When the Laughs Are Real: How a Comedy Couple Keeps Their Marriage Honest w/Kevin & Annie

You look like. Like you're ready. It's 8 a.m. and you're, like, dressed and.

Well, that was the deal. That was the deal. Be here. Yeah. We did. We do wake up early now because we both work. And do you have kids? So if you want to do anything, it's either before or after. It's never after. Yeah, right.

How old are your kids?

My kids are a nine and seven. Almost ten. Almost ten?

Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for hanging out with me. How are you doing this morning?

Thanks for having us. Sorry it took us a while to make this work.

Yeah, well. It's okay. It's a it's, you know, like you said, there's before and after and there's never after, right? Yeah.

Never after.

That's crazy. Tell me about your. Tell me about your lives. You both go to work. I have so many questions that I want to ask about what I think your work is, but how do you talk about your work?

Oh, okay. Go ahead.

I work in post-production for non-scripted television. So I'm a story producer.

Like on survivor. Like you. Like you like.

I wish. Right now I'm working on a rescue show that's coming out. It's a new show, but I've worked on a lot of fishing shows. Okay. It's been the mainstay of my career. Strangely fell into a fishing. I worked on a show called Wicked Tuna for, like, ten years. Right? Yeah.

And then I can I can confidently say, I think I've never watched a fishing show on purpose.

That's fair.

Yeah, I might have woken up from a nap and there have been like some guys fishing on the show. But then I almost immediately changed the channel, so.

Well, yeah. And there's like two types of fishing shows. There's a kind where it's like a person fishing and it's real slow. And then we had kind of like the competition style.

Yeah. How do we how do we not die while fishing?

Yeah, yeah. And how do we make this an epic story?

Yeah, yeah. And I, I kind of have two jobs, I am, I do.

You work for Lowe's?

I work for Lowe's. Yeah.

For Lowe's.

I occasionally do a commercial here and there, but. And I did one for those, as you said. But I do social media. Yeah. It's three jobs. And on social media, one half of the dumb dads. Yeah. And so I do that. And then I also work in finance. I do like operations for a financial advisor company.

So yeah.

Wealth management.

Wealth management.

That's new. It's very weird.

Yeah.

How's that going? Is there any. What's the difference? What is the. What's the same about working in wealth management as being one half of the dumb dads?

Wow. Talk about two things that don't ever align.

Well, this is actually this, you guys, this is actually the heart of why I think about this podcast. The way I do is talk about two things that don't connect. Like, yeah, I want to ask you about comedy and I want to ask you about social media.

Yeah.

But I want to ask you about how those things actually have something to say about relationships. And sometimes those things don't connect. And I think, Kevin, the last time I saw you, I hadn't done this interview yet, or maybe I had just done it. This couple from the escape rooms, like they do escape rooms. I think that's the whole stick. I love this whole thing. They have like a tour company and they've gone on 3500 escape rooms and they have like fully formed opinions about that and how that like, affects and speaks to why relationships do or don't work. And I was like, I'm all about it. Let's do it. So anyway.

We love Escape Room.

We do live in a skate room.

And we listen. If you want to go on an escape room tour, they're hosting one in Paris in October.

Let's get to Paris.

Yeah, they were doing like, I don't know, like 11 escape rooms in four days or six days or something like that. And. And then meanwhile, you get to go to the Louvre or you get to go to, you know.

That's crazy March.

That's so funny that, like, we've never been to Paris. And it's like, well, we're going because there's escape rooms there. That was the reason.

Sorry. I don't want to I don't want to go back to their interview too. But they said something interesting, which was, you know, when I think about traveling to Paris, which I went to Paris last year, I was like, yeah, we got to do all the Paris stuff. Like, you got to go do the things that are on the brochures, right? Yes. And they say yes. And when you go into a place, particularly where escape rooms have become, there is a culture, there's like a scene around it. But when you go and you do them, it's really a better way to immerse yourself into local community and economy and scene.

That makes sense.

And if you like them, you can kind of go, oh yeah, we did those in Barcelona and oh yeah, we did that one in Japan. And oh yeah, we did that one. And it's kind of a so it's I don't know, I have this like dream perhaps that I'm going to be one of those travelers that go it's an immersive myself. But then I have to go to escape rooms versus the, you know, women line at the museum.

Yeah.

So anyway. Okay, so do you do you think. Do you think what connects the two gigs that you are primarily talking about?

Yeah. So. Well, I would say I would say one definitely helps the other. So I've been doing the The Dumb Dads social media since late or no, since 2021, I guess I'd say late 2020, but like 2021 really, we've been doing that all the time. And then I started this job about eight months ago and I will say, like, as I said, there was like very little overlap. I think what's funny is that doing social media, I'm doing a lot of like zoom calls and going to events, some podcasts. It's a lot of like people facing. And what I do now is a lot of like, this other job is a lot of like data entry and just like making sure, you know, everything is working and the way written, the way it's supposed to be organizing things, cubicle facing.

But I think what is funny about that is like, I can't like I'm just used to talking to people. I enjoy talking to people. So I think of everyone on my team. I'm already like labeled as like the more outgoing guy who is like.

