Vault: The Worst Bit We Ever Tried To Do

Summary

The Bert Show: "Vault: The Worst Bit We Ever Tried To Do"

Podcast Host: Pionaire Podcasting
Air Date: November 17, 2025
Cast: Bert, Kristin, Abby, Cassie, Tommy & more

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Episode Overview

In this throwback episode, the Bert Show crew revisits what they unanimously agree may be "the worst bit we've ever tried to do." The segment centers on reading and riffing on submissions from "The Vent"—a column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) featuring readers' one-liners and petty gripes. What begins as an attempt at live comedy, complete with laugh tracks and improvised “ambiance,” quickly devolves into a hilariously awkward meta-commentary on failed radio ideas, creative desperation, and the agony of bombing on air. The team's self-deprecating banter, willingness to roast themselves, and participation from listeners make for an honest (and very funny) behind-the-scenes look at the art—and perils—of live broadcast comedy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting Up "The Vent" Bit

• [01:32 - 02:19] The bit is explained: "The Vent" lets Atlantans submit anonymous one-liners about the city and life. The cast intends to read and perform these as stand-up, with laugh tracks and ambiance.
  • “It's basically this place where you can send in your commentary about Atlanta, the world around us, something that's bugging you...they pick the cream of the crop and print them in there.” — Co-host ([01:39])

2. Live Comedy in a Faux Diner

• [02:47 - 03:44] The crew builds a "restaurant" ambiance for their stand-up bit, poking fun at each other with made-up MC introductions as if they're at TGI Fridays or the Golden Corral.
  • “We're in a busy restaurant.” — Host ([02:54])
  • “Really good to be at the Golden Corral here tonight with you guys.” — Co-host ([04:30])

3. Reading and Reacting to AJC Vent Lines

• [04:28 - 06:32] The hosts take turns reading actual Vent submissions, often groaning or mocking the lack of humor, and blaming the city’s wit.
  • “You know, the Pandas must have hired Seger's public relations guy…” — Co-host ([04:44])
  • “I think we just evacuated the crowd at Piccadilly.” — Co-host ([04:58])
  • “But it's not Bert's lines. It's the vent lines.” — Co-host ([05:16])
  • “It's Atlanta's fault for this.” — Co-host ([05:20])

4. Meta-Reflection on Bad Content

• [05:20 - 07:11] The team openly doubts their own segment, debating if it's salvageable or just bad radio. They reminisce about previous failed "Vent" bits and joke about the pressure to fill airtime.
  • “I don't know if what we're doing right now is considered good radio.” — Host ([05:34])
  • “That's a failed bit right there.” — Co-host ([07:04])
  • “We need to work a little bit harder in the post show meeting, people. This is the reason right here.” — Co-host ([07:11])

5. Improvising Vent Punchlines: Game Segment

• [07:22 - 10:34] The segment pivots. The host reads the first half of a Vent submission, and others guess the punchline. Awkward attempts and riffs ensue. Callers get in on the action, with both cast and listeners missing the intended punchlines.
  • “It's amazing how those tiny panda cubs grow into such huge bears.” — Host ([07:54])
  • “Can'T even get through 400 traffic.” — Co-host ([08:36])
  • “Everybody ends up where they're supposed to be. Except for those who don't.” — Host ([10:37])

6. Listener Calls: Roasting the Bit

• [09:23 - 09:59 & 12:09 - 12:36] Listeners call in to say that the hosts’ attempts and self-mocking are the funniest part, drawing analogies to trainwrecks you can’t look away from.
  • “No, not the lines. Just the way y’ all are making fun of it. That's hilarious.” — Caller ([09:31])
  • “You know, when you're on 400...you can't stop looking at it. That's what I'm feeling right now...my radio stay right on Q100.” — Caller ([12:11])

