Creator / Desus and Mero

Comedy duo hailing from the Bronx made up of Desus Nice (Daniel Baker) and The Kid Mero (Joel Martinez). They first rose to prominence separately on Twitter before getting a podcast and later, web series on Complex titled Desus vs Mero in 2013. They then moved on to MTV with roles on Guy Code , Uncommon Sense, and Joking Off. They then got their own Talk Show on Viceland, Desus and Mero in 2016, which ended after 2 seasons in 2018, after which they moved to Showtime. They also began recording the Bodega Boys podcast (aka "The Art") in 2015. In 2020 they released a book, God-Level Knowledge Darts: Life Lessons from the Bronx. Showtime announced in 2022 that the show would come to a close and Desus and Mero will be pursuing separate creative endeavors.

Filmography:

Filmography Together

• Desus vs Mero (2013-2014)
• Uncommon Sense (2014)
• Guy Code (2015)
• Joking Off (2015)
• Wild 'N Out (2015)
• Bodega Boys (podcast, 2015-2021)
• Desus & Mero (Viceland, 2016-2018)
• Neo Yokio (2017-2018, voice)
• Desus & Mero (Showtime, 2019-2022)
• The Captain (documentary, 2022)

Desus Nice

• The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder (2022)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live! (guest host, 2022)
• The Daily Show (guest host, 2023)

The Kid Mero

• Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020)
• In the Heights (cameo, 2021)
• Victory Light (podcast, 2023-)

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"Suck my tropes from the br-r-r-ack!":

