Zach Galifianakis is the host of Between Two Ferns, which, in case you've been living under
a rock, is probably the most unique, uncomfortable, and hilarious talk show of the decade.
And while you may have binged every cringe-worthy webisode, there are still some things you
might not know about everybody's favorite faux-public access program.
Long before he hosted IFC's surreal, partially scripted talk show Comedy Bang Bang, L.A.
comedy scene veteran Scott Aukerman sold a pilot for a late-night sketch comedy series
to Fox called The Right Now!
Show.
Aukerman told Splitsider:
"I just knew I wanted to work with Zach on something.
So we had money and I just said, 'Hey, whatever you want to do, let's do.'"
Galifianakis came back, according to Aukerman, with a "pretty much fully formed idea" for
a segment on the pilot, including a title and its look.
Galifianakis told Entertainment Weekly:
"It also kind of came out of this celebrity worship culture that we have somehow adopted
in our American psyche, and it was just a knee-jerk reaction to that.
You know, just kind of making fun of the sycophantic interviewers that kiss the Hollywood machine.
But I didn't want to prank anyone.
I didn't want it to be mean-spirited.
I wanted the people I was interviewing to be in on the joke."
Fox ultimately didn't pick up the potential SNL competitor The Right Now!
Show, but Funny or Die was into it - well, just the Between Two Ferns part.
And thus, entertainment was changed forever.
Most episodes of Between Two Ferns are a delight for audience, host, and guest.
Zach Galifianakis mildly insults guests or their work, or alludes to some painful detail
from their personal life.
For example, when Brad Pitt was a guest on the show, Galifianakis asked about how he
felt the first time he saw his then-wife, Angelina Jolie.
"Was it like one of those classical love stories, like when Ross met Rachel?
You know that show, Friends?
Have you seen that show?"
Of course, the aforementioned Rachel was portrayed by Pitt's pre-Jolie wife, Jennifer Aniston.
It's reasonable to excuse Pitt if he reacted negatively, but he kept his cool.
He may not even rank among the most unfortunate guest experiences in the history of Between
Two Ferns.
According to producer Scott Aukerman, that honor goes to Bruce Willis and Sean Penn.
Apparently, Willis is an intense guy, and it started getting to Aukerman — but it
was the Sean Penn episode that was, quote, "a really uncomfortable one."
Aukerman recalled:
"When he threatens to knock Zach out, things got really tense in the studio.
I haven't seen Sean Penn since then, but quite honestly, I'm afraid to ever see him again."
"I'll knock you the f--- out right in your chair."
Some of today's biggest and brightest stars have sat with Zach Galifianakis on Between
Two Ferns, but easily the biggest "get" in show history was President Barack Obama.
Producer Scott Aukerman told Insider that he and his staff "had put it out there" that
they wanted to interview Obama because they thought, quote, "it was a really stupid, funny
idea."
Amazingly, over the course of the next six years, Aukerman heard "here and there" that
Obama was interested in doing the show, but it never came together for various reasons,
mainly problems with scheduling.
Finally, in 2014, things worked out and the Ferns guys flew to Washington, D.C. and assembled
their set in the White House.
Aukerman recalled:
"Even then, Zach's like, 'This is not going to happen, at some point, something is going
to happen with the country, some emergency, and we're going to get word that he's not
going to come in.'"
Finally, at 5:45 p.m. - 45 minutes late - President Obama showed up.
"I mean, I have to say: When I heard that, like, people actually watch this show, I was
actually pretty surprised."
So why did the most powerful man in the free world agree to appear on a web show?
He wanted to use the platform to promote the health care exchanges, the online arm of his
"Obamacare" legislation that helped people find insurance.
It worked, too — 11 million people watched the episode on the first day it went live,
and traffic to HealthCare.gov jumped by 40 percent.
In spite of its simplicity — or probably because of it — Between Two Ferns possesses
one of the most memorable talk show sets of all time.
Emphasizing the idea that it's a humble, low-budget web series meant to look like an even lower
budgeted public access presentation, Between Two Ferns employs little more than a black
backdrop, a couple of chairs, a table, and, of course, exactly two ferns to flank host
and guests.
That gives producers some flexibility with where the show is actually taped.
When Galifianakis told producer Scott Aukerman about his idea for the project, he told Entertainment
Weekly that he said, quote, "Give me two ferns and an actor, and we'll make it look like
a cable access show."
That's literally what they did.
Galifianakis said some episodes have shot in "broom closets" and other non-glamorous
locations.
Apparently, the Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm episodes were filmed in a shed, while the
very first official episode of Between Two Ferns — in which Galifianakis interviewed
Arrested Development star Michael Cera — was shot entirely in a basement.
Terrestrially broadcast TV talk-fests like The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live tend
to favor entertainers — actors, actresses, rock stars, and models show up five nights
a week to flog their latest blockbuster movies, album releases, and signature perfumes.
Between Two Ferns, a show that exists almost entirely in the non-corporeal realm of the
internet, doesn't follow those strictures and invites guests from a variety of fields,
as well as people not normally seen as guests on the late-night circuit.
Sure, he's spoken with Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm, but when was the last time you saw
Carrot Top sit down with James Corden, or saw Conan O'Brien share a panel with Andy
Dick?
"Hey, uhh…
Papa Smurf called.
He wants his suit back."
Still, despite that breadth and variety, Galifianakis has some dream guests.
He's never interviewed an athlete, for example, though he told Entertainment Weekly:
"I would like to do Shaquille O'Neal.
