Daily Comedy News Podcast Transcripts

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Featured: Carlos Mencia, Chris Rock, Robbie Hoffman, Joe Rogan

What’s in This Episode

• Carlos Mencia tax evasion charges and new tour
• Carlos Mencia on joke-stealing allegations and internet cancellation
• Carlos Mencia’s therapy journey and self-reflection
• Chris Rock on Los Angeles and the nature of fame
• Robbie Hoffman on comedy boundaries and non-binary jokes

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Carlos Mencia did a really interesting interview with the San Antonio Current. You may recall that Carlos Mencia was recently charged with 12 felony counts of tax evasion in L.A. County. Mencia pled not guilty to all counts.

He disputes the allegations. He told The Current, I’m not a victim. Let’s move forward and see where this train goes. At the end of the day, my work will hopefully be what people will remember me by. Well, that’s a whole other conversation.

Carlos named his new tour, Keep Me Out of Jail. The current was curious, is that your way of taking control of the narrative? Carlos said, you know, everything today is some kind of manipulation. Up until 2007 or 2008, I started getting popular and I started getting a lot of hate because of joke stealing allegations. I wasn’t ready for all that to come.

Even since then, my business has dropped way more than the average career. Since then, I’ve been treading water like a little duck. So when I was charged with tax evasion, it was almost welcomed. The current was like, why’d you welcome that? What happened?

Carlos said they came up with a new tax task force in Southern California. I was expecting that at some point I’d go to a comedy club and get a phone call from my agent saying, listen, you’re not going to get paid this week. California is garnishing your paycheck or some stuff like that. And I’d be like, oh, no. All right.

Time to take care of that. I grew up poor when my family was really crunching for money. My mom and dad would put all the bills on the table. The pink ones were the ones we had to pay. That was the way I dealt with my taxes.

Inevitably, you’re going to have to take care of it. And so I’m taking care of it. Two things there. So do you remember like when Chappelle’s show blew up, Carlos was like the replacement and they treated it like it was, you know, a new season of Chappelle. Basically, it was same kind of set, same kind of vibe.

Like he was really up there into the joke stealing thing. Carlos Menzelia is still one of my favorite lines ever. So the current was like, it sounds like you want to take responsibility, but you also pled not guilty to the charges, right? Carlos said, I never evaded. I filled out my 1099s everywhere I went.

I legit didn’t have enough money to cover my bases. I knew this would happen, but within the next couple of weeks, all those tax years are going to be filed. Once those tax years are filed, there’s no more evasion. It’s kind of like they’re accusing me of murdering somebody, but the person is still alive. I’m just going to have to pay whatever fines and then it’ll go away.

At the end of the day, they did the right thing. Hmm. I’m not an expert in tax, but I’m reading that and I’m like, huh? Yeah. OK.

Hey, I trust you, Carlos. The current said, you’ve said in the past that you’re the first person the Internet has ever tried to cancel. What do you mean? Carlos said, that’s me, bro. Like, legit, everybody thought the joke-stealing allegations would go away, but there were some factors that nobody considered.

I’ll weigh in here. Like, the joke-stealing? First, it was being driven by Joe Rogan, somebody who had a platform. So when Joe drove her repeatedly, the story got bigger. I’ve met Carlos Mencia.

He was very nice in person, but when I met him, he wasn’t saying that he didn’t do the joke-stealing. So I don’t know if this is revisionist or I haven’t read enough of the article, but, like, I was in the room with the guy. Like, he wasn’t saying that that didn’t happen. He was very apologetic and whatever that was, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, it’s probably more like 20 at this point. But as he said, so when Joe drove over repeatedly, the story got bigger.

I was told to let it go and not address it. It wasn’t what I want to do. So I said, okay, I disagree with you, but I’ll do what you guys want. I paid a lot of money to a lot of people for that advice and it was 100% wrong. The current did a good job here.

They were like, all right, if you could go back, would you defend yourself harder against the allegations? Carlos said, no, I wouldn’t, but for a different reason. I wouldn’t defend myself because if I did, I wouldn’t have learned that I’m not a very sensitive person. I would never have been able to understand bullying. Go online.

You can see that they tried to attack me for everything, from my name being Carlos.. To the fact that I’m not Mexican, to stealing jokes. I don’t remember anyone, I don’t remember anybody being upset or making comments about his name being Carlos. I do remember being surprised to learn that he wasn’t of Mexican ancestry because we used to do like a comedy World Cup kind of thing, you know, and we would pitch comedians of whatever ancestry against other people. So I think Louis C.K.

From the top of my mind is of Mexican ancestry.

And then Is Carlos from Honduras?

I’m doing this from memory. The editor chimed in here that Carlos Mencia’s birth name is Ned. And yes, he’s of Honduran ancestry. See, my brain still works. But I don’t remember anybody being like, your name’s not Carlos.

I don’t remember that. Anyway, Carlos Mencia said there was a lot of stuff they tried. It was concerted effort. When that occurred, it took me a long time to realize that if somebody thinks you’re a jerk cleaning it up, F that person. But if everybody thinks you’re a jerk, you’re probably a jerk.

The current nailing it again. Are you saying that you were a jerk, D-word, but didn’t realize it? Carlos said, yes, it took a decade of therapy for me to realize that. One of my best friends said to me, you can be a effing a-hole sometimes and you don’t even know it. I had to deal with that and really look within.

I’d say from 2010 to 2020, that was the journey I was on, trying to find myself in that respect. I think having to deal with tax evasion allegations now is the culmination of all that. In a way, it’s liberating because I’ve been waiting for the shoe to drop. Really, really fascinating stuff there. Chris Rock spoke to Variety about his relationship with Los Angeles.

Chris said, it’s weird. I just bought a place there. In parentheses, it says assumes a snobbish effect. So Chris must have said, I just bought a place there. So I went here in L.A.

I love parts of it. I always say the average movie studio like Paramount. What’s in Paramount? Does cameras, sound equipment. What do you do with that?

Can you really steal that stuff? There’s more value at the average Home Depot than at Paramount. But Paramount’s got armed guards. Why? Because they have dreams in there and people will do anything to get their dreams.

Chris Rock is so grounded. I’ve appreciated reading this article. He said L.A. Is a complicated place, man. Fame’s a complicated thing.

I’ve seen the switch in my lifetime. It used to be that everybody wanted to be great, a great singer, great actor, great comedian. Now it’s just fame, and the greatness is almost assumed. I mean, you’re always going to be at it at some point if you don’t have the goods, but L.A. Is the mecca of that.

It can be beautiful, it’s got the best weather in the world, but it also attracts an underbelly that people want to pretend doesn’t exist. Wow. Robbie Hoffman says she’s still figuring out what topics, if any, are off-limits. She caught up with NPR. She has taken heat for some of her jokes, including jokes about the non-binary community and dismissing the use of they-them pronouns.

Hoffman told NPR, I like to cope and explore through jokes, and I feel like I should be more able to do that than, say, some of my counterparts. I feel like if I can’t talk about it, who can? Hoffman describes herself as, quote, somebody who’s clearly in the queer space, who cut my breasts off, who could be they them at the drop of a hat. I think it’s fair if they’re mad about it. I also think it’s fair for many of us to laugh at it.

And I feel like I want to talk about the stuff that I know and experience day to day. She talked about her first standup performance, which she described as brutal. Hoffman said, I went to a club where I was living and I said, what is the best place to bomb? She only made it through one minute of a five minute set. But said, it was good, even the one minute I did.

I’ve never been the overnight sensation, overnight success. I’ve always been the slow and steady, keep at it. She was asked if she would host a late night show. Robbie Hoffman, 12.30, make 12.30 great again. Seth, goodbye.

How about Robbie Hoffman at 12.30? That could be interesting. She says, I’d be excellent. Call me. I’m on board.

Stavros Halgias did the Maria Bamford questionnaire for Vulture. Some of the questions were, what did you have for breakfast? Is it your usual? Stavros said, I was running late to a podcast and I had a chicken sausage, egg, and cheese with a green juice from a bagel and juice place that happened to be right where my friend’s studio is. I was really pumped about the chicken sausage.

I find pork sausage a little too heavy, unless it’s in brat form and coming right off the grill, but they didn’t divulge it was maple flavored. Real problem, put a damper on the entire breakfast experience. I want my breakfast sandwiches purely savory. Stavros tells us I tend not to eat breakfast because I’m regressing to all my worst habits currently, so I basically don’t eat until I’m starving. Then I order an obscene amount of takeout and one giant meal.

I found the one-way intermittent fasting doesn’t work. We will skip the comedy stock market today. Why, Johnny Mac? Because today I’m at the podcast festival. We love the comedy stock market.

I do, too. But here’s the deal. This is the week of the big podcasting conference. So right now I’m in New York City at the podcasting conference. I had to tape this episode in advance.

So I don’t have enough knowledge of what happened during the week for the comedy stock market. We’ll get back to it next week. Matthew Broussard spoke to NOLA.com. He talked about his heritage, which is Cajun and Jewish. He said, those two groups don’t get along very well.

Quoting Broussard, here’s how much Cajuns hate Jews. They design all their food so Jews can’t eat it. Every dish is either shellfish or pork. All of it. Shrimp creole, crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, boudin.

You know how not kosher boudin is? It’s made up of ground pork wrapped in pages of the Old Testament. And he says, it’s delicious. Good tag. He says his father continued to speak to his brothers in French, but he wasn’t that proud of Cajun culture.

Matthew said the only Cajun presence we had in our house was Adam Sandler’s character in The Waterboy. That was deeply offensive to my father. He hated that guy. You go, Mr. Broussard.

I’m with you. One of his hobbies is exploring using City Bike, which is the New York City bike share program. He says his tracking feature shows that he’s hit 1,700 of the city’s 2,500 bike stations. That is impressive. He’s trying to hit them all.

He says mathematically, it’s an incredibly difficult problem to solve. It’s called the traveling salesman problem, plotting the minimum route between a bunch of different nodes, whether it’s 20 or 100. It becomes mathematically impossible. Even with computers, the amount of time it takes to compute is incalculable. And speaking of Adam Sandler, Travis Kelsey spoke about Adam Sandler on Travis’s podcast there.

You may recall Adam Sandler was the officiant at the Travis Kelsey-Adam Sandler wedding. Travis said he’s just been the effing best person on the planet. And from the Toronto Guardian, they do a regular look at local comedians. Today, it’s Dustin Searcy, who describes his comedy style as a blend of silliness, sarcasm and passionate storytelling. Who are your influences, Dustin Searcy?

Great list here. Mr. Bean, Daniel Tosh, Dave Chappelle, the genie from Aladdin. That’s Robin Williams, isn’t it? And Terry Crews from the Old Spice commercials.

I love that list. Who’s your favorite comedian growing up? Robin Williams. Now it tracks. Favorite comedian now?

He said it varies day to day, but right now a YouTube video of Larry David getting mad at a parking lot gate because it won’t accept his credit card, causing him to hold up traffic. So Larry David. I also always drink a club soda with lime. This is fun. What’s your favorite bit you’ve written and why are you proud of it?

When I was in grade three, my teacher was trying to teach us the word synonym. And to make her and the class laugh, I kept pronouncing it cinnamon. With slight variations, not the most creative joke, but I committed 100%. After a couple of minutes, I had her in tears, which I was very proud of because I had a massive crush on her. She was hesitant to consider a relationship because of the age gap.

She was in her early 20s and I was in my 80s. The way to her heart was making her laugh. Sadly, we never dated. And that is your comedy news for today. What’s on tomorrow’s show?

I don’t know because I taped this a week ago. Did I mention I’m at a podcasting conference? See you with something tomorrow.

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Featured: John Mulaney, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Matthew Rhys, Jean Smart

What’s in This Episode

• John Mulaney’s Emmy Awards monologue about lead actor in drama category
• Stephen Colbert wins final Emmy for The Late Show
• Stephen Colbert appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live post-Emmys
• Colbert shaves beard on Kimmel’s show per bet with wife
• Captain America shield transferred from Late Show to Kimmel’s set
• Emmy winners in comedy and animation categories
• Johnny Mac’s theory that Bob’s Burgers is a comedy hoax

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. I’m going to mix and match here. I’ve got to catch up on a couple of things. I had jury duty, so I’m a little behind. Stephen Colbert was on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, but there were also the Emmys to talk about.

Let’s start with the Emmys because everybody’s raving about this clip from John Mulaney. And for good reason. It’s a little long. It’s a touch naughty. But here’s John Mulaney at the Emmys.

All right, what a wonderful Emmy weekend this is. This, it’s these couple days where you find out just how much you mean to your billion dollar streamer. We love you, we want you to know how important you are to this storytelling family. Can I get a plus one? You get out of here.

This is the best part of the night, lead actor in a drama. This award is for the guys. Just men being men. Finally, something for the fellas. And what a, what a crop of prom kings we have.

They’re not soft like the dad on Bluey, no. Guy’s a joke. Since the creation of television, men have been historically unrepresented. For the first three years TV existed, there were no men on it. It was just beauty contests and children talking to hand puppets until the early 60s, until a man walked out and said, enough, my name is Fonzie and the president’s been shot.

But let’s talk about these bros tonight, these sweat hogs. Some of the men in this category do method acting, and some do regular, less annoying acting. But no matter what, when these fellas hit their mark, they know all their lines. Why? Because they started looking at their sides earlier that morning.

These men, excuse me, these men give it all in every single take, unless the coverage is on the other actor and then they might bounce early, but that’s okay. And they can play anything, these nominees, not just doctors. They can play a cop or an FBI agent or a secret agent and then that’s it, no other examples. I believe it was DJ Khaled who said, real men don’t go down on their wives, but, But these nominees know that that is BS. They know there’s often less pressure on them if they do that first.

You know, I was shooting down Barham last night at 90 miles an hour, and I was reminded of something I read in actor Frank Vincent’s 2006 book. A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man. And I do want to note this copy is from the Glendale Public Library. If you don’t mind, I’d like to read a passage from the book right now, and then in a minute we’ll get to this. Let me see here.

Okay, and I’m reading now. A man’s man can be wearing the best clothes, drinking the finest wine, sitting with the most beautiful woman in Las Vegas. If he doesn’t treat everyone around him with respect and class, he’s not a real man’s man. He’s just a jabroni in a good suit. Stephen Colbert did win in his final year.

The Late Show was nominated alongside The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and Saturday Night Live. The Emmy goes to The Late Show starring Stephen Colbert. I just want to point out that if you like the comedy tonight, my old writers wrote it tonight. Ariel Dumas, my head writer, is the head writer of tonight’s Emmys. Thank you so much on behalf of the over 200 people who threw themselves at this show for 11 years to try to do the best show they possibly could for you.

The thing about these late shows is that besides being a really good steady job is that they require so many people that they’re a fantastic incubator for young people to come in, to learn to work professionally on a deadline, in cooperation, in collaboration. And that is the future of our business that we have to look after. I want you to know I got some great news. They are all tech avail. Hire them, they will make your show better and they will make your day easier.

I want to thank so many people in this room. Over the last 21 years, I’ve interviewed at least a thousand of you. Thank you for coming on to talk to this idiot. I want you to. Know that you were the perfect guest.

This segment went great, and I’m sorry I forgot to play your clip. But of course, there can only be one favorite guest, and that is my wife, Evie McGee. Thank you, darling. Thank you. For being my only crew and my only guest during COVID and my only audience and the only audience I really care about.

