- 'Cause I'll tell you what really didn't work
during the pandemic was happy hours.
When, like, three random friends would be like,
"Should we all have a drink?"
This isn't working
in a real way for me. - Right.
- Yeah.
- You're just sitting the couch, alone, with a drink.
- I'd rather just be alone.
(all laughing)
- [Announcer] This is "What a Joke"
with Tom Papa and Fortune Feimster.
On Netflix is a Joke Radio.
- When were you here, last?
You were here?
- In the thick of the "pandemi."
- Last summer, I think.
- Oh yeah, that's right.
- You look like you've grown up.
(all laughing)
- It's been a long year, man.
It's been a long year.
(all laughing)
Yeah, it's, it's really hot and
I can't figure out the ants.
- Oh, Tom is dealing with ants right now.
- I literally just touched a tree
and I'm covered in ants.
(Jake groans)
- Ants are,
they're almost remarkable how resilient they are
because they don't,
as a community, they don't value life.
So you murder, like, a hundred thousand of them,
and they just keep coming.
And the queen is so nasty,
she just keeps send- I'm like,
"I've murdered so many of your armies,
but every year you just keep
winning and winning." - Keep going.
They're trying to find that water.
- I did the same thing, I was like,
I was fighting these ants,
they, like, literally came into my office, onto my desk,
and I killed a whole bunch, and I was like,
"You know what? I'm not going to clean them up.
I'm going to leave a trail of dead ants
as a message to the rest" - Yes.
- They just climbed over the dead ants.
- They eat each other, man, (Fortune laughing)
they're disgusting.
The other thing is, is I saw online,
and this is where I realized I'd lost,
but I saw, online, that they don't like cinnamon.
- Oh. - Hmm.
- So I got a bunch of, I was like,
"Ooh, this is the natural way to win this battle."
- Yeah. - The problem is, is
I, now, have cinnamon all over my house,
in my cabin in, like, weird corners.
And, you know, (Fortune laughing)
and once you realize no ants are coming,
you don't think, like, now's the time
to clean up the cinnamon,
- Right. - So, every once in a while
I'll, like, move a couch and I'll be like,
"Why the fuck is there a bunch of cinnamon back here?"
(all laughing)
- Did that work?
- I don't know, man.
I mean, I still have ants,
I just have cinnamon everywhere, now.
(all laughing)
- So, man, you're always working.
Last time you were here, you were talking about "Hoops,"
which came out on, on Netflix.
- Could you please refer to it as the
"Critically-Acclaimed Hoops?"
(all laughing)
- Yes I can.
- Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- Thank you for asking.
- Thank you for asking,
that's so sweet of you for remembering.
- Thanks for coming, I need your help.
I got to get this Matty kid laid ASAP
so he'll play on the team.
- As long as we're talking about inappropriate things,
you can't be texting my girlfriend,
"You up?" every night.
- I knew she was up.
Listen, Shannon's my wife,
I can text her whenever I want.
- No, Shannon's your ex-wife.
- Not yet, she isn't, I haven't signed the divorce papers.
And if I'm honest, I'm not sure I'm gonna.
Ron, you're my assistant coach
and I've been very cool about you dating my wife,
so I'd appreciate it if you were cool
about me texting her when I'm up, lonely on sleeping pills.
- Yeah, I mean, I guess you are being cool.
No wonder we're best friends.
I'm sure you'll move on from my girlfriend, eventually.
Right?
- I doubt it.
Whatever, keep fucking my wife, Ron.
(student coughs)
Oh, good, you're listening.
- Oh, man, and now you've got "Ride the Eagle,"
which is coming out On Demand - Yeah.
- and in theaters
on Friday, this is very exciting.
- Yeah, we were in the midst of the whole thing
and I was doing a TV show called "Stumptown"
when we got picked up for season two,
so I thought, great, I'll go back to work.
And then I got a call saying they were canceling it because
of COVID-related testing issues.