I would like to do a sports figure."
He's also gone on record to say he'd like to interview, among other loftier figures,
the Pope, British royalty, and, quote, "an older British actress like Judi Dench."
Zach Galifianakis has hosted several extremely powerful guests on Between Two Ferns, including
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Tila Tequila.
And although he'd love to talk to the Pope or the Queen someday, there's one influential
world leader that probably won't be sitting for an awkward interview next to a houseplant
any time soon: steak magnate and American president Donald Trump.
After Galifianakis' interview with Hillary Clinton became a huge viral hit in the lead-up
to the 2016 presidential election, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times asked Galifianakis
if he would give "equal time" to then-candidate Trump.
Galifianakis' reply?
"Doing it the other way doesn't interest me.
He's the kind of guy who likes attention - bad attention or good attention.
So you're dealing with a psychosis there that's a little weird."
No word on whether or not he ever had any plans to interview Jill Stein.
As odd and original as Between Two Ferns can be, it's somehow not the first time Zach Galifianakis
has hosted a bizarre talk show that sets out to deconstruct and satirize TV talk shows
and at the same time make its guests uncomfortable.
Way back in 2002, Galifianakis was not yet a household comedy name.
He was known primarily for his work on the "alternative comedy" circuit and for roles
in box-office bombs like Bubble Boy, Out Cold, and Corky Romano.
Because he had a beard, he usually played loners and weirdos.
But someone at VH1 liked what they saw, because the cable network built a strange and innovative
nightly talk show around him called Late World with Zach.
Like Between Two Ferns, Late World attempted to poke some holes in the facade that is the
Hollywood entertainment/celebrity worship complex.
For example, Galifianakis would talk to celebrities from "the red carpet," but Late World would
cut real footage of stars with shots of Galifianakis standing by a garbage bin in an alley — so,
clearly not in the same place.
On another occasion, he interviews up-and-coming actor and future Hangover cohort Bradley Cooper
with some rote questions, but the audience is privy to the host's inner voice:
"This is going great!
This guy loves me.
He really does…
He really, really, really does."
Late World lasted just nine weeks on VH1.
Can't win 'em all, Zach.
Between Two Ferns: The Movie debuted on Netflix in 2019.
How does one take a low-budget sketch that imitates and emulates an even lower-budget
cable access production and turn it into a full-length feature film?
Well, writer/star Zach Galifianakis and writer/director Scott Aukerman knew they wanted to do a movie,
but it took years for them to figure out how.
It was while filming the 2012 Comedy Central special Between Two Ferns: A Fairytale of
New York that Aukerman told the Los Angeles Times they got the idea.
He dished:
"It was the first time we'd done something with Ferns that wasn't just the five-minute
video and we had so much fun, we said, 'If we can ever think of an idea that is that
low-concept enough that we could just set up on the fly and make something really quickly,
we would take the opportunity.'
Now all they needed was a story, which proved tough.
Aukerman told The Hollywood Reporter:
"We wanted to do just a fun improv movie, and then I think we got a little bit in our
heads about what it could be and started thinking too much about it, and the plot got very complicated."
So he left the project for some time and re-absorbed similarly sketch-based and improv-heavy movies,
such as Wayne's World, Borat, and This Is Spinal Tap.
Then, he said, quote, "It just came to me very quickly of 'let's throw away all the
plot and do something super simple.'"
Aukerman wasn't lying: The plot of Between Two Ferns: The Movie is simple and straightforward.
Will Ferrell, evil president of Funny or Die, demands that Zach Galifianakis produce 10
episodes of his celebrity interview show and hand in the tapes in Los Angeles in two weeks.
"His show's success is absolutely predicated on the fact that people are laughing at him
— not with him."
Zach hits the road with his assistant and a skeleton crew and grab hastily-planned interviews
with celebrities in different cities along the way.
Aukerman told the Los Angeles Times:
"We started shooting with no one on board.
It's a crazy way to do a movie, to not know what you're shooting.
The crew thought we were insane."
Beyond that, large portions of the film were improvised.
The shooting script consisted primarily of outlines of scenes that Aukerman would fill
in with lines the performers made up on the spot.
Aukerman quipped to The Hollywood Reporter:
"The script really looks like a serial killer's manifesto.
It just was like a lunatic wrote it or something, because it was super long with just half-sentences
written on it sometimes."
Somehow, this is just not that surprising.
Sadly, the chance for Galifianakis to passive-aggressively verbally assault the Duchess of Cambridge,
or silently stare at Pope Francis until he feels so uncomfortable he has to get up and
leave has probably passed.
Between 2014 and 2019, Galifianakis and company turned out just two episodes — Hillary Clinton,
and a special segment with Jerry Seinfeld and Cardi B for an episode of Comedians in
Cars Getting Coffee.
And while it's been a cultural sensation, a surprisingly small number of episodes exist
— only 23, including TV specials.
The reason for the show's quiet and indefinite demise: Galifianakis wants to quit while he's
ahead.
While promoting his TV series Baskets in 2016, Galifianakis told the Los Angeles Times that
Between Two Ferns had, quote, "kind of run its course a bit."
He and collaborator Scott Aukerman still had the juice in them for the 2019 Netflix feature
Between Two Ferns: The Movie, which probably represents the end of the franchise.
Galifianakis told USA Today:
"There's a shelf life for something like this.
We live in meaner times now.
I don't know if there's an appetite for something like this out there."
He added that he thinks he and Aukerman will put the show "to bed after" the movie.
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