Desus and Mero Give a Crash Course in Wokeness
June 22, 2019 11:36 AM   Subscribe

Desus and Mero Aren’t Your Parents’ Late-Night Hosts. They've gone from radio bodega boys to webseries stars to Viceland darlings to their current and most prestigious gig to date - but can the stars of the hit podcast Bodega Boys win over a broader—and whiter—audience on Showtime?

  • Can the stars of the hit podcast Bodega Boys win over a broader—and whiter—audience on Showtime? [TheAtlantic]
    Desus and Mero are well aware that as their audience swells, it will include some white viewers who watch the show less for comic relief than for a crash course in wokeness. Or “a hood safari,” to use Desus’s phrase. The dynamic also works in reverse, though: Desus & Mero is a sort of cultural Trojan horse, using laughs to slip past the gatekeepers, then, once inside, taking over the joint. Somehow they manage to clown a chunk of their audience and enlighten it at the same time. Take me, for instance: I’m a 40-ish white dad who doesn’t need to watch Desus & Mero to know what deadass means, but I’ve picked up some pointers about how to use it in a sentence. Not that I would ever try.
  • The Verbal Wit and Bronx-Born Street Wisdom of “Desus & Mero” [NewYorker]
    They were sharp in combing through tidbits about the rosé habits of Malia Obama, the judo stance of Vladimir Putin, and the legal affairs of Tekashi69. In discussing the blown-out shoe of the Duke basketball player Zion Williamson, Desus said, “If you are an immigrant child and your parents got your sneakers from Payless, you know this pain.” Most remarkably, they managed to keep pace with the absurdity of a music video in which a rapping bottle of fentanyl exhorts a drug company’s sales force to move more product. Their contribution to pre-Oscar festivities was a work of amused disgust targeting “Green Book”; a faux trailer advertised a remake rated WG—“for white guilt”—and glorying in “the story of a white man who had the courage to know a black person.”
  • Desus & Mero Is Already a Late-Night Must-Watch [VanityFair]
    The brand is strong. It’s early to make pronouncements, but the premiere of Showtime’s Desus & Mero still feels like a breath of fresh air, even in the ever-more-crowded landscape of late-night comedy. Their fans are already legion: the pair’s Bodega Boys podcast, and their show on Viceland, amassed enough momentum that the two drew the attention of premium cabler Showtime. And now—in a playing field so dominated by white men that no fewer than three late-night comedian-hosts are named James—Desus and Mero have broken through. Crucially, it’s not just an identity barrier that’s been broken here; it’s a format barrier, too. Desus & Mero feels appreciably different from other late-night shows, especially Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, its biggest competitor. For one thing, it’ll air weekly on Thursdays, making it into a show that says goodbye to the week’s news, instead of scrambling to stay ahead of it. And for another, it minimizes awkward talking-directly-to-the-camera segments, so endemic to late-night news shows, to the point of nonexistence.

  • Additional Links:
  • A Beginner’s Guide to the World of Desus & Mero [Vulture]
  • Desus Nice @ Twitter
  • The Kid Mero @ Twitter

  • Last But Not Least:
    While their Showtime talk show currently asks guests, "What do you want your Bodega Sign to say?", it was the answers to their Viceland talk show's perennial question, "What do you want your Rainbow to say?" that yielded some of the best (and occasionally the worst) from their guests.
    posted by nightrecordings (6 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
     
    I’m at an event write now sittin next to an Associate Producer for this show. Apparently it’s a dream workplace, which is nice to know.
    posted by Navelgazer at 11:53 AM on June 22, 2019 [9 favorites]


    “What do you want your Rainbow to say?”
    There is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can’t be improved with pizza.
    posted by Fizz at 11:53 AM on June 22, 2019 [3 favorites]


    Desus and Mero are fantastic.
    posted by Anonymous at 7:31 PM on June 22, 2019


    They are so much raunchier than my prudish self and are always saying something that makes me uncomfortable and crack me up big time.
    posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:34 AM on June 23, 2019


    I appreciate learning about this. I am a semi-old, and while I am likely to follow along with many of the jokes and references, I am too old to follow web series and I barely track podcasts so I need a heads up to find stuff like this. It sounds fun and it's going right onto my list.
    posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:15 AM on June 23, 2019


    I love them so much. The vibe on Showtime is definitely different - more of a late-night talk show with randos in the live audience vs. hanging out with a small production team.

    Still hilarious and I'm still watching, I really hope they've found a home for good!
    posted by scruffy-looking nerfherder at 8:17 AM on June 23, 2019 [2 favorites]


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