The people running a website dedicated to late American comedian Mitch Hedberg have been posting occasional excerpts from his notebooks, and one recent post has him seeking a tour sponsorship from Uniball after using a Gel Impact pen.
In the handwritten letter, on yellow legal paper, Hedberg introduces himself as a comedian who had appeared on David Letterman, starred in a comedy special on Comedy Central and had a small part in the movie ‘Almost Famous.’
He explains that he and his wife were on tour in an RV and stopped at a campground in North Carolina, where he was handed a Uniball Gel Impact to fill out a registration form.
“It was a very satisfying writing experience to say very little,” he writes.
Hedberg goes on to say that he handwrites most of his jokes and uses pens heavily. He’d tried expensive pens, but none were as good as the Gel Impact, “so smooth and easy to control.” He offers to wear a Uniball t-shirt on his next Letterman appearance and to put a banner onstage at his shows acknowledging that the jokes were written with Uniball pens.
Hedberg being Hedberg, it’s a good chance the whole thing was a joke. But it’s still cool to see.
He died of a drug overdose in March 2005.