Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 279: What Makes Us Laugh? | Ear Biscuits Ep.279
Episode Date: March 15, 2021From Internet videos to Tiktok to TV shows and movies, listen to R&L talk about what comedic content is making them laugh and why in this episode of Ear Biscuits! To learn more about listener data a...nd our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This, this, this, this is Mythical.
Make your nights unforgettable with American Express.
Unmissable show coming up?
Good news.
We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it.
Meeting with friends before the show?
We can book your reservation.
And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.
Let's go seize the night.
That's the powerful backing of American Express.
Visit amex.ca slash yamx.
Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply.
Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast
where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time.
I'm Link.
And I'm Rhett.
This week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting,
we're gonna be talking about some stuff
that is making us laugh right now in our lives.
And I'll expand that to what makes us laugh
and what doesn't make us laugh.
I think that I've been trying to figure that out
as I've pulled together some thoughts about this.
And we've talked about it between the two of us in the past,
just trying to figure out what it is
that tickles our fuddy bones
and what the type of things we avoid.
And I just wonder if there's some conclusions
to draw from that.
Well, and I think, I don't know, it's always,
I always find it interesting,
I'm putting myself in your shoes listening.
I always find it interesting to listen to people
who do a particular thing for a living.
Like I guess one way you could distill
what we do for a living is we make people laugh. That, you know. Hopefully. That's one of the could distill what we do for a living is, we make people laugh.
That, you know, hopefully.
That's one of the main things that we're doing
is we're trying to make people laugh.
I think we elicit other emotions and reactions
along the way, but that's the main outcome.
They may scratch their heads or whatever.
That's the main outcome.
But I find it interesting when people who do something
for a living are then sort of talk about how they perceive those things
in society and how they enjoy the thing that they provide,
the service that they provide.
It's almost like you got somebody who's like,
you know Tom, you know Tom's burgers?
He makes a good burger,
but do you know where he actually really loves to eat? Oh, yeah, what kind of burger does Tom like Burgers? He makes a good burger, but do you know where he actually really loves to eat?
Oh, yeah, what type of burger does Tom like to eat?
Does Tom like to eat his burgers
more than he likes to eat Judy's Burgers?
And this is not a euphemism,
get your minds out of the gutter.
I thought Tom, isn't there a Tom?
There is a Tom's.
And there's a Tom number two.
That's something that happens in LA is that-
There's actually a lot.
You'll have a restaurant- There's a Tommy's.
There's a Tommy's.
Well, Tommy's is a chain.
Tommy's is a chain that does burgers and Mexican food.
It's been around for a long time.
But there's some other places that are not quite chains.
They're just big enough to have numbers.
Like there's Chinese restaurants
and some burger taco restaurants around LA that are like,
I've seen, you know, for a Chinese restaurant,
I've seen probably up to number,
maybe number four, you know, there's Frontier Walk
and then there's Frontier Walk 2.
I think when you get to number five is when you start
to saying, you know what, we don't have to number
these anymore.
But yeah, I know what you're saying.
I, you know, it's like, I wanna ask my mailman, you know,
how do you feel when you get mail?
Do you get, I mean, does Amazon come to your house?
How do you feel about that?
Does a mail person-
Deliver their own mail?
Deliver their own mail?
Or is that against the law?
You know.
That also sounds like a euphemism.
Don't shit where you eat, man.
Don't deliver your own mail.
Don't get caught delivering your own mail.
This is kind of getting back to our sorting the mail.
You wanna sort the mail-
Oh, well, you're gonna wanna hold on to that a little bit.
You wanna sort the mail.
Giving something I got for you. With someone else. You wanna sort the mail. Giving something I got for you.
With someone else.
You can sort the mail yourself.
There's no shame in that.
We were raised to think that there was shame
in sorting your own mail.
There's no shame in it.
It's one of the most natural things.
This is, well, you know what?
Delivering your own mail, that's crossing the line.
Okay, we're going here.
I have something for you and it's kind of crazy
that you're already on this track.
That I'm all male?
Well, okay, so just put a pause to that.
Just clear your mind.
I'm not gonna try to make a segue because that will,
there's something I wanna share with you
that's not related to what makes us laugh,
but I wanted to go ahead and put it
at the top of the episode.
And I could make a grand segue,
but instead I'd rather just kind of tabula rosa, clear I'd rather just kinda tabula rosa,
clear the slate.
Oh, tabula rosa.
Somebody's been watching a documentary.
What?
On Latin?
Latin and philosophy?
Well, you didn't take a Latin class.
No, I didn't.
I've been watching documentaries.
Right.
No, I know what the term tabloid,
that's just part of my vocabulary, man.
You did pay attention in vocabulary.
You did very well in vocabulary.
I remember thinking about how well you were doing
in vocabulary. Well, it's very binary.
You either know it or you don't.
I was like, Link's really into these vocabulary books
that miss, who would have given those to us
that class we would have been in?
They were smaller than the other textbooks.
It was a- It was a smaller book.
It was the AG vocabulary book.
So if you were academically gifted,
you got an additional vocabulary book
and it had like bigger words in it.
Right. And you were kinda,
and I took pride in that.
But listen, that's not what I wanna talk about.
I wanna talk about, it's been a while since Valentine's Day
but Christy got me something for Valentine's Day
and I keep meaning to bring it in and show it to you.
And I have it with me now.
And there's no pressure for you
to immediately know what this thing is.
In fact, I hope you don't immediately know what it is.
Well, I watch a lot of documentaries.
So I know a lot of things.
When she gave it to me,
there was a process of discovery
that I had to go through to appreciate what this was
and how to incorporate it into my personal life.
She bought one for herself and she bought one for me.
I have the one that she bought for me
in my pocket right now.
And I wanna- Oh, so it's small.
I'm gonna give it to you.
And I just kinda want, I'm kinda hoping
that you can have a similar experience
than the one I had when I opened
Christy's Valentine gift for me.
This is the only thing she got you?
It's the only thing I'm willing to share.
Oh, okay, all right.
And you may think, if he's willing to share this,
what is he hiding?
Hmm, okay.
All right, so maybe close your eyes.
And I wanna recognize that for the video version,
you're gonna get to see this,
but we'll try to paint the best picture possible
for just you audio first listeners.
I've got my eyes closed and I've got my hand out.
Okay.
Let me balance it a little bit on your palm.
What?
Kinda cup it.
Yeah, there you go.
This is...
I can't get it to stand up.
Okay, there it is.
That is my Valentine's gift from my wife.
Maybe you should just start off by describing it
for our listeners only.
Is the stand part of it?
That's the stand. So you could just put the stand down here. Why the stand part of it? That's the stand.
So you could just put the stand down here.
Why is it oily and wet?
Okay, so.
Because I've used it.
All right, it looks like, it has the shape of a,
of a micro, like one side looks like a microphone,
like it's like a circular thing.
It's got a circular head on it.
But then it has sort of a handle that if I just did this,
there's only one thing that I know.
What's it made out of?
It's made out of silicone, like rubber.
