In this chapter, we investigate how interactional cringe humor performance is cued multimodally to be interpreted in a humorous frame. To do this, we compiled, annotated, and analyzed talk-show style cringe humor performances in a corpus of six episodes of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis (2008–2018) using a frame-analytic approach to multimodal behavior co-occurring with speech (Bateson, 1972; Goffman, 1974). As such, we develop a preliminary taxonomy of serious-to-play frame transformations to identify spatial cues bracketing and keying the cringe-to-humor transformation. We identified would-be cringe utterances in which the humorist-host targets his interlocutor and/or himself for insults to self-image and/or autonomy, following (Brown & Levinson, 1987)’s concepts of positive and negative face. We describe how Galifianakis layers surface FTAs and humorous or playful multimodal cues to systematically transform serious behavior into play. We hold that felicitous cringe humor performance does not follow from the framing of a bonafide impoliteness context (see Culpeper & Hardaker, 2017) despite featuring numerous rude or otherwise normatively embarrassing surface realizations. In successful interactional cringe humor performance, surface cringeworthy utterances appear systematically transformed to be interpreted as a unique genre of cringe-humorous play. Drawing on the relief theory of humor (Freud, 1928; Morreall, 1983), we posit that successful cringe humor performances, by using multimodal cues to systematically transform impoliteness into play-awkwardness, allow viewers to experience a pleasant reframing of what would normally be cause for vicarious embarrassment.