An in-depth comedy interview podcast, asking the juicy questions about what make all of us so hot

Lauren and I met doing improv on our all-female improv team called The Sister Wives. Immediately I was like: Lauren is one of the funniest people I've ever met. The things that come out of her mouth are insane. We started out writing a comedy show together called Crazy Hot: The Wet Show (a show about how looking wet is hot). We planned to have several shows following this first show, each with a different theme of something odd that we find really hot: villains, not caring about your job, improv teachers. The Wet Show was set to premier at Caveat NYC pre-Covid - it was written up in the NY Times and then got cancelled. While preparing for our next move, we decided to expand on our idea of how the littlest, strangest things can be really hot in the form of a podcast, and feature comedians who we think are super hot and funny and fascinating.
 

We love comedy podcasts, especially ones where the hosts are just being themselves and not afraid of being weird and silly. I love Seek Treatment with Cat & Pat, and Confronting Demons with Meg Stalter (lovers of those podcasts I think will really enjoy Crazy Hot) because Cat & Pat & Meg are just being their hilarious wild selves and not taking themselves too seriously. The goal with Crazy Hot was to take the idea of a comedy podcast but add the element of body positivity - to lift people up, to acknowledge that yes we live in a society with outrageous beauty standards, but that there is literally something for everyone - your insecurity that you can't get over is so so attractive to someone else. Our pod celebrates all the weird things about ourselves, and while we're doing that, we're just having a blast gabbing with our friends and laughing for hours. Desire is so nuanced and it is fascinating to us. We are genuinely curious about every little thing in our guests' lives and don't shy away from asking sometimes inappropriate intrusive questions!
 

I admit, I thought starting a podcast would be like "oh, fun, a podcast!" It's much more work than I anticipated, and a whole new world I knew nothing about (aside from listening). I'm a musician, voiceover artist and TikTok enthusiast, so I've done a lot of work with mics and GarageBand and Audacity and video editing; I felt okay taking on the editing and composing the original music, but there was definitely a learning curve, and it's a lot more time-consuming than I thought. Our hour-and-a-half episodes take me on average about three hours to edit. Our funding is zero! It's just me and Lauren (although if you listen to the pod, we have several million-dollar sponsors including PJs only for people named Jimmy, Triangle Beds, and Boston Crematorium), and we do all the editing and producing and marketing ourselves. While it's definitely more work than we expected, it's so much fun, and so worth it.
 

We don't have any sponsors (yet) but we're of course open to them! The thing I love most about podcasting is that I get to chat with my friend Lauren and an amazing guest who is often someone I am either personally close with or deeply admire. The fact that they're willing to come on and chat with us makes me so happy, and we always just laugh and have such a blast. It also helps me get my wheels turning since we write bits for each show that are often super silly and get my creative juices flowing. We don't have a huge listenership at the moment, but we are so grateful to our loyal listeners. It's so crazy to think that Lauren and I are saying such silly stuff into microphones alone in our apartments over a Zoom call and hundreds of people listen to it repeatedly, week after week. The fact that they like listening to what we have to say just really warms my heart and makes me want to continue.
 

We have a list of comedians we love who we want to have on the show, and we reach out to them to see if they will. So far, most have said yes, and we're waiting to hear from some bigger names, which would be soooo cool. Before starting the episode, we write the bits (we have advice letters, fake sponsors and a lightning round of questions for our guest) that Lauren and I split and take turns doing each week. We use Zoom to record our calls (video and audio) and then I edit the audio in GarageBand. I usually take a clip from before the podcast officially starts or after it officially ends to play as a short teaser clip at the very beginning of the episode before the intro music comes in. And then during the recording, we have a few questions we always ask the guests, as well as our set segments, but mostly we just let the conversation flow, get to know the guest, and make them feel amazing about themself so that by the end of the show they're like.... "wow. I'm so hot." That's the goal.
 

We're trying to get on every single podcasting directory known to man. So far the overwhelming majority of our listenership comes from Apple Podcasts, with Spotify in second, and Stitcher in third. I would say most of our listeners know about the show from Instagram, where we post little teaser clips of the episodes and where most of our fans know us from. I've definitely found that the most useful, although we also have a TikTok that we're hoping blows up (my personal TikTok has 22k followers so... I'd love if they all went and listened to the pod!! lol).
 

The most useful tool will be knowing how to use the software to edit (I recommend GarageBand or Audacity). Getting really well-versed in one of those will make editing so much faster and less overwhelming, especially if you have episodes that are longer than an hour, or guests that want you to cut parts out. My biggest piece of advice for the actual content of the podcast is... don't think about it too hard. Just be yourself. There's someone out there for everyone, and there is an audience out there for you. The internet is great at bringing people together like that! Show gratitude for your listeners, and don't take it too seriously. You're doing it because it's fun - so make it fun!
 

We can be found most places you find podcasts (I think!!) and would absolutely love for you to listen. You can follow us on Instagram @crazyhotshow, Twitter @crazyhotpod, and my website www.eileenhanley.com/crazyhot. To get Lauren's and my objectively correct advice on your relationship problems that we'll answer on the pod, or to confess that you have a crush on us, email us at crazyhotpod@gmail.com. Thank you so much and don't forget: you're hot as hell!!! <3