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ANTHONY FLEMING III Hey everyone, thanks for checking out Chicago Humanities Tapes — the audio extension and archive of the live Chicago Humanities Spring and Fall Festivals. With nearly 100 events, discussions, and performances each year, our programming connects people to the ideas that shape and define us, and to the lifelong exploration of what it means to be human. For more information on upcoming events and how to support Chicago Humanities through membership, visit chicagohumanities.org.

On today’s episode, actor, comedian, writer, and producer Ed Helms sits down with podcast host and producer Greta Johnsen to discuss his career, his beloved role as Andy Bernard on The Office, and his book SNAFU, which brings you an absurdly entertaining look at history’s greatest screwups. Here’s Ed Helms talking with Greta Johnsen on May 3rd, 2025 at the First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple.

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GRETA JOHNSEN  Hi, everybody. 

ED HELMS Hey. All right. Are you ready for my sermon?

GRETA JOHNSEN [Laughing]

ED HELMS Because yeah, this is intense. Those are that's a lot of stained glass. 

GRETA JOHNSEN So yeah, what's really it's the stained glass that's doing it for you. 

ED HELMS We're gonna get real. We're gonna get holy. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Are we really? 

ED HELMS Yeah. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Okay great. 

ED HELMS We go deep. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Is it true that this is not the first house of faith that you've done a book tour event at?

ED HELMS Yes, that's correct. Last - last night? When was that? What is time? Where did I just come from? Two nights ago, I was in a synagogue in Washington, D.C. So - [Audience clapping] Is that for synagogues or Washington, D.C.? 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's a really good question. 

ED HELMS Yeah, they both deserve applause. They're both fantastic. 

GRETA JOHNSEN So, Ed, congratulations, you wrote a whole ass book. 

ED HELMS Whole ass book! 

GRETA JOHNSEN How does it feel? 

ED HELMS I'm so proud of it. 

GRETA JOHNSEN This thing is packed with so many just like completely wild stories about this great country we live in. 

ED HELMS This wonderful world. 

GRETA JOHNSEN This wonderful world. How has book tour been so far? How far in are you? Can you count the days? 

ED HELMS Yeah, so I started in New York, and then it was Philadelphia, D.C., Atlanta. And then I flew here from Atlanta, which is my hometown. And yeah, and then I will, from here, I will go to Boston and then to San Francisco and then to LA, which is my home now, but I will also be doing an event there. So the tour, this is like right at the halfway point. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh, good. How does it feel so far? 

ED HELMS It's been so fun, and I'm fried, and my voice has dropped like three octaves. Because I'm not getting enough sleep or the airplanes or something. I just feel like - I feel like I'm Barry White all of a sudden. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I mean, I can't imagine, like, I think it's always extra interesting talking to people who do, like write for a profession, especially because they're so isolated all the time. And then the contrast of that to book tour is just like, just seems completely mind blowing. Like at least you're like somewhat used to like a press junket for sure. 

ED HELMS Sure. Yeah, this is different though. Is it? Yeah. This feels more like we don't do this on a movie - you know, to promote a movie. And honestly, on a movie, you just go to one place, usually a hotel in New York or Los Angeles, and you just do a junket where you talk to reporters for two full days. And then all that media spreads out all over the country and the world, and that's doing all the work. But with books, they want you to just like globetrot, just get out and go and like pound the pavement. And it's awesome. Honestly, it's great. I've met so many incredible people. And I can't wait to meet some of you after the show. It's just it's really, I don't know, it's uplifting. 

GRETA JOHNSEN It seems like the energy you would get from getting to do something like this, where you are like sitting in a room and you get to engage with all these humans who are really excited to be here. Like that's gotta be pretty cool. 

ED HELMS It's damn cool. And that's a huge tribute to [Audience clapping] yeah, that's applause for you for being here. Thank you. Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it. 

GRETA JOHNSEN So this book stemmed from the podcast, SNAFU, that you host, right? So tell us like, I would love to know at what point as you're hosting this podcast, are you like, oh, there's actually a book here. 

ED HELMS Yeah, pretty quick. Really? Yeah. So the podcast, just to give you a little context, the podcast came first. The book is kind of an offshoot from the podcast. And the podcast came about because everybody was doing podcasts. [Laughing] And you were doing a podcast. Everybody's doing these great podcasts. And I was like, hey, I want in on that. But then of course it was like, well, what's it going to be? So, I just have always loved kind of just, I've been so always curious about history. I always get sucked into these little like history wormholes that I love going down. And so I was like, okay, I can do history, but what's that then, but I also, I want them to be funny. So what's funny? Like, oh, okay. Like, snafus, like the train wrecks of history. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Mm-hmm. 

ED HELMS The stuff that like is like funny because it's terrible. Uh, that's a good kind of hook or like an organizing principle for the podcast. And so we launched into that, it built a great team of researchers and I'm so proud of the podcast. If you haven't listened to it, there are three seasons out. Uh, God bless you. There's three seasons out and they all, each one is a very deep dive into one thing, like one historical snafu. And it's very immersive. It's a very kind of like cinematic audio experience. Our north star making the podcast was Radiolab. Who are the Radiolabs fans? [Audience clapping] That's an ambitious north star, too. Absolutely. I actually was, I went to college with Jad Abumrad. Oh, of course. And he's a dear old friend. And so I was sort of like a fan of Radiolab back when it was just a WNYC show. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Mm-hmm. 

ED HELMS And then what he did, like what Jad. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Yeah. 

ED HELMS He just blew up audio storytelling in such a crazy cool way, and now it's ubiquitous. Like you go back and listen to Radiolab, you're like, what's the big deal? But no, it's a BIG fucking deal. Like, sorry can I say that here? 

