Comedy comes in many forms, each with its own history and style. And while it may be subjective, there's still some surprising science that makes comedy what it is today. This week on the Curiosity Podcast, we talk to long-time performer and teacher Lilly Allison, an expert with a firm grasp on the history and psychology of comedy. In this episode, she explains and demonstrates comedic devices in front of a live audience at the 2017 Chicago Podcast Festival. Lilly has been involved with comedy since she was 14 yrs old. She has studied, taught, and performed improv with several organizations, including 3 years of traveling with The Second City National Touring Company. In addition to teaching stand-up and improv comedy classes, she also hosts "A Lill Annoyance Stand Up Show" series at The Annoyance Theatre in Chicago. Additional resources discussed: Lilly Allison's bio Benign Violation Theory Sumerians cracked world's oldest joke "Come On And Slam" Space Jam Subreddit Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to get smarter withCody Gough andAshley Hamer — for free! Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Comedy comes in many forms, each with its own history and style. And while it may be subjective, there's still some surprising science that makes comedy what it is today. This week on the Curiosity Podcast, we talk to long-time performer and teacher Lilly Allison, an expert with a firm grasp on the history and psychology of comedy. In this episode, she explains and demonstrates comedic devices in front of a live audience at the 2017 Chicago Podcast Festival.
Lilly has been involved with comedy since she was 14 yrs old. She has studied, taught, and performed improv with several organizations, including 3 years of traveling with The Second City National Touring Company. In addition to teaching stand-up and improv comedy classes, she also hosts "A Lill Annoyance Stand Up Show" series at The Annoyance Theatre in Chicago.
Additional resources discussed:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to get smarter with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer — for free! Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/where-comedy-comes-from-live-from-chicago-podcast-festival
CODY GOUGH: I'm curious. If we wanted to explore the science and evolution of comedy on the Curiosity podcast in a special live episode from the Chicago Podcast Festival, what would it sound like?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
What's up! Hi, everybody. Hi. Hello, everybody. Do we have any Curiosity podcast fans in the crowd by any chance?
[CHEERING]
There! Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming out. My name is Cody Gough. I am one of the hosts of the Curiosity podcast.
We have a night of comedy planned for you or the continuation of the night of comedy. So you just saw a hilarious podcast, which is great. And now we're going to talk a little bit about the art and science of comedy. So I thought it would be really fun. I wrote down every single time the audience laughed in the last hour, and we're going to explain every joke one by one.
And that's what we're going to do. Sounds fun, right? That's not going to happen actually. We have a very, very talented guest that I'm going to introduce in just a second. But before I am able to function in any way on this podcast, I have to introduce my extremely talented and very intelligent cohost, Ashley Hamer. Put your hands together.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Ashley's going to be our fact-checker, like she always is, and say all the things that I am not smart enough to say or remember during this. And I am not going to belabor the introduction of our special guests because she's going to talk a little bit about her background when she gets to the stage. But I would like you to put your hands together for the talented Lilly Allison.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Well, good to see you. Hi, welcome.
LILLY ALLISON: Hi. Hey, everybody.
CODY GOUGH: Lilly, I would like you to just make everybody laugh uproariously for the next 60 minutes.
LILLY ALLISON: Whenever anyone tells me that I'm always like, you're a comedian. Make me laugh. I'm always like, not for free.
CODY GOUGH: Do you hate it when people are like--
LILLY ALLISON: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: --you're-- [LAUGHING]
LILLY ALLISON: I hate it. I think every comedian hates that one. At my other jobs, I any-- I usually keep that a secret that comedy is like my other life. I hate when it like leaks out because then you just feel I-- like so much pressure to be funny all the time, you know?
CODY GOUGH: But you don't feel like you're on the spot right now?
LILLY ALLISON: I'm off. I'm, like, off work, but I was-- like, when I'm not in the comedy scene, I'm like, uh, no, this is my day job. I'm not funny now.
CODY GOUGH: Sure. So you talked about your day job. I did a relatively poor job of introducing you. I just kind of said Lilly is really funny, and she knows about comedy.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: But you've got a really interesting background. You've been involved with the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago since you were 14.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes, since I was 14.
CODY GOUGH: That is-- Yeah, right? It's worth--
LILLY ALLISON: That's 20 years. I'm 34. So that's 20 years. That's insane.
CODY GOUGH: So have you never had--
LILLY ALLISON: That's kind of sad.
CODY GOUGH: I mean, have you never had stage fright?
LILLY ALLISON: Oh, yeah, I get stage fright all the time. But it's more of like fun. It's more of like a high. It's not like-- to me. But yeah, stage fright, I think you just learn to deal with it.
CODY GOUGH: How were you involved when you were 14?
LILLY ALLISON: So I went to-- I'm born and bred in Chicago, so I am one of six kids. And I went to Lincoln Park High School, which was one of the only Chicago Public Schools with the theater program. And there was this guy named Monty that was teaching, and he had actually graduated from Lincoln Park. And he did an improv workshop.
And it was just like one day like came back to the high school he went to, did a little improv games with us, and then was like, I have a show tonight at the Annoyance. You guys should come see it. And for some reason, he thought that was a good idea to tell high schoolers.
And I actually had my mom drive me, and I went by myself. And I was just-- after the show, I was like, I want to do this. And then he's like, talk to that guy. And that guy that he pointed out was-- his name is Mark Sutton. But at the Annoyance, we all call him Howard.
So I talked to Howard, and I asked hi--
CODY GOUGH: Why? How does that work?
LILLY ALLISON: In college, he used to want to be a sportscaster, like a news reporter. And what Howard-- what's the famous news?
AUDIENCE: Howard Cosell.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes, so that's how he got that name. Yeah, before my time. But that's just-- it stuck. At the Annoyance, they all refer to him as Howard. But if you ever--
CODY GOUGH: I'm glad we have the live audience because a couple of people shouted the answer. This is exactly why I have Ashley every week.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, exactly.
