(upbeat music) – 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. We’ve talked about it between the two of us in the past, just trying to figure out what it is that tickles our funny bones, and what are 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, I always find it interesting… (chuckles) 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, 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. – Yeah, they may scratch their heads or whatever. – But that’s the main, that’s the main outcome, desired outcome. – But I find it interesting when people who do something for a living sorta 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, “Yeah, you know Tom. You know Tom, at Tom’s 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… Isn’t there a Tom- – There is a Tom’s. – And there’s a Tom number two. That’s something that happens in L.A. is that- – There’s actually a lot- – You’ll have a restaurant- – There’s a Tommy’s. There’s a Tommy’s, which is- – 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. There’s Chinese restaurants and some burger/taco restaurants around L.A. that are like, I’ve seen… For a Chinese restaurant, I’ve seen probably up to maybe number four, you know? There’s Frontier Wok, and then there’s Frontier Wok Too. – I think when you get to number five is when you start just saying, “You know what? We don’t have to number these anymore.” – But yeah, I know what you’re saying. 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 no, is that against the law? – You know… (Rhett laughing) – 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 kinda getting back to our sorting the mail. You wanna sort the mail- – Oh, well, you’re gonna wanna hold onto that a little bit- (Rhett laughing) – You wanna sort the mail. – Given 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? – But delivering your own mail, that’s crossing the line. (Rhett laughing) – Okay, we’re going here. I have something for you, and it’s kinda crazy that you’re already on this track. – That I’m on mail? – Well, okay, so just put a pause to that. Just clear your mind. – I can’t do that. – 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 kinda tabula Rosa, clear the slate. – Oh, tabula Rosa. Somebody’s been watching a documentary! – (laughs) What, on Latin? (Rhett laughing) Latin and philosophy? – Well, you didn’t take a Latin class! – No, I didn’t. I’ve been watching documentaries. – Right. (Link laughing) – No, I know what the term tabula… 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’ve given those to us, that class we would have been in? They were smaller than the other textbooks. It was a smaller book. – It was the AG vocabulary books. So if you were academically gifted, you got an additional vocabulary book and it had like bigger words in it, 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. (Link chuckling) 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. – 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 (laughs) 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 you know, 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 audiophiles. – Okay, I’ve got my eyes closed and now 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. Ah, I can’t get it to stand up! Okay, there it is, (chuckles) 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 can just put the stand down here. – Why is it oily and wet? Okay, so- – ‘Cause I’ve used it. – All right, it looks like… It has the shape of a… One side looks like a microphone. 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, I mean, I can’t… There’s only one thing that I know- – What’s it made out of? – It’s made out of silicone, like rubber. – Or Silicon, depending on who you are, and how you talk about it. Push the button. – Well, I’m sure it’s gonna vibrate. (device humming) – Yeah, hold that up to the mic, and let’s get some… – It’s a vibrator. – Well, it vibrates. – But that doesn’t… I’m just saying that in a technical term. – Push it again. (device humming loudly) More intense. – And then it’s got, yeah, this is a typical vibrator in that it’s got different speeds, and then- – It’s pulsing. – There’s a pulsating, then there’s a fast pulsate. – Yes, and then- – And then it goes off. – And it’s 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 ya- – Uh, okay. – 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 so oily on the bottom? – ‘Cause 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, yeah, yeah… I’m sure it can be used… If you wanted to sort your own mail, you could do it with this. (Link laughing) But I am very convinced that there’s so many better options for that. I mean, the fact that it’s got these little nodules on it, (sighs) from a scientific standpoint, I would say that this is… And there’s a hair on it, which is a clue. – Mm, okay, sure, pick those off. That’s fine. – What kinda hair is that? (Link laughing) 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 $100, and- – Well, that’s a rip-off. – And basically, 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. (both laughing) (stutters) A face vibrator. – Vibrator. (laughs) I mean, I’ve never had a gift like that before! And sometimes we’ll do it in sync, like, 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- – But, okay- – To exfoliate and- – But what is the- – She’s saying this is better. – Well, I’ll tell you why she thinks it’s better. ‘Cause I- – Marketing! That’s why! – I guarantee you- – Instagram marketing, period! – No, 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. 