After years of capturing unfiltered, laugh‑out‑loud stories on SOMETHIN’ CRUNCHY, Cullen Blake is giving those moments a second life with Wait! What?. Built from unforgettable celebrity confessions, family‑fueled banter, and the hyper‑local community that helped the show thrive, the book reflects what has always defined the brand: honest storytelling, disciplined creativity, and a vision of success rooted less in scale and more in staying weird, funny, and in it together.
Hi Cullen, so great to connect with you again. We’re excited for our readers to catch up on everything happening with SOMETHIN’ CRUNCHY, especially your new coffee-table book Wait! What?, so let’s jump right in. After years of sharing wild celebrity stories and comedy moments on the podcast, what inspired you to turn those highlights into a physical, coffee-table style book?
After seven years of interviewing everyone from actors and comedians to musicians and philosophers, we realized we were basically sitting on a vault of stories that felt criminal not to preserve. Over and over, guests would say things like, “I can’t believe I’m telling you guys this” or “I never really tell this story,” and at some point you zoom out and go, oh… this is a greatest-hits album.
So the book became our way of curating the wildest, funniest, most unbelievable moments into something you can actually hold. It’s a coffee-table book you don’t casually flip through so much as buckle up for.
The inspiration was simple: these stories deserve a second life. Not cleaned up. Not sanitized. Just preserved so people can experience the same feeling we get every episode when someone says, “you’re not gonna believe this,” and then absolutely proves it.
Your show has always had a unique family dynamic with you, your sister, and your brother-in-law co-hosting together. How does working with family shape the humor, trust, and chemistry that listeners feel every episode?
The family dynamic is really the secret sauce of SOMETHIN’ CRUNCHY. It’s the glue that holds the show together and honestly the biggest thing that separates us from most comedy podcasts. We’ve fallen into very specific roles, we know each other’s timing instinctively, and because we’ve known each other forever there’s a built-in trust… both in how far we can push a joke and exactly where the line is.
Everyone likes ripping on their sibling or their best friend. We just do it on microphones with help from professional comedians. My favorite moments are when a guest clocks our dynamic immediately and feels comfortable enough to jump in, especially when they start roasting Blair. At that point, she’s no longer a co-host… she’s everyone’s little sister.
Blair has been called a feral creature, frequently described as a woman of questionable morals… but she takes it like a champ. The joke only works because she’s the polar opposite in real life… an incredible mom, a loving wife, and the most responsible person in the room. Which, of course, makes her the obvious target.
You’ve talked before about the power of going hyper-local in Phoenix and building real community instead of chasing a massive audience right away. How has that strategy continued to pay off as the brand grows into new projects like the book and future creative ventures?
Going hyper-local was basically us admitting that we don’t need the entire internet to like us. Phoenix is such a great hub for comedy so our focus shifted to those coming through the Valley.
Ironically, going smaller made everything bigger and easier to scale. Plus, by growing a local audience, we have more to offer on our platform by means of being able to promote someone’s show or event.
As the brand grows into things like the book and new projects, that foundation keeps paying off. The people who supported us early on feel invested in it and want to see where this thing goes.
Comedy can feel effortless when it’s done well, but producing consistent, funny, thoughtful content takes serious work. What have you learned about balancing creativity with discipline behind the scenes?
Comedy looking effortless is the biggest lie since “I’ll just have one drink.”
What I’ve learned is that creativity loves structure way more than it pretends to. The fun, chaotic ideas don’t show up when you’re waiting to feel inspired… they show up when you’re on a schedule, slightly annoyed, and delirious from a long day. Discipline is basically creativity’s unsexy but very reliable ride home.
Behind the scenes, it’s a lot of showing up when nothing feels funny, writing bad jokes, cutting things I love, and trusting that if I do the reps, my brain will eventually reward us with something usable. The creativity part is the spark, but without the discipline, you’ve just got an idea and nothing else.
Our team tries to keep it playful within a routine. The balance is knowing when to work like a professional and when to let the idiot in your head drive for a minute.
Looking ahead, between the podcast, the new book, and your interest in writing a feature or comedy series, what’s the bigger vision for SOMETHIN’ CRUNCHY—and what would “making it” truly look like for you and your family team?
The big vision for SOMETHIN’ CRUNCHY is pretty simple: we want to build something that feels alive, durable, and unmistakably ours. The podcast is the campfire where the stories get told and the relationships are built. The book is the artifact to prove that these moments mattered enough to preserve. And the long-form writing, whether it’s a feature or a series, is us asking, “What happens if we really let this thing stretch its legs?”
“Making it,” for us, isn’t some abstract industry milestone or a blue check version of happiness. It’s being able to keep betting on our taste, our voices, and each other.
On a very practical level, making it means we’re still doing this together years from now, the jokes are sharper, the stories are bigger, and no one has to pretend this is a “side thing” anymore. If we can keep building something honest, weird, and consistently funny while protecting the family dynamic that started it all then we’ve already won.
Anything beyond that is just somethin’ crunchy.
