🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mackin Mike Chisholm, the host of The Letterman podcast, and we are friendly and sometimes we do crossover episodes. Mike and I recently did a session where we talked about things for like two and a half hours, and I chopped it up into pieces, and here Mike and I were discussing the state of comedy as twenty twenty five came to an end. It’s been an interesting year in all sorts of areas, but in comedy, I don’t know, man, I just feel like the genre and the industry that is stand up has never had a bigger, more successful year. But in that it’s also felt never’s felt as divided as it’s felt.
But you’re the guru when it comes to this stuff. What do you think about that assertation? Yeah, it’s interesting. I just saw a piece on Vulture suggesting that comedians need to get more angsty and fight more and believing as a pot cast host, I love when the comedians are battling. You know, you and I should start award just for the for the clicks.
But let’s do it. You know. On the other hand, if you look at it, what’s really working is the Nate Berganzis of the world doing the clean comedy, family stuff. You know, Sebastian manaskalgo that style of comedy. But then at the other end you’ve got the the canceled of Ricky Gervais and Shane Gillis and Dave Chappelle.
They’re all canceled and they’re never going to be able to speak again. They’re selling out Arenas. Ye, you’ve got that other wing of austin Ish and the Chraysiers and the Rogans and the Sigoras. You’ve got all that going on, so it’s sort of fractured. It’s tremendously successful.
I’m all over the place. When they did the Top Communities of the Century, Dane Cook wasn’t mentioned. Has everyone forgotten what a huge comic Dane was and Dane selling out the Garden was a statement with three exclamation points. But now you know, I love them, But we’re all sells out the Garden. Everybody sells out the Garden, so you know something has changed there.
The business is bigger than ever. A lot of that is Netflix driven, for sure, but yeah, it’s just a weird time. But there’s comedy for everybody. Right, Oh, definitely, Like, but thank you for mentioning Dane, because I remember back in the day. It’s interesting that you talked about all the different facets of comedy, and I remember how big of a deal it was when dice Clay sold out Madison Square Garden, Like that was a huge, huge, when when when dice Clay was, oh my god, Andrew dice Clay is doing an arena, you know, and then you know, you’d hear about it every once in a while.
But then you got Dane who comes in in the early party and I okay, fine, the Billboard list was of the twenty first century, the top twenty five comics of the twenty first century. Well, I’m sorry, but if there was a guy that brought in comedy and elevated it at the beginning part of the century in the early two thousand, it was Dane. It was a big deal, the tour that he went on, that run he went on, and I mean, you know, it’s different than Kennyson, but it’s similar to Kinnyson in the sense that there’s this huge thing that happens and it inspires all of these people, and then a couple of years later, you know, the star fades and it goes across and and and and and now we’re here in twenty twenty five and we’re debating whether he should be even be on the list. Well, to me, of course he should be on the list, but some people have short memories when it comes to this stuff. I suppose I have a strong opinion on My theory is that the stylized comedians and Dan Cook did have a style to him, the physicality and the way he spoke, you know, maybe not full on character like a dice, but it’s the brick wall comedians that tend to last.
The Bill Burrs, the Dave Chappelle is just a guy talking in front of a brick wall. We could put an arena, we could do with theater in the round shore, but it’s the traditional George Carlin esque stand up of I’m gonna stand here and just tell you what’s on my mind. Where some of that stylized stuff we’ve seen shooting stars over the years and they come and go and they’re they’re white hot, and they have that three four years and then they kind of go away. I’m not sure Dane is full on stylized comedian to use the term. But you know, he was just a monster, a quote unquote rock star there for a while, good looking guy, really lighting up crowds, people quoting his material, and you know, you go about twenty years later and it’s like he’s forgotten somehow.
It’s weird. Now, Yeah, it’s crazy that he wasn’t on that list, like like, like, as far as I’m concerned, he ushered comedy into the twenty first century by making it more, you know, talking about the MySpace stuff and the way that he would use the Internet, not just in his act. I mean, of course his act was very very you know, it talked a lot about the Internet and things like that, but the way that he built his community was a blueprint for what I imagine if podcasting existed back does now. I mean, he would have been one of the first people with a podcast. He really really saw where the puck was going and led an entire genre in that direction.
