🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. Hello, I’m Johnny Mack and I missed you. I’m back from Dublin and I’m back live, back in the mix. I had actually pre taped today to give myself a break coming back off the trip. But I want to catch up with you guys.
There’s so much going on and I miss you and I do like doing the show. So today I’ll take a minute here and kind of catch up on stuff I missed during the week. It was keeping an eye on stuff. It was like, oh, it was pretty busy. Tonight.
Tonight, Conan O’Brien receives the Mark Twain Prize for Comedy. You talk about that in a second. I have not yet seen Bert Kreischer’s special. I did watch Bill Burr right before I hopped on the plane, not feeling it Bill. So I was thinking about this.
I haven’t really liked any how many specials this year, and I was thinking about it, and I’m like, all right, you just like cranky and I’m not cranky. I think what’s going on is that everybody who’s released so far this year is on like their fifth or sixth special, So like, all right, yeah, Bill, I know what you do and Gaba Glaciers. Yeah, I know what you do, et cetera. And I think it’s that that comedy needs some new voices out there. I think the big streamers are putting the same people in front of us over and over and over again.
You know that’s the algorithm, right, You put up a special and people watch it. And I haven’t seen Burt. Maybe it’s the best special year. I haven’t seen it yet. But you put up Bill Burr and people watch it.
You put up whoever I’m not here to bash, and you have people watch it. And I just think maybe it’s the comedy snob in me, or maybe doing this every day or the fatigue, but I just feel like we need some new here. I’m also getting the vibe that the buzz on The Laney Show is pretty bad. I haven’t seen episode two yet, but I’m not seeing glowing reviews that this is the greatest thing ever. That’s kind of surprising to me.
So we’ll get into all that, but let’s start with Conan O’Brien. He receives the Mark Twain Prize for Comedy tonight. They’re keeping under wraps who the lineup is, so that should be pretty interesting. I’ll catch up on the on Tuesday’s program. You know, I don’t have tickets, so I can’t even stay up late Sunday and tell you what happened.
I’ll have to have others tell us what happened. I’ll tell you about that on Tuesday Show. This is the first major ceremony asked at the Kennedy Center since Trump took control. The media is curious whether or not anyone will take shots at Trump at the event. We’ll keep an eye on that.
That should be pretty interesting. Kapy McGarr, who co founded the Twain Prize, calls it one of the cornerstones of the Kennedy Center. Peter Marx from The Washington Post calls it the Nobel Prize for comedy. Wow. The Mark Twain Prize started nineteen ninety eight.
Year winners Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner. Whoopy Goldberg was the fourth in Wow. That’s just of all the people you could honor, Whoopy Goldberg fourth. That seems way too early. No offense, Whoop bey, but way too early.
Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lauren Michaels, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Billy Crystal, George Carlin not until two thousand and eight, and it was posthumous two thousand and nine. Bill Cosby rescinded in twenty eighteen, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell Ellen, Carol Burnett, Jay leno, Eddie Murphy in twenty fifteen, Bill Murray, David Letterman, Julia, Louis Dreyfuss, Dave Chappelle in twenty nineteen, John Stewart in twenty twenty two. I guess we had a COVID gap in there, Adam Sandler, Kevin Hart, and now Conan O’Brien. Conan was not their first choice. Apparently they wanted to award it to Catherine O’Hara, who originally accepted.
O’Hara then declined the awards. Some speculated that was because of the presidential election results. Her manager, Mark Gerviritz told The Washington Post it was nothing more than a scheduling issue. She had to decline way before all the crazy Trump stuff happened. They scrambled and then picked Conan just two months before the ceremony and much later than usual.
My spidey sense is tingling. I hope everything is okay in the O’Hara family. But if this thing is scheduled months out, Like if you came to me today and said, hey, you’re gonna win the Comedy Podcast Award it’s in August, Like okay, I’ll block out the date and I’m definitely not gonna go. Yeah, and then be like, oh no, I want to go on vacation week. I would just move my vacation.
