🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Caalaroga, Shock Media. Hey there, busy one today, I’m Johnny mag with your daily comedy names. Let me do the eight block and then I’ll tell you what’s going on long show today. Shockingly, I can’t believe this. After Midnight canceled by CBS.
It seems like it was a mutual decision. Taylor Tomlinson has decided to return to stand up. I saw this just after I put Thursday’s show to bed, and I was like, WHOA. Unfortunately I couldn’t jump in and make an edit. Sometimes I have to do other things, like prep what I had to teach at my college class on Thursday.
Warning, Taylor explains, I’m doing less stand up than I was before hosting After Midnight. I was on tour three weekends a month for years. So to take this job and I’m always gonna have to scale back a little bit, was a very difficult decision for me. I wasn’t sure if it was something I want to do or not, because stand up is the most important thing to me. It’s the most rewarding thing I’ll Last month, during a panel at south By, Taylor said, I’m doing less stand up than I was before hosting After midnight.
I was on tour three weekends a month for years, so to take the job and know that I was gonna have to scale back a little bit was very difficult for me. I wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted to do or not. Because stand up is the most important thing to me, It’s the most rewarding thing. I was very clear about that in the interview process. I was like, just so you know, this will never be my first love.
This show will never be my thing thing. Stand up is the most important thing to me, and as long as I can do both, I’d love to do both. Apparently she meant. In a statement, Taylor Thomlinson thanked Stephen Colbert, producer of the show, justa thank thee staff, and cru CBS says it will not come up with a new twelve thirty show. I don’t think that’s crazy.
I think it’s a different time, and I was thinking back even when Letterman was on, my godmother bought me a VCR and it was the greatest thing ever. I never watched Letterman live after that. In the early days before the VCR, in the summer, I would stay up until one o’clock in the morning He couldn’t even make it to the end of a Letterman even though I was a teenager during school. Forget it, watch a show twelve thirty, How’s that gonna happen? And Letterman wasn’t even on on Friday.
They had Friday night videos, so you couldn’t even stay up late the one day. But I remember the summer staying up waiting for Dave to come on at twelve thirty, which is how I wound up watching Johnny Carson. It was the thing you stared at to kill time until twelve thirty. No Internet, we had five channels. Totally different time guys.
I lived in Queens, New York. Queen’s New Work wasn’t wired for cable until nineteen eighty seven, So yeah, he stared at Johnny Carson. Eventually Dave came on. I digress CBS not coming up on the new twelve thirty show. I don’t think that’s crazy at all.
There’s also some industry speculation. Now will NBC react in tel Seth Meyers, Hey, thanks man Seth. If somebody says SNL, you might want to grab that gig. Unfortunately, as many as two hundred staffers could be affected by the decision do two hundred people work on After Midnight? Now, I get there were writers.
I get this, a support staff, somebody’s paying the bills, somebody’s building the sets, somebody’s booking the guests, somebody’s letting the crowd in, somebody’s editing the tape. I got it. Two hundred Yeah, that sounds like a lot. I worked on a TV show, Doctor Joy Brown had a syndicated talk show. Let’s say that was when I got my first computer and cell phone Circle ninety five ninety six.
That was an hour a day, five days a week. I could tell you we didn’t have two hundred people, but it was also a different time. The entire social media team was me, but there wasn’t much social media to be done in nineteen ninety five. It was more like going on O, going like AOL chats and stuff, trying to promote the show. I digress again.
Late nighter, watched the end of Colbert’s show and at the end, Steven said, this is the part of the show where I usually say stick around for Taylor Thompson on After Midnight. I really enjoy doing that, not just because I’m an executive producer on that show, but because she’s incredibly funny and I really liked that show. Unfortunately, After Midnight is going to end in June. I believe the show had been picked up for a third season, So this sounds like Taylor has changed her mind and wants to go back to stand up. That’s what Taylor said in her statement.
Colbert went on to reiterate what he had said in his press statement. According to Late Nighter, CBS just gave us a pick up for a third season, but Taylor has decided to return his stand up full time. And as someone who’s done this job for twenty years, I completely respect her enormously as a comedian, and I’m making a very hard decision on how to best use her time and talent. Colbert went on to thank CBS for their support. I’ve been doing this a long time, and you rarely have partners that good, Meaning CBS, you’d have to work on one of these shows like we do to understand all the time and effort the amazing staff After Midnight put into it, not only launching a new show, but also creating a new form of one of these shows for a late night time slot.
Are we going to pretend that Chris Hardwick didn’t do this already. Are we going to do that? Steven? Come on. It’s hard to try something new, and it’s rare for a network to say we’d like more of that.
I think this is a straight deal. I think Missus Taylor wanted to go back to stand up. But I’m not going to tell you that. My spidery sense isn’t tingling. So if I come on here Monday and I’m like, oh, I’ve got an update, don’t be shocked.
Did you watch John Mulaney this week? I haven’t. I don’t feel the need to watch it, which is a shame because I was so excited about it as I put together the show. No milany related stories are organically coming to me. If I type in John Mulaney, still kind of nothing.
I remember Pete Davidson was the guest and I typed in Pete Davidson, which surfaced something about mullaney. So I don’t think there’s any buzz on that show. As I speak to you, it is two twenty four pm on Thursday, and I’m going to type in Netflix top ten. I did this half an hour ago, so I know where I’m going here. But I’m gonna do it again quote unquote, live to you.
So my source here is Netflix. I’m on netflix dot com. Top ten shows in the United States. Number one Adolescents here, that’s really good. Number two the Residents, the guys at trivia we’re talking about that.
Three is Burt Kreischer’s lucky and so let’s stop there. You know, how do you define top ten? I don’t know. Streamer math can be a little wonky, and so you’ll see something like suits being quote unquote number one, but there’s a lot of suits. Like you could sit down and watch sixteen hours of suits, which might increase whatever metric they’re looking at, total hours viewed whatever.
