Of Dropout’s many fun new shows in 2024, the most exciting premise was Smartypants. It takes the concept of the “PowerPoint party,” where groups of friends get together to give individual presentations on topics they are obsessed with, and places it within the framing device of the “Smartypants society.” That means a who’s who of Dropout’s pool of comedic talent going absurdly deep on topics as varied as Demi Adejuyigbe’s “Which cartoon characters are invited to the cookout?”; Vic Michaelis’ “Vegetables do not exist”; and Paul Robalino’s inspired “God’s Mistake: How I Would Make Our Bodies Better.” It’s a match made in heaven.
With the holidays approaching, you might want to throw your own PowerPoint party with your friends and loved ones. So Polygon caught up with Smartypants host Rekha Shankar to get her tips on throwing the best one you can.
Shankar singled out Robalino’s presentation as one of her favorites of the first season (“innovatively stupid”) as well as Tao Yang’s Charcuterie Board Tier List (“stuck out for just taking that stupid opinion your friend says and making it into a formal presentation”), Jacob Wysocki’s “Which Cryptid is the Chillest to Blaze With?” (“as subjective as something can get”), and Zach Reino’s “No Thank You ‘The Ocean’” (“that is a real opinion I have, and so I felt so validated to see there was no comedy in that”).
Shankar is currently working on a sci-fi comedy feature she describes as Palm Springs meets The Farewell, “about what if you’re the worst fucking Hindu in the world and you’re left to do very Hindu things on Earth and you’re the only one that you have to consult, but you’re stupid, basically.” She confirmed Smartypants season 2 is in production and will be released in 2025. You can catch more of her performing in LA.
Here are Shankar’s eight golden rules for throwing your own great PowerPoint party.
1. Vibes over everything
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“Number one, only cool vibes. I think if you invite all of your smartest friends, that’s not necessarily going to be a fun party. They also have to be chill and willing to poke fun at themselves, poke fun at others. Knowing that line of where something is fun and where something is rude or annoying or whatever, to me makes or breaks a PowerPoint party. So chill vibes only for sure.
“You just need people that are willing to have fun with each other. You could have all the other elements, but if you don’t have a good chemistry or vibe, it’s just like any other party where you’re like, Oh, this is a new friend, or God, a friend’s new boyfriend. And then everyone’s having an awful time talking to the friend’s boyfriend. He’s super weird. You’re like, Why is my friend dating him? And if you have to hear a presentation from that guy, no way. Maybe pre-screen your presentations if one of your friend’s boyfriends is coming, just to double check, because we don’t know him. We don’t know Greg.”
2. Invite the right amount of friends…
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“A sweet spot for me is like eight to 10 people. You have enough people for laughs, but also you’re not watching a hundred thousand PowerPoints at a party where you should just be chit-chatting and eating snacks. You get enough fun banter, Q&As, yada-yada objections to your horrible opinion without having it be overwhelming.”
3. …but not the pedants
“I think pedants should be banned from PowerPoint parties. They’re killing the vibe. Yes. Congratulations. You’re smart. That’s not why we’re here. We’re actually here because we enjoy being dumb.
“You want to feel like you could be dumb. Let’s say your whole presentation is poorly researched and is based on something that’s not even true and someone pokes a hole in it. You want everyone to be doubling down and be like, ‘Yeah!’ and not feel like, Oh, I’m an idiot. You want to keep that spirit of being dumb alive in a PowerPoint party.
“There’s a difference between poking holes in an argument in a fun way and in a rude way. But you said that eggs would be good for every meal, what about this? That’s just when you’re trying to be a little shit, right? Little shit behavior is not welcome at a PowerPoint party, and that’s crucial for maintaining the vibe you’re setting.”
4. Comfort and chow are necessities
“The environment should have a ton of snacks. People should not feel hungry ever. And I think, too, you’ve got to have comfortable chairs. You gotta let people sink in. There’s gotta be room to pace around. If you’re the presenter and you want to do shticks and you want to do jokes, there’s got to be room. That’s tough in an apartment situation, but I think you can make it work.”
5. There’s no wrong choice for a topic, if you care about it
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“I think the number one commonality between all good topics is your passion for the topic. I’ll give a couple examples. So Grant O’Brien did one on roller coasters. Now, Grant is a terrific comedy writer. That was an extremely earnest presentation on roller coasters. But what carried him is Grant’s not being ironically detached. He’s conveying his full knowledge and passion for roller coasters the entire time, and that makes you interested. Him pitching it as this gorgeous, affordable place for families to have fun, like an amusement park — that’s kind of touching, surprisingly. And you kind of laugh at the fact that he made something like that touching.
