Month: December 2025

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. If you missed it over the weekend, I dropped two episodes taking a look bit this year’s top twenty five stand up specials. Go back and check that out, please. Jordan Clepper will have a special tonight on Comedy Central.

Daily Show presents that Jordan Clepper fingers the pulse. This time he went to Mississippi, Oregon, and Norway in search of an answer to the question does Donald Trump deserve a Nobel Peace Prize? Now? The answer was no. The Nobel Prize came out last week and did not go to Donald Trump.

Klepper told the Hollywood Reporter. As we were putting the special together, two conversations were taking place in the country. There were troops being sent to Portland and to Chicago. There were ice rays and protests. At the same time, Trump was campaigning openly for the Nobel Peace Prize.

We saw a special in that conversation said we went to Mississippi and talked to Trump supporters about why Donald Trump was the most peaceful president. They talked about the wars he solved, They talked about him bringing strength to cities then we went to Oslo to talk to the people who give out the Peace Prize about what qualities a Peace Prize winner would have. He even found a group of Nordic mega types. The Hollywood Reporter was curious about doing four or five minutes on the Daily Show versus something like this, Jordan said, you get to go deeper. What I feel really lucky about is I get to work in three separate modes at the Daily Show.

I get to host. When you’re doing that, you’re dealing with a day of stories, You’re responding to the news of the moment. Then I get to do field pieces, which are reflective of what’s happening. A lot of those, to me feel like I’m stressed testing propaganda. With these specials, you get to have a larger argument and really dive deeper into these conversations.

Theol Vaughan has revealed that he goes to Bible studies with Morgan Wallen. This happened during Theo’s conversation with Leanne Morgan. Morgan Wallen’s name came up and fil Vonn said, I’m going to see him tomorrow Bible study. Actually, Leanne was curious, what are you studying? Was that.

I mean, I think we’re watching a movie, but it is Bible study. Yeah, I’m not sure what chapter we’re on at the moment. In Austin, there’s a new Italian bakery, Chichio Bamba. One of the co owners Tom Sagora. We’ve learned that Italian chef John Ba Vinzoni is a restaurant tour who wiled Tom Sagora with his signature croissants at Vinzoni’s restaurant in California.

Sigora started sharing the croissants far and wide and has collaborated with Vinzoni to bring them to Austin. Foreign menus include Cornetti, which is a horned Italian croissants, Fcaccia Italian sandwich is brunch specialties, and coffee. The bakery is open from seven thirty to four, and there’s a menu we can check out. And if you’re a longtime listener, you know I’m clicking on the menu. Now I have some bad news for Tom Sagora.

I wanted to click on the menus and make a bit out of this, but you see, when a click on the dine in menu, it fails and tells me I’m not online, but I am online. I have fifty nine point seven megabytes of download speed right now. I ran speed test, and when I try to order takeout, several menus come up, including the Austin Retisseri and Taco Pagaso. But I’m not seeing Sigor’s place, which is a shame because it ruins the bit. So let’s just move on.

Patton Oswalt says, right now, the greatest living comedian is definitely Maria Bamford. Now, Patton Oswalt also thinks Doug the Vulcan is a good idea, so we might have to say, h Patton Oswalt’s not right about everything. People who like Maria Bamford love Maria Bamford. Patton Oswalt said, she’s in her own category. She’s a comedian.

But there’s certain people with a profession where you’re like, you don’t put them anywhere. He told the Good One podcast. You go now there’s a separate chapter about this person. She’s her own chapter, both in form, content delivery and how she pursues her career. It’s all original, it’s all brand new and unprecedented, and it’s amazing.

No one comes close. Jesse David Fox, who hosts The Good One podcast, that I was hoping you’d say her, it’s just Richard Pryor than her. To me is the conversation in terms of what can be done with stand up as a form. That’s all crazy talk. I mean, just absolutely insane.

Richard Pryor, Maria Bamford, Stop you sound crazy. Sebastian Manaskalgo went on Drew Barrymore Show and had some food advice. He said, if you go to someone’s house, bring something, a small gift, it’s kind of a right thing to do. Jew said, I get really stress and people ask me what can I bring. I don’t know.

Sebastians suggested a small candle, something small, something nice, just to gift for the house. Thanks. Sebastian. Variety asked Jim Gaffigan if he’s a silly person off stage, Having spent time with Jim Gaffigan twenty years ago. The answer was no, maybe these days he’s super silly.

He wasn’t. Then Jim said, I’d say I’m a silly person with my comedian friends. What I love about stand up is that element of play give when someone the guff that sarcastic banter. I wouldn’t describe it as roasting. It’s just play.

Some comedians are always in play and doing bits, like Todd Glass. That’s why comics gravitate towards each other. It’s a plain environment. But when I’m with my kids, no, I’m very focused. I’m also someone asked to work hard.

I don’t know what kind of learning disabilities I have, but even studying lines for an acting role, it takes me longer than it would take my wife. Twenty years ago, I would often discuss bits with my wife. Now I might be discussing them with my opening comedian Ted Alexandro. The writing and rewriting is very valuable. That’s something I do when I tour.

I don’t have that tree at home because kids are too much work. If you think of having children, don’t. The luxury of doing shows out of town is that I can spend those days listening to a set and dissecting how I could expand it. For me, It’s not that I have to walk away from a writing session with a joke. I just feel good if I made the effort.

They asked Jim if the story was true where he woke up at his office to be fired from his day job. He was a comedian in New York in the nineties he was an ad salesman during the day. Jim said, absolutely. And the cruelty is that a friend of mine, David Tel, already had a joke about being woken up to be fired. Whenever this comes up out of respect, I have to mention the fact that David Tel had this joke.

But yes, I worked in advertising and I’m really grateful that experience as a copywriter, the editing process furing out the shortest way to say something is incredibly valuable, and that carries over into stand up. I was definitely delusional. After six months of doing stand up. I remember thinking I can’t believe I haven’t been on Letterman, and then I didn’t get on for seven years. So I did a lot of work on myself, therapy and stuff like that, but there was no expectation of I’m going to stop doing this.

All comedians are delusional. You have to be. If insanity is repeating something and expecting a different result. Even the quickest careers involve five a failure, that’s insanity. Right.

The La Times put out their list of the thirty three best comedy specials of twenty twenty five. I’ll go quickly here because I spent the weekend doing lists, but I was curious and the Ala Times has a very very good comedy section. I don’t think these are ranked, and I can’t tell what kind of order they are. They’re not chronological, I don’t think. But here’s what they have.

Frankie ken Yunius, Damn, That’s Crazy from Hulu, Andrew Schultz Life from Netflix, at bashed In, Manuscalcos and Ain’t Right from Hulu. Bill Burr’s Dropped Dead Years from Hulu. Nah Jordan Jensen’s Take Me With You on Netflix, otsco At Kotska’s Father on Hulu, gab Iglesias Legend of Fluffy on Netflix, Mark Maren’s Panic on HBO. Nate Jackson’s Super Funny on Neateflex on Netflix. You know what, I’m leaving the Neateflix.

You heard me clean it up at But I’m leaving it in because it’s funny on Nateflex. Nate Jackson Super Funny. Are They’re right? There’s a reason. Nate Jackson’s debut Netflix special arrives during barbecue season on a stool under the spotlight.

Out of shows, the comedian spends most of his evening delivering hospital worthy third degree burns to crowd members who want the smoke right, that’s probably worth checking out. Lean Morgan Unspeakable Things Netflix, Eliza Slessinger Is a Different Animal Prime Video, Ralph Barbosa’s Planet Bosa on Hulu. Gaffigan’s Bourbon Set on YouTube, Steph Tolev’s filth Queen Netflix, Christella Alonso’s Upper Classy. I feel like that was on Netflix. They didn’t list to a platform here.

Ali Sadiq’s Rugged on YouTube. Yeah, a lot of people commented on him throughout the year. Jim Norton’s Unconceivable on YouTube. I should probably put eyes on that. I like Jim a lot, Jay Jordens, Yes Ma’am on Hulu.

Rosebud Baker’s The Mother Load Netflix, Ken Flores Lol Live with Ken Flores. That’s Hulu. Burt Kreischer Lucky Netflix, comedian cp on veep’s Sunday After Six. Tree Crowder’s Liberal Redneck on YouTube. I haven’t seen that one.

Phoebe Robinson’s I Don’t Want to Work Anymore on YouTube. Tim Dillon’s I’m Your Mother on Netflix, Kathleen Madigan’s The Family Threat on Amazon Prime. I’m Mike Veccioni’s Low Income White on YouTube. Ian Edward’s untitled on YouTube. Interesting that keeps popping up on lists.

Ryan Sickler’s Live and Alive on YouTube. They say Ryan Sickler turn thick blood into sweet wine. His trademark candor and giggle drives the hours he plays tour guide through a traumatic hospital state that nearly became his last Chinity Wunaka is lo Alive on Hulu. I have that on my list. Cameron Esposito’s four Pills on Dropout.

Samantha Hale’s Horror Nerd on Apple TV. That’s a thing. Where’s that not out yet? Or what that’s on Apple TV? Only Samantha Hale could make hair raising terror this funny.

Her long running show harr Nerd jumps from the Hollywood improv stage to the screen. She nostalgically riffs on serial killers, the healing power of stabby movies, and turns genre obsessions called classic fantom an online feedback into an unbroken chain of laugh out loud brilliance. Okay, totally missed that one. And Jayang Summers What Specie Are You? Is on Hulu.

There’s the La Times thirty three picks. They have a very very strong comedy section Kathleen Madigan until the La times. I love beer, and all my uncles worked at the brewery forever and ever. They were pipe fitters full time at Anheuser Bush Downtown. The Midwest is kind of like that.

That’s our thing. Saint Louis is a beertown period. Anheuser Busch Brewery is still there. People still have jobs there, They sponsor everything. Milwaukee is kind of like a beer town too.

It’s all about the middle of light now, but back in the day they had a thousand breweries before prohibition. It’s very beer centric. With the Paths Theater, I had taped a special already there, and they’re just the nicest people, the crew and everybody works there. They’re excited to you there. And I don’t need to be flattered.

I really don’t not even need you to be there. But if you’re gonna be there, if you cannot be cranky, that’d be great. The comedians will also tell you this, there’s certain spots where you walk off stage and go. People should film specials here. This theater is one of the three that I feel that way about.

Why are these certain places so special? I don’t know. There’s a little magic in there, I guess. Madigan talked about being on TikTok and said it’s a lot different from dancing in your bedroom to Madonna in nineteen eighty four. I’m not particularly good at TikTok as a human or as a comedian, but I love being on TikTok as a voyeur.

I post jokes and do work stuff. But I was really good at Twitter because I’m good with words. Instagram, I’m there, But TikTok, I’m watching seven thousand cab videos. If you have any kind of addictive personality, you love it because it’s endless. It never stops, and there’s hardly every repetition.

Seems to be people way younger than me, But I like it. I wouldn’t want to think I made a career out of it, though I think some of the young ones are biting off more than I could ever chew with this experience. Does it last? I’m curious to see if all these acts will work. Will your fans keep coming five years from now?

That’s why I’m glad I started when I started. When young comics ask what should I do, I’m like, dude, I don’t have any idea. Just make sure you get on stage a lot. She is so funny. I love her.

The Trevor’s City Economy Festival will return in April April sixteenth to the eighteenth, seven venues across Traverse City. Roywood Junior and Gary Golman will be the headliners for this one. Lewis Black spoke to Esquire about you know, he keeps talking about retiring. I thought he retired at the end of last year. Now he’s doing fewer shows.

I don’t know what’s going on. As for one of his final shows, he said, it was a concentration of all the performances I ever gave, including a heckler at the end. It was kind of like everything that could happen along the way happened that night in a bad way. It was good. The thing you can’t explain to people, including Johnny Mack, is there was touring and then there’s doing some shows.

I might do ten shows a year as opposed to one hundred to one hundred and fifty to two hundred. I’m not sad about not doing one hundred shows. I had a tour bus I was leasing, so I’d fly in a place on a Thursday or Wednesday, then drive somewhere Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then fly home. So I was in four days and back three and it wasn’t bad, he said. If not for the pandemic, I would have retired probably by this time, it was seventy four to seventy five.

I would have done it anyway, because there were other things I wanted to do it. Basically, wanted to retire to be able to write again. That is your comedy news for today. I’ll see tomorrow

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Yesterday I revealed my top twenty five stand up specials of the year so far. Today we’ll take a look at things that didn’t make the list. But first I want to list things that were funny but not stand up specials, because, point blank, the best comedy event of the year on your television was Conan O’Brien the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor that was on Netflix, far and away the best, even better than Mark Maron special, which I have at number one.

Big names coming out to celebrate Conan O’Brien, including John Mulaney, Will Farrow, Bill Burs, Stephen Colbert, David Letterman, even Adam Sailor, Yes he was there, Triumph the Masturbating Bear. What could you not want? A celebration of why Conan matters? Absolutely fantastic, all right. Another thing that was really great Shane Gillis’s SB monologue on ESPN.

