Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - How We Are Changing as Creators | Ear Biscuits Ep. 481

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Season 2 has officially started! In this episode, Rhett & Link talk about their creative process and approach for WonderHole Season 2, as well as what they learned from season 1, how that informed the new season, as well as what they learned about themselves as creators along the way. Leave us a voicemail at 1-888-EARPOD-1 for a chance to featured on the show! Klarna is the better way to save. Download the Klarna app or visit https://klarna.com/ to get started. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this is mythical. Searchlight Pictures presents, The Roses, only in theaters Friday. From the director of Meet the Parents and the writer of Poor Things comes The Roses, starring Academy Award winner Olivia Coleman, Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch, Andy Samburg, Kate McKinnon, and Allison Janney. A hilarious new comedy filled with drama, excitement, and a little bit of hatred, proving that marriage isn't always a bed of roses. See the Roses only in theaters Friday.

Get tickets now. Bank more oncores when you switch to a Scotia Bank banking package. Learn more at ScotiaBank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. 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 roundtable of dim lighting. We're talking about Wonderhole season two. Season 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, which episode 1 is out now on the Retton Link channel, which has been branded as the Red and Link's Wonderhole. Wonderhole channel, because this is coming out. Every Sunday, um, 11 a.m.

Pacific no yeah 11 a.m. Pacific late 11 a.m. Eastern 2 p.m. Pacific on Sunday. No, you just said that backwards. 2 p.m. Eastern 11 a.m. Pacific. Every Sunday for six. If you were there you know where you're at. For the next five weeks. For the next five weeks because episode one we spent 100 hours on a raft is out. We're going to devote this entire conversation to unpacking our. thoughts about Wonderhole because... And before you click away, because if you're the kind of person who's like, well, I don't care. So if you know, you know, you know, no, I'm just saying like, please care. Some people are like, I like Wonderhole and I want to know more about it.

And some people are like, I don't care about Wonderhole. I don't want to, I'm going to skip this episode. I would just say, even if you're not going to watch it, you know, I think that this is a, we're going to talk about something that obviously we're very passionate about and we put a lot of time into, and I think that if you've got something that you're working on or something that you'd like to bring into the world, even if you're not particularly into the thing that we've done, that maybe hearing people talk about the way that they think about something they created could be a benefit to you. But if you like WonderHull, obviously, this could be insightful and informative, and we do encourage you to go and watch that first episode if you haven't done it,

this episode will mean that much more if you have watched the first episode of WonderHole, Season 2. Yeah, so you're encouraging people who haven't seen the Raft episode to watch it. Yeah, to pause this. Pause this. I think another reason that this conversation is important is because our creative process that went into Wonderhole Season 2 is not just about Wonderhole Season 2. It's about a trajectory.

Us cultivating, like developing our, developing craft and like building a, I'll use an analogy. We're building a craft that will take us forward into the future of our creative journey. And that's a focus on craft and a channeling of passions. And as you'll see, we had to make some decisions. And I think we learned to apply some more definitive creative decisions in this process that we are going to carry with us into every other project that we're going to be doing from here on now. So this was a passion project. We put, you know, it was the thing that arguably we were most passionate about over this past year as we're working on it because.

all bets were off and everything was on the table in terms of how we could express ourselves and how we wanted to stretch ourselves and test ourselves and grow and also have fun. Yep. You know, I think one of the big things that I took from season one, my experience, was an emphasis on it being, we created a playground within which to have fun and then trusted that that would come through in people's experience when they watched it. I think in season two,

and maybe we'll talk more about this later, but I'll just say a little bit that, I think in season two, I tried to build on that and apply it, but I also discovered how constantly difficult it is to like have fun in like and even define what it feels like to have fun when you're creating things when you're encountering challenges and making tough decisions and trying really

hard and working really hard working like up like giving all of your energy to something and then realizing well this doesn't feel like a vacation it's not that type of fun And so for me, there was this exercise in defining a new type of fun that is the hardest work I've ever done. And I think for me, bringing that gratitude. We talked a little bit about this, but for me, I'm having the most fun in our work when something that we conceptualized is actually coming together in the way that we hoped that it would. Like, that's when, like, it isn't like. The satisfaction of it is fun. Yeah, it's like, isn't like, oh, well, I'm laughing right now about this thing that happened.

Like, I mean, that's a, that's fun, and I like those things that happen. But the premium fun for me is when it's like, oh, this is actually working or the lessons that we hope that we would be learning, we are actually learning. And like the team is coming together cohesively and like plans, like Hannibal from the A team. I love it when a plan comes together. It's like that's the way he would. would like take a cigar and give a little puff on it and smile. Like that is the ultimate fun for me is when a plan comes together. Yeah, and I'm more of a Murdoch fun kind of guy.

I love it when it's an effortless flag by the seedier pants and whoa, this is happening. Right, and there's a little bit of a give and take in that process. I think we, well, I know we want to spend a good amount of time talking about how we shaped Wonderhole Season 2 through the lens of how it's different from the previous season

yeah but before we get into that and the specific ways that it's different and the reasons why and everything that goes along with that I think we could just hit some of that just a few highlights

maybe from Raft yeah you know since people have just watched it um and still celebrate a little bit of that. Okay, so in a really unexpected way, that episode, the Raft episode,

and also another episode that comes later in the season, caused us to meet a relative of someone who works at Mythical in a way that we never anticipated. That's an interesting story, we'll tell. We found a way to work with, in that first episode, someone who is probably the first or second maybe second person that we ever knew from Los Angeles. Oh, we'll go ahead and tell us. Ward.

Yeah, that's right. How did we end up working with Ward, who played... I don't remember what his name was. What was his name? It's been a while since we shot it. The pizza delivery son. Yeah. I don't remember names.

We never called him by his name. His dad calls him by his name at the end. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, it was cool to work with friends. He made a... It's very Italian. name a cameo and buddy system season two but like this was like two days of working together and it was a lot of fun tell them the Nicole story oh you want me to go you want

to go ahead I thought you wanted to tease the I'm tea I was teasing the stuff after the stories okay so we needed a mansion for two episodes well no no we need a mansion for one episode. Later on in the season, we have an episode called, we spent the night in a $10,000 tiny home and a $1 million or $10 million or $100 million mansion. I can't remember what we don't know what the numbers are. It's like, we spent a night in a meager tiny home and then the second night in a luxurious mansion. And so we needed a mansion for that night in the mansion. And it turns out that we couldn't find one that was really close that we could use as a location.