GRETA JOHNSEN I mean, how do you feel about it? [Laughing]

ED HELMS I don't know I'm paralyzed all of a sudden.

GRETA JOHNSEN Alright, now we know [Laughing]

ED HELMS But, no, he really did something special. And so that was like, we just wanted to feel that immersive and that sort of like, so that's the podcast. And then when you research snafus like people, humans are dumb. Like humans are so, we're so dumb and history - when you start to look back at history through this, like kind of polarized filter and you're like, okay, I'm just looking for the fuckups of history. It really, they just start to roll in like an avalanche. And you're like, well, this is too much for the podcast, so gotta write a book. 

GRETA JOHNSEN So here's the book. That's delightful. So you use the term train wrecks, which I think is very apt in this situation. I would love to hear more about your criteria for what makes a snafu because I feel like you are toeing a line here, right? Like it can't be too catastrophic because like Chernobyl is just terrible. Whereas, you know, these things like, sure, trying to put a microphone in a cat, like that's got a humorous angle to it. 

ED HELMS It's horrific in its own way. But no, that's a great question. It's sort of like - it speaks to kind of like the curatorial voice of snafu as a kind of brand, if you will. And I think there are a couple of criteria that are important to me looking back. I don't know that the sort of... Darkness or the human suffering aspect of a snafu is necessarily 

GRETA JOHNSEN A deal breaker? 

ED HELMS A deal breaker because there are -  I think with the right - I mean Mel Brooks made the producers about Hitler and like the you know I feel like the the right lens can kind of like put a fun new spin on things even things that that are fraught. But really the most important thing for our team looking back and researching these things is - what's not in our collective memory or what's sort of like on the fringes that maybe only a few people know about? Because really I want the podcast and the book to feel like discovery for people and also discovery in like  - maybe they knew a little bit about something, but I can give you like a fun new angle. Season three of the podcast is a great example. It's all about prohibition, which everybody knows about. You know, the country passed a law, you can't drink anymore, and a bunch of gangsters shot everybody. And, but everybody knows that, but season three of podcast goes into this really crazy story within prohibition about how the government in its effort to deter people from drinking during prohibition began adding poison to the industrial alcohol supply, knowing that the bootleggers would distribute this to the consumers and that it would be drunk and thousands of people died. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh my God. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Thousands of people died at the hands of the U.S. government. And it's a wild story. It's also kind of a cat and mouse detective story. It's very, very cool. And I hope we made it funny, too, that sounds dark. 

GRETA JOHNSEN It does sound pretty grim. [Laughing]

ED HELMS And it's really, really cool. So that's one of the main things. And then, yes, can we chuckle about it? 

GRETA JOHNSEN I do feel like there's always a sort of like, you can't make this up kind of vibe to it too, like it is stranger than fiction, you know, which I also kind of love about, like I mean the microphone and the cat thing I think is a perfect example. 

ED HELMS Yeah, okay. Okay. So Greta keeps referencing the microphone and the cat. I'll tell you exactly - I'll just tell you this story because it is insane. It is and it does. Yes, so it's the Cold War. It's the 1950s the CIA is looking for all kinds of ways to gather intel, you know, commit espionage and apparently no idea was a bad idea because somebody came to work and said hey, let's cats are good at hearing because they have those cool like cup-shaped ears and they're they're directional and they are also really furtive and everyone like trusts cats. No one's like scared of a kitty cat. So why don't we surgically implant microphones into their ears and then train them to go and like just sit next to bad guys I guess was the idea. 

GRETA JOHNSEN The training piece is where it all falls apart. It's like, do you know a cat? It's like it's not gonna happen.

ED HELMS Yeah. And they invested so much money and time into this thing. And the takeaway was, oh shit, you can't train cats. [Audience laughter]

GRETA JOHNSEN It is wild to me how many stories in this book are about the CIA going on very similar logic journeys as the one you've just mentioned. 

ED HELMS Yup. Another one of my favorites, also Cold War brought out the best in our stupidity, I'll just say there's something about the fear - the existential fear of like nuclear winter that just everyone was doing the craziest stuff. Also in the 50s, there was a plan hatched to shoot the moon with a nuclear warhead. Now you may be asking yourselves, why would one do that? Why would you ever want to do that? The thinking was, and this is pretty solid logic. If we can shoot the moon with a nuclear warhead, the Soviets will see it and they'll be scared shitless. [Audience laughter] So it was basically just a flex. Like, look how awesome we are. We can actually hit the moon. You don't think we can hit you? We can hit the fucking moon. And they went really far down this path. Carl Sagan was part of this research effort. Isn't that wild? Carl Sagan was just out of grad school. 

GRETA JOHNSEN At the University of Chicago, right? 

ED HELMS Is that right? I actually don't know that detail. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I think it might, I think, we'll fact check it, we'll fact check. 

ED HELMS That's cool. That's good to know. He's just out of grad school. He's part of this research team. In fact, the whole reason we even know about this plan to nuke the moon is because one of his biographers discovered in, you know, they're like reading all of his old papers and he had an old fellowship application in which he had listed this as like a resume bullet point. [Audience laughter] And the researcher was like, oh, let me put Carl aside - I'm gonna go down - what the hell is this? And it was uncovered and you know the Freedom of Information Act and all this stuff and so we now know that the CIA really wanted to nuke the moon. Eventually they realized that the slightest miscalculation or malfunction could very easily lead to this missile getting slingshotted around the gravitational field of the moon and just coming right back at us. [Audience laughter] And my guess is Carl is the one who realized that. He should have put that in the bullet. Yeah, let's not do that. Either that or Carl was like, you know what, guys, I like planets. I don't think we should shoot one. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Well, wouldn't it, like, it could mess with the tides and stuff. Like, couldn't it have been, like truly catastrophic?

