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Caloroga Shark Media. Hi there, Johnny mat with your Bailey Comedy News. The Wall Street Journal asked Louis C.K. About when he started selling stand up specials and tickets to fans directly, which came in handy when the entertainment world cut ties with Ck. They were curious.
Was that the business equivalent of being a doomsday prepper? Louis C. K said, It’s not the way I looked at it. I got to be a top guy all of a sudden. If I put a show on sale, it sold out, didn’t matter where.
That’s an incredible thing to experience, and I’m really curious about the way things work. So I thought, I’m gonna perch here. How could I benefit the fans and get with them more directly? With the special I released, which was live at the Beacon Theuter back in twenty eleven, Ck said, I just wanted them to be able to click and watch with a tiny bump of commerce five bucks, and it was like a million dollars in a week. I never had a million dollars before.
It was just crazy.
And then all of a sudden, I also had that email list.
These are the premium leads. The entertainment industry has gotten really confusing and bye. There’s a lot of fear based prohibition now and weird rules. But I don’t have to live by any of those. I’m in a little bit of a close circuit.
There’s a lot of people that don’t know I’m working. I sold out Madison Square Garden and about one hundred thousand people bought the live stream. Was a huge night, but it was like a secret something kind of amazing about being a secret superstar. The Journal asked if he wishes the TV show Louis were easier for people to rewatch or discover. Ck said, it’s on my website and people buy it steadily.
Would I like it to be on a platform or something, sure, but that ain’t up to me. Is Ck anywhere close to his twenty seventeen earning level. Louis said no, no, no. I was making stupid money and the things people were saying about me were bigger than reality, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Nobody does.
Then that evaporated, and now I’m just more connected to just getting paid for what I do. If I can keep writing novels, I don’t think I’ll tour at this level. I really love my life now I didn’t used to, and going on the road takes me away from that life. So I think I’ll take a long break after this tour, and if I come back to it, I’ll come back to it in a smaller way. GQ asked Stephen Colbert prior to The Late Show.
You played a character for a long time. How has it been spending the last ten years as yourself? Colbert explained, Yeah, it’s pretty close. I mean, it’s performance persona. There are times when it’s very close to me, especially if there’s something that cannot receive a joke.
There are things that will not receive the matrix of our desire to do comedy. And I choose not to talk about tragedy on my show because I think that’s sacred. But there are things that are unavoidable that are happening in our country, and because I talk about what’s happening in America today. I don’t generally say or do things I don’t mean on the show unless I’m in character, like in a sketch. Whereas that the Colbert arepoort was almost nothing.
Basically it was Catholic and Lord of the Rings were the only two things that we had in common. I get that I was talking with one of the trivia guys recently about this, and also I talk about this with my college class a lot. The Johnny Mick persona that you’re listening to right now, for one, has a certain delivery. I don’t speak like this and normal I’m not like at trivia night, like hey, Glenn, should we get a beer? Like this isn’t the way of talking.
It’d be like you want another? One would be how I would normally speak. Professor McDermott is also a bit of her performance. I have to try and keep college students entertained for two plus hours. So I got what Colbert is there.
It’s, you know, an exaggerated version of your real self. He was asked how he looks back on the Stephen Colbert character from The Colbert Report. He said, finally, I mean, it was enjoyable to do. A lot of people thought you couldn’t sustain it, and I always thought I could because a mask is such a gift for me, at least as a performer, because really all my training in my entire career until I did that show was as an actor. And we had a bible for the character.
We kept a running bible. What does he believe? What does he not believe, what’s his back history, what’s the relationship with other people. We were writing it as this ongoing narrative where nothing we did should be contradicted by other things we did for that character. I’m gonna jump in there too.
So when I ran the Raw Dog comedy channel at Sirius, the station voice was Satan. It was my production guy, Saldo Leo, using a voice processor, so it dropped his voice down and it was like serious, what O four? He had used the Satan character at a promo and I liked it, and I’m like, let’s make that the station voice. But here we also had a writer’s guide or a bible about it. The way I wrote the character was there was nothing satanic about it.
As we wrote the character, Satan was a guy with a deep voice who sure he’s the devil, but the only reason he’s working with us on rowd dogg is because we pay well. And he thought everything we did was stupid. So sometimes the bosses would make us promote things. I remember one time we had to promote Oprah Winfrey Radio, which I didn’t think there was much of a crossover with the raw Dog audience. Like if rowd Dog was a person, raw Dog would have been classic Bill Burr, not the current version, the young angry version that would have been rawd dogg It had come to life, so the satan character, for example, promoting Oprah Winfrey Radio would get about two thirds of the way down to the mandated copy and just be like oh and throw out a piece of paper, and sal would record the piece of paper hitting the waste basket and then just leave dead air.
And that was the way we handled things. GQ said, I had forgotten so recently. There was a moment when people thought you, Stephen Colbier and John Stewart were going to save the republic somehow, Colbert said, I promise you we did not share that feeling, especially when reflecting back on the Rally to Restore Sanity slash March to Keep Fear Alive. He was doing the rally to restore sanity. I was doing the March to keep Fear alive, and I liked to remind him that I won.
We kept fear alive. Switching topics, what comedians is Colbert into? I celebrate all of them because I love comedy. I’m a huge fan of Dave Chappelle. I love Kat Williams.
I guess I should have started a podcast now. The other day I told you Stephen Colbert said he would not do a podcast. In this interview, Who’s asked would he consider doing another podcast? He said, I would, and I’d love to do one with my daughters. I’ve got funny kids.