I don’t know. Maybe some of the families getting married, or grandma’s not feeling well. I get it. There has been a lot of Conan press. He will return to host the Academy Awards next year.
That is good. He also revealed an opening that got cut, saying the Academy refused to let him put clothes on an oscar to lay it down horizontally. On his podcast, Conan said the Academy refused to let them put clothes on an oscar. The bit would have been, we’re fighting about things couples fight about. At one point, I thought, wouldn’t it be great if it’s just on the couch.
Let’s lay it on a really big couch and I’ll be vacuuming and say, can you at least lift your feet or could at least get up and help load the dishwasher. I want to do it, and they said no, no, no, that can’t happen. One of the people from the academy came forward and said, Oscar can never be horizontal, and that blew my mind, like wow, this is like the thigh bone of Saint Peter. This is a religious icon. Conan wanted to put an apron on the statue to depict it as a housewife serving Conan O’Brien some leftovers.
The academy said, no clothing on Oscar. Oscar is always naked. There was also a plan for an opening to the Oscars. The bit would have been Conan’s gonna goof on all the movies. It starts with Me and Wicked and I’m all green, finishing defying gravity or one of those songs, and I finish it, and then you cut to the next thing, which is gladiatdord claning, clang with swords, and you see that I’m a gladiator, but then you notice I’m still green.
And then you go to conclave and you see people voting with their ballots and one of the hands is still green. Conan said the whole thing was that the dye wouldn’t come off and we had to shoot it in one day. Conan was also at south By Southwest talking video games with Blizzard Entertainment. Conan was interested how entertainment companies now treat video games seriously. Conan said, what I found fascinating to me is that when I started in show business a long time ago, I was trying to get as many people as possible in a superficial way.
Now it’s about me trying to get to fifty million people with people who are really paying attention to what I’m doing. It’s less horizontal and vertical. Conan talked about visiting South Korea. They’re screaming kids, and it was because we found out later on a lot of it was through the gaming videos. You think, more than ever, we need this connectivity.
There’s a way that people connect through video games. There’s something that’s special and unique. He added, I want to be in the next Diablo. I want to be a demon or necromancer. My wife when we met, thought I was a necromancer.
If I’m in Diablo, people get to decide if I live or die. Very quickly, the boss of Blizzards said, we’ll get the writers on this all right. Vulture had a big piece backstage with John Mulaney, and apparently Netflix agreed with me that the guest list for week one was a little light. Malaney talked about the mix of weird guests and said, I can protect myself by acting like we just think it’s weird, and that way you can’t criticize it in the same way whether something’s good or people like. It is so ephemeral, they could possibly predict it with data that have more hits.
I don’t mean Netflix, I mean everybody. In the profile, we learned that Mullani is contemplating a stage version of his twenty nineteen documentary Now episode original cast album co Op. Can you hear the dog barking? I gotta keep recording today, dog, I got stuff to do. It just got back from Dublin.
You should know that Millenne’s going to tour again in August. He says he enjoys doing everybody’s live, but we’re not looking to stay on for thirty years. Mulani starts talking to the writers in this profile and said, we just had the funniest call with Netflix. Apparently, when Netflix learned the premier’s guests would include Fred Armison and Joan Baiez, they were worried that the show hadn’t booked talent that would make the premiere buzzy and exciting. Mulaney describes an unnamed executive saying, this is not the show we sold.
It was great to see someone kind of apoplectic, like, oh, honey, do you know what you bought?
And then they go, we don’t even understand what this rundown means.
I’m like, yeah, you think you’ll feel better when I explain telescope murder. If I walk you through that it’s a body double parody. We feel better about the spend. Writer Langston Kerman asked what name would actually be big enough. M’laney said, no, one knows.
He has a hard time imagining a potential view who has no interest in a millenniy show then changes their mind after they hear like someone’s got Tom Hardy to be a guest. Watch you a book, Taylor Swift, and watch what happens. That’s the thing about the show. It’s not like, oh, this is awesome. It’s great, but it’s not good.
