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Featured: Pete Davidson, Cat Williams, Joe Rogan, Ricky Gervais, Stavros Halkias, Kelsey Cook, Josh Johnson, Ronnie Ching
What’s in This Episode
- Netflix renews Pete Davidson podcast and orders Cat Williams project
- Pete Davidson donates $20K to fan with 5P syndrome
- Joe Rogan criticizes president’s Lake Ontario renaming claim
- Ricky Gerzais Legend tour receives mixed reviews from The Telegraph
- Stavros Halkias Netflix special and Bamford Questionnaire answers
- Kelsey Cook discusses foosball, parents’ love story, and mother’s dementia
Questions Answered in This Episode
Did Pete Davidson really donate $20,000 to a fan?
Yes, Pete Davidson donated $20,000 to Liam, an aspiring comic with 5P syndrome, whom he met while filming Tommy Karate in Brooklyn.
What is 5P syndrome?
According to the episode, 5P syndrome is a genetic disorder that can cause high-pitched crying, a small jaw, round face, and low-set ears.
Why is The Telegraph criticizing Ricky Gerzais’ new tour?
The Telegraph reviewed Ricky Gerzais’ Legend tour and found it recycled jokes from his 2024 show Mortality, with routines that felt brief, underexplored, and caught between old gags and identity confusion.
What is Stavros Halkias’ biggest long-term fear?
Stavros said his most repetitive long-term fear is death, and 2026 is the year he realized his body is starting to fail with a bad back, broken arm, and shoulder issues.
How did Kelsey Cook’s parents meet?
Kelsey Cook’s parents met playing in a professional foosball tournament, and she and her mother won women’s expert doubles together at the Hall of Fame foosball tournament in Vegas.
What Netflix special is coming out tomorrow?
Stavros Halkias has a special coming out on Netflix where he answers the Bamford Questionnaire, a series of 25 questions designed by Maria Bamford.
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Oh boy, it’s the last day of summer. Make it a good one. Hi, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Netflix is doubling down on podcasts. They have renewed the Pete Davidson thing, and they have ordered a podcast, you know, well, I don’t have that argument.
It’s not a podcast. It’s a TV show. There’s nothing podcast about it, but they’ve ordered a thing from Cat Williams. It is unclear what Cat Williams will do, but I’m sure it will be interesting, as he always is.
Meanwhile, Pete Davidson met a fan in Brooklyn who had a genetic disorder.
Liam is an aspiring comic who has 5P syndrome. According to People magazine, the condition can cause symptoms including high-pitched crying that’s like a cat’s voice, and physical symptoms like a small jaw, round face, and low-set ears. Pete ran into the guy while filming Tommy Karate. And apparently made a $ 20, 000 donation. Liam’s mom shared a photo and captioned it, a heartfelt thank you to actor, writer, comedian, and native New Yorker Pete Davidson for taking the time to learn about 5P syndrome.
Meet our Liam the lion and show him so much love. We couldn’t help but smile knowing that along with being New York kids, you both have something pretty special in common. You’re both comedians. Nice job out of Pete. Joe Rogan, not happy with the president of the United States claiming to have renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America, which is, of course, nonsense.
I’m not going to pull a punch here. Nonsense. Send your letters to me. Joe Rogan said it’s to distract you from the fact we’re in a war. We can’t win with Iran.
It doesn’t make any sense. Who cares if it’s Lake Ontario? It’s a good name. We’ve had that name forever. Ricky Gervais kicked off a new tour.
The folks at The Telegraph went to see him and apparently did not enjoy it. The Telegraph writes Ricky Gervais kicked off the opening night of his new tour in Guildford with a recycled joke from his 2024 show Mortality. That joke is about how Ricky feels like he’s still working class, so when builders come by, he’s rude about the artworks in his own house, insulting Monet in his most working class accent. The Telegraph says it’s one of several familiar routines that he revisits in Legend. The second is all about the hostile tweets he receives.
And I don’t want to repeat what he said. You can go see this show. I don’t want to get in trouble. We’re told in this slightly confused new show, Ricky Gervais seems to be caught between rehashing old gags and his own identity crisis. He hates the middle class that makes up his audience and feels bad about the builder joke because it’s perpetuating middle class myths about working class people and prejudice.
The evening feels like a hodgepodge of brief ideas, which are superbly connected due to Gervais’s sheer will of confidence, but are rather short and underexplored. Spoilers here, but this is pretty good. Ricky sets his father’s life story. Born 1919 in Canada, volunteered in the Second World War, fought in Europe, met Ricky’s mother, worked on building sites till he was 72. Against the modern Sunday dads taking babies out for avocado in Hampstead cafes.
The only time Ricky saw his father cry was wiping away a tear at the news of his own father’s death. Ricky said, we never spoke about it again, but if you go online today, you’ll see a 20-year-old film himself in his car. Crying out his eyes because he was misgendered in Starbucks. One more spoiler, at the end of a Holocaust routine, Ricky said, whatever you think of this joke, remember, I did The Office. Stavros Alkias has a special out on Netflix tomorrow.
He did The Bamford Questionnaire, which is a series of 25 questions designed by Maria Bamford. Vulture had this story. Let’s take a look at a couple of them. Stavros, what do you like to eat or drink right before bed? He said ice cream.
It’s a big problem, actually. The addiction I have not been able to kick for real is night ice cream. It has ruined my life. Actually, this is so pathetic. I’d almost kicked my night ice cream addiction two years ago.
The Ravens lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship. I was at home. I was at the game. The Super Bowl was on my 35th birthday, and I had convinced myself that it was fate. We were going to win because it mattered so much.
