Daily Comedy News Podcast Transcripts

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Featured: David Letterman, Dan Rather, George Meade, Mayor Giuliani, Jerry Lewis

What’s in This Episode

• Comedy after 9/11 attacks
• David Letterman’s first show back September 17 2001
• Late night TV response to September 11
• WOR New York radio station coverage of 9/11
• 25th anniversary of September 11 2001

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mac. Let me do some house cleaning before we dive in today. So on Saturdays, I’ve been doing these deep dives, and today’s also a deep dive. And I’m aware today’s not a Saturday, but the calendar forced my hand.

Yesterday, I wanted to talk about the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, and that was an episode yesterday that I feel came out pretty well. And today I want to talk about comedy after 9-11 because Friday is the 25th anniversary. And let me just table set before we get into it. I was in New York City that day. I was the assistant program director of WOR New York.

Our offices were on 40th Street and Broadway, so I don’t want to make it sound like it was across the street. But we had a large bay window in the main studio where the morning show was, and you could directly see the Twin Towers down there. And on that particular morning, I was editing some tape. It was about 8.50 something in the morning. And I noticed on the TV that there was a fire at the Twin Towers.

I walked down the hall. The boss wasn’t in yet. And I said, hey, let’s keep the morning show on the air. The Twin Towers are on fire. I remember a couple of minutes later, George Meade, who was the helicopter pilot who did traffic reports, he was in studio that day.

And he immediately said, I flew copters over the city for 25 years. It’s crystal clear out there. There’s no way you would accidentally crash into that building. And we know how the rest of the day went. I watched one of the towers fall with my own eyes while looking out the window.

The other one I saw fall on TV. I was running the board, even though that wasn’t my job anymore. But whoever was running the board that morning needed a bathroom break. So I jumped behind the board for 10 minutes. So all that growing up in New York City, dealing with the stress of that day.

Having staffers who we had sent down to the World Trade Center. I’d had one co-worker, Mara, we had sent her down to cover. We didn’t hear from her for like six hours. I happened to be in the lobby when she showed up and I gave her a hug and she looked at me like, and in modern times, I’d probably get in trouble with HR. She was like, what are you doing?

And I’m like, I thought you were dead. So I share all that because it shapes everything about me. And the weeks after September 11th in New York City were unlike anything before or since. It was very disorienting. Everybody knew somebody who was in those buildings that day.

Everybody knew somebody with a story of, oh, normally I would have been at work except I was sick or the train was delayed or I went to my parent-teacher meeting. Everybody knew a story like that. Everybody knew somebody. The late night shows went dark immediately. No Letterman, no Leno, no Conan.

News coverage ran continuously for days. That was the time when we first got the tickers on the bottoms. I mean, what would you even do on a talk show that night? I’ll tell you a story from the radio days. So I wound up in charge of the radio station all day, and I immediately gave the order.

It just sounds like, you know, you know what I mean. I was in charge. And I said, OK, don’t play any jingles. You know, the W.O.R. No jingles, no commercials.

Keep the air stark. As the day went on, I even told people, don’t even screen the calls. Just plop people down. This is just about raw emotion. Just let people talk.

And that’s what we did.

And then my overnight producer comes in and I’m like, OK, I’m going to me and…

So let me see if we all get four hours sleep. And she’s like, yeah. And I booked these guys. They do like phony phone calls. And I was like, what are you?

Are you insane? No. And I didn’t let her do the guess. I’m like, just just take callers. Are you crazy?

So, you know, how would you even do a late night talk show on September 11th in New York City, right? And I’m looking at the list. Letterman and Conan were in New York. Leno, I guess, was out in L.A. Those days.

You know, when there was a time, like, how is anything ever going to feel normal again? The first person back was David Letterman, September 17th, 2001, six days after the attacks. Broadcasting from the Ed Sullivan Theater, so about 10, 9 or 10 blocks north of where I had been on September 11th. The city smelled like smoke, and oh yeah, every surface of the city had missing person flyers. Do you remember those?

Have you seen this person? I mean, in those early days, we thought people were just missing, or they were somehow disoriented from the explosions, or they were going to somehow crawl out of the rubble. There were people lined up at the emergency rooms, just waiting for all the bodies to come in, and none of that happened. Nobody ever.. You know, there was none of that.

So you would see all these missing person flyers and it was just, oh, I can’t even. So there’s David Letterman and the band is there and Paul Schaefer’s there. Letterman walks out. He doesn’t do a monologue. He sits at his desk and talked.

He talked about being confused about what to do. He talked about his son. He talked about the city. This is our first show on the air since New York and Washington were attacked. And I need to ask your patience and indulgence here because I want to say a few things.

And believe me, sadly, I’m not going to be saying anything new. And in the past week, others have said what I will be saying here tonight far more eloquently than I’m equipped to do. But if we are going to continue to do shows.. I just need to hear myself talk for a couple of minutes, and so that’s what I’m going to do here. It’s terribly sad here in New York City.

We’ve lost 5,000 fellow New Yorkers, and you can feel it. You can feel it. You can see it. It’s terribly sad. Terribly, terribly sad.

And watching all of this, I wasn’t sure. That I should be doing a television show because for 20 years we’ve been in the city making fun of everything, making fun of the city, making fun of my hair, making fun of Paul. So to come to this circumstance that is so desperately sad, and I don’t trust my judgment in matters like this, but I’ll tell you the reason that I am doing a show and the reason I am back to work is because of Mayor Giuliani. Uh. Very early on after the attack and how strange does it uh..

Sound to invoke that phrase after the attack uh.. Mayor giuliani encouraged us and here lately implored us to to go back to our lives go on living uh.. Continue trying to make uh.. New york city uh.. The place that it should be twenty years we’ve been here in new york city we’ve worked closely with the police officers and and uh..

Firefighters And fortunately, most of us don’t really have to think too much about what these men and women do on a daily basis. And the phrase, New York’s finest and New York’s bravest, did it mean anything to us personally, firsthand? Well, maybe, hopefully, but probably not. But boy, it means something now, doesn’t it? They put themselves in harm’s way to protect people like us.

And the men and women from the firefighters and the police department who are lost, are going to be missed by this city for a very, very long time. And my hope for myself and everybody else, not only in New York but everywhere, is that we never, ever take these people for granted. Absolutely never take them for granted. David Letterman, whose whole persona was ironic distance, got emotional. Dan Rather came out as a guest.

He cried on camera. The face of CBS News, crying on a comedy talk show. And that’s what you did. You put two people in a room and you let the cameras run. Towards the end of the show, David Letterman said, if we’re going to continue, we must be allowed to be funny again.

He said it quietly, almost as a question. And the audience responded like it was the thing they’d been waiting to hear someone with authority say out loud. Not that everything was okay, not that the grief was over, that the laughing could come back without it being a betrayal that people had died. That permission, from a man who had spent 20 minutes being about as unfunny as ever been, was one of the more important things said in public in that specific week. Now, I don’t know if you can hear it in my voice.

The emotions are coming back. I’m going to take the break because I need to regroup. That same night, September 17th, 2001, Jon Stewart returned. That was the same night Letterman did. Letterman came back with grief.

Jon Stewart was grief plus anger plus the beginning of the political argument that he would spend the next decade making on The Daily Show about media failure and institutional dishonesty and the gap between what the country was being told and what was actually happening. John talked about his view from his apartment and how he could still see the Statue of Liberty after the towers fell. He talked about what the towers had meant, what their absence meant.

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And then he made the argument that the view from his apartment told him that …

There was the show that existed before 9-11 and the show that existed after 9-11. Related, but different. Jon Stewart gave himself the permission to be serious about things that mattered. Saturday Night Live returned September 29, 2001, with a cold open. Lorne Michaels standing on stage with New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Time out there. The last 25 years have definitely changed Rudy Giuliani’s legacy, but in 2001, he was a massively respected figure. Out of the Letterman clip I cut, Dave did about two minutes just praising Mayor Giuliani. In my old basement in Long Island, I had a framed photo of Giuliani at one of the funerals, and the guy went to every funeral and it was just such a striking photo. I probably still have it in the back.

I don’t have it hung up right now in the new house. But if we can separate the Giuliani in our mind in 2026 from the one in 2001, this is Lorne Michael standing on stage with the mayor of New York City, surrounded by police officers and firefighters. Lauren looked at Giuliani and asked, can we be funny? Giuliani said, why start now? The audience laughed.

Paul Simon came out and sang the boxer. And we had begun the transition from before to after. The acknowledgement that the after was going to include comedy again. Bill Maher was on Politically Incorrect that same September 17th. A guest claimed that the hijackers were cowards.

Bill Maher said, whatever else you could say about the hijackers, cowardly wasn’t the right word. The timing was catastrophic. I even considered not even repeating this segment here 25 years later. FedEx and Sears pulled their advertising from the show immediately. Several ABC affiliates refused to air it.

ABC canceled Politically Incorrect in 2002. Officially, ratings, but the timeline made the relationship to that comment hard to deny. Then there’s Gilbert Gottfried. October 5th, 2001. It’s three weeks and three days after the attacks.

It’s the Friars Club Roast a Few Hefner being held at the New York Hilton. Now, let me jump in again, because I’m sure you’re picking up how raw this is for me. So as I set up the Gilbert thing, I’m like, let me pull the clip. Now, to pull clips, I do this five, six days a week on the podcast. I use a program called Audio Hijack.

And what it does is it hijacks the sound card. So if I play something, say, off YouTube, it grabs the audio. It hijacks the audio. I do this every day. Today, in the middle of doing this episode, I saw the word hijack, and I’m having that emotional reaction that’s coming out on the show today.

Anyway, it’s the roast of Hugh Hefner, and Gilbert Gottfried explained he wanted to discuss the elephant in the room, and here’s the joke. The room booed him. Not politely. Booed him. In the way a room full of comedians boos someone who’s gone somewhere the room isn’t ready to go.

Too soon? Too soon, 24 days after the attacks, in New York City, making a joke about flying planes into buildings. Too soon. Gilbert stood his ground and then pivoted. He started telling the aristocrats.

And he kept going. And by the time he finished his version of the aristocrats, the room was laughing. It’s textbook. Gilbert tested a line, found it too far for the room, and instead of retreating, he went a different direction in a way that gave the room permission to laugh without having to endorse the original joke. It’s so disconnected from 9-11, laughing at the aristocrats doesn’t feel like it’s laughing at the attacks.

It feels like laughing at something that exists in its own separate universe of comedy transgression that has nothing to do with what just happened. Gilbert found the room. As we went into the fall, there were also, that’s when I was producing Joan Rivers’ radio show, and that’s when the anthrax was hitting New York. That was like October, if I’m remembering correctly. So we’re not even done with 9-11, and now working in the media in New York City, opening the mail every day might get you killed.

The comedy cellar stayed open. The performers working at the cellar were working through something, not necessarily material, but through the grief and trying to find jokes that still worked in the new world. Something had shifted. Some comedians addressed it from the stage, others avoided it entirely and did their regular material. That in itself was a statement.

I remember it was weird at that time when people didn’t want to talk about 9-11. The first wave of comedians to incorporate 9-11 material into their actual stand-up acts did so carefully and mostly through the side door. Not so much here’s a 9-11 joke, but here’s a joke about airport security, or here’s a joke about the news. By the time Louis Black and David Cross and others were doing explicitly political stand-up about the war in Iraq, comedy had fully absorbed the event and was using it as subject matter rather than navigating around it. That brings us to this clip.

I’ll let Joe Rogan and Louis C.K. Take it from here. Louis C.K. Caught some grief for this upcoming joke. Giuliani, at one point in time, people thought he should be president.

After the way he handled 9-11. That’s right. Everybody’s like, he’s our leader. Yeah. And just because he walked down the street with a coffee and said, oh, boy, it’s rough.

That’s basically what he did. He didn’t stop 9-11. He didn’t solve 9-11. He didn’t save anybody. There was no one to save.

That’s the most up thing about that day is that there was no, you know, they had the hospitals were all ready and there was not like one. There was like nobody was injured. Were you living in New York City when that happened? Yeah, I was. I was not in the city.

The day before on the 10th, I flew to L.A. To pitch a TV show. Wow. And my wife was pregnant. And we were living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which was right.

I mean, it came out of our house. The towers were our view right out the door. And so she was there six months pregnant and whammo. And she called me. It was like 9 in the morning in L.A.

Or earlier, I guess. It was like 6. And she called me and she was just bawling. And I was like, what’s wrong? And she couldn’t say anything.

Partly I’m like, am I in trouble?

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And then she says, turn on the TV.

And I saw these towers on fire and I was like, okay. It’s nothing to do with home. This is a big, it’s a world problem. Not a me problem. I’m pretty sure that’s not my fault.

No. No. Anyway, she handled it really well. Todd Barry, you know Todd, right? He called her.

She’s the one who told him what had happened. He woke up not understanding what was happening, and he was really scared, and called my ex-wife, and she calmed him down. She’s a good person.

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Speaking of Todd Barry, I think this is actually the best 9-11 material that …

I’ve always liked this one. You guys want to hear my favorite September 11th story? I know, that’s probably not the way I should have phrased that. We’ll rewind that one. Want to hear my most bizarre September 11th song?

Is that better? I’m walking down the street. It’s smoky, it’s sad, it’s awful. I see a guy I know a little bit coming towards me. He comes within a foot of me, looks up, and he goes..

The new Mercury Rev album is out. Are you sure about that? Because I just watched the news, and I didn’t see that. Comedy works around the edge of the thing, finds the angle that allows the room to breathe, and eventually, when the room’s ready, looks at the thing itself. The room eventually did get ready, it always does.

That’s what comedy is for, and that Here’s your comedy news for today. See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Ed McMahon, Don Rickles, Sammy Davis Jr., Ralphie May

What’s in This Episode

• Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon history and legacy
• 1976 Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis reunion on live telethon
• Telethon’s move from New York to Las Vegas in 1973
• Jerry Lewis’s film career and French critical reception
• Don Rickles’s relationship with the telethon across decades
• 44-year run of the telethon from 1966 to 2010

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

On Saturdays, I’ve been doing deep dives into single topics. Today, we will talk about the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. I don’t know how well this episode is going to do. I’m doing this one for me for reasons I’ll explain after the break. But let’s dive in and start with the number that’s almost impossible to process in 2026.

In 1976, guess how many people tuned in to watch at least part of the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day telethon? That number? 85 million. That’s more than the Super Bowl was doing back in those days. Now that’s 1976. It’s 50 years ago at that point, but that’s when I first got into the telethon.

We’ll get into that later. 85 million Americans tuned in to watch part of Jerry Lewis hosting a 21 and a half hour live TV event from Las Vegas, surrounded by a rotating cast of celebrities, raising money for kids with muscular dystrophy, smoking, visibly deteriorating in real time as the hours wore on, and occasionally doing something weird that it burned itself into the memory of everyone who saw it. The Jerry Lewis Telethon ran from 1966 to 2010. 44 years. Boy, it’s been gone that long already. I still miss it every year. I’ll talk about it after the break.

Almost every significant comedian of that era, 1966 to 2010, performed on it at some point. Some performed before anyone knew who they were. Some at the height of their fame. All of it was live. Some performed at three in the morning.

Like I talked a couple weeks ago about Ralphie May. I saw him in the middle of the night. To a casino audience that had nothing else to do. All of this was live. None of it was repeatable, and as a comedy document, the telethon captures something about four decades of American stand-up that no other archive can match.

All right, I gotta jump in a little. If you never saw this thing, it would come on at nine o’clock on Sunday night of Labor Day weekend, and it would go until six-something the next day. It never seemed to end at a regular time. In the 6 p.m. Hour, it would kind of Rap.

Jerry looked wrecked, destroyed. He’d been up for most of the 21 hours.

And then Tony Orlando here in New York would finish it up and maybe they’d ro…

But it would it would end at like six something. And over the years. So I got into this kid. Here’s why I was going to do this after the break. But let me do now.

