The show stars Joe Pera as a fictionalized version of himself, a mild mannered choir teacher in Marquette, Michigan, who directly addresses the audience about seemingly mundane, everyday topics such as dance, pancakes, minerals, etc.

Diving into these topics, viewers get an introspective glimpse into his slowly changing life in the Upper Peninsula and the interaction with people around him.

The series was produced by Pera’s Chestnut Walnut Unlimited, Cartoon Network Studios’ live-action division (Factual Productions, Inc, and Alive and Kicking, Inc.), and Williams Street.

[8] The series stars comedian Joe Pera as a fictionalized version of himself, living in Marquette, Michigan and teaching choir at a local middle school.

He talks directly to the viewer about everyday subject matter such as iron, Sunday breakfast, fall drives, and sleeping.

As the two got to know each other better and become romantically involved, Joe discovers that she is paranoid about bad things in the future; she prepares for any eventualities with a bunker filled with supplies to last her for years.

For the third season, Joe is busy helping people around him handle everyday tasks, while dealing with the fallout of his grandmother's death, including the money he gets from selling her house.

On December 9, 2016,[10] a second special, Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree, premiered on Adult Swim.

It’s one of his many gifts as a performer, the way his understated wardrobe, deliberate delivery, and nervous body language set an expectation for awkwardness, before Pera pulls the rug out from under the audience with the confidence of his pacing and the precision of his writing.

[37] Josh Terry of Vice hailed the show as an "essential salve against cynicism: It's relaxing and gentle TV that revels more in its meditative beauty than its eccentric comedy".

In announcing the cancellation, Polygon's Ethan Warren acclaimed the show as "a deft three-act exploration of joy, terror, grief, and love", and as the "handbook for navigating compounding crises.

[38] Writing for Collider, Chase Hutchinson emphasized on the uniqueness of the show up until the last season: "While his appearance is aggressively ordinary, Pera made something that was truly and brilliantly one-of-a-kind.

To even try to compare it to anything feels impossible as, even when it played around with genre and poked fun at itself, it remains an enigmatic work all its own that felt like it was still evolving".