The Little Dum Dum Club is one of Australia’s most downloaded comedy podcasts. Hosted by Melbourne comics Tommy Dassalo and Karl Chandler, it features the cream of the crop of Australia’s comedy talent, and often top international acts too. They run a decidedly professional operation, with one glaring exception. At the start of each episode, Tommy and Karl introduce the show and banter with each other for as many as ten minutes. On other podcasts, the hosts might do this ahead of time. On The Little Dum Dum Club, they do it as the guests sit, waiting, confused, in silence.

“On paper, it’s a pretty ridiculous to be doing,” says Tommy.

“It’s especially embarrassing when we have big name guests that we’ve convinced to do our fake radio show,’ says Karl, ‘and now we’re ignoring them because one of us saw someone drop an ice cream in the street and we want to talk about it for 5 minutes.”

“Yeah,” says Tommy, “and we just have to look at them like ‘we know this is the worst, but this is the format that we’ve settled on. If only there was some way we could change it!’ Now we know how much it annoys certain listeners, it makes me want to do it more and more.”

It’s that sort of affable, middle-finger raising intransigence that drives tens of thousands of people to download the fake radio show each week. It’s the same with their on-again-off-again, so-bad-its-good, show-within-a-show, Rad Dad. ” People love it or hate it,” says Karl.

The duo tour across the country, recording live podcast episodes, bringing guests from Melbourne with them. They’re coming to Adelaide on November 17, but have flagged that it might be the last show they do here. Apparently, for whatever reason, ticket sales in Adelaide per listener are lower here than they are in other cities.

“We can see the numbers and it’s pretty disproportionate,” says Tommy. “Who knows why it is? What are you guys doing in those houses of yours instead of going out at night?”

“We love coming to Adelaide, but we can’t afford to come if people don’t want to buy tickets in advance,” says Karl. However, he says that since the announcement, “people have bought a bunch of tickets, so I guess it is a clever marketing ploy.”

Their desire to come to Adelaide is, it seems, mostly gustatory. “Every gig in Adelaide has memorable moments for me,” says Tommy, “because while I’m on stage, I’m thinking about how much pastry I’m going to eat at one of the 24 hour bakeries after the show. If I don’t leave town on Tuesday night having put on at least 5kg, I will consider the trip to be a failure.”

“We’re a little obsessed with your 24 hour bakeries,” says Karl. “Every time we come over, we fly a bunch of our Melbourne comedian mates over with us to make it an all day Adelaide party, and after the show, we’ll go to a bakery to eat and drink with all our listeners.”

As well as the live podcast, featuring guests Nick Cody, Demi Lardner and Xavier Michelides, both Tommy and Karl will be performing their solo shows. Karl is performing something a little high concept: “it’s an hour of my latest standup,” however, it’s purposefully “interrupted by my fellow comics who do their best to heckle and derail my show. It can get pretty loose/brutal/weird.”

Tommy, however, plans something slightly more traditional: “None of my fellow comics are permitted to heckle or derail.”

Little Dum Dum Club hits Rhino Room on Tuesday, November 17 from 7pm. Tickets are available here.

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