Joe Pera Talks With You season 3: Talking to Joe about Austin Powers

Joe Pera speaks out about topics that no other comedian has ever mentioned, in an era when there is much debate surrounding what comics can and cannot say. Take a look at the episodes titles of the new season. Joe Pera speaks with You, his Adult Swim comedy that kicked off in November: “Joe Pera Sits With You” (in which Pera talks about buying a chair) or “Joe Pera Shows You How to Build a Fire” (where he shows you how to build a fire”) or even “Joe Pera Discusses School-Appropriate Entertainment With You” (it’s better if you see that one for yourself).

It premiered in 2018 Joe Pera speaks with YouThe strangest thing and the best thing on TV felt at once like it was both. The title describes exactly what viewers get: for 11 minutes, Joe Pera will talk to the audience about a subject in plaintive, monotonous-yet-warm overtones, as Pera — playing a fictionalized version of himself who’s a middle school choir teacher — interacts with his friends and neighbors in Marquette, Michigan, sometimes in ways that directly relate to the episode’s topic, sometimes in ways that are more abstract. For example, while the third season premiere is about buying a chair, it’s also about helping his friend Gene (Gene Kelly) cope with his discomfort about retirement.

Everything Joe Pera speaks with YouIt’s like this: Use the mundane to open your heart and see what is truly important.

“The line Dan Licata, the writer, came up with a few weeks ago was ‘other TV shows feel like they were made by an energy drink,” Joe Pera tells me over the phone, “So this one feels like it was made by Apple Cider.’”

Image: Adult Swim

It’s tempting to describe Joe Pera as comfort television, thanks to its warm sentiment and Pera’s sanguine personality. However, this seems like an exaggeration. There is darkness to the series: Viewers meet a character who clearly struggles with alcoholism, other characters struggle with grief, and some folks just aren’t very nice. Its efforts to accept the beauty and humanity that exist alongside all these issues is the highlight of the series’ success.

“I don’t want to make something that’s totally detached from the real world or some kind of a fantasy show,” Pera says, “but just kind of focuses on the nicer decent moments that happen and trying to pay attention to them.”

Over time this appeal will become more appealing Joe Pera speaks with YouIt’s a show that is in deep love with its subjects and not interested in making them more glamorous or less. This is what also makes it hilarious, because people are inherently funny, especially when they’re not trying to be. In one season 2 episode, Pera attends an incredibly awkward bachelor party where he — thin and uncomfortable, completely at odds with the Michigan bros he’s accompanying — surprisingly finds his neighbors opening up to him.

Image: Adult Swim

“The bachelor party episode came from a bachelor party weekend I went to,” Pera says. “I was home in Buffalo and somebody at the bachelor party, I found out, goes to like a UFO Believers Club that meets in the Old Country Buffet. It’s like, you would have never guessed that until you talk to somebody!”

Joe Pera speaks with You is, in a nutshell, full of things you’d never guess. One minute a perfectly normal, droll-seeming choir teacher can be riffing on the Rat Wars of Alberta, Canada, the next he might opine about Elizabeth Hurley’s underrated performance in Austin Powers. (Pera loves Austin PowersIt is available at: “It’s really sharp! It’s just a little bit at a time, full of good characters and lots of energy. What did you know? [Mike Myers] was 33 when he made that?”)

Talking to Joe Pera can open up all sorts of possibilities. It’s not hard to do.

Watch new episodes Joe Pera speaks with You air every Sunday on Adult Swim and stream on the network’s website. HBO Max has Seasons 1 and 2.