strap and type because the content of our next guest may cause some serious emotional damn it we'll send you to Jesus with more than 15 million subscribers across social media Stephen he is best known for his hilarious breakout character Asian dad and his parody sketches of foundation oh but wait there's more okay Steven has crossed over into sci-fi comedy with his latest series ginormo a show about a team of Heroes battling monsters monsters and more monsters and take over the planets keep it w
hy don't I just bring this over there [Music] Welcome to New York living officially one of the coolest people and most interesting people we've ever had on this show okay it's a great honor because I came to to New York about five years ago and this is like the moment that I feel like I'm a New Yorker now can I you've made it when you've sat on the white you have room on your resume New Yorker proper New Yorker now okay we were getting into his backstory if only the cameras were rolling at this
point okay you are what is your background I am Chinese Irish Chinese Irish do you hear the brogue no you have a little bit of a bro I do have a little bit of I learned to speak English in Ireland so I you know I grew up with this and then I started as an actor when I was 13 years old a spiral reactor which means I was unemployed and acted for for fun so okay I have so many questions okay you're in China and your mother wants to travel the world yes what happened she wanted to to go somewhere el
se and she loves Europe and at the time she only had one family member an uncle who was in Ireland who was doing what what was your uncle doing in Ireland he had a Chinese restaurant [Laughter] so you go find this this uncle and did you work in his in his restaurant I I worked in another Chinese restaurant when I was 17 years old my school was also on Limerick and we were probably the only Chinese family in Limerick at the time but one of very few anyway wow okay so he comes obviously it's not a
checkered pest but it is a very illustrious one it's a unique one yes I'm a rare limited edition one of one one of one as the one and only Beyonce says uh okay so you parody Asian parents and failure management yes can you talk to us a little bit about what that means I feel like I'm starting to understand where you're getting the inspiration for your content from in your world travels yes I I make a lot of content I started acting when I was 13 and I've been like Comedy Central uh a couple of
films and then the pandemic hit and started making my own videos and comedy skits was always the thing that I just was so passionate about so I made hundreds of skits and around skit number 220. I came up with the idea of parodying like stories growing up in China sure and that's how the character came about and then I think we we went to like two million subscribers then and add about 2 million emotional damage happened and then it just became this this Global thing it's like being on money it'
s like yeah and for the uninitiated what is emotional damage exactly meme I made a skit where I screamed emotional damage at the camera and people said that three seconds is now going to be sent to everybody so that's what it has because there it is we actually have a clip yeah of the video that really kicked things off for you yes let's take a let's take a look you're looking at Harbor University how are you gonna get girlfriend you up in space pooping in vacuum what is this failure oh it's his
YouTube channel okay look my techno get more followers than you know what what does your family think of this what is your because I mean listen we may I make fun of my Puerto Rican tribe all the time yeah you know I'll only be successful when I'm a doctor or a lawyer but right I think this comes it's amazing how many people relate to it like I love um like you know satirizing how in our culture nothing's ever good enough mom I want an Oscar why didn't you and two [Music] and amazingly so many
cultures related to that like people from all over the world and even those I don't expect like British kids were saying dude my dad is just like that right and so I was very honored by that yeah to be able to make these kids ah I could wash this all day I this is what I'm gonna be doing when I get in bed and when I go on the channel and just go into the black hole uh okay so you said you've always loved acting that's where you do when you were an aspiring actor starting at age 13. but this new
series that you have ginormous talk to us uh about this idea and how you're bringing it to life now yeah this is a crazy idea and it came uh with my co-creator Ken mock who's a legend an Asian Legend in Hollywood being one of the first Executives from like 30 years ago um yeah I've always loved acting and now with kind of like the following and the platform that we've built to be able to reach hundreds of millions of people um I thought hey why not take things into my own hands and like love it
pause the audition for a second and let's build our own show I love this if it doesn't exist make it yourself yes yes that's right we managed to um uh kind of fund the whole thing ourselves which is a great thing and it's a I got a lot of my friends it's an aapi strong show which is one of the things we're really proud of and especially to actually be ours you know to not have to like satisfy a studio that's right that's right because it was Joy Luck Club which is one of the the highest grossing
films ever and then 20 years later uh uh and you would think oh Hollywood I like money let's capitalize on it and they didn't so Stephen Howe was like let's find Godzilla he's like I got this one let's find Godzilla right you broke out you brought Godzilla into 2023. we did and we did it it's a satire that parodies 1970s Kaiju shows so we're purposely like satirizing how bad filmmaking was back then yeah but terrible writing right the terrible robber suits occasionally you see like a Converse s
hoe because I got somebody's Godzilla suit it's so bad it's good yes he's wearing it depends what's happening here this is one of our monsters well this is one of our monsters because you know that was I think once I learned what the sets were like back in the 70s and 80s which by the way Channel 11 used to air those Godzilla movies yes I remember being we have better on the Block here yes talk to us about the the set building and where it exists the set was was built by a legendary model maker
Fon Davis who's built things you would definitely like R2D2 Millennium Falcon oh my god um and he is a fellow um aapi artist in Hollywood we built a lot of things for real which is really rare nowadays because you know everything goes to CGI immediately right so we actually built the the mini cars that are remote controlled to make him actually drive no way um the miniature cities that we kind of like cheat to get these giant monster suits right but at the same time we don't take ourselves serio
usly so there's a lot of goofiness a lot of mics popping into frames this is terrible writing a character dies on the next episode he's back with no explanation like what's his name from South Park oh yeah um yeah guys every episode next episode and you might have one of those we do have one of those yes all my friends who are the stars on The Shield they are I admire the hell out of them they're some of the biggest on the planet like um one of our our lead villain his name is Lord metagon as he
's played by Alan Chao who took United States number one in weekly views wow which is an absolutely extraordinary achievement excuse What's Happening Here what is going on here oh that's a wow that's a terrible Walmart Power Rangers we're Power Rangers failed audition oh my God oh my God I love this show so much with the Godzilla that ran out of budget is what we are listen we feel you we thank you so much for joining us and it's absolutely keep doing the work please I love that you were doing t
he work for and by Asians and it's just it's a wonderful thing and we need we need this entertainment to keep coming and can you leave a voice can you be my voicemail message and don't forget you can watch shinormal now it's streaming on YouTube uh and be sure if you're not already doing it to follow Steven on social media
Comments
I can definitely hear the irish accent