Episode #646: Fortune Feimster (icon, legend) joins Bryan & Krissy to discuss her journey, current projects, and, of course, her name! FUBAR Fortune’s 100 city tour Tell us about your terrible holiday! How Fortune got started Finding your voice Storytelling Going from acting to stand up to series to now! Arnold Schwarzenegger The name Fortune The universe! Creating meaning for others Special Guest: Fortune Feimster Special: Crushing It Podcast: Handsome Fortune’s Tour Text us or leave us a voicemail: +1 (212) 433-3TCB Follow Us: IG: @thecommercialbreak TikTok: @tcbpodcast YT: youtube.com/thecommercialbreak www.tcbpodcast.com Executive Producer: Bryan Green Hosts: Bryan Green & Krissy Hoadley Producer: Astrid B. Green Producer & Audio Editor: Christina Archer Christina’s Podcast: Apple Podcasts & Spotify To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened when Fortune met Jax?
So something happened when I met Jax that I did not expect. My mom got a little jealous. Yeah, I remember if I would buy Jax something like a scarf, my mom would be like, I like scarves. I'm like, you're not my girlfriend. Their birthdays are five days apart, which is my nightmare.
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When I was born, she really, really wanted my mom to name me Fortune. She's like, that's the name. I'm telling you, like, that her name's supposed to be Fortune. And my mom really resisted it. And she said I would have to be Miss America to live up to a name like that. So I'm like, how dare you think I couldn't?
Chapter 2: What is the story behind Fortune's name?
The next episode of The Commercial Break starts now.
Oh yeah, cats and kittens, welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Green, this is my dear friend and the co-host of this show, Kristen Joy Holdley. Best to you, Kristen.
Best to you, Brian.
And best to you out there in the podcast universe. It's a Saturday, and yes, we're here just for you. It's a TCB infomercial bonus episode. With Fortune Feimster here today with us, the very famous, all over the place, can't stop her, Fortune. I just love... Oh, my God.
I've been a fan for so long. Very excited about this one. I've seen Chelsea lately and... The Mindy Project. The Mindy Project. I've, you know...
now she's in three stand-up specials now the next netflix specials coming out on tuesday as this is being released the following tuesday uh her brand new netflix special the first two crushing it killed it and so the third one is here and uh no end in sight for fortune can't wait to talk to her so thank you for joining us hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving it's we're we're still in the middle of it that's the best thing about thanksgiving is you
Get out early on Wednesday and you don't go back to work till Monday. It's just lovely. I love it. I love it. A five-day weekend.
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Chapter 3: How did Fortune get started in comedy?
Lots of food, football, Christmas movies, all that good stuff. Family, if you want it.
That's right. If you want it. If you want it. If you want it. If you don't, you're probably listening to the commercial break. Your family has left you or you've left them. And you're like, I really need something.
to undepress me from my depressing family let us be that uh with fortune she'll be here in just a few minutes i was just reading you know she's in that new uh netflix television show foobar yes with arnold schwarzenegger it's like an action comedy and i started watching a few of the episodes in anticipation of fortune being here and it's really funny and arnold is just he's naturally gifted at being the straight man you know what i'm saying yeah
And I sense that he has always wanted to be a comedian. But, you know, his accent and a lot of his size, he's just, that's not what he's built for. But he's really good at playing off people who are comedic. And Fortune is great in this show.
I mean, Kindergarten Cop is pretty fucking funny.
Yeah.
So, yeah, and she's on like this small little tour, and then we'll talk to her about it.
Hundred City.
Hundred City.
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Chapter 4: What does Fortune's tour look like?
No, well, right now she's doing like a smaller, but she just got done with a Hundred City tour. That's unbelievable when you go to a hundred fucking cities. I know. I mean, you would think that would be fun, but I think by city number 20, you're probably like, okay, get me back to my own fucking bed. I mean, you know what I'm saying?
Like when I go on vacation, you know, we went to Europe, we went to Spain for a month and some change last year. And by day number 15, I could have used my own bed, even though there were still some exciting parts of the trip. But in that case, I was doing absolutely no work whatsoever. No. When you go on a 100-city tour, you are just killing it all the time out there, you know, working.
