[triumphant music] ♪ [triumphant music] - Hello and welcome to "Comic Culture."

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

My guests today are podcasters, Nick Ramirez and Kyle Romero.

Gentlemen, welcome to "Comic Culture."

- Thanks for having us.

- Yeah, thanks, Terence.

- Let's talk about the ""Meat Cast"."

It's one of my favorite podcasts, and it has a very unique focus.

Can you tell us a little bit about where the idea came for focusing a podcast on the brilliance of Heathcliff?

- Well I used to host a podcast.

When the pandemic started I was trying to find fun stuff to do.

I used to do live comedy in New York, and it was all shut down.

So, I wanted to start a podcast.

And the first thing that came to mind was doing a daily podcast once a day about one comic strip every day.

And my first choice was Heathcliff.

But my friend that I decided to do with, Lance, he said, "No, let's do Garfield instead."

So, that lasted for a couple of years.

The daily Garfield podcast.

And until he had a baby and had to stop, so I was finally freed from Garfield.

And I was able to ask Kyle if he could sort of take Lance's place and do a podcast with me about Heathcliff, the other orange cat.

- [Terence] The original.

- The better.

- The original.

- The original orange cat.

- The original and better.

- The Hydrox to Garfield's Oreo.

- [chuckling] Exactly.

- That's exactly right.

- A podcast a day is a big commitment.

A podcast a week is still a big commitment.

So you get this idea, you bring in your pal to help you with this concept.

So, how does it evolve from just being, "Let's talk about a comic strip," to being one where you kind of focus on the absurdity, I guess the weirdness that is Heathcliff, and kind of lean into that.

- To be frank, Nick and I don't really do a ton of planning.

I don't know if that comes across in the podcast itself.

But, we're both improvisors.

We spend the majority of our time doing that.

I mean, at least I do.

But, so I think we're comfortable with sort of just, let's look at the week's Heathcliffs.

Let's have a guest on and let's just see what that conversation becomes.

We do like our segments.

But sometimes it doesn't come, and you just see what happens in the moment.

So yeah, in terms of actually executing on the plan of let's do a podcast about Heathcliff, it really was just let's just start recording, and see what it is.

- Yeah, did we have anything planned out that first episode we recorded, Kyle?

Or, did we just like- - I don't think so.

- Let's do the- - I can't even remember if you had sound drops planned in the first episode.

You must of.

At least, this week on Heathcliff.

But I think all we really knew was we'll look at the week's Heathcliff's and talk about them.

That was the full extent of the planning that we did.

- I remember we both said, it's gotta be less than 30 minutes an episode.

Because, there's no way we can make a podcast longer than 30 minutes, where all we do is talk about the six or seven Heathcliff comic strips that came out that week.

- Yeah, we did say that.

But mission creep settled in, and we ended up, we're about an hour at least.

- At least, yeah.

Some of them, I think we did like 90 minute episodes when we were really feeling it.

- Yeah, sometimes we're cooking, and you just can't shut it off, you know?

- Well it's funny, because I use this podcast, the "Meat Cast", as my ride into work.

It's just my zen moment before chaos sets in.

And one thing I do really love, those drops that you talked about.

Nick, you have what I would like to say is the voice of an angel.

- Oh, thank you.

- And the fact that you've done so many great songs.

The one I'm thinking of, of course, is the letters.

Do you wanna read a letter or an email?

And then, of course, the drop corner.

- Kyle's a, what is it?

Kyle's recap.

- Kyle's Punch Up Corner.

Which you know, Nick did the vocals for the song on my segment, which I'm perfectly happy, there's no resentment at all there.

And then yeah, we haven't done the letter, The Beatles' song.

- Yeah, what was it?

What was it a parody of?

- Do you want to know a secret?

- Yeah.

- And I would remember laughing because, it's like Nick, there's Beatles song.

There's like "Please Mr.

Postman."

There were Beatles' songs that you could of chosen that are more related.

Now, do you wanna know a secret for our- - Yeah, we did it like do you wanna get a letter, or something like that, or you wanna- - Do you want to read a letter?

- Yeah, in typical "Meat Cast" fashion, it was incredibly sweaty.

And doesn't really make sense.

But, we're having a good time, you know?

- Is what we're saying, is any of this making sense to people that are listening, to who are watching this.

Like, do they understand what we do?