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, or whatever. – 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, or basically, everything that you decide to do, you do very aggressively. – So 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 fricking 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 a little skinny- – It gives. – It has a give to it, and I was thinking, this has not got enough scrub to it. – (laughs) 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. – (laughs) Okay. – Listen, I agree- – Your wife saved your face! – The reason why she got… She got one for herself, too. The reason why, it is marketing. It’s an anti-aging 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 to 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- – There’s only one thing that actually needs to vibrate. – What? – A actual vibrator. Because if that doesn’t vibrate- – I don’t know- – That can be a problem. – When I got this, and for the first couple 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. Quip is a sponsor, not currently a sponsor, I don’t think, but so be it. – They’ll come back around. – 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,” and you were like, “Well, my toothbrush stopped vibrating.” (laughs) – I think it- – “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 vibe… Have you put it anywhere else? – No, but- – ‘Cause that’s what would be a problem with me. – I also think that this is kind of a back door, (laughs) 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 (chuckles) before I even brought this thing out of my pocket! – Right. – By the way, you can keep it in your pocket very discreetly and you can carry it with you anywhere. – I talk about self-pleasure at least once a day, it’s just, it usually doesn’t happen on this podcast. – I think I’m going to be, like, whenever I start traveling and stuff, you’ll see me in airport bathrooms using this vibrator on my face. You know how you see people- – But you have to use it with soap, right? – Brushing their teeth? 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, 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 mean, I move my hands very quickly when I do it. – That’s what I’m trying to figure out, like the seat in my car will vibrate. I’m trying to… There’s gotta be something that doesn’t currently vibrate that we can vibratize and just revolutionize the market. – I’ve got ideas of 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! – How ’bout, it’s a vibrating shirt. – A tight vibrating shirt. That’s- – 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 that- – I think a vibrating comb- – Like a vibrating bed is something that’s been in motels for, you know, decades. A vibrating comb. – A vibrating comb, so, you know, 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. The structure of the hair, you can’t run a comb through my hair, 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, ’cause it’s never been this long, is- – 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. – Oh, wow. – 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, that’s scary, innit? – Like, every time. And I only do that like twice a week, because it takes so long; I don’t have time! – Well, you might run outta hair! – If that, you know, this is waterproof, you make that brush vibrate, and it’s gonna work its way through the… You know what, I bet you, you could look on Amazon right now and find- – Or at least feel good. – Vibrating brush is probably already a thing. It’s not, let’s file a patent right now. – Vibrating pillow? – That 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? (chuckles) – No, no, it vibrates very quickly and it makes the… I bet you it would make the process of writing even more enjoyable. – No. – Maybe increase your stamina, and also make the ink come out even more uniform. A vibrating pen. – Vibrating underwear. – Well, that exists. – What? – Yeah, that exists, man! I can tell you a lot of things exist. I go to those websites. – Are you talking about Adam & Eve? – Yeah, Adam & 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. Invent 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. 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, it’s probably hurting the business. (laughs) But like you said, maybe there are people who… I mean, I kinda wanna see how fits, do you know what I’m saying? – You’re usin’ that term. – (laughs) I kinda wanna know like, well, how does this actually relate to the human body? (Link chuckling) You know, how do- – Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s fine. – How do these vibrating underwears go on? Is it one leg through each hole? In the waist at the top? (laughs) – But there’s nothing… Let’s see, I mean, ’cause, like, your XBOX controller vibrates, your freakin’… 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, but- – The comb is not a bad idea. – But I think- – We got a musical comb. – It probably exists. – But is it musical vibratory? All right. – Well, we could talk about that all day. – All right. I’m gonna put this back in my pocket. – Yeah, just don’t vibrate it while we’re talking, please. We also- – In my jacket pocket, (laughs) not my pants pocket. – We don’t have anything that vibrates in the Mythical Store, but we do have magical mugs that change color when you put… They’re heat activated! When you put a hot beverage in there, it creates a scene. – Mine has hot tea. – That is related to the “Good Mythical Morning” intro. – It is revealing the scene, but I can tell you right now, one of the things about this is that when you put your hot drink, your coffee, your tea in this thing, you can get an indication that it’s starting to cool, that you need to get back to it before it gets tepid. You know, I’d rather drink all my coffee in some big gulps while it’s still warm than discover that I’ve got a third of my coffee and it’s tepid. And this gives you a visual representation of that. So it’s not just that it is the coolest, most magical mug you’ve ever seen, but it is also functional and it vibrates. – And here’s one of the things – No, it doesn’t. – A lot of people have asked, “How is it that on ‘Good Mythical Morning,’ whoever has the heat-activated mug, it just stays hot all the time?” Well, a little inside information- – That’s a secret. – The one I have is always activated to give the appearance that it always has something hot in it. The one that Link is