Mitch Hedberg's widow says unreleased material is coming soon

'At some point soon, all of you will be hearing and seeing Mitch again'

Comedian Mitch Hedberg (Getty)

Unreleased Mitch Hedberg material may be on the horizon.

Lynn Shawcroft, Hedberg's widow, recently penned a moving, emotion column for The Hollywood Reporter, in which she expressed how she's dealt with her husband's legacy, following his death in 2005 from an accidental drug overdose.

"The fact is, I was married to a comic genius, a guy whose work continues to influence a large number of other comedians," she wrote. Dubbed "the next Seinfeld" by Time magazine, Hedberg was famed for his surreal, deadpan approach to comedy, with jokes such as: "Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat 2000 of something."

Shawcroft wrote that she became an "obsessive hoarder" after Hedberg's death. "Old magazines, gum wrappers, withered receipts — I kept it all, because in some way it all connected me to Mitch," she continued. "The good news, though, is that along with the garbage, I also hoarded every single bit of Mitch's writings and recordings. I kept everything, and everything is a lot."

"I have boxes and boxes of his notebooks, envelopes stuffed with hotel pads and scribbled-on napkins. I even found an airplane barf bag covered with notes. When he wasn't writing, he was talking into a microcassette recorder, so I also have boxes of microtapes of him practicing and perfecting his material — material that's never been heard."

She is now looking to release some of the unheard material to the public, stating that there's enough for a "brand-new concert film" or "a documentary that he could narrate himself".

Shawcroft is currently in the process of digitising all the material so that: "everything Mitch left behind, every half-written joke, every spontaneous utterance onto microtape, will be accessible with a few clicks on a mouse." Though she's been approached by directors to take over the material, she's determined to oversee the project herself.

"It's taken me a long time to get to this place, but I think I'm finally ready to become a better widow," she concluded. "And that means at some point soon, all of you will be hearing and seeing Mitch again. And I'm betting he'll still make you look at the world in a slightly different way."

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