Oh no.

Well, in the way.

You're that guy in the office.

Well, because like the financial advisors, like if we have a question for them, everybody's like, write them an email and hope they don't talk to you. And I'm just like, I'm just going to go talk to them. Why wouldn't we just go talk to them? And I think more people are like scared of other people. And I'm just I think so I would say the intersect is like I'm using now my ability to talk to people all the time. Yeah, from doing social media. And it is helping my job because I think more people are more open to me because they're less. They think I'm less like a hermit in the corner. I'm like, no, no, no, let's figure this out. We're adults. Let's talk about it. And I think that's definitely helped.

Tom Peters, cause that he's a management kind of guru. He calls it management by walking around. Yeah okay. So yeah just like I'm going to go check in at that cubicle and see how that guy's doing. So that when I have a problem I can go and be like hey can you fix this problem for me? And it's not this heavy lift, you know, it's just the people. We're all adults here.

I have a coworker who I think she's just and she's working on. She's pretty shy and she'll be, like, DMing me, and she's over there like, I can I can physically see her and like, when it gets to like six back and forth, I'm like, we're not doing this. And I just like, I'll get up and walk over there.

No, no no, no.

I think she's used to it now. But I think she was like, what's wrong? Did your computer break? Why are you looking at me?

It's like that classic trope where there's like a, like a husband and wife trying to figure out where they're going to go to dinner or something, and they keep texting and they keep missing each other. And then one of them goes, if only there were some way that we could talk to each other in real time immediately, you know, by pressing you no call on your phone. Yeah, okay. But, Annie, you're also on social media. You have a thing. You have a like a.

Yeah, I do. I have my own account at just my name at Annie, where I do forensic comedy. I started it maybe three years after The Dumb Dads, and I was, like, very nervous about it at first because it felt a little like. Kevin and I have this phrase, it's called diaper on the head because one of my nieces, once, she was like, I don't know how old was the little one, like a year old? And she came out with a diaper on her head and all the adults in the room like, oh my God, she's so cute. And we're like, laughing. And then her older sister is staring at us all laughing, runs out of the room and comes back. She's wearing a diaper on her head, and it was just sort of like, you know, kind of.

She got the.

In a like, fun way, like just a sweet little, like, yeah, oh kind of cringe moment. And so, like, I've always been very worried about seeming like a kid with a diaper on my head, trying.

To by being the second one, in the second one in the marriage into the social media scene. You mean.

Into the social media parenting comedy space?

Yeah, well, I learned this when I was with with you. What was what month was that? January. Yeah. And because I asked Kevin, I said, you know, your kids are never on the dumb dads bit like you don't ever put them on. Right? That's that's like a thing. But have you any done that? And then and then she was like, Kevin was like, no, she's got her own thing. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Is it? What is that scene? Is it competitive? Is it is it fun? Is it I mean, what is what is that for the two of you? Do you have you learn from each other? Do you steal from each other? Do you, do you do you I mean, do you collaborate with each other? How does how does it work for you?

I'm very competitive. Okay. All of the time in life, I don't think Kevin feels very much competition.

Yeah. I'm also just not a competitive person. Yeah.

What's that like? That's interesting to. I mean, the two of you, like you've got a competitive person on competitive person. How do you manage that too?

Sometimes I'm competitive enough for the both of us. Like I'm competitive on his behalf. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.

Like I'll go if she's like, we should do this. I'm like, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. You know, I'm not like, unwilling to do things. I'm like, yeah, we can do it. But I won't get like intense about it.

Or like if he has a couple videos that don't perform well, like he might get like down about it and I'm like, let's get these numbers up. Let's like, let's brainstorm some ideas. Yeah.

I'll sometimes get it competitive if I start getting like good numbers and stuff, and then it's like I want to continue to have good numbers. But yeah, we're not competitive with each other. We, Annie and I have collaborated on several videos that have done really well. And the Dumb dads as a whole haven't collaborated together with Annie's account. But I will dip in there because, like, we live in the same house, she's she's not playing a character. She's herself. So I'm the husband. Yeah. And the father of the kids. So it kind of works out.

And it's made my account not just sort of parenting. It's also relationship stuff sometimes. And yeah, those videos always tend to perform really well. And I don't know if it's like having Kevin on or if it's people. I think people really like couples on social media.

Yeah.

Maybe.

I'm I don't know what people like about couples on social media. I am really good therapist. And I'm really I really like interviewing people, but I'm terrible at like marketing and socially and trying to, like, I don't even know what really good numbers are. You know, I'm like, oh.

Well, social media is so tricky. I said to Kevin recently, it's kind of like a space where you're like, you're doing comedy in the middle of a Home Depot, and someone may be there to buy like yard supplies. And you're like, hey, I want to hear this idea I have about parenting. And they're like, no, I'm trying to figure out how to do my backyard. Yeah. And so you get a lot of immediate feedback from people who are seeing your stuff, but didn't didn't buy a ticket to the show. You know what I mean? Like, they may not like parenting comedy.

