🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
The Shark Deck. Hello there, I’m Jenny Mack. Did you see Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox? Seth Meyers joke to be funny if the network replaced him with the new Green M and M. Fox really knows how to disappear someone.
I’m shocked they didn’t just go with this is their statement. Tucker Carlson is not now and has never been employed by this network. We don’t know who that is, and we’ve never even heard the name. Tune in tonight at APM for our nightly newscast, hosted as always by Fox News’s white blonde lady blue dress James Cordon, who, by the way, tonight is the last late late show with James Cordon. There’s no buzz on this.
He got a little press for a carpool karaoke, but like, there’s not like a zillion articles about the great James Cordon er. It’s very strange. This is not like your usual late night wrap up. I guess the most recent one was Trevor Noah leaving The Daily Show, and there were tons of articles about Trevor, but there’s almost nothing about Cordon anyway. Cordon had a Tucker Carlson joke, which was Tucker Carlson has now worked at and left MSNBC, CNN and Fox News.
He’s running out of options now, Lex sou and he’s just going to be on the Weather Channel saying that hurricanes are caused by drag queens. Good joke, James. I was traveling the past few days, so I have not yet had an opportunity to watch John Malini special. However, I’m going to cover it extensively. I’ll do it in the second half of the show because there will be many spoilers.
Okay, so after the break, I’ll do a lot of Malini, and I will warn you in advance, a lot of Pete Davidson news. Pete will host Saturday Night Live in about ten days. Page six says that Pete has decided not to take any jabs at Kim Kardashian. A source tells page six that Pete will be a good sport about his love life and he’s being a gentleman when it comes to Kim. However, a different insider tells page six that they won’t be surprised if a Kardashian bid does make it into the show, saying nothing’s been written yet, but no with Pete, nothing is off the table.
Meanwhile, Pete was out at Madison Square Garden enjoying the Knicks game, and TMZ has a video of Pete getting in a little mix up with a fan. As TMZ writes, you see, Pete appears to pose for a pick with one dude and a pink shirt and a blue cap, and he keeps moving through the crowd, but it clearly wasn’t enough for the fan who continue to follow Pete, putting his arm around Pete Davidson and resting his head on pete shoulder. Pete tries to stay cool, taking more picks, and then the overzealous fan continue to do stuff, and then Pete shoves the guy away and tells him to back off. But there’s even more Pete Davidson news. Remember he had that late night car crash a while back.
It seems that the Beverly Hills Police Department has recently wrapped up its investigation. You may recall Pete was driving through Beverly Hills last month. He lost control of his Mercedes, drove through someone’s yard and crashed into the side of their house. No one was injured. TMZ points out the case is headed to the District Attorney, which usually handles felony cases, but in Beverly Hills, the DA also can handle mister meaner charges.
We’ll keep an eye on that. Congratulations Nate Brigatzy. He now holds the record as Amazon’s most streamed original comedy special in its first twenty eight days of viewership. You got that good. According to Nielsen, two point nine million total viewers have watched ni Bergatzy’s Hello World nags.
Hello World is currently ranked number two on the Johnny Mac Best of twenty twenty three. Number one is Kyle Kanaane. In case you’re wondering, you’ll find Kyle’s on YouTube. The two point nine million viewers is nearly half a million viewers above Jim Gaffigan’s twenty nineteen special Quality Time, which now sits in second place, when an audience of two point five million in his first twenty eight days. Nielsen points out Hello World was also the top comedy special across all streaming platforms for the month of February, with about two point six million viewers.
Bob Newharrett’s wife Jinny has passed away. They were married sixty years. The family put out a statement saying she was our rock and we will miss her terribly. Bob Newhart is ninety three, Jinny was eighty two. They were introduced by their mutual friend Buddy Hackett back in twenty nineteen.
Bob Newharts told people, Buddy said, I’ve got a girl for you. She was going with another guy, but I don’t think he’s right for her. So I’m going to fix you up on a blind date. You’ll meet her, and you’ll date, and you’ll get married. Then you’ll have kids, and you’ll call one of the kids Buddy, which we did.