- Oh man.
- And I had a moment where I thought,
this was way before the vaccine, but I thought,
"Man, I'm not sure how Hollywood's going to come back."
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- And what I don't want to get into,
and I know I won't get into,
is short-form doing things on my phone
and sending it to some editor, and then they, like,
I go, like, "I gotta go in my yard,"
and then it cuts to a response.
- [Fortune] Right. - I was like,
"If we get into that world, I'm out."
- Yeah.
- I don't have that transition in me.
- Uh-huh. (Fortune laughing)
- And so, my buddy Trent, and I,
who did, we did "New Girl" together, I thought, like,
if this goes on for a few years,
- Yeah.
- I don't have the attention span to, like,
sit around and wait,
I'll be gone doing the weirdest stuff.
I'll be in like some new city being like,
"Tulsa's where it's at, man."
(all laughing)
"I've always liked Tulsa."
So, we just said, fuck it, man,
let's just make a movie.
So we started writing one, - [Tom] No way.
- we paid for it, ourselves, - [Fortune] Wow.
- we shot it in, like, our backyards,
and then as we started writing it,
we realized there were some nice parts for actors,
so we just went through the agents and sent them
and Susan Sarandon said yes
and JK Simmons and D'Arcy Carden,
- Amazing. - And then we felt like
we had a movie.
- That's great, great cast. - Wow.
- Yeah, I mean, great cast, and they're all so good
that they make medium writing look way better.
So we were pretty fired up. (all laughing)
We're like, great, come on, man.
- Geez, that's amazing.
How did you get the money to go do it,
like, when you're doing it yourself, that way?
- Well, we, we made it for pretty cheap.
We took a long time on the script
because we knew we couldn't improvise,
a lot of these little, like, indie movies,
- [Tom] Yeah, - You rely so much
on the actors to improvise, and you
put two cameras on, you cross shoot.
But because of the pandemic, we couldn't do that.
- Mm-hmm. - So, you know,
we only had certain people,
everybody was kind of isolated
and we had to figure out ways to cheat it
so it didn't feel like a pandemic movie,
- Oh.
- But, you know, Trent and I,
and this other producer, Joe Hardesty,
just literally wrote people personal checks.
- Wow. - Wow.
- Geez, Louise. - Yeah.
- Good for you.
- Well, I didn't, what I didn't want to go through
is another round of development,
I think I've hit that point in my life where
I don't know if I could ever do that again with executives.
- It's a, it's a long journey, I've had,
I've had three movies just sitting there, waiting
on the five-yard line for, like, four years.
- And then you get, like, a new executive comes on
who gives a new round of notes
- [Fortune] Yeah.
- and I'm like, I, you know, honestly,
I think I've hit that point where I'm like,
I think I'm done with that,
you know, like, when you're,
- Yeah. - You're, like,
trying to do something for a long time and
you realize like, I don't think I want to do this.
- I know.
It takes up so much,
so much of your creative time and mental space.
- I don't want to write people checks, though.
(laughing)
- I understand that.
Yeah, so that, that was really the,
the really fun part of it was
we didn't have to explain tone to anybody.
And now when I'm, like, doing press for like "The Talk,"
I know none of them have seen it, yet,
so they call it a comedy, but it's not really a comedy.
- Uh-huh.
- You know, it's a drama with laughs
and there's some suspense in it.
And if we were to pitch this,
the executives wouldn't like it
because it's not a clean sell.
- Right, right.
- But if we're making it, ourselves,
I like when tones shift.
- [Tom] Oh, of course. - I, as a viewer,
can watch multiple tones at once
and still understand what's happening.
(all laughing)
- Wow, how do you do that? - I think the audience can too
- You're giving an audience a lot of credit.
- Well, you know, there's a part of me
that is smart as Albert Einstein,
I could watch something that's funny and sad.
- Wow, no way. (all laughing)
And how great was Susan Sarandon?
