I Said No Gifts!

Host Bridger Winegar invites friends, loved ones, and people he’s secretly trying to destroy to join him in conversation. He only has one request: No gifts! Naturally, every guest disobeys, meaning their chat will eventually turn to whatever object lies beneath the wrapping paper.   Editor's Note: “I’ve always been very uncomfortable getting gifts,” says Bridger Winegar, host and creator of I Said No Gifts!, a weekly interview podcast in which he engages in small talk with friends, comedians, and celebrities about everything and anything—even if that includes, of course, discussions about the gifts he quasi-reluctantly receives from his guests. “It’s something I probably get from my mom—just the actual guilt that somebody went out of their way to do something for me has always in real-life situations been very uncomfortable. So this almost feels like exposure therapy, like, ‘You're going to have to get gifts and accept them as graciously as possible and act like it's fine.’” For the Utah-born writer and producer, this discomfort makes for the perfect icebreaker. What began as a fun hobby became a full-fledged passion project in 2020 and is about to hit a milestone: its 100th episode. Since he started the show, Winegar, whose credits include writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Black Monday, and, most recently, Apple TV+’s The Afterparty, knew that he wanted to bring a more relaxed approach to the one-on-one interview format. “I’ll listen to a podcast with somebody I really admire and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, the host is trying to keep up or trying to prove that they know as much as them,’’ Winegar says. “Even from the beginning of each episode, I don't really talk about their credits. I try to just imagine it as if I were introducing this person to friends at a party, and I’d be like, ‘Here's so and so, let's talk.’ I want it to feel intimate and have them be comfortable being funny and themselves.” Winegar also shakes up the format of the show with recurring segments such as ‘Gift or a Curse’ and ‘I Said No Emails.’ On the former, he comes up with either an object or scenario where the guest has to correctly answer what he is thinking, while on the latter, he raises different social rules about gift-giving brought up by listener suggestions—a part of the show he considers “a mix of actual advice and ridiculous criticism.” One of his inspirations was David Letterman, with whom Winegar had the opportunity to work when he was starting his career. “Something I liked about Letterman and his show, and a lot of comedians that I admire, is taking a joke and beating it into the ground to the point that it's irritating and then going full circle back to the point that it's funny again,” Winegar says. ”So this felt like something that could be very repetitive, but also would feel new every week.”

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