Great story there. I saw several headlines along the lines of this headline, which comes from egypt News. The headline Egyptian comedian besim Yusef slams Kevin Hart’s Comma afrocentric movement for cultural appropriation and Cleopatra backlash, and I was like, okay, so you can immediately react to be like Basimus when after Kevin Hart, and then you can have your various take on the issues. I thought would be best here is let’s take a lessen and see what bessim Usef actually said. It’s not about black and white, It’s about the continuous culture appropriation and falsification of history that has been done by what the so called Afrocentrist movement.
The afrocentric movement started the last century as a way, in a good intention, to teach African American about their rich history of West Africa, the Great Empire of Benin, of Ghana, a Sungali, the Great Empire of Mali. But the thing is, that’s why you find people like Kevin Hart, who subscribes to these theories, who claimed that his ancestors play built the pyramids. I’m sorry, your ancestors had their own wonderful civilization in West Africa. They are culture appropriating my culture, calling the people in Egypt of today, despite their skin tone, that we they call us as invaders. Well, they call us intruders and they are being erased by from our own history.
And the clip fades out there. The other man you heard interjecting is Piers Morgan, which is where the interview took place. I’m not sure what Pierre said or what happened after, but that’s what Basimusev said. Big Mouth has been renewed for an eighth and final season. Series star Nick Carole said, if you had told adolescent Nick Carole and Andrew Goldberg that middle school would take eight years to finish.
They would have been like, yeah, that sounds about right. This seems like it will never end. Deadline says big Mouth and it’s spinoff have wrecked up more than one billion viewing hours and, according to Netflix, has included six hundred and eighty nine masturbation jokes. Do you like Jaws, maybe you will like to go see The Shark Is Broken. The Shark Is Broken will arrive on Broadway this summer.
Co writer Ian Shaw plays his father Robert Shaw, in the movie Jaws. Robert Shaw played Quint. The Shark Is Broken begins a sixteen week limited engagement Tuesday, July twenty fifth of the John Golden Theater. Official opening Thursday, August tenth. And by the way, The Shark Is Broken is unrelated to a different stage musical based on Jaws, which is called Bruce.
Bruce received its world premiere at the Seattle Rep last year. Richard Pryor’s first two albums are to be rereleased as newly remastered vinyl LPs. I remember when I first started at serious satellite radio. My boss one day asked me why we didn’t play a lot of Richard Pryor. The answer back then twenty years ago was because the album sounded like garbage, and when you played them on a satellite radio you couldn’t even hear them.
Over time, the Richard Pryor albums were remastered. There’s a really good box set with a red cover. Those sounded really good.
And then we played plenty of Richard Pryor.
The self titled Richard Pryor album and another album called Craps After Hours will be released on vinyl So We’ll live at the Comedy Store nineteen seventy three. Pryor released his first self titled album. Back in nineteen sixty eight, he was starting to change his style from Bill cosbyish kind of comedians to the Richard Pryor you think of in your mind. Scott Saul is the author of Becoming Richard Pryor. He wrote in the liner notes, what you hold in your hands is something precious, both the landmark debut that was and the piece of cultural dynamite that might have been in its original form, Richard Pryor.
The album alerted the world that Richard Pryor had stepped out of Bill Cosby’s long shadow and developed a style surreal nervy, improvisational, It was all his own. Sides one and two are the original, but the newly remastered album has sides three and four offering bonus material recorded at the same time. That’s Neat. The other album, Craps After Hours, also released as a double disc. All This will be available Tuesday, May twenty third.
Speaking of Richard Pryor, Tommy Davidson and Mike Tyson were on a podcast and they were asked who is the most influential comedian. Tommy Davidson said Richard Pryor was the one because he had versatility. He can do characters and he can talk about them without you knowing that he was talking about them. He can talk about racism, he can talk about sexism, and he could talk about all those things, but he puts it in such a comedy context. Mike Tyson said, yeah, no, but listen, I think is the greatest.
I presume he means Eddie Murphy there not. I don’t know Eddie Peppotone. I think Eddie is the greatest. He was the greatest. I know all that insecurity is all these great acts now and if you go on stage, the greatest comedians in the world will be right there staring at him.