ED HELMS Oh, sure. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I don't have to talk you out of it. You're right.

ED HELMS No good could have come of it. The other thing they realized is that if they were successful, they hit the moon with a nuclear warhead, like maybe you could kind of see it, but it would just be like a little dust, like a gray dust cloud. And it wouldn't have that scary effect. And I actually love that particular detail, because that is literally Wile E. Coyote, right? [Audience laughter] Like whenever Wile E. Coyote falls down a canyon, he's like poof, just a little... 

GRETA JOHNSEN That is exactly what that is! [Laughing]

ED HELMS And the whole idea is just Looney Tunes. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's delighful.

ED HELMS Like they hired Acme to consult on this project. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Did you watch that TV show White House Plumbers on HBO about Watergate with Woody Harrelson? 

ED HELMS A little yeah. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I feel like a lot of the CIA stories kind of have that similar vibe where it's just like shocking how, like one, what they're getting away with, and then two, also like the just the level of ineptitude. 

ED HELMS Gordon Liddy, I mean, what a just classic American, just classic American. Right there. [Audience laughter] I was gonna use American as an adjective and then I was like, no, the noun is what I need. 

GRETA JOHNSEN It's there .

ED HELMS He's a classic American. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh my god. So a lot of these are, you know, you mentioned the Cold War like further back in American history, but you have some more recent stuff in here too. It was fun to kind of get some extra layers to - especially Beanie Babies. I felt like I loved that one in here. 

ED HELMS Who remembers Beanie Babies? [Audience clapping]

GRETA JOHNSEN Who still has a Beanie Baby? 

ED HELMS Yeah, a lot of people still have them. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's so wild to me. 

ED HELMS We have some, they still sell them. You can still buy them. 

Yeah, sure, I suppose. They were just so, I mean, you know, to think about like the heyday of the Beanie Baby. 

ED HELMS Yeah, it was a it was BFD. 

GRETA JOHNSEN You're not gonna to swear that time. 

ED HELMS Yeah. So Ty Warner was an entrepreneur and he was a toy maker and he invented the Beanie Baby, um and it was very, very popular, of course, as we all know, but what Ty Warner, was actually a mad genius at was like demand manipulation. So he would make sure that stores had like certain stocks of certain Beanies and other stores didn't and there were caps on their numbers. And if any store sold any at a discount, they were cut off from the supply. And he just had all these Machiavellian tactics that basically, and evil geniusly, skyrocketed the price of these things and so people started to see Beanie Babies as investments and that became - which sounds insane? [Laughing] But it was very plausible and people put like lots of their hard-earned savings into Beanie Baby stockpiles. I talked about in the book how that there's a court case - a divorce settlement where they're literally fighting over a pile of Beanie Babies - who gets the Beanie Babies, because they're... They're worth a lot. Of course, it was all fake. It was all just fake market manipulation by Ty Warner. And when that - when everyone sort of suddenly understood that the Beanie Baby bubble burst [Audience laughter] if you will, and a lot of people lost a ton of money. And it's actually a very tragic story at the end of the day. Ty Warner went on to buy a bunch of hotels and is worth tens of billions of dollars to this day. So he's fine. 

GRETA JOHNSEN God bless. 

That's the good news. And also, some very good friends of mine made a movie about this story called The Beanie Bubble. I think it's called The Beanie Bubble, starring Zach Galifianakis. It's on Apple. It is a fantastic movie.

GRETA JOHNSEN I think one of my favorite details from that story is about before Ty even starts manufacturing toys. And I forget, was he an insurance salesman or something? He was like going door to door selling something. 

ED HELMS He never was not conning people, like it was always dodgy. 

GRETA JOHNSEN He drove a really fancy car and would come out of the car in a giant - like it was a big fur coat or something. And yeah, the idea was to make it seem like he was obviously - already had made so much money that why wouldn't you wanna just give him more money? Which is yeah, such a con man move. 

ED HELMS I mean,  maybe... We should elect him president or something.  [Audience laughter] I don't know.

GRETA JOHNSEN Soooooooooooooooo... [Audience clapping]

ED HELMS Uh oh - there's a red dot on me. [Audience laughing]

GRETA JOHNSEN That's a fun joke. [Laughing] In this book, you talk a lot about science and tech stuff, especially like hacking things. I am really curious about a number of layers to that, but one, like I'd love to know how you thought through, like making sure that you're explaining things clearly enough that you know them well enough, but also that you are not getting bogged down in detail. Like I feel like that can be really difficult. Especially when it comes to, you know, more complicated -

ED HELMS Yeah, for sure. I worked with such a great team of researchers and I got mad at them a lot because they were just giving me too much stuff. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Hmm 

ED HELMS And I was like, how am I supposed to write a chapter that's like six pages long? You just gave me 120 pages on a computer virus. No, but it was, I joke, cause I actually love poring through everything. And I guess I just would try to - always try to whittle it down to some way in which I understood it, or it made sense to me, and then just make my wife read it. And, cause she's not going to bullshit me. She'll just be like this - what? What? What is - what are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense. And then I try to fix it. 

GRETA JOHNSEN It's perfect. We need to talk about Jimmy Carter. 

ED HELMS Yeah. 

GRETA JOHNSEN And then I want to talk about Rutherford Falls. 

ED HELMS [Deep voice] We need to talk about Jimmy Carter. 

ED HELMS Guys I'm worried about Jimmy. [Audience laughter] RIP Jimmy Carter.

GRETA JOHNSEN R.I.P. Rest in power. 

