How We Wrote Our New Live Show 'Drem' Feat. Tom

Today,

in 2013,

I did the vulnerability.

Okay,

so

I don't know, Michael, check the internet.

Video, like,

obtain Wi-Fi in Mazuin with local con ATNT Fiber with Al-Fi, ATNT, connecting the chambia.

ATNT Fiber has limited the queer service that covers Wi-Fi extended ATNT with carbon distinction.

If you want to get tickets to DREM, auntiedonna.com has sold out in some cities, but tickets are still available in a lot of them.

So come along and see it.

Otherwise, we're going to talk all about it.

But don't worry, there are no spoilers.

You're listening to the honeycomb podcast the greatest fucking podcast in the world broken tech and sometimes a guest we hope you enjoyed the motherfucking podcast g'day everyone welcome to this look at our new show drem that we've just finished developing and we're about to take on the road and we're going to talk about it because we've spent a large portion of time making it and we're gonna debrief about the making of it in front of mics

can I can I add one thing please

no spoilers no spoilers I'm joined today by writer director actor

no spoilers he's eating beef jerky on the podcast

it's Mark the chewiest food thank you for you say thank you for having me I thought we said no spoilers because this could have been

this could have been a thing that could have bumped

those Patreon numbers up.

The only spoiler

so far is you spoiling your dinner with those beef jerkies.

It's

nearly four o'clock.

Yeah, I have dinner at six.

You have dinner at six.

And you think a small meat-based snack

two hours before dinner would ruin your appetite?

Can you talk me through your logic?

And we will get to dream.

I'll talk you through anything, mate.

Oh, yeah, good, good, good.

Can you talk me through your logic?

Because you just said you're imagining a kind of a listener.

You're imagining a sort of an idealized listener, as any marketing man would.

And you're imagining they're listening to this podcast.

They're hearing,

Broden, doesn't spoil what it is you're eating.

Talk me through the thought process of a man or a woman or a person

that hears that and goes, God, I'd love to know what he's eating and signs up to the Patreon to find out.

Talk me through that.

I would say that's a smart person.

I'd say that's the kind of person you want to be around because that's a curious person with expendable cash.

We're next joined by

the composer and will be the.

Oh, now we know their songs.

You've got to be careful, man.

Composer.

Got to be careful with the scorer and tour manager of this tour,

Tom Zahariyu.

How are you going, guys?

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to have you here, Tom.

Thank you.

I was just around.

I appreciate Mark is now eating jerky a good half a meter away from the mic, and I like that.

He's eating sort of like a small,

like low-level in the predatory chain animal, sort of quickly and feverishly, like a vermin.

But how would people see that

if people are just listening?

I think he might have even been out a shot.

We're next joined by.

It's also worth noting that Tom is eating a limited edition marshmallow Oreo, which he has had the dry biscuit and he's just got the cream and to find out how he got that.

Tune in in about six months.

Now,

our next guest is a writer, performer,

director.

You know their work from Auntie Donna.

It's

Zach Rowan.

Zach, thanks for being here.

Thank you.

Now,

does anyone, I'll do a quiz for you three,

and I'm in it too, Broden Kelly.

Does anyone, I'm going to do a little quiz for you.

The quiz master.

We're very tired and creatively drained.

That's the first thing I would say.

Yeah, but because we've juiced it to make it.

So you might be listening to this going, oh, what's this?

What's some of these tired boys?

Yeah.

Well,

we're tired because we've been putting all our energy, all our thought.

If you think whatever this podcast lacks,

you're about to see on that stage.

I have one request.

If the Quiz Master will be answering their own questions,

may I humbly request that the Quiz Master asks questions they don't know the answer to?

I don't know the answer to this question off the top of my head.

Wonderful.

How many Auntie Donna hours, live shows,

original live shows have we made seven

more is that a guess oh yeah yeah I just thought if I say it quickly and with conviction worst case is I'm wrong best case is I look like wow how do you know that

yeah yeah I don't know let's try and figure it out without going through them well then how

I mean that's what makes it fun

don't think about it don't think about it try and work it out without going through the show.

Just try it.

