Pera has popped up a few times on Adult Swim already via his two specials, Joe Pera Talks You To Sleep and Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree. Now Pera has a full series at his disposal and the wholesome, bashful comedy carries over into Joe Pera Talks With You. Pera tackles mundane topics like breakfast, dancing, or rocks with his trademark awkward modesty. Pera’s series is refreshingly chill and is more concerned about being itself than impressing anyone. It sort of revels in these low stakes human moments between individuals and how everyone connects and relates. It’s an unusual beast that almost feels antithetical to some of Adult Swim’s louder programs, but it’s absolutely something that should be checked out. With Pera’s series about to hit Adult Swim, we chatted with the sincere comedian about finding this show’s delicate balance, what makes him laugh, and surprisingly, Dragon Ball Super. The only show that I watched while making this was Dragon Ball Super, but I like Look Around You quite a bit and I enjoy what I’ve seen from Nathan For You. It’s mostly a Dragon Ball Super influence on this show though. I’m a big fan of the two previous specials that you did for Adult Swim. Did you sort of look at those as a guide or did you consider any wildly different ideas for this show? How did you figure out what topics you wanted to do for the season? Were there any good ones that didn’t make the cut? Yeah, I can’t remember them at the moment, but we did cut a good number of them. I’m interested in a lot of things so I could talk about all sorts of stuff for episodes, but unfortunately we only get nine episodes so we have to choose. I think one of my problems is that I try to squeeze too many subjects or facts into an episode and it might get boring for some people. I need to step back a little and try to insert more jokes, but it can be hard at 11 minutes. I could have done an hour-long episode all on breakfast. You juggle a few different types of humor in your show, but what would you say is your favorite variety of humor from the program? What aspect of the program makes you laugh the most? Honestly, I try to embrace the mistakes that we make, like when somebody mispronounces something, screws up a line, or bumps into something. That makes me laugh. One of my favorite gags is just a moment where myself and Jo Firestone are walking into a bar and at one point she turns around and bumps into the doorway. Just watching her bump still makes me laugh. I could work on a joke for months and then she just walks into a door frame and it’s better. On the topic of Jo Firestone, I’m a big fan of her and Conner O’Malley, who are just the best. Is it satisfying that they can both be apart of the show with you, both in front of and behind the camera? Yeah, they’re both involved in a big way. They both wrote two episodes each and appear in several episodes as well. We all have senses of humor that compliment each other so it’s nice when we can all work together. They were both very helpful in terms of making this work as a series and figuring out what to do. I think we figured a lot out from the first two specials, but with this show the story process was a little more important. It can be tough to figure out how to feature each topic and go off on our tangents, but also keep the episode’s story moving forward. It’s different. Every episode was a little different to narratively figure out. The whole thing was a learning experience and I’ve certainly never worked on a project of this size before. I think it’s so funny to see you teaching music to a big class of rambunctious kids. Why did you want that to be your character’s job here? Do you have a favorite episode or set piece from the season? To be honest, I don’t want to watch any of it. I’m very proud of the final episode though. I think it’s very different than anything else that I’ve done before. That was a big one. Also there’s a scene in the pumpkin where Gene is dressed up like he’s from The Matrix and I love that. Oh, cool. That kind of comes from the fact that my dad will go to the same place to pick up bagels every Saturday morning and his one friend has a breakfast crew that meets there. My dad’s got a bit of a community there, but I think he wishes he had more of a committed breakfast crew. So we just wanted to turn that into a part of an episode. Have you ever had a perfect egg bite, or is that still just a pipe dream for now? I know that it’s a difficult question, but rank the Five Great Lakes from best to worst. Hmm, well I don’t want to offend anyone here. Lake Superior is the most beautiful and also the most interesting, so it’s number one. Next is a tie for second place between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. I love Erie because I grew up on it in Buffalo, but Lake Michigan is less polluted and also bigger, so they’re tied. Number four is Lake Ontario and then five is Lake Huron. Get a cup of coffee, get a cup of cocoa, or get a cup of water. Love it.