Because the exterior really mattered. Yeah, so we actually had to go pretty far outside of town, like at least an hour away. And we didn't go on this scouting trip. Jenna, were you there on that first scouting trip, or was that just Ben and T.J. and Morgan who went to that? Ben T.J. Morgan, yeah, I couldn't make the first one. Okay. So they go out there to tour the

this mansion and the woman who is the owner of the mansion that is used mostly, it's not, no one lives there, it's used like as a venue to rent out for weddings and whatnot. Event space. So, and she's like the owner and manager of this space, doesn't live there. She's walking them around and as, like, Ben just told us,

he was like, man, she is so, she, this woman really reminds me of Nicole, who works, a mythical kitchen. And then as they leave, they're, Ben started talking about, he's like, I've never met someone that had like such similar mannerisms to Nicole. That is wild. Mm-hmm.

What was Nicole's sister? Which they found out afterwards. Yeah, we didn't, we had no idea. We had no idea that they were going. Because he didn't want to say to her, you look and act just like. Somebody I know. Somebody I know.

Because that's always a little bit of something you want to say. And she, I think she ended up saying when they were like mythical entertainment, She was like, mythical entertainment? Mythical as a mythical entertainment? And then she was the one who put it together and told them later. And it was like, oh, yeah, I'm... So we ended up shooting that episode

that you'll see later in the season. I can't remember what episode it is about the tiny home in the mansion. But while... I think it may be the last episode. I don't remember. Maybe. While we were there, or while they were there,

Ben was like, there's a giant pond in the backyard of this mansion. It might have been Morgan. I don't know. Morgan was kind of the location. It's a big property. And we knew that we wanted to do this episode one,

100 hours on a raft. And if you look at all of the thumbnails, and we'll get into again, like why all the episodes are named the way that they are and why that strategy is what we employed. But if you look at every single one of those thumbnails, you see it's just a guy or two guys on a raft that looks like it's in the ocean.

It looks like it's in a big space, right? So we knew we needed that vibe for the thumbnail and for the opening of the video. And again, we weren't going to set it up. But we weren't going to go out there. We weren't going to set it up in the ocean because that's really problematic and expensive. And then there's other bigger lakes around L.A.,

not many big lakes. It isn't like North Carolina. We could have easily done this in North Carolina. But out here, the lakes, there's fewer of them and the big ones are like really, controlled and so having a private pond be our lake was much more strategic and it just turns out we were able to Nicole's sister have one right there yeah to shoot both of those episodes of the location two for once that was pretty good um the manhood mania of it all from this first

episode yeah was not real no that is not a real but it's but it's it's based on Well, it's an amalgamation of our church summer camp experience kind of mixed with all of the weekend retreat experiences in high school and in college through like church trips. Yeah, which would sometimes be focused on manhood. We would go to a, yeah, the story we tell about going camping with our youth group in high school. and Chad Well, that wasn't high school. That was middle school, right? Yeah, middle school.

When he got lost overnight and then everyone had to stay in their cabins because they were like searching for this kid and then he buried himself in leaves and woke up the next morning and they found him. And we talk about it all the time. We talk about it all the time. But we can't, he basically ruined our weekend.

We had to stay in our tents. Right, yeah. Thanks, Chad. So that sucked. Yeah, so it was in amalgamation of all those things. That's fine, but we had a sucky time. And, you know, your dad wasn't, like, there was never a point in time where your dad and my dad went to the same church. No.

Like, that wasn't ever, you know, so we kind of made up some of those elements. But again, the whole thing was fictitious, and I think it's very clear. And we'll talk about, like, why and we made those specific decisions. I know people are like, because we put in real stuff into our stories all the time. Like every episode does have things that are true to our lives and our backgrounds in some ways, or a lot of them do.

And then sometimes they just have things that feel like they could be real in order to accomplish something that we want to do with a story. Like you never read a Margaret Thatcher biography or watch a documentary or whatever. No, but I did read a lot of, well, I won't say a lot. I did read some stuff about her before that day of Oh yeah, right, yeah

You know that I would have some You got called up I had to have some stuff to know about her Before we go into the next segment I just want to quickly say Shout out to what's going on over on the mythical society The special make retin link laugh Where you submitted your jokes

And our Funny Funny Crew A few of them embodied your jokes And so you can see if the The jokes you submitted actually made us laugh over on The Mythical Society. As business owners and fathers and as just men who have hobbies and interests, we got a lot to pay for all at the same time. And sometimes it would be nice if we were able to split things up.

And you know what? That's where Klarna is actually a really cool tool because whether you're using the app or online, you can use it for large purchases. and spread out the payments instead of paying all at once. And, you know, I think back in the day, when we were spending all the money associated with our business, we were making all the purchases ourselves. Yeah, we were making all the purchases ourselves. We definitely would have been clarinetine, if I am to make it a verb.

Oh, yeah. To split out, split up those payments. Because we were just waiting and waiting until we had the money for a camera or for a computer. I remember the first stuff that we bought. We'd be so much... We were taking some hits back then. Clarena is your smarter, everyday spending partner,

and it isn't just about splitting payments. It's a way to help you shop smarter. Oh, yeah, they got the shop and compare functions, so you know that you're getting the right deal and the best deal. You know what, you should have clarned? When you went to Solvang and you were talking to me about that... Oh, the clock? The cuckoo clock.

Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't justify it. I couldn't definitely not justify it. But if you could have spread out the payments, maybe you'd be cuckooing right now. I should have clarned it. Well, you should be clarneting your DJ set up. I mean, I saw those speakers you put in the creative house and the speakers that you're putting in your house. Yeah, I kind of have a thing with spending money on that front.

Yeah, you do. It would be nice to know. And clarnia does help with the... reporting and budgeting. So it's not just splitting up payments or shopping for the best thing, but reports on your spending. So you have an added level of accountability and planning and budgeting for everything. So you're not just going wild. Yeah. I mean, Sheppard just went to the summer program that he did all summer. And of course, had to pay for that all at once. It would have been nice to be able to clarn to that. That's something to think about clarneting

experiences. Okay. And I like that you're using it as a verb now. Yeah. Which I think is because of my influence on you. Yep. Mm-hmm. They do have a lot on the app, so you should check that out. You can get a whole garden patio set up, which I like that idea. Maybe I'll be throwing a garden patio set up over there at the Creative House when I step away from my loud speakers.

