Look, he’s made you more content! Bo Burnham has released over an hour of outtakes from his acclaimed Netflix special Bo Burnham: Inside. The video, released free on the comedian’s YouTube channel, begins with alternate versions of the songs “Stuck in a Room” and “Jeffrey Bezos,” then rolls into an hour of outtakes featuring new jokes and songs, and alternate versions of the material seen in Inside. Since this backmatter has been released as a stand-alone video, it’s held together by bits of behind-the-scenes moments like Burnham wondering aloud “does this look cool or just stupid?” while setting up a shot.
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Bo Burnham: Inside was filmed between March 2020 and May 2021, and depicts a fictionalized version of Burnham who is stuck in a one-room apartment while coping with the anxiety and boredom that so many felt in the early days of the covid-19 pandemic. It streams on Netflix, but has not yet been released on home media, so The Inside Outtakes marks the first time a significant amount of content from the special has been released outside of the Netflix platform.
You can see his announcement (and a link to the video) below.
The video description on YouTube reveals that Burnham is releasing a “deluxe” version of the special’s soundtrack on Friday. Inside: The Songs has been available on record, cassette, CD, and digital platforms. It isn’t immediately clear whether the Deluxe version will feature some of the comedy bits and be a more traditional comedy record, or whether it will include the new songs released on The Inside Outtakes, although the latter seems the most likely version. You can pre-save the new version of the album to your account on Apple Music and Spotify.
Among the new songs is a tune that asks “how is the best case scenario Joe Biden?” That one is interesting because while the special was obviously a response to the early days of the pandemic, Inside seemed to specifically steer away from overt references to Covid-19, Donald Trump, or other buzzwords that could easily have found their way into it. There’s also a song about Burnham’s fifth anniversary with his partner, which seems likely to have been cut because it doesn’t mesh with the isolated, desperately alone version of Burnham seen in the special.
Since Burnham filmed the special himself, there are a number of bits in here that give a sense of how he set up shots for the Inside special, with the caveat that the special itself was so meta that it’s hard to tell what’s behind-the-scenes material and what was always intended to look the way it does.
Bo Burnham: Inside is streaming on Netflix, and The Inside Outtakes is available for free on YouTube at the link above.