ED HELMS There's a great story about Jimmy Carter in this book. I am a true Jimmy Carter fan. I grew up in a very staunch, like Georgia Democrat household. My dad was very passionate about Georgia politics and Jimmy Carter was just a very venerated figure in our household. Even with, even going through teenage rebellion, I was always like, but Jimmy's cool. [Audience laughter] Like, my dad's wrong about everything, but Jimmy's cool. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I feel like that was kind of the general consensus though, wasn't it? 

ED HELMS Well, I think sadly that his more general reputation or his - he has an incredible legacy like when you start to just like evaluate all of his accomplishments and especially post-presidency. But I think that people think he's kind of wimpy which is tragic because - the reason I love this story, that's in this book, which I'll try to tell you quickly. It's 1952, Deep River, Ontario, which is just up the Ottawa River from Ottawa. One of the first nuclear reactors in the world is built there. It's a research facility. And they had - it's full on Homer Simpson level accident happens at this - and I won't go into that now because it's too complicated, but it's like this whole Rube Goldberg moment of accidental mishap. And it leads to a meltdown or - a meltdown starts and they're panicking. What do we do? Oh my God. They call the U.S. government. They're like, can you help us? This is a disaster? And the U.S. military is like, well, we got this kid who is one of our nuclear sub technicians. He's a master of the technology, and he's a good leader. We're going to send him up to help you out. And that was a 25-year-old Jimmy Carter. And he gets up to Deep River, Ontario. And the reactor is melting down, and they have to dismantle it. But the radiation is so intense that. They figure out you can only be exposed to this core for 90 seconds at a time. So they build a replica of the core in - on a tennis court nearby and they start rehearsing dismantling this thing and just like drilling it over and over again, because they're going to do like this tag team, you know, NASCAR pit crew thing where they just run in - one person or, you know, a few people 90 seconds at a time. And they start the work and they're running in 90 seconds a time. They come out and then each time they do something on the core, they do the same thing on the replica outside. So they're keeping track of everything. And then Jimmy's part of the last team that goes in and they get this thing fully done and they prevent the meltdown and there's still a lot of fallout, like there's a ton of like irradiated water. It's still a small disaster, but it's not an epic disaster and they were still worried that these men might suffer consequences from the radiation exposure, like not being able to have children, et cetera. Thankfully, not the case. Jimmy went on to have four very healthy children, but his pee was radioactive for like four months afterwards. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's so wild. 

ED HELMS Pretty cool. [Audience laughter]

GRETA JOHNSEN That is a good one. 

ED HELMS Like, I'm guessing it was all, like, was it green? 

GRETA JOHNSEN That is a really, yeah, I'm picturing it glowing. 

ED HELMS Yeah, or maybe just like a neon yellow. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Maybe - like when you have a lot of vitamins, you know? [Audience laughter] But these are the bad ones.

GRETA JOHNSEN So you talk about this a little bit in the introduction, but I would love to hear - this is a hell of a time to be writing a book about catastrophic events in American history that are a little bit funny, but also catastrophic. And I would love to know how working on all this history, doing all this research, thinking about all these other eras has impacted your perspective on what's happening in this time that we're in now. 

ED HELMS Well, it's oddly - I'm actually really glad that I went down these rabbit holes on these terrible situations. Because - for two reasons - one is that it makes me feel a lot better about a lot of my own bad choices, but in a more macro way, the thing about all the snafus in this book, and some of them feel pretty massive and catastrophic, we got through them, right? People got through, them people persevered, people managed to find a kind of equilibrium afterwards. And that I think is just an important idea to hold on to in moments like this. And that's not to diminish the gravity of the moment we're in or even say - like I would never say everything's gonna be fine - look at every - look read my book everything works out. I would never say that but I think there is - reading about these snafus makes it feel like there's a path and hopefully we can find it, if that makes sense. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That does make sense. 

ED HELMS And I find that reassuring. [Audience clapping] Yeah. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Were there any stories that you wish you could have gotten in here that just like didn't work for one reason or another? 

ED HELMS I mean there - well, there are a lot that I love that are just too public or too sort of like too big, like ones that we went into that I think are really cool and fascinating are like the Donner Party and - I might not - cool is the wrong word for that [Laughing] but it is a fascinating incident. And that might make it into, there's another - the podcast is sort of evolving in season four and I think - 'm eager to tell more stories like that that people know, but just give more detail about. Another one that was really kind of on the chopping block for the book, but didn't really fit the time - the book is organized in decades and it starts in the 50s basically up to the present and - but there's an incredible - one of my favorite snafus from the early 1900s is the Ernest Shackleton adventure. Does anyone know that story? Man, that is so cool. Ernest Shackelton was a polar explorer and led a team on a ship called - named the Endurance on a trek. The plan was to cross Antarctic- be the first to cross Antarctica. Someone had already made it to the South Pole. He's like, that guy's a wimp. I'm gonna cross the fucking thing. [Laughing] And so that was back when like British explorers were just like, it was such a macho thing. But they get down there, they get trapped in the ice, and they live on the boat for months and months. And then the ice crushes the boat and then they live on the ice for months and months, they're just eating seals and penguins. No, not penguin - yes, penguins, and then they have to hike to the shore. The ice is breaking up. So a couple of them take these lifeboats that they hauled with them for like tens of miles and sail a lifeboat to Elephant Island, which is like 200 miles away or something. And then that - but there's no one there. So they have to go to another island and then they land on the wrong side cause the weather's terrible. And so they have the hike over a mountain range. And they get there and it's this tiny whaling outpost. And they're like, all right, we'll take you to Argentina. He goes there and gets a big ship to come back and rescue the people still on Antarctica. And this is over a year and they all survived. Every single person survived. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That is wild. 

ED HELMS And it is so breathtaking. And there was a photographer. There's photographs of this whole thing. And you can see the Endurance just like [Makes cracking noise] in the ice. And it's just incredible. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Has anyone made a movie of that? 

