There’s something about your mom’s house that makes you feel loved and accepted. The same goes for the “Your Mom’s House” podcast, but the acceptance is a tad different. Hosted by husband-and-wife comedians Tom Segura and Christina Pazsitzky, “YMH” has the ability to make listeners feel welcomed into an unconventional family, where laughing at the dumbest jokes imaginable is actually encouraged. But it didn’t happen overnight and it took a village.
In the mid-2000s, podcasting was brand new as Adam Carolla and “The Joe Rogan Experience” paved the way. “I thought Joe was insane when he started ‘JRE,’” admits Segura. “I thought it was some rich guy thing where he was talking in a room at his house and he had some message board. A few months later, after seeing Christina do stand-up, he was like, ‘you two should do a podcast together.’”
Brian Redban, co-owner of Sunset Strip ATX, comedian, podcaster, and producer of “JRE” and hit shows like “Kill Tony” and “Secret Show,” quite literally has the Midas touch. But back then, he was just having fun with tech. “When we started ‘JRE’ in 2009, it was Rogan promoting his shows and giving him an outlet to talk. Then it just blew up overnight. Something clicked and I was like, what’s going on with Joe is helping him so much, I want to make podcasts for all my friends. It was all so new though, so I definitely had to do some convincing,” Redban recalls.
In 2010, live streaming on YouTube didn’t even exist so Segura and Pazsitzky weren’t entirely sold. “I was like, what the f— is a podcast? It sounded like building a space shuttle back then,” says Pazsitzky.
With the couple finally on board, they sat on a couch in Redban’s Burbank living room and “Your Mom’s House” was born on the Deathsquad Network, where they discussed comedy, their relationship, crazy internet videos and taboo topics normalized humorously, instantly solidifying that anything goes on “YMH.”
“We’d go to Burbank, in the summer, and sit on this gross leather couch,” Pazsitzky says with a laugh. “All he had was a wall unit air conditioner and we’d have to turn it off to tape, so we’d just be sitting there sweating.”
Eventually they decided it was time to try their hand at recording the podcast in their own home in Silver Lake. “We did about 40 episodes with Redban and then I took it over and had a huge tech error, making it unlistenable,” admits Segura.
“To my brilliant husband’s credit, there was no podcasting,” says Pazsitzky. “This was a technological medium that was essentially invented as we went along. We lived in a crummy two-bedroom apartment, we were newlyweds and we had no money. We got a mixing board, two mics and a computer, and at that point, we slept in one room and used the other room as an office. It bordered this other house where this lady would cook the smelliest food and have aggressive sex.”
“Oh yeah, she was newly divorced and very performative with orgasms too,” adds Segura.
Early on in their podcasting venture, the couple started making money through online affiliate ads that trickled more as their fan base began to grow, enough for them to even think about paying the bills with “Your Mom’s House.”
“I was like, I think we can probably get to the point where this podcast pays our rent,” Segura said. “It was such an exciting thing because we’d go into this room and talk for an hour, and it actually did pay our rent. From there, it just kept growing.”
After 14 years, seven studio changes, two kids, a California to Texas relocation, loads of gifts for Segura’s mom Charo, successful solo side-podcasts, global tours, and more, the scrappy podcast has surpassed everyone’s expectations. The couple attributes their longevity to staying relatable, even to what they jokingly refer to as “the poors.”
“I think it’s always been our ethos to have direct connections, with our sponsors and with the audience,” says Pazsitzky. “We started originally playing Mommie videos, where people would submit the craziest s—. To this day, we still source most of the wacky stuff from the audience. We’ve always had good relationships with humans and when I walk through an airport and someone goes, ‘Hey Mommy!’ and I go, ‘Hey Jeans,’ it’s so cool because it’s like this insider vernacular with friends.”
In 2021, swayed by the convenience of easier travel for cross-country shows and a slower-paced family lifestyle at home, the couple packed up and moved from L.A. to Austin, Texas. “Our lives are very normal, and we’re grounded family people. At the end of the day, we come home, our kids fart on Tom’s head, and I make dinner. Our lives are way more manageable in Austin,” says Pazsitzky.