So my dad was a bartender and my dad worked nights and my dad loved TV. But when he would get home in those days, remember TV signed off? If you were up at like midnight, one in the morning, they’d play the national anthem and TV would go off. There wasn’t younglings. There was no TV to watch.

If you put on channel two at three in the morning, there was static. There weren’t things to watch. One of the reasons younglings like me even knew about Johnny Carson was because your choices at midnight might be the second half of Carson, an old black and white movie, and nothing. The channels actually played the national anthem and signed off. Channel 2, New York.

So my dad, who loved TV, but was working when TV was on, would get home and there was nothing on. So he didn’t get to watch TV except Labor Day because this thing went 24 hours. So he loved the Labor Day telethon, which is why I’m doing this today. I’m indulging myself. He’d make himself a bowl of like fruit and he would sit there and smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes and probably drink a Rheingold or a Schaefer and watch this thing.

And there was a time when the guest would be the ilk of Frank Sinatra. But by the time this thing was wrapping down in 2010 and my father was long gone, this was a relic. I mean, I would watch this thing and have the memories of being a kid and be like, oh, even though I’m a kid, I understand that Frank Sinatra is a major star. And by like the 2000s, it was like, who are these people on this show? It just had become such a relic that I couldn’t stop watching it because it was amazing.

Jerry Lewis was born Joseph Levitch in Newark in 1926 into a vaudeville family where show business was the household language. He developed a comedy act by 12, miming to phonograph records. One would say he was the Sarah Cooper of his day, founding the physical vocabulary that would define everything that came later. He met Dean Martin in 1946. They paired up.

Dean as the suave, effortlessly cool singer. Jerry Lewis as the manic, rubber-faced kid who couldn’t hold himself together. They were enormously successful, and then in 1956, they split up, and they barely spoke for 20 years. Jerry went into films, The Bellboy, The Ladies’ Man, The Nutty Professor, movies where he functioned as his own director, in ways that French critics took seriously while American critics were dismissing him as a clown. Yeah, remember that whole thing that the French loved Jerry Lewis?

He received the Legion of Honor in France in 1983. The telethon began in 1966, broadcasting from a single New York station, Channel 5 here in New York, at least. I’m not 100% sure about it, 1966, but by the 70s, it was definitely on Channel 5, raising over a million dollars in its first year. By 1973, the telethon had moved to Las Vegas, which was the decision that made everything more entertaining and more revealing. Vegas in the 70s and 80s was still Rat Pack territory.

Entertainers staying up all night was recent mythology, and the telethon fit naturally into an ecosystem built around performers doing things at 3 in the morning that wouldn’t happen anywhere else. And again, remember, I’m watching in New York, so if Ralphie Mays popping on at 3 in the morning Eastern, it’s only midnight in Vegas. Not absurd, right? The show moved to LA for a little bit, then back to Las Vegas. The co-host, Ed McMahon, co-hosted 38 times.

So that gave it a little weight, right? Because he had Carson’s sidekick there with Jerry Lewis, so it made it feel more legit. Frank Sinatra would come on. Sammy Davis Jr. Appeared.

Now, by 1966, the Rat Pack wasn’t really a thing anymore. That era was becoming mythology, but the people were still around, and Jerry Lewis was genuinely of that world and genuinely friends with those people, and the telethon was where those friendships could be visible without it feeling like promotion. Then there was the 1976 event. I feel like I saw this live. I feel like I was watching this.

I feel like they did this on Monday afternoon. I might be making all this up. Frank Sinatra walks out and surprises Jerry Lewis.

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And then behind Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin.

It was the first time Lewis and Martin had been seen together in public in more than 20 years. Cameras running, live TV, no script. I have a friend who loves what you do every year. And who just wanted to come out. Would you send my friend out, please?

Where is he? Would you send him out here? Come here. Break it. Up.

What is this here? Break it up. I think it’s about time, don’t you? Thank you. I think it’s about time.

Thank you. I don’t know. How you been? You know, it seems like we haven’t seen each other for 20 years. Well, you know, there was all those rumors about our breaking up, and then when I started the show and you weren’t.

Here, I believed it. Don Rickles is the comedian whose relationship with the telethon deserves its own look. Don did enough appearances across the decades that the MDA later compiled a dedicated episode of just Don Rickles on the telethon for their highlight reel series on streaming. Both Don and Jerry came out of the same entertainment ecosystem. Las Vegas showrooms, the Rat Pack, Orbit, the world where insult comedy and Jewish comedy and Italian-American showmanship existed in close proximity and fed each other for decades.

Don Rickles insulting Jerry Lewis on live TV in front of a Las Vegas midnight audience was two people from the same world doing the thing the world did. Jerry, it’s such a treat for me to get up early, to be here for this wonderful, wonderful occasion. I mean, I know the children, and I know the problem, but I say from my heart, really, I’m so annoyed with you. I really am. I was never a fan of yours.

You know that. And yet, you’ve asked me to come, and it was very sweet of you to ask me. Ed wanted me to come, but he thought I had a bottle of booze in my hip pocket. But you I’ve never liked. You know that.

But, and look at you today. You’re the same age as me, only on you it shows. Everybody’s Sammy. They all told you you look handsome. You look wonderful.

Look at your neck. You can tell your age right away. The neck hangs a little bit. You know what I mean? In a year, you’re going to be on a fence going, ah, ah.

Ah, ah, ah. The insults were real enough to be funny and safe enough to be affectionate, which is Don Rickles exactly. It worked because everybody in the room, the audience, the TV audience, Jerry, understood the difference between an insult that draws blood and an insult that says, I know you well enough to do this. Don Rickles was at his best not doing material. He was best at responding.

At a telethon at three in the morning with a depleted casino audience and a host had been awake for 16 hours was a great canvas for that approach. Don Rickles didn’t need a good room. He needed a real situation. Now you might be like, Johnny Mac, all right, enough with the 1960s. Well.

Fast forward to 1995. You know who did the show? Jerry Seinfeld. The telethon was still kind of operating at the high end and could get Jerry Seinfeld, an A-lister, appearing not to promote himself, He already had the top sitcom, but because the telethon was significant enough that people came. Let me tell you how you can improve your show.

You know what the trouble is? I got to tell you, Jerry, it’s very important that you understand that with comedy and You have to be the rooting interest. Yes. Right. You stand too damn tall.

Too tall. Yes. You should crouch a little like this. That’s good. Okay.

Good. How does it feel? Is it comfortable? It feels shorter. Yes.

You could make a fortune from this. They would know you in every country in the world. Really? All around the world? Yes.

I mean, right now you’re just local, but you could be very good. I would love to go statewide. During the 80s, Billy Crystal, big star, appeared regularly. Crystal was what the telethon needed during prime hours, skilled enough to read the room, warm enough to fit the charity, funny enough to justify the airtime. In earlier days, Jackie Gleason would come on.

Then in 1997, Jimmy Fallon performed stand-up on the telethon. He was 22 years old. This is a year before Jimmy Fallon joined Saturday Night Live. He was taking classes at the Groundlings, hadn’t landed anything. Somehow, he got a slot on the telethon.

That’s what this show was, especially as we got into the later years. Who’s this James Fallon kid? Who is he? Why is he on? Hello, my name is Jimmy Fallon, and welcome to the auditions for Troll Productions Incorporated.

Remember, we’re looking for a star or celebrity to sponsor our new line of Troll Dolls and our new series of commercials. So let’s start the auditions. Thanks for coming. First up, Mr. John Travolta.

She’s like, thanks a lot, I mean, I swear to God, this news is so weird over here, right? I mean, like, who does his hair? Like, his hair’s so frizzy, I mean, like, you know, like, you guys probably get some, like, anti-freeze shampoo or something to freeze. Him, right? We talked a few weeks ago about Ralphie May showing up.

Seeing Ralphie May in a casino showroom at two in the morning before people knew his name was a specific memory that people like me hold on to clearly, and I played the clip. I won’t do it again. Go back and listen to, it’s like three weeks ago now. The Ralphie May episode. I played the clip there.

And you can hear the audience not knowing how to deal with this guy and Ralphie winning the room. The telethon put comedians in conditions that revealed something about them that normal contacts don’t. Midnight to six in the morning on a Jerry Lewis telethon was its own ecosystem operating by different rules than the primetime portion of the show. The big guests were gone. The network affiliates were running reduced staffs.

Jerry Lewis had been doing this thing for eight or ten hours, smoking continuously, running on whatever combination of adrenaline and who knows what else got him through the night. And into that context came comedians whose agents had gotten on the slot because exposure is exposure. You were doing material at four in the morning to an audience that had arrived at a casino and stumbled into a free show. Right after a video about a child in a wheelchair and right before another desperate phone appeal for money. The whiplash was the entire experience.

A comedian doing tight, constructed stand-up material right after a tear-jerker video segment. You had to reset the room in your first 30 seconds. If you can’t do that, the next five minutes, long, awkward. By hour 15 or 16, Jerry Lewis was no longer performing in any controlled or calculated sense. He was on camera, exhausted, wired, smoking, completely invested.

He would cry. He made jokes that didn’t work. He didn’t care. He moved on. He argued with the production team in front of the camera.

Again, this is all live. Did I mention he smoked? In 2007, he said a gay slur on camera. Live TV. He apologized.

In another era, that might have been handled quietly, but by 2007, the show was in decline. Donations were falling. Affiliates were dropping the show or only airing part of it. Couldn’t draw the celebrities anymore. A lot of the people he had been friends with were gone by then.

And in 2011.. The MDA informed Jerry Lewis he had completed his run. He was 85 years old and had raised $ 2. 5 billion for them. Let’s remember it like this. It’s hour 18, and there’s a guy in a tuxedo who hasn’t slept.

He’s standing in front of a tote board in Las Vegas, smoking and doing whatever he needs to keep the thing moving for another hour. For charity. That’s your comedy news for today.

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Featured: Ricky Gervais, Frank Caliendo, Jay Leno, John Mulaney, Leanne Morgan

What’s in This Episode

• Ricky Gervais dismisses knighthood as meaningless
• Frank Caliendo reveals John Madden wanted to sue him over impressions
• Jay Leno took pay cut to keep Tonight Show crew during NBC cuts
• John Mulaney recalls attending Georgetown with Ivanka Trump
• Leanne Morgan discusses late-career success and mainstream comedy preferences

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

May the weather gods be kind and may there be a beach day in your near future. Hi, I’m Johnny Mac as we make it to the end of summer and the final weekend with your Daily Comedy News. Ricky Gervais was asked about knighthood. You know, the Brits, they do that whole knight thing. Would Ricky Gervais accept a knighthood?

He dismissed the honor as meaningless and remarks shared on his YouTube channel Ricky doubts the offer will ever come his way. Oh, no, no, no, no. You have no idea. I am the writer of Palace Intrigue, a daily podcast about the royal family. If they want people to stop talking about Meghan Markle, they’ll take a picture with you.

These royals don’t worry. But Ricky doubts the offer will ever come his way. But acknowledge he would have accepted it without hesitation for one reason. That reason, if my mom was alive, I’d definitely do it. Mom is no longer alive.

Would I do it now? Do I care? Does it matter? It doesn’t matter. If it was close to my house, I might.

He sounds like me. Oh, I have to go all the way downtown into London to Buckingham Palace to get knighted. Sounds like a lot of work. I mean, I wouldn’t go into New York City to get knighted. I think he’s right.

We do it in the suburbs. I digress. Ricky described himself as neither a committed royalist nor an opponent to the monarchy, likening the institution to tourism and calling a knighthood so irrelevant. But he said one thing might sway him. Oh, I might do it to annoy people.

Maybe I would. All the people that would be really annoyed, that would just tip the balance. I like that. It’s my favorite. If a knighthood meant like it did in the olden days, I could ride around on a big horse with a sword, I’d take it.

He then playfully hinted that maybe an offer had been made And noted if he had turned one down, he would have kept it quiet to spare anyone embarrassment. He said, for all you know, they’re calling me all the time and I’m going, nah. Frank Caliendo was on the Sage Steel pod cutting to the chase. We learned that John Madden wanted to sue Frank Caliendo. Let’s listen to Frank Caliendo tell the story on the Sage Steel show.

I have cut this down for pacing. The Kelsey podcast was the biggest one I heard where John Madden didn’t like me forever and he wanted to sue me on something. And he called Charles Barker and said, we got to sue Caliendo. He’s like, come on, man. Every time he talks, he makes us money, man.

So it was this interesting thing where Charles came up and told me about that. He’s like, you know John Madden wanted to sue you, right, man? I’m like, what? And he tells me the whole story. And I would never tell that story out in public because I didn’t know if I had permission from Charles.

He told me that in confidence. I’m like, I’m not going to tell somebody that, even though it probably would have been good for me to tell it. I held onto that story for like 10, 15 years.

And then Charles just told it recently on a couple of podcasts and people lik…

I’m like, yeah, I’ve been holding it as a secret for 20 years. It’s, it’s crazy. Why did John Madden want to see you? Uh, there were some commercials I did and he probably was, I did myself indemnified. I was like, I don’t know if I could do them or not.

And it was like doing like a Madden kind of thing. And I did a video game that was a similar, I took it away more on the video game. It wasn’t John Madden. I probably talk like this a little bit instead of just like that. So he was, he just didn’t like anything I did.

And Charles didn’t care. I mean, Charles was not the type of, he doesn’t care. He’s like, he’s like, do whatever. But he also got to know me and know me, knew me as a person. Madden just stayed clear.

But again, those football coaches can be really weird about that stuff. The video game in question. So it seems that Madden’s issue with Caliendo was about him using the impression in commercials or video games. Caliendo did a Madden parody in the 2008 video game Blitz of the League 2. Run a sweep, throw long, maybe dry hump a cheerleader or two.

I don’t think Madden was all that wrong about that. Now, while I was making the rounds, a few clips showed up on my radar. I don’t know when this is from. This is Jay Leno on the Adam Carolla podcast. Not sure when it’s from, but visually, Jay looks younger here.

If I had to guess, this clip is probably like 10 years old. Who knows? Maybe Jay put on some weight, and it’s from earlier this week. Anyway, let’s listen to Jay Leno tell Adam Carolla a story, and then you tell me if Jay Leno was the worst guy who ever lived. When I was doing The Tonight Show, I probably..

I was making $ 30 million a year. It was ridiculous. Okay. And NBC said, well, we’re going to have to cut half the crew. You know.

So we had a big meeting. I said, all right, but show of hands, how many feel I should take a 50% pay cut so we can keep everybody? Well, I got outvoted. Boy, I got screwed on that one. But really, I.

Already have $ 15 million. I’m doing pretty good. I never thought I’d get this far. And you know something? They were the best crew for the rest of the days.

You know, everything was always terrific. It was a union crew. Everybody made a good living. You know, guys would come up and show me the car they bought or the house they got around the corner or whatever it might be. And it didn’t cost me anything, really.

Because I had plenty of money. I was making plenty of money. Doesn’t sound like that bad of a guy. I can see why Conan O’Brien and David Letterman might be a little annoyed with him. More so Conan than Dave.

Dave should just be mad at NBC execs or Dave should just be mad at younger NBC Dave who didn’t play the game. Jay Leno did. I digress. Another clip. John Mulaney was on Larry King.

That’s definitely not from earlier this week because Larry King passed away. When did Larry King pass away? Larry King passed away in 2021, and there was that pesky pandemic. So this clip’s probably at least seven years old, and John Mulaney, his chin is a little thinner in this clip. You know, he’s filled out over the years.

You know what I mean? His face is much more filled these days. So here’s a young, skinny John Mulaney talking to Larry King about working with Ivanka Trump. Yes, I did. She went to Georgetown?

Yeah, we were both freshmen at the same time. You remember her? Yeah, she was in my Euro Civ class. Where we studied pre-Renaissance Europe. Was she good?

She was very nice, a good student. And we all smoked cigarettes, so I’d see her out on the patio. Oh, really? Oh, do I get sued for that? She smoked.

You know you smoked, Ivanka. And we all smoked out on the patio. She was very, very nice. And she left after one year, and I thought, well, that’s the last I’ll ever see of her. Little did I know.

