Bad Dates with Jameela Jamil - Speed Dates: SF Sketchfest Special!! (w/ Janet Varney)

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

On an all-new Speed Date, host Joel Kim Booster sits down with the fabulous Janet Varney (Avatar: Braving The Elements, Stan Against Evil, You’re The Worst) to talk about the 23rd year of the comedy festival she co-founded, SF Sketchfest, where you can see Bad Dates live at Cobb’s Comedy Club on Sunday, February 1st!! They’ll get into the origin of the festival, Janet’s favorite events they’ve ever hosted, everything you won’t want to miss in this year’s lineup, and the magic of San Francisco and its dialed-in comedy crowds. Check out the SF Sketchfest lineup HERE for tickets! Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for full episodes. Merch available at SiriusXMStore.com/BadDates. Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual, Fire Island, Loot Season 3Janet Varney: @thejvclub on Insta, Avatar: Braving The Elements Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Bad Dates ad-free. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bad dates. Speed dates. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another edition of Bad Dates, Speed Date Edition. If you're just tuning in for the very first time, this is not a regular episode of the Bad Dates podcast. This is a very special speed date. And what that means is that we like to slow things down sometimes. We normally have a whole panel of guests. We talk about dating histories, horror stories, horror stories,

traumas. But today we're doing something a little bit different. We're talking one-on-one with a single person about whatever the hell we want to talk about. We're not beholden to the normal rules of the podcast. And isn't that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful? Something to really consider and take with you into the new year. Joining me today is an actress, writer, and comedian and producer who is performed on Plutonic. You're the worst. Stand Against Evil, the Thrilling Adventure Hour and famously the voice, the queen, Cora from the legend of Cora, huge for me. She also produces Sketchfest, the San Francisco Comedy Festival, which returns for its 23rd year from January 15th to February 1st. Tickets and info are at sfsketchfest.com.

Guys, it's Janet Barney. Hello, Janet. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, I mean, I had to. I have one of my favorite podcast appearances was on your podcast, the Avatar The Last Airbender podcast that you have, which were, tell the, tell the folks the name of the podcast and where they can find it. Yeah, sure. So it's called Avatar Braving the Elements. And it is available wherever you get podcasts, but we are also on video on the Nickelodeon Avatar Legends YouTube channel.

So you actually get to see us make fools of ourselves and each other. And two gorgeous, gorgeous hosts. So I highly recommend the video component of that podcast. But unfortunately, this is not your podcast. So we can't sit here and talk about Avatar all day long, like I would prefer to. So let's get into sort of the reason for the season right now. We're coming up on it. It's SF SketchFest.

It is my favorite comedy festival in the United States. It is also one of the last comedy festivals left. in the United States. Yeah. I think you and I both remember when every major city, there was a time when every major city in the U.S. had a comedy festival of some sort. And you guys are sort of the last one standing in a lot of ways. I mean, certainly, like, the only one that is sort of an indie run, sort of, you know,

not run by a big streamer or a big corporation or a big, you know, like some sort of big big platform. It is grassroots. It is, you know, sort of by the comedians, for the comedians. which I've always really appreciated about it. So tell us a little bit. I want to know sort of the genesis of SketchFest before we jump into this year. What made you want to start a comedy festival?

And what has changed about the festival, I guess, from the early years to now, would you say? Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is that, like, when I really take it apart, the question of what made you want to start a comedy festival is, like, I think the immediate answer is, I didn't want to start a comedy festival. there just wasn't anywhere to perform sketch in San Francisco, which is crazy. Now, of course, I'm also 15 years old. So I don't know. I encourage people to not do the math on what 23 years of doing a festival means about me. But I was pretty young when my partners, David Owen and Cole Stratton and I started the festival.

