Netflix star makes millions laugh, gave pregame speech at Alabama football disaster

As one of Earth’s most popular comedians, Bert Kreischer plays tour venues that normally host rock concerts. For example, his “Permission To Party Tour” hits Alabama this Thursday at Huntsville’s Von Braun Center Arena and January 29 at Dothan Civic Center.

One of his greatest performances last year wasn’t even at a gig. Kreischer was asked to give the pregame speech at his alma mater Florida State University’s season-opening football home game against University of Alabama.

Kreischer was an FSU legend even before becoming a comedian. A 1997 Rolling Stone story immortalized him as “the top partyer at the Number One Party School in the country.”

Before the Bama game, Kreischer got on the mic at Doak Campbell Stadium and gave a passionate, eloquent and boozy speech.

On a recent Friday morning via phone, Kreischer recalls, “So the school reached out to me about three weeks before and they were like, hey, can you do a pump up speech before the game? And I was like, sure. And they’re like, all we need is like 15 seconds, 30 seconds. And I was like, all right.”

Kreischer got into Tallahassee the night before the Bama game. The famously party-loving comedian, his nickname is “The Machine,” went out on the town.

Gameday morning, he and his entourage, including friends and collaborators Tom Segura and Kirk Fox, did a bar takeover.

“At 10 a.m. we’re drunk, game’s at 1,” Kreischer says, “and I say to Tom, I don’t know what to say. And Tom looks at me and he goes, you are the best at firing people up. He goes, just don’t plan it. Speak from your heart. Don’t talk at them, talk to them.

“And so I got on the field. I had no idea it was going to be in front of 90,000 people. I had no idea it was going to be on the big screen. I didn’t know what was happening. They just gave me the mic, and I rattled off what I think is one of the best speeches that’s ever come out of my mouth.

“‘This is the house that Bobby Bowden built. Alabama thinks they are going to roll all over us. This is how I was baptized, in that end zone when they had wooden bleachers. When that spear went into that Seminole head, I cried tears that were garnet and gold.’”

The crowd went bananas. FSU went on to humble the favored Bama team 31-17 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as that score sounds.

Kreischer says, “I have great memories of Florida State. That’s my greatest memory of Florida State.”

In addition to touring, Kreischer also does Netflix specials and hosts podcasts which make the sky rain views. On Jan. 22, he’ll add another skyscraper to his empire, when “Free Bert,” his new sitcom, debuts on Netflix.

Basically, Kreischer’s life is filled with cool stuff like that. And unlike some comedy stars, he looks, acts and sounds like he’s enjoying himself.

He’s wisely striking often while his fame is hot. But the projects are varied enough while in-tune with Kreischer’s every-dude appeal, the world isn’t going, “Oh god, not him again.” It’s something not every celeb pulls off.

In the previous 500 or so words, I didn’t mention this, but Kreischer is also known for going shirtless when he performs live. He’s the Iggy Pop of standup.

Just as legendary proto-punk singer Iggy is a rock and roll animal, Kreischer is a comedy animal. [Bert is dad bod though, while Iggy’s hot bod.] Their shirtlessness isn’t so much exhibitionism as physically signifying IDGAF.

Kreischer’s comedy is relatable as he is. His material hits themes from family dynamics to sex and beyond.

He’s getting his money’s worth out of life, experiences he mines for standup gold and feature films like 2023’s “The Machine,” which costarred “Star Wars” legend Mark Hamill and was inspired by Kreischer’s crazy interactions with Russian mobsters.

When his publicist connects us on the phone, Kreischer’s in his room at New York’s Soho Grand Hotel. Later in the day, he’ll film a guest appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” Edited excerpts from our conversation are below.

Bert Kreischer attends the Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua Netflix Live Event at Kaseya Center on December 19, 2025 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Ivan Apfel/Getty Images)Getty Images

On this tour what are some subjects you’re getting into, maybe subjects people might not expect from you?

Bert Kreischer: I’m trying to take a different approach at some stories. So I’m a storyteller, you know, I’m not necessarily a joke writer — I have always tried to sprinkle a couple jokes in. It’s a good way to start an hour.

But telling a story is pretty fundamentally the same all the way around. You need a good ending, you need a good arc, you gotta root for something, and a bunch of jokes in between. And I have this one story that I just started that is really different, and I have a couple of them that are like that. It’s a different way of telling a story, if that makes sense. And so I’m taking swings that way. I have a couple stories where I plant the seed early in the show and then harvest it later. And so for me, it’s just messing around with storytelling.

I kind of got an inspiration … This is gonna sound really stupid, but I rewatched the movie “Memento” and I thought what a cool way to tell a story? And why am I not doing that in standup?

It feels like when I’ve done a story that I do a curtsy and go ta-da, right? And I go, why can’t I weave a story throughout the whole show? Why can’t I weave a couple stories through the whole show? Why can’t I have a theme that’s going in and out?

