Featured: Mike Chisholm, Norm MacDonald, Adam Sandler, John Stewart, Pete Davidson, Dave Chappelle, Mitch Hedberg, Dane Cook, Nate Bargatze, Joe Rogan
What’s in This Episode
- Billboard’s Top 25 Comedians of the 21st Century list and selection criteria
- Norm MacDonald’s comedy album and sketch work vs. stand-up debate
- Mitch Hedberg’s career trajectory and posthumous legacy
- Dave Attell’s crowd work and improvisational skills
- Comparing comedians by box office success versus peer reverence
- Nate Bargatze’s stadium tours and theme park venture
Questions Answered in This Episode
Was Norm MacDonald included on Billboard’s Top 25 Comedians list?
Yes, Mike Chisholm included Norm MacDonald on the list, though Johnny Mac initially questioned the decision. Mike justified it based on how revered Norm is among comedians rather than box office metrics.
What is Norm MacDonald’s most famous comedy album about?
Norm’s album features sketch-style bits including a Fantastic Four routine, a disease gambler sports betting bit during a Jets game, and a Superman bit where Clark Kent tries to convince Lois Lane he’s actually Superman.
How should comedians be ranked on popularity lists?
The hosts debate whether lists should be based on tickets sold, cultural impact, peer reverence, or a combination of factors, with no single definitive answer.
What is Dave Attell known for as a comedian?
Dave Attell is known for his improvisational ‘crowd surfing’ skills and ability to perform off-the-cuff material, making him a reliable last-minute performer.
Is Mitch Hedberg’s legacy affected by his short career?
The hosts discuss whether Mitch’s shooting-star status and early death actually enhance his memory and legacy compared to comedians who had to evolve over decades.
What is Nate Bargatze planning besides comedy tours?
Nate Bargatze is reportedly serious about developing a theme park project in addition to his comedy career and stadium tours.
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Caloroga Shark Media. Hi there, I’m Johnny Mac. My guest today is Mike Chisholm. He’s the host of the Letterman podcast Now If You Arnists recently discussed the top ten late night hosts. I mentioned at the end of that episode that I clipped it and split off a piece of that conversation to be its own thing.
That is this piece that you’re hearing today. Mike asked me about my list of the top comedy specials of twenty twenty five, and let’s jump in. I want to talk to you about your Billboard list. I don’t know if we do that here, if we do that somewhere else or not, but I appreciated the fact I totally disagree with you, but you had a little bit of indignation when Norm McDonald appeared on the list and I was like, wait a second, of course he needs to be on the list. Norm is like to me, But that brings it back to what is the purpose of the list and how do you get on the list?
Is it because if it’s tickets sold, like a guy like Adam Sandler probably deserves to be on that list, but like, like, what’s the criteria? Right, if it’s tickets sold, nor McDonald probably doesn’t deserve to be on that list, right, So like, where where do you draw the lines at what categories? You know? Do you emerge them all together and they become something? All right?
Boboard’s top twenty five comedians of the twenty first century so far? So you asked the right question of so first of all, with any of these lists, and I say this all the time. Yes, my list, here, list, somebody else’s list. They’re all valid. Right.
So if you said to me, come back next week and give me your top ten late night hosts of all time, I’m probably gonna flip your top two. And you know, does it really matter that I have Carson one and Letterman two? Like? Is that really right? We’re fighting over we’re spiritually saying the same thing.
When I look at the Billboard list, there were some names on there that I was like, yeah, okay, of course that makes a lot of sense, And then some people I struggled with. One of the names I called out was John Stewart, who earlier in this conversation I put in some sort of hall of fame and said nothing but great things about him. Do I think of him as one of the great stand ups. I don’t he’s He’s currently out on tour with Pete Davidson and I haven’t seen him live recently, so maybe he’s awesome, but I just don’t think of him that way. And Norm MacDonald, Now please understand, Norm MacDonald has a comedy album with I don’t know what the titles of the tracks are called, but there’s a bit about the Fantastic Four, and one about Superman and one about the the Let’s break this apart?
