It's hard to believe, but Workaholics is coming into its sixth season. The Comedy Central show about three underachieving stoner bros (who happen to be roommates and coworkers) started in 2011, and since then has seen the ushering in of lady-led comedy (via Inside Amy Schumer and Broad City), Key & Peele come and go, and the network lose its two biggest stars, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Through all those big changes, Workaholics is still here.
That means that entering the sixth season (which premieres tonight), Workaholics is facing a challenge: how do you maintain the vibe that made you so popular, while switching things up enough to stay fresh and funny? It's an obstacle that all the greats have had to face, but only some have been up to the challenge. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia figured out how to stay funny; Parks & Recreation though, struggled as the seasons added up. But if you ask Blake Anderson, who plays Blake Henderson on Workaholics (along with being a co-creator and writer for the show), he's not really worried about it.
Talking to Anderson just as El Niño was hitting Los Angeles, he made it sound like the show could go on for years to come (and he already has a reboot idea). According to him, the jokes are just getting funnier, and building up like never before. That's a pretty tight butthole.
It's bad in L.A. right now, right?
What do you mean, like, mobs in the street?
Nah, it's raining isn't it? People are tweeting about it!
Yes, there is water falling from the sky. I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing.
Fair enough. So talk to me about season six—what's the hardest part about staying funny and keeping Workaholics in a groove?
You know, we just feel so comfortable on set, with playing around and improv and messing around within an episode. We actually felt this season more than ever, that we had to chop so much shit out because we would just take stuff on wild rides. And there's so much funny stuff, but we only get to put in 21-22 minutes of it. So that got a little frustrating.
So the hardest part is that the show is too funny—you guys just have a wealth?
Oh my god, dude, too much good stuff.
What are you most excited for this season?
I just hope everybody still thinks we're fucking funny because we're still having fun doing it. I think we put a lot of funny stuff up in this season, so I'm excited for people to have us on their TVs with some new content.
On set, a lot of the episodes revolve around ragers that you three get into—is the vibe of the show similar to the vibe of the set?
[Laughs.] Well, you got to realize that we're waking up at 6 a.m. pretty much every day. So it's not necessarily a rage vibe, but it's definitely fun. But yeah, we're not high and drunk all day—I'm catching naps for sure.
I feel like as the show goes on, you've had bigger and bigger guests. How does that come about—do you reach out to people or do people hit you up?
It's a little bit of both. People aren't knocking down our doors, but sometimes we'll be on the set of other shows and other movies and people will mention, "I'd love to a spot on the show." Or we could be out randomly at an Entertainment Weekly party and they'll stumble up drunk or whatever and be like, "I got to get on!" And we'll be like, "That dude said he wanted to be on the show!" Then we call their representation and they'll be like, "No...no he doesn't."
Who did that happen with?
Uh, Will Smith.
I read something you said that was interesting where you said Workaholics was the "last bro breed" and it got me thinking about how your show really has lived through peak bro culture. Do you think you guys are the last nail in the bro coffin?
Dude! We're the last of the Brohicans man! I mean, I don't know. The weather of comedy is pretty easy to observe because it all just comes in these ebbs and flows. And yeah, I don't think people are really looking for the white male perspective right now. But I feel like we're such a Three Stooges caricature of that, that it still is very funny. And, you know, we got dicks between our legs and there's a lot of funny jokes to be told about penises.
Agreed. And it's almost getting funnier as you guys get older?
I agree. We've been saying that if we can come back when we're all like 60, that show is going to be fucking hi-lar-ious!
On the topic of getting older, you're married with a kid! What's fatherhood like for you, because we really only know you as this stoner adolescent.
Shit man, well it's a fucking trip, bro. I feel like it's a little cliche, but it's really just indescribable unless you do it. It's a magical thing. It's like, it's deep, bro. It's soul shit.
Have you thought of like, "When is my kid going to watch Workaholics for the first time?"
She already does! I force her to. She's trained—we have a small bear cub jacket, we play improv games every night. She will be on the big screen, okay?
Warning to all famous babies.
That's right—we're coming for you.
So to end this, we have to talk about your 2015 viral moment—your interview with a local Cincinnati TV station. Can you break that down for me?
It's a pretty simple explanation. The night before, the Golden State Warriors had won the championship. That doesn't happen often, or it hasn't happened often in the past—it's probably going to happen often from now on because my squad is deep. I was out celebrating the victory, but I knew I had to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning or whatever. That morning they basically just put me right on set. And I wasn't talking to a human—I was just talking to a camera—so my brain just wasn't on yet. And I was very, very drunk.
But who could blame you?
Yeah, what was I supposed to do? Well, the Warriors won, but I got to tuck in early to talk to Cincinnati, to the talk to the weatherman. Fuck no! I'm going in.
Were you surprised that it got legs on the internet? Because literally, as I was doing research for this, when you Google "Blake Anderson Interview," it takes like four pages to get to an actual interview. Now it's just all these articles about that interview.
I mean, it's a great interview. We watched it in the writer's room a couple times. Everybody had a chuckle about it. Nobody on our PR team or the any of the Dope people got upset. They were like, "Hey that's pretty on-brand."
