Joe Pera Talks with You

The series stars comedian Joe Pera as a fictionalized version of himself, living in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and teaching choir at a local middle school. Pera attempts to talk directly to the audience about mundane subject matter such as iron, Sunday breakfast, fall drives and sleeping.

• Joe Pera (Joe Pera) is a self-proclaimed "soft-handed choir teacher" from Marquette. Though he is very introspective, with a vast knowledge of specific concepts, he expresses naivety in his social interactions.
• Mike Melsky (Conner O'Malley) is Joe's neighbor. The two meet in the show's first episode, when Mike attempts to buy Joe's house due to a misunderstanding with where the sign is placed. He is generally sarcastic, short-tempered, and incredulous towards Joe.
• Sue Melsky (Jo Scott) is the wife of Mike Melsky. She is more friendly and accepting towards Joe.
• Gene Gibson (Gene Kelly), Joe's best friend. He likes to help Joe teach his lessons, and often ends up giving Joe advice in the process.
• Sarah Conner (Jo Firestone) is a new band teacher working at the same school as Joe. Many of her beliefs are rooted in conspiracies and fears for the future, as evidenced by her construction of a fortified basement below her house. She becomes Joe's love interest over the course of the first season.
• "Nana" Josephine Pera (Nancy Cornell in season 1, Pat Vern Harris in season 2) is Joe's grandmother, based on his real grandmother of the same name. The character passed away in Season 2, Episode 18. [3]
• Gus (Fitzgerald William) is Joe's lazy basset hound.

The first Pera project to appear on Adult Swim was the animated short, Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep. It was aired as part of the network's Infomercials series on March 21, 2016. The short was animated and directed by Kieran O'Hare, who had previously animated a Joe Pera comedy bit for his YouTube channel. O'Hare applied the same animation style to the Adult Swim special.

On December 9, 2016,[4] a second special, Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree, premiered on Adult Swim. The live-action special was more tonally similar to what would become Joe Pera Talks with You. Like the series, it was directed by Marty Schousboe and written by Pera alongside Dan Licata, and made by the same production team under the name Rent Now Productions. It also takes place in the same location in Michigan where Pera works as a choir teacher. It features characters that would later appear in the series, such as Gene, the Melsky family and Joe's Nana Josephine. Differences include Joe's dog Gus being a black bloodhound (or possibly a black lab mix) instead of a basset hound portrayed by Fitzgerald William, Joe living in a different house, and Joe's co-worker and love interest Sarah, portrayed in the series by Jo Firestone, being absent entirely. These differences imply the special and series are not within the same continuity. Joe's Nana Josephine was also played by his real-life grandmother, Josephine Pera, who died in 2017.[3] The character Gene Gibson is also present in the Christmas special, but not portrayed by real-life camera operator, Gene Kelly, as he was in the series. Pera appeared on local talk shows to promote the special.[5]

Joe Pera Talks with You has received critical acclaim, with much of the praise going towards the show's unique tone and writing. In a positive review, The A.V. Club's Erik Adams writes that "It’s a particular type of funny, of the soft-spoken, deadpan, and disarming type that Pera practices onstage and on the talk-show circuit. It’s one of his many gifts as a performer, the way his understated wardrobe, deliberate delivery, and nervous body language set an expectation for awkwardness, before Pera pulls the rug out from under the audience with the confidence of his pacing and the precision of his writing."[22] Indiewire's Steve Greene gave the second season an A- and wrote "“This is nice.” There’s no irony, no rug pull, no cynicism in what he says. Just one person grateful for something that hasn’t even arrived yet. That’s the show in a nutshell: a chronicle of a guy so enthusiastic about the tiny pleasures of life that he’s even happy about potential things. Pera, as the star and frequent writer of the series, plays Joe, a resident of a Michigan city who takes the viewers through the things that fill him with wonder."

• Official website
• Joe Pera Talks with You at IMDb