Eric went there, too. Leanne Morgan sounds quite grounded in my kind of people. She told USA Today, I’m going to the grocery store. I go to Costco. I’m still doing my laundry.

I love doing laundry. I feel like everything’s the same. I really do. She is now 60 and talked about having success later in life than some people do. I couldn’t sell 12 tickets and now I’m doing arenas and that’s crazy.

And then the television part, even though it’s hard and I had to learn a lot and I’m still learning a lot, it still feels right to me. It feels like I’m where I’m supposed to be. I’m thankful, but it’s just bigger and sweeter than anything I dreamed of. During a recent appearance on the Women of Joy show podcast, Leanne Morgan said that women want quality content, but without women in their panties shooting bows and arrows and all the things like that. Honest to goodness, I think in the secular world, I think a lot of people don’t want to see all that, and I think they’re in a bubble out there.

And they think people want to see that, but they’re not in the middle of the United States. I talk to my college students about this all the time, and I go, there’s this whole thing out there called America, and on the coast, you don’t live in it. Morgan recalled telling the director that a southern mother of four.. Wouldn’t curse in front of her children, she said. The mother wouldn’t talk like that in front of these children.

The director said, you know better than I do, Leanne. Do what you think is best. So I think they think in their minds, oh, everybody’s talking like this, everybody wants this, but I don’t think the majority of people do. Or not in the South, especially when you’re portraying Southern characters, or anywhere, really. She explained in her family, growing up, no one used swear words, and while it’s okay if someone else wants to use it, she doesn’t care for them herself.

The Verge caught up with Emily Canelon. She’s been a guest on this program. She’s got a new special, The Introvert. And in the special, Emily talks about joining high school friends to go bra shopping. So she was telling a version of the joke in San Diego, where she filmed the special, and her punchline, which she told better, was, It’s weird shopping for something you can’t fill yet.

It’s sort of like if the Padres went shopping for a trophy case. Yikes. Ouch. Padres fans, take that one to the face. Catalano says, I use whatever sports team is not good at the city.

Oh, come to Queens and talk about the Mets. This is funny. In The Introvert, spoilers, she tells a story about wanting a Theragun massage gun for her birthday. Dad misunderstood, thought she wanted an actual gun, but what he bought her was a Hitachi magic wand. Don’t Google that.

Or if you do, you’ll have to explain to your loved ones what you were looking up. And the answer is, I was just toasting a podcast in the basement. I don’t know what you think I’m doing. Anyway, Emily unwraps the gift at a restaurant dinner. And she’s pretty sure she and the waiter were the only ones who knew what a person might use the Hitachi magic wand for.

Don’t Google it. I’m telling you. Don’t Google it. I know you’re curious. Don’t.

She says, Dad knows what it is now. But adds, but I never talked to him specifically about that joke. That is hilarious. Another random story that I collected for today’s episode. Back in 2025, Bill Burr poked fun at former SNL cast member Kevin Nealon as the two hiked through the woods together on an episode of Kevin Nealon’s Hiking with Kevin.

Wilbur pointed out that Kevin Nealon isn’t quite the nice guy he appears as, telling Nealon, I find personality fascinating because people think you’re a nice guy and you’re not. What you do is you draw information out of people, you find out what they’re good at, and then you crap on it.

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And then when the person reacts to it, you turn around and put it on them.

It’s very toxic. Very toxic. I feel like there’s a bunch of women I used to date watching this right now going, yeah, that’s exactly the Kevin Nealon experience. That’s funny. This is interesting, too.

Bill was talking about never knowing how good you are as a comedian. He said, it’s hard to tell how good you are as a comedian, right? You don’t know. People say you’re good or whatever. What does that mean?

Does that mean they think you’re good? What if they want some work on the road? You have no idea. I always wish someone could just pick up a guitar and play at the level comic I was so I could tell where I was. This weekend on the schedule, I’m going to do two deep dives, not because I want to to pre-tape.

It’s because there are things I want to talk about that are tied to the calendar. Saturday’s deep dive, I don’t know how popular this one’s going to be. Sometimes I do an episode for me. I want to talk about the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Tail-a-thon, which if you’re a certain age, you remember. And for me, I have a personal connection with my father with that one.

So I’m going to talk about the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon tomorrow through the lens of stand-up comedy. Then on Sunday, I’m going to talk about 9-11. It is the 25th anniversary of 9-11 in 2001, coming up one week from today. And I thought we’d talk about that through the lens of comedy. So two deep dives over the weekend and a normal episode on Monday.

It is Friday. It is time for the Comedy Stock Market. Comedy stock market. Thank you burt reynolds voice of the comedy stock market every friday we take a look at the comedians we treat them like stocks we try and buy low and sell high and make some money on the comedy stock market i’ve got three recommendations now four recommendations for you this week and they are all positive Johnny Mac you haven’t been selling anybody lately are you in a good mood or something no i’m not in a good mood summer’s over i i whatever Move on, John. Okay, we’re going to buy more Stavros Halkias, and I think we’ve bought him three weeks in a row, but he’s just great in everything, and he’s got a new special coming out on Netflix on Tuesday, and just everything seems lined up for Stavros, so let’s get in before the casuals, and we’ll buy a little more Stavros.

Okay, then on the 15th, there’s another special coming on Netflix. We’re going to buy Joe Coy. Again, it’s Comedy Stock Market. Buy low, sell high. I know not everybody loves Joe Coy because he one time told that very mean joke about Taylor Swift, but we’re not going to play that today.

People didn’t like him hosting the Golden Globes. But, you know, meanwhile, he’s out like playing SoFi with Gabe Iglesias. But I don’t think the casuals are hip to Joe Coy. So let’s buy low on Joe Coy. Let’s also buy more and more and more and more Shane Gillis.

I know it’s like buying Apple stock, but your Apple stock goes up. So does your Shane Gillis stock. This guy can’t lose right now. Let’s cash in on that. And here’s another buy low.

I was doing some research for the podcast that you’re listening to right now. On Netflix, September 22nd, they are going to start airing all three seasons of Party Down. Now, if you’ve seen Party Down, you know Party Down is fantastic. But most people have never seen this show about a bunch of underemployed actors working as caterers. The cast, Adam Scott, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Lizzie Kaplan, Megan Mullally, Jane Lynch.

Did you hear me? What a cast. Party Down comes to Netflix September 22nd. Let’s get way in front of that before the casuals discover Party Down. So we’re going to buy Party Down, buy Shane, buy Joe Coy, and buy Stavros Halkias.

That is your comedy stock market on a Friday. The LA Times has been recommending cool shows you could go see in Los Angeles. One of them, Not Enough Comedy at Reserve Venice. And we are told Not Enough Comedy provides so much comedy that it’s full service. Do you have an awesome room?

Its team will travel to you. Hosted by Phil Cohn. Each show features a mix of familiar names and comics still making their way up the L.A. Stand-up scene. They have a growing presence in Venice.

They do a show monthly. The next one is September 19th at 6.30 p.m. Tickets will run you $ 32. 67. How about right after you left at the Vinyl Room? We were told Imagine Deaf Comedy Jam, hosted inside a speakeasy of an iconic music venue.

Right after you left is a summertime event thrown by seasoned comedy bookers Chris Burns, Sarah Mello, and Sean Dickens. The glowing bar is decorated like a DJ lives there, with shelves of classic records, ghetto blasters, plush couches, upscale food and craft cocktails. Comics who have come to the stage include Donna Rawlings, Eliza Schlesinger, Morgan Jay, Josh Johnson, and Cam Patterson. The show is seasonal, but it’s Tuesdays at 8 o’clock and runs until September 22nd. The promoters plan to come back in December, so go see it while you can.

How about Wrong, an effed-up game show at the Elysian? Tagged as a 50% comedy show, 50% game show, and 100% effed up, it draws on the past to lean into a comic’s darkest humor while welcoming playful banter. After each comic performs their crudest humor, the show then turns into a discussion where panelists try to guess the missing words of an old social media post the producers dug up from the pits of the internet. They do this one monthly. The next two are September 24th and October 22nd.

Tickets are $ 18. 90. How about Queer Roast for the Straight Host at Beaches Tropicana? This comedy show invites queer comics to roast street comics in between stand-up sets and dares. Monthly, $ 10 presale. You have to subscribe on their sub stack to find out the dates.

And Papooses and Punchlines offers a place where Latinx performers, along with comics that belong to other underrepresented groups, can joke about the immigrant experience in the U.S. And the absurdities of the American dream. Multiple shows per week. Tickets are $ 9. 75. Oh, I’ve got one more.

I miscounted there. Vermont at Beverly Station. The monthly show’s essences do not fit in with the rest of the programming you’re likely to see at the Improv. It’s the comedy show equivalent of the Misfit Kids at the Cafeteria. That’s also why it works.

It gives traditional stand-ups license to get weird, and the weirdo acts a chance to find their people. The next one is Sunday, September 27th at 7pm. Check the Improv calendar for future dates. The Academy of TV Arts and Sciences has announced that I Love Lucy will receive the inaugural Legacy Award. This will happen at the 2026 Creative Arts Emmy Awards Night 2 on September 6th.

You may have heard of a show called I Love Lucy that starred Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. The Chicago Tribune did a nice piece about Joan Rivers a few weeks back. I held on to that for today. Joan passed away September 4th, 2014. From a heart attack during a medical procedure at age 81.

Now, one part I don’t agree with this. They are saying, just as Rodney Dangerfield’s legacy has been tarnished and his artfulness diminished by the movies of his late career, I don’t agree with that at all. So has Joan Rivers’ memory been sullied by the red carpet antics and what many considered the nastiness of her last decades? I don’t agree at all. If you’re a longtime listener, I knew Joan personally, been to Joan’s house, worked with Joan when she had the radio show, WOR.

I know Joan Rivers. But they add there’s good reason that on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2017 list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.. You know what? I should dust that list off just to see how it looks 10 years later. I’m going to click on that right now.

And we’ll do that on one of the weekends. Joan Rivers ranked 6th on that list, just below Chris Rock, but ahead of Jerry Seinfeld. How do you feel about that 10 years later? Born Joan Alexandria Malinsky in Brooklyn on June 8, 1933. Maybe we’ll do a deep dive on Joan Rivers one weekend.

In 61, she came to Chicago, joining the cast of The New Second City. Female comics were rare at the time, as one writer put it then. Women in nightclubs were either audience members or cocktail waitresses, but Joan Rivers worked tirelessly, sometimes paying Rodney Dangerfield to write jokes for her. One night after she bombed on stage, Lenny Bruce, her comedy hero, sent her a note, You’re right, and they’re wrong. Her first appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, February 17, 1965, in the quote-unquote Death Slot, At the end of her routine, Carson said on air, God, you’re funny.

You’re going to be a star. You know what? This is good stuff. We’ll do a deep dive on Joan. Look at that.

Just on the fly. Just came up with two ideas for a weekend stuff. Let me tell you about Joe Lysette. He’s got a new show out today. The Lysette Arms, live on Channel 4 in the UK, Friday nights at 10 o’clock, starting tonight.

The headline, though, Joe Lysette addresses his sexuality after becoming a father for the first time. When he announced he even had a girlfriend, some eyebrows were raised. Known for his off-the-wall elaborate pranks, there were some fans that suspected that it was a stunt. He was on the podcast Happy Place and said, Lots of people were surprised when I had a child with a woman because they were like, But you’re the gay man. You know, I never said that I’m gay because I’ve never been gay, but because I’m camp and I do innuendo and all those sorts of things, people have this idea of what that is.

On stage, I kind of played on these things because they’re funny ultimately, but how much of that is filtered into what I actually am? And it’s the stage persona the same as me. You know, these things sort of oscillate a lot. On his new show, he opens up an East London pub for just an hour a week on Fridays during the duration of the live episodes. For the show to happen, he had to become fully accredited with a license to serve alcohol and underwent a training course and exam to obtain a Level 2 award for personal license holders.

In each episode, Joe will be accompanied by a celebrity pub manager on a trial shift. Joe said the live performance sector, if you want to call it that, is under great threat and the pub industry is as well. And I think anything we can do to celebrate our British boozers is a good thing. Because, yeah, they provide a watering hole. And as I’ve said, I do think they’re really good for society at large.

It’s good to have a public house where the public can come in and mingle with one another. It’s good for people who are lonely. It’s good for people who need to connect with their community. The Lysette Arms, Channel 4 in the UK, Friday nights, 10 o’clock, starting tonight. And that is your comedy news for today.

All right, two deep dives over the weekend. Jerry Lewis, and then we’ll do 9-11 on Sunday. Have a great weekend. Again, I hope the weather gods are kind.

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Featured: Pete Davidson, Colin Jost, Shane Gillis, Hannah Burner, Jeffrey Curry, W. Kamau Bell

What’s in This Episode

• Pete Davidson and Colin Jost’s Free Staten Island Ferry Comedy Show with Snapple
• Tires Season 4 Renewal at Netflix
• Hannah Burner’s Jaw Injection Incident and Recovery
• Jeffrey Curry’s Five Tips for Crowd Work and Improv
• W. Kamau Bell Interview on Technology and Apps

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Do you like comedy? Do you like fairies? Pete Davidson and Colin Jost are doing a free comedy show on their decommissioned Staten Island Ferry boondoggle that they paid $ 280, 000 for back in 2022.

The free comedy show will feature rising comedians and it takes place in New York City, September 17th. Wait, I should probably go. I actually have to be in New York City that night for the podcasting conference. I’m already in town. I’m already crashing at my daughter’s place.

I should go. Well, John, fans can claim free tickets online starting today. You may recall back in 2022, Pete Davidson, who’s now 32 years old, Colin Jost, 44, They purchased the decommissioned John F. Kennedy Staten Island Ferry at auction for $ 280, 000. Since then, they’ve hosted a number of events on the vessel, including Tommy Hilfiger’s 2025 New York Fashion Week show.

But on September 17th, when Johnny Mac will be in New York City and should probably just go, you’re already there. The ferry will become the Snapple Island Ferry. I see what the sponsor did there. A one-day-only free comedy club built to give New Yorkers an unexpectedly refreshing break from the daily grind, says Snapple. The show, hosted by Pete and Jost and produced by the Stand Restaurant and Comedy Club, the show will feature sets from the fastest rising stars on the comedy scene.

Pete Davidson in a statement said, Turning the ferry into a floating comedy club with Snapple makes more sense than anything else we considered. And it still doesn’t make much sense. That’s Pete saying that, not shouting back. Either way, we’re giving people a chance to take a break, have a laugh, and do something completely ridiculous with us. A limited number of free tickets will begin dropping daily at 3 o’clock today, Eastern Time, and continue through the 8th.

Fans can claim a pair of free tickets for themselves and a guest at register.snappleislandofferry.com. There’s a limit of one pair per person. Where is Pier 17, Johnny Mac? It is 89 South Street in New York City, so that’s the Lower East Side, very lower. If you can’t make it, Snapple will share clips and content from the events on their social channel, including Snapple Instagram, don’t act like you don’t follow it, and TikTok.

Pete said he and Jost will also be giving people a ton of free Snapple. Pete was asked if he’ll crack open a Snapple and he said, oh, I’ll give you a nice crack and sip. Tires will keep going. Picked up for season four at Netflix. No surprise there.

What a great show. Are you watching it? How come you’re not watching it? What are you doing? How funny does Shane Gillis have to be to get you to watch something?

Shane gave his usual short quote and he said, it’s cool to get to make another season of Tires. He never says much. I love it. Tires recently released third season, reached number five on Netflix’s top ten English list, its highest position yet. Since its debut in 2024, Tires has amassed more than 45 million views across three seasons.

Tracy Picosta, Netflix’s VP of U.S. Comedy, said Tires continues to deliver the unapologetic comedy and authentic point of view Shane, John, and Steve’s fans know and love. And season three, hitting its highest ever top ten ranking, proves this fandom just keeps growing. See what happens when you don’t cancel things after one season, Netflix? Huh?