Is I'll take a karaoke track and sing parody lyrics that are related to our podcast, I guess.

A few times a month.

I guess that sums it up.

- You know, I understand it.

And that's really, I guess, all that matters.

[all chuckling] But, it's a fun podcast, because it is, it's comedians talking about a comic strip.

And it's not in a way that, I don't wanna throw shade at my good friend, Josh, the Comic's Curmudgeon.

But he tends to get a little bit edgy, and sometimes a little bit mean-spirited about stuff, in a funny kind of comic strip kind of way.

But you are, it seems like you're genuine fans of Heathcliff, and all of the weirdness that Peter Gallagher comes up with.

Sometimes you're just as stunned as we are.

Other times, you just kind of talk about the characters.

But you clearly love the strip.

As you're looking at that week's strip, and I guess you're kind of seeing it on the fly, are you as taken back by it, and just kind of still enjoying it, even though it's been over a year of Heathcliff "Meat Cast".

- I think we both end up seeing the comic strips before the podcast, anyways.

So it would be nice if we did get like our genuine reactions recorded on the podcast, but it's kind of inescapable, these Heathcliff comic strips.

For me, at least.

I don't know, that's probably not a universal experience.

Yeah, I think we sufficiently engineered the algorithm that Nick and I will see the Heathcliffs, no matter what.

Whatever website we're on.

But yeah, I think speaking for me, yeah, I still, every week, there's at least one comic that I'm completely, I'm chuckling at.

Even if I've seen it before.

It really, I'm genuinely struck by how funny it is.

It actually makes me laugh, you know?

- Yeah, they are funny.

- Which is really, it's a joy to be able to do that.

It would really suck if we decided to do this podcast and then we decided to not enjoy Heathcliff.

'Cause we're making all this money.

And, we wouldn't be able to walk away.

- How did you find Heathcliff, Terence?

- Growing up in New York, we used to have two newspapers that would come to the house.

We would have the Long Island's "Newsday."

And then, we would have "The Daily News."

And, "The Daily News" had Heathcliff.

And on Sundays, obviously it was in color.

And being just, the family loved the Sunday comics.

We would fight over who got to read which ones first.

And "The Daily News," we'd go through there, and you know, you just kind of get into the character.

And then, there was the animated show, which I was a little too old for.

But you know, homework or an orange cat on adventures with the voice of Mel Blanc.

I think I'm gonna go with the orange cat, and askew homework.

And, it worked out pretty well for me.

And I kind of lost Heathcliff along the way.

And a friend of mine [indistinct], "Have you ready Heathcliff lately?"

And I said, "No."

And he said, "Well, you gotta check this out."

And he sent me something, and it was one of the earlier "Jimmy" strips.

And I'm like- - Oh, wow.

- "Hold on a second, wait, "I believe I'm having an epiphany."

It was the flame above the head type of thing.

And after that I've just been enjoying every day of Heathcliff.

- So that was just like in the last year, or two, right?

- Yes, I'm not ashamed to say that.

- No, you shouldn't be.

We're happy however anyone comes into the fold.

You're welcome, welcome to the flock.

- I was aware of the Garbage Ape, because of reading the Comic Curmudgeon website.

But like I was about the Comic Curmudgeon.

He tends to get a little bit, like he's picking on the comics, especially let's say "Mary Worth," when Wilbur's in it.

But you guys seem, again, you're genuine fans.

Are you ever tempted to just think, to say, "This one's a terrible strip, let's just make fun of it."

Or, you're always just kind of thinking, "Well, it's fun.

"I'm just gonna have fun with it anyway."

- I think for me, that just doesn't seem fun to me.

Like that wouldn't be as fun to do the podcast if the premise of the podcast, or even if it was just like, actually it might be kind of fun to do like Roast Week.

We just, one episode, we just really unnecessarily mean about the strips.

But no, I genuinely enjoy them.

I also think like it's pretty clear that there's people that just wanna hear other people talk about the thing they like, too.

And I just, yeah, my temperament, I don't really get a lot of joy out of the, like, let's take this down.

Let's let everybody know that I know... That's no shots to Josh.

I mean, Josh is awesome.

He's been on our show, he's very funny.

But I just, and the comics he's talking about, I probably would be, have the same approach.

But for Heathcliff, in particular, no I just enjoy it, and I don't feel a need to change that approach.

