This Better Be Funny Podcast

This Better Be Funny Ep. 72 with Rosie Tran

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:42:51 -0700

While enjoying a lovely afternoon in a North Hollywood public park, Jake and Jeremy riff down a road with this week’s guest Rosie Tran that travels through “the trade-up game”, how to get men to fall in love with you, one night stand 101, and what it means to be a legitimate foodie. Basically, the type of conversation you’d expect comedians to have even if there were plenty of children with their parents around staring daggers at them the whole time.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 71 with Danny Solomon

Mon, 06 May 2013 20:27:33 -0700

Danny Solomon (writer for JASH) is this week’s guest joining Jake and Jeremy in a riff session that covers Mos Def’s new name, who owns “cancer”, poor Jehovah’s Witness canvasing strategy, and the Kinsey scale. Oh yeah, there’s also an amazing story of the dumbest bet with the grossest (and also dumb) stakes by Jeremy that you’ll probably hear/have heard in awhile. Jake and Danny certainly couldn’t stop talking about how Jeremy lost a bet of who could get to a 100 farts first.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 70 with Shawn Pearlman

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:36:43 -0700

This week, Jake and Jeremy invade a booth at Astro Diner in Silverlake with guest Shawn Pearlman. The gang and their guest didn’t get kicked out, but they got as close as they’ve ever gotten by being sat at the back of the restaurant, which they probably deserved for talking loudly about Paul Anka, legendary (locally) open mic comedian Boon Shaka Laka, and how “too soon” a joke could be if we comedians were clairvoyant. You’d think a 24 hour diner in LA would be used to this type of ruckus by this point, right? Oh well…

This Better Be Funny Ep. 69 with James Fritz

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:30:12 -0700

Jake and Jeremy go the locally famous, at least amongst comedians that live in the Los Feliz neighborhood of LA, Rustic Inn where plenty of comedians day drink/get inspired. Joining them this week is recently transplant and very funny comedian James Fritz that tells the story behind his American Bible Challenge t-shirt he wore during the taping of this very episode. Well worth a listen as well as the story of Jeremy speaking Arabic to scare off cholos.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 68 with Jesse Case

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:56:00 -0700

One of the LA comedy scene’s funniest, Jesse Case, riffs with Jake and Jeremy going through basically getting a pink slip from the tribe if you’re not Native American enough, the vast population of homeless people in Vancouver possibly due to the lack of prophylactics during the last Olympics, and a story where Jake saves a girl from being raped. Don’t mind the music playing in the background at Best Fish Taco in Ensenada where they recorded, just listen to how they’ll dig the funny out of all of that. Oh yeah, just for your reference, the pop star that has staffed glitter wrangler mentioned at the beginning of this episode is Ke$ha.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 67 with Ro Delle Grazie

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:10:59 -0700

Leave it comedians to turn a nice stroll along the scenic parts of the LA River (think that one scene from Drive where they’re by a river) to imagining what would be the start of an episode of Law and Order. The very funny Ro Delle Grazie joins Jake and Jeremy this week in figuring what worst case scenarios and possible alibis for crime in and around or inspired by a small stream floating through a bunch of concrete. Oddly enough, as much riffing as they did about possibly finding one, they didn’t stumble past a dead body. Maybe “the secret” doesn’t work?

This Better Be Funny Ep. 66 with Lauri Roggenkamp

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:53:00 -0700

Jake and Jeremy go back to their old hijinks of seeing what various dining establishments around LA don’t care if you record an impromptu podcast and straight riffing for an hour with a great guest comedian (last week, they just went to AdultCon sans guest). This week hilarious comedian Lauri Roggenkamp (Just For Laughs Montreal) joins in and it turns out that people getting fast food didn’t care that they recorded a podcast or yell an accusatory “You sick fuck!” loudly and repeatedly. It must be a common thing while getting cheap dinner to go in LA?

