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You Made It Weird w/ Pete Holmes Feat. Abbi Jacobson [Video]

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Tyson Paul
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Everybody has secret weirdness, Pete Holmes gets comedians to share theirs.

You Made It Weird is a weekly comedy interview podcast, hosted by Pete Holmes. It was hosted on the Nerdist network since October 25, 2011, but as of February 28, 2018, is independently distributed. The show originated under the premise that Holmes would ask his guest, usually a fellow comedian, about three “weird” things he knew about them, but the show has since evolved into a much more loose conversation about topics such as comedy, religion, and sexuality. While initially focusing on interviews with comedians, an increasing number of guests from other fields have appeared on the show, including musicians, pastors, scientists, and authors. Katie Levine is the producer of the podcast. The show is usually recorded in-studio at the Nerdist studio at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles, California. Since March 21, 2012, Holmes has recorded multiple live episodes of the podcast, in Austin at South by Southwest, New York, Bloomington, Chicago, Montreal, Quebec, San Francisco, Los Angeles at the LA Riot Festival, and Toronto at Just For Laughs. These have featured several guests rather than the usual one, and focus more on comedy rather than the in-depth discussion of a regular episode.

In this week’s episode, comedian/actress Abbi Jacobson makes it very weird.

Pete Holmes: Pete Holmes is known for his cheerful personality, self-aware humor, and musings on spirituality and religion, which are all frequent themes across his works. Early in his career, Holmes performed on the Christian comedy circuit. Holmes has appeared on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend, as a regular panelist on VH1’s Best Week Ever, and on VH1’s All Access. In 2010, he performed on John Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show as well as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. On February 26, 2010, he performed his first television special on the series Comedy Central Presents. On March 21, 2011, and on November 17, 2011, he appeared on the TBS talk show Conan. Holmes has provided the voices for several of the characters on Comedy Central’s cartoon Ugly Americans. He was the voice of the E-Trade baby on several television commercials and was credited as a writer for those commercials. He wrote for the NBC primetime sitcom Outsourced and for the Fox sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter prior to its cancellation in May 2012. Holmes created and stars in the HBO series Crashing. The pilot was written by Holmes and directed by Judd Apatow. After the season three finale, it was announced that HBO had canceled the series.

Abbi Jacobson: As one of the creators, writers and breakout stars of the hit comedy series, “Broad City” (Comedy Central 2014-), Abbi Jacobson was part of a new generation of female comedy writers and performers who found success through their own creations. Along with her writing partner Ilana Glazer, the duo parlayed their 20-something experiences of being young, single and broke in New York City into a web series-turned-cable-comedy. Despite following other female-driven shows about singles in the big city, the series succeeds thanks to the duo’s crackling onscreen chemistry and the outrageous yet rooted in reality story lines. Abbi Jacobson was born on Feb 1, 1985 in the Philadelphia suburb of Wayne, Pennsylvania. While in high school, she briefly dabbled in acting, taking Saturday classes at the Walnut Street Theatre and the Actor’s Center in Philadelphia, but it was the visual arts that would be her first creative pursuit. She left her home state to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she pursued a degree in fine arts and a minor in video, the latter of which would soon overshadow her art career. After graduating in 2006, Jacobson made the move to New York City to try her hand at dramatic acting, but quickly discovered that comedy was more her forte, after she learned about the comedy incubator Upright Citizens Brigade. Jacobson found her comedic voice in improv and sketch and trained with the Atlantic Acting Conservatory and the Magnet Theater in addition to the UCB. It was there that Abbi met her future writing partner, Ilana Glazer, when the two bonded as the only women in their improv group. What followed was the typical grind for struggling creatives. Their mindless and varied day jobs to pay the bills would become future plotlines of their comedy projects. After relentless auditioning, Jacobson still couldn’t get a commercial agent, so she and Glazer decided the only way to break into the business was to create their own material. In 2009, they started a scripted web series based on their friendship called Broad City. With the help of their UCB friends, the crudely produced show eventually blossomed into an online hit.

By 2011, the duo was finishing up their second season and had a pilot they were looking to shop around. In their pursuit to end the show’s season with a bang, they asked one of their UCB teachers to see if UCB founder and one of its most famous alumni, Amy Poehler, would be a guest star on the show. Much to their surprise, Poehler said yes and even signed on to become the executive producer of the TV series. With a big name attached to the project, Jacobson and Glazer quit their jobs and flew to Los Angeles to pitch the series as a television show. While FX had originally taken interest, they eventually passed on the pilot until Comedy Central took up the reins and ordered ten episodes, which aired in 2014. Drawing heavily from their own experiences, the characters were based on exaggerated versions of themselves. With a strong background in improv, the two actresses played off each other in a loose form akin to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO 2000-2011). Despite drawing strong comparisons to “Girls” (HBO 2012-) – another show about millennials figuring things out in New York City – the show steered away from drama and over-analysis and stuck to the brash and absurd. The series featured a mix of big name comic talent like Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Amy Sedaris, Jason Mantzoukas, Janeane Garofalo, Rachel Dratch and locals from the New York comic community. Jacobson’s TV debut turned out to be an impressionable one, and the series was renewed for a second season. In addition to her comedy career, she was also a talented visual artist and illustrated two coloring books for Chronicle Books in 2013, as well as the illustrated humor book Carry This Book (2016), which reached the New York Times bestseller list. Continuing her re-engagement with her fine arts background, Jacobson began the podcast “A Piece of Work” in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art and WNYC in 2017, in which she and her guests discussed various aspects and particular works of modern art.

Also during this period, Jacobson appeared in a small role in comedy sequel “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” (2016) before co-starring in indie drama “Person to Person” (2017) and animated comedy “The Lego Ninjago Movie” (2017). Continuing in animation, Jacobson collaborated with Matt Groening on adult-oriented cartoon “Disenchantment” (Netflix 2018- ), the story of an alcoholic fairy princess. In the fall of 2018, Jacobson published her second book, a collection of essays entitled I Might Regret This, written during a three-week cross-country road trip in 2017, following the breakup of her first serious relationship with another woman.

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