‘RS Interview: Special Edition’ With Comedy Duo Desus & Mero
A slice of pizza. The New York Yankees. Waiting for a delayed train on a sweaty, summer subway platform. Desus & Mero.
The comedy duo of Desus Nice (or Daniel Baker) and The Kid Mero (or Joel Martinez) is just about as New York as you can get — and more specifically, just about as Bronx as you can get. But their hyper-local humor and musings hasn’t stopped the bodega boys from gaining notoriety as the funniest guys on late night television, as co-hosts of Desus & Mero on Showtime .
“It’s super regional but we use context clues all the time. We repeat stuff so much you eventually get the references,” says Desus. “You’re just like, ‘look at these guys, these sad Knicks fans on the other side of the country, I hope things go well for them.’”
“New York is just influential on its own, you know what I mean? And I feel like the Bronx hasn’t been part of that package,” says Mero. “It’s alway just like, skyscrapers and brunch, and whatever, and it’s just like, dog, that’s not what the Bronx is like.”
For Desus and Mero, it’s been as simple as that — two New York guys being themselves, and letting their cult following, dubbed the “bodega hive,” in on their running jokes.
“I feel like everything we’ve done up to this point… has worked,” says Mero. “What really holds it together is the back and forth, the banter, the chemistry. And it’s worked in every format.”
So far, the format has been podcasting (as they quickly approach 250 episodes of wildly popular “Bodega Boys,” which was preceded by a 46-episode run of “Desus vs. Mero”), television (currently on the third season at Showtime, after two seasons at Viceland), and a book (with their New York Times-bestselling book of advice, God-Level Knowledge Darts: Life Lessons from the Bronx).
In all of those spaces, Desus and Mero riff back and forth on each other’s thoughts, often ending in places more absurd than humanly imaginable, on any and every topic of the day — from sports to celebrities to politics to music. They’ve interviewed Barack Obama, David Letterman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Anthony Fauci. They recently provided commentary for the Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul fight. And as for what’s next for the boys from the Bronx, the sky’s the limit: And they’ll be the first to let you know it. “We pretty much are the voices of the culture,” says Desus.
For RS Interview: Special Edition, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero spoke about if they will run for Mayor of New York City, the Knicks playoff run, the origins of “yerr,” and where to get the best chopped cheese in the five boroughs.
Desus & Mero on Showtime returns from their season three hiatus on Sunday, June 20th with guest Lil Nas X. Here’s how to watch.
