My Brother, My Brother and Me is not just funny, it is huge. The structure of the podcast, the party game of it, is that the McElroy brothers – Griffin, Travis and Justin – answer questions given to them by listeners or fished from the frozen depths of Yahoo Answers. They’re offering advice, which we are warned in the opening moments of every episode (by their father, no less) to not take seriously or follow.
These listener questions function as tiny playing fields for the brothers to make each other, and us, laugh. Certainly there’s performance to it – the brothers are all impeccable improv artists – but, especially in the episodes from around 2013-14, there is a real ease they have with one another that gives the listener a feeling of belonging to something: a long, complex in-joke that doesn’t take very long to get in on at all.
Since the show began in 2010, a cultish following has developed around it. Special guests range from Lin Manuel-Miranda and Elizabeth Gilbert to Jimmy Buffett. Several spin-off podcasts have formed and taken life of their own.
It might be best to start somewhere in the middle: In The Mouth of The Mango, or Married to The Mouse King are good introductions. Don’t be worried if you can’t tell the brothers apart at first – they’re very distinctive and their roles become apparent quite quickly. It is my favourite podcast. It feels like being let in on a secret.