We'll talk to her about it. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, Chrissy, just so you know if I happen to be moody over the next couple of weeks, it's because I've started dipping my toe back in the news water. I have started to watch a little bit of news. I had to turn on that morning Joe and see what Joe and everybody was so up in arms.
And I was like, wait, I think it's a good thing that they're talking. But then I'm listening to Joe and I'm like, no, yeah, you're an idiot. Yeah, you're an idiot.
I haven't delved back into the actual televised news.
No.
I'm just getting mine now from Facebook.
40% of us who watched certain channels like CNN and MSNBC and other news stations have turned off the news altogether. The ratings just plummeted. And so they plummeted so far that Rachel Maddow, the star of MSNBC, like they call her... I think they called her like a ratings boner or something.
Somebody referred to as a ratings boner because ratings get hard when she like ratings go high when she shows up. She took a $5 million a year pay cut to stay at MSNBC. First of all, good for her. She knew that, you know, other people needed to get paid and people would probably lose their $5 million is no small bit. But then I learned that she was making 30.
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Chapter 5: How does Fortune find her voice in comedy?
How terribly wrong did it all go? Yeah, I only want terrible Thanksgiving stories. Don't write me and say all the kids had fun. I don't give a shit, okay? It's not that kind of show. And then just a small reminder, 12 Days of TCB coming up December 13th through the 25th. That's right. Brand new episodes of the commercial break, even on Christmas Day. So happy birthday, Jesus.
Gather around the tree and the fire. Gather around the manger. You got any Sonos? Yes, that's right.
Your Amazon Echo, put it in the manger and your little Christmas. Put it in the manger in your little Christmas village and say, hey, play Brian's Got a Boner, episode number 688. And let us not leave out our Jewish friends. Happy Hanukkah to you, too. I think Hanukkah and Christmas actually align together, my wife was saying to me.
And Festivus and Kwanzaa and Krampus and all that other shit that you guys celebrate. Congratulations to everybody on a... And a job well done on Thanksgiving. I'm congratulating all the people who cooked us food before they actually cook us the food so that I sound generous afterwards. How's that? That's a good tactic. I told myself, I was like, let me say congratulations on great cooking.
Yeah, put it in the universe. Yes, put it in the universe.
That way when I'm complaining about it, it's like two weeks later and no one's really going to know. All right, let's do this. Let's take a short break, and then we'll come back with Fortune here on the studio television, and we'll talk to her about all the magic of telepodcasting. We'll figure it all out. What do you say, Chrissy? I say let's do it. Let's do it. We'll be back.
Brian might have just said it's time to take a break, but some of us have to work right now. And by work, I mean gently nudge you, nay, beg you to follow us on Instagram at The Commercial Break and on TikTok at TCB Podcast. Because listen, the more followers we get, the more clout I get with Chrissy and Brian.
If you've got something to say, give us a call and leave us a voicemail at 212-433-3TCB or shoot us a text. One more thing, check out our website, tcbpodcast.com, where you can find all of our audio and video and even request a new sticker from the contact us form. Bye.
I'm Emma Greed and I've spent the last 20 years building, running and investing in some incredible businesses. I've co-founded a multi-billion dollar unicorn and had my hand in several other companies that have generated hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. The more success I've had, the more people started coming to me with questions. How do you start a business? How do you raise money?
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Chapter 6: What is the experience of performing at the Chicago Theater?
Yeah. He's like, something's not sitting right about this barbecue chicken. Yeah.
so when you do you get do you do like the holiday like round table do you like okay this year we got to spend the actual thanksgiving day with my family and then next year we're going to spend it with your family or is there like a set schedule i always get fascinated by this with people who have i mean a lot of people have partners we did that for a long time many many because we're 10 years in now congratulations thank you
Our first, like, six, I think, we tried to do the, like, we'll go to your family's and then my family's, because that's what my brothers had set up. And then we realized that we don't have kids and what are we doing? We don't have to be there. That's right. And the pandemic kind of did that, you know, where...
We stayed home for the holidays and we were like, oh, this is actually kind of nice because we travel all the time for my tour. So, yeah, unfortunately, one of the things that went by the wayside was going to my family's. But when you don't have kids, I feel like it's different, you know?