• Affectionate Nickname: Mero exclusively calls his boys “Mero Jr.”, “Mero III”, and “Mero IV”. His daughter is the “Bodega Princess”.
• Berserk Button: If you come at them, you'd better have either a good reason or know what the fuck you're talking about. The two feuds they've had (DJ Akademiks and DJ Envy) both overwhelmingly swung in their favor just by virtue of them knowing how to dissect everything wrong with their opponent and his approach significantly more than vice versa. Even then, in neither case did they get incredibly heated, except...
  • ...don't think you're being clever by purposefully mispronouncing their names. With Akademiks acting like he didn't know how to pronounce their names, they immediately ripped him a new one since their names aren't that hard. When Envy dubbed them "Dickhead and Pussy," they were more offended by the lack of cleverness in his choice of nicknames.
  • Their love of New York and some of its particular sports teams (they rep especially hard for the Yankees and the Knicks) make them both harsh towards New York's biggest rivals in terms of sports prominence, particularly Boston-based teams like the Red Sox and the New England Patriots.
    • Not fucking with New York is one thing, but you'd best have your will drawn up if you even think about coming after the Bronx or its most notable residents, past and present. As detailed below, Mero utterly flipped shit at Tucker Carlson and his Republican cronies over Twitter for mocking Chris Hayes, launching a Tweeting spree that lasted for three days. Ironically, Desus was the one who went to school with Hayes.
  • Subverted in regards to them taking jabs at each other's respective heritages (Desus being Jamaican and Mero being Dominican). They can be pretty brutal towards each other (Desus mocking Dominicans for being lazy and uneducated and Mero taking great delight in putting on an exaggerated Jamaican accent), but they're as aware as anyone that it's all in good fun, and they make fun of their nationalism a lot.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Don't be fooled by his straight-man act: Desus can be just as wild as Mero when the need arises. In particular, he's very well-informed politically and will bluntly call people out for even innocently endorsing bad beliefs. One remote segment for the Showtime series had him and Mero finding out about the competition between Chick-fil-A and Popeye's regarding their chicken sandwiches. While doing their final interview, Desus monologues about Chick-fil-A's homophobic practices and smacks a chicken sandwich out of a woman's hand. Even Mero was pretty shocked. (Although they did buy the woman another sandwich to make up for it.)
  • When they attended a Yankees game and Desus is the one who crows "Suck my dick from the back!" to a stranger, Mero attests that it's a true story of "Goblin Desus" rearing his head.
  • They and their guests remark in the final Viceland episode that while neither of them were happy with the DJ Envy incident, Desus was very transparently livid about it while Mero was mostly over it.
• Big Applesauce: They are both Bronx natives and a lot of their comedy references life in the Bronx.
• The Big Rotten Apple: They discuss the Bronx as still kind of being like this, as well as what it was like to grow up in New York in The '90s.
• Black and Nerdy: Desus.
• Brick Joke: When Desus and Mero were infamously ambushed by DJ Envy on The Breakfast Club, he referred to them as "Dickhead and Pussy," which (as mentioned above) more annoyed them for the lack of effort than the sentiment. One year later, the Boys commemorated the anniversary of the interview by sending DJ Envy a "peace offering." Envy shouts them out on The Breakfast Club but refuses to say what the gift was. Desus is a little more forthcoming when Julia asks him:
  "It was an Edible Arrangement that said 'Happy Anniversary, Sincerely, Dickhead and Pussy.'"
• Catchphrase: "Suck my dick from the back!"
  • "Number one show in late night, nothing but illustrious guests!"
  • Sarcastic "Wooowwww"s, which they'll often launch into in response to a zinger of some sort (either from one to the other or via a clip they're watching).
• Celebrity Resemblance: They often comment on how their manager, Victor, looks like Bruno Mars.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The early episodes of Desus vs Mero, according to them, were a lot angrier. In addition, in the very early episodes Desus was the one making wild jokes and Mero was the Straight Man.
• The Ghost: Prior to the remote episodes, Mero only used nicknames for his kids, and the sketch where the duo switch lives had child actors playing them. Besides one instance where a kid's face is blurred when he interrupts a shoot, he now prominently displays a picture of his whole family in his home studio and discusses each of his kids by name.
  • Prior to this, there was also one occasion where he showed a photo of his children during the office tour ("I made them with my dick!").
• Gratuitous Spanish: Mero sometimes speaks Spanish on the podcast.
  • Expect this in copious waves whenever Dominican people and culture get brought up on the show (usually preceded by a hearty "De lo mio personal!").
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Fans view them this way, to the point that apparently when Desus or Mero are in public alone, fans will ask where the other is.
• I Have Many Names: Both Desus and Mero have many nicknames that they say in the intro and outro of every podcast. Here's the list.
• Immigrant Parents: Desus is Jamaican and Mero is Dominican and they frequently talk about their parents.
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Mero can imitate just about any accent, and voices several original characters including:
  • Yesenia, a proud and promiscuous Dominican Bronx resident.
  • Michael Sal Anthony, a racist heroin junkie from Staten Island, and his equally racist police officer father Officer Prosciutto.
  • Benzo the Clown, a benzodiazepine-addicted children's entertainer who's frequently too high to perform at the birthday parties he's hired for. He's the only one of Mero's recurring characters to feature in a sketch on the Showtime series, and it's glorious.
  • Dr. Ben Barson, a soft-spoken sadist and significantly more hardcore parody of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
• MSTing: The duo frequently provide running commentary and character voices over news, talk show and viral video clips.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Desus. Good lord, Desus. His sense of humor can get so dark that there's a specially made "DARK DESUS" soundclip. He casually watches videos on LiveLeak that are violent enough to horrify Mero.
• N-Word Privileges: Desus and Mero will mock any white person who uses the n-bomb, though being black men themselves they're free to use the word—and they do. Frequently.
• Running Gag: Their podcast and show have a lot of running gags including:
  • Mero having a lot of kids.
  • The "Problematic Light," a klaxon alarm that plays whenever the boys seek Refuge in Audacity.
  • Since moving to Milk Studios, the duo frequently use a gag sound board that features the following clips and more:
    • "Oh brother, THIS GUY STINKS!" ^Explanation  Shouted by a heckling fish on Spongebob Squarepants, usually played after Desus or Mero make a particularly groan-worthy joke.
    • "TO THIS DAY." ^Explanation  Taken from a rant by boxer Deontay Wilder.
    • "re-LAX" ^Explanation  Distorted sound clip of rapper and podcaster Joe Budden, played if Desus or Mero find the other or someone they're discussing to be too intense.
    • "Yaaaaayyyy!!!" ^Explanation  A chorus of children cheering, usually inserted at ironic or inappropriate moments.
    • *blaring siren* ^Explanation  Played whenever Desus or Mero feel they've made an especially off-color joke.
    • "Heheheheheheheh." ^Explanation  Cardi B's strange laugh.
  • Starting on the Viceland show and carrying through to Showtime, they often pitched themselves as the logical choices to play Timon and Pumbaa in Jon Favreau's Lion King remake, as the cast was already mostly-Black and they had the Fat and Skinny dynamic (their in-character riffing often involved offering to get Simba a chopped cheese). When they weren't cast, they made another running gag of being comically offended at being snubbed, and of course it was brought up to an apologetic Seth Rogen (the eventual voice of Pumbaa, to Billy Eichner's Timon) when they interviewed him on Showtime.
  • Mero's propensity for falling off the chair.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Mero occasionally mentions the shotgun he owns for home defence.
• Signature Headgear: Desus and in particular Mero are almost never seen without fitted hats or baseball caps on. One episode even blurred Mero's head when his hat fell off. As a matter of fact, both of them are bald under the hats.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Ray Romano was Mero's for a while. Their rivalries with DJ Envy and DJ Akademiks are a bit more serious, however.
  • A somewhat lighthearted one is Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News. He insulted their friend Chris Hayes (with whom Desus has been friends since middle school) for not being masculine enough. Mero spent a whole week on Twitter insulting him “worm in a bow tie with a third grade haircut” and fighting with his fans calling them things like “COSTCO JUG OF KEN’S STEAKHOUSE MAYONNAISE”. The tweets total over 100 [1] and they dedicated a section of their show about it, even offering to challenge him in a celebrity boxing match for charity.
  • The duo also have a rivalry with veteran NYC sports talk radio host Mike Francesa, who Mero portrays as a grumpy old racist addicted to Diet Coke. However the rivalry seems to be light-hearted as they had him on as the guest for the final episode of their Viceland show.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Desus is the straight man and Mero is the wise guy, although they sometimes switch roles.
  • Victor Lopez, Desus and Mero's manager and producer, plays the straight man to their combined wise guy on the Bodega Boys podcast.
• The Stoner: Both very openly enjoy smoking weed and it figures a lot into their conversations and bits with their guests. Mero often remarks that he's virtually never done a shoot sober, which might explain his generally nonchalant demeanor.