Episode #410
Mike Farah was the first producer hired at Funny or Die, and he has been a vital part of the upstart digital production studio since 2008, when Funny or Die was still known only as an online comedy video platform. The company has produced the critically-acclaimed Brockmire for IFC, Emmy-nominated Billy on the Street, the Peabody award-winning American Vandal for Netflix, the Emmy-nominated Sarah Silverman series I Love You, America for Hulu, and the feature films, Between Two Ferns: The Movie for Netflix, and Impractical Jokers: The Movie for Warner Bros. In the fall of 2022, they’ll present Pickled, a celebrity pickleball tournament hosted by Stephen Colbert for CBS and Paramount+, as well as WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story, a feature film biopic spoof that premieres on Roku. As CEO since 2016, Farah sat down with me in his Hollywood offices to take a look back at all the twists and turns in Funny or Die’s history.
Please enjoy these trailers for WEIRD, which is out today (Nov. 4, 2022), and Pickled, which premieres Nov. 17.
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We were supposed to sit down, I don’t know if it was here or the old offices in March of 2020, but then life got in the way.
It did. But I’m glad to see you now.
Maybe we were just waiting for the momentous double whammy of celebrity pickleball. And Weird Al biopic.
Yes. The path emerged two-and-a-half years later.
These are heady times for Funny or Die
Indeed
And these are new offices. When did you move into these offices here on Sunset?
We moved into these offices. I want to say April of this year. But it’s a hybrid work schedule. And so everyone’s here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then it’s a ghost town Thursday and Friday. I think that’s just the way that’s how it’s gonna be moving forward. I don’t know really any entertainment company that has folks going in five days a week. Maybe one of your listeners knows. It was an adjustment during the hybrid thing, but now it’s just like now when you get to Wednesday evening, it kind of feels like just like a teaser for the weekend. You’re still working on Thursday and Friday. I do think generally speaking, most people kind of like give it up on very productive Fridays. But we’ve kind of settled into a nice routine here.
How many adjustments do you feel like you’ve had to go through in 15-odd years of Funny or Die?
Well, I’ve been here since 2008. So maybe that saved me one of those adjustments. I would say, Funny or Die and myself have probably over-indexed in adjustments. We are not afraid of an evolution, that’s for sure.
Right. It’s amazing to think if I were to try to describe Funny or Die to someone from Gen Z, and go OK, so Funny or Die was named because they allowed users to upload videos, and then you could vote Funny or Die. And if enough people voted Die, the video would get kicked off the platform.
That’s a thing? What are you even talking about? Yeah, those are our humble origins. Yeah. 2007 Funny or Die was actually inspired by really not so great website called Hot or Not. I wasn’t here for that, but think, Mark Kvamme’s son, I think Michael Kvamme knew about Hot or Not, and thought what if they turn this premise into a comedy website called Funny Or Die.
So Funny or Die is the Facebook of comedy video? Wasn’t Hot or Not like a precursor for Facebook? (NOTE: Yes and no, Mark Zuckerberg’s original site was a Harvard-specific Hot or Not clone called FaceMash in 2003, before he relaunched as The Facebook in 2004)
When did Facebook launch, 2005? 2004?
Yeah, Facebook was 04.
And then YouTube was 05…and we came around 07.
So when Adam McKay and Will Ferrell uploaded “The Landlord,” (April 12, 2007) you weren’t here yet. You were working in development with a couple of independent studios, right?
I was not here. When “The Landlord” launched, I was unemployed. I had been working for a producer and a director — Stephanie Allain and Craig Brewer — at Paramount. And then that job and kind of company ended with the writers strike. Which was unfortunate and though now maybe there’ll be another strike this upcoming year. Time will tell. And when that job ended, I ended up just producing a lot of online comedy. At that moment, you know, web series were kind of like a new thing. And you could actually kind of get some budgets together. You could sell different web series. And so the writers strike was actually a real blessing for me because I was just able to dive in totally into producing short-form comedy.
Were you working with your brother Chris?
I was, amongst others. But yes, you’ve done your research. Yeah, my brother Chris and I did a bunch of stuff. I did a bunch of stuff with different comedians that I met out and about at UCB and at other shows. And then that work is what eventually led me to getting my job at Funny or Die in 2008. So about a year after The Landlord launched.
