Aziz Ansari took a page from comedian Louis C.K’s playbook yesterday when he announced that fans could download his comedy special “Dangerously Delirious” for $5 on his website. Today he took a second chance, hosting an IAmA on Reddit to help promote its release.
While the jury’s still out on whether or not Ansari’s IAmA will have a similar impact on sales—C.K.’s AMA (short for “Ask Me Anything”) is believed to have played a major role in his special Live at the Beacon Theater’s success, which netted the comedian over $200,000 in four days. Ansari did end up playing host to quite an audience. Over 6,500 comments have been left on the IAmA in the four hours since Ansari opened the thread.
Chiming in on the conversation from an airplane in mid-flight, Ansari used his IAmA as an opportunity to answer the questions he’s not asked in “regular interviews,” such as how he refers to certain sandwiches, whether or not he could beat his little cousin Harris in Words with Friends, and what he thinks of Parks and Recreation costar Nick Offerman.
“He smells like cappuccinos or something,” wrote Ansari in reference to Offerman. “He uses those lozenges to stop smoking. It’s kind of warm and comforting. He also eats a lot of bacon and does woodwork stuff just like Ron Swanson. He’s the best.”
Harris, who came to fame when Ansari started posting the instant message conversations between the two on his site, was a popular topic, showing up again when Ansari’s audience asked if the cousin could host an IAmA.
“Holy shit that’s a good idea,” he wrote in response. “He’s super lazy though. He’d probably rather sit around crushing people at Scramble with Friends and eating Chobani strawberry yogurt.”
Ansari said he’d ask Harris about hosting next time they talked, but made sure to ask his fans for some help selling the special special in return.
“I’ll work on getting Harris to do an AMA, if you plant all those fake Dangerously Delicious torrents with [torrents of] either Jingle All the Way or Rampart.”
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