Showtime’s comedy duo had a big 2020.
Next: The brand gets stronger.
They made TV history from a Bronx sneaker closet and a New Jersey basement.
Credit: Greg Endries/SHOWTIME
Their Showtime series,Desus & Mero, hit new heights in the shadow of COVID.
All that plus a best-selling book,God-Level Knowledge Darts, and their hitBodega Boyspodcast.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What’s new this year?
MERO:I had to get a separate shooting space.
I got four kids, a dog, and my wife is home a lot.
[Points to Zoom background] This is an apartment in Fair Lawn [N.J.].
No more working from home!
DESUS:What I’m super excited for this season is, there’s gonna be no Trump.
Even when we didn’t want to talk about Trump, he kept doing things.
It was like wehadto talk about him.
How hard was the transition to filming at home?
DESUS:Now we’re tech geniuses!
We might open a Genius Bar on the side.
You gonna see us fixing MacBooks while we’re doing our monologues.
MERO:We’re children of immigrants, we’re supposed to have multiple jobs.
We have the No.
1 show in late-night, but we’re also members of the Geek Squad.
We are each other’s audience.
Having a crowd was just like a bonus.
We paired back down to the OG version of what we do.
Time is so nebulous now.
Are we gonna be around in October?
Are we even gonna have a functioning government in October?
MERO:Is it October now?
What month is it?
Hanukkah feels like it was two years ago.
Showtime already expandedDesus & Merofrom one night a week to two.
Would you ever do more, like in the Viceland days?
We also have a lot of side projects we’re doing.
Shout out to Showtime: having the show on Sunday night and Thursday night kind of bookends the week.
Those two days just work perfectly.
DESUS:I don’t think you want to see us livestreaming four nights a week.
It’s not fun.
You’re gonna get hot takes from me about aFrasierepisode from years ago that nobody cares about.
Did you expect to become an essential campaign stop in 2020?
We’re just bringing them on our show, doing it our way.
We’re not doing it the way a political pundit show would do it.
DESUS:Having our show be a political stopping point is wild.
We could be kingmakers!
Low-key, we might start taking bribes.
MERO:We’re the hood lobbyists.
You also hit a whole new level of illustriousness with your guests.
Does that raise the stakes for the new season?
DESUS:We’re trying to do back-to-back championships.
Corona tried to stop the wave, and we’re still going.
We interviewed Obama, and now people are like, “Who do you interview now?”
The only person right now we’d get intimidated interviewing is Putin.
MERO:As long as we have a Geiger counter with us around Putin, we’re good.
What’s it like blending humor with heart?
MERO:2020 was a dumpster fire, and it feels like it’s leaking into 2021.
Those moments, like Desus said, people need them.
It’s real stuff that’s really happening, that relates to what’s going on today.
DESUS:We did the sketch parodying his show on our show, and their staff loved it.
It doesn’t feel like we’re competing against these guys.
It’s like we’re all family.
We gotta stick together!
Late night gotta stick together!
MERO:John’s mad cool, man.
And his show and our show are very different.
The only thing that makes us similar is that we’re in the same category for awards.
Is that your plan?
MERO:The book proved that what we do translates to almost any medium.
We’ve done TV.
We’ve done podcasts.
We’ve done radio.
What else is there to do?
So, you know, that’s next on tap.
DESUS:We can still do this for a couple more seasons.
MERO:Rockstar [Games], holler at your boys!
Maybe you need two main characters inGrand Theft Auto VI?
DESUS:Everyone is like, “You and Mero should have a radio station inGTAVI.”
No, we want to be the main characters.
A version of this story appears in the March issue ofEntertainment Weekly,on newsstands now andavailable here.