Let me tell you something. One of the advantages to being a breeder over here is that when you have children, then you determine, and there's four boys in my family, so I'm one of four. I'm the only one with children. So I get to dictate exactly how the holidays go. And if you don't like it, fuck yourself. I mean, you know, you're not going to see the kids.
You're not going to see your nieces and nephews for the holidays. And I would be like, fine.
Some of my brothers do.
You don't threaten me with a good time. You mean I don't have to spend my family holiday at home watching people rip through presents in five seconds? Right. Yeah.
It can certainly get annoying. Fortune, you're on a bit of a tear right now, I would say. You certainly – I feel like you're everywhere. Like when they said, hey, you want to talk to Fortune? And I was like, oh my gosh, she is everywhere.
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Chapter 7: What can we expect from Fortune's new Netflix special?
How are I know that when we talk to people, sometimes I get sometimes even I feel like, oh, people just popped out of nowhere. But there's a lot of work that comes behind.
Oh, yeah.
There's 10 years of work to get to have your moment in the sun, whatever it is. So and you got your start. You were doing comedy when you were in college.
Is that right? I did some theater in college. No comedy. But it was in the South, in North Carolina. So it was like us trying to do Shakespeare with these crazy-ass Southern accents. And it just... Yeah, I hadn't really been exposed to the comedy part yet, other than growing up watching Saturday Night Live and the reruns of the Carol Burnett show.
So I knew comedy, I loved it, but I did not know you could do that for a living. So I moved to L.A., 21 years ago, which seems wild now. And not to pursue comedy, just I had a job that I was going to do, and it was just kind of a life experience. And I had a really hard time making friends because, you know, in the South, you... Go to a gas station and chat with people.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not like that in LA. Everyone kind of keeps to themselves. You don't really talk to your neighbors. It's a little more isolating. And so I started taking classes at the Groundlings where like Will Ferrell and- Of course. All these people had studied at Kristen Wiig. And the dream was to be on SNL. But again, it was like- I think that's the only way to do comedy is if you get on SNL.
So that was my path for a long time. Once I took these classes just to really just to make friends, it quickly grew into a passion. And I kept getting encouraged to continue. And yeah, it was like discovering something. That was, I think, the greatest gift because then my life had a path now. Yes.
I get this. My personal opinion is you can't be as...
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Chapter 8: How does Fortune balance acting and stand-up comedy?
Yeah, it's just reps, you know? It's getting in there and trying to figure out what works and what your voice is, like what's the personality of the show.
Yeah.
And those two things... I think if you're not creative or you're not in a creative endeavor, it sounds like, well, that's silly. Your voice is your voice. Not really. It takes a lot of time to figure out how you convey that appropriately or how you use that energy in a way. I love your type of storytelling because it's just... I don't know. To me, it scratches an itch in comedy.
There's other storytellers out there that do this really well also. I think of like Kyle Kinane or some of these other people. They're really good at this, but you're extraordinarily talented at taking your life and turning it into something really funny and entertaining. Do you fear family get-togethers sometimes because you use all the material?
Well, if anyone watches Crushing It, this latest one, you'll see I talk a lot about my mom. So she gives me a wealth of material alone. And I talk a lot about my wife, Jax, too. But yeah, I kind of always am hoping that my mom will say something crazy. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
i'm like writing i'm like quickly writing it down because there's one story in my special i talk about my mom falling in a cemetery and and a lot of the stuff i i write i will i'll amp it up i'll like write punch lines and i do a little bit of that in that story but like 95 of the story is just what she said and i was like this doesn't seem real like you don't like
This doesn't seem like what a normal person would say. But that's what makes it so fun. So yeah, I take these moments in my life and people are familiar with my mom now and I just try to spit them back out in a way that's like, how can I? Because my stories are long too. I'm like, yeah. how can I keep someone's attention for eight whole minutes of a story?
And that's been my biggest thing to try to work on and hone was like my, every story is like, you know, six to 10 minutes. So it's like, I got to keep your attention on each one of these stories for a whole hour. Yeah. But it forces me to, you know, work hard at, you know, Coming up with the through lines and punch lines.
And I always try to have a narrative that's sort of a grander theme of the special. And I always try to bring it back around so that there's payoffs from the early things.
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