Or silicone, depending on who you are,
how you talk about it.
Push the button.
Well, I'm sure it's gonna vibrate.
Yeah, hold that up to the mic.
Let's get some.
It's a vibrator.
But that does- Oh, it vibrates.
But that does, I'm just saying that in a technical term.
Push it again.
More intense.
And then it's got, yeah, this is a typical vibrator
and then it's got different speeds.
It's pulsing.
There's a pulsating, then there's a fast pulsate.
Yes, and then it goes off.
There's four speeds.
And you can put it in this,
you can put it in that stand and it'll sit upright for you
and stare at you when you're not using it.
It's got a neck, it's got a round head on it
and it's got a slender neck.
It's got a neck that can be positioned.
That bends.
Now don't be too rough with it.
Why is it oily on the bottom?
Because I've been using it.
So yeah, it vibrates.
Christy's is pink and mine is black.
Okay, well I'll say a couple of things.
If you were to, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure it can be used if you wanted to sort your own mail
you could do it with this.
But I'm very convinced that there's so many better options
for that, I mean the fact that it's got these little nodules on it,
from a scientific standpoint, I would say that this is,
there's a hair on it, which is a clue.
Okay, you can pick, sure, pick those off.
What kind of hair is that?
Is it an exfoliation device?
It is a facial cleanser.
PMD is the brand.
She wouldn't tell me how much she paid for this thing.
I think it was over a hundred dollars.
Well, that's a rip off.
Basically for what I'm trying to tell you
is for Valentine's day,
Christy gave me a vibrator to rub on my face.
Right, a face vibrator.
A face vibrator.
Vibrator.
I mean, I've never had a gift like that before.
And sometimes we'll do it in sync,
well, over our sinks at the same time, in tandem.
The idea is that this is better than your hands
because it's gonna exfoliate,
it's gonna shake dead skin loose.
I've got a manual face brush that I use in the shower
to exfoliate something.
But what is the-
She's saying this is better.
Well, I'll tell you why she thinks it's better.
Because I guarantee you-
That's why.
Instagram marketing, period.
It has nothing to do with the world.
It has everything to do with you, Link Neal, in particular,
and what it's like to know you and experience with you.
Now, what is the brush in the shower made out of?
Bristles.
Okay.
I bought it myself.
Right.
There is, I have zero doubt,
I would bet every dime I've ever seen or will ever see
that you brush your face too aggressively with this brush.
I thought you were gonna say that bacteria grew on it,
which is also true.
They say that this thing is like antibacterial.
I'm just saying that Christy has probably observed
you brushing your face with that brush
and she's worried as she should be
because whenever you get to cleaning or touching,
basically everything that you decide to do,
you do very aggressively.
You're saying I don't exfoliate, I maxfoliate.
Yeah, I'm saying that your exfoliation is clearly,
definitely, without a doubt, too aggressive.
I mean, you freaking got told by your dentist
that you were brushing your teeth too hard.
The first thing I did notice was that,
because you grabbed this bottom bulb
and there's the little skinny neck.
It gives.
It has a give to it.
And I was thinking, this has not got enough scrub to it.
Exactly.
It does though, because you don't have to.
This is not what I wanna talk about.
You don't have to. I agree with this.
Listen, I agree. Your wife saved your face.
The reason why she got that, she got one for herself too.
The reason why it is marketing.
It's just a, it's an anti-aging,
vibrate, face vibrator.
Because you know, they say things like,
oh it gives you, it exfoliates,
it doesn't scrub too hard, it's antibacterial.
But basically it's just to put something on your face.
It just like, it's supposed to be more of a deep cleaning.
Well, we're in the age of vibration.
Everything vibrates now.
We're in the age of vibration.
Your toothbrush vibrates, your face brush vibrates.
And let me tell you, my battery.
There's only one thing that actually needs to vibrate.
What?
Of actual vibrator.
Because if that doesn't vibrate, that can be a problem.
When I got this and for the first couple of weeks,
I was totally prepared to just come in here
and make fun of it, which I've done to this point,
but now I'm gonna add a little something,
which is I might start liking it.
I really, you know, my battery went dead in my toothbrush.
You know, Quip is a sponsor, not currently a sponsor,
I don't think, but-
They'll come back around. So be it, I'm on board with the Quip. When the battery ran currently a sponsor, I don't think. But so be it.
I'm on board with the Quip.
When the battery ran out, I was like brushing manually
and I really felt like it wasn't doing the job.
Is that why your dentist was like,
you're brushing too hard?
You were like, well, my toothbrush stopped vibrating.
I think it hasn't. I had to make up for it.
My teeth have improved from that point.
But it is a bit strange
to just rub a vibrator all over your face,
but I just wanted you to know that every night
I'm doing that.
And if you think about me,
that's what I want you to picture.
Well, I'm not going to be thinking about that.
Have you rubbed, have you vibed,
have you put it anywhere else?
No, but-
Because that's what would be a problem with me.
I also think that this is kind of a back door,
you know, for someone who is associating some stigma
with self-pleasure.
And hey, we wanna remove any stigma we can
with self-pleasure, which is the thing
that you were talking about before I even brought
this thing out of my pocket.
Right.
By the way, you can keep it in your pocket
very discreetly.
I'm talking about, I talk about self-pleasure
at least once a day.
I think. It just usually doesn't happen on this podcast.
I'm gonna be like, whenever I start traveling and stuff,
you'll see me in airport bathrooms
using this vibrator on my face.
But you have to- You know how you see people
brushing their teeth. You have to use it with soap, right?
Yeah, I put a little dollop of face stuff there.
It's an anti-aging thing that's supposed to make you look
more youthful.
And you know, that's just-
There's no shame in that.
That marketing is irresistible.
You know, I've been exfoliating for the past two years
and having never done it before,
but it doesn't vibrate.
It's just a thing I scrub on my face with my hands.
You know what I'm saying?
What else needs a vibrator?
I move my hands very quickly when I do it.
I'm trying to figure out,
like the seat in my car will vibrate.
There's gotta be something that doesn't currently vibrate
that we can vibratize and just revolutionize a market.
Everybody's just a vibrating shirt?
Oh.
Just a shirt.
It's kind of like the shirts that make your dogs feel.
Comforted.
The tight shirts. Secure, yes.
It's a vibrating shirt.
A tight vibrating shirt.
I think you can vibrate too much though.
That's getting close to still massage
of places that you would massage.
Like if the shirt's really tight,
even if you inflate it a little bit to make it really tight
and then the massage kicks in,
I'm sure people have thought of that.
But I'm thinking of something else.
I think a vibrating comb.
Like a vibrating bed is something
that's been in motels for decades.
A vibrating comb. A vibrating comb.
So, because I've got this wavy hair that gets,
I mean, literally I cannot,
and you know if you've got hair like mine
or anything curlier,
you can't just take a comb and just comb the hair.
You just, the hair is, the structure of the hair,
you can't run a comb through my hair.
And so, without pulling a bunch of it out.
So the only way I can comb my hair,
and I've never had to comb my hair
because it's never been this long.