CODY GOUGH: We had two podcasts in a row, and somebody couldn't remember the name of the lead singer of Journey, which-- do you know the name of the lead singer of Journey? Wait, hold on. I know you know. Lilly, do you know?
LILLY ALLISON: I don't.
CODY GOUGH: I don't either. Even though Ashley has told me like seven times, I don't remember. What is the name of the lead singer?
ASHLEY HAMER: No. Yeah, we had two different guests, completely did not know each other. Both wanted to mention the lead singer of Journey and couldn't. So Steve Perry is the one that everyone knows, right? And then the one that I always know of as the guy that they found on YouTube, like from overseas, is Arnel Pineda.
CODY GOUGH: Arnel Pineda was the answer. Arnel Pineda-- next time, you'll have that answer in the form of a question.
LILLY ALLISON: [LAUGHS]
CODY GOUGH: And it'll be good. So you got involved in an early age, and you do stand-up and improv, which is not normal, right?
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah. It's more normal than you think. It's--
CODY GOUGH: In a good way, I hear some laughs.
LILLY ALLISON: --two improvisers. Improvisers are the ones that it's like, it's not normal, right? It's super scary. But to stand-up comics, it's a little bit more normal for them to do both.
CODY GOUGH: Interesting. And what--
LILLY ALLISON: At least in this city.
CODY GOUGH: I guess I'm curious I'm curious everybody. What exactly is the big difference-- I mean, we're in Chicago. Probably half the people in the crowd are comedians, right? Has anybody done comedy in the crowd out there?
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: So there's a lot of that but-- and I've taken classes with you, and you've kind of explained that comedy isn't always explained super clearly to Chicagoans. So I mean, what do you-- what is the big difference between--
LILLY ALLISON: Well, just a little preface for people that don't know, by day, I'm a teacher, and I have a master's degree in like education communication. So I feel very strongly about how in the city like anyone can teach improv, right? There's no qualification other than maybe they're a good improviser. They don't have to be a good teacher to be a good improv teacher.
So they just have to maybe be good at improvising, which doesn't mean just because you're a good baseball player doesn't mean you're going to be a good coach, in my opinion. So you always-- sometimes you end up getting taught improv by people that don't know how to teach it is what I'm saying, [LAUGHS] in my opinion.
CODY GOUGH: I've had many teachers. I would agree with that. If someone asked me to run an improv--
LILLY ALLISON: Not that they don't know what they're doing. They just may not know how to communicate how to do it.
CODY GOUGH: Absolutely. And I would not know either of those things and yet have been asked to teach improv, workshops, places. So it's kind of-- I understand. I see the Curiosity flag. This is a new introduction to the podcast.
It's a new feature. And this is what Ashley needs to get my attention. So during our prerecorded podcast, we usually have like a swooshing sound effect.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: And that is an actual samurai sword that actually brings into my studio whenever I can't remember something. But the beef kitchen would not allow us to bring an actual samurai sword into the theater. But we've got this.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes. Usually, I get several hours and an entire recording to listen to prepare things to say to make myself sound smart. But for this one, I just came along with some things. But yeah, it's interesting that you have a background in education because I'm sure, as you know, improv started as a way to teach children how to assimilate into the United States.
In 1939, an actress and educator named Viola Spolin became a drama supervisor for the WPA Recreational Project in Chicago. So she worked mostly with children and recent immigrants to the United States. And most of them didn't know much English. So she learned to teach from Neva Boyd, who was a sociologist and educational expert who believed that play could help children learn language, cooperation, socialization, and other important skills.
And since traditional teaching methods were useless with people who couldn't speak English, she just turned everything into games. She once recalled quote, "The games emerged out of necessity. When I had a problem, I made up a game. Then another problem came up. I just made up a new game."
From these groups emerged the first improvisational theater performances complete with scenes based on audience suggestions, the way that you're all familiar with now. And in 1939, Chicago Daily News column described one of Spolin's productions like this, quote, "What they were doing is not exactly a play. It was perhaps what is called a revue. But its form doesn't matter.
The important thing about it was that it was conceived, written, and played by the people themselves." And then in 1948, Spolin moved to Hollywood to establish The Young Actors Company. And her son, Paul Sills stayed in Chicago, where he opened The Second City in 1959. As I probably don't need to tell you all that now legendary theater was a training ground for many of Saturday Night Lives most celebrated cast members. Paul invited his mother to teach workshops at this new theater, and the rest is history. So we have the Great Depression to thank for Saturday Night Live.
CODY GOUGH: Wow.
LILLY ALLISON: Awesome.
CODY GOUGH: That's some knowledge.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes. Can I add a couple of things to that?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, absolutely.
LILLY ALLISON: So Viola Spolin usually gets all the credit. For those that even know Viola Spolin's name-- I get so many students that don't even know her name, and I'm like, ooh, OK. But she actually didn't come up with the games. It was Neva Boyd.
You mentioned her. And she is like someone that doesn't get any credit in the improv world. And I'm like, a super like Neva Boyd superfan. She's also one of six kids just like I grew up in Chicago. And she was really passionate about how important play was in childhood development and helping social problems.
And so Jane Addams-- and this is where Jane Addams comes into the birth of improvisation. Jane Addams hired her to work at the Hull House, which if you grew up in Chicago, you definitely did a history fair project on her. And Neva Boyd worked there, and she had a school actually. She wrote this famous book called The Theory of Play. And she had a school where she taught other people how to be teachers like social workers.
She taught people how to supervise like playgrounds and stuff and all different kinds of people. And Viola Spolin took her class at the Hull House. And she learned all of these games from Neva Boyd. And then she kind of jumped on the, like, idea of using them for dramatic purposes. But all of the games are really Neva's games.
CODY GOUGH: You just knew that off the top of your head.
LILLY ALLISON: [LAUGHS]
CODY GOUGH: You are-- you are a-- you have worked in education. That's great.
LILLY ALLISON: She was awesome, and she like, is a name that's not known. And it's like-- she should be known because she was definitely the one who spearheaded like the games that we see on Whose Line Is It anyway? really came from her brain and her imagination.
