Ed Helms Talks of the ‘Human Ineptitude’ That Inspires ‘SNAFU’ Podcast 

“Who was courageous during that moment, and where can we find courage in this moment?”

Actor Ed Helms loves a deep dive into a snafu from the past. “I love the hubris, our amazing capacity for ineptitude and terrible decision-making.” He’s turned that obsession into the hit podcast SNAFU, inviting guests to break down some of history’s most entertaining bloopers. “The snafu is often not just the initial problem, but it’s [a] sort of scurrying aftermath of people trying to cover their tracks.” Each prior season focused on one historical moment, but season four has a new one every episode—and “dramatically” more episodes. “It is proving to be a ton of work, but it’s super fun.” Hit podcast host is a new turn for Helms, best known for his work in TV and film. “Office fans are just so, so sweet and delightful. Hangover fans can be a little more aggro, but that’s good.” But it’s that intimate relationship he creates with podcast fans that feels more earned: “Those feel like my deep peeps.”

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Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

When did you first realize you loved the weird snafus of history?  

I don’t know, I get obsessive about certain things. Like, I’ll hear about a tidbit of history or just even a tidbit of technical information or anything, and it just sends me down a rabbit hole and I wind up reading and researching and delving way too deeply into things that have very little effect on my life and are probably not a particularly valuable use of my time. But I can’t help it. I just have a relentless curiosity, and there’s something about snafus in particular that really just gets me. We have a team on the podcast and we’re always pitching ideas and every time a new idea comes up, I’m like, “Hold on,” and I gotta dig into it. And I don’t just like go to Wikipedia. Like I’m going to primary sources, I’m going to interviews, I’m going to old documents, and it’s just sort of an endless rabbit hole of fun for me. These stories are like fractals. You can just keep going deeper and more and more detail emerges and it’s more and beautiful and fascinating and hilarious. And I don’t know, that’s just how my brain works. It’s a liability most of the time.  

It used to be each season you’d do one snafu and you’d focus on that. But now, each episode, there’s a new moment of history. Is it more work now to do that? 

You know, the irony is that that part of what this new season was supposed to address was what felt like a kind of irrational workload from the first three seasons. And the sense was, “Well, we’ll do sort of a lighter touch on all of these snafus,” but I don’t work that way, it turns out. I can’t stop. And I really want to, you know for the benefit of my guests and for the audience, I want to have like a very firm grasp on these stories so that if the conversation veers in any direction like I’m prepared. I’m there for it. I can kind of weigh in. Because invariably my guests have questions and they have curiosities of their own, and I want them there. So yeah, we’ve upped the episode count dramatically. It’s 30 episodes in season four, and every episode is a new snafu. It is proving to be a ton of work, but you know what? They’re fun, yeah, it’s super fun.  

Do you find with your guests that you like playing the role of the history nerd informing them of some of the things that maybe they don’t know because of their backgrounds?  

I love it, absolutely. I think there are a couple of factors there. One is, it feeds your ego a little bit to feel like the know-it-all in a given situation. But it’s also just fun, I’ve had incredible guests, and they’re so curious. And I just love the deconstruction of these stories, the conversation, the reflections. I’ll just say my favorite part is at the end of each episode, that’s when we kind of step back and talk about what we learned or kind of what it says about humanity, and that’s just endlessly fun.  

When I’m on stage and I don’t want to do a joke, I will talk about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Are you familiar with the snafu of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand?  

Only in that it was sort of, you know, the Great War instigator. Franz Ferdinand was the Archduke of Prussia? Of Austria-Hungary? 

Well, it’s more the anti-Serb assassinators, that there was a group of men, and how laughably pathetic they were at actually assassinating Archduke Ferdinand.

Oh, no. I love that, by the way. 

It’s one of the most fun snafu pieces of history. It’s what I would encourage on some episode to tackle, because while it’s not funny that someone was assassinated, it is really funny when the assassinator failed miserably at every turn they tried to do their job, except for the one time they were successful.  

What was the brigade in Monty Python [and the] Holy Grail that just runs up and stabs themselves? That’s basically them!  

Is there a snafu in history that stands out to you, maybe you have covered, [or] you haven’t covered, but that is just your favorite, that is just the one that at dinner parties you go to? 