And we had met at SF State and were in a sketch group just kind of trying to get our, you know, material that, yeah, involved a lot of like wigs, costumes, and props out there. And they're just for as rich a comedy history as San Francisco has. It has a really rich, like, stand-up and even improv and like, you know, happenings, random hippie happenings in Golden Gate Park and stuff. There just weren't that many places where, you know, if you're just starting in comedy and you're not a stand-up, you don't have like an hours worth of sketch show to do and you can't rent you can't afford to rent a theater in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities of the world for a month. Nor would you want to subject anyone to that many performances of sketch. So we were like, what do we do? Like what do we do now? We've taken advantage of like the kindheartedness of, you know, the punchline and Cobbs and even down in San Jose doing. stuff at rooster tea feathers. But we definitely had people who were in the audience who were

like bachelor at parties who are like, what is happening? Like I need someone who's just like boom, boom, boom, boom, making jokes. And we were like, we had these like complicated set-ups and stuff. So basically we just kind of looked around to the climate and we had met through the process of like struggling through this. We had met five other sketch groups that we really liked and got along with. It's so crazy looking back now because one of those sketch group was comprised of a very brilliant guy named Colin Mayhan and another guy you probably haven't heard of called W. Camel Bell and then this other rando called Al Madrigal that no one knows. So it's been a minute. It's been a minute since we started that thing. But we ended up renting a theater like a small like 90 seat theater

near Union Square for a month just so that we all could do our sets. And we ended up like mixing and matching so everyone would co-headline with everyone else. And, So we'd be exposing like whatever little audience we had to different groups. And and then we would have like on weekends, we would do this sort of oleo night where every group would perform 20 minutes on one big show. It was sort of a Mrs. Dalloway situation where you were like, I'll buy the flowers myself. I will put on the show myself. It totally was. It totally was.

But it was a real like, do we have to do this? I guess we have to do. I guess is what's going to take. and we've told the story many times, but like Robin Williams came to the festival and we got a ton of coverage from like The Chronicle who thought it was cute that these kids were putting on this comedy festival and then the next year we were like,

I guess we should do the same thing. Should we try to go a little bigger? Is that crazy? Maybe we would get, we were so, it was so many choices, I think, in the arts are fear-based. And sometimes that's a good thing. And sometimes it's a bad thing. But in our case, we're like, okay, well, if we want to do this again and we want to make it bigger and invite more people in from out of town, then we have to come up with some new hook so that the press will cover us again.

Because otherwise, they'll be like yawn, same old, same old. So we pulled like the tiny, almost non-existent, like, Hollywood strings that we did have. And we ended up getting Fred Willard and this like class kind of thing that he taught called the Hollywood players that then did sketch of their own. And then we also got the three dudes from the UCB kind of coming from a similar place in their lives were like, yeah, we'll take a chance on new people we don't know at all. Like, sure, we'll come support you.

And then it just grew from there. Like once you have those couple of people who believe in you early and they are well-liked, they do a lot of your work for you because then you can start name-dropping and those people had good experiences. And we've just built on it from there. And you are definitely one of those people.

You have come so many years. Yeah. When did you start adding stand? stand-up as a part of it. Because I got to say, like, it is one of the only festivals that features both. Yeah. And it's one of my favorite parts about it is that, you know, I think there's a lot of like, never the twain shall meet, you know?

If you're a stand-up, then you are a stand-up. If you're a sketch or improv guy, you are that. And, you know, it's nice because we don't often get to mix and mingle with each other in a lot of these spaces. So when did you decide to do that? and when did you open that up? God, that's such a good question. It was definitely fairly early on.

I wish that I had, like, the thing is that all the years bleed together now. So I guess it would maybe be a worse sign if I was able to be like, in 2008, we decided, you know, if I recall correctly. Yeah, and I have like one of those autobiographical memories where I'm like, I remember it was a Wednesday and I had on ballet flats and a pencil skirt. but it was pretty early on in that, well, as a perfect example, here you have people like Al and Kamau who were sort of doing, they were known as stand-ups, but they were also kind of dabbling in sketch, and then so many sketch groups that came out of improv. And as soon as we started inviting people in from out of town and people from like the UCB in New York, and this is before there even was a UCB in L.A. This is how long ago it was. there was there were people who kind of like you're saying like didn't want to choose you know that were like well wait I kind of like dabbling in this and trying this and finding out that you know like paul of Tompkins kind of came late to improv but was a mr show person but was also a stand-up

forever and I think that's kind of what we started to embrace early was this idea of like oh wow wait so wait if we just like something and it's funny we could find a way to get it there. And, you know, we asked Fred Armisen. I think Fred Armisen came on the third year. And he was more interested in just kind of doing music and doing like a one-man show and doing what Fred does, which is like, sometimes you don't even know what to call it. It's just funny. And it's like Fred being interested in something and sharing that interest with you. And so that just kind of opened the floodgates of like, well, wait, we could have, we could have TV show reunions. We could have, we could have podcasts. We adopted podcasts very early.

