the neuroscience major was hired as one of the original writers for "Late Night" when Meyers took over for Jimmy Fallon in early 2014.
During his 2-1/2-year run with the show, Warheit has emerged not only as a writer, but a go-to on-screen performer, appearing in a steady stream of sketches, most notably opposite Meyers as his fictional nephew Derrick. (Warheit not only looks younger than 29, but he has an endearing, almost childlike voice that allows him to slip into a teenage characters with ease.)
As often as he can, the Wilmington native squeezes a Delaware reference into his work, knowing friends and family back home will get a kick out of it.
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In February, there was a sketch where Meyers tells Derrick, "Remember when I took you to that Wilmington Blue Rocks game, bought you that giant foam finger and you got to dance on the field with Mr. Celery?" A few months earlier, there was another Derrick sketch where they reminisced about the time they attended the Dewey Beach Boat Show.
"Any reference points to Delaware in pop culture are like 'Wayne's World' and the joke is that no one knows anything about Delaware or thinks it's boring or a nothing place," Warheit says. "I don't necessarily have anything to say that's contrary to that, but I don't like when people are always [crapping] on Delaware."
Even though his Delaware references are snark-free, he says they always get a laugh in the writer's room.
And while there is no real Dewey Beach Boat Show, that sketch and others like it follow Warheit's belief that specificity is funny, even if you're being specific about something that no one else in the room really knows about.
"Ben loves Delaware," "Late Night" associate producer Amanda Cowper says after spotting Warheit leave the Rockefeller Plaza office he was using that day – the one belonging to "Late Night" bandleader and "Portlandia" star Fred Armisen. "He tries to get Delaware into as many sketches and moments as he can."
Warheit's love for his home state is well-known across the entire staff. When a pair of Warheit's co-writers spot a News Journal reporter shadowing him in the 13-person writer's room, they can't help but chime in with a few jokes.
"Are you with 'The Delaware Bugle'?" cracks one writer.
Soon, another jumps in, speaking as if he was the reporter. "Um, I'm from 'Internal Comedy Meetings' magazine," he says to big laughs.
About two hours after the writer's room grilling, Warheit is on stage at the nearby 152-person Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. He kicks off an improv scene with fellow "Late Night" writers in front of a sold out crowd with the line, "I've been to a Super G, but never a Giant."
No one takes the bait. The Delaware-area reference lands with a thud as none of his fellow performers know about the supermarket chain. After, Warheit laughs at the moment: "I guess that's where specificity can bite you in the ass."
From heroin labs to late night TV
So how exactly did Warheit end up writing Mr. Celery jokes for the late night show started by David Letterman in 1982 -- four years before Warheit was born?
It's a story that involves circus freaks, heroin labs and robots, but begins after Warheit graduated from Brandywine High School in 2004.
It was at UD as a sophomore when he stumbled upon an audition for university improv comedy group The Rubber Chickens, kicking off what has blossomed into a promising career in comedy.
After graduating, Warheit left Delaware for New York and eventually got a job leaning on his science background, working in an opiates lab at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital's psychiatric research division. He worked on studies that put him in direct contact with heroin addicts, sometimes watching them take the drug as part of experiments for a new anti-addiction medication.
As if that wasn't enough of an I'm-not-in-Brandywine-Hundred-anymore moment, his first New York roommate was a towering circus act with tattoos covering both his shaved head and his face. Warheit lasted two months in the East Village sublet, quickly realizing his roommate who ate nails in his act was more of a freak than he could handle.
But it was while working at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital that Warheit started a Tumblr blog (imbenwarheit.com) that eventually gained more than 100,000 followers with his off-centered, hand drawn Post-it note cartoons. He soon teamed up with a friend from improv class and they created a short animated series called "Waco Valley," which was bought by Above Average Productions, the digital arm of Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video.
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After the series was released online, Warheit and Above Average began pitching the series to television networks in Los Angeles in 2012. Comedy Central ordered a pilot script and Warheit was suddenly being paid to write his first script for television. Even though the show went into production and had actors like Adam Scott ("Parks and Recreation") and Jeffrey Tambor ("Transparent," "The Larry Sanders Show") attached, it never made it to air on Comedy Central due to a management shakeup.
Even so, it ended up in the hands of Meyers, who was looking for writers for his animated superhero Hulu show, "The Awesomes." Warheit was hired while he was in Japan working yet another interesting job – developing personalities for robots for Sprint. When he returned, a car was waiting at the airport and he was shuttled to a writer's retreat for the first season of "The Awesomes" in upstate New York at the stately Mohonk Mountain House in the Catskill Mountains.
With his days of science-based odd jobs officially behind him, Warheit was then hired as one of the first "Late Night with Seth Meyers" writers.
"I was so surprised because I had only really met Seth once before. There was a lot happening in a really short time. It was a really cool time in my life," says Warheit, who regularly writes for the fast-paced "Late Night" segment "Ya Burnt!," which he created.
Warheit's strange trip from neuroscience major to writer of some of the weirder sketches currently on late night television is not lost on his parents, David and Christine, who still live in Brandywine Hundred. But David says they aren't surprised that he ended up in comedy instead of science.
"I think his neuroscience degree was always a means to an end. I actually would have been floored if he became a neuroscientist," says David Warheit, who works as a nanotoxicologist for The Chemours Co. "His mom and I think the most important thing is to enjoy what you're doing."
Other than Meyers and Armisen, Warheit just might be the most recognizable person from the show.
Before audience members make their way to Studio 8G, they wait in NBC's Peacock Lounge and among the rotating group of photos on a big video screen is one of Warheit and Meyers during a Derrick sketch that ended with a bunch of ping pong balls falling from the ceiling.
And if you are on the "Late Night" set, a framed photo of Warheit and Meyers is one of the last things you see before leaving the studio for the backstage area.
The pair, who emit a big brother/little brother vibe on screen, have a natural chemistry together, sometimes cracking each other up by ad-libbing in some sketches.
"Sometimes you don't know if you're useful or well-liked and I now feel like I have a friendship with Seth. He trusts me and that's important to me," Warheit says.
'Delaware doesn't suck. You suck! Delaware rules'
As if it was meant to be, the very first guest on the Feb. 24, 2014, premiere of "Late Night with Seth Meyers" was Vice President Joe Biden, arguably the best-known Delawarean of all time.
It didn't take long for Warheit to start churning out possible Delaware-themed sketches for Biden – none of which ended up happening.
One sketch used a poll that found 52 percent of Americans had no opinion of Delaware one way or another. Warheit's plan was to have Biden deliver a hardcore rap song proclaiming the best things about the state, like tax-free shopping and how the state's mascot "is a hen specifically bred for cockfighting."
As he talks about the unused Biden sketches, Warheit goes into his e-mail and pulls up another script. In this one, he plays a Delawarean being loudly bullied in the audience, interrupting Biden's interview.
The bullies, wearing sweaters labeled "Pennsylvania" and "New Jersey," say, "Why can't we screw with him? Delaware sucks."
And that's when Biden, defender of all that is Delaware, stands up to the bullies declaring, "Delaware doesn't suck. You suck! Delaware rules."
"Thank you, Joe Biden," Warheit says before Biden turns his way and responds, "No problem, Ben."
Later this year, "Late Night" will do a week of shows from Washington, D.C., ahead of the presidential election.
And that's when Warheit plans on taking another crack at not only the sketch, but yet another nationally televised First State shout-out: "I just have to get him to say something about Delaware."
Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).