SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The world could sure use a good laugh, and a man in Australia has a great one in these vexing times.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTIAN HULL: Orange, yellow and red - (laughter) this is so fun.
SIMON: Australian comedian Christian Hull has tapped into a very twitchy vein with his TikTok videos where he guesses what paint colors will come from the mixers at a paint shop. You might laugh at that, but, well, we're talking millions of people are delighting in them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HULL: I find gray makes a color more pastel, and then - oh (laughter). Oh, wait. No, that's...
SIMON: Christian Hull joins us now from Brisbane, Australia. Thanks so much for being with us.
HULL: You are so welcome. Is this not weird for you that you've got a random Australian who guesses paint colors on your show? Have you hit rock bottom?
SIMON: You know, I was just reflecting on that. I've had a rich and varied career until this moment and...
HULL: (Laughter).
SIMON: What ever even put this idea in your mind? And I say this after, you know, watching 50 hours of them.
HULL: Oh, gosh. Firstly, I mean, it's not an original idea. If you're unfamiliar, it's literally just me, someone who works at, like, a paint shop, and this machine spurts out different colors. And then basically, I'm watching this happen. I guess the color. And I saw these two girls do a TikTok on it, and I just thought, that looks really fun. And I just thought, I'll just upload a few. And then, you know, the classic story is I went to bed one night, woke up, and I had, like, 200,000 extra followers, which is insane - all American. It's exploded in America, not here in Australia, which is quite bizarre.
SIMON: Really? I don't - well, I guess it says a lot about us. And, I mean...
HULL: (Laughter) You're a simple folk (laughter).
SIMON: Yeah, we are desperate for a diversion at this point.
HULL: No, no. Well, the night it exploded was the night of the first debate. And a lot of the comments were, oh, I just needed something to escape from the chaos.
SIMON: Well, then this is beginning to add up at this point. Now, it must be said, you seem to guess brown a lot, and it's never correct that I've seen.
HULL: It's never what you'd imagine. Red, green and orange all mixed together - like, you'd be like, well, obviously, that's brown. And then, you know, like, this sandy yellow color comes out. And you're just like, how?
SIMON: OK, let's take a can of white paint, a couple of dribbles of blue...
HULL: OK.
SIMON: ...A couple of dribbles of red, a couple of dribbles of green. What do we got?
HULL: OK, so this is how - this is what goes through my head. And you've got - in these videos, you've got, like, 20 seconds. So you got purple, purple with a green. And green - would it be a dark green, I'm assuming, like a forest green?
SIMON: I don't know the answer. I'm asking you.
HULL: There are so many shades of green. You can't just say green.
(LAUGHTER)
HULL: I'm - brown.
SIMON: I knew you'd say brown.
HULL: Brown (laughter).
SIMON: I'll take your word for it. May I say, I don't know why, but you've brought a lot of joy to a lot of people, so thank you for that.
HULL: (Laughter) I don't know why either. Thank you so much for having me.
SIMON: Comedian and paint color guesser Christian Hull speaking with us from Brisbane. Thanks so much for being with us.
HULL: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.