You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes: "We Made It Weird #196" (Nov 1, 2024)

Episode Overview

In this special "We Made It Weird" episode, Pete Holmes and his wife Valerie return after a short hiatus for a wide-ranging, candid, and often hilarious conversation about 80s and 90s sitcom tropes, the evolution of nerd culture, cycles in society and personal growth, food nostalgia, emotional healing, parenting, and their own weirdness. True to the show's spirit, they toggle between sharp cultural critique, deeply personal insights, and lighthearted banter.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Recapping the Hiatus and Show Format

• Pete and Val explain their brief break—due to illness, travel, and focusing on bigger guest episodes (like Anna Kendrick)—before diving into the regular, ad-free, two-person Friday episodes.
  • "We're so happy to be back. And we're rested and ready. Rested and we're ready arrested." (Pete, 00:36)

80s/90s Sitcoms & Nerd Culture (06:03–13:00)

• Pete and Val reminisce about watching Family Matters and dissect how Steve Urkel's nerd persona became the show's focus, representing an era's view on "nerds".
  • Valerie questions, "What the hell was that? What happened in our culture where that was comedy?" (06:14)
• Pete links this to a larger social impulse: breaking tension with people who are "different" (i.e., smart or awkward).
• The idea of "nerd" as a pejorative is challenged:
  • Pete argues, referencing Portlandia, that today's version of "nerdiness" has become mainstream, while "true nerds" are marginalized in subtler ways (10:36–11:22).
  • Valerie posits, "I think in the 80s and 90s, we had Urkel, we had Revenge, the nerds, we had Screech. ... Can you think of any, especially, like, Gen Z or even millennial example of that? Like, we don't." (09:25)

Notable Quotes

• "Comedy has so much to do with aligning yourself with power. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a weirdo. I'm not a freak. Even in your freakiness, you find a way to celebrate it into the mainstream." (Pete, 11:22)
• On the lack of awareness for neurodivergence in the past:
  • "We didn't know about autism or neurodivergence in any way. So that was..." (Valerie, 12:12)
  • "Got any cheese? That's a person who doesn't know how to ask for a snack, and they're doing it at the wrong time." (Pete, 12:17)

Shifts in Societal Moods & the Pendulum of Culture (13:41–22:40)

• Pete and Val discuss how society oscillates between extremes—body humor in the 80s, yuppie culture, political correctness, and today’s backlash to sensitivity in comedy.
• They note that change is both inevitable and cyclical, comparing it to waves and seasons.
  • "Comedy always goes with the seasons and the flows, and then it always, inevitably goes too far." (Pete, 15:51)
  • Valerie: "It feels like the seasonal thing we forget in our personal lives and then we forget on the larger scale too. ... there's just constant expansion and contraction." (17:44)
• Pete relates this to his experience of watching old movies like The Avengers—how even “cutting edge” things quickly become outdated, showing constant movement and change (18:26).

Notable Quotes

• "All growth comes from that. And we go like, why can't it just be pumpkin spice lattes and colonics, whatever you like to do." (Pete, 22:12)
• "The nature of reality is sort of balance, you know... it's better than just staying. And we couldn't anyway. Because nothing in nature is constant and stays nothing." (Valerie, 19:59)

Adversity, Growth, and the Sine Wave of Life (22:41–29:00)

• Pete and Val reflect on the paradoxical relationship between comfort and growth, referencing fasting, micro-disciplines, and the need for "just the right amount of adversity".
  • "We want to be happy doing nothing after you went through something." (Pete, 23:23)
  • Val: "What I like about just the right amount of adversity too much... it seems like they just want to live in the fire. And everything needs to be a constant challenge and opportunity to growth." (24:30)
• Discussion of fasting, discipline, and the challenge of balancing comfort and struggle.

Nostalgia & Food Memories (29:00–43:00)

• Lighthearted discussion about childhood drinks (Country Time Lemonade, Tetley Iced Tea, Kool-Aid) and snacks (Shark Bites, Lunchables) triggering powerful sense memories.
• Pete humorously analyzes "double dust" snack moments—the extra-flavored pistachio or Dorito—and the inherent addictiveness of processed foods.
  • "One out of 15 will be a double dusting. ... This is my gambling." (Pete, 42:30)

Notable Moments

• Valerie’s memory: "I've never wanted anything more in my life." (Valerie, 32:25)
• Pete on childhood snacks: "That Tetley story is a drug story." (38:54)
• Playful banter about underpants vs. ‘briefs’ (34:01), and the difference between "sour" and "bitter" lemonade.