Yep. Thanks to Clarna. Whether you're paying now or later, Clarna helps you stay in control with no interest and no surprises. Clarna is your everyday spending partner that makes managing money feel easy and stress-free. You can use Klarna at checkout in the app and see how it fits perfectly into your existing shopping routine.

Download the Klarna app to get started or learn more at Klarna, that's with a k, dot com. California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California finance law license NMLS number 13533190. Klarna balance account required. Klarna may get a commission, limitations, terms, and conditions apply.

Season two is different than season one. Well, one of the things that we saw a lot of people say about season one, and we also agreed, was what was that? Like, what were you, how is it a show? Because, and let me do- Episodes feel disjointed and they feel different and there's a completely different approach.

Some feel like they're totally scripted. Some go into like a sci-fi place. Some just stay in the real world the whole time. They all have an element. of BS that are obviously made up, but some more than others. Like, what was that? Yeah, that was, okay.

And so what we wanted to do in season two was we wanted to create, we wanted to hone in on what made it feel like more of a cohesive show. And I, you know what, let me just go through the list. Because all of these things are interrelated that are different between season one and season two,

that being one of them, I'm going to list all of them out. Okay. And then we'll just kind of go back through them. Yeah, in season two, we wanted to make a cohesive season that felt more like a show. We wanted to tell stories. So it was a focus on stories. We wanted to improve our performances by developing a better approach to scripting.

And we still wanted to maximize the reach of these episodes by working with and not against. against the algorithm. We had to reckon with the algorithm. And of course, you know, you can kind of see where that's going. But the cohesive show thing, people may take that the wrong way and think, let's go back to it. What we mean by that is that we told a story

over the course of six episodes, and that is not what we mean. No, each episode stands along, which is why we don't know which episode is last or first. We shot all of them, and then we decided what order to put them in it after it because it doesn't matter. What link means by cohesive show

is that the approach to every episode is the same. So you can say, the way that you would describe the show is, the way I would describe the show to people is, the title and thumbnail is always going to be something that looks and feels like a viral video that probably or actually definitely does already exist somewhere on YouTube, like it's a genre of viral video, like an extreme hide-and-seek,

or one night in a tiny home and one night in a mansion, one star review hotel reviews like all of these genres of videos exist so we're always going to start with a title and thumbnail that looks like oh retin link decided to make a video in that established viral YouTube genre and then every single video starts as if we are really going to do the thing that you clicked on like oh they are going to a one star hotel or they are going into a tiny home or a mansion But then, somewhere near the beginning of the video, sometimes it's a couple minutes in, sometimes it's several minutes in. Sometimes it's over the course of a few scenes. Yeah, sometimes it's immediate and sometimes you kind of shift into the gray area.

We go into the wonder hole where I would roughly say what that means is that something happens in the world that we're in that's unexpected and sends the story in a direction that you would not have expected, but also when it clearly becomes something that if you're paying attention, is made up, is as story, is narrative,

not made up in like metaphysical, but is like, oh, now they're doing a story that they wanted to tell versus just doing the video that would have just been this vlog. And we want to, to be consistent in our approach across all six episodes. And so it always kind of happens, yeah,

so you could describe it in that way. Like the way I just described it, you could describe all six episodes in that way. That wasn't the case in season one. No, I don't know. Sometimes what I just described happened, but sometimes it was completely a departure from that. Yeah, it was experimental a lot of ways.

So, the, like, that need for consistency in the, Consistency and cohesion led us to grapple with genre shifts as one example. We did, you know, because we played around with that in season one a lot. It goes to sci-fi. It goes to a musical. It goes to, well, I can't even remember all the other stuff. Flashback to when we were kids. None of that, so this is where I, you know,

I know what it's like to be a fan of something. And so I think that people might be like, well, you didn't, you did that in season one and I love that, my favorite episode was the sci-fi and you didn't do any of that in season two. So the reason we didn't do any of that in season two is because the goal for season two was for us to really to figure out what the next step is

in the way that we perform scripted. And when I say scripted, it's a loosely scripted material. And so we feel that genre shifts and musical numbers and some of that stuff a lot of times can be a crutch. It can be a crutch if you really want the story to move forward based on your performance. And that's what we're trying to develop personally. Even if you, we place, let's put performance to aside for a second. Even if we're placing an importance on sucking you into a story, sending you down a wonderhole into this story that you care about.

Now there's a problem. What's going to happen? How is it going to resolve? We wanted to craft that story in a way that is the same from episode to episode that drew you in. And we wanted to see if we could succeed at that. So we wanted to focus on that part of it. And we wanted to serve the fact that the starting point was a YouTube video. So the genre at the beginning is, is docufollow. That's how all of these YouTube viral genres are. This is really happening. It's and there's just, it's either vlog mode or mostly like cameras shooting it, but it's reactive and the camera's a little bit behind. You know, there was been really committed

from a directoral standpoint and us as we collaborated, all of us on writing this thing, That it was informed by that genre. So even when the story began, the cameras that we had and the characters that we were, which was ourselves, needed to stay intact because it didn't make sense for that to shift just as a gimmick or to puff up your experience as a viewer. So we started setting ground rules before we really started writing. And that was, yeah, we're not going to do the genre-shifting thing. We're going to stay in the doc you follow because that is the conceit of the entire angle of this season. Right.

As you see, we lean into really hard from the top of developing this thing. No make-believe stuff. We also said no make-believe stuff. Like no metaphysical, like the rules. No magic. No magic. So the rules in this world are the same rules that exist in the real world. Again, like, wild stuff can happen.

We love fantastical stuff, but it needs to be. We love mystical, magical stuff, but. It can be unbelievable, it can, what do we say? It can be unbelievable, but it has to be feasible. I think we said it can be implausible or improbable, but it can't be impossible. Okay. That's what we said. And that is what we said, but it was kind of the same thing as what I just said in different words.

But yes. Yeah, so. Implausible, but not impossible. Yeah. Right, because all the stuff is implausible that happened. Yeah, because we still wanted to be wild. And again, that's not like a shift that we're like, we're never going to do impossible stuff again. Of course not.