I am of a certain age, and if you are my age, you loved Eddie Murphy. But over time, as it became more educated about this Eddie Murphy wearing the red suit, the voice acting he does in his bits clearly clearly influenced by Richard Pryor. So there’s just no scenario where I can say Eddie Murphy is better than Richard Pryor. That would be saying like the Black Crows are better than the Rolling Stones. You just can’t do it.
Long time listeners of the podcast know that Idaho is a bashion of comedy. Idaho, of course, the home of Ryan Hamilton. Will Idaho has announced some of the acts for the Eastern Idaho State Fair. No, Ryan Hamilton’s not playing it, but Jim Gaffigan will be there, so we’ll Incubus and Walker Hayes. Unfortunately, Incubus and Jim Gaffigan is not one bill that would be amazing.
Incubus plays September one, Jim gab again September seventh, so like, you can’t even like to see the two of them back to back. Other entertainment at the fair includes the Gym State Classic Pro Rodeo bull Riding Championships, National Indian Relay Championship, tractor polls, and the Demolition Derby. One of the organizers says, the Demolition Derby celebrates its fiftieth anniversary with the Eastern Idaho State Fair. You can’t beat the action and you can’t beat the smell. Last year, you might remember we had a streaker.
The remainder of the podcast will discuss John Molany’s new special, Baby j I will share some of the actual jokes from the special. So massive spoilers coming up after Millennia. I’ll talk about the Sydney Comedy Festival. So if you don’t want to be spoiled, it’s a good time to check out. And I will see you tomorrow.
Milani spoilers coming up in three two one The New York Times Rights and a glamorous swirling shot orchestrated by the theater director Alex Timbers. The camera gives the comic what he needs, It retreats to reveal John Molaney, forty in a maroon suit before circling you give us a picture of the commanding power of stardom. Shot from behind, we see his perspective, a hazy mass of people underneath chandeliers in between an ominous series of statues inside the Symphony Hall in Boston. How about that? Huh?
They write, It’s a striking image, setting up a series of bristling comic vignettes that dig in a Milaney’s drug addiction interventioned by friends and stint in rehab. One is tempted to say it’s his most personal work, but that isn’t quite right. The first shot tips us off to a theme, you can be invisible in front of a crowd. Let me jump in here. So I mentioned earlier, I was traveling earlier in the week, and this week at night, I have events with the family every night, so I don’t know if I’m going to get to milani until Sunday.
I want to watch it. The headline here is the reviews are very strong. Even though this material has been around for two years now, it seems like the finished version that Milaniy put out on Netflix just really nailed at Every review I read was really strong at times, writes, Milany’s comedy has become spikier, pricklier, sometimes slower, while remaining as funny as ever. Like he’s a pitcher who learned how to mix up speeds. He’s performed versions of this material throughout the last two years, and this special arrives on Netflix so meticulously honed that the polish doesn’t even show.
Mulaney’s were at a tat delivery demanded you keep up with his thought process. It still does, but his cadence has become more intricate, and the biggest laughs in this new special come from making the audience think they’re ahead of him, placing an idea in their head and slowing down on a pause or stammer to let it percolate. Rolling Stone, said Mulaney, now forty years old, sober and healthier looking. Spoilers about the actual material, Baby Jay opens with John Mulaney telling an anecdote about how his siblings persuaded him that he had been adopted as a child and his real mother was murdered by Miss America. Then he addresses the elephant in the room, saying, you know what I mean.
We were all quarantined, We all went to rehab, and we got divorced, and now our reputation is different. John talks about his intervention. He said, I was two hours late, so when I get there, everybody was madder at me. They were like, and you’re late, And I was like, Hey, if you wanted me here on time, you could have texted me John, we have cocaine. I would have been a half hour early to help set up chairs.
That’s great. Mulaney tells a story about deciding to get a haircut at Saturday Night Live using his old ID at seven pm, Down on my Mind. I went up to the eighth floor thirty Rock Feller Center, walked into the Emmy Award winning hair department. I said, Hey, can I have a haircut? And they said, oh, John, you’re not hosting this week.