The Week two guess where Nick Krol, Ben Stiller and Quinta Brunson, Like I said, I haven’t watched it Yet Splinter wrote to a review saying they think the show is more of a nice to have than I gotta have for John Mulaney at this point in his career, They write, Mullaney has intentionally or not given us a bit of unique counterprogramming and an indirect mind slash heart slash soulsaver. They then discuss a famous political figure who takes up a lot of media attention and then tag Mullaney might spare your sanity with one hour of meandering conversation about ghost helicopters and aquatic luxury living. For that reason, it’s hitting in the right way at the right time. Right, I have to catch up on that one story that I really wish I had been around for on Gossip Corner, Tracy Morgan throwing up at the Knicks game. How much fun as we get back into live shows here, you know what I mean?
Here? On Daily Comedy News, TMZ Sports has learned that Tracy Morgan is planning to go to another Knicks game as soon as he can. Is he busy? I mean, the next play like three times a week doesn’t seem that hard. In case you missed it, In case you were out drinking in Dublin every Night.
Tracy Morgan was hospitalized on Monday after a bad bout with food poisoning caused him to throw up all over the MSG floor during a Knicks game against the Miami Heat. The Garden has made it clear they’ll welcome him back with open arms whenever he’s ready. Fifty Cent gave him the business and posted a graphic photo and commented, Damn Tracy, wtf going on? Bro too much Branson koonyak lol. Tracy, in a statement on Instagram said, thank you for all your concern.
I’m doing okay now and doctor say it was food poisoning. Appreciate my MSG family for taking such good care of me. And I need to shout out the crew that had to clean that up. Appreciate you more importantly, the Knicks are now one to oh when I throw up on the court, so maybe I’ll have to break it out again in the playoffs. Nicks one sixteen Miami ninety five.
Bill Burr was on the View on Thursday. Can you think of anything less cool for Bill Burr to do? Why is Bill Burr going on the view? Our view viewer is going to be like, Oh, I really like this Bill Burr personally, He says, what is that booking? Why did you do that?
Bill? I’m trying to do synergy. No Hulu, Yeah, Hulu is Disney is ABC. That’s what that’s about. Okay.
In the industry, we call that a car wash tour where you go on everything owned by your corporate overlord. So that’s what that is. That’s Hulu ABC making him do the View. It’s just a stupid booking for Bill that it’s just dumb. He doesn’t belong there, seems missus.
Bill Burr agrees with me. He told the cast of the View, my wife’s freaking out that’s coming on the show. She’s like, who the hell booked you on that show? You say all this dumb stuff about women, don’t go on that show. Joy bay Are asked Bill Burr, is there anybody getting your eye up these days?
More than usual? But replied, the nerds. The nerds are on the politicians, all these tech nerds that want to build robots because they don’t know how to talk to hot women. They’re gonna take over the world. They’re literally gonna replace us.
We’re like Beta right now, and they’re coming out with the VCR, and I think Elon’s got the rockets going because they realize it’s other art’s out there and they’re gonna trash this one, so they don’t have any concern for it, and they’re gonna move on that next the Earth, and you know everybody’s gonna be standing down here with their blue and red ties going, wait a minute, I was on your side, and they’re just ready to leave. Sounds like Bill was trying out a new chunk on Troy Bahar. Bill was also on The Tonight Show telling Jimmy Fallon billionaires are not happy having a billion dollars. Why does Elon musk dressed like he just got out of a hot topic. I’m so sick of that guy trying to rewrite his origin story like he was Matthew McConaughey.
Pulling into the High School Times profile Bert Krascher as part of the media campaign around a special The Time said to Bert, congrats, I’m looking more svelt these days. Bert said, sadly, I’m still morbidly to the Obyese. That’s the craziest thing about the BMI scale. Have you looked at yourself on the BMI scale? My first time I ever did it was a long time ago on a podcast when Sigora and I were fat shaming each other and we were so morbidly obese.
Even at my skinniest, I’m morbidly abyese. I only work out so I can party. I look at the guys who party and don’t work out, and that kind of bumps me out, and I go, hey, man, not allowed to do that. That’s not the way it works. Every dad avenue growing up, if they had beers, they were very active.