Yours is the laugh that I want for the rest of my life. I love you. And I want to say to the audience, thank you so much for watching. We hope you enjoyed the show. We had a great time doing it for you.

That’s it. Thank you. We’ll catch you all on the flip.

And then on Tuesday night, Stephen Colbert stopped by the set of Jimmy Kimmel…

Last night, our first guest capped off a tumultuous year with a shiny new Emmy for a show that was so popular they had to pull it off of television. From Rivendell by way of Gondor by way of Mordor, please welcome to late night television once again, Mr. Stephen Colbert. People still do this. People still do these shows.

It rarely happens that way, though. Look at that. Like a shark in the ocean. This is where you belong in a late night television studio. I don’t know.

Congratulations. Thank you very much. Not just to you, but to your whole staff. You guys won six Emmys. Seven, actually.

Seven Emmys. Seven Emmys, yeah. Oh, wow. Seven Emmys, yeah. I thought it was six.

Nope, it’s seven, but thanks. I’ll take one of them away from you. Anything to make you happy. Thank you for having me back. It’s great to have you back.

Late night TV. I remember it well. Do you? Many fond memories of this. Do you?

Do you think about it ever? Nope. I will say. I have an opportunity to not think about the news every day, and I took it. You took it, yeah.

Later on in the interview, Kimmel asked Colbert if CBS had called to congratulate him on the seven Emmys. Colbert said, I’m not familiar with that organization. Ouch. Colbert had promised his wife that he would shave his beard if the show won an Emmy. It did win an Emmy.

Kimmel volunteered for the job. And by the final segment, we saw Colbert looking kind of like he used to when he hosted 1135. Kimmel said, now I recognize you. On the set of The Late Show, there was a Captain America shield given to Stephen Colbert by Marvel. When CBS dismantled The Late Show, Colbert said he wanted to send it to Kimmel.

On Tuesday night, Kimmel brought the shield out and asked Colbert if he could install it permanently on the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Colbert said, it’s your shield, man. Kimmel put it over to the producer’s well in front of the audience and affixed it to the wall per late nighter. Kimmel said, I want to be able to see it when I’m doing the monologue every night. Kimmel said, the shield is on the wall for all time.

Or at least how much time we have left. We’ll see what happens. I don’t think Jimmy Kimmel’s going anywhere. Back to the Emmys.. Did I say Oscars earlier?

I might have said Oscars. Emmys. It was the Emmys. Best Actor in a Comedy Series, Matthew Rhys for Widow’s Bay. Best Actress in a Comedy, Jean Smart for Hacks won once again.

Animated Program, the winner, South Park. But the nominees included Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, Smiling Friends, which is something on Adult Swim, Star Wars Visions, and the Bob’s Burgers hoax continues. Now, if you’re new to the show, I’m going to ask you two questions. One, have you ever seen Bob’s Burgers? You haven’t.

The other is, have you ever met anyone who has seen Bob’s Burgers? The answer there is also no. I understand that Kevin Burkhart tells you coming up after the big football game, there’s an all-new Simpsons followed by Bob’s Burgers, but you’ve never actually stuck around to see if Bob’s Burgers actually airs, have you? No, you watch Sunday Night Football, and I’m here to tell you there’s no such thing as Bob’s Burgers. I understand that you’ve seen merch.

I understand that they do interviews talking about it, but this is one of the great comedy hoaxes of all time, a Kaufman-level event. Categories continue to be confusing. Widow’s Bay, that’s the horror comedy, comedy in quotes on Apple TV. They won 14 Emmys. That beat last year’s 13 from the studio, also from Apple.

They had 19 nominations overall, including the top prize where they beat out Abbott Elementary, clearly a sitcom. Hacks, OK. Margot’s got money troubles. Nobody wants this. And The Bear, which is clearly not a comedy.

I don’t know why they keep nominating that. And they insist on saying it’s a comedy. It is not. They also beat out Only Murders in the Building and Shrinking. Hey, you know who was there?

Marcelo Hernandez. They’re going to try and make Marcelo Hernandez a thing. And here he is at the Emmys. And, you know, he did his thing. Hello, it’s an honor for me to be here.

It’s my first time at the Emmys, and I get to present, so I just want to take this opportunity to say hi to a few people I. Might not be able to say hi to later. I don’t know what parties I’ve been invited to, and I don’t know what parties you have been invited to, so just very quickly, I would like to say hello to Harrison Ford. Hello, hi. You are a legend, man, and a real inspiration to me, and I would like to invite you to have dinner at my house.

Yes, no pressure. I want to say hi to Zendaya. Hi. You’re a beast, and you’re amazing, and I saw you, and I wanted to play it cool, and I’ve decided I can do that. So I would like to invite you and Spider-Man to have dinner at my house.

Yes, what’s up, man? I would also like to say hello to Oscar Isaac. Oscar, you are so good in beef, man, and you are also Hernandez, like I am, so we could be cousins, you never know. And I will see you at Christmas. I will cook you whatever you want.

And lastly, I want to say. Hello to Matthew McConaughey. When I was younger, my Cuban tia mi chichi, she said, Marcelo, if you’re working very hard, one day you can hang out with Matthew McConaughey first. And I’m basically doing it. So that is my little spiel.

John Oliver was out and about on red carpets. And for some reason, they asked him about turning 50. He turns 50 next year. When I saw the story, I’m like, is he like 50 this week? No, he’s 50 next year in April.

All right, John, in April, when you turn 50, what’s the plan? He told Live from E, it’s definitely going to involve a keg stand. Today in New York City, it’s not only the big podcasting festival where you’ll find me. Tonight is the Ferry Show with Pete Davidson and Colin Jost. I tried to get tickets.

There was a small window every day last week at around 3 p.m. Where you had to go to a website. And I would remember around 447 and be like, oh, yeah, Snapple Ferry thing. Yeah, I should check that out. And I did not get tickets.

So I will have to find something else to do in New York City tonight. As I’ll remind you, I’m from New York City, and I have a place in New York City, so I won’t have any problem finding something to do. I would have gone to this if I got a ticket, but I’ll be okay missing it out. It does sound like fun. Pete Davidson and Colin Jost are turning their ferry into a floating comedy club for a one-night Snapple event.

It branded the Snapple Island Ferry, which is such good branding that I’ll actually say the sponsor name. You may recall Pete Davidson and Colin Jost purchased the ferry at auction in 2022 for $ 280, 000. Seemed like a good idea at the time. They’ve hosted a few events on the vessel, including Tommy Hilfiger’s 2025 New York Fashion Week show. Well, tonight, the Snapple Island Ferry is a one-day-only free comedy club.

You never know. Last minute tickets might show up. The website is register.snappleislandfairy.com if you want to take a flyer there. I have now made other plans. I bet they get some pretty good people to show up.

I’m sure they’re going to want to make an event out of it. Here in New Jersey, Kevin Hart spotted with Henry Cavill. They are filming Untitled Spy Movie, which might have a title. They were seen outside a private home in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Netflix says the movie is still untitled, but the chairs on the film set had the title The Serpent and the Snake.

There’s a graphic showing the outline of two spies with guns drawn, although some people think The Serpent and the Snake might be a placeholder title. We’re told Kevin Hart was wearing a Joy Division t-shirt, plaid pajama pants, and slides with socks. Henry Cavill wore an all-black ensemble of elbow patch, jacket, and jeans, sat on a motorcycle. So it sounds like this is going to be typical Kevin Hart product with a capital P. So we’ll have Henry Cavill looking like handsome and cool and suave and James Bond-ish, and then Kevin Hart will do his wacky Kevin Hart thing.

I mean, we’ve seen five million versions of this, but Kevin Hart is like a billionaire, and I’m recording a podcast in the basement, so he’s right. All right, tomorrow on this program, I pre-taped it last Friday, so it’s a little generic, I’ll be honest with you. There’s no comedy stock market tomorrow, but I had to tape that one a week ago. Then on Saturday, the weekend deep dive is Dean Cook. You got that Dane Cook movie coming out in a bit.

So I thought it was a good time to take a look at Dane. Sunday’s episode is a normal episode with timely news. I did watch Chilkoi’s new special. Now, it’s funny. As soon as I hit play on it, I’m like 15 seconds into it.

And I jump in the Facebook group, Daily Comedy News podcast group. And I write, I’m so distracted by his veneers because I was so distracted by his straight, white, shiny teeth. I couldn’t stop looking at them.

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And then about a minute in, minor spoiler, Jokoi has a whole chunk about the …

And I was like, oh, OK. So I’m wondering if they kind of put the spotlight on the veneers to set that up. A pretty good special. I’m not sure how much I laughed, but it’s one of those that I call really good company. And, you know, I’m a comedy snob, et cetera, et cetera.

I think the closer is really strong and has a good emotional punch to it. So definitely stick around for the end. Nice special by Jokoi. It is in the top tier of specials in what has been a bad year for comedy specials. We’ll have to see if there’s a strong fourth quarter.

Many years there are. And, you know, Netflix all of a sudden goes, yeah, bang, bang, bang, bang. Here’s a bunch of stuff we hadn’t previously announced. You know, they’ll drop a Chappelle special on New Year’s Eve. They did that one year.

So we’ll see what the fourth quarter brings. But so far, it’s been a pretty lame year for comedy specials. I’ve been enjoying the heck out of Tires. I caught up last night. There was an episode where they went to a party.

It’s episode three of the new season. If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about. It was very funny. If not, I won’t spoil it at all. Steve Gerben is one of the Tiresers.

He apparently is known as the King of Westchester Golf. He says the nickname is a joke created by Shane Gillis after Steve Gerben broke 80 for the first time, scoring a 79 on 18 holes of golf last year. Gerben said, I thought I’d get my friend to start videotaping it in case it happened on the 18th hole, and then I did it. So Shane saw the video and was making fun of it on his podcast, calling me the King of Westchester Golf, while he downplays his claim to the throne. Steve Gerben does play golf every week in the Philadelphia region.

He says, I can’t see myself leaving the area. I really love it here and it’s home.

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Also, given how I feel about golf, suburbs make way more sense.

It’s just scratching the right itch for me. Now, this is interesting. The fictional Valley Forge Automotive Center is named after the real life automotive business that Steve Gerben’s father had. He sold it in 2011. Steve said, I remember after season one, my dad was on the boardwalk and he saw a Valley Forge auto shirt in one of the stores and he was like, this is insane.

Because it’s the company he had for 20 years, and then it’s gone, and now we brought it back in a way. That’s kind of nice. Now, Gerben’s been friends with these guys for a while, so while Shane became a bit of a, I don’t know, shooting star for Shane, but clearly, you know, a top comedian, I think if we had to rank the active comedians right now, Shane probably a two, unless you want to put him at one with Chappelle. He’s had quite the year. I’ll remind you, he’s sold 70,000 tickets at a stadium.

Anyway, the thing Gerben said he had in his back pocket was a script for a show based on experience working at the tire shop. He initially wrote it 15 years before Tires premiered on Netflix in 2024. It has been picked up for season four, which is great. And let’s do one of those Toronto comedian things. The Toronto Guardian does these where they check in with comedians from time to time.

Evan Dubois, a Toronto-based comedian, blending traditional stand-up with comedy songs, visual gags, and creative bits. Who are your influences? He said, Biggest? Definitely Bo Burnham. Others include Demetri Martin, Mike Birbiglia, Flight of the Conchords, and Pete Holmes.

That’s a good mix. His favorite comedian growing up? Mike Birbiglia. Oh my goodness. I was well into my 30s when Birbiglia came along.

Growing up, you were into Mike Birbiglia? I feel so old. Oh my. Evan Dubois says, I always loved how his shows were structured to have stories based around a central theme. Favorite comedian right now is Bo Burnham.

Inside his special is one of the best things I’ve ever watched. Pre-show ritual? He tunes his guitar in a corner so he doesn’t bother anybody. And that is your comedy news for today. Tomorrow, generic-ish episode that I recorded a week ago.

You know, I hook you up. It’s as if I pre-taped a weekend episode, which I openly do. So it’s, you know, it’s at that level.

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And then Saturday, Deep Dive with Dane Cook.

Sunday’s normal. Monday’s normal. Have a great day.

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Featured: Taylor Swift, Nikki Glaser, Dave Chappelle, Howard Stern, Chris Rock, Joe Cojoy, Conan O’Brien, Adam Sandler

What’s in This Episode

• Taylor Swift reportedly upset with Nikki Glaser over wedding guest comments
• Dave Chappelle announces arena tour including New York Comedy Festival
• Howard Stern’s HBO deal and SiriusXM channel termination
• Chris Rock jokes about Taylor Sheridan Yellowstone role
• Joe Cojoy Netflix special filmed at Stockton Arena
• Joe Cojoy to receive Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2027

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

Well, we kind of knew this was going to happen, huh? Hi, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Taylor Swift is reportedly livid with Nikki Glaser. Nikki, I told you, you shouldn’t have said anything on stage. You blew it.

This comes from Shooter Scoop, which is a pretty gossipy website. I’m familiar with it. We use it on the Palace Intrigue podcast as a source, and it tends to be gossipy, and it tends to have unnamed sources. But per Rob Shooter, Nikki Glaser didn’t just break wedding etiquette. She exposed the one thing Taylor Swift never wanted anyone saying out loud.

Sources tell Naughty But Nice that Taylor Swift is livid after Nikki Glaser publicly admitted she attended Taylor Swift’s wedding despite barely knowing the couple. I think barely knowing is even exaggeration. Like, that would be like me saying I barely know Taylor Swift. Had they even met before? Insiders say she wasn’t alone.

One of the unknown insiders tells Naughty But Nice, Taylor is furious with Nikki, but the worst part is that it’s true. There were famous people at that wedding who barely knew Taylor. Yeah, we knew this. This is not as everyone could tell. And some had never met her.

Yeah, she doesn’t know these people. Nikki said publicly what everybody was whispering privately. On stage, Nikki Glaser had said, I’m a huge Swifty, probably the biggest Swifty that was at that event. If you’re a Swifty, you’ll understand. I got the text inviting me to the wedding.

I never thought in a million years I’d get invited. I don’t even know them, but I got invited. Yeah, because you’re like the it’s a comedian right now and your agent and your PR team is getting it done. They got the invite. We all know how this works.

It’s not like Taylor said, how about Nikki Glaser? Somebody in Hollywood put this together for you. We know how this works. The source says the joke going around is that Meghan Markle knew the celebrities at her wedding better than Taylor knew some of hers. For Taylor, that comparison is absolutely mortifying.

A wonderful story, which makes a great crossover story with the Palace Intrigue podcast. I’m the writer on that one. We talk about the royal family and a lot of Meghan Markle seven days a week. So check out Palace Intrigue wherever you get your pods. The insider said Nikki made the wedding sound less like a celebration and more like celebrity casting.

Yeah, that’s what it was. It was a wedding experience. Officiated by Adam Sandler at Madison Square Garden. That’s what this was. Some guests don’t have Taylor’s number.

They attended her wedding, then went right back to being strangers. Yeah, no kidding. Dave Chappelle has announced an arena tour. Pretty exciting. One of the dates is at the New York Comedy Festival.

Carolyn Hirsch, who founded it, said Dave is one of the defining comedians of his generation, and without question, one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time. To have Dave close out his tour by opening our festival is spectacular. So this is The New York Comedy Festival stepping up. This is a whole other level. I’ve commented about the New York Comedy Festival.