I just so yeah. But that being said that, the Billboard list was interesting. I really love I recommend everybody to go back and listen to the Daily Comedy News podcast episodes where where Johnny goes through the Top twenty the Billboard Top twenty five Comedians of the Century. It’s it’s it’s very very good. You split up in two episodes.
Again, bite sized, really really simple, not like this behemoth of a show where it’s long form. I really really like the bite size aspect of of what it is that you’re doing. And boy, you’ve got lots of stuff to talk about, and we could do separate shows. And we are going to do separate shows when it comes to this, because there is so much to talk about. But the guy who brought me into this podcasting game, David Letterman, has put out in the last month a whole bunch of new content.
In fact, more content in the last month than I think if you add up all the rest of the months, I think you might be pretty close. Have you watched any of the new My Next Guests yet? I started to watch the Sandler episode, okay, and I really struggle. So I’m stealing from Jimmy Buffett fans here. There was a group of Jimmy Buffett fans who created Church of Buffett Orthodox Yes, And what their premise was was that at one point Jimmy Buffett was about, Hey, let’s hang out at the beach and have a good time, and over the years, it became about product and knockoff Corona beer and restaurants, and I kind of want to form Church of Letterman Orthodox who believe in the I got to have a self trouble here the Testament of the twelve thirty.
We might read the eleven thirty, and then the later works of David Letterman just aren’t our thing. And boy, I just so just where my mind is. I was on YouTube the other night and I almost sent this to you, but then the clip went sideways. But the first few minutes of the clip were guys throwing stuff off a bridge onto a frozen lake, and I was like, yeah, that, I want more of that. Why isn’t anyone doing that?
Dave? Can you throw something off a bridge on a frozen lake? I want to watch that? And this Elder Statesman Letterman, I don’t take away anyone’s enjoyment of it. I don’t take away your enjoyment of it.
I’m glad Dave somehow has gone from a guy in a bad mood that doesn’t interview people to the great interviewer. That’s an interesting transformation. But those of us in the Church of Letterman Orthodox, I just want to throw stuff off a five story tower and have Chris Elliott do something weird and make fun of the whole thing not being that funny, making it funny. And as I’ve called it over the years, Establishment Letterman just isn’t my thing. I feel bad saying this out loud, especially off this show that’s you know, maybe some of your fans will be like, yes, Church of Letterman Orthodox, I want to sign.
Up, Oh gosh, yeah, And I mean there are you know, I like the fact that our show is the size that it is because I can kind of look into the people who support the show, and you can see the different I can still see everything. It’s like it’s it’s like when a musician is still playing in a in a venue that’s like maybe under seven hundred people, they can kind of still kind of see everybody that’s in the audience as they’re playing on it. And it kind of feels that way. Certainly, there is a huge contingent of people who tolerate this show because every once in a while they get a beautiful itch scratch talking about the late night show that they enjoy enjoyed so much. The Church of Letterman or the Orthodox Letterman Church would Yes, there certainly would be a lot of members.
But that being said, the he did transform, and I would I would submit that the long form, you know, skills that Dave has has is now showing us. Really at the end of the day, I think it took a career to build the skills that he has done. When it has has gotten when it comes to this stuff, I see him interviewing Sandler and it’s it’s an interesting thing. We’ll do an entire episode once. I want to wait till you watch the entire episode if you can stomach it.
Because one of the things that you talk about is the idea about how strong a dramatic actor Adam Sandler actually is as opposed to being a comedian or being a funny man. And and and I love the reoccurring bit that that appears. Whether it’s a bit or not, I guess remains to be seen on your show where you talk about that. They certainly talk about it in the in in Dave’s long form interview with them, But more so I think back to the days you were talking about, and I can remember Adam Sandler’s first few times on Late Night, and it’s really cool to watch Dave go back and talk to some of these people that he has had a TV or a showbiz relationship with for so long, and they can talk about some of those early days and things like that and add that as an element to the to the conversation. So you and I can go really deep on the Adam Sandler one and that’ll be a lot of fun.
But they’re all good. The Mister Beast episode is good, really good in fact, especially for people who don’t know who Miss Beast is, you know, biggest broadcaster on the planet. A lot of people still don’t know who who he is. I didn’t know who Mister Beast was other than his name, so it’s interesting to hear Dave kind of come from the curiosity standpoint with him. The Michael B.