Not a special, but it was fifteen minutes or so of Shane doing what Shane does best, not pulling any punches or really gotta laugh out of me that Chuckley you just heard, was me flashing back to some of the jokes he told that night fantastic. I really liked Tom Sagora’s Bad Thoughts on Netflix, specifically the stuff that’s totally not making fun of Garth Brooks. It’s not Garth Brooks at all. He’s not making fun of Garth Brooks. Why would you make fun of Garth Brooks.

It’s not like Garth Brooks is a serial killer, which he’s not. What a wonderful show Tom Sagora’s Bad Thoughts. Did you watch Last One Laughing UK? That’s on Amazon Prime Video. They lock some funny people in a room for six hours with one rule.

Do not laugh. If you laugh, you get a warning. If you laugh a second time, you’re out. Jimmy Carr is your host. One of my favorites, Richard Ayuada was on there.

Rob Beckett did a great job. Bob Mortoner doing magic is hilarious. It’s fun to play along at home. You sit on the couch and see if you can not laugh yourself. I recommend on Last One Laughing.

They’re actually working on a second season which will feature, among other people, Diane Moore ran from the Kunk series. She’s great and David Mitchell from Mitchell and Webb. I’m looking forward to that. Maybe my favorite thing all year was Jonathan Kite’s Anthony Bourdain impression on Instagram just injected into my veins. He could put out one of these every single day and I would watch it.

If you haven’t seen it, find it. It’s incredible. Kite as Bordain visits places like in and out Burger, can’t get enough of it, and Shane Gillis twice making less Tires on Netflix. It’s like blue collar The Office but in an auto repair shop. Fantastic show.

Can’t get enough of Tires on Netflix. Yesterday I did the top twenty five. Here are the specials that did not make the list. I just want to acknowledge they existed in no particular order. Bill Maher, is anyone else seeing this?

Nominated for a Golden Globe that was on HBO? All right? Whatever, I know it’s a hack line, but the titles. Is anyone else seeing this? And apparently the answer is no.

I didn’t see anybody talking about that, but it’s nominated for a globe. Okay. Andrew Schultz’s Life was on Netflix. It just didn’t work for me. For me, the storytelling felt off.

I couldn’t get into his journey. I know a lot of people really like that one. I just didn’t connect with it. Rosebud Baker is the mother Load. This was the one where she took two shows, one in which she’s pregnant and one after she had the baby, and split them together.

It just didn’t work. It was more distracting. Christa Stefano had one of the Hulu specials this year. I was not a fan of the Hilarious brand for the most part. His special, It’s just unfortunate.

Here’s my entire review hack. While we’re being negative. George Lopez is special on Amazon. I wrote the word horrific. I can’t believe Georgia actually released it.

Lisa Trigger had a special on Netflix called night Owl. She has tremendous energy. I didn’t love the material, didn’t connect with it. On Amazon, Eliza Selessenger’s a different animal. Now watch this one and pay attention to her performance.

She is reciting her act as if she’s in an empty room, no regard whatsoever to how the crowd is reacting. She’s not surfing the energy. She’s just got words in her brain, and the brain is connected to the mouth and she’s going to deliver them. It’s really, really weird. Another disappointment from Hulu Bill Burr’s dropped dead years.

I know we’re supposed to come away impressed by how enlightened Bill has become. Those were the talking points. The press spit back, Yeah, Bill, you’re so enlightened now. I think it’s the example of how hilarious is the brand you go to when you’re on your way down. I think Bill Burr might be past peak now.

He did not have a great year in general, his late night appearances, everything around birth this year was bad. I think Bill Burr might have had the worst year in comedy. Let’s think about that and we’ll come back and talk. Some more specials. Some more specials from twenty twenty five that did not make my list.

Steph Tolev’s Filth Queen on Netflix. I know people really like that one. Filth Isn’t my thing, so I was like, Eh, I just don’t want to do this. It’s probably a very funny special, It’s not my thing. Devon Walker is loll Live special on Hulu has one good Chris Rock joke.

Also on Hulu, Ralph Barbosa’s Planet bos uh. This has my typical notes. Civilians will like it, but I’m a comedy snob. I never connected with this one, and I like Barbosa a lot. I hope I’m wrong when it comes to my Hulu theory and Barbosa.

I hope he’s still on the way up and hasn’t peaked, because I do like him. Joe lists small Ball on YouTube, I did not believe a single word coming out of Joe’s mouth was true. I understand comedy. I understand repetition and exaggeration. I get it.

I know how it works. I also understand that anyone up on a stage is doing a performance, just like I’m doing a performance right now for this podcast. I get it, but I need stuff grounded in reality, like I’ll break character for a second. Do I like Adam Sandler movies? No?

Do I walk around kicking my dog all day because Adam Sandler put out Happy Gilmore too. No. I don’t think about Adam Sandler at all unless I’m sitting here in the studio with a microphone in my hand and slipping into the Johnny Mack character. So this is a performance, just like Joe lis Smallball as a performance, But I didn’t believe a word of it is true. Opinions on Sailor are true.

I’m just repeating them and exaggerating them for effect. But the small ball material, Nope. David Spade’s Dandelion on Amazons started out really slow and I lost interest. And maybe the back forty minutes is awesome, but you know, dude, you got to get things going here. We’ve heard comedians talk about Netflix specials that they’re moving their closers up to the first act because of people like me.

Maybe Spade needed to do that. Maybe his closer is amazing. I’ll never know. This next special actually upset me from Hulu yet again. Sebastian maniscalcos he ain’t right.

The trailer radicalized me. It’s the editing and this and Sebastian making the stupid faces. Enough with the stupid faces, and then I put on the actual special and I have come to the conclusion that Sebastian is doing a character that I have called old man Dice Clay at sixty years old. It’s like if the Dice character just got gray hair and decided he was going to work clean and talk about food. That’s what Sebastian doing.

I don’t know what’s going on there. And Jim Gaffigan’s Bourbon Set on YouTube clearly not his best work, but over three and a half million people have watched on YouTube, which all suggest I am a loser doing a podcast in the basement whose opinions are just terrible. And Jim Gaffigan is right. I cannot argue with any of that. So those are the other specials that are quote not on the list.

Before we go, let’s take a look at the Golden Globes nominations for Best Performance in Stand Up Comedy on Television. They are Bill Mahers, Is anyone else seeing this? Brett Goldstein’s The Second Best Night of Your Life? That’s in my top twenty five, Kevin Hart’s Acting My Age that was my number two, Camille nan Gianni’s Night Thoughts not out yet, Ricky Gervais’s Mortality not out yet, and Sarah Silverman’s post Mortem also in my top twenty five. And I don’t get to pick the Golden Globe.

I don’t know how I would give the award to you here among the ones that I’ve seen, so definitely not mar and I like Goldstein a lot, but for me, I keep staring at Kevin Hart and Sarah Silverman and where I’m strung buggling is I have Kevin Hard as the number two special of the year because it’s funny but it’s not art, and what Sarah Silverman did, I would consider it to be art. Now, the correct answer here would be Mark Marin special, which was both funny and art. So I don’t know. Could I give a golden globe to Sarah Silverman and be like, this is an award winning piece of work, whereas Kevin Hard is just a good time in a theater for night. Or is that unfair to Kevin Hart because John, you got it at number two so it’s funny and mission accomplished.

I don’t know. I think if I had to vote, I think i’d vote for Sarah Silverman. Does that make any sense? Maybe it doesn’t. I’m not even sure it makes sense to me anyway.

That is the look at this year’s stand up comedy specials. Again, as I mentioned yesterday, there are a few that I haven’t been able to watch yet because I tape this on Tuesdays to who accommodate my publicist, and some aren’t out yet. Friday Night, Sarah Sherman released Live plus in the Flesh Tonight on Netflix, Robbie Hoffman’s Wake Up. I could see both of those making a revised version of this list. December nineteenth, com Ounanjianni’s Night Thoughts.

Vulture has that as their best special of the year. I’ll believe it when I see it. Tom Sigora’s Teachers on Netflix Christmas, even Ricky Gervai’s Mortality on Netflix December thirtieth. So I will do a revised, updated, quick flyover version of these lists at the end of the year, but for now, because I had a hand on the homework, those are my top twenty five stand up specials of the year. I listened to yesterday’s episode.

I’ll combine with today, and those are my thoughts on the year. I would like to hear your thoughts. And we have a Facebook group which is Daily Comedy News Podcast Group. I’ll remind everybody it’s just a list. I’m just a dude in the basement hosting a podcast.

Your list will be different. Your list is valid. My list is valid. Vultures list is valid, Golden Globes list is valid. It’s all valid.

It’s comedy, it’s art, it’s subjective, whatever, it’s just a list I’ll see tomorrow.

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Today. It is the twenty five best stand up specials of the year, and let’s just dive in. Why are you doing this now, John?

The year is not over. Well. You see, I hired a publicist and she needs to get the lists out to everybody else who’s doing their year end recap. So I can’t wait until New Year’s Eve to put this out, so I have to jump in now. So with that said, there are at least five notable specials not part of this list because as I recorded this on Tuesday, they were not available yet.

They include Sarah Sherman Live and In the Flesh, which was on HBO last night tomorrow, Robbie Hoffman’s wake Up is on Netflix coming up on the nineteenth, Kamil nan Gianni’s Night Thoughts, which Vulture says is the best special of the year based on the trailer. I can’t believe that, but okay. Tom Sigora has a Netflix special on Christmas Eve, and Ricky Gervais has Mortality on Netflix on December thirtieth. So there’s a good chance all five of those or at least four of the five of those make my revised end of the year list, which I’ll put out around New Year’s Day. But for right now, these are the top twenty five stand up specials of the year.

I’m gonna jump right in, not mess around, not tease you, just tell you what it is. The answer is the top stand up special love twenty five is Mark Maren’s Panicked from HBO Max. This is Maren at his absolute best. He found a way to channel all the anxiety of the current movement into something both deeply personal and universally relatable. This was the year Mark Maron walked away from his podcast sadly, but he handed it in his best work.

Mark Maren’s Panicked easily the best stand up special of the year. Number two Kevin Hart’s Acting My Age on Netflix. Sorry haters, this one’s just funny. It’s Kevin Hart doing material about getting a little bit older. Laugh or laugh.

It’s there. I’m a guy sitting on the couch. Kevin Hart made me laugh. That’s the mission. Mission accomplished.

Same note from my number three special of the year, Matt Rife Unwrapped, a Christmas crowd work special. I know you like to hate on Matt Rife. I’m sorry, he’s funny. I posed it in the Facebook group Daily Comedy News Podcast Group that Matt Rife Special’s funny and people are like, really, Johnny mag you might be, as they say in Queens, are you on crack? And no, I’m not on crack.

I’m on the couch watching Matt Rife and laughing. And most of the people who took my word for it clicked on it and went, oh wow, that was really funny. Bit of a drop to the rest of the top tier here. So those three, I think stand alone a bit of a gap here down to number four. Jim Jeffries to Limb Policy on Netflix.

Jim Jeffries being Jefferies. Edis goes for it, always funny, always delivers. Number five Justin Willman’s Magic Lover on Netflix. Did you watch this one? It’s a comedy show plus magic.

Yeah, I know you’re like, what, trust me? Watch it? Justin Wilman Magic Lover, blending magic in comedy. It works. Number six and one of these years this guy’s going to top the list.

This is someone in ascendency. Longtime listeners of this program know what a fan I am. We are still at the point where I can somewhat easily get him to come as a guest on this show. We’ll see how long that laughs, or if he’s the new Jim Gaffigan. I think he’ll still come on.

He’s John Marcos Sareisi Thief of Joy on YouTube. Fantastic. People are noticing how good he is. I saw he as a million three followers on Facebook. Now, like I said, one of these years, he’s going to be number one on the list.

Number seven kind of under the radar came and went, but I watched it and it was really good, and it was someone who had something to say. Moe Amer’s Wild World on Netflix even did a bit of a Carlin esque thing at the end there. Really like that one a lot. On number eight. One of my favorite working comedians these days, Dusty Slay’s Wet Heats, also from Netflix, quote unquote Southern comedy, working, clean, shucking jokes, love Dusty Number nine Netflix again.

Bert Kreischer is lucky, Bert being Bert. Take your shirt off, tell a couple fun stories, be chartismatic. My note on this was just funny. Sometimes you don’t have to overthink the comedy, specially you come right down the middle. Burt Kreischer knows what his fans want, he delivers.

That’s a good one. Number ten Brett Goldstein for the second best night of your life. That’s nominated for a Golden Globe. You might be like the guy from ted Lasso. He’s good at stand up.

Yeah, he’s good at stand up. Number eleven Michelle Wolf’s The Well Netflix Again. I have in my notes here not hilarious, but, as I’m always say, for this next bunch of specials, good company. Enjoyed just staring at it and having my brain tickled. I wasn’t like ah for an hour, but I thought that was really good.