ED HELMS What's that? 

GRETA JOHNSEN Has anyone made a movie of that? 

ED HELMS It's been tried a couple of times. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh, huh. 

ED HELMS And one was fairly recent. I think it's, yeah, it has to be a movie. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I mean, it's epic. 

ED HELMS Right? 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's nuts. 

ED HELMS It feels like I'm pretty Shackleton-y.

GRETA JOHNSEN I wasn't going to say it, but I don't disagree. [Laughing] I want to talk to you about Rutherford Falls because it's a wonderful show. And I think the American history aspect of it actually is kind of resonant with this too. You play Nathan Rutherford, and I think so much of what I found really lovely about that show is the idea of... Your character being a huge American history nerd, but then realizing that there is some reconciliation that needs to happen in terms of his own family's role in his own town's history. 

ED HELMS Yeah. Yes. That show - thank you for bringing that up. I'm so grateful - I don't get asked about Rutherford Falls very often and I'm enormously proud of it. There were two seasons of it on Peacock and then it didn't get renewed, which was heartbreaking because I loved it. I really loved that show. It was a show I developed with my buddy Mike Schur, who was a writer on The Office and then went on to create Parks and Rec and - just so many amazing things. 

GRETA JOHNSEN All the good things, yeah. 

ED HELMS And he and I would always just joke, like, when are we gonna work together again? So at a certain point, we just started having these long open-ended conversations about what was kind of activating us and what would be a cool area? And we were very, kind of blue sky exploratory. And this I think was in the first, this was around 20- I feel like it was during the first Trump campaign. So like 2015, maybe 16. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That makes sense, yeah. 

ED HELMS And so there was just a lot of kind of reckoning with, there was the Charlottesville horrific incident and a lot of reckoning with the past and a lot of people arguing about the past and arguing about American history and specifics of American history and who was a hero and who wasn't. And so we found ourselves kind of gravitating towards a character that was passionate about history and passionate about his own family's history and had a very sort of polished and what would you say? Just a vision of his family's history that was a little rose colored. What am I trying to say? Like buttered up a little bit. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Yeah, yeah.

ED HELMS And like what would happen if that guy who's so passionate about his family that he's actually opened a museum about it.

GRETA JOHNSEN And well-intentioned and earnest. 

ED HELMS Yeah. Totally earnest and like intellectually honest. And he's dealing with all the information that he can get, and that he's been that has been passed down, and he just believes all of it. What happens when when the scales fall off and he learns that his family is actually horrific and participated in horrible things and all the stories that he heard were total horseshit ? And then early in that process, that was sort of this vague notion that we had, early in that process we roped in another brilliant writer, creator, Sierra Teller Ornelas. She's Native American and was sort of challenging us on some of the things we were talking about. And then it was like, well, will you do this show with us? And so then it became this whole other thing and it really became a two-hander about my character and my best friend who is sort of cut from a similar cloth and is Native American and runs her tribal museum. And so they're both history nerds. They love history. They love each other. But what they find out about history kind of throws a lot of sticks in the spokes, as it were. And it was so thrilling and eye-opening and challenging to work on, and yeah, I wish it was still going. 

GRETA JOHNSEN It was so heartfelt and funny and lovely, and it just felt so different than so many things that are on TV these days. I mean, I thought, how many people, how many indigenous folks were in the writer's room, do you remember? At least like a handful, I feel like. 

ED HELMS Oh, yeah. Well, there were probably, I mean, it varied, but there were probably 8 to 10. It was majority Native American. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Yeah, that just, like, looks so different than what most writers' rooms look like.

ED HELMS Yeah, and Sierra became the show runner for the show, so she was the head writer and show runner and directed a bunch of episodes, and the attention and priority that they put on getting the Native American depictions right is just something you don't see in Hollywood very often.

GRETA JOHNSEN Yeah, when the first season came out, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Michael Greyeyes, who's the casino runner in Rutherford Falls. And he said something that I think about all the time - he was talking about representation, and especially when it came to like TV shows about Indigenous people. And he was like, well, you know, we have The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and The Doors and The Clash and The Cure. And so like, yes, Rutherford Falls is wonderful, but so are like all of these other, you know, North of North is another great, more recent example that just came out. I just think that's such a cool analogy for like, yes, like you can't just have the one thing. You need them all to fill out, like to hear all the different versions.

ED HELMS Yes Yes. Amen. 

GRETA JOHNSEN He's such a smart man. 

ED HELMS Yes, Michael Greyeyes is a legend and an absolute delight to work with. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I believe that. Okay, The Office. Speaking of Mike Schur [Audience clapping] here we are. What was it like to come on that show when you did? 

ED HELMS It was - you know, it's funny. I get asked a lot, like, was that terrifying walking into that set? Were you scared? I did one of these chats the other day with Adam Grant. And so he was like, he's all into like imposter syndrome. And he asked me, did you feel like an imposter walking on that set? Which is a good, great question. I mean, I have, we all grapple with imposter syndrome at various times, but it did not - that was not the case when I joined that cast because I was so excited and the cast was so warm. Everyone was so kind and welcoming and I had - Rashida Jones and I were sort of like, we're the new kids. We had each other to commiserate, but very quickly, we didn't even really need each other because everyone was there for us in such a cool way. No one felt threatened or like, I don't know. It's such a special group of people that - it's like one of a million - one in a million. And it was just instantly fun. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's so cool. I love that. I was thinking about the voiceover work you've done too, like with the Lorax and Captain Underpants. And it's so interesting to me to think, like as an adult now, thinking about comedians doing kids' stuff and reflecting on like my first exposure to Robin Williams was as the genie in Aladdin. And like how interesting that is then to grow up and be like, oh wait, that's that guy, you know? And like how much of a trip is that for you being that guy? 