7. Self-Awareness and On-Air Recovery

• [11:53 - 12:07] The team leans in, adopting a tone of weary resignation and self-mockery about “good radio.”
  • “You people need to know that sometimes it's just really, really hard to put in quality entertainment every minute of this show.” — Co-host ([11:53])
  • “Well, it was funny yesterday in the post show.” — Co-host ([12:01])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On The Nature of a Bad Radio Bit:
  • “I don't know if what we're doing right now is considered good radio.” — Host ([05:34])
• On Blaming Atlanta for the Jokes:
  • “It's Atlanta's fault for this.” — Co-host ([05:20])
• On the Bit's Origins:
  • “We were sitting in the meeting yesterday, and Bert looked at the calendar, and he goes, God, Wednesday is a gaping hole. We don't have a lot of material. And somehow this idea came up...” — Host ([05:22])
• Listener's Take:
  • “That's funny...not the lines. Just the way y’all are making fun of it.” — Caller ([09:31])
  • “That's kind of what I'm feeling right now. But don't worry. My radio stay right on Q100.” — Caller ([12:11])
• Perfect Summary of the Segment:
  • “You people need to know that sometimes it's just really, really hard to put in quality entertainment every minute of this show.” — Co-host ([11:53])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:35 - 02:20] Explanation of “The Vent” and premise of the bit
• [03:44 - 05:08] The “restaurant” stand-up and first failed jokes
• [05:20 - 07:11] Hosts debate the quality of their own segment
• [07:22 - 10:37] Game: Guess the punchline of Vent submissions
• [09:23 - 09:59] Listener call: Enjoying the trainwreck
• [10:34 - 11:45] Laugh-track punchlines, continued riffing on failure
• [12:09 - 12:41] Listener calls again, analogizes segment to a car accident: “Can’t look away”
• [11:53 - 12:07] Hosts’ self-aware sign-off on “bad radio”

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Tone, Language, and Atmosphere

The episode is marked by:

• Self-deprecation: The hosts are unfiltered and unafraid to call out their own flops in real time.
• Casual Banter: The tone is laid-back, honest, and filled with playful sarcasm.
• Meta-humor: Much of the laughter comes not from the “Vent” lines themselves, but from the cast’s reactions to bombing and the shared experience of creative misfires.
• Listener Engagement: Callers join in, making the best of a bad bit, highlighting the inclusive and authentic community vibe of The Bert Show.

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Summary for New Listeners

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a morning show idea spectacularly flops, this episode is a front-row seat. Starting with the best intentions—turning anonymous one-liners from a local paper into comedic gold—the show slowly realizes that not every experiment works out. Instead of covering it up, they double down, joke about it, and even bring in their loyal listeners to laugh along with their misadventure. By the end, you’re rooting for them not because the bit is funny, but because they are.

Transcript

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[Host/Moderator]

Purchase the Bird show all right, Jen.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Hobby for those that haven't ever actually read the vent in the ajc, what is it?

It's basically this place where you can send in your commentary about Atlanta, the world around us, something that's bugging you, something you think is funny, and it's basically like giving you the opportunity to send in your one liners about what's going on in the world. And so everybody emails in or mails in their one liners to the vent. I think they also have a phone line or whatever, and then they print them up in the AJC every single. And I guess they pick the cream of the crop and print them in there. And so it's just, you know, just sort of a funny way to read. Little opinions about what's going on in Atlanta from Atlantans.

I'm reading over some of the lines. I guess this is the. Is this the event from yesterday?

[Host/Moderator]

This is yesterday's. Yeah.

[Co-host/Commentator]

And it does play out like, you know what if you've ever gone to, like, the improv or a standup comedy act and there's somebody just really bad and you have to do that fault. You know, the false laughter thing.

Right.

That's how the vent plays out to me every single day. And Jeff has highlighted. I'm just reading over the vent that he highlighted for me. And I don't know that there's any way to really pull this off at all.

[Host/Moderator]

Well, I think it's all in the. It's like a sitcom. A sitcom doesn't have to be great as long as you have the proper laugh track.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Well, first you need the proper ambiance. So here we are.

All right.

[Host/Moderator]

We're in a busy restaurant.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yes. I'm doing stand up comedy at the Landmark diner while you come check out the stars there. I am in the front doing my stand up comedy. So all of these are based out of the vent from yesterday. Okay.

We need to pull back the ambiance.

The ambiance a little bit. Well, I haven't hit stage yet.

Ambiance is a little loud.

[Host/Moderator]

Oh, okay.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Well, everybody's still going through the buffet line.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah. You want an introduction?

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah. Buddy Love needs to introduce me.

[Commercial Announcer]

Sure.

[Host/Moderator]

Well, it's not Buddy Love appropriate. We're not in a club. We're in a.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Well, there's usually a warm up guy.

[Health Product Promoter]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Introduce him like you. Like you were your dad.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Commentator]

You're a retired father.

[Host/Moderator]

It's a comedy club, so everybody's just.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Hanging out right now. It's kind of loud. Sorta at the comedy club cafeteria.