And they started, you know, Doug Benson and Jimmy Parto were doing Never Not Funny in Doug Love's movies very quickly after they started those podcasts up at Sketchfest because we were like, well, why wouldn't you want to have those experiences live also? So I think it, in that way, we felt more emboldened. And the problem was that we had already called it as of Sketchfest. And we were like, okay, get ready for decades of explaining that it's not just a, That's just a sketch. Sweet days.

Sweet days. Why San Francisco? I mean, you're a very storied, successful performer, actress, comedian. Why keep it centered sort of in San Francisco? What about that city really lends itself to something as fun and as engaging as Sketchfest? It works for a few different reasons, and it really is kind of that magic combo. Like, we definitely, you know, every year, David and Cole and I put together like a welcome note, a producer's note, whether it's a printed program or just an e-program these days. We always write a little something up.

And it's hard because they always kind of end up being the same thing. Because when you break it down, we're like, oh, my God, we have so many people to thank. principally, there's no way that people would come to the shows if these artists didn't trust us and want to be a part of the festival. But we're also not, like, stupid. We know San Francisco is a place people love to travel. People from New York love San Francisco, even if they hate L.A. People from L.A. love jumping up to San Francisco, even if San Francisco's bratty about, like, thinking there's a rivalry between the two that L.A. isn't aware of. You know, so it's a place that draws really talented, wonderful people who also recognize that the city itself is very special.

They also experience, I mean, I remember Pat and Oswald saying very, very early on when I was just starting to get interested in comedy, because I kind of came into it in college, him saying in the Bay Area, like, San Francisco audiences are the best. They get it. They're funny. They're so smart. They show up for it. It's a small city, so there's not a ton of stuff to choose from all the time. And it's also like easy to get around. And it's also a very artistic city. So all of those things come together. Like if we didn't have the audiences we had, then the artists would be like, why would I come up there? No one gets me up there. And if we didn't have the artists, then the any audience wouldn't come. So the city itself is like the perfect little gem of an anchor.

I always say I will take any excuse to perform in San Francisco. I do think it is some of the best audiences out there. And for all the reasons that you stated, but also because I find them to be very comedy, literate people. Like there's a lot of like comedy nerds and it's just so much more fun to perform for people who love comedy and have seen a lot of comedy than it is for somebody who's maybe seeing comedy for the second time in their entire life. You know, and, um, and so it's, you get to get a little weirder. And I think that's another beautiful thing about San Francisco in general is like, I always, when I always take the opportunity when I'm performing for a San Francisco audience to push

myself a little bit further. Sure. And do something a little bit more interesting and a little bit more like, you know, maybe not the first thought punchline. Let's go. for the second or even the third. No, God, not the third. And really go for it in San Francisco because it's so lovely. And yeah, I just have the best time. And you're right that there's something about the history of San Francisco. I think like, listen, I get the notes about the city today.

I understand all of the issues and all of the things that make it difficult and problematic. But I do think there's something undeniable about you. You step foot in that city. and the history of the people that made art there before and the, you know, the advocacy and just, you know, especially as a queer person, the history just feels so tangible there. And no matter, you know, how many tech companies move in or move out or whatever, I don't think you'll ever be able to erase that aspect of San Francisco. And so if you're listening to this and you haven't been, I highly recommend, it is a really beautiful, I think it's the most beautiful American city. I agree. And I agree.

And I think that at its worst, like at its worst, like at its worst, In my lifetime. Now, remember, like, Loma Prieta was pretty hard on San Francisco. But that's another thing is, like, you know, a couple years ago. And it already has changed, like, sort of the people talking about, like, oh, my gosh, it's falling to pieces. Like, there's so many people who are, you know, on drugs. And just like, all of that kind of stuff is, first of all, like we said, it's a small city. We can move on from this.