This Better Be Funny Ep. 65 Jake and Jeremy Go to Adultcon

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:04:20 -0700

As the episode title suggests, Jake and Jeremy make their way past a man screaming fire and brimstone in front of the Los Angeles Convention Center to Adultcon, mostly to see if Jake will freak the fuck out as he has claimed that sex terrifies him. Surprisingly, there’s a good amount of porn and non-porn booths, a thing that Jake is quick to notice and, no surprise here, they run into a comedian at a porn convention, Alex Loulis. Whether you’ll find out if Jake causes a scene or has a panic attack as boobs and penises are on screens everywhere, you’ll just have to listen to the whole episode.

Also, apologies for all the bad hip hop playing in the background.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 64 with Cornell Reid

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 19:24:08 -0700

Finally, after a two-week-completely-unplanned hiatus, Jake and Jeremy are back to business as usual with This Better Be Funny with this week’s hysterical guest Cornell Reid (The Comedy Garage). Of course, by “business as usual”, what’s meant is suggesting South Central LA isn’t that dangerous to walk around, saying things that, heard out of context, would be bizarre at best to real strangers walking by as an example, and discussing the finer points of “pathetic loser” etiquette of placing dollars on the stage at a strip club. It’s good to be back, no matter how many unsuspecting pedestrians they seemingly creeped out, which is kind of hard to do in a hip place like Echo Park.

Due to Technical Difficulties, This Will Be Another Week Where You Can Listen To The Rest of the This Better Be Funny Archive

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 18:35:00 -0700

As stated above, there were technical difficulties preventing uploading this week’s episode of This Better Be Funny with the very funny Ro Delle Grazie. It would be so convenient to simply blame that dumb fangled thing called technology on this mishap, but, like a lot of things that go wrong on this podcast, it’s probably something Jake did.

Trust that what was recorded was an hour and 10 minutes of beautiful conversation, jokes, riffing, explaining what a podcast is and how to listen to one to a wonderfully random person who was just sitting at the park, and comedy, which concluded with this dare of trying to get Jeremy to do an upside down iron into a backflip after failing like an old man to do it the first time.

There’s only one way to see if Jeremy ended up “Jackie Chan-ing” it or not, by watching it right here.

Following that, you can listen to the 60+ episodes of riffing goodness in the This Better Be Funny archives.

Oh, you still want a reason for there being no episode this week?

Well, I don’t know, blame the earthquake that you may or may not have felt today. That’s as good a reason as audio not processing, right?

This Better Be Funny Ep. 63 with Tony Sam

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:37:07 -0800

Guest incredibly funny Tony Sam (HAHAJK.com, Persona!) joins Jake and Jeremy at Zankou Chicken for this episode of riffing/hating on wool ties (Jake is wearing one in this episode), discovering that Jeremy is indeed one of those people who had no idea what shawarma was until he saw The Avengers (making Zankou Chicken an ideal location for this ep.), and Tony’s awful time at a strip club.

Unsurprisingly, that story delights Jake and disappoints Jeremy terribly for a really fun episode.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 62 with Jeremy and Lauren Thomas-Martin

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:39:00 -0800

Opposite of the no guest Valentine’s Day episode, Jake and Jeremy have on The Martin Dupass, real life husband and wife comedy duo Jeremy Martin and Lauren Thomas-Martin while just hanging out in the parking lot for the Hollywood Improv. As you’d expect riffing with a married couple would go, there’s jokes about home appliances, awkward presents, and attempting to do musical parodies. Also, local LA comedian Jason Van Glass shows up unannounced and interrupts (I promise this wasn’t planned), if you’re into that thing.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 61 Valentine's Day Special Without Guest

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 19:01:41 -0800

Jake and Jeremy, in honor(?) of Valentine’s Day which is the day this recording took place, opted to go sans guest and walk as two straight guys around a pretty empty high end mall where they couldn’t afford anything. To both your and my surprise, they did not kill themselves or each other. Per usual, Jeremy noticed pretty women walking around and Jake was glad he didn’t have to go to a strip club, which was the original plan for this Valentine’s ep., and they both fought over that in pretty great and hysterical fashion.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 60 with Matt Kirshen