[Host/Moderator]

Hey, everybody, thank you very much for coming out tonight. We appreciate you coming by. Don't forget, set your cell phones and pagers to vibrate. For those of you who still have pagers, make sure you turn those to vibrate. We got a great show for you tonight. I just want to remind you, take care of your waiters and waitresses. They're taking good care of you. We also have a two drink minimum, so if you haven't gotten that second one. Order up. It's sure going to help this next guy be funn. Ladies and gentlemen, a very funny guy coming to the stage. Put your hands together for the first time in Atlanta at this particular TGI Fridays, it's Burt Weiss.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Thank you. Not really sure why they laughed right there.

[Host/Moderator]

They said they were a little late on the DJI Friday show.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Really good to be at the Golden Corral here tonight with you guys. Today, I bought Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the office, but then I remembered I work at home.

Yum.

Thanks. You know, the Pandas must have hired Seger's public relations guy. That's all I know. I don't even get that one.

[Host/Moderator]

Hold on a minute.

[Co-host/Commentator]

I think we just evacuated the crowd at Piccadilly.

[Host/Moderator]

Apparently, me introducing Burt gets no quiet, but going hold on a minute shuts everyone up.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Well, you're very authoritative.

[Host/Moderator]

I don't think I can let this go on.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Why?

Oh, it was great.

Oh, it's terrible.

Wait, keep going.

Yeah. I haven't even got.

But it's not Bert's lines. It's the vent lines.

Yeah, these aren't my lines.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, but it's just.

[Co-host/Commentator]

It's Atlanta's fault for this.

[Host/Moderator]

I'm just thinking that we were sitting in the meeting yesterday, and Bert looked at the calendar, and he goes, God, Wednesday is a gaping hole. We don't have a lot of material. And somehow this idea came up, and because it was a big gaping hole in the schedule.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

We said, let's try this. And I don't know if what we're doing right now is considered good radio.

[Co-host/Commentator]

What else you got?

[Host/Moderator]

Nothing.

[Co-host/Commentator]

And the lines you. You highlighted for me also, like, that one's not even funny. The pandemic. Okay, I got one here for you.

[Host/Moderator]

All right, go ahead.

[Co-host/Commentator]

When I hear the big guy, I think a WKRP in Cincinnati, not a Georgia governor wannabe people.

[Host/Moderator]

Oh, you'.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Part of this whole thing is the laugh track.

[Host/Moderator]

You're right. That one's better.

[Co-host/Commentator]

What's the difference between the use of the word now and the phrase at this point in time can't work?

I'm about to take my tray up and scrape my food into the bin.

NBC anchor Brian Williams could make the Ice Cream man is Coming sound ominous.

These people have way too much time on their hands to send these comments in.

Maybe our vent bet was way better than that.

Yeah, because we had done event bet before, where we talked about the entries into the vet event, and we decided to make our own entries and whoever's got in last lost the whole thing.

Who got in first?

We've done it a couple times.

[Host/Moderator]

A couple of times. It's not who gets in first, it's who gets in last. Because every event will get published. So I remember once I lost, like, mine never made it in. And then, like, the next one, I got in, like, four hours after I submitted it.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah. And there's always. But we have so many bets going on the air right now that there's no way to add another one. All right, so that's a failed bit right there.

[Host/Moderator]

Well, how about this?

[Co-host/Commentator]

That's why we need to work a little bit harder in the post show meeting, people. This is the reason right here.

[Host/Moderator]

How about let's. Let's try this angle of the really bad vent bit? Or should we just end it?

[Co-host/Commentator]

If you're reading this time, then we'll continue it.

[Host/Moderator]

Well, what I was going to say is, why don't I give you the first half of the vent and you guys all take a guess and see if anybody can guess what the second half is.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Okay.

All right. They're so random. I don't know.

Well, that's.

[Host/Moderator]

You got to let yourself go. You have to get creative. Like the vent submitters.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Be the vent out of the box.

[Host/Moderator]

They're creatively free.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Be the vent.

[Host/Moderator]

They are the Hemingways of our time.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Right. Okay, got it.

[Host/Moderator]

Melissa, you can go first because you're a thespian. It's amazing how those tiny panda cubs grow into such huge bears. Maybe she needs the rest of my.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Say it again. Cause I can't imagine what the person would have said at the end. Go ahead.

[Host/Moderator]

It's amazing how those. And it's. This is a comical line. This one's funny.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Oh, vent funny, you mean.

