"Corporate" & Mimi Pond

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Jesse Thorn

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2018

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

First up: Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman. They created and star in the brand new Comedy Central show "Corporate." Look. Technically, Corporate is a workplace comedy. But it's so much darker, weirder and universal than that. The show follows the lives of Matt and Jake, two junior executives in training at Hampton Deville, a hopeless megacorporation. They have just enough power and money to keep working there, but not enough to make any real impact in the company. The show tackles themes like the capitalism, art, suicide, and even the meaninglessness of life. They join Jesse in the studio to chat about getting the shows tone right, what it was like pitching the show to a corporation, and why they cast Lance Reddick, who played Cedric Daniels on The Wire to play the CEO of Hampton Deville. Plus, they talk about how magic mushrooms helped them write some of the episodes — you don't wanna miss that! Plus, cartoonist and writer Mimi Pond tells us about the craziest day of her entire career. And finally, Jesse tells us about "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud — a comic book about understanding comic books. If you've never picked up a comic book before this is a good place to start, obv.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:10.0	I'm Jesse Thorn.
0:14.0	It's a new show on Comedy Central.
0:16.0	Maybe you've seen it.
0:17.0	It's called Corporate.
0:18.0	It's about two junior executives in training at a giant multinational corporation.
0:24.0	They sell guns and tablet computers and bananas.
0:28.0	And literally every character on the show is either miserable, terrified, angry, or some combination of those three things.
0:37.0	The stars and creators are Jake Weissman and Matt Ingebrezson.
0:41.0	And I don't think I'm hurting their feelings when I call it one of the bleakest shows on television right now.
0:48.0	I mean, take it from Jake.
0:50.0	Bleak is kind of what they're going for.
0:52.0	I just think that most programs about the workplace are a form of escapism.
0:57.0	So people go to work and then they come home and the ideas they don't want to see their actual life reflected.
1:03.0	They want some better version of what they're going through to be entertained by.
1:08.0	But we always felt that Comedy should be a catharsis.
1:11.0	And that, you know, I don't want to pretend that life is better than it is.
1:16.0	I want the recognition that my life is bad.
1:18.0	So therefore, it feels valid.
1:21.0	Sorry, everybody. It's Bullseye.
1:30.0	Coming up more with Jake Weissman and Matt Ingebrezson.
1:33.0	Two of the most cheerful and sunny young men in Comedy today.
	...

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