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Caloroga Shark Media nine Jommy Mack with your Daily Comedy News. It’s been busy around here, all right, Just to catch up on the feed. Yesterday, around one pm Eastern, I dropped celebrity reactions to the passing of Bob Newhart. There was a normal episode Friday. I know, sometimes, especially if you use Apple Podcast, you might miss an episode because it only puts the most recent one in front of you, So yesterday there were two.
Thursday night, around seven pm, I shared an episode of TV in the Basement where Joe Mitchell did a really nice recap of Bob Newhart’s TV career. Before that was the O bit and before that was the normal episode on Thursday.
All right, let’s move forward.
Ten years ago, Weird Al made history Mandatory Fun, his fourteenth and final studio album, hit number one. I remember listening to that for the first time. I could tell you exactly where I was. I was out for a run. I was listening to the song Foil and I’m like, this is kind of lame, like it’s Lord’s Royals, but it’s about aluminum foil and it’s kind of dumb.
And then I should have trusted Weird Al we got to the second half of the song with the wonderful twist where he went into crazy conspiracy Land. I was like, oh, gotta trust weird Al. Here, nobody’s reached number one with a comedy album since Weird Al said, I know it feels ironic to decide to stop making albums after having a number one album, but I just like the freedom of being able to really use whatever I want whenever I want, not have to be behold into a label. Al has a new release. It’s a pokem ed Lee poke Mania.
I like Al’s pokem mixes. On this one, he takes on Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy, Adele’s Hello Miley, Cyrus Flowers, We Don’t Talk About, Bruno from Disney’s and Canto Olivia Rodrigo’s Vampire, Lil Nas Exis, Old Town Road, Lewis Ponsi and Daddy Yankees, Desposito at Sheeran’s Shape of You, Mark Ronson and Bruno, Mar’s Uptown Funk, Cardi b and Meghan Fee, Stallion’s Wap Wap, Mariana Grande’s Thank You Next, and Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off. Al says with the changing of media, he doesn’t like to have to sit around and wait till you have twelve songs. He can release them all at once. Sometimes that means some of the tracks aren’t going to be quite so topical as for this release.
Over the last ten years, there’s been a lot of songs that’ve been on the charts that, for whatever reason, I didn’t take a shot at, and I thought those were missed opportunities. I wanted to circle back and pay tribute to a lot of those big hits over the last ten years. How do you pick the songs? Al Al says, I started by limiting the songs that have been number one on the Billboard charts. That narrowed it down quite a bit.
I didn’t do like one song per year, but I wanted it to be pretty spread out over the ten year period, and I picked songs that I thought were iconic, an artist that I thought were iconic with some of the most memorable songs. Did anyone decline? Al Al said, Well, we heard back from Taylor Swift right away, which was amazing. Miley Cyrus and Billie Irish both are apparently delighted they could be in a pokea Inmedley, the one we never heard back from was Sizza, we wanted to use kill Bill. She didn’t say yes or no.
She just never turned our phone calls. Joe Rogan was hosting his Joe Rogan Experience podcast Have you heard of it? It’s pretty popular? He had on Sam Talent and Joe started telling a story. As Joe says, there was a club that when Fear Factor ended, they decided that even though it sold out every show every time I’d been there for years, they decided I wasn’t a draw anymore.
Oops. They tried to decrease my amount by twenty five percent. I was like, what the afterre you talking about. They’re like, we don’t think you’re draw anymore. But I sold out a year ago when I was here, Like, what are you saying?
Rogan did not name names, but said of the promoter, it was one of those big clubs, a big company that has a lot of clubs. I think I could figure that out, but I’m going to leave that alone. Sam Morrell was talking a Decider and they brought up an interesting thing deciders that I’ve talked to some comedians who left at Netflix, specifically because they felt like they weren’t being served unless they were huge name. They were just kind of lost in the shuffle. Sam said exactly.
It’s like you hit that Netflix top ten for a minute and then you’re immediately out right because they put out a special every week, so as you said, not special. So sure, I mean for me, I didn’t leave. I would have entertained Netflix if it was a more substantial offer, but the offer was like very low where they said that’d make one with me in twenty twenty five, and I’m like, okay, that’s nice, but it’s ready now. I mean, I have no issue with Netflix or Hulu or any of them. I mean Netflix is obviously the big name, but sure oversaturation is a problem, Like I mean, YouTube specials aren’t doing what they used to do.
Netflix specials probably aren’t doing what they used to do because there’s so many, Like not everyone got that Tom Sigora Alley Wong bump when it was a desert over there, and they just got to hang on that home screen forever. So yeah, there’s a lot of crap. I assume you said crap. The transcript says s dashline. I do think if you make a good thing, it’ll hopefully get shared.
But I think you just have to work when in doubt, work harder because there’s a lot of competition. I don’t mean comics in competition, I mean like all forms of entertainment. Sam says, I have a podcast, and I’ll tell you how often I get hit up by a comic I’ve never heard of who’s got a special I’m like, Wow, there’s a lot of specials. Decider asked if Sam needs validation from his peers or within the industry, and Sam said, they all matter. I mean, it’s hard to rank them.