currently using is an authentic one, which is why you see that the top of his flame is already fading; look at the top of my flame. It will never fade. So yeah, it is trickery. – And if you’re a member of the Mythical Society, you already knew that because we answered it in an AMA. We give all types of secrets over there. – Mm, double-add, yeah, mythicalsociety.com. – And mythical.com to get your magical mug needs met. Rep ya boys. – Okay! – What makes us laugh? My contribution to this episode is gonna be more philosophical than… And I think the list that you have, I’ll have some camaraderie on that, because you actually made a list of things that are currently making you laugh, right? – Yeah, yeah. – Okay, I made some things that more historically have made me laugh, have made us laugh, that I’d like to analyze. – Yeah, I’m not, yeah. My stuff is not… Nothing really, maybe except one, is current, (chuckles) but I am currently- – How do you wanna get into it? – Laughing at them. – I don’t know, I could just start with one. – Sure. – So I kinda 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 to laugh. I’m gonna go here. Yeah, I don’t… – 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, some comedies, I absolutely love, but my favorite shows are dramas, right? Those are the things I kinda 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, ’cause they’re spending all day doing things to make people laugh or thinking about things that 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, and- – Right. – 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- – (chuckles) Yeah. – Shooting some stuff, and then we had a lunch break. And sometimes we’ll eat lunch and not have a meeting over lunch. (chuckles) 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 Bakker.” Now you remember, if you watched “Good Mythical Morning” a couple of years ago, (Link laughing) Jim Bakker is the televangelist who was really popular in the ’80s, he and Tammy Faye, and they also, you know, they were guilty of fraud, and he took a bunch of money, but he had this sort of redemption. He went to prison and he came back and he is, again, a televangelist. And I think he’s set up in Branson, Missouri. He invites these audiences into his program. He’s got a new wife, who’s kinda Tammy Faye-like, wears not as much makeup, but she kinda 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 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 Bakker 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 like a morning show set and his wife is a cohost, and he’s got these (chuckles) other cohosts, and they’ve got a studio audience that’s sitting in dinner place settings- – Old folks, mostly. – Yeah, and I mean, you’d think he would open a bucket and it would just be full of creamed 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 Bakker reaches his bare hand into and just eats the rice. Now, let me just say, I could watch any of this Jim Bakker 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. – It 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 Bakker- – TBN network, yeah. – 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 just to their credit, they recognize that these guys are swindlers, 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. – 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 ’em, 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 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 kinda doubles back on things and emphasizes things, and- – 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. – The purity. – You can watch a Vic Berger edit and appreciate the fact that, yes, it’s manipulated, but the things that Jim Bakker 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 have to get over the sadness of him taking advantage of people. But at a certain point, especially with Vic’s editions, you can just 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 it” is not the right word. – I’ll just say that I think that the people who are taken in by people like Jim Bakker, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for them. – Well, (sighs) you know- – I’m just saying- – That’s harsh, because I mean, you got some blue-haired grannies, and it’s just, you know, you gotta protect those people. You can’t expect them- – But hold on, but what harm is being done to them? – Money! – They’re not, I mean… – They’re being drained! – Yeah, but they’re, I mean… – They’re getting buckets of food. (chuckles) – I don’t think people are going broke. I don’t think these old folks are going broke buying Jim Bakker Buckets, you know? And I do think that- – But they’re scared of the End Times, and they’re- – Well, and here- – There’s fear-mongering- – I do think that, and I do have, I don’t have Jim Bakker Buckets, I have a fair amount, I have a few months’ supply of freeze-dried food at my house, you know? And I got you some, and that’s probably the only… You probably have like a couple of weeks that I gave you. – Thank you. – But it isn’t like selling a blessed… And I don’t know, Jim Bakker may do this, but some people will sell a blessed, you know, towel that’s got holy water on it. And he’s not, like, healing people. He’s not 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- – Well, listen, but the one thing we can agree on is that even though 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. It’s taking this reality and it’s adding this just creepy juxtapositions, and you gotta watch it, but- – And there’s… And I’m sure this is one of the things that you’re gonna talk about, no actor… I’m not interested in an actor portraying a Jim Bakker character. Now, sure, I would laugh at it. Like, okay- – I’d pay a ticket price to watch Sam Rockwell in a Jared Hess- – Yeah, well, okay, I’m a fan- – Which, 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 that kinda televangelist megachurch culture in the South- – But it’s a totally different thing when you know this is a dramatization. They’re