Jordan episode very very good as well, very strong. I put that up there with some of the other episodes of people who I didn’t know who they were, very very very very well, like they weren’t super familiar with me, and and then you get a whole bunch of insights and now you look at the body of work and some of the things that this person has done, and it adds dimensions to it. And Michael’s did that with me. But for me, the highlight of all of them was the Jason Bateman episode. I mean that that episode to me was absolutely perfect.
By the way, it’s not throwing stuff off towers, but Dave is doing silly things a little bit. In some of these episodes. He goes to a hat shop in London. He smokes a cigar for the first time ever. I smoked cigars because of David Letterman, so I thought that was really really interesting.
And then of course at the end of the Bakman episode there’s an arrested development thing with Ron Howard in the whole nine yards, and it seems fun big time is what it felt like to me. So anyway, there’s a sum up of how I feel about that. We’re gonna do post mortems, Johnny and I will do a post mortem on Adam Sandler. We’re going to do post mortems on the other three episodes with the appropriate guest as well. Thank you for letting me monologue there for a second, my friend.
I appreciate It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so I needed to get that out. Thank you. Oh no, I feel bad. So I started to watch the Sandler one, and you know, it’s fine. It’s just that this is all about me and my sensibility.
I was recently thinking about. So I’m going to drop a name that you know, unless you lived on the East Coast at some point that I’m not aware of, you’re gonna have no idea what I’m talking about. But a section of your viewership is going to know the name Uncle Floyd. So Uncle Floyd had a uhchf show in the eighties when you know, we didn’t have cable and Queen’s so you played with the other knob and you one night you come across this Uncle Floyd show an editor at six o’clock and it’s this dude from New Jersey with a puppet with a lower budget than we’re using right now, Like at least you have a backdrop, right, you know, maybe my setup with this stick on the window. Maybe that was the budget of the Uncle Floyd show.
And he had a puppet and a couple other guys from Jersey and they did pardon my French, half assed sketches and a viewer mail type thing and it was hilarious because it was just so anti and that’s what appeals to me. And if I go back to twelve thirty, especially once God bless my godmother gave me, maybe for my fifteenth or sixteenth birthday, a VCR, so I didn’t have to stay up till one o’clock every night. But you know, you hand me an episode of Late Night with David Letterman and you know from New York insert joke here, it’s Late Night with David Letterman, tonight’s guest Jason Bateman and you know, quirky guest on the back half. I probably would have watched the opening, the Paul segment, the desk piece, fast forwarded through the guests, and then caught the middle weirdness when Chris Elliott came out and did something and then bailed on the opp So that was how I consumed the show. But that that’s not a ticket, Dave.
That’s just how I. That’s where my head is at, and that’s one of the major influences on how I approach everything creatively. Like that was formative in my brain that things like Floyd on how you do all this, like don’t do don’t try and do Johnny’s Tonight Show. Johnny did that already, Right, Let’s deconstruct this whole thing and do something crazy yep. Yeah, and and and they they not only again we talked about Dane at the beginning of this how he kind of created a blueprint.
Well that’s what Dave did, David company. They created a blueprint for you know, that would influence all of entertainment and comedy and how we view it and how we look at it. They added that element of cynicism, which I just absolutely I’m an optimist. I’m a natural optimist. I’m a positive guy.
Uh but I do have this cynicism streak in me and it was given to me by David Letnerman, by by pro wrestling as well. But but both of those things, I thought that was a knee addition to that was something that they brought to the table, that the idea of of of kind of not trusting leadership a little bit in a different way. Now, of course, it has ballooned into you know, I think I think most people are are are mostly cynical now or a lot of people are mostly cynical now. But adding a little cynicism to the to the comedy, I think was a phenomenal thing to do.
And then again, the celebration of failure.
You know, you talk about Floyd and and and what he did well well, really, at the end of the day, the idea of let’s give a bunch of hooligans at television studio and see what happens. You know, that’s a that’s a that’s a fun premise right there. Who knew that that that that the guy who did it would probably turn into or would turn into who is probably known as the you know, the greatest broadcaster, uh, that we’ve ever seen. That’s how I see him anyway, you know, I don’t think anybody could have predicted that. But yeah, it changed a culture.