I was clean off night ice cream. Then that loss sent me on a three-week bender where I was getting Ben and Jerry’s stuff. Now I’m on Halo Top. I’m on that low-cal stuff, which is basically the methadone of ice cream. But honestly, I eat it every night.
Now, I’m on a Klondike bar jag, and that’s a big problem. I don’t like where that leads. These are great answers. Next question. What would your religion be like if you could make up your own?
Stavros said, Unfortunately, there’s a part of me that really wants to be at the top of a sex cult. I got a buddy who just moved up to Tilson, New York, and I spent a weekend there and had a great time. What if, instead of my buddy’s place, I had a nice meadow and it was me, 12 people, it’s mostly women, but maybe some gay guys in the mix because I still want some bros around, but I don’t want that much sexual competition. That’s my ideal religion. It’s just me pampered.
I think I’d be really good at that. I just love how every cult starts with these beliefs and then everybody sold their possessions and moved across the country and they’re like, oh, by the way, this is nuts. But God said I have to, I’ll clean this up, hook up with everybody’s wife, so I’d love to be the figurehead of that type of religion. A hedonistic, pleasure-based, I’ll skip the next phrase, style religion. He was quite naughty there.
You can read this on Vulture. Let’s do one more. What’s your most repetitive long-term fear? Stavros said death, without question. The Reaper’s coming for us, and this year is the year I realized I’m dying.
I mean, you always know you’re dying, but this is the year I was like, oh, stuff’s starting to go. My back is messed up. I broke my arm. My shoulder will never be the same again. It’s like when you stop taking a car to the mechanic and you’re like, am I going to replace the muffler or am I going to get a new car?
That’s what’s happening with my body. Kelsey Cook talked about her love of foosball and said, it’s generally a solo sport. You can play doubles in foosball, but if something goes wrong, it’s not like a team sport where you have a bunch of other people to blame. Same with comedy. You’re accountable for your own stuff.
I love both of them so much. It sounds silly because it’s foosball, but it’s literally the reason I exist. She explains. My parents met playing in a professional foosball tournament, so I would not exist if it weren’t for foosball. I still go to the weekly Minneapolis tournaments.
I can’t go all the time with a tour schedule, but I’ll still try to go quite a bit if I’m back in Spokane. My dad has started to get back into it again, so I’ll go with him. I have this wonderful foosball table. My wife was trying to have me get rid of it because it wasn’t being used because the kids are grown, empty nest. So I move it up to the lake house.
I have this fantasy that someday, like, my children are going to visit me at the lake house and we can play foosball and use the new dartboard that I hung. But nobody comes. Nobody visits, Dad. Very sad. But I do have a nice foosball table that I’m fond of.
Kelsey said, my mom and I won women’s expert doubles together at the Hall of Fame foosball tournament in Vegas. And that was, like, somebody got the winning shot on video and I have it and I cherish it because.. As you would know from my special, my mom has dementia, and I’m so happy we got to do that together that I have that moment on video because we both look so happy. Josh Johnson and Ronnie Ching had a conversation for Interview Magazine. Josh said, when I look at YouTube and what I put out each week, those are very topical videos, very of the moment.
They’re also me trying to share as if we’re just chilling in your living room, like having a conversation with a friend. The special was intended to be timeless. I’m fully aware that a year from now, there’ll be plenty of sets that I’ve done that people don’t care about. That’ll happen. I also think that specials are how you distinguish certain areas of your evolution.
My former co-worker Jamie Foxx is putting out a comedy special. Take Care of Yourself will be on Hulu October 7th. Regular listeners to this program know that I fear when your comedy special goes to Hulu, you’re a little past prime here. Sorry, Foxx. The Hoolaria specials, if you want a list, Hannah Berner, Ralph Barbosa, Bill Burr, Chris DiStefano, Gaffigan, Zarna Garg, Nikki Glaser, Alana Glaser, Jessica Kirson, Mateo Lane, and Sebastian Maniscalco.
I don’t know, but okay, I’ll watch it. The Boston Globe asked Daniel Sloss, if you could travel anywhere right now, where would you go? He said, Mallorca, Spain. His wife likes hotels with swimming pools, so he’s been converted to those type of holidays. Does he like being unplugged on vacation?
I would never want to be fully unplugged because it’s not a reality anymore. But I’m for things like agreeing to leave the phone in the hotel room when you’re out and sticking to it. But yeah, I don’t need to be in my head that much. I got a therapy to get out of my head. If you hang out with me, my phone is almost always in my hand.
I am a phone addict, but I’m really good when I do travel. That phone stays away. You won’t find me like doing that at all. When I go somewhere, I am there to see something. Daniel, do you vacation to relax or for the adventure of it all?
He said, to relax and to spoil my wife and children. Thankfully, I’ve been forced to travel from a very young age because of my job. If I hadn’t done stand-up, I wouldn’t have gone to 90% of the countries I’ve gone to. I think it’s important to travel to learn. It gets rid of so much ignorance.
If you could travel with one famous person or celebrity, who would it be? He said, Gordon Ramsay. I feel like he would take me to good spots. He would treat with me and I wouldn’t have to sort out my accent or stop my swearing. Best gift to give a traveler?
Sloss said, a universal adapter. The number of times I go to a country and don’t remember the different plug sockets. And just for the record, every socket in the world should be a British plug socket. It’s the strongest, it’s the best, it’s the fastest. The most nationalistic I’ve become about my country is I go to Switzerland or Australia or America and I see your flimsy little wall sockets where nothing stays plugged in.
I have this hole right here. You hear that? That’s a shoebox under the desk where I record here in the studio. And that is filled with like a million international adapters. And that, my friends, puts a wrap on summer.
Tomorrow is the worst day of the year. So sad. And that’s also your comedy news for today. See you tomorrow.