So what did you think when you came in to meet with whoever was — who did you interview with?
I interviewed with a host of folks. I interviewed with then-CEO Dick Glover. I interviewed with then-creative director Andrew Steele, who’s now Harper Steele. And I interviewed with Adam McKay and Chris Henchy. So I went through three different interviews.
So they were hands on, it wasn’t just
Oh very!
It was Adam and Will, and then Judd Apatow was briefly aligned with it as well, right?
For a long time. Yeah. So Adam, Will and Chris Henchy founded it and then some point within the next year or so before I started, Judd Apatow also joined as kind of like a principal.
But they didn’t try to make it part of Gary Sanchez?
They did not. They did not.
They were like no, we’re gonna go with with the Kvamme kid’s Funny or Die.
(laughs) Yeah, I mean, I did daydream about that at some point. But you know, at that time, and for a lot of time, you know, they were having so much success in film and television. And we were just getting started, literally, and our focus was obviously on online. And so I have daydreamed about what that would have been like to kind of merge all those efforts. But they were — As strange as it sounds, they were actually quite distinct. And so there was tons of overlap, and we shared lots of different resources and obviously relationships, and we were kind of great sister companies there. But no, they were never officially combined.
Because we sit here now and 2022 and Funny or Die has fully pivoted. Gary Sanchez is gone. And now Funny or Die has kind of pivoted to become that substitute studio, that’s making TV and film and digital projects and branded things.
We’re no longer doing branded.
OK
So that that all, that whole team went over to Roku, when Roku acquired our brand entertainment team to kind of form their brand studio. And we still have our digital platforms and our social platforms, but we’re not actively making original digital content like we did in the past.
Right. That’s what I’m kind of getting at, is when you came on board back in 2008. It was a whole different ethos and a whole different sensibility of like, OK, well CollegeHumor, those kids have their own thing going on on the East Coast. We’re in Hollywood, and we’re gonna do our thing with other UCB kids and the Groundlings.
Yeah, it’s, gosh, in many ways, I haven’t thought about that, because I’m just so focused on what we’re kind of doing now. But yes, so the Internet — so 15 years ago, Internet years is, you know, might as well be 50 years, so much has changed. And in that moment you had YouTube was obviously becoming much more than just cat videos, right? You also had digital filmmaking became way more accessible. You didn’t have to go around and like get Super 16 film to like shoot a short film. What was it, the Panasonic HP X or some? There’s some camera that everyone was like obsessed with. Then also we became friendly with a guy named Christian Sprenger who’s gone on to be an incredible Emmy award winning DP. He had a RED camera.
I remember hearing about the RED cameras for the first time.
So this was a moment where just the barriers to create things became relatively easier for young creators to overcome. And it was just like this golden age of internet sketch comedy. You know, even before SNL was doing it. Well, SNL did it with like Lonely Island. I’d have to see what year Lonely Island came out, maybe 07, 08?
‘05! Yeah, there was a Cabbage (correction! “Lettuce”) video and then Lazy Sunday. And those got uploaded privately to YouTube. And then NBC didn’t know at the time how to handle that.
So you’re seeing like that that generation, like everyone kind of like our age and Andy those guys were so young when they got on SNL. They were all basically part of the same generation of creating these really premium — what ended up being viral short-form comedy pieces, and that was really the wave that Funny or Die rode and also helped create. Because I think we were probably a little bit behind SNL, but SNL still was doing their show, right? So they couldn’t dedicate all their resources to it. And this is really before the late-night shows got into it because they were kind of had their format. And so companies like Funny or Die and and CollegeHumor and others were able to kind of jump into this moment. Before all the content was on Facebook and on social platforms and actually have owned-and-operated sites that were destinations for people to come to you and check out good stuff.
What was unique about that time period, too, is that one of the you know, I mentioned NBC not knowing how to handle SNL clips going viral, because NBC didn’t have a framework. And yet, you guys at Funny or Die, CollegeHumor, My Damn Channel. There was another platform that’s no longer around…
Cracked, maybe
Well Cracked, but there was there was a platform that actually just specialized in video. They weren’t comedy video, but they
Heavy? Dude, there were so many of them.