Okay, you got time? Got time? Yes, so the Fantastic for a bit, I’ll do the poor man’s version of it until loose spoil for it, spoiler for everybody. And again I’m not telling it right. But the setup is Norm is read Richard’s and he’s giving everyone their nicknames, and he’s like, well, Sue, you know you’re uh, you’re invisible, so you’ll be the invisible woman.
Okay, great, great great? And Johnny you’re uh, you know you light on fire. You’ll be the uh, we’ll call you the human torch. Okay, yeah, I like that. And me, I’m a I’m a mister fantastic And they’re like, well you shouldn’t you be like mister stretchy Man or something.
No, No, I’m mister Fantastic And it’s a great bit.
And then the album goes on to the Disease Gambler sportscaster.
Right, so I don’t know if you know this bit, but they’re calling the Jets game and and I don’t know if it’s Dan Patrick. It’s like somebody legit is calling the games, like, you know, the Jets will line up here for you know, a third and five. They don’t make this, you know, they’ll have to punt, and Norm’s characters going, well, actually, you know, if they’re gonna win by six and a half, they should go for it like that kind of humor because he’s clearly got money on the game, and that’s hilarious.
And then there’s a Superman bit where where nobody believes that Clark Kent i…
They think somebody else is Superman. But because he wants to hook up with Lois Lane, he’s trying to convince everyone that he is Superman. And it’s just it’s a wonderful album, but it’s all sketches. It’s one of my favorite comedy albums. It’s fantastic, yep, but it’s not stand up.
Norms stand up, especially the posthumous special, is really good. But I don’t think of him as as a stand up. I picture him doing OJ jokes behind the desk. Now, I’m not throwing tomatoes at the idea of Norm McDonald, but just I just wouldn’t think of him as a as a stand up. Well, it’s funny because I put him on the list for the same reason that you celebrated putting a tel on the list.
He’s a stand up stand up you know at tel is is I don’t you know, you get guys along the way, you know, prior Kinnison to some hicks, you know, some of these people that do become like they’re the they’re the revered ones by the comedians themselves. I think Norm is certainly that guy to a certain group, and I think atl is as well. So that I put Norman for that reason. I give him the intangible reason because he probably doesn’t have the box office that some of the some of these other people do. But at the same time, so many people revere him like like there’s a part in The New Letterman with Adam where where Adam Adam Sadler’s talking about being on tour the last tour all we do that with Norm, and you just see Dave go all like he like he has a thrill emotional reaction just to hearing the first name of Norm MacDonald and and it’s there’s so many people out there who feel that way about Norm and and so I think that that’s why I think Mitch Heedberg sort of has a similar uh almost almost an infa It’s not infamy, but it’s it’s it’s a reverence.
And I think he’s got a similar one as well. I put I put those guys in the same category.
All right, let’s talk about Mitch and then I’ll come back to a tell for me.
Sure, I think one of the truths of Mitch’s career. Is that it’s short. And I’ve had Hedberg related guests on the show, and I do wonder twenty years into that style would he have had to evolve. Around the time of his death, he was starting to work more quickly because the crowd wouldn’t let him stay in the slower pace. You’ve got the two albums on the posthumous album, and that’s the body of work, and a couple of Letterman appearances and a few random things, and it’s all great.
But what happens if you tag twenty more years onto that see our earlier discussion about Dane Cook, who nobody talks about now. So is Mitch a shooting star? And that helps our memory of Mitch probably As for David’s till Johnny MANX show me the body of work, I can’t. But I’ve been in rooms where Dave Tel shows up and does it’s not even crowd work. I’ll call it crowd surfing.
You know, hey, what’s going on here? Everybody? And he’s just kind of riffing and you’re having a good time. And back to my three am nuclear test of I got to wake up comedian out of bed and go, hey, I got a room of eighty people in the other room and I need somebody to do twenty minutes. Can you do it?
Hell be a pretty safe bet. There, absolutely, yeah, Like see, there you go. You articulated the point that I was trying to get across, like show me the body of work. Well, but at the same time you talk to he like I was listening to Roga the other day and somebody somebody said, oh yeah, and then. A Tel showed up and Joe went, oh, like like it’s the same kind of thing.