It's just for this season, it was like, let's set these parameters that then cause you to have, like, they cause you to have to adapt. because a lot of times as creators we'll make a decision to be like oh something fantastical happens because it's fun

and it is fun but then I think we end up relying on that to be like that's the thing that people remember about it and we're like

but yeah but it's really disjointed and it distracts it can distract from the story I know that and this created concerns for us that we still have

a little bit I mean I know that a lot of mythical beast loved episode two of season one with this you know we go into the future because we can live forever and we're having this like bromance and there's death and there's fighting and there's epic windy desert scenes and futuristic production value and awesome costumes we don't have any of that in season two so it's like well and i want to shit are they gonna are they Are people going to be disappointed? Is it going to feel like, is it going to be experienced at a gut level as a step backwards? For some people, sure. And maybe so for some people.

But I also think that, you know, we fooled you a little bit in season one, episode two, because the reason the production value is because we had access to that festival. Yeah, but we could have tried to do that in season two. But again, it was like that, yeah, it would have been. really hard to do and it would have like production value and cost because again, just like season one, season two,

it's not necessarily making any money. I mean, it's not making back the money that we spent on it because... It's completely self-funded. Yeah. So it's, this is still like an investment in our, our storytelling and the storytelling of our team to then apply it to what's going to happen next.

I think to, I'm very confident. I'm not second-guessing our decision. I'm just like, you know, it's anticipating certain, yeah, and it's like season one was better type of vibes. But I will point out the finale of season one had, I mean, there was basically no Wonderhole moment. And the whole thing, we were making gummy versions of ourselves that failed. And then we ended up going on this retribution journey of destroying my truck, you know. and it was all docufollow, like literally.

We, I mean, we, cameras just following us actually doing the things we said. Right. And it was very compelling in, like, I really liked that episode. It has nothing to do with the approach to see episode two, the sci-fi episode. So then you're left thinking, and then you've got this episode in the middle where we're talking about our deceased friend Ben, and there's like a musical with squirrels And people are like, how the hell do I take this? And nothing had anything to do with anything in terms of approach.

We were throwing a lot of things at the board. And except at the very end, it's revealed why it was that way. So we did answer the question at the very end of the season. But you were left feeling like, okay, I don't know how to describe this as a show except as a fever dream, which it was. but to do that again like we knew we couldn't do that again yeah yeah and so we got really excited

about leaning into this and about how it it makes I really I don't like to sound pretentious but I do feel like it's a focus on craft and like not just doing what we'll get the biggest ooze and Oz but will be

as a season it will be a it'll be a cohesive thing yeah yeah I mean this is I think it all comes down to the the like why we even do

Wonderhole in general like why we started doing this and why we decided to do season two in the way we did when you talk about the last episode of season one and it being all doc you follow and us just doing this ridiculous thing

with the gummies in with your truck, there's a world in which that's the only thing that we do. And some people, again, we already saw the comments from last year, and again, I'm not, this is just to kind of give you, this isn't trying to convince you of anything,

this is just to kind of explain why we made the decisions we do about this element of our creative life. Is that some people are like, why don't you guys just do the vlogs? Like, you did those vlogs a few years ago where we would just do stuff and we're not acting and we're just documenting something that's happening and we're just being ourselves.

A, we know that those would be well received. We know that they would be, they would get a lot of views, and we know that we would be very good at them. Like, we know how to be ourselves and be funny and be comfortable with each other because we've kind of made a career of it. But the reason that that is not interesting, at least, I mean, not saying we won't ever do something like that again, but the reason that that is not what we're doing with Wonderhole is because that's what we do on Good Mythical Morning. Like that's... It's close to that.

The bulk of... And we'll talk about how that creates a problem that then Wonderhole seeks to address, but the bulk of the content that we have put out on the Internet over the course of our careers has been us just being completely ourselves and just reacting to stuff, right? I mean, probably at this point,

just based on runtime, 99 plus percent of the stuff that we've put on the internet is us just being ourselves. But what it doesn't have is this intentionality of shaping and making something behind closed doors that then you say, here's a gift for you to enjoy that has been a gift for me to make. It's a totally different experience. Right. And we, you know, we're very privileged in that we have the opportunity to do it. The thing that creates the 99% of the content works well enough so that we are able to have this team and then have the ability to self-fund. I mean, not, you know, significantly

self-fund, but, you know, self-fund something adequately enough to make what it is. It's still very cheap for what it is. But we have the freedom to do it, and we have the talented team to help us make it a reality. And then we have the platform with our, you know, original YouTube channel to put it on. So yeah, we're kind of, this is about that one percent of, that it means a whole lot to us. It's much bigger in our minds than one percent because it's like, it's why we got into this. Right. And, and it's interesting because it creates this challenge. And we talked a little bit about this last year, but when you know us from that 99% and you're like, oh, I like Link because he's this way and I like Rep because he's this way. And I like Rep because he's this way.

I like them together because they're this way. And you see us in that natural environment, us being ourselves, and that's where all the humor comes from. And then you see us playing ourselves still, Rhett and Link, but now we are doing some form of acting. We're doing some, we're trying to execute a story, a pre-planned. Planned story.

Right. Especially when we have pre-written lines and a tight script that we're following. Now all you can do, and it's funny, because I recognize this. Like, I have their stand-up comedians that I enjoy, and then when I see them in a movie, I'm like, they're not funny anymore. Or, better yet, there are people who are really good at podcasting

and are funny in a podcast sense, and then you see them do their stand-up routine, and you're like, they're not funny anymore because I want to see them do the unhinged thing. So I know what that feels like, and that's a challenge, because you are perceiving people through this lens of all the other times that you're,

you found them funny. The challenge for us is that we start acting and then a couple of things happen. Number one, you recognize right off the bat, well, these guys are not trained actors. It's like these guys have, these guys are trained at making podcast and GMM and, you know, internet videos and we've never taken an acting class and that kind of thing. So it's like, as a craft, it's not something that we've invested in and developed. And then the second thing that happens is that you are just, and this is more significant ultimately, you're a, Immediately comparing whatever is happening to us with how you think the real link would have reacted to that or the real Rhett would have said that or reacted to that And so we thought to ourselves, okay, this is a really significant challenge like you're not wrong if that's the way you perceive what we do when we play ourselves