That’s my number eleven special Michelle Wolf At twelve Sarah Silverman’s post Mortem, also on Netflix. Netflix had a hell of a year here, very thoughtful comedy, which is a weird thing to say. I really enjoyed spending an hour on the couch with Era, so to speak, very very enjoyable. All right. One night when I was diving around Netflix, I came across Matt McCusker’s Humble Offering and I wrote, poor Man Sheen gillis.

Yeah, maybe, but the special works. The audio could be better. This is a little bit homebrew, but the material lands. Number fourteen, our first Hulu special, Mateo Lane’s Al Dente, same note as I’m a one trick pony, I wrote, maybe not hilarious, but Mateolane is a nice company for an hour and sometimes that’s enough. And number fifteen the last of the top tier specials, Tim Dillon’s I’m Your Mother.

If you like this podcast, you’ll like this special. If you don’t like Tim Dillon’s podcast, you won’t. Simple as that, take a break here and I’ll tell you about the middle tiers. We take a look at Johnny Max’s top twenty five comedy specials of the year, not including the five that didn’t come out yet. Earlier I said there was that top three of Marin Hart and Rife, and then a bit of a gap.

Then I had the rest of my top tier. This is the middle tier. This is still the top twenty five, but these aren’t quite on par with everything that came before. The commercial break. Number sixteen special of the year, Mike Kaplan’s Reenie.

You’ll find that on YouTube. Clever writing, clever execution, definitely worth your time. Seventeen Hulu again, Chinado Unaka’s LOL Live that’s a part of the Kevin Hart Brand. Nice debut special, Very funny eighteen Drad Carmichaels Don’t Be Gay on HBO and here’s the thing. For twenty minutes, it’s brilliant Carmichael at his best.

Then it kind of gets tired. This is a talented storyteller with something to say, but it just doesn’t land. And after like twenty minutes, I’m like, oh, okay, nineteen Roywood Juniors at your age on Hulu. I know a lot of people really like this one. It’s a solid pro doing solid pro work.

Twenty yachtsco at Kotska’s father. I think maybe I was a little disappointed in it because I loved her previous special so much. I was like, oh, this is gonna be amazing, and it was solid, not amazing, but definitely put eyes on that. Twenty one Ian Edwards untitled. Now.

I didn’t even know this existed. You’ll fund it on YouTube until Vulture put it in their top ten. It’s a nice club set. It’s nothing special, there’s nothing wrong with it. There are a few individual chunks that are quite memorable, a few individual jokes that are even more memorable, But you know to compare this to some of the things higher up on the list.

No way. It’s a nice, solid club set, but it’s the sort of thing that you’d expect to see at the Chuckle Hut on Thursday night at the Late Show, not if you went to the arena and if he and Edwards handed that in, if that makes sense. Arii Shafeer America’s Sweetheart on Netflix. A lot of people really like that one. I just couldn’t connect with it.

Wasn’t digging it. It was okay. And I’m starting to pull teeth a little bit here. This was not the strongest year for comedy specials. Twenty three Gabriel Iglesias Legend of Fluffy from Netflix back in January.

Here’s the problem. It’s an hour forty one. I can’t I have comedy add I can’t watch one guy for an hour and forty one minutes. No way, Gabe is funny, but this needed editing. Hey Gabe, maybe this was two really good fifty minute specials.

I don’t know why they went an hour forty one. He too much. Number twenty four Mike Birbiglia is The Good Life on Netflix. My note, civilians will like it Bverbiglia does his storytelling thing well, it’s well crafted, it’s a good version of what it sets out to be. Just not my cup of tea, but I understand the civilians like it.

Twenty four is Mike Burbigulia running out the top twenty five. Jessica cursons, I’m the man, hilarious, same note, civilians are gonna like this. It’s fine. I’m a comedy snob. It’s fine.

Some others that were on par with that, but I had a hand in a top twenty five, not a top twenty eight for the Publicist. So you can rank these twenty six, seven, and eight however you want, but these are among the better specials of the year. Larry the Cable Guys It’s a Gift on Amazon. Cable guy knows what you want and cable Guy gets here done. Kathleen Madigan The Family Threat on Amazon.

Kathleen is a pro, always hilarious, always puts a smile on your face. And Leanne Morgan’s Unspeakable Things on Netflix, totally fine comedy stobbing me went, yep, this is good, but it’s just not my cup of tea. So you know I got it. Her audience loves her. I’m not her audience.

That’s all fine. So those are Johnny max twenty five best stand up specials of twenty twenty five so far, not including the ones that aren’t rut yet. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at six of the funniest things of the year there weren’t stand up specials, and I’ll fly down what didn’t make the list, and i will comment on the Golden Globes and nominations and meet you back here tomorrow

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mack with your daily comedy and he was. Tomorrow on this program, I will reveal the top twenty five stand up specials of the year, not including the five major ones still to come out later in the year. But that’s tomorrow’s program. It is a quiet day at the end of a quiet week as the comedy industry seems to have gone into hibernation.

Let’s take a look at the late night jokes. Steven Colbert was talking about the cold. He said, it was the kind of weather today that makes you wish you were someplace tropical, like on a boat in the Caribbean, but not near Venezuela, which is a great joke. Jimmy Fallon getting very edgy for Jimmy Fallon, he said, yeah. First when Trump heard it dipped into the teens, he was like, what Epstein file did they release?

Now. Kimmel joked about how they want us to work out of the airport. Now, he said, that’s one idea, or hear me out, maybe just try to have the planes leave on time so we don’t need to come up with fun ways to hang out at the airport all day. Last weekend, Trump hosted the Kennedy Center Awards. Jimmy Kimmel said he’s been boasting about hosting, saying, we’ve never had a president host the Kennedy Center Honors before, which, yeah, why do you think that is?

We’ve also never had Neil Patrick Harris order a military strike on a fishing boat before. Among the five major specials that are not on my list because I haven’t seen them tonight, Sarah Sherman is on HBO tonight. Now my HBO is back. My son did go to the phone store and argued with them and successfully lobby to restore my free HBO. I was able to catch up on The Chair Company.

Good show, you should be watching it. I felt like a senior citizen last night. I felt like I turned to my mom. I was watching the most recent two episodes and I was like, I don’t even know what’s going on. How did we get to the scene.

But it’s such a roller coaster ride. Watched The Chair Company. I don’t know if America is ready for Sarah’s squirm. The New York Times caught up with Sarah and they said, somewhere in Sarah Sherman’s apartment is a prosthetic eyeball that once peered out of her grandmother’s skull. You see when Sarah was a child, Grandma liked to remove its iris and start off with one milky white orb.

Sarah said it was terrifying but also really funny. After Graham, I’ll pass away. Sarah Sherman inherited the eyeball and sometimes wears it as a necklace. Sarah Squirm Live Plus in the flash HBO Tonight the Time, says Sherman enthusiastically repulses her audience while counting on her material to keep them in their seats. Sarah says, I like getting screams of terror and groans.

I like playing with how far I can push people and then bring them back with comedy. Sarah talked about her heroes Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller talk about the same stuff that I talk about. They were just funnier and I have images and props. As for my concern that America’s not ready for her, she said she never considered toning it down. Telling the Times, even if people hate the special, I’m like, this is what I’m really good at.

Before in advanced screening in December, workers handed out barf Bags.

Also out this weekend, Robbie Hoffman’s special that’s on Netflix Sunday Night.

And I think the Sunday Night football game is a dog, right, so this might work out. Well. What’s Sunday Night football this week? Oh no, it’s Cowboys Vikings. That’s watchable, all right.

I often blow off Sunday Night football. It’s like too much. It’s like, all right, I watched seven hours of sports already, need to do something else. Plus there’s that hour between the late games and the eight o’clock Maybe I’ll get in there. I’m excited for Robbie Hoffman.

When I saw John Mulaney was producing her special, which he did, I brushed up on Robbie Hoffman as part of what I do for a living, and I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, I’m excited for this one. Robbie told Gaiety dot Com. I’ve been very slow and steady wins the race. I’ve been working a long time, but steadily chipping and enjoying. Congratulations to John Stewart.

He will receive the Walter Crunkite Award. They have a new category. It is Comedic News and Commentary. Stuart will be recognized for his work on The Daily Show, well earned, but are there enough people to give out that category every year? So you’re going to wind up giving it to Oliver and Seth Myers and Roywood Junior and then who, I guess that’s a problem for five years from now.

Wow, John Stewart’s sixty three years old. Now I guess I’m fifty six, So I guess. Wow, All right, we all got old. Everybody. The Cronkite people said John Stewart redefined satire as a student insights based on solid research.

They lauded Stewart as a master of his class, saying he remains relevant, bringing five valuable facts to light, advancing public discourse, and using civic action awesome. Yusef said, when the revolution in Egypt broke out, I did the one thing that made sense to me. I left medicine and became a comedian. He was at the Bridge submit in Abu Dhabi and said, I’m in this very peculiar position where I’m a comedian, but my name is associated with wars, revolutions and human tragedy. For some reason, people take my jokes more seriously than they should.

We live in a world where a TikTok video gets more engagement than a UN resolution, and where a comedian’s Instagram post about Gaza gets more traction than a fifty page Amnesty International report. I’m invited to political forums, hard talk interviews, and serious events, but I don’t know if this says more about how seriously people take comedians or how much of a joke serious discourse has become. Is it because comedians are brilliant, absolutely not. Is it because somewhere along the way the circus became more trusted than the Senate and gestures became more credible than the journalists. People have found more truth in comedy clubs than in the outlets of the free press.

As I mentioned, tomorrow is the top twenty five stand up specials of the year, so I won’t have an opportunity to wish Dick van Dyk a happy one hundredth birthday, so I will wish it to him in advance. Vandik told People Magazine. I’ve always thought that anger is one thing that eats up a person’s insides, and hate, and these were things I didn’t like, people I don’t like and disapprove of, But I was never able to do a white heat kind of hate. He says his brighter outlook is one of the reasons he’s made it to ninety nine slash one hundred. He also credits his wife, or Lean and says, without question our ongoing romance it’s the most important reason I’ve not withered away into a hermetic rouch.

Arlene is half my age, and she makes me feel somewhere between two thirds and three quarters my age, which is still saying a lot. It is less season. Friend of the show, Jason Zinnemann in The New York Times put out something on Thursday called Best Comedy of twenty twenty five. Jason has Roywood Junior’s Lonely Flowers as his best special under a category called best Auturist Special is Cameron Esposito’s Four Pills, and says Esposito patient Lean Worf’s a swaggering act about dark subjects, including divorce, rehab, a relationship with a clown into something fractured, emotional and stylish. The best parenting comedy is rosebud Baker’s The Mother Load and George severest a Sense of Urgency.

I don’t know George’s special. Let’s say George wonders whether he should join his gay friends and having children. Before concluding he would like to skip the diaper’s phase and go right to the port where his daughter’s of bohemian playwright. Best YouTube special goes to John Marco Serrasie Thief of Joy. None of us can argue with that, and people who listen to this podcast now, I’m a big fan of John Marco.

Three time guest Best Range Chris Fleming. Jason and I are aligned here. We really like Chris Fleming. One of the loudest comedy audiences I heard this year was when Fleming performing at Union Hall in Brooklyn. Right Zi him In imagined a drawn out fight between the Fresh Air host Terry Gross and Adam Driver.

What was more impressive is two days later at Carnegie Hall, he took the same at Ceial below to his fiscality and did just as well. He has Mark Marin’s special listed under Funniest spoof of the Right, quoting the killer line from Maren’s special, you do realize we annoyed the average American into fascism. Best Lineup went to the Mark Twain Awards. I will talk about that over the weekend, and Best Year and Surprise he gave it to Jim Gaffigan’s Bourbon Special Live from Old Forrester. According to Zinneman, in a fragmented culture where many specials feel padded out, it’s a savvy move to go deep and narrow, a labor of love that comes off as a little holiday gift.

Comedy stock markets. Thank you, Bert Reynolds. Again, I will remind everyone the comedy stock market is where we find value to make hypothetical money off comedians who are undervalued, and then we try and sell high on comedians who are overvalued. This is not saying anyone is good or bad. We’re just looking at relative value, how they’re valued in the mainstream media these days, and where we can find some value.

I got a recommendation from one of the listeners who sent me a cover art for Nikki Glaser promoting the Golden Globes, and let me open up my phone here so I can describe this to you. We are going to sell Nikki Glaser. Here. We see Nicki. Now, the first thing that draws your attention are her boobs, because she’s showing a lot of boobs here.

Minimal dress on the top here covering the extra naughty parts. But we’re seeing a lot of boobs, your eyes go straight to the boobs, and then your eyes are drawn over to the phallic ish trophy and Nicki looking longingly after the phallic like trophy while her boobs are hanging out. I like comedy, I like sex. I like the golden globes. I don’t need to mix all three.

We’ll sell Nikki Glaser. We’re also gonna sell Sarah Sherman. Now. Again, this is not good or bad. I’m really excited for Sarah Sherman’s special.