Or in my case, and this happened just recently, is I put out a clip that I asked this one provocative question of a couple that I was interviewing and the question, you know, came up on the captions or whatever. So you could literally, like, see me ask the question without actually listening to me or listening to their answer and tell me about this. Like, I got all these responses from people who clearly hadn't engaged it at all. They just got upset by the thing that their eyebrows, their eyeballs landed on. And then we're like, but give me all these comments like, this is ridiculous. And I was like, I actually agree with you, which you would know if you actually listened to the thing, but it's the system. But it's. Yeah.

Yeah.

But it is. It's like, it's not even like that. It's like doing this work in the middle of Home Depot and having come out, somebody get mad at you because they don't know where the DVD section is.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

I'm like.

What it is.

I'm like, I can't help you with the either problem that you have that you don't want what I have and that the thing that you do want isn't here anyway, you know. Yeah.

So I think, I think a large part of it is so, so social media is all of the time it's accessible anytime, anywhere. You're waiting in line at the store, you're on the toilet, whatever you're waiting for, you pick up your kids like you're in your car, like hopefully not driving, but like, you can be on social media, whatever. Which means you can be on social media and any mindset. And I think that's the big problem is like somebody might be having like a horrendous day, and then you go on and you do your prompt, whatever the opening of your video is, and they're just like, you're wrong for this reason. And it's like we're like, I think when you watch TV, there's obviously some more intention to it. You sit down, you're like, all right. This is what I want.

To watch this. I want to decompress. Even if you were channel surfing, which isn't a thing anymore, but like all of that, you're kind of like you're intentionally watching something where it's like, otherwise you're like, I don't know what I want to watch. And then you're like, then you get angry. I mean, these people, I don't I still don't understand the ability to comment is wild. And I think I know Annie is this way, too. We won't intentionally make a video like, we want to make a video that's going to make people mad, first of all. And we try to shy away from videos because just people are dumb and like some people just really dumb. And they don't they don't don't. We did a video.

We did a video once, the Dumb Dads, about weaponized incompetence. You know, men just being like, it's easier if you do it kind of thing. And the sketch was that like this. Dad figured it out. Oh, if I just say I'm not good at this, nobody's going to, like, rely on me to do stuff that's pretty great. So he's, like, winning the whole sketch. And then the end of the sketch is he doesn't get to do a thing he wants to do because nobody trusts him to do things. Yeah. He wants to go golfing or something. And that's the that was like the catch at the end. Like he got his comeuppance. The comment section clearly did not watch the whole video. Yeah. And it was just one of those things where it was like, all right. So we were like, let's shy away from this kind of content. Like, people aren't going to watch the whole thing.

People are getting mad at us. And it was like, all right. So there is like a weird it's funny because these videos are what? Thompson two minutes. Yeah. I mean but it was attention spans are just so limited. They're just like, I'm mad at you at just the prompt. And it's like you just maybe watch it twice. Yeah, yeah.

Like what you're saying. And like, what you deal with, with relationships is like, they're also bringing their own relationship and their own, like, parenting situation to it. So like we made a video about how, like we were going to have date night and I was like, I'm just going to go lay down with the kids for a bit, and then I'm going to come back and we're going to have date night. And then I go and I fall asleep in the kids room, and that's happened. You know, I definitely.

Will go lay down.

With our kids and I get tired and then like, I'm like, sorry, I know I said, we're going to stay on and watch a movie, but like, I'm out. And the comment section was mostly a lot of people who were like, oh, we're in this phase of life too. Like, this is the stage we're at. And then there's a lot of people that are like, good luck, he's going to divorce you. He's going to step out on your marriage. Like, yeah, just this is why I don't want kids, like, just really unhappy comments about, like, a harmless video that a lot of us recognizes just a phase of life we're in.

The comment section was unhinged. It was like, this is why he's cheating on you. I was. Like. Hold on. First of all, I'm not. Why are you giving me character traits?

Yeah. And then some people were like a PlayStation beep just hit. And like, I'm like, that's appropriate. Yeah. He's excited to have now time for himself. That's fine. You can make that comment. But like to say that it's a bad sign about your relationship, that you're.

Just it's wild.

Putting time in with your kids at the end of the night.

Something that you're saying is occurring to me that that I actually talked to couples about a lot in my practice, which is it's almost like you have to assume that every single comment is about the commenter.

100%.

Yes. It's not about the content. It's not about you, especially not about you. And it's definitely not about the real you. Yeah. You know, maybe the character that you're playing that they don't happen to identify or like, but yeah, but when I'm talking to couples about even like conflict and somebody comes in the room and says, you're a big dumb jerk, it's very easy to go, I'm a big dumb jerk. No, you're a big dumb jerk. But the reality is, it's more savvy. Move to go. Oh, you sound really angry. Yeah, you're a big dumb jerk. Means you're upset about something that maybe I need to hear about. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm a big, dumb jerk, you know?

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely think that's true.

I want to talk about parenting, comedy. I want to talk about parenting. I want to talk about comedy. So, yeah, both of you are in the, like the parenting space. Do you have parenting philosophies? Do you have relational philosophies that you, that you, that that underline the way that you think about your content?

