It’s like a crossover episode but with podcasts
If you are a fan of podcasts, then you would definitely know the two podcasts ‘Las Culturistas’ and ‘Seek Treatment.’ And for New York Comedy Festival, the live cross-over event of the generation took place as the hosts of these two podcasts come together for a podcast-like forum comedy event. Hosts Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas join with Cat Cohen and Pat Regan from Seek Treatment for a night of loosely nonsensical rants, diagnoses of their own diseases, and a night of giving advice to whoever needs advice from the crowd.
The show started off with all four sitting in a panel like forum. Cat somehow lost her voice, saying that she ‘sneezed and blood came out.’ Therefore, she had to use one of those robotic computer tools to talk to the audience. Full disclosure, but the anticipation of her typing and then hearing a robot deliver her rants, jokes, and punchlines was surprisingly hilarious and had not only the audience cracking up but also her cast mates. To start off, the four of them started talking about some of their own self diagnosed diseases and asked each other for advice on how to seek treatment. The most memorable part of this set was Matt Rogers talking about how he can’t have kids because if he had kids with his current boyfriend, it would look like Zac Posen and for some reason he loves Zac Posen. He then makes the leap that if his kid looked like Zac Posen, he would want to hook up with his kid, which is why he is convinced that he shouldn’t have kids. The other members of this forum also talked about some of their problems, but it somehow always circled back to Matt wanting to fuck his kid.
The next segment of the show allowed audience members to come up to the microphone and tell the hosts about an issue they have and ask for advice from the forum. Some of the most notable ones included a girl who is 24 years old and just moved in with her 36 year old boyfriend who she also works with. Another person said that she went to go see a psychic who used chocolate as their medium and the psychic told her that one of her friends was madly in love with her but she wouldn’t love them. The issue with that is that she does not know which friend it is and is desperate to understand how she can find out. Those examples were only some of the many bizarre life problems that the audience members had. But, all four hosts tackled each problem in a very funny way while also sliding in reasonable advice.
The last segment that invited one of their special guests to join them on stage and have him diagnose the forum. And their special guest was none other than actor and Broadway superstar, Ben Platt. Ben joined everyone onstage and talked about his life and some of his struggles and then addressed some of the issues that each one of the hosts had. One specifically was Pat talking about his body dysmorphia and how it impacts his day to day life. Ben resonated with that and they had a fun but very productive discussion on how body image is so important and how to be kinder about body image.
To finish off the show, Matt and Bowen sang ‘2 Become 1’ by the Spice Girls, which was both very entertaining and very typical considering their dynamic and how much they love a good girl group pop number. All in all, this was one of the highlights from New York Comedy Festival. Check out both podcasts because they are definitely some of the funniest podcasts around.