Jake and Amir Review and Top 10 Episodes

 

Ten years ago the original Jake and Amir series ended. A staple of internet comedy in that era, Jake and Amir if you aren't aware has a very basic concept. Jake is a relatively normal guy who sits at work across from his co-worker Amir, who is a weird guy, usually Amir agitates or unsettling Jake with his antics or eccentricities. Despite this it became an absolutely beloved series that lasted basically for 8 years and 800 two to five minute episodes. 

Because of how long the series lasted it definitely morphed a lot in style though a popular way of dividing it is into three eras based on the two times that Jake and Amir moved offices, the first time in March in 2010 and the second time in in January of 2014. I think a good way to do this is to briefly talk about my thoughts on each of these three eras, before giving my thoughts on the series as a whole and my top 10 episodes.

2007 to 2010 or Early Jake and Amir I know has probably the most vocal fanbase but personally I definitely find it the weakest era. Very early on it wasn't even meant to be a web series. For the most part it's just that for 2007 and sometimes in 2008 the episodes would be too simple, basically containing one joke each per episode rather then layering on the absurdity as later episodes are wont to do. There are things I do like about this era though. Starting in 2008 and really by 2009 the episodes would start resembling what they would be later. Hebrew and Thai Menu are both episodes I really like and they're both from 2009. This was the era of multi part episodes. Outside of Girlfriend and the Finale, Jake and Amir didn't tend to do longer arcs after the early part, but as early as 2007 with Lyrics Jake and Amir was doing multiparters and by 2008 they were doing four part arcs with the Florida arc. 

My favorite thing about this period of Jake and Amir though is the heart. Jake and Amir occasionally do wholesome moments however they work by far the best here. This is because Jake and Amir were still relatively grounded here. By late in the series Jake has commented on wishing Amir would die enough times Amir even comments on it, so when Jake decides to move across the country for Amir it feels inconsistent. Plus in later Jake and Amir they'd have a tender moment only to immediately follow with a joke mocking it. This kind of whiplash humor I get the idea for but it really takes it out of the moment. This was broadly Jake and Amir at their most grounded when Amir wasn't a chaotic reality-warping psychopath but was a weird co-worker and Jake the confused annoyed straight man. That leads to the moments like in Sick Day 3, Decision, and Brother 4 to come off as so much more genuine. 

2010 through 2013 or Middle Jake and Amir seems to be the most popular time for Jake and I would definitely concur. It's the longest period and has the most memes to come from it. Jake and Amir's voices both as characters and as writers came more into focus, with longer episodes that contained a faster pace and more jokes. Jake was given more dimensionality shifting from just a very average everyman straight man to Amir's antics, to someone desperate for popularity and praise, a representation not of just the status quo but of people chasing the status quo. This was good I think as it allowed him more versatility as a character. Amir became more exaggerated going from just a wacky and dim-witted co-worker to a chaotic mixture of sociopathy, lunacy, and obsession. This was a mixed blessing as it allowed jokes around him to go to further extremes but also meant it was harder to have any kind of human moment with him that was believable. 

Outside of the duo, the world of Jake and Amir definitely opened up. There were less arcs, but far more callbacks and episodes that referenced or sequeled-past episodes. This was when the girlfriend arc and Fired, the Jake and Amir 30 minute movie came out. This was also when a ton of characters were added into Jake an Amir's world. While some of these characters had rather basic jokes like Mike Fink who's entire joke is that Amir for some reason thinks he's Shia LeBeouf, the addition of more recurring cast allowed for more versatility. 

I broadly agree this is the best period of Jake and Amir where everything felt both iconic and free, where Jake and Amir could have an ep about anything, expand the world in any direction, and still have it feel recognizably Jake and Amir due to the chemistry between the main duo. 

2014 to 2015 marks Late Jake and Amir. While this stretch has a lot in common with Mid Jake and Amir there was a more notable sense that it was getting tired, something lampshaded in their videos ("POSTER Ideas don't you think we're scraping the bottom of the barrel.") The shortest period, this part still has great eps. The Finale are broadly all good eps, and Stock Market is a fantastic episode. However the series was sorta faced with two options neither of which were great, that being continue on the same as they were and letting it feel stale, or to keep exaggerating making it more and more of a cartoon, and episodes from this period broadly do one or the other I think tending towards the latter. The most wacky ideas in the series like them living in a muffin or Amir castrating himself without any pain whatsoever or randomly having two hot girls dance in his laundry room because "I'm a promoter." 

