Eugene Mirman Hasn’t Looked at His Fiery Crash Photos

Eugene Mirman has seen a lot of things in his career. The crash footage from his own near-fatal accident is not one of them — and he’s totally fine with that.

The Bob’s Burgers star, who voices middle child Gene Belcher on the long-running animated series, opened up this week about the terrifying March 31 accident that sent him to the hospital after his car burst into flames at the Bedford Toll Plaza on New Hampshire’s F.E. Everett Turnpike. Despite the images and videos spreading widely online, Mirman has made a deliberate choice to stay away from all of it.

“I haven’t watched the videos, and I’m not interested yet,” he told Variety. “I don’t know if there’ll be a time when I’m 78 and like, ‘Oh, you know what? I should really look up all those videos to see how truly traumatized I should be moving forward!’”

He doesn’t remember the crash itself at all — his first clear memories are of being in the ambulance and catching a glimpse of fire. Given that he broke his wrist, several ribs, and suffered a concussion, that memory gap probably makes sense. What he does know is how lucky he is. “I know that obviously the vehicle was quite engulfed in flames, but I wasn’t burned myself — which is obviously incredibly lucky,” he said. “The amount I feel fortunate is huge.”

How He Got Out

Mirman was pulled from the wreckage by a group of bystanders that included a state trooper from the security detail of New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte, who happened to be in the area at the time. It was the kind of right-place, right-time rescue that doesn’t always happen — and Mirman knows it.

“I feel bad that everyone was put into an emotional place of being so concerned,” he said. “Ultimately, I’m just so incredibly thankful to be OK.”

Days after the accident, he posted on Instagram to reassure fans he was on the mend. “Thank you so much for all the well wishes, love and kind messages from friends and strangers,” he wrote. “I am extraordinarily thankful to the heroic people that pulled me from the car and to the warm, kind and talented staff at the hospital that cared for me.”

Back to Life — and Back to Work

Here’s the thing about Eugene Mirman: a month after one of the scariest moments of his life, he was at a Lego store with his son shopping for Star Wars sets on May the Fourth. That’s the vibe.

“I obviously went through an insane accident,” he said. “But I am doing really good. I was injured, but not nearly as much as probably the images that were out there in the world potentially made it seem. So I’m doing not bad.”

He was originally scheduled to record for Bob’s Burgers the day after the crash — that session got postponed, obviously — but by the following week he was back in the booth. Fox and Disney both reached out with support, and the production rallied around him. “Everyone reached out,” he said of the show’s team.

And now, just five weeks after the accident, Mirman is promoting his first new comedy special in a decade. Here Comes the Whimsy — which originally premiered on the comedy streaming platform Veeps — is now available to a much wider audience on YouTube. The special leans into exactly what you’d expect from Mirman: absurdist humor, fatherhood anecdotes, dress-code trauma, rental car disputes, and what the logline calls his “trademark playful spirit.”

He even leaned into the whimsy for the promotional rollout. His team created merchandise that included bags of flour with a face drawn on them and a small speaker playing a silly Mirman recording — and packages where he’d write someone’s obituary in advance for whenever they might need it. Classic.

The special also marks a personal milestone beyond just the near-death timing. Mirman stepped back from touring for a stretch that included the pandemic and the death of his first wife from cancer. “Life changed in certain ways,” he said simply. “But I adored standup. I really adore the whimsy of stand up. I do kind of thrive in the silliness of stuff.”

As for whether the accident makes its way into the act — well, how could it not? “I will probably do stand up about this. It would be probably odd to not mention it,” he said. “I’m going to be doing stand up in the coming weeks, and I’m sure I’ll talk about it and try to work out material. Ultimately, that’s what comedians do.”

He’s even got his own pitch ready: “It is funny to be like, ‘I’ll hopefully turn this near death experience into 15-20 great minutes!’ Or four extraordinary minutes. We’ll find out!”