And good news for Hannah Burner, the story’s finally making the podcast. John, is it getting close to Labor Day weekend and there’s not a lot of news? There’s enough news, but I’ve bounced this enough times. The headline from the New York Times, Hannah Burner is having the last laughter. What if she could?

You see, since a jaw injection went awry and left Hannah Burner unable to smile, she’s made the most of her predicament. Hannah has been calling this Smilegate. She had received injections to eliminate symptoms of TMJ, a condition that can cause jaw tightness, pain, and headaches, which she had dealt with since childhood. Then she went to receive Dysports, an injectable similar to Botox that smooths wrinkles, but is sometimes used off-label to treat TMJ symptoms. The Times tell us Hannah Burner quickly felt a stiffness she had not experienced before.

Hannah recalled that smile felt like weightlifting. Four days later, she was unable to smile or speak clearly. That is terrifying. Hannah Burner told the Times, Right before everything went down, I was bragging on my podcast about how your 30s are so great because every possible bad thing that can happen to you happens in your 20s. And by your 30s, you’re like, I can handle anything.

And then this happened. My worst nightmare is hurting my own podcast because I’m an idiot who got something done on her face that was not necessary. When she noticed her face wasn’t getting better, she decided it was time to open up. About two weeks after the injections, she showed her smile on her video podcast. He now says, I’m one of those people who’s excited to age looking like myself.

So this was a good learning lesson to treat your face with love. I think that should be on a T-shirt. Treat your face with love. Jeffrey Curry, who’s Netflix special Nice to Meet You, is very enjoyable if you haven’t seen it. He spoke with How Success Happens and shared his five tips for like crowd work and improv stuff.

Number one, prepare before you improvise. Jeff says, I always have a plan. I always have a reason to bring something up. You’re never going to see me like kind of floundering and then going, all right, so what’s your story over here? Instead, he’s always trying to find trigger words to go into my own material and own stories.

Tip number two, don’t let success distract you. He says he moved from a decent apartment to, quote, living in a basement with rats with five other guys. You have to be OK with struggling financially. I’d rather live in a basement filled with rats doing stand up than living in a high rise. Being an accountant, it’s a matter of love of the game.

Not sure I agree with all that. Three, take one risk per show. In every set, he tries one new, unproven joke. Tuck between two he knows will land. That makes sense.

That’s how you build a set. Tip number four, don’t blame the audience. A brutal cruise ship gig taught Akiri to look inward before pointing fingers. He followed someone who crushed, then he watched half the crowd walk out mid-set. He said, I’m a comic who blamed the audience in the past, but I also blame myself.

I’m never going to 100% blame them. I always try to think, hey, you still got to learn from stuff. Have you ever taken a cruise? I’ve gone to some of these shows. By the evening, I’m quite tired.

It’s not always about the act. It’s about sleep. Number five, adapt or get left behind. That is good advice. I tell my college students all the time, don’t become a dinosaur.

It’s advice for creators who guard their content too closely. Well, then you need to write more to compensate for that. You have to find another niche. There’s no, hey, if I get into this club, they’re going to get me a network deal anymore. It’s all up to you to get into people’s brains.

Throw stuff at the wall, man. Some of it’s not going to land, but that’s fine. The only way to build momentum is to stay fresh in their minds. The Verge asked W. Kamau Bell about technology, specifically phones and stuff.

Hey, Kamau, what’s your most indispensable tool? He says a charger. All of this is just shiny paperweights without a charger. Which app is most underappreciated? Now, he answered this before a recent news development, but I think you’ll see where we’re going here.

He said, I wish MapQuest app was better so I didn’t have to use the Trump billionaire guy’s apps. You know who I’m talking about. The map apps that have the Gulf of Mexico listed as the Gulf of America. All caps. So embarrassing.

Three exclamation points. I wonder how he feels about Lake Ontario. Send your letters to W. Kamau Bell. Hey, I want to shout out Patrick, and thank you, Patrick, and bad form for me.

I was cleaning up my inbox, and I saw Patrick had bought me two coffees at buymeacoffee.com slash dailycomedynews. It’s one of the many ways you can support the show, but you can throw a couple bucks in the tip jar like Patrick did, and I will thank you on this podcast, apparently two and a half weeks later. Thank you, sir, and sorry, dude, that’s bad form by me. I actually feel really bad that I didn’t catch that in time, but I don’t have a time machine, so this is all I can do. But I thank you for the support.

Another way you can support the show is if you’re on Apple Podcasts, click the banner where it says Uninterrupted Listening, and for $ 5 a month, you’ll get this show ad-free around 7.15 in the morning. There’s just technical reasons that I can’t put the commercial-free version up at 3.05 a.m. Eastern when the regular episode comes out, unless I set an alarm and get up every morning at 3.05 a.m. And I’m not doing that. I produced morning show radio for four months one time 25 years ago.

No, it’s 30 years ago now, and I hated it. So Johnny Mac’s not getting up at 3.05. You’ll get your commercial-free episode at 7.15 a.m. And I hope that’s okay. But for $ 5 a month, click the banner that says Uninterrupted Listening, or just buy me a coffee.

I mean, I’m at the Donuts chain every single morning. Lately, I’ve been getting two. I don’t know if it’s the weather or what, but about half the time, I’m getting two coffees now. Patrick, thank you. Hey, remember I told you the whole thing with the Lion King people were mad about the comedian?

Who had joked that the Lion King song translated to mean, look, there’s a lion, oh my God, and the Lion King people freaked out. Well, the Grammy-winning lyricist behind the Lion King’s famous opening vocals is being ordered to pay nearly $ 40, 000 in attorney’s fees after unsuccessfully suing a comedian for making fun of the song. You may recall South African comedian Jonasie was hit with a $ 27 million lawsuit earlier this year from the songwriter. The joke that the lyrics at the beginning of The Circle of Life translated to, Look, there is a lion, oh my God, and the songwriter was so offended that he sued for $ 27 million for a joke made on a podcast. A March 16th lawsuit filed in the U.S.

District Court for the Central District of California labeled Jonas’ humorous mistranslation as a, quote, fabricated, trivializing distortion meant as a sick joke, saying it damaged the, quote, royal praise poetry. Now, the lawsuit translated the line as all hail the king. We all bow in the presence of the king. Again, I’ll remind you, the joke was that it translates to look, there is a lion. Oh, my God.

Which is both funny and not the translation. I don’t want to get sued here. Let me be clear. That is not the translation. I don’t want to trivialize the lyrics from the Lion King cartoon song.

In a now deleted Instagram post, Jonas E. Had said this was just a joke and comedy always has a way of starting a conversation. I told him this. This is now your chance to actually educate people, because now people are listening. I was even ready to create a video with him, to be honest.

Personally, I had no idea it had a deeper meaning. Anyway, the lawsuit was struck down, and the songwriter ordered to pay thousands of dollars, $ 39, 560 dollars, The order says the prevailing defendant won the case due to an anti-slap-with-two-p’s motion, which means the court struck down what it believed was a frivolous and costly suit designed to punish Jonassey for his joke. But as we like to say here in the basement, all hail the king. We all bow in the presence of the king. Now, if you’re heading over to Abu Dhabi, it’s Abu Dhabi comedy season.

They have shows spread out for months, but the newest addition is Whitney Cummings, who will perform at the Etihad Arena on January 31st. Abu Dhabi comedy season also includes Morgan Jay on October 11th, Russell Peters on October 25th, Mo Amr November 6th, Maz Jobrani November 7th, and Paul Smith on the 31st of January. British comedian Stuart Lee did one of those Q & As with The Times, the part I will pick out. They asked, you know, some boilerplate questions, and they asked Stuart Lee, Hey, what did you waste an evening watching? And Stuart Lee said, Dave Chappelle at Leicester Square Theatre, which was lazy, boorish, clichéd, and unpleasant.

I’m going to shout it out of correction to factual inaccuracy. His bespoke heavies got heavy, so I split. So, Stuart, you heckled Dave Chappelle, is what you’re saying? What are you doing, dude? Respect the work, even if you don’t like it.

The New York Times apparently publishes special crossword puzzles for subscribers, and I’m a subscriber, and I was playing around with this one earlier today. It’s a Saturday Night Live-themed crossword puzzle. Constructed by Times Puzzle editor Christina Iverson and former cast member Rachel Dratch. One across asks you, what is the L of SNL? Do you know the answer to that one?

What is the L of SNL? Four letters. Can you get that one? Fifteen across. One named Singer, who was a two-time musical guest and one-time host.

I got that one right, too. I’m not telling you. We are told as an entry, SNL, and I’m not telling you what the L stands for, originally clued as Variety Show Since 1975 Abbreviations. SNL has since appeared 270 times, its clues often featuring trivia about its hosts, cast members, and the show itself. But I’m not telling you what the L stands for.

But I will tell you that the L in LA Times stands for Los, or Las, as those East Coasters say, Los Angeles. Anyway, the LA Times has been highlighting some comedy nights. We did a few of these on yesterday’s episode. They’re into the Cantina Comedy Club at King Harbor at the Riviera Mexican Cantina. Hosted by high-energy L.A.

Comedian Sean Leary, the cantina keeps the laughs coming with rotating lineups. Add in incredible South of the Border cuisine, drinks, and stunning views of King Harbor Marina. You get one of the best nights in town. These are monthly shows. The next one is September 18th at 8 o’clock.

Tickets start at $ 28. 52. They’re also into open mic comedy night at Lyric Hyperion. Sets are $ 4 for four minutes. Oh, that’s not for you to watch it. That’s for you to perform. 20 people chosen each night via lottery.

Performers can vary from Silver Lake artists testing their stand-up skills for the first time to established local comedians working stuff out. That happens Mondays at 9 o’clock. Again, free to watch. $ 4 for four minutes to perform, a.k.a. A buck a minute. What happens if I go over?

What if I run the light? Do I have to give you five bucks? At Chatterbox, it’s Chatterbox Comedy Night. We are told the audience walks into a bar. A disco ball illuminates the room as early 2000s hip-hop plays.

It already sounds awesome. The aesthetics set by Chatterbox, a bar in Covina, have all the elements of a drunk heckler’s dream. Headliners are known acts usually touring big cities. The rest of the lineup includes open mic standouts. That’s Sundays at 8 p.m.

Tickets $ 5 in advance, $ 10 at the door. And you know I’m going to love this one. Chris Fleming and friends at the Largo at the Coronet. Love this description. If your complaint about stand-up is that it’s too much of one person standing in place while talking, then Chris Fleming and friends is the solution to your problem.

The high-energy comedian, who should host Late Night with Chris Fleming on NBC at 12.30, make 12.30 great again, but I digress. The comedian delivers the most fine-tuned stream of consciousness comedy you’ll ever hear. Fleming’s trademark physicality makes the show original, exciting, and borderline bouncing off the walls. The next one is September 15th at 8 o’clock. Tickets are $ 50, though.

Hmm, I mean, 50 bucks? I mean, love Chris Fleming, but 50 bucks? Are you kidding me there? No pricey, no. That is your comedy news for today.

See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Jon Stewart, Brian Baumgartner, Michelle Obama, Bill Burr, Anthony Michael Hall, Leigh-Anne Morgan

What’s in This Episode

• Jon Stewart discusses political comedy’s impact on society
• Brian Baumgartner golf skills and joint pain management
• Last One Laughing UK Season 3 contestant lineup announcement
• Bill Burr discusses Massachusetts bar pizza with Anthony Michael Hall
• Leigh-Anne Morgan Netflix show explores dating and elderly parent care

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Jon Stewart went on Michelle Obama’s podcast and discussed the president of the United States. Jon Stewart said, I never confuse cultural power with power. There’s nothing more fragile than someone who wields real power, who feels that the power will be diminished by satire or commentary.

It’s kind of a shocking fragility. I mean, he’s made all our shows relevant again in a weird way. John wonders whether political comedy actually helps. Does this help? Does it corrode?

Does it pervert? Is it ultra-processed food that’s given the country kind of political diabetes? I don’t know. He says he tries to operate in good faith. It may not be an honorable thing we do, but we do it as honorably as we can.

Brian Baumgartner, you know him as Kevin on The Office. He spoke to The Healthy about golf and joint pain. Brian, who was Kevin on The Office, said when people ask who was the best golfer on The Office, that’s an easy one. Hold on. Who’s asking that?

Like if you ran into John Krasinski, would you be like, hey, John, who was the best golfer on the show? Would you ask John Krasinski that? Would you ask Oscar Nunez who was the best golfer on the office? Hey, Steve Carell, nice to meet you, boy. I love the show.

Anyway, Brian says it’s him. And nobody would argue it because he was the only one that played. That’s another reason not to ask them that. Brian said they were always looking for ideas. Pitching a client on a golf course.

That’s a fairly obvious setup for an episode. It’s the only sales call that Kevin, the accountant, was ever on in 10 years, nine seasons. So I think that pretty much indicates I was the driving force behind that idea, and they wanted me out there because I knew what I was doing a little bit. Then the healthy was curious. Hey, Kevin, I mean, Brian, when did you first start noticing joint pain?

Brian said, for me, primarily it’s standing for long periods of time. But you know, all the professional golf tournaments that I’m playing in now, at least professional in terms of this sort of celebrity crops up, I’m playing three, four, five, or six rounds in a row over the course of a week. More than just the repetitive motion, the swinging, the walking, the hills, it’s also just the standing. People say golf takes four hours, and it should take four hours normally, but for these tournament situations, it’s five hours. You’re putting nine to 14 miles at a minimum on your leg, so joint pain happens.

This apparently was a whole setup for a product called Voltaren because the healthy-ass Brian Baumgartner, hey, you’re serving as Voltaren’s relief caddy. What does that role mean? And how does Voltaren help you manage joint pain? Brian, who might possibly perhaps saw a couple bucks out of this conversation, said, if I’m playing golf, there’s somebody helping me, right? Not just somebody helping me, but what a lot of fans don’t see.

Sorry to spoil these professional golfers who it’s all the news about how fit they are and how much time they spend in the weight room. Let me tell you, there are trainers, there are massages happening, there’s stretching that’s happening before rounds, after rounds, there’s medication being administered, there are gels, including.. While Taryn being put on joints to help both before and after a round. So I think what’s so clever about this, well, the golfers have a caddy. Why don’t the fans who are walking around and standing around have somebody to help them as well?

The healthy was smart enough to get back to the office and ask Brian, which character from the office would you most like to hit the links with and why? Brian said, I would say having some laughs and playing with a friend is what I enjoy about golf, so I’m going to say Oscar. I am jazzed for Last One Laughing Season 3. I might have to wait many months, but I love that show, Last One Laughing UK. Jimmy Carr once again will host.

Now, on the first two seasons, his sidekick was Royceon Conaty. However, she is one of the contestants, and what a list this is. Are you ready? Lee Mack, who you may know from What I Lied to You. Katherine Ryan.

Who you may know from just listening to my podcast every day. Harry Hill, who I am under-familiar with. Katherine Parkinson, Michelle DeSwart, Jen Richardson, Morgana Robinson, Josh Jones, Royshen Conady, and Richard Ayoade, who came in second in the first season. Metro wrote, it’s unfair that Richard is back. By the way, Richard would be a great Doctor Who.

Somebody needs to listen to me. Make him Doctor Who. That would be amazing. And it will resurrect the show. He should be Doctor Who.

On social media, one person said this is not good news for the rest of the comedians and claimed that Richard Ayoade is the Usain Bolt of poker faces. Bill Burr chatted with Anthony Michael Hall about pizza, as one does. We learned that Bill Burr is a fan of the Bay State’s famous bar pizzas. Bill said, I’ve gone all the way up to Marblehead. I’ve gotten everything.

I can go down Route 3. I can go down 95, 93, whatever you want. Not so good out on the 405. So if anybody has some suggestions. The South Shore is more inviting.

You can just join the group. At the North Shore, I felt like I had to jump through a few hoops. I’m like, all right. They’re a little more guarded. What is there?