How did you figure that out?

I guessed.

And so let's see if I'm right.

Are you just saying guess numbers?

No.

You do it whatever way you want.

There's many ways to try and figure this out without going through the album.

I want to count so badly.

I want to count too.

No, that's not a good thing.

I want to know if we're including the album tour.

Because that was an hour of original music.

I think I included that, but I'm not sure.

I would not include the album tour.

Really?

What I think this is,

we can talk about the album tour.

It fucking counts.

What I think this is, is new

shows where we've done new sketches where the bulk of the show, because we did like some old favorites in the last one, but the bulk of the show

is all new stuff that were originated for the live show that you have not yet seen on anything else.

As opposed to The Avengers, where the Hulk of the show is played by Mark Ruffalo.

Or

Edward Norton.

Or

he's talking about the MCU dude.

Yeah, I'm talking about the goddamn MCU idiot.

Okay, I'm so sorry.

Now, from my it's interesting from where I sit because often people only know us for our videos.

Yeah.

But I would say, and feel free to debate me, disagree with me, but I feel like

our live shows are the kind of nebulous.

Is that a word?

It is.

A neutron or proton.

It is, but keep it.

Careful, you're walking on dangerous.

She was in Age of Voltrum.

That's nebula.

But

the core, the kind of the core energy from which things spurred out in Auntie Donna World for me, is that fair to say?

Oh, absolutely.

When you say nebulous, I think you're referring to egg.

Sure, egg.

Sure.

The live show is the egg of Donna.

You don't like eggs, right?

Well, that's interesting, isn't it?

It's interesting that you mentioned them, though, because I don't like eating eggs.

I would say it's like

if Auntie Donna was pastor,

then our live shows here are the egg.

If

in that it's core to how everything else comes out of it.

Well, no, there's something has already come.

This is a fertilized egg in my mind.

So the Auntie Donna live show is the fertilized egg of

there are other ways we can clone.

We can,

we can, we do make original things for film, but the, it is the, it's not the egg, is it?

No, that sounds like your egg's on your mind.

Do you know what it is?

It's the, it's the missing link.

It's like the, um, it's the, it's the creature for all the atheists, scientists listening.

It's the creature from which humans, apes,

came from.

I'm going to remember you talking about eggs.

Okay.

Voom.

Now, oh, cars go voom, voom, voom.

Now, you know I don't drive.

Why would you bring that up?

Now,

I'm going to count through them.

Okay.

Our first step, the first thing Arnie Donna ever made was a live show.

And I'm going to say my favorite sketch from each one.

Great.

But this doesn't count as your guess.

Because you're counting through through them.

Yep, yep.

But I'm going to have to.

Do you want a guess before you count?

At the end, I'll do an educator guess.

Do you have a guess before you count?

Seven.

Yeah.

In pantsuits was the first show I ever did.

And we've talked about this on the podcast.

You can go back to Mark and I talking about this earlier this year.

At length.

My favourite sketch from that is the Hot Dogs Fan Club.

Yes, which was never seen again after that show.

No, but genuinely a good idea.

Not right as a closer.

Hot Dogs was a guy from Big Brother season two in Australia.

And the idea was there was a fan club for this guy.

And there was a questionnaire, and the answer to every question, regardless of what it was, was Hot Dogs from Big Brother.

Funny.

The second show we wrote was a show called Auntie Donna and the Fax Machine and Murder Mystery.

Calling Cum.

The Cum sketch, where we were trying to figure out if you could Fax Cum.

Yeah.

Was my favourite sketch.

And we did a thing that very few people do, and it was out of ignorance and hunger.

We wrote both of those shows in the same year.

Yes, we wrote two live hours in one year, never again.

Except for this year.

I want to talk to you after this.

Then the next one

was World's, then Adrian left.

And then the third one is World's Greatest Showbag.

That's mixed bags.

That was a review from SBS that we got seven years ago.

SPS comedy, which is still thriving.

That substance.

Not be there people here.

And I would say my favorite easy one there was Ellen.

The Ellen DeGeneres sketch closed out that show.

How did this one open?

Is this with the Stompy Boys?

