What's Our Podcast? with Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney – Zach Cherry (December 10, 2025)

Episode Overview

In this episode of "What's Our Podcast?" Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney welcome actor and comedian Zach Cherry (Severance, Crashing) for a meandering, deeply silly, and surprisingly reflective conversation. As always, the not-quite premise of the podcast is that Beck and Kyle don’t actually know what their podcast should be about, so they ask each guest for suggestions—this time, with Zach offering a meta twist: an after-show recap of their own podcast. The episode riffs on everything from Broadway characters and baseball obsessions to the existential benefits of “the bag experience,” offering comedians-at-heart-level insight, irreverence, and unexpected sincerity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter & Recurring Bits

Timestamps: 01:01 – 14:00

• Beck’s Alter Egos: Beck opens the show with bits about “Beck Broadway” and “Beck Delicious,” playing with personas to Kyle’s confusion and amusement.
  • Memorable Quote:
    • Beck: “I’ve always been Beck Broadway. I just kind of, you know, kept it under my hat a little bit. And I’m just kind of letting my… letting the real me come out.” (01:22)
• Pocket Gags:
  • Kyle riffs on Beck pulling “old candy bars” and “string beans” out of his pockets, setting the tone for visual and auditory goofiness.
• Niche Obsessions:
  • The hosts discuss their respective approaches to interests and knowledge: Kyle’s encyclopedic retention of music/baseball facts contrasted with Beck’s more pragmatic, “useful only” learning style.
    • Beck: “You’ve always had more of a natural interest in consuming that information ... I just haven’t really.” (07:16)

2. Hobbies, Obsessions, and the ‘Immaculate Grid’

Timestamps: 08:46 – 10:39

• Kyle admits to obsession over the baseball stats game “Immaculate Grid,” even at the expense of parenting duties.
  • “I gotta wake up with my daughter and make sure she’s fed breakfast. But I’m like, who played for the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Phillies?” (09:19)
• Beck opens up about wanting hobbies outside of career or personal betterment:
  • “For the first time ... I do want to educate myself more on the topics that interest me ... that are just for me and aren’t making me a better parent or … comedian.” (08:12)
• Both reflect on the push-pull of creative ambition versus leisure, and the challenge of letting go.

3. Podcast Process and Meta Reflections

Timestamps: 13:14 – 15:56

• The duo discuss podcast structure, intro bits, and whether the guest should be brought in earlier or even sit silently “with a bag over their head” (exaggerated for comic effect).
  • Beck: “I was thinking… maybe we put a bag over their head or something.” (16:04)
• They welcome new team member Rachelle and say goodbye to previous team member Casey.

4. Welcoming Zach Cherry – Comedy, Careers, and ‘Grinding’

Timestamps: 25:02 – 34:05

• Zach arrives and the trio discuss busyness, life milestones, and the fantasy of retirement (unstructured leisure, video games, reading).
  • Zach: “My ultimate goal is to just be retired…” (26:44)
• Reflecting on the creative “grind,” all agree it never fully leaves, even with success.

Notable Quotes

• Zach: “Honestly, to me, it has basically always felt the same because I kind of don’t ask a lot of questions. I just do the things that show up to me and then hope that more things get to happen.” (29:39)
• Beck: “We’re grinding right here. This is us grinding.” (29:53)

5. Early Comedy Days, Sketch Groups, and ‘Serial’ Parodies

Timestamps: 30:06 – 34:50

• Zach recounts his early days with UCB and his sketch group (with SNL’s Will Stephen), including a “Serial” podcast parody in 2015.
• The hosts confuse “Serial” (the podcast) with cereal (the breakfast food), exemplifying the show’s layered, self-referential humor.

6. Birds, Bodegas & Breakfast Sandwiches

Timestamps: 35:40 – 45:13

• Conversation derails (intentionally) into birds—vultures, condors, and parrots—then morphs into a back-and-forth about NYC bodega sandwiches.
• Kyle: “Those the big birds? Like vultures? Condors. They are crazy looking.” (35:40)
• Zach: “Just a bacon, egg and cheese. Classic.” (43:40)

7. Podcast Structure: The Great ‘Bag-on-the-Head’ Debate

Timestamps: 45:33 – 55:14

• Beck proposes (jokingly) that guests watch the intro with a bag over their head. Zach, as a self-proclaimed “semi-professional podcast guest,” confirms that waiting silently as a guest is the worst part of podcasting.
  • Zach: “The absolute worst part of every podcast is the part where you just sit there waiting to be introduced, talk and you don’t say anything.” (46:59)
• They then amplify the bit, culminating in Zach (later in the episode) actually sitting silently with a bag on his head for the “recap” experiment.

8. Meta-Suggestion: The What’s Our Podcast Recap Podcast

Timestamps: 52:54 – 57:14

• Zach’s pitch: The show should become a “What’s Our Podcast Recap Podcast,” reviewing their own prior episodes for listeners who haven’t (or won’t) listen to them all.
  • “I think it’s time for you to do a what’s Our Podcast Recap Podcast ... go through all the episodes of what’s Our Podcast, you recap them for the fans and for fans like me... For the behind the scenes, what your mood was like on each day…” (53:39)
• Discussion of structure: Would this include feelings, best and worst moments, and which bits to keep or cut (with recurring anxiety over the “bird segment”).

