On this episode of Pilot Program, Chase and Pierce unearth a time capsule from 2016 in the form of the first episode of Desus & Mero on Viceland (also known as Vice TV).

Pre-COVID, Pre-Trump presidency, but still right in the middle of the Black Lives Matter movement, this clip show/talk show often played for laughs, even when touching on serious news topics of the day. With two young, black, charismatic hosts -- Desus Nice and The Kid Mero -- the show quickly gained an audience, and became a stepping stone to the pair's superstardom.

We break it all down, from the show's roots in ESPN-style formatting, to dunking on Eminem, to the professional split of the show's popular and prolific hosts.

Notes & Corrections:

• Chase mistakenly referred to the video game MLB The Show 24 as MLB 2K. There hasn't been an MLB 2K game since 2013. Whoops.
• Pierce references a 2019 Vulture "Beginner's Guide to Desus & Mero" article a couple of times over the course of the episode. You can read that article here.
• Chase talks about the pilot/test episode of Desus & Mero that never aired, but was recorded before this first episode While the entire episode has never been shown, the interview segment with guest Cord Jefferson is on the show's YouTube channel here.
• We say Desus & Mero was a five-episode per week show. It actually aired four nights a week.

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