Each episode of In the Know, a new stop-motion animated series that premieres on Peacock this Thursday, Jan. 25, features a handful of cameos by celebrities playing themselves.
Pop culture figures as varied as Jonathan Van Ness, Kaia Gerber, and Ken Burns appear on a Zoom screen to be interviewed by the show’s fictional NPR host Lauren Caspian, brilliantly voiced by Zach Woods, who co-created the show with his Silicon Valley collaborator Mike Judge and friend Brandon Gardner.
It’s this odd blend of animated characters and real celebrities that makes the show feel alive, as can be seen in the exclusive clip below. In it, the host becomes convinced Mike Tyson used “moody folk music” like Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon to pump himself up before big fights.
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When Tyson says he prefers “the most vile hip-hop,” Lauren comes back with, “Well, Michael, if you like strongly worded hip-hop, you should listen to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rap about The West Wing, it’s deliciously funky!”
“I was shocked by how well everyone rolled with the punches and revealed themselves,” Woods tells me in an upcoming episode of The Last Laugh podcast, dropping this Wednesday. He says Tyson, in particular, was not only “down to clown” but ended up getting emotional and “opining on loss” during their improvised interview.
“Talking to him, it was one of the only times I sort of resented at moments the obligation to be [in character as] Lauren, because I just wanted to ask some questions,” Woods explains. “And at one point I just said, do you ever feel protective of the little kid that you used to be? Because he was up against so much. And he goes, ‘No, he must walk through the fire, he must be burnt.’ And that was like, whoa... that is such an intense thing to say.”
To listen to our new episode with Zach Woods, follow The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Wednesday.