[Host/Moderator]

Yeah, or Bircho funny Today. It's amazing how those tiny panda cubs grow into such huge bears and I.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Can'T even get through 400 traffic.

[Host/Moderator]

Jen, your guess?

[Co-host/Commentator]

I have no idea. What is it?

[Host/Moderator]

Steroids?

[Co-host/Commentator]

Let me try this one on you. Why all the excitement about the panda baby? It's just one more child ignored by his father and the government.

Can I get my pecan pie over here?

[Host/Moderator]

Waitress, More coffee. More coffee. We are at an elderly person's diner.

[Commercial Announcer]

Can I get a.

[Host/Moderator]

Can you top off my Sanko?

[Health Product Promoter]

Hi.

[Caller/Listener]

Good morning. How are y'?

[Podcast Host Knox]

All?

[Co-host/Commentator]

Hold on, let me turn off the ambiance. All right.

[Caller/Listener]

That's funny.

[Commercial Announcer]

Oh, no, it's.

[Host/Moderator]

What part of this is funny?

[Caller/Listener]

No, no, not the lines. Just the way y' all are making fun of it. That's hilarious.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Okay, well, you want her to guess the next vent thing, Jeff?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Caller/Listener]

No, no, I liked it better when Bert was doing it.

[Co-host/Commentator]

No, hold on a second. Hold on a second.

Yeah. You think this is funny? We're gonna make you pay for that opinion.

[Host/Moderator]

All right.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

All right, Callie, finish this vent. Everybody ends up where they're supposed to be.

[Caller/Listener]

Oh, God. It's called fate.

[Host/Moderator]

No, Bert. Everyone ends up where they're supposed to be.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Then how come I end up nowhere?

[Host/Moderator]

Melissa. Everyone ends up where they're supposed to.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Be in 400 traffic.

[Host/Moderator]

Except for the panda cubs. Chen. Abby. Everyone ends up where they're supposed to.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Be, including the big guy.

[Host/Moderator]

The correct answer. Get a laugh track. Ready, Bert?

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah, I'm ready. This is the big ending right here, baby.

[Commercial Announcer]

Go.

[Host/Moderator]

All right. Everybody ends up where they're supposed to be. Except for those who don't.

[Co-host/Commentator]

That's one I'm gonna have to sit on today. Thank you, Callie.

[Caller/Listener]

Thank you. Have a good day.

[Podcast Host Knox]

You, too.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Appreciate it. Maybe it was my delivery. Maybe it wasn't the actual line.

No, it's the lines.

No, I think it's my delivery. In fact, I'm gonna prove it to you, Melissa.

Yeah.

[Host/Moderator]

Melissa. I will not go down alone. That's what Burt just said.

[Co-host/Commentator]

The starred one is your line.

[Host/Moderator]

Okay, Ambiance. All right, hold on.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Oh, yeah.

It only works with the ambiance. It only doesn't work with the ambiance.

[Host/Moderator]

All right, we're at the food court of Lenox Square. Melissa's standing at a table.

[Co-host/Commentator]

All right, thanks so much, guys. And remember to tip your. I don't know, the guys throwing the Frisbees over there in the aisle way. All right, listen, I got one last one for you. Now, if you and your son are borderline functional in New York and considered smart here in Georgia, you should go to Alabama, because there you could be brain surgeons.

[Host/Moderator]

Hey, I thought this food court had a Wendy's.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah.

You people need to know that sometimes it's just really, really hard to put in quality entertainment every minute of this show.

Well, it was funny yesterday in the post show.

Good on paper, it was funny.

We were having a good chuckle.

Amy, good morning. You're on the bird show, huh?

[Caller/Listener]

Hey, I just wanted to say that, like, you know, when you're on 400 or something, there's a bad car accident, but you, like, you can't looking at it. That's kind of what I'm feeling right now. But don't worry. My radio. Stay right on Q100.

[Host/Moderator]

You're just driving past the Bird show right now, hoping you see an arm on the road.

[Caller/Listener]

Yeah, I'm looking out there for you.

[Co-host/Commentator]

We are really, really, really testing your loyalty, aren't we?

[Host/Moderator]

You really are.

[Caller/Listener]

But you know what? You got me. So keep on doing good radio.

[Co-host/Commentator]

Well, I think we're past that. Stop doing it.

[Host/Moderator]

I think what you meant to say was start doing good radio.

[Commercial Announcer]

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