The lineup so far had been underwhelming. But no, yeah, Dave is the ace. Yeah, it just took a step up in class. It’s a short tour. October 20th in Nashville at the Bridgestone Arena.

The next night in Charlotte. Then on the 23rd of October, Toronto. Then back down to Louisville, Kentucky. Down to Austin, Texas on Monday, October 26th. I wonder if we’ll get a Kill Tony appearance out of Dave Chappelle while he’s in Joe Rogan land.

Wednesday the 28th, Houston, Texas, and then Friday, November 6th, Madison Square Garden as part of the New York Comedy Festival. That’s great. Howard Stern is allegedly puzzled by fans being frustrated. A source told the U.S. Sun that Howard Stern reads everything and then everything is in all caps the second time.

And Howard wants to control what’s being reported. The source notes that Howard was apoplectic over the negative reaction to the news of the sudden termination of his archival channel Howard 101. And that his show would now broadcast just one day a week. Stern also doesn’t get why staffers laid off would be disgruntled. So, look, I’ve said this in the past.

Howard paid me the compliment of my career when I met Howard. He told me that the Raw Dog channel at Sirius was a great-sounding radio station, and for one of my radio heroes to tell me that a station I was in charge of sounded great means the world to me. Howard is now 72 and he’s been making reportedly $ 100 million a year for 15 or so years now. Or is it 20? I think it’s more like 20 now.

So he doesn’t need the money. It’s time to put your feet up and he doesn’t want to totally walk away. So he’s doing the show once a week from the house. So, yeah, you don’t need a second channel recapping three hours of programming for there’s 168 hours in a week. What do you want Howard 101 to do all day?

And if you’re doing three hours down from 20 or 15 or 12 or whatever it’s been over the years, unfortunately, people are going to get laid off. Now, as for this new HBO show, I saw the promo for it and I thought it looked like the opposite of cool. I’ve talked about this in the past. Howard Stern in his heyday, I don’t know, let’s pick a random morning in 1993, would hate Howard Stern of 2026. The current Howard Stern is everything the young Howard Stern hated.

The new show on HBO Max, again, the promo looks so lame. Is according to the source, Stern’s method of holding up the middle finger to Sirius XM. An insider told the Daily Mail, Howard’s in a really good mood with his new HBO deal. He feels like it’s a big middle finger to all his critics who either want him done or think that he’s done. We will see.

Chris Rock says, if Taylor Sheridan’s got a job for me, I’ll take that job. He joked he could become the black guy on Yellowstone. That’s a great joke. He didn’t stop there. He imagined playing a black landowner who owns property and has white slaves.

Now, that would probably get a lot of attention. The comedian then joked that he encouraged Taylor Sheridan to make an entire show around that idea. I would watch that. Joe Coy’s new special’s out on Netflix. He got a cover story from the Vogue Philippines edition.

I didn’t know there was Vogue Philippines, but there is. Joe said it sucks because once this special drops, I have to say goodbye to these jokes. I’ve been attached to them for so long. When it comes to approaching his specials, he says he wants them to reflect the newer version of himself. And for his routine to evolve the same way he has, he has to try new things on top of the previous special.

One of his favorite things about the new special on Netflix is the arena, Stockton Arena. You see, Stockton was once home to the largest population of Filipinos outside the Philippines. In the early 1900s, young Filipino men came to California to work as the primary agricultural workforce harvesting crops in the Central Valley. Jokoi said some of the migrants that were there a long time ago faced a lot and dealt with a lot of racism back then. We understand that what happened was bad, but now we have to realize that it’s not going to be repeated anymore.

We just sold out an arena. Behind me is the Filipino sun. Jokoy also said, He also described his career as a long journey with many challenges. Now, you may recall one of the challenges was one time he hosted the Golden Globes and just told this horrible mean joke about Taylor Swift. As you know, we came on after a football doubleheader.

The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL. On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots. Of Taylor Swift. I swear. There’s just more to go to.

Sorry about that. In 2027, Joe Coy will be honored with a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He said, I can’t wait for that day to happen. Dreams come true, baby. Conan O’Brien getting political.

He is now the face of a fundraising campaign for the State Plus Local Election Alliance, a political action committee that puts money into low-profile state and local races involving the officials who oversee elections. Conan O’Brien put out a few videos, and one he said, if anyone appreciates something unsexy, it’s this guy right here. So when I heard there’s a group that only backs the unsexy races, county clerks, election boards, local courts, I thought, finally, my people. These are the offices that decide whether your vote gets cast, counted, and certified. In another commercial, Conan made fun of the idea that anyone would turn to him for guidance on politics.

Conan jokes, I must have Conan’s political advice as a thought that has never crossed your mind, and it shouldn’t have. Yet here we are, because I just learned something smart and I want to share it. Margaret Cho seems fed up with the way things are going these days. She says, we are being taken over by the richest people in the world, but the one thing they cannot afford is jokes at their expense. I want to fight fascism with everything I have.

Jeff Ross had a birthday and got roasted by Jim Carrey, who went on social media and wrote, 61 years ago, a boy named Jeff Ross came into the world. I don’t want to say he was an ugly baby, but when he was born, God made his mother sign an NDA, and nothing’s changed in that regard. In fact, it’s gotten worse. I’ve seen better-looking heads on cystic acne. His spirit animal is a blobfish, a pale, misshapen bottom feeder that makes you laugh just looking at it.

But he’s not just funny-looking. In many places around the world, people find his brand of humor highly toxic, except in Japan, where his jokes are considered a delicacy. But there’s no denying one thing, Jeff. You are funny. You’ve spent your whole life making people laugh.

If only it were on purpose. If only they were laughing with you and not, you know, at you. Jim Carrey added, Of course I’ve been half-joking this whole time, but before I sign off, I’d like to say one thing that’s sincere and meaningful, Jeff. In the time it takes you to make a wish and blow out your candles, I will make millions of dollars in passive income. I will deal with the Emmys tomorrow because I had to record this one on Monday because the nice people of New Jersey invited me to take part in the jury system on Tuesday.

And I don’t know at the time of this recording if I’m available on Tuesday. We’re sitting in a courthouse where you really can’t record a video podcast, so I had to tape this one in advance. We’ll get to the Emmys tomorrow. Catching up for the weekend, SNL UK was pretty good. If that had been an episode of SNL US, it would have been the best episode of last season, so..

You know, I really liked it a lot. It was the probably the best SNL UK they’ve had, period. Here only, you know, one episode in a season two. There’s not a large body of work, but I felt like they found their voice. The news guys got a lot better.

They have totally borrowed the the joke where you put something up on the screen behind you and you go so and so seen here. Insert punchline. They use that joke, I think, three times during the news, but it worked perfectly. If you want to dive on clips online, there’s a sketch involving King Kong that I won’t spoil. That was pretty good.

Your host was Jeff Goldblum and an artist named C-MAT, who I’m a fan of. Actually, I’m a fan of C-MAT’s, was the musical guest. SNL UK, you’ll find it on Hulu and the clips tend to show up on YouTube. A comedian branded Australia’s King of Dark Comedy got some backlash after he did some September 11th jokes. Don’t do this.

Julian Wood posted a video on his Instagram page where he’s seen approaching a stranger sitting on a bench. He asked the older man, excuse me, if science has flown us to the moon, where has religion flown us? The punchline into the Twin Towers. So that’s bad enough that he then opens his jacket to reveal a fake bomb strapped to his chest. He says, it’s actually the 25th anniversary of 9-11 today.

Did you know that? Well, I’m not a scientist, but I am religious. It did not go over well on social media. One person said, stop making jokes about 9-11. I lost my uncle on that day.

Another person said, do you really think this is funny? Another comment, I have good humor and some 9-11 humor is funny if made appropriately, but this isn’t funny. One more said, I just unfollowed you. You’re a disgrace to society and your family. In better news, we now know who will be on Kunk on Cinema, the upcoming newest episode of Philomena Kunk’s documentary series.

The BBC says Philomena Kunk, played by Diane Morgan, who some podcasters have a crush on. We’ll be asking experts all the hard-hitting questions about the history of cinema, with a list of contributors that includes Michael Bay, Benedict Cumberbatch, and others. The three-part series will uncover the invention of the camera to the new wave filmmakers of the 60s, right up to the entrance of CGI and AI. Philomena Kunk will attempt to demystify it all while sitting in lumpy seats with stale popcorn, asking herself, where did cinema come from and why, what does it want, and what can it tell us? No date yet, but it will be on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer, and if you’re not in the UK or Ireland..

Netflix and that is your comedy news for today see you tomorrow

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Featured: Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Eric Idle, John Cleese, Shane Gillis, Jalen Brunson, Dakota Johnson, Joe Coy, Theo Vaughn, Morgan Wallen, Meghan Trainor, Patton Oswalt, Weird Al Yankovic

What’s in This Episode

• Stephen Colbert guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live
• Jimmy Kimmel returning to Brooklyn Academy of Music for week-long residency
• Monty Python reunion ruled out by Eric Idle, conflict with John Cleese
• The Office UK revival unlikely per creator Greg Daniels
• SNL Season 52 premiere with Jalen Brunson as first host
• Shane Gillis hosting SNL third time on October 10th
• Joe Coy releases sixth special ‘Blue in the Face’
• Theo Vaughn appears in Morgan Wallen concert pre-show video
• Drunk History new episodes launching on Comedy Central YouTube

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Big guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight, Stephen Colbert. His first late-night guest appearance since leaving The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May should be all kinds of interesting, so I’m looking forward to that one. Kimmel also announced he’s coming back to Brooklyn, as he did last year and I think the year before. He’ll be at the Brooklyn Academy of Music starting Monday, September 28th through Friday, October 2nd.

Kimmel told viewers, this is a big thing. I’m very happy to announce that once again, we will be bringing our show, all of it, every one, every bit to Brooklyn, New York. We’re returning to Brooklyn for a week of shows from the Brooklyn Academy of Music with an all-star, big-time lineup of guests later this month. If you’re looking forward to the Monty Python reunion, forget it. Eric Heidel said Monty Python is dead.

He has ruled out any sort of reunion, specifically with John Cleese. 83-year-old Eric Heidel has a new book and posted on social media. Today’s my publication day in the UK. I hope you like and enjoy the book I spent five years on. This is what I’m doing. Python is dead.

One fan urged one last hurrah. Eric Heidel in a separate Twitter post said, no thanks. There was a suggestion that he’s fallen out with John Cleese over opposing political views. A fan asked if they could see past their political differences. Eric Idle said, Unfortunately, it’s much worse than that, but I’m not going to say as it’s very boring.

That’s interesting. He then further went on with this cryptic remark, Wow. All right. What about a partial reunion? What if we got the other guys and left Cleese out of it?

I mean, to be fair, there’s a whole season of the Monty Python TV show without John Cleese. Would you perform with just Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam and leave Cleese out of it? Idol’s single word answer? No. Interesting.

Now, you may recall back in 2024, they were fighting over money. Eric Idol complained that Monty Python’s revenue had dried up. At the time, he wrote, Python is a disaster. Spamalot made money 20 years ago. I have to work for a living.

Not easy at this age. He had blamed Terry Gilliam’s daughter, Holly, who has managed Monty Python’s business affairs since 2014. Idol suggested that, you know, maybe she wasn’t that good. Cleese wrote back on Twitter at that time, during that fight, I’ve worked with Holly for the last 10 years, and I find her very efficient, clear-minded, hardworking, and pleasant to have dealings with. Michael Palin has asked me to make it clear that he shares that opinion.

Terry Gilliam is also in agreement with this. I would hope so. It’s his daughter. Cleese also said that he and Idle always loathed and despised each other, but it’s only recently that the truth has begun to emerge. It’s unclear to me if he was joking or not.

Eric Idle last summer described his relationships with the surviving pythons as ranging from poor to terrible. They don’t talk to me. I haven’t seen them for 10 years. That’s awful. I had the pleasure of working with them.

It was the Monty Python.. I got to check the math here. 40th anniversary, I guess. We did the 40th anniversary radio station, which was great. We got to work with all the Pythons. We got to use their music library and their clips, and we put together this wonderful Monty Python radio station.

I wonder if I have a clip on my computer. I will look for it. Somewhere I have some audio from that radio station. I just look for it. I don’t have it on this computer.

I work with two different computers. I think it’s on the other one, but I’ll try and pull that out one day. Another reunion you’re not getting is The Office, The Office creator Craig Daniels I mean, let’s be fair, the Office UK creator Greg Daniels told Variety, we don’t need to find out what all the characters are doing. It seemed like people liked the ending, and you’re just risking a lot by opening it up again. Saturday Night Live will be back for season 52, and the first guest host is New York Knicks superstar Jalen Brunson.

That’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait for this, and it’ll be on soon, September 26th. You may recall Jalen Brunson led the New York Knicks to the world championship last season. So it should be another great season. October 3rd, hosted by Dakota Johnson.

Then the big one, the real reason I’m telling you about this, aside from rooting for the Knicks, Shane Gillis will be a third time host on October 10th. People are already getting mad about it. People are already saying if Shane hosts five times, they should end the five timers club. Look, Lorne knows that, well, Lorne wanted Shane on the show. Lorne kind of had his hand forced, and I think this is Lorne’s way of being like, hey, everybody, the network blew it here, not me.

So Shane will host on October 10th.

Speaking of Shane, he was spotted in Green Bay’s Black Iron Bar and Grill.

Apparently Shane was there on September 6th. According to a social media post, Shane Gillis was accompanied by friends and fellow comedians Tommy Pope and Chris O’Connor. They both star in Tire’s The bar says our Buffalo Wings are officially Shane Gillis approved. It is believed Shane was in the area because Notre Dame, of which he roots for their football team, played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, so that all makes sense. You know what’s out today?

Joe Coy’s Blue in the Face. It is Joe Coy’s sixth special. Filmed before a sold-out crowd at Stockton Arena, Joe Coy’s New Hour seems him relive a wild dental disaster, recount getting fired from McDonald’s and celebrate his veteran stepdad, You may recall one time Joe Coy told this horrible, horrible, mean joke about Taylor Swift. Let’s listen. As you know, we came on after a football doubleheader.

The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL. On the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift. I swear. There’s just more to go to. Sorry about that.

If you went to see Morgan Wallen on tour, prior to the concert, there was a pre-show video, and that featured Theo Vaughn. We learned a little about how that happened. There was a podcast episode of In the Trenches with Spidey Smith, and Morgan Wallen’s creative director, Justin Clough, was on there. Justin shared how it was an easy decision for him and Morgan Wallen. He said, we’d just gone through a couple different people, and I think we all just mutually agreed Theo was right.

He says as soon as Theo Vaughn put the headset on, he was in character. Justin says, dude, it was so funny. Dude, he put the headset on. He was like, you know, when he got there to show up, he immediately went to character and he just started walking around talking to random crew guys. He had the headset on, the clipboard.

He’s like, step it up, brother. Come on, brother. Keep it going. The guys were like, what the F? He was so funny, man.

Back today, Drunk History. We’re getting three new episodes starting today on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel. Now, that’s interesting. Why not on Comedy Central? It’s on the YouTube channel.

The first of them chronicles Madonna’s performance of Like a Virgin at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards. Meghan Trainor plays Madonna in this one. The other episodes take on Francis Perkins. You know who that is, of course, the unsung architect of FDR’s New Deal. I think everyone knows that.