Like it. They just have reverence for a Tel like a Tel is just that he’s that guy. But again, you know, when you’re comparing him to a Nate Barghassi, you know who’s selling out stadiums all over the place, and they’re talking about a theme park. They’re talking about. Theme parker, That’s that’s not real, right, there’s nothing that I think is real.
He’s thinking that. No, he’s serious about it, So Nate, So again, guy and guy recording a podcast in his basement. Shut up? What do you know you’re you’re talking to sure people? Shut up?
I get it. Well, Nate’s you know, playing the hockey arena. I get it. But back to the three am test. If I got to wake somebody out of bed and go hey, Nate, I get eighty people in the other room and need you to just uh, you know, crush twenty minutes, and he’s going to go into a room cold and do his act.
I’ll take a tell in that scenario. Okay, So now that we’re talking, yeah, I would too. I would too. Now we’re talking about Nate and we’re talking about mitch Heedburg and and at the end of the day, both of these guys are characters. They’re both you know, Steve Stephen Wright.
I mean, okay, so mitch Heedberg, he might be like a Stephen Wright right now, uh where where where he’s still to be been around and stayed on on, you know, in that style. When Nate hosted what did he was it? The wasn’t the Emmys Crownies, No, the Emmys. It was EMMI. It was the Emmies.
Yeah, yeah, yah, where he did the timer thing and all that. By the way, we don’t even know is the point, but go ahead, we sure don’t know. We’d he’s the same guy. He’s the character. Like I love the character.
I love the dumb you know, slightly slightly dim, you know, like like like like I love the character that he is when he’s on stage. It’s fantastic. But to me, it’s a little one dimensional. If you put it and present it in the wrong place, I think it’s gonna fall f I don’t understand how it would go for a theme like I don’t. I don’t understand how a theme park would work, like I don’t.
Know Nate Land the Family, Yeah, Lee Nashville base You know, you go on the I don’t know Nate Coaster and I don’t know. I I don’t. I don’t get it. I think he’s insane. I think it’s hey, Wan of Eat is to where hockey read is and and and be the highest grossing comedian.
I don’t know why he would want to get into to the theme park business. I don’t understand. It’s interesting. It’s interesting to say the least. But did you see the trailer for the movie?
I haven’t yet. I still haven’t. It’s on my list of things to Yeah, I know I’ve heard, I’ve heard things. I now Kevin James was sick that day, I’ll put it that way. But it’s so funny how how like Like when you talk about how you know comedy is, it’s it’s it’s one of those things where you know it’s contextualized through the eye of the beholder and what their opinion is.
Like Like I did not watch Happy Gilmour two for a month based on hearing people’s reaction to it, and the the reason that was the case is because I have a special place in my heart for the original Happy Gilmore. I was in that perfect you know, late teen, early twenty kind of kind of place. And my friends and I went on and saw Happy Gilmore on opening night, and we thought it was funny as all get out, like we were the demographic for that movie. And when I when this movie, when when the sequel came out, I was excited to watch it, but then I heard the reactions for it. I watched the movie.
I really liked it. I thought it was I thought it was funny. I enjoy I you know, so it’s always in the eye of the beholder. But yeah, like that being said a theme park, I don’t know. I just I don’t.
I don’t. I don’t get it. Well, I mean, for Happy Gilmore, we know that all your opinions are stupid. You don’t even have Johnny Carson number one, so you don’t know what you’re talking about. But talking about good Adam Sandler movies, they just see j Kelly, great dramatic at gra Adam Sandlor.
He’s so goodness, so good. I watched it, do that. Watch yep, yep, yep, yep. They’re talking about Oscar buzz already like and then. Helpe he wins.
I hope he wins too. We need to because they didn’t reward him for uncut gems. They need to reward him this time and be like, Adam, you’re free. You’re free. Now go do this.
You’re free. You’re free. If every couple of years you need to like buy another mansion and you want to do a sixteen city arena tour and then some dumb songs, Okay, it’s fine, but you don’t need to make happy Gilmore three. You don’t need it. Just just do this.
