OUR FASCINATING PLANET is Funny or Die’s comedic webseries riff on Carl Sagan’s PBS special COSMOS: A PERSONAL VOYAGE. Public understanding of science is only recently at a point where science facts are well known enough to make mistaking them funny. Demetri Martin plays “Award-seeking author” Ted Rimmarniet in OUR FASCINATING PLANET.

Dressed in a turtleneck–an iconic piece of Sagan’s wardrobe–beige blazer, and with a similar combover, Rimmarniet speaks into the camera about the immensity of the universe. Both he and Sagan theorize about the place of humans within such vastness. Sagan speaks in metaphors, comparing humans to dust or sea frogs. Rimmarniet asks, “is there life on other planets, and if so, how do we kill it before it kills us?” Cosmetologists (beauty specialists) have been asking these sorts of questions for decades, he says. To Rimmarniet, the answer to most questions is fasinating. Sagan often uses the word astonishing.

OUR FASCINATING PLANET is produced by Funny or Die and all episodes are available to stream on Verizon’s platform go90. COSMOS, one of President Obama’s favorite science films, was remade by FOX in 2014 to star Neil DeGrasse Tyson.