CODY GOUGH: It's interesting because the art form came out of the early part of the century, and all of the pioneers you talked about are women.
LILLY ALLISON: Oh, isn't that awesome? Jane Addams.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
LILLY ALLISON: And isn't it cool so many people don't realize the connection of Paul Sills to Viola Spolin that's his mom? That's super cool for us improv nerds. Yeah. It's super fun to know.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. So I want to bring it back to-- Ashley mentioned Second City.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: You've performed with The Second City Touring Company.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes. Uh-huh.
CODY GOUGH: Right. But are you focused more on improv now or stand-up?
LILLY ALLISON: Right now, think about what you did when you were 14 and if you're still doing that. So I've been doing improv for a long time. So stand-up more recently has been more scary to me. So I've been doing improv a long time. Stand up is more scary, so I've been kind of forcing myself to really delve into that.
But I still-- I mean, I was born and raised with improv, and I love it, so.
CODY GOUGH: What don't people get about comedy?
LILLY ALLISON: Oh my God, so much, right? One thing is-- I actually went to DePaul Theater School for a short time before I was like, screw this. I don't know if I-- can I say the f-word? But I was more like f-word this. And I was like, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: We're family-friendly.
LILLY ALLISON: OK. And--
CODY GOUGH: Probably should have mentioned that before we started doing this in the preshow notes.
LILLY ALLISON: Just in my experience of like with non-- like in the acting world about comedy, there's like-- I remember being in a lecture hall at like a history of some kind of drama or some kind of like lecture in the theater school there. And my professor was like, comedy has no relevance. And I was like, [VOCALIZING], excuse me?
And I was like, I think comedy is the same. And basically, he would just kind of shut me down. But I feel like that's what people don't understand. And all comedians, successful comedians, know that comedy is just exaggerated reality. And actors, classically trained actors-- like I went to New York and studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse, which is Sanford Meisner acting school.
And what I get from that crew of people is that comedy is like in it. It's a different animal than drama. And comedians, they know that drama is just like you just bring it down a notch. And then you're at drama. You know what I mean?
Comedy is just exaggerated. And that's why you can in 10 seconds list 20 famous comedians that have won Oscars for dramatic roles. I mean, there's like Robin Williams, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx that started off as comedian, Steve Carell, Bill Murray. I mean, like every great comedian can do drama. But when you think of very successful dramatic actors, it's only like the best.
It's only like classically trained actors. It's only like De Niro who has said like-- even though he did a movie just recently called Comedian, he was petrified of doing stand-up live. And he only did it for the cast and crew. Christopher Walken can do it. Dustin Hoffman could do it.
But there's like only a few. So it's like-- it just goes to show that I think what people don't realize about comedy is it's just exaggerated reality, in my opinion.
CODY GOUGH: Well, I have been told that if-- I'm having a conversation with you. I'm automatically improvising. That's what I'm doing. I'm improvising. If I'm in a sales meeting, I'm improvising.
What don't people get about improv specifically?
LILLY ALLISON: So I think that is a big thing where people misuse the word a lot. And so I get people that have taken so many improv classes, and they're like, oh, I'm improvising. I work at the gap. I'm improvising. Or I'm a teacher.
I'm improvising. And there's a difference between the definition of that word, which I'm sure you could tell us, which is like making things up in the moment or somewhere along those lines, and then what I consider to be the art form of improvisation, which is much more than just making things up off the top of your head.
If the art form of improvisation was as simple as making things up off the top of the-- off of your head, then everyone could be a skilled improviser. That means I as a little kid going up to a piano can just go like this. And that would be considered skilled improvisation or the art of improvisation. And it's not. But yet that little boy is still going like this and making things up off the top of the head. But to me, that is not the art of improvisation.
CODY GOUGH: Tell that to my eight-year-old niece. I don't know.
LILLY ALLISON: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: As a jazz musician, I can tell you we have the exact same problem.
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
LILLY ALLISON: And there's a lot of-- I grew up with Mick Napier. And Mick Napier is always like the telltale sign of an inexperienced improviser because he audits all of the Second City auditions. And he's like the telltale sign of an improviser that doesn't know how to improvise is someone that never stops making choices. It's just constantly new choices.
There's no repetition and pattern. And someone that like-- so not based off of any book, someone that like just recognizes improvisation in all mediums. You start to notice that there's something that's the same across all mediums. So there's improvisation in what we do like, I'm a cowboy, and I'm doing a scene, right? That's hilarious.
OK. So like improv comedy. And then there's other people that consider themselves improvisers. And I'm not talking about the workers at the gap or a teacher or whatever. I'm talking about art, the art form of improvisation which are jazz musicians, which are dancers like Martha Graham, which are cooks like Rick Bayless, who is just here, which are painters like Jackson Pollock, or freestyle rap, or slam poetry.
Those are all considered the art form of improvisation. And what all of those have in common is that they are all doing three things that are the same across the board. And the first thing that they're all doing is they make a choice. So whether I'm up here improvising a scene or I'm playing or my boyfriend improvises on his trombone or a dancer improvises a dance, we all made a choice.
And then the second thing you have to do is you have to become aware of that choice. And this step is where everyone screws up because everyone thinks that oh, that's just like a given. We're all aware that we made that choice. But that is what makes you either an awesome improviser or like a crappy improviser.
CODY GOUGH: Nice catch.
LILLY ALLISON: Is your level of awareness of your choices?
CODY GOUGH: And you were aware right there that you were about to curse--
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: --on the Curiosity podcast.
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: I appreciate that.
LILLY ALLISON: And then the last one is that across the board of all mediums, of all art mediums, is repetition. It is not, in my opinion, and I think in anyone that understands what improvisation is at its core. It is not skilled improvisation if there's no repetition or pattern or rhythm. If it's a consistent new choices made over and over again and there's no rhythm or pattern of choices that were made at the beginning, it is not skilled improvisation. It is the same as a little boy going like this.