What I will say about this era is when it's on, it is really on. The timing and back and forth between Jake and Amir is never sharper then in the good episodes of this period. Tinder, Stock Market, Multiple Parts of the Finale, and DJ Business are all eps I at least considered for the Top 10. There are more individual episodes in this much shorter Late Jake and Amir that I rewatch regularly then Early Jake and Amir, however it comes with the fact that there are episodes of Late Jake and Amir like Copier that I don't have any desire to ever watch again. 

In terms of my general thoughts on the series as a whole, I like Jake and Amir a lot obviously. It's difficult for me to describe why something is funny very well outside of just saying that the series has great writing and chemistry between the titular duo. However if I was to try and describe what's funny about it, Jake and Amir's writing has a particular way of laying multiple absurdities in a short space to create something of a rhythm of absurdity. Whereas a stereotypical joke relies on one level of unexpected subversion Jake and Amir jokes often have multiple levels of absurdity within the same space either from unexplained details or Amir missing the point. Take for example a fairly normal exchange from "Fur" :

"You know there's a dead iguana in your pocket."

"Or am I just happy to see you?"

"It's a dead iguana."

"I'm also happy to see you!"

Here you can see how the series layers numerous layers and even types of absurdity into seven seconds such as Amir comically missing the point, using an expression wrong, and having a dead iguana in his pocket while protesting animal cruelty. This multiple layers of absurdity is really common in Jake and Amir and creates more unpredictability which engages the brain more then is typical. Jake and Amir filters this through a lot of different styles including Amir style, with a little bit of salt. The universal application of this style of comedy allows for the series to have a cohesive feel regardless of the topic it's being applied to. There is a reason that you can speak in Jake and Amir "style" quotes even if they are not directly jokes from the series, because the style of Jake and Amir writing is very iconic. I like how they can use it to apply to many different types of comedy from their usual straight man and weirdo routine, to ones where Jake is also a strange character of a different sort, to physical comedy, to videos where only one of them speaks (common when they are relaying a story of what insane thing Amir did recently) or not at all on rare occasions, to videos that include more characters such as the table reads and meetings episodes. Best of all there are some episodes that are Amir Style, a LOT of salt. 

However not all of the styles works. There are a few different types of Jake and Amirs that don't work for me albeit exceptionally rare. The most difficult for me by far are the gross out eps. I'm fairly disgust sensitive and Jake and Amir can definitely get gross with vomit or blood. It's not at common but about 1% of the episodes are hard for me to watch because of it. Second some of the side  characters are more of a hinderance to the series then a help. Will's character starts and ends with "eats his own feces", which is quite probably the worst joke in the series. Murph's bullying of Jake is often not very funny to me as it's mostly too in-line with real bullying and only makes me feel bad for Jake. Rarer then both of these of these Jake and Amir will occasionally soapbox about a social issue. It's maybe a half dozen eps in the series at most and earlier on they had a bit more self-awareness about it (How do you know so much? / Easy it's not hard to stay informed, you read an hour a day / How do you ACTUALLY know? / ...Daily Show, watch the Colbert Report.)  I even usually agree with them. I still don't find them very funny. These three styles of episodes are all very rare, each like 1% of the series or less so they're not that big a deal, but I'm not really a fan. Also some episodes are made "Amir Style" AKA No salt at all and those aren't very Taupe. 

The vast majority of the episodes are good. Like I said the amount of episodes I don't like are maybe a 1-4% percent, and even if some of the earlier episodes are boring or some of the latter episodes are too exaggerated, I would estimate that I at least enjoy 90-95% of their videos, and I would say that a substantial fraction are great.  My favorite style is definitely the standard Jake and Amir at their desks doing a back and forth but most alternate styles like relaying events prior, scrolls eps, Doobs eps, Ben Schwartz Eps, all make for their own fun breaks to the style. I think Jake and Amir is almost perfectly designed to appeal to a internet era audience with episodes that are short and which encourage replay view due to the density of absurdity per minute.