Burt Kreischer it’s an hour, as is John Mulaney. So there’s a kind of sort of equal. It’s at least apples and a different type of apple. It’s not apples and oranges. So I’m comparing an hour of Burt Kreischer and an hour of John Mulaney.
So again, one is adolescents, which again you might binge and watch all four the Residents you might binge and watch is there eight? I don’t know. Three is Burt Kreischer. Four is the Saint Patrick’s Day episode of Raw. Not this week’s the March seventeenth one.
That’s interesting. Five is Temptation Island Season one, six, Miss Rachel Season one, seven, Running Point season one, eight, The Walking Dead, Dead City Season one nine, Zero Day Limited series. That’s pretty good. I watched that. Ten Beauty and Black season one.
What did I not mention? Let me click on trending. Maybe it’s trending my source here, Netflix dot Com. I’m getting from them. Let’s see, they have not updated their page since March thirteenth.
I can’t help you, John, I’ve now clicked on what to watch. They want us to watch five chilling Stephen King adaptations you can stream right now. This page hasn’t been updated since March twelfth. I’m gonna click on shows. My source Netflix dot Com updated yesterday, meaning Wednesday, at eleven eleven am.
Million Dollar Secret. What to know about the players in their twisty new game Popular Now Adolescens, Temptation Island, the residents? What am I not mentioning? What word have I not said? That’s right, listener, Mullaney, I have not said the word mullaney.
There’s no buzz on this thing, even on Netflix’s own site. I don’t know what to make of it. I not here to bash John. You’ll hear me talk with Jason Ziddaman from The New York Times on Sunday’s episode. I have some thoughts about the show, but it’s not working right now, all right.
Pete Davidson was the guest this week, and since it’s Pete Davison, you have to ask him about his dating history. Lunel was on the cat Shore whatever they have on Malleniy’s show and says, I want to know the mistique. To me, you’re just an average guy, regular guy, but you continuously pull all these bad B words, right, so I don’t get it. I want to know the mistique. What I think for the researching for women across America is you should take me out.
Pete said, if that’s what it takes to stop this, yeah, Mulaniy jumps in, We’re going to move off Pete’s personal life. So I wonder if that was disgusted in advance. Lunelle said, I just thought I would shoot my shot, you know, because people want to know what is the mistike. Pete said, I don’t know. Lunell, like, you’re super fun, You’re a really good time.
Pete seemed too embarrassed to answer the question of burrent Lyny mulaney jumps in, he has a real mystique. You have a real electricity to you. Mlaniey argued that Pete Davidson is a wonderful guy, probably to go to bed with. Lunell said, I wasn’t tearing him down. I just want to know.
I want to say right now, I don’t want to sleep with you, I think, but I do want to go out. Pete said, Okay, that sounds fair. Maybe I will put eyes on that one now. I’m intrigued. An update from yesterday’s lead story.
Remember I tells you that the show was stopped at the Melbourne Comedy Fee Festival. Nothing funny here a man died during the show. The man was in the back of the theater. Other members of the crowd attempted to give him emergency care for about ten minutes before paramedics arrived. One audience member said it felt wrong to hear laughter from other folks in the crowd who were sitting closer to the stage and had no idea what was going on in the back of the venue of twenty nine hundred people.
The audience member said people started leaving on their own accord by groups in the second act, particularly as CBR was going on, which you could see and ambulance was there. He could hear defibllerator sounds from across the room. Lighting was dark, though still lighting off to see that a lady and man were interchanging doing chess compressions. Wow. One attendee told the Age paramedics had to commence their care in the dark using flashlights because the show was still going on.
It was the most disgraceful, disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed. I don’t think I was the only person wondering if we were in some sort of dystopian parallel universe where we prioritized the show must go on over human life. Others at the show said up to three comedians kept doing their five minute sets after the man became ill. Wow. One audience member said it was only after a few people were leaving got up and were loudly talking or arguing with a staff member for leaning over and shouting at the comedian on stage to stop the show.
The paramedics were there for good fifteen to twenty minutes in the dark doing CPR before the show stopped. Someone from the dress circle yelled to stop the show. Another guy yelled, someone is dying. An audience member says lighting was dark. Though some comedians took to social media.
Dave Hughes wrote, all performers thoughts are worthy, family affected to hear. Big Lick added, sad news but correctly handled all round, Well done everyone and thoughts with those involved. I was in there. I don’t know what’s going on there. I also don’t know what’s going on with Nikki Glaser.
A couple weird headlines from thenews dot co dot uk that’s an Australian website. The headline Gwyneth Paltrow exposes comedian Nikki Glaser for wanting to f her ex Ben Affleck, subheading Gwyneth has called out Nikki Glaser for wanting to hook up with Ben. I paraphrase that a little bit this happened on the Goop podcast on Tuesday. Glazier would apparently find Ben on a celebrity dating app? Are there celebrit already dating apps?
I’ve never heard that before. As the story goes, when I used to be on RAYA or Aya, is this a thing? I’m sorry if I’m not up to date on celebrity dating apps, and you’re like jud everybody knows Raya. Raya is a private membership AI Google AI is telling me. Raya is a private membership based social network application for iOS known for its exclusivity and focusing on connecting individuals and creative industries, celebrities, and high profile figures.
It has a reputation for being harder to get into than the Harvard Business School. Really, hmmm, who knew about this? And was Nicky Glazer big enough no offense to get into the same thing with Ben Affleck five ten years ago? I mean maybe now, but really, how did she get in no offense? We’re that famous until six months ago?
Nikki? I digress again, Nicky had one. I used to be on ray A. Affleck would come across. Why is Ben Affleck on a dating app?
He can’t pull jicks? Really, I’m totally confused here, Adam my depth. Don’t want to talk about I’m a loser, fifty five guy hosting a podcast his basement. This has nothing to do with me. Well, I used to be on Raya and Ben Affleck would come across.
