IAmA comedian, Michael Swaim of Cracked.com. Here's the cast and crew of our movie! Ask us stuff.

You've already publicly talked about how your coworker, Daniel O'Brien, is more of a mentor figure that really taught you comedy, but is it true that he is also a mentor for handsomeness?

SWAIM: No in the sense that such handsomeness can't really be taught. But he did teach me THAT, through a long series of painful and laborious handsomeness seminars/exercises. Yes in the sense that I plan to cut off and wear his face.

ABE: I will burn your little bridge down, tiny troll.

Is it also true he has a receding hairline?

SWAIM: I choose to believe his brow is advancing. To what sinister ends, we know not.

Do you guys have conversations akin to the ones in After Hours?

Also, i love you.

SWAIM: All the time, but they're infinitely less interesting. After Hours is like a three-hour conversation we might legitimately have, with all the terrible jokes, logical dead-ends, and other bullshit cut out, leaving six minutes of good points. In fact, every episode does begin that way...as a round table conversation on whatever the topic's going to be.

Noah: They talk like that all the time. Seriously.

Will any of the cast attend the screenings this week? I'm asking for assassination purposes.

EDIT: I mean, for friend! For a friend! (He's an assassin.)

FBI: Who are you and where do you live?

SWAIM: There will be almost a full cast at the LA and San Diego screenings, and our leading lady Kaitlin Large will be running shit in NYC. So yes, wherever you go, peeps to hang out with.

SWAIM: Or assassinate. Whatever.

How does it feel to know that your old article about games that should be considered modern art ended up picking almost half of the same ones that the Museum of Modern Art agreed on a week ago? Have you played any since then that you think deserve a nod?

SWAIM: AWESOME! I actually had no idea that was the case, because I've had my head stuck in movie mode and also entirely forget things I write a few days after I write them usually. But thanks for letting me know, and the links. That shit cray.

Swaim, what's it like to be so hilarious and attractive?

SWAIM: Unbearable. Every second is a living hell from which only inevitable death offers resolution. THANKS FOR ASKING.

How did you get a movie? Who paid for it?

What is the best case scenario for this Tugg campaign? Could it end in a wide theatrical release, or is this movie a stepping stone to stardom?

Is this movie any good? It's how I'm spending my birthday.

SWAIM: I'm not answering your questions. I'm just expressing a deep and abiding love of your screen name.

Travis: Ketchup Entertainment paid for it. It will probably just be released through Tugg, then we will quickly move to Video On Demand, iTunes and hopefully direct download through our own site. It IS good. But to set the bar low so you'll be shocked at how good it is, I'll say that it sucks. We'll see you in SD. Wear a shirt that says "It's my Birthday!"

SWAIM: Welp, I'm tapping out. Thanks so much to everyone who asked questions, and others on this account, feel free to stick around and answer anything for as long as you like. Look for Kill Me Now and then buy it when you see it! We love you!

Michael, is Soren Bowie really the stud that he seems to be on Cracked.com?

SWAIM: He's more like a playful 11-year-old boy trapped in a Stud's body. He's adorable and intimidatingly manly at the same time. Yes, you want him. No, you can't have him. Live with it.

KATIE: TRUTH.

Finally, an AMA with people I have watched or read for years. Alas, I have no question though. All of you all just keep up the great work! On a side note, best of Muskets... House of the Future or IPN - Nomenclature. Hard to say which is better.

ABE: Thanks cgrant! I also love those sketches! Does the c stand for Cary? That'd be a cool name to have. I'd go to all the parties with that name...

what are the chances of us getting that sequel to Space Jam we've all been waiting for?

SWAIM: Okay, fuck the movie, this page is now a SPACE JAM II FUNDRAISING EVENT. Give us enough Reddit gold and we'll get right on it.

ABE: It truly was the best of jams and the space of jams.

Where do you see Cracked going over the next year or so? How are you competing with more "meta" sites such as Reddit that has anything an internet user could want?

