Think You’ve Seen All of David Lynch’s Work? Think Again.

There are 88 episodes of The Cleveland Show. David Lynch is in 22 of them.

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— chloe 🦋 (@ChloeNumberIII) January 16, 2025

You probably have a lot of questions. Why did David Lynch do this? Did he play himself, a character, some sort of spooky animal like an owl or a frog moth? Why did Fox cancel the show when it was so close to syndication numbers?

Let’s answer these questions anachronically, in honor of our nonlinear storytelling king. The 100-episode syndication order is kind of dead in the streaming era, so that’s that on that. David Lynch played Gus, the bartender of the Broken Stool, The Cleveland Show’s Drunken Clam equivalent. He is 117 years old, his father did a murder-suicide to his mother, and he thinks llamas are majestic. He looks exactly like Lynch, including his gorgeous, gorgeous hair. One kind YouTuber has made a supercut of Gus the Bartender’s best moments, and it’s really worth your time.

As for the why David Lynch deigned to do this, the man explained his reasoning in a tweet. Series creator Mike Henry asked him to do it.

Yes, it’s true. I play Gus the bartender on The Cleveland Show. Mike Henry asked me to do it, so I said yes.

— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) February 23, 2010

I think the real reason is because Mike Henry stanned David Lynch, and Lynch liked his vibe. Henry was one of thousands of people David Lynch taught it was okay to be weird. “I am a huge David Lynch fan,” Henry told Entertainment Weekly in 2010. “I have been greatly inspired by his true uniqueness. Back in the day, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do after college, I saw Wild at Heart and I got in my car and moved to California.” As far as reasons to agree to join a project, “You’re the reason I’m in this business at all” is about as valid as “We’ll make sure the right kind of Cheetos are in your trailer.”

As a writer-director, Lynch always trusted the process and asked the same of his performers; Laura Dern has said that she really looked forward to seeing Inland Empire, if only to figure out what she’d been filming this whole time. I think Lynch did the Family Guy spinoff because it seemed like fun. In Catching the Big Fish, Lynch said making movies should be fun. “We’re supposed to have so much fun, like puppy dogs with our tails wagging. It’s supposed to be great living; it’s supposed to be fantastic.” Lynch liked the cut of Henry’s jib, and trusted that it would be fun to work with him. So now we have 22 episodes of TV in which David Lynch plays a deathless bartender, who occasionally serves human flesh to his customers, loves stage magic, and doesn’t really know who Snoop Dogg is. And that’s fucking incredible.

Related

• The 11 Weirdest Things David Lynch Has Done Since His Last Major Project
• 10 Delightful David Lynch Stories