After Long COVID-Imposed Break, ‘Adulting’ Comedy Podcast Returns

It has been well over two years since the last episode of Adulting with Michelle Buteau and Jordan Carlos, the wildly entertaining podcast featuring two comedians who have been friends for years and describe the show as a “boozy brunch” or “hangout.”

The podcast returns on Wednesday, three days after the duo’s latest live show in Brooklyn. The end of the podcast hiatus, sparked by the COVID cancellation of live events for the better part of the past two years, also coincides with the show moving to a new home.

Adulting joins the lineup at Exact Right Media, which also houses My Favorite Murder, I Saw What You Did, This Podcast Will Kill You and more.

Buteau and Carlos say the fundamental dynamics of the podcast—answering important listener questions like “should I get a pet turtle” or “how do I tell my boyfriend he’s a bad rapper”—won’t change. But some other things will. There will be more studio recordings and fewer live shows. Some changes are due to COVID and others due to family needs.

“It feels like a proper mix of what we’ve always wanted to do in the first place because, quite frankly, it was hard to keep up with all the live shows before because I had newborn babies,” Buteau says. “This feels just more feasible, which is nice. And obviously the world is a very different place for more than one reason, and so [the change] is not only nice but necessary.”

While they keep the conversation topics light and the comedy top of mind, things can sometimes get heavy. “I’m a southern small talker who can talk about the weather all day,” Carlos says. “But if I have permission and approval, I can get deep, and Michelle brings that out of me. Where it’s like, oh my God, I didn’t think I thought that! You uncover notions, thoughts and theories that you didn’t know that you had within you.”

Between the two of them, Buteau and Carlos have decades of standup experience—“our combined on-stage experience is definitely older than Taylor Swift, maybe even older than the oldest Kardashian,” Buteau muses. That makes the shows flow expertly.

Carlos says if the show were a newspaper, “the headlines and the back pages would be addressed.” Buteau notes that mixing the heavy and light, the front page and the back page, is “the purpose of comedy. It’s the reason why, you know, Saturday Night Live has been on longer than Kris Jenner has been alive. Well, at least her original face.”

Carlos adds, “comedy is very is subversive. If you’re laughing, already laughing, what you can do is tuck a message into that laughter Because then your audience is open and receiving.”

Though the questions are often funny, they can also have serious undercurrents. The podcast often doubles as a group therapy session. “I think people need to hear words of encouragement,” Carlos says. “Because the question has been on their heart and on their mind. Or maybe they’re just Libras, and they just need a lot of people to tell them what to do. You know, they seek a lot of counsel.”

Buteau believes sometimes the best advice can come from someone who doesn’t know you, who doesn’t have a stake in the game. “We’re someone you don’t know who wants the best for you,” she says. That seems reason enough to tune in.