This Is Important – Ep 278: "Billionaires Are Going To Mars, Adam Is Going To Bruno Mars"

January 6, 2026 | iHeartPodcasts
Featuring: Adam Devine, Anders Holm (Ders), Blake Anderson, Kyle Newacheck (“Todd”/“Kyle”)

Episode Overview

The crew reunites after the holidays for a freewheeling episode that bounces from TSA adventures and holiday gifting mishaps to billionaires’ space ambitions and pop music debates. Adam shares family stories and his plans to see Bruno Mars in Vegas, Blake laments a tragic neighborhood cat incident, and the group unpacks the surreal realities of wealth, AI, and gym etiquette. As always, the tone is irreverent, self-deprecating, and a bit chaotic, blending absurd anecdotes with surprisingly honest reflections.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. TSA Antics and Smuggling Mishaps

• Adam recounts dodging TSA dog checks because of weed in his bag.
  • Adam: “I don't want to have them stop, look at my cool keychain when I have a duffel bag of marijuana on me at all times.” [04:06]
  • Chloe, his partner, unknowingly attracts a drug dog’s attention, leading to a tense but comical moment at customs.
  • The crew jokes relentlessly about “sniff my bag,” turning it into a recurring innuendo throughout the segment.
• Notable Quote:
  • Blake: “The more you say, sniff my bag, the harder I get.” [04:44]

2. Holiday Reflections: Gifts, Parenting & The Magic of Christmas

• The guys discuss how holiday gift-giving has shifted with age; gone are meaningful or useful gifts, hello to gag gifts and repeated pairs of sunglasses and AirPods.
  • Adam: “Are we at the age where you get nothing that you like for Christmas?...That's the age I’m at.” [13:06]
  • Blake: “Christmas has fallen down like fourth place for me in terms of holidays. Third or fourth.” [13:28]
• Adam describes his toddler Bo’s first understanding of Santa, bringing “the first real Christmas spirit” to life.
  • Adam (on Bo): “‘Santa? He was so excited, dude. He’s German.’” [18:09]
• Recurring complaints about grandparents over-gifting, online shopping abundance, and the struggles of wrapping presents.
  • Blake: “There’s one way to tell someone you don't give a fuck: a gift with a bag and some tissue, dude.” [20:57]
  • Gift cards deemed the ultimate “don’t care” present.

3. DIY Disasters: 3D Printer Pain & Home Repairs

• Blake narrates the saga of assembling a 3D printer “kit” his son received for Christmas—a 12-22 hour ordeal more suited to engineers.
  • Blake: “I cannot tell you guys. I’m learning like, electronics…working with circuit boards, dude.” [29:01]
• Adam laments home repairs: replacing a boat speaker touted as “easy” turned into a four-hour struggle due to missing tools and hardware.
  • Adam: “It took us, like, four hours...Everything went wrong.” [31:50]

4. Gym Tales: Mustaches, Gym Hacks, & Social Faux Pas

• Debate on facial hair authenticity and whether Blake is secretly dying his darker, fuller mustache.
  • Blake: “I’m a man, dude." [11:34]
  • Adam: “It looks great. If you haven’t been dying it—seriously, I think you have—but okay.” [12:48]
• Adam confesses to working out at his gym for nearly a year without paying before being politely confronted.
  • Adam: “I went about a year…then I just kept coming back and never scanned in. And there it was, just high fives and happy to be here. Then it went on for almost a year.” [35:06]
• Awkward moment at the gym:
  • Adam: “I was staring and then she catches me…and I go, 'I’m so sorry. I just think your body looks great.'” [33:21]

5. Pop Music Throwdown: Bruno Mars vs. Ne-Yo

• Adam gears up to see Bruno Mars in Las Vegas and reminiscences on being “blown away” by Mars’ Super Bowl halftime show.
  • Adam: “Bruno Mars blew the lid off that place. I didn't expect him to be as great as he was.” [51:29]
• The group debates Mars’ catalog vs. Ne-Yo’s, with Blake riding for “Year of the Gentleman.”
  • Adam: “Bruno Mars laps Ne-Yo in every way possible.” [54:54]
  • Blake: “I'm just saying he's definitely worse, and I want to know what it is.” [55:13]
  • Clips of both artists’ hits are played and dissected for vibe, authenticity, and “cosplay” accusations—especially toward Bruno’s retro stylings.
• Digression into celebrity encounters, including meeting Ne-Yo on set and Ludacris’ new vitamin/extended warranty campaigns.

