Currently, between Kreischer’s Facebook and YouTube, “The Machine” has over 90 million views, but that doesn’t count the views across the many content aggregators who have reposted the clip.

The magic alchemy of good timing took over (it was the week between Christmas and New Year’s), and the joke went viral like few ever had. It took five years, but he finally filmed the story as part of his 2016 Showtime special titled, you guessed it, The Machine.īut the joke’s breakthrough wouldn’t happen until a month later, at a professional low point, when Kreischer clipped the story and put it on his YouTube channel and Facebook page. Rogan didn’t just suggest he tell it, he implored his listeners to demand it of Kreischer if they saw him live. That was until 2011, when he told it on The Joe Rogan Experience after Rogan insisted he do so. “The Machine” was a story Kreischer would tell at parties, backstage, or in meetings for years, but he’d never do it onstage. That doesn’t just include the stories he tells in his stand-up, like the time he got involved with the Russian mafia, but the stories behind those stories.

Things involving Bert Kreischer can take on a mythic quality. We are republishing a longer version of the interview today timed to the release of Kreischer’s movie, The Machine. Excerpts of this interview were originally published along with the Good One podcast episode’s release on November 10, 2020.

Let me tell you why that's is bullshit