actors. – But I would much rather see the real thing. And I’m sure that… Well, first of all, I know that Jim Bakker and his wife, and other people associated with him, 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 onstage. – 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. (laughs) 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 them. – Yeah, we have this shared fascination with people being real. I mean, (chuckles) you know that as a family, we’ve dedicated our lives to watching “Survivor.” That is like our life- – It’s the funniest show on television. (both laughing) – 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, like all of your defense mechanisms, everything you do, it’s just… 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, and 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. – That, but, well, I’m not into “90 Day Fiance” because of the making out, trust me, or “The Bachelor,” for that- – 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 Bakker… I have complicated feelings towards Jim Bakker, because he creeps me out in a certain way, but at the same time, something about the way (laughs) his eyes move and his 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. – (laughs) Yeah! – He hasn’t… You can tell that he hasn’t watched himself back and become a persona. 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- – 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- – It’s the granddad energy. – You would find all those weird things, like his fashion sense, like the fact that he… He’s got that hat with the 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. These little choices that he’s making- – Lotta empty pockets. – I just, I find it intoxicating. (laughs) 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, ’cause you take like Goorgon, you know, from the “Shift It, Shift It” commercial, and the entertainment quality for us was based in getting Goorgon to make a commercial. You know what I’m saying? It was like- – Well, and it was also very… Well, 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- – Yeah. – 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, he… (laughs) I can’t remember, I think he picks up the phone and says something, and then- – 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 like hesitation. – (laughs) Yeah. – And it’s like, we see that kinda 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. – There’s this, yeah, relatable honesty in that moment, of, he’s like, “I don’t know what to do with the phone.” (Link laughing) And we’re like, “Well, that’s why this is going in the commercial.” – And it kinda worked from a story standpoint, too, that, like, I know, he sees this beautiful woman, who just responded to a Craigslist ad, (laughs) to show up and be in his commercial. But, like, oh, you know, he’s bumfuzzled. (laughs) 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 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. – Sure. – 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 committed to the gameplay, like really, everyone’s trying to answer. Everybody’s saying the answer, and we’re getting into it, and then I find myself doing this same thing. So one of the classic things in “Family Feud” is, after the round has been completed and there’s still some unrevealed answers on the board, they reveal them, and then the crowd just- – Reads out loud. – Impulsively repeats it. You know, it’s like, we asked 100 people, “What’s the first thing you put on in the morning?” “Underwear!” Everybody says that. And I find myself watching it and saying, “Underwear!” – You speak out loud? – Yes, I am a- – Wow. – I am a committed audience member, and then I’m like- – Yeah, you are. – Okay, what is Steve gonna do? Steve’s gonna… 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 ’cause 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. 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 can go- – And they can get embarrassing answers. – A little too far and it seems too forced, but again, it’s also, I’m fascinated by, these people playing this game have never been on television. 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 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’ve answered this. – Yeah, it’s tough. – And I’m fascinated by the honest human psychology of somebody being on a game show! – Yeah, 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 kinda weakened, laid-bare state, where it’s like, you can’t… 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. Honesty! I think that’s- – Yeah, it’s great. – That’s what we go back to. – And you’ve got somebody, 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, 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 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 (chuckles) be funny about it in the moment, that’s what makes him good. Every “Family Feud” host has been able to do that. – But 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 actors, but the subject matter was still that observational honesty and exploring that stuff, and then, with a character like Kramer, or a lot of the characters, yeah, it was the other characters kinda picking them apart, Jerry picking apart his dates, then everyone picking apart Elaine’s dates, including Elaine, you know? 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, in sort of picking apart other things. – But they were all assholes. – Yeah. – All of ’em, 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 one of the reasons people didn’t think that it would work, it’s like, well, who likes these people? And it also might be one of the reasons that- – But I didn’t like- – The younger generation watches it now and it’s like, well, first of all, you have to get over the ’90s of it, and the laugh track and all that stuff, that might get in the way. – 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, you know, I was thinking about, like, what are the shows I’ll watch now? I watched “Ted Lasso” and I really liked it. – But not necessarily for the comedy. I mean there were definitely funny moments. I liked 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, I think Ted Lasso as a character- – Oh, yeah. – Like, he worked. He was locked in. – I loved 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 like 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, the type of comedy movies that we like… The Adam Sandler movies, even the Will Ferrell movies, that type of stuff that was like over the top, I watched some of those, but I never really got into it. 