So how do we address that and we did it a little bit in season one But in season two the reason we decided to go this Totally fabricated storyline like as soon as we go into the Wonderhole the entire thing is pre-written and I'm putting quotes around written because none of it is tightly scripted the whole thing is outlined so a scene will simply be

you kind of know what you're going to say I kind of know what I'm going to say we kind of know where this is going but let's play around with it and see what happens and maybe what will happen in that process is we'll find a little bit more of who we actually are in the scene

and you'll say things that are oh, that's the kind of thing that Link would have said and maybe I didn't even know you were going to say it and let's see if that draws out I think maybe that could play on some of our strengths

of being able to improvise and that kind of thing and this is also a way that some TV shows are made this is the way that Curb Your Enthusiasm is made as an example, right? Yeah, and that was

the kind of all of that that I just explained contributed to how we got to the specific approach I knew for a fact that I was you know we're our worst worst critics when it comes to our acting but even if the things that we're describing you as a viewer so no I think you guys are

great actors like we appreciate that from well I see but I think those people are a little bit I'm not it's fine some people think it's good some people think it's bad I think if you think it's not if you think that we're good or fine I still think on a deeper level if you are if you're spending five days a week with us on Good Mythical Morning, there's this subconscious perception that you have to overcome, you know, that doesn't happen with a lot of actors, you know?

And I also knew that I wasn't happy with my performances personally when, And I just, like, put, putting words in my mouth. It's just not how my brain works. And I, in previous projects, I did spend a lot of time developing techniques for memorizing scripts and, you know, but not enough time, not like, you know, Malcolm Gladwell hours to become a good actor. So we had to find a way to hack into the system and make it work for us. I mean, we've never been trained as improvisers either, but we've been self-trained. Right.

And we do have those Malcolm Gladwell hours. How many is it? 10,000. 10,000. We certainly have that. Oh, yeah. So, so well, if Kirby, your enthusiasm can do it, I think this will, this will unlock something for us, hopefully.

So we would, we actually, and this was really hard to do, to follow through, it's one thing to say, well, we're going to practice this before we start shooting, but it was really hard to be in a room with T.J. and Ben,

and Ben is basically acting like he has a camera, but he's just standing there looking at us, and T.J.'s sitting there on the couch, like, thinking about, okay, in this scene, this is the objective. This is the starting point, and this is the end point. So this is where you've got to get. This is the point of the scene on the page and the outline.

And you're still ret. Link, you're still link. But you need to understand what are your points of view? And how does that get us from point A to point B? And not just that. How does that create comedy? And then how to, yeah, arguably more important. I would say more important.

How do you create comedy while getting from point A to point B? in this way actually create comedy. And so season two... So we sat there in the room and we... So yeah. We sat there in the room. We made up scenarios. We made up scenes and Ben walked around

and his eyeballs were the camera. And T.J. was looking at the outline and like maybe thinking of things that like... Well, we would just do the scene. And I can't remember what the scene was. Well, the first one was... We were picking up... that we were in a cave,

because we knew we'd never shoot in a cave because Ben's claustrophobic. So we were like, let's waste one of these scenes. And it was like, even though we didn't see one. And this is before we made the decision for it to be. He said no more caves. We were like, all right, we'll pretend to be in a cave.

This was gonna be like a real spulunking situation. And this is before we said that it was nothing that was impossible. And so we kind of had this idea that maybe there would be like a weird species of person that was inside this cave, like cave people kind of situation. And, but we were, we were setting up and we were going through the stuff that we had brought

and then we realized that something has been taken from us. So, but the scene, we actually ended up transferring this scene structure into the tiny home. The tiny home episode where there is the conversation about what we brought, what I brought and what you brought. So yeah, we're having this completely improvised what you brought, what I brought, But then there was mechanics of realizing something's missing.

And then there was another scene. And there was a, what's that noise moment or something. Yeah. And so then what we would do, just to step through that process, is we would, like, do it. And it was, again, it was so hard to say, okay, we're actually going to do this. We're going to create our own acting class. I love, I was very excited about it. I was like, I was very, I was, I kind of had to be an advocate for this, for the entire team.

This was your person really hard. Don't you already know that you can do this? And I was like, no, we're not. Right. This is not what we've done before. This isn't what we've done before. It was very valuable because then we'd sit there and we would, we'd get to the end of the scene and we would look at each other and we'd say, well, I mean, how about that? And then, and then Ben would say, well, I'd, I felt like, well, maybe you were kind of getting a little actorly here.

I didn't believe this, or there was a lot of just standing and talking. I feel like if you incorporated more action. And then TJ was like, you know, when you said that, that was funny. Let's do it again. Keep that. But what about at this point, you could play around with this idea. So he wasn't pitching a line per se as much as, I mean, he might pitch it as a line. And then we would turn it into a concept because I didn't want to put words in my mouth.

And then we would do it again. because that's when it gets even more difficult. If you're going to do it a second time, then you start to have more things that you're trying to recreate. And at least in my brain, I'm devoting energy to like the honest moments and just going with it and hitting now more points of, more anchor points of, oh yeah, I got to say this

because that was funny last time. or, we need to have this moment because it was funny last time. But we did make a note after we did that. It started to work. To tell, and Ben was on the same page, but it was like, we'd really like to shoot this in a way

that we could just throw multiple takes together because sometimes the first time something happens, it's the best time, but then we need to get something else and maybe something new happens and maybe those two things. And so it became a bit of an edit exercise. We had another scene that was about like a checkers game where we were like making it the rules

and one of us didn't know the rules or something, but. I get nervous talking about this because now I'm like, is everyone who's listening when they watch the rest of the season, are they gonna be thinking even more mechanically about our acting? So don't do that. Well, think what you want to.

I mean, to me, I see, I mean, I think that we're on a, We're on a trajectory. We are headed to a place. We are trying, like, we have a lot of ambitions and a lot of projects that we want to get to that require a certain skill set, a certain thing to be in place for us to be able to execute them.

And WonderHull season one and season two are like stops along the way. They're like snapshots in that process. And are they like a product that we're proud of? Of course. Like, we think many people really like it. But to us, it's not like WonderHole season one in season two are the end thing

that we always wanted to create. They are a means to an end that leads to the next thing. And when I look at what we did in season two, I see leaps and bounds in terms of that system of our interaction and our performances. But I also see places where I'm like,

well, that didn't work. That wasn't funny as, it wasn't as funny as it could have been. That was stilted. That still came across like, It wasn't really me, but you know, you can't do 25 takes until you get it right. Sometimes we got time to get one.

