The ‘Workaholics’ Have Some ‘Bad Ideas’ For Quibi In Their Reckless New Travel Show

The popular Comedy Central series Workaholics ended in 2017 but our love for the series and the comedy troupe comprised of Adam Devine, Anders Holm & Blake Anderson continues to live on to this day. Our three favorite television goofs were last seen together in a 2018 Netflix original film titled Game Over, Man! and are now making their comeback once again as part of Adam’s brand new series for Quibi called Bad Ideas, which just premiered on July 27th.

Devine, who has become a household name in recent years thanks to starring roles in romantic comedies such as the recent Isn’t It Romantic, has recruited his celebrity friends including his Workaholics buddies, Rebel Wilson, and Thomas Middleditch to travel the world with him. Adam and friends look to tackle one terrible idea after another in the show, hoping to survive each crazy new adventure.

Luckily we got to catch up with ‘dem boys to talk about everything from the new series to Adam’s love for Jackass and Wildboyz, Blake’s secret TikTok account, and Ders’ qualms with modern entertainment, Tiger King, the current state of “The ‘Vo,” plus so much more. Maybe we’ll even get to see some more Workaholics in the future?

DECIDER: I wanted to mainly talk to you guys about the new show, and I’ll throw in a couple of Workaholics questions at the end. Very excited about the new Bad Ideas with Adam Devine show. What, mainly, brought you guys to doing this project? Who came up with the idea?

ADAM DEVINE: I came up with it. A few years ago, I went shark diving with Zac Efron in Hawaii. We were shooting Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. He was like, “Yo, do you want to go shark diving?” And I was like, “Not really.” But I’m trying to be cool, and fit in. That’s how you always get in trouble. I went, and it was a crazy experience in my life. Zac grabbed a hold of a tiger shark and rode it like it was an amusement park ride. I was like, “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life. How fun was that? I’ll remember that for the rest of my life.” It’s a lot of times when someone has a really bad idea, those end up being the stories you tell for the rest of your life. As long as no one’s paralyzed. If you can get away with not getting paralyzed or dead, then that’s kind of the story that you’ll end up telling. I sold the show to Quibi. They were like, “Oh, this is perfect for our format!” Everything is between five and 10 minutes long. It can just be a power-packed punch. Then I roped these guys into it. And luckily they dig. Some fun fun, hot, juicy apps. 

I was watching some of the screeners, and you and the hot peppers — very entertaining, I gotta say.

Devine: I’d say that’s probably one of the worst. I did that with my buddy Thomas Middleditch, super funny improv actor. Was obviously the star of Silicon Valley. But that was maybe the most painful one I did, weirdly. Just because everything burned for like three days after that. 

I’m sure.

Devine: The cool part about it is traveling with my buddies. I got to take Dersey to Peru, and I got to take Blake to Paris. 

BLAKE ANDERSON: Not Paris, France, but. 

Devine: I didn’t say Paris, France, though.

Anderson: Well, I feel like over-the-phone, that’s how you pitched it to me. Maybe I filled in the blank. 

ANDERS HOLM: You re-upped your passport?

[All laugh]

Devine: I took him to Paris, California, which is a small desert town in the middle of California. It wasn’t the exotic locale that he thought he was going to.

Anderson: No. It wasn’t at all.

That’s not what I was thinking when you first said Paris.

Anderson: See?

Holm: You probably showed up with a beret. Had a beret —

Devine: Baguettes.

Holm: Baguettes, some jambon. That’s how you say ham in French. Jambon.

Devine: Wow. Jambon. 

Anderson: I’m going to start calling it jambon here.

Devine: Snackin’ a little Jambon sandwich.

That’s great. When I think of Bad Ideas, I think back to the Jackass days when we were watching a lot of — I feel like I kind of grew up in the same kind of era as you guys, and the same kind of comedy. Do you think there’s some inspiration from some of those stunts that they used to do? That style of comedy?

Devine: I mean, yeah. I still think those guys are absolutely hilarious. All the Jackass movies are just on the Mount Rushmore of comedy movies, for me. And it was all done in good spirit, even though they were violently hurting some of my friends. Just totally destroying each other. But I always loved that. Definitely, I was like, “Oh, I want to do the updated version of that, for sure.” Especially, I was thinking of Wildboyz with Pontius and Steve-O, when they went in the wilderness and did the most wild things. I was like, we gotta keep that going.