CODY GOUGH: That's the difference between the art and the non-art.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Is this scientific or clinical? Or is it your--
LILLY ALLISON: From peer reviewed--
CODY GOUGH: Oh, Ashley's got her--
LILLY ALLISON: --journal articles.
CODY GOUGH: Ashley's got her hand up.
ASHLEY HAMER: He said scientific. I've got to--
CODY GOUGH: Well, I feel-- discussing art is tricky because a lot of it can be really subjective, especially if you go to the Museum of Modern Art or Contemporary Art. It's like, what am I looking at? Why is this count?
And probably the same can be said-- some people say that Steve Carell or Will Ferrell are the funniest person they've ever seen. And other people are not so much.
LILLY ALLISON: Well, if you-- did you--
ASHLEY HAMER: Go ahead.
LILLY ALLISON: Well, like Jackson Pollock, he-- so he's in his barn, and he's painting, OK? So he's improvising a painting. And if you don't know Jackson Pollock, he's the one that splatters paint on a painting that's on his floor. So he has red, blue, yellow paint whatever, and he's going to splatter blue paint.
And then he's going to become aware I just splattered that blue paint. He's not going to then all of a sudden draw a little puppy dog and a cute little house and then draw a picture of a sunshine with cool sunglasses on it. Yes, he's probably capable of drawing a puppy dog in a sunshine with cool sunglasses, but that belongs on a different canvas, much like if I'm like talking like, I'm a cowboy.
And then I'm like, why are you acting like that? Oh my God. Those belong in different scenes. Much like if I'm a jazz musician, I start playing, and I'm-- my boyfriend's probably going to be like, ugh, because he's a jazz musician.
But if I'm playing the A, C, G note, I don't know what I'm talking about. But if I'm playing those notes, I'm not going to play every single note I could possibly play in that song. I'm going to play a version of those notes over and over again until that song is over and then come up with a new pattern and rhythm of notes. That's why there's choruses and stuff.
It's rhythmic. You're not going to make every choice in that painting in that scene in that song. You know what I mean? Or in the freestyle rap. You're going to make a choice and then turn that into a pattern.
CODY GOUGH: I'm thinking about mixed media paintings because they infuriate me. They make me like actual physical anger will happen if I see something that looks like a watercolor. But then they taped twine to it and then also put like colored pencil on the side. Actually, I freak out.
LILLY ALLISON: Really?
CODY GOUGH: I can't process it.
LILLY ALLISON: Because I like that kind of stuff, and maybe that tells something about me. I don't know.
CODY GOUGH: [LAUGHS] I don't know. So I just spent like half of that answer trying to picture the A, C, G chord in my head. I think some people--
LILLY ALLISON: Is that a real thing? Are those even notes? I don't know. At least I didn't say like X, right? Because that's totally off the--
CODY GOUGH: X is off. I will let the musician chime in with that information.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's parts of a chord.
A, C, G is technically an a minor 7 chord without the 5. And it sounds like this.
[NOTE PLAYING]
CODY GOUGH: Thanks, Ashley. That was really seriously bothering me.
ASHLEY HAMER: But I was wanting to talk about actually what-- you were talking about the science of humor, which is probably one of the least humorous things there is. But there actually are a lot of studies into what make things funny. And one of the big reasons for that isn't in service of what makes things funnier but how companies can avoid doing things that they think are funny that end up falling completely flat and making their stock prices plummet.
So history's greatest minds have tried their best to do this even all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. They championed the superiority theory, which says that we laugh at things that are inferior to us that make us feel better about ourselves. But that doesn't quite check out. It explains maybe like The Three Stooges and slapstick but maybe not like Mitch Hedberg.
So Sigmund Freud's relief theory says that humor is a way for people to release psychological tension, overcome inhibitions, and uncover their suppressed desires, which makes some sense for dirty jokes but maybe not like puns and stuff. So modern scientists generally think that whatever makes things funny at least has something to do with the idea of incongruity, so something that you don't quite expect.
In 1997, scientists Peter McGraw and Caleb Warren hit upon the benign violation theory. And that says that humor arises when something seems wrong or threatening but is actually pretty acceptable and safe. So that seems to explain a wide variety of humor. So dirty jokes are moral violations at their core, but they're only funny if you're willing to accept that those violations are OK to talk about.
It also works for puns, something like you can't trust atoms. They make up everything. Could be considered a lingui-- that's a linguistic violation, right? But it still makes grammatical sense, and you still pretty much understood what I was saying. Of course, this theory doesn't explain everything, and it has its critics.
But the unifying theory of humor is a work in progress, which means that we can expect plenty of groan-worthy humor studies to be published for years to come. Scientists are just still working on this. I don't think they're ever going to get there but--
CODY GOUGH: I love puns.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
LILLY ALLISON: Listen, that just brought me back to my master's classes. I made all my papers about looking up articles on-- I've read all of those.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure.
LILLY ALLISON: And they're so-- there's these articles about comedy that are the most boring thing in the world to read. It's like, oh my God, has this person ever laughed that's writing this? It's like so painful to read. But I mean, they all definitely have great points.
But I think it's just-- it's definitely people writing about comedy that don't know anything like hands-on about comedy. You know what I mean? And it's all these scholars writing about comedy that had probably never done improv class or have tried it. And in my opinion, from what I've read from all of those, all of those theories are 100% true.
But I think for someone that's like studying comedy that's like, how do I do that, those theories aren't going to really help you. And I feel like I'm more of an active learner. It's like, what do I do to make people laugh?
And so whether you're living in the 1500s in like northern Italy and watching Commedia dell'arte or whether you're living in 2017 here, there's a yin and yang of human laughter, and it was always going to be the same. And human beings will laugh at what they expect and what they don't expect. And both forms of comedy-- so improvisational comedy and stand-up comedy-- are both grounded in the opposite.
So stand-up comedy has to get its majority of laughs from the bait and switch, from giving an audience what they don't expect. That's where the majority of laughs should be coming from in stand-up.