I would give him a very concentrated check mark yes, and like he never got back. Nicki also told Gwyneth about Andrew Garfield saying no to her on Raya, claiming I know for a fact, yet I’ve seen my profile. I wouldn’t match with him if he was interested. Gwyneth said that would have been a good one. He’s gorgeous now he regrets it.
Then the conversation went to a twenty twenty two interview where Glazier had first mentioned her quote unquote kinky thing of having her boyfriend sleep with other women. Gwyneth asked her about that and whether her boyfriend had ever fooled around with other women. Nicki said that he had. Glazier then admitted it was a competition thing for her. She likes thinking that he could leave and that she has to step up her game to keep him.
That brings us to Jimmy Fallon, where Nicki was on earlier this week. She talked about being on a zempic and said the shame is only from thin people who want you to stay fat. She said she’s a fan of both ozempic and plastic surgery. As for plastic surgery, there’s a stigma around getting worker investing in your beauty and doing all these procedures, and there’s maybe a little sadness to it, but I’m also kind of like, well, it makes my life better. People treat you better when you’re hotter.
It’s a sad fact of life. And everyone goes, that’s so sad. What do you love the way you were born? It’s like, well, why do you go to college? Why don’t you love the brain you were born with?
Why did you pay thousands of dollars to that institution. Sports Illustrated spoke to Jerry Seinfeld about the Mets. Yes Baseball season is back. S I mentioned some comedians known to like the Mets. Those include John Oliver, Sebastian Maniscalco, Brewer, Cybarell, Jimmy Kimmel, Kevin James, Hank Azaria, Chris Rock, plenty of pictures of Chris Rock and Yank It’s just saying, John Stewart, Ray Romano, Bill Maher who used to be a part owner, and Jerry Seinfeld also Johnny Mack, known Mets fan.
S I was curious, why so comedians are Mets fans. Jerry Seinfeld said, comedians are attracted to well drawn, outsized personalities. We don’t like people that officially go about their business. We like people that entertain you, and hopefully you go about their business as well. I became a Mets fan when I was just so entertained by the person and the color versus the Yankees, you know, orange and blue versus the depressing Navy.
Jerry said, the Mets had a lot of personality last summer. I mean twenty twenty four. Oh my god, if you’re a Mets fan of twenty four, your branded for life. That was so much fun, partly because of how unexpected it was, especially after the way the season began. Oh my, we are awfully long today and a lot to get to, all right, So that was the A block.
I’m going to quickly fly through the B block now and I’m going to cut some things. This weekend. I want to celebrate the life of Mitch Hedberg, who passed away twenty years ago this weekend on Tomorrow’s show. Jeff Siegel is an Emmy Award winning filmmaker. He’s the director of an upcoming documentary about Mitch Hedberg.
So tomorrow is just Jeff and I talking about Mitch Hedburg. Sunday Friend of the show, Jason Zenneman from The New York Times will stop by. We already recorded this on Wednesday. We talked Hedburg for a little bit, and then I asked him about some other topics, including Mulaney and Bill Burr. We did not get to discuss Taylor Thomlinson, and that news dropped after we were done.
Today’s show has a third segment if you’re in the Facebook group and feel encouraged to join us. By the way, I forget. When I was teaching my class on Thursday, I saw somebody want to join the Facebook group, and I loved that. Whoever it was, I love you for writing this, wrote I am a pornbot that immediately got improved. I also appreciate anyone who tries to get past my bouncers who understands how to answer what is your quest?
Anyway, if you’re in the Facebook group, you’ve seen Dylan post things. I wanted to talk to somebody who had actually seen Hedburg live. I never saw Hedburg live, but Dylan had so In the third section of today’s podcast, half an hour of Dylan and I talking about Hebburg and some other topics of comedy. As I mentioned earlier in the week, you know some stuff I’ve had to pull forward because I don’t have the weekend to put things where they should go, and other things I’m just pushing to next week. So let me just fly through here with the stuff that can’t wait.
From TMZ. Comedian Mike Laser got heckled by a Trump supporter in the middle of his act. The heckler called Mike a Q quotes jew pig, and this whole thing is on video. Mike was telling a joke about sitting at a corner with his wheed pen. He turned his attention to one of the crowd members and asked the guy, how can I help you.
The guy in the crowd said he wasn’t going to listen to some jew pig Mike Lazer. The comedian clarifies the slur of the guy, admits it and keeps heckling. Mike asked him to leave. The guy says he’s ordering a lyft, adding some more comments I don’t want to repeat. Mike tells the guy to order his lyft outside.
The guy responds, f you Jew. Then as the guy was leaving, he made a comment about supporting a political figure. This all happened at Lucky’s Born Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a Sue Falls comedy group, apologized to Mike, saying the Heckler does not represent the comedy community in Sue Falls and was a random drunk guy who might not even be from here. This weekend in Rhode Island is the Lil Rody Laugh Riots. Some good names Kevin Hart, Leslie Jones as he’sin sorry, John O’Hurley and Patrick Warburton you know them from Seinfeld.
Hannah Berner, Christa Stefano, Jonathan Vaness, Des Bishop and Ashley Gavin. Great. Great, great lineup guys. Oh wait, there’s more. I missed the other paragraph.
Josh Johnson, Melissa Vias, Senor Tone Bell, Sophie Buttle, Alec Flynn and Andy Woodhall. Wow. What a great festival. That is the Lil Rody Laugh Riot. That’s your b block.
Let me take one more break and then a full half hour with Dylan from the Facebook group talking Hedburg and other things comedy. We’re now on to the port of the weekend where we’re going to celebrate the life of Mitch Hedburg. I never got to see Mitch live, but Dylan from the Facebook group has, so I invited him on to talk a little bit comedy. So I was never able to actually see Mitch Hedburg. I think I might have met him early in the serious days.
