Did you know that for the past few months, Kevin Nealon has been posting episodes of a very DIY web series on his YouTube channel called Hiking with Kevin? It’s a simple premise: Nealon goes on a hike with filmmakers, actors, musicians, and fellow comedians like Adam Sandler, Cheryl Hines, and Howie Mandel and has a casual chat while enjoying nature. Previous episodes were split up into smaller clips, but Nealon decided to go a different route with the three most recent episodes with Conan O’Brien, Chelsea Handler, and Judd Apatow, resulting in fun, roughly 15-minute chats that are a refreshing departure from the more traditional interview format we’re used to seeing/hearing on podcasts and late night television, and they’re full of questions that are as delightfully weird as you might expect from a guy like Nealon.
Check out Nealon’s hike with O’Brien above, where O’Brien gets candid about his insecurities, growing up looking like a “freak show,” the appeal of dark humor, writing for The Simpsons, and why he’s strongly anti-emoji:
O’Brien: I’m not an emoji guy. You know what it is? It’s borrowed creativity. I like to try and be creative by saying something interesting or funny, but when you use an emoji you’re borrowing someone else’s creativity – it’s pre-made, it’s prefab. Nealon: Well, isn’t the language pre-made? O’Brien: No. You can dice and slice the language, but when there are seven smiley faces to choose from and one’s wearing a fez, I wouldn’t say that that’s a great latitude in creative expression. When you get a text that says “I waited 40 minutes for you and you never showed, I guess you forgot,” you don’t then need this face, you know? I don’t need that, do you?!
Watch Nealon’s chats with Handler and Apatow below, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for future episodes.
