Episode 171 — What’s Your Profession?

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Lauren Lapkus, Mary Holland, Gil Ozeri, and Will Hines are all participants on Survivor in a special improv5humans with Matt Besser! They’ll also visit an awful joke telling dentist’s office, experience the worst road rage, and explore what happens when a witness gets thrown into different disputes. Plus, Matt reads some questionable fan letters. Make sure to get the Upright Citizens Brigade television show season 3 now available on DVD, the UCB Comedy Improv Manual, and Dragoon’s new album at dragoongalaxy.bandcamp.com!

[qaop_space 87]

Odd timing for me that they were discussing Survivor as I've been heavily addicted to watched the Korean game show Genius Game, which works in similar ways.

[Dhezballah 462]

At first I didn't realize those were all different letters, I thought it was one letter trying to hit all bases to try to get you to sign it.

[BagguhMcGuirk 104]

It's amazing how excited I get every time I see Lauren Lapkus is on a podcast.

[KajusX 1807]

Holy giant spiders, this episode is amazing. I'm going to have to re-listen to it as soon as I finish. The suggestions, stories, and youtube clips were all great, and the scenes that came from them were so funny. I love it when a group's chemistry is firing on all cylinders while they're also stifling laughter due to everyone enjoying how the scenes are getting heightened.

 

I loved this part from the scene after the Topps card autograph letters:

 

WILL: "Heyyy, I'm a huge fan. How's it going?"

MARY: "Hi! Oh thank you so much!"

WILL: "I know that you uh, come to book stores. I know that you're, you know, a woman. I know that you've got your hair and stuff. So could you just please sign here?"

MARY: "I've got my- wait, I've got my 'hair and stuff'?"

WILL: Yeah. You've got your hair on your head, you know?"

MARY: "Ok, look—"

 

Mary Holland has so many great reactions in this episode.

 

I had totally forgotten about Matt's Topps card! It's pretty nice artwork!

[Shannon 2953]

ahhh my leeeegs!

 

 

weirdly that monster truck clip is going around my facebook feed this morning, how serendipitous. And does anyone else think the interviewer sounded exactly like the interviewer from the hentai clip from many moons ago? I wonder if it's the same horrible guy who interviews sad people for youtube views

[JacobCrites 4977]

Mary Holland became my favorite person in exactly 2 seconds. Anyone who realizes the brilliance of Survivor is OK in my book.

[Jon Onyx 1226]

Improv5humans!

[DubipR 485]

Christ,

The "Monster Truck" sketch had me laughing in stitches.

 

Anytime we have Lauren Lapkus on I4H, it makes me happy.

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

So I think maybe Lauren needs to report that dentist to the authorities.

[tartan 352]

i guess she could have been picking a name at random in that first scene, but since it's the season she said she's watching now, i'm going to operate under the assumption that mary holland made the first ever comedy podcast allusion to rita verreos, a contestant who appeared for 6 episodes on the 14th season of survivor in 2006

[Lukas Holmes 2287]

I send autograph requests for my favorite teams on behalf of my kids all the time. The one way you can tell if it's fake is if they want you to personalize. I ask the players to make it out to the name of the kid I am hoping to get it for.

[takehomejoke 670]

It's beeeen a while!

[greggy 15909]

its funny, i went through a survivor binge recently as well and watched about 4 seasons before i got sick of it. i started with a more recent season and then went back for season 1, and i loved how in the recent season everyone was strategizing and making alliances and breaking promises and talking a lot about "this is how you play the game of survivor". then you go back to season 1 and its all just about surviving and the one guy who is actually playing it like all the contestants will in the future everyone hates

 

but yeah this episode was really top shelf. so good.

[Joe Lerini 7329]

The lady from that monster truck Youtube video already sounds like an improv character.

 

This whole episode is top-to-bottom hilarious. Love all these improvisers. And I'm sure my 2 sets of twins would love an autograph from them.

[squoopy doops 157]

Mary left off the best part about the Survivor format: the last 7-9 people that get voted out ultimately choose the winner, which means that players have to attempt to be devious while still remaining liked/respected by the people they are voting off. This in turn creates an infinite number of possible ways to win, and pretty much every winner up to this point (29 seasons in) has won in a distinctly different way (besides 2 time winner Sandra).

 

If you have a million years to read about Survivor, the dynamic of jury management has never been more evident than with Russel Hantz in Survivor: Somoa (and also Russel Hantz in Survivor: Heroes vs Villains).

 

Basically, there is an extremely deep hole you can go down with Survivor (for example, here's 80 hours of audio content talking about the strategy in the first 10 seasons of Survivor alone). It's understandable that it's laughed off by people that are unfamiliar with it, but it really is an outlier in terms of reality shows.

[Kickpuncher 5012]

It's beeeen a while!

 

After they went back and forth saying it like three times, I was foolishly hoping that Lauren would bust that out.

 

Mary and Lauren doing their own versions of the famous Besser Crowd Voice was amazing.

 

Best of all, the triumphant return of Lauren's long-dormant ass-eating references!

[GregJ.Hansen 316]

The two laughs that caught me most off-guard were the kid in the getting-cut-off scene asking his dad if the woman was right about where he came from, and Matty B reading that one 'fan' letter where he's described as one of many 'neat people' in the card set.

 

But yeah, Matt's is a handsome card indeed. The "Allen & Ginter's" label is in tribute to the long-defunct cigarette company that arguably originated trading cards back in the late 1800s. I might track these down!

[groovatoidfunkritis 27]

I love love love when Wild Horses and/or any of its members are on Improv 4 Humans. Also, I know subtle amazing stuff happens all the time on this podcast, but as a relatively new improviser and long-time improv obsessive, it's so impressive to see one improviser know that he can choose to be a teacher who doesn't know his student's last name because one second later Matt will identify him as a new substitute. So for one second you might be like, "wait why doesn't this teacher know his student's last name?" and "why isn't the student offended about that?" but then it all comes together and the reality is confirmed. It's like a text book moment in "make your partner look good" and "if this is true what else is true" and happened as naturally as can be. Not a jokey gamey big laugh moment, but the kind of reflexive, instinctive skill that I (and probably every other new improviser) aspire to. I love this podcast.

[watchayakan 1021]

I love how similar Matt's Chinese woman is to his German man.

[Thedge 314]

I love Matt's random guy laughing.

 

HUH HYUH! HEH HYUH!

[HipsterNonsense 402]

So I think maybe Lauren needs to report that dentist to the authorities.

Or she should stop seeing "dentists" that work on international waters.

 

 

In all seriousness I'm astounded that a man like that made it through medical school. Also based on Lauren's story it seems he does that to most of his clients and on a regular basis. It's weird to think that there hasn't been complaints or some kind of a lawsuit or action of some kind against that guy.

[pdxsean 241]

Matt's "topical humor" line in the dentist skit caught me completely off guard and my subsequent laughter scared the crap out of a few people walking near me on the sidewalk.

 

Plus it's always great to hear Matt's "distant yelling guy" character who popped up hilariously in the Survivor skit.

[AaronSinger_29251 578]

Can I request some version of the original death by roo roo? Curtis Gwinn, John Gemberling, Neil Casey, and Brett Gelman? Or some combination of any one else who joined?

[xoValeriexo 4369]

ahhh my leeeegs!

 

 

weirdly that monster truck clip is going around my facebook feed this morning, how serendipitous. And does anyone else think the interviewer sounded exactly like the interviewer from the hentai clip from many moons ago? I wonder if it's the same horrible guy who interviews sad people for youtube views

 

It HAS to be the same guy. He sure knows how to pick 'em.