All of these companies,
Break.com?
including Funny or Die, had your own proprietary platforms. (NOTE: I believe I was trying to remember either TubeFilter or Blip.TV, or perhaps conflating the two. I recall a company that was rounding up webseries, and it might have been Blip. Anyhow) So instead of uploading to YouTube, you would go to Funny or Die and watch videos on Funny or Die even and then you could embed your own player onto a website.
It doesn’t even feel like what we’re talking about was a real period of time that you and I both lived through. That’s how foreign all of this sounds.
That’s I wanted to talk to you to make sure that we
I should have been more prepared. I really should have like thought through like take me back to 06, 07, 08. Oh my gosh, yes, that was all accurate. Funny or Die was fortunate enough to have really talented engineers that created our own video player. And that video player had real value. I don’t know if we did much with it. But we chose, that’s the same player. And that’s like the same mechanism for basically getting everyone’s data that all these social platforms like, I’ve never really even thought about this way. But I wasn’t a part of any conversations. So maybe conversations happened, because I was just totally focused on the content and working with comedians and celebrities to make stuff. But you know, all the things that made social platforms so valuable — data and basically you know, online habits to inform their advertising business. We never got to that place. We were ahead of them. But our focus wasn’t on collecting data and information about consumers in the way that those other folks were and for better or worse, probably for worse. Worse on them, better for us. Because also thinking about it, there’s no world that Adam McKay and Will Ferrell would have been comfortable collecting people’s data around comedy videos that they just had fun making with friends. Yeah, so like, this has always been the duality of Funny or Die is like yes, it’s a business and a Silicon Valley business, but it’s also been so driven by talent, and creative and just the pursuit for excellent content. That’s kind of why we’ve had so many adjustments, to use your word from earlier in the conversation.
So what relationships did you have with comedians when you came on board?
I had decent ones! I mean, not like
You weren’t a performer, but you had worked with studios and with agencies.
I was very fortunate because when I moved out here and I really didn’t know anyone or anything. I worked at The Standard Hotel on Sunset, and that was my first opportunity being surrounded by aspiring writers, directors, actors, musicians. So it’s just like, my creative graduate school, if you will. And I produced things with all the talented folks at the Standard. We would like get together and makes up so I kind of had this like just scrappy, entrepreneurial DNA within me. Then I was also fortunate to work at UTA as an assistant at the talent agency. I didn’t totally understand but I had a glimpse into how agents thought and how the business of all these things coming together. Then I was able to work for Stephanie Allain and Craig Brewer, and I was able to be on set on big proper movies, you know, studio movies. Then I also was able to work in development at Paramount when I was working with Craig and Stephanie. And then when the writers strike hit, that’s when I kind of put all of those things together just on my own. And a very close friend of mine, David Bernad, who just won the Emmy for The White Lotus (as an EP) in that period, he referred to me as the Scott Rudin of the Internet. Now, back then, it was a compliment because we didn’t know anything about him. We had never worked with Scott Rudin. Obviously he didn’t mean it, because I was like going around like bullying people and things like that. But I was very fortunate to just get a lot of stuff going online. And like I said, a lot of it was with comedians that I just met through doing that, because similar to the Standard, creative people are producers, they’re just looking for someone to organize things and to help get their stuff made. That is like the absolute value proposition for a producer. Can you help this idea get made? And that was something that the pursuit and desire to do that just came very naturally to me. It didn’t mean that I was good at it. Or it’s like easy, it’s far from easy, but I still get very passionate about hearing someone’s idea — typically someone I just like connect with, because like, you love the idea, right? But you also just love the person. You just want to like to help service this person and this idea to get it made. And that’s what I brought to the table at Funny or Die and in many ways, nothing has changed. As much as things have changed, and I’ve been so fortunate to kind of have a new job every two to three years, that core purpose, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake it. That’s why we were in Pitch. We were talking about Pitch before the interview. But that was bananas, right?
So I met you in 2017 when you went to Montreal for the Just For Laughs festival to announce the launch of Pitch, which was an app where, completely different from user-generated videos. This was user-generated jokes. (I wrote about Pitch when it ended in 2020)
Yes. We had big dreams for Pitch and I still love Pitch, and I love the guys who created it. And so when you heard that idea, and it was different than anything that was out there, and you felt their passion, you’re just like, how do you not try and see this through? And it’s the same thing with videos, podcasts, movies, series, and you have to have that passion because this stuff takes forever. Years! I mean, I think you also mentioned that we met way early on when Usain Bolt was in the office, you know in like 2009 or 2010. I remember trying to get Usain Bolt to finally make a video for like years before it came around. You have to really be committed to these things because no one just like hands you something.