What sing your dumb songs? His songs make me cry, like like like that’s that’s that’s the thing I will watch if I’m in the if I’m in the exact right mood, where all of you know, my hormones and and and and pheromones and all the things are mixed in the exact right way, and I had the right the right day at the office or the wrong day at the office perhaps, and you put on Adam Sandler singing his David Letterman song four days before Dave left. I cry like a baby, like that guy can make me cry. I listened to I listen to his song about Chris Farley. I cry like a baby.
Oh my gosh, does that guy. I know how to manipulate emotions, like like all of them. You know, certain people he can make laugh. I know, not you, but certain people he can make laugh. But like as an actor.
I mean, and this is where I think you’ll really enjoy watching the Letterman thing, because he talks about going to NYU to study to be an actor. It had nothing really to do. Yes, he did do stand up and things like that, but he actually studied to be an actor. And boy does it show. J Kelly was phenomenal.
It was so good. I loved it. It was just it was a movie movie in an error where everything is shorthand the Avengers with fast cuts and special effects and explosions, and I live on Old Man Mountain and admit it fun. But this was a movie movie with characters and a plot. And I don’t need three sequels.
I don’t need J. Kelly too to find out what happened to him. Like, it’s good, you tell the story. We’re out. And it was great.
And Sandler, the great dramatic actor, Adam Sandler is really good in it. I hope he wins an Academy Award hosted by Codin O’Brien. Oh wouldn’t that be fun? Oh? God, I didn’t even think about that, like like like let him even talk to Sandler about about the Mark Twain Awards and and how cool it was.
And I liked Sandler on the on the twenty Awards. I thought it was a clever bit that he did. But the idea that they were on that stage, you know, a few months ago, and in a couple of months, they could be on the stage together and and Sandler could win an oscar. That’s that’s captured. That’s captured the whimsy.
I love that. I love that idea. That’s a great style. I’m starting to really respect a part of Saandlor because I also liked to dress comfortable. So I like the way he dresses and I understand it.
And he’s a family guy and I’m a family guy, so I understand that. And if Netflix offers you fifty million dollars to do Happy Gilmore three, I kind of understand holding your nose and doing it. I get it. But you know, hey, traumatic chops, make some more of that in between the dumb stuff? Yeah?
Please do. I mean they even showed it. They showed a clip of uncut gems in the in the the My next guest, I looked at it and. She went ool. Adam Saylor is indeed a great dramatic actor.
We’ll take the break here, come right back. We’ll talk a little more about Dave Chappelle with Mike Chisholm. Mike Chisholm is the host of The Letterman podcast, and he wanted to talk Dave Chappelle. We need to talk about Chappelle. I’ve watched this thing three times and uh, oh, well, it just it was so masterful, like like I wanted to hear him talk about Riod more than once.
Like, actually, that’s what I when I watched it the second time. It’s okay, I want to okay, because the closing bit was phenomenal. I don’t know how. Many threads he took and then tied them all together in a beautiful bow at the end, maybe five or six of them. That closer was amazing.
But then I wanted to go back and listen to him talk about Riod again. And so here’s my question for you when you hear because you have a different perspective when it comes to comics, like the blurring of the line of a stand up act of making up ridiculous things because it’s funny and and and clearly these things are not true versus this is autobiographical. I’m gonna go through some of this stuff and then I’m gonna make jokes around it. Right to me, Dave has done maybe the best job of everybody of bloring those lines where you don’t know if he’s being serious. You don’t know if he’s being ridiculous.
You don’t know if it’s satire or if it’s just complete horseshit. You know, you just don’t know. I was very curious as to what your reaction was when he talked about Riod. Sure, so let me back it up a level. If when I was really involved being around comedy all day my years, it’s serious, especially when I was listening to stand up eight ten hours a day, all the time, just listening to everybody’s best material in the version they chose to release, I really was able to see and hear the matrix.
For those of us who are ancient and in grade school, how to graph sentences, Remember that underline the noun and all the circle the verb and all that. Yep, So I was able to start to really see, Okay, here’s how how it goes. Here’s a premise. Now I’m going to here’s a premise based in truth. Now I’m going to slightly exaggerate it.
Now I’m going to add the third thing that didn’t happen at all, but it’s funny.
And now I’m going to circle back to the original premise.