Well, we're both not type A people in general. So I would say a lot of my comedy about raising kids comes from not being the mom that's put together that, like, doesn't necessarily remember all the things and isn't going to have the best craft projects. And a lot of, you know, like social media is very like idyllic what you want to be. And I feel like Myspace is more like, this is real, true life, trying to put all the things together and how stressful and tiring and much of a failure you can be constantly, but how you're kind of like also never failing if you're, you know, listening and putting in time with your kids and yeah, yeah.

Similarly, I think we on when we were we we started dumb dads like at the end of 2020, I think a lot of people were jumping on social media. So we didn't like know enough about like having a niche or anything like that. We were mostly trying to promote our The Dumb Dad podcast, but and I met doing sketches, so we were just kind of like, well, let's do parenting sketches since the podcast is about parenting.

And then it kind of took off from there. The reason I bring that up is because I think we started to figure out quickly that, like, our relatability was not in, you know, the dad doesn't know how to make a sandwich thing, does not like pancake his lunch, which wasn't anything we were interested in doing anyway. It was more of like, I'm just really struggling because I don't know how to do any of this, but I want to do this and I want to be good at this, but I'm not all the time, most of the time. And that started really resonating with people. That got us a lot of followers and like a lot of engagement quickly. And we realized like, oh, the honesty of of where we are at as parents. So I say to answer your question is like we what we bring of our parenting to our to our videos is just the idea that, like, come on, man, like none of us really know the answer.

Like we never come in with a strong opinion. My wife and I, we tried, we tried this book, Raising Lyons.

Oh, God.

For our daughter.

Which was two daughters.

And a daughter, Sarah.

And daughter, daughters, our oldest.

So daughters, the oldest with the diaper on her head.

The diaper.

Yeah. Well that's amazing.

Was an orchid. Yeah.

Oh, God. But it wasn't our kid.

Wasn't like I'd be like, take that off. Get out now! We don't do that kind of comedy, you know? Like, we tried, like raising lions, which is like a book. It's just a little too, like, of a firm style of parenting. But we tried it being like, how are you supposed to parent? And like, we did it probably longer than we wanted to, like, yeah, it was probably a month or two, but it was like, like, this is embarrassing. And then, you know, and then we actually learned about gentle parenting, like through social media and stuff like that. Again, not that we do that one perfectly. And I think that was the idea was just like coming with honesty of just like, yeah, well, figuring this out and then just kind of talking to your kids, honestly, what was like definitely like kind of a breakthrough for me, I would say.

And I saw a lot of that, like social media and stuff is just like just level with your kids. Yeah. About stuff like apologize to them when you're making a mistake or like when you blew up on them. Like, that'll go a much longer way than, like My way or the highway. And I was like, and that resonates definitely more with me as a parent. So like weaving that honesty into whatever comedy we do usually will always do better because people, you know, respect it and see the honesty in it.

Are you kids? Do your kids know that you're like, famous? Do they watch your videos or are they like, that's so funny, dad? Or do they even do they get it or do they have any?

We try not to really let them watch much. Yeah, because we're always like afraid that they'll think it's about them. We try very hard to make content that is never specifically about them, and we're not perfect about that across the board either. But we never want them to feel like we're making fun of them or making it out of their life or centering them in any way. But they do, because Kevin often has. People will come up and say hi in public. Yeah, they recognize that he's a recognizable figure. I've had it a few times, I think, in front of them. But yeah, it's mostly you.

Yeah, my daughter did one time, unprovoked and I didn't love it. Just said to somebody random at the store, I think they were just like being nice and talking to us, like at the line at the grocery store or whatever. And they were just talking to us. And I think because I'd been approached before, my daughter was just like, oh, she knows. And she went, yeah, my dad's a dumb dad. And this poor person who got so uncomfortable and just went, oh, I'm I'm sure he's not like, I was like, no, he is. And they were like, he really shouldn't do that. And I was like, I don't want to explain what she means, but we'll just say it's fine. Yeah.

That's pretty funny. All right. And then that's a little bit of a point of view, say on parenting. What about as you as you in particular, Annie, as you craft relationship comedy, is there is there anything that you're aware of or trying to expose or illuminate for people?

Expose? Yeah. I don't know.

Because some of this, some of this relationship comedy is very lazy, right. It's very like, oh, I pinch my wife's, but yeah, you know, or that whole thing and it's just like, come on, man. Like, isn't the bar a little bit higher? And I'm just wondering if.

Yeah. In that vein, one thing I despise on the internet is prank videos, because I don't believe any of them are real and I hate them.

But like that guy that that throws the the stuff at the balloon and covers his wife and like confetti and then, yeah.

I hate.

It, you know.

No I do that laugh is burned into my brain and yeah.

Sorry. That's people.

Sounds like a toy.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like I know what you're talking about.

I mean, I feel like a lot of our stuff is just about finding, like, the the nuance. You know, I think that's that's always what seems to go viral. If you can, if you can just, like, name something that is very that a lot of people feel but maybe haven't named for themselves.

Yeah. Or or that they don't know is normal, right?