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:37:24 -0800

British comedian Matt Kirshen (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Last Comic Standing) joins Jake and Jeremy to riff from tea all the way to a student loan officer hunting down money by looking at what comedy gigs are on a calendar of ours. Also, someone, in the middle of the podcast, hands us Malibu Life magazine because three comedians sitting around in the afternoon on the weekdays just screams “balling out of control”.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 59 with Grant Lyon

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:57:02 -0800

Jake and Jeremy descend far to the depths of nostalgia where they’re not sure which 90’s black character actor played which role in which movie with guest and very funny comedian Grant Lyon who willfully goes along until someone admits to not seeing a movie. That’s when shit got real* (*what’s real is largely subjective and up to the interpretation of both artist and listener) Basically, they all find that because of people getting nostalgic, everything will be liked ironically at some point. All in all, another really fun episode with some universal truths and Jeremy admiring the human form.

**no one was hurt in the recording of this podcast.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 58 with Chris Fairbanks

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:48:18 -0800

Jake and Jeremy are finally back after Jeremy having a week spell of sounding like Wolfman Jack if he lost his voice. This time around, they have guest Chris Fairbanks (Comedy Central, Fuel TV) explore his limited time spent in Christian youth musicals as well as how many Adam Sandler references he can drop in one conversation. A well rounded episode, I’d say, so long as you consider well rounded to also include riffing on Morgan Freeman impressions for several minutes.

No Episode This Week Because You Wouldn't Have Been Able to Understand Jeremy Paul

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:11:53 -0800

Jeremy Paul was too sick to speak or laugh with the delight that he usually does, so we had to take a week off. If you call BS on that, just count it as a MLK Day vaction for the This Better Be Funny Podcast.

In the meantime, give a listen to one of our over a year’s worth of episodes with the likes of Rory Scovel, Kyle Kinane, Sara Benincasa, (that’s just recently) and more as guests. I, Jake Kroeger, know it’s biased, but they are pretty great.

We’ll be back next week with more riff-er madness (yes, I feel guilty for the wordplay, but I just had to).

This Better Be Funny Ep. 57 with Sara Benincasa

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:06:05 -0800

Jake and Jeremy AKA Savory Johnson and guest Sara Benincasa (author of Agorafabulous) somehow find themselves at crossroads in conversation between children political refugees, Prince, tasteless non-jokes referencing famous baseball players, Destiny’s Child, and Star Wars without getting off topic. They also threw religion jokes into the mix there too and managed to eat breakfast at dinner time while being pretty lighthearted and non-offensive through the whole thing. Pretty impressive if you ask me (i.e. you should give it a listen ASAP).

This Better Be Funny Ep. 56 in the Flappers Yoo Hoo "Green Room"

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 18:36:14 -0800

Following a performance from Jeremy Paul, both him and Jake partake in the tradition of hanging in the green room at a comedy club. Though, it should be noted the YooHoo Room at Flappers Burbank doesn’t have a green room so much as a sitting area near a bathroom. All the guests are unplanned, but some include Jerry Brandt, Chris Adams, Kris Rubio (who Jeremy is apparently related to), and other such comedians that at one time, years ago, represented comedy in Long Beach, CA, which hardly exists anymore. Also, there are random comedians who argue about Mensa, then appropriately get debated with.

And yes, Jake did the intro while in his car because it’s Monday, you know.

This Better Be Funny Ep. 55 with Kyle Kinane

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 21:21:58 -0800

It’s New Year’s Eve and while there are plenty of overpriced options to welcome in 2013, there’s plenty of entertainment value to be had with this free podcast featuring a great chat between Jake and Jeremy and the one and only Kyle Kinane (Comedy Central, Conan). Not only did they discuss on Kyle’s disdain for unchecked city pride in food, specifically Geno’s in Philadelphia, but dug through Jeremy’s brick of business cards that he carries with him (i.e. a Costanza wallet minus the wallet and money).