The Best Comedy Podcast of 2021 – Competitive Self-Improvement Meets Ridiculous Comedy
Comedy podcasts are an amazing thing, of course. We know this. Thought the problem lies when big-name folks cash in on their “new podcast” that is just another podcast of a celebrity interviewing a celebrity friend. This is fine, sure. But what’s the logline here? I’m not trying to slam anyone who’s ever done this, because there’s some amazing comedy podcasts out there with overdone concepts. I’m just saying, when it comes to 2021 comedy podcasts, it seems to me, that we’re in the next level now. I think idea, format, structure and style are crucial for new and upcoming shows, because podcasts are mainstream now. It’s no longer an exclusive-space.
The Big Secret Here
If you’ve made it this far, then I suppose it’s best I told you the truth. I’m here to persuade you. This is all a big trap. I want you to listen to our comedy podcast, because I think it’s great. Before you hate me and burn me out from your memories forever, hear me out a bit. Let me tell you about our show. Let me give you a basic look, at the very least!
A Focus On Interesting
We’re still new to the comedy podcast game. But I’ll tell you this. Our show is hosted by three people: Chris K. Daniels (me), Jenny Whipple and Samuel Caswell. We’re pretty thoroughly un-famous folks. We have recognition in the indie short film world a bit, but it doesn’t go much further than that. So the thought of us creating a comedy podcast without a clear idea, was not happening. Another of the very many podcasts that “talk about current events, joke about what’s happening, and pretty much chat about whatever we want to.” No. If we were gonna join the progressively-saturating world of comedy podcasts, we needed a strong idea on top of hilarious execution. And that criteria spawned our series. A podcast focused on being interesting as well as funny. This was: Better Off Better.
Better Off Better: The Best Comedy Podcast of 2021 – Competitive Self-Improvement Meets Ridiculous Comedy
Better Off Better is our cut-throat, comedic journey to self-betterment. Every week we take on a new “challenge” / journey to theoretically improve ourselves as people. These challenges range from medically-backed, scientifically-backed things you’ve probably heard of. To the complete opposite of that: strange, experimental, pseudo-science things you’ve probably not heard of. The criteria: Everything we try needs to have some sort of backing supporting the idea that the practice will improve us as people. The show is split up into TWO PARTS!
The Two Part Split
Part One: We record before the week-long challenge begins. We come and tell you all about the thing we’ll be trying for the given week. Then, we split off for seven long days, doing the episode’s challenge every day for that span. All leading to the anticipated…
Part Two: The results. We return after our week with all the juicy details from the journey. How’d it go? Who F’d up? Did it make us better as people?
The Competitive Nature
It wasn’t enough to just be trying to improve ourselves. No. That’s not funny enough at all. So of course, we turned this whole show into a competitive game. Every episode ends with a cut-throat finale where we all vote, fight, rebuttal and eventually crown a weekly ‘Champion’ and a weekly ‘Loser’ for the given challenge. It gets hasty. It gets wild! And of course, it gets hilarious. The reason for this madness? Because if you’re not competing the get better than those close to you, what the hell is the point at all?
The Famous & Brutal Quote
As the wise Kevin Chang once said in his yearbook senior quote:
“It’s not enough that I should succeed – others should fail.”
I believe this is a beautiful description of what we’re all about as people.
A Creative Take on Comedy Podcasts
Listen, we didn’t have the name recognition to create a show with no schtick. Why should anyone care about our take on current events? We wanted to create a podcast with an intrinsic, interesting idea, then fill the rest with our own odd comedy and exciting segments. Now, looking in at an episode of Better Off Better: We’re a fast-paced comedy show, filled with bits, roasts, arguments, jokes and a whole lot of exciting experience. With that, our segment breakdown is an artform in itself.
The Ultimate Comedy Podcast Segment Breakdown: Better Off Better
Cold Open / Intro: This one’s self-explantory. We come in for a hot hey, introduce ourselves and throw the format of the show at you at high-speed with a whole lot of electric guitar.
The Challenge: We swim on over to the part of the show where we throw the given episode’s challenge your way. We tell you what it is, then delve into the overall backing. The facts, the benefits, the claims, etc. We educate ourselves and the world up in here, on this segment.
Initial Fears: This is the beginning of the spicy segments. Each true segment on Better Off Better Podcast is led-on with a live-sung stinger / riff, to intensively throw us in! Some of our riffs are true musical masterpieces (according to Billboard, obviously.) Initial Fears is our chance to go over our dreads & fears for the coming challenge. We go over the things that most terrify us about the coming week of betterment.