No.

No, that was

the first one.

This started with us off stage doing a soundscape of going through a show.

Oh, what?

And then we came on and danced, and then I forget the first sketch.

Did we test this one in Adelaide?

No.

Oh, I was so happy.

For this show,

Adrian left, and we all kind of went, well, let's make the next show great because we need it to be great.

The story of this is we went to Phillip Island to Sam's house, Sam's uncle's house, and did a workshop period.

And then the car broke down on the way back to Melbourne.

I remember that story.

And it was mostly written in a concrete box

with one window that had bars on it.

Yeah, so there was like a prison cell.

So did we do Sexy Secret for this?

Yes.

Developing was done through a Sexy Secret show development at Butterfly Club.

And I was there.

And we did that, and we were in the furthest festival-managed venue at Melbourne Comedy Festival from the city.

We're in a room with a lot of people who wanted to do really cool things.

And it was the first time I remember, like, we didn't feel any kind of support from the festival.

We couldn't get on any other special gigs, or we weren't promoted.

And the people that were showing up for the first time, really, were people,

they'd ask for photos and you go, where do you know us from?

They go, Ute Ub.

And I was like, oh, fuck, these people are coming.

We've got fans in quotation marks.

So that's three.

No.

So their friend, friend Ute Oob.

Yes, this guy was just going around.

Mr.

Oob was going around telling everyone.

Or Ute.

And then when we misheard that, we thought, are they saying we should put on videos on YouTube?

And so we did.

Can you name?

Oh, sorry.

No, no, I was just going to say more sketches from that show.

That show was one of the

that I would say that was the most

that was like a bumper season.

Yes.

Because we got so many sketches out of that show.

Really?

So many great sketches came out of that.

Spiky Wars.

Spiky Wars.

Bikey won that show.

Smoker's Tree, which featured the joke, which I think Adrian came up with, was the square cunt.

Ellen was in it, obviously, we just said.

Yeah.

Star

Neighbor, the Prank Phone Call.

Prank Phone Call.

Prank Phone Call.

It was probably the best collection of sketches because it was our second sketch show,

as a rule.

And also just worth mentioning in the Donnell Law and the Greater Donnell Law, the first, I think we only did it twice, but the walking tour.

Let's not forget about the walking tour.

When we had low sales, we would say, meet us at another jet, we have walking tour nights where

meet us at town hall and we will walk with you and do fun characters along the way town trace.

I just remember playing a vampire, like playing Dracula on the steps of a church and handing out pastor necklaces.

And then there was one night where I saw everyone coming.

And then as often used to happen to me, not so much anymore, my bladder went from zero to 100 and I had to run yeah and i couldn't find the toilet so i just had to piss somewhere and i got piss all over my pants and then i had to like and everyone's coming and putting a cape put vampire through ah

van calms like i'm gonna stink like piss i know it

um

I remember Zach from you played, I think, like an Italian ghost or something, and you said your name was Giovanni Rubizzi.

I remember you played a convict and your whole thing, I thought this, I'm still obsessed with this.

At the front of Melbourne jail.

And you're like, I'm a convict.

I was sent here from Ireland merely for stealing a loaf of bread and killing four women.

So that was the third show.

That was the third.

And you were like, well, okay.

And then we kind of made a best of, we took half of that show.

I was wondering if you'd count this.

I don't.

But it's worth mentioning is we went to Edinburgh that year for the first 2014.

The first sketcher of Showbag.

Yeah, we merged two shows and made it strong.

No, three.

We even put a few sketches from.

So it was such a good show.

And then we just came with our fourth show.

So we went from the best show we've ever done to our fourth show.

We won the best festival.

Yeah, we won the

best of the fest that year.

It was a killer year for us.

Don't Google that.

We beat out Fleabag and the baby reindeer guy and everyone.

Don't Google this.

Huge year for us, and you just need to believe James A.

Castor.

That was a big year, though.

That was

Google that.

And then the fourth year, we made a show called Self-Title or Auntie Donna.

Yes.

Which was us trying to do a bit of narrative with a bit of sketch where we had three characters, our villains, called the Bubble Bath Boys.