Dedicated to making sure they could keep up the podcast’s same level of quality in a different city, the couple found a great studio and office space in Austin and hired more staff to help them produce their show.
At its core, the show has always been a showcase of the couple’s ability to push every boundary just as they do in their stand-up, hilariously and unapologetically going full throttle for the fans, no matter what state they are in.
“We’ve had children, we’ve moved a bunch, and now we’re these middle-aged people and the fans have been there the whole time,” says Pazsitzky. Adds Segura, “We have these relationships with fans that you would have with your friends or family. The crazy thing is, you forget they know so much about you so when someone walks up to you and is like, is Charo good? You forget that you relayed all of this stuff on air and now, this guy knows so much about me.”
From bodily function issues and kid shenanigans to videos of terrible tattoos and people looking to fornicate with anything that has a pulse, fans serve as their own laugh track.
Along with the jokes the couple like to crack about their audience and each other, some of the best comedians, musicians and actors drop by. From Tim Dillon, Louis CK, Jimmy Carr and Whitney Cummings to Quentin Tarantino, Big Daddy Kane, Double Soul Shaman, ICP and most recently the Black Keys, the gamut of “YMH” participants has long given viewers another reason to tune in.
That’s probably because good people gravitate toward good people, and this network is full of them — from the guests to the staff — by design. “We have a no a— policy here,” says Segura. “No one who works here is an a— and that makes it a pleasure to come to the studio and work.”
Ryan P. Hall, president of YMH Studios, has incorporated that policy into his hiring process to perfection by weeding through talent to find the right fit. And the fans have been appreciative of that over the years, getting introduced to game changers from behind the scenes like senior producer Josh Zollo, post-production producer Chad Wallin, technical director and hot sauce king Enny Kravitz, and former executive producer Nadav Itzkowitz, whose boisterous laugh penetrated the airwaves, even with his mic off, for seven years. “We still love Nadav,” says Pazsitzky. “We seriously love everyone who works here, all of the hosts and all of the staff. And of course, all of the fans. It really is like a family.”
YMH Studios never intended on being a network with an overload of employees or new shows, so when it came time to grow into new content, dedication was key.
In recent years the YMH network has launched several shows including “The Danny Brown Show” with rapper extraordinaire Danny Brown; “First Date’’ with comedian and actor Lauren Compton; “Not Today Pal’’ with “the Soprano kids” Jamie-Lynn (Yay-mee) Sigler and Rob Iler; “You be Trippin’” with Ari Shaffir; and the newest show, “Behind the Jeans’’ with Josh Potter.
“Tom and Christina and the whole production team are just on it,” says Shaffir. “They really get comedy. Most guests come in and do their thing and leave, but I stay there for hours like, let’s have some fun.”
After years of talking about doing a podcast together, Bert Kreischer, co-host of “2 Bears 1 Cave” along with Segura, says landing at YMH Studios was a no-brainer. “Tom is someone who executes and just gets stuff done,” says Kreischer. “We’d talked about doing ‘2 Bears’ a long time ago and he was just like, I have it all set up and let’s do it. Tom is someone who makes things happen. He takes ideas and makes them real.”
During a recent episode of “YMH,” Pazsitzky shared that she went in for a mammogram and they found an abnormality. “I have very early stage breast cancer,” she reluctantly yet confidently said. “It’s totally treatable, the prognosis is very good, I will not die, and this is not my last summer on Earth.”
Assuring the fans that it’s highly treatable and that the doctors will be aggressive, in true Mommy fashion she rebels against the diagnosis by roasting it. “I hate the term breast cancer. Call it tit cancer. And don’t send me ‘you got this mama’ or ‘we’re gonna kick cancer’s butt!’ There’s nothing worse than when people send you slogans or platitudes. If you’re going to send me a message, which I appreciate, let’s make it creative. I want to laugh.”
From “Your Mom’s House” to the empire that is YMH Studios, Segura and Pazsitzky’s journey is a reminder to this comedy couple that even if you take them out of L.A., the home they’ve built with “Your Mom’s House” is wherever you are.
