The Duncan Trussell Family Hour (DTFH) is a hilarious podcast for serious topics. Host Duncan Trussell is a comedian, a practicing Buddhist, and an enthusiastic explorer of head-spinning metaphysical philosophy. Along with his work in stand-up comedy, Duncan has accrued a niche following for his appearances on Funny or Die’s web series Drunk History, a recurring voice roll for a minor character on Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time, and several appearances on the massively-popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.
In preparation for writing this article, I sent Duncan a personal email, thinking I might luck out and snag a quote or two, if he even answered at all. Being the super-cool guy that he is, Duncan emailed me back within the hour and offered to talk over Skype. Over a dense conversation that lasted over an hour, Duncan and I talked about popular media, politics, religion, and the “pure creative freedom” allowed to him through podcasting.
“What’s really beautiful about doing a podcast as opposed to other mediums is that I’m the one who decides every aspect of what to talk about, who the guests are, and how to edit it,” Duncan told me. “There’s a filtration mechanism in place in most other forms of entertainment, and that is there because other forms of entertainment are more expensive to produce and the risk is higher. Between advertisers, the FCC, and legions of lawyers, what can end up happening is you dilute your original idea to the point where it’s unrecognizable when it comes out the other end.”
Duncan’s podcast is partially funded by advertising, but he has full control over which products appear on the show, in what way they are advertised, and what he says about those products. He will also only advertise products which he has tried out, and actively uses in his life.
“It seems like advertisers’ relationships with podcasters are different than with TV or radio, because they don’t have anything to for me to read,” Duncan said. “If I’m doing a Casper Mattress commercial and I want to talk about how that mattress is the raft that you will float down the river of death on, if I’m vulgar or esoteric or as ridiculous as I want to, they’ll let me. They don’t care, as long as I hit their bullet points and people listen.”
Duncan’s widespread reach across a network of popular media and comedic entertainment has allowed him access to a complex roster of interesting guests on his podcast. His lengthy interviews with the guests form the backbone of each episode. Duncan told me that when finding guests, his process is very organic and “not organized at all.”
“Sometimes I’ll get a tweet from someone who listens to the podcast suggesting that I have someone on, and then I’ll investigate that person and see who they are,” Duncan said. “I’ll try to reach out to them and see if they’ll come on the show. Some of the guests are very famous, people I wouldn’t expect to be able to connect with, but sometimes I find out that they actually listen to my podcast!”
Notable DTFH guests include producers Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty) and Pendleton Ward (Adventure Time), investigative journalists Amber Lyon and Abby Martin, comedians Tim Heidecker and Natasha Leggero, and visionary artist power-couple Alex and Allyson Grey. Two of Duncan’s most emotional and authentic interviews on the show were with his own mother, who was losing a battle against terminal cancer and has since passed away.
“If you see an interview on a talk show, between the host and… some symmetrical famous person, they wear nice suits and show us: ‘this is what success looks like, wouldn’t you like this life?’” Duncan said. “These personas of people you see on TV or commercials might as well be a different species than you. When you actually look around, everyone seems fairly equally confused. We’re all like, ‘I don’t know, man!’ That is reality. Any medium that amplifies that reality instead of shaming it, can only be good. Not just for people that produce podcasts, but for the people listening.”
Duncan told me that he believes that people enjoy podcasts because the conversations are more of a reflection of what it’s actually like to be a human. One of the things that he hopes is going to fade away with the progression of society is the concept of “celebrities.”
“In a great podcast, you will see the person behind the curtain,” Duncan said. “You will be excited to hear that the person behind the curtain is a lot cooler than the person who has been doing this ‘song and dance’ in front of everyone.”
The brilliance of the podcast lies in the casual, free-form atmosphere of the interviews. Trussell encourages serious discussion about his guests’ work and philosophy, but interviews regularly dip into comedic banter and tangential rants about space, religion, alternate dimensions, “reptilian” politicians, and “the singularity” (the inevitable supremacy of artificial intelligence over biological life). Duncan told me that he is often surprised at the things his guests will say when they get comfortable enough with him, including one of his recent guests coming out as bisexual on his show.
“The [Greek] etymology of ‘Apocalypse’ is ‘the lifting of the veil,’ so by that definition, podcasting is apocalyptic,” Duncan said. “I know a podcast is great when a person I’m talking to can open up about their reality and it’s not put together. It’s a little uncertain, it’s a little scared, and yet within that there’s such courageousness, sweetness, love, vulnerability, that it makes me fall in love with them, and I think [my listeners] fall in love with them too.”
The most important realization I gained from my conversation with Duncan came as a parallel to the whole point which his podcast seems to be based on: he is, like the so-called “celebrities” he has on his show, just a normal person.
“Since I’ve been doing this podcast, hands-down every guest on the show does not take responsibility for the thing they make,” Duncan said. “They don’t know, it just came out of them. They’re a conduit. Let yourself experiment with whatever crazy idea that you have, fearlessly, just throw it up there. Sometimes I’ll just upload the podcast with a sick feeling in my stomach, thinking, ‘I don’t know, man, maybe you shouldn’t have talked about that. Maybe you sounded too lofty, you sound like a charlatan. What do you think you’re doing?’ That’s what my mind will do. But sometimes I think, ‘This must be great because I’m scared to upload it.’ That’s what’s great about this technology.”
Expand your mind with The Duncan Trussell Family Hour on your favorite podcast app, or at http://www.duncantrussell.com/.