Holm: We definitely stand on the dislocated shoulders of those guys.

Devine: Yes, very good.

Holm: Wrote that last night.

Anderson: Some bits for the Decider interview.

I feel like there’s Wildboyz and then Jackass, and if you guys remember, CKY.

Devine: Oh yeah.

Holm: Tom Green. Tom Green was the guy who was doing it way back. They stood on his shoulders. Shoutout to Tom Green. I don’t think he gets the credit that he deserves. He was a pioneer of this live improving with people that don’t know they’re improving or part of a comedy bit, whole deal. 

Absolutely. Definitely. I feel like the Jackass guys definitely got the spotlight for that. But they did a good job with that. So I was looking at some of the bad ideas that you guys were doing in some of the screeners. I wanted to throw out a hypothetical. If you had to wrestle the tigers from Tiger King, who would you rather do it with: Middleditch or Rebel Wilson?

Devine: Well, I feel like neither of them would be fully on board for that. I’d probably do it with Middleditch. I feel Rebel would just tell me that she absolutely was going to do that. Initially, I was going to do a shark diving thing with Middleditch. I think he would probably go for something like that. But that’s a death sentence. So I’m going to send them in first, no matter who I do it with.

Did you guys all watch that documentary?

Devine: Tiger King?

Holm: Oh yeah.

Devine: Yes.

Holm: Could not get enough.

That’s going to win doc of the year, for sure.

Holm: By the way, Rebel knows nunchucks. I’m just throwing that out there.

Devine: Yeah, that could distract the tiger. Munchin’ on my jambon.

Holm: She could look cool before she’s eaten.

Anderson: Middleditch is Canadian, right? That counts for something.

Holm: That’s true. He might be a little bit Siberian, in his bloodline. Siberian tiger whisperer.

Anderson: I could see that.

Devine: Okay, yeah. That works. So I stand by what I said: Middleditch.

What would you say was your most extreme adventure? Let me hear from the three of you guys. Were there any terrible ideas that didn’t make the final cut? That were either too gruesome or just didn’t go as funny as you thought it would?

Devine: We went to the Bahamas to try to go shark diving, and we didn’t find any sharks. There were two straight days of us staring into the water, looking for sharks. No sharks. That kind of blew up in our face. And then also, there was a bit that we were going to go to China. We would have been in China in February. I was going to parasail off the Great Wall of China, which is a thing you can do. Which seemed fun, and a bad idea. I’m pretty happy that we weren’t stuck in China as the pandemic took the world by storm. That would have sucked.

Holm: Wouldn’t you be Patient Zero, though? Coming back to America?

Devine: I’m just saying, this show would have been a hit! That’s the show.

Anderson: See why we’re in this mess. 

Devine: Poster boy. It’s a bad idea! Go to a wet market.

Holm: I’m so sorry. 

Devine: That’s Season 2. I’m going to go to a Wuhan, China wet market and just taste the delicacies.

Holm: Just licking everything. Bad idea!

Devine: I’m a bat boy.

“That’s Season 2 (of Bad Ideas). I’m going to go to a Wuhan, China wet market and just taste the delicacies. I’m a bat boy.”—Adam Devine

So there’s definitely going to be a Season 2 already, that you’re working on?

Devine: No one can travel anywhere, so they’re not really green-lighting any travel shows right now. But yeah, I would love to do it. It was so fun. It’s a fun way to travel the world with your friends, and get to see crazy stuff. Me and Ders, we went to Peru. We went up the Amazon River, deep in the Amazon Jungle. We were up in the Andes Mountains. It was cool. We got to do some really cool stuff that we never would have gotten to do before.

Anderson: It was great to leave California. It was great to just get out.

Devine: Blake went to Paris.

Anderson: Thanks for that. What an experience. I probably never would have seen it otherwise.

Devine: I would’ve taken you. We would’ve split, Ders would have done the piranha, and then you would have done the mountain. Or vice versa. But you were too busy being a working actor, Blake!