Is with a vibrator.
Is one of those wet brushes.
So I literally, the only time I comb my hair
is in the shower while there's conditioner in my hair.
Get all the conditioner in my hair
and I work all the knots out of my hair.
And by the way, I pull so much hair out,
like enough hair to sell to the hair club for men
to make a hair for a bald man.
Oh.
Like every time.
That's scary, isn't it?
And I only do that like twice a week
because it takes so long, I don't have time.
Well, you might run out of hair.
If that, you know, this is waterproof,
you make that brush vibrate and it's gonna work,
it's gonna work its way through the,
you know what, I bet you you could look on Amazon right now.
Or at least feel good.
Vibrating brush is probably already a thing.
If not, just file a patent right now.
Vibrating pillow?
I might get old.
I mean, you definitely can't read a book or your phone
like with your head resting on a vibrating surface.
Vibrating pen.
So you look like a nervous writer.
No, no, it vibrates very quickly
and it makes the, I bet you it would make the process
of writing even more enjoyable.
Maybe increase your stamina
and also make the ink come out even more uniform.
Vibrating pen.
Vibrating underwear.
Well, that exists.
What?
Yeah, that exists, man.
I could tell you a lot of things exist.
I go to those websites.
You talking about Adam and Eve?
Yeah, Adam and Eve and there's other ones like that.
Yeah, you can get vibrating underwear.
I mean, basically it's just a pair of underwear
that has a little vibrator pocket in there.
I mean, that's exciting.
Yeah, I'm into it, but that's been done.
We're not gonna win any awards for that.
And Vin America is not gonna give Johnny
a scholarship for that.
I remember there's that website, mypleasure.com,
not a sponsor. That's another one.
That's a good one because there's no pornographic images
on that website.
So if you wanna avoid those,
if that's not your cup of tea,
then you can go there and you can get your bedroom toys
and you don't have to worry about seeing things
that you don't wanna see,
if that's your thing that you don't wanna see.
Also not a sponsor, but hey, shout out.
I think they're still in business.
I mean, not having the real people on the website
was probably hurting the business.
But like you said, maybe there are people who,
I mean, I kinda wanna see how it fits.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Using that term.
I kinda wanna know like, well,
how does this actually relate to the human body?
You know, how do these vibrating underwears go on?
Is it one leg through each hole
and the waist to the top?
But there's nothing, let's see.
I mean, cause like your Xbox controller vibrates,
you freaking, everything vibrates.
I mean, is there nothing that we can come up with
that we can get excited about?
I think the comb is not a bad idea.
Comb is not a bad idea.
We got a musical comb.
It probably exists.
But is it musical vibratory?
Well, we could talk about that all day.
I'm gonna put this back in my pocket.
Yeah, just don't vibrate it while we're talking, please.
Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today.
Get a best buy gift
card of up to 200 on select phone activations with major carriers visit your nearest best
buy store today terms and conditions apply okay what makes us laugh so what my contribution
to this episode is going to be philosophical than, like I don't,
and I think the list that you have,
I'll have some camaraderie of that
because you actually made a list of things
that are currently making you laugh, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean some things that more historically
have made me laugh, have made us laugh that like,
I'd like to analyze.
My stuff is not, nothing really maybe except one is current,
but I am currently laughing at them.
I don't know, I could just start with one.
Sure.
So I kind of was thinking about
things that reliably make me laugh.
Like, I'll be honest, I don't often make the decision
to be like, I specifically want to laugh right now.
Like that is not a-
I really need a laugh.
I'm gonna go here.
Yeah, I-
That is not a common thing.
I don't think like that either.
And we've talked about this before on the show
that we typically, when we think about,
if we're gonna commit to a television show,
very rarely will it be a comedy.
Now there are some comedies I absolutely love,
but my favorite shows are dramas, right?
That's where, those are the things I kind of get lost in.
And even from movies, I typically like a drama
more than I like a comedy.
I don't just make the choice to be like,
hey, let's watch this because the primary intention
is for us to laugh.
And I don't know,
I've heard that from a lot of people who are comedians,
that they don't find their entertainment in comedy
as much as they find it in other things
because they're spending all day doing things
to make people laugh or thinking about things
to make people laugh.
So I don't know, maybe that has something to do with it.
Maybe there's an element of work mode.
I think there's also an element of like really escaping
into a story that you can really invest in
and put some time into and that level of escape
is akin to getting a laugh from something.
But I do think I would like to be a little more intentional
in not shying away from seeking out laughter
because it does the body good.
Yeah.
So if you were to go, where would you go first?
Well, just the other day,
we were here in the office shooting some stuff
and then we had a lunch break
and sometimes we'll eat lunch
and not have a meeting over lunch.
And this was one of those occasions
so we could eat lunch and just put something on the TV.
And I brought up,
I think the name of the video is
Vic Berger Presents the Very Best of Jim Baker.
Now, you remember if you watched Good Mythical Morning
a couple years ago, Jim Baker is the televangelist
who was really popular in the 80s, he and Tammy Faye,
and they also defraud, they were guilty of fraud
and he took a bunch of money.
But he had this sort of redemption.
He went to prison, then he came back
and he is again a televangelist.
And I think he's got it,
he's like set up in Branson, Missouri.
He invites these audiences into his program.
He's got a new wife who's kind of Tammy Faye-like,
wears not as much makeup,
but she kind of serves the same role
that Tammy Faye served for him back in the day.
And the thing that he has gotten obsessed with,
as many televangelists do, is the end times.
And so he's not just talking about the end times
and the apocalypse that's always impending.
He's also selling things that you can prepare
for the end times with, including-
And survive.
Jim Baker buckets,
which we taste tested on Good Mythical Morning.
You should watch that episode if you haven't.
It's like a big five gallon plastic paint bucket,
but it's filled with food.
And on his show, which he's got, you know,
he's got like a morning show set
and he's got his wife as a co-host
and he's got these other co-hosts
and they've got a studio audience
that's sitting in like dinner place settings.
Old folks mostly.
Yeah and I mean, you'd think you would open a bucket
and it would just be full of cream corn or potatoes
because they make it in the buckets
and they stir it as if they're feeding the 5,000.
They present it in the most unappetizing fashion
imaginable, including having a giant bucket of rice
in which Jim Baker reaches his bare hand into
and just eats the rice.
Now, let me just say, I could watch any of this
Jim Baker programming unedited just as it is
and be very entertained.
And I have for, I wanna be clear about this Baker programming unedited just as it is and be very entertained.
And I have for, I wanna be clear about this
because you guys know our story,
you know that we were raised in conservative Christianity,
evangelical Christianity,
and we're no longer a part of that tradition.
I don't consider myself a Christian at this point.
Feels like maybe we're coming after a preacher.
But let me just be very clear.
When I was a committed evangelical Christian
on staff as a missionary with a Christian organization,
I would still watch guys like Kenneth Copeland,
Jim Baker.
TBN. For entertainment purposes. guys like Kenneth Copeland, Jim Baker.