My baby’s twenty years old. She doesn’t want to be in stand up but if she comes out on stage, people throw their purse in the air. She’s got something and people beg to see her in videos and all that. She likes money, so she might do a podcast with me if it meant money. So yesterday, was it yesterday or the day before where I told you write this down?
Steven Colbert will to another podcast. You wrote it down right, Thank you, You’re welcome. Friday waxed Jim Gaffigan’s car. Jim, you’ve done eleven stand up specials. How has the press too evolved over time?
Jim said, there’s still the power of the late night shows. Some of that is prestige, but a lot of is that the clips that come out out in those appearances, whether you’re on the Tonight Show or Kimmel. Notice he’s not doing NBC twelve thirty. Make NBC twelve thirty great again. But obviously the power of podcasts is significant, and you end up getting very strategic about how you place these things.
Even the outlet for comedy specials always moving. I had two specials on Comedy Central, then I did one on my website. Then I did a couple on Netflix, a couple on Amazon, and one on Hulu, which, as listeners to the show know, is where you go when you’re on your way down. Sorry, Jim, sorry to break it to you. It’s always moving.
Is Apple going to get into the business, Is Ellison going to buy Hbo?
And then they’re going to compete with Netflix.
It’s constantly changing, so you have to guess ahead. But in some ways the powerhouse now might be YouTube. That doesn’t take anything away from how important Netflix is or their paychecks, but comedians have become so successful by posting their specials on YouTube that it can actually allow them to go to Netflix. Jim was asked, besides eyeballs and money, what are the metrics you weigh when choosing which distributed partner? With time out?
Here’s who he chooses money. I guarantee you money, Jim says, I see a special as harvesting crops. Money. You always want to be expanding your audience money. If I’m going to Baltimore, Denver every two years, I don’t expect that the people who enjoy my stand up are coming every two years.
That’s not realistic. Some of them are busy, some don’t have disposable income. You always want to be expanding the audience that enjoice your comedy. So when I first went to Amazon Money, I knew they had to reach that at that time. Netflix didn’t.
With Hulu Money. I knew there were viewers who consumed a ton of stuff there, So why not spread the wealth money. It’s easier for me to do that than someone like Dave Chapelle, who’s getting a huge check he doesn’t have to factor in. Maybe I can get more people. Stop, Jim, stop stop stop stop stop stop.
You mean to tell me that if I don no Amazon Prime goes Hey, Jim New Special twenty bucks and Netflix goes thirty bucks, You’re picking Amazon Prime get lost. Jim. What excite you about the future, he said, It’s an exciting time for creative people. I know things are scary, but I think that translates to a certain independence. Creative.
People who are self starters are gonna be fine. Most incredibly, Jude didn’t promote his bourbon in any of that. I remember that Jeff Dye guy, he was on Joe Rogan’s show. Jeff Dye said, I’m sympathetic to the things female comics have to go through through. Then Dian Rogan started talking about de Ei style mandates when in the field.
Joe Rogan said, they’ve literally said we have too many white male comics. Jeff Didye said, I’ve heard it my whole career. Yeah, I mean, I don’t book comedy shows. What are people really saying? No, no, no, we have too many white male comics.
Because I don’t know. I pay attention to the comedy scene, and there seemed to be a lot of white male comics. No. Jeff Dye said, someone comes out and goes, listen, if you’re a straight white guy, you better be real different. It’s Boston, we’re all straight white guys.
That kind of hurt my feelings a little bit. What does that imply about my circumstances. Apparently an agent told Jeff Die The agent was praising one of the agent’s other clients. Apparently, the agent told Jeff die he has all these great things that make him interesting in the industry. I think you’re gonna have to reinvent yourself.
Rogan said, that’s just Hollywood. We don’t do that in Texas. In the Mothership, it’s a meritocracy. And because it’s a meritocracy, it’s very diverse. You got a lot of women in the lineup.
You got all kinds of people. Rogan said. The vast majority of comics at my club are left wing. They are artists. I’ll tell you who’s got a great agent or pr team.
Leanne Morgan, her whole team gets it done now. She was on the Today Show the topic how her show Leanne was renewed for second season. Leanne said, Jerry Seinfeld called me the day came out. He said, you have a sitcom with your name on it, which is unheard of. You were in there with Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, Lucille Ball.
All right, tap the breaks, I mean, yes, congratulations, very successful. What eight episode season one? Can we tap the breaks before we start comparing you to Lucille Ball. I mean, for example, Richard Lewis had a show called Anything but Love that got more than a year. We don’t talk about that one much.
So before we put you on the Pantheon with New Heart, Mary Tyler Moore and Lucille Ball Tap the Breaks, Jerry rude As told Forbes, I would never call myself veggie. I think any comedian that refers to themselves as edgy or uncancellable putting these things on themselves you see a lot in America. I think they’re in trouble as an artist anyway, And those guys are usually the first to fold. In my experience, comics just keep writing jokes, and you call us what you feel the freedom to call us. We’re just thinking about the next show.
So no, I wouldn’t call myself any of those things. It’s not my privilege, it’s yours. I don’t think controversy is adding any currency in art. I don’t. I think it’s a trap.
Then you’re constantly going to be chasing that. But I also don’t think you can predict what’ll get you into controversy. It’s the thing you never thought of. Fred Armison will be honored with the Ernie Kovacs Award at Dallas Video Fest today at the Texas Theater in Dallas. The Ernie Kovacs Awards, introduced in nineteen ninety seven, honors television’s greatest visionaries.
Past recipients include Joel Hodgson, Al Franken, and Terry Gilliam. Fred Armison said, I’m absolutely honored to be part of Ernie Kovac’s world in any way, and that is your comedy news for today. I’ll meet you back here tomorrow