Emotional Honesty & Therapy (47:13–59:30)

• Pete opens up about pre-show anxiety and how he’s learned (through nondual philosophy and therapy) to greet emotions as guests to be held rather than "healed".
  • "Those feelings don't want to be healed. They want to be held." (Pete quoting a teacher, 51:33)
• Valerie shares about tending to difficult emotional states:
  • "The other one is to tend and befriend the feeling." (Valerie, 51:55)
• Pete describes a therapy visualization—"the man in the bar"—representing his inner child’s strategy of seeking external validation, and how he’s learned to comfort and "feed" that part with appreciation rather than shame.
  • "You tell him how brilliant he was. I always cry. ... would you like some help? And then it’s beautiful." (Pete, 56:06)
• Discussion about true autonomy as the only real justice for past wounds (Valerie, 58:42).

Notable Quotes

• "It's crazy that we're born on the backs of catastrophe and we walk around going, why can't things be perfect?" (Pete, 21:55)
• "Autonomy, not needing anything, being able to provide everything I need myself, is justice. It's sort of the only justice." (Valerie, 59:12)

Parenting, The Inner Child, & Reparenting (67:27–74:30)

• Conversation moves to their daughter Leela's development, the importance of protecting childhood innocence, and learning how to manage boundaries as she grows.
  • Valerie: "If she's doing that when she's 25, we have a problem. ... We want to keep that part of ourselves." (68:39)
• Pete and Val touch on the theme of reparenting themselves, referencing the Anna Nicole Smith documentary as an uncanny parallel to their own stories of seeking parental approval via success.
  • Pete: "That's me...when my parents visited us out here and I sent a car service. Oh, my God. I just broke my own heart." (61:30)
• Discuss using playful mental images (sending the "inner child" to the beach or arcade) as a therapeutic tool during tough family visits.
  • Val: "It helped me to be in, like, a hard moment of a visit and be like, thank God little Valerie's just boogie boarding on a beach right now." (69:52)

Notable Quotes

• "There’s a lot of places where you go and it’s like, no, you can’t really be that naked. Yeah, it’s just a cold climate. Put on a jacket." (Pete, 67:27)
• Valerie on nudity as reparenting: "These are the people who didn’t get protected in those tender first seven years, probably. ... And they like, didn’t get that. And [are] getting it now." (71:11)

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• Pete’s riff on sitcom catchphrases and body humor ("cut the cheese"):
  • "If I were to try to summarize the 80s and how the 80s was different than now, it's that we called farting 'cut the cheese.' It's so disgusting." (Pete, 13:41)
• Valerie’s deadpan on tights:
  • "They are underpants." (Valerie, 33:06)
• Humorous talk about what drinks "fit" their personalities—hot chocolate vs. lemonade (29:13–31:24).
• Both reflecting on how family dynamics, therapy, and childhood wounds inform their present:

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:36 — Return from hiatus, explanation, show format
• 06:03 — Deep dive into Family Matters and “nerd” culture
• 13:41 — Discussing cycles of culture, body humor vs. PC culture
• 23:32 — Seeking balance between adversity and ease in life
• 29:00 — Food and drink nostalgia segment
• 47:13 — Insights about emotional healing, therapy, and “holding” feelings
• 51:56 — “Tend and befriend” emotional self-care
• 61:30 — Anna Nicole Smith doc & parallels to seeking parents’ approval
• 67:27 — Parenting, reparenting, and boundary development
• 69:52 — Therapy tool: Imagining your “inner child” in a safe, happy place

Overall Tone and Takeaways

Pete and Val blend lighthearted, self-deprecating comedy with unexpected depth, using pop culture, food memories, and their personal stories as jumping-off points for broader observations on psychological growth, cycles in society, and compassion toward oneself. With their trademark warmth and weirdness, they offer listeners both laughs and hard-earned wisdom.

Keep it crispy!