Who's the weak link in the group.
Me
Ah Mark.
That's not true.
Me
Not me.
I'm a powerhouse.
This is What a Joke with Tom Papa and Fortune Feimster
on Netflix is a Joke Radio
Congratulations.
This is a huge thing.
This is a big thing.
They have a big Netflix thing.
You're going global.
Yeah.
We're were really, really important now.
Yeah, we're a big part of the dialogue.
Since the show came out, I haven't not
walked on a red carpet.
That's let let's put it that way.
It's just the streets are paved with them now.
And rightly so.
How far was your reach before Netflix?
We will.
I, my, um, I can reach like from here to like,
when I was laying in bed, I could, you know, reach over
and get a glass of water.
And now I can literally put my arm into the kitchen, right.
Go to the glass cabinet, get the glass, pour the water,
bring it back like this.
And just for clarity that we got so much money from
the Netflix show that Broden got surgery and had
about three other arms.
Attached to his arm to extend his reach.
That was very brave.
Especially during a pandemic to go in for an
elective surgery like that.
I might, I got COVID but I, I, um, I have no regrets.
This is the kind of kooky crazy stuff we get up to
on a day to day basis, Tom.
Like I like, like the cookie craziness in the show.
It's just a reflection of our real lives, Tom.
I quit smoking weed a long time ago, and I always
want to go back to it.
And when I see stuff like yours, or like Tim and Eric
or the Eric Andre show, these kinds of things, it's
the same sense of humor I had with my friends when
I was getting high all the time makes me nostolgic.
I feel like, I feel like where, like that
touch that touch.
Like, I'm sure everyone tells us they like to watch what
we do when they're high, but like, like I gave up smoking
weed or a while ago as well.
And I just feel like when I was smoking weed, this
would have been just that touch too intense for me.
I just would have been like, I'm going to
go get some nuggets.
This is a lot, everyone tells us that works for
them, but for me, I wouldn't have been able to handle it.
Yeah.
It's always so interesting to me when we, uh, when people
talk about that, because.
We are the three, like, I mean, we're not straight
edge, but we're pretty close.
And like, we don't, we don't, you know, like our ideas don't
really come from, uh, little drug-induced trips or we don't
really do any of that stuff.
I mean, we barely drink.
So it's always so interesting when like something that has
come from such a sober mind.
Yeah, appeals.
Appeals the people when they kind of, you know, trying
to expand their horizons if, you know what I mean.
What's so cool about your comedy that it's not so
straight ahead is that you play with timing,
you play with the form.
So like when you're.
I think it was Mark you're sucking on the noodles.
And it was like, yeah, like that kind of a moment.
You can understand why if you're out, if you're
high and you're lingering there, nobody else would
linger in the moment of actually eating a noodle.
You'd move on to whatever the joke was.
But you take this anti-moment and make it into a joke.
And if you're high you're like, why are we staying here?
I don't know, but it makes perfect sense.
What .should Mark have?
Brodens leftover noodles.
Or noodles, leftover Brodens surely Broden won't mind
if I have one noodle.
When you guys were younger, were you into absurdist kind
of like different paced, alternative kind of comedy
or were you fans of like straight ahead stuff that was.
I think I'm more into the straight ahead stuff now
than I was when I was a kid and teen, I think now, I'm
inter-, because I've been doing it for so long and
I've been watching, uh, this sort of strange comedy for
so long, it doesn't shock me.
It doesn't surprise me as a creator of it.
I don't really like laugh anymore.
So what I really enjoy now is just a really
well-constructed joke.
So I like love 30 Rock.
I love, um, Kimmy Schmidt has a really weird dark edge,
but I love just a really well-written well performed.
Yeah.
I remember.
Very, very vividly being like 10 and like flicking
through cable and.
Monty Python and the Holy grail being on.
And I never heard of Monty Python and my
parents were like, Oh, you should watch this.
I think you'll like it.
And I'm like, mm.
But like vomiting from laughter.
Cause I was like laughing so much and just like not
understanding any of the jokes, but just feeling
the sense that something funny was happening or like
there was that kind of, it was not being done through,
this is a smart joke.
It's like just the repetition of a shot or
a per- or a character's really big, or what they're
focusing on is really.
You know, stupid.
And I remember just feeling such a, such a connection
to it as everyone did every time that Monty Python, you
know, anyone discovers them.
yYeah.
Why, what is it about that?
And I was thinking about it when I was watching you like
the people who hook into you, it same way that you're
explaining Monty Python.
When you see something that's a little different,
there's like this loyalty that you have.
I had to tell her when something's a little
weirder and a little.
You kind of like latch into it and make it your
own in this devoted way.
Yeah.
You don't with other straight ahead stuff?
No.
Especially when other people.
Hate it.
Like I had that, I had that experience when I discovered
Tim and Eric, because I was very, I was very hungry for
like alt stuff when I was younger in high school and
I wanted to find it all.
He smoked a Joint.
I smoked a joint.
And he was hungry.
Filled with bacon.
Um, but like, you know, the first time I discovered.
Like the Mighty Boosh and, and things like that.
It was all very, no one had really heard of it.
You know, the, the internet wasn't really a thing.
So it was always on like burnt DVDs that my brother's friends
had like passed down to him and then he'd pass down to me.
And that's how I was discovering this stuff.
And with Tim and Eric, the first time I found that.