TBN. For entertainment purposes.
Again, this is a little bit of a deep cut
and it might be for those of you
who don't come from a Christian background,
you might be like, what?
I don't understand.
So when we were Christians, we considered ourselves
and I think rightly so, a totally separate thing from those televangelists, right?
And most Christians that I know, that I'm friends with,
that I was friends with, that I remain friends with
to this day, my family, everybody, they do not,
they think that those dudes are a bunch of whack jobs.
Kooky.
So they, just to their credit,
they recognize that these guys are swindlers,
these guys are about getting rich, these guys are about getting rich,
these guys are about taking advantage of the vulnerable,
these guys are about making these empty promises,
at least from the tradition that we come from.
So but I always got such a kick out of it
because you can't deny the entertainment value
that these televangelists bring.
Yeah, so there's no agenda here
to like tear some sort of preacher apart.
This is something that I was thinking about
exactly the same way that I think about now,
my entire life, just to be clear.
But.
And he has taken advantage of people by, you know,
tapping into fear and selling buckets of camp food
for thousands of dollars.
Yeah.
Enough, trying to sell enough of it that he's
demonstrating how you can turn the buckets
into furniture in your home.
You just put a table top over them and then a curtain.
But Vic Berger, to give the-
V-I-C-B-E-R-G-E-R.
To give the other side of this,
I don't really, we've never met Vic before.
I don't even know if that's his real name, but.
We love him.
He's been associated with people like Tim and Eric
and he was super, he was associated with Super Deluxe
doing some stuff for them for a while.
But essentially, this guy is the master of awkward edits,
of taking people who are genuinely already funny
and weird and awkward, and then editing them
in a way that accentuates that awkwardness
to a complete new level.
The music and the edits and the way that he kind of doubles
back on things and emphasizes things.
It's a creative layer that's editorial
in a sense that like,
he's bringing his point of view to it
and adding another layer,
but you never lose the initial magic.
You can watch a Vic Berger edit
and appreciate the fact that yes, it's manipulated,
but the things that Jim Baker and his cohorts are saying
is not manipulated.
I'm sure that if-
He really said and did all these things.
And so, like you said, you could just watch the show.
You need a little more patience and you got,
you have to get over the sadness
of him taking advantage of people.
But at a certain point, especially with Vic's additions,
you can just embrace it as this strange comedy.
Well, I wanna, I'll push back on that, embrace it as this strange comedy.
Well, I'll push back on that getting over the sadness of him taking advantage of people because-
Getting over is not the right word.
I'll just say that I think that the people
who are taken in by people like Jim Baker,
I don't have a lot of sympathy for them.
Well, that's harsh because I mean,
you got like, you know, you got some blue haired grannies
and it's just, you know, you gotta protect those people.
You can't expect them to take advantage.
But what harm is being done to them?
Money, they're being drained.
Yeah, but I mean.
They're getting buckets of food.
I don't think that those,
I don't think people are going broke.
I don't think these old folks are going broke buying Jim Baker buckets, you know? And I do think that those, I don't think people are going broke. I don't think these old folks are going broke
buying Jim Baker buckets, you know?
And I do think that-
But they're scared of the end times
and they're fear mongering.
I do think that, and I do have,
I don't have Jim Baker buckets.
I have a fair amount,
I have a few months supply of freeze dried food at my house.
And I got you some, that's probably the only,
you probably have like a couple of weeks that I gave you.
But it isn't like selling a blessed,
and I don't know if Jim Baker may do this,
but like some people will like sell a blessed towel
that's got holy water on it.
And he's not like healing people.
He's not like giving people false healing hope
and stuff like that.
Maybe he did that back in the day.
All I'm saying is I don't feel that bad
about that part of it because the worst thing
that's happening is some old folks
are getting more freeze dried food
than they actually will use.
They're going to die and this stuff is gonna be
on their shelves and get handed down to the next generation.
So.
Listen, but the one thing we can agree on
is that even though I feel more,
I feel bad about it more so than you,
I feel sorry for these people.
It's so funny that you can still get over it.
I can still get over it.
And we can agree on that, how funny it is.
I mean, it's taking this reality
and it's adding this creepy juxtapositions
and you gotta watch it.
And there's, and I'm sure you're gonna,
this is one of the things that you're gonna talk about.
No actor, I'm not interested in an actor
portraying a Jim Baker character.
That's, I mean, now, sure, I would laugh at it.
Like, okay.
I would pay a ticket price to watch Sam Rockwell
and a Jared Hess.
Yeah, well, okay, I'm a fan of-
That already exists, by the way.
I'm a fan of the Righteous Gemstones, the HBO show,
which is different, but you know, I'm a fan of that.
It's kind of making fun of kind of televangelist
mega church culture in the South.
But it's a totally different thing
when you know this is a dramatization.
But I would much rather see the real thing.
And I'm sure that, first of all,
I know that Jim Baker and his wife
and the other people associated with it,
especially some of the younger people
who are some of my favorite people to watch
are the younger people who are associated with it
like on stage.
Yeah.
I know that they know about the Vic Berger edits
and you know that they're mad about them
because they think that it misrepresents them
and like you're saying, not really though.
It's like he's taking all the things that you said
and you did and he's putting them together
and yes, he's manipulating the edit
and if this was in a court of law,
this would not be admissible evidence
but you're laughing at the things that actually happened
in the juxtaposition of it.
Yeah, we have this shared fascination
with like people being real.
What was the last thing that filled you with wonder that took you away from
your desk or your car in traffic?
Well,
for us,
I'm going to guess for some of you,
that thing is.
Anime!
Hi,
I'm Nick Friedman.
I'm Lee Alec Murray.
And I'm Leah President.
And welcome to Crunchyroll Presents The Anime Effect.
It's a weekly news show.
With the best celebrity guests and hot takes
galore so join us every friday wherever you get your podcasts and watch full video episodes on
crunchy roll or on the crunchy roll youtube channel you know that as a family we are
dedicated we've dedicated our lives to watching survivor that is like our life it's the funniest
show on television but But you know what?
One of the things that I love about it is that
when you get some really good characters,
which is basically just people who are unabashedly strange
and they can't hide it.
You know, out there on the island,
your soul is bared, your personality is,
like all of your defense mechanisms, everything you do,
I love the psychological analysis of that
and some people are really funny and they do a good job,
an Emmy winning job of editing these characters.
And especially because they're put in situations
that aren't romantic.
That's actually, you know,
there's so much of that out there.
That's why I love Survivor is that you're seeing
real people, sometimes really strange people,
being pushed to their limits
and it's not about making out with somebody.
Now, I know that that's also entertaining for you
and you really get into it.
Well, I'm not into 90 Day Fiance because of the making out,
trust me, or The Bachelor.
It's for the comedy.
It's for the putting normal people in a situation,
in an abnormal situation, really.
For me, it's the same principle.
I also enjoy, I enjoy Survivor.
We don't watch it religiously, but yeah, I-
It's not a comedy, but-
Yeah, but I enjoy the trashy reality shows more
because the people are more extreme.