- I mean, she's a monster.
I realized in doing this, what makes
someone like Susan Sarandon,
what makes someone like JK Simmons,
who they are, as actors, like,
Susan Sarandon asked really good questions,
and I realized I've never asked good questions as an actor,
I ask the wrong questions,
so if I get a script, my questions will be like,
"How many shooting days?"
(all laughing)
- "Do we get a break on weekends?"
- Yeah,
"Do I have to live in Atlanta, or could I fly in and out?"
I'm like, these are the bad questions.
And then JK Simmons blew us away, too,
because when he showed up on set, I said,
"Do you want to rehearse?"
Basically saying,
"Do you want help memorizing your lines?"
You know, 'cause a lot of times,
when actors get together, they just say their lines
until they memorize them together.
- Yeah.
- No, he's like, "No, unless you want to rehearse."
And I was like, "No."
This fucking dude was perfect.
- Wow. - Wow.
- And he had done his homework and made his choices.
- Yeah. - Wow.
- And I realized like, man,
if you're gonna act, do it like that.
- Yeah. - Right,
actually put some work into it.
- After watching JK Simmons, I had that nice,
humbling moment of like,
I can't show up anymore and be like,
"What's this scene about?"
(all laughing)
- Are you that way, though?
'Cause you, you're always so,
you're always so real and truthful, it seems,
- Thanks, man.
- I mean, was that working for you, then?
Doing it that way?
- Well, it depends on the job.
So like, in certain jobs, - Yeah.
- I would come really prepared,
but on other things, like a sitcom,
you know, you get so, once you know the tone of something,
- [Fortune] Yeah. - [Tom] Right.
- and you know you're allowed to improvise,
- [Fortune] Right. - [Tom] Right.
- and you know that you score improvising,
and the creatives like it,
I'd be like, I could sit at home and do my homework, or,
(all laughing)
- I could pretend this is a method.
- This is what they want, this is what I do.
- I keep it loose.
(all laughing)
I'm like, as long as I hit my mark, I'm good.
- Me too, as long as I hit my mark-ish,
(all laughing)
'cause it's really hard to, like, see the mark
if I need to walk and talk.
- It is weird when you're, like, walking into a scene
and then you look down and look up.
(all laughing)
(metal clanking)
(chains rustling)
(car horns beeping)
- Rosebud Baker. (bright guitar music)
- Hi, Tom, hi. - What are you doing here?
- I heard that you were giving relationship advice,
by yourself, without Fortune, and, um,
I decided that's, that's sad.
And I wanted to come in and, kind of, save the day.
- Do you feel like Fortune and I have
a relationship issue?
- You don't need to be happy all the time.
That's all I have to say to Fortune, is,
I know that she's looking for greener pastures
and Fortune,
I think you could probably make it work with anybody,
but Tom needs you.
- I mean, I guess that's good for her, but,
it's a little weird perspective on my angle.
- I'm not here to protect anybody's feelings.
- Right, right.
I have to say, when I look at your relationship,
- Please don't say it. (all laughing)
- All right, let me pull up the emails.
Hi, Tom and Fortune. (bouncy piano music)
I knew when I first started dating my boyfriend
that he had childish tendencies,
such as that he rides his skateboard everywhere
as a way of transportation.
What should I do?
Nance, from New Jersey.
- I got an idea.
You go to a dog shelter.
You ask, specifically, for dogs that are
triggered by skateboards.
You say, "I want to take in a dog
that will kill someone on a skateboard."
He falls in love with that dog,
you fall in love with that dog,
skateboard's gone.
- We're gonna put it in the dog's paws.
- Yes, yeah.
- Hey Tom and Fortune,
my husband and I always do the same thing,
dinner and a comedy show or a movie.
What is something else you can do to spice things up?
This is Laura in New Hampshire.
- Well, first thing is move out of New Hampshire.
(all laughing)
(gentle music)