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 it- – 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’d 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 these joke-oriented sitcoms. We like more of the situational-oriented sitcoms, and have that different single-cam tone, versus the multi-cam “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. 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 I concluded was, I mean, having characters that are built funny that I could… 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. I love that, 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, 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’s a turnoff, right? – For us, yeah. – Yeah, and when you 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, and it might… Okay, so you take something… One of my favorite shows, “Barry,” right? “Barry” on HBO, Bill Hader plays, basically, a hitman who’s trying to- – Become an actor. – And it has one of our favorite actors in it, Stephen Root. It kinda toes the line, right? 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 this, 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 kinda like behind the scenes with… The brilliance of “Barry” is that you take, you build these characters, you put ’em in this high-stakes situation, but you tweak everything for the comedy. Everything that, it could be, I mean, this could be Kiefer Sutherland in “24.” You can have the same characters in the same story, but the way that all the situations are turned towards comedy to kinda 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 those funny… The choices set up the comedy, not the… And then you trust the payoff, versus writing the joke, the punchline as 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, I don’t- – it’s so important, the beginning is so important to us for those reasons, ’cause then you trust that if you set it up right, that the comedy will take care of itself. – And let me just be clear, this is not what we did on “Buddy System.” Season one, which we always sorta dog a little bit and say isn’t any good, (sighs) it’s not great. It had some jokes in it that didn’t land. We kinda 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 dramatic. – 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 kind of a big shift for us creatively, right? Because again, when you think about what we do and the sort of sketches that we put out on Instagram or TikTok or that kinda thing, it’s like, those are, it’s a completely different medium. The conceit is, we’re in a comical, ridiculous, nonbelievable world. So, and 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… I mean, of course my kids only go to TikTok, and so much of that is comedy, you know? And they’re just sitting there laughing and sharing stuff with each other. – And I think the reason that, I’ll show… And I know you know the guy that I’m gonna talk about, ’cause 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, in many examples, it’s 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 kinda 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 Petey USA. (Link chuckles) So P-E-T-E-Y U-S-A, long-haired, bearded guy. I mean, he’s only got- – How many followers does he got? – 585,000 followers at the time of this recording. And listen, 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 him. – Okay, well, let’s just watch the one about cornhole. – And I mean, he’s playing this… Petey 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’ve come from a really strange person, so you start to think that this guy’s self-aware enough to tap into his strangeness. But I think there’s a lot of the real guy- – Definitely! Definitely. – Out front here. 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. – Mkay. (cornbag thuds) Playing cornhole. – Dammit. – Oh, a hand comes out of the cornhole, takes his corn bag- – What the fuck? (quiet music) – It’s kinda creepy. – Hey, man! – Oh, it’s him, in the cornhole. – How’d you get in there? I’m cut in half, man. Oh my god! – He’s cut in half. – How are you not even bleeding? Oh, I’m bleeding pretty good, actually. Oh, fuck! You need to go- – Yeah, he’s got blood all over the place. – To the hospital. – I love the fact that when he says expletives, he beeps it out, but you can still hear it. – You still hear it. – He’s making all these choices. – Hey, what’s goin’ on out 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. – 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. – Aw, geez. What’s up? I think he just passed away. – (chuckles) Passed away. – Yeah, he’s passed on, unfortunately. – (laughs) Passed on! – Well, you know, cut-in-half guys tend to do that. Yeah, half a guy doesn’t tend to last too long, does he? (Rhett laughing) – That’s the end. That’s the end? – So, just, that’s it! – Yeah, “Half a guy doesn’t tend to last too long, does he?” I mean, where… Who comes up with this stuff? – Petey does. – How does Petey come up with this stuff? It’s brilliant! I mean, I can see this… 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, yeah, sure. – He 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. See? (gentle music) – Okay, so he’s watching- – It’s guys swimming. – He’s watching guys swimming- – WTF, this is sick. – In an Olympic pool, with himself. – Hey, what’s up, guys? Hey, what’s up? – And then he comes in. – You got it, man. Epic, hold their breath? They