And the third episode, two men’s lifelong battle to make the world’s largest ball of twine. Now, interesting to me, the cast of the season includes folks like Colin Hanks, who was really great on Silo. Patton Oswalt, and Weird Al Yankovic, who happens to have a song, I think, called The World’s Largest Ball of Twine. He’s got a song with a title at least similar to that, so I imagine Weird Al’s in that episode. While today on the 800lb Gorillaz YouTube channel, Cameron Esposito’s Four Pills.

Also out today, Vanessa Gonzalez has her comedy album, Momona, via Special Things Records. It will also air on Hulu. Vanessa is a Texas native. She took the stage in front of an eager fan base in Austin to record the follow-up to her outstanding debut album, My Birthday’s Tomorrow. In this hour, Vanessa explains just what a mamona is.

She also talks about the witches in her family, a memorable church repeat, and what the world thinks of the Lone Star State. Vanessa Gonzalez was named one of Variety’s Top 10 Comics to Watch in 2022 and Best Stand-Up Comic in Austin by the Austin Chronicle in 2017, 2022, and again in 2023. Not bad. If you’re in Los Angeles, what are you doing? Go see Chris Fleming and Friends at the Largo.

It’s a little pricey, but it’s Chris Fleming. Who should be hosting Late Night with Chris Fleming on NBC at 1230? Make 1230 great again. Why are we wasting time with Seth Meyers? Let’s make it great again.

Letterman, Conan, Chris Fleming. Yes, yes. In Chris Fleming and Friends, the high-energy 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. He tests out new material..

But the concept is already refined enough to be as taped as special. Tonight, 8 p.m. Tickets are $ 50, which isn’t cheap, but it is. Chris Fleming, you should go. And that is your comedy news for today.

See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Sam Morril, Cat Williams, James Tallarico, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Rock, John Mulaney, Seth Meyers

What’s in This Episode

• Sam Morril’s Netflix Special ‘Incorrect in Incorrect’ September 29th
• Cat Williams memoir ‘Nine Lives, No Wives, and Sixty-Nine Concubines’ book tour
• Jimmy Kimmel FCC controversy with James Tallarico interview
• Stephen Colbert’s blocked Tallarico interview on CBS
• Jimmy Fallon Sunday Night Football special editions
• Chris Rock on financial discipline and avoiding overcommitment
• John Mulaney bookstore recommendations impact
• Seth Meyers seven-week vacation from Late Night

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Sam Morrill will have a new special on Netflix September 29th. It is called Incorrect in Incorrect. Sam Morrill tackles his worst one night stand gone wrong. The dark humor of infamous assassinations, his bizarrely unorthodox war against rats and more.

Let’s listen. You ever watch one of these new big budget movies and it just turns into a game of like, how long can this last versus me checking my phone? It’s not long. Some $ 500 million movie. I’m like, damn, turns out I’d rather watch a guy power wash a sidewalk on TikTok.

This cannot bode well for the future of entertainment. I like that trailer a lot. Incorrect is Sam’s second special for Netflix. He did one in 2022, same time tomorrow. Before that, You’ve Changed was on Amazon and the Comedy Central special’s Positive Influence and I Got This and his self-produced Up on the Roof in Full Capacity.

Cat Williams’ Book Tour. Did you say Book Tour? Yes, Cat Williams’ Book Tour. He’s got a memoir. It is called Nine Lives, No Wives, and Sixty-Nine Concubines.

That is a title and a half. In Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines, Cat Williams offers perspective on how he survived Hollywood without losing ownership of his money, his voice, or his peace. He reflects on the experiences behind his refusal to fail, offering a rare look at the thoughtful, spiritually grounded, and deeply committed father behind the comedian. We’ve got a kerfuffle with Jimmy Kimmel Live. I’m not entirely sure what is happening as I’m recording this, but he was supposed to have on Texas State Representative James Tallarico.

Now, you may remember that name. Tallarico was a guy that was supposed to be on Colbert’s show, and CBS was like, yeah, we’re not airing that, and Colbert put it on YouTube. Well, guess what happened? On Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jimmy Kimmel revealed that his interview with Tallarico.. Who happens to be running for Senate as the Texas Democratic candidate, would not be aired on over-the-air broadcast, instead would be shown on YouTube.

Kimmel explained the decision came out of concerns that a politically motivated FCC has continually threatened ABC station licenses. I’m going to jump in here. Censorship. Not cool. We need to speak about these things.

The statement, out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense, My interview with James Tallarico will not air on television. It will be posted on YouTube instead. It will not be on TV. So what he is saying is we are afraid to let political candidates speak. Not good.

In February, Stephen Colbert was told that he couldn’t run his interview with Tallarico. At that time, CBS lawyers had barred Colbert from airing the interview in a preemptive bout of FCC pressure over the agency’s push to apply its equal time rule. Quoting Jimmy Kimmel, I’ll be interviewing James Tallarico under unusual circumstances. You know, for a lot of years, for the whole 20 plus years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all. Just like Letterman did, Leno did, Arsenio, etc.

Etc. I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself. I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015. And at that time, when he was the one sitting next to me, he seemed to have no problem with the idea of talk show hosts interviewing candidates. In fact, he was very eager to come back for another interview, which he did just before he became the nominee in 2016.

But for some reason, and I can’t seem to figure out what the reason is, something has changed now that he’s president. His FCC threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations. Based on simple traditional editorial decisions, guest bookings, it would seem they don’t like. Jimmy then added, make sure you’re registered to vote because that’s the most important thing you can do.

Meanwhile, over at the Tonight Show, NBC has scheduled four special Sunday ed…

Those will follow Sunday Night Football. The first is September 27th after the Rams vs. Broncos. Guests include Sylvester Stallone and Luke Bryan. That’s a pretty good guess.

Now, I’m not going to be up that late on a Sunday night, but sure, why not? Then three more, November 8th after Bucks-Bears, November 15th after Steelers-Bengals, and January 10th after the NFL’s final regular season game. We won’t know that matchup until the final week. Chris Rock seems pretty grounded. This is more from that Variety cover story from last week.

Rock said, I’ve been lucky. I’ve made some money. I’m not swimming in it. I’m not on jets all the time. I don’t own a boat.

But I always tell people, your monthly nut, that’s your religion. You think you’re Catholic? How much are your bills? Because if you can keep your monthly low enough, you can say no to things. I don’t own a car.

Yeah, I have a place in New York and L.A. But I don’t even have a doorman. I live on a normal block in both places. You can ring my bell. It doesn’t say rock on the bell, but you can ring my bell.

And I do this purposely so I don’t have to do things I don’t want to do. There’s meetings I don’t want to have to take because I keep my expenses down. He explains the problem with most people in Hollywood. They’re spending if-come instead of income. If-come will ruin your life.

More from the grounded Chris Rock. You have your career and you have your life. And they intertwine from time to time. Not everybody makes it. Some people are just dead who you loved.

And there’s people who didn’t make smart decisions who now don’t get to express themselves, which is really not cool. Everybody doesn’t get to make the movie they wrote, so I don’t take it for granted. And I always say the worst thing that can happen to an artist is not that you’re washed up. The worst thing that can happen is you’re not washed up and no one wants to hear you. That you’re actually still good and you’ve worn out your welcome.

I’ve seen it happen to other people where, and I’m not going to say who, things just got so complicated. Look out, Eugene. That’s a website and your home for comedy news. They talked about John Mulaney stopping by a bookstore. Seth is a bookseller at J.

Michael’s Books, and earlier this year he helped pick out a stack of eight books for John Mulaney. Seth said, Mulaney didn’t receive that degree of attention because he was John Mulaney. Celebrity or not, he was one of the best readers I’ve met in this bookstore. In terms of interest and curiosity and desire, he was an extraordinary customer, and he clearly had read a lot and was really, really sharp. Mulaney documented his reviews on Instagram with the hashtag MulaneyReads.

One of the books, Ethan Rutherford’s North Sun, was one of the books Seth selected for John Mulaney. The author then gave credit to Mulaney for a pop in sales. He said it would have happened if he hadn’t walked into your shop and somewhere there hadn’t taken the time to recommend it to him and put it in his hand. If someone in the shop hadn’t enjoyed the book enough to recommend it in the first place, it makes me so happy to think about it and it’s deeply meaningful. More so than whatever strange wave of the algorithm poured over the book.

On Gossip Corner from WOKQ, they tell us about a month after Adam Saylor, the great dramatic actor, was spotted grabbing ice cream from Sawyers on the Pier, another famous New Hampshire face popped up in the Granite State. Who was it? It was Seth Meyers, part of his seven-week vacation, I guess, from late night with Seth Meyers. Make 1230 great again. Please give the show to somebody like Chris Fleming.

Perhaps Gianmarco Ceresi would be a good host at 1230 as well, because Seth Meyers isn’t, let’s just face it. Nice guy, but, you know, Letterman, Conan, Seth. And I know Jimmy Fallon was in there for five minutes, too. But no, no, no, no. We need somebody.

Make 1230 great again. That’s all I’m saying. Anyway, so apparently Sandler has been hanging out in New Hampshire and Seth Meyers. And I think for the unfunny comedy rule of three, Marcelo Hernandez should go up there and just walk around doing his what is the character? I can’t even think of the you know, the one thing he does well, that thing.

He can just do that anyway. Why was Seth Meyers there? What was he doing? He popped into Wicked Joyful, a collectible shop in Manchester at the end of August. Wicked Joyful shared a Facebook post showing Seth Meyers visiting.

Apparently, Seth Meyers got a toy, a Joe Montana figure. Go Niners. All right, maybe I do. Maybe Seth Meyers is really awesome because I’m also a Joe Montana fan. I’ve got somewhere here in the studio.

It’s kind of buried right now behind all my various equipment, but I’ve got a little Joe Montana statue. Maybe Seth and I could be friends. Russell Peters told MetroTimes.com he doesn’t need comedy right now because the world’s funny. He needs it because the world is messed up. He says, for me, it’s necessity.

People seem to think as messed up as the world is right now. For some people think artists are immune to that. For the most part, I’m an empath. So I feel everything. And when everything else is effed up and I’m feeling effed up, too, I got to get it off my chest.

If you go see him, he won’t be that political. But he said, I may have some points in there. But the bottom line is, I just want you to laugh and forget about all that for one minute. Russell, do you think humor can make people less prejudiced? He said, I don’t think it makes them less.

I think it makes them go, oh, wait a minute. We’re laughing at the same thing right now. How the F do we have something in common? And it makes them stop for a second because their biggest fear is having something in common. Or maybe their fear is they don’t have anything in common.

They come to that realization. Well, no, we found a middle ground here. Let’s work from there. Is it going to work for everybody? No, but it’ll have an effect on someone somewhere.

Russell’s been at this for 30 years now. He said life was very different 30 years ago. Was it better? It was simpler, that’s for sure, but does simple mean better? We’re literally opened up to the world, so we’re taking opinions from everybody that shouldn’t have an opinion on your own situation.

We need more critical thinkers. People are looking to be led now. People aren’t leading anymore. I can see when I’ll do a joke. I look at the people’s reactions.

They look for somebody else to laugh, and then they laugh. They negate their own instincts. My job in my head is to make you make a peep, not me. I’m going to do whatever I can to make you make the sound, and you look guilty when I’m really the guilty party here. And that is your comedy news for today.

Have a great day.

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Featured: Wanda Sykes, Aziz Ansari, Margaret Cho, Elaine Boosler, Reggie Watts, Freddie Prinze, Russell Peters, Amy Schumer, Phyllis Diller, Bernie Mac, Gary Shandling, Roseanne Barr, Sam Kinison, Tig Notaro, Patton Oswalt, Janine Garofalo, Patrice O’Neill, Sarah Silverman, Woody Allen, Dick Gregory, Robert Klein, Redd Foxx, Rodney Dangerfield, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor

What’s in This Episode

• Rolling Stone’s 2017 list of 50 best stand-up comics evaluated nearly 10 years later in 2026
• Controversial inclusion of Aziz Ansari in top 50 comedians of all time
• Reggie Watts’ inclusion on list amid recent cancellation
• Gary Shandling’s legacy and underrated career impact
• Tig Notaro and Patton Oswalt’s Star Trek involvement criticism
• Eddie Murphy’s Richard Pryor influence debate
• Dated assessment of Amy Schumer and Roseanne Barr’s legacies

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

A little different today. I’m doing this one on the fly. So recently I was recording an episode and I referenced Rolling Stone’s 50 Best Stand-Up Comics of All Time, which was published February 14th, 2017. And I haven’t looked at this. I’m doing this cold.

I just thought it’d be interesting together to go through this list and see how we feel about it. Nearly 10 years later. I don’t know how this episode is going to go. We’re doing this on the fly here. Back in 2017, Rolling Stone said, and coming up with our version of a comic canon, we weighed artistic merit, technical proficiency, and sense of timing, quality of their written material, their delivery, and degree of influence, and often their sense of what makes something anything funny.

No disrespect to the foundational figures who shaped the earliest incarnations, but this list tiptoes past some of the early craftsmen, and focuses on the unique voices who have helped push stand-up forward in more recent days. These 50 stand-ups best embody what we’ve come to expect of our modern-day comedians. Okay, so that’s fair. So that eliminates, you know, do we have to talk about Mark Twain or Bob Hope or anybody? So we’re doing modern stand-up.

Now, I don’t know where Rolling Stone considers the line. It’s usually around Lenny Bruce or very early George Carlin is where that line is drawn. At number 50.. They have Wanda Sykes. Now I have to see some more names, but initially I’m looking at this and going, Wanda Sykes is in the top 50.

Now we’re just starting. I don’t know who’s not on this list, but already 10 years later, I’m like, Wanda Sykes? 49. Aziz Ansari. How do you feel about that 10 years later? That’s crazy talk, isn’t it?

Again, I don’t know who’s on the list or not on the list yet, but Aziz is crazy to have him as one of the top standups of all time. That’s nutty. 48. Margaret Cho. 47. Elaine Boosler. Now she has become forgotten.

Rolling Stone wrote, imagine the prototypical female comic of the 1980s. Big hair, suit jacket with shoulder pads. I like the shoulder pads. And sleeves rolled up. The brick wall behind her.

You’re imagining Elaine Boosler. At a time in which women comedians were not talking about sex, Boosler addressed it head on. 46, Reggie Watts. I mean, really? Reggie Watts? One of the top 50 stand-ups of all time?

Nine years ago? Are you insane? Plus, he’s a little canceled right now. Crazy, crazy, crazy. 45, Freddie Prinze. He’s forgotten.

Do you even know who this is, younger listener? The reason you might not is because the charming, mustached kid had nothing but potential, but he got caught up in 70s drug culture and had problems dealing with a dizzying rise to fame after sitcom Chico and the Man took off. Freddie died by suicide at age 22. He only had one album called Looking Good and one early HBO special. But yeah, he was huge for five minutes there.

Number 44, Russell Peters. Top 50. 43, Amy Schumer. I wonder where she’d fall on a list in 2026. 42, Phyllis Diller. Somebody you don’t hear much about right now. 41, Bernie Mac. 40, Gary Shandling. I should throw him in the deep dives as well.

He’s become forgotten. I’ve got to add to my list here for the deep dives. Hold on. I’m going to hit pause on the recording and leave myself a note. Note has been left.