They all matter, obviously. I want to comics. I respect to think I’m funny. That means a lot to me. Fans are so important because they keep you going and they keep you writing.
I mean, if I went back to when I couldn’t sell tickets on the road, it’d be very hard for me to write New Hours because that was hard. You’re playing the video game on Hall of Fame mode when you’re young, and you know, then you kind of move up. It gets a little easier. You’re busy, so your brain is a little bit more mush these days, so you don’t have time to write. But yeah, having no one there papered rooms on the road, that was tough.
Reggie Watts has a special out today on VEEPS. You’re probably like, what’s veeps? I’m looking here too. Veep’s official website get unlimited access to live shows, on demand content, and exclusives from artists you love. A bad news for VIEPS.
I clicked through the link that comes up on Google and it goes to can’t find the server. That’s not good anyway. I found a deeper link. They’ve got a bunch of specials up on Nick swartz In, David Cross, Rory Scovell, Brad Williams. So yeah, good stuff here.
Reggie Watts never Mind will be available to stream on VIEPS today starting at eight pm Eastern Time. This one has a bit of a time out travel hook. Reggie says the time travel hook keeps us away from some of the divisive issues that are playing us now. It’s tapping in how I really thought it was going to be back then, and it still can be in many ways. I think the Internet is obviously an amazing tool, but capitalism has ruined it for the most parts.
Watts worked completely off the cuff. Moments before he walks out on stage, he says, I’m not preparing at all. I create the room of the environment for something going to happen, but I’m not preparing for what I’m going to perform inside the environment. Watts isn’t even sure he needs people to laugh. He’s seeking to produce a sense of disorientation or disassociation that takes people outside of themselves.
They might be laughing, but it’s more the type of laughter he associates with a psychedelic trip than a traditional comedy club. Reggie says, audiences that really know me, I can still laugh with them. I just have to not work a little harder, but maybe just be fresher in the way that I’m being on stage. This special is set in the mid nineteen nineties and points out how wild our current situation is from the perspective of only a couple decades ago. Matt Matthews will be taping his special tonight at the Alabama Theater in Birmingham, Alabama.
This is from his Newest Too, when that thing and got to thing in all right. For the last few days, I’ve been telling you how excited I was about this Hank Azaria thing. All right, Johnny Mack, what is it? This better be good. I’ve probably oversold it unless you’re a Springsteen fan.
Hank Azaria answered my prayers. Remember the other day, I said, I did this whole thing about how comedy was kind of stale right now and nobody was doing anything interesting. Hank Kazaria must have listened to the episode, traveled back in time three months and put together a Bruce Springsteen cover band. Vulture caught up with Hank, who said, my whole life is about sharing vocal impressions. This, in some ways is the ultimate of that to me.
I think of it as a theatrical performance. I’m staying in character as Bruce, even though I’m telling stories about myself. It’s a performance piece, but I’m not a Bruce impersonator. He did a gig recently that went so well he was offered to acting jobs later in the week, and he turned them both down and spent all morning pursuing whatever’s next with the Easy Street band. They’re gonna play New York City in August and maybe do a full tour.
I’m a major Springsteen fan. I have seen and Bruce fifty something times. When I worked at Sirius, I worked closely with Stephen van zandt on something called The Wise Guys Show. I’ve been to rehearsal shows. I met Clarence, I’ve met Max.
I was in the bathroom with Bruce. You don’t talk to Bruce in the bathroom. That’s awkward. You know, I’m there, he’s standing next to me. You don’t be like, hey, I really like your music.
That’s not the time to do that. Anyway. Let’s let Hank iss Area take us into the break with Glory Days and dudes. I’m a big Bruce fan and I thought this was gonna be horrific. This is pretty good.
Enjoy. I had a friend was a big baseball player back in high school. You can pull down street ballfire, make you the l a fool moment. So the other night out out this rone sidebar, I was talking in he was walking. We went back inside, sat down bad a few French HOLLI temps topping what’s Holy Day?
Well pass you by. Conan O’Brien is going to appear on the Simpsons co Showinner Matt Selman was on the podcast Dough Boys and said, can I give you guys a Simpsons scoop? But they say, now, we don’t want that. Of course they said yes. He revealed Conan O’Brien will be guest appearing on the season premiere of The Simpsons.
Conan O’Brien will play Conan O’Brien. It’s not Conan O’Brien’s first time as a character on the show. He makes an appearance in season five’s Bart Gets Famous. Back in nineteen ninety four, Bart appears on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, which was just five months old. Selman says Conan’s role in the upcoming episode will be much bigger.
Cheech and Chong making waves in the cannabis industry, but they’ve hit a snag when it comes to shipping in certain states. Idaho is the main punchline in their marketing. Cheech and Chong have decided to advertise saying cruise Chooser one hundred percent legal in every state except Idaho. Sorry, folks, you know what it’s like one hundred and five degrees in my basement studio right now. I’ve got three more stories, but I’m being honest with you.
I’m hot. Let’s let’s wrap it up there. More comedy news tomorrow. See you then.