CODY GOUGH: Do you have an example?
LILLY ALLISON: Not for free.
CODY GOUGH: [LAUGHS]
LILLY ALLISON: And the opposite is true for improvisation. So the majority of laughs in an improv show should be coming from expectation laughs. So you tell an audience what to expect at the top of a scene, and then you keep that promise throughout the scene. So you make a choice, and then you keep repeating that choice. And when you keep feeding an audience that repetition, that's what timing is in comedy.
That's knowing when to feed an audience a choice, knowing when to play the note again. That's what timing is. And so those are the expectation laughs and then the unexpected laughs. And so yes, both can have a little bit of both in them.
But if you're doing improvisation and relying on your wit-- first of all, like I don't want to do a scene with you. And then it just like you're going to be looking for-- you're going to be kind of freaking out at some point in that scene.
CODY GOUGH: Have I jumped in with too much wit?
LILLY ALLISON: [LAUGHS] No.
CODY GOUGH: We're not doing an improv scene at all. I was going-- I mean, I was going to also thinking about we've talked about, kind of the history of stand-up and the history of improv and things. How often do you do a live podcast?
LILLY ALLISON: Me, personally?
CODY GOUGH: You personally.
LILLY ALLISON: This is the first time. Live podcast. Yeah. In front of a live audience.
CODY GOUGH: I mean, I just feel like there's so many new art forms, especially with-- I'm not sure if you're on-- you're not on Twitter, I don't think.
LILLY ALLISON: I'm not.
CODY GOUGH: There's a lot of comedians that use Twitter. Some people are Twitter comedians. There were Vine comedians. There are people that are delivering content and with editing and YouTube. There's so many new forms and types.
Where are things going? Do you think-- I mean, you've been doing it for 20 years. Have there been a lot of new forms of comedy and delivery or--
LILLY ALLISON: I mean, there's always like a new long form. Anyone can come up with a new long form in an afternoon. You could come up with a new way to do an improv show. But in comedy, in general, I mean, I'm like shocked at how many of my students don't know who Lenny Bruce is or who Richard Pryor is.
It's like everything old is going to be new again, and there's really nothing new in comedy. There's comedic formulas. As a stand-up teacher, I teach my students classic comedic formulas and the most like hack way, like, have you ever noticed, or I like teach it in that way. And then I'm like, now we're going to disguise it into the modern way that we do stand-up, which is very conversational.
But those formulas exist for a reason, and you don't reinvent the wheel. You learn from the greats. Jim from The Office didn't invent the take. It was Jack Benny. That is not new.
Everything that is new that we think is new has existed before. And so in my opinion, right now, presently in comedy, everyone is freaking offended by everything you say. Today, in this day and age, the show All in the Family couldn't exist in our society, right? Because people would be like appalled.
But what they don't realize it's because a bigot was on TV like, oh my God, a bigot is being portrayed on TV, a complete racist. That's totally like all of our grandfathers, or at least mine. But it's like that show-- what people don't realize and what people don't realize in so much comedy nowadays is they don't listen to the context of material and jokes.
That show actually was making fun of a bigot. It was like-- it was a huge innovator in kind of shining light on like, oh, I know a guy like that. Yes, he's acting ridiculous. And it kind of paved the way for more open-mindedness.
CODY GOUGH: Stephen Colbert got in trouble for that with the whole-- he did a parody on the Redskins.
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah, even if-- it's like, oh, yeah, and if you just say something or act like-- that's what I'm saying. That show wouldn't exist nowadays. And so in my mind, I think it's going to have to go back to go forward.
CODY GOUGH: Well, we have a resource. I don't know if you've got this ready but to help everybody in comedy, some of the funniest words in the English language. Do you know the funniest words in the English language?
LILLY ALLISON: I know the funniest thing is a fart, right? Right?
CODY GOUGH: Wow.
LILLY ALLISON: Farts are funny.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
LILLY ALLISON: It's the epitome of like something that's unexpected. When someone farts, you're like, that was funny.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think I have a twofer for you then because I also have the world's oldest joke, which is from 1900 BC, the Sumerians.
CODY GOUGH: Someone just--
ASHLEY HAMER: There was a whole study--
CODY GOUGH: --looped it for the Sumerians.
[LAUGHTER]
I just want to point that out. I don't know what Sumerian we have in the--
LILLY ALLISON: He does do his Ancestry.com, I think. Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: It was a study they did. The British TV channel Dave commissioned a study in 2008 to find the oldest joke. So it was a Sumerian proverb that goes a little something like this. "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial-- a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap."
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: That one killed me the first time I heard it.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's a thinker. It's a thinker.
CODY GOUGH: It takes a second to get, right? That's why there was a delay. You think about it for a second, and then you go, nah, that's-- I got it. They knew what was up, the Sumerians.
LILLY ALLISON: They did.
ASHLEY HAMER: But the funniest words in the English language. There was another study done. They had a bunch of people rate 5,000 English words for how funny they thought it was-- thought they were on a scale of 0 to 5. So here are the top 10.
10, egghead.
CODY GOUGH: Egghead
ASHLEY HAMER: It's a barrel of laughs.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, boos from the crowd, not popular in Chicago.
[BOOING]
LILLY ALLISON: Everyone's geting angry.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nine, bebop.
LILLY ALLISON: That's pretty funny. Remember from Ninja Turtles? Bebop and Rocksteady?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, Eight, tinkle.
[LAUGHTER]
Seven, waddle. Six, twit. Five, nitwit.
LILLY ALLISON: I think [BLEEP] funnier than that.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right, right. These are Brits, so I think it might be different.
CODY GOUGH: Can't wait to edit that one out.
ASHLEY HAMER: It was the British version. Four-- now they get racy-- hooter.
CODY GOUGH: Whoa.
ASHLEY HAMER: Three, booby. Two, tit. There's a theme here. And number one-- the number one funniest word in the English language.
CODY GOUGH: Hold on. Do you want to guess, Lilly?
