Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis (often abbreviated to Between Two Ferns) is a Funny or Die original web-based Talk Show spoof featuring Zach Galifianakis as the host. Episodes typically follow the same formula: Zach invites a celebrity onto the show, belittles them in some way, and the two calmly exchange insults for the remainder of the interview.
Has a Netflix original movie Between Two Ferns: The Movie.
Tropes present:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: If he doesn't outright get his guest's name wrong, it usually comes out like this.
- Accidental Misnaming: With both celebrities and their movies. In just one instance, he mistakes Zoolander for "Joolander" and "Bloolander."
- Adam Westing: Pretty much every celebrity plays a more short-tempered version of themselves, with Zach's reserved cruelty and awkwardness egging them on.
- Cringe Comedy: Zach's standoffish attitude plus celebrity guests being irritated about it plus a complete lack of an audience thus uncomfortable silences equals this.
- Destroy the Product Placement: In a sense. The Barack Obama episode was produced to help promote Obamacare's newly launched website. Zach spends much of this bit incredulous about the plug and tells Obama that he doesn't think the healthcare plan works.
- Don't Explain the Joke: Jennifer Lawrence does it.Zach: You played in a movie called The Hunger Games...Jennifer: Yeah, isn't that your life story?Zach: You shouldn't say that. That's off-putting.Jennifer: You should be off pudding. (beat) Because you're fat. (beat) You shouldn't eat any more pudding.
- Fun with Subtitles: Every time, such as "Bart Pit" for Brad Pitt.
- Genre Savvy: Steve Carell came onto the show armed and ready for Zach's shenanigans, very preemptively either mocking Zach or mocking himself before Zach has a chance to do anything.
- The Hyena: Charlize Theron laughs so much in her interview and continues to praise Zach for being funny to the point that he mistakes her for coming on to him.
- Not Helping Your Case:
- In Steve Carell's tirade against him.Steve: The only French word you know is buffet.
Zach: That's not true, I know the word croissant. - Right after Zach angrily denies that he's fat to Carell, his chair collapses under his weight.
- In Steve Carell's tirade against him.
- Nice Character, Mean Actor: Bradley Cooper tries to be friendly with Zach, who he co-starred with in The Hangover Trilogy, and treats the show as another regular talk show. Unfortunately, he finds out the hard way that Zach is a pretty unlikeable jackass who is jealous of Cooper's more attractive appeal and success.
- Obvious Object Could Be Anything: In his interview with Brad Pitt, Zach gives him a present wrapped in the shape of a massive bong. He insists it's a bassoon.
- Plot-Sensitive Button: The button on the desk between Zach and his guest is typically used to cue a song, but has also been used for other purposes, such as collapsing the set and cueing Nickelodeon slime.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Zach disparagingly thinks that Hollywood is run by Jews and blames them for wanting him to keep his weight.
- Potty Failure: Charlize Theron eventually pisses herself laughing by the end of her interview.
- The Reveal: Parodied at the end of the Obama interview. He presses a button which causes the background to fall apart, revealing that Zach has been shooting every episode from the White House.
- Running Gag: Pushing the button eventually becomes one for ending the interview in a humiliating way for Zach, such as sliming him in front of Justin Bieber.
- Self-Deprecation: Justin Bieber's interview is mostly him sitting there and getting lambasted by Zach over his then-recent controversies.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Deconstructed in terms of Zach's rivalry with Bradley Cooper. It's very clear that Zach is jealous of Cooper's success after their run together in The Hangover films and other guests like to make fun of this fact to Zach's face. Cooper himself however sees Zach as a friend and is both incredulous and saddened to learn how much he seems to hate him. The end of the second "Oscar Buzz" episode has Cooper genuinely hurt by Zach's shenanigans and call him out for prioritizing his ferns over his own friends and even himself.
- Stylistic Suck: The show is shot in a way that harkens to cable access talk shows. The picture quality eventually improved in later episodes, but the interview style has remained pretty much the same.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Much of the interview with Steve Carell is Zach denying that he was going to insult Carell... by reading off the insulting questions that he would've asked if Carell hadn't been Genre Savvy and fired off some shots preemptively.
- Talk Show: Or a parody of one, any way. Think of it like a much more tame version of The Eric Andre Show with more witty one-liners.
- Unusual Euphemism: Brad Pitt counters Zach's insistence that his bong-shaped present is actually a bassoon by saying that he doesn't "bassoon at his house anymore."
- Villain Protagonist: Zach is an very unlikeable hateful man who seems dead set on trying to tear down his guests.
- With Friends Like These...: Even after his uncomfortable interview, Bradley Cooper seems to still be under the impression that he and Zach are friends, as he acts genuinely surprised and disheartened that Zach still hates him during the Oscars episode and the ending where he smashes the ferns on Zach's head implies that they still somehow hang out outside of the show.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Bradley Cooper is shown to be one of the few celebrity guests who didn't get the memo about Zach's abrasive attitude as a host and is dumbfounded to see that his Hangover co-star acts this way.
- You Are Fat: What most of Steve Carell's dialogue amounts to during his interview. He makes Zach cry.
