The Drawing Room With Mo Welch Is the Year’s Most Original Interview Series

There are so many interview shows out there that it is getting harder to surprise audiences, but The Drawing Room With Mo Welch found a fresh angle that immediately grabbed my attention. Comedian and New Yorker cartoonist Mo Welch interviews her guests while drawing them, and at the same time they sketch portraits of her. It is such a simple concept that you wonder why nobody thought of it sooner. Maybe it’s because I’ve always loved editorial cartoons, but the moment I heard the premise, I was in.

The first three episodes featuring Brett Goldstein, Sarah Silverman, and violinist Vijay Gupta are already available, and each runs just 10 to 12 minutes. The rest of the season is stacked with guests including Demi Adejuyigbe, Tig Notaro, Adam Conover, and Aparna Nancherla. I can already tell this is going to become part of my weekly viewing.

People are praising The Drawing Room for its creativity, warmth, and refreshingly candid conversations. The simple act of drawing seems to strip away the usual celebrity interview routine. Instead of rehearsed promotional answers, guests relax, laugh at themselves, and reveal sides of their personalities you might not otherwise see. Sarah Silverman opens up about grief and difficult mentors in the industry, while Brett Goldstein joked that Mo made his arms look much hairier than they really are, yet somehow perfectly captured his inner sense of ennui. Those little moments make the conversations feel genuine instead of manufactured.

There is something about a drawing that a photograph cannot do. A camera captures what you look like. A drawing captures what someone notices. Every line is a decision. Every exaggeration tells a story. Maybe that is why these conversations feel so honest. While they’re trying to draw each other, nobody is worried about delivering the perfect answer. They’re too busy trying to figure out why every nose suddenly looks six inches longer once the pencil hits the paper.

The bite-sized format is another reason the show works so well. At only 10 to 12 minutes an episode, it is the kind of series you can squeeze into a coffee break without feeling like you are committing to another hour-long interview. Sometimes less really is more, and The Drawing Room squeezes a surprising amount of personality, humor, and honesty into just a few minutes.

Watching the show reminded me of my own artistic beginnings, although mine did not end quite as gracefully. In Grade 3, I drew my first editorial-style cartoon of the school bully. It was a before-and-after sequence showing him devouring an entire chicken, with the final panel featuring nothing but the pile of bones and, of course, the wishbone. Who came up with the idea that the person holding the bigger half gets the wish anyway?

To make a long story short, my best friend somehow let the drawing fall into the bully’s hands, and I got my ass handed to me. That was the day I learned two valuable lessons. Bullies do not appreciate art, and you should probably choose your friends a little more carefully. I had borrowed the basic idea from Reader’s Digest, but I must have done a decent job because everyone immediately knew who it was supposed to be. Looking back, I guess my first art critic was a little too hands-on.

The funny part is that life has a way of surprising you. Eventually, I became friends with that same bully. I just kept showing him more of my drawings. Somewhere along the way, the punches stopped, and the conversations started. Maybe he realized I wasn’t making fun of him. I was just a kid who loved to draw whatever made me laugh. Looking back now, that Grade 3 cartoon may have been the first review I ever published. I just didn’t realize my audience would include the subject.

I have always believed that drawings have a strange kind of power. They can make you laugh, make you think, embarrass you, inspire you, or occasionally earn you a black eye. Editorial cartoonists have toppled politicians, bruised egos, and started conversations that words alone never could. Every cartoonist eventually learns the same lesson. If people recognize themselves in your drawing, you’ve done your job. Whether they thank you for it is another story.

Maybe that is why The Drawing Room works so well. It is not really about celebrity interviews. It is about watching people lower their guard one pencil stroke at a time. Maybe the best interviews happen when people stop trying to impress each other and start creating something together.

Original ideas are becoming harder to find. Every streaming service seems to have another celebrity interview, another podcast, or another roundtable discussion. The Drawing Room reminds us that sometimes all you need is two people, two pencils, and a blank sheet of paper to create something memorable.

As for me, I’ll be watching every week. If this first season is any indication, you’ll want Mo.

I had to do that.

Tony M.

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