But it's a small city, so its problems are just out in front of you. And they're kind of undeniable. And I actually like that because. it forces a reckoning that you don't necessarily get from a place that's sprawling where you don't have to see the tent city if you don't want to and you can pretend like it's not there and then you can shit on San Francisco for like having to deal with it directly. But also it has gone through so much to your point, like on so many different levels. And all you have to do is like go somewhere or just Google like San Francisco like the Great Fire

or the earthquake of the early 1900s, and you're like, oh, this city, not unlike like Chicago or something, you're like, oh, it basically burned to the ground and they had to start over. And there's a lot to be said for kind of looking around and being like, all right, baby, I'm still here.

You still here for me. I'll be here for you. I'm going to keep showing up. It's not always going to be perfect, but here we are. It's not easy to be there, but it's rewarding when you can sort of engage with it and try to make things a little bit better

for not just yourself, but for everybody. Are there any major highlights from past sketch fest? I mean, you talked a little bit about Robin Williams showing up. You've talked about some of the special guests. But throughout the years, like, what are some core memories you have of the fest? And when did you know that it was really, it was a thing that was, like, successful and kind of popped off? And did you expect it to last, you know, 23 years?

I mean, working backwards, I don't think I expected it to last. as long as it has. I think there was a point at which I realized, like, no, we are choosing to do this every year. And we could just stop. There was a period of time where I think we were so in it with our heads down that we were just like, okay, we're just going to, yeah, we're just doing it. Like, we're not giving up. And then somewhere around, I mean, honestly, I feel like I have a lot of sympathy and empathy

now for people who talk about starting their own businesses and stuff. I am very lucky because it is not my only outlet and it's also not my only income. So I always feel like a little reckless saying like, I'm a small business owner in the sense that that makes it seem like I don't have the very, very good fortune of also being on TV or, you know, doing whatever else. But in terms of how long it takes to actually kind of pull your head up and have a bird's eye view and go like, oh, wait a minute. Like, I actually built something. This still exists. And, like, people like it. It's really hard to see that when you're kind of in it, when you're in the trenches.

And believe me, we are still very much in the trenches. But, like, I don't have to do everything I did the first few years, which each one of my partners and I, and this is with our, like, tiny and wonderful staff. I was still picking up Bob Odenkirk at the airport and, like, changing the toilet paper in the theater and going to Costco. and buying the snacks and like we just had to do everything. And there's no time, there's just very little time to celebrate. So some of those early memories for me that really hit me, hit me on a more profound level, I think, than some that have happened in the last few years, although there are still some huge ones. I mean, for me, I would almost bookend, like two popped up for me right away when you asked that. The most recent one was Tim Curry, which we had

last year with Peaches Christ at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in Hayes Valley, Peaches puts on a stellar, crazy, amazing drag show. It's kind of everything you want from San Francisco. It's like sexy, irreverent, kind of angry at times, and then also like the most loving, tender thing you've ever seen. And here we have Tim Curry, who has gone through a lot of physical stuff and and medical stuff in the last couple of years and is still able to travel and come to a place like San Francisco where he came out, you know, the first time he came out on stage,

people just instantly were standing and like crying and clapping and to be able to know that we brought him there and that we have this partnership with Peaches where we put these shows together and then hearing Peaches kind of talk about like Peaches Awakens, and Peaches not just queer awakening, but like, glam drag queer awakening and the Rocky Horror Picture Show and what it meant to people in that audience who felt seen by not just that production,

but also just who Tim Curry was and how unapologetic he was about who he was, was like a real, like, I definitely had goosebumps and I definitely had to like try to keep it together. If you want to hear more about Peaches Christ, find our episode live from Sketchfell. Fierce, but so weird. Peaches was an incredible guest. If you love this show and you love great stories, then Peaches is definitely an episode to check out. Thank you. I'm so glad to live.

But what was the earlier memory that you were. The earlier one, which I think you'll see why it pairs nicely, is that we had the opportunity. And it was pretty early. I mean, it might have been, I don't think we had reached 10 years yet. I'm sure we hadn't. Now someone can look that up and be like, you were absolutely wrong, damn it. But we did. So we had.