hold their breath underwater (Rhett laughing) and then they do one of these. What’s goin’ on? – He’s acting like a swimmer. Hey, man. Hey. Hey, man! – None of these guys have ever seen swimmers. – Guys swimming, yeah. Epic! – Yeah. – Holding their breath? – Yeah. They’re fascinated by it. – Doing one of these guys. No way! – No way. Five of them. – It’s guys swimming. Like fish? Well, yeah, but they’re guys. Incredible. (Rhett laughing) Guys swimming like fish. Guys swimming like fish. – (laughs) Now they’re slapping fives with each other. – I mean, the editing is so great, because it’s just one guy! – And the music. – The music is strange. (hands slapping) – Swimming guys. Exactly, man. – They’re still giving fives. – It’s like, what? – (laughs) I mean- – And that’s it. – It’s just, I just- – So, footage of swimmers- – It’s just, they’re watching- – Turns into- – Two guys swimming. – “They” meaning him playing five different characters- – Everybody in the same- – Which, in the same… They’re all the same guy- – They’re just dressed differently. – In different clothes. (laughs) He’s so great! – And he puts his music, this like (hums weirdly), 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, so it surprises you and it makes you feel a little envious. Like, I know that I could never, you know, 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 Petey 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, 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. – 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 and he’s coming up with these situations, that, I’m not saying that he would just bond with some dude over guys 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, is 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, you know, that we’ve had a problem with all along, is just trying too hard, pushing too hard. And you know, I think once we’ve… I mean, we’re still relaxing into “Good Mythical Morning,” and I’m encouraged, and I think people are picking up on it, that we’re just, we’re pushing things less and less and just saying, “You know what, we’re just going with it.” And if we do something where we are pushing the comedy of 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… – (sighs) Oh, shit. – You actually… Yeah, if you’re still working on it, you’re still honing it. – I’m still working on the use of that term. – You can just use honing in all situations, though. – Well- – That’s what you concluded before, and then you just went back on yourself. – It’s your fault. (Rhett chuckling) You get in my head, man! I mean- – Still homing. – 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. I can’t remember his frickin’ last name. – I’ll 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, ’cause as much as I love the show, I hate the fact that I can’t remember right now. – Well, I’ve got it. 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, kinda. There’s your 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, a left turn, a 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. – Yeah, I’m on the opposite side of Petey USA than you. – 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 sense the actor and I sense 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 ’cause 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 is not gonna be a character actor. That doesn’t mean that somebody is not gonna play a completely different person. It doesn’t mean that somebody is 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 of weeks ago, me and Jessie and Shepherd, and Shepherd absolutely loved it. And you know, you take the character that Christopher Guest plays in that movie, which is (laughs) obviously- – The hound dog guy? – The hound, it’s not him, it’s this dude from some place in North Carolina, but I can’t remember, I think it was a made-up name. Pine Tree? Pine Nut, North Carolina. – Yeah. (laughs) – But everyone plays- – That’s so good. – 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 almonds nuts, you got… – And he loves those dogs. – Yeah, but the reason that he’s funny- – Is ’cause 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 kinda 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, you know, grow 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 kinda gravitate towards this idea that the truth… There’s truth in comedy, and that’s the thing that you’re kinda 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 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 absurdist and realist, that I just don’t… – Yeah, like- – If you live in the uncanny valley, you can’t get into it. – 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, 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- – [Both] 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 an episode of “Modern Family,” which is still very heightened, you know, 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 like the way they were acting? By the way, I think that’s one of the… “WandaVision” was just 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- – I don’t- – She’s fabulous. – Kathryn… Whatever her name is, she does that perfectly. She embodies those stereo… I mean, Elizabeth Olsen is great in it, but Kathryn what’s-her-name (chuckles) 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? 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 in all those things. – Right. – Now what? – Well, I mean, I think we’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 Bakker,” and it is… It’s just delightful to me! (Link laughing) – Check it out. #EarBiscuits to let us know what you thought about this conversation, and you know, where you go for laughs. (upbeat music) 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? – Hmm. We’ll talk at you next week. To watch more “Ear Biscuits,” click on the playlist on the right. – [Rhett] To watch the previous episode of “Ear Biscuits,” click on the playlist to the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best. (upbeat music)