Jesse Tyler Ferguson revealed for the first time a silly, not-safe-for-work bit he and “Modern Family” co-star Ty Burrell would pull out while they were bored on set. Their name for it? The Blind Masturbator.
The topic came up while Ferguson hosted TikToker-turned-podcaster Jake Shane on his own celebrity interview podcast, “Dinner’s on Me.” The Emmy nominee expressed admiration for Shane’s brand of humor, particularly the TikToks that launched his influencer and comedy career. They often saw the 26 year old reenacting every day scenarios and pop cultural or historical events, at times from the perspectives of inanimate objects.
“I think I really responded to your videos when you were doing these really abstract [things],” Ferguson shared, pivoting into one of the more bizarre, “abstract” comedy routines he’d drummed up with Burrell over the 11 seasons of “Modern Family.”
“Ty Burrell and I, when we were doing ‘Modern Family,’ that’s our humor,” he continued. “One of our sketches that we would do for each other are, I would do this character — I would never be able to talk about this on, like, a talk show ’cause they would be like, ‘Tell us about some of the inside jokes,’ and Ty and I would always wanna talk about this, but it’s just not appropriate for daytime television.”
Ferguson proceeded to introduce Shane to the “blind masturbator.”
“I would be blind, and I would basically, like, feel around to make sure no one was in my vicinity, and then I would start masturbating,” Ferguson explained. “And then Ty would be like ‘Jesse, Jesse, Jesse!’ and then I would, like, stop masturbating … “
“And this is real?” Shane asked in response.
“… because I realized someone was actually in the room with me. And so that was just a joke we would do. I would just kind of, if we were bored on set, I would just kind of go.”
Ferguson emphasized again that it’s a behind-the-scenes story of “Modern Family” production that he was never able to share on daytime — and admittedly questioned even keeping it in the “Dinner’s on Me” podcast.
“We can’t ever talk about this on a talk show. In fact, I don’t even know if this will ever make it to the podcast,” he said. “So anyway, what you were doing on the TikTok –“
“Was equivalent to the blind masturbator,” Shane interjected, determining the bit was “incredible.”
“It was really hitting my sweet spot of abstract, weird humor,” Ferguson concluded.
Shane reflected on his early influencer days on TikTok and admitted that he missed doing them. He’s best known today for interviewing celebrities on his “Therapuss” podcast, but comedy is a muscle he hopes to keep building up as a performer.
“I think I want to do some UCB classes just for, like, because it’s so fun,” he said. “I love improv, it’s so fun for me. It allows me to bring exactly my humor to any scenario. Because improv is so, I feel like improv is like a fingerprint. No one’s improv is going to be the same.”
Listen to the full episode of “Dinner’s on Me” here.