And if you break apart of a lot of stand up, it does follow that set up. So there are a lot of times I can see a punchline coming. I remember when I went to see Craig Ferguson, he dropped a random name like twenty four minutes into the set, and I’m like, one percent, that’s a callback, And I just sat there for the rest of the show waiting for him to throw back to the random celebrity. I won’t spoil it because the special is out, but I’m like, this is just going. To come back.
So, you know, I I believe Dave when he says what he says, and I’m sure he exaggerated some of the jokes. Should we go spoilers here? People had? I know, I think, so, okay, we’re going to talk about Chabelle special. We’re gonna break it down.
Wailers, everybody, uh the you know, the Falcon joke and the falcon callback is the funniest thing in the whole thing. And he uses the falcon joke and is defiant about the blowback on some of his transgender material, and it’s hilarious. And here’s a guy doing his craft and he’s telling us I heard you and I don’t give a hoot and getting laughs out of it. So, you know, I I think it’s reality exaggerated for comedic effect. You know, I don’t think.
I don’t think he’s going home at night going on. I shouldn’t have done that, but right I gotta come up with ten minutes of material. I think it’s all based in truth. Yep, there you go. I love.
I love.
Also, we’ll go back to your show for a second here whenever Riodd comes up.
You know you’ve got a bit kind of on that as well. Are you open to talking about like like when Zoe was on here a few weeks ago, I talked to her about about real like like, do you actually have an opinion about comedians going over there and and being part of that or is it all you know, I’m just going to talk about people blowing up about it, and I’m going to make a little bit of fun of that. I’ll take you on my journey. Had you come to me earlier in the year and said, Hey, there’s a real comedy festival. I hear you do the show.
It’s called Daily Comedy News. Do you want to come and cover it? I say yes, I would. I will. Oh wow.
I get to go to Riot and they’re paying for it, and I’m staying at this cool hotel and I to get Chappelle backstage, and I get time with Bill Burrn. I’m getting all this great content. Yep, sign me up, no problem. So I don’t want to be a hypocrite with that. As we got closer to it and it became more of an issue and I thought more about it, it just seemed a little weird.
I kind of have landed on. I respect Pete Davidson going they paid well. I don’t know at all relate to Pete Davidson and the nine to eleven can ation to this whole story and Pete Pete just being like they paid well whatever. You know, Like, I think my father passed away of cancer. So I think if Lucky Strike Cigarettes wanted to sponsor Daily Comedy News, I just wouldn’t do it.
It would just feel weird to me, right, so so I just wouldn’t take their money. But again, hey, John, it’s one hundred billion dollars. That’s generational wealth. You sure you don’t want to say Daily Comedy is brought to you by Lucky Strike for twelve months and it’s a fucking podcast and who cares? You know, Sorry, Chris, but maybe, but maybe I maybe I get there, So I don’t want to be too holier than now.
So the Pete Davidson part of it of just hey paid really well, okay, Kevin Hart took another paycheck. He you know, clearly Kevin Hart likes paychecks, and we’ll take a paycheck for everything. He has the second best special of the year, by the way, he’s hilarious. Very good. It’s very good.
But okay, but then when you get into Burr and Bill Burr, you know they’re just like, I guess they got a Chipotle, Like what what are you talking about? Like it was like he needed to like retrofit his defense of why he went there or as if if if classic Bill Burger just went you know what, they maaybe three out of fifty grand f you yeah, okay, okay, okay, so I think I’ve landed on that. So and there’s been zero, zero blowback on anyone’s career. No one, anyone who played there is doing just as well. So they all got there, they all got their paycheck.
Is there? Maybe there’s a point too, We have to start these conversations somewhere, So Jessica Kerson doing her thing maybe opens up some sort of small door. Only time will tell if that is true or not. If there’s a ri Odd Comedy Festival twenty twenty six and the twelve names come out of it, I don’t think it’ll be such a big thing. You know, we we we you talk about the bit, I do so so much like everything we’ve talked about, it’s based in reality.
Now. I do play things up on the show. There were recurring jokes. If the Golden Globes comes up, I go into you know, and one time Joe coy tild this horrible meme joke about Taylor Swift and I play that it’s just a bit, and the audience I think knows where I’m heading for the bit, and then sometimes I go but we don’t have time for that right now, and I don’t turn a bit, which is differently funny, I hope. You know.