Like that's the thing, Jim Baker,
like I have complicated feelings towards Jim Baker
because he creeps me out in a certain way,
but at the same time,
something about the way his eyes move
and the mouth, the position that he has
and the way that he expresses things
is incredibly endearing.
These are things that just happen on his face.
Yeah.
He hasn't, you can tell that he hasn't watched himself back
and become a persona.
Like a lot of, I think televangelists, I think they do that.
There's a performance as,
and of course he's a performer too, he's a host,
he's been on television for decades.
But he's not polished or slick.
Yeah, but so much of it is still instinctive.
Like why is his face doing that right now?
Right, and if he was your granddad,
you would find all those weird things,
like his fashion sense,
like the fact that he's got that hat with a cross on it,
and then he's got these vests that he'll wear
that look like he's going fly fishing, but he's not.
He's just hosting a show.
Yeah.
These little choices that he's making.
A lot of empty pockets.
I just, I find it intoxicating.
You know what I'm saying?
It's great.
And the process of someone trying to be funny,
and again, this goes back to why
when we made the local commercials,
we were so into it,
because you take somebody like Gorgon,
from the Shift It, Shift It commercial,
and the entertainment quality for us
was based in getting Gorgon to make a commercial.
You know what I'm saying?
It was like-
Well, it was also very, what do you mean?
Well, it was very important that we preserve and platform
the strangest parts of our clients that were actually real.
Well, but also-
We didn't manufacture a personality for them.
Like the scene where he is answering the phone,
but he hesitated and he did. he, we didn't fully direct him.
When you wanna get these type of performances out of people,
you direct them enough to push them in a direction.
To see what they would do.
But then you let them direct themselves.
So it was like, I can't remember.
I think he picks up the phone and says something.
No, he's on the phone and he sees the woman drive up.
Oh yeah, but he didn't know if he should keep the phone up
or put it down and there's a hesitation.
Yeah.
And it's like, we see that kind of thing
and we're like, that's the gold.
That's what we want.
I don't know, and I can't really express,
I can't articulate what it is, but for me,
Honest.
Yeah, relatable honesty in that moment of he's like,
I don't know what to do with the phone.
And we're like, well, that's why
this is going in the commercial.
And it kind of worked from a story standpoint too.
They're like, I know he sees this beautiful woman
who just responded to a Craigslist ad
to show up and be in his commercial.
But like, oh, he's bum-fuzzled on a couple of,
that's what it seems like from a character standpoint
he's doing, but you know at the same time
that as he's not an actor and he's doing this,
I mean, I know you wanna talk about Family Feud, right?
There's a connection to that.
Yeah, so another thing that I'll do is watch
compilations
of Family Feud stuff.
Yeah, we've done this for years.
But more recently,
I've been watching just whole episodes of the Family Feud.
Now, is it as good as the compilations?
It's not as concentrated by any means.
But you actually get into the gameplay
and my family and I will sit down,
you guys are watching Survivor,
the McLaughlins are watching Family Feud.
And being like committed to the gameplay,
like really everyone's trying to answer,
everybody's like saying the answer
and we're getting into it
and then I find myself doing the same thing.
So one of the classic things in Family Feud
is after the round has been completed
and there's still some unanswered,
unrevealed answers on the board,
they'll be like, they reveal them
and then the crowd just-
Reads out loud. Impulsively repeats it.
Yeah. You know, it's like,
we asked 100 people,
what's the first thing you put on in the morning?
Underwear! Like everybody says that.
And I find myself watching it and saying underwear.
You speak out loud?
Yes, I am a committed audience member
and then I'm like, okay, what is Steve gonna do?
Steve's gonna, he's okay, oh, he's all over this one.
They're gonna say this, he's gonna make fun of this guy.
Oh, he's gonna pull back a little bit
because this girl's not responding that well to this.
And also the producers making the decision,
the whole system of Family Feud is now designed
to create YouTube clips.
So it's gotten way more suggestive.
They, because it used to be accidentally suggestive
and then they were just like, let's just go all the way
and let's just ask questions.
Sometimes they go a little too far.
Get embarrassing answers.
Seems too forced.
But again, it's also, I'm fascinated by,
these people playing this game have never been on TV.
And I'm thinking about what is going through this,
like this dad brings his family
and he's thinking 17 things. He's thinking, I'm thinking about what is going through this, like this dad brings his family and he's thinking 17 things.
He's thinking, I'm on television.
I don't wanna be an idiot.
I might end up being on YouTube.
I wanna win the money.
I wanna beat that other family.
I gotta think about the actual way
that people would have answered this.
Yeah, it's tough.
And I'm fascinated by the honest human psychology
of somebody being on a game show.
Yeah, once you, and it's a brilliant setup
because once you have all of that going through your mind
and then Steve Harvey's in your face asking you a question,
that surreal experience.
You're like, I'm there now.
Then you, you can't manufacture responses.
You end up just saying the first thing
that comes to your mind.
You know, you're playing the game,
but like you're playing it in this kind of weakened,
laid bare state where it's like, you can't,
you know, there's the self-preservation,
you know, that quotient has gone to nil by this point.
And it's the perfect recipe
for people to embarrass themselves with honesty.
Yeah.
Honesty.
It's great.
That's what we go back to.
Steve Harvey, the reason that he's such a good host
is because he's incredibly honest.
So like you can't say something that's a dumb answer
and not have him point it out and not have him drag you.
And some people might be like, well, that's kind of unfair.
It's like, you know what you're getting into,
you know, chill out a little bit.
You know what you're getting into when you go on that show.
And the thing is, is that in the same,
you know how you and I are,
we make observations about people.
We've talked about this many times
where we'll go to a party, whatever,
we have an interaction with somebody
and there'll be something specific about a person,
just something notable about them.
And then we'll get into the car, go home and be like,
hey, when we talked to that guy,
what did you notice about him?
And then we'll be like, we have fun figuring out,
well, what was it that you noticed about him?
It was his jacket.
Or it was the way he pointed at somebody
when he was talking to them.
You know, some specific thing,
we're fascinated by that element of human behavior.
Was he winking?
Or was there something in his eye?
And Steve Harvey will not let you get away with something.
He points it out and then he can be funny about it
in the moment, that's what makes him good.
Every Family Feud host has been able to do that.
The observational sense of humor
does make me think of Seinfeld.
That was our favorite sitcom growing up.
It was unlike any sitcom before it.
But it's taking, you could tell when you were watching these characters
and everything that happened that it was Larry David
and Jerry Seinfeld pumping these characters
full of their observational humor.
So yeah, you're one step removed
in that these are, you know, these are actors.
But the subject matter was still that observational honesty
and exploring that stuff.
And then you, with a character like Kramer,
or a lot of the characters, it was, yeah,
it was the other characters kind of picking them apart,
picking apart, Jerry picking apart his dates.
Then everyone picking apart Elaine's dates, including Elaine.
And well, they picked apart everybody
that was outside of their circle,
which I think is something that maybe we enjoyed
and then adopted in our friendship
and sort of picking apart other things.
