Adam Conover is a comedian and writer best known for the truTV series Adam Ruins Everything, which he created and hosted from 2015-2019. Conover’s comedy career began while still a student at Bard College, where he was part of the sketch comedy group, Olde English, along with future Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. Olde English performed at the HBO Aspen comedy festival in 2007, and in 2012, wrote and released the feature film, The Exquisite Corpse Project. Conover also began writing and making videos for College Humor, where his 2012 parody Mitt Romney Style has earned more than 64 million views and counting on YouTube. College Humor also helped give birth to Adam Ruins Everything. Conover sat down with me in Los Angeles in February 2020, just as he began his newest gig as host of the Nickelodeon game show, The Crystal Maze. We spoke about the heady early years of Internet comedy videos, and how Facebook and other factors brought it all crashing down, even before the COVID-19 pandemic took the comedy industry by storm. So let’s get to it!