I forgot how much I liked Gary Shaling. I feel like Gary Shaling has gotten summarized as just a guy that hosted Larry Sanders, or maybe you remember he was one of the two permanent guest hosts of The Tonight Show. He was in rotation with Jay Leno there. There’s definitely an alternate universe where Gary Shaling got 1130. Rolling Stone in 2017 wrote, watch any of Gary Shandling’s specials.

They recommend Alone in Vegas and you’ll see a charming neurotic burying Una’s looks in his failure with women in an attempt to let the audience breathe easily. He told GQ in 2010, what I want to happen is that I talk for an hour and the audience doesn’t realize it’s funny until they’re driving home. Number 39, Moms Mabley. I am ignorant about Moms Mabley’s career, so I will not comment on whether that is a good pick or not. 38, Roseanne Barr. Times change over a decade, don’t they? 37, Sam Kinison.

Sam was a shooting star, man. When he was hot, he was hot, but I’m not sure he lasted long enough. 37 probably feels about right to me. Rolling Stone wrote, It’s being a little kind, actually. He would occasionally acknowledge why he never groused about the evils of men. Because a man never broke my heart.

A man never made me want to drive my car into an effing wall. 36. Daniel Kitson, who I’m ignorant about. Fusing stand-up and theater into carefully structured solo ventures, this British comic scrutinizes bits of his biography while contemplating bigger issues, the nature of time, memory, and individual perception. I don’t know anything about Daniel, so I can’t judge. 35. Do you hear the reaction?

Okay, in 2017, somebody at Rolling Stone.. Thought of the top 50 comedians of all time. That Tig Notaro was number 35. Star Trek ruiner Tig Notaro. No, no, no, no, no. 34.

Another Star Trek ruiner, Patton Oswalt. All these comedians went on to ruin Star Trek. 33. Wow. Here’s a name. Janine Garofalo?

When’s the last time you thought about stand-up comedian Janine Garofalo? 32. Patrice O’Neill I have shared on this podcast. I did not enjoy The Man’s Company. He loved to F with people, and when I’m working, I just try and be professional, so be professional back, dude. The comedians love Patrice O’Neill.

I did not enjoy the man, so I am biased here. He’s number 32. 31. Sarah Silverman. Almost top 30 of all time. I mean, Sarah’s nice and all, but I mean, you know what?

The more I think about it, her last two specials have been great, and I’ve had them above my top of the year. All right, maybe I got to reevaluate Sarah Silverman. Maybe that’s not crazy. 30, Woody Allen. And when I said Woody Allen, you kind of went, ugh. Yeah, so it’s hard to judge Woody Allen’s career.

I wonder if Mr. Cosby’s on this list. So let’s just move on. 29, Dick Gregory. I’m under-familiar with Dick Gregory. Rolling Stone told us since breaking out while working at the Playboy Club back in the day, Dick Gregory has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights in his comedy and in life.

He was jailed at Selma, shot during the Watts riots of 1965, ran for president in 68, and always, always brought the struggle to the stage. Confronted by a southern waitress who told him, we don’t serve colored people here. He said, I don’t need colored people nowhere. Bring me a whole fried chicken. That is funny.

Dick Gregory, number 29. 28, Robert Klein, another one of those pioneers of 70s comedy whose name you don’t hear, but gotta respect the work. Do you like observation on autobiographical stand-up, asks Rolling Stone. You have Robert Klein to thank. When he recorded his first special for HBO in 1975, the very first stand-up concert the premium cable channel ever aired, He enjoyed his linguistic freedoms and said it’s subscription and then dropped an S word. But Johnny Mac likes to keep it clean.

Rolling Stone correctly says Robert Klein’s rhythm would highly influence comics like Jerry Seinfeld. Highly influenced. Doing a lot of work in that sentence. Red Fox at number 27. If you’ve never listened to Red Fox comedy, it is a wonderful wordplay.

And we’ll take the break into number 26, Rodney Dangerfield. We’ll come back. We’ll look at the top 25 of Rolling Stone’s top 50 best stand-up comics of all time from 2017. We continue. It’s Rolling Stone’s 50 best stand-up comics of all time as written in 2017.

At number 25, Eddie Murphy. If you’re old like me, you loved Eddie Murphy until you got a little older and realized it was all just a Richard Pryor cover act. It was still funny. It’s still great. But it’s a Richard Pryor cover act.

Rolling Stone writes, in his magic moment, Eddie Murphy saw stand-up comedy transform into rock star art. The SNL breakout star strutted, preened, and doused the audience in sex like Let It Bleed-era Mick Jagger. That is a good comparison. Listen to the crowds in the films Raw and Delirious. They’re not at a comedy show, they’re getting lit at a party in which pants might be optional.

Some of Murphy’s Act from those days hasn’t aged well, but certain bits like the one about the ice cream man will remain evergreen. Yeah, you listen to some of that stuff and it’s like, oh, times have changed. Number 24, Eddie Izzard. 23, Don Rickles. 22, Jonathan Winters. I never got or enjoyed a Jonathan Winters. I feel like that picks too high. 21, Bob Newhart.

Number 20. Okay. Now, I’m going to say a name. If you’re a long-time listener, you know I love this person. A decade has gone by, and I feel like this is way too high because the body of work just isn’t there.

But you know that I love. Number 20, Mitch Hedberg. They write jokes like, when I was a boy, I laid in my twin-size bed and wondered where my brother was. Or, Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read. Only gave you a sense of Hedberg’s wonderful efficiency.

He also paid a high degree of attention to syntax. And while some of his jokes bordered on dad material, he’s a hippopotamus, just a really cool potamus. But it was all just a way for him to show his audience that they should be looking through the groovy, rose-colored lenses he had on, seemingly all the time. His hit-to-miss ratio was off the charts. He was great, but there’s just not the body of work there that the others have.

Number 19, Albert Brooks. Rolling Stone wrote in 2017, back when he was a stand-up, Albert Brooks was as interested in how comedy works as whether it worked. His record Comedy Minus One was just half a routine with lots of dead air for you, the listener, to perform the other half with the lines printed in and an insert provided. That’s insane. 18, Kevin Hart. And they were saying this 10 years ago.

Interesting pick. 17, Bill Burr. I would guess over the past decade, Bill Burr would move up on such a list. Sixteen, Billy Connolly. Fifteen, Stephen Wright. Fourteen, Andy Kaufman.

That’s an interesting pick. They wrote, even if Andy Kaufman hadn’t wrestled women for the Intergender Wrestling Championship, hadn’t created abusive, overly hacky, alter ego Tony Clifton, and hadn’t took his entire audience at Carnegie Hall out for milk and cookies, he would still be a legend. An audience-baiting bit of performance art Hoffman’s career was the country’s first major introduction with what’s sometimes called anti-comedy. 13. Bill Hicks. I’m sure Dennis Leary would agree.

You don’t hear much about Bill Hicks these days. 12. Robin Williams. Some people have accused Robin Williams of being a comedy thief, but the man knew how to perform. 11. Steve Martin. Now, this is one of those interesting things of, you know, you hang around long enough and people forget, but Steve Martin was a rock star comedian in the 70s.

You listen to the material now, and you’re like, what? But back in the day, okay. Ten, Mort Sahl. Okay, Rolling Stone is being artsy here. They said, when Mort Sahl was playing the hungry eye in San Francisco during the 60s, he brought a new informality to weighty issues.

Casually clad in red cordigan and button-down shirt, a newspaper folded under his arm, he riffed on politics in a way no one had heard before. All right. And into the top nine, I guess. We’re already into the top ten. Back in 2017, Rolling Stone has, at number nine, Dave Chappelle.

I think Dave might rank higher these days if we were to redo the list, and that is high praise. Eight, Bill Cosby. Again, Rolling Stone wrote, his legacy is beyond tarnished now, but without Bill Cosby, there would be no Richard Pryor, no Dave Chappelle, no Louis C.K. As a comic and storyteller, he advanced the art of stand-up by leaps and bounds. If we just judge the work, absolutely.

If we judge the man, it’s a lot more complicated, but here we are judging the work. Someday Bill Cosby will pass away, and I will tell you a story. Number seven, Jerry Seinfeld. Now, a decade later, would Jerry have moved up or down? Probably slightly moved up.

I feel like Jerry’s just more and more revered as time goes on. And I think 10 years later, he would absolutely move ahead of number six, Joan Rivers, who is starting to become a little forgotten. Five, Chris Rock. In 2017, they had Chris Rock ahead of Jerry Seinfeld. Would you rank them that way these days?

I don’t think so. There was a time, probably 15 years ago, at the Las Vegas Comedy Special, I saw Rock and Seinfeld on back-to-back nights at Caesars in Las Vegas, I think. And that was the order. Rock, and then the next night, Jerry. I walked out of Chris Rock going, wow, that’s stand-up comedy at the top.

And then I saw Jerry the next night, and Jerry was even better. So I would have to flip the ranking there. I am not dissing Chris Rock, but I would move Jerry up. Four. Louis C.K.

It’s 2017. When was C.K. Canceled? John, you host the show. You tell us.

OK, the infamous New York Times, Louis C.K. Is accused by five women of sexual misconduct. Article came out November 9th, 2017. And this article came out February 14th, 2017. OK, so about eight months or so.

You do the math. I didn’t do it. They had Louis C.K. As the fourth greatest all-time stand-up comedian. Now, we haven’t said Pryor, we haven’t said Carlin, we haven’t said whoever they have at number three that I’m obviously forgetting.

But back then, when he was number four, Rolling Stone wrote, the tall redhead had been working comedy clubs across the country for decades, making his bones along with countless other stand-ups. But somewhere around the time, he called his four-year-old an a-hole and imagined his wife giving him a favor, the saddest favor in America. The next level artist we now know as Louis C.K. Was reborn with a vengeance, starting with his 2007 special Shameless. He turned a guy slinging penis jokes and absurdist one-liners into a guy slinging penis jokes and rigorously honest stories about his life and those closest to him.

Since then, CK has challenged himself to deliver on an unprecedented scale. The self-deprecating social critic has crafted many hours of new material, one almost every year, and let the material go after recording it. In these specials, he not only mapped the mind of a lazy, horny, gluttonous dude who happens to be a dad, but a culture of entitlement, which everything is amazing and nobody’s happy. This is what a comic genius looks like, wrote Rolling Stone eight months before Louis C.K. Was canceled.

Number three, Lenny Bruce, which leaves the big two. And on any list, you can flip the order around. Depends on your personal preference. My personal preference is the opposite of how Rolling Stone had it. George Carlin at number two.

And Richard Pryor, obviously, I didn’t even have to look. Would be number one on the list. They wrote, at his Acme, which was caught on tape and specials, including live in concert and live on the Sunset Strip, Pryor was untouchable. Won’t argue with them. It’s a personal preference once you get that far.

And that is a look back at Rolling Stone’s 50 best stand-up comics of all time from 2017. Now, just off the top of my mind, if we made this list today, I didn’t say words like Mulaney would probably be pretty far up these days. Bregazzi right? Not even on the radar 10 years ago. We had a list with Wanda Sykes on it, but no Nate Bregazzi 10 years ago.

Would you have Sebastian Maniscalco on a list? I’m not doing research. I’m just going off the top of my head. Is Nikki Glaser on a list of these days? Jim Gaffigan, not on the top 50 on a list that had Wanda Sykes and Margaret Cho and whoever else I didn’t like at the bottom of the list.

No Jim Gaffigan. Now, Jim won’t call you back, but he should be on the list ahead of Aziz Ansari. He won’t call you back either, right? Yeah. So these things change.

And if we make a current list, I’m sure it would be a lot different. And I’m sure you’re screaming in your phone right now going, John, you totally forgot about so-and-so. Again, I’m just doing this off the top of my head. Anyway, a fun little diversion. And that is your comedy news for today.

I’ll catch you tomorrow.

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Featured: Jerry Seinfeld, Rodney Dangerfield, Johnny Carson, Don Rickles, Shecky Green, Buddy Hackett, Ed Sullivan, Dean Martin, Merv Griffin

What’s in This Episode

• Rodney Dangerfield’s joke construction and comedic technique
• The structure of perfect jokes in stand-up comedy
• Rodney Dangerfield’s early life and career path
• The ‘no respect’ premise as comedic innovation
• Rodney Dangerfield’s Ed Sullivan Show debut in 1967
• Dangerfields comedy club opening on Upper East Side New York

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. Hi, I’m Johnny Mac, and on Saturdays I’ve been doing these deep dives into one particular comedian. Today, let’s take a look at Rodney Dangerfield. Jerry Seinfeld was asked a question. If you had to put one joke on a recording to represent comedy to aliens, what would the joke be?

Seinfeld did not hesitate. He picked a Rodney Dangerfield joke, specifically this one. I was making love with my wife, and she had a faraway look in her eyes, and I said, darling, is there someone else? And she said, there must be. Seinfeld said, that’s as perfect a joke as I can imagine.

Not picking his own material, he picked Rodney Dangerfield to represent the entire form to an alien civilization. Rodney spent most of his adult life trying to solve a specific technical problem. How do you construct a joke that works every single time, that has no loose parts, and can’t be made funnier by changing anything about it? Ronnie got closer to solving that problem than almost anyone who has ever held a microphone. The self-deprecation, the no-respect thing, the loosened tie, the bug-eyed delivery.

Those are surface features. Underneath them is something that serious comedy people have been trying to articulate for years. The jokes work at a structural level that most jokes don’t reach. This is one place they treat you right, you know? Although before the show, one guy gave me a hard time.

He kept looking at me, he looked at me, he said, what do I know you from, you know? I said, you ever watch The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson? He said, yeah, you too? I meet the wrong people. That’s my trouble.

Like last week, I met the Surgeon General. He offered me a cigarette. I’m going to lose some weight. That weight is a rough one. Every day is a battle with weight.

Last week, I went nuts. I tried the rice diet. Between meals, kept folding my shirts. Ronnie Dangerfield was born as Jacob Cohen in 1921 in Babylon, Long Island. His father..

Was a vaudeville comedian who was essentially never home. Dad performed, traveled, absent in the way that show business fathers of that era were often absent, which is to say thoroughly and without apology. According to Rodney, mom was unstable and the childhood was hard in a specific way that produces either damage or comedy or both. He was writing jokes as a teenager, understanding instinctively that language arranged in a specific way could produce a specific effect in other people. He changed his name to Jack Roy and worked at Catskills in the late 30s and 40s.

The borscht belt taught him that audiences are demanding and the competition was real and you figured out quickly what worked and what didn’t or you went home and did something else. He was doing that, grinding, then he stopped. He got married in the early 1950s, had two kids, sold paint and aluminum siding. He hung out at Hanson’s Drugstore, a 24-hour diner in Midtown Manhattan. You know who else hung out there?

Don Rickles, Shecky Green, Buddy Hackett. He was part of the world and not quite in it. He was selling siding during the day, sitting at the counter at Hanson’s at 2 in the morning, carrying around the jokes he wasn’t performing anymore. He eventually went back. He couldn’t explain.

He told a reporter it wasn’t about success. He was depressed. He was seeing an analyst and suddenly had a tremendous urge to go out on the floor and perform. He changed his name again, Rodney Dangerfield, suggested by a club owner and started building his act around the thing that had already been in the material. He doesn’t get any respect.

I guess it’s the same old story, you know. I don’t get no respect. I mean, in my whole life, I don’t get no respect at all. I found out when I was born. They bought me a baby carriage with no brakes.

And today it’s the same thing of my kids, no respect. I remember one day my kid came home from school, my boy was depressed. I said to him, why are you depressed? He told me that day he learned a new saying, like father, like son. Now I tell you, I can’t take it no more.

