‘Very Important People’ Season 2 Premiere Host Vic Michaelis Interview

Dropout’s “Very Important People” has a very important list of guest stars for Season 2. That starts with Anna Garcia (“Superstore”), who plays “Zeke Aaron McKinley,” a fourth grader who was turned into a rock formation after a wish. This season will also feature comedians including Nicole Byer, Chris Redd, Bobby Moynihan, John Early, Kate Berlant, Paul F. Tompkins, Echo Kellum, Lisa Gilroy and Danielle Pinnock.

The premise of the comedic talk show, which comes from the team formerly known as CollegeHumor and host Vic Michaelis, is simple. It starts as a conversation between Michaelis and their guest, who, after a blind makeover, has to think of the character they will play during the interview within five minutes.

Garcia is one of several “VIP” guests from Season 1 and other Dropout stars who have returned this time around, along with big-name stars like Byer, Moynihan and Tompkins. But Michaelis has a long list of dream guest stars for possible future seasons, including Quinta Brunson, Patti LuPone, comedian Elaine Carroll and Dropout CEO (and Carrol’s husband) Sam Reich.

“If Quinta ever wanted to do the show, in a heartbeat,” Michaelis said. “I watch ‘Agatha All Along’ and love it, and if Patti LuPone wants to, she doesn’t even have to play a character, she just has to show up on set and punch me in the face. I would gladly accept it, and we would pay her rate for that.”

Michaelis is interested in having boss Reich (who hosts ‘Game Changer’ and ‘Make Some Noise’, while also running Dropout) as a guest – but is much more interested in Reich’s wife: ‘A lot of people come to comedy in different ways and for me, “Very Mary-Kate,” a CollegeHumor series that Elaine did, was the first thing I saw, and I thought, “I want to do that.” That’s the funniest thing in the world.’ I grew up obsessed with the things that Elaine put on stage, so she is my dream cast. Besides some of the A-listers, she’s who I want to have in the seat someday.

Of course, Michaelis also hopes to cast as many of their friends as possible ‘as humanly as possible’.

“One of my favorite things about the show is that I get to show, in a long setting, my friends, who I can’t express enough, I think are the funniest people on the planet,” Michaelis said. “And I get to watch them crush it in front of an audience five, six nights a week. To show this on a platform, and then see every week how people online are really excited to see them appear, and the characters they create, has really done something good for me as a person.

Michaelis plays a version of himself in “Very Important People” – as someone who doesn’t really want to be there. This character will get a new vibe in Season 2, after the actual show “VIP” received a Webby Award – something Michaelis says will play a big role on set.

“In the first season, the character of host ‘Vic’ has come to this kind of show-like, cable-like but more online web show as a person who thinks he’s too good to be there,” Michaelis said. “They want to be a real newsreader and feel they need to get into real news, and are stuck with this show. So they just do their very best to give hard news interviews to the characters in front of them, hoping that will one day lead them to something. the following is. What’s between the seasons in our real lives is that we won a People’s Voice Webby Award, and so that actually became a pretty big statue this season.

Now that host Vic has gained recognition for being a news personality, they’re kind of stuck in this situation that they didn’t want to be in, Michaelis said as he set up where their fictionalized selves are at the start of Season 2.

“So it’s like they’re tripling down and now they feel like they have something to lose,” Michaelis said. “They might be the ones who get a shot at this bigger news network because they feel like things are really going up. Their personal lives are definitely on the decline. They’re just trying to figure out that they can possibly get some wins in this career sector, while their personal life is really in the toilet. And trying to make it all work in this place that they don’t really want to be in, while also still interviewing these characters. Stretched!”

In the season 2 premiere, the first character Michaelis interviews is Zeke Aaron McKinley (played by Garcia), the fourth grader who was turned into a rock formation after making a wish. He’s an “annoyingly perfect” guest for “VIP,” Michaelis noted.

“When Anna first stepped out – I should say when Zeke first stepped out, because I don’t think I saw Anna on set that day – I curled up in a ball and couldn’t get up,” Michaelis said. “There’s a video where I curled up in a ball, I was shaking and crying, I was laughing so hard. It took me a solid minute before we could settle into the chairs and begin the interview. I was beside myself. And it was perfect. It’s just so pure. That’s what you want when you look at a character. Of course you look at that rock formation and say, “That’s a fourth grader who found a lamp and made a wish, and the third wish they made was for rocks. Yes, absolutely.’ It can’t be anything else. It’s so clean. It’s perfect. It’s insanely perfect. It’s simple, it’s beautiful.”