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Caloroga Shark Media. Hello, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. My hat is off to whoever handles the press for the Top Secret Comedy Club in the UK. They got worldwide pickup on this one, the headline from The Guardian. One of the UK’s leading comedy clubs has banned guests with botox.
Yeah, this made worldwide news. Good job. The Top Secret Comedy Club has hosted some of the biggest names in comedy, with star acts Jack Whitehall, Amy Schumer and Dave Chappelle gracing the stage. In a drastic move, those with botox will be unable to see similar stars live at the London venues. After stand up, acts shared concerns that audience members with frozen faces are not reacting to their jokes.
Is this a real thing? Comedians? I might have to reach out to some comedians and ask them, is this a real thing that the people have so much botox that they’re not laughing at your jokes and it’s affecting your performance? You see? As The Guardian explains, botox is a neuromodulator, which is a type of injectable that temporarily disrupts the nerve signals to the muscles that prevents them from contracting and producing the appearance of wrinkles.
The Guardian further explains the rising tweakments, particularly among twenty somethings, has risen sharply in recent years. Will then estimated one million botox injections carried out in the UK each year. Mark Rothman, the owner of the Top Secret Comedy Club who has just an amazing pr team kudos to you guys, explained, our incredibly salented comedians are fed up with performing to reactionless faces. I’ve had numerous complaints from performers who find it increasingly challenging to gauge audience engagement and bounce off their reactions. Comedy thrives on connections, and facial expressions play a huge part.
We want people to laugh, cry, frown sneer, but frozen faces from botox impact the entire atmosphere. We hope try laying this band will help move the needle and get fit reactions back into the room for the benefit our comedians and the audience. I had to check to make sure it wasn’t the beginning of April. Nope, this came out in March. One of the venues.
Regular stand up acts is Andrew Mensa, and he said performing to an audience with frozen faces can be incredibly tough. Comedy is a two way street. We feed off the energy and reactions to the crowd. Mark and the team are always devising new ideas to support as comedians. This might be his best one yet.
Paul Chowdrey, who’s going to perform at the club in March, says, my face barely moves on stage. I wouldn’t want to see the same thing staring back at me so effective. Immediately, audience members will be vetted by the door staff, and now the door staff has been trained to carry out ID checks and expression texts. Rothmun warned, we’re dead serious about the band and if you’re surprised, we need to see that. We’re looking forward to welcoming faces all the new that can still move in our venue soon.
Well done, pr team. This next item, I didn’t react well too, and then I thought about it and I calmed the heck down. My initial take was all good things get ruined, and then I thought about it more. Let me tell you what it is, John Mulaney’s talk show, which is back on Netflix on Wednesday is now going to include commercial breaks for all Netflix subscribers, whether you’re subscribed to one of the platforms, AD supported, tears or not. Following the live stream, the ad breaks will be removed for AD free subscribers.
So this is even more of an incentive for me to not stay up late on Wednesday night and just watch it Thursday. The show premieres this Wednesday at ten pm Eastern seven West. But I thought about this commercials annoying, et cetera. However, I’ve produced a lot of talk radio in my day, and I remember when I was at Sirius and we were commercial free music. The talk stations had commercials.
And among the reasons you have commercials on a talk show, sure, money’s great, we like money. I like commercials. I have commercials in this show. So I’m not going to be hypocrite on that standpoint. But you do you when doing a talk show, it is convenient to have time outs so you can connect with the host, or regroup or stop talking for a second, like right now.
Honestly, this is the third straight podcast that I’m recording, and my voice is already starting to go. But I’m not live, so I have the luxury. I can go get vitamin water or something, or take a break or finish this up an hour from now. So when you’re live, you know, there’s that maybe a segment go sideways, maybe the producer wants to get in your ear. So having breaks does make sense totally to me from that standpoint.
So I get it, and they’re taking them out of the replace, so you know, it’s not a ton of money grab so I don’t think I have a problem with this. So you know the other things you could do is you could throw it to some pre recorded thing. I’ll just point you towards. You know, on John Oliver Show, the opening segment always crushes and then they do the and now segment for like a minute in the two hole, ten years, in fourteen years, in whatever we’re in with that show. I’ve yet to see one of those segments really fly.