Yeah, 100%. And sometimes you put something out on the internet and you're like, I don't know if anyone will relate to this or if this is going to be the worst video ever, because people going to be like, what do you do? And then those things will go viral. They'll be like, get out of my head. How do you have a camera in my house? Kind of.

Yeah.

That's what I'm always striving to find is just a nuance that maybe people don't even recognize in their own relationship. But, you know, like, a lot of our stuff is being overscheduled, scattered people who are just trying to, like, make, make it work. You know, we sort of both kind of hit the, like, hyperdrive button on our life in the last. Like, I guess since we've had kids just trying to do it all and say yes to it all.

Yeah, I say after they were out of like the toddler phase.

I don't even back then we were kind of doing like our live shows. We.

We were doing live shows.

Really.

Kind of.

Really tried to like, do everything we can to, you know, figure it all out as far as, like making an actual viable living situation with finances, but also still doing what we love in there and making people laugh. And yeah, you know, it's not always lucrative for the amount of time we put into it.

Yeah, yeah. But it's.

Our fun.

I feel rich in my soul, but okay. Well.

You know, listen, I don't want to get into I don't want to do, like, wealth management right now, but I am I guess I do have a question about if you do have some success on social media as the dumb dads have, and any item. Not quite sure if you would call. I don't, I don't really, I didn't compare the two of you, but if you do have success in social media and you go viral. Yeah, and you clearly have like a brand or something. Is it a living wage or is it do people is it reasonable for people to think I can make a living on social media, or how does that work?

It can be.

If I was to answer the last part of your question, if if people think it's reasonable, I would say don't bet on it only because and I'm not trying to get into like the Bernie Sanders of it all. But like, well, just like what? Well, because, like, the top 1% don't want you to make any money on their platforms, and.

That's a.

Good impression. Because they don't. And when we started, when we started, Instagram would pay you for views. And that was insane. Like the first, the first year we made money with the dumb dads was okay. It was just like, oh, that's fun. And then the second year was like was good. It was like, yeah, if this was every year, I wouldn't be working in finance. It's still not like it wasn't great. It wasn't like, let's upgrade the house and stuff. But it was like it was a living wage. Exactly what you said. Yeah, yeah. And then it's like, kind of gone downhill and now it's kind of going up again, only because, like, we're getting more brand deals. But that was kind of why I got the job in finance was just like as a father, as as I was like, we have a house, we have payments.

It was just like, I'd rather have to work really hard on two jobs and like, have that consistency of income than to like, rely on, like hopefully it's a good year, but there is money to be had in it for sure. But I think that like, you know, the industry is always finding ways to not pay you. Yeah, like Instagram doesn't pay you for views anymore. If TikTok doesn't pay you for views anymore. You used to get paid on both of those platforms. Like handsomely. I think YouTube is still really the best place to get paid, but like, you have to be really good at it. You have to be able to make like long form.

Yeah, that's the thing I bump up against all the time. And when I think about like, oh, I got to be better at social media, I got to do better at that. I'm like, but I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to do the ROI part. Like, I don't want to put the work in to get the work out like, and it's not enough for me. This is now a question. This is a little bit of a pivot, which is how do you I'm writing a book right now, and I'm finishing up actually this week. And I, I'm starting to become really keenly aware of the reader, how much I want to take care of the reader. Like when you're making content, are you thinking about the person with the phone in their hand? Are you thinking about your kids, or are you thinking about your like, who do you? Who do you care about? Who's the content for? Is it for you as an artist? I mean, what is the what's what? How do you do that in your brain?

I would say it's a little bit of a combo that it's definitely selfish for us because we just like to make people laugh and we like that return. But we also, I think, deeply think about our audience. Yeah, I want to give people a laugh that, like, benefits them where they're like, oh, that's me, I feel seen, I feel her, you know, that. It makes them feel feel seen. And and likewise, I have made a couple videos. I guess one really I'm thinking of that made people feel seen in a negative way. And I think I spent like two days combatting it, being like, that's not what I meant. That wasn't my intention until I just, like, took it down, because I realized that enough people were telling me that it made them feel bad.

And that's not was never my intention. And that has kind of become my philosophy ever since. That video is that I want people to be seen in a good way, and I never want to make people feel judged for their life choices or something like, that's not at all what this is for.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say that I yeah, about the same. I mean, I remember when we Annie and I like we moved out here in 2013. Annie and I were doing a lot of comedy in New York, improv stand up, and we had a web series for a minute, and then.

We moved out here. By the way, is LA right?

Yeah. And we were in New York and we moved out to LA to do the same thing, do sketch comedy and stuff like that. And I always joked around that, like, I love doing live shows. It's like my favorite thing. I love hearing like the laughs, making everybody excited, and then I hate going out there after and talking to people only because, like, if we went out there to just talk about like, anything else. It'd be fine. And that's actually the Dumb Dads did a live show and that was different. And it was fun because people would come up to us and instead of just being like, it was a great show, which like after a minute, like, I don't want to, I already heard you laughs. Like, I don't need the praise. I don't want to sound humble.