It really did. The kids in college watching you know this show. Don Giller told me a story and then and then a few of the writers, uh you know, confirmed it the first time the show went up to California. You know, when they when they when they took it, they basically they were just kind of doing the show. They had their heads down and everybody was just trying to make stay on the air, make the best show that they could make.
And then at some point they said, okay, let’s take the show to California. And when they took the show to California and the crazed lineups for tickets for people to get in the the the the insanity of what was going on, lineups around the block and things like that, and the staffers were just baffled by it. They had no idea that they were taking an entire generation of of you know, late baby boomers, early early gen xers and and kind of steering what their comedic sensibility would be, you know, for the next quarter century. It’s it’s remarkable what they did. And uh, anyway, I’m just preaching to the choir when it comes in.
Well, also, the box that Late Night was put in. The things you can’t do because Johnny does those you can’t use those, Yes, forced some creativity there. You can’t do a ten minute monolog all right, Well we got to fill an hour. We got to come up with something, and you know, all those little things just added up to magic. Then when you get to eleven thirty in the box, isn’t there anymore?
You can wear an o’mani suit and wear shoes and look like a grown up, you know, and we all age I guess, well, no, I mean I’m wearing a hoodie. But you know, you know, you start to take that step towards establishment. Letterman as I call it. Now the Netflix show is Elder Statesman Dave and again I just want to throw a watermelon off a tower. More with Mike chishom in a second.
He hosts The Letterman Podcast, which you should check out. Be right back, continuing my conversation with Mike Chisholm from The Letterman Podcast. In this segment, we discussed some of the factual inaccuracies in Dave Chappelle’s recent special. That’s interesting how the people are calling him out for some of the factual inaccuracies. Now, you don’t hear that happening to stand up very often.
Now. I guess the notable one was Hassan Minaj, And you know that’s a weird one. Here’s a guy that just seemed like the next daily show host, right. It was just perfectly cast and probably would have done a good job. And for some reason people took his stand up special seriously and it went sideways, so that you know, that whole thing was weird, you know, nitpicking Chappelle.
Nitpicking Chappelle about Representative McCain versus Senator McCain, I don’t think is a big deal. I do think Trump being the one to pardon Jack Johnson is interesting and left out of the story. But these were all just, you know, choices we make. We edit on the fly doing the podcast. Every day, I edit on the fly and just I don’t talk about things that just don’t interest me, or I don’t want to go there.
Just top of mine. As we’re recording this, there’s a Russell Brand story in the news, and I just don’t want to go there. I try and stylize my show as something fun to listen to, especially in the morning, and some of the Russell Brand stuff, I just I just don’t want to go there. It’s not censorship, it’s just choosing differently. Yeah, oh yeah, which is, by the way, what freedom speech is all about.
Be able to just make a choice and say no, I’m going to leave that and everything’s going to be fine. They can have that. I can have this right and yeah, that’s well. Even like about the name of my show, Daily Comedy News, Yes, you know, it’s not The New York Times. Jason’sinnimon has accused me of being a journalist, which I reject.
Jason to him, I’m not a journalist. I’m a dude in a podcast, just talking to a microphone, and he goes, now, I’m a journalist and I’m and is no like am I talking about things in the news. Yes, but like I don’t consider myself any sort of you know, not the Dan rather of comedy. It’s just I don’t know. Here’s some stuff.
I go, well, and I’m going to riff about it and kill twelve to twenty minutes and go home and hope you had a good time. And you know, some of it has said lighthearted and you know, like we’ve talked about it, it’s all real. I don’t actually I don’t enjoy Adam Sandler comedies. As I’ve explained to my audience repeatedly, I don’t walk around all day going I can’t believe you made her get more to them. So I met like, I just don’t care.
I’m not going to watch it. The story where I forbade my children from renting Jack and Jill and said that I would rather light the five dollars on fire is a true story. That’s not even having to for effect. I could none of I could turn home right now. I could bring them in here and they’ll tell you that that’s a thing that happened.
So that is how I feel about Sandler comedies. But do I play it up? Of course, I play it up, just like the Joe Coy bit or the Jay Leno bit or anything else. These are just recurring Touchsdownes back to that lettermanesque sense of humor of We’re all in this together, and if I’m doing the show right and I’m building a community, you know where I’m going to go before I go there, and that’s part of the fun. Yep, where did Chappelle end up on your list for the year?