Was Drunk History the first thing that there was a hit for you guys? I was going back and looking through the files. I mean, The Landlord was an immediate smash, but that was Will Ferrell. But Drunk History was the first thing that had comedians who weren’t necessarily major stars.
I would actually kind of bifurcate it. So there were some things that were just Funny or Die original videos made by the staff that Harper Steele put together, that I joined as like the producer. So like Jake Szymanski. Eric Appel, the writer and director of WEIRD, which I’m sure we’ll talk about, and there were probably five or six folks that were on staff at Funny or Die.
Before the HBO deal?
Yes. Jake Szymanski directed the Paris Hilton video that was like a big hit in 2008. We all collaborated on Prop 8: The Musical which was like probably like the first really big video that I worked on when I got here in 2008. Then you add things like Between Two Ferns and Drunk History. Both of those did not start on Funny or Die. They started on YouTube or on other areas that I wasn’t even involved in, but then once Funny or Die got its sea legs under it, and we had Will Ferrell and Adam McKay and Chris and Judd, you can’t stress how important that factor was. And so when they kind of had a lot of their peers working on Funny or Die, they kind of got to know me, they knew that Will and McKay were involved, all that stuff just kind of organically came over to Funny or Die, but it didn’t. But I’m almost certain that yeah, Between Two Ferns and Drunk History kind of became a part of our legacy. But we didn’t launch those.
I mention Drunk History because I know it was part of the Funny or Die Presents series on HBO, but Derek had premiered at Sundance.
I remember that. Yeah, we produced those. And then Gary Sanchez went on to make the series.
Which went to Comedy Central. And then Scott Aukerman comes to you guys with Between Two Ferns. That was like the first thing that that got you guys statues like the one that’s on this table.
Yes. I don’t even know what that’s for. Presumably we earned. We’re pointing at an Emmy that, we bring all the podcasts we bring into the room with the miscellaneous Emmy. We don’t even know what it’s for. Between Two Ferns was and is huge. I mean, working with Zach (Galifanakis) and Scott has just been a dream. That was a great win-win of providing just a little bit of infrastructure and resources for them to do what they do so well. That’s why we’ve been able to make, I don’t know, 25 or 30 of them, and then the movie that we did for Netflix a few years ago.
Was it a show like Between Two Ferns or was it something else that sparked the first pivot where you realize instead of focusing on user-generated clips, or even trying to get the latest celebrity to come onboard that, no, you can produce more original projects that might turn into a series or might turn into a movie.
That’s a great question. Other people may have a different answer. At least for me, when I got here, I just kind of brought to the party what I knew how to do and that was to work with writers and directors and actors who are already in Hollywood. I’m from Michigan originally. So I love people who are making their way and uploading things, and when we found good stuff from people who uploaded things, we absolutely featured it. Jake Szymanski was one of the first people to upload a video to Funny or Die, and that got him noticed by Will and McKay. I was always just focused on folks within the Hollywood creative comedy community. Because again, I always think about how can we be doing something that’s just a little different. So when you look at like Break.com, Heavy.com, CollegeHumor, The Onion, they all kind of have their lanes. Our lane and again when you have Will Ferrell and Adam McKay as your backstop and my relationships and Harper Steele and everyone, it just felt like that’s where we can make our work. So that’s what we focused on. And I don’t think that was ever a part of business plan necessarily, because it was kind of more like a YouTube of comedy? But that’s kind of where, like anything, when you sense that things are working, and people are paying attention to certain aspects that you do more of that, and that’s how the brand really got built.
But then when did those conversations start happening where you’re like, OK, we’ve got Billy Eichner, who’s charging into people on the street and yelling at them, and then you go, hey, you know what, this could be a TV series and we should be the ones producing it.
Specific to Billy on the Street. And you’d have to ask him but the way my memory holds it, is that someone who worked with us at Funny or Die, Darrell, sent me some of Billy’s stuff and said, this dude’s really funny. And I watched it. And I was just hooked, from the very beginning and I reached out to Billy and told him I was a fan and I’m wondering if he wanted to me, and it turned out he was going to be in LA a few weeks later. I since I’ve learned that he made that up. He actually wasn’t going to be in LA, he kind of planned a trip just to come out and meet with me, which is very nice of him.