And it went good.

Okay.

Well, it was fantastic.

It was sales-wise.

That's what I was going to say.

Sales-wise.

First ever.

We did Fed Square and we did like a big room, which is funny to say, I think it was like 180.

Yeah,

and now it's the, and now it's, there was Acme, and now it is their

gift shop.

Yeah, really?

And so we did in there, we put, we would want, we were adamant that we needed bubbles

going everywhere before the show.

And so I remember we had a bubble machine blowing bubbles out of a wing and then walking on stage and the ground being covered in bubble juice and slipping everywhere.

And obviously, you played a character called Stompy Pete who stomped his feet around.

And then, I reckon, five shows in,

you got trench foot.

No, I was in Melbourne.

Yeah, or soldier's foot.

I don't know what it's referred to.

And I think I believe what happens is that all the ligaments in the bottom of your feet get like bruised.

And I woke up one morning and I felt like I was walking on razor blades.

So he became Raspberry Bart.

Which I believe was Sam's suggestion.

Sam was always super.

I remember you sitting us down and being like, guys,

Stumpy Pete is no more.

I'm going to have to be Raspberry Bart.

And I'm going to have to wear shoes.

And six pairs of socks.

But true to our word, we have never, well, we never made this a promise.

But we have never cancelled a show out of, I think, mostly fear of disappointing each other.

We've had shows cancelled.

We've had shows cancelled

many times.

Because of COVID.

Important ones.

No, I mean, we've had TV shows cancelled.

But we've never

chose to.

We've never cancelled a live show.

So let me tell you right now, a ticket to an auntie done a live show, that's the safest fucking money you can invest.

Unless you want a man with no voice that can't use his feet.

Yeah.

Which I was for a little while during that run.

And then the next one after that was self-titled Into New Show.

New show.

In my opinion.

Worst name of a show ever.

So that was born out of, that was born out of we developed.

No, it wasn't just funny.

So that took us a year to realize how bad of a name for that show was because it was born out of the fact that we were getting more and more new fans.

It's a similar thing, I think, is happening now.

We've had to educate people since Netflix, not realizing that every show is different.

Every show is new.

Every show has all new sketches is completely new.

And I think this is something we've had to do for this one because this is the first, second show we've done since Netflix.

So we've got a whole bunch of new fans.

We have to let them know it's new.

And then we had the genius idea of calling it new show.

And we were like, this is awesome.

And it was.

It was great.

Everyone came.

And then,

then, what happened was we were doing this thing where we would be touring one show one year.

And then the previous year's show was going to Edinburgh and America.

There was like this overlap.

So we had to communicate because the next show was

Glenridge.

No, Big Boys.

Big boys.

So we had to.

I remember making these posts.

I remember like doing the social media for this,

having to promote New Show, which was our old show, and Big Boys, which was our new show,

saying, we're coming to America with New Show, our old show.

And then our manager at the time had the idea new show was in such a good state.

They were like, you should bring New Show back in a double bill with New Show and Big Boys.

So we had to promote this double bill at the Athenaeum of New Show and Big Boys communicating that we were doing our new show Big Boys and our old show New Show.

And I...

It went well.

I think my brain broke that in that window of time.

And it's never fully come back.

New Show is...

New Show is Watchable is the first show we shot.

Yes.

You can watch it.

Yeah, I think that's the fifth.

New Show is the fifth.

I've lost count.

You have to go for the side and go.

Fuck.

You do it while I'm talking.

But do these...

Does Sexy Secret Show does...

Why?

Because Sexy Secret is a development of World's Greatest Showbag.

I fucking hate this game.

And then...

Big Boys is six.

Big Boys is six, where we had Tom on stage.

Which is something that we, I believe, had tried to do or discussed almost almost every show from World's Greatest onwards.

We were like, got to get Tom on stage because you were on stage for Sexy Secret.

Sexy Secret.

I was like DJ Live.

And it was always a conversation.

Can we get Tom?

At the start of every process, can we get Tom?

Can we get Tom?

Can we get Tom?

And it was always a bit too hard.