LILLY ALLISON: Penis.
CODY GOUGH: [CHUCKLES]
ASHLEY HAMER: No.
LILLY ALLISON: People always laugh when I say it.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's booty. According to this study, it's booty.
CODY GOUGH: Is it? I thought you said three was booty. What was three?
ASHLEY HAMER: Hm?
CODY GOUGH: But wait, what was number three?
ASHLEY HAMER: No, you had booby.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, booby.
ASHLEY HAMER: Booby was number three.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, no. It's better with a T.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, booby and booty.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. Makes a big difference.
LILLY ALLISON: I hear that word, and I always think of the cover, the VHS cover, of the movie Booty Call. Remember? Do you guys remember the VHS cover of that at Blockbuster? I'd be like, ooh, racy.
CODY GOUGH: I don't know. The only VHS cover I can picture right now is Shazam.
ASHLEY HAMER: Shazam wasn't-- Jodie, you have to back me up on this. Which one was it?
LILLY ALLISON: Shazam's a funny word.
CODY GOUGH: Kazaam was the real movie. Shazam--
ASHLEY HAMER: Kazaam was the real movie.
CODY GOUGH: Shazam is the one that supposedly didn't exist. But we all know that's a government conspiracy.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's the Mandela effect when a whole bunch of people have the same delusion about a same false memory.
CODY GOUGH: And you can read about the Mandela effect on curiosity.com.
ASHLEY HAMER: You can. Ding.
CODY GOUGH: You see how seamless that was? That felt great. That felt great. No Shazam, yeah, there's-- that's a deep rabbit hole or not.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's a whole thing.
CODY GOUGH: We're not going to go down. So I just want to ask one more question kind of about stand-up. What do you get out of it? Because you talked about how people--
LILLY ALLISON: Nothing. No.
CODY GOUGH: Other than getting invitations to live podcasts. Because a lot of people have used it for really political purposes like George Carlin, especially. Or like you'd said, All in the Family was waiting for comedy to kind of reveal the veil.
LILLY ALLISON: I think there's like a healing aspect to all comedy. And I think if you know any comedians, you know we're all very sad, messed up people. And there's common-- there's like probably some kind of therapeutic reason why we're all doing this. And it makes us like take a little bit less of our antidepressants probably. I don't know.
But yeah. But stand-up always petrified me. People say that public speaking is the number one fear among people, but I would put stand-up above that because not only are you alone on stage public speaking, but you're also trying to make people laugh at what you're saying. So I think it's a little scarier. And so it's definitely a scary thing to approach if you've never done it.
And I 100% empathize with people that are in that position and that some reason like me, I always wanted to do it. And it took like-- so for like 10 years, I just dated a bunch of stand-up comics. And I was like, this isn't my dream. And--
ASHLEY HAMER: That's not the way to do it.
LILLY ALLISON: And then one day, it's terrible. I made it into a joke, but a terrible tragedy happened in my family. And a family member of mine committed suicide. And I was just like, if he has the balls to do that, I could do a couple of jokes.
ASHLEY HAMER: [LAUGHS]
LILLY ALLISON: So that's the actual truth. And he would laugh at that. He would think that was funny. I know it, so. And that's why it's healing.
It's healing me right now, saying that joke all the time. But yeah, that's the truth. And it took a terrible tragedy in my personal life for me to just not care anymore. I just wasn't-- I just didn't care. I wasn't like that nervous.
I just wanted to do it. It's like this is a thing. Life is short. So that's the truth of what happened to me. But hopefully, terrible tragedies don't have to happen to everyone to start doing what they want to be doing, so.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. Wow. That makes a lot of sense there. I know--
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah. But I do think there's a lot of people do it for that kind of like-- it's healing power of it.
CODY GOUGH: Sure.
LILLY ALLISON: Laughing is good for you.
CODY GOUGH: Is your biggest fear now like way more tame, like you're afraid of like cats or something?
LILLY ALLISON: I'm afraid of-- if I get pregnant, if my belly button pops out. That's 100% true.
CODY GOUGH: Does that happen?
LILLY ALLISON: It, like, grosses me out.
CODY GOUGH: I'm looking at Ashley like--
ASHLEY HAMER: I think it does.
LILLY ALLISON: I know. I really do think it does. And I'm considering not ever having kids for that reason.
ASHLEY HAMER: Pregnant--
LILLY ALLISON: It's just kind of grosses-- I don't want an outie.
LILLY ALLISON: It happens--
LILLY ALLISON: I know.
AUDIENCE: --to everyone.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, it doesn't happen to everybody. That's good.
LILLY ALLISON: I'm not going to take a chance.
CODY GOUGH: My biggest fear is actually walking into meetings late. Is that weird?
LILLY ALLISON: Of what?
CODY GOUGH: Walking into a meeting or a classroom late.
LILLY ALLISON: Oh, gosh.
CODY GOUGH: Check this out. There's a thing called the spotlight effect, where it's a mental thing that you think everybody is paying attention to everything you're doing, when really most people don't really care. If you walk into something late, you sit down. No one remembers it.
LILLY ALLISON: Except your boss. Last year, my boss had a meeting with me. And I have, like, the best boss in the world. But she's like, I just like-- she's like so nice, and she really loves me. And she's always like, I know you're going to quit one day because I just-- I'm a CPS teacher. It's a really hard job. But she's like, I have to tell you that you've been late 80% of the time.
CODY GOUGH: [LAUGHS]
LILLY ALLISON: I'm like, I know. OK, can I go now? I'm like, it's OK. It's not that big of a deal, right? I'm still here. It sucks, yeah.
And it's a problem.
CODY GOUGH: Well, to wrap up, we do a segment at the end of every interview. I don't know if anybody knows the name of the segment.
AUDIENCE: Curiosity challenge.
CODY GOUGH: Yes. Somebody yelled it out. It's the Curiosity challenge. And I'm going to try to impart some knowledge on you. And by me, I mean mostly Ashley because I don't have a laptop in front of me.