Pizza a little better? Anthony Hall did not have any bar pizza suggestions, but he did reveal that he’s a fan of the region’s lobster rolls and enjoys seafood. And tells us he can always trust the fish on the cape. Now, when I was prepping this show, this particular story I grabbed Friday night, and it made me crave pizza, and as I’m recording right now, once again, it’s making me crave pizza. The difference is, on Friday, my wife had brought home a slice of pizza.

Right now, no such luck. My wife has been watching Leigh-Anne on Netflix. She is enjoying it. Leigh-Anne Morgan spoke with Decider about her character getting flirty this season. And they were curious how her husband in real life, Chuck, feels about Leanne living single on screen.

Leanne said, Chuck doesn’t care, honey, if I’m bringing in money. In real life, if something, God forbid, if Chuck Morgan left me, I’d be dating, honey. I’ve loved men all my life. I think he knows she’s in menopause and she’s tired or heat hurt and she’s not going to go out and honky tonk. I think that’s what Chuck Morgan thinks, because he’s right.

You know, I just talk a big game about dating. In season two, one of the plot points is taking care of elderly parents. Leanne said, my mama and daddy are 83 and 86, and I begged them to move in with me, but my dad wouldn’t leave the house. I thought it was so relevant for what people are going through in the United States. You know, when you’re trying to launch your kids, then you’ve got elderly parents you’re tending to.

And I thought it just hit perfectly.

And then my character is going through this big change in her life.

You can’t imagine how many women have come to me since season one and said, I went through the exact same thing. You don’t know how much hope that gave me that I can find love again, that I’m going to be all right. I’ve got my family and friends to lift me up. It’s been really sweet. It’s been more than comedy, I would say.

As for the elderly parent storyline, I think in my stand-up, I talk about things that everybody goes through, like menopause and all that. And I just think it’s a time in life. I don’t know if it was after COVID or what happened, but I think people want real and people want stories that are reflected in their own life. And I do that in my stand-up. I just think there’s something about it that’s comforting and just something everybody can enjoy together.

I also thought it was important for this multicam, if little children want to watch it, all the way up to elderly, all people. I think it’s important to reflect on what’s going on in real life. There’s an episode where they talk about getting plastic surgery. Leanne said, I’ll go back and forth thinking, should I get my neck done? I look at my neck and I think, oh Lord, then the next day I go, no, I want to be me.

I’m going to age gracefully or whatever. I think with my generation, we’re more vibrant than we’ve ever been. But you know, we’re living longer. We want a better life expectancy and we’ve got supplements. I’m always about a supplement, but I think women my age are feeling younger.

It’s like the new 40. We want to go and do and have purpose and plastic surgery is part of that, but I love a good laser. Ha ha ha. Well, I bumped the Anna Burner story yet again. Someday we’ll get to it.

Trevor Noah announced more shows in South Africa. It is the lineup for Bafani Bafani. I’ll let Trevor Noah take it from here. I have edited this clip for pacing. You’ve asked and we’re responding.

Bafani Bafani tickets are available on the 4th of September. We’ve added a show in Johannesburg. Cape Town, we’ve added one more show. Durban, we’ve added one more show. There’s no more shows we can’t add.

So thank you to everyone who’s coming to the shows. I will be there. I’ll be on stage doing comedy. Eugene might be there. I guess now we have to tell him about it.

Now would be a good time.

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And then we’ve got amazing comedians.

Joining us as well. The LA Times. No, we’re not talking about comedians the LA Times is into. Now they wrote about comedy nights that they’re into. One of them is the completely different Late Show at Groundlings Theatre.

The director takes suggestions from the audience, the cast hears them, characters are immediately developed, and laughs ensue. A trio of musicians provide musical cues for each scene. The result? Create scenes that play as if they were part of a sitcom. You’ll find that 9.30 at the Groundlings on Fridays and Saturdays. 22 bucks, that’s not bad.

They also recommend Stand Up and Clown at the Elysian. That show acts as an intro course to both the audience and some of the show’s performers to the art of clowning. Nine comics get a crash course in Clown through a series of games, challenges, and interruptions by various eccentric characters that make full use of the Elysian’s main stage. The next performance is October 30th at 10.30. Tickets are $ 18. 90.

At The Fable, you’ll find Mike Erdos. L.A. Stand-up Mike Bridenstine curates a lineup of killers that are usually headlining the comedy store, starring on TV shows, or hustling to become the next big comedian. But more importantly, he books comics that are willing to try anything to get a laugh. The vibe here is the polar opposite of the hungry Hollywood race.

We’re told people are as chill as the beer. That sounds great. 8 p.m. On Wednesdays, tickets are free. So that show is Microdose at the Fable. How about the wonderfully titled Ha-Ha’s and Ta-Ta’s at Plan B?

We’re told if your ideal night out includes big laughs, cold drinks, and a little eye candy, then Ha-Ha’s and Ta-Ta’s at Plan B Gentleman’s Club in West L.A. Is calling your name. And apparently the venue normally has adult entertainment. Uh-oh. Food, drinks, laughs, and maybe mischief?

What more could you want on a Thursday night? It’s the first Thursday of the month, which would be tomorrow, wouldn’t it? Yes. Tickets are free with an Eventbrite reservation or $ 10 at the door, 8 p.m. And they also recommend Don’t Tell Comedy at secret spots.

We’ve talked about that in the past. Those are the secret shows that pop up. LA Times has a great comedy section. Let’s get one more story in here. Veronica Slowakowska from SNL and Tires.

She apparently has been releasing pop music under another name. That other name is Me as a Girl, an indie pop project that’s been releasing music since late 2025 without connecting Veronica to it. Late Nighter learned she has plans to release more music in September and will play her first live show as Me As A Girl in New York City this month. Her first single is called When You Had Me, You Ran Away. And that was followed by a four-song EP, wherever you get your music.

And that is your comedy news for today. See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Bill Maher, Dolly Parton, Tom Segura, Michael Che, Sacha Baron Cohen, Pete Davidson, Simon Cowell, Kenan Thompson, Blake Griffin

What’s in This Episode

• Bill Maher backlash over Dolly Parton mourning comments
• Tom Segura developing new material at Acme Comedy Club
• Michael Che Netflix special filming at First Avenue Minneapolis
• Ali G film backlash and racist caricature controversy
• Pete Davidson costume for Tommy Karate movie
• SNL cast announcements pending
• Late night ratings with Rosie O’Donnell on Kimmel
• Blake Griffin hosting new late night show The Step Back

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Oh no, it’s September. Hi, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. We are like in overtime of summer now, like in September, but it’s not quite Labor Day. Get to the beach while you can. People are mad at Bill Maher.

I know that’s shocking to you. Let me give you a second to take that in. I know you’re like, wait, people are mad at Bill Maher? No way. No way.

But yes, Bill Maher complained on his HBO show Real Time that America mourned Dolly Parton too much after her death at 80. Way to be popular, Bill Maher. He scalded the country because you guys grieved Dolly Parton instead of paying attention to politics. Bill Maher did a monologue. He talked about the dispute we’re having with the Canadians.

Are we having a dispute with the Canadians? I think one guy is having a dispute with the Canadians. Moore said, all this is going on and all America could really talk about this week is how sad it was we lost Dolly Parton. He conceded that everyone around the country, even around the world, had been honoring Dolly.

And then told this joke much better than me.

London, they’re doing things. The Santa Monica Ferris wheels lit up with hearts. The Empire State Building was put up in pink. The Sphere in Las Vegas added a nipple. In the studio, that got some laughs.

Online, it got groans. The Minnesota Star Tribune has a really good comedy section. Neil Justin goes and sees shows. He went to see Tom Segura at Acme and said Tom Segura’s Acme shows offer a rare treat of a top comic starting from scratch. Spoiler is ahead.

Quoting Tom Segura, Tom’s opening line apparently is, you know, the Nazis got a lot of things wrong, but that’s a hell of an opener. Neil writes, the most shocking thing about the set was how smoothly it went, except for his occasionally glancing at his notebook and struggling to find the right word. It was nearly impossible that he had only started telling these jokes in August. He joked about watching the World Cup, again quoting Tom Segura. Tom said, I’m old enough to remember if you watched it here in the States, you were gay.

Neil writes, the most noticeable difference may have been his appearance. With his black-framed glasses, trimmer build, and groomed beard, he looked more like a college professor than your neighborhood bartender. As with most comics building a set, Segura often ignored transitions. In the course of about one minute, he threw out one-liners about guys with pet snakes, people who live on houseboats, and dealing with ice without bothering to tie them together. But it was a mostly tight set.

He did not do any material related to his split with wife Christina P. Neil also went to go see Michael Che at First Avenue, is the venue. We’re told the four shows had a weird rule. No bathroom breaks. Why?

Because they were filming it for Netflix. Che dressed in a gray hoodie and baggy jeans doubled down on jokes about Charlie Kirk supporters being hit on by a gay patron at an after-hours bar and his unorthodox thoughts on fatherhood. We’re told that Che’s routine about how we shouldn’t be so timid about using the R-word got some big laughs. Che said, that’s why I want to do this show here. Minneapolis is the center of the fight.

This is like the new Selma. Jay ignored the main stage, opting for a square box that took up a huge chunk of the main floor that left room for less than 250 folding chairs and a limited number of stools in the balcony. We’re also told that the place was cold, like actually cold, like wear a hoodie cold. Jay is expected for the new season of SNL now on September 1st. And unless this came out late yesterday after I recorded, I should probably check.

We still don’t know who’s going to be on the SNL cast. All right, it’s 1.35 p.m. On a Monday afternoon. We type in SNL cast and make sure there’s no late news. You never know.

Deadline sometimes drops things on Monday. There is no news at the time of this recording, as they say.

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And now my script has jumped down.

I could edit this out, but that’s no fun. I have to find where we were. Ah, yes. Oli G. The headline from Variety, a pretty big entertainment trade.

Oli G. ‘s grand return. Has not exactly been meant with widespread celebration. Ali G, Who Is I? Is due to be released on October 23rd, but Variety says backlash against the film has steadily intensified. Many have taken to social media to accuse Ali G, of course played by Sacha Baron Cohen, who is seen in clips wearing fake dreadlocks and a Rastafarian hat and discussing a desire to be an absent father of being an outdated and racist caricature.

News Cord is apparently a news comparison and media monitoring platform. They have started a campaign urging cinemas around the world to refuse to screen the film Ali G. Who is I? Is spelled I-Z. Emailing major chains with the request on behalf of those who register as of Friday, it claims to have been instructed to send more than 36,000 emails.

The campaign accuses Sacha Baron Cohen of using satire as a cover for enforcing racist stereotypes. There’s been controversy at least since 2000. In 2000, comedian Felix Dexter argued that the character allows the liberal middle classes to laugh at black street culture in a context where they can retain their sense of political correctness. Jeanette Winterson added, I don’t know what the difference is between him and the black and white minstrels. In a new Substack post, British writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch writes, Black people don’t dress like that anymore.

Even white people imitating black people don’t talk like that anymore. Sexualizing black women and casually mocking working class women is not accepted anymore. Baron Cohen’s so-called humor is a crude compound of all those things. Pete Davidson has a new look featuring long hair and bright blue eyes. Why?

What’s going on? Well, it is Pete Davidson, but no, this apparently is for a movie. Pete Davidson was spotted working on the set of crime thriller Tommy Karate. Pete wore a dark wig with curtain bangs and a middle part instead of his typical short style. He used piercing light blue contact lenses during the shoot to enhance the terrifying illusion.

Pete wore a crimson Japanese mask and a black bomber jacket reading Okinawa. The jacket was worn over a black button-up shirt with a beautiful bird motif. The exquisite bird pattern on his shirt stands out against his black clothes. The film explores the lengthy pursuit of the character by a dedicated federal agency agent. Tonight on America’s Got Talent, Simon Cowell is off.

Kenan Thompson will sub in for quarterfinals round three. Simon has been sidelined by back surgery described as routine and linked to the serious e-bike accident he suffered in August 2020. You may recall Simon missed the 2020 season and had guest judges filling in, including Kenan Thompson. Quick note, I didn’t do a little short afternoon episode on Monday. There won’t be one today either.

I’m just tinkering with stuff back and forth, so a little experiment there. We’ll see where that heads in the future. Late Nighter took a look at the late night television ratings. This was the week of August 16th, which was Rosie O’Donnell week, which apparently did a lot better than Jelly Roll week. Jimmy Kimmel Live, starring Rosie O’Donnell, averaged 2.167 million total viewers.

Week of August 16th, up 40% from Anthony Anderson. In the 18 to 49s, Rosie averaged 237,000 viewers, up 34% from the week before. Fallon did all right, 1.429 million total viewers, unchanged week to week, 18 to 49s, 171,000. Comics Unleashed, Byron Allen’s Moneymaker, 654,000 total viewers, up 3%, and 75,000 adults in the 18 to 49s. At 12.30, Seth Meyers has a show for some reason and is in seven weeks of repeats.

He averaged 727,000 total viewers and 94,000 adults 18 to 49. Yikes, what a terrible number. How about this for a late night show? Blake Griffin, yes, the six-time NBA All-Star, will host The Step Back with Blake Griffin, a new weekly late night show premiering Tuesday, October 20th. I think that is the opening night.

Yes, it is the opening night of the 2026-2027 NBA season in which the world champion New York Knicks will defend their title. Blake has dabbled in comedy over the years. You know, he’s pretty good on TV. So sure, why not? The Step Back with Blake Griffin will find Blake Griffin weighing in on some of the bigger and thornier subjects surrounding sports with topics expected to include gambling, NIL, taxpayer-funded stadiums, analytics, and the state of sports journalism.

All that is boring, Blake. What you want to do is you want to study Charles Barkley and do that and have a couple celebrities on and just be fun. Nobody wants to talk about taxpayer-funded stadiums. Interview Miley Cyrus, trust me. Now, as I read ahead here, I’m even less excited.

The Step Back began taping episodes in June before a live studio audience with installments now in post-production. A new episode will arrive each Tuesday with Griffin’s documentary driving the format rather than a traditional parade of celebrity guests. Yeah, this is all awful. Blake Griffin said, I’ve watched and idolized shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight, so to follow in their footsteps while putting my own stamp on the genre is an amazing opportunity that I’m grateful to take part in. But it’s not going to be timely at all if you taped it in June.

This is a terrible idea. Who approved this? The project comes from Amazon’s Wondery and Blake Griffin’s Mortal Media. Yeah, this ain’t going to work. Oh, this article also reminds us.

Remember when ESPN aired five episodes of They Call It Late Night with Jason Kelsey? Yikes, that bombed too. Anyway, the Step Back with Blake Griffin, October 20th on Prime Video and YouTube. Gold Comedy has launched a podcast called Funny You Should Ask, not to be confused with the Byron Allen 1230 CBS show of the same name. This Funny You Should Ask features candid conversations with comedians including Maria Bamford, Jeff Hiller, and Judy Gold.

The Bamford episode is already out. Each episode features an in-depth conversation with a comedian, writer, performer, or other entertainment luminary about their career, their process, and the realities of making a living by making people laugh. George Lopez will host the Big Boys Comedy Fiesta in October, October 15th, featuring co-headliners George Lopez and Marlon Wayans. And from the LA Times, some more of those comedians to watch. Let’s see how many of them are door people at the Comedy Store.

First up is Macy Isaacs. We’re told she’s an effortlessly dry say-it-like-it-is comic with an impeccable ability to twist the way we see the world. She was on Netflix’s Funny AF with Kevin Hart and was plucked to open for Chelsea Handler. No mention of being a door person that’s good alright next up is Ainsley Bailey Ainsley turns the darkest personal experiences like having too many daily meds and diagnoses including being allergic to bananas into the most perfect and surprisingly relatable jokes she offers fresh takes on subjects most comics won’t even dare to tackle Somebody’s PR people wrote that sentence. Number three today, Curtis Cook.

Curtis is a big, loud, disarming presence, which also makes him a Trojan horse for some pretty subversive ideas. His writing is so creative and original that it borders on poetic. No mention of working a door. All right, we’re making progress here. Ray Lau.

