Louis C.K. on his 1998 film starring Steve Carell, Amy Poehler and Conan O'Brien

The comic will release "Tomorrow Night" on Wednesday, via his Web site

Published January 29, 2014 3:00PM (EST)

Comedian Louis C.K. visited longtime pal Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" Tuesday night to touch Stewart's smooth face and to discuss his directorial debut, "Tomorrow Night," a film he made 15 years ago with Steve Carell, Amy Poehler and Conan O'Brien, but never released.

The "whole movie is crazy," C.K. warned. "Nothing makes much sense, but the performances are great. I wrote each part for each person," including Carell, JB Smoove and Robert Smigel. (It is, in fact "a movie," he assured Stewart, because "it's long enough to be a movie" and "people talk on camera.")

Stewart, one of several financial backers of the film, was sold on C.K.'s pitch "about a guy who gets sexual gratification from a bowl of ice cream."

"I loved it and I made it just the way I wanted to," C.K. said of the black-and-white comedy, which he shot on 16-mm film. "All the money I had I put into it, and some I didn't and I did a few illegal things to get it done."

But at Sundance, where the movie premiered in 1998, "nobody wanted it," he said. "So I just stuck it on a shelf and I thought: 'Someday I'll just show it to everybody, one person at a time,' and that's what I'm doing!" A gutsy move, as C.K. reminds Stewart that "there was no Internet when I made this movie."

C.K. will release the film on Wednesday at 12 p.m., available to download from his website for $5.


By Prachi Gupta

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com.

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Comedy Film Jon Stewart Louis Ck Movies Sundance Tomorrow Night Video