In the dimly lit Gowanus venue The Bell House last Sunday sat a sold-out crowd comprised of people waiting to have the upcoming presidential election absolutely ruined for them. The star of the night, Adam Conover, has made a lucrative career out of “ruining” things for people on his show “Adam Ruins Everything,” a web-series-turned TV show which is masterminded by Conover himself.

The show is brilliant, in both its live and TV iterations. He essentially takes cultural norms — such as engagement rings, purebred dogs and circumcision — questions them and explains why they’re actually harmful or unnecessary. Armed with nothing but a projector and a microphone, he delivered a more stripped-down version of the show without cameras or visual effects (save for the presentation and video clips going on behind him, which worked to compliment his stand-up routine). It felt akin to attending a hilarious yet extraordinarily informative political history lecture taught by a stylish, eccentric know-it-all professor.

Conover covered a lot of territory in his time onstage without seeming rushed. Everything from LBJ’s sexual deviances, to why Hillary Clinton might not be the first female president, to the childlike insults between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to your weird Republican uncle who TYPES IN ALL CAPS. Conover’s opening act, Gonzalo Cordova, who is also the show’s co-writer, delivered a fantastic set as well.

WSN was able to speak with Conover a couple of days before the show, to ask him a few questions about working on “Adam Ruins Everything.”

WSN: Are there any differences writing for the show on TruTV vs. CollegeHumor?

Adam Conover: Not on a major scale. One of the big things is that when we were doing the web format I was writing everything myself, and then when we went to the TV show we brought a writing staff and a research staff, so it’s a much bigger operation.

WSN: Are there ever any topics that get rejected for a show idea?

AC: No. Like any other creative process, we consider multiple ideas and then we get feedback … but we’ve never had a topic killed because they don’t want us to do it. TruTV is very hands-off with the show. What you see on the network is what we want to say.

WSN: How much of the process for coming up for the episode ideas are yours vs. your writing team’s?

AC: I do try to pick topics that are very important to me, topics that I feel strongly about, that I want to spread the word about personally — a large fraction of the topics I personally know about or have an idea about. We have an upcoming episode about animals, where two out of the three topics were things I knew personally and the other one was pitched in the room.

WSN: Considering the Election Special, do you find you identify with political topics a lot more?

AC: Well, I’m fascinated by politics. I think a lot of it is because it’s a presidential election year. I enjoy politics, it’s a fun thing to learn about, but I think the reason we wanted the show [to be about politics] is because a lot of the national narratives about politics and election systems are wrong and don’t give a full picture, or lack a historical perspective.

You can check out the “Adam Ruins Everything: Election Special” on Oct. 25 on truTV.

An earlier version of this article was updated to reflect that “Adam Ruins Everything: Election Special” will air on Oct. 25, not Oct. 23.

Email Thomas Miritello at [email protected].