I'm not. I love the laughs. Yeah. It's just like the after. It's like, but what it was great about, like the Dumb Dads live show was like people coming up after and then like your story when you said this, it made me think of this. And then they start telling their own stories. And that's the stuff that I really love. And that is like, yeah, the content that we make, we definitely curated for our audience. I think my hot take is, I think anybody who says they do it just for themselves and doesn't think about the audience is lying. Yeah. Like I think they're lying. I think they're like, you have to you have to think about your audience. You have to think like, that's why I stand up. Comics go to open mics. It's like they're curating the joke. Like they know what the punchline is. Now they're trying to figure out the way that it's going to work the best for an audience. Yeah, yeah.

And in a selfish way, too. We're trying to get the most views. You're always you're always hoping it's going viral.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Yeah yeah. But at the same time, yes, there are some like things that we put in there that it's just like I mean, I hope this whole thing works. I really like this joke. Yeah. And then you get disappointed when people don't and you're like, yeah, I still think it's funny, but try not to that too much.

Although virality always comes with a cost, like it's always very fun up until maybe a million views. And then and then it's like, then you're out to this broader audience that maybe doesn't.

Like the trolls.

Women at all or or whatever. And it gets a little negative for a minute. So it's kind of like a it's still worth it, I guess.

But when it goes viral or virality, does it change your life at all? Is it just it just your ego? Does it change your I mean, how does it for me, it's like we did it.

It used to.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well virality still like can depending on like now virality has to be really viral. Like it has to probably hit multiple platforms and maybe the news picks it up where again early on like one video.

Just getting bizarre.

It's so bizarre. But before like one video getting a million views just on that platform was a huge deal. Yeah, we got.

For them with a press conference. The first press conference.

Even though that's a that's an you broke out. Right.

It was that combined.

Broke out. But way before that like six months before that I did a video of confessions of a parent, which was just like me telling secrets into a cabinets and drawers about, like, the corners that I cut as a parent. That was the first time we hit over a million. That one got us 60,000 followers in five days. And crazy. Just to give you an example of how far it went down of like how quickly virality. So one video on one platform, million views, $60,000 and then cut to six months later, the first press conference happens, which came out a day after I did, which Evan did. It came out a day after I did a video where I talked about, like my daughter being really mean to me.

It was like totally made up on the spot. Didn't happen because it was it was absurd. Like the things that my daughter was saying to me, it was like, yeah, she was like four at the time, the video. And it was like really cutting mean common. Like I was like, that'd be funny if I just like, looked really sad in the camera and made it look real. Like, I just this just happened. That went really viral. And then Evan did the press conference the next day that went really viral. The internet picked up the press conference. It was on Good Morning America. Ellen, like ESPN, picked it up like all of these things, $60,000. Also like same amount of followers like gained over the time. But it was.

Because the landscape changed.

The landscape changed.

Yeah. And then years.

Later, six months, one went insanely by. The first race car blew up, the internet, the whole thing. Yeah. That day it controlled the internet and it was like the same return. Return on investment. Yeah.

So did you guys have any idea? Did he have any idea? Like, he was like, all right, here's my next video. Or was he like, nope. This is the one.

We knew it was good.

We knew it was good. He had showed it to me. He had showed it to me the night before. He planned on posting it and I saw it. I had some I had some notes for it. I was like, maybe like trimmed this down because it was like it was just a little long. And this is really good if we tighten this up, like leave him wanting more kind of thing. And then I remember I said to him, I was like, and I've never said this about his videos, about any of our videos. I was like, I could see this on ESPN. And then the next day I posted that video of my daughter being mean. I was like watching my. I had my kids and I was watching my nephews and I just thought of this video, filmed it, sent it to her go, do you think it's good?

And she's like, I think it's funny. I was like, cool. Whatever. Posted it went viral. Texted Evan, do not post a video today. Like this one's got a life of its own. I don't want to overshadow your video, so let's let this ride for a day. So we rode that for a day. Then the next day he posted his and then that one blew up. So like, we had an idea, but obviously not like that.

I remember he showed it to it. He was at our house and he showed me and I was like, if this doesn't blow up, I will send this to people. Like, I will spend my day tweeting it, sending it to like ESPN. So like, I think I felt definitely stronger about it than I have a lot of videos. I don't often offer to do anything with your.

Video, but my my favorite part.

Of the competitive I don't.

Think about it. I'm not gonna lie. Your fire.

My favorite.

My favorite part of that press conference. That first one was, like I said, it took over the internet. It was insane. It was such a ride. Like Barstool. I think one article about it, like it was right, like we went on local news. The reason I bring that up is because because I want to emphasize that everybody picked it up. There's a shot in the beginning where Evan pulls a Lego out of his hair, doesn't say anything like Midwestern, just pulls out a Lego, and then he. And then he come and then he, like and then he like, answers the questions. And in the comment section, people are like, oh my God, the Lego and the hair. Like they were multiple comments saying that.

So Annie to like, kind of bump us up because she has access to our account. She took the video and she sent it to Lego on like their DM's and Instagram. Oh geez. And it was like, hey, I don't know what you said. Something like this video is, you know, doing pretty well and there's a shout out to Lego in it. And they just wrote back after everything's going crazy, like it's already crazy.