Yeah, I really love one that I wrote about in the book, the Snafu [: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups] book, called Project Azorian, it just has like international espionage, intrigue and Hollywood kind of razzle-dazzle. A Russian sub—this is in the ‘70s—a Russian sub sinks in the North Pacific. And the Russians have no idea where it is, but we do because of our sort of ocean monitoring. And so we wait a few months and we really want to go get it for all the intel, right, to pull up a Russian sub and learn about everything. But it’s a huge operation. And so to do that, you need a cover story. And the cover story is, they go to—boy am I blanking, my brain does this so often—they go to legendary Hollywood producer Howard Hughes. So Howard Hughes is holed up in his penthouse in [Las] Vegas, and he’s just so eccentric and weird. But the U.S. government is like, “Hey, Howard, will you pretend like you’re getting into deep sea mining because you’re so eccentric, no one will think that’s weird. And that will be the cover story under which we can build this giant ship with claw device that they will drop down two miles into the ocean and grab a Russian nuclear sub and hoist it up.” And they do this and they pull it off and they get pieces of the sub, then they decide to go back and take another crack at it. And it’s just wild. But the reason that we know about it is because burglars broke into Howard Hughes’ office and stole a bunch of stuff, including files of the whole Project Azorian, which were then leaked to reporters somehow. And reporters started to dig in and find out about this. So it’s so funny and wild and ridiculous and just super fun at the same time. It feels like it needs to be a movie. 

Where does your interest come from? What is it about these snafus that you love so much? 

I love the hubris, the human, our amazing capacity for ineptitude and terrible decision making. And then usually, it’s funny, the snafu is often not just the initial problem, but it’s sort of [a] scurrying aftermath of people trying to cover their tracks or make something better or fix it right away. I’m a big believer in humility. Like, I feel like so many of our problems throughout culture and society could be handled so much better if people just brought more humility to the table or to the problem or to the negotiation, whatever it is. And so many of these snafus are just the ultimate takedown of hubris. I like that. I don’t know. It’s like the universe kind of paying back somehow.  

Is there an episode from this season, because you are covering more snafus, that stands out to you as the one that you particularly enjoy?  

Gosh, I mean, my guests this season are so incredible, and the guests are a big part of what makes each episode sort of uniquely enjoyable in its own way. But I will say there are a couple out right now that I just really love. Jordan Klepper, who, you know, The Daily Show correspondent, he was incredibly funny and insightful. And we talked about the Teapot Dome scandal, which is a great presidential scandal you probably know about. Then, Paul Scheer was super fun. We talked about the Johnstown Flood, which is interesting because a lot, sometimes these tragedies are so heavy, but in hindsight, you know, you look at all of the kind of human folly behind it or that led up to it, and there can be a lot of entertainment value baked in there, too. And it’s really wild. What else? There’s so many, I have some guests I’m really excited coming up. I talked to Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher. That was a really fun one. Oh, Jake Tapper, we talked about the sinking of the Lusitania. He was great and just brought so much perspective and insight as a journalist. And I love the way he sort of probed and asked questions, right? That’s just his sort of journalistic instinct.  

And he’s a history nerd, too. I mean, he’s fun to talk to about history in general.  

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, he’s authored, what, like 20 books? Yeah, he’s incredibly savvy.  

In a weird way the the heist of the Louvre right now could potentially be a SNAFU episode. Once everything is said and done. Doing these episodes, do you look at the news differently? Do you see future potential for snafus just watching the daily news?  

I do, but not in a practical sense. I do feel like we’re living through a moment of just incredibly heightened difficulty for so many people. And it’s so present every day in social media and in the news. So yes, it does feel like I do see things in the news and I’m constantly thinking like, “Oh, what a snafu that is” or like maybe in five years, 10 years, that’d be a good story. But honestly, it’s too present right now. Nothing going on right now is particularly funny or has that kind of distance that gives you, not even that these snafus are funny that I cover on the show, but they have aspects to them where you can find humor, you can sort of find a funny reflection or a funny take on something. And right now, I don’t know, I just feel like there’s a lot of darkness out there.  

How do you find the dance between the serious and the entertainment of it?  