And then, big boys, we finally made it happen.

Yeah.

And it was very technically complicated.

It was technically complicated.

And

the show was fine.

The main sketch that people are from that is Everything's a Drum.

Yes.

I genuinely struggle to remember little sketches that we did pull from that show.

Shadows.

I was thinking six or seven.

Seven.

Fast and the Furious was my favourite.

Oh, yeah.

Remember Fast and the Furious?

Vaguely.

Yeah.

It was like a big build-up, like, get low, get low, get low, like huge build-up, like so cool, fast and furious, and then the drop would come, we cut the music, and you guys would just drive very safely in silence.

I believe we cut that one eventually.

There's a lot of good one, good ideas.

Oh, yeah,

yeah.

I don't think you've done your favourite sketch for us.

You didn't do it for self-titled?

You didn't do it for a new show?

What was in New Show?

What was some of the sketches?

Even though you can go and watch it.

There's Master Chef, the one we like.

Oh, Master Chef.

I love MasterChef.

Master Chef, the Naughty Masseuse.

Oh, yeah.

They just get a little blurry at this point.

It does.

It gets blurry.

We started.

to tour a lot more and so a lot more of the year was spent like in the early days you'd do a melbourne comedy festival for four weeks and then the show died yeah that was the end of it new show was the one where we felt like we cracked structure because we came up with uh Larry.

Pausey Pete's in New Show.

Yeah, Pawsey Pete.

That's a fucking great one.

We filmed them.

I mean, we did film the whole show, but we also John Edwards, as it's originally called, but people might have seen it as Blair Boyant.

Yes.

Yeah, they're all there's good stuff in there, but I feel like those three or four, because they were overlapping, I don't know which belongs to which.

Stepdad Steve.

It was at this point that it was becoming more of a job, not one that paid well, but a job

where we could, like, it was sustaining us to an extent.

Yeah.

So then there's

Big Boys, but yes, Big Boys.

But after Big boys well yeah but big boys was yeah are you still counting tom no but where was chin up chuck chin up chuck was it self-titled that was which is one that i love to bring up often uh in as a little in joke where uh just always bring up the maybe

the worst sketch

ever done that we never cut we never cut

through a full we did i believe we did sydney we did melbourne we may have even done brisbane with that show

we took it to edinburgh yeah Yeah.

We did Adelaide because we developed it in Adelaide and we never cut.

Well, we would have done, because that would have been our first tour around the UK as well.

So we would have done that in places like Dartmouth, Bedford, Maiden.

Yes, we did.

And we never,

never

stopped and went, hey, this sketch that is getting no laughs anywhere in the world.

Will we rewrite, rewrite,

rework?

Oh, cut.

God knows we reworked.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tweak, three, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak.

So funny, though.

There's a lot of sketches in that time where, I don't know, we just, we, the spark,

the spark of the first three, right?

The first three, we lacked technical prowess, but we had

like ideas that maybe we'd been sitting on for years.

And then there was about three where we had less of that spark and didn't quite have the prowess.

We were lucky.

There were ones in there that were lucky, but then there were also some wonky ones.

I have a hot take on this.

What?

The two shows that I would say all of us are sort of unanimously a bit like, oh, didn't quite get there, self-titled, and big boys.

Both times we were writing television pilots

while we were doing the live show.

Our attention was split.

Both of those pilots didn't get up.

So it was worth it.

But both of those shows during the live show period, you know, this is still a time when we're all working casual jobs.

We're all trying to like, you know, Donna is still, it's growing, but it's not earning money.

When you're talking about Auntie Donna, you're not a Donna kebab.

No.

Very different.

Because that was for lunch.

Yeah.

It's, I think those, though, the lessons of that era, though, is what I would say

is important to the next era as well, right?

Because you would argue in the early days, lots of great ideas and executing them okay.

But in this period, you learn that you can kind of win an audience over to an extent with just rhythm, timing, structure, performance.

And those are all things that the ear can hear.

Your ear can hear.

Yeah, that's you're talking about the lessons for the ear?

Yeah.

The

era.

But yeah, common mistake.