- You've had Peter Gallagher on your show, as well, twice.

Including your 50th episode.

So I'm wondering if there's a plan to have him on every milestone.

And what's it like knowing that the creator Heathcliff is tuning in every week?

- We'd love to have him on anytime.

Basically, he let's us know when he wants to come on.

And yeah, great, perfect.

But yeah, I still don't really believe that he listens every week.

He says he does.

And maybe that's changed since the last time we talked to him.

But, I just don't even think about it.

I just assume that he's not really.

I assume that nobody is really listening to the show.

I'm always shocked when somebody tells me something that happened on the show.

Probably because I don't remember it happening.

And partly because I can't believe they listen to it.

- Yeah, I think about it all the time.

[chuckling] - Do you really?

- Yeah, when we're recording, often I will think like, "Oh, Peter's gonna hear this."

If it's some, like we do sometimes critique the strips from like a point of view like we're fans.

I think like we make ourselves clear enough that we're fans, and that it's fine.

But I sometimes, I'm like, "Oh Peter, I'm sorry buddy."

We love the strip, but this is weird, man.

But yeah, I'm in the same place as Nick, where it's just I can't believe he listens to it.

When we found out we just got an email to our email in-box that was like, well first it was just some person we didn't know.

But they were like, they just wanted to say, "You're doing a great job.

"And by the way, Peter's a fan."

And you know, we're like "Okay, sure."

You know, of course.

And then Peter himself wrote in a little bit later.

And even that, I think we both were like, up until he logged onto the Zoom call, to record that first episode, we thought it was somebody else.

We thought it was some joke.

We thought it was somebody pretending to be him.

But there he was.

- Maybe they asked for Peter Gallagher.

- Maybe.

I mean, God-willing.

That's still my white whale of guests.

I would love to get the actor Peter Gallagher on the show one day, maybe like for a full episode, or something.

- Did we say that Peter Gallagher is the name of the cartoonist that draws Heathcliff?

Do people know that?

Anyway if they not, that's who that is.

- The audience of this program is, first off, they're very intelligent.

They're always very good looking.

And they are the nicest people I've ever met.

But they are comic fans.

And generally they know who these folks are.

And Peter Gallagher was on an episode earlier in the season.

- That's right, yeah.

- And he did tell me that he listens to the "Meat Cast".

So, either he's lying to all of us, or he's just sitting in his studio, hunched over the drawing table, listening to anything.

And between NPR, and the guy who fixes small engines, the "Meat Cast" pops on.

- I did see like maybe last week, or two weeks ago, we sent out a Tweet that we were gonna be a day late with the episode.

And I saw that Peter liked it.

It was like, oh, he's that engaged that he's like paying attention to the Twitter account.

Like, heard guys, you're gonna be like no worries.

- To be fair, he likes a lot of Tweets.

- [Kyle] Well, yeah, sure.

- There's a big Heathcliff Twitter community.

People like remixing the comics.

And making podcasts.

I think we're the only Heathcliff podcast as far as I know.

- I hope so.

- And still the best.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, thank God.

Nobody get any bright ideas, and try to come into our market.

- So you talked about a social media, and of course the website formally known as Twitter.

Recently you engaged your fans with your "Meat Cast", March Meatness.

So what did you learn doing this?

This is sort of of that Sweet 16 basketball tournament.

But with the secondary characters of Heathcliff, excluding the Nutmeg family.

So what did you learn about the fans of your podcast from how this sort of built momentum from maybe something that was a few dozen people voting, to over a thousand people voting.

- I guess there, Garbage Ape and Jimmy was, versus Jimmy was the big draw.

That was the finals, and that was the one that got by far the most response on Twitter.

I think people just wanted to stake their claim.

I mean, those are the two biggest characters.

We knew that, we ranked them the number one and the number two seed.

And we knew that people were going to be passionate one way or the other about that.

I also think that we found out there was some, there were certain people that had loyalty to the earlier characters.

Like people considered them, the Garage Ape to be the original kind of weird Heathcliff character.

And, they wanted to make sure that he moved on.

And even some people wanted to vote for Pops Heathcliff.

Heathcliff's dad, who goes to human, who resides in like a jail, in a human jail.

And comes out to visit every now and then.

People really pushed him forward, way past where I expected him to go out.

- Yeah, we had him as a pretty low seed, like 13th, or something like that, if I remember right.