I don’t actually remember, because it was one of those things where you just assumed the guy would be around forever. But I never actually saw him live. But you did, which is why I invited you on here today. So what was that like? How did you see him?
Did you know who he was? What was the night like, et cetera. I was familiar with him. I’ve always been a complete comedy geek. Just I watch everything.
I would watch Comedy Central in the early days and all the short attention span theater, every single thing I could get my I could have a chance to watch. So I was familiar with him. I saw him under probably just about the worst circumstances you could see a comic, because you’re in the football stadium with eighty thousand other people. It’s basically their Florida University of. Florida’s homecoming weekend called Gator Grau, and they would bring in two or three very big name comedians, and for this one it was Mitch Edburgh, John Pinnett.
And D. L. Hugley Beard Mix. And the following year they had Tosh and Hotel and Jim Brewer and and then the last year I was in Florida, it was Harlan Williams and Bill Cosby. They would have some pretty pretty crazy lineups.
But I was a member of the media at the time, so I had VIP seats so I could see it pretty clearly. But you would get thrown off in the stadium because the sound would go to the upper deck of the stadium, so you would hear them laughing like two seconds after the joke was told. There was like a reverberation back, so it would it definitely made the experience a stranger than typical comedy. Said, I think that’s the only time I’ve ever seen a comedian in a football stadium. Heedburg destroyed.
He was tremendous. The joke I remembered is an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs, which obviously I do it terribly in the retelling, but that was the one that had me giggling days later and repeating it. Here we are twenty five years later, and that’s the one that I still remember. So he was great. He was so different from everybody else that you see people compare him to Steven Wright, and then you see other people coming up who have a Hedburg vibe to him.
But he was just such a one of a kind comic that you just generally don’t see these days. I’m having trouble imagining him in an eighty thousand seed arena, just because of so much of his act was about pacing and vibe, and I’m imagining drunks yelling out and it’s just not working. But you’re saying he crushed. He crushed. As far as I was concerned, I was sitting close so I could actually absorb it the people in the back, and I sat in the back when Cosby was there, and it’s different.
I mean, he came up, did his thing. It wasn’t like And it’s funny because you listen to podcasts and people will talk about I know, Dank Harvey played Gator Grawl in like two thousand and nine, and he was saying that it was the toughest atmosphere he ever played. It’s just because it’s so big, and like you said, people are screaming out random crap throughout the time, so it’s it would be very easy to throw someone off. I remember Dial Hugley was thrown off considerably when he went up there. He seemed in a rush to get off as quickly as possible.
But Panett and Hedberg were quite good in that particular setting. I remember Brewery talking about gator grawl, but at that time his closer was his ACDC bit, which is him singing ACDC with a band behind him. So you do that in an eighty thousand seed arena, Yeah, that’s really gonna work well as opposed to just Mitch doing one liners and waiting for the laughs. Just what a tough room for him. Yeah, I wish I’d had the chance to see him in a club.
I don’t even know if he was doing theaters at the time that he died. I saw something recently on him where Chad Daniels was talking about opening for him early in his career. Daniels has a great story about one of the jokes that he used was something that Daniels had said to him in a diner, you know what I like mashed potatoes, and he goes, you didn’t even a chance to guess, or something something along those lines, a joke that obviously Hedburg and Crush when told the way he would do the jokes. Yeah, I mean, I feel fortunate that I saw him. There’s so many other greats that I either never saw live or I only saw them in situations like the Seller where they’re doing fifteen minutes of practice or just working stuff out, because I saw Patrice and Giraldo that way, but I never saw them in a real setting where they’re actually doing an hour or anything like that.
So I feel fortunate that I was able to see Heberg at all, but I would have done anything to have been able to see him in a club. Yeah. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, especially in the adjacent say it. I’m trying to avoid the word shadow of Stephen Wright, and I think as I compare the two, and clearly there are similarities. Steven is presenting to the audience, whereas I feel Mitch was in it with the audience and we’re all laughing at these jokes together, where Steven is just going, here’s a thought, you laugh, now, here’s a thought you laugh.
Now, Mitch is like riding the surfboard and they’ll do a bust a joke and get halfway through and be like, ah, that didn’t work, and it’s just it’s funny. As weird as Heedburgh was. I think people could relate to him a lot more than they could relate to Stephen Wright. And I love Stephen Wright. I think he’s a genius.
But Heedberg reminds people of somebody they know just where you know, the stone guy who lived in your dorm or something along those lines. Obviously not as funny as Hedberg was. But I think people could relate to him a little better than some of the others who he’s compared to. And I do wonder twenty years on what would Mitch Hedberg in twenty twenty five be. Is he still doing the stoner act one liners?
Is he twenty years older and doing longer chunks? Like the stylized comedians tend to be shooting stars and the brick wall comedians are the ones that tend to have the longer careers. I just wonder if he might have been Oh yeah, that guy from ten years ago. Now, when was the last time Stephen Wright did anything? It’s and again I’m not saying he’s not still capable, but I’ve honestly never if he’s touring.
I’ve missed it over the last twenty years because I would see him in a heartbeat if he came anywhere anywhere close to where I live. But I’ll hear him on He’ll show up on certain podcasts. I think he’s done Greg Fitzimmons’ podcast a couple times, and there are a few other guys who he I think he did Jay Moore’s podcast several years ago, but you generally don’t hear much from the guy at all. Like you said, it’s the twenty years later, it’s hard to imagine he would have been able. To sustain that for that period of time.
But I wish we would have had the chance to find out, just because you hate to see somebody be taken away from us who is very much in his prime at the time. So on Steven, I’ve been hosting the weekly comedy thing on Live one for ten years now. Somewhere in that ten year run he did release a second album. He has two, and I did see him in person. It’s got to be twenty years ago now, maybe fifteen.