Holm: It was also in my contract not to travel with Blake Anderson. Yeah. But Peru was an unbelievable country. We saw outstanding things, like ancient ruins from these mountain top cities that existed a thousand years ago. And then obviously going in the Amazon River was something you never think you’re going to do. Adam calls and you go, “Well, looks like we’re swimmin’ with piranhas!”

Devine: I guess so. And then Blake, you got to spend all that time in Paris. So.

Holm: It must have been terrific.

Anderson: The jambon is to die for.

Are you guys each in one episode? Or are you in multiple episodes with Adam?

Anderson: I’ve done one and done, man.

Holm: I did two. 

Anderson: Theirs was really rolling the dice with his life. 

Devine: He was my Peru bad boy.

Holm: I’m trying to die.

Anderson: It’s a cool way to do it. If you’re going to do it, do it on camera.

Devine: Yeah, do it on camera. That’s what I’m saying.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the Quibi format, because Adam was saying a little bit about how it fits right into the five, 10 minute format that the platform has. What do you guys think of that overall, as a streaming model? Compared to some of the other platforms.

Devine: It’s cool. It’s just hard-time for Dersey.

Holm: I love it. I love it.

Devine: I mean, it’s cool. It’s a totally different thing. I hope it catches on in a real way, because they’re so great to work for. To me, it’s fun watching things in little 10 minute segments. If this were normal times, that’s a fun way to get little quick bites of content. I honestly do dig it.

Holm: I got an email about The Fugitive. I signed up to watch myself, because I love me. I wanted to see Blake’s episode, when it dropped, and all the other episodes. And now I’m getting emails. The Fugitive‘s coming out with Kiefer Sutherland. I’m a Quibi boy now.

Devine: That looks good. Quibi boy. 

It’s perfect for me, because I have an incredibly short attention span when it comes to TV. I’ve been watching your show, Always Sunny, all these old shows just because these little quick comedy bites are always the best. I like it.

Devine: It’s a good format.

Anderson: My whole thing is, I’m so addicted to watching TikTok. Now that that’s gone, Quibi is a great substitute.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Holm: It was getting bad. Blake did have a TikTok album.

Anderson: I just love TikTok. TikTok don’t stop, baby.

It was pretty good, I gotta say.

Devine: Don’t listen to Blake, because he’s actually a 14-year-old girl, so. He’s just doing little fun dances. Which I’m excited to see, I’m excited to see your TikTok account.

Anderson: I accept every challenge. Let’s do this.

Awesome. It was a huge hit, TikTok.

Anderson: It sure was. I’m glad you picked up on it.

I wanted to ask you guys now about your Netflix original movie, Game Over, Man! I watched that when it first came out, I was super excited. I loved it. It got mixed reviews. But would you guys go back and change anything about it? Or re-do it in a certain way, if you had to? Or are you happy?

Devine: I wouldn’t put my dick in my pants, it would be out the whole movie. That’s the main critique I heard on the film, was there wasn’t enough male nudity.

Holm: And a new title: “Adam’s Dick’s Out.” That would be the new title.

Devine: No, we loved it. It was a super fun movie to do. Those are the type movies that we grew up watching and loving. The hard R action movies. We just put our comedic spin on those type of 80s and early 90s action movies we grew up loving and watching. So we’re stoked that Netflix let us do whatever we wanted to do with it. The people that like our comedy loved it. I feel like that’s not a movie for critics to watch and love. We weren’t trying to see if we were going to win an Academy Award for that one.

Holm: I did feel snubbed, though. To be honest, I did feel snubbed.

Devine: You did, you felt snubbed for that?

Anderson: Yeah. 

Holm: Yeah, I did feel snubbed in many categories.

Devine: For the Academy Award, you feel that we were snubbed for the Academy Award?

Anderson: At least a nod. I feel like we deserved a nod.

Devine: You say you deserved a nod, I don’t want a nod. I want a nom.

Anderson: Okay.

Go big or go home, right?

Devine: A nod is, you get the nomination.

Holm: We were snubbed. I also find it interesting that — I don’t know if it’s like, these days — but you have a bad guy, a bad character in the movie, and people freak out. But in Silence of the Lambs, the dude kept a woman in a well after murdering other people, and people are like: “Classic.” It’s a fantastic movie, but what are we doing? What are the rules? He’s a bad guy.

Devine: And bad guys do bad guy things.