I'd like to humbly present my personal top 10 Jake and Amir episodes, might be a bit of a weird list for anyone else but I hope you enjoy:

One Almond: 

What is it that makes Jake and Amir: One Almond...heh... perfect? This is one of the most iconic episodes of Jake and Amir with some of the most well known jokes in the series. (It not only has the prior line but it has the response (Nothing, it's bad/Don't just say *perfect imitation* it's bad) Amir's confusion over what an almond is, 0 billion or 0 dollars question as well as subtler absurdities like "how much would you pay for courtside seats to the Yankees." It also has the joke I think anyone's who has been in the fandom any amount of times where they actually bought the one almond domain name and have kept it up for how long which honestly by itself makes me wanna put it on the list for how much they're putting into this joke. 

9: Breakfast

This episode has Jake come into find Amir with a ton of leftover breakfast. This ep has my single favorite joke in the series in it where Amir talking about grabbing a waitress arm and demanding in a serious voice that he wants one of everything leading to him saying "She takes me at face value because, duality of man or whatever..." A lot of Jake and Amir jokes have layers, but this joke has like 10 layers and genuinely keeps me up at night thinking about it. This episode also has Amir's very inconsistent style which is another joke I really like. The rest of the episode is fine, my only real complaint is that this episode is way too salty, I mean it's practically Amir style. 

8: Ace and Jocelyn 9

Ace and Jocelyn is a subseries in Jake and Amir where Amir pretends they are astronaut accounts from Outer Space and misinterprets everything happening to fit that narrative. In this one Amir catches Jake masturbating in an embarrassing fashion and blackmails him to go along with it. The humor of this mostly comes from Jake trying to spin Amir's deranged fantasy into one that is more reasonable by spinning it into the fantasy. I do wish it was a bit more of a playful back and forth as Amir just shuts down everything Jake says immediately but it's still really funny seeing Jake attempt to maneuver this deranged fantasy world of Amir's.

7: Brother Part 4

This episode is the conclusion to the Brother Arc where Jake's brother comes in and basically manipulates him out of all his money while Amir tries to warn Jake, disbelieving Amir for all the things he's done. This ep in particular takes place after Jake had his money stolen by his brother. Jake tries to save face while Amir comforts him without acknowledge it in some of the best writing in the entire series, both clearly knowing each other knows but not talking about it so that Jake can save face. A list like this you wanna put the emotional eps but I limited it to one cause it felt wrong to fill the list with them. When moments like this happen in latter eps, they tend to subvert it with a joke at the end which I don't really like, feeling like it saps both of their potency. Sick Day has a few great moments like that, Jake consoling Amir before leaving or hugging him when he returns, but they're emotionally simple. This scene is complex, it has the two characters in a place they usually aren't, Jake vulnerable and Amir consoling in a way that feels still in character for both and is honestly really touching. It even has a funny bit at the end without taking from it as we see Jake's brother get his just desserts when the foreign girl he was trying to bring over for himself steals the money from him and leaves him with nothing. 

6: Finale Part 5

Like with the emotional eps, I also wanted to put a part from the Finale in this one. It was a hard one but for pure nostalgia I went with Part 5. This has the final Mickey and Doobs sections, both of which were good enough that I considered episodes about them for this list and while neither is the BEST section of that type, they're both pretty good. It has the return of old CH stars Sarah and Streeter as well as the Eater Piefell Joke. It had a bunch of references to things from across the series, I mean each part of the Finale can be seen as a conclusion to one part of Jake and Amir, I think Part 5 is definitely the goodbye to the cast of characters built up over 8 years.