And as much as I love Stephen Wright, his pacing, my brain was getting numb after an hour, like I needed the show to end. I couldn’t take it anymore. I think Steven Wright’s material works better in eight minute doses than an hour. As for Mitch, part of what we didn’t get to see was he was very much in ascendency and we were starting to get into rock star Mitch, meaning that crowds were just rabbit about him. And Lynn Shawcroft had talked to me about how he had to speed up his act at the end and it was throwing off the timing.
So it’d be curious to see what peak Mitch would have been like and how the act would have morphed during that period. It’s like, obviously they’re not similar comics, but the guys who rely on the quick, one liner, quick hits kind jessel Nick, And obviously I know jessel Nick is not a similar comic to Stephen Wright or Hedbird, but it’s kind of the line, punchline, quick hit stuff that’s a lot harder to sustain than the storytelling that I think Kreischer and Sigura and so many of the others are doing these days. I saw Shane Gillis a couple weeks ago, and his was very story based. I would think, while it’s not unthinkable to imagine that somebody would be able to do that for an additional twenty years. I think it would be a lot harder than just saying, oh, hey, this happened to me last year, and here’s the comic version of it.
I’m doing the mental exercise of Mitch having to feed the modern social media beast. And I could argue it either way. On the one hand, I don’t think of him as a crowd work comedian. But on the other hand, if you’ve got the crowd behind you, he could just and I’m going to just do an innocent slam of you here. He could be like, of course, because you’re wearing a baseball cap, and if the crowd’s behind you, as stupid as my baseball cap line is, if the crowds line you and that gets a laugh, the room is hey yeah baseball cap guy.
Yeah, like we got him. Good. Yeah. There are people like that who, like you see the ones who do the crowd work really well. I don’t see Hegberg obviously getting to the level where he is, because guys aren’t doing crowd work in theaters and you would like to at least think that he’s not doing the tiny clubs and if it can still come up with the one liners that he did from twenty years ago, then he might have been able to sustain it.
But yeah, it would be really interesting to have somebody who was like that to have the longevity that only the top guys really truly do, at least from a standpoint of not going from stadiums to theaters, to arenas to. The chuckle hut. Yeah, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened with that. Well, I’ve got you.
Let’s talk about some other things.
You’re one of the moderators of the Facebook group, which is Daily Comedy News podcast group. Thank you for keeping the porn bots away and for starting conversations regularly. I appreciate that at this point you absolutely watch more comedy specials than I do. There was a point, I think it was last week or the week before, where some thing relatively major came out and it was like nine am, and you hadn’t commented on it yet, and I was like, I hope he’s okay. Usually he would have watched this, but.
I was visiting my kid in college two weeks ago, so I didn’t see Bill Burr until like a week after it came out. For me, I’ve already Chelsea Handler came out at two am. This morning and I’ve already watched it. I that’s my background where it’s like I’m working, I have it on. I love specials, even bad ones.
I’ll trudge through. I do listen at one and a half time speed to be able to do something in forty five minutes. Rather than an hour. I know you have the issue of getting through. Sometimes it’s like you’re ten minutes in and be like, okay, I feel nothing.
I felt the same way you did about the Burr special, where twenty minutes in I was like, this sucks, and then after watching the whole thing, I was like, it wasn’t horrific, but it was clearly as probably as worst special as he’s put out. Granted that’s a high bar, but yet I’ve always been thankfully. My wife is a as a trooper. I drag her to comedy shows constantly, where sometimes it’s gonna be like, all right, you’re going to this one, and then there are a couple other words, Yeah, this one’s a little probably dirtier than you would care for. But she’s a trooper with that.
We don’t get great shows around here, but we have been pretty lucky up in Green Bay, getting Gatsy and Sebastian and Mark Norman is coming here in a couple months, and we’ve seen Gillis twice in the last year. We’ve been pretty lucky as far as that goes. But yeah, I love the Facebook group. I love the site, and it feels the need that I hadn’t found elsewhere. I had been looking for something where they’re constant updates.
I listened to the podcast first thing every morning, so it’s the perfect way to start today. So I really appreciate what you do. Oh thanks so much. A couple things you mentioned made me think of Jason Zinneman and getting to know Jason from The New York Times a little bit. Has it really helped me in some ways because one a lot of the issues where we talked about where I’ll get ten minutes in with special and bail, that’s on me, that’s not on the performer.
As I analyze this, I can understand comedians can go up and crush for a crowd. But I’m admittedly a comedy snob because I’ve spent so much time listening to so much of it, and especially the years programming the radio stations, you know, listening to everybody’s a material and the version of their a material that they chose to release on a comedy album. It fried my brains. So now if I get ten to eleven minutes into something and I’m not feeling it, there’s ten trillion things to do. When I grew up reasons I love baseball, there were five channels and the Mets were on every night, So I watch the Mets every night.
Now I’ve got infinite media. If I get bored, there’s eight hundred hours of Star Trek I can watch. So if your comedy special is not crushing it, I’m just out and do I profile specials. Of course I do. There’s not enough times talking to Jason and hearing him having also what I call Emperor of Rome syndrome, where you just sit there and go, oh that’s very funny, great callback, Yes that is hilarious.
Oh what a whitecrafted bit, but not laughing. That has been helpful to me.
And then also for imposter syndrome.
I was listening to Marin last night, both the Nick Fune and the it was the other one whatever, and they’re all name dropping comedians and their clubs and talking about when they’re hanging out in Malaney twenty years ago and I’m like a fraud. But then Jason reminds me I’m not a comedian. I’m not trying to be a comedian. I’m just like a fan, just like you are. I just chose to pick up the microphone and start talking about it.
Chris Fleming, that was the other one. And it’s more me than the performers. The performers are getting up, they’ve sold tickets, they have to crush here. But when I’m watching a Netflix special, I could just really quickly be like, what else is there to do? It’s one of those where it’s yeah, and I think I threw this out there in the group.