So could they pretape some stuff to John the timeout? They could. If you’ve ever listened to a streaming radio station that fills their commercial breaks with features, those are always lame, you know. Sometimes a professional broadcast where it just throws it to a Budweiser commercial, sometimes that actually is the best thing. So I don’t really have a problem with this one.
I’m excited. Mark Maren has announced a new stand up comedy special and to be on HBO later this year. Variety says it will consist of material from his All Into where it’ll be filmed in New York City in May. It’ll be Maren’s sixth stand up special, two years after his latest for HBO, which was From Bleak to Dark, in which Maren discussed the death of his partner Lynn Shelton. No release date, no trailer yet, but looking forward to that.
Chronogram spoke to Patton Oswalt Paton explain where he is right now in terms of working politics into the act. He says, I try to do my version of punching up, which is by focusing on Elon Trump, Bezos, whoever’s letting this crap happen. I’ve kind of cranked up the absurdity. Things are so dark, it’s such an enormous thing to expect a comedian to address. But it’s certainly not the whole set.
Our current situation is massive, but I also think there are things that they’re even bigger there aren’t being addressed, like the environment and AI. I’m obviously being affected by what’s going on. But I also sometimes feel like the MC and Cabaret who’s saying, what the hell am I supposed to be doing here? Elon is putting us through all this because he wants to be cool, and he’s not cool. He’s like the kid whose dad owns the laser tag place and thinks all the kids should like him, but he’s obnoxious and means so no one wants to hang out with him.
A few years ago, Patten got into a Twitter feud with a follower, which Patent resolved by contributing to the man’s go fundme. Paige Patten explains, you could see how miserablely was. You’re seeing similar things now with a lot of these Trump voters online going wait, my job is gone, or oh he took away my medicaid. They want someone else to be punished for their pain. They don’t realize that the people they’re voting for don’t care about them.
So a lot of times when you see someone being racist or transphobic, it’s because they’re in a lot of pain they can’t articulate it. That’d rather take power over growth. Growth involves pain, just siding with the most popular and the most powerful saves you a lot of pain, and they’re looking to avoid that. And I don’t blame them. Everybody wants to avoid pain.
No one’s looking out for them. Trump voters are especially being exploited, abused, and used by the powers that be. Donald and Elon could care less about their supporters. They openly despise them, says Paton. And it’s become very clear quickly that none of these billionaires give a hoot about these people.
So of course they’re going to lash out. Why wouldn’t you, I would I get it? Send your letters to Paton. Oswalt from short Oal comedian Harreeth a Scander has been fine the equivalent of seventeen hundred and fifty British pounds after making a punt about the word ham was deemed to have mocked Islam. The Facebook post was pulled by Meta at the request of Malaysia’s Communications watchdog.
That watchdog also demanded that the account be shut down completely. The comedian had posted a joke on social media about an iced coffee drink called ham something ham sapping the Cantonese word for leude, as well as containing the name of a port product forbidden to Muslims. Harriest wrote, I’m so confused. My faith is at risk. This iced coffee drink will lead me down the wrong path in so many ways, not just tempting to me to become whatever the offensive term is here.
I’m not here to offend, but I’ll confusing me with the word ham in. It is Candor and a woman named Cecilia who made the same joke online where each find ten thousand Malaysian ringots, which is the equivalent of six weeks average salary in Malaysia is Candor was named the funniest person in the World in an international competition run by The Laugh Factory in America back in twenty sixteen. He released a Netflix comedy special called I Told You So in twenty eighteen and regularly tours Asia and Australia. Very interesting. Let’s see what’s happening at south By Southwest today, final day of comedy over there at four o’clock the street meet a comedic celebration of food trucks, grease pits and sandwich shops.
This is Joe Deorosi’s thing. I think this is so much fun. He’ll be joined by Jeames Adiomian. I’ll tell you one thing south by the talent that they flew down there. They’re getting a lot of work out of them.