Sometimes we got time to get two. And so you put together in the edit the best of what you've got. Across multiple takes. Yes. I mean, we might do something three times. And then sometimes we would break for lunch, having moved on, and then we would talk about

how we realized that we didn't get it and that we really felt like we needed because it was too important and then we would have to go back we went back we did that for episode one we did that for the raft scene we read the whole Margaret Thatcher exchange which when I'm setting the ten up when you're setting the ten up really worked but we did three before launch and they it didn't work and then it didn't and it worked less and less and we just didn't feel good about it and we were having a mopee lunch and then we

once we were honest about that, and it's hard to allocate time you don't have to go back for something, but I'm so glad we did. When you talk about each season be a stop in the road, I would say there was multiple stops and assessments within season two

because we would shoot, we started seeing edits of earlier episodes while we were planning to film later episodes, even though there was only six. And we made some major adjustments across the course of the six episodes having seen, let's see, because the first one we shot,

Raff was not the first one we shot. It was... The Tiny Home. Tainty Home. Like, Raft might have been the fourth one we shot. Yeah, but just the tiny home parts of Tiny Home Mansion. We were watching Tiny Home and our performances and then we were figuring out how we needed to rewrite things to allow us to have better performances.

It wasn't just about getting better at performing. It was about getting better at outlining and writing so that it would free us up in the right places. And, like, for example, to identify, we had to get better at identifying what was supposed to be funny without it being about lines. Yeah, it's not about jokes. And so we learned a lot about defining our points of view and how we interacted with each other, and scenes got better. Toronto, there's another great city that starts with a tea, Tampa, Florida. Fly to Tampa on Porter Airlines to see why it's so terrific. On your way there, relax with free beer, wine, and snacks, free fast-streaming Wi-Fi, and no middle.

seats. You've never flown to Florida like this before, so you'll land in Tampa ready to explore. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. And then the last, we kept putting off, at least we kept putting off two episodes because they were harder to produce. One of them had a big ass slide and a deep ass, and all of this stuff. And then we began, we took everything we were learning. And then we started, it started to dawn on us that this last episode that we kept pushing off was completely broken. And we had to throw it away entirely.

And having written all six episodes before we shot anything, we just, we canned it entirely. Well, and to be specific, because I think that the story sounds very funny and I was very excited about doing, doing it, but then we can talk about the flaws. But, so we have an episode where we buy an abandoned storage locker and then we start opening stuff that's in it because that's a genre of video. We literally feature the Lamborghini that isn't every single one of those thumbnails in our thumbnail, which is just such a ridiculous thing we could talk about in a second in terms of thumbnails.

But not in the video because no one else posted in the video either. Yeah. But in our version, we were going to start opening boxes and realize that the only thing in the boxes was lotion, just the whole thing that we got. was just lotion. But because we had made some commitment to use everything inside there, we were going to have to get through all this lotion.

And so we were going to have this idea to open up a lotion park, which is like a water park, but it's lotion. And that was going to simply be one of those giant inflatable slides. Which we were going to actually build. And in testing it, we were going to lather a naked link up in lotion.

And he was going to come down the slide and then skip across the ground and then go into a hole, just like Baby Jessica, if you're old enough to remember Baby Jessica, who got stuck in the hole when we were kids. And it was a huge news story when this baby got stuck in this well, this pipe. For days with like 24-hour news coverage.

And we were literally looking into contacting baby Jessica because the idea was gonna be that Link was gonna be stuck in this hole. And then we were gonna be, lobed. Yeah, he's gonna be stuck in this hole full of lotion. So every time they try to send something down to him, like the fireman sends a rope, but just slips out of his hands because he's covered in lotion.

And I keep putting lotion in the hole because we gotta keep using the lotion. You keep making it worse. But what we start realizing, and convincing me is a good idea. But what we start realizing is that we're getting famous or we're getting relevant. Like people are talking about us in a new way

in ways that they don't talk about us anymore because we're on the national news because you're stuck in this hole. And so then I'm like, we gotta milk this. And so we create more, a story, but then we were like, we were going to have baby Jessica, like, on the news and stuff, anyway. But then we started realizing it was going to have you in a whole the entire time. And we had, what we've been learning about, what we've been learning over the season is

that, first of all, we had unnecessarily and unintentionally written ourselves into confined spaces. And I think part of this is because a lot of these YouTube videos and these genres, like being on a raft for 100 hours, that's a confined space. You're outside. but you're on this raft. Being in a tiny home, again, these confined spaces and we're like, why do, everything seems really small. Let's not put a link in a pipe. Outdoors.

Like the amount of confined yet also outdoors. Creates all kinds of problems. Creates so many problems and frustrations. And like, I mean, Jenna, I'm surprised you're just not moaning over there. Like all of that stuff, you worked on all the logistics of it. So when we told you, We were scrapping the lotion slide whole episode. Everybody was relieved.

It had to be relieving. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. Not just the outside, finding the proper lotion combination that was safe for the environment. Yeah, to put a bunch of lotion outside on a slide. You would need a stunt person to go down, like the insurance for you to go down that slide. that we had... We spent all our insurance money on season one during that parachute. We did.

Yeah. So we rewrote that and we were like, all right, we're going to apply everything we know. This is going to be in a predominantly indoor space that we can control. We can be efficient about our timing. And then we can craft each scene to be funnier now that we've learned stuff than the stuff we wrote earlier. And that ended up being the new version of we bought an abandoned storage locker, and you'll see where that goes. I think it's episode four in the season.

Arguably, it has maybe the funniest moment or scenes. I mean, it depends on your sense of humor. I would say it has the most shocking. Yeah, yeah. He has two of the most shocking moments of the season. Which is why that's actually why we chose that one, even though it's not episode two. For the premiere. We chose it for our ticketed premiere just so we could watch it with people in the room just to see how people react to it.