I really like Sarah Sherman. I’m prepared for Sarah squirm. I don’t think America is I think people are gonna be like, oh, it’s the nice, weird lady that makes fun of Colin Joe’s from Saturday Night Live. Let’s check her out, and they’re gonna be horrified by this. So let’s sell Sarah Sherman right now, while all the press is out there, before people actually watch this thing.

So this is an example of we’re getting good value if we sell today. Conversely, let’s load up on Robbie Hoffman. I know last week I told you to buy Robbie Hoffman. Let’s double down on Robbie Hoffman before that special comes out, and especially that’ll be on Netflix and people will be like, what’s this? Let me hit play on this and they’ll be like, oh, that was really good.

So I think we’re getting really good value on Robbie Hoffman. Looking ahead to twenty twenty six, let’s sell Marcelo Hernandez stock do we even have any Well, maybe we’ll short sell it. He’s got a special on Netflix, and I’m convinced he does two things well, one a Sebastian Maniscalco impression, so that’s good for thirty seconds that you’re special, and he does Domingo and things that might as well just be called Domingo. I don’t know if he’s got an hour in him. We’re gonna find out on Netflix in January.

But I’m gonna sell Marcelo Hernandez and we probably should buy some Jimmy Kimmel extended for another year, and you’re probably like, well, Johnny already extended. So where’s the value here? Here’s the value? When Colbert’s show ends? Where are those people going to go?

Like the people like my mom, they’re not going to switch over to Jimmy Fallon. I think they’ll go over to Kimmel. I think Colbert’s audience is more aligned with Kimmel than Fallon, and the late night audience has to go somewhere. Some of them will just fade away because like my mom would just leave on CBS, and you could put this show on CBS and should stare at it. I think Kimmel is going to pick up a decent amount of audience.

So this is long term buy here. Let’s buy some Jimmy Kimmel. Right, So we’re selling Nikki Glaser, we’re selling Sarah Sherman, we’re selling Marcelo Hernandez, we’re loading up on Robbie Hoffman, and we’re buying some Jimmy Kimmel. Let that’s your comedy stock market for this week. An update on Andy Dick from TMZ.

TMZ says Andy invited a TMZ photographer into his La home on Wednesday to talk about the incident I reported yesterday. Andy apparently told the cameraman he’s one hundred percent fine, and then he changed his answer to one hundred and ten percent fine, as TMZ tells it, Our cameraman then asked what happened on Tuesday. Andy let one of his friends take center stage, the dude starts talking about the day and then Andy cuts him off. When the convo turns to one of his other down on his luck friends, Andy said he sat down next to the guy who whipped out some crack, and from that point forward everything went downhill. Andy said he need a little bit of that meaning crack.

And then it’s told quote that TMZ is calling stunning. I don’t mind doing some crack every now and then. I hope you’re okay, Andy Dick. I’m not sure you are. Brad Williams was on Jacksonville Radio.

He found out about the minor league baseball team and said, how am I not a fan of a team that are called the Jumbo Shrimp. That’s amazing. I’m four foot four. I should be wearing Jumbo Shrimp merchandise wherever I go. I will literally fly out from California.

I will leave my hot Chinese wife and my wonderful daughter just to be out there throughout a first pitch for a Jumbo Shrimp game. Let’s make this happen, all right, Mitchell and Webb are not helping. We’ll get a second season from the UK’s Channel four. That’s great, Charlie Perkins is head of Comedy for Channel four and mister Perkins said, they said sketch was dead, but the success of Mitchell and Webb are not helping with audiences on linear streaming and social proofs otherwise making a hit on top of having the ability to showcase so many incredible new writers and performers alongside David and Robert has been an immense honor and joy. Thank you so much to our exceptional Series one ensemble.

We’re looking forward to offering more brilliant writers and performers the opportunity on series two. Long Live Sketch Comedy will stay in the UK. They say to be working this week. The US is not so much. They’ve made a change to the judging panel on BBC two’s Great British Menu.

Phil Wang will replace Ed Gamble as one of the judges. I like Phil’s comedy a lot. Phil said, I’m so excited to be the new judge on Great British Menu. I’ve been an avid food lover all my life. I’m thrilled about this opportunity to taste food from the most creative and skilled chefs in the country.

Can’t wait to put my mouth where my mouth is Ed Gamble said, I can think of no better person to pass the Golden Spoon two than my dear friend and frequent dining companion, Phil Wang. He’s hilarious, great company, and crucially matches my appetite more than anyone else I’ve met. I’ll miss everyone on the team, but I know they’ll forget about me as soon as they start chomping with the Wang. And that is your comedy news for today. Alright tomorrow Top twenty five stand up specials of the Year Sunday is other stuff that was funny, for example, the Mark Twain Awards, Tires, things like that, and all the other specials that didn’t make my list and my reasons why.

And I’ll see you here tomorrow.

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shock Media. Hey there, I’m Jenny mack if your Daily Comedy News. David Letterman was on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and I gotta tell you him a mixed thoughts here. On the one hand, it felt like the old Dave. But on the other hand, I kept thinking that Dave’s appearance was the kind of guest that used to drive Johnny Carson nuts because Dave sits down and just starts doing shtick and isn’t really having a real conversation anyway.

Let’s listen. I’ve edited this down for pacing. I love man. I love him more than Chinese food. That’s right.

I love him more than Valet Parking. I love him more than that cars for Kids song. I just that’s really good. Yeah. Yeah.

People are aware of the fact that you are the leader of the resistance. I’m gonna suck up to you because I feel like if I kind of tag along with you, I’ll be glorified in retrospect. I know. It’s kind of like you just sit there. If the now this is irrespective of a party or political ideology, irrespective part of your political ideology.

If the leader of the free world is a fool, the leader of the free world, then should expect and examine every bit of ridicule he received. Kim Al asked Letterman if you ever missed hosting Late Night, and Dave said, people used to know who I am and now have to wear a name tag to get anything going. I’m so glad to be out from under this mess because people like you, and people like Stephen Colbert and people like Seth Meyers do such a masterful job of this defending democracy. Thank god for you they got for others SNL and everybody else. I think it’s the way things need to be in a democracy that seemingly this crippled Andy Dick was apparently discovered unresponsive in Hollywood on Tuesday.

Reports suggested it was an apparent overdose. Photos obtained by TMZ show Andy Dick slumped over while sitting on some stairs. The only male reported that. Witnesses at the scenes said Andy Dick’s friends rushed over to him and shouted wake up. Others called nine to one one.

Some others say that Andy cried out for narcan, which is a medication that is used to halt and reverse the effects of opioid use, including in the event of an overdose. Hope Bowl is okay with Andy Dick. Interesting. Taylor Thomson’s story surfaced yesterday. Now apparently she put out a video on November eighteenth.

Check your calendar this so this has been around, but I only first saw any whiff of this yesterday. In the November eighteenth video, Taylor Thompson said, as you guys know, I had to move some shows because I got sick. And if you went to a few of the shows in the weeks before, you know I was sick for a little while, and unfortunately I’m still sick and dealing with that. Luckily, I have a great team and a great doctor, and I’m trying to follow their advice at the moment. As a result, I’m not going to be able to finish out these last cities on the Save Me Tour.

This is not an easy decision to make. It’s not when I want to make. Now this is really interesting, and maybe I’m putting two and two together and getting seventeen. But you may recall that after Midnight had been renewed, and then Taylor said she didn’t want to do it, and then they unrenewed it, and then somebody, possibly perhaps looked at late night in general, and got rid of Colbert. As I’ve said in the past, I’m not blaming Taylor, but she may be the butterfly that flapped their wings anyway.

Taylor Toman said, I haven’t been one hundred percent for a while now. I’m really bad at prioritizing my health, and I think it’s just caught up with me, and I need to prioritize that at the moment and focus on getting healthy, not just like good enough to work, which is what I usually do.

And also like I don’t want to keep rescheduling on you guys, She explained, i…

She’s also worried that if the tour dates were postponed until after her special is released, people will think we could just watch this at home, So she says, I just want to refunder your money. This sucks. Life happens, and this is where we’re at right now. I love you and appreciate you think for understanding. She did not clarify what her illness is, and again it’s unclear to me what she means by for a while now.

If that’s after the twelve thirty renewal, or perhaps even before and again, I might be adding two and two and getting seventeen here. I hope you’re doing okay, Taylor Tomlinson. Sarah Sherman Special is out on HBO on Friday. Oh good news. My son came home to get his new phone and he knows I was a little frost about the HBO thing, so he went down to the phone company store and who’s like, hey, Dad, it’s not happy with this.

And apparently he found a cool customer service rep who’s putting the HBO back. So I’ll be able to watch Sarah Sherman without having to stand out in the cold looking through someone else’s window. Great news. I also get to finish the Cheer Company. I had one episode left, I mean, come on, Nylon asked Sarah Sherman, Hey, you’re on your fifth year at SNL.

Wow is it five years already? How you feeling about this season? Sarah said, I was editing the special kind of right up on a going back to work. So Shifting Gears has been whiplashy and startlaning, but also kind of fun. The show is forced me to be like, hey, you actually have to write a joke.

You can’t just be screaming about poop all the time. And I feel like the show’s made me more grounded. I know it’s funny after watching that to think of anything being grounded that I ever do. But I’m in drag at work. Basically, they put me in a lot of blonde wigs.

I’m a normal woman who’s like, hey, grandma, whatever, All right, Sarah Sherman, how do you want people to feel away walking from this special? She says, I don’t even know how I want them to walk away. I want them to walk towards it. That people wi see the post and be like, oh, this isn’t for me. This is for bisexuals in Brooklyn with gay little haircuts.

But I promise there’s something I did for everyone. There’s jokes, there’s stuff to look at. It’s definitely not boring. I hope people walk away not bored. And she’s reading the room.

They asked her, all right, what about people that only know you from SNL any warnings? She said, do not eat while watching Oh my, I’m looking forward to this one. Michelle Wolfe is on the Good One podcast. She says being on stage is like a tiny vacation and now that she’s a mom. I’ve become a much more efficient joke writer because I have a limited amount of time to write jokes.

Now I feel like I have an actual personal life to talk about. Although you do see reviews from people that are like another comedian at a kid another time about being a parent, and it’s like, yeah, one of the most relatable experiences a human can have. A good one asked her if she could have gotten where she was in her career if she’d become a mom earlier. Michelle said, as a stand up, between touring and working at night and all that stuff, it’s nearly impossible to do it without an extensive support system. In order for me to go on a tour with a baby, it’s a nanny, which means more flights, more hotels.

You’re just spending a lot more money. And earlier in my career, I wasn’t making that much money. I would have been spending at least what I was making just to do the shows. So the kind of grind that you have to have and stand up, I don’t think I would have been able to do it. And even right now, I’ve got my eye on that private jet money.

At the moment, I know everyone can roll their eyes about rich people right now, but I’ll tell you what, if I can travel on a jet with two children, I’ll post my feet on OnlyFans for a little bit. The conversation changed to the Rio Comedy Festival. Michelle was offered it and turned it down, and she said, I didn’t have to make a decision. The decision was made for me. The show they offered me was on October fourth, My due date was September twenty ninth, So whether I wanted to do it or not really wasn’t part of the question.

It would have been literally impossible, and it had it been a different time, I really would have had to weigh the pros and cons of it because they were throwing crazy people and then in your head you’re like, well, maybe this opens up a whole new market for me. But I do think anything paid for by a government, that’s a hard one to do, and a lot of countries like this, everything’s paid for the eye of the government. You can travel to America and do a lot of things that are not sponsored and paid for by the government. If I had decided to do the festival, I would have done jokes like the ones I’ve released are very similar to them. I would have been like, I got to throw at least one or two of those in there.

So I think it’s best for everyone that I didn’t do it. But I think a lot of people like Jessica Kerson, who people got really angry with, but she said, I’ll only do it if I’m allowed to be an open lesbian on stage, and they were like, okay, And I do think that’s important. I think what she did was a big deal. I think was very brave of her. There were probably a ton of people who had never heard of lesbian new comedy, and I feel bad that people got angry about that, because I think she’s breaking a barrier.

Mike Apps got a Netflix special in January, so as we head into late January, the nominees for Best stand up Special of twenty twenty six will be either Mike Epps or Morselo Hernandez. The special is called delusionalan to be out January twenty seventh. It is Mike EPP’s fifth for Netflix. In it, he discusses how a little delusion and a lot of hustle made him a star. There was a Nikki Glaser item in the News I feel like we knew this already, but Deadline reported it like it was real, So maybe I’m just crazy Anyway.

Nikki Glaser, Fortune Fimester, and some others will join Kim Kardashian in the Netflix comedy The Fifth Wheel. The film follows a group of best friends from high school who attempt to reconnect during a weekend jaunt to Vegas. When a hot outsider, Kim Kardashian, crashes the weekend, they’re forced to face their messy lives, bad decisions, and unraveling friendships. Anthony Jelinek wrote a guest piece for Vulture about books. Anthony writes, as I’m writing this piece, I’ve read fifty one novels that were released in twenty twenty five.