I really just try to approach every story with a kind of earnestness and a genuine curiosity. And I feel like that allows you to take the heavy things as seriously as they deserve and also opens the doors for chuckles here and there. If there is an angle on something that’s actually funny or someone’s behavior that was so outrageous, even in a tragic circumstance, you can be like, “This was insane, right?” Like the Johnstown flood is a good example because it’s such a terrible tragedy. But so much of the lead up to the flood and some of the decisions that very powerful robber barons were making at the time were affecting the infrastructure of that region in such a just idiotic way that it’s hard not to kind of laugh at some of that behavior and then, of course, when you get into the tragedy itself you give it the gravity it deserves. The episode I did with Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher was about the Palmer Raids during the first Red Scare right after the First World War. And that is very legit. Like there is not a lot of funny stuff in there. And they were such great guests to kind of help deconstruct it and explore it, because also the Palmer Raids are really kind of ringing and echoing a lot of the behavior with ICE right now and some of the raids that we’re seeing and we’re certainly all inundated on social media with some really disturbing videos and images. And it’s so interesting, again, this is part of the bigger picture of the podcast is sort of looking at things in the past and being like, “Wow, what is this telling us about who we are?” and “How can we look through that prism at the present moment and look at the way some people behaved in that moment from over 100 years ago, and how might it apply now?” Like, who was courageous during that moment, and where can we find courage in this moment?  

I don’t know if people saw this coming from you. This podcast, the book that came from it. We’re obviously fans of yours, we’ve seen your work over the years, of course, the films, the television, The Office, etc. Are you enjoying this aspect of your career right now, this moment, working on this, and do you feel like it’s different from your other work?  

It’s definitely different from my other work. And I do love it. And now I’ve kind of found this new tension in my career between what I’m putting focus on and where my energy is directed. But it’s good. I love what I do. I love that I get to be in movies. I leave in just a couple of days to start on a new movie. And I can’t wait. Being on set is my most favorite thing. And then I come in here in my studio and I’m talking with fascinating people about fascinating subjects. And that is a thrill. And it all feels, to me, very much part of the same kind of tapestry of my interests and abilities. But I can understand to the general audience it might be like, “What the hell is Helms doing? He’s all over the map. What is this?” Then, you know, half the time, I’m also off just playing my banjo and doing music stuff. I just kind of relentlessly chase things that interest me and yeah, to an outsider or to anyone standing a short distance away from me. It might look insane, but yeah, that would make sense to me.  

It reminds me of Steve Martin. Like Steve, we have a relationship with you through your acting. That said, when Steve Martin started writing books, it elevated my appreciation of him in a way that gave me a different nuance to who this person is, this actor that I like. And it’s similar, I think, with SNAFU, we’re getting a different side of you that we didn’t know existed, and it’s actually adding a different element to you that makes us bigger fans.  

Well, I know Steve Martin and I can assure you, sir, I am no Steve Martin.  

And that’s something Steve Martin would say.  

I really appreciate it. That is a profound compliment, and I really appreciate it. He has always been something of a North Star for me and in so many disciplines as an actor, as a comedian, as a comedy, as a comedic thinker. I just love the way his brain works. You know, he put out a book that’s just his tweets. I mean, his tweets are book-worthy. Literature for God’s sake. He’s a banjo player. 

I mean, yeah, you have that in common, too.  

He’s amazing.  

Because of your resume and the work that you’ve done, you probably have very interesting fan encounters. What are the more unique things that people have stopped you for, and have you ever had to tell someone to maybe take it down a minute? 

Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, it’s usually like at baggage claim or somewhere where you have to stay and wait. You know, you can’t just like walk away or run away. But I’ve had lots of funny fan encounters. Most of them are quite delightful, I have to say, because the energy is so positive. And I just appreciate that so much. Office fans are just so, so sweet and delightful. Hangover fans can be a little more aggro, but that’s good. That’s all good. And Snafu fans. I was walking by a construction site, and one of the construction workers sees me walking by and he’s “No way. Oh, my God. Hey, what’s up, man? I’m such a big fan.” And I was like, okay, I really appreciate that. And he goes, “The podcast, man. I love Snafu. I listen to it all the time.” I was, like, “Whoa, did not see that coming. I love that. A little curveball.” And, you know, it’s the podcast fans, those feel like my deep peeps. It’s really appreciated when fans go like that.