And he goes like a week later.

It's like. And Lego just went really fun. Was there something wrong with one of your orders?

Yeah.

It was like.

Did you need customer service?

That was cute. But we're still Lego. Do you need something?

So okay, now I have this question is how does comedy work? Like you. Okay, you know what I mean. Like you have, you must have a theory on how like comedy. Actually, I have heard you talk about setups, punchlines, and, you know, like the you have, you must have fully formed notion of like, how does this phenomenon, why is it meaningful for people?

God, I wish we did. I don't know.

I think the best thing.

Well, again, I'll go back to Evan a little bit. Sorry, because he he will sometimes wax poetic about comedy and he'll, you know, he told me about the book that you guys read. I think it might have been a key. Keegan-Michael key book about sketches, maybe.

Yeah, yeah.

But here's a guy who's like, got a whole book about how sketch comedy works, right? Like how it how it works in general. But so I'm just wondering if there's a behind the scenes thing that you can, like, I don't know, shine a light on for me and anybody who just is like looking at a standup comedian going, oh, they're so funny.

Yeah.

I think it's an amalgamation of things, at least for me. And I know you as well. I think one of the best things I've heard, which is like, not like a surprise, is like magic and comedy are the same thing in that, like the whole point of magic is to like draw you in, get your focus and then surprise you. And that is mostly what you like. Want to do with comedy is just have something normal and then really, like pull the rug out. But a lot of that has to do with, again, what we were saying about like relatability. I think there could be somebody who is the least funny person you've ever met in your life. They can't even deliver like two guys walk into the bar joke.

Well, but yet they can sense the honesty of a joke. Like every everybody has that instinct of like, this isn't authentic. And I think that's the comedy that does so well. It's why, like Nate Baguettes is so popular right now because all of his stuff is just about like how he is honestly dumb. And not to say that that's the only way to do comedy. That's just, I'd say the comedy that Andy and I have always been drawn to. We both did UCB.

Truth and.

I've done Groundlings, and I love playing characters. They're so fun, I think I, I, I, I don't want to say I thrive more, but I will definitely say I think I can like, live more in the characters of like the everyday. And I think just like noticing the things that are like insane in life. Yeah. And in everything that you do is like, some of it is so dumb. Yeah, all of the time.

It's good to have each other to bounce ideas off of to. It's funny, people say like, oh, you're both comedians or whatever. That must be so fun. But what we do a lot is like, why is that funny? And then we try to break it down when we laugh at something. But we also both have like kind of different comedic sensibilities to a certain extent. Like I, you know, Kevin grew up loving Jim Carrey, and I couldn't stand him as a kid. And I grew up loving Frasier. It was like two very.

Different, comedic, different.

I love really real, like real conversational comedy. And Kevin is great at physical bits.

Yeah.

But then we come together and we're also great at, like, writing dialog together and writing jokes together. But I think it does come down to to, like I said, like looking for nuance in relationships and parenting and stuff. It all comes back to our training at UCB, where we did read the book Truth and Comedy Without Close, and it's all about finding the seed of truth, and then kind of exploding it into something bigger and just raising the stakes and raising the stakes. I don't always remember to raise the stakes. And on social media, I don't know that people often do, actually.

But Keegan-Michael key, he was interviewed and he described social media, and it was like, I felt like he was like 70% right about this. But he was saying, like the comedy on social media, which he probably thinks he's 70% right to, he's like, they're all called blackout sketches, which in like sketch comedy, when you do a sketch, it's usually like 3 to 5 minutes depending, and you're heightening the whole time. You know? So like, the whole thing is like the guy, like, you know, hiccups every time he gets nervous. By the end, he's not talking and he's just hiccuping and it's ridiculous, right? Like that's how you would ramp up for five minutes. His whole thing is like, it's just hiccup, hiccup, hiccup, pick up the videos over. Like, you kind of just start at the the highest.

And that is what blackout sketches are. When you would go to a sketch show, it's the ones that come out, hits a joke, then the stage blacks out, and then you're moving on to maybe a longer sketch. And I do think that is probably part of social media is like there's not a ton of heightening, but the best ones that you see to heighten. I mean, our, our press conferences, for instance, that is like the ones that do the best for us. They don't heighten. It's not a good thing or a bad thing, but it is just it's a press conference of it. Yeah. It doesn't like now go to the national stage. And now we're like, interviewed in front of the Capitol building with the microphones, which is probably what you would end up doing with it. Or having like the Tiger Woods apology by the end of it, where it started at like right off the side of a golf course. Right? Yeah.

And and the same with our date night, one that we did that went viral. That was just like, she's like, I'm going to go to bed. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna go lay down with the kid. I'll be out for a minute. I was like, I'll see you tomorrow. Really heightened from there. Besides having an out of me waking her up in the kid's room. But yeah, yeah, I would say that was what they do.

Well, how are you guys doing? How's your marriage?

That's good. We've him working in the office now. We're in this new stage where we're sometimes like, you know, ships passing in the night, which is a new stage for us.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I think we're. I think we're doing well.