Also, I'd just like to say its been fun watching the site grow over the past years and I will continue to enjoy that said growth.

ABE: Thanks so much for the kind words. We have an audience that's crazy loyal for some reason and we will keep making stuff until people tell us to stop or everyone on reddit says they hate us. We're kind of vain like that. Cracked video is trying its hardest to get bigger budgets and keep churning out hits.

Cracked TV stayed funny even after it turned into Does Not Compute. Your new video content is consistently getting funnier, and I don't have any questions.

Carry on.

SWAIM: Thank you. You have no idea what that means to me, really. Any comedian's greatest fear is that they're becoming rabidly unfunny without realizing it, or that everyone is tiring of their schtick. I'm sure some out there are, or have always hated my shizz, but it's always a thrill to hear from someone who's followed us for a long time and is still along for the ride.

[deleted]

KATIE: We just shot two more episodes of After Hours a week ago, and Michael had mac and cheese on his plate. I kept taking bites off of his plate between takes until he stuck his hand in it so I wouldn't eat it.

And then I was sad.

ABE: Sometimes, sometimes not. In the Indiana Jones episode, I had Katie eat the ice cream because I wanted it to look like monkey brains (TOTALLY DIDN'T READ) but I get to say things I want and people do it. Most of the time if its a burger its no. Because different takes will make it look different and that's a hassle to make 10 burgers for your show. If its fries or chicken nuggets or something that looks like a pile, so people don't care about the continuity. Especially on the internet, everyone's a visual grammar nazi.

Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?

When you get drunk, do you prefer the lampshade-on-the-head route or the pass-out-on-the-floor route?

What is your favorite brand of underwear?

Who is the one person in the world you would love to bang out a delicious meal for while discussing foreign affairs policy?

Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?

Noah: Wow. Good questions. I guess the 100 duck sized horses scare me less than even just 100 ducks. Beaks are creepy, tiny horse teeth seem manageable.

I never remember.

Old navy sale shitty boxers with dumb cartoons on them.

Bob Dylan.

She dead.

Do you get some content from reddit?

ABE: Yes.

Noah: No.

Noah: This is Noah Byrne checking in. Cast member of Kill Me Now. I play the character "Doug". I can only answer weird questions.

KATIE: I love you Noah!

Noah: Katie, I love you too! Come here, we have whiskey.

Noah: Oh yeah, you don't drink whiskey. We have uhh...peanut M+M's? I need better bait.

KATIE: I didn't know ya'll were hanging out. Will the AMA be over by the time I get there?

Okay then, how weird is Katie? from 1 to 10.

Noah: Katie is one of the weirdest people I've ever met. A 10, for sure. I can't tell you all the stories, but I've gotten into and out of some very dicey LA street situations due solely to her knife work.

KATIE: I'm real shifty.

Weird questions, eh? What kind of underwear are you wearing?

Noah: Black+white checkered boxers.

SWAIM: That was a disappointingly non-weird answer, Noah.

Big fan of TAM, you guys are great. Michael, why aren't you on Saturday Night Live? Or whatever it is the kids are watching now a days.

SWAIM: Thanks! I have little interest in living permanently in NYC, which is kind of a prerequisite for a live show. As far as the broader question of why I'm not insanely famous and on your TV right now, NO IDEA.

I hear Swaim and DOB's characters in Agents of Cracked more reflect the other's personality; any truth to this?

SWAIM: Yes! Some amount of truth, ranging from not true at all to the truest thing ever.

Michael, who was your favorite teacher at Ramona High?

SWAIM: Probably Mrs. Whittington or Michael Jordan, Jr. Why, who dis?

Oh, I am a senior there now and saw your picture while looking through an old yearbook my English II teacher had.

World History with Mr. Jordan II was probably my favorite class through out high school.

SWAIM: Does he still play Oingo Boingo music and hold Risk tourneys?

