For some, the Midwest is a collection of flyover states. For others, it’s a way of life.
Comedian Charlie Berens has made a living taking “Midwest nice” to the stage.
The proud Wisconsinite is the creator of the farcical news show “The Manitowoc Minute.” In an overblown accent, camo duck jacket, and Packers tie, Berens informs his neighbors of the wildest headlines—and Craigslist finds—he reads online.
Now, he’s touring the country on his “Lost and Found” tour. He stops in Spokane on Thursday.
SPR’s Eliza Billingham, also a Midwest native, chatted with Berens last week about spending his 20s in TV news, learning to love your hometown—and Sunday’s Bears vs. Packers showdown.
This is an extended version of the interview. Click the blue button above to listen to the shorter version that went to air. Both have been edited for length and clarity.
Eliza Billingham: Okay, Charlie, you're on your "Lost and Found" tour, but you just released a special called “Neighborly.” How different are the hours?
Charlie Berens: Oh, they're completely different hours. You know, same guy, different hours. Same church, different pew.
But you know, if you like that special, you'll probably like a lot of this. It's more about my life as an uncle, through the perspective of, obviously, I'm one of 12 kids and I'm a guy from the Midwest.
It’s kind of talking about my life, which I think people will kind of relate to—in the sense that, you may not have kids or you may have kids, but you have that whole uncle dynamic. Which is similar to like a parent, but very different.
It’s kind of like having a library card for kids. You can return them late and damaged and it's expected. It's fine.
EB: I am selfishly fascinated that you started out as a broadcast journalist and you won an Emmy for covering the cost of water in Texas. In “Neighborly,” you go on a rant about AI water use. I also think you're using Manitowoc Minute to keep up with this small Wisconsin town's city council.
Do you have any of the same goals as a comedian as you did as a reporter?
CB: Well, I think I mean at the end of the day, I want people to know what's going on in their own backyards. It wasn't sort of my intent to do that. But when you look at sort of those city council meetings and people are just kind of being ignored. It's just a way of shining a spotlight on it so their voices can be heard.
These days, people like me have like have an audience and a lot of news places—traditional news outlets—have a dwindling audience. So it's just a way to maybe balance that out. Or maybe it's blending two of the careers I have. I don't know. I haven't thought too much about it. But just trying to bring a little bit of levity to a really obnoxious thing that's going on.
EB: Do you think much at all about if there's a line between news and entertainment—or which one is more useful?
CB: There’s definitely a line. Real news reporters, real investigative journalists, they do a very different thing and it's a difficult thing.
I don't have those things applied as like comedian necessarily. It's almost like picking out the trees in the forest and making some jokes with them. But there is some similarity in the fact that you can use both to get information to people.
EB: But you get to use an accent. I want to talk about accents, because I think about voice all the time.
I listened to “The Cost of Water,” which is which is what you did in Texas, and it took me a really long time to realize that you're the person narrating it, right?
CB: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Where did you find that?
EB: It's on YouTube. I think when I found it, it had 14 views and then after I found it, it had 16 views.
CB: Nice. You have the 15th and 16th view of that.
EB: That was me! But you've talked about getting told that you had too strong of an accent and that you needed to soften it for broadcast. Did you resist at all? Do you think that was good advice?
CB: Well, it was just the way news was back then. I think some of that's gone away. But the there were a few different news gigs. I had where, you know, the accents got in the way.
Like I was doing voiceovers, back when I was like a producer. I was in the booth and I did a voiceover.
And then they heard it back and they're like, ‘No, the accent is too strong.’ We got someone else to do it. So that happened, you know, a few times over the course of my news career.
EB: Do you think anything has changed since then?
CB: Oh, I mean, I changed my voice, you know. I mean, there was a voice coach involved because when that's your livelihood, that's what you got to do.
But then, when I switched over to comedy, the basis of my one of my first bits was just kind of taking everything people said I was doing wrong in broadcasting—doubling down on it to create this news type character.
EB: Now you've built a career on not just what you did wrong in broadcast, but on celebrating the Midwest, which I personally think is an undercelebrated part of the country—I'm from the Chicago suburbs.
CB: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Are you a Bears fan?
EB: I'm wearing a Bears shirt right now.
CB: I'm so sorry to hear that.