ED HELMS Well, I'm not Robin Williams, but... [Audience laughing] But doing animated movies is the coolest thing ever, it's so cool because it's all in your head for so long and you go into the recording booth and you're just imagining what it looks like and they're showing you drawings and sometimes they're even showing you these really really rough animations called animatics which are basically like kind of stills of what it might look like. But you're still kind of really building this movie in your head while you're recording it, and then you see this whole thing come together and it's just breathtaking, and yeah, it's wild. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's nuts to me. So you don't see, I guess that makes sense that you wouldn't see the final product as you're voicing it. That had not occurred to me though. 

ED HELMS No, I mean, towards the end, you're starting to see things that - but you're - like, the Lorax, I think we were recording for two and a half years? Cause they start recording you right at the beginning. And then the animator - and then they're constantly rewriting. This is like a huge difference between a live action movie and an animated movie is that they're consistently changing it. So you're going back in to re-record scenes - new scenes, and then you find out, oh, that scene's cut now and everything's changing. And it's this very evolutionary process to get to that final movie. And I don't know, you're such a small cog. There's so many creative geniuses that work on those animated movies. And it is funny. The Lorax in particular - I kind of feel like a little bit of a secret weapon in that movie because the Once-ler has like a cult following. [Cheering in audience, laughing] And yeah - but no one knows it's me or like a lot of people don't know it's me. And so, especially young people, young people who are obsessed with the Once-ler don't who it is. And then they're like, it's Andy from The Office? [Laughing] Like, I did this movie Family Switch last year, it was a Christmas family movie with Jennifer Garner. And our kids - one of our kids is played by Brady Noon, who's a really awesome young actor. He's super funny and super talented. And halfway through the movie, he just came up to me and was like, you're the Once-ler? [Audience laughing] I'm obsessed with the Once-ler. I'm like, how obsessed are you? You didn't know who it was. Like you never bothered to divide out who it was? Anyway. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's delightful. 

ED HELMS I don't take credit for that. That story and the art of those characters is what captures people. It's incredible. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's so funny. Does it ever, like, have you, like pulled that out when you've met a kid just to be like, hey, you know the Once-ler? 

ED HELMS No, but I have with Captain Underpants. 

GRETA JOHNSEN How do they react to that? 

ED HELMS They don't believe it. [Audience laughter] That's the number one reaction. It's like, no way. And then I'm like, [Singing] Tra-la-laaaa [Audience laughter] And they're like, oh my god. Oh my god. And they pee themselves. [Audience laughter]

GRETA JOHNSEN And then you got to clean up the pee. So we're going to switch to audience Q&A. 

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so Ed, what letter grade would you currently assign to our collective national intelligence agencies? [Audience laughter]

ED HELMS You changed the question. It is what letter grade would you assign to our collective national intelligence today? 

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh, you're right. I did change it to agencies. That's wild. Thank god you can also see this screen. [Laughing]

ED HELMS Is that up or down versus the last few decades? I think national intelligence would be different from like our institutional intelligence. Like governments. But I think that we're in a terrible state. I don't know, C minus? An F in many cases. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I was going to say C minus is still passing, right? 

ED HELMS Right? No you're right. It feels like civics - just basic understanding of the ways that our government works and our history - these are things that most people don't know, don't care about. And it seems like that's what makes us so vulnerable to the influence of, well, when you don't understand the world around you and the way that your government works and how it's structured, it leads to this like untethered feeling, which is a nice way of saying anxiety. And when you're anxious and you're fearful, you're so much - you're going to have more primal responses to things. And I think that's how people, you know, vast swaths of the country line up behind a strongman because it feels like that's strength - that can fix my anxiety. And it's, I don't know. It's so - and it also makes - I think it makes people vulnerable to conspiracy theories. When, for example, they don't understand what peer reviewed papers are or the scientific method is and how it works. And the sort of culture of curiosity and, yeah, it feels like we're in a stew of - we're struggling with not knowing enough. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Yes, you put that very well. So what are some tactics that you use to find humor in catastrophe? 

ED HELMS That's not on there. [Audience laughing]

ED HELMS It was! Well it was, do you have go-to tactics? So I guess it could be a yes or no question if you would prefer. 

ED HELMS Well, it was my job for many years on The Daily Show. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Yes, I wondered how much I had to do with it.

ED HELMS I was on The Daily Show during the Bush administration and that was - the W administration - and that was really fun and exciting. And I think satire is just such a exciting tool to allow us to laugh at these painful things and these sort of scary things. If you can find the right satirical angle, or find somebody that is providing that for you, it can be such a powerful release and a way to step outside of something. Comedy needs ironic detachment to function. So, and that detachment can be very healthy and very helpful at times. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Well, and joy is resistance, right? 

ED HELMS What's that? 

GRETA JOHNSEN Joy is resistance. 

ED HELMS Sure. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Do you want to talk about the banjo or do you want to talk about the different characters that you've played? 

ED HELMS Uh, uh... 

GRETA JOHNSEN They're both on there. [Audience laughter]

ED HELMS What got you into the banjo? Banjo music. I love it. [Audience laughter] I love it. Have I played with Steve Martin? Yes. Numerous times. And, yeah. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's really cool. 

ED HELMS He's incredible. 

GRETA JOHNSEN So of the characters that you have played, which one would you say is the most Ed Helms-y? 

ED HELMS Ooh. There are different parts of me in different versions. I think Andy, there's a lot of me, there's more of me than I care to admit in Andy. [Audience laughter] But what's funny about Andy is that like, he's sort of what - he's in real life what's going on inside of me a lot. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Ohhhh.