Well, the other day I said to my little daughter, I says, when you grow up, what do you want to be? She looked at my wife. She said, single. The no respect premise solved a specific problem, which was the problem of setup. Every joke needs a context that makes the punchline land, and the challenge is building the context efficiently so that the audience doesn’t get bored before you get to the punchline.

Rodney’s solution was to make the context permanent, establish it once at the beginning of the act that his entire world is a place where he receives no respect from anyone, and fire jokes one after another in rapid succession, each one landing faster because the setup’s already there. Here’s one. I was an ugly kid. I worked in a pet store. People kept asking how big I get.

Three sentences. The first establishes the condition. He’s ugly. The second delivers the misdirection. Pet store.

The third lands the punchline on the implied comparison to an animal. Three sentences producing one complete comic observation. No wasted motion. No filler. There’s nothing you can take out there.

In 1980, in the Chicago Tribune, Larry Cart.. Described Rodney Dangerfield as one of the last comedians in America who’s serious about jokes. Stand-up was moving towards storytelling and performance and personal revelation. Rodney didn’t tell jokes the way a storyteller tells a story. He fired them one after another with barely enough air between them for the laugh to complete before the next one arrived.

The rhythm is a choice. It has a specific effect that the audience has kept slightly off balance. Slightly ahead of themselves and constantly arriving in a laugh just as the next setup is already beginning. It keeps the audience working. It keeps them paying attention.

By the end of a Rodney Dangerfield set, you felt like you’d been through something. Even though what you’ve been through is basically a man telling you about his terrible life. The national audience first encountered Rodney Dangerfield on Ed Sullivan in 1967. There you got not just a large audience, but a specific kind of legitimization. Ed Sullivan liked comedians who were clean enough for the family audience and good enough to stop people from changing the channel.

Rodney fit both requirements. I was a little late getting over here tonight. I took the wife and kids out for a ride and I got lost over in Jersey, you know. I’ll tell you the way some people give you directions, you can’t help but get lost. They always tell me the same thing.

Let’s go straight ahead. You can’t miss it. Just keep going straight ahead. I mean, as soon as I. Pull away, I come to a fork in the road.

I’ll tell you, I had a guy last week. He gave me religious directions. Hey, you ever get these guys? He says, you go down here to St. Anne’s Church, make your right.

You keep going past St. Mary’s, past St. Catherine’s. You’ll pass Holy Trinity. You come to Our Lady of Mercy.

I’ll tell you, after those directions, I don’t even thank the guy. I looked at him. I said, I bless you. Lately, with my car, I got a new problem. My wife just got her license to drive.

And I’ll tell you, since my wife is driving, she now has two men in her life. Me and a body and fender man. I was out driving my wife the other day. She told me she was going to make a U-turn. I’ll tell you the letter she made.

You’ll never find any alphabet. That led to a run of talk shows. Johnny Carson. Would give Rodney the visible laugh that Carson gave to the comedians he actually found funny rather than the polite laugh that he gave some other people. Rodney did Dean Martin’s show, Merv Griffin.

There was the comedy club on the Upper East Side of New York City. I think I went there after my prom, if I recall correctly. That one was called Dangerfields. Dangerfields was open from 1969 to 2000. Rodney opened a comedy club because he understood what a comedy club needed to be and wanted to build a version that didn’t yet exist and kept it open for three decades.

Even as the comedy landscape shifted around him. Some of the people who came through Dangerfields in those years include Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, Sam Kinison, Bob Saget, Tim Allen. Rodney didn’t just give them stage time, he went to the mat for them. He produced a series of HBO Young Comedians specials that gave young stand-ups national TV exposure before they had any other way to get it. Here’s a guy you’re going to hear an awful lot about, okay?

He smokes in bed, face down. But I’ll tell you, in this thing called showbiz, he’s one of the guys who’s coming up real fast. He’s really great. Jerry Seinfeld. All right, here we go.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, this is it, huh? This is your night.

You’re out. You’re making it happen. New York City, this is where I’m from. And to me, the most amazing thing about when you go out in this city, you know, you go to a show like this and you’re with your friends and you talk and maybe you have a good time, maybe you don’t. The most amazing thing that happens to you on a night like this is the ride that you have in the cab.

You know, isn’t it incredible the chances that these guys take with your life and that you’re so calm in the backseat, you know, because they got that glass partition and you’re just watching them. It’s like it’s happening on television, you know. You know, he’s flying around the road and you’re going, boy, that looked dangerous. Here’s a guy who’s rather unusual. And I love people who are different, you know?

When I say rather unusual, you know what I mean when you meet him, okay? We all love him here. Let’s have a nice, warm reception for Sam Kinnison, okay? Here you are, Sammy. Hi, baby.

Here you are. Baby, I love you. I love you. Well, I’m sorry I’m late. I was supposed to be here a little earlier, but I spent the last two hours at a 7-Eleven going, Marburg!

Cigarettes! Smokey, smokey! He’s a guy who’s very funny, but he’s lonely. He needs acceptance. Make him happy, won’t you?

Bob Saget, how about it? All right, Bobby, here you are now. Guys, you’re a wonderful audience. You really are. I’m not just kissing up.

I’m really not. I swear, I’m slobbering all over you is what I’m doing because I need you to like me real bad because I have no act and I have no life and I have no future. I’m serious, man. Mom is Gumby, my dad is Pokey, and I’m Mr. Potato Head, so..

I’ll talk real fast. If you have any drugs, take them now. I’m serious. I’m not funny, but I am quick. That’s the problem I have with women, too.

But it’s good to be here. It really is. You’re a great crowd. I’m not just kissing up again. It’s the second time I’ve done that.

I just want to take a jacuzzi with you and throw in a toaster. Here’s a guy I saw five years ago in Minneapolis. He was working with a comedy club there. And I said to myself, here’s a guy you’ve got to watch. In fact, you can’t miss him, okay?

Give him a big round of applause. Louie Anderson. Okay, Louie. How you doing? Listen, I can’t stay long.

I’m in between meals, so bear with me a minute. Let me move that so you can see me. Yeah, I live out in California where there are only three fat people. They have us on eight-hour shifts, so it works out. Then there are the movies. 1980, Caddyshack.

They originally wanted Don Rickles for the role of the loudmouth nouveau riche, a real estate developer whose arrival at the country club sets everything in motion. Don Rickles wasn’t available. Rodney Dangerfield got the role. What he did with it, the improvised energy, the vulgarity of money flaunting, the way Rodney’s delivery made every line land faster than it should have, turned a supporting character into the thing people remember most about the film. Technically, Caddyshack has a Bill Murray movie.

Rodney Dangerfield is why it holds up. Then the stuff people knock Rodney for, the rest of the movie career. I don’t, but people do. Easy money in 1983, back to school in 1986. The money that came from the film career after Caddyshack was a lot.

And was mainstream recognition that talk show appearances and comedy clubs didn’t really produce in the same way. Remember that guy Larry Cart from the Chicago Tribune who said nice things about Rodney in 1980? In 1986, Cart reviewed a show in Chicago and said, Gone were the perfect little perfections of rhythm, sound, and nonsense that burst into laughter even when you knew it was coming. The craft was still there, but the urgency was different. The man who had spent years constructing jokes as perfect objects because the joke was the only thing he had was now a man who had movies and a club and mainstream fame, and the desperation that had sharpened the material into something almost crystalline was no longer quite the same desperation.

The history of comedy is full of performers whose best work came from a combination of talent and necessity, and their work changed when the necessity changed. We’ve seen a lot of comedians over the years that get a little rich, and it’s just not the same anymore. With Rodney, it’s not that the jokes got worse, the construction was still there, the no-respect premise was still doing the work, but something had shifted. The last week I saw my psychiatrist, I told him, Doc, my wife comes home so late. Well, last night she came home, must have been 3, 4 o’clock in the morning.

He said it was 2.30. Well, last week was a rough week. I sat my kid down, I told him all about the birds and the bees. He told me about my wife and the butcher. I’ll tell you, my wife never went for me, you know.

That’s not how I told her, honey, you know what I say, that sex makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. She told me, consider myself sick, poor, and stupid. Rodney passed away in October of 2004, age 82, after complications from heart surgery. I feel like over time, his legacy has held, and he does get respect. That’s your comedy news for today.

I will see you tomorrow.

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Featured: Pete Davidson, Chris Rock, John Mulaney, Stav Stathis, Steve Carell, Mel Brooks, Don Adams

What’s in This Episode

• Pete Davidson reflects on 9/11 anniversary 25 years after father’s death as a new father
• John Mulaney rumored to star in Get Smart reboot
• Chris Rock Variety cover story on new direction as writer-director
• Chris Rock addresses Oscar hosting future and the slap incident
• Stav Stathis new Netflix special review

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Got a big Mulaney story and a huge Chris Rock article to talk about. But, you know, today is 9-11, so I do want to lead off with a 9-11 story. I did an episode on Sunday about how comedy dealt with 9-11 after the fact, if you want to go back and check that one out. I also wrote a little bit About my own experience in my sub stack link in the show notes.

Today will be a normal episode, but let’s lead off with Pete Davidson, who is reflecting on his first 9-11 as a father. 25 years to the day after his own father, New York City firefighter Scott Matthew Davidson, was killed at the World Trade Center during the attacks. Pete told the New York Post, I thought, oh, he was an old guy. He’s 33, but now Pete’s 33 and I have a kid. And that would be like my kid not having her dad. So this year is extra tough, but also extra beautiful because I get to spend the day with Scotty.

That’s his daughter. It’ll be very healing and special. It was also very cool that Elsie wanted to name her Scotty. My dad’s name was Scott, but his nickname was Scotty. When she arrived, we both looked at her and we’re like, she looks like a Scotty.

It’s nice to keep that name alive. Pete says he’s looking forward to telling his daughter about dad. Pete said, I have old videos and pictures and stuff, and I’m excited to share the classic stories I have of him with her. Scott Davidson was dispatched to the World Trade Center after the second plane hit the South Tower. In 2023, Pete was on the Real Ones podcast and said he found out his father had died from TV.

Pete told the story, I had no idea. His mother had told him he was grounded and not allowed to watch TV. Pete said, I was like, what? I didn’t do anything.

And then one night I turned on the TV and I saw my dad on TV and they’re like…

He said it was weird because they didn’t know that he was dead for like three weeks. Pete reminds us they were finding people, you know, they were pulling people out and there was just some sort of hope. And it was just up and down and nobody knew how to deal with it. Again, I got into that on Sunday. It’s a tough day, especially if you were in New York City that day like I was.

So let’s just awkwardly move on and talk about John Mulaney, who might star in a reboot of Get Smart. Not the worst idea ever. You may recall Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry and ran for 138 episodes from 1965 to 70. The first four seasons of the James Bond-type spoof aired on NBC. The final season was shown on CBS.

Don Adams starred as Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, opposite Barbara Felden’s Agent 99, and Edward Platt, who played the Chief. They worked for a secret U.S. Government counterintelligence agency called Control, which was in a constant battle with evil chaos. While smart always has the upper hand, he was often incompetent. There was a 1980 feature film called The Nude Bomb, which was just a terrible name made without Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.

You can kind of tell there was the 1989 made for TV sequel Get Smart Again.

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And then I don’t remember this at all.

There was a 1995 reboot that also starred Don Adams and Felden and Andy Dick that aired on Fox for seven episodes in early 1995. I gotta go find that. I don’t remember that happening at all.

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And then in 2008, there was the film adaptation with Steve Carell as Maxwell …

Anne Hathaway is Agent 99. Alan Arkin is the chief. And Dwayne The Rock Johnson is Agent 23. Not good. Not good.

And Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart is not a terrible idea. So John Mulaney, I don’t know, man. I’m rooting for you. Chris Rock got a big, fancy cover story in Variety. The subheader Chris Rock isn’t exactly who you remember him to be.

He likes to take his time. He asked himself repeatedly, what am I trying to say? I don’t want to say something mean and get canceled. It’s a wide-ranging interview. At one point, they talked about the president of the United States.

Chris Rock was one of the celebrities who predicted Donald Trump would win in 2016. Chris Rock said, I’m not a fan, but it’s weird when somebody gets one thing right and the one thing almost clears them all of their other sins. The news is fake. He got that right. He talked about one of his famous routines.

You know, the one Michael Scott does in the office? I’m not going to do it for you. You know that one. He says when he was working it out, it brought controversy. Variety tells us if you thought the recorded version was uncouth, you should have seen him workshop it on tour.

Chris Rock says in Oakland one night, I remember dying a death. People wanted to fight because I didn’t have it right yet. You got to go over the line to find the line. That’s what people don’t understand. When a comedian gets in trouble for saying something at a club, it’s like, dude, that’s what the club is for.

Chris Rock, now 61, says he doesn’t spend much time at comedy clubs anymore. This is interesting. He said, we’re all different people at different points in our lives, and I think I got everything I could out of the last guy, whoever I was then, meaning the comedian. Now I’m this director guy. Huh.

He is directing Misty Green, which will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. He says, again, I’m a different guy. I’m trying to be anyway. Is he making jokes? He says, we’ll see what happens.

I’m saying I’m a writer-director guy. Then I’ll get an offer for some show on CBS where I’m Mandy Patankin’s neighbor. Hey, I brought back your wrench. Making 80 grand a week. They did ask him about the Oscars.

Would he host again? Great answer here. He says, when people ask those questions, they’re being disrespectful to the people that got the gig. They have great hosts. Conan O’Brien is amazing.

He then added that Nikki Glaser is amazing on the Golden Globes. I feel like the industry is just prepping us for Nikki Glaser stepping up onto some other show. We’ll see what happens there. I’m not going to say never, but my time might have passed, honestly. Would he return to the Oscars for the first time since 2022?

Is it that long ago the slap happened? Rock said, the only way I’ll go back is if I’m nominated. And I’m not getting nominated, and that’s okay. We’ll deal with it if it happens. Like, let’s manage expectations.

As for the slap, he says, you know, to answer the question, I wish nothing would have happened.

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And also, I don’t want to say anything that takes attention away from how goo…

It’s a crazy world. We walk by homeless people. There’s all sorts of stuff going on right now. Me having a bad day. It’s not that important.

Stavros Akias. I watched his special. I really liked it. I should have mentioned this yesterday. I watched it Tuesday night, I guess.

I liked it. Now, I had my laptop out, so I was second screening and just trying to free up drive space on this computer that I record on. It fills up all the time. So I had Stavros on, but I wasn’t staring at it. But I found it nice company.

I effing wish he would effing stop effing cursing effing a little bit. Effing, effing, effing. It’s just unnecessary and it’s jarring, especially in the first 10 minutes. He’s effing cursing like every effing word, dude. But then he kind of found the rhythm or maybe I got used to it.

So at first I found it jarring, but I found it nice company. It’s not great art. It’s not George Carlin. It’s just an hour of a guy telling humor stories. I found a good company.

Definitely worth your time. Stavros in the GQ cover story said the first taste of mainstream success I had probably, I forget the year, maybe 23 or 22. And that year I did a theater tour, shot my first Netflix special. Second special overall. Did an indie movie.

We shot season one of Tires, and I started Stavi’s World that year, and that was all great stuff, but I wasn’t prepared for it. I wasn’t prepared for that workload. I wasn’t prepared to do that many things. I had no guardrails back then, and it was also off the pandemic a little bit. It was like, leave your house and go get messed up.