I choose what to read either based on the description written by the publisher or because I recognized the author’s name and enjoyed their previous work. For the past five years, I’ve kept the list of everything I’ve read, and then gone back through and created a top ten list of novels I’ve read from that year for social media to admire and or make fun of. This year, I’ve graduated to publishing my lin Vulture behind a paywall. His number one pick of the year is Perfection by Vincenzo Letronico, translated by Sophie Hughes. Jalnik tells us this one is tough to describe without using some version of the word perfect.

It’s about a young couple of digital creatives who can work from anywhere in the world. They choose Berlin at a time when living in Berlin was the coolest thing anyone could possibly do with their youth. It’s not just the only novel I read twice this year, but the only one I read in one sitting, riveted by the vivid description of a life many of us consider, but few choose to pursue. Jim Gaffigan released a clip on social media. Now, I gotta be honest.

I went into this cynically, going okay, he was only on social media to sell us something, But no, he didn’t sell anything in this clip. The material is really strong here. If you can imagine this with a crowd, a lot of these jokes would have landed as it is. It’s just Jim talking into the camera, laying down some I guess extra material he needed to get out of his system. I did cut this down.

The original piece, which we’ll find on Jim social media as a minute forty two, which is kind of long to excerpt. Tier. Let me give you a taste into the break. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Really, is it the most wonderful?

Have you been outside seeing the crowds, the traffic, ever go through security in the airport in December. I’ll tell you one word that doesn’t come to mind, wonderful. Gossip Conna stood in the street, Gossip Conna, Bobby, Bobby, gossip Conna with Johnny Mage. It’s always a tree. Pete Davidson spoke to People magazine.

Pete is excited about his new baby. He says he’s just excited to meet this little thing. And as for a name, he explains, for a while, we were like, should we do that weird Hollywood thing where it’s like a color or something, And I think now we’re more into Staten Island normal among the considerations, Mikey, Johnny, Tommy, mar Amy, Bridget, Maggie, something like that. I missed that. Remember when you were growing up, you knew like seven francs.

Although he says we were thinking the middle name could be a little more fun Pete apparently is getting a Honda Odyssey. This from the Autopia in your Home for comedy News. Pete said, I’m about to be dad, so I figured it was time to drive something practical but not boring. I’ve always used eBay to find just about anything, like classic TV Memorabilian sneakers, so of course that’s where I found my van too. I used to have a Hanna Odyssey.

I loved it. Pete Davidson’s custom Honda Odyssey includes a changing table, a power bank for the vacuum cleaner, a bottle warmer, and a refrigerator. They’ve also added a VHS. They found a new one on eBay, unused from nineteen ninety one. Guy named Angelo delivered the custom van to Pete Davidson and asked Pete what videotape he wanted to use to test the vc or The answer he put in the first episode of The Sopranos in the VHS.

We watched the Sopranos, joked around a ton, and we went through all the features of the van. I showed him everything. He’s quite a bit taller than I am. And that is your comedy news for today. I’ll see tomorrow

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Hi there, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News Boy. What an exciting night in Newark, New Jersey. Governor elect Mikey Cheryl was there. The Governor elect promised the entertainment event of a lifetime at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Jay Pack and who were there.

It was an evening with Conan O’Brien and Stephen Colbert. Hope they found something to talk about. Of course they talked about late night. I don’t know if you heard this, Stephen Colbert show is coming to an end. Conan O’Brien said, I’m sad about the form, but I’m a fifty two percent optimist, and I believe that humans find a way and really find people who are fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, twenty twenty five right now are going to use what’s available to make beautiful, hilarious, funny things.

I have to believe that it will not look the same way as our path. It will not be the same path, but it’ll more or less be the same idea. Addressing Colbert directly, one of the first things I said to you when this news broke There isn’t a person on this planet. Who’s worried about Stephen Colbert. These shows are a way for Stephen Colbert to relate to people, but they are not the only way.

There are so many different things that you can do, and you’re going to do that. They’re gonna give you enormous amounts of pleasure and you’re gonna be great at it. You’re just not there yet. You haven’t begun that yet. Conan said, there’s no better person I could be sharing the stage with right now.

The world is your oyster, and double down. Whatever Colbert does next is going to be amazing. Now, ABC has some news. I have news for your paying attention. I’m lifting the embargo on Hulu.

Aside from their not so good hilarious comedy special, that’s a whole other thing. But if you want to just push the green button on your moat and watch Scrubs on Hulu, go ahead, Because ABC Disney has made it clear they are not supporting fascism. Okay, why Johnny Mack. They have renewed Jimmy Kimmel, which is sure to make certain people unhappy, But go ahead. You don’t have to walk three flights of stairs to watch the Scrubs DVDs go ahead and push that button, which is good news for the Scrubs reboot.

I mean I was gonna have to stand out in the cold outside somebody’s house, peering through the window while they watched Scrubs, which is sometimes how I watch Knicks games because YouTube TV doesn’t have MSG less. I’ll stay out the street and somebody else is watching the next game and I watch it through their window. Kim Oll commented on Donald Trump hosting the Kennedy Center Awards on Sunday night. The President had said that if he couldn’t do it better than when Jimmy Kimmel hosted, he might have to give up being president altogether. Kimmell, of course, has never hosted the Kennedy Center Awards, which kim Oll pointed out, but he welcomed the idea of a talent competition matching his own skills, which are apparently jokes drawing and playing the clarinet, against Trump’s ability to golf, spank a porn starre and run a country.

The reveal came when kim Oll was talking about how apparently the President did not enjoy sixty minutes this week. Kim Olds said, I’m sorry you feel that way about sixty minutes, and the last thing I want to do is upset you at this sensitive time. But I have one more bit of entertainment news to share. I have decided to extend my contract here at ABC for another year. Our show has been renewed until May of twenty twenty seven, or until the world ends, whichever comes first.

On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Tonight, your guest is Taylor Swift.

Speaking of Scrubs, Bill Lawrence has a new show coming to a We’ll have to pa…

It is titled Rooster. It stars Steve Carell. One of the co stars John C. McGinley, you know him as Doctor Cox. Ten episodes.

Rooster is a comedy set on a college campus, centering on an author’s complicated relationship with his daughter. A lot of good pedigree there that should be good. Of course, I won’t be able to see it because my son went to the AT and T store and got a new phone and they got rid of the free HBO that I had, So I’m not happy with my son or the AT and T store. I’m gonna have to stand out on the street looking through somebody else’s window while they’re watching HBO and Hope the Rooster’s on very upset about my FREEHBO going away, like very very upset. Oh the Boiler’s back.

Yeah. I called him and I begged him like, will you please come? And they came. Man, it was cold here. Sarah Sherman has a special on HBO on Friday.

Again. I wish I could watch it, but you know, hope my son enjoys his new phone. She’s doing a lot of press. I’m saving a lot of the press for Friday when the special comes out. But one of the interviews she did was with Nylon dot Com and they said, I imagine people watch this special and be like, is she okay?

Yeah. I’m concerned that people are gonna be like, oh, Sarah’s so funny on Saturday Night Live, and I have no idea what they’re getting into when they watched this one. Sarah said, it’s funny. I did a show a couple weeks ago when the merch table was in the room, so the merch guy saw the whole show. I came up to him after the show and he’s like, oh my god, I thought you were gonna be root and mean, but you’re nice.

I would have hoped that in real life, I’m a lot tamer, but the show’s an expression of some very Jewish neurosis. Embodied some spoilers for the very opening Okay spoilers here, I’m not ruining the special for you, but apparently the opening sequence. Sarah says, so many stand up specials start with the comedian being backstage getting ready, and they’re in the green room. My version is that I’m not in a green room. I’m in a crypt and my bones and gour forming.

That’s my version of getting ready a right, so that sets the scene for what this thing’s gonna be. Sarah said, the show is really intense and loud and in your face. It’s almost like a total sensory experience. So me and the director were just like, we don’t want that to be flatten when people are watching it on their phones on the toilet. Sarah, how long does it take you to make a special?

She says, A really long time. I’ve been touring for ten years and this is my first specials of the material has been coming together for a while. Jesus prosthetics and said, pitching it to people and being like, I know this sounds crazy, but we need a little bit of budget to do something because stand up specials are cheap, and we’re like, but what if it wasn’t cheap? That’s funny. The guys from Please Don’t Destroy they have teamed up with White Claw Please Don’t Destroy has created the Roast Host Collection, a new line of holiday essential merch inscribed with various tongue in cheek roasts you see.

The collection was inspired by a recent White Claw survey that found that friends who regularly roast each other are nearly twice as loyal as seventy eight percent, saying roasting feels playful and friendly. The Royal Host Collection includes a serving plotter with You’re so brave for speaking before thinking, a set of four dinner plates also sold individually with lines like you couldn’t read a room if it had subtitles and unsolicited advice is your love language, as well as a serving bowl of napkins with equally hilarious inscriptions. Kevin Brady is the vice president of marketing for White Claw and said, the holidays we’re all about laughter, connection and maybe calling out your friend who makes the group chat go silent, and we love them for that. We’re raising a claw of the good natured bonding that makes the best friendships feel even funnier and hangs more memorable. The roast Ose collection of Albot white Claw dot com slash Holiday another merch drop coming out today, very exciting.

Meanwhile, Ricky Gervas is out howking his vodka for some reason. When he does it, I find it funny, And when Jim Gaffigan does it, I don’t know. I think it’s that Ricky is just blatantly telling you he’s trying to make money off this thing. But here’s Ricky Gervis will take us into the break. Thanks to everyone who’s subscribed to Dutchbarn dot com.

If you haven’t go there, you go into a draw every month someone wins a year’s supply of vodka and if you buy Ginger spiced, we help donkeys. I’ve also been tying up the money I’m going to give to animal charities from the tour through a little press release like that next week. So yeah, Dutch Barn Mortality Donkeys Very Christmas. Out today on the eight hundred pound Gorilla Channel. Luke Higgy’s tip Rat some more details out of Canada about that.

Dave Chappelle appearance. I scolded Mike from the Lehman podcast on the side. I was like, I thought you people were polite. Why are you being rude to Dave Chappelle? And it just he apologized because that’s what Canadians do.

Mike feels bad for the entire country being mean to Dave Chappelle. Anyway, CETV spoke with one person who says she was at the show. Let’s hear what she has to say. I have made some edits to this for pacing. Dave just shut down.

He said, like, I’ve done a million shows and this is the first time. I can’t wait to be off stage. Three quarters of the way through. That’s when the crowd kind of got a little rude. I’ll say, yeah, rude.

He just stood there and he looked at his watch and he’s like, I could stand here for the remainder of the show, for like the next ten minutes that we have and like, you guys can just scream at me and be ignorant or you know. Shane Gillis is a Notre Dame football fan. You may have heard that Notre Dame didn’t make the college football playoff and they were like you know what, we don’t need to play in any stupid bowl game. We’re good. Shane was appearing on the Film Guy Network and the Notre Dame topic came up.

Shane said he set an alarm to make sure he didn’t sleep through the selection show. He was convinced Notre Dame would be in then after Alabama showed up with the nine seed. According to Shane, once you see the number nine come up and it’s Bama, that was worse than watching Notre Dame lose a game that was terrible. That hurts. Gillis believes there is Bama bias, pointing out that Alabama didn’t lose any ranking despite losing to Georgia twenty eight to seven in the SEC title game.

Shane said, I understand not penalizing a team for being in the conference championship if they’re competitive or at least don’t have minus three yushing yards. But I don’t know if Alabama was competitive at all. It’s the SEC, it’s the best conference. Technically, Notre Dame didn’t really beat anybody. But I’m a fan.

I want Notre Dame in there. If you’re not to college football. Notre Dame is an independent they’re not in any particular conference. Gillis said, it’s finally catching up my whole life. Everybody’s been like, join a conference, and he said if Notre Dame does join one the Big ten or the SEC would be awesome.

Never the ACC after they were trayed us this year, Notre Dame got screwed. Whatever, We’ll be back watching that selection show and having your team left out that hurt. My day’s ruined. And that is your comedy news for today. I’ll see you tomorrow

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. The eighty third Golden Globe Ceremony will air on CBS Sunday, January eleventh. You may recall two years ago Joe Coy hosted it and told it’s just a terrible, mean joke about tailor shift, but I don’t have time for that today. This year’s host is Nicky Glazer, and let’s take a look at some of the comedy nominations will begin with Best Performance in Stand Up Comedy on Television.

The nominees are Bill Maher for is anyone else seeing this? And I think the answer there is no. I haven’t seen anyone talk about that special all year.

Also nominated Brett Goldstein The Second Best Night of Your Life.

I like that special lot, Kevin Hart acting My Age, which I have as my number two special. And again I’ll put out my list on Saturday. Kamil nan Gianni’s Ninth Thoughtsparently people seem to like this one where his press people are good. A lot of buzz on that one. It’s coming out on Hulu later in the month.