9. Recap within the Episode: Bags on Heads, Community Nicknames, and More

Timestamps: 62:15 – 90:00+

• The hosts perform the “recap” format, this time with Zach wearing an actual bag over his head, narrating how meditative and freeing (and not that weird) it feels.
  • Zach: “You know what it felt like? …it felt like, you know, when you have a chance to just kind of be alone with your phone and scroll a little bit and it feels like a nice kind of ‘you time.’ It felt like that without having to interface with technology.” (69:40)
• They invent fanbase names (“Roccos” and “Rockettes,” with “Bagheads” as another option for the bag devotees).
  • Zach: “I have a feeling that there will be a community of listeners that develops that I’m going to refer to as the Bagheads, who will probably put a bag on their head to listen to the show going forward.” (78:47)
• The gang reviews prior guests, debating which ones would be okay having a bag on their head. It’s all deeply tongue-in-cheek, but reveals group chemistry and ongoing inside jokes.

10. ‘Kyle’s Birds’ Potential Segment

Timestamps: 92:13 – End

• Zach and Beck encourage Kyle to pursue “Kyle’s Birds,” a regular segment where Kyle talks about interesting birds—especially with upcoming guest Tony Hawk (“the Birdman”).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Recap Format:

  • Zach: “As fans, we want to know ... maybe Birds was cut from another episode ... I want to hear these behind the scenes. I want to hear what your mood was like on each day.” (54:05)

• On the Bag Experience:

  • Zach: “It felt like a little meditative … I would check in a little bit, but … there were moments I wasn’t even in this room ... I like, it felt like the way people talk about, like, a peyote trip.” (69:55)
  • Beck: “It’d be so nice to be like, I’m not having fun in this moment. Excuse me. I need to go bag myself.” (94:40)

• On Podcasting & Comedy:

  • Beck: “There’s nothing brilliant about podcasts.” (52:28)
  • Kyle: “Are you a fan of birds?” (93:13)

• On Birds:

  • Beck: “Birds are so cool and they all make different sounds. My dad’s a little bit of a bird guy.” (87:59)
  • Zach: “But the birds, I feel like, is something that was the first moment I felt like we truly, truly, truly connected on.” (89:15)
  • Kyle: “Sometimes I see ... a big old hawk or an eagle? That is like, oh gosh.” (89:46–89:51)

Important Segments with Timestamps

• Opening characters/personas: 01:13 – 04:08
• Kyle on baseball obsession: 08:52 – 09:59
• Podcast structure & ‘the bag’ idea emerges: 16:04 – 16:49
• Welcoming Zach Cherry & retirement/grind life: 25:02 – 29:53
• ‘Serial’ parody & ‘cereal’ confusion: 30:34 – 31:37
• Bird riffing: 35:40 – 36:05, revisited 85:04 – 88:19
• Recap podcast pitch: 53:28 – 54:38
• Meta-recap segment (with bag on Zach's head): 62:15 – 72:05
• Bag experience reflection: 69:40 – 72:03
• Fanbase names (‘Roccos’, ‘Rockettes’, ‘Bagheads’): 78:28 – 79:18
• Birds & LA parrots: 88:26 – 88:44
• Future ‘Kyle’s Birds’ segment promise: 92:13 – 93:35

Flow and Tone

The episode is true to Beck and Kyle’s comedic roots—playful, anarchic, deadpan, and self-effacing. Zach Cherry fits perfectly, seamlessly riffing and gently deepening the conversation. The conversational tangents (e.g., bird talk, breakfast sandwiches, bag-on-the-head experiments) serve as both running gags and commentary on modern podcasting’s meta nature. There’s abundant warmth; the trio is unafraid to tease, self-deprecate, and endorse embracing “nonsense” as community-building.

To Summarize for New Listeners

This episode is both a lampoon of and a love letter to podcasting. It’s about nothing and, in the process, about everything that obsesses, distracts, and amuses creative people. You’ll get whimsical insights about Broadway, birds, breakfast sandwiches, and what it means to be “bagged”—but more importantly, you’ll (probably) want to start calling yourself a Rocko, Rockette, or Baghead.

Best for fans of:
Self-referential comedy, meta-podcasts, inside jokes, and comedians finding joy in the absurdity of the creative grind.

Final Community Shout-Out

• Zach: “Shout out to my Rockettes out there. ... If you could let them know you’re a Rockette, I would love that.” (95:45 – 97:12)
• Kyle: "If you're out there ... go ahead, throw a bag on right now. Send us photos. We'd Love to see you. Definitely not plastic. No plastic bags. I want to go on the record saying, cause people could suffocate." (79:03 – 79:24)

Next week: Tony Hawk is on; expect “Kyle’s Birds” to finally take flight!