I think I sometimes feel unsettled when I'm not, like, with you enough. I've said that to you recently, like, I, I think the other day I was like, can you please call me during lunch? I just like, need, I need to have my, like, anchor for a second.

Yeah. I think we had like such a good system for so long. So I was a stay at home dad from the moment my daughter was born. Up until I started this finance job about eight, nine months ago, and even doing dumb dads. Originally I was bartending, but I was only bartending nights, so like, my wife would do bedtime those three nights. Sometimes I would put the kids down like I worked very late and. But then she would go to work the next day and I would be with the kids. And so our dynamic was always that. So I was always handling everything that had to be done and like handle, like going to the doctors that taking the kids, like handling a pickup drop off at school 99% of the time because you work from home.

I was handling all of it, but she was handling kind of the scheduling of it, the non doctor's appointments. I was doing all that stuff. But like, we have this event this time, like, so she was handling that. So we had a good thing. I will say we're probably struggling a little bit. Mostly me overscheduled. Well, just because now I'm in the I'm in an office three days a week and I'm at home two days a week.

So I think when I'm in the office and then coming home, I mean, I'm gone for 13 hours, partly by choice. I leave for work really early so that I can do dumb dads and stuff. But I think that's probably where I'm probably shortchanging our family a little bit. It's not to be a pity party. We all have stuff we got to do, and I think it's definitely been an adjustment figuring that out because like for nine years, I was the guy who could go and do the things and then, oh, we got this this weekend. Great. Like and now it's like, well, I'm not there to be the guy. So I've got to be better about the scheduling and stuff like that. So it's been an adjustment.

Yeah, yeah.

It seems like, you know, one thing, whether this is comedy or not, in fact, thinking about your idea of comedy versus magic, I've heard people describe magic as the one piece of like, entertainment slash art form that people are actively trying to ruin for themselves. Like, how did you do that? How did you do that? Seems like comedy isn't quite that, but it seems like part of the DNA of any good comedy is that you can't take yourself too seriously.

So as you navigate phases and challenges and like shifts in the dynamic or the geography of your house, like, seems like you're really good at kind of appreciating that we could definitely overthink this and ruin this and make it a big deal. Or we could maybe not take it so seriously and just figure out how to do the next thing you know that that seems like it's a I don't know, it's embedded at least in the way that you're talking to each other and about this all stuff.

Yeah. And I'm pretty like I'm always I always say exactly what's on my mind, maybe to a fault. And I'm very honest with my feelings. And I feel like you're. Yeah, Kevin is the strong, silent type, but he's good about reading me. And I think we both just look at each other as like, knowing. I always know his intentions are good. I always know he's, you know. So I think always looking at your partner as, like, I know exactly who you are. I know your intentions are good. I'm going to give you a little clue into what's happening in my brain and how I could use some extra help. Yeah. You're always great about taking those notes. You could probably give me a few more notes, but I'm happy to believe.

I'm not.

A perfect game.

Doing that. Nope. No thank you.

Do it right now.

Give me notes.

Time in.

Front of a therapist.

Okay, here we go.

This would.

Be the time. I will say this is. This is a little blue, so feel free to cut it. Really? Well, like I thought this was before I was working in an office. Like, I've thought this for years and it's again, just a dumb thought, but it's just like what I think about, I don't know, like humanity. And I don't know if it's from us doing comedy for ever. Like, I've been doing comedy intentionally since I was like 18, now 41. And I just like people being too serious. I get those moments for seriousness. Like, I'm not like, yeah, you know, thinking everything is whatever. What's a nihilist? I'm not like that. But like, I, I just think when people are very serious all the time, it's weird to me.

And like, I think about people in like, suits at like jobs that are very serious all the time. And now I work in a place where people are in suits and serious all the time. And it's funny to me because, like, people are like very serious and like, you need to take me seriously. And I'm an important person, especially like politicians and stuff. And it's like, hey, man, like every once in a while, like, you have to poop really bad. And like, pooping is funny. And like, every once in a while, like somebody in a suit who was just yelling at somebody because they're very important, had to run to the toilet, like barely going to make it. And that's just funny to me.

Like, that's the funny thing. Like, everybody's like, takes everything too seriously. And I'm like, yeah, but we're all like, weird humans. Like just, yeah, squishy people trying to figure things out. Like, let's just have some fun.

It's the book everybody poops.

Everybody.

I got to tell you, man, poop jokes are not my favorite. No, they're number two.

Oh, yeah.

Well done. All right, I gotta cut you off. I gotta, we gotta go. Do we gotta go do our jobs and try and feed our families and stuff? It's been awesome talking to you. I'm so grateful that you came on. Do you want to point anybody anywhere? Do you want to tell them, like, I don't know, the internet kind of teams that give people access to if you're looking, but how do we find out who you guys are and how to care about your life?

Yeah, sure. I'm. I'm at Annie La Feria on Instagram and TikTok, and I'm.

At the dumb dads on all social media as well.

Yeah. Right on. Cool. Well, I love you guys. I was grateful to be able to run into in January and glad that you came on. And yeah, thanks for coming on and telling us a little bit about how all this works in your life.

Thanks so much for having us. It's nice.