Yeah, I think what we learned is, it's a passion engaged group of people.

[chuckling] People really have their characters that they root for.

I was, you know, if I could of rigged it for Summer Mummy, I would of done it.

But, it's never gonna happen.

- Let's talk Summer Mummy for just one minute.

This is another one of those characters that Peter just throws into the mix randomly.

As if we're all supposed to know, "Hey, it's Heathcliff and the Summer Mummy."

It, of course, it's July.

The Summer Mummy should be here.

When you are casting a movie for Heathcliff, first off, if I never hear the song again, I will be super-happy.

[all chuckling] And I love the fact that constantly everyone thinks you're doing it live and talks to you while you talk on the original recordings.

- Let's play the movie casting theme song.

♪ You gotta cast a movie ♪ ♪ I wanna cast somebody for Heathcliff ♪ ♪ Maybe we can make a deal ♪ ♪ Maybe together we can cast Ben Affleck ♪ - Again, is this about fan engagement, or is this just, we got 30 minutes, 90 minutes to fill for this movie, or this podcast.

So, let's just talk about the movie.

- It's mostly that.

[laughing] It's mostly that second thing.

Which is funny, considering the early conversation we had.

This only needs to be 30 minutes.

But now, if we are only at 30 minutes, we're kind of like, well, we probably need to try something else.

People expect an hour now, you know.

But we also, at least for me, we love coming up with segments.

Like we really like really stupid ideas for segments.

And an opportunity for a jingle or something.

So yeah, the movie casting, I think, came out of that, a little bit.

- Yeah, I think I feel like an obligation to have a segment at the end of the show every week.

And, I don't know if anybody really cares about that.

But I feel like I didn't put in the work, if we don't come up with one.

So but, the movie one is just, where we cast real life actors, like who they would play, like Heathcliff characters they would play in a potential life-action Heathcliff movie.

It's just such an easy segment to do.

'Cause all we have to do is name a character, and then name an actor.

So that kind of became our default segment for a few months when Kyle and I were too lazy to come up with anything that particular week.

- We were creatively blocked, we weren't lazy.

We were just in a rut.

- I know that you use the podcast to get to know your guests.

And that seems to be the current- - We like to, yeah.

- The current gimmick.

For a while I think, Nick, you were doing something where you would say, it looks to be about this many pugs.

And then Kyle, you would say, "It's exactly that many pugs."

So you have your bits.

So, how do you sort of use your background in improv comedy to help you during, essentially what is a 30, 90 minute improv podcast?

- Well I think, you know, because of our training and background.

I mean, I don't know how long Nick's been doing it.

I've been doing it for, coming up on 12 years now.

- The improv, you mean, yeah.

- Doing improv, yeah.

And I think we just naturally kind of like, pulling on threads.

We like to see.

And that's not necessarily ever... Nick and I do improv together a fair amount.

And what I love about playing with Nick, is he gets this like glint in his eye when you can see that you did something that maybe you didn't even realize you did, or you said a word in a certain way that you didn't realize you did.

And Nick will just attack it like a piranha.

And it's so fun, because you feel so supported.

And you feel so like, this guy gets it.

He understands.

And sometimes people do that, and you're like, just let it go, I said a word a weird way.

Like, why are you doing this?

But Nick finds a way to turn it into something funny.

And the podcast feels like that to me.

It's a lot of fun.

Because I know, like the thing, we like to use the comic strip to get to know our guests.

Even just that phrasing of we like to do it, we've now latched onto that.

As like, that's so funny to both of us that we would phrase it that way.

And it may not be funny to anyone else.

But that spirit of yeah, this dumb thing that we said, is now going to be, we're going to spend a little time talking about this, is I think what drives us, or drives me.

- Yeah, I agree.

Those particular things, I don't know, if feel like whenever I do that, whenever we say that phrase, we like to use the comic strips together.

I just feel like I'm doing a David Letterman impression.

You know?

A lot of the show I feel like I'm doing an impression of a comic that I find funny.

Like David Letterman, or Scott Ackerman, or somebody.

- I was gonna say, you know it's funny.

Because again, on the podcast you get a sense of personalities and characters that you're playing.

And Nick, I always get the sense that you're kind of leaning into almost a Norm MacDonald, that sort of wide-eyed, I'm playing it really straight, but underneath there's that, I'm smarter than the rest of the room, and you're gonna catch on eventually.

