S01E12 Interview: Ben Whipps

This week begins by making sure everyone understands that our ‘cast isn’t just for “students” of comedy, but for everyone who enjoys hearing about comedians and the discipline of comedy.

Then we introduce our guest: Ben Whipps!

We discuss how exciting it is that our podcast will always be online and people can listen to current and past episodes for years to come and then that’ll be the future for them, but the past for us. Amazing! We mention gang violence in places like South Central United States and how this violence might not still be happening in the future.

We kick off talking about Whipps’ podcast “Braingasm“. He quickly decides to let both his stand-up and his podcast get destroyed in the holocaust when faced with his own Sophie’s Choice. Yet, he goes on to use science to say we only have one listener as opposed to his few listeners who he seems fairly indifferent toward.

Kevin and Joel breakdown the etymology of the title of Ben’s show. Are they correct? Ben tells them.

Then we touch on the idea of taste, preference. Someone might claim that Adam Sandler is, not unlike Barbra Streisand, the greatest comedy actor, director, producer, writer ever! But other people might say he’s absolutely the most horrendously over-rated, garbage-making idiot around.

A neat sneak peek into the origins of the JK Around podcast name. We discuss our interactions with Dr. Wawz. Interestingly, Ben had the same experience. It felt a lot like the Wizard of Oz, complete with Winged Monkey-type Munchkins. Joel was pretty sure he was a confidence trickster. Ben reveals where the guy went to school! Not Oxford or Harvard… DeVry. It was the Music Man all over again.

We take a risk and talk about the hidden, banned, lost, cursed episode of Braingasm: Bread vs Pie!

Assignment: Tell us how many weeks Braingasm has been doing podcasts and which weeks did they miss?

We talk about co-hosts: Ben’s co-host Chesticka and Joel’s co-host Kevin. Is there romance in the air for either? Of course, Chesticka isn’t at all like Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein‘s monster. Ben makes that abundantly clear. She is afraid of fire, unlike Mowgli from Jungle Book. And then the cow puns begin. And then the scrapbooking discussion!

Next we explore Ben Whipps’ stand-up comedy stylings. His style of comedy is story-telling, which is a derivative of long-form comedy. Ben does NOT tell jokes!

Then the gang philosophizes about familiarity in our culture. We bring to light the warm embrace of a school shooting to Generation Columbine or Generation C. They feel bad for children who are so used to bullying, shootings in a Clockwork Orange type thing, but now they have to watch the 2014 Sochi Olympics, they feel anxiety. Munich was a good Olympics because it was relate-able, which is why Spielberg made a film about it. Schindler’s List was also a hug of a movie. Thank heavens the gays have been having a hard time during the Olympics this year, it’s familiar!

That transitions flawlessly into our new segment: Give us/me a handle!

The 2nd in our rapid-fire segment episode: What’s the difference between me and you (another comedian)? What’s the difference between Ben Whipps and Zach Galifianakis?

It comes out that Joel had a very dated version of hair removal/facial reconstruction surgery.

And then we do Rob Delaney’s Tweets!

One of my favorite parts of sex is putting my “penis” inside a woman’s yum-slot & wiggling around until I involuntarily moo.

— rob delaney (@robdelaney) February 5, 2014