Harold and Maud at the Castro Theater with Bud Court. And I was Bud's point person. And somewhere along the line, he just decided that he wanted me to be the person in conversation with him, which I was like, you know, we always try to pair people with, you know, like other big names and, you know, the people that collaborators that they've worked with. I feel like we wanted Armistead Mopan to do it, who wrote Tales of the City, who did end up coming to the show. who was friends with Bud, but he just got, he was just like, I just want you to do it. And so sitting on that state, well, first of all, Harold and I was like one of my all-time favorite movies. I think it might be my favorite movie. It was so huge for me. You know, it's not, you and I are both like, it's not, it's not like it came out when we were kids. Like, it had already

been around. And yet it's such a, like, right of passage for, it kind of stands in not just for, like a weird straight relationship, but just like the idea of a weird relationship that other people looking on the outside looking in think is weird and crazy. And I just, and it's such a hopeful story, but it's also got a lot of sadness in it. And it was just a big deal for me. And like, I loved Kat Stevens and the whole soundtrack. And it sort of shaped my teenagehood in a lot of ways. So standing in the back of the theater, when the lights went down, knowing I was going to be talking to Budcourt afterwards and hearing the first like strains of don't be shy by Cat Stevens to a packed theater in the Castro at the Castro theater, which has this incredibly important

history with a queer community and Harvey Milk and everything that it stands for. I definitely was like the scariest part was how am I going to keep it together to talk to Budcourt because I was sobbing at the beginning of the movie just like, how is this happening? How am I here? So that's another really really good one. Sweet days. Sweet days. Now turning to maybe some new memories, what are you most excited? I mean, you have the SketchFest lineup, if you don't know, and you're listening to this,

go to the SketchFest website, sfschfetchfest.com, and just look at the number of things that you could see at this festival. I mean, it is overwhelming. It's, you know, as somebody who goes and performs, Like, I always find my biggest, my only frustration with the festival, really, is that I never have time to see all the shit that I want to see because there's just so much of it. So give us a Namoos Bouch, sort of what is exciting you who's coming this year. Sure. Well, I'll start with some returning favorites.

The kids in the hall were also, like, like, remarkably early adopters of Sketchfest. I think Bruce McCullough came by himself the first time and was like, yeah, I'm going to tell the guys they should do this. And then they all started coming. And now they all come in one iteration or another. So we're doing a 30th anniversary live read of Brain Candy. But if that group isn't enough for you and you're like, Janet, give me more. Give me one of the other most iconic sketchers of all time.

We have Bob Odenkirk as part of that show. So it's like Mr. Show and the Kids in the Hall. It's like an orgasm of like early indie alt sketch comedy. You are feeding the comedy nerds like no one else has. So satisfying. So that's that those are very much returning friends. Bob has championed the festival for like 20 years. And then we also have the Henson Company as presented by Brian Henson, Jim Henson's son,

who is a remarkable creator in his own right, has this show that has been going for certainly longer than I, than I've been in L.A. So it's been going for a couple of decades called. puppet up. And have you ever seen it, Joel? No. Oh my God. You have to see it. It's so good. The last, the most, I think almost all of it is emceived by Patrick Bristow. But it is like the best, a lot of them are roundlings. These, these Henson puppeteers who are kind of the best in the business, because just the technique of Henson puppeteering is so complicated because you're like doing everything backwards into a lens where the puppets are looking at the lens. And that's like, it's a whole mind-blowing

thing. But this show allows you to see the puppets, see the camera set up, and also watch the improvisers holding the puppets, making stuff up. And it's totally like, it's a bit, you know, rated R. So it's not for kids. But it is, I saw that when I first moved to L.A. actually, Neil Patrick Harris is a huge fan. And he and I are friends. And he was like, I have something that you absolutely have to see. And after we saw that, we were like, we have to do something with Henson Company. We ended up creating a show with those people and those puppets. It is so good and so funny and strange and unique. There's nothing else like it.

So pop it up on censor is going to be there. Mark Mothersbaugh is coming, aka Devo, aka some of the best movie soundtracks of all time. He'll be there with the Red Room Orchestra. My buddy, Randall Park, is coming and will be in conversation with me for a tribute to him and his wonderful career so far. So that's just like a hamling movie. A bunch of women from SNL coming through the years celebrating their massive changes and influences to the comedy world.