But I have a trivia question for you. And then hopefully, you brought one--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, sweet. I did put that in the email. Just not the part about no swearing. So there's actually an animal that has contagious laughter.
LILLY ALLISON: Ooh.
CODY GOUGH: And it is a-- I'll let you guess maybe the type of it so it can be-- you can be broad. And if you can guess the country where it's from, then that's a bonus point.
LILLY ALLISON: Well, is it a hyena? Or hyena?
CODY GOUGH: Not a feline.
LILLY ALLISON: Is a hyena a feline?
CODY GOUGH: Is a hyena a feline? [LAUGHS]
LILLY ALLISON: That's the only animal I know that laughs.
CODY GOUGH: Wait a minute. What is a hyena?
LILLY ALLISON: That's like the laughing-- Remember Ed in the Lion King?
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. It's the laughing thing. Aren't they a type of cat?
AUDIENCE: No.
CODY GOUGH: No?
ASHLEY HAMER: Hyenas are not members of the dog or cat families. Instead, they are so unique that they have a family all their own, Hyaenidae.
CODY GOUGH: Which is a distant cousin, descendant of--
ASHLEY HAMER: We're all distant cousins, really.
CODY GOUGH: Exactly. From an evolutionary perspective, I was kind of on point. I'm not good at this segment. I'm not good at trivia, so I'm not sure--
LILLY ALLISON: Then we're wrong. It's not the hyena.
CODY GOUGH: Well, no. It wasn't the hyena, and the hyena's not a cat. [LAUGHS]
LILLY ALLISON: Well, then I guess if they were like-- they were like Scar's little minions.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, they were Scar's minions. Yeah, right. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Lions are felines. I mean, right?
LILLY ALLISON: That's right.
CODY GOUGH: Just making sure we're on the same page here. OK. Well, no. So actually, the animal is actually a type of bird.
LILLY ALLISON: A parrot.
CODY GOUGH: If you can believe it.
LILLY ALLISON: Because the parrots talk.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's right. It's a parrot.
LILLY ALLISON: Is it?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. The New Zealand kea.
CODY GOUGH: The New Zealand what?
ASHLEY HAMER: Kea. Kea.
CODY GOUGH: Kia? Like Kia--
ASHLEY HAMER: K-E-A. Not like the car.
CODY GOUGH: No. OK. All right. No. No copyright infringement here.
Yeah. So yeah, the New Zealand Kea.
LILLY ALLISON: New Zealand. In the last podcast, we're talking about New Zealand accents and--
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
LILLY ALLISON: So New Zealand parrots probably are funnier than regular parrots.
ASHLEY HAMER: Maybe.
LILLY ALLISON: Funnier and--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Apparently, these. parrots are super playful anyway. They're constantly just finding objects and tossing them in the air and playing around with them. And they make this little chirping sound. And scientists were like, I wonder if that's laughter.
I wonder if they do the same thing. Because when one person starts laughing in humans, other people maybe start laughing, too, even if they don't think it's funny. It's like you kind of-- that's a communal experience you have. So they played that kea laughter for others, other of these birds. And they started playing.
They started like kind of being goofy. And they think that there's this laughter that they all share.
LILLY ALLISON: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: So there you go.
LILLY ALLISON: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: And now you brought a question that has nothing to do with your realm of expertise.
LILLY ALLISON: No. But I was thinking that all the like random trivia that I know is like either-- like it's like about two things. One thing is about my favorite movie, which is The Wizard of Oz. I know a lot of trivia about The Wizard of Oz. When I was little, I used to go to The Wizard of Oz festival in Chesterton, Indiana, like legit, like the birthplace of Frank L Baum. I'm such a nerd.
I know a lot about that, but I was like, I can't let people know. But I just let you know about that. So I'm like-- so I was like, I'm not going to do a trivia question about Wizard of Oz. So instead, it's about the other thing I know a lot about about-- I love puppies, and I know a lot about Marilyn Monroe. So I'm going to ask you.
If you know, Marilyn roe had a little white poodle. I have a little white poodle, so I was like, oh! She had a little white poodle that was like her favorite. She was a dog lover. And she had this-- her favorite ever dog-- if you knew what that dog's name was and who gave her that dog.
CODY GOUGH: All right. I might know one part of this. So she married a baseball player.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Did he give it to her?
LILLY ALLISON: Not the dog that I'm talking about.
CODY GOUGH: All right. Did he gave her another dog?
LILLY ALLISON: I think he gave-- I think Joe DiMaggio gave her a dog, but it's not this white poodle that I'm talking about.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, all right. I'm going to say the white poodle's name was--
LILLY ALLISON: I'll give you a hint with the poodle's name. The poodle's name was Mafia. And the person that gave it to her was very famous.
CODY GOUGH: Frank Sinatra.
LILLY ALLISON: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: Aha. Wow. Everyone is shocked. I'm surprised that wasn't followed by a stunned silence after the hyena debacle of 2017. That was pretty rough. I was going-- I was going to ask you about The Wizard of Oz. I'm sure you've seen it--
LILLY ALLISON: I know. Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: --synced up with Pink Floyd.
LILLY ALLISON: Oh, yeah, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Several times.
LILLY ALLISON: In high school. Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: In high school. Yeah, I did that. has anybody seen Pink Floyd synced up with Wizard of Oz? Because it's really good.
ASHLEY HAMER: Confirmation about it.
LILLY ALLISON: The most exciting part is when they open the door, and it's in color. And then it's all kind of downhill from there. It's like not that exciting after that.
CODY GOUGH: After "Money," it's rough. Were you going to say something, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: No, I wasn't. I wasn't going to ruin anyone's dreams. It's cool.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't really-- I believe that the-- I'm a big wet blanket when it comes to the Pink Floyd and The Wizard of Oz thing. One time, I was in college when I was like really like way less fun than I am now. There was a live band playing Pink Floyd, and they're playing Wizard of Oz on the big screen. And I just kept finding all the places where it didn't sync up. And I'm like, what about that, huh? Really I'm--
LILLY ALLISON: Who came up with that? It's totally just some guy that was smoking pot that was like, whoa. Like why does it like-- I don't know. Like Bob Dylan and like Gone with the Wind go together. Who says that doesn't go together, right?