But they were all assholes.
Yeah. All of them.
All four of the main cast.
Who never changed.
Well, Kramer wasn't.
No, he wasn't, yeah.
As much, but they were all assholes,
but, and that's why one of the reasons people didn't think
that it would work is like, well, who likes these people?
And that might, and also might be one of the reasons that
But I didn't like-
The younger generation watches it now
and is like, well, first of all,
you have to get over the 90s of it
and the laugh track and all that stuff.
But it wasn't that I liked them first.
I understood how they thought.
Right, yeah, exactly.
And then you start to like them as people
when you start to appreciate more of it.
But I was thinking about like,
what are the shows I watched?
Now, I watched Ted Lasso and I really liked it.
But not necessarily for the comedy.
But-
I mean, there were definitely funny moments.
I like it for the heart.
Yeah, for the heart, I think it was, you know,
I really enjoyed how the characters all went on journeys.
And yeah, I don't think it was first and foremost
the comedy that made me love the show.
It took a while to get into it.
There was like some hokey situations or whatever.
But some of my least favorite parts of Ted Lasso
are some of the jokes that don't work.
Now I think Ted Lasso as a character,
Oh yeah. like he worked.
I love the show. He was locked in.
It was the people around him and the type of jokes.
But you know, as we've talked about
the things that we liked the most,
like when I think of television,
I think of Seinfeld, I think of The Office,
and then when I think of movies,
and I try to draw some conclusions from this,
like the type of comedy movies that we like,
like the Adam Sandler movies,
even the Will Ferrell movies,
like that type of stuff that was like over the top.
I never, I watched some of those,
but I never really got into it.
Like the type of comedies that I really got into
were like the Coen brothers comedies
and then trying to figure out why is it that
I thought the Big Lebowski was so much funnier than,
well, I was gonna say Talladega Nights,
but that's a really funny movie.
I think, well.
That one's an exception because.
I also think that Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler,
it's a very different approach.
Yeah, once I began to appreciate the Adam McKay of it all,
and once he started to create
so many other Oscar worthy movies,
is that like I started to reassess how I had written off those Will Ferrell movies.
And I do think that they're great.
But I think that the thing that I was drawn to,
and I think both of us, and that we've talked about is,
well, we definitely don't like the joke oriented sitcoms.
We like more of the situational oriented sitcoms
It's joke oriented sitcoms. We like more of the situational oriented sitcoms
and have that different single cam tone
versus the multicam big bang theory.
Like every word out of their mouth is a joke
and everything is just a setup
for them to get to tell more jokes.
Yeah.
And realizing that didn't resonate with me,
but seeing what was different about the things that did.
And I think one of the things that concluded was,
I mean, having characters that are built funny,
that I could, you know, I think that there's something
to that in what we've already talked about,
about our fascination with the comedy and real people,
like a really well-built comedic character.
Take any character from the Big Lebowski,
I think it applies.
And then you put those type of characters in situations
that are funny and then let them say what they would say
and do and respond in those situations.
And that's-
And it will be funny.
And it will be funny. And it will be funny.
I love that.
And there will be-
As opposed to the joke oriented stuff
when it's like all of this is just a setup
so they can say things that are funny.
Yeah.
And then it's all about,
well, did I laugh at that joke or not?
And did I laugh at a high enough percentage of the jokes
to think this movie was good?
I think it's when you can sense the presence of the writer.
It becomes, it's a turnoff, right?
For us, yeah.
Yeah, so, and we say funny situations versus jokes.
When we first talked about that,
we thought it was like a revelation.
It seems pretty obvious.
No, but I think the way that you broke it down
is exactly right.
It's funny people being put in funny situations
and they will say memorable funny things,
but it's not jokes.
Okay, so you take some,
one of my favorite shows, Barry, right?
Barry on HBO, Bill Hader, you know,
plays basically a hit man who's trying to-
Become an actor.
And it has one of our favorite actors in it, Steven Root.
And it is, it kind of toes the line, right?
It had, there are some ridiculous characters
that say things that no one would ever actually say,
no matter who they were, you put them in this situation.
Okay, that was a writer's idea
of what would be a funny thing to say.
That was a joke, that was a setup, that was a punchline.
It happens.
And you know what, when they go a little bit too far,
I don't like it, but I love the show
because they don't do it very often.
Oh, the way we put it was choices.
Yeah, funny choices versus jokes.
Yes, it's like, so it's kind of like behind the scenes
with the brilliance of Barry is that you take,
you put these, you build these characters,
you put them in this like high stakes situation,
but you tweak everything for the comedy.
Everything that it could be,
I mean, this could be Kiefer Sullivan in 24.
You can have the same characters in the same story,
but you could, the way that all the situations
are turned towards comedy to kind of skewer
the acting world and acting classes
and just the situations, the irony of somebody
who is a killer trying to become an actor.
We just can sense this funny,
those, the choices set up the comedy,
not the, and then you trust the payoff
versus writing the joke as a, the punchline is a payoff.
And in the stuff that we're currently working on,
which we continue to develop and write things
that we really hope you'll see at some point.
But that's really what we're focusing on now.
It's so important, the beginning is so important to us
for those reasons, because then you trust
that if you set it up right,
that the comedy will take care of itself.
And this is not, let me just be clear,
this is not what we did on Buddy System.
Either, season one, which we always sort of dog a little bit
and say isn't any good, it's not great.
It had some jokes in it that didn't land.
We kind of did the funny situation thing.
Second season we like better because it was better executed.
It was a better story.
We were playing characters.
We weren't just playing ourselves.
But it was absurdist and also it did have many things
that were said and done were things
that no one would ever say and do.
And I think that it worked and I do like absurdist comedy
and I even like sitcoms at times,
but none of the stuff that we're currently working on
plays in that world.
Right now, everything that we're working on is like,
these characters are funny.
This situation that we're putting them in
is going to draw out the funny
because as they navigate this world
or this serious situation or this perilous situation,
they're gonna end up saying and doing funny things
because that's the way the characters are built.
But we're gonna try to authentically represent
what we think this character would actually do
in this situation.
And that's a big, that's kind of a big shift
for us creatively, right?
Because again, when you think about what we do
and sort of like the sketches that we put out
on Instagram or TikTok or that kind of thing,
it's like, those are, it's a completely different medium.
It's not, it's, the conceit is we're in a comical,
ridiculous, non-believable world.
So it's a totally different thing.
The stuff that we're working on narratively,
like longer form stuff,
is in that sort of more authentic place.
But let's go to the social media of it all,
because I mean, of course, my kids only go to TikTok,
and so much of that is comedy, you know?
And they're like, just sitting there laughing
and like sharing stuff with each other.
And I think that the way, the reason that,
and I'll show, and I know you know the guy
that I'm gonna talk about,
because you think he's funny as well.
I think the thing that makes a funny TikTok for me,
and again, this is obviously completely scripted
because in the example that we're gonna talk about
and in the example, many examples,
it's like one person playing every single role.
