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The Shark Deck. Hey man, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. The La Times profiled Fortune Feemster and Chelsea Handler loves her. Chelsea said, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who met Fortune and didn’t just love her. That’s what’s so great about her.
She kind of breaks through any sort of right or left politics, any sort of divisiveness, and she’s just a pure bundle of joy. Feamster was a writer on Chelsea Lately and It’s a mutual love fest. Feemster says Chelsea was putting people on TV that nobody else was putting on TV and not really caring if you fit the mold of who should be on TV. She was the first person who gave me the yes when everybody else was telling me no. Stand up allowed Fortune to cut through all the red tape and just show people who she is.
She said. While the industry was kind of like, we’re not sure about you, people watching me were like, oh, we can relate to you. You’re like one of us. You’re not some fancy person, You’re not like some supermodel. She left says, thanks a lot.
I always seem to connect with audiences before the industry really know what to do with me. She tried out for SNL twice, said you walk down that hall and your nerves it through the roof, and you get on the stage and your whole career flashes before your eyes. She did not make the cut and says I’m a believer if things happen for a reason. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s what i’d tell myself, and it makes me feel better. There was a time in my career when I was getting a lot of people telling me they liked me, thought it was funny.
They didn’t know what to do with me. It was before being different was celebrated. Now it’s like, oh, we want everybody to be unique. The Charleston City Paper profiled a lot of Glazer. When Broad City ended in twenty nineteen, Glazer was inspired to return to her roots and stand up.
Her first comedy special, The Planet Is Burning, took on subjects like homophobes and Nazis and the patriarchy. Alana says, the thing I actually don’t like about The Planet Is Burning is that I talk about my perspective from a little bit outside of me. The news special is a bit more about my experience in my body. I see the world through a lens of a queer Jewish woman’s experience. So that’s inherently political.
This tour will be less about politics and more about the things I love talking about, like sex, drugs in and how it feels to be alive right now? Did you think I was gonna say, rock and roll? The South China Morning Post it is your own for Comedy News, and they spoke with John Cleese. He watched the coronation of King Charles and said, I watched her about five seconds and I just started to laugh uncontrollably. I mean, like really laugh, like remember when you were a teenager and you’d laugh until it hurts.
He thought it was a scene so ridiculous he might have dreamt it up himself for Monty Python. All these people in silly costumes behaving as if something serious was going on. I just thought it was hilarious. Hey, John, since you liked the Royal Family, wanted you to check out Palace Intrigue. That’s a daily podcast about the Royal Family.
I’m the writer on it and you might have some similar thoughts there, John Clees, check it out Palace Intrigue wherever you get your shows all right, what’s going on with Faulty Towers? Man? Are we doing this or not? John said, for forty years his answer was I don’t see how it could possibly be a success. However, he was wined and dined by a US producer and his mind was changed over the course of a single dinner.
However, tapped the brakes. John says, at present, there’s no script, no concept, no location, and no characters apart from Basil. Yeah, that doesn’t sound very developed at all. Klees’s first wife, co writer and co star Connie Booth, is notably not involved. John says it’ll probably be set in the Caribbean.
We don’t have an idea yet. We have half an idea. The trouble is one of the producers wanted to proote himself a little bit and sent out a press release without warning anyone, and suddenly everyone got excited over something that hardly exists. I see what happened there. I’m sorry, John, that’s annoying because now you have to answer questions.
But you know who’s working on this thing, Rob Reiner, and Klees regards Reiner as among the only two or three people who know more about comedy than he does. Wow, he he admits, that’s a very arrogant thing to say. Who were the others? Steve Martin, Susie, Eddie Azzard and Frank Oz from short All Robin Tran says podcasts are bad for a stand up Hey, I don’t know about that, and well let’s see what Robin says. Robin writes, as much as I used to love podcasts, I think the oversaturation of comedians podcasts in the past few years has been bad for stand up comedies and art form.
I’m not talking about all or even most comedians, merely a group of some of the top names. We are mostly famous from their podcasts rather than their actual stand up I wonder who she means there. I could speculate, and this is from Orto, which is a British site, so it’s probably not big American names my guests. Who knows she writes technology. It’s gotten to the point where anybody can easily broadcast their thoughts and put them on the Internet.
I hate those people sitting in their basement drinking a nice coffee, reading news stories to people losers. In fact, during the hyde of pandemic, Amazon actually sold out of podcast equipment. There were two things they ran out during COVID podcast equipment and toilet paper. Now these comedian podcasters can do what they’ve always dreamed of, which is get paid simply for having thoughts, talking and existing. They can get together with other comedian podcasters where they just talk to each other, so the listeners at home can feel like they’re part of their friend group.
You know, that was the whole Earwolf midrole thing, like fifteen years ago. How long has it been twenty years ago? Now? You know, it was like they were like seven comedians and they would just all go on each other’s podcast. Now, I was working at a company you’ve heard of that I’ve mentioned, and I was like, you know, we got to tap into this la scene, and an executive didn’t heed my warning.
I digress. It’s and I’m convinced some of these comedians are moreged in glamorizing the lifestyle of a comedian rather than actually being a comedian. They can hype each other up, exaggerating each other’s importances, and talk about stand up comedy being the purest and only true form of expression, and through repetition, over the course of hundreds of hours of podcasting, it seeps on the consciousness of their fans and eventually seeps in of the culture. Now I’m wondering if she means the Austin Crew. When stand up comedy is presented as the sacred profession one is the beyond reproach or criticism, these comedians become unsugeable how many times if we were the comedians are modern day philosophers and the last bashets of free speech.
And when comedians can present themselves in this light, then their fans are along for the rod, gets swept up in the hype without even having to hear a single joke from them. And after years of comedians going unchecked and uncriticized, they have free reign to sell ads. It’s not the comedians should never sell out, but it used to be frowned upon for somebody to be money hungry rather than caring about artistic integrity. Now it’s the complete opposite. Do the monumental influx of comedian podcasts.
It’s no longer a shameful thing to sell out. Not only that, it’s now encouraged to sell out, it’s encouraged to make as much money as you possibly can. And if you even deer criticize this greedy nature of a lot of comedians have been developing. You’ll be slated for being weak and naive because you aren’t joining on on this money making scheme where the actual stand up becomes secondary. This thing is quite long.
I’ll skip to the end. Even their own fans have started to figure this out. There have been several podcasters comedy specials where their fans will say, his stand up isn’t very funny, but I love his podcast and was great to see him live. Oh. I can think of at least two people who have big podcasts that had terrible specials recently.
I’m not going to say their names. Robin Tran is heading to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time with her stand up showcase Don’t Look at Me. She does not have a podcast. That’s your comedy news for today. Follow the show for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your shows.
Except Robin, who probably isn’t listening anyway. See tomorrow.