We are told by Josh Sandoval, the booker at the Ice House, that Ray’s ability to connect with an audience makes everyone else on a lineup step up their game. And our final comedian today is Jackson Banks, who won set of the night on a Sunday at the Comedy Store, giving him a guaranteed spot on the potluck open mic the next night, which led to him being hired as a door guy. Damn, we almost made it all the way through. Two years after that, he became a paid regular at the club, and he was one of the Just for Laughs new faces this year. He’s a menace on stage in the best way possible.

There’s a 70s rock star element to his appearance, but his rhythm on stage is that of a jazz musician. Never knowing what note is coming next. And that is your comedy news for today. See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Byron Allen, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Stavros Halkias, Hannah Burner, Jim Gaffigan, Melissa McCarthy, Jimmy Carr, Jon Stewart, John Mulaney

What’s in This Episode

• Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed beats Kimmel and Fallon in 18-49 ratings
• Stavros Halkias self-reviews his role in Tony Bourdain movie on Letterboxd
• Hannah Burner hosts new Paramount Plus dating show Making Love
• Jim Gaffigan voices Santa Claus in animated Warner Bros film
• Jimmy Carr in talks to host new version of Top Gear
• Jon Stewart’s purple Daily Show couch from early 2000s listed for sale
• John Mulaney visits Tinker Air Force Base

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Caloroga Shark Media. I got a stunner for you in the lead off today. Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Remember I said don’t bet against Byron Allen? You know, Byron Allen’s got that late night show in the spot Colbert used to be on.

Now, maybe Colbert got let go for other reasons, or maybe the show was really expensive to make. And CBS is now airing the Byron Allen thing. Well, Late Nighter was going through the late night ratings. And one week ago tonight, for the first time, CBS won the 18 to 49s. Yeah, Comics Unleashed beat Jimmy Kimmel and The Tonight Show.

Now, Fallon was in reruns. This is an 18 to 49s. Fallon was in reruns. Kimmel, who I told you, Jimmy, don’t take the summer off. I told you, don’t take the summer off, had Jelly Roll Hosting.

And here’s how the 18 to 49s did. Comics Unleashed, first place. 161,000 adults 18 to 49. Jelly Roll, 158,000. And a repeat of Fallon, 154,000. It is also pointed out that even Byron Allen’s show was a repeat.

Now his show is made to be kind of generic and evergreen. Not kind of, it is. But wow, now among total viewers, so if you add in the old people, you know, the people 50 plus, the kind of losers that think they’re cool when they record a podcast by their pool, you know, the geezers, those people, if you add them in, Comics Unleashed finished third. Kimmel’s show was down 93,000 adults, 18 to 49. I guess the kids really like that Rosie O’Donnell.

She’s young, hip and cool. I don’t know what’s going on here. Uh, maybe Jelly Roll is a terrible idea? I don’t know. Tonight Show lost 24,000 viewers and Comics Unleashed added 71,000.

Meanwhile, at 12.30, make 12.30 great again. Late Night with Seth Meyers, he’s taking seven weeks off in what appears to this basement podcaster as a budget cut. Funny you should ask, beat Seth Meyers in total viewers. Okay. Did you hear what I said?

Don’t take seven weeks off. Actually, don’t even have Seth Meyers hosting at 1230. Let’s make 1230 great again. Call Chris Fleming. This is a red alert, NBC.

CBS is beating you without even trying. So you can beat up on CBS all you want, but so far they’re looking pretty smart because they’re winning and they’re spending a lot less money. Hey, Jimmy Kimmel, sign that renewal before ABC changes their mind. I’m going to put five exclamation points after that point. Signed, bro.

Stavros Halkias has started a trend on Letterboxd. He is in the movie Tony, the Bourdain movie, and he left a review of the movie, and it’s all about himself. In Tony, Haukias plays a line cook. I’m on Letterboxd now. User StaviBaby2, who is a patron, left the movie five stars.

His review says, Guy who plays the fat line cook in a bandana is really sexy. Hannah Burner has a new job. Now, this is not the Hannah Burner story that I keep bumping. That’s still bumped because I have this story to tell you. Paramount Plus has announced Hannah.

You know, Paramount Plus are the people that ruined Star Trek, by the way. So I love Des Bishop, who came on this show, and we’re both from Queens, and we seem like we could be friends. But, you know, if Hannah is going to be hanging out with the Star Trek ruiners, then we might have a problem, Hannah Burner, who will host the new reality dating series, Making Love. It will appear on Paramount Plus in early 2027, along with Star Trek episodes involving puppets. Yeah, Paramount Plus has not revealed the exact format of the show, but promises an exciting new way for singles to find love.

Making Love is, quote, a bold new relationship experiment which gives singles a completely original and unique opportunity to take destiny into their own hands. Can you actually find the person you’ve always dreamed of? With Hannah Burner steering the ship, equal parts hype woman, hilarious hall monitor, and hopeless romantic. Expect the drama, the swoons, and the one-liners to hit different. Jim Gaffigan’s going to play Santa Claus.

Not the worst casting I’ve ever heard of. It’s from Warner Brothers Picture Animation. See, now, I thought this was live action when I first read the story, and I was picturing Jim in a suit, and I was like, that’s pretty good. If he’s just the voice of Santa Claus, there’s definitely better people you could get for that. So I’ve changed my opinion.

This is now terrible casting. Sorry, Jim. Let’s do this in live action. In the movie, Santa Claus, who probably drank too much whiskey, and he’s voiced by Jim Gaffigan, goes missing on Christmas Eve. His sweet wife, Margie, does what any devoted spouse would do.

She grabs a century-old sleigh out of mothballs. I guess Santa’s off with his own sled and the reindeer. Oh, no. She puts together a wildly unqualified rescue team and ventures to the South Pole, where good cheer can get you killed. What’s going on in the South Pole?

I’ve been to Antarctica. That’s not a joke. I haven’t been to the South Pole, but I’ve been to Antarctica. I didn’t see any evil down there. Anyway, she’s on an action-packed comedic rescue mission to save her husband and Christmas.

Well, I got news for you. It’s already Christmas Eve, and that’s when Santa delivers the gifts. So maybe you should deliver the gifts instead of going on a rescue mission, because, you know, unless you can do this in the next 20 minutes, we’re not going to have presents when we wake up. Melissa McCarthy said, I love Christmas so much, and so does Margie Claus. Our story is about showing up for the people you love the most of the holidays.

And it’s a reminder that you don’t have to be perfect to be lovable. Jimmy Carr is in talks to host a new version of Top Gear. I mentioned on one of the DCN Lives, my initial reaction to that was like, Jimmy Carr on Top Gear? But I’m coming around to it. A source told The Sun, which is a newspaper, not the star in the sky.

They don’t talk to celestial objects. But that source said, production has their sights set on Jimmy Carr. He’s the ideal host to take the show in a new era and revive Top Gear. He’s keen to work on something mainstream after spending so many years fronting comedy panel shows. Let’s not act like Jimmy’s not mainstream.

Come on. He hosts, I think, every third show in the UK by law. If you do a panel show, you have to offer the job to Jimmy Carr. I’m pretty sure that is a law. He’s a real car buff, too.

So it’d be a passion project. That and the money. Casting directors are now working to find talent to join him in the new look ensemble. Bosses are considering a woman and online celebrities to compliment Jimmy. Don’t overthink the show, guys.

You want a couch? The couch from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’s early years is available for sale. The velvety purple guest couch that sat on Jon Stewart’s set in the early 2000s was listed for sale by a lucky fan who had acquired the couch directly from the show. We’re told people who sat there included Senator Hillary Clinton and Val Kilmer. By early 2004, it was replaced by a blue couch.

The couches were given away via fan sweepstakes. The purple couch was the first to be given away in 2003. It has spent its time since in a living room outside Syracuse, New York. Late-nighters spoke to the seller, who said she won it back in the early 2000s. She recalled, I asked for a certificate of authenticity, but the show sent her a signed photo of Jon Stewart sitting on the couch, clutching one of its cushions.

Stewart wrote, May it bring you great comfort. I’ve taken all the change from the cushions. Couch lady said, My husband and I were huge fans of the show. Notice she said were. Hmm.

She noted she’s only selling the couch now because she has to downsize. I covered it with a fitted couch cover to protect it, so it’s in really good shape. I contacted Heritage Auctions, but they weren’t interested. The seller claims said couch is appraised at $ 3, 000, but at the time of this recording, it’s listed on Facebook Marketplace for $ 1, 500 or best offer. Guess what John Mulaney was doing?

Wrong. He was visiting Tinker Air Force Base. John Mulaney met with service members and civilian employees while learning about the people and the missions that keep Team Tinker moving. Mulaney was given a visit to the air traffic control tower and a look inside a KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft. Tinker Air Force Base shared some photos of John Mulaney exploring the base, talking with personnel, and getting an up-and-close look at military aviation.

Mulaney was in those parts because he had a gig in Oklahoma City. Got a couple controversies for you. Former NFL safety T.J. Ward is not happy with Drewski. You see, Drewski made a skit which shows Drewski acting as a football player who suffers a serious head injury and then goes on to exhibit erratic behavior that is attributed to chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

I’m just going to say CTE. According to T.J. Ward, the skit undermines the severity of the disease and how it affects former players and their families. Ward said, when something’s funny, it’s funny. Some of the situation that skit, there were a couple of funny moments.

But overall, I’m going to put on my sensitivity cap on like everyone else seems to do when it’s affecting them. These are life and death situations. And at the end of the day, it’s a life taking disease. And I think CTE universally is the only disease that’s allowed to be made fun of, which is crazy. Not sure I agree with that.

Pretty sure people make fun of alcoholism, for example. You wouldn’t make fun of somebody with cancer. You wouldn’t make fun of somebody with dementia. You wouldn’t make fun of somebody with AIDS. You wouldn’t make fun of anyone with those diseases that are taking lives.

But for some reason, across the universal platform, football players, people that have the effects of collisions and CTE symptoms, are the only people who are allowed to be made fun of. Stick to sports, Sean. Okay, comedian Patrick W. Cutler, apparently without me noticing, has built a viral online following. By posting a relentless series of satirical videos and parodies goofing on WNBA star Angel Reese.

Apparently what Mr. Cutler does is he wears wigs and mimics her on-court style. There are claims that he has been banned from attending her games. He posted on Twitter, The WNBA has officially banned me from attending any games that involve Angel Reese. Absolutely insane.

Meanwhile, James Acaster was accused of derailing his own show in Cornwall after being heckled, but that’s kind of his thing. Some spectators have accused James Acaster of not giving them the show they paid for when he apparently had a go at them for not getting it and for heckling him. In his current show, Acaster plays Craig Simons, the UK’s number one James Acaster talent. Tribute act. See, that’s funny.

One fan jumped on Reddit and said, Really sad that the show went completely off the rails again tonight. In Turo, James is clearly too in his own head about hecklers. I don’t think it’s really okay to just give up halfway through a show, though. So many paying audience members didn’t get to see what we paid for. Another said they were five rows back from the stage and said it seemed to me like the audience, myself included, were really enjoying the show and were obviously fans as they were getting the Taskmaster off-menu references, etc.

James obviously had a different perception and helped the derailment to a certain extent by criticizing the audience and suggested that they weren’t enjoying themselves. I’m so disappointed that we didn’t get to see the show we paid for. Another added, yeah, it was a shame. I saw the same show at the South Bank Center and it was incredible, but tonight felt like he didn’t trust the Cornish audience to get it. You may recall Acaster had a previous tour called Heckler’s Welcome, which invited the audience to heckle him or even be on their phones.

So if he’s rattled by hecklers, that’s a little weird. Spokesperson for James Acaster denied that he’d walked out on the audience. They said James did a full hour show last night. He didn’t walk off stage. Yesterday, I started to tell you about some of the comedians the L.A.

Times has to keep an eye on. Let’s do a couple more. One is Taylor Boss. We are told he is so funny, original and hard hitting. He rings every bell when he’s on stage.

He, too, was a door guy at the store who became a paid regular. He was a hit on Kill Tony episode 746, an incredible visual artist. He’s known for his painting of the late Mitzi Shore that sits in the Joe Rogan Experience podcast studio. Interesting. Boy, it sounds like you really got to be a door person because Angie Stroud, guess what she used to do?

Door girl at the store. Very young, we’re told, and only a few years in, but consistently funny and writing new jokes, destroys on stage during the weekly roast battle competition on Tuesdays in the belly rooms. She has opened for David Spade, Eliza Schlesinger, and the Bad Friends podcast. Not bad. Cat Bird.

Guess what Cat Bird used to do? Former door girl at the store. I’m seeing a pattern here. Is there no other way to become a cool comedian in LA? I have to work the door at the store?

There’s no other path to success? Apparently Cat Bird is a joke writing machine. The energy at her shows is always upbeat and positive, with some surprise darkness woven into her jokes. She’s headlining on her own and opens for Bobby Lee, Andrew Santino, Marc Maron, and Eliza Schlesinger. She has a Don’t Tell comedy special that came out earlier this year.

Next up is Devontre Coleman. You’re never going to guess what he does. You’ll never guess. I’ll tell you at the end. Devontre Coleman has a great deadpan style and execution and comes across like a very seasoned prodigy, even though he’s only three years in.

He was on Netflix’s Funny AF and opens for Andrew Santino and Nick Kroll. All right, so they’re apparently.. Two ways to become successful. You either open for Andrew Santino and or you become a door guy at the store. And I will now reveal to you what Devontre Coleman does.

He’s a door guy at the store. This is ridiculous. One more. Maddie Mays. I’m waiting to find out she works the door.

We’re told Maddie is a complete crowd favorite who’s fearless up there. She owns her truth, weaves in her background and delivers every time. He performs all over the country and is open for Marlon Wayans, Ralph Barbosa and Cam Patterson. Imagine opening for Cam Patterson. Jeez, at least she’s not working the door, right?

We found another success you can open for Cam Patterson. That’s unbelievable to me that someone’s opening for Cam Patterson. And that’s your comedy news for today on a Monday. I’ll see you later.

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Featured: Alec Baldwin, Anthony Atamanewick, Sarah Cooper, James Austin Johnson, Shane Gillis, Brett Terhune, Vaughn Mader, Osco at Costco, Chelsea Handler, David Spade, Ronny Chieng, Josh Johnson

What’s in This Episode

• Trump comedians say material is exhausted
• Sarah Cooper’s pandemic TikTok fame and Netflix special
• James Austin Johnson and Shane Gillis as recent Trump impressionists
• Vaughn Mader’s famous JFK impression legacy
• Osco at Costco interview on jealousy and hotel habits
• David Spade on SNL jealousy as compliment
• Ronny Chieng and Josh Johnson discuss comedy advice and humility

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

We are running out of August, friends. Hi, I’m Johnny Mac Poolside, as much as I can. With your Daily Comedy News, The Atlantic tells us that Trump comedians are tired. A writer over at The Atlantic caught up with Alec Baldwin. You may recall he portrayed the President of the United States on Saturday Night Live for a little bit.

Earlier this summer, Alec Baldwin said, None of it is funny. I don’t find it funny anymore. There’s nothing left to say about Trump. Anthony Atamnewick, who does a pretty good Trump, he’s got a fantastic album, The Trump vs. Bernie Debates.

It’s probably about 10 years old now. That was a fantastic album, one of my favorite things that I would play on the show over on Live One, where I host the weekly comedy thing. Look at me remembering to promote it on a Sunday. That’s right. Let me just go there real quick while we’re doing this.

So I host a show. It’s kind of like this, except I talk less, but I can actually play the bits. So if there’s a comedian in the news, I tell you about the story, and then I play a bit by the comedian. It is called the Weekly Comedy Thing. The app is called Live One.

Both are free. Check it out. Anthony Attenewick in 2017 hosted a show on Comedy Central called The President’s Show that I thought was pretty good. He told The Atlantic, I wanted my show to continue mostly because I saw each episode as an essay on an issue in American life, and the albatross I had was Trump. The Atlantic says Anthony’s hope was that for a liberal audience still reeling from the shock of the election, skewering the president could be a way to crystallize what had happened to the country.