So it's obviously fake and obviously written.
It's a narrative thing.
It's the very specific choices
that make it feel like fresh comedy.
It makes it feel like somebody is kind of pushing
into a new sort of boundary and a new way of thinking
about comedy or there's just something about this person
that is just intrinsically funny.
So I'm gonna talk about
PD USA.
So P-E-T-E-Y USA. So P-E-T-E-Y, USA.
Long haired bearded guy.
He's only got 585,000 followers
at the time of this recording.
And I don't know anything about this guy.
All I know is his TikToks
and I find his TikToks very funny.
So I'm just gonna, let's just,
did you see the one about cornhole?
Yeah, I've seen a lot of these.
I really like them.
Okay, well, let's just watch the one about cornhole.
And he's playing, I mean, he's playing this,
PD USA is this character,
but something about the fact
that you don't know what you're gonna get
when you scroll across TikTok.
You wanna believe that this is a real person.
He does such a good job in his portrayal that,
I mean, the nature of the comedy is so strange
that you know that it's intentional,
but it's also so strange that it must have come
from a really strange person.
So you start to think that this guy is self-aware enough
to tap into his strangeness,
but I think there's a lot of the real guy out front here.
Definitely.
So even that, trying to parse that is fascinating.
He's not trying to be somebody who he's not.
He's trying to be an elevated version of himself.
Okay, let's watch this one about cornhole.
Okay.
Plain cornhole.
Oh, a hand comes out of the cornhole.
Takes his corn bag.
It's kinda creepy.
Oh, it's him in the cornhole.
Cut in half, man.
Oh my God. Cut in half.
How are you not even bleeding?
Oh, I'm bleeding pretty good, actually.
Yeah, oh, he's got blood all over the place.
I love the fact that when he says expletives,
he beeps it out but you can still hear it.
He's making all these choices.
Hey, what's going on up there?
Now he comes out of the house.
A third version of himself.
Is he bleeding?
Yeah, he's bleeding pretty good.
What's he doing in the cornhole?
He just wanted to do a little goof
before he passed on. It's just such a
strangely normal conversation. A little goof. He's doing pretty good, actually. Does he want a soda or anything? I got some in the corn hole? He just wanted to do a little goof before he passed on. It's just such a strangely normal conversation.
A little goof.
He's doing pretty good actually.
Does he want a soda or anything?
I got some in the fridge.
I'll ask him.
Hey man, do you want a?
Oh no, he's dead.
Geez.
What's up?
I think he just passed away.
Passed away.
Yeah, he's passed on unfortunately.
Passed on.
Cutting half guys tend to do that.
Yeah, half a guy doesn't tend to last too long, does he?
That's the end. That's the end? That's it. Yeah, half a guy doesn't tend to last too long, does he? That's the end.
That's the end?
That's it.
Yeah, half a guy doesn't tend to last too long, does he?
I mean, who comes up with this stuff?
Petey does.
How does Petey come up with this stuff?
It's brilliant.
I mean, I can see, if I met this guy
and he was totally normal, I would believe it.
I mean, the performance could be that masterful.
He could be somewhere in the middle
and there could be a lot of strangeness in his real persona,
but I can definitely see him showing up in movies.
It has to already be happening.
Sure. It has to be on sets.
He's going to auditions.
Playing this character.
Let's watch another one.
I don't even know which one this is.
It just has 3 million views, so it must be good.
Play.
Okay, so he's watching,
It's guys swimming.
Watching guys like swim in an Olympic pool.
With himself.
Hey what's up guys?
Hey what's up?
Then he comes in.
You got it man.
Epic.
Hold their breath?
They hold their breath in the water
and then they do one of these.
He's acting like a swimmer.
Hey man.
None of these guys have ever seen swimmers.
Yeah, yeah, they're fascinated by it.
No way, five of them.
Well yeah, but they're guys.
Incredible.
Guys swimming like fish.
Guys swimming like fish.
Ha, now they're slapping five with each other.
I mean the editing is so great because it's just one guy.
And the music.
Music is strange.
Still giving fives.
It's like what?
That's it.
It's just, I just.
Footage of swimmers turns into.
It's just they're watching guys swimming.
They meaning him playing five different characters.
Everybody who comes in.
They're all the same guy in different clothes.
So great.
And he puts his music, this like,
this weird ethereal music underneath everything
that is also a very specific and wonderful choice.
It's just so fresh.
I think that's the thing that I love about it
is that I can't compare it
to any other comedic sensibility.
It's out of left field and so it surprises you
and it makes you feel a little envious.
Like I know that I could never be that guy,
but I'd like to have that ability.
Well, I think that, yeah, we have a tendency,
again, I think that the PD is,
this is calculated, of course.
He knows why it's funny.
He's self-aware enough to know why he's funny.
But you can tell, just like you said earlier,
he, if you met this dude,
the way that he would interact with you
is like one of these characters.
I don't know anymore.
No, what I'm saying is like,
I mean, that's his haircut.
He has chosen to have that long hair in that way, right?
That's a choice.
He could be in a, you know,
he could be in an Allman Brothers cover band.
Right, but, and I think that there is this like,
yeah, okay, well, we would have to play
some kind of character in order to achieve this.
And at that point, it would,
this is one of the things that's happening
with comedy in general, right?
So there is this, in a good way,
this new appreciation for authenticity.
Again, he is playing a character,
he's coming up with these situations that,
I'm not saying that he would just bond
with some dude over a guy swimming in that way.
It's clearly a joke, it's clearly elevated,
and it's clearly scripted.
But that thing you're talking about is this authenticity
of, it's the same reason that people are so into
commentary videos right now,
it's because I'm watching someone-
Honestly process.
Process something.
And if they're really funny
and they make really funny observations about it,
they're kind of interacting with it in the way
that I want to interact with this stuff.
The best commentators are the ones that
you never get a sense they're trying too hard.
That's absolutely something that we have,
we've had a problem with all along
is just trying too hard, pushing too hard.
And I think once we've,
I mean, we're still relaxing into Good Mythical Morning
and I'm encouraged that I think people are picking up on it
that it's,
you know, we're pushing things less and less
and just saying, you know what, we're just going with it.
And if we do something that where we are pushing
the comedy or something, I think that you can tell
or they can tell that it's more from a place of like,
we're just motivated to wanna do it.
We're not trying to achieve something
or get something out of somebody.
We think it's funny.
And so we're just screwing around with each other.
I think that level of authenticity is something,
after all these years, we're still working at
and still homing.
You know, another-
Well, no, that would be honing.
That is the one. Oh, shit. You actually, yeah, Well, no, that would be honing. That is the one.
Oh, shit.
You actually, yeah, if you're still working on it,
you're still honing it.
Still working on the use of that term.
You can just use honing in all situations, though.
Another, we, well.
That's what you concluded before
and then you just went back on yourself.
It's your fault.
You get in my head, man.
Still homing.
I mean, the other show that I like,
the HBO show How To With John, what's his last name?
Yeah.
I'd like to look it up.
Can't remember his freaking last name.
