- I just fell in love with comedy right away.
- Yeah.
- I've been fine all day. Like a swarm of weird exotic flies
(laughing)
- At least they're exotic and not basic flies, you know?
- Yeah I know I got like big ass flies here
I got like tsetse flies
(laughing)
I imported them shits
(laughs)
- Oh, you fancy huh?
(upbeat music)
When it comes to a season 5 of your show, you know
that was the ethic of what like a four year hiatus
between it?
- Because we were making a movie.
- Exactly
- So we made season four,
Then we made the movie
for three and a half, which is four years.
well, we made the movie really like cash flowing
like we're in production. Like that was three years
And then it takes a year to make the Eric Andre show.
So it was four, four and a half years between season
but that's just because the movie was no small feat.
- Yes. Which we will get to you in a minute.
But it's psychedelic is,
is putting the Eric Andre show very lightly
because it is a whole trip.
And I feel like now that it's been around for five seasons
we have such a good idea of like what, of what it is.
- Ladies and Gentlemen The Eric Andre Show
(crowd cheering)
(recap plays)
(man yelling)
(man panting)
- What about sort of rolling around in that unknown is so
stimulating for you as a creative.
I mean like what, like what about that style
of comedy really like speaks to you?
- The spontaneity?
I think that like you're using every part of your brain
to improviser in the situation and mine, the most comedy out
of the situation.
So it forces you to be spontaneous and it's also like a
high wire act too so it's kind of like the highest stakes
version of comedy.
- (recap plays) " You're not Martin Luther King"
"You're not! You're not!"
- Like coming back for season five, like, did you
like what new perspective did you gain on the shutdown?
- I think, and I hope other people share this opinion
that season five is kind of the best season yet
(old video playing)
- Jeff Jermaine was our head producer
on Bad Trip on the movie.
And he came from three Jackass movies and Bad Grandpa
he's made over you know $550 million dollars
for Paramount doing a hidden camera pranks.
So he was really our shepherd through this process
And we learned so many
tricks of the trade
through Jeff. Before when we started doing pranks
on Eric Andre show at the beginning
of the show it was really just like I would jump out of a
trashcan and go boo and scare somebody
or do some big public stunt
and just have people kind of like jaw dropped observers
while I was doing some crazy
performance in the streets of New York.
But Jeff started stressing the importance of
the people you're pranking are the real stars
of the segment and they get the biggest laughs.
So the more they're on the hook and the more verbal they are
and the more they believe the premise and are responding
to it rather than just kind of like a jaw dropped
observing the bigger laughs you'll get.
Cause it's like pranking is like a magic trick
getting them to believe in the fiction of the premise as
as a reality is, is kind of the magic trick of it all.
- (video playing) Dude don't blame me, blame social media.
- How much do you kind of poke and prod and try to
pull stuff out
Like if, you know, if someone's not giving you
the reaction that you want, like, how do you, how
do you sort of like
- Your mind is split where
you're performing and you have to stay in your performance
but you're also thinking two steps ahead
of life in the editing Bay later when you're looking
at the footage and knowing what you need.
So I'm almost like an
an actor and a performer in that moment
And also a director trying to pull a performance
out of an actor.
Who's not an actor who doesn't know they're performing
who doesn't know they're being filmed.
And I can't like direct like a traditional director
cause I'm, I'm also performing in the scene.
So your mind is kind of split
in four ways where you're like, you're goating them
and trying to pull information out of them
but your still have to commit 110% to your performance
because they can't be like, wait a minute.
Is this real?
They have to believe it's real.
And you need specific information out of them.
So your mind split a million ways
and your adrenaline's just like going, going, going, going
So it's kind of like a
like a runner's high you're you're kind of almost
out of body while you're in those, in those moments
- (recap plays)
- Did you have a big failure? What was your biggest fear?
- I think every time I go
out on stage or every time I film something
there's some failure, big or small
Dude one time I opened for Chris Rock in New Orleans
and I bombed so hard, like booed off the stage.
- (laughing) No
- It was gut wrenching
and he was so sweet to me like backstage
He gave me a big hug
and he was him and his tour manager told me
about like one time where he bombed in London.
And I know bombing is part of life
but man did that audience hate me.
And it like never ended.
It was like, I got booed and heckled off stage.
I wanted to kill myself.
And then like, it's Chris rock.
So celebrities come to see his shows
So like my, my agent called me the next week
and he goes, Hey man, Anthony Mackie said, you suck.
I was like, what, what are you talking about?
He goes, Oh, he was in new Orleans filming
a Marvel movie or some shit went and saw Chris Rock
And he was like, man, that guy sucks at comedy.
And I'm talking to my agent like
why are you telling me this?
Let me process this truck.
So now every time I see Anthony Mackie
in a movie, like, well, I didn't like the last Avengers.
Okay.
- I'm your host Casey Finney
And this is creative conversation, a fast company podcast.