Hey, that’s how I got this interview.
We got along instantly. Billy and I just really clicked instantly. So Billy told me his idea for combining is man on the street videos with a subjective pop culture game show. And I just thought that was the most genius thing I’d ever heard. Because again, I am always drawn to things that haven’t been done before. I just love surprising ideas. Unexpected things that can attract a big audience. And when he told me that idea, I was like, we have to do that. And I didn’t even I didn’t even get permission or ask anyone. We just like did it. We didn’t tell anyone. What a blessing Funny or Die was, they just kind of trusted me to do my thing, most of the time. And we just didn’t tell anyone and we hired a crew in New York and Billy made a sizzle reel for Billy on the Street. As soon as we showed it to people, it’s just like, everyone got it. We never even made that as a as an online video. I mean, I think we ended up putting it online. But that was just something that we knew we could sell as a television show. And by that point, we had done the HBO show Funny or Die Presents. We’d started to get some interest because a lot of our writers and directors were coming up with their ideas and this just became a great creative hub to get those things going and no one want it to be limited to just online.
Right, because it’s one thing to do an IFC mini-series or two with Will Ferrell and a bunch of celebrities parodying miniseries but the idea of taking these relatively unknown comedians such as Billy Eichner at the time, and going, let’s develop a show around you — that feels like it takes a lot more determination and effort. Especially when you’re coming from just being a home of online funny videos.
Yeah, well, everything takes determination and effort. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re trying to do. But yeah, that was kind of my peer group. You know, like Will and McKay and Harper, they were older than me. But Billy and I are basically the same age. Jake and I are basically the same age. I have been. I’m so so proud of the people who have worked at Funny or Die and have kind of like come up the ranks. To me that’s like as impactful as the projects that we made together. And so I’m a big believer and just creating that that vibe and that infrastructure and that that experience to help people get to their next level,
You’ve got the Weird Al movie coming out which the original Genesis was of a funnier dive video from Eric Apell. But now Funny or Die is not the place for people to do that. To do a spoof video that might someday turn into a feature film.
That is correct. The sad thing is, is I don’t think anywhere is the place to do that. Devastating, but that’s just how the world has changed. How comedy has changed. How social platforms have changed all consumer habits.
So what was the process for WEIRD?
Eric Appel was a staff writer and director at Funny or Die. This was when there were a few biopics going on, like there was the Notorious BIG biopic and maybe Walk the Line. Maybe Ray.. And he just had we had been doing a few of these fake trailers for Funny or Die. And Eric had done a few of those, and those have done well for us in terms of views and traction online. And he had the idea and he had recently worked I think with Patton Oswalt on a Funny or Die video. He knew that Patton and Al were close, and so he emailed Patton like hey, do you think Al would be into this idea? And I think Patton’ forwarded out that email to Al and I think Al got in touch with Appel like that day. That’s a great idea! Let’s like have coffee and talk about it. So they talked about it and they wrote the script together, and then it’s just a three or four page script, but then we cast it with like all these amazing people Aaron Paul and Mary Steenburgen and others. And, yeah, we just made that like one of the other Funny or Die videos. There is a time we were probably making 20 original videos a month, you know? And most of those probably had some celebrity in them. And yeah, so we made it and it turned out great. And it was very, very popular. And Al ended up using it as part of his live show for years. And then I think it was Al’s idea maybe four years ago. He was just like, hey, you know, everyone’s always asked me about this video that I play at my shows, and it’s like, oh, you should turn it into movie and he never thought was the right time. But then, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody came out and Rocket Man had been announced. He was like, oh, maybe it’s time to turn this into a movie. And he got in touch with Appel and then they got in touch with me and I agreed with him. I thought it was a great idea. And they developed the pitch. And we took around the pitch and we couldn’t get any bites, unfortunately, even with like the really great video that we had already made. And then to Al and Eric’s credit, they wrote that script on spec and then when we got this spec done, and that’s when we were able to get Roku interested.