I think this braises a, you know, the bigger sort of story behind all of this is that if you had a, this conversation that we're having is, like if we could hear ourselves, having this conversation 10, 15 years ago, we were like, what are they talking about? Like, what do they mean genres and YouTube genres and why are they doing it this way and why aren't they just making a show? And I think this is a question that we have for ourselves and a lot of fans have for us is,

guys, if you just want to tell a story, why don't you just tell a story? Why don't you just make a season of a half-hour comedy that is what you guys want to do that tells a story over six episodes? Like, just do the thing. that you think that you seem to be working towards. And I think that this is the problem of the modern YouTuber, right?

If you are making your living primarily on YouTube, and again, like I said, we're not making, we're not getting in the, just to be honest with you, we're not getting in the black on Wonderhole, but we don't need to get too far into the red on it either. Like we're trying to, we do need to make money back through AdSense, when people watch these videos. Right.

But it takes getting a couple million views on an episode in order to really make that make sense, which doesn't always happen, usually doesn't happen. And so, and we wanted to be something that people actually see, and so we play this game, and we did it a little bit in season one, especially in episode one,

where it was like, we took a first class flight or whatever, because that was a genre. But we decided, we're gonna do this, that on every single episode in season two so that there's no we were really proud of like that we drank a cloud episode of episode of season one but but we couldn't even call it that which is the perfect title for it and but nobody care and they're like what do you drink a cloud what do you mean the algorithm just didn't show it to people and it didn't get the clicks but

red versus blue whatever we called that one we spent 24 hours in red and blue and blue rooms and whatever it was yeah and then and that thumbnail was half red and red and red looked amazingly red and half blue and I looked amazingly and completely blue was irresistible for some reason to click on that just worked and we had to reckon with that because everything that we said we wanted to do but yeah we need to try to we need to defray the cost and we need to we want as many people to see this as possible and we're not asking permission and pitching WonderHole Season 2 for somebody to fund.

We didn't have any meetings. We followed through on the video where we said... We would still be talking about it with somebody right now versus having it had come out for you to see. We followed through on that video before season one called We're Done where we said we're not asking permission to make things. We're making things and then we're figuring it out. Now, I'm a bit frustrated that we're still figuring out the financial side of this

that season two still isn't paying for itself, but we need to do, but maybe it will. You know, like the ticketed premiere event helps with that. And this strategy of working with the algorithm sets it up to, you know, rake in some ad sense and also expand our audience. So that's a win-win. We just had to get over the bitterness

of having to play nice with Mr. Algorithm. But, and we said, you know what, let's stop flirting with it. Let's just go all the way. And each episode, we're not going to greenlight an episode of this show unless we know the title and the thumbnail. And it has to be a title and a thumbnail that we know it's going to work. We have every reason to believe we'll get clicks. Now, maybe things have changed enough.

Like, we made all these decisions about a year ago. The algorithm changes. Maybe some will work better. Some will work better than others, whatever. But here's what we were tapping into. Someone. It may be Mr. Beast. It may be Ryan Treyhan.

It may be, I mean, there's, there's so many of these YouTubers that they do invent genres that are irresistibly clickable. It's like, I liken it to kind of like a, it's like the Michael Bay effect of movies, you know? It's like, oh, I got to see that because of that explosion. Right. You know, you know this. But what I didn't fully appreciate was then. other creators will do the exact same video. The only difference is

it's them doing it. The title will be exactly the same. The thumbnail will be exactly the same except it will be their faces instead of somebody else's. And it works. The algorithm just like slurps it up and then spews it out to everybody. Just, you know, the mindless clickability of it is so powerful.

What we would never do, and I think you understand this. We can never make those videos. We don't want, like, we don't want to. Like, we're not just, we're not just doing this just to get views, but we were doing it to tell the story and to work on, you know, this approach and develop our craft. But it was a tough pill to swallow. We gotta do it on YouTube.

And we had to tell the team, you know, it was like, it was tough for us to convince ourselves, but then we were like, then talking to Stevie, and then like figuring out, okay, can we keep our artistic integrity and do this? And we were like, yes, let's focus on the craft of it and let's take people down the wonderhole and then we have to earn their retention. Is our story good enough once they realize that it's not what they clicked on to keep them there? And that's on us. And let me just say.

To an extent. Well, let me just say, I think that that is going to happen for a certain person, and that is the person that we're actually trying to reach with our storytelling. And I don't think that's the average person. So we don't know what the algorithm is going to do with that. And how many people... What I mean specifically, I'm not talking about how the retention affects views. What I'm talking about is one of the things that is going to happen in an episode,

in the comments on an episode of Wonderhole is going to be, I wish you guys would have just done the thing that I clicked on. I wish you had had had just done it because that would have been funnier to me. That would have been better to me. And that's what I wanted when I clicked. Right. And so, and you have every right to think that.

We're not trying, like, we're not trying to make content for that person who thinks that. We're trying to make content for the person who wants, who would prefer the half hour comedy, intact, 10 episode scripted show from us that we hope to eventually make but this is the way that we begin to cultivate the audience that actually wants that from us

and I just think that if that was what the audience wanted on YouTube then there would be more shows on YouTube that look like shows on these other streamers right but and there aren't because the way the algorithm works is that it is a it causes people to make individual decisions about individual videos, people commit to, they don't commit to seasons of things in the same way because you never know what the first video you're going to find is. It's just a different algorithm and it's, we're incredibly thankful for it and we're actually really good at

exploiting it and we've made a career out of it. But we have ambitions to do things that don't fit within the, just the prevailing forces of that algorithm. So let me tell you what we did at the very beginning, once we made that decision and communicated that to the team. And then let me talk about the conundrum that that creates that we're currently in. We just once we made that decision, we sat in a room and people brought their research of viral genres in the last year that it's more than one video where something goes extremely viral. And then there's all these copycats that do the exact same title and thumbnail. At a certain point, very early in that process,

you don't even have to watch the videos at all. You're just watching, well, I didn't. Well, no, I'm saying in most cases, you don't want to subject yourself to them because it feels like a piece of your soul leaves and will never come back. I know you did a good amount of that. I know Stevie did a good amount of that,

and TJ did a good amount of that. And so you came back with these lists, and we sat in the room, and then we were like, okay, That's when it was like, are we really going to do this? Because it was these, I don't know, it just felt like my soul was just melting through the floorboards when I was reading the titles that were going to be the titles of our videos. But what we did was we said this is a clinical exercise based on a decision we've already made.