And I said, ah, hey can I have a haircut? You know that thing when a junkie walks in your office and ask for a haircut, and you’re like, it’d be faster to cut the hair. That’s what happened. Mulaney then says that same day he purchased a twelve thousand dollars Rolex watch with a credit card and ponded for six thousand dollars to buy drugs because he’d somehow overdrafted on Venmo. Then, armed with a new haircut in a backpack full of drugs, he found himself at the intervention, which he calls a we Are the World of Alternative Comics over the Age of forty, with about a dozen people in the room and six zooming in from La Mulaney said, I stroll in there, I’m cocaine skinny with a new haircut.
They’ve all been in heavy quarantine for nine months. They all look like crap. I was the best looking person at my intervention by a mile. Everyone there looked like Jerry Garcia Eats Online picked up on that thread in the room, Fred Armison, Nick Crole, Seth Meyers, Bill Hayter, and it’s Asha Leone. Laney says, let me just call this out now.
I don’t mean to be weird. It was a star studdied intervention. It was like a good group. It was a good group, as mad as I was. When I walked in there, I was like, Oh, this is a good lineup.
This is really flattering in its own way. It was like a weird the World of Alternative Comedians over the Age of forty, all comedians. It No one said a funny thing the entire night. I was going psychotic. I’m sitting there in this awful chair, crashing from cocaine.
No one will let me go to the bathroom to freshen up, and the funniest people are staring at me refusing to do jokes. It was maddening. Fret Ormiston was serious. Do you know how off putting that is? Malini says, it’s weird to be a recovering drug addict.
It was weird to be a drug addict, but at least I was on drugs. I’m looking forward to watching that. I gotta find some time. The Eerie Comedy Festival begins tonights. Co founder Anthony Morelli said this is the inaugural festival.
Obviously we hope to make it yearly. They planned a four day event with twenty five to thirty performers, including three national headliners. Among your headliners learn more in Janazi, Zimbabwean stand up comedian and actor Brett Terhune and Kristen Becker. If you want to go tonight at the Edinburgh Volunteer Fire Department on Meadville Street, there’ll be an appetiser buffet before the show with Casey Kouf Dick. That all starts at eight o’clock twenty bucks at seven thirty at the Room thirty three Speakeasy, a showcase of comedians.
I don’t have the names for you. Tomorrow night at Calamari’s squid Row over on State Street, you know the place, another showcase of comics. Free, but reservations are requested. Learn more. Janazi is your headliner on Friday night, brett Terhun is the headliner Saturday, and on Sunday, Kristen Becker is your headliner at the six thirty show at the Sheridan Erie Bayfront Hotels.
Twenty three dollars for preferred seating. Let’s see what’s going on at Sydney. I gotta be honest with you. I gotta figure out what day it is. I’m recording this on Wednesday.
It’s Thursday’s episode. And for Australian comedy festivals, I always talk about the day before because of the way time zones work. So let’s take a look at Friday. I got in very late last night. Some of the shows Danny Boy, I know Danny Boy his shows called Now is a Good Time and they’ve added a show ed Gamble from the UK is playing.
Melbutle and Moses Storm are playing. We recently talked about them at the Melbourn Fest. Stephen k Amos He’s fantastic. That’s who I would go see. And here is something called the bear Pack, which has two men in suits sitting next to a giant stuffed panda I’m curious.
After a sold out run at the Sydney Festival in twenty twenty two, the bear Pack is back for one night. Join improv duo Steen Rascopolis and Carlo Ritchie accompanied by ange Lavo Pierre on the cello for sixty minutes of improvised storytelling inspired by the audience’s suggestions. The Sydney Morning Herald call them Master Improvisers, five stars Hey for in Sydney. They’re at the n Moore on Friday night at seven fifteen Reserve seating thirty five bucks Australian. And that is your comedy news for today.
Follow the show for free on Apple, podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your show see tomorrow. Can I interest you in some meatballs made out of mammoth meat? No? All right? Hi, I’m Johnny Mack, host of five Good News Stories.
It’s a twice a week podcast where I share some upbeat stories like the dog who only will respond to commands if you use an Irish brogue or What about the guy who’s filling potholes with noodles or the woman who congratulations, she passed her driver’s license. Oh, by the way, it was her nine hundred and sixtieth. Try you heard me correctly. It’s five good news stories. Nice, easy way to start your morning.
Five good news stories the number five good news stories wherever you get your podcasts.