Do all the fun stuff you haven’t been able to do. It was bad timing. It was like you’re handed everything It was both celebratory and stressful, which is the perfect storm to just completely give in to your vices. I was just like eating crap, getting high, a couple pills mixed in, a little drink. I was never really a drinking guy, just to get through it.

But also, I had a good time doing it.

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And then I was like, damn, it’s kind of hard to breathe right now.

If somebody unplugs this CPAP machine, stuff’s going to go bad in this Courtyard Marriott. So yeah, there were times that I thought for sure it’s kind of like the end of The Witch. It’s like, would you like to live deliciously? I was living deliciously. And you’d die if you do that too much.

Starburst said, I love stand-up, but I feel like it’s a thing I have to trick people into coming because they see me podcasting, acting, they see a clip go viral, whatever. But in general, that’s how the entertainment industry feels now. It’s like you have to quietly work on your art and get better at everything while also being famous because nobody has any infrastructure anymore and everybody expects you to do everything. And so you have to keep getting famous because I want to keep making movies. I want to keep doing stand-up specials.

I want to tour till I die. I love stand-up. To do that, you just kind of have to have fans and be famous. Hmm. I don’t think he’s crazy at all.

Dane Cook has lost some weight. Now, I never thought of Dane Cook as heavy, but when I was looking at the pictures, I was like, all right, he’s not as thin as he was 25 years ago. Who is? Anyway, Dane Cook, now 54 years old, showed off his slimmed-down figure on Instagram, telling fans he’s lost 50 pounds. Can you imagine Dane Cook losing 50 pounds?

I mean, again, I don’t think of him as a big guy at all. Dane wrote on the caption, down over 50 pounds to 195, not since 2009. He showed off chiseled arms and a sleeveless gray shirt. We learned Dane Cook swims daily to burn 500 calories, then does 30 minutes of Pilates, kettlebell work each morning, and ab roller workouts a few nights a week before bed. He described his diet as carnivore adjacent and says he fasts daily until noon when he has a protein shake with collagen.

He also listed NAD plus three days a week. I don’t know what that is. What’s NAD plus? NAD +, is an essential coenzyme found in all living cells that helps turn food into cellular energy and repairs damaged DNA. Okay.

So he does that three times a week, light therapy, and several peptides, which he says he uses mostly for muscle recovery. Oh, and he happens to have a movie coming out. What a weird coincidence. Funny Money, the documentary about his brother, allegedly, is it allegedly? I’m going to say allegedly.

Allegedly stealing some money. That’s out September 18th. The trailer looks pretty good. I’m looking forward to that one. Kathy Griffin, often in the news for controversy, today she’s attaching herself to Dolly Parton.

She says Dolly Parton once sent Kathy Griffin a letter after Griffin asked her to appear on My Life on the D-List. Kathy Griffin says she couldn’t do it because I’m a little outrageous for her fans, but she wrote me the nicest letter saying, I wish I could do it. I watch it all the time. Keep doing your thing. You’re so good at what you do.

I appreciated her honesty. Which was, I love the show, but I live in Pigeon Ford, Tennessee. That’s pretty funny. Now, according to Kathy, Dolly said she’d be like, Hmm. All right, this weekend on this program, on Saturday, the weekly deep dive is about Rodney Dangerfield.

On Sunday, I remember a couple weeks ago, I stumbled across Rolling Stone’s top comedians of all time, the article from 2017. I went in on it, and let’s see how it has aged or not. So that’s Sunday’s episode. Tomorrow is Rodney. It is Friday.

It is time for the Comedy Stock Market. Comedy stock market. Thank you, Burt Reynolds. Uh, this week, I don’t have much for you. I do want to recommend we buy Nimish Patel.

He’s got a special on Netflix on September 22nd. I played the trailer for you the other day. That sounds pretty funny. Uh, you want to buy some more Joe Coy? We could buy low on Joe Coy.

His specials out on Netflix on Tuesday. I don’t know. You want to buy even more Mulaney? I feel like people know about Mulaney and we’ve bought Stavros Alkia is like the last three weeks in a row. Uh, So I don’t really have too many buy recommendations.

No sells again. I’ve been pretty positive, right? We haven’t sold a comedian in a couple weeks. So that’s it. Buy some Nimesh Patel.

That’s your comedy stock market for this week. Saturday Night Live UK is back this weekend. Jeff Goldblum is the host of SNL UK. Musical guest is somebody I’m really into. C-MAT, real name Kira Mary Alice Thompson.

The only reason I know about C-MAT is when I was in Ireland last year, March? Yeah, not this year. St. Patrick’s Day the year before. I kept hearing good music and I’d pull out Shazam and be like, what is this?

And just add it to like an Ireland playlist. And CMAT was on the radio over there. And nobody over here knows who she is, I think. But she’s really good. I like her a lot.

Anyway, if you guys watch SNL UK this weekend, you will see her. Her album Eurocountry was nominated for the Mercury Prize and won Best Album at the Novella Awards in May. SNL UK has added a new cast member. It is actor Freddie Meredith. You may know Freddie from Such Brave Girls and Big Boys.

I don’t, but doesn’t mean he’s not good. He also just did the Edinburgh Fringe. His debut show was called Need a Light, which was nominated for Best Newcomer. He said it was a no-brainer to join SNL UK, calling it the most iconic comedy show. It will undoubtedly inform everything I do for the rest of my career, and I can’t wait for the experience.

I’m not sure SNL UK is iconic, but, you know, good point. Why wouldn’t you jump on that? Morty Gleeson was the winner of Best Newcomer at this year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Morty caught up with the Irish Times. She said she has two middle names, Louise and Elizabeth.

And when I was a kid, I thought my name was Marty Louise Elizabeth. My confirmation name was Valerie. And I picked that just because of the TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I wanted to pick Sabrina, but they were like, you can’t pick a witch name. It was too pagan for them.

So I picked Valerie because that was her best friend’s name on the show. They asked Marty when she last got angry. She said, I don’t generally get angry, to be honest. But I recently got introduced on a stage by a male MC as adorable. I thought that was crazy, but that was probably the last time.

I let things slide until it’s a situation where I should say something. I’m quite chill. If I’m in a rush, I’ll get angry, but just internally angry at myself. Hey, Marty, who would you like to play you in a biopic? She said, it has to be a cartoon.

Maybe like Cartoon Network visuals, like Cow and Chicken. Then I could do the voice. But if I had to pick someone else, it’d be a hybrid of different people. There was a way to putting them in a machine and making it one person. It would be Jack Black and C-MAT.

C-MAT’s all over. In Osaka, the Osaka Comedy Festival, Saturday, October 10th through Monday, October 12th, if you want to go, Columbus Day weekend, why don’t you head on over to Japan. Free street performances will be held at Namba Square throughout the three-day festival. But this is the catch. Why are you telling us about this, John?

We’re not going to Japan. You know that. I know that. You know that. Why are we telling them about this?

They’re doing nonverbal comedy in the square. Osaka has developed a distinctive performing arts culture that includes manzai comedy and rakugo storytelling. Now, what are those? I don’t know, but John, you host the show and probably have Google. Can you tell us, please?

Okay. Manzai is a traditional style of Japanese stand-up comedy performed by a rapid-fire two-person duo standing in front of a single microphone. So the Sklar brothers, but Japanese. Rakugo is a 400-year-old traditional Japanese art of comic storytelling where a lone performer sits on a cushion.. And acts out multi-character conversations using only a fan and a cloth.

Someone tell Chris Fleming. And that’s probably enough for today. Behind the scenes here, there’s a podcast conference next week, so I’m going to have to pre-tape next Friday’s. So let me hold on to a story. What story, John?

What are you bumping? It’s about what comedians eat before shows. That can wait a week. That’s your comedy news for today. Rodney tomorrow, and a look at the best comedians of all time, 2017 version on Sunday.

That one’s a lot of fun. Stuff has not aged well. Here, I’ll lead with one of them. Aziz Ansari? Really?

Aziz Ansari you put on the list? That didn’t age well. All right. See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Jimmy Kimmel, Donald Trump, Bill Carter, Jon Stewart, Nathan Fielder, John Oliver, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Jerry Seinfeld, Pete Davidson

What’s in This Episode

• Jimmy Kimmel’s show potentially ending in May 2027
• South Park renamed to South America for Season 29
• Jon Stewart trolls Trump using Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary
• Comic Relief Live revival at Carnegie Hall October 19th
• Comedians boycott Jerry Seinfeld-headlined Portugal festival over Israel support
• 9/11 comedy benefit at Madison Square Garden with Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

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

Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Big, big day today. A lot of big stories. Plus, the 49ers play tonight. And if it’s your birthday..

I hope everybody in your life makes a big deal out of it. Like if you have a Facebook group, I hope everybody jumps on there and wishes you a happy birthday.

All right, let’s jump in.

Jimmy Kimmel’s summer is over. Everybody’s summer is over. But Jimmy Kimmel’s back. He hosted his 4,000th episode and took shots at the president of the United States. As always, send your letters to Jimmy Kimmel, not me.

Kimmel said, Donald Trump and I have one thing in common. We both accomplished nothing all summer long. He then slammed the president of the United States for 15 minutes. He particularly made fun of the reflecting pool. Now, I was in D.C.

A few times during the summer, and yeah, the reflecting pool is not coming out too well. Kimmel used photos behind him and told viewers when he left in June, the country was a mess. Now, only three months later, I’m pleased to report that thanks to your favorite president, DJ Jazzy Donald, every one of those problems has been solved. We made America great again. So he focused on the pool and said the president had three months, spent $ 20 million, and couldn’t even get a pool cleaned.

I thought he was supposed to drain the swamp. He turned it into gravy instead. Kimmel also talked about the Strait of Hormuz and said on Friday, fuel prices hit an all-time high. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. At this point, Blockbuster Video has a better chance of reopening than the Strait of Hormuz.

But the big story came out of Page Six. Page Six published a report suggesting that Kimmel’s show would end in May after Jimmy’s contract expired. ABC has denied the reports, calling them purely speculative. Bill Carter, he’s written a few books about late night. He knows more about late night than anybody.

Let’s see what he said via Late Nighter. Bill reminds us on February 11th, 1991, the headline in the New York Post read, There Goes Johnny, NBC Looking to Dump Carson. 35 years later, the headline on page six is Jimmy Kimmel’s Late Night Show Set to End in 2027. Amazingly enough, the post is being run by the same guy, Rupert Murdoch, who was 60 when the first story ran and is now 95. Bill Carter reminds us, I did a little reporting about that infamous Carson story 35 years ago from my book, The Late Shift. I found the person who planted the story in the post.

He worked for Helen Kushnick, then the manager of Jay Leno. He related how he and Helen hatched a plan to use the manufactured story in the post in an effort to force NBC’s hand in moving Johnny Carson out so Jay Leno could take over. Carter writes, not one NBC executive had discussed this with Kushnick or her source. It was completely fabricated and it landed like a grenade in NBC’s offices and in Carson’s heart. He was devastated by this public diminishment of his reputation.

Carter says Carson was not mollified by NBC’s response at the time, which was Carson would be the one to decide when to leave. What NBC did not say is that it hoped Carson would stay forever. I think Bill Carter and I are aligned on this next point. Bill writes, Jimmy’s contract expires in May, but he’s hardly at retirement age. He’s my age.

And what else are you going to do? Host a podcast in the basement wearing a 49ers jersey like a loser? No. We’ll see. As I’ve said on this show several times, I could see Kimmel negotiating to work less, perhaps make less and work less.

You know, Seth Meyers is on a seven-week break. The Rosie O’Donnell experiment worked well for a week, so maybe you bring in Rosie to do a couple weeks a year around the holidays, stretch out your summer break. There are solutions here. I don’t think the show’s going anywhere, but what do I know? Jon Stewart also returned from summer vacation.

He hosted on a Tuesday night. He used the trailer for Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything, to troll the president of the United States. I told you about that trailer yesterday. If you haven’t seen it yet, you absolutely have to watch it. Jon started talking about Trump’s assistant, Natalie Harp, and asked, can we even trust her?

Well, decide for yourselves, because tonight here on The Daily Show, we’re premiering exclusive footage. We lived with Natalie Harp and the president for a month to determine what the relationship was really like. He then took clips from the viral You Can See Everything trailer, except had Trump superimposed over Fielder’s face. In the preview, Elizabeth Holmes says, Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that.

We’ve got a lot of late night today. I’ve got this Jerry Seinfeld story that originally was the lead off, but all this other stuff moving ahead of it. John Oliver is going to host the return of Comic Relief Live. Remember that from the 80s? Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams would raise money and comedians would come on.

It was pretty cool back in the day. Well, Comic Relief Live will take place Monday, October 19th at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. So is that right after the New York Comedy Festival? I’m not part of it. That’s interesting.

We know some of the performers. They will include Roy Wood Jr. Josh Johnson, Zorna Garg, and Mary Beth Barone. Comic Relief will also present the 2026 Visionary Award, an honor established to recognize leaders and organizations who use the platform, innovation, and resources to advance systemic change for children and families facing poverty. Tickets go on sale today if you want to go.

South Park has changed its name. I love this one. It’s no longer called South Park. It is now called South America. It is the show’s 29th season, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone have announced, inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to South America.

We especially want to thank our parent company, Paramount, a Skydance capitulation. Season 29 premieres on the 16th at 10 east and west on Comedy Central. And streams on Paramount +, where they have that horrible new Star Trek series that ruins everything, so don’t support that now. Comedians are boycotting a festival headlined by Jerry Seinfeld in a protest against Jerry’s support of Israel. It’s a comedy festival in Portugal, I’ll butcher this, but it’s the Comedia a la Cartfest, something like that.

It was going to be November 1st, Seinfeld was going to be the headliner there. A comedy duo, Cibola Mole, were among the first to withdraw, announcing the boycott on Instagram with a picture of themselves with a slice of watermelon. Which is a symbol of Palestinian resistance. None of the artists who have pulled out have named a jury specifically, but one said Deshi pulled out because one of the performers insistently defends indefensible ideas and actions. We cannot relativize or normalize a genocide.

You may recall that in 2025 at Duke University, Jerry Seinfeld was quoted as saying, Free Palestine is to me, you’re free to say you just don’t like Jews, just say you don’t like Jews. I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say we don’t like blacks, we don’t like Jews. Okay, that’s honest. Another time, an influencer asked Jerry Seinfeld to say Free Palestine, and Jerry said, I don’t care about Palestines. In 2024, students at Duke University jeered Jerry Seinfeld and staged a walkout when he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

Last week, the comedy festival said it regretted to announce the first two acts it pulled out without explaining the reason. Over the weekend, three more artists pulled out of the festival. Tonight in New York City, Madison Square Garden. New York City still rising after 25 years, a 9-11 comedy benefit. Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson have put this thing together.

Proceeds go to various 9-11 charities. The performers include, now, this gets very complicated very quickly. Here are the list of the performers. Aziz Ansari, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Bill Burr, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

Dave Chappelle, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Ronny Chieng, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Pete Davidson, whose father, Scott, was killed on 9-11. And Pete also played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Plus, Nikki Glaser, Josh Johnson, and Jon Stewart.