And we started to rank the effectiveness of these. Like which had the highest probability of performance based on everything we could assess. And then we narrowed it down to eight. And so having those titles, then we started saying, all right, what could happen? These are just starting points for a story. You got these two characters that are endeavoring to do this thing. And then we have our ground rules of like no magic, no genre shifts by this point. So we just started writing what's the implausible but not impossible things that could happen that could delight and surprise you and be fun for us to make within our.

means. So there's all these parameters, but it's like, okay, this is actually, these are, this compartmentalizes in a good way where you can channel your creativity and we started writing and we got to the point we're at. But it was, you know, it was a rigid commitment to that starting point. And the conundrum now is what you were talking about a second ago. And that's... Are people going to, oh crap, I can't even remember the conundrum? How are people going to, are people going to step up and respond to what we're doing? Or are the people, well, no, that's not it. That's what you're talking about before. Here's the new conundrum. Are we going to reach the people that want the stories we're telling in spite of the appearance of it? Are they gonna judge the book by its cover

and not read the story? Another way to say that is, typically people who are the kinds of people who would appreciate the sorts of stories that we want to tell are not the kind of people who click on titles and thumbnails like we're using for Wonderhole Season 2. So what we're relying on. Have we shot ourselves in the foot?

Well, no, because I think that we have a lot of people who've watched us for a long time, who when they see us, they see a title and thumbnail like that from us. They know they didn't really do that. In fact, if you look at episode one, look at a lot of the comments on episode one of season. Yeah, people are like, I saw when you guys did this that you probably weren't going to do it

in the way that everyone else has done it because you never do everything else in the way that somebody else has done it. And some people were like, I couldn't believe you did it, but I clicked anyway. And then I was surprised. So we're kind of relying on that. And again, this is...

And I think that's the other reason why we're talking about it here is to get some sort of alignment so that, like, the titles and thumbnails don't turn off the fans of, well, ear biscuits or the extra from GMM stuff that we do. Yeah. I have faith. Not necessarily that this season is going to get a lot of views.

I have faith in the process. I have faith in us leaning into this, this type of storytelling, doing it in the way that is most strategic on the platform that we currently have the most access and control over, and doing that to find the people that want to see this kind of thing from us and then are expecting the next thing from us and the next thing that we'll work on. And again, a lot of those people also watch Good Mythical Morning, right? And a lot of those people have learned that, oh, I mean, okay, Yes, they're testing chicken sandwiches, their taste testing chicken sandwiches today. I'm not really, now there's two types of fans. There's multiple types, but there's two general fans of GMM.

There's the fan that's like, I'm showing up because I want to hang out with you guys every day, and whatever you do, it's going to be funny, and I'm going to be into it. And yes, certainly there's certain things that you do that I'm more interested in, and I'm more likely to click on. But I'm kind of there because I'm committed to the show

and you guys' friendship, whatever. And then there's the people who are like, oh, they're tasting chicken sandwiches. I literally want a chicken sandwich right now, and I want to know which one they think is the best. And the fact that I think that they're funny enough to make this interesting, causes me to click on it.

There's a lot of people like that, as judged by the fact that if we eat chicken sandwiches... Versus play mystery countdown theater, the views will be like 2x on the chicken sandwiches. So there's like twice as many people in that camp. But I think that you know, if you've been watching this show for a long time, that we make the show for those people who are coming back. But we have to also take into account the people who only come for the chicken sandwiches

because we have to make money doing it. Like it has to be a business that is sustainable. And it has to, and so, and also, we think that those chicken sandwiches videos are pretty damn entertaining. And even if you're not into chicken sandwiches, it's still a great foil for us to do the things and be ourselves.

But we're slowly building that group of people who are like, I'm there because I like the way you guys interact with each other. There's also a group of people who are like, I'm there because I like the things that you guys create. I remember those local commercials back in the day or your sketches or your music videos or whatever, and I like the things that you make,

not just the way you talk to each other, I like the things that you make and you know we're not doing it for those people like we're doing it let's be honest we're doing it for ourselves

like we want to make this kind of content that's why we got into this this is our childhood dream we made a blood oath about it in a field when we were in 14 years old but we have to have an audience there to watch it and I trust that

they'll find it and I trust that enough people will find Wonderhole Season 2 to kind of come on board and be like, all right, what else do you guys got? Because we got, we got something else. We got something else we're already working on. Yeah, that is what I,

I'm so excited to enjoy the rollout of season two of Wonderhole because of how it will impact what we do next and how it won't. What it won't do is it's not going to impact what the next project is, because we've already decided. It's going to impact more, it will impact most likely how we go about it.

You know, I'm sure there's a lot that we'll still learn in this rollout and all the questions that we've raised over the course of this conversation that will be answered. But we already know what it is we're doing next. And we're excited about that. and I think you will be too.

So, yeah, I plan to enjoy it. That's the other reason why we didn't just want to sell tickets to a premiere in order to defray the cost. We want to do it for the experience. And I think that was the first reason. So as of the recording of this, we haven't gone on them yet. I'm very excited about that to experience it in a room. But also, I enjoy. I look forward to experiencing it with you, if you're a Mythical Society member, early and ad-free right there.

You get the first look at it. So the comments that we'll read there from Mythical Society members will be the first online comment responses. That's on the Wednesdays before the Sunday. We'll be there. you know reading every single one of those and then I look forward to experiencing the comments and the reactions on social media to it and you know I think it we I'll approach it with curiosity you know yeah I'm definitely I'm kind of beyond like in enjoyment I've I've been surprised and have my expectations subverted so many times in this job that I've kind of gotten,

I'm more detached from the outcome than I've ever been, probably a combination of having done it for so long, a little bit of maturity, a lot of therapy. So I'm just more like, okay, this will be interesting to see how people react to it. But thank you for indulging us talk about this. And thank you for going down the wonder hole with us each week, of those six episodes. Let us know how you experience it. And we'll talk out to next week. Hey guys, listen, I drank my coffee every single morning on the way to work. And this morning,

I'm listening to this episode, the latest one about you guys with the pills and the chewing. And I legitimately almost spit my coffee out two times because I just going about my morning, just, you know, doing my thing. And then you see. say something, it's just so unhinged, I almost just spit it out twice, so I just thank you for that, and I might actually even listen to this episode another time, because, like, you guys are so, I love you so much, but I just, thank you.

It's ridiculous. Love you guys, bye.