ED HELMS So like he's me with lower emotional intelligence, fewer editing mechanisms, you know, like, and fewer just sort of tools - far less therapy, [Laughing] but there's a lot of ways in which I just intuitively understood Andy that - and I got what was funny about him and I got what motivated him and what scared him. And so yeah, there's a lot of me in him. The character that I like to think is most like me is actually Rusty Griswold, that I played in the Vacation movies, because he was - like Stu from The Hangover and Andy from The Office, they're just all fear, they just are operating from like terror about everything going on around them at all times, no matter how mundane or benign. And then, Rusty... Rusty was def - not like an alpha, but he he still had like this - cool - he was like - he didn't get rattled. He didn't get triggered. Rusty could still like be in a situation where somebody gets the upper hand, but he would still walk away and be like fuck that guy.

GRETA JOHNSEN Hmm.

ED HELMS You know what I mean? And I just always loved that he had this equanimity and it kind of like, he kind of knew where he stood in some ways. I've way over thought Rusty Griswold at this point. [Laughing]

GRETA JOHNSEN So who's the most different, would you say? 

ED HELMS Oh my gosh, I just did a movie - this little tiny independent movie in Canada and I played a hockey coach who's like evil. 

GRETA JOHNSEN [Laughing] Oh no. 

ED HELMS Yeah. Like a high school hockey coach. Who's like abusive to his team. He's like really aggro and screams at these kids and the director - I got the script and the director was like, we love you for this because like no one will see it coming. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Yeah. Yeah.

ED HELMS And I was like, yeah, I didn't see it coming. Like - [Audience laughter] good god. But then I was like, this is a really exciting challenge and it's a beautiful movie. It's a very poignant movie. And I loved that. And so I took it on. So that'll be -

GRETA JOHNSEN That's cool. 

ED HELMS I don't scream at children. [Audience laughter] I'll tell you that.

GRETA JOHNSEN Is there a release date for it yet? 

ED HELMS Is what? 

GRETA JOHNSEN Is there a release date for it yet?

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh, no, no. It literally just wrapped a couple weeks ago. 

GRETA JOHNSEN All right, we'll keep an eye out. Given the fact that The Office is such a comfort watch for so many people, someone wanted to know what your favorite comfort show or movie is. 

ED HELMS Um... Seinfeld. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Mmm. 

ED HELMS Is one that just always lands for me. I still go back to it a lot. My family, my wife and our girls, we like to watch - there's a beautiful sort of short movie that Apple made called Here We Are. Does anyone know that? It's based on a book by Oliver Jeffers, a children's book. Oliver Jeffers, beautiful writer, illustrator. And it's a beautiful, it's a kids - it's an animated movie, but it's so peaceful and it's just gorgeous. There's another kids show that I love and my daughter is now saying she's too old for. But I'm like, no, no we're watching this. And it called Puffin Rock, does anyone know Puffin Rock? [Laughing]

GRETA JOHNSEN [Laughing] I love puffins. 

ED HELMS It's about a bunch of puffins who live on Puffin Rock. And Chris O'Dowd, the Irish actor, is the narrator and I can listen to him read the dictionary. Like, his voice is so - just lovely and lilting and kind and that's what this show is. And it brings me a lot of pleasure. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's really sweet. We've been watching the IT crowd, which is also Chris O'Dowd, but I feel like is the exact opposite. 

ED HELMS Yeah, for sure. A young Chris O'Dowd. Yeah, that was a feisty - yeah. That's a that's a deep cut. That's from like 20 years ago, right? 

GRETA JOHNSEN Yeah, we finally got Brit Box. It was a really exciting time for us. Aside from Shackleton, are there any historical figures that you'd like to play? 

ED HELMS Oh, um... Hmm...

GRETA JOHNSEN Let's manifest. 