The Atlantic pointed out the initial burst of left-leaning satire didn’t last. There were shows like Michelle Wolfe, Larry Wilmore, Hasan Minhaj, Wyatt Sinek. And they reminded me of this one. If you’re a longtime listener, you know this one drove me nuts. By 2020, the most visible Trump satirist was the comedian Sarah Cooper.

Do you remember Sarah Cooper? Now, during the pandemic, People were fawning over Sarah Cooper like she was like the next George Carlin. What she was doing was she was taking audio of the actual president and pantomiming his voice and making ridiculous faces. And this went great on TikTok because we were all stuck at home. But oh my goodness, like to act like she was one of the comedy greats was insane.

Somehow she got to guest host Jimmy Kimmel Live. Are you kidding me? And got a Netflix special directed by Natasha Lyonne. Go look up Sarah Cooper. It’s six years later now.

Like, what? No. That was insane. I’m getting mad that people were actually like, oh, she’s fantastic. She was pantomiming.

Stop. The Atlantic reminds us James Austin Johnson and Shane Gillis have both played the president with some success in recent years. Johnson’s impression hasn’t created the kind of splash that Baldwin’s once did. His version of Trump is reminiscent of the de rigueur presidential impressions of SNL seasons past. Brett Terhune talked about the character he plays on videos, that character’s alpha male.

A sort of disgruntled mega-vlogger, a reaction and a reflection of people that are Trump diehards, says Terhune.

And then this article goes to talk about Vaughn Mader.

Do you know Vaughn Mader? He’s the guy that did the Kennedy impression. The best description I ever heard of Vaughn Mader is, when you think of what John F. Kennedy sounds like, the voice that you have in your head right now, that’s actually not what Kennedy sounds like. That’s what Vaughn Mader sounds like.

Here, let me pull two clips. Here’s Vaughn Mader. The flowered hat. Yes. Not you, sir.

The lady in the back of you. Yes, yes. We recently heard that you sent an agent into Cuba. Didn’t you return with any information? Well, I didn’t send him for information.

I sent him for sugar. And here’s President Kennedy. There are many people in the world who really don’t understand or say they don’t. What is the great issue between the free world and the communist world? Let them come to Berlin.

Otsko at Costco told The Guardian, I think people think I’m more wholesome than I am. I love that description. They asked her, what’s the strangest job you ever had? Otsko said, I used to walk donks in L.A. And there’s a bad Yelp review about me saying that I only walked Charlie the Terrier mix for 10 minutes.

Instead of the full 30. And I did do that, but it was a rainy day and the dog didn’t want to keep walking and it was shaking. So I brought it back to the house, but it turns out the owner of the dog had a friend spying on me and timing me from the moment I let the dog out and back in. I guess it’s not a weird job, but it’s a memorable one. What’s the best thing you learned from someone you work with?

Chelsea Handler is a good friend of mine. Time out, time out, time out. I’ve been meaning to mention this for a week and a half. So as we all listen to the show, including me, we get different commercials. Like some of the commercials are regional, like I’m in New Jersey, so I’ll get a lot of things that are New Jersey related.

Your experience may vary. So, like, a week ago, I’m listening, and there’s just this woman, and her voice is just grating on me. I’m like, what is this commercial? I can’t stand this. It was Chelsea Handler.

Chelsea Handler is a good friend of Osco at Costco’s, though. Osco says, the tip was about jealousy. Just keep in mind that there’s room for everyone. You may go, I want a first place like that person, but you have a role in life in whatever field you’re in, so never compare yourself to others. We’re all made so different.

Here’s a random question. Oscar, when you get to a hotel, what’s the first thing you do? She said, every time. I’m generally so stoked that I’m not in my own house. Thank goodness I’m away from my dishes.

I’m away from my dirty underwear. I only have clean ones because that’s all I brought. Nice answer, but it didn’t tell us what’s the first thing she does. What is the first thing you do in your hotel room? I throw my bags on the bed, and usually I kick my shoes off because I’ve learned from traveling a lot that it’s good to give your feet a break while in the room, and then I usually have to check 4,000 work e-mails.

David Spade said he used to tell his fellow SNL stars he was jealous of them if they got more airtime than he did. I think that’s true of a lot of the SNLers. Spade confessed, I tell Sandler. That was funny. I’m so jealous because that’s at least acknowledging something was good or makes you better to go, OK.

Spade said it’s the biggest compliment whenever talented comedians know that they’re safe to riff and improv with you. He explains that’s an accomplishment right there, which you don’t really think too much. But that’s what other people think. They’re like, if those guys know what they’re doing. Ronny Chieng and Josh Johnson kind of riffed for Interview Magazine.

Let’s pick away at this. Josh said, when I first started, I would take advice from anybody because I was bombing. You know what I mean? So I was like, anybody might have a good idea. I find that even when someone’s advice is completely off base, it’s a reminder of what you don’t want to do.

Ronny Chieng said, I feel like I can do without that, but you’re more positive than me. I come in from almost exclusive humility. Like, no, please don’t praise me. I’m a nobody. But unfortunately, excessive humility can actually come out as arrogance because people think you don’t want to talk to them because you think they’re better than them.

Chang said, you’re always smooth and good with people. You’re very charismatic. Josh Johnson said, smooth is a very nice way to put it. I definitely walk away from most conversations being like, oh, I botched that one. This is interesting.

Chang said, I first met you, Josh Johnson, at The Daily Show, and you were a very talented writer and stand-up comic. You always contributed in the writing room, always had great ideas, great tags, very professional, very friendly, positive. There was a period when you were blowing up and there was a lot of momentum. Then I remember just before the pandemic, it felt like the momentum was kind of flattening or even going down a little bit. I think you fired your reps, your reps fired you, and you’re going through this creative rut or rediscovery.

I feel like you came out the other end of that guns blazing. Is that a fair description? Josh said it’s completely fair. Ronnie, what do you think caused it? Josh, I think the rut came from not being very certain about what I wanted to create next.

Sometimes that stuck feeling isn’t just about being stuck. It’s literally about being able to move in whatever direction you want. Having that much freedom to do the next thing is what makes you feel stuck. Once I made the decision to apply myself a bit more, that’s when everything really opened up in my mind, which helped me to do more and help people to notice me more. I got to a point where I was pretty good, and now pretty good can either be met with people noticing or could be met with, well, you could be better and people won’t notice you until you’re better.

Ronnie said, when you started coming out of your rut, I didn’t want to be condescending, but I was trying to give you a little bit of advice on how to move into theaters. I feel like when you move into a theater, you gain control of your schedule, you get a little bit more money. I encourage all comics to try to do it, which is easier said than done. But your way of doing it was you started releasing long-form stand-up content regularly at a time when it was the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. Even now, it’s flood the zone with short-form clips until something hooks.

What made you do that? Josh said, I had always actually written a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. Even when I started in Chicago, I was doing open mics. I rarely did the same five minutes, which I think is a different way of getting good.

Obviously, if you have your five, you can tighten your five.

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And then that teaches you how to put your joke through the grinder.

But my version of getting better, this is fascinating, isn’t it? This is really good. I think I know what did and didn’t work from that thing, and I have some other things in my mind. Some of it was just being scatterbrained. The other thing is when you don’t know what you want, you end up wanting what you see other people have, because those are the only things available in your mind.

So it’s like, what if I had the best catalog? What if I had 100 funny hours? Here’s my thing. I would never tell anyone that what I’m doing is what you need to do. Let’s say we’re being hardcore capitalists for a second.

You’re now in the market giving away a lot for free, and who knows what you’re going to get back versus the model we’re all used to, which is hone this thing, make it as funny as you can, and then get paid for it. The BBC has renewed sci-fi comedy Android for a second season. The show was written by, created by, and stars Diane Morgan, who some podcasters have a crush on. It is a fun show. Season one followed the relationship between a woman and her elder care robot, played by Diane Morgan, in a press release.

Diane Morgan said, The response to Android has been so incredible. We’re totally blown away. I’m really looking forward to not blinking, needing physio, and hearing Cotton Eye Joe on repeat. Now, I’m not surprised that was renewed. I am surprised that I’m here to tell you Cam Patterson got a role in another movie.

What? What are people seeing that I’m not seeing? I get the Kill Tony version of Cam Patterson. I don’t get the SNL version, and I don’t get the movie version. He has joined the cast of Love, Love, about a struggling tennis phenom who falls for a ball boy at the U.S.

Open. It is currently in production, so they’re probably filming it during this year’s U.S. Open. And it is Cam Patterson’s second film role for some reason. He was also in 72 Hours, which that was that Kevin Hart movie that starred Marcelo Hernandez, who does one thing well.

Billboard put out the top comedy concerts for July. Number five, Maximini grossed $ 1. 9 million across 22,000 tickets, 11 shows. Matt Rife in fourth. He did 10 shows, sold 50,100 tickets and grossed $ 4. 7 million. Weird Al, not including that free show in Montreal, tickets $ 114, 000, 20 shows, grossed $ 7. 7 million.

Al secretly loaded. He comes across as normal Al. He’s loaded. Number two is controversial MAGA comedian Nate Bregazzi. He’s normally number one.

You can see the damage his career is taking on. He did nine shows, only sold 101,000 tickets, and only grossed $ 8. 3 million. Winning the month, Dude Perfect. They did 16 shows, 135,000 tickets. They grossed $ 8. 5 million.

Well, we’re not going to get into that Hannah Burner story yet again. It’s not even a bit. I mean, check the clock. You know, if you listen every day, I try to keep the show a certain length. Thursday was kind of long.

Friday was a little long. There’s a certain length to the show. We’ll get to it. I mean, Labor Day weekend’s coming in that first week of September. Often I’m scrambling for stuff.

So if I have a Hannah Burner story in my back pocket, it’s okay. I do want to start chipping away at this. The LA Times had an article, 15 comedians that the bookers say you should know. Maybe we’ll do five or so a day. Their premise, to help you figure out which comics in L.A.

You want to keep an eye on, we’ve tapped the expertise of some of the city’s most seasoned bookers. All right, first up, Takara Williams. The L.A. Times calls one of the most genuinely likable comedians out right now. Every woman wants to hang out and have brunch with her, and every man wants to date her.

Even the younger generation of girls love her hilarious impressions of her teenage daughter. She makes her family come alive in her jokes and reminds us that we’re all living the same life, dealing with kids, dating, and everyday struggles. Next up, Ron G. One of the greatest entertainers in the world, says the LA Times. If you’ve seen him host Chocolate Sundays, you know exactly what I mean.

He can get a 22-year-old black dude from Compton to rock out, and he can get an 80-year-old grandma to twerk on stage. Steve Fury is an ex-door guy at the comedy store and now a paid regular. We were told he’s an incredible writer, very consistent, very polished, hilarious. Got pretty far on Netflix’s Funny AF. Oh, yeah, that guy.

Willie Simon is another ex-door guy and another paid regular at the store. Originally from Hawaii, he flew through the door program and got passed as a regular a few years ago. The guys over at the store said, I’d consider him a prodigy. So funny, goofy, but no corn. He also has great writing skills, part of a fun online sketch group, Almost Friday, and does a podcast with Steve Furrier.

We’ll check that out. And Joe Maurice was the captain of the door guys at the store. So apparently you got to be a door guy at the store who recently became a paid regular. He’s unique and it’s such a fun style of comedy from Chicago. And this booker said that he’s obsessed with the video clip series Joe Eats Online.

He’s one of those guys that everyone will have an impression of by the end of his performance. OK, that’s good. This from them.us. Comedian Matt Matthews has had it with the pronouns. So as I understand things, Matt was on a podcast with Real Housewives of Atlanta star Candy Burris, who was curious about Matt’s partner Rob and assigned Rob the pronoun them.

Burris asked about you and your boo. When did you meet them? Matthews said, them? I only got one. Burris responded, well, you know, these days I got to know the pronouns before I start talking.

Matthews said, quote, we ain’t got no damn pronouns. I got a tallywhacker. That’s a he. We don’t do all that stuff. I ain’t doing all that they them.

Then he used some swear words. Then he put a bunch of letters together. The transcript reads L-G-Q-I-L-M-N-O-P-W-W-F. Shut the F up. You’re a boy.

You’re a girl. You got a thing. Cleaning that up a little. You’re a girl. And he said, I’m going to tick people off with that.

Saw a lot of buzz on that online during the week. Fringe is wrapping up. Dan Tiernan’s show got three out of five from The Guardian. Dan’s show Quartz and All, a furious comedy show about healing crystals. We were told you have to strap in for the ride, and Quartz and all is no less so than its predecessors.

It opens with Tiernan seething with his usual self-loathing and cracking a fantastical gag about getting glasses. Now 30, he’s still ambivalent, bordering on hostile about his sexuality and appearance. The healing crystals are a last resort, he argues, because only magic can redeem a man as freakish and unlovable as he. From a comic who, when good is very good, there’s an excellent joke and a callback. They spoil it.

I’m doing take two here. I don’t want to spoil the joke. Okay, that’s a good callback. You don’t have to spoil it. At such moments, Tiernan feels like a comic worth choosing to believe in.

And that is your comedy news on a Sunday. All right, not much August left. Enjoy the weekend. See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Richard Jeni, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Jay Leno, Johnny Carson

What’s in This Episode

• Richard Jeni’s life and comedy career overview
• Richard Jeni’s Tonight Show appearances and Johnny Carson connection
• Richard Jeni’s Showtime specials and Cable Ace Awards
• Platypus Man HBO special and UPN sitcom
• Richard Jeni’s suicide in March 2007
• Gap between Richard Jeni’s critical acclaim and public recognition

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Quick note before we do today’s program. Today’s episode is a deep dive on the life of Richard Jenney, one of the funniest humans who ever lived. We are going to discuss his death by suicide. So if that’s a hard topic for you today, please take care of yourself first and come back when you are ready. The crisis line is 988.

If you need to connect with somebody, you can call or text 988. All right. Here’s today’s Daily Comedy News. Caloroga Shark Media. Today we’ll take a look at Richard Jenney.

Hi, I’m Johnny Max. At the start of the summer, I started doing deep dives on single topics, and the feedback has been really strong. So we’ll keep doing these even as the summer turns into fall. And for the past couple weeks, I’ve been looking at some of the greats from earlier this century. The people, you know, late 90s, beginning of the zeros.

We’ve done Ralphie May. Did Robert Schimmel? That one got a lot of downloads. So today we will take a look at Richard Jenney, who passed away in March 2007. Jerry Seinfeld put out a statement around then and said, I don’t know of one comedian who did not think Rich Jenney was amazing.

Chris Rock called him a friend, a mentor, and one of the best comedians he’d ever seen. Jay Leno said, he just made me laugh. When you were in a room with other comics, he made them laugh. That’s three of the most successful comedians of that generation independently saying the same thing. That Richard Jenney was operating in a level that his public profile never fully captured.

I think this is another one of those guys that came along a little too soon. His stuff probably would have crushed on Netflix. Not sure he would have been a podcaster like some of these other guys, but Netflix would have liked his specials. The gap between what the comedy world knew about Richard Jenney and what the general public knew about Richard Jenney is one of the more instructive cases in the recent history of stand-up. It wasn’t a failure of talent and it wasn’t a failure of effort.

He was talented. He worked constantly. Richard Jenney, born Richard John Colangelo in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, 1957. Italian-American Catholic family, the kind of neighborhood origin that produced a specific set of sensibilities about family and embarrassment. And the absurdity of everyday social life that you can hear running through his material from the earliest specials to the last one.

He graduated with honors from Hunter College with a degree in comparative politics. That helped train his mind, a trained instinct for looking at how systems work and how people behave inside of the systems. He got fired from five different PR firms, and two years after graduating, he did an open mic night in Brooklyn in 1982 and decided immediately that stand-up comedy was his thing. Not the thing he did on the side while trying to figure out something else. This was the thing.