And then why don’t I have a couple standalones? But don’t make the standalone, “I walked into the store the other day,” make the standalone character driven and tell it through the eyes of the character. So if I pull it off, that’s what I’m working on.

Stoked to watch “Free Bert.” Got a cool story from making the show or pitching it?

Thanks. “Free Bert” was amazing. And I’ll tell you why I enjoyed this process: Everything I’ve ever done (on TV shows), usually there’s been somewhat of a proprietary ownership of the material, in that the writer doesn’t want you to touch his stuff, or the director already has stuff mapped out, or the actors have already learned all their lines. They don’t want to mess with anything.

“Free Bert” was very loose. I would sit with the writers, and I would go through the scripts line by line and put it more in my voice or punch it up differently or add jokes. And we took some really big swings with some really big storylines and some really big jokes that I think are really fun.

I mean, this was technically a cut and paste, fish out of water story about a parent who didn’t fit in at his daughter’s school. And randomly within the production, within the writing of it, I told them a story about something I had witnessed and that became a huge plot line.

Your dad was or is an attorney. Did some of your storytelling ability come from him? Because in a trial, attorneys have to be good storytellers.

I think so. You know, mostly the attorneys my dad hung out with all like old Italian, old Cuban guys and I remember the smell of cigars so thick in this office off Bird Street in Tampa.

And the guys my dad was friends with were all older than him, and they could could hold a room so well, and you would just be on the edge of your seat, and they all had great stories, and they’d take you to the Bucs [Tampa Bay’s NFL franchise] games, and you’d listen to these men just go on and on.

And then I think also when I went to all-boys Catholic high school, that was where I really learned how to tell a story. There were no girls there, so our currency was humor. And that’s it.

And so if you couldn’t make a table of guys laugh, then you had no reason to be sitting at that table — at lunch, you were sitting at a different table. Yeah, I mean, I’m really a byproduct of Florida.

Is it true you’ve never seen “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder” [the 2002 Ryan Reynolds comedy film said to have been inspired by Kreischer’s time at FSU]?

Yeah, I’ve never seen it.

I haven’t seen it either. But in the ‘90s, I subscribed to Rolling Stone and remember reading their story on you and thinking, this guy’s having a great life now, but he’ll never be able to make it in the real world. And, boy, did you prove me wrong.

I think I proved myself wrong. I was on the same page as you. I was like, what the f—’s gonna happen to this kid? I mean, naturally everyone had to think that.

There were probably, and I mean this for real, a handful of people that thought, this could work out for him. And one of them was one of my dad’s attorney friends who called me up right after that article came out and was like, have you ever had any interest in a career in show business? Now is the time to take that opportunity.

He goes, “You’re gonna regret it if you don’t strike right now. You need to move to New York. You need to get into standup comedy. You need to go hang out in the comedy clubs. This is your opportunity.”

My dad’s uncle did the same thing, flew me down to Naples to have dinner with him and said, “Listen, this is what you need to do. You need to be comedian. This is the biggest opportunity of your life, and if you waste it, you’re going to regret it.”

But I’ll tell you what, everyone felt the same way you did, including myself.

I wanted to talk about your craft first. But since you’re a legendary partier, what’s the first drink you ever remember having and what was the last drink you had?

The first drink I ever remember having was a Michelob Light. The last drink I had was a double Jack on the rocks on the plane.

[Circa early aughts] you had a negative experience with Gene Simmons [the iconic rock musician from the band Kiss, on an FX TV talk/variety program Kreischer worked on called “The X Show.]. Any reflections on that now? Because I know you’re a Kiss fan, but that was kind of not a great situation.

Dude. The Gene Simmons thing … You know what happened with me and his son and his wife, right [to smooth things over later]?

[Since then, Simmons was a recent guest on one of Kreischer’s podcasts, claimed to not remember their initial interaction, and was funny and charming.]

Look, that was great closure for me because it’s so hard to compartmentalize that you love a band so much and they mean so much to you, and then you meet them in person, and then they ruin it for you.

I think I took that as a mantra of being famous, where I was like, I will never ruin the idea of Bert for anyone, no matter what it takes.

And I think I’ve compromised my family at times, and I compromised my privacy at times. And I definitely put fans first over a lot of things, including my daughters at times.

Like, I remember my daughter and I were having a really intense conversation in Park City at the bottom of the mountain.

She was trying to learn how to snowboard, and she was frustrated and she was crying. And a fan just came up. He’s like, “The Machine!” And I totally tapped out of the moment of talking to my daughter and went, “Hey, what’s up, brother, how you doing?”

He’s like, “Can I get a picture?” Yeah, of course, we got a picture. And then I get back to her and she’s looking at me going, “Do you always have to be that guy?” And I was like, “Yeah, kinda.”