BECK: this is beck bennett from the sketch group, Good Neighbor. Hey everybody. Just popping in for a second to say hi. hi.

KATIE: Hi Beck!!!

LISA: Hey Beck! Will we see you Wednesday?

SWAIM: Hi Beck!

JACOB: This is Jacob Reed from the sketch group Tremendosaur (tremendosaur.com). Sorry I'm late to the party, I've been driving around like a mad man trying to find a WiFi signal in the industrial warehouse district of LA and am now reporting for AMA duty outside what I'm fairly sure is a run down dog food factory. Ask me some questions!

SWAIM: Hi Jacob!

JACOB: Hi! How does this work! Also, strangers have told me I should not be where I am right now because it's not safe. FUN!

SWAIM: Answer anything you want all the time starting now! But be safe first, friend.

Noah: Jacob, looking forward to seeing you again. Don't get Tetanus.

With the exceptions of the Cracked team and BirtaNick, who are the best online comedy group going at the moment, in your opinion?

PS: More Does Not Compute would be pretty cool.

Noah: I absolutely love Dead Pirates Society. They're very young but have a talent for editing/camera work and odd jokes. Also the Dirty Creeps are one of the coolest sketch groups I've ever found. Plus my own, plug here, Horsehead Businessman.

KATIE: Muddleberry is the UCB video team that I'm on... We're brand new (only two sketches so far), but I love what we're doing! Jacob Reed (who plays Noah in Kill Me Now) is Muddleberry's director! Other online teams that I really like are The Mutiny, Dumbshit Mountain, and The Kids Table!

Ooooh! Also Interrobang Ltd!

How are you so damn sexy, Michael? Seriously, you are one hilarious motherfucker. I always look forward to what you do on Cracked. Question... Does a relative of yours work at Econolite? I know someone there who has the same last name as you.

SWAIM: Thank you so much! And hard to say. Not a relative I know, but "Swaim" is supposedly a fabricated, not-real name (so goes family legend), so anyone with that name (as opposed to "Swain," which is much more common) is probably related to me in some way.

"I rode a triceratops to work today, so don't talk to ME about 'impossible' !!" <--who wrote this genius line from AoC ?

SWAIM: Yo.

Michael, can you tell us a little about your upbringing and what your parents were like? I want to make sure my kids turn out like you.

SWAIM: Mom...supportive in the extreme, a child advocacy attorney, daycare sitter, and child psychologist. Huge on Montessori schooling, which I really swear by in retrospect. Dad...fun, cheerful in the extreme, pop culture and music monster, drilled me on jokes, movies and music. They were divorced when I was fairly young, but remain BFFs to this day, something that I really admired and which shaped a lot of my feelings about decency, courtesy, love, friendship, and the world. Together...hippies, lovers, safety. I couldn't ask for better parents or to have had a better upbringing. I'm lousy with privileges over here.

what happened to cracked tv? that was my favorite part of cracked. also tell robert brockway to write more stories like the dio tribute and the conan one lol

SWAIM: What ShavingFoam says is true! And as for DNC, it's been quite a while since I had time to put an episode together, but I do want to pick it back up someday. Just not really sure how soon that will be, unfortunately. The good news is that that is because we've got so many new shows in the works over at Cracked.

What would you say is the most important thing you ever did for your comedy career? Do you do standup, improv, anything else like that or do you strictly do sketch? What is the hardest part about what you do? What does Dan O'Brien smell like?

Noah: DOB smells like Hemingway. Woodsmoke, gunpowder, scotch, machismo.

SWAIM: Personally, the most important thing I've ever done for my career was realize that it is boundariless. I now think of myself as just "a guy." I do whatever artistic collaboration is in front of me, seems fascinating, and will pay me enough to live until the next thing hits. It's one of the tremendous privileges of being born into an era with the Internet. So far so good!

KATIE: Perform everywhere!