It’s funny. We’ve been talking about how much has changed in 15 years. And you know, one of the things is, yeah, sadly, there’s there’s not really a place. I mean, you can go on YouTube or I guess you could make a TikTok now and try to generate interest. And if the TikTok goes viral, you could turn it into something. But we were also talking about the Pitch app and it feels like there was this glorious period where where you had so many employees and so many ideas and everything was getting made. What happened to force you to have to scale back. Was it the economics of it all? Was it changes in the industry?
Everything. It’s never like one thing. It’s a combination of so many things. I would say if you’re gonna say one specific thing, it was how the economics changed when social platforms distributed content they didn’t produce or pay for. So it was great because Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and Tumblr and other things help things go viral. But they got the vast majority of economic value out of that viewership. Because they leveraged that viewership into ads that they were tracking you on. I mean, this is why still Facebook and YouTube like the vast majority of their money comes from advertising, you know. And so that didn’t help. I’ll put it that way.
Right. So the fact that people weren’t going to Funny or Die dot com, or using the proprietary player to view this stuff, but had to go to Facebook or had to go to YouTube, on their terms, to watch this stuff.
If I could go back in time and do anything differently at Funny or Die, this is just total hindsight is 2020. What I always daydreamed about was we did a deal with Turner in 2012, where they bought a minority stake. And that was basically a bet. I say this with love in my heart. That was a bet on advertising and basic cable. Two things at the moment, 10 years ago, probably didn’t make sense to bet on. We were an advertising-driven company. That was right at the cusp when streaming started becoming a reality because you could actually stream things through the cloud in a way that created an amazing user experience. And so if we were the type of company that only cared about the bottom line, which we are not, we would have combined Gary Sanchez and Funny or Die. And you would have raised a lot of money to not get into investing. Not into advertising, but to generate like an early Seeso, right. where you can be like OK, everyone, let’s try and like go after. Again. I say this just
Seeso, for those of you listening, who don’t already listened to my podcast, Seeso was a before its time, comedy-only streaming platform by NBCUniversal that NBCUniversal put no money into it, and then trashed the whole thing after a year and a half.
Because those companies weren’t set up to do those things, in any way, but like we could have raised money and created a platform and a whole experience for great comedy. Said goodbye to advertising, not done that deal. And I think we could have created a very early but effective destination, subscriber-driven destination that the value which could have been very high and we could have been acquired by someone wanting to add that to their streaming platform sometime between like 2015 and 2017. When like everyone was trying to figure out streaming and that’s like when the Netflix valuation exploded and things like that. And so yeah, I do wonder about like, what that would have been like, but we you know that that wasn’t what happened.
I mean, you made a bet with Turner and Turner, themselves had gone through an iteration where they could have had their own chance with Super Deluxe, and then scrapped that for economic reasons or tax reasons or who knows why.
Yeah, Turner had like a nice little comedy thing going with Super Deluxe, Adult Swim, Conan. Right? All good comedy. But what was actually making them money? Reruns of the Big Bang Theory. I’m not trying to disparage the Big Bang Theory that’s just like the reality. But like the Big Bang Theory and Adult Swim are two very different sensibilities. So we’re kind of joining this Turner comedy wave that was all dependent on advertising. And, you know, that’s neither here nor there. But again, to go back to your question. Lots of little things added up to why, by the way, this didn’t just impact Funny or Die. This was every digital publisher. I mean, remember how powerful The Huffington Post was? I mean, I think it exists but like, it doesn’t really exist.
In name only. There’s a site I think, if you go to it, but
And again, all of these companies, whether they were tiny, or medium sized, like Funny or Die, or huge like BuzzFeed all were impacted because all these like, consistent digital ad dollars. That was like the first time broadcast is dead. I mean, people are still saying broadcast is dead, but broadcast dollars and cable dollars are still the things like propping up streaming platforms, right. So that was just like it’s insane what fear does to markets. Oh my God, this thing is like taking off, broadcast is dead, let’s pump in a bunch of money to digital, digital digital, oh, it’s going to be like this is the new thing. But then when that thing doesn’t happen, you know, boom. I mean, look at like, I mean, these were all smart people. Look at how much money Disney invested in Vice. I think who even knows how much money Disney has had to write off of like Vice. It’s probably a billion dollars at this point. You know, and so, all these everyone thought this moment was going to happen, and it didn’t and it’s still around, but it just like, petered out. But streaming became this huge thing. And now what’s happening right? Streaming, the valuation of streaming has like, petered out. And now you’re just getting back to everyone bundling things, just like the cable that you and I grew up with. As much things changed they stay the same.