He was in clubs within months and on the road within a year. By the late 80s, he was doing the Melbourne Comedy Festival, JFL Montreal, and the Las Vegas and Atlantic City Circuit. Sorry about my outfit. I know it’s a little formal, but the airline lost one of my bags. I don’t want to say the name of the airline.

Let’s just say it rhymes with Bear Wanata. He won Comedy USA’s Best Nightclub Comedian in 1989, voted on by comedy club owners and other comedians. That’s important because those are people who know what’s actually good rather than who’s popular. Comedy snobs, people like me. 1988, The Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson. People who worked on and around the show have described Johnny Carson’s genuine laugh response to guests versus his professional courtesy response to guests, and they were different things.

And Richard Jenney got the genuine laugh consistently. Johnny Carson brought him back, and then Johnny waved him over to the couch. He didn’t have to just do a set leave. Jenny came over and sat down on the couch and hung out with Johnny Carson directly. Panel guest status meant Johnny Carson considered you someone worth talking to, not just someone worth watching.

When Jay Leno took over The Tonight Show, he kept having Richard Jenny on. By the end of his career, Richard Jenny had more Tonight Show appearances than any other stand-up comedian of his era. Think about that. Please welcome Richard Jenny! You’re in a good mood, aren’t you?

Yeah. Yeah, I knew it would be. Thursday night, the crowd is always good because they’re thinking, you know what? Even if you suck, we still have the weekend. So I know I was watching backstage.

You’re thinking this crowd is so good. This is like the second easiest job in the world making you happy. First easiest, whoever gets to put Michael Jackson in the witness chair and create reasonable doubt. How hard can that be? I don’t even have a law degree.

And I think I would just go, if I had the jury there, I’d go, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there he is. That’s all I have. Y’all get a good look at him, see if you think he’s capable of anything out of the ordinary. There he is. Yeah, but that’s..

There were Showtime specials. Boy from New York City in 1989 got a Cable Ace Award nomination back when that was a thing. A show business award is a little like a social disease, you know? Nobody really deserves it, but if you screw around long enough, you’re bound to get one. You know what I’m saying?

So, thank you. And yet, people are nervous about it. I don’t know why. I don’t even know why I’m rambling about awards. People waste too much time in this country as it is.

Case in point, why did it take so long to figure out what to do with this guy Jeffrey Dahmer? I’m not a lawyer or anything, but to me, once the guy admits he’s a cannibal, is there a lot left to discuss? I mean, what is there? How many things are there to talk about? To me, this should be the trial.

Are you a cannibal? Yes, I am. Next, that should be the end. How many things are there to discuss. With the guy?

Crazy from the Heat, 1991, drew the highest ratings of any stand-up special in Showtime’s history. And I think for me, this was the breakthrough because I wasn’t a Showtime guy. I was an HBO guy. I grew up in Queens and there was some kind of way. So Queens didn’t even get cable till 1987.

Like there was no cable TV to be had. But prior to 87, there was a way you could get HBO. Like a guy would come around and be like, you want HBO? No. And we could somehow get HBO on Channel 6.

They stuck like a stick antenna on the roof, and I don’t know, you could somehow, you had to flip like an AB switch, and you would get HBO on Channel 6. And if you slipped the guy a couple bucks, and maybe my dad did, it would just magically work for months or a couple years until the guy came around and you slipped him another couple bucks. There was no HBO bill. You just had HBO. It was great.

In 1992, Platypus Man on HBO won a Cable Ace Award for Best Stand-Up Comedy Special. And that became the basis for a UPN sitcom also called Platypus Man. Do you remember that one? No, of course you don’t. It ran for one season in 1995 and was canceled.

Platypus, a small egg-laying mammal that attempts to mate frequently but spends most of its time alone. Man, an adult male human. Platypus Man, an adult male human that attempts to mate frequently but spends most of its time alone. Platypus Man, brought to you by Burger King, where you can get your burgers worth. And by Saturn, a different kind of company, a different kind of car.

From New York, it’s time for Cooking with the Platypus Man.

And now, here he is, the Platypus Man himself, Richard Jennings!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Welcome to the show. We are coming to you from New York City, where our motto is, show me a guy with one foot, and I’ll show you a guy who tried to hide his money in his shoe. Folks, say hello to him. There he is, the man who comes to your town and helps your party down.

Our musical director, Mr. Vern Tuttle. Hello, master of the microwave, commandant of the Cuisinart, lord of the fries. Worked on that all weekend. Hope you didn’t miss one of your Star Trek conventions.

Okay, folks, you picked a great night to tune in because tonight on our show, I would like to make a nice duck a l’orange stuffed with truffles. And I’d like to be in a hot tub naked with Cindy Crawford, but hey, let’s be freaking realistic. Next special, 1997’s A Good Catholic Boy. Somewhere along the way there, I saw Jenny in person. My buddy Fitz used to go down Atlantic City a lot and we’d get comped and we went down and we got comped Richard Jenny tickets and we went and saw Jenny and he was fantastic.

But we wouldn’t have been 21 until, I want to do the math there, 1990 or so. And I know I wasn’t doing this after I got married in 98. So yeah, probably around 95 I saw Jenny in AC. A good Catholic boy, 97. And probably the big one, a big steaming pile of me for HBO in 2005, his last special.

Still the same guy, still the same material, still the same energy. Six specials across three networks. Richard Jenney’s writing was dense, not dense in the sense of difficult to follow, dense in the sense that there was more joke per sentence than most comedians put in a paragraph, more observation per minute than most performers can do without the material starting to blur. He worked fast without working rushed, which is a hard balance. He could do broad observational material about men and women in everyday life, and it landed because the angle was always his own rather than borrowed from the consensus of what that kind of material was supposed to sound like.

He could do character work, voices, physicality, full performance mode, and he could turn that completely off and go straight at an idea with nothing but language and timing. You don’t have to understand the game because they always have a lot of announcers. They have people up in the booth wearing the headset, analyzing the action. Boy, look at that hit, Tom. Looks like that guy’s lungs squirted right out of his helmet.

You’re our $ 700, 000 football analyst. What’s your opinion? The other guy goes, that’s gotta hurt, Jim. I thank you, Captain Obvious. No wonder you’re getting the big money.

Hey, what do you think will happen in the second half I think they’ll try and get some points right away aha so you don’t think they’ll try to lose the game on purpose then no I think they’ll try and win it that’s the mark of the better teams oh shut up you’re watching the game on TV all the guy has to say is see that so did I back to you that’s all he has to say but thank you but You give a guy a microphone, there’s no shutting him up. It’s.. Even the referee in football has his own microphone so he can humiliate the players every time they break a rule. I don’t know if you know, every time they break a rule in football, they stop the entire game so the referee can click a little button on his belt, activating a giant microphone so they can point the guy out on TV and embarrass him. They stop the whole game just so the ref can go..

The reason we stopped.. The reason we’re all hanging around in the snow, not doing anything right now, is because some people don’t seem to know the rules. Isn’t that right? Number 71. 71, I hope your mother’s watching. 71. The longtime listeners to this program know that I ran SiriusXM Comedy for a decade.

One day, I’m sitting at my desk, and I answer the phone, and I It sounds like I’m making up these stories. People would just get through to me. One day I picked up the phone and it was Bill Cosby. One day I picked up the phone. It was James Hetfield from Metallica.

One day I pick up the phone and it’s Richard Jenny. Hey, hey, Rich. Good to hear from you. What’s going on? And he asked a question about one of the bits on one of his albums.

And he’s like, how do you have that bit? I’m like, what are you talking about? It’s on your album. He’s like, no, it’s not. And I’m totally confused because I’m looking in the computer.

So what we would do this in the days of CDs, you would put the CD in the computer and And he would rip the tracks on the computer.

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And then there’s coding on the back end so that the artists get paid.

And I forget what the bit was called. I’m in my office here and I’m looking at Red Garbage Can. So let’s say the bit is called Red Garbage Can and it’s track 11. So I’m like, Rich, you know, it’s on the album. Between track 10 and track 12, track 11 is Red Garbage Can.

He goes, no, I never put that out. I don’t like the finished version of the bit. I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know how I would have invented a bit, Richard. It’s on your CD.

And he’s telling me, no, it’s not. And I’m like, I’ll get back to you. Let me figure this out. So I go deep diving on this. And I’m like, what?

Because it doesn’t make sense because obviously I didn’t like bootleg a recording and put it in the middle of an album. It’s not a stray. It’s clearly like track 11 between track 10 and 12. And it’s got codes and everything. But he’s telling me, because he’s the artist, he never put it out because he didn’t like it as a finished bit.

So I go looking and looking and I go find the actual CD and in the record library, which is all the way downstairs closet. And we had gotten an advanced copy of the CD and the track in question was on the advanced copy of the CD, but not on the final version approved by Richard Jennings. I called him back and told him that, and we stopped playing the track in question, no harm, no foul. But that was one of those that had me going like, what? I didn’t like invent a bit.

Bill Maher performed with Richard Jennings as a young comedian and Maher dedicated an entire episode of Real Time to Richard Jenny after he died and talked about Richard Jenny on Larry King Live. The character of Richard Jenny among his peers is something that comes up consistently across every account of him from people who worked with him or near him. He was described as brotherly and supportive in a business that is not always either of those things. Fraser Smith opened for him regularly at the Ice House in Pasadena and said young comedians looked up to Jenny and treated him as someone they were trying to become. Watching how he worked a room, paying attention to the specific decisions he made on stage.

Ginny wrote material for the 2005 Academy Awards, hosted by Chris Rock. He won a Clio Award for commercial copywriting, that is the advertising industry’s highest recognition, meaning he could translate his comedy instincts into a format with completely different constraints and still produce exceptional work. Another credit, The Aristocrats. Did he do The Aristocrats, the 2005 film built entirely around comedians telling the same filthy joke their own way? Not sure I could play a clip for that for ya.

Quite naughty. But what The Aristocrats does is it shows how different comedians think and perform, and what each person does with the same raw material tells you about how their mind works. Richard Jenney was named one of Comedy Central’s top 100 comedians of all time. He was number 57 on Comedy Central’s 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians. That was a list he helped assemble as a panelist himself.

He ranked himself and his contemporaries simultaneously as which of course requires clear-eyed honesty about where you actually stand among the people you’re being compared to. Now our story goes sideways. In December 2006, three months before he died, Richard Jenney was involuntarily hospitalized on a psychiatric hold after showing up to a hospital emergency room reporting suicidal depression. Richard Jenney died at age 49 March 10, 2007. Chortle reported on the coroner report, which revealed that Richard Jenney was diagnosed with suicidality, homicidality, and depression, and placed on 5150 hold, which had allowed medics to detain him for up to 72 hours.

Jenney was on antidepressant pills, had demonstrated suicidal behavior again a week before his death. His girlfriend Amy reportedly saw Jenney talking to himself, saying, just squeeze the trigger. She told investigators, says Chortle, that Richard Jenney was suffering insomnia and paranoia because of the stress of his work schedule, which involved relentless touring. At around 9.30 a.m. On March 10th, Richard Jenney placed the barrel of a. 38- caliber Colt Detective special in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The reports are that five minutes earlier, he had been discussing the day ahead with his girlfriend, who went downstairs to make breakfast. She heard a popping sound and went upstairs and found Richard Jenney on the bathroom in a pool of blood and called the emergency 911 number. No note was found. His family released a statement saying rumors have been circulating as the cause of his death. That haven’t included speculation of Richard being depressed over the state of his career or physical ailment.

Truth is, earlier this year, Richard Janney was diagnosed with severe clinical depression coupled with bouts of psychotic paranoia. He was not down or blue. He was ill. Perhaps Richard’s passing will encourage people to have sympathy, compassion, and understanding for those who are afflicted with mental illness. Four and a half years later, the posthumous Beach Crowd DVD came out in 2011.

It was previously unreleased performance material that had been sitting in an archive. Richard Jenney’s final performance had been in February of 2007, a corporate dinner at the Rio in Las Vegas. Richard Jenney was 49.

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Featured: Nate Bargatze, Shane Gillis, Jim Gaffigan, Jerry Seinfeld, Byron Allen, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Jelly Roll, Richard Jenny

What’s in This Episode

• Nate Bargatze vs Shane Gillis career comparison
• Byron Allen’s show beats Kimmel and Fallon in ratings
• Jimmy Fallon contract renewal negotiations with ABC
• Richard Jenny Deep Dive episode and influence on Jerry Seinfeld
• Johnny Mac’s marathon training run and walk breaks

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Hey there. So today we’re out on my run. This is actually the walk break. We’ll talk about that at the end. I’m Johnny Mac with the Afternoon Check-In.

A couple things on my mind. One, I saw a social media post, one of those engagement traps, that asked a question, but I keep thinking about it. Whose career would you rather have for the rest of their career? Nate Bregazzi or Shane Gillis? Huh.

That’s a tough one. So if you tell me Nate is going to continue to do comedy.. And not open theme parks and stop touring? I think the answer is Nate. Nate could have Jim Gaffigan’s career, maybe even Jerry Seinfeld’s stand-up career and tour for a long time.

Boy, I’m out of breath on this hill. That’s why I take the long break. Shane, clearly selling out stadiums, 70,000 seats. I love him. Tires is great.

But as he’s even talked about, as he hits 40, does the frat boy thing work long term? Like, what is 60-year-old Shane Gillis? I’m not sure. I had to pause there to catch my breath. I used to podcast to get in the middle of a run.

Second topic, this stuns me. Late night of reporting that at 11.30 on Monday of this week, Byron Allen’s thing beat Kimmel and Fallon. Fallon was in a rerun, and the Kimmel show had Jelly Roll hosting, and Byron Allen’s show, which was also a rerun, won the night in 18-49. So you can hate on CBS all you want, but from a financial standpoint, they’re being paid to run Byron Allen’s thing and beating Jelly Roll, hosting Jimmy Kibble. Boy, that’s crazy.

So Jimmy, if you’re watching this video, listen to me, buddy. Take that renewal from ABC before they start looking at things and ask, like, why don’t we just run game show reruns at 11.30? I mean, Jimmy’s contract is up in May. Take the money, buddy. At 58 years old, I think Jimmy is, maybe 57, unless you’re out of breath taking a walk break on your run.

By the way, first mile, I shaved 30 seconds off my usual time today, so give me some credit there. Anyway, Kimmel, if ABC calls, just say yes, take the money. Third topic, tomorrow on the Deep Dive, is a look at Richard Jenney. And as I put it together, what I want you to listen out for is listen to how much Seinfeld is in Richard Jenney’s delivery. And I don’t mean the, hey, you ever notice?

But just like the things he’s saying and his pacing. Take a close listen to the Jenny clips in the Saturday episode. And I’m going to give you a premise here. Yeah, there’s a lot of Seinfeld and Richard Jenny. I’m now wondering, is there a lot of Richard Jenny and Jerry Seinfeld?

All right, let’s take some running tips here. So why are we walking, John, other than you’re clearly out of breath? When I marathon train, I follow a guy named Hal Higdon. And he’s got this wonderful training plan. The short version is you have to, on the weekend, do a long run.

And on Wednesday, you do half of what the long run is. So if your long run is, say, 10 miles, you do five on Wednesday. And you run a couple threes during the week. But one thing I learned from Hal, especially as I age here, it’s okay to walk. Because the walk gives you your lungs back, unless you’re recording a podcast for some reason.

But you get lungs back, and then you can run that next mile a little stronger. So I’ve done two New York City marathons. And I did the run-walk thing both times. And here we are at the top of the hill. I’ve got my lungs back.

We’ll treat ourselves to this nice downhill here. Again, this is not a training run. This is a nice, easy run. People seem to be digging these DCN Lives. Let me actually go on a run as the camera bounces.

People seem to be digging these DCN Lives. The numbers are doing okay, so I’ll continue doing them. And I’m going to continue to try and make them slightly weird. Back in the morning with Richard Jenney. Pretty good episode, if I say so myself.

And I’m going to go finish out this run now. Enjoy your Friday.

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