13 Facts About The Zach Galifianakis Talk Show

Some of today's biggest and brightest stars have sat with Zach Galifianakis on"Between Two Ferns," but easily the biggest "get" in show history was President Barack Obama. Producer Scott Aukerman told Insider that he and his staff "had put it out there" that they wanted to interview Obama because they thought "it was a really

Some of today's biggest and brightest stars have sat with Zach Galifianakis on "Between Two Ferns," but easily the biggest "get" in show history was President Barack Obama.

Producer Scott Aukerman told Insider that he and his staff "had put it out there" that they wanted to interview Obama because they thought "it was a really stupid, funny idea." Amazingly, over the course of the next six years, Aukerman heard "here and there" that Obama was interested in doing the show, but it never came together for various reasons, mainly problems with scheduling. Finally, in 2014, things worked out and the "Ferns" guys flew to Washington D.C. and assembled their set in the White House. "Even then," Aukerman recalled, "Zach's like, 'This is not going to happen, at some point, something is going to happen with the country, some emergency, and we're going to get word that he's not going to come in.'" Finally, at 5:45 p.m. — 45 minutes late — President Obama showed up.

So why did the most powerful man in the free world agree to appear on a web show? He wanted to use the platform to promote the health care exchanges, the online arm of his "Obamacare" legislation that helped people find insurance. It worked, too — 11 million people watched the episode on the first day it went live, and traffic to "HealthCare.gov" jumped by 40%.

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