It was like, what was the lastly truly great special? And I’m talking, you know, like because when people like, what are the best ones of all time? And I’m like, there are a couple of Carlins that I could list. Delirious obviously some I’m a prior’s prior probably has three that Chappelle’s killing them. Softly is when people are saying, oh, that Chappelle’s best special of any of the ones that have come out in the last five years, and you’re not even close just where So.
It’s like I feel very much like a snob as well. When the stuff is put up there, it’s I haven’t seen anything that’s on the line of bigger and blacker or killing them softly or what am I doing in New Jersey or a here and now, anything along those lines. The one that I remember where I was like texting my friends saying, you have to see this was gillis Is Live in Austin. Just because that one absolutely destroyed me. I was laughing so hard.
And even then, do I put that on the level of Bigger and Blacker or Chappelle’s best? No? Absolutely not. As much as I loved Ronny Chieng last year, as much as I enjoyed I know you didn’t like Schultz as much as I did. Even like the Ari Shafir won from this year.
I thoroughly enjoyed roy Wood. Same thing. Are they all time greats? No, they’re not. They’re good.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. But yeah, I want to see something that blows me away, and I haven’t seen anything like that. Yeah, I think only four or five years. I think we’re all chasing the drug that is the laugh that like really good belly laughed chuckle. And I’ve talked about this on the show and in the group, and I’m not getting any pushback.
I think people are nodding an agreement that right now we’re getting the same face as doing the same specials. So yeah, we know what Bil Burr is gonna do. We know what Bert Krascher and I like Burt’s special. We know what Birt’s gonna do if Sigora drops, we know what Sigora is going to do. When you mentioned the last great special, what came to my mind was Natalie Palomides Nate, which was just different and out there.
And I tend to like the alty stuff a little bit, but that one was one where I watched it I was like, oh wow, that was different, and I evangelized for it. I haven’t even seen that one. I’m gonna have to check that out right away. I fully respect your opinion on it, and yeah, I love ones that are interesting because it’s all go searching for stuff where it’s okay, this isn’t I’m not the target audience here, but I still want to see Hannah Einbinder’s One woman Show would have been one of my favorite things that I saw last year. I would have told you were crazy, but that was one that I couldn’t get out of my head after watching it.
So it’s I’ll go watch stuff even intentionally be like, all right, I’m probably gonna hate this, but I don’t like criticizing something unless I’ve seen it where it’s like uh oh. Earlier this year I watched that was at Chelsea. There was some redneck special. It’s the one I have Lois rated. I actually gave it an f was like Pontoon something.
It was like, okay, it was just too painful for anybody to sit through. And this Stefano, who I generally like, his special was horrific. I mean that thing that was an embarrassment. Did you ever watch Gringo Poppy by Brendan shab and they bring it up on Rogan or Tim Dillon brings it up a lot on his podcast. Is probably like one of the worst comedy specials actually put out on a I think it was a show.
I don’t know if a Showtime or. Amazon Prime or something like that, but it’s one of those ones you watch and you’re just like Hugh and I think the Stefano’s was probably worse. Yeah, that’s when you’re I can’t even believe Hulu put this out, but occasionally you see stuff like that. So what’s your top specials of the year so far? I have schult Swan roy Wood, I think I have second, Ari Shaffir third, and then I have Kelsey Cook fourth and Bert fifth.
I was thrilled that you liked the Burt one because I’m biased. I sat next to Bert on an airplane like twenty years ago when he was early in his career, and we talked like we were best for three hours, and so I always feel like I’m biased. But I’m never gonna sit here and say, oh, He’s the greatest comic of all time. But he brings out the giggle factor with me, which is not easy to do and just where you’re like okay, and I don’t consider him like the lowest common denominator comic, but I will laugh at stuff and I’m like, oh mad, I can’t believe I’m laughing at this. He just does it for me, and I think it’s very genuine with him, and I love the stories about it.
My kids are similar ages to his kids, so I can relate to a little bit of that. Even though he has daughters, I have sons. But I just genuinely like the guy. I was thrilled that his latest special is getting I think people are basically saying it’s probably his best special, which I think it probably is. Yeah, I’ve just found it fun now.
It definitely spoke to me also, a fifty something married dad, So I have that connectivity there, and I think, again the Emperor of Rome, I can break down comedy and I can see the matrix and what Burke did there was thing that actually happened, exaggerated for effect it step two you really ramp it up and go over the top, and then maybe the tag is something that didn’t actually happen. But the basic premise there, you know, as a married man in the fifties, got what he was talking about, even if he told an exaggerated version of it, right, it was colorful, even if some of the details weren’t real. The basic premise spoke to me. And I think that’s why I connected with that special and found it very, very entertaining. I find him genuine and like you said, obviously I’m not going to sit here and say, Okay, this.
Is exactly how it happened. I’m not that naive. But there are other ones where you watch and you’re like, Okay, there’s no way in how that happened. And with Bert, I. Have no problem with something being exaggerated for comic effect.
I have no problem with people making up stories. But I know there’s that fine line the has simonaj line. And I like Hassan, but I thought the criticism of him was over the top a few years ago. But at the same time, I don’t know, I get it on some level, But yeah, I love Bert. I took my whole family to see him a couple of years ago and they all walked out of there.
That was a fun show. Where again, nobody’s gonna say he’s the greatest comic of our era, but that was a fun, fun show. So sometimes that’s all you can realistically hope for. I’ll ask you one more than I’ll let you go. If I had a golden ticket, I can get you a seventh throw center for any living comedian.
Who do you want to go see? Mullany? No question? Really, Yeah, I’ve seen most of them, even at granted I only saw at the Cellar. Actually I’ve never seen Rock, but I would rather see Malani right now than Rock.