We have a couple of Joel Kimbooster shows up to and including bad dates, as you mentioned. It's going to be a really great year. Guster, the band Guster, who's also – we also love when, like, comedians and musicians, like, nerd out on each other. And that's a perfect example of a good. group that is like totally renowned and awesome for their musicality and also are just comedy nerds. So they're going to have a bunch of special guests and do a couple of like variety shows. Tons of great stuff. Incredible.

I just have to say really quickly before we sort of wrap it up and move to the end game of the podcast, I really am so grateful for this festival. It really did make me a better comedian every year that I've gone. you guys were one of the first places that ever let me headline when I was really still sort of not green, but I, you know, I wasn't doing a lot of headlining back in the day. And you guys, one of my fondest memories was being, performing at the punchline as a headliner, as being selected to do that along with a couple of other comedians was huge. Every time I've, I've been able to sell out Cobbs is like a highlight of my career because, you know, it's the only place

I feel like a rock star is in San Francisco during Sketch Fest. And so I love it so much. And my absolute favorite memory is a couple of years ago, I was performing at the Great Star Theater in Chinatown. And that's where my Joel and Friends show was. Unfortunately, one of the shows was budding up against Chinese New Year in Chinatown. And if you're not familiar with Chinese New Year, fireworks are massively centered in the experience of Chinese New Year. And we were in the thick of it, and it sounded like a war zone outside.

It was like we were in Fallujah. And the thing is, is like, obviously that's not ideal, but it turned into something so magical because every comedian who went up had a different way of sort of dealing with it and riffing on it and, like, you know, playing with it and making it a part of the set. And just like, no one was like, no one bombed and no one was upset about it. everyone just turned it was like one of those things that like um it really just was like the spirit of the fest of like this is what this is what it is what it is what it is what it is what we're not only going to deal with it we're going to make it even funnier that this is happening right now and so i it's one of my favorite shows i've ever done it's a legend it's a legend show that show

is a legend because of that also like we all talk about that like we made we had we made future decisions about when the theater was available based on Chinese New Year because that was like kind of left out of the conversation when we were when we were doing our contract with the theater that year and it definitely was you know the you guys dealt with it the best I think our drivers and like artist services people were just like head in hands the entire week like oh my God we can't even get to people to pick them up so it was a zoo and then you're so right like your show and the way you guys adapted to it and made it part of the show and made the show better for it is definitely legendary at this point for sketch fest no doubt about it people talk about it

speed days i do want to get to really quickly um what and you kind of answered it i think and you can go ahead and double dip with the answers here but the question we always ask on speed date is you know what is your favorite, most memorable, influential romance from pop culture? And it can be a song, it can be a movie, it can be a television show, it can be a specific relationship, whatever, but what is something that, a depiction of love that you've seen in pop culture, that you said, that is what I want. I want to feel that way. It's so funny. Because when I think about romance in, especially like in film, I think about being that, being a teenager and being, kind of being more attracted to like doomed romances or being attracted to like you know the sort of not even like the will they won't they but also just like i'm just i'll just give you an example like this is a not this is not the answer to your question but when i think about like harold amod for example being yes this kind of ideal if extremely short-lived spoiler alert romance um that's more of like it's it's it's a lesson not just in how to love

but also how to be alive and how to be a person. I, whenever, like, anything or anyone, like a pet or a family member or a friend, whenever someone dies in my life and it just feels, there are those moments of grief that feel untenable, that just feel like I can't breathe through this feeling is so powerful. I genuinely always imagine Maude when Harold is losing his mind, because he's going to lose her. And that he says, I love you.

I love you. And she says, oh, Harold, that's wonderful. Go and love some more. That's like still comes into my, like, every time. Yeah. When I, the last, when my dog died recently, I was like, this is so hard. And then I thought, go and love some more. Like, the only thing you can replace that heartbreak with, and you can't replace it,

but you can fill some of that space with the, that you still have for that person, that being, and also for, you know, the people that you all will always make room for in your life to come. So that's definitely a big one. But then let's, like, go to sort of the opposite end of the spectrum of that. Right around that same time, I was also very obsessed with this movie called Heavenly Creatures, which is a Peter Jackson movie starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Linsky. And there was a sort of romance, like, the most cliche way of saying it would be folia. And it's based on a true story in New Zealand.

