Inside the Two Bears 5K: How Bert and Leanne Kreischer Built a Netflix-Backed Movement

A $1 online IQ test, a Rose Bowl finish line, and the partnership that powers a modern comedy empire.

When Bert Kreischer dropped by The Woody Show on May 1, 2026, the headline was about a $1 online IQ test. Bert scored 128 — high intelligence, just shy of the genius range. His wife and Netflix co-creator Leanne scored 104 — above the American average of 100. He has been calling her “104” ever since.

It is the kind of bit that turns into a Netflix special. It also, almost accidentally, explains how the Kreischer ecosystem actually works.

“128 had the idea. 104 got it done.”

That is how Bert summarizes the origin of the Two Bears 5K, the now-annual run he co-hosts with Tom Segura. Bert pitched the concept. Leanne called Netflix. Netflix said yes. She called Spartan Race. They built it.

The third annual Two Bears 5K returns to Rose Bowl Stadium on Saturday, May 9, 2026, with Jelly Roll, Tom Segura, and Tiffany Haddish lining up at the start. Tickets at 2bears5k.com.

It is also a wellness movement now. Jelly Roll has used the race as a public milestone in his 65-pound transformation. Bert is down 50 pounds himself. The course finishes back inside the stadium with cold plunges, saunas, and a fan base that gets healthier every May.

Brand elevation in real time: a Netflix and Spartan Race partnership at one of the most iconic venues in American sports, measured in pounds lost and tickets sold.

A Different Kind of Comedy Brain

The IQ score makes more sense in context. By Bert’s own description, he is not a memorize-and-regurgitate comic — he is a pattern-recognition operator who hears “no” and treats it like a pricing input. The Woody Show caught the punchline; what makes it land is what’s underneath it.

When the country shut down in March 2020, Bert’s special was trending second on Netflix behind Tiger King. He called his agent and proposed a drive-in stand-up tour. Drive-ins, he was told, were not really a thing. He told his team to make them a thing. Within months he was the only national comedian on the road.

This is the same instinct that powers Free Bert, his Netflix scripted series. Season two begins production in June 2026. Bert calls himself “more of a storyteller” than a joke writer; the show reads less like a sitcom and more like a sharply observed family memoir.

What’s Next

Bert has said his next professional checkbox is a blockbuster movie. The calendar already reads like a stadium-class career: a Sphere-scale touring arc, upcoming dates in Indio and Funner, California, and a one-night-only set with Shaquille O’Neal at The Comedy Store.

But the Two Bears 5K may be the truest distillation of how Bert and Leanne build. The 128 sees the move. The 104 — as Bert is the first to point out onstage — gets Netflix on the phone.

Listen to the full Woody Show interview: thewoodyshow.com | YouTube