Trying to think of the other big ones who I haven’t seen. I saw Chappelle when he was working out, killing him softly, so I’ve not seen him recently. I’ve seen Sigura, I’ve seen Burt multiple times. I’ve seen Gillis multiple times. Mulaney was here three years ago, like right after COVID, and I don’t there was a reason why we couldn’t go.
But I’ve been kicking myself since then, especially since he’s only blown up. This is the one that he was like straight out of rehab, and I loved his last special, especially like when he I’ve not seen his TV show yet. I watched almost other than sports, I watch nothing live. I’ll go back and watch. I’ve heard it’s not very good.
I don’t know if that was just from listening to your podcast. Yeah, I know other people who are huge Mulleney fans who are like, just doesn’t do it for me. I think I would like to see him in a regular late night structure. I would love to see him take over for Kimmel retires or any of these guys walk away. Like to see him even if it’s in a standard network format.
I think he could play to that. But it honestly blows my mind that, in my opinion, the best current touring comic couldn’t even get on air it on SML during his time there, because he was by far the best writer they had. Yeah, he’s the one who I would do anything to see at this point, because not so much that there aren’t others that are great. But I’ve seen Seinfeld, I’ve seen Burr, I’ve seen Jim Jefferies, I’ve seen Jim Norton. All of the ones who.
I’m not saying are currently great have been great at some point. And Mulanie’s the one who I’ve not seen. You’re smart about Mulaney. In my career, thirty years in a media now thirty five maybe something like that. When in doubt, you put a format on something, when something’s not working, you put a structure on it.
You put a gimmick, you go, okay, we’re going to do five questions with Dylan and you just that way. There’s a structure to it. If you analyze even my Dopey show, there’s a structure to it. I usually put the eight comedians in the front and as we get back towards the end, Now I’m talking about something happened at a Mumbai comedy club. That’s not going to lead.
There’s a structure to it, and I think you’re right that if Mulany were actually put in a box, it would be stronger. I think they’ve leaned a little too much into the chaos. You’ve heard me talk with Mike Chisen about Letterman that as uncontrolled as it seemed, it was controlled, and David didn’t like surprises. He just presented it as chaos. I think what we’re seeing with Mulaney, especially in those caller segments, which absolutely have to go, it’s actually chaos and not working well.
You don’t want a radio show type thing. It’s television. You’re watching it. Even as someone who listened to Stern for twenty five years, as soon as you would go to the phones, I’d be like. All right, what else is on?
Just where I don’t need to have some idiot call up and ask Artie why he’s so fat or something like that. But yeah, seeing. Him in Okay, you’re gonna come out, you’re gonna do a monologue, You’re gonna do this. And I wonder if Mulaney would find that to be too boring. But it worked at the Daily Show, It worked at every place.
That’s done it, and he’s a better comic than any of the ones who are doing late night right now, and I like quite a few of them, but there’s nobody out there now who. I feel like I need to watch every night. I do make a point of listening to the podcast version of The Daily Show, especially when Stewart’s doing it on Monday night, because I do still think he’s probably the best out. There now that Conan’s not doing it anymore. Kimmel lost me a couple of years ago, and I was the biggest Kimmel fan for ages and it’s not a politics thing.
I could really. Cares to any of these people’s support, but it’s just not as funny anymore. And like Seth Meyers, his Corrections podcast is my favorite thing that he does. It just absolutely kills me. I listen to that every week.
That’s fantastic. But yeah, I would love to see what Melanie could do in a Kimmel type format. He nailed it with Howard, even Pete Howard, there was a structure. Six o’clock hour was the Hey, what everybody do last night? Just yes and maybe talk about office politics.
Seven o’clock get the extended family in here, make fun of the interns, make fun of the boss. Eight o’clock was the guest. Nine o’clock was the news. There was a format, same thing every day. Yeah, and it was yeah.
I mean it was funny because I grew up in California. One of my high school friends, his brother was going to school in NYU, and he would mail back audio. Cassettes of Stern each week. You got to hear this guy and my friends. That was funny, and I’m like, yeah, give me the tape.
So he’d give me the tape. I had my dual cassette recorder. I would record my own copy and I would listen to it over and over again until the next tape came. I was hooked on that until the show started to suck. I listened to Anthony a lot.
I never really got into some of the other stuff. But yet, like Opie and Anthony, I thought showcased comics better than Stern ever did. Sure, and there really weren’t that many comics that or I should say big comics that were showcased or became big because they. Were on Stern. I know Dapala was on a lot and Kennison was on a lot early on, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that they became famous from being on Stern.
While there’s a long list of comics that you could say, but they went next level because of going on Opie and Anthony the same way a lot of these comics have gone to the next level by going on Rogan these days where where I mean. Like Ari was the one who I always thought he’ll never graduate to theaters because he’s too controversial. Even he’s gotten to that level. You see where Gillis was. Two years ago and where he is now, and I think a lot of that is due to one, he’s fantastic.
Two going on Rogan almost once a month definitely helps him. Doing the protect our Parks has shot him to the next level. Mark Norman, who is pretty dirty for to go to the theater level, I’m seeing him in the theater in two months. I think he’s a genius too. It just absolutely destroys me.
I think he’s another one who I think is one of the best working. Simmarill is another one who I have not seen who I would really love to see but haven’t. Had a chance yet. If he comes to Wisconsin, he only goes to Milwaukee. If he came up here, I would go see him in a heartbeat.
I think all the guys you mentioned we’re just seeing the pushback, not even about Cancel culture PC culture. I just think everybody has taken a step back towards. You know what. We’re all friends, and we make fun of each other. And if you and I hung out every day, I’ve got quirks, You’ve got your quirks with bunch each other’s chops about it.
That’s what’s friends do. And I think that’s coming across in a lot of the comedians you just mentioned that it’s dude, we’re just out having a good time. Don’t analyze every sentence that said. And sometimes a joke is just a joke. Yeah, it’s really unfortunate that.