ABE: Find some like minded friends and put shoulder to an idea. I don't really believe in individual success. Everything I've liked in my career as a consumer was created by a team of people, not just one person type type typing on a typing machine.

What is a typical day in the life of you or any of the Cracked staff members?

ABE: Boring except on Tuesdays where we all get together and have LAN sex parties. Most of the job is editing and phone calls. Or emails. Mike cries a lot and we have to keep him from wrecking the place in an alcoholic rage. Other than that, pretty norms.

For whoever: If you had a chance to get a free roundtrip ticket to Europe, but on the way there you had to spend the flight in a giant jar of pickle juice from the neck down, would you do it? You'd only have to be in the pickle juice on the first flight, not on the way back. (I can't take real credit for this question, it was my roommate)

SWAIM: If I were allowed to order whiskeys and use the brine as pickleback, I'm totally down.

ABE: God, you're really pushing this pickle back hard. I for one like taking my shots while listening to Nickelback. It actually makes the shot taste worse.

Noah: Mike loves pickle juice. True story. We just left Portland where a lot of bars give you a pickleback with a shot of Jameson. Mike seemed to only care about the pickleback. He would drink that before the flight ended.

KATIE: Definitely.

What was the most stressful part of filming?

Noah: Everyone got the flu. Everyone. Also we were isolated in a tiny cabin in Montrose Illinois, where they have two horses, and that's IT. Also, we had to walk the town of Effingham, begging for extras, who all speculated we were shooting a porno. I remember the girl who worked the counter at Little Caesar's being particularly frightened of us.

SWAIM: All the things. Sleep deprivation was a big part of it, and the fact that due to some extenuating factors we had to purchase all our props and costumes for each shoot day the previous night. There's not a lot more stressful than realizing at 3AM that you HAVE to find a rusty machete in the next few hours or dozens of people will not be able to do their jobs.

KATIE: I got to set with the first of the crew a week before we started shooting. On top of acting, I did a fair amount of the on set photography, and I was there to shoot while we location scouted. Pretty much the moment we landed, my throat started killing me. Long story short, I had a severely untreated tonsillar abscess and had to be hospitalized, on an IV, for 3 days. I was released on Wednesday morning and that night, I shot my first scene. For the majority of the filming, my time table was upside down because of the night shooting so I couldn't remember if I had taken my antibiotics 3x a day like I had to. But honestly, what I loved about filming was that everyone came together when it got down to the wire. Nick Mundy (the Breeze), Noah (Doug), and I all drove people the 100 miles from Effingham, IL to the St. Louis airport and back.

It was crazy, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

ABE: Honestly, it was getting everyone on the same page. The sheer amount of communication necessitated that we all had to be thinking with one mind sometimes. I know that sounds stupid, but if there's a failure of that the position of the lights, where the camera is, what the order of shots are become kind of meaningless.

MATT: We spent 3 weeks dealing exclusively with the same 20 people, 18 hours a day with very little sleep, sometime sick, and always with the weight of a schedule weighing on us. We had to remember to be actively nice to each other, because all the tiny things added up.

Are you more handsome than Soren Bowie?

Noah: I don't think anyone is.

LISA: Hi everybody, this is Lisa Marie King....I play "Becca"....what did I miss?

BECK: This was the best experience I've ever had in my life. I have to go back to playing a rock and roll show that I was in the middle of. Everybody go see Kill Me Now. If you don't, you'll have a bad time. Thanks guys, BYE!

Bye Beck!

I scared up about a dozen asses for seats at the San Diego and Pasadena screenings. Please thank me.

Noah: you're the man, or woman, or blumpkin. Doesn't matter. thank you thank you.

Travis: Thank you.

KATIE: Thank yoooooou!

LISA: Thank you!

JACOB: Nice, thank you!

SWAIM: Thanks!

Thanks for all the laughs over the years! I would like to know...

1) Is Agents of Cracked ever coming back?