ED HELMS Yeah. All right. Yeah, I guess, well there's okay - so season - there's a couple of stories from the podcast that I love. I just love. I want to tell you one actually, if I can, this will take a minute. But to answer the question first, season one of the podcast is this crazy story about a NATO military exercise that the Soviets - this is in 1983, still Cold War - NATO would do this annual military exercise called Able Archer. And it was all above board - the Soviets knew about it - but they would do these massive troop movements. And it was basically just rehearsing like, what if a nuclear war happened? How would we handle it? And so, but this particular year, they initiate this exercise, but because tensions are so high for a number of very specific reasons, and we go into great detail in the podcast, the Soviets see this exercise as possibly a cover for an actual invasion. And so the Soviets are afraid that NATO is going to attack them. And they ratchet up their nuclear posture and we clock that - ratchet up our nuclear posture and it becomes this insane nuclear standoff that nobody knew about. This was completely under the radar and it took this one historian doggedly digging after this to finally reveal it and it's a hilarious, terrifying, and moving story and we're trying to turn that one into a movie and there's a character in that I'm super excited to play. That's a long answer to that. So season two of the podcast is also an incredible story that again, we want to turn into a movie. I don't know who I would play in this, but this story, I really want to tell you because it's very powerful and it's also instructive to this moment that we're in right now. It's 1971 and the city of Philadelphia is a hotbed of political activism, it's not known for that now, but in the '60s and '70s, it was like ground zero for a lot of civil rights activism and anti-Vietnam War activism. A lot of the activists are feeling like they're being harassed, bullied, surveilled illegally by the FBI. And they're sure of it. And they had, there's nowhere to turn. They can't just like call up the FBI and say, hey, can you look at yourself because you're not- you're breaking the laws. And so a small group of activists realizes that they have no recourse. And the only thing they can do is break into the FBI. And steal files, which they do. They stage a very elaborate heist at phenomenal risk to themselves and their families. And they break into the FBI and they steal all the files. Now this is pre-hard drive. So every branch office of the FBI has every file basically. And this is a field office in Media, Pennsylvania, which is a suburb of Philadelphia. They steal all of the files, they go back, they pore through them. They're reading through them, they find documented evidence of these horrific actions that are just trouncing on the civil liberties of people, particularly people of color and what they might think of as hippies, basically all the political enemies of J. Edgar Hoover. And they find evidence, they package these up, they make copies, they send packets to senators and reporters and everyone chickens out. They all send it back to the FBI. Except for one person, a young reporter at the Washington Post named Betty Medsger took it to the Washington Post brass, Ben Bradlee, and they had a big row about it. This is pre-Watergate, by the way. So pre - and it's pre-Pentagon Papers. Like they hadn't - Washington Post - no one had ever received stolen intelligence before. And this young reporter, Betty Medsger, is like, we're fucking publishing this. And to get it out there, this leads to, just to shorten the story, it basically leads to the total downfall of J. Edgar Hoover. He's revealed for the criminal he was. He was a national hero right up until this. Had a very well cultivated and curated image. And he was finally revealed for what he was. It led to the Frank Church hearings, which is a famous congressional investigation in which they uncovered COINTELPRO, which was the counter-intelligence program, which was essentially the sort of rubric under which all of these horrible illegal actions were done and documented within, you know, in the FBI files. The Church hearings are the only reason we have any congressional oversight over all of our intelligence institutions, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and it's all because of these seven people that screwed up the courage to commit this burglary. And then they, they picked Betty Medsger as one of the people and she got it done. And it's phenomenal. And by the way, that's a moment - the J. Edgar Hoover years of the FBI are some of the darkest in our law enforcement history as a country. And I think that is a moment to look back on, and just - for what it's worth. And I'm not saying it's worth everything at all, but it's something to know that some courage got us through that period and actually out the other side of it. And we're clearly tumbling towards something that feels close to what that was in a very scary way. But there might be light at the end of the tunnel if courageous people do incredible things. [Audience clapping]

GRETA JOHNSEN Yes, yes, yes. 

ED HELMS And I would play anyone in that movie, just to be clear. 

GRETA JOHNSEN I think courage and a free press, right? I mean... That's a big one.

ED HELMS Yeah. A press that's not cowed. And there were voices within the Washington Post. Saying, don't you dare. I'm so proud of season two of the podcast. I'm proud of all three seasons, but that is a very powerful one. Betty Medsger participated with us. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh my god. 

ED HELMS She's in the podcast. 

GRETA JOHNSEN So cool. 

ED HELMS She wrote a book called The Burglary, that came out in 2014, that's like the full accounting of all of it. And she became very close with all the burglars who were never caught. They were never caught. They never squealed on each other and no one - they were never caught, but eventually the FBI closed their investigation. And so they were - they came forward. We spoke to, they're not all still alive, but we spoke to the ones that are alive. They're all in the podcast. I'm getting chills talking about it.

GRETA JOHNSEN I mean that's amazing. 

ED HELMS It was so powerful. I did one of these talks in New York City a couple days ago. Betty came to it and got a standing ovation when I... 

GRETA JOHNSEN I mean, yeah, that's amazing. That's really cool. Someone wants to know what your favorite Daily Show assignment was. 

ED HELMS Um... 

GRETA JOHNSEN Was it Alaska? 

ED HELMS It was - [Laughing] oh, I did go to Homer, Alaska. Yeah. Your home state. Um no, that one, that's not, that was pretty good, but probably my favorite, was, well, there's two that kind of compete there. One was the - this was early on. One of my first segments was... Katie Couric had just gotten a colonoscopy on camera, and a lot of news reporters were getting medical procedures on camera. Which was honestly good reporting, because these are important things to report on. But also, they were a little sensationalized and a little like - kind of look how courageous I am to some of it. And so, of course, we had to make fun of it, and so I got - we did this like very dramatic medical piece in which I got a mole removed and it was such a - it's just such a clean joke and those are the best ones when the joke is like very simple and that was a fun one. 

GRETA JOHNSEN That's delightful. I think our closing question should be about Nard Dog. 

ED HELMS Alright. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Because someone wanted to know how that nickname came to be?

ED HELMS Oh uh, gosh, how did... 

GRETA JOHNSEN Was it the writers? Do you remember? 

ED HELMS Yeah, I think it was the writers. There was a really cool thing that happened on The Office and I think happens on any great TV show, which is that there was this beautiful feedback loop between the writers and the cast where we would improvise something or just like say something in a funny way. And the writers would be like, oh, we have to do more. They'd see that and like do more of that. And then of course the writers are constantly endowing our characters with new traits or things and we're picking those up and running with them. And so it's just this really fun collaboration. And Mike Schur was always, for me, like we would huddle up and just brainstorm Andy Bernard-ness. Like we both thought Andy Bernard was so funny. And I think... No, I don't remember the episode where Nard Dog came out. Maybe - it definitely was the writers. Cause I feel like the episode kind of like hinged on it. But lots of things like just kind of bubbled out of me, like Ra-da-dit-di-doo, like [Audience laughter] that was not - that wasn't in any script. I don't know, I don't even know how you spell it. But -

GRETA JOHNSEN That makes me think of Big Tuna also. 

ED HELMS Yeah, Big Tuna was in the script, for sure. But I think I had to put some top spin on that one too with Large Albacore, I called him once. [Audience laughter]

GRETA JOHNSEN Oh my gosh, that's delightful. Well, Ed Helms, thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to talk with you. [Audience clapping]

ED HELMS Thank you so much. 

GRETA JOHNSEN Thank you. 

ED HELMS Thank you, Chicago. Greta Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much, Greta. 

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