Hot Beans

Hot Beans is friendship comedy recorded with the mess left in. The voices at the mic talk over each other, stop to clarify, add a gross-out tag and then lurch into the next bit, and very little of it gets cleaned up afterward. Underneath the noise sits a surprisingly steady running order. Cold opens spell it out: a Kev moment of the week, a round of hot topics, an interview, and a closing game of MFK, with a bonus segment tacked on at least once. The hot topics cover the most ground. Reality TV gets real airtime, including a Bachelor in Paradise finale recap and opinions on who deserved to be the next Bachelor. Sports talk comes with its own announcer-style lead-in, and in one case the subject is Antonio Brown's release by the Patriots. Fast food counts as news too, so the Popeyes chicken sandwich sellout earns a follow-up. Other topics run on fake-serious outrage, like a rant about people licking ice cream and putting it back in the freezer that spirals into jokes about 2020 and Kanye running for president. Even the fires in Brazil turn into a riff about Kev being on his way with a super soaker. Kev is a running presence in general: a segment carries his name, and he keeps turning up in the jokes. The interviews feel like the same hangout with one more chair pulled up. Crystal Lovegreen is introduced as one of the show's best friends, and Josh Fischmann, Reed Tack and Eric Burchfield also sit in. Josh Fischmann's conversation moves from a new engineering job to a Wyoming hiking trip, and he points out that he is from Winona, like every interviewee before him. Winona comes up more than once, alongside Fargo and a Vikings loss, and the audience gets addressed as 'beanheads'. The intern bit is the standout running joke. Jack McSnack is welcomed as the show's intern, supposedly picked from a pile of applications, and a separate episode checks in with Intern Jack in a bonus segment about how internship life is treating him. Personal stories fill the gaps: bottomless mimosas at a Greatest Showman drag brunch, a rough hangover, and Casey pushing through a day of technical difficulties at work. Hot Beans Ep. 45 strips everything back. It is recorded in a car with nothing prepared and Beans snoring nearby, and it works through New Year's resolutions such as learning to 'rub some dirt on it' before a holiday sign-off. The goodbyes are warm, usually a quick round of love-yous. For a first listen, Hot Beans Ep. 9 with Crystal Lovegreen & Intern Jack puts every bit in one place, from the Kev moment through MFK to the intern check-in.