Before You Were Funny started as a cult-favorite live show and podcast where comedians unearthed their most painfully earnest early work—sketches, scripts, stand-up, poems—from before they found their comedic voice. Hosted and curated by Justin Michael and me, the show earned a loyal following in the LA comedy scene with guests like Jessica Williams, Kyle Mooney, Nicole Byer, Drew Tarver, Lauren Lapkus, and more.
In 2013, Funny or Die tapped us to adapt the show into a three-part web series using the model they’d perfected with Drunk History—a low-budget but high-concept “backdoor pilot” meant to gauge audience interest and industry potential.
In addition to co-creating, co-hosting, and executive producing the series, I served as lead editor and post-production supervisor, overseeing nearly every element of the project’s editorial lifecycle over a year. Working closely with editors Matt Sweeney (SNL) and Kegan Swyers (Funny or Die), producer Andrew Porter (Nathan For You), animation director Harry Chaskin (Robot Chicken), storyboard artist Tom Smith (Beavis and Butthead), character designer Lindsey Gilbert (Robot Chicken), and my co-creator Justin Michael (Infinity Train) I created a post workflow that streamlined the best up-and-coming indie talent for a broadcast-ready format.
My work began with cutting the live-to-tape performances, recorded in front of an audience and featuring top-tier comedy guests including Paul Scheer, Kristen Schaal, Andy Daly, and Eugene Cordero. The edit had to preserve the spontaneous energy of the room while ensuring clarity and pacing for online viewers. This meant shaping long-form performances into tight, punchy segments while maintaining the comedic vulnerability that made the original live show resonate.
A key creative decision involved identifying which moments from the live show could be elevated through animation, much like Drunk History‘s signature reenactments. I selected the featured sketches, edited storyboards into animatics, oversaw animation development, and cut those sequences into the final narrative arc. This required tight coordination with animators, sound designers, and our post team to ensure that tone, timing, and transitions remained cohesive across the hybrid format.
The resulting pilot captured what made the live show special—its blend of humiliation, humor, and creative growth—while elevating it through precise, thoughtful post-production. The hybrid of live performance and animation required a delicate editorial hand and deep understanding of both storytelling and comedy mechanics. The final product retained the soul of the original podcast and live show while showcasing a dynamic visual format ready for broader television development.