2) Do any of you guys ever get recognized in public? If so, is it ever creepy?

3) Favourite cheese?

ABE: 1) No. Sorry. 2) It happens. I'm pretty sure Mike gets noticed the most because he's tall and you can see him easier. 3) It ain't a party unless its Havarti.

KATIE: 1) It isn't, and it makes me sad cause I'm a huge fan! 2) I do sometimes. Carlos, the guy who works at the copy place I go to, is very nice and a huge cracked fan! He gave me eight cents off on my last set of copies... That was pretty cool! 3) Brie. Give me a wheel of brie and I will eat it all.

Noah:

1. dunno, but I loved it, too.

2. Mike gets recognized a decent amount. Including yesterday, on the streets of Portland, by a very cute girl who then tried to get him to donate to repopulating the Oyster beds of Oregon. But yeah, she was cool.

3. Blue of some kind.

Who would you say your biggest comedic inspiration was?

KATIE: Gilda Radner and Buster Keaton!

What porn genre do you watch most?

SWAIM: Internet. It's free and vague!

Not a question: About time!

Definitely a question: How freaking tall are you?

SWAIM: 6 foot 4 on a good day. Less on days on which I am dead, pre-born, or have been cut in half for some reason.

Are you still accepting writers/submissions for Cracked.com via the forum, or is it just more than the poor servers can handle? I've tried in the past to sign up, (saying I want into the workshop) but nothing ever comes of it. Ever think about updating the submission process?

SWAIM: Yes we are! I'm sorry for your technical difficulties, which I am too lazy to personally help you with, but you should look into them, because we do, and that's the only place we do. All outside writers come up through the forums.

No questions here, just wanted to say that you guys have been my favorite source of internet comedy for years now. I can't think of many other comedy websites generate actual attachment to the writers the way you guys do. So thanks, keep up the good work and if you're (read: any of you) ever in Brisbane, holler at your boy. I know sluts.

ABE: Thanks TomFiend! Or should I call you: TomFriend?

Were there any pranks or shenanigans taking place while filming in the Illinois backwoods?

ABE: Our sound guy Brian would keep yelling "ACTION!" like right after we were rolling, sometimes actors would actually start and we'd all laugh and then he got fired because Travis is vain and doesn't want anyone else calling action. I started calling "CUT" prematurely and our movie is worse for it.

Travis: Nick Rutherford would periodically go up in the loft of the cabin and yell "Look at me!" If you looked, you saw his ass.

MATT: The cast got into more shenanigans than the crew. But we'd try to scare each other on creepy sets and in the woods with fake blood. We also did keg stands one night!

How do you deal with keeping yourself motivated? Working on so many different projects, it seems like the pull to just spend a few nights sitting around watching old episodes of Darkwing Duck would be impossible to resist.

SWAIM: Also, I'm not sure. I've been called a workaholic, but also consider myself profoundly lazy a lot of the time. I think the trick is to find a bunch of people that really excite you to work with, and projects that genuinely sound like the coolest thing you've ever gotten to do. Then you dive in and there are deadlines and everyone's counting on you and it's too late to realize it's a lot more work than you thought it would be. Repeat.

SWAIM: Come back! Shane! Come back Shane, come back!

Noah: We play video games, climb mountains, drink, other boy stuff. There's plenty of cartoon watching, too.

Word on the street, Adam Justice from horsehead businessman, went home last night around 2am. home to his wife, kid, and homer. So my question is for Noah's Byrne. Noah's Byrne. Is that a real name? Thank you for such an answer that probably is yelled yesterday and the other day. Also, what is katie's willert?

SWAIM: Adam, what the hell are you on, man? Email some to me.

Noah: Hah. That Tyler? Katie's Willert is kind of awesome, but she takes forever to show you.

Who are your favorite comedians? Writers? Do they have an influence on the way you preform/write?

By the way, big fan. Love everything you guys do on Cracked. I'll definitely be buying the download when it comes out. Congrats!