So if somebody were playing Riod in twenty six, yeah, you know I do. Oh and you know Joe schmol is playing the Odd Comedy Festal, I’d probably continue to do my little side dig. But now, as I’m talking, as I think, if Riod reaches out to me in twenty six and says, hey, you know you want to come and stay at the hotel and we’ll we’ll get your backstage and get tim it’s with you know whatever comedians are playing it, boy, that that’s you know, Mike, that’s a really interesting question. Do I go for all the content now? Honestly because of being really now I’m really talking, because of the stuff I’ve said in the podcast, I probably i’d probably be actually afraid to go.
Yeah that’s so you know what, I’m going to just tide out here in the basement and not go get ten minutes with Dave Chappelle. So so these are all these are all difficult conversations to have, But I don’t think anybody’s done damage to their career. I don’t think they have either. And in fact, I think some of the controversy I think is even manufactured a little bit and amplified in ways that you know, isn’t isn’t isn’t real. I think that’s one of the things that I love about Dave Chappelle.
You know, this wasn’t an a special but but after he was quote unquote canceled, you know, he went to a full areada and looked around and said, am I canceled? Like the idea of perception and reality and and and how far away from each other they can be. Sometimes I thought back to, like I remember in ninety one when Metallica played Moscow, and I remember the feeling of you know, obviously, in ninety one, the communication, you know, was was drastically different than it is now. All we got was what we saw in the newspapers or saw in the news or saw on CNN. The internet was in its infancy and and and and and so communication was a lot slower.
But I think back to when Metallica played there, and and the feeling of Okay, so now we have connection. We have connection with this thing that I grew up fearing. I grew up fearing Russia and everything about in the Cold War and all that, and then suddenly you have, you know, the most badass rock and roll band on our side, going and playing in front of I forget how many people, hundred thousd people, hudred, twenty thousand people, whatever it was. And I remember that feeling and it was like, Oh, that’s cool because it’s connection, and it’s it’s it’s patriotism too. You know, they’re embracing our ways.
This is what we want, rah rah. But it was also this feeling of connection. It was it was it was a cool feeling. And I look back and look at now this generation who’s in the you know, in the eighteen to twenty five demo or eighteen to thirty five demo, and how they react to something that could be viewed as similar. You know, you’ve got Americana.
I mean, America’s what I would consider probably premiere homegrown art form, and it’s going to the other side of the world to talk to places that are slower into discovering some of the truths that we have discovered. To me, that’s an instacol unless like when you come back and you start saying, oh, but I’m gonna take it and donate it to this and I’m gonna do that, and I’m gonna and now I’m dancing on the hot seat because of this. To me, it’s like, no, go there, do your art and and and and shine your light because it’ll help make the world a little bit less dark to me is the argument for. So I don’t know. I don’t.
But that’s also because I got Metallica in my head from all those years ago, and perhaps that’s where that perspective comes from. And you have to separate the audience from whatever might bother you about a particular government. I mean, I can tell you in the last ten years, I travel and I tell people the country I’m from, and I don’t get the reaction I used to get, and you know, I wind up saying things that we’re not all like that, and you know, the days of it, I’m from America and people in other countries going, oh cool, that’s not a right right now. But please don’t boycat my podcast because you know I openly don’t support fascism. Right I go get the scrubs DVDs.
I walk up, So for your audience. When when when they took Kimmel off the air, I went into a bit about don’t think I’m in the basement just pushing that green button. On my Roku and watching Scrubs on Hulu. I go upstairs and I get the DVDs out of the closet. I’m a man of integrity, and I walk three flights of stairs and load the DVDs to the PlayStation five.
I don’t just push that green button. I do not support fascism, because you gotta have the courage of your convictions. Mike, he’s my Chisholm. He hosts The Letterman Podcast. Check it out wherever you get your shows.
If you want to see how boring it is to watch me talking to microphone. There’s a video version of the Letterman Podcast. I’m the guest on a few episodes, including one recently where we talked about the all time a late night host. So you can check out the Letterman Podcast wherever you get your shows. Meets you back here tomorrow.