In a joint statement, Stewart and Davidson said, We look forward to once again celebrating this great city’s tenacity, resilience, and championship heart, and we don’t only mean our Knicks. This one is a little weird, and John Mulaney is getting pulled into this because all the headlines are saying John Mulaney, and I thought Mulaney had pulled out of a festival, but no, the entire festival pulled out of the festival. The Great Outdoors Comedy Festival was supposed to play in Arendelle Park up in Canada this weekend, the 11th through the 13th. The entire thing has been postponed. Organizers didn’t give a reason The statement says, after careful consideration, the GOCF team has made the difficult decision to postpone our shows scheduled for September 11th through the 13th, 2026.

We know there’s a lot of excitement around the show, but our priority is to deliver the best possible festival, and we believe postponing this week’s performance is the right decision to ensure we can do that. Organizers are trying to figure out new dates and how to handle everything. Mulaney was going to perform on Friday night with opening acts Stavros Halkias and James Austin-Johnson. Other headliners at the now-postponed festival were Adam Reyes, Dr. Phil, Jeffrey Curie, Matt Matthews, the wrestling guy from yesterday, yeah, Jordan Jansen, Hasan Minhaj, and Ronny Chieng, Ms.

Pat, TJ Miller, Brad Williams, Grace O’Malley, Catherine Blanford, and Michael Costa. John Mulaney posted on social media that the decision was unfortunate, but he intends to perform in the area soon. Very strange. We’ll see what’s going on there. Johnny Mac loves a good kerfluffle.

No, it’s kerfluffle. I was told I say it wrong every time. Kerfluffle is wrong, but I like kerfluffle. Anyway. Ari Spears.

Not impressed by Bernie Mac’s comedy, apparently. Ari’s was on Live from the Green Room. He was asked to name acclaimed comedians whose appeal he has never quite understood. So, like, if I was on that show, somebody would ask me that, and I would say Adam Sandler, the great dramatic actor. Some people think he’s a comedian, but I don’t say it at all.

He’s good in movies. Dramatic movies. Anyway, Ari Spears said Bernie Mac. I just don’t get it. The voice makes you lose.

It’s hard for me to buy into the jokes because I’m so caught in the.

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And then he kind of did like the Peanuts teacher voice.

I guess the I guess he did that. Now, before saying this, Spears joked that his comments would be considered, quote, blasphemous by the black community because we hold these people in these institutions to such high regard. He also took a shot at Martin Lawrence’s comedy, saying that it’s so over the top that it, quote, bordered buffoonery. Tracy Morgan, also a target. I certainly would not say that he’s not talented.

But he described Tracy Morgan as hard on the palate. This is not going over well. Comedian Faison Love shot back saying, Bernie Mac was a compadre of mine. We shared a lot of laughs together. In regard to Ari Spears, consider the source.

All right, we’ve got a cast change on set. Night Live. Late Nighter reports that Martin Herlihy, he’s one of the Please Don’t Destroy’s, has left the show after five seasons. John Higgins left after season 50. Ben Marshall was promoted from writer to feature player last season.

Herlihy hung around and starred in a series of pre-taped shorts billed under his own name, Altogether, Herlihy appeared in 42 sketches over his five seasons at SNL, 34 Please Don’t Destroy shorts, and three A Film by Martin Herlihy pieces, plus five sketches. Please Don’t Destroy remain active as a trio. They recently played a pair of shows in Brooklyn, New York. I’m excited for this one. There’s a TV show called The Inbetweeners.

If you’ve never seen it, it’s fantastic. Netflix is bringing it back for a movie, The Inbetweeners 3. Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, and Joe Thomas come back as the in-betweeners Will, Jay, Neil, and Simon, who get into all sorts of misadventures. They were like horny high schoolers when this thing started. Now they’re like 40.

I don’t know. The Coming of Age sitcom was originally broadcast on Channel 4 between 2008 and 2010. All right, so 2008’s 18 years ago. So if they were pretending to be 16 then, so the characters are 34 now. Did I do the math right?

Following the misadventures of suburban teenager Will and his friends Simon, Neil, and Jay at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive School as they navigated school life, friendship, and failed sexual encounters. Over three seasons, the series set ratings records for the British broadcaster and won multiple awards. I forget where I saw it. Like, I used to watch it. It was really good.

They did do an American version. I think MTV did an American version that was okay. But wherever this thing is streaming now, you should check it out. And that is your comedy news for today. Go Niners.

Here’s my Niners jersey that I’m wearing. And again, if it’s your birthday, I hope you have a great birthday. And everybody in the Facebook group wishes you well, assuming you have a Facebook group. Some people do. See you tomorrow.

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Featured: Nikki Glaser, Stavros Halkias, Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, Rob Reiner

What’s in This Episode

• Nikki Glaser jokes about attending secret Taylor Swift wedding at Madison Square Garden
• Stavros Halkias discusses health struggles and drug relapse in GQ interview
• Nathan Fielder documentary ‘You Can See Everything’ with Elizabeth Holmes premiering in October
• Rob Reiner wins Emmy for guest role on The Bear, first major award since 1978

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. Hello, I’m Jenny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. We have a lot to get to today as everybody got back to work. Nikki Glaser talked on stage about the wedding of Taylor Swift. I’m not sure that’s the best way to stay in the Taylor Swift camp there, Nikki, but I guess Nikki doesn’t care.

She apparently was doing this on stage during her Caesars Palace Las Vegas residency on Friday night. Nikki told the audience, I want to say I went to a wedding in Madison Square Garden three months ago, and I just want to talk about it a little, allegedly. Nikki couldn’t believe she made the guest list. She said, I’m a huge Swifty, probably the biggest Swifty that was at the event. I got the text inviting me to the wedding.

Text? I never thought a million years I’d get invited. I don’t even know them. You should thank your agent or agents. But she switched agencies.

Boy, I don’t know, Nikki. Anyway, she says, I’m in there for 12 hours and none of my family or friends know where I am. I’m off the grid for 12 hours. That’s because guests were required to surrender their phones, leaving Nikki Glaser without a single photo from the night. Nikki said she was shaking as she opened the invitation and desperately wanted to share the news with her friends.

But the instructions made it clear you can’t do that. It’s a top secret. So maybe don’t talk about it on stage in Las Vegas. So she told nobody. She says it sucks so much because it was like the best night of my life as a Swifty.

The coolest thing I’ve ever seen, the purest love I’ve ever witnessed. She talked about the A-list celebrities there. There were so many celebrities there. It was wild. Brad Pitt, Steven Spielberg, Julia Roberts.

Some of these celebrities were alone, and these people are never alone. One of them was J-Lo. J-Lo was alone. J-Lo was kind of like a wallflower, like alone, awkward. So since Nikki had previously met J-Lo, she approached her, and the two became best buds for the night.

Nikki said, we were like pals all night. Nikki then joked that she had to introduce the superstar to the concept of a public bathroom. Then Nikki shares that she really wanted to have a memento. She said, I got really close to stealing something from it. I want one cool artifact from that.

Later in the evening, Nikki found herself near the wedding cake while everybody else was dancing. As she watched the dance floor, she joked that Mark Zuckerberg was doing the robot and Jilly Roll was doing the worm. Then she spotted the cake. On the top was a miniature Travis, but Taylor’s cake topper was already gone. With no phones or cameras around, Nikki decided she would take the Travis, she says.

So I reach up, I get it. I’m two seconds from putting in my purse.

And then the punchline, clearly told better by Nikki Glaser, but it took me f…

She said, I hear Tom Cruise be like, put me down. You see, that’s a joke about Tom Cruise not being all that tall. The first three times I read it, I just thought Tom Cruise was actually at the wedding, and he probably was. Savros Halkias has a new special out on Netflix. He spoke to GQ in a big cover story, talked about his body.

It’s just crumbling, dude. My health’s been insane. I threw my back out right before tires started. The week before, I was deadlifting, which feels unfair to have an injury from trying to get healthy.

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And then I broke my arm before filming this movie, Comeback King, with Judd A…

So yeah, I feel bad. I’m trying to stop doing drugs and eating crap all the time because that’s the best way to get through stress for me. Well, Star Wars, how’s that going for you, stopping doing drugs? He told GQ. I tried.

I was like, all right, we shot the special. Now my work is done.

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And then now you have to edit it.

You have to promote it. And so I tried.

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And then my back hurt and I couldn’t sleep.

It’s really pathetic. I’m addicted to edibles. It’s so funny. They’re drugs for children. The way we do drugs now is gummy bears.

What a pathetic and infantilized generation millennials are. But I’m addicted to those. I take a handful of candy that Fs you up every night.

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And then I try to stop and I couldn’t sleep.

My PT was like, hey, is something different with your sleep? I was like, yeah, man. I’m like, I’m trying to stop smoking weed. And he was like, legally, I can’t tell you to do anything. But he was like, I wouldn’t do anything that disrupts your sleep right now.

So a doctor told me to keep getting messed up as far as I’m concerned. So I’ve regressed. I’ve fully relapsed. I have three more weeks of this press run. And if I stay alive through that, I think I can fix my whole life after that.

I have no ability to multitask. If I’m being successful, I’m dying. Every time I succeed, it’s like I’m trading part of my life force for the success. It’s purely transactional for me. He then said the two most successful years of my life easily shaved four to five years off my total life.

Chi-Ki was curious, is that a trade you would make? He said, no, if I knew about it ahead of time, no. But this is Aesop’s fables crap. It’s like you get everything you want and it kills you. There is tremendous buzz on this Nathan Fielder movie trailer.

Have you seen this thing with what is her name? Elizabeth Holmes. I keep confusing her with a different Elizabeth who’s in the true crime averse. But Elizabeth Holmes, you know, the Theranos woman. Have you seen this thing?

It is insane. I don’t even want to. I’m going to spoil it. But you have to watch this thing. 36 days before reporting to prison, Elizabeth Holmes, who hadn’t given an interview in a decade, decided not only to be interviewed, but she let Nathan Fielder and his crew into their home in San Diego with the understanding that, quote, you can see everything. And the people who saw the screening of this say it’s insane.

It is a hybrid documentary called You Can See Everything. It runs nearly three hours. And this is pure Nathan Fielder stuff. It was shot beginning in 2023 in top secrecy. And nobody heard about this thing until like Labor Day.

Suddenly this was all over my newsfeed. They screened it at Telluride Sunday night. You had to put your phone away. It was like a Dave Chappelle concert. 174 minutes. We are told in one scene, Fielder asks if they’ve ever heard of Abbott and Costello.

The answer, no. Or their classic comedy routine, who’s on first? He then shows them who’s on first to get their interpretation of it. Apparently they agree to be mic’d up for 12 hours a day, wide-angle cameras in place to get all the movements, other cameras getting close-ups. Fielder immerses himself in this weird world as someone she comes to trust, much to his astonishment.

Becoming so close, she asks him along on the last drive to prison. Fielder seems baffled by it all, stunned that the idea turned into a three-year trip into the mind of Elizabeth Holmes, no holds barred or expected. He told the Telluride audience, what I’m really excited about is for you to see the movie and tell me what I experienced. I don’t know why they wanted me there. Why am I there?

This thing is out in October via A24. Two hours, 54 minutes. Should be good. Catching up from the weekend. LSU football head coach Lane Kifflin walked the Tigers traditional Tiger Walk, joining him Theo Vaughn.

Rob Reiner won the award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards for his role as a restaurant consultant on season four of The Bear. Presenter Wendy McLennan-Covey accepted on behalf of Rob, who said, we all wish he was here. Rob got a standing ovation. It was his first win since 1978, a half a century ago, which is just insane. He picked up the award for Outstanding Continuing Performance by a Supporting Actor at a Comedy Series for his work on All in the Family.

So over the weekend, I went into a Jerry Lewis rabbit hole. If you listened over the weekend, you heard the Jerry Lewis episode on Saturday. So Sunday night, I found on YouTube the 1978 Jerry Lewis telethon asterisk. They cut in some stuff from later years, but the bulk of it was like a 20-hour stream of Jerry Lewis, and I watched it. I didn’t watch 20 hours.

I fast-forwarded through a lot of it. I just wanted to watch Jerry increasingly get tired. What I was stunned by was the lack of star power. It’s 37 minutes before you get to somebody you’ve really heard of, and Jerry sings three songs in the first 37 minutes, and then finally you get Tony Bennett, major star, And then the next star that I was familiar with might have been like at two in the morning. Remember Fred Travolina used to do impressions in the 70s?

You probably don’t. I mean, I was shocked at how little star power there was on this thing. I got to about the 9 a.m. Hour and Jerry was getting a little flirty with there was a performer named And he was curious as to where she had her microphone tucked away because she wasn’t holding a handheld like me or like Jerry Lewis and didn’t seem to have one on her. So you can imagine where it was hidden.

And he got a little flirty. So that was interesting. I want to finish that up. It is Wednesday. Volleyball season is over.

So I’ll be back at Trivia tonight. I’ll see the Trivia guys at 7 o’clock at the brewery. And I went out after volleyball last Wednesday. And I pulled up at the local restaurant. The local restaurant has a comedy club of sorts on the upper level.

So we pull in the parking lot, and it’s full. I had to actually park down the block. And I was curious, oh, who’s performing tonight? Joey Diaz, who some people say is the worst person on the planet and the worst person they’ve ever met. I’ve heard people say that, that Joey Diaz is terrible, terrible, terrible.

I thought it was funny that Joey Diaz was in the same building as I. I did not go upstairs to see him. I had a nice, what did I have? A buffalo chicken sandwich with my friends. Matt Matthews, a comedian I’m under-familiar with, apparently has 12 million followers on Instagram and TikTok, and he was dragged into the ring on Monday Night Raw in Alabama.

He was cheered as he spoke to Jackie Redmond during the show, but then he felt the wrath of WWE stars The Miz and Braun Breaker. They interrupted Matthews’ segment as the two poked fun at the Alabama crowd. The wrestlers took him out of the stands and dragged him into the ring. But luckily, Matt Matthews was able to fend off Wilson with a head-scissors takedown, but then got caught in The Miz’s skull-crushing finale. The Miz and Wilson, we’re told, got booed as they walked to the back.

Matthew was still in the ring when Breaker was making his entrance for the Money in the Bank qualifying match against Rey Mysterio and Ethan Page. Breaker speared The Miz and Wilson as he came out, then he put his attention on Matthews. Breaker bounced off the ropes at full speed and crushed Matthew with a spear. In a Facebook group, comedian Matt Matthews wrote, Welp, that was fun. Nimesh Patel will have a Netflix special coming out on September 22nd.

I like this trailer a lot. Let’s listen. Gushup Pramod Vinod Patel is the first Indian director of the FBI. And that means something. It means he’s also the last Indian director of the FBI.

There will be no more Indian directors of the FBI. There might never be. Indian directors, period. M. Night Shyamalan may never work again.

That’s how bad cash is up. He’s too short to lead the FBI. You can’t be 5’7 and in charge of finding missing people. How about you find the rest of yourself first, huh? If I kidnapped Savannah Guthrie’s mom, I would hide her on the top shelf.

Is she up there? I don’t know. Is she up there? Where did she go? Up next on Cash’s Most Wanted, legs.

And congratulations to controversial mega comedian Nate Bergetzi. The very controversial MAGA comedian will headline the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce’s and Industry’s inaugural Chairman’s Dinner on November 10th at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, which is an awesome building. Great museum if you’ve never been there. Josh Brown is the president and CEO of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and he said of the controversial MAGA comedian Nate Bregazzi, we’re honored to have Nate join us for our first ever Chairman’s Dinner. And that is your comedy news for today.

See you tomorrow.

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