SWAIM: Louis CK. Groucho. Harlan Ellison. Vonnegut. Hodgman. Colbert. Hannibal Burress. Mitchell & Webb. Tina Fey. Many more. And I can only HOPE those folks influence me. Hard to tell until you're seventy, I think.

KATIE: I said this a little farther up, but Gilda Rander and Buster Keaton. Also, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mitchell & Webb!

Excellent. Just excellent. You're doing good work, Katie.

KATIE: Thank you!

What was the best/worst part of filming the movie? Do you ever shudder suddenly after peeing?

Noah: My bladder quivered the other day, and I felt a pain inside of my groin that almost crippled me. But yeah, I shudder too. What the hell is that about?

That doesn't sound healthy....

Noah: I looked it up, it's either a bladder spasm, an STD of some kind (I'm a virgin), a kidney stone or a UTI. Only happened once, so I'm not sure. Any doctor's here? I can't afford medical care due to my current financial struggle.

ABE: Long hours, we had no sleep one day (at least Mike, Travis, Matt Barrs, and I). I do shutter sometimes after peeing! I just read somewhere that science doesn't know why this has happened because no one has ever put together an experiment. Maybe a call to action, okwilder?

Who did the music for the film? And have there been any UK showings of the film set up? I'd do it myself but everything confuses me nowadays.

TRAVIS: I did most of the music. Additional music was done by Bryant Bell. He's also a hip hop producer known as "Xcel"

NOAH: Travis!

Any on set fights between the cast? And did Dan try to work a vest into his characters wardrobe?

Travis: Michael and Abe had a knife fight like in the Michael Jackson "Beat It" video. Michael won. Abe's dead.

KATIE: Abe's ghost is doing the AMA.

ABE: The cast seemed really to hit it off. A lot of them had never even met but had seen each other's videos on the internet. Some of them even hooked up, but for obvious reason, I won't be getting into that. Dan didn't hook up with anyone, for yes, wardobe reasons.

Noah: Dan showed up, bought and grilled burgers for the entire cast and crew, then vanished like a food angel.

Katie: Those were really good burgers.

Travis: I got a burnt hot dog.

JACOB: Yeah, it was a blast. We shot all night, and went to bed in the morning. So, our last meal of the day was the contintental breakfast at the hotel (whose employees referred to us as 'the daysleepers')

Noah: Totally, even veggie burgers.

most big name comedians of the past 20-30 years seemed to come from second city or groundlings -- is this changing?

ABE: I'm not sure. It still seems the safe bet. I mean SNL is still doing that. But they've also tried different things. Andy Samberg tried a lot of things, but I'd guess his internet videos got him famous. I mean after he was famous his internet videos got him famous.

Hello Mr. S.W.A.I.M.! Big fan of your work, and of Cracked.com, so thanks for doing another AMA!

My question for you: How does your visibility via Cracked.com affect your personal world? It seems that you and your team have gained a lot of momentum and recognition over the past year, and I'm grateful to have watched your careers grow since I started following Cracked in 2008. How do you deal with the intensity and the pressure of being so recognized in internet comedy? How have things changed since you started (and finished) making Kill Me Now?

Thanks again! As someone who has budding aspirations to consider doing some form of comedy, you inspire me quite a bit. I'm looking forward to the release of the film!

SWAIM: The only real difference in my life is that occasionally someone will recognize me on the street and want to talk to me, which I honestly usually enjoy, unless the person is paralyzingly shy, which also happens, and of course makes me paralyzingly shy in that moment. Otherwise I've got my head down, in the bubble, working on the next thing. It's crazy to me that anyone thinks of us as big beans or people who can flex nuts or influence people to get things done...I still very much think of us as struggling comedians just starting out, honing our craft, paying our dues, on the verge of getting to the next level. And I suspect that feeling will never go away, and may in fact be the thing that keeps you working.