The Public Humiliation: After our self-reflective initial fears, we contrast it all with a brutal roast-session. The Public Humiliation allows us to pick a target and blast them in regards to the given challenge. Who’s gonna suck at this challenge? Who desperately needs this one? Etc. It gets aggressive, hilarious, revealing and informative real quick!
The Break: At this point, we say our farewells and officially head off on the challenge for the week!
7 Days Later….
The Return: We return and give a nice, warm welcome back to each other and everyone else.
One Word Sum-Up: To start out the “results” portion of the show, we ease into our story by each giving a quick, efficient singular word to describe their experience at large.
The Swearing On The Duck Ceremony: At this point, we must prepare ourselves emotionally. In order to honestly share the details from our journey, we must swear a sacred, constantly-changing, strange yet poetic oath to the wooden duck that lies in the midst of our table. On this duck, we swear our truth! And once sworn, the honor is upon us! Similar to swearing oath in court, but MUCH more serious.
Moment Of Truth: This is our chance to put it all on the table (emotionally.) We circle ’round the table and declare if we F’d up at any point across the week. Did we skip any days? Did we fail to achieve? We let loose on each other as we go, but this is our chance to admit our week-long faults.
Let’s Talk Results: Once the truth is all revealed, we jump into the experience at large. We go over all the real, specific results from our week of self-betterment-attempt. We share how it impacted us, the benefits, the side-effects, the worsts, the bests, the most effective strategies, the self-improvement lessons we quickly learnt, etc. It’s a real deal informative and of course, extremely exciting part of our show!
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: In order to wrap up our experience most effectively, we sum everything up in a nice little metaphoric box. We wrap up the whole self-betterment experience into one single GOOD, one single BAD, and one single UGLY, that we collectively decides best represents the given challenge. This is the real TLDR segment, for those interested in the challenge we’re talkin’ all about.
The Biggest Loser: As mentioned previously, our show ends things off in the most competitive, cut-throat way imaginable. The vote for the Champion of The Week and The Loser of The Week. Well, this is the time. We go around and make our big picks. Oftentimes, this leads to large-scale arguments, rebuttals, counterpoints, personal attacks, etc. Like I said, it’s cut-throat. But eventually, sometimes easier than other times, the numbers lead to the results.
The Declaration Ceremony: We finalize our Biggest Loser segment with the Declaration of the Champion and of the Loser. We have our ceremonial music as we make our official declarations. It’s, naturally, an emotional, awe-inspiring, beautiful segment to behold.
Within this segment, our show’s Voice (a robot character that helps move things along) explains the punishment that the Biggest Loser is forced to ensue. In short, for the given week: The Loser is forced to experience The Digital Sammy Award. This is a disgusting, offensive, personal, and/or even vulgar photo designed by the champion, and forced onto the Loser. The Loser must use this custom photo as their wallpaper on any and all devices for the week-span (we’re talkin’ Phones, iPads, Laptops, Desktop, Nintendo DS’s, etc. With that, the Loser must add $5 to the loser pool, which will be spend at the end of the year on a beautiful treat for the show.
Better Off Better or Better Off Worse: The final segment of the show is a concluding, simple question. After one week of doing ____, are you better off better or better off worse? We each cast our votes and opinions and share if we plan to keep this self-improvement practice in our lives going forward. This is a wholesome, conclusive wrap-up to each challenge.
The Farewell: We finally say goodbye, adieu and farewell to all. Leaving each other, until the next Better Off Better journey.
In Conclusion: The Best Comedy Podcast of 2021 – Competitive Self-Improvement Meets Ridiculous Comedy
Our comedy podcast has grown a lot in our first few months doing it, and that’s amazing! It’s been a crazy exciting journey trying to make this thing better and better as time goes on. We even had the honor of being on the list of Best Comedy Podcasts of 2020, according to Feedspot.com – which is also incredibly amazing! In short, if you’re someone that’s a fan of the comedy podcast space, you’ve got to give Better Off Better a chance. I believe we’ve got a great show that should be a hardcore 2021 comedy podcast recommendation to your whole family. Especially potential grand parents and extended relatives.
What Are You Waiting For?
Go, run home now and binge our episodes. Personally, I think the more recent ones are better, but follow your heart. And of course, we’re a video podcast too! So if you’re a comedy podcast video watcher, then boy do we have the link for you! All of the Better Off Better streaming links are down below! Thank you so much for reading all this.