Rick Gervai’s Mortality and Sarah Silverman’s post Mortem, which was really good, or I’d out of Mark Goldstein, Hart, Kamal, Ricky, Sarah. So I think artistically I like Sarah’s the best, but in terms of just my ranking, I have Kevin Hart top of this group, I guess would have to give it to Kevin Hart. I kind of want to give it to Sarah, but that doesn’t make sense if I have Kevin ranked higher than Sarah. How do you judge that? Are we just going by funniest or should I go by the art, Because if I go by the art, Sarah did it.

Of course. The entire thing is madness that Mark Maron is not nominated. But maybe he didn’t submit himself for an award, which seems like a very Mark Maron thing to do. I don’t know how it works. The nominations for Best TV Series, Musical or Comedy, Abbot Elementary, The Bear Hacks and nobody wants this, only Murders the Studio The Bear is clearly not a comedy.

I’d say hacks out of that group. Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series, Music or Comedy Adam Brody, nobody wants this. Steve Martin for Murders Glenn Powell, Chad Powers, Seth Rogan, The Studio, Martin Short Murders, Jeremale and White Bear, which is not a comedy. The industry loves fawning over themselves and they really like the very very overrated The Studio. Seth Rogen will win there.

If I had to give it to somebody, I don’t even have a pick. Best performance by an actress in a TV series Musical comedy, Kristen Bell, nobody wants this. I Adebe The Bear, which is not a comedy, Selena Gomez Murders, Natasha Leone, Poker Face, Jenna Ortega, Wednesday, Jean Smart Hacks. I’d give it to Gene Best podcast, Dak Shephard, call Her Daddy, Amy Pohler, the Mel Robins podcast, SmartLess, and Up First, And as I posted on LinkedIn, hey guys, this is a TV show I actually listened to Up First most days. They’re not gonna like get nine point thirty on CBS, be like and here’s the guys from NPR.

Up First. Amy Poehler is gonna win this one. If she doesn’t, Dak Sheppard will. The Carol Burnett Award will go to Sarah Jessica Parker bill Board put out their list of the top twenty five comedians of the twenty first century so far. I’m going to rip off that idea and do my own version.

Later in the month, Ricky Gervais posted on social media, this is so American centric. I’m generally surprised to be on it at all. But to be fair, it’s a pretty fine listen and I’m a fan of most of the people above me, so it’s all good. In a social media clip, Ricky Gervais talked about his tour and his special. He also talked about his vodka.

But I’ll play the Voka part tomorrow. But here’s Ricky. Hello, Ricky Dumas here. I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who bought a ticket to my Mortality tour and everyone who tried. It’s probably my favorite tour so far.

The special drops on Netflix on the thirtieth of December. So if you like the show, or if you like my previous shows, then you’re gonna love the special. It’s more me than ever. If you didn’t like my previous shows, you’ll hate it. You’ll hate it more than don’t watch it.

It’ll make you sad and angry. Don’t even watch the trailers because they’re make you. Oh, you’ll post something about them. No one to care and how makes you sadah and angrier? Watch something you do like and talk to your little friends.

Dr Who you love that, Watch Doctor Who. David Letterman will be the guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live Tonight. Make twelve thirty great Again. The team behind the British version of Saturday Night Live have slightly tapped into Seth Myers to help them out. Seth told Graham Norton, I doubts about it at first, but having spent a week here meeting potential writers and cast, it’s very exciting.

There are so many young, funny people and a great comedic skill set here, I think it’s going to be great. Chortal reports. A transcript of Seth’s comments released to journalists initially said that Seth Myers had explicitly said quote I am involved unquote in the UK project. After several hours after, Trotter reported that a publicist for the show said the transcript was inaccurate. Interesting.

A briefing from the Sky Channel has asked cast and writers to be available from mid January to early April. That suggests a time table for that. The President of the United States, who’s doing nothing about Star Trek. Have you seen this trailer for Starfleet Academy? Oh my god, just mister Trump, you gotta do something about this.

He’s out there hosting TV shows. He was hosting the Kennedy Center Awards on Sunday night, and he compared himself to a previous host of the event, saying, Jimmy Kimmel was horrible. If I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president. Interestingly, Jimmy Kimmel has hosted the Kennedy Center Awards as many times as I have. We are tied at zero.

The President told reporters, We’ve never had a president hosting the awards before. This is the first. I’m sure they’ll give me great reviews, right, you know, they’ll say he was horrible. He was terrible. It was a horrible situation.

The President was confident, said, we’ll do fine. I will take a break from comedy for a second to talk about a dramatic movie. Jay Kelly, George Clooney, and the great dramatic actor Adam Sandler I absolutely loved the movie. Among the reasons I loved it, it’s a movie movie. It’s not what I call The Avengers, where everything’s a two second fast cut in a lot of special effects.

This was like a movie, like, you know, like v Onenheimer was like a movie. This is a movie movie. And here in the middle of the decade, it’s very refreshing when someone makes an actual movie. Adam Sandler, of course really good in it. And as I published in my sub stack on Monday, there are now officially six good Adam Sandler movies.

The best Adam Sandler movie J Kelly. That is now the best Adam Sandler movie. It is not Adam Sandler’s best performance. His best performance is the second best Adam Sailor movie, which is Uncut Gems. I like J.

Kelly even better than Uncut Gems. So we have J Kelly, Uncut Gems, Basketball Movie, Space Movie, and the two with Drew Barrymore. Those are the six good Adam Sandler movies. Every other movie Adam Sandler in is complete garbage. But he’s good in J.

Kelly. Although minor spoiler there’s a scene where he has to act sad. He’s not good at sad. He’s just good at normal. If he’s just like a normal dude in a scene, he’s good, but he has to play sad at one scene, not good at that.

Marcelo Hernandez does two things really well. One is invariance on that character. The other is a Sebastian Maniscalco impression. We’re gonna find out just how funny Marcelo Hernandez is. He’s getting a Netflix special.

It’s titled American Boy, to be on Netflix January seventh, so that at one point will be the best comedy special of twenty twenty six. We’ll see if I can hold the title. Filmed in Miami, the special seas Marcelo Hernandez musing on his experiences growing up as a first generation American. I hung around to the end of Saturday Night Live to watch the credits. Remember a couple of weeks ago, we’re talking about how Nikki Glaser kind of got iced by the cast during the Good Nights.

Well, Melissa McCarthy did not get iced. I saw people hugging her. Good episode. Colin Jost was really good in it, both as Pete Hegseth and during the news. Sarah Sherman also did well, and then during the Good Nights I saw Cam Patterson standing there and I was like, Oh, I don’t think you were in anything this week?

Are you even on the show? I think he’s been on the show about six minutes more than I have this season. I did see a thread on the Threads social media app, which is really good for comedy. It’s actually better than Twitter ACX for comedy these days. But I saw somebody raving about Cam Patterson saying he’s got superstar talent, and people were tagging that, going yes, So I guess that’s what Lorden Michael sees.

But whatever everyone’s seeing, it’s not appearing on SNL. Maybe he’s an awesome stand up but it ain’t happening on Saturday nights. My boilers still not fixed. It is freezing here, so I have to cut this little short. I’ve got a space heater in the basement.

And then the quote unquote studio is a room also in the basement, but it’s a separate room without a space heater, and my feet are freezing, even though I’ve only been talking to you for about ten minutes. If you missed it, yesterday around noon Eastern, I dropped the Comedy Survivor selection show sixteen comedians one Comedy Survivor. You can go back and listen to that one. We’ll start playing that game in January. Out today on the eight hundred Pound Guerrilla YouTube channel, it’s Nicole Buyer’s an evening of crowd work.

Let’s talk about friend of the show. Jason Zenneman from The New York Times back to back days over the Thanksgiving holiday or so, he had written a piece called Ian Comedy is Back, this time without the judgment. He focused on comedians like Nate Perghetzy, Lean Morgan, and Dusty Sleigh. Jason Wright says an alternative to the coasts, the stand up scene that gets the most attention these days is Austin. But Nashville, I’d argue, is the more important comedy city.

It has a large industry footprint. He mentions the eight hundred Pound Gorilla, which I mentioned a few times a week and is a major destination for podcast guests. That’s where theol Voon tapes his show. But most important, Nashville has emerged as the center of a resurgent, clean comedy scene. Zenneman writes the extent of the Nate Berghezzy phenomenon may not be entirely clear because he doesn’t show up in the discourse, he doesn’t beef with other stars, and steers clear of controversy.

His excess stems from the insight that audience has still wanted, but weren’t getting the kind of escapist, broadly likable comedy that was a regular part of the cultural diet on network television in the nineteen eighties and nineties. So to me, this is Foxworthy theory. I’ve told the story before. I sat in a room with Jeff Foxworthy many years ago, and I asked him to explain his brand to me. And he was sitting across from me, and he held up his hands and he said, I realized if I stopped cursing, I picked up the kids and the grandma’s And then he held his hands wider, indicating a larger audience.

Now I’ll push back on this one. Jason wrote about Nate and Dusty. They are Southern comics with accents. They were lightly and they don’t play the country rube the way the stars of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour did in the early two thousands. Cable Guy, Yes, absolutely Foxworthy, somewhat but I think Foxworthy is overshadowed by his trademark you might be a redneck bit.

Other than that, I don’t think Jeff really leaned into that too much. Bill Angvall did not, and Ron White did not. Anyway, good stuff is always from Jason’s innam in. I won’t go w camal bell on you. That’s your comedy news for today.

I gotta go get warp see you

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Sixteen comedians, one island, one survivor this January on Daily Comedy News. Outbit Outlaugh Outlast. This is Comedy Survivor. Hello, I’m Johnny Mack and welcome to the Comedy Survivor selection show.

Here’s how this is going to go. Today, I will give you these sixteen names of the comedians we are putting on the legally distinct parody of famous TV show Legally Distinct Parody. It’s a joke, guys. Relax, Okay, We’re putting sixteen comedians on an island. Every week in the Facebook group, you’re going to go to the Facebook group.

You’re going to find the Comedy Survivor drawing that I’ll have the AI make and you’re going to vote someone off the island, one person off the island every week. You’re familiar with this concept. How this is going to work? Yes, we’re going to do that. Now.

Remember it’s not about who wins. It’s about the journey. It’s about the jokes. It’s about what we can set up. So we’re gonna have fun with this thing.

That is the idea. Last week in the Facebook group, which is Daily Comedy News podcast group. I asked the listeners to nominate some folks, and nominate they did. We wound up with a group that is six women and ten men. I had to go in a little bit and go, Okay, here’s all these nominations, who should we do?

And I didn’t want it to be runaway white males, which it very, very very easily could have been, so I tried to keep it at least somewhat diverse. Interestingly, nobody nominated Dave Chappelle, so he is not part of this. I only went with names thrown out in the group, and there were a couple of places where I had to use my brain to do some tiebreakers. But here are your sixteen comedy survivors. Are you ready?

First up on the island, if you need a drink, Jim Gaffigan will be there to sell you some bourbon. He will be happy to do it. Next up our second comedy survivor. She’s hosting the Golden Globe, so she’ll be in the news. That makes this more fun.

That’s kind of how I put my thumb on the scale here. I want people who are in the news that we can talk about. Nikki Glaser, Welcome to the Island, our third Comedy Survivor. A nomination for Mary who gets the bit she has nominated? Seth Myers, No, no, no no, Seth Meyers, Are you crazy?

Make twelve thirty great again? All right? Seth Meyers on the Island, joining Nikki Glaser and Jim Gaffigan. Next up, a man who’s never afraid to take a gig and if this thing were real, you know he’d want to work on it. Yes, it’s Kevin Hart.

Kevin Hart. He announces a new project every day, might as well announce this one. Kevin Hart. Welcome to Comedy Survivor. Our next Comedy survivor is someone who always likes being talked about, So talk about you we will.

Amy Schumer, Welcome to the Comedy Survivor Island. Next one up. A couple nominations. Couldn’t leave this guy off. One of the top in the game right now.

John Mulaney, Welcome to Comedy Survivor. I like this nomination a lot. She’s one of my favorites. Maybe not the biggest comedian out there, but nice in the mix. This could be a sleeper pick.

This person could go all the way ots Goo at Conska. Nice pick. There next up again, you guys get it. Let’s get some materially out of this. Sebastian manescelgo, okay, sure.

Our next Comedy Survivor is could be another sleeper pick. Tig Nataro good solid pick. There a few people nominated. This next person quite surprising late in his career, still pretty popular, and you’ll probably find him over next to Jim Gaffigan drinking the bourbon. It’s Ron White, someone who the more I look at her career she might actually be underrateds are consistently great.

She is Sarah Silverman. Welcome to Comedy Survivor. Another from the nomination pool. A bit of a. Wild card pick here, what if it expected this name?