So in response, you had to cut back on writing staffs and putting out original videos. And now essentially, Funny or Die is a production studio, right?
Yes, yes, we are.
An old fashioned New Age, digital production studios making movies and developing and producing television shows.
Yes, what we’re trying to do with Henry Munoz, who bought the company a year and a half ago, is to create a proper independent comedy studio that can both produce our content like a production company, but also has financial resources in the form of a development fund and a production fund to also produce some of our own content. Like a studio would to create a little bit more ownership and optionality for all the people that we partner up with. Because where the world is going is one of just consolidation and ownership for like the rest of time throughout the world. And we love the fact that we’re independent, we don’t have a first look deal. We don’t have an overall deal and we can move fast and be smart and collaborate with people and be very innovative in how we put together our deals and different opportunities. So that for a company like Funny or Die, which has been fortunate enough to produce a lot of different things, but we can have, like I said, just a little bit more ownership and not have every project we produce be work for hire. Because when things are just work for hire, you have like a company of more than two or three people. The margins are so low, it just, you have to produce so much to cover that overhead. And that’s what we’re endeavoring to create with Henry is this new type of independent studio, very focused on up-and-coming and diverse voices but also relationships with some of the biggest names in Hollywood and have kind of that whole diverse composition, create a studio that has real value,
Because you have Steven Colbert there being part of Pickled but then you have Players and I don’t I don’t know that I could name anyone in the cast of Players.
Have you seen Players? I think you’d really like it. It’s a great show.
I know a lot of people like and talk about it. So that’s why I was like yeah,
Well thank you. I appreciate that. It’s a really, really good show.
Maybe because when I think of video games, I still think of old-school.
Yeah, I feel you. I’m not a gamer at all. But I think what Tony and Dad did to be able to like create such emotional stakes out of something I’ve never played or have an interest in playing. I think that’s what people saw in that show is how effectively they create and especially without a cast that anyone had ever seen before.
Correct me if I’m wrong that the success of that came about because of the success of American Vandal.
Yes. I loved American Vandal. So yeah, again, relationships and Tony and Dan actually got their start making stuff on CollegeHumor, and then we heard their idea for American Vandal and I think, at the time they wanted to turn it in, try and sell it as like a Go90 show. But then we heard it was like, well, nothing against Go90, but I think we can reach higher than that. And to their credit, they had an amazing pitch for American vandal, and we were able to do two seasons for Netflix.
We touched briefly on the fact there’s no where someone like Eric Appel would upload a video for a fake trailer of a spoof biopic of Weird Al today, but there are still venues for independent creators on Tiktok or Instagram to a lesser extent. There’s creators on Twitch who are doing things. There are still places out there for DIY comedy, but it’s a completely different ballgame.
Yeah, I mean, I think there will always be some places but there’s just such a moment in time with Funny or Die and other places. That it was like the new thing. Right? Like comedic short-films were being made before Funny or Die: South Park started as like a viral short. It just wasn’t online. And so the waves in Hollywood are a real thing, man. Like look at the podcast wave that is still happening. Not like it was two or three years ago, like when those valuations were insane, like digital content was a very specific wave brought in by YouTube. And basically killed by Facebook if you weren’t going to really make like an A to B, this is what happened. Yeah, I mean, there’s there’s great talented people on TikTok and other places, but I don’t think there’s still just that ladder. There’s not a clear comedy ladder you can join for comedians in their 20s like there was 15 years ago. And I do wonder what impact that will have on their voice, in comedy and content? Because a lot of folks, you know, like you and I are getting older, you know, and comedy has always been a young man’s game. So it’ll be interesting to see like, who out of the new cast on SNL kind of really pops. But these things, I think also will now take longer than before, because there was such like a wave to ride where you could kind of really get to that next level with very specific steps. And those steps are, I think, more ambiguous and just more isolated. There’s less of a community around those steps, which sucks.
You made reference to it earlier, what does keep you coming into the office all these years later, when you probably, you’re in different offices now since April, you said, and you probably look around, and is there anyone in this hallway who was around then?
