Best of: UNFTR Sketches.

Hey Unf*ckers. I’m writing this right before I head on vacation to get some rest and chill out for a bit. But just so you know, my version of relaxing is to surround myself with books on a beach, listen to podcasts and drink. So the only thing that’s really going to change is that there will be a beach. (Ba dum tss!)

We’re doing something special today to highlight the lighter side of UNFTR.

I mentioned it last week that we would love to hear your thoughts on the mid-show sketches. Email us at unftrpod@gmail.com or hit us up on social and let us know.

Anyway, enjoy this lighter side of UNFTR. Without further ado, here to guide you through our sketch journey is the one, the only, Manny Faces. Take it away.

MANNY: Thanks Max. I hope you have a great week…

MEANWHILE, IN MAX’S HEAD: What if all the Unf*ckers are gone when I get back? What if 99 does a hostile takeover of the show? What if Trump does a hostile takeover of the country? Stop it, Max. You have to shut it down. You have to stop the nightmares of Milton Friedman smothering you in your sleep. Get some rest.

MANNY: So that little bit right there? Stuff like that? That’s the kind of shit that got us thinking a few essays into this. When Max first introduced the concept of the show to me, I understood exactly where he was going with it and why. He had a really solid concept and had fleshed out a number of essays. We had experience working together, so we were on the same page, and things came together pretty quickly.

Along the way, I know he was getting kinda weighed down by some of the topics, and he was worried that listeners would burn out before they got to some of the bigger essays. One thing you’ve probably noticed is that he treats the show like it’s a curriculum. He talks about building blocks and scaffolding ideas like an educator would because he’s always thinking about natural entry points into a subject.

So we started fucking around with some—I’ll call them comedy concepts for lack of a better term—comedy concepts to cleanse the palate during the shows. I hesitate to call it comedy, by the way, because we both know a lot of great comedians and improv artists, so we want to be clear that we are not that. But he has an ear for bad, over the top impressions, and I’ve produced some real comedians before, so we gave it a shot.

What you’re going to get today is the evolution of the sketches that we’ve done.

We only started doing them a couple of months into the show and, as you’ll notice, they’ve kind of evolved quickly. The best part for us is the recurring characters that honestly make us laugh every fucking time. So let’s check out a bunch of these together, and I’ll give you a little peek behind the curtain along the way.

This is where it all started. This first one is not really a skit, per se, but it’s the first time we started to take some liberties with the format because Max feared that we were veering into territory that might be less intriguing than making fun of Ayn Rand or scolding Rebekkkah Mercer. This is the longest one because it’s actually part of the essay. But it definitely got us thinking in terms of how to best break up the heavy stuff.

Listen to Tax Me, Fuck Me, Kill Me.

We were testing the waters here and liked how it broke things up a bit.

Now this was the first of the real sketches.

Listen to Unf*cking Intervention: Kevin McCarthy.

We followed this up with another intervention and the introduction of Matt Gaetz as Butthead, which has obviously become a theme for us and makes us laugh every fucking time, to be honest.

Listen to Unf*cking Intervention: Matt Gaetz.

This next one is where we really went for it. And it’s inside the first essay that probably most closely resembles who and what we are today. It’s certainly the one that is most important for Max. In fact, if this was the only essay he ever put out, he’d be fine with it. If you want to know anything about my man, it’s all in this essay. This is really who he is.

As far as the show, I’m sure the format will continue to evolve, but this is the one that was featured in The New York Times and kind of put us on the map. I remember we actually talked about laying off the sketch in this essay because he wanted the subject matter to stand on its own. But, ultimately, we decided to go with it because we felt like it was a heavy show and it could use a palate cleanser, so to speak. Actually, I think this is when we started referring to these as palate cleansers. Sort of an intermezzo to break up a heavy meal.

Listen to NRA Meeting.

By this time, we were kind of addicted. Having way too much fun and hearing Butthead in our dreams, so we decided to just keep going with it. In this one, we met Lindsey Graham, which was a little over the top, a slurping Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz as Gollum and, of course, more Matt Gaetz.

Listen to Republican Meeting.

We didn’t want the Republicans to have all the fun, so in part two of this essay, we took aim at the Dems. Personally, I think Max does a pretty admirable Bernie, so we kicked it off with that. We snuck in Lindsey Graham for good measure. Biden, Harris, Schumer, they’re all in there. And, of course, we snuck in our favorite idiot as well, as you’ll hear. My personal favorite, that we haven’t revisited since, was Corey Booker.

Listen to Democrat Meeting.

Our Assange essay probably got out to the fastest start since Culture Cancel. People really took this one in, and it was probably responsible for most of our growth on social media. On this essay, we went into the Oval Office, where VP Harris was desperately trying to put President Biden to bed so she could get back to running the country.

Listen to Sleepy Joe.

We got the Epstein crew together on a conference call in this essay. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Bill Gates had a three way call about Epstein before someone interrupted them. I personally love this one because I was able to dig out a demon voice sound effect that I used years ago to create our now-standard demon sound effect for a particular recurring character. By the way, Max knows his Trump is pretty awful.

Listen to Epstein Meeting.

When the lunatic fringe of the GOP decided to shut down their extremely insensitive white supremacist America First Caucus and find a new name, we circled back to imagine what this conversation sounded like. It’s here we introduced Marjorie Taylor Greene and probably our second favorite recurring character, Lauren Boebert, who never actually speaks.

Listen to New GOP Name.

Because we knew the F*ck Milton Friedman essay was going to be our magnum opus of the first year, we didn’t want to interrupt the flow for too long. But then again, we didn’t want to lose people. So we did a non-sketch sketch where we tried to explain to Matt Gaetz why he wasn’t going to appear on this essay.

Listen to The Non-Sketch Sketch.

Okay, Unf*ckers. You’re most likely caught up on the last couple of essays, so this is the last sketch we’ll do for today. It’s from Manufacturing Dissent. In it, we feature a rather bored Rupert Murdoch, who gets swept into a modern reverse fairytale version of Pinocchio where a real asshole boy becomes his favorite little puppet.

Listen to Murdoch as Geppetto.

Alright. That about does it I think. Shout out to our friend Tom McGovern, who produces all of the original music for the show. He’s responsible for the updated theme song, the quickie theme and show notes. And I know he and Max have some fun parody stuff brewing on the horizon as well, so we wanted to thank him for his talents.

Of course, our producer 99 deserves a ton of recognition as well. All of the artwork, the Bookshop, social accounts, show notes, and honestly so much more. She does the work of 10 people, so make sure to email her some love or give her a shout out on social.

Another quick thing—Before Max took off, we went over a bunch of the proposed topics, and a lot of them are actually ideas submitted by Unf*ckers and Subf*ckers. Really smart shit. So on behalf of Max and 99, I just want to thank all of you for making our little show here like a real thing. Seriously, we’re blown away by the feedback and the love and support you’ve shown for us since the beginning. You’ve also honored us by supporting the Unf*cking Coffee® Store and our partnership with Native Coffee Traders. I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s one of the most unique ways to fund an independent podcast like this, so Unf*ckers are helping to chart new territory. If you want to learn more about it, check out the website at unftr.com.

We’ll be back next week with a full essay where we ‘Murica-splain Canadian politics with a little help from our friends up north.

Until then. Go Unf*ck yourselves and #FMF. I’m gonna be honest. I didn’t know how much I hated this fucking guy until we started doing this. But, definitely, fuck that guy.

Here endeth the Manny takeover.