But when I saw it, I was like, oh, that’s fun. So let’s see how far Leslie Jones gets in Comedy Survivor. One more from the nomination group, Bert Kreischer makes it onto Comedy Survivor. I was kind of a toss up between Bert and Bill Burr, but since Bert has the Netflix thing coming out, I figured he’d be in the news a little bit more. Bill Burr would have been a solid pick for this, and again we are not picking best Comedian in the world or anything like that.

That’s not what this is. This is just comedy survivor. We’re throwing out sixteen names. Let’s see what happens. So that’s the last one from the nomination committee.

And then there were the initial picks that I threw out there because this is a bit. They are former host of the Golden Globes Joe Coy. You remember he hosted the Golden Globes one time and told this horrible joke about Taylor Swift. You don’t remember here, I’ll play it for you. 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. That’s how that bit works.

Also, on the island, the worst person who ever lived, he’ll probably be first…

This guy is so horrible, taking care of his ill wife and doing charity events and occasionally commenting on Late night how dare you jay leto Welcome to the Island. And of course no bit would be complete without having a great dramatic actor on the island. So we have fifteen comedians and one great dramatic actor. Welcome to Comedy Survivor, Adam Sandler. Okay, how’s this gonna work.

We’ll wait until the holidays are gone. First week in January. I will post this every week on the Facebook group, which is Daily Comedy News Podcast group. You guys will go in, you will vote someone off. Whoever gets the most votes, they’re out of the competition.

If we have a tie, I will just pick, and I will pick. I’ll tell you right now, based on where I think the most humor can be. Do not take this too seriously. This is a bit, This is fun. This is just something for us to argue about the Facebook group and have a little fun with the show.

So here are You’re sixteen comedy survivors. They are Jim Gaffigan, Nikki Glaser, Seth Myers, Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, John Mulaney, Otsko At Kotska, Sebastian Maniscalco, Tig Nataro, Sarah Silverman, Leslie Jones, Ron White, Bert Kreischer, Jay Leno, Joe Coy, Adam Sandler, sixteen comedians, well, fifteen comedians, one dramatic actor, one island, one comedy survivor. There’s a post in the Facebook group now and you can start arguing about it, and I’ll see you tomorrow

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Full Transcript

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. I’m actually recording this one on Saturday. Still no boiler. It’s forty seven degrees in the kitchen, and you may hear my voices a little blown out from screaming over the DJ at the wedding of Friday night.

But all is good here in the basement studio. Later today, around noon Eastern, I will release a bonus episode with the Comedy Survivor selection show. The executive committee, which is me, has met and named the sixteen comedians that will take place in Comedy Survivor coming to this feed in January. We’ll talk about that at noon. Leading off today, Marcelo Hernandez in the news.

Now he does two things well, one of them is Domingo and variance on that, and the other, of course, is a Sebastian Maniscalco impression. He got dragged into the White House’s battle with Sabrina Carbenter. Sabrina was unhappy that the White House had used some of her songs in a post celebrating the work of Ice. They deleted that post, and then they posted a new clip of Sabrina Carpenter doing a commercial for her recent SNL appearance, with the audio overdub so that she appears to be calling cast member Marcelo Hernandez illegal instead of hot. In the original clip, this is just you know, I’ve been doing the bit about the president, and I disagree on some of the issues, one of them mis Seth Meyer’s been doing that bit, but like, come on, guys, what are you doing here?

The original SNL commercial Sabrina still alongside Marcelo and said I think I might need to arrest someone for being too hot. Hernandez said, oh well, I turned myself in. In the White House version of the clip, the over dubbed audio now has a voice like Carpenter saying too illegal. The caption reads, PSA, if you’re a criminal illegal, you will be arrested and deported.

All right, let’s take a listen to what these idiots did.

I think I might need to arrest someone for being too illegal. Oh well, I turned myself in. You’re under arrest. I mean, it’s not even a good edit. It like it’s just what are you doing?

Just what are you doing? From Wreussell Talk your Home for Comedy News, Tony Hinchcliff said he turned down a WWE writer role earlier in his career, Hinchcliffe was on Rogan’s podcast. However, the role would have required Tony Hinchcliff to move to Stamford, Connecticut, which would have made commuting for his comedy commmits rather annoying. Hinchcliffe said, yeah, it was only a couple of years into me doing stand up, like seven nights a week at the comedy store all the time. Someone’s like, hey, I have a friend at WWE.

If you want to have a meeting with them and just talk. I went in with trade up ideas like the Undertaker’s brother comes back again. I can’t even remember any of them, it’s been so long, but I went in with the whole thing and the guy’s like, this is crazy. You just did this, and I’m like, yeah, I found out a couple of days ago. We were going to talk.

They offered him the gig, but he said, I would have had to move to Connecticut and take a train in New York every night to go do stand up, and that would have been exhausting. If it was anywhere else other than Connecticut, it kind of would have made sense. If it was New York City, it would have been a no brainer if it was in La definitely w Camal Bell is not happy with Friend of the Show Jason Zinneman. Bell wrote on his substack hate New York Times Louis c. K doesn’t need your help subheading when a newspaper has only one stand up comedy critic, they actually have none.

This is a lengthy substack post from Bell. I’ll pick away at it. He writes, The New York Times only has one dedicated stand up comedy critic. When they first hired him in twenty eleven, I thought, yay, the New York Times has taken comedy seriously. But more than a short period of time, I came to realize that a newspaper that only has one comedy critic only has one sense of humor.

This is a problem because comedy is as diverse as a discipline as any other art form. It would be like if The New York Times only had one music critic. We all know that would be ridiculous because the classical music critic has no business reviewing pop music. When you google New York Times music critic, you get a bunch of different names. Only one name comes up.

When you do the same with the phrase New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinnamon all right, I’m gonna jump in there. If you’re a regular listen to this program, you know Jason’s been on several times, and I’ve had lengthy hour conversations with them. I’ve never met any conversation we’ve had. You’ve heard ninety eight percent of it on this podcast, other than you know, the hey, I’m gonna hit record now part of our discussions. Seems like a really cool guy, seems like a level headed guy.

As I often say, I know more about comedy than say, ninety eight percent of the general population, and then the people that know more about comedy than I do know a lot more. And Jason’s in that second camp. I also believe, and I’m gonna fact check this here as I talk and type, I believe his title is critic at large, not so much specific comedy critic. So I’m on ny Times dot com right now, and Jason’s byline says, I am a critic at large for the Culture section of the New York Times and write a column about comedy. Jason’s own words here what I cover, skipping down to the second paragraph.

Since becoming the paper’s first comedy critic at twenty eleven, I focused on stand up specials, but I also keep an eye on improv, sketch podcasts, plays, musicals, TikTok accounts, and any other forms in which jokes are made. As a critic at large, I also like to write about movie theater and books, but never seem enough time to do it now. As someone who puts this show together every day, and and I’m a paid subscriber to The New York Times, I believe and I could kind of prove it here. Other people write about comedy for The New York Times. I just typed in search query comedian, and as I record this on Saturday morning, it is ten thirty eight am the time, just telling me.

Six hours ago Hannah Ziegler posted an article in the Arts section and the headline bouble for a day, but he can’t sing, And there’s a little resemblance subheader. Dan Permlan, a comedian, looks and sounds nothing like Michael Boublay, and for some reason he was hired to impersonate the Crouner at a birthday party. The next one that surfaced is from August and Zennaman, then one from September twenty eighth, Also in the arts section, Mark Marin and other comedians rebuke Piers in Saudi Festival. That’s from Derek, Bryce and Taylor. I guess, to be fair to mister Bell, that’s commentary and not a critic piece.

But you get where I’m going, and I don’t want to bog down in this. There’s plenty here. Bell rights. While I do occasionally read Zinneman’s work, I read it because it concerns my industry, not because I need his particular critics eye. And yes, a big part of the reason I don’t seek him out is because when he found space to mention me, it was clear he was not a fan.

Here’s the time he squeezed a short review of my Netflix special Private School Negro into one of his columns. Belle then quotes Zinneman is writing Bell’s new special seems a little tempid. His stand up was never danced with punchlines. But Private School Negro veers further from a tight club set toward a mix of storytelling, jokes and arguments. It’s a rambling, sometimes overly familiar hour.

Again, I am friendly with Jason Zenman, so I admit I come with a bias here, But I don’t think that paragraph I just wrote to you is like absurd. Getting back to what prompted this piece from Bell. On November twenty one, Zinneman reviewed one of Louis C.K.’s recent stand up shows at the Beacon Theaters. Zenneman’s lovingly crafted prose describes in detailed the current evolution of Louis’s career. See Jason is concerned that too few people know that Louis still a great comedian.

This concern seems particularly bizarre and unfounded because Louis in the middle of a comedy tour that’s mostly sold out. It’s not like Louis playing small clubs. Louis playing at the kind of venues you play when you’re a super successful touring act. But you don’t want to play the enormo done in the town, so instead you play a bunch of shows at the giant theater in town. In other words, Louis is literally living the stand up comedian dream.

Louis doesn’t need Zinnemen’s helps writing his word, but Zinnamann does it anyway. Why again, I’ll let Jasus speak for himself as an observer here. I think Jason went to Louis C.K. Show during the New York Comedy Festival and thought the stand up was good, and he wrote about it, because that’s what he does. Bell, quoting Zinnamon Zinnaman writing, in the seven years since c K admitted to sexual misconduct, the comedian has produced four different hours of comedy.

It’s a large, under examined, formally audacious body of work that represents a break from the past, but also continuity. Bell writes, under examined, mister, Zinnamon, A, you’re trying to make us feel bad for not keeping up with Louis C.K.’s work after his admission, et cetera, et cetera. Are you saying that CK’s work is somehow so good it’ll make us forget that he did the thing he did, et cetera, et cetera. Louis C.K. Doesn’t own anything from the public.

His work isn’t under examined. It is utterly discarded by the audience who thought he could trust him. Interesting. I mean yes to all this. I see what Belle saying.

I think Jason Zinaman went to a show and is also pointing out CK has put out a bunch of things that people haven’t seen. I mean, if we want to nitpick the word under examined, especially the examined part of it, I mean, sure, here in the basement where I have no boiler, I’d just like a good comedy fight a lot more from Camel Bell on his substack. If you want to check that out. If you listen to yesterday show, I told you Vulture has Night Thoughts as their number one comedy special of the year. There’s now a trailer for it.

Based on this trailer, I don’t see how this is possibly the number one special of the year. But again I haven’t seen it. But this is a year in which Mark Marin’s special came out, and I don’t see how this is going to be better than that. So let’s listen to the trailer. Watching your movie made me want to get therapy.

Oh that’s good, that’s clever. Do not get weird about the muscles. These muscles can’t hurt you. These muscles are decorative. Never been in a fight for because I’m super good at apologizing.

I am an immigrant. Are there any other immigrants here? Okay? What you can’t do is point at someone else. I thought I was happy, and then every now and then I’d.

Get very angry out of nowhere. I watched Bananas in the stake. Anyone remember what it was like buying marijuana before it was legal. You had to go to a guy’s house, pretend to be friends with a guy. You had to like, watch a little bit of the Matrix with him.

You guys get night thoughts when you’re laying in bed in the middle of the night and you can’t sleep, and your brain’s like, here’s something new for you. To worry about, or. You hadn’t thought of that. It’s because you’re a little bit stupid. Night thoughts are like day thoughts, except they hate you.

This was really keeping me up at night. White people, there’s more. And for some reason it is bothering me. The voice that Kamil Nan Johnny uses during his stand up Now, to be fair, my friend Larry the Cable Guy does an exaggeration. Sebastian Manaskalko does an exaggeration, and I right now am doing an exaggeration.

If I’m at the bar at trivia night, I’m not like Glenn, would you like a beer? I’m like, hey, you want to get another beer? My normal speaking voice would be something like that, like Hey, I’m gonna have a sip of my coffee right now. So this is a performance, and I’m up in my Johnny Mack delivery that my children make fun of. So maybe I’m being unfair.

But in Kisha Curius, here is Kamail Nanjihanni on the Michael Rosenbaum podcast. Fun fact, Michael is my former intern. That’s right, way back in the twentieth century at WR Radio. Michael Rosenbaum was my intern. And I got to give props to Michael when he was the intern making copies.

He said he was going to Hollywood to become an actor and that he did, so I plot him. Anyway, here is Kamil Nan Johnny’s normal speaking voice. You know, well, I did stuff that should have been a home run, and then it wasn’t like eternals. You know, it was Oscar winning director, one of the craziest casts. You know, you had like legends, You had Salma Hayek, you had Angelina Njoli, you had new people who are amazing Brian Tyry Henry Barry Kiogen, who have both been nominated for Oscar.

You thought it was just a slamm. Dum based on that Vulture list that I mentioned I did watch Ian Edward special. It’s a nice club set. There are some individual jokes that are really strong. But if Variety thinks that’s like one of the top ten of the year, as we used to say in Queen’s I think Variety is on crack.

Now Variety is not an individual person, but someone who was on crack that doesn’t write for Vulture might think that Ian Edwards is one of the top of the year. So I’m really suspect that kamel On Gianni is the number one special of the year. It comes out December nineteenth. It won’t make my list because my publicist wants my list this weekend so she can publicize it, so that’ll be Saturday’s episode. Oh, I did record the Billboard Top twenty five.