And then like, you know, realized you have found a
few little bits and pieces very early on in when YouTube
was in its infancy and then rushed to, uh, you know,
like our local DVD CD store and found that it was a TV
show and pre-ordered it.
And then got the first season, the fucking day it
came out, you know, and then I remember I remember going
and like putting it on and showing all my housemates.
I think I just started uni when the, when
the first season had kind of landed in Aus.
And no one in the room, but me laughing.
And I was just like dying.
Like I was like keeled over and everyone else was mad.
Right.
And it's like, and that did two things for me.
One, it emboldened me.
As to how much I loved it.
It made me go you're all wrong.
And I feel special.
I was like, I feel special because I
get it and you don't.
Right.
And like, and that's made me love it even more.
And based on the reaction we're getting in terms of
the extremes of how much people like it and how
much people dislike it, it's fascinating to me.
Cause I'm like, Oh, if we've created something like that,
That's really special to me, really special to me.
So special, I know like if you cast a, if you really try
and cast a wide net and make everybody happy, no people
will kind of like it, but it's not that ravenous thing of
like, no, I fucking love this.
Yeah, it's a casual thing.
Yeah.
I think fans feel a certain responsibility when they see
other people not liking it.
They go, Oh, well, I'm the one, I'm the one that's making
this happen because if other people hate this, when it goes
out and, and, and my parents or my friends go, I hate this.
Then I'm the one that's going to keep this going.
I'm the one that's gonna convince these people
to keep making it.
So it forces them to like engage in a way that they
maybe wouldn't if it's like, well, everyone likes it.
So it's going to keep happening forever.
I think that's you end up with our fans, uh, like
intense in a way that I I've not seen in comedy before.
Like I think we have maybe, maybe, um, Mighty
Boosh had a bit of it.
Um, But we have just an intensity of, of fandom.
That's like, so cool and so supportive and so intense.
What do they look like when they're in line
coming into a show?
You know, a Donna fan.
I know a Donna fan.
If I get on public transit, if I get on a train or if I am
walking down the street, like a, Donna fan is three o'clock,
he's 200 meters from me and he's about to say hello.
Like, I definitely know how they look.
They look, sometimes they look like us and
sometimes they look like the exact opposite of us.
Um, but they all, they definitely have a smell.
Um, and it's not necessarily bad, but it's, um,
but, uh, but you know,
Oh, you literally had me at this funny moment yesterday
where I was traveling and I came back from the East
coast here in the U S and.
I came into the pantry.
I cook a lot and I go into the pantry and I'm just checking
stuff out to see what we need.
And there's all these cans of beans.
Like we've, there's been multiple purchases of beans
Isn't it funny and relatable when you want to buy your
of beans, but you don't know if there's beans at home.
So you buy like heaps of cans of beans, and then you get
home and in the cabin, you've already got five cans of
beans and you laugh and laugh.
Cause there's too many beans.
That's so relatable.
Huh?
What about when you go to Hotmail and Hotmail
asks for your password, but you can't remember.
So you make a new one, but you can't use that
because Hotmail says that your new your password
was your old password.
So you knew your password all along.
That is very relatable.
Ha ha ha
Isn't funny when y'all eating,
Eating and the maitre d serves.
Not very relatable that don't relate to it
personally, not relatable.
So Ed Helms is involved.
He's an executive producer.
What's wrong with him.
What's his problem.
Where do we start my God.
We have to, we have to do, like, we were desperate
to get a show in America.
We wanted to crack America, you know, like, um, you know,
and, uh, and the, and we were desperate and he said,
well, if you really want to get a show over here,
Um, you gotta wrestle me.
And he took me that took off his shirt and he oiled
up, I was this isn't, this is just in Hollywood,
Nick at their office.
And we headed to, like, you just say, say one at a time.
He said, you got to take me.
You go.
And one by one, we had to wrestle him.
He fucking demoralized us.
He oralized us.
Oh, I thought he was a state champ.
Wasn't he in high school?
Y
eah, really good at wrestling.
He let me win though.
And that, that was really strange.
So he clearly let me win, did internally to the
group, to the three of us, because they lost it.
It just created this tension.
And I think he kind of got off on that.
Zach went first and so he was like, so what I think the sick
freak was thinking was he was like, if I let them think.
That they can beat me.
Then they're going to come in with all this confidence.
Right.
So I'll, I'll throw the first match.
And then he just proceeded to power slam Broden and
I into his coffee table.
So many times I have 11 herniated discs.
Yeah.
I wish we had done this interview earlier.
Cause I could have told you that.
Cause it's, he's legendary for that move.
God.
We've got to get the show back on the rails.
Okay.
Cause it's off the rails a little.
Okay.
Ed what is it that you treasure?
Get in the car.
Did you come out of Hollywood Hustler?
Get in the car.
All right.
He's swearing.
You guys proud of yourselves because you blew it.
You think this is what executives God, Zach.
Sorry.
Do you think this is what executive producers do?
I don't really know what exactly executive-
Well, the answer is no.
Okay.
And executive producer, he come to set and
you just smile.
You shake hands with people.
You don't rescue a cast.
That's gone completely AWOL.
I just thought it would be really funny to
like break our form.
I can't hear you Mark.
What, Mark's trying to say, is we're sorry.
All right.
Ed Helms is a bad man.
He's a monster.
Yeah.
In so many ways,
Ah, hes aright!