5: Celebrity Date

Some eps are Douchebag Jake eps where Jake and his obsessive insecure need to seem cool is the weird one. I am less a fan of the full reversal where Amir is relatively normal but the eps they are both kind of off, especially the ones where Jake is normal at first then transitions during the ep are always good ones for me. I considered both Rap Teacher and Screenplay for that exact reason but Celebrity Date I think is my favorite example. This ep has Amir get the phone number of Jaime Lee Curtis and talk about his need to start dating her to get an in with Hollywood with Jake switching to a needy desire to make her his wife himself. This has a pretty funny exchange even before the switch though it's after Jake goes Douchebag Jake that this ep is filled with some great back and forth. This ep has one of the best lines in the series with Jake pantsing Amir over for the phone number while proclaiming "All's BARE in SHOVE and floor." 

4: Stock Market

In this ep Amir is a stock market advisor at his desk. This ep is another great one for wordplay as well as the best Mickey ep as Amir advises Mickey on stocks. A line I will always remember from it "It doesn't matter to me which one of my clients is making that cheese Mickey, cause I'm still eating crackers like we're putting on the Ritz, Mickey!" just numerous lines like that with several layers. This ep is a great combination of that plus non-sequiters like "What Happened" *sarcastically* "Ba-na-na!" "Bad job mocking me you think I said 'banana'?" or Minnie (No Way! Mickey's married to Minne) actually knowing who did sys-ops for Maersk. I honestly don't know what else to say about this ep cause it's just really memorably funny. 

3: Bus

In this ep Jake and Amir are taking the bus back after got them kicked off the subway with his usual antics. This ep has my favorite description of Amir "A mix between Che Guevara, Bam Margera, and Dom Irrera" a line I think about constantly as being witty, surprisingly accurate, and also captivating. There is a ton of good gags this ep including maybe the single most influential exchange on my way of speaking in any Jake and Amir (It was a goof/You're a goof/EXCUSE ME, I have very thick skin but that was a low blow! / ... you're a goof?/ENOUGH!) I am constantly calling bad things goofs as a way of comedically unselling them, pretending it's a hard hitting insult. This ep has a ton of memorable parts, "there's anthrax on this train take off all your clothes" "I'm part of the 69%", "How can you start chants this easily" I really wanted to put it higher, it's just that everything this high is great, and Bus is just a touch unfocused to be higher.

2: Explanation:

In Explanation Amir is trying to explain to Jake what happened to his new X-Box. I said Bus is maybe the most influential to my humor and the reason I said maybe is cause explanation also exists. The ep has the Byron Murphy bit, the random "I'm GAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" and a line that is in the same league as "duality of man or whatever" with Amir getting to the end of the story and saying "So then I walk in, like a hero or whatever, and..." showing him smashing with a bat. It's a hilarious anticlimax to whole story set up with a fantastic line that adds numerous more layers of absurdity in such a simple line. This episode is great from start to finish and my only problem with is that it's a short episode being 75 seconds when most eps are 2-4 minutes long. 

1: Blowing Up

This episode doesn't get talked about nearly enough, to me this is exactly what I want from the series. So in this ep Jake and Amir are working on a script but Amir keeps getting called into the other rooms and having increasing dramatic breakdowns on the phone. I can't sing this episode's praises enough. The thing I love about Jake and Amir's writing style is the way layers of absurdity causes your brain to try and fill in the blanks for how this works and Amir's insane yelling on the phone does that three times, giving you just enough information that your mind races to try and figure out what happens. When he yells "YOU ARE NOT GETTING A DIME OF THIS MONEY, NOT ONE DIME! UNDERSTOOD I HAVE KILLED BEFORE, I WILL KILL AGAIN, THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE." it's not that my brain is trying to figure out what actually happens, it's that it's given just information that I feel like I'm getting a glimpse into the insane world of Amir. This ep incorporates a surprisingly high amount of types of humor in such a specific concept and the ending is actually one that manages to be both funny and kinda sweet. Jake has been trying to ask if Amir is alright and saying he can do this himself with Amir brushing it off but after the third Amir is like "Uhhh, hey I'm gonna have to cut out a little bit early..." and Jake immediately being like "yeah that's fine." Like it's both funny in how obvious Jake was going to allow it and yet nice in how he does actually want better for Amir. This episode is just everything I like in Jake and Amir in 150 seconds. It's got layers of absurdity, multiple types of comedy, sudden shifts between casualness and intensity, the exact type of dynamic I imagine between the two, and it's lowkey one of Amir's best performances in the entire series.