So like

that period I remember just going like

feeling the need to really work to win audiences over with some sketches, but knowing the way to do it.

Yeah.

So that like when you get to yeah, so when you get, oh, sorry.

So then we got to it with the luxury we kind of got to now show bagged self-titled new show big boys is that right yeah that's the that's a correct run there i haven't missed any there i will say as well big boys was uh watched by the team at netflix yes it was it was this was the one thing i want to add to that is big boys was at a point where and this isn't a good thing necessarily but it is something we started addressing

where we had become undeniable in terms of we sold fucking tickets Big boys, we started selling out a week in advance.

We were filling the biggest rooms like 400 seats, 330 seats, whatever hi-fi downstair was.

So it got to the point where people were just so fucking excited to see us.

It didn't matter that it wasn't the best show that we'd ever done.

Because it was just fire.

Because people were keen to be in the fucking room.

We felt self-established.

Absolutely.

The sound didn't work for the first two weeks.

No, which was an issue.

And even so.

And even so,

what i remember from that run was um

uh being in that room being in a big main room like where i'd seen lano woodley and david o'doherty and all these different people and the show we were like at 9 30 which was quite late but people were still filling the joint yeah and there was a show before us put on by the comedy festival that was a variety show of people brought from overseas and there was always 10 to 30 people in that show yeah and when We were splitting all the money like six ways.

And when we got our cutback, it equated to like 20, thirty grand for us each.

So like not it didn't pay a year.

Yeah.

And I remember going, oh good, our cut back to the festival just paid for them to lose all that money on that one.

Yeah.

That's the lesson I learned from that one is we just paid the mistake that they made.

And going from that point, okay, well we need to stop thinking of ourselves as an act who does shows here every year and we need to start thinking of ourselves more as not not a comedy festival act, but an act who is just a performing international group.

A touring band.

So the next year.

Yeah, very very much so.

We're so much closer to a band than how a band travels than we are a comedy group.

And so the next show we did, I just remember so vividly how the next one came about, which was

we made an album.

We decided to make an album.

I forget why we decided to make an album.

I probably just.

I think it was just a fun thing to do.

And I think you had a record deal at the time.

Yes, I did.

And maybe there were just...

conversations that were happening and it was like a possibility and it just came up.

Yeah, and I think our manager was just hot on it too.

Our manager at the time was from Music World.

I think we were also looking for, you know, we were quite a way in at that point.

We'd spent, you know, we'd made two pilots.

We were sort of,

I was really,

my journey with Auntie Donna, if I'm going to be real for a second here,

has always been about coming back to, I want to do this on my own.

I never want to be asking someone else, you know, I want to have a direct connection to the people that like what we do and I want to give them what we do.

You know, I love making TV.

I love,

you know, I love festivals.

I love

all these things, right?

I love doing them.

But I always come back to, I don't really care how we deliver what we do to an audience.

I just would rather have complete control over it.

And I think for me, that was in that era, like we're going, instead of making another TV pilot, let's just do something different, something interesting, something new, something fresh.

Like, it's a new way to talk about it, a new way to teach people.

And that, that was sort of born out of that from my mind.

I also remember it being a bit of a response to Big Boys, which didn't have many songs.

And that process didn't allow for, we just didn't write many songs for that.

And it was kind of like a, can we do something that is in Tom's in Tom's wheelhouse?

Yeah.

So we wrote a bunch of songs for that.

And I remember you were just like, we had a song called Best Day of My Life about school.

And we're just like, let's just do a whole show.

It's set at school.

And they went, all right.

And then we wrote a bunch of sketches about school, put it on, found a structure.

And it was like, it was one of those moments where like you climb, you're learning how to do something.

Every time we did a show, you're learning.

And I remember just like looking back and going, look how fucking,

it wasn't easy.

I remember working really hard on the show, but looking back and going, this is a fucking, I love that show.

And every night people came and it was easy and nice to do.

And there were great sketches.

It was the most organic

show I think we've we've ever done in terms of just all agreeing on an idea that

no process of it was like banging your head against the wall.

It was all just like, oh, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Yeah.

It's such a wonderful.