6. Billionaires, AI, & Mars-bound Dreams

• The crew wrestles with the acceleration of space travel, billionaire ambitions (Bezos, Musk), and AI’s social ramifications.
  • Adam: “I love the space travel…Why did we give up trying to travel in space? I think it’s sick.” [66:08]
  • Blake expresses anxiety at the lack of a “plan” and growing wealth divide.
  • Blake: “You get to a level where things are so easy that they just don’t matter anymore.” [67:03]
• Quick stats and “math is crazy” revelations about the world’s 3,000+ billionaires holding $16.1 trillion in collective wealth.
  • Blake: “Let me get one billion, guys…If Elon gave you one billion, he wouldn't even notice, and you as a one billionaire could give somebody a million and not even notice.” [74:48]
• Mr. Beast and future billionaire streamers—potential for absurd, destabilizing wealth redistribution.

7. Neighborhood Drama: The Cat Incident

• Blake tells a poignant (yet darkly comic) story of mediating a neighbor’s grief after witnessing her beloved cat’s death.
  • Blake: “Whose cat is this?…I ring the doorbell and I go, ‘Do you have, like, the copper colored cat?...Someone’s cat just got hit by a car. It’s dead.’” [76:37]
  • The emotional aftermath, awkward social navigation, and imagined scenarios about buying replacement cats abound.

8. On Loss, Rob Reiner, and Mental Health

• The passing of Rob Reiner becomes an occasion for reflection on celebrity, family, and health.
  • Adam: “Rob specifically was just an absolute sweetheart of a guy…super nice.” [82:32]
  • Group reflects on the need to stay physically healthy, referencing tragic stories from the Reiner family and the broader challenge of intergenerational support and trauma.
  • Blake: “We have to keep training into our 70s…We have to fight our children someday.” [84:41]

9. Looking Forward: The Cruise & Farewells

• Excitement builds for the upcoming “This Cruise is Important” fan cruise.
  • Adam: “It's really right around the corner…I gotta get in shape for this cruise. But then part of me is like, do I just let it go so I can swallow beers whole...?” [87:36]
  • Discussions of cruise championship belts, potential competitions, and community spirit.
  • They end the episode with Bruno and Ne-Yo deep cuts as outro jams.

Notable Quotes & Moments

TSA Dog Story

• Blake (re: customs): “The more you say, sniff my bag, the harder I get.” [04:44]

Christmas Parenting

• Adam: “It was truly amazing to see, like, the first, like, real Christmas spirit happen in my child.” [18:46]

3D Printer Blues

• Blake: “I Google how long it takes when it arrives because I’m like, maybe I’ll build it that night. Everyone online’s like, it takes 12 to 15 hours.” [28:57]

Gym Confessional

• Adam: “I just think your body looks great…My goal is to look exactly like you.” [33:21]

Pop Music Beef

• Blake: “I'm just saying he's definitely worse, and I want to know what it is.” [55:13]
• Adam: “Bruno Mars laps Ne-Yo in every way possible.” [54:54]

Billionaires & AI

• Adam: “AI is going to make you so much money. And I'm like, but it can't. It's going to make the billionaires into trillionaires and the poor people—are going to be extra poor.” [69:36]

Cat Tragedy

• Blake: “Her face goes from, like, nice old lady smile…to ‘my cat just died.’ I have to walk her down the block to the alley and she scoops it up, old lady style, with her hands.” [77:02]

Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• TSA/Bag Bits: [03:30–06:50]
• Holiday & Gifts/Mustache Debates: [09:10–13:40]
• DIY Parenting/3D Printing: [28:30–31:10]
• Music Segment (Bruno Mars/Ne-Yo): [47:50–56:00]
• Space/Ambition/Billionaires/AI: [65:00–70:30]
• Neighborhood Cat Tragedy: [75:58–78:59]
• Rob Reiner Passing/Reflections: [81:37–83:58]
• Outro/Cruise Talk: [87:34–88:34]

Takeaways

• The episode blends their signature locker-room humor with observations about adulthood, parenthood, the absurdity of modern tech, and pop culture.
• There’s genuine vulnerability, especially in Adam’s stories about parenting and the group’s reflection on loss and health.
• The show traffics in wild digressions but consistently ties back to big questions about meaning, technology, and human connection through friendships old and new.

For fans: This episode delivers all the laughs, awkward overshares, and genuine moments you expect, while also touching on society’s big questions — billionaires, AI, and whether Bruno Mars truly slaps.