Maybe they have drinks on a night out, but in the morning they wake up and go play basketball, go fishing in the morning. My dad ran marathons, so it got ingreened in me. If you’re gonna go out and have fun and party, then you got to pay the tax. In the morning. I’m still fat, and I work out really freaking hard.
I just bench three hundred and twenty five pounds, but I’m still just doing it so I feel better about myself when I wake up in the morning and I’m like, last night was a long night, but I’m gonna go work out. I got a canary in the mine, and that’s my wife, Leanne. There have been times when she’s been like, all right, let’s pull it back two years ago in July. She was like, I think we’re gonna pump the breaks on this one.
And then I didn’t drink for like three months and I lost fifty five pounds by…
She’ll be like, have a glass of wine. Don’t be a fool. We’re only in Venice once it’s snowing. Let’s have a drink, have some champagne. My wife won’t let me be a teetotaler and won’t let me be an alcoholic.
The only times is curious does he run wife jokes past her before he does them on the stage, But it says, no, I just write them. But you gotta remember I still do stand up the way I did when I was a kid, where you just write stuff and say it and if it didn’t work with the audience, then you stop doing it. But it works for the audience, you figure out the tax on your family, and you’d be like, are you guys cool with this? But you gotta find out if it works first. So I just tried them all and then she came and sought a few times, and there was a little process in this one because I wrote material on the road, and I told it so much and it was an aggressive tour that I kind of lost the smile in it.
So the material specifically, if you can’t tell them joking, if you think that I’m mean, or if I lose the little and her words Rascal in it, then all of a sudden, it’s mean jokes about women. But if you know that I’m a loving husband who adores his wife, then it’s okay. And my wife, my producer, and my director were all like, we just want to make sure we see the smile in it. That’s really smart. So then I think we achieved it.
In the special. My wife edited it. She edits all my specials, top to bottom. I’m gonna be honest with you. I look at like the first five minutes, then if I like the first five minutes, I watched all special.
But the first five minutes is what I’m really specific about. Streaming is like grabbing their attention right away and saying, don’t leave, don’t go anywhere. I know even a million options, a lot more to that. That’s in the La Times. Let me back up.
The Malaney thing is in Vulture. You definitely want to catch up on that one. That was a really good read and I just barely skimmed it. What else happened? Brett Goldstein announced a special for HBO.
It’s titled The Second Best Night of Your Life. It will debut sometime in April on HBO. In a statement, Brett said, I’m so excited to do my first special, not on TV but on HB FINGO Nina Rosenstein, Executive vice President of HBO program and gave this extremely cool quote. We all know Brett as an incredibly gifted writer and actor, but his roots are in stand up. He has a razor sharp, dark sense of humor and is the perfect combination of British gentlemen and cheeky troublemaker.
And did you catch this one? A Russian commedie and apparently was arrested while trying to leave the country after he was publicly denounced for allegedly mocking war wounded serge A Zeitzev leads a public movement called Call of the People, said comedian Artemi A. Stannin made jokes mocking an invalid, especially our soldier who lost his legs in the special military operation that crosses all boundaries of morality and ethics. Austintin, in an online interview, apparently deny the accusations and said there was not a word in the joke about the Ukraine War. On Tuesday, Investigator said in a statement that he had been arrested on suspicion of inciting hatred and debasing human dignity, an offense that carries a jail term of up to six years.
That is your comedy news for today. Good to connect with you all again. I have no travel whatsoever planned, so you shouldn’t have any pre tapes for a little bit anyway. Later this week, well, my voice is to upbeat here, you can tell him a little frazzled. I’ve just got home from Dublin and flew and jumped in and did a podcast.
Next weekend is the twentieth anniversary of the passing of Mitch Hebburgh, So I’m working on two special episodes for next weekend. But the rest of the week should be normal, and I’ve got plenty for Monday and then Tuesday we’ll talk about the Conan thing. So I’m gonna stop babbling and I’ll see you tomorrow.