And I just remember.

like we were a guest on a variety night during the festival in Melbourne.

And I remember walking on and I remember every time we did a set, we'd like run on and do a corrie or something.

This is a very specific memory.

I'm sure no one remembers, but we came on as the headliners for this show.

And I remember we all just sort of walked on there was no like we need to win this audience over moment we all just slowly walked on and did that did 15 minutes and killed and left and i was like that i remember feeling like that's the that's like an end of an era bit there with how we're good it had gotten and where we'd gotten it to don't get me wrong i love

running around screaming at 1 50 a.m in scotland i love desperately trying to win people over yeah no but it's also nice to just walk on sometimes it's also nice to come on and be like hey, we've got some comedy.

Would you like to laugh?

Yes.

I would say that's much better for everyone.

Yeah.

And we did bully and we did master.

It's just a bunch of sketches and they just went really well and go, okay, we're quite good at this.

We got so much out of that show.

We got like this fucking first like big proper commission from Screen Australia to turn it into a web series, which was like 16 parts.

We got to do animation, which he'd never done before.

All came out of waiting a year for a TV show to get picked up.

Yes, that's true.

So then, okay, so what are we at, Tom?

7.5.

Yeah.

Really?

I'm counting Album tours half.

Do you count the one after Glenridge, Auntie Donner's cash grab?

Auntie Donahu's life cash grab?

After the series came out, we did like a band tour where we DJ'd and did a Glen Ridge Istanbul.

No, I don't fucking memorize it.

Oh, yeah, great.

It wasn't a new original show, though.

Pardon?

It wasn't a new original show.

But many fun memories.

The reason we did that is because

usually we would make a new show to pay ourselves and exist.

And then as Netflix told us to wait and wait and wait longer, it got to the point where it was like, we're out of money.

We actually just fully.

So we need to fucking go on the road, but we haven't been writing anything because we've been waiting to see if

we can.

Which was another great moment.

Sam always talks about this, where he's like, it was such a great moment to realize that we'd gotten to a place where if things were looking fucked, we just, the six people that were in the company at that time, had the ability to go, we can do something.

There's an audience, we can make money, and we can keep our heads above water for a little longer.

I'm going to try and turn this around just to future-proof this episode.

But also, I had a lot of fun doing a standing room show.

I thought it was really fun doing that three-part standing room show.

Very rock and roll.

And God, you know, there might be a point in the future where I choose to creatively do that again.

What do you guys think?

It's funny because

I had fun doing it, but I also have friends who still talk about it.

You're so right.

I'm totally genuinely.

And think i think if we ever did it again i would hate for people to think that was a cash scrap because i think there's definitely a situation where i'd love to do another standing room that was fun so it's fun there's a chance we'll do it again and like an indeliberate hiatus from live shows for a long time after this so i think 18 was glenridge

and then 19 we weren't we didn't do one covid and then 21 we were supposed to go on the road but it was postponed we didn't take

we created dead cat but it didn't come out until 2022 and so yeah and then we toured that so dead cat is our eighth is that right yes eight and a half so which is a right which is a uh

that is the wrong podcast

it's a pounce that pill it's nine we're at the ninth this is the ninth show it's nine

and i did that without counting them this is our ninth and a half did you really say nine yes

it is nine i would what's been oh tell me if this feels in a lot of ways It's funny.

We came through a whole creative idea of how we wanted to make this show different to all the other shows, and we sat down and talked about it for a long time.

But the thing that I found in the process of

this show is it feels to me the closest to the first show we ever did.

That's the thing that kept coming back to me in that the how juvenile it is, how childish it is, but also in the way, I don't want to ruin anything, but the way it's structured.

And the feedback I'm getting from people who have seen it is that they appreciate the whole of it.

It's not like something they've seen from us.

People aren't coming away saying, I like that sketch, I like that bit.

They like the whole of it, and that's really exciting to me.

Something to, you know, if the first part of our career was just we had passion but no ability to do structure, so we were creating weird stuff.

Then we spent a period figuring out structure, then we did, I would say, Glenridge and even Dead Cat were us knowing how to do both.