ASHLEY HAMER: Exactly. Sure. And it could. And you could start that thing right now, and everyone would be like, yes.
CODY GOUGH: I'm actually in the process of going through the Billboard Top 200 from the last century and trying to sync up with Space Jam. Just--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: I'm at like 150. And I swear one of these times, it's going to sync up perfectly, and it's going to be really amazing.
LILLY ALLISON: I love Space Jam. That's a great movie.
CODY GOUGH: It's a great movie. So--
ASHLEY HAMER: I mean, the music's pretty good in Space Jam, too. You don't want to cut that out.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. And you know about the Space Jam remixes, right? The come on and slam. So that's Space Jam theme song. Here's one more piece of trivia. Does anybody in the crowd know what I'm talking about? All right, so the Space Jam song, the one that's like, come on and slam and welcome to the jam-- all right. So there's like--
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah, like the best song ever.
CODY GOUGH: Right. There's no actual chords behind it. It's basically just kind of a beat. So you can mash it up with any song. All you have to do is change the tempo a little bit. And there's a subreddit, and it's called-- I think it's called come on and slam.
LILLY ALLISON: Oh my god, that's all I'm going to do for the rest of my life.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. You can look it up, Ashley, I think. But people-- they've synced it up to like anime theme songs, Pink Floyd-- like cartoon theme songs.
ASHLEY HAMER: It is r/comeonandslam.
CODY GOUGH: It is a /r/comeonandslam. And you can listen because it's got such a good beat. You can listen to like 100 remix mash-ups of this in a row.
LILLY ALLISON: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: One of my favorites is "Roundabout" by Yes.
[LAUGHTER]
It's really good. Because it's got the echoing like-- it's got the echoing at the start. And then after the really epic intro, it's like-- I really wish you were hooked up to the PA right now with that laptop.
LILLY ALLISON: That's amazing.
CODY GOUGH: So everyone, the main takeaway's to go do that. Where can people see you perform hilarious feats around Chicago?
LILLY ALLISON: I have a show. It's just like open run every Saturday. It's called A Lil Stand-up Show, a showcase. It's a stand-up showcase on Saturday nights at 9:15 at the Annoyance Theatre. So I host that.
But it's every Saturday night for like the last two years, and it's an open run. So sometimes I have a subhost for me if like I have a thing like a family function or something. But I'm usually there. I'm always booking that show even if I'm not there and getting the text that something's wrong.
And then I do an open mic afterwards. I will usually be around when the open mic is, but I also book other people to host that as well. So I kind of have my hands in everything stand-up at the Annoyance. And I also have a little thing online where I give classes called Lil Comedy Workshops. So you can check that out on Facebook.
CODY GOUGH: I love all the Lils.
LILLY ALLISON: Yeah, it's easy, right? It's like little. And they are little. They're only like 2 and 1/2 hours, so. One-and-done workshops.
CODY GOUGH: Really quick. Great. Fantastic. Did everybody learned something about comedy tonight?
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
LILLY ALLISON: Awesome.
CODY GOUGH: I'd imagine so. Well, thanks again so much for joining me. And everybody, put your hands together for Lilly Allison.
LILLY ALLISON: Yay. Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ASHLEY HAMER: You can learn something new every day on curiosity.com, including the answer to today's extra credit question. This one's about sleep. Research shows that sleeping in a room at a particular temperature could help boost your metabolism and make you burn more calories even during the day. Here's your question, to help you maintain a healthy weight, should you sleep in a warm, cold, or average temperature room?
The answer, after this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CODY GOUGH: Do you like surveys? Well, I've got some really good news for you if you do. We want to hear your thoughts on the Curiosity podcast, so we created a super quick and easy survey. Please visit curiosity.com/survey and answer a few questions so we can make our podcast better. Again, that's curiosity.com/survey.
It's quick and easy and will really help us bring you better content every week. There's a link in the show notes, too. But one more time, that URL is curiosity.com/survey. We really appreciate the help. Have you ever been listening to the Curiosity podcast and wanted to share a clip on Facebook or Twitter?
Well, here's some super exciting news. Now you can, thanks to gretta.com. That's G-R-E-T-T-A. You can stream our podcast on gretta.com/curiosity. And their podcast player will follow along with a written transcript of each episode while you listen.
When you hear a clip you want to share, just find it and click Share. Gretta will build you a video for you to share with your friends so that you can help spread the word about our podcast. Again, that's gretta.com/curiosity. And drop us a line to let us know what you think of this super cool new service.
ASHLEY HAMER: Explore history's surprising connections with a new podcast, The Thread with OZY. It's like a cross between Revisionist History and 6 Degrees of Separation. You'll discover how various historical strands are woven together to create a historic figure, a big idea, or an unthinkable tragedy, like how John Lennon's murder was actually 63 years in the making.
Witness how their stories hinge on the past and influence the future. The show is already a chart-topper. Get The Thread with OZY. That's O-Z-Y on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Here's your extra credit answer. A 2014 study suggested that you might be able to boost your metabolism by sleeping in a chilly environment. After a month sleeping in a room set to 66 degrees Fahrenheit or 19 degrees Celsius, the men in the study had almost doubled their stores of brown fat. Unlike white fat, brown fat is metabolically active, which means it actually burns calories.
That extra brown fat improved the subject's insulin sensitivity, which is generally used as a sign of metabolic health. That also helped them burn more calories even during the day. You can find a link to this story in the show notes or search for the word bedroom on the Curiosity app for your Android or iOS device.
CODY GOUGH: Thanks for listening. And extra special thanks If you made it out to our live episode at the Chicago Podcast Festival.
ASHLEY HAMER: If you missed the live show, then we hope to meet you at our next live event. For the Curiosity podcast, I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
[MUSIC PLAYING]