When you guys were filming Season 1, I saw a picture of the three of you and Karl in front of the classic ‘Vo. So is that a sign that we could be getting more Workaholics in the future?

Devine: I don’t know if that’s a sign, but I guess you’re going to have to wait and see.

Holm: If anything, it’s a sign that Kyle buys things that maybe he shouldn’t. But hey!

Devine: Kyle bought the volvo, and it’s just sitting at his house. It’s truly a bad car. It barely worked when we needed it to work to do the show. Every day the transportation department was in there screwing things, being like, “We can only drive it for four miles!” We’re like, “What? Okay.” We’re trying to shoot a TV show here.

Holm: It was 20 years old, and nothing against Volvo.

Devine: Nothing against Volvo. 

It was a great car. Big part of the show.

Devine: Yeah, it really was.

Holm: It was a character of its own.

Anderson: Not was, is. It’s in Kyle’s possession.

Devine: The cool part about having it in Kyle’s house is we were all digging through where we sat. We always stuffed things in the seats and stuff. We found a lot of old sides, our old notes that we had written on the pieces of papers. That was kind of cool, to dig in and be like, “Oh! Look at this!” Blast from the past.

Holm: Old snacks.

Devine: Tons of old snacks. Lotta string cheese.

So I don’t know how much more time we have, but I was going to ask you guys what your favorite episode of Workaholics is. I’ll tell you mine is “Friendship Anniversary” for sure, when you guys bash the rats at the end together. And you’re friggin’ tears and talking.

Holm: Decent accent.

Devine: That’s a deep cut. That’s good, man. I don’t know, I’d say “The Business Trip” is right up there for me, that’s a really fun one where we go and we do acid with Alice. It’s a crazy, fun episode. Kyle got to do a lot of cool visuals and tell this insane story. And then also, “Muscle I’d Like to Flex” is an episode that I feel is super fun, but then doesn’t get the same love as “Office Campout.” Basically, everyone loves all the episodes where we do a ton of drugs. Also, there’s episodes where we introduce the wizard beats and I wore a chin dildo on my face. That’s also a classic.

That is a classic one for sure.

Anderson: The one I had the most fun filming, was it “Timechair” where we were just on go-karts for three days straight?

Devine: I don’t think there were any other go-kart specific episodes.

Holm: Yeah, that one was fun.

Anderson: Thankful, just riding around go-karts for your job.

Speaking of a Jackass crossover, Blake’s young trillionaire character is very much Viva la Bam. Now you’re doing a lot of stunts here.

Anderson: That was a nod to TikTok. Which, look at me now.

Your clout is through the roof.

Anderson: Thank you.

Holm: “Flashback in the Day” kind of springs into my head right now, just because it was a fun way to see how these outcasts out each other. You kind of see where they’re coming from. It allows you to go, “Oh, these guys are just losers.”

Devine: That’s our college episode, where we meet in college, right?

Holm: Yeah. You guys meet each other in the dorm, I was your hard-ass RA. You get me kicked off the squad, break each other off the floor and go, “Hey man. I think we’re best friends now.”

Devine: And we have to be. 

Holm: I think it was cool to go back into crates and see where these guys found each other.

Devine: And we got to play a lot of Vanessa Carlton tracks. 

Holm: So much. And like the hair, the hair comedy in that episode was great. Blakes wig-afro that looked exactly like his hair from when we met him. It was terrifying. It was too real.

Devine: He looked exactly how Blake looked when we met him at 18 years old. 

Anderson: I need to bring that back.

Devine: You do.

Holm: I’m not going to stop that.

I feel like before that episode, if you look at that episode on a deep level, Anders and Blake could’ve went somewhere. Blake was going for acting, he was ready to go full-force. And then Ders was with the swimming, and then they dump the chlorine in the pool. Adam basically just ruined Blake and Ders’ life in that episode.

Devine: I was definitely the idiot.

Anderson: Now he’s taking us—

Devine: Now I’m taking you guys to Peru and Paris.

Anderson: Paris, California.

I think that’s a pretty good — I don’t know what you call it.

Devine: Serendipitous happening?

Michael is a music and television junkie keen on most things that are not a complete and total bore. You can follow him on Twitter — @Tweetskoor

Stream Bad Ideas on Quibi