EB: Before we get into that, tell me about how you're touring the country and so much of your stuff is from this perspective as a Midwesterner. Do you think there's something that people who don't get to grow up in the Midwest like still resonate with?
CB: Yeah, I mean, I think the Midwest has a very ‘be nice first, ask questions later’ kind of a mentality at its best. There's a lot of taking care of your neighbor and looking out for other people.
Of course, it comes with the other side of that which means people have a real hard time saying goodbye and linger for quite a while and can, you know, offer a lot of unwanted things like casseroles and leftovers. But you kind of take the good with the bad with all of it.
EB: I feel like most people, I don't know, kind of grow up hating their hometown or wanting to leave or wanting to get out. Did you ever feel that or did you always know that you loved Wisconsin? When did you realize that that was your place?
CB: I left after college and I went around the country for 10 years doing news and various other jobs. And I think it's once you leave—that's when you realize how much you love it in a lot of ways. And you realize what you're missing and what's so special about back home.
You know, I lived in Los Angeles and D.C. and Dallas and South Carolina, lived all over the place. I couldn't ever quite replicate what we have in the Midwest.
EB: Going back to this idea of ‘Midwest nice,’ this kind of overblown politeness and fear of confrontation—I feel like comedy is the exact opposite. It's an embrace of honesty and sometimes confrontation. I feel like a lot of your success is from that honesty.
So have you ever actually been ‘Midwest nice’ or have you always seen the farce in it?
CB: Huh. I mean, there's definitely—I go into that a little bit in this hour, too—but I think there's a lot of people that are genuinely nice and genuinely believe in that at the heart of it. And then there's also kind of, you know, some people just doing it reflexively because they're told that that's what you're supposed to do.
So that there's all and both of those things are always there, you know, and there's a way to find, you know, in the Midwest or the honesty and the niceness, too.
When you're like, ‘How you doing?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine.’ I mean, you know they're not fine. They're just going to double down on that. ‘No, I'm seriously, I'm fine.’
And the more they say they're fine, the more they're not fine, but they're not going to tell you that. If you really want to get to know why they're not fine, you have to talk to their bartender.
EB: Exactly. Okay, I have to ask you about your siblings. You're one of 12. It's a very biblical number. Your parents are Catholic, so I'm sure that they've read the Old Testament warnings against having favorite children. But how do you feel about having favorite siblings?
CB: That's funny. Yeah, I have a favorite sibling. I mean, they change on a sort of hourly basis, you know. It just depends who's doing the most for you at a particular moment, really, or who's not bugging you.
The 'Midwest nice' thing goes out the window, too, when it comes to siblings and the people closest to you. That's when you just get right down to the point because, you know, they know you're nice or that you're not. But you can you can be more blunt with them, I guess we'll call it.
EB: Okay, reporter faux pas. I left my most important question for last. Who do you think is going to win the Bears Packers game on Sunday?
CB: Obviously, the Packers are going to win. And I hate to say, but you guys have lost 11 of the past 12 games. Okay? You haven't been this good since 2018. You don't know how to handle it. Your head coach is stripping in the locker room like he just walked out of some Naperville mom's birthday cake.
I think we know that you guys are uncomfortable there. You'd just be much more comfortable in like third place in the NFC. We'll see that.
EB: For the uninformed, the Bears are the current NFC leaders and we won last time we were in Lambeau. So I don't think there's any obvious answer to this question.
CB: Wow. Wow. Well played.
EB: But if you are so confident that the Packers are going to win on Sunday, would you wear a Bears shirt to your show if the Bears win?
CB: Would I wear a Bears shirt to the show if the Bears win?
EB: Yeah!
[long pause]
CB: Absolutely not. Yeah, no. I see what you did there and I really resent you for it, because…
EB: …because you're afraid. You're afraid that we're going to win.
CB: Well, you never know what's going to happen. You never know if the whole team can come down with the flu or something, you know, bugs these days. They're spreading.
EB: Because the only way the Packers would lose is if it's the act of God?!
CB: Yeah, it would have to be an act of God for the Packers to lose. See now you're now you're acting like a real journalist. See that that was a fact that you just said. That's perfect.
EB: Charlie, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it.
CB: Yeah, watch for deer now.
EB: Tell your mom I say hi.
CB: I will, I will. You tell your folks I say hi, too, okay?
Berens performs Thursday, December 11 at 7 pm at The Fox Theater in Spokane.