I have it like maybe like five. So my takeaway on the Chappelle special was I compared it to you sit down and watch a baseball game and your starting pitchers just got it today, and you’re like, oh, my goodness, he’s just untouchable today. And we’re four innings in and it’s a no hitter, and he struck out nine guys in the first four innings, and wow, this is just gonna be unstoppable.
And then you know it, hit happens and then the starting pitcher leaves and gi…
And that’s how I felt about Chappelle, Like, right, a hit play. It looks great, it looks like a major special. And Dave comes out and he commands the stage and he’s got something to say, which is very important to me as a comedy snob. I want you to have something to say, and he’s got something to say, and he’s saying it. He’s presenting it at as very thoughtful and I’m hanging on every word and for the first warnings, Holy cal this is the special.
And by the time I got to the end of it, it was really good, but just didn’t sustain the same way. So I still have Mark Maron as the top special of the year. Yeah, I think Maren that. I think that’s peek Maren, and Maren had something to say and said it very well. I have Kevin hard at number two, which is just silly fun, just joke jokes.
Robbie Hoffman special is very good. It’s very good. I watched it. I watched it as a I hadn’t it had n’t my radar at all, and listening to you talk about it, I watched it and I was like, oh my god, Yeah, it was very very good. You know, So those are.
There’s plenty of fine specials. And again, I am a comedy snob because of what I did for ten years just listening to Everybody’s a material, the versions that they chose to release, listening to that all day, every day, I can see the matrix. I can see what you’re doing. I understand why doing. I get why people think it’s funny.
But like if you, if you make me watch Sebastian Maniscalco’s new special, I totally understand why a random couple from suburban Philadelphia is going out and having a good time at that show. I get it, But I just I’m watching it. I’m like, oh stop, I mean, just can you not make the ridiculous faces? Can you tell a real story here somewhere? But you know, Chappelle again and keeps saying the phrase he’s got something to say and that’s why he’s at the top of the game.
Sebastian to me, and I love him, love him. But to me, you go back to whichever special it was. I want to say, it’s like twenty fifteen, maybe is the one where you talked about company the company did? Do you remember that? To me?
He looked at himself back then and decided to turn the volume up to eleven on the character of yes, yes, that Since then, it was nice when he had like a little bit of the you know that that act, that mob, the affict whatever you want to call it, the affectation, thank you, that’s perfect. Now it’s just like he’s just he lives in it, and it’s it’s it’s it’s lit up to ten. It should be back at four. It should be a little more subdued. I think, I don’t know, that’s just that’s just my It’s just more of the same, right, And I don’t know why I have a problem with Sebastian doing it.
Whereas my friend Larry the Cable Guy Dan Whitney. You know, here’s a guy that if I called him right now, who do my podcast like, you know, yep? Do we hang out every day? No, But he’s a friend. He’s not somebody I know.
He’s a friend. And I’ve been backstage talking to Dan Whitney.
And then he slips into the Larry character, who speaks a little differently a…
And I think we all understand the Larry the Cable Guy character. First of all, it’s called Larry the Cable Guy. It’s not ladies and gentlemen Dan Whitney going up and doing that material. It’s it’s something called Larry the Cable Guy that doesn’t wear sleeves. And I don’t know if it’s because Sebastian Meniscalco has evolved from being Sebastian Maniscalco Italian American comic to Sebastian the Italian Guy.
Maybe it’s that right, Maybe it’s that mm hm. It’s gonna be interesting to see what Gervas’s special does to the list. Ricky knows what he’s doing. He’s trying to trigger people. He successfully triggers people that he doubles down that he triggered you, and it’s your fault that you’re triggered.
He understands what he’s doing. But he’s really good at I mean, Chappelle’s doing the same thing, and people just get really irate at Ricky Gervas’s specials. But they’re pretty funny and I can sit on the couch and understand what I’m watching, right Like, I get what he’s doing there. He’s gonna make some points and he’s gonna push some buttons along the way and hopefully we have a laugh, and we go home, and then he goes and donates two million dollars to the animal charity. So, you know, much like Jay Leno.
I’m not sure Ricky Gervas is the worst person who ever lived. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that’s your daily coming for today again, check out the Letterman podcast. Mike is the host, a really good guy. I always enjoyed chatting with him.
And I’ll see you tomorrow.