For those unfamiliar with his work, David Cross is a comedian/writer who performs live and acts in films and TV shows. He's really funny. Those who do know about Cross probably know him as half of the team responsible for Mr. Show, the HBO series that set an unrivaled standard for sketch comedy in the '90s. Working with partner Bob Odenkirk and a small cast, Cross co-wrote and performed 30 half-hour shows, between 1995 and 1999, nearly all of which are physically hilarious from beginning to end, and especially in-between--but I won't defile the show by describing it. The number of memorizably brilliant sketches it yielded is staggering when you try to count, or worse ("because life is precious, and God, and the Bible"), recite them.

More amazing is the fact that, except among a privileged minority of tape traders and devout fans, the joke is still semi-private. Depending on what circles you run in, it may seem like, duh, everybody knows Mr. Show. But everybody doesn't. That may change with the upcoming release of the entire series on DVD (seasons one and two arrive June 11). Or maybe it won't. The fact is that the show has been off the air for three years, and Cross, naturally, has moved on... sort of.

He and Odenkirk recently wrote and starred in Run Ronnie Run, a movie based on Ronnie Dobbs, the shirtless redneck scofflaw from Mr. Show. The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and scheduled, then re-scheduled, for a release avidly anticipated by Mr. Show's ravening cult. But they won't be seeing it anytime soon, and neither will you.

Due to a combination of factors that may boil down to simply not getting the joke, New Line Cinema, the studio that bankrolled Run Ronnie Run, has decided not to put it out. Ever. The picture is currently up for grabs. Meanwhile, Cross is doing what many a performer has done when faced with entertainment-industry hassles: He's going on the road.

He's currently touring the country, performing stand-up in rock clubs accompanied by Ultrababyfat, a rock band from Atlanta. Some of the shows are being recorded for potential release on Sub Pop.

In the '70s and '80s, it wasn't uncommon for comedians to share stages with musicians, but with few exceptions, it made a terrible match. On his long out-of-print album Comedy Minus One, Albert Brooks tells a story about opening for Richie Havens(!). After being introduced by a radio DJ ("the worst people alive"), he walks out before a huge, stoned crowd rabidly chanting, "RICHIE! RICHIE! RICHIE!" through his entire act. He finds the only way he can get their attention is by saying a "magical word.... The word is 'shit.'"

"I think there's a reason why that stopped," says Cross of the band-comic trend, "and it was a good reason, which is that it wasn't a good idea. It was embraced in the '80s because there was all this fucking bullshit talk in Esquire about comedy becoming the new rock 'n' roll, with Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kinison and all those people who were becoming huge stars. But it wasn't done right."

Cross is on the phone from his New York apartment, where he's stopping off between legs of his tour. "The club is really the big difference," he notes. "It's smaller and people are used to standing up and it mixes well.... As opposed to seeing fucking Jaco Pastorious and you know, Gallagher."

It seems somehow fitting that Cross should be out on a van tour with an indie-rock band. The story of Mr. Show and Run Ronnie Run is strikingly similar to the archetypal major-label band model: first record an underground success, follow-up stuck in major-label limbo. Some bands crumble under the frustration, others are haunted by early success. The ones that last find ways to rethink their approach.

Though David Cross is not a rock band (or a "rock 'n' roll comic," thank god), his tour with Ultra Babyfat arose from a very rock impulse. After playing a couple of successful shows together, Cross explains, "We thought, man this is so much fun! Why don't we just make a little tour out of it, make some money, and get on the road and rent a van and go?"