The rest of the list is out. I looked at the list. I’m saving my reaction to it for some episodes. Right after Christmas. I could take a couple days off, you know, Christmas Day.

I don’t want to be sitting at the basement talking about comedy and plus, there won’t be any news anyway, like any list. Some things I went, oh, good pick and some other things I went, that is crazy town. If you’d like to hear my thoughts now. It is released as a bonus episode for the paid subscribers, So for five bucks a month you get this show commercial free, plus the extra episodes that they occasionally sprinkle in. I owe you guys at DCNA.

It’s been a super busy month. But you can hear my reaction to Billboard’s list in there right now. Otherwise get it for free on December twenty ninth, how are we doing on time? Oh my? The combination of I have no voice and the clock says, let’s take a break out today On the eight hundred Pound Gorilla Rosie Jones triple Threat.

On the Joe Rogan Podcast, Joe Rogan called President Trump a kid and revealed President Trump’s text habits. Rogan said, he makes the text go big like USA is respected, respected all caps, and it makes the text in large. That’s fun. I’ve never received a text from President Trump. Hannah Gasby will have a new show set to debut in March at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

The Evening Muse is described to be like a Tonight Show, but hosted by Hannah Gatsby, so it isn’t anything like you’d expect. The Melbourne Comedy Festival runs from March twenty fifth through April nineteenth. Always fun to cover here in the basement. One of these years I will have to go Love Melbourne. Melbourne is a great city.

For its fortieth anniversary, the twenty twenty sixth festival will include a one night only spectacular, The Big Four to Oh, celebrating the milestone, bringing together standout comedians from this year’s program and legends from across the four decades. A bunch of local legends will be there. I don’t think you would recognize any of these names unless you’re, like, you know, extremely into Ozzie comedy. International stars hitting the festival include the UK’s Sam Nickeresti, who won the twenty two twenty five Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show, Ian Smith, Chloe Petts, Joe Kent, Walter, Is Luke McQueen, Phil Wang, He’s Great, Scotland’s Connor Burns, Daniel Sloss and Larry Dean, and Ireland’s David o’darty and Joanne McNally. From the US, Sam Jay, Abby Govinan and Zana Johnson.

There are also international comedians from Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Denmark abbreviated d NK for some reason. Sophie Hawgin of the d NK will be there, Takashi Wakasugi from Japan and Tarag Hardikar from India. It’s the Melbourne Comedy Festival coming up. Patton Oswalt who’s out there ruining Star Trek with his really awful Doug the Vulcan character, and the President has done nothing about this. I mean, the President is nothing but disappointing me today.

Mister President, please make Star Trek great again? Have you seen the teaser art for Starfleet Academy, Mister President? Holy cow? I mean, I just want to say words that sound a lot like Jesus that have a JC in it, But you know I don’t won’t offend anybody, but boy, this Star Trek poster awful. And Paton Oswald has Dug the Vulcan ruining Star Trek.

He was talking about AI and he said, AI is not going anywhere. We can’t wish this stuff away because we invented it, So how do we find ways to work around it or make it more human? I like the rewards, but the rewards are only fun if you got it. It’s almost like getting away with it. I got all the success from making things up from thin air.

There’s something beautiful about that, getting to sit down and come up with a joke out of nothing. It’ll never get old for me. I’ve always set them and showed this for the money and the anecdotes. I want some really amazing stories, and when every part of the canvas covered, I want to be able to explore every corner of it. It changes you when you experience all this stuff.

I would I have the Severdas story. Been meaning to get this one in. He was on social media talking about Mumbai’s worsening air quality. He said it’s reached a point where coughing has become redundant as his lungs have adapted. He was on Instagram.

He filmed it in his living room and added a smoke filter for effect. Did He posted, Oh you think this is outside, No, this is what’s happening inside you. Apparently Mumbai’s air quality index has now touched the severe category. That’s your comedy news for today. All right back around noon Eastern with the Comedy Survivors Selection Show.

While I’m recording, I’m arguing with the AI to make new artwork. It has made artwork. You’ve seen it in the Facebook group Daily Comedy News podcast group. But I’m like, can you revise it? And the AI was like, no, I can’t do that, and I’m like, you just did it.

Ah yeah, but that was before I discovered the policy. All right, well this is a parody. Can you do it? And just it’s so annoying sometimes the AI. Maybe Patton Oswalt is right, except not about Star Trek.

All Right, bye,

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Full Transcript

Calorokashock Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Is gonna lead off today taking a look at Vulture’s best comedy specials of twenty twenty five. I usually don’t agree with them. It doesn’t mean that I’m right and there wrong, or they’re right and I’m wrong.

It’s just a list. My list is just a list. I will have my list for you on Saturday if you’re new to the show. When I do these list episodes, when I’m commenting on other people’s lists, I don’t look at them in advance. I like to react in the moment to things so twofold from my own list.

I want to make sure I didn’t forget anything. And a good way to make sure you don’t forget anything is to look at someone else’s list. So we’ll jump in the pool here. There are so many comedy specials I clearly, and if you listen to your list, I don’t see them all. If you include the YouTube quote unquote specials recorded to the chuckle hut, forget it, you’d never get through it all.

I do try to watch the majors on the bigger streamers. So let’s see what Vulture likes here, and they probably got some screeners that I haven’t been able to get access to. I tried to reach out to the HBO people to get a couple things and just couldn’t get anywhere. It’s so hard to even get through to a human. There was one website I was on.

It was like, who’s recommending you to even log into this press website? I was like, all right, relax, relax. Vulture writes many of this year’s best comedy special share a reflective sense of mid career reconsideration. The most striking of these is from Kamil Nanjianni, whose special Night Thoughts allows him to reassess his career and relationship with comedy after more than a decade away from regular stand up. Okay, here’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about.

It’s on Hulu and it’s not out till December nineteenth, and as we all know, the Hulu publicists will not get back to me. So that’s a good example of something that’s on a list that I haven’t seen. Apparently it’s pretty good, according to Vulture, they write for other comedians. The retrospective meditation is about grappling with existential dread rather than non Gianni’s focus on the trap of his external public persona. They name check specials by Berbiglia, Maren Cameron, Esposito, Bill Burr.

Then they write Otsko at Kotska’s Father on Earthquakes, joke telling Business are also reflections on their comedic identities, but they operate without the same wistful existentialism.

Meanwhile, Steph Tolev’s filth Queen and Jordan Jensen’s Take Me with You, or…

Let’s jump in all right, they have at number ten Jordan Jensen’s Take Me with You from Netflix. They write, no other comedy special this year accomplishes quite the same mixture of emotion that Jordan Jensen’s does. Jordan’s appeal is how transparent she can make the glass while peering into her own brain, and there’s no question that what’s going on in there is darker than most other comedians work right now, up to and including Bill Burr’s lengthy thoughts on death. Now I’m checking my notes. I feel like I had hit play on this and bailed on it.

But I also have in my best of list. Personally, I have a section called not on list, and I don’t see that I wrote this down. I do think I hit play on it and wasn’t feeling it again, these are just list so vultures. Number ten as Jordan Jensen’s Take Me with You. I’ve added it to my list of things to put eyes on.

At number nine, they have earthquakes joke telling Business. I did not hit play on that. You’ll find that on Netflix. Just earthquakes not really my thing. They write catchphrases or a high wire act.

They deliberately swim upstream against the current fashion for naturalism and stand up sets. But the catchphrase in Earthquakes Joke Telling Business is really canny. As he talks about his family, black fatherhood, marriage and immigration politics, he keeps inserting the same pivot line between each section. These ain’t jokes. Number eight Ian Edwards untitled on YouTube.

Okay, see, I’m glad I’m doing this list. This was not on my radar at all. Great and I love this description. Ian Edwards reinvents no comedy wheels in untitled. This is a YouTube special shot at the comedy store where a guy stands next to a stool tells jokes about relationships hotel check in lines and gender reveal parties.

I will add that to my checkout list. Good job so far. Vulture. Number seven, they have Bill Burr’s Drop Dead Years. Absolutely no, it’s Bill Burr’s worst special.

I’m not even going to couch. It is not his best, it’s his worst. This is a bad pick. This is one of the specials that makes me say, Hulu is where you go to do your comedy special when you’re on the way down. So that could be a warning for Kamil Nan Johnny as well.

I can’t agree with you here on Bill Burr Vulture Road. Is there anything better, sharper, more ticklish, or more thrilling than Bill Burr doing comedy about he’s slowly realizing that he and everyone else will eventually die. Yeah, I can name twenty five other specials this year that’s better than that. Sorry, I normally like Bill Burr specials. When that one.

Number six, they have Otsko at Kotska’s Father on Hulu. I think I have that one in my middle tier. I mean check, yes, I have that as number two in my middle tier. And again I’ll do my list next weekend. It’s on Hulu.

I liked Otsco’s previous special better than this one. That seems to be the theme that I find with Hulari’s specials. They did pull out the best joke in the set, which always seems to get pulled out. Otsco tells it better, but she says, I asked my husband how to turn on the washing machine, and that’s how he realized that he’d been doing the laundry all these years, which is a great joke. And I got to take a break at some point, so halfway seems to make sense.

Be right back. Taking a look at Vulture’s Best comedy Specials of twenty twenty five, at number five, they have Mark Maren’s Panicked, which I’m I’m gonna have at number one. I don’t see what’s going to pass this. This is peak Mark Marin was an HBO special. Vulture Rights.

It’s not exactly Mark Maron’s fault that he’s become such a great comedian for this moment in history. At another time, a perpetually anxious comedian who can’t keep from ranting about his paranoid worries about the end of the world probably would not feel like such a helpful guide to life. Maren’s new special speaks to a national mood better than anyone else this year. I wonder why they have this so low. Number four, Cameron Esposito has Four Pills.

I do like Cameron a lot, but this one is on dropout and I don’t have dropout, so I haven’t seen it. Vulture says, calling Four Pills a special about the pandemic is unfair. Cameron’s New Hours about marriage, divorce to Spare ag retrieval’s mental health, and what it’s like to discover things about yourself after the age of forty. Number three, they have Mike Birbigli as the Good Life. I don’t really dig what Birbiglia does.

I do have it in my middle tier at number five, and I wrote civilians will like it. I’m a comedy snob and I don’t really like these shows that Birbigley does. It’s just not my style of thing. I get that people like it. These are just lists, but this will not make my top ten, Vulture says, given Birbiglia’s track record, it’s not exactly a surprise to turn a New Hour and discover a painstakingly crafted meditation on the meaning of life.

But it’s still a magic trick every time it happens, and by embracing a more casual mundanity, the good life sneaks its way into the top tier of Verbiglia’s work. See I think that magic trick line. They’re saying it as a compliment. That’s my problem. I just feel like it’s a performance.

And I understand all these things are a performance. But like when she and Gillis gets up there and I understand these are written jokes and he’s performing them, well, I just feel like he checking and driving these of the room. I always feel like Berbiglia is performing a stage played. It’s very, very crafted. It’s just not my thing, but fine.

On number two they have stef Toolev’s Filth Queen. You’ll find that on Netflix. I have that in my personal not on list section. The title gives it away. It’s just not my thing.

Vulture rights. Filth Queen does exactly what it says on the tin. It is proudly and thoroughly gross. Steff Toolev catalogs the many horrible qualities of the human body with the care and consideration of an obsessive collector. Each fort is treasured for its own uniqualities.

Et cetera, et cetera. Not my thing, not interested in that. And they have number one Kamil Nanjianni’s Night Thoughts again on Hulu December nineteenth. Haven’t seen it, Who’s not going to get back to me? Who knows Vulture rights?

He probably could have rolled up to an hour long standup special taping, delivered a half hearted life update, and walked away mostly on scathe. Instead. Night Thoughts slices deep into his last decade, carefully excavating how fame in the public eye have changed how he sees himself. Vulture has some other how many highlights from the year. They have listed Brent Weinbach’s Popular Culture on YouTube, Rosebud Baker’s The Mother Load on Netflix, and Roywood Junior’s Lonely Flowers are the other three they spotlighted.

Now, if you’re relatively new to the show, I could totally fairly imagine you right now going, John, do you even watch comedy specials? Because I mentioned I didn’t see a lot of the ones that Vulture liked, I’ll fly down my list really quickly. Right now. I have it as Marin, Kevin Hart, Riife, Jim Jeffries, Justin Willman’s Magic Lover, John Marco, Moe Ammer, Dusty Slay, Kreischer, Brett Goldstein, remember that one was real good. Michelle Wolf, Sarah Silverman, Matt McCusker, Mattelane, and Tim Dillon would be my fifteen top right now, and then I’ve got nine more in my middle tier and a whole bunch on my no thank you list.

But again, I will do that next week. It’ll be out on my substack, and it’ll be an episode or two in this feed. And that is your comedy news on a Sunday. Have a great day.