It’s the same people doing the same shows over and over. But it’s like, hey, you can come, but you’re doing six shows. Stuart Goldsmith tapes his Comedians Comedian podcast again, this time with Pete Lee. Feel like Stuart could have gotten better guests. They were a better guests.
Nothing against Pete Lee, but your names to be gotten down there. Doug Love’s Movies, they’re taping their podcast six Stand Up at Clown Live Comedy at the Creek in the Cave at seven. So weird to be The Creek of the Cave is like the Brooklyn Dodgers of comedy, like they used to be at Astoria now they’re in Austin Stand Up and Clown. James Adomian, Yeah, we’re flying you down. You’re doing every show, James, Chad Damiani, Megan Galli, Christina Catherine Martinez, Mary Neely, Opi Alagbaju, Nick Fune.
You’ve heard me saying the same names over and over. Yeah, you can come, but you’re gonna work eight o’clock. Pretty robust for a Monday night at a Comedy Festival. I said that about Sunday, but Mondays are usually deader than dead. Gotham Comedy presents Slynn Coppletz, Caitlin Polufo, Brian Simpson.
No offense of those comedians. I feel like it’s missing a bigger name there. Especially Gotham is a real good club and I know the owner. Something’s missing there that just doesn’t feel right to me. Nine o’clock stand up Downtown.
It’s got that AI I think generated image of what a comedy audience might look like. Greer Born seeing a lot of him all of a sudden, Drew Dunn, Alex English, Rich Voss, and our final show for the festival is called appropriately the Last Laugh.
Also within probably possibly maybe perhaps AI generated image of what a most…
This lineup, Reggie Conquest. I don’t think I’ve said his name right, all right, Reggie got in there at the last moment. Pete Lee, Kristin, Toomey and Godfrey. That is the south By Southwest Comedy Festival. Now we doing on time, all right?
We can get one more in here today. The Trevor’s City Comedy festival announced their twenty twenty five lineup with top comedians and diverse events. They Traverse City Comedy Festival will feature dozens of comedians from across the country and events from improv and roast battles to all star showcases and stand up sets April tenth through the twelfth, in of course, Traverse City. Pretty good lineup. You’ve heard of these people.
I don’t have to explain who Mark Maron is or Jay Farrow, Natasha Lazeiro, Gosh Blue. That’s a pretty impressive top four there, Traverse City. Other shows include The Funny Women of a Certain Age Julius Scotti, Leanne Lord. They’re not the funny Women of a Certain age, they are their own things. So Funny Women of a Certain Age full stop.
Also performing Julia Scotti, Leanne Lord in I’m just skimming down here a good thirty forty names. N most of you won’t know any of them, so I’m not gonna just read you a list of people you don’t know. I’m not dumping on them. I’m just saying they’re less famous than Mark Maron. And if you listen all the time, you know that.
I encourage listeners. If you go to Comedy Festival. Go see the smaller shows. I love Mark Maren you know what he’s gonna do. You can watch Mark Maron on HBO later this year.
Go see the smaller shows. That’s where the action is at the Comedy Festival. Events at the festival will include the Daily Dozen Showcase, featuring a dozen comedians on stage telling their best and funniest jokes. Well I hope they’re their best and funniest jokes at a showcase. Roast Battle, a single elimination ross battle tournament featuring eight fearless comedians with judges in the audience determining the winners.
Comedy Rubble a lineup of thirty hilarious comedians, each given a lightning fast ninety seconds to showcase their comedic talents. So that’s interesting because there’s a big difference between doing ninety seconds and a tight five or an eight, or a ten or an hour ninety seconds. Again, just listen to Kill Tony. There’s plenty of people can kill for a minute? Can you kill for an hour?
But okay, that’s fun, And now that I say that out loud, that’s probably the inspiration for Comedy Rubble. How about big fun Murder the improv Murder Mystery, in which six improvisers act out a completely improvised murder mystery. It’s never the same show twice. There’s the Clean Comedy Showcase. If that’s your thing.
If that’s not your thing, go see the Dirty Comedy Showcase. Love it. There’s also something called the Traverse City Kamakazi Comedy Show that has me a little bit scared, so I’m gonna get out here. That is your comedy news for today. See tomorrow.