I put it on my list of,
we're having a creative little meeting later today.
Yeah, it's on my list.
It's on my list, yeah.
Of favorite shows.
Look up his freaking last name
because as much as I love the show,
I hate the fact that I can't remember right now.
I've got it on my list.
Yeah, it's so, I mean, he films-
Wilson, John Wilson.
How to with John Wilson, he films,
he's got reams of footage from his life
living around New York City
and then he turns it into these,
he pieces it together as these narratives.
Yeah, kinda.
Like there's stories that you're following.
There's ideas that he's exploring
and there's lots of left turns.
So it's not a beginning, middle and end.
It's a beginning, left turn, left turn.
Look at where we ended up.
You loved every second of it.
But we have a difference of opinion, I think,
on just how authentic he is.
How much is he the guy that he is presenting himself
and how much is calculated?
I think it's more calculated than you.
Last time we talked about it at least.
I'm on the opposite side of PD USA.
But this is good because this is exactly what,
first of all, I don't care how calculated it is
because the final product is believable.
Right. And that is how I think
that all this move towards authenticity
that's taking place in the creator-driven
entertainment system that is TikTok, YouTube, whatever,
it's not going to do away with larger budget
produced scripted content.
It just influences it.
And the way that it influences it
is the stuff that we're talking about,
which is really good.
It's why comedians have to be better actors
than they had to be 20 years ago,
I think, in order to make the kind of comedy
that I wanna see.
And that is because you need to be able to get me
to buy into the authenticity,
the reality of the character that you're portraying.
And then I can feel free to laugh.
But the moment that I feel like I've sensed the actor
and I sensed the writing,
which is something that no one cared about
when Chevy Chase
was doing it in the 80s.
And again, you can still go back and enjoy all those things,
legitimately enjoy Chevy Chase in the 80s.
I'm not saying it's not funny,
but the reason that you can't just do that now
is because people are viewing all that old stuff
through the lens of nostalgia and you're appreciating it
and you're giving it the benefit of the doubt because of what it was.
But nowadays, I do think the stuff that,
I think that it isn't some grand calculation
that we've made, I think that we're responding
to the environment of the comedy that we're into
and is around us and we're like,
this has gotta be, it has to feel authentic.
That doesn't mean that somebody's not gonna be
a character actor, that doesn't mean that somebody's
not gonna play a completely different person. It doesn't mean that somebody's going to be a character actor. That doesn't mean that somebody's not gonna play a completely different person.
It doesn't mean that somebody's going to be,
you take Christopher Guest,
I mean, one of the reasons that that stuff holds up for me,
we watched Best in Show.
All the mockumentaries.
We watched Best in Show a couple weeks ago,
me and Jesse and Shepard,
and Shepard absolutely loved it.
You know, you take the character that Christopher Guest
plays in that movie, which is obviously.
The hound dog guy?
The hound, it's not him, it's this dude from
someplace in North Carolina, but I can't remember,
I think it's a made up name, Pine Tree,
Pine Nut, North Carolina.
Yeah.
But everyone plays those characters so authentically.
What does he list out?
He lists out different types of-
Types of nuts.
Types of nuts.
You got pine nuts, you got peanuts,
you got almond nuts, you got-
And he loves those dogs.
Yeah, but the reason that he's funny-
It's because you can tell
it's Christopher Guest doing this off the top of his head.
But he's also tapping into something
that is representative of something that is real and exists.
Yeah, which is why Talladega Nights
is kind of like the outlier Will Ferrell movie for me
because I knew how true it was
and it was actually a lot more grounded
than someone who didn't live,
grew up around where we did,
would think that it was just too ridiculous,
but it was actually more grounded.
Truth, I mean, there's all kinds of theories
about what makes something funny
and philosophers have been debating it forever,
but I always kind of gravitate towards this idea
that there's truth in comedy
and that's the thing that you're kind of connecting with.
And you can get to truth through things that are absurd
and completely unreal.
Like we both are huge fans of the Mighty Boosh
and nothing that happens in the Mighty Boosh is, it's almost like you can't,
you have to go to, you have to pick a side
of the argument, right?
You have to be like, I'm going to try to be authentic
and represent the truth in a way that you'll find relatable
or I'm gonna be so far removed from your own understanding
and experience that you'll be, it's almost,
there's an uncanny valley, I think,
between assertist and realist. Yeah. That I just don't, if you there's an uncanny valley, I think, between absurdist and realist.
Yeah.
That I just don't, if you live in an uncanny valley,
I can't get into. I love Rick and Morty.
I mean, the absurdist nature of Rick and Morty,
I mean, as an animated show, I guess,
as an old fart like me, it's like,
you have that suspension of disbelief and like,
but yeah, the Mighty Boosh did that too,
where it was like, you're just gonna embrace the crazy.
When you talk about the evolution of comedy,
it does, and of television,
I mean, it does make me think of like the brilliance
of WandaVision and how I noticed
that I enjoyed the later episodes better
because they were, it was easier to enjoy them
because the form was something that was closer to.
It's more familiar.
It was more, well, it was more.
Real. Real.
Because of that trajectory that you're describing
in comedy applies to television in general.
You know, I think about if you go back to the,
if you showed just to even, if you showed just to even,
if you showed an episode of Modern Family,
which is still very heightened,
but if you go back and you show that to someone
from the 1950s and you remove the shock of technology
and culture and you just made it about the,
like the way they were acting,
by the way, I think that's one of the,
it's such a, WandaVision is such a ballsy move, what they did.
And like I told you, I think that going back and watching it
just to appreciate the acting and how they acted
within the different eras was pretty brilliant.
And especially, but I don't know how.
Who's the supporting actor in that?
Who plays her friend?
Agatha.
Yeah, who plays Agatha?
She's fabulous.
Catherine, whatever her name is.
She does that perfectly.
She embodies that, those stereo.
I mean, Elizabeth Olsen is great in it,
but Catherine, what's her name,
is perfect in the way that she's able to embody
those different tropes.
But yeah, I think we're getting,
I mean, if you continue the trajectory
and there's so many comedies now that are,
they're dramedies, you know?
And it's so, it's just, that resonates so much with us
where you can put funny people in real situations
and you can have it all.
You can have comedy and all those things.
Right.
Now what?
Oh, I mean, I think we've,
I don't know if we've learned anything,
established anything, or if you've, I don't know if we've learned anything, established anything,
or if you've gotten anything from this.
It was a fun conversation though.
Yeah, thanks for having it.
Thanks for being here.
And I can close with a rec that I've already,
anything that I talked about is a rec,
but I will say that if you want like a 45 minute,
uninterrupted, just sit back, enjoy it experience,
just Google Vic Berger presents the very best of Jim Baker.
And it is, it's just delightful to me.
Check it out.
Hashtag Ear Biscuits to let us know
what you thought about this conversation
and where you go for laughs.
Especially if you come to us for laughs,
I'm interested in the other places that you go.
Yeah, what's the Venn diagram in your life,
the comedy Venn diagram?
We'll talk at you next week.