“And then you can go the other route: What is a hot take you have, done up in a really smart way? Tao had his very controversial charcuterie presentation. That’s probably something that Tao has been at a bar and maybe offhand been like, ‘I wish there was more meat and less everything else on this platter.’ That is ripe for a Smartypants presentation.
“And the conviction he had for it. I’ll never forget when I said, ‘I’m a vegetarian. What would you propose is on mine?’ and he said, ‘Impossible burgers.’ I’m like, You are sick. That in itself kept it really funny. Lean into the stupidity. Don’t be afraid to be stupid if you are.
“You can get into the scientific nitty-gritty on what is such a subjective, stupid opinion of yours. But again, he came in with passion, ready to fight for those stupid opinions. So I think passion is the number one ingredient.
“There’s almost no wrong topic, just a wrong vibe. I think you could disobey all the other rules and be like, I’m going to do a super intellectual presentation on alloys, as long as the vibe is chill and you’re just having fun. Like why did you choose this topic? That’s always a great in. It’s like: I don’t know, I’ve just always been like, what the hell is this? It confused me. Didn’t get it in chemistry class and now I’m an adult. I should know this. That’s funny. And then you talk about it and then I’m sure there’s a part where you started reading and you didn’t understand and you’re like, This part I didn’t get — too confusing, didn’t put it in the PowerPoint. Very funny. Just follow that.”
6. Lean into your absurd takes as scientifically as you can
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“Insert your subjective opinion into this stuff. It is very funny. Mike Trapp actually had an interesting balance where he’s like, ‘What’s the best birthday?’ But then he backed it up with a lot of data. Any scientist would poke a million holes in that, but that’s not why we’re here. So he had a nice mix of faux science and pure opinion. He had a line in there where he’s like, ‘Some of you might be asking, What about birthdays from the beginning of May to the end of May? Well, I don’t feel like it.’ Perfect. Be honest. Put in those opinions, put in the stuff you didn’t feel like researching, put in the stuff that distracted you from your original thesis and got you into more research. That’s all great for a PowerPoint party. I think part of what’s funny is going down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia articles that we do privately, but seeing somebody else do it.
“It’s almost like your friends are holding you in court for some opinion you said at a birthday party a year ago. Why do you think The Phantom Menace is the best Star Wars? Tell me. Be very official about it. Go through every hole I could possibly poke in your argument and tell me scientifically why you’re correct.”
7. Get the audience involved
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“Any call and response, any funny questions you can ask the audience that are maybe even fake-out questions like, ‘Oh, broccoli’s a vegetable, right? Yeah, no.’ That’s really fun. Asking people what their opinion on a thing first is so that you can counter it is very, very fun. And then Anna Garcia had her theater list where she was able to find a way to evoke the feeling of being a theater kid live in the room. Raph didn’t get cast. And that’s really funny to evoke that in a group of 30-something-year-olds.
“So you could do something like What is the best Star Wars film? and rank all of them. And I don’t tell you until the very end, that all of these opinions were taken off of the internet. My favorite will always be The Phantom Menace, because I haven’t seen any of Star Wars except The Phantom Menace. And guess what, when I saw it I was like, This is fun, and you have nothing to compare it to. That’s a kid. I’m a kid. Wow, what a blast. And if I had to argue, I’d be like, ‘Listen, you’re all jaded. You guys read the ending before, so you don’t like the beginning. I’m fresh, I’m new, you’re all tired. I’m wired. Get with it. So isn’t that magical and beautiful that an 8-year-old child of immigrants was like, That’s the one for me?’ And you can’t argue with that then. That’s rude.”
8. Remote PowerPoint partiers: Use the medium
“First, make sure those share screens are all enabled. Second, you got sound effects, you got sharing audio clips, you got sharing video clips online. A little bit easier than downloading one and embedding it into a PowerPoint. Use the chat function. Have people going off in the chat. You can mute everybody if you give everyone permissions. Sounds like a very funny function to have. For this episode, Pete, you have muting privilege. You can mute whoever you want. You can mute the presenter when they’re saying something you hate, question and answer that you don’t like. I think that’s very funny. If it’s all in good fun, I think you could just do some really funny video elements and just live props, whatever’s in your room showing off. ‘Look at this Phantom Menace DVD. Look how well worn it is. This is a repeatable, fun candy movie. Star Wars.’”
Smartypants season 1 is streaming on Dropout.