This is us choosing to go back to the beginning and choosing to do fucked.

And I am having a real, I feel a real joy.

Two reasons.

One, I love choosing to do fucked.

I love knowing the better choice and choosing the fucked one because it's surprising.

And two, I love being in these big, beautiful theaters.

It's so wonderful that we have people, have fans that come and see us enough that we can do these gorgeous, perfect, beautiful theaters all around the world and just do the most juvenile shit.

It's just, it's so funny to me.

And sometimes I like when we're in a fancy venue.

Sometimes they like rock venues as well, so they're chill.

But sometimes there's like fancy back of house stuff that are so hoity-toity and snooty.

And it's so funny to be like,

thank you.

And they're like, you'll be going on in five minutes.

And you're like, thank you so much.

And then you go out and she's like,

I'm the cum man.

And look at these bubbles.

They're farts.

That's right.

I'm farthing on my cum.

And then they're just like, well, congratulations on tonight.

another cool thing we get to do now is like it's taken us a few years to figure it out but to make these shows that feel right in the room we're doing and there's elements to this show that you haven't seen in our shows before and I'm I think people when they come into the room will be kind of blown away by it so that's just that's a cool added element that I'm excited for people to see yeah if if I said now to the listener don't come

would that scare you?

Because I would have more to say.

I just want I just I just, would you be worried if I said to the listener, I don't want you to come to this show?

I think it would be bad.

No, I trust you.

Yeah.

I need to know a little bit about where this is heading before I make my call.

I'm going to say to the listener, don't come to this show because I'm worried you'll never find anything else funny again because it's so funny.

Yeah, so come to the show.

Ultimately.

No, no, no.

I worry that it will.

Oh, it's a genuine case.

It will shine so bright.

I'm glad.

I'm glad I reservate.

I'm glad I held my.

I am scared.

Are you scared?

Yeah, I'm terrified.

You're scared that people will listen to my advice that the show is too funny.

Yes.

That they won't come because I said to them.

You're actually.

Because the twist that you did wasn't enough to, what wasn't enough?

Oh, wow.

You know what I mean?

Like,

you get their attention with don't come.

Okay.

And then, like, the twist of it is not enough.

Well, it would have been a bigger twist.

Don't come because I will,

I at one point run through the audience with a razor razor blade.

Yeah, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which doesn't happen.

So that doesn't happen.

Yeah.

So do come because I don't do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Do come because the show is so funny.

Yeah, this is not safe.

Do come.

There's stuff in this that's that there's stuff in this that I've been wanting to do for years that we've finally figured out.

There's stuff in this that I think I feel confident in this show that there are going to be all-timer sketches that when we film them, when we put them out in whatever way, they're going to be all-timers.

And like the thrill to be able to see it in its first iteration is going to be so amazing.

This is the last tour we're going to do for a little while.

There's no plans to do more.

In the same sense, that since Dead Cat, we just sort of take it one year at a time.

So don't wait for the next one.

It's all new.

There's, yeah, there's definitely technical elements we've never done.

It's still very affordable.

We keep tickets under $100.

Well, and truly, truly.

And

some people have said that they found the show so funny that it actually changed their brain chemistry.

It went like slipped into the genuine heart spell and then it got back to the crazy.

It got back to the crazy.

Mark, Tom, Zach, Travis, thank you so much for being part of this chat with us.

We'll see you at the show and if you can't be there,

I'm so fucking sorry.

If not at the next frat party, dude.

You said it, Mark, Tom, and Travis.

And where are we going?

Are we going to

UK?

Really?

Are we going to the UK?

Yep.

We're going to Ireland.

Yep.

And are we going to the USA?

Yep.

Are we going to Canada?

Yep.

What about New Zealand?

What about all around Australia?

What about Hong Kong?

No.

No.

What about Vietnam?

No.

What about South America?

No.

What about Europe outside of the UK?

Just fade this out.

What about the Seychelles?

What about Africa?

No.

What about

sort of the India?

You've been listening to the Auntie Donner podcast.

Thanks for joining us for another rip episode brought to you by Auntie DonnerClub.com.

See you next week.