Well, Joe Farrell, our Chief Creative Officer I’ve worked with since 2010.
OK. When you look when you walk down the hall.
(joking) I don’t know any of these people.
Would you have to explain to these people the company they’ve joined?
It’s actually 23 strangers who are nice to each other in the hallway, but I don’t know anyone’s name. And yet, they seem to get paid every two weeks. It works out. Oh, man. A lot of things still bring me in. One, just that sense of purpose to help someone get something great made. And it’s really hard, and I am attracted to very hard things.
To put it in another way? Do you think there’s some 22-23 year old who’s an expediter working at the Standard or Chateau Marmont today? Who’s really hobnobbing with with the A listers…Is there’s someone there today who might be able to do something.
Absolutely. You know, I’ve done nothing special. So, I mean, that’s why I love these interns that are out here. I love what our former interns and what our former staff has gone on to do. So I get very excited about helping people being a very small part of helping things get made, helping them get to their next level. I love things that are hard. I love our new owner, Henry Munoz. This is a great blessing to have a his infusion of relationships and energy and financial resources that we haven’t had before. He’s a gay Latino man and having Latino ownership of this independent comedy studio, I think is just incredible, both for the world but also for business. It just allows us to have all kinds of different conversations we weren’t having before. And I care very deeply about the legacy of Funny or Die and the foundation, and getting through all these adjustments and exploring these new chapters with — I kid. We have a great team here. We always have. It’s crazy, like in Hollywood man, you really are the company you keep. I’ve always if I’ve done anything, right, it’s I’ve been able to keep and be a part of a great company. And that’s like why after 15 years, we are still an independent company. This is bananas. This should not happen. And I’m not even saying it to like brag I’m gonna say like, this could have gone in a different ways, so many different times, and so like I want the resilience that so many people have shown at Funny or Die. I want to keep that going. And and we do, Pickled, Players, WEIRD. We have a bunch of other stuff we can’t announce yet. Or maybe by the time this comes out, we can we can add to this. We just keep trucking.
Yeah, like you said it could have gone so many ways. You’re across the street from Netflix, but in a parallel universe you could have been bought by Netflix and who knows what Netflix would have done.
Oh, anyone who would have bought us by now, Funny or Die would have been toast, you know? Because like I’ve been around these like types — they call it like run a process — maybe this is too wonky for your audience, but when these waves are happening and companies, there are people who sit around and just try and figure out things to buy. They have to buy things in order to have a job. Right? And the people who really went out, and I say again I say with love in my heart, is like the bankers, whether the premise of the deal works or not. If it doesn’t work, there’s still going to be more stuff that people want to buy. So all those investments, all those acquisitions, it’s so crazy how certain things make sense at just like a certain moment in time. Timing is everything. And so if we had been acquired by any sort of company, we would have totally been toast, because it just becomes too hard to keep a standalone thing going. You know? It’s not like they’re malicious. Sometimes I’ve seen the media, how they write about things happening. I think people use bad judgment but no one’s just like sitting around trying to be like oh, how can we ruin this company? It’s not personal. This is business.
So how amazing is it, then, that that you and Funny or Die are still here, even after Will and Adam split?
Well, Will is still a part of the company. Henry bought out everyone, but Will is still an advisor. He’s in the Pickled special with Colbert.
But still, the fact that they split up could have dire ramifications for you and the company.
Yes-ish, but really, we were such, we were separate companies. So as a fan and as their friend. Not best buddies, but having worked with them for so long. You know, I was sad to see them separate because, they made like the best comedy in the world together. But I wasn’t surprised that we were able to kind of keep it going because like we just always keep it going.
So in a sense then not being folded into Gary Sanchez was a blessing.
Was a blessing. Yeah, absolutely. Again, the whole folding into Gary Sanchez only would have made sense if we were a company that cared about the highest valuation and like getting out of it. We were never passionate about those things. We’ve always been a company that just like great talent, you always want to have your cake and eat it, too. So you want a good business and you want good content. And some of those things can coexist at times, but not always. So we’ve always leaned in on the content front.
Mike, thank you so much for letting me come over to your office.
My pleasure. I had no idea we were gonna talk about all these memories. Hopefully we can come back every five years and we’ll have a new tale of woe but also triumph to share.
Alright, see you in five years.
Sounds good.
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