- Oh no.

- But in a good way.

Honestly, there's no other comedian who can tell a really terrible joke and make it funny the way Norm MacDonald could.

And it was that sort of, "Yeah, I'm just gonna tell you this, ah..." And Kyle, you sort of have this every man, combination straight guy, and also you know, occasionally you're gonna lean into being the character yourself.

And again, I'm just going back to the rapport that you have, and the fact that you have this background in comedy.

So is it any different when you are doing improv focused around Heathcliff, and when you're doing improv, I mean obviously the situations will be different.

I've watched enough of "Who's Line is it Anyway?"

But is it different when you have an audience there, as opposed to trying to entertain yourselves?

- Yeah I mean, well, when you're doing it on stage, I mean, at least ideally for me, you're listening to the feedback live and real time, right?

You're understanding what people are responding to, and you're able to kind of adjust to that.

And with the show, it's kind of just me, and Nick and the guest.

A lot of times the guest, we don't really know as well as Nick and I know each other.

So, we're kind of relying on, even just like seeing each other on the Zoom without even saying anything, going like, I can tell by the way Nick's face changed just then, that this is something we need to talk more about, or just giving a side for.

- Yeah I mean, I would say that when I'm doing improv, I'm definitely mainly trying to make myself laugh, and the other person on stage.

So, it's similar in that way.

And part of that is because when I do improv, there aren't a lot of people in the audience, either.

[Kyle laughing] - Yeah, that's why I said ideally.

In the ideal world, we'd have a packed house that you're following the ways of laughter.

But yeah, usually it is just, either you and your seen partner, or the team that opened for you watching that you're trying to make laugh to.

- I guess it's kind of like playing in a band.

Everyone wants to be the rock star, but you're just playing to your girlfriends, as I learned many, many years.

- Oh God, I wish we had girlfriends.

[laughing] - Let's just go back to those drops that you're doing.

So Nick, when you were coming up with the "Silent Night, Meaty Night," parody, is this something that you're planning out, or are you just kind of hoping it works in the moment, and just letting it flow?

- Oh, I definitely wrote it.

I didn't come up with the lyrics, as a...

I mean, I wrote it probably in like 10 minutes.

But yeah, I wrote a parody of "Silent Night," is that what it was, with Heathcliff specifics.

And then I think I probably sang it to you live, right Kyle?

Like with a, live over Zoom.

- Yeah, it was very comfortable.

It's a very normal thing to do.

[both chuckling] - Maybe silently watch me sing "Silent Night" parody.

But yeah, I get really excited for Christmas, for whatever.

And that translates into me writing Christmas parodies, about Christmas song parodies about Heathcliff once a year, I guess.

Kyle sang, like Kyle, you probably, if you heard that episode, I think Kyle sang a Christmas song, too.

And you probably heard, Kyle has an incredible voice.

[crosstalk drains out dialogue] - You know, I didn't wanna bring it up, you know, I'm just a little bit shocked that you would mention Nick's parody and not mine.

But yeah, I did a little one myself.

We had a little, and our guest Molly, if I remember right was brought in something, as well.

So yeah, I think we both enjoy the song parodies.

- Well Kyle, I was going to mention you.

Thank you for making me feel like a horse's patoot.

I was going to mention you.

It's tough, because you do have a voice for the stage.

So is it tough for you to, again, to play into comedy when you are singing what we would consider to be the straight style?

- Yeah, I suppose so.

I think when I do something like a song parody, or whatever.

And I've done like musical improv, too.

Like when I do things like that, my goal comedically is like to do that the way it should be done.

'Cause I want the focus to be on the words, or if it's a musical improv thing, I want it to be on like the scene and the characters, or whatever moment that the character is going through.

And so, it's more like yeah, the people shouldn't be laughing at like the quality of the singing, you know what I mean?

Like for me, that's what works for me.

Hopefully, ideally.

- Well gentlemen, they are telling me that we have run out of time.

I wanna thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to talk with me today.

The half hour has just flown by.

- Thank you so much.

- Yeah, this was great.

- This is great.

- Had a blast.

- I wanna thank everyone at home for watching "Comic Culture.

We will see you again soon.

[triumphant music] ♪ ♪ - [Announcer] "Comic Culture" is a production of the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

[triumphant music fades out]