It’s one thing when somebody comes out and says something really stupid and then they apologize for it a day later or something like that. It’s another thing when you’re pulling stuff from twenty thirty years ago and saying, oh my god, Jimmy Kimmel did blackface, but Jimmy Fallon did. Okay, if you want to say, hey, I regret doing this twenty years ago, fine, I get it. But even some of the comics who consider themselves woke these days. And I’m not saying I don’t mean this as like a knock, but Sarah Silverman or pat Oswalter, some of these people, they’re like, yeah, if you listen to my stuff from twenty twenty five years ago, I use all the words that we’re not allowed to say anymore.
It’s like everything changes. But I think we’re seeing less and less of that considering the show I just saw where it was because I saw Gillis when I was in Colorado and Big Jay was there. Although Big Jay, who I generally loved, was horrible. He was just clearly up there basically like sleepwalking through it. But Dan Soder was tremendous and the other guy, and they were talking about cancel culture where they’re saying, this word’s coming back, this word we probably won’t hear again.
You can imagine which one that one was. But you’re basically saying this word’s coming back, this word’s coming back, and it’s yeah, it’s like just because of the way it’s And again I’m not saying it’s okay to use. I try to avoid using the same words in my when my daily life obviously, but I don’t cancel culture on any level because it’s Look, if. You don’t think something’s funny, don’t watch it. The same thing that is the same criticism with Stern.
Hey, if you don’t, if you’re offended by what he says, change the channel. I changed the channel on Stern because I thought I didn’t like. The direction he was going. I’m not going to sit here and say should be taken off the air, because if he still has an audience, then he should be allowed to address that audience. Yeah, I’ve written on my substack about it.
I’m not going to sit here and say that I didn’t laugh at a lot of things Stern did in the nineties that Stern himself has distanced himself from guilty is charged. Laughed at the most a different time. That’s the thing that I hate that he has two channels that are fully dedicated to his stuff, and all of his best stuff is gone. He doesn’t even play the nine to eleven show anymore, which blows my mind because that was something that I felt so connected to because like on the day that happened, I sat in my car and listened to it because everybody else went the news and Stern stayed on the air, and I just sat there and listened to it NonStop, and then I listened to it again that night when they replayed it, and it was so brilliant. And he’s even distancing himself from that.
So I find that to be sad, because as somebody who loved him for so long, and again, I don’t expect the sixty five year old to do bout bongo fiesta. Like I understand people evolving, When people who had been guests on his show for twenty years, he just randomly just basically shuts the door on them, We’re not having them anymore. I thought it was very sad that Gilbert wasn’t on during his final days. The whole thing with Arty was basically what closed my door on Stern, just like I absolutely loved Artie and thought he brought the show to another level, but so many of these comics and people who he had on. That he just basically ditched.
That never sat well with me. Poor I already worked with him a few times. Great guy in real life. But I remember we were at one of the comedy festivals and I’m going back a bit, maybe it was the Vegas one, and I said to Mark, my serious host while watching Already Live, Igo, if we wake up tomorrow and he’s dead, not going to be shocked. He was just out of control.
He’s got demon’s good guy, good soul, but boy, the demon’s got him. I saw him on one of the Stern showcases, and it was a painful show because you’re sitting there watching Richard and sal doing something that masquerades a comedy. And I think Yuko the Clown. Might have been there where I’m sitting there going oh God, like if Artie wasn’t coming up, I think it literally went like stuttering John d’ pallo and then Arty, so it was like, Okay, I just got to get through stuttering John. I generally like stuttering John, but as long as I can get through stuttering John, I’ll be fine.
Through to Pollo and Arti and Da Paolo is a genius.
And then Arti came out, and there are comparisons to Chreischer, although Kre…
And but like you said, if I’d woken up the next day, and they said he already didn’t wake up. I would have been like no, shock there. It’s not like Hedberg where you’re like no, although I did not know that, and I’ll be curious to hear you. I’ll be curious to know if it was close to them, knew how bad his drug habit was. I get the sense that they did the same thing with Giraldo, And obviously nobody was stunned when Patrice died, but I still didn’t make it any less sad, just because you always hate seeing these comic geniuses taken from us too soon.
Yeah, and it happens to so many. All Right, ten minutes ago, I asked you one last question, So I’m going to let you go. You won’t have to listen to this episode because you already know what we said. But I appreciate you. Thank you for taking care of the Facebook group as one of the moderators.
Appreciate you coming on. I think we’ll have you back. Just I like talking to comedy and talking about comedy with people, and it’s fun to just drop one of these in. Yeah, I appreciate everything you do. I’d been looking for something like it for a long time.
When I stumbled on it, I was like, this is exactly what I want. You do an amazing job. And I listened to a ton of podcasts, so it’s like, when I start my day with yours, that’s. A pretty big compliment. Thank you.
Also, tonally try to do it as a morning show. I’m not a yellers screamer, so I think it’s easy on the years at seven thirty in the morning. It is one of the pro designs of it. It drops at the perfect time and it’s the perfect length for like first thing in the morning. Be like, Okay, I got and I listened to double speed, so I got seven and a half minutes for a perfect way.
To start the day. But I really do go to the National Donuts chain every morning. It just it tends to magically work out that my drive to coffee hits. Usually I hit the parking lot right as the show gets to the commercial break, and then I listen to the rest on the way home. But I do listen, not that I’m a narcissist.
I listened to see if I made a production error, because every now and then I make a production error and then I try and catch it before everybody else does. No, I get it, and yeah, one of many shows that I listen to, but it’s definitely in my daily routine. That’s a long episode of Daily Comedy News Tomorrow. Jeff Siegel, documentarian, We talk about his Mitch Hedberg documentary and celebrate the life of Mitch Heedburg. Sunday, jason’s ineman friend of the show from The New York Times, We also talk Mitch Heedburg.
See you tomorrow.