But there is this like magnetic, fierce, strange, living in your own world of imagination, like frenzied love that was such the experience for me of being a teenage girl and like having feelings for other girls and not knowing what to do with those feelings. And it felt very dangerous. for any number of reasons. And it became, it was, that's the kind of relationship that gets built in those circumstances. This is the sort of pressure cooker. This is a, this is a big plot point that is not a surprise.

But it is based on a true story where these two girls basically kill one of their mothers. So I'm not saying that the pressure cooker of every like queer female female relationship needs to result. It's a murder. But there is so much about that. as crazy and over the top as it is, I think that especially Melanie's performance, and I have the great pleasure of saying, like, I now know Melanie and, you know, and know her to be this extraordinary person who's just wonderful. I wish I knew Kate Winslet. But to do such a great job with something where this story is so specific, it's set in a totally different place, it's set in a

different time period. Everything about it is not like my life. And you still end up walking away going, I'm like, God, I know that feeling, though. I know that feeling is like an achievement, you know. But again, you don't have to, you don't have to go all the way through the story. You can just find that passion and crackling scary energy and like converted into something positive. That is where the movie ends. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Just turn it off at that point.

And then return to it when you don't need love inspiration. Exactly. Well, Janet Barney, this has been so lovely to chat with you. It's SketchFest, as I've said many times on this podcast, is one of my favorite things that happens every year. It's my, I love to get to start my year in San Francisco with you and everybody else that loves this festival and just has the, I always have the best time. I really do. So check out sfscatchfest.com. I think I have like four shows that I'm doing while I'm there this year.

I wish it were more honestly. But you can check out the lineup there. search my name if you are interested in that. But look at everything, because there's just so much, no matter what your interest is communically, you will find it at Sketchfest. It's a beautiful place to be,

San Francisco, in the wintertime even. Oh, for sure. I mean, that's why I'm getting married there. I was going to say, San Francisco basically belongs to you for at least 30 days at the end of one year

in the beginning of the next. And I will also very quickly shout out if you are a smartless fan, which you are, if you were listening to this podcast, I have news for you. You are a smartless fan. You should also go to, I Need You Guys with Jenny Slate and Gabe Leadman and Max Silvestri, as well as you should go to staying alive with John Gabris and Adam Pally. They're going to have very special guests. It's all in one weekend. So if you want to come see Joel and see bad dates and see his standup, you also can find a couple of other really great smartless podcasts there as well. Amazing. Incredible, incredible cross-promotion. Thank you so much, Jane. much. I'm a professional podcaster.

Is there anything you'd like to promote other outside of Sketch Fest that you got going on right now? I mean, I think those are the main ones. Yeah, we talked about Braving the Elements. That is very much out there. We're covering Quora now. We've made it through the first, you know, the three books of Avatar Last Airbender. We've made it through two books of Legend of Cora. And we are gearing up for the upcoming Last Airbender movie, Avatar Ang, and then the upcoming series as well.

So we have a lot to talk about it. The big question is, are you covering the M-night movie at some way? The what now? The M-night-Sharmelon movie. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, okay. Yes. Okay.

Asked and answered. Well, that has been our speed date for today. Janet Barney, thank you so much for joining us. Once again, I'll just say it. Sfsketchfest.com. Check it out and see us all there, starting January 15th. Bye-bye. Bye. Bad Dates is a production of Smartless Media created by Robert Cohen. Executive producers are Robert Cohen and Stuart Bailey.

Produced, edited, and engineered by Devin Tori Bryant. Produced by Anne Harris. Edited by Kyle McRough. Associate producer is Maddie McCann. Social media producer is Tommy Galgana. Executive producers are Sean Hayes, Will Arnett, and Jason Baitman. Executive producers for Smartless Media are Richard Corson and Bernie Kaminsky. Music by Cushie and Evan Schlever. If you've had a bad date or would like our advice on any dating issues, please tell us about it at baddatespod at gmail.com or call us at 984-265-3-283. That's 984-265-3-2-83. That's all for this week.

We will be back for more.