🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Featured: Bill Burr, Theo Vaughn, Nate Bregazzi, Rosie O’Donnell, John Mulaney, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Hope
What’s in This Episode
- College students unfamiliar with Bill Burr’s comedy
- John Mulaney’s Netflix late-night show failure despite star-studded guest list
- Rosie O’Donnell late-night show rumors and likelihood
- Rosie O’Donnell responds to White House criticism with Trump golf resort photo
- Arthur Treacher’s opens new location in Lakewood, Ohio after bankruptcy comeback
- Bob Hope’s connection to Arthur Treacher’s launch in 1960s
Questions Answered in This Episode
Why did John Mulaney’s Netflix late-night show fail?
Johnny Mac attributes the failure to poor production choices, specifically the show trying to be quirky by mixing and matching guests rather than letting individual comedians like Jerry Seinfeld carry segments, contrary to the Johnny Carson approach of making guests shine.
Is Rosie O’Donnell getting a late-night show?
No, Johnny Mac discusses this as a rumor he doesn’t believe will happen, citing her age (66), the challenges other late-night hosts have faced, and Netflix’s inability to get viewers for Mulaney’s show despite major star power.
What did Rosie O’Donnell say about White House criticism?
Rosie O’Donnell responded by sharing a photo of Donald Trump from his golf resort in 2024, captioning it ‘This is the guy calling me a slob. #mirror mirror.’
Did Arthur Treacher’s go out of business?
Arthur Treacher’s filed for bankruptcy in the early 1980s and dwindled from over 800 locations worldwide to just a couple locally-owned restaurants, though new locations are now opening, including in Lakewood, Ohio.
What was Bob Hope’s connection to Arthur Treacher’s?
Bob Hope, the famed comedian from Cleveland, loved fish and chips and helped launch Arthur Treacher’s by suggesting its founders hire British actor Arthur Treacher as the public face of the company.
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Hey, Johnny Mac, cool side. We are outside today. The cleaning lady’s here, and she’s cleaning the basement studio. So, aside from the beautiful day, we are outside. As you can see, I finally got the pool reasonably clean, which is nice.
We’ll see if the leaf robot kicks in at some point. A couple of random things I wanted to talk about today. I do teach college classes, and on Monday night, I asked the college students if they knew who Bill Burr was, and they had no idea. Boy, it goes quickly. I mean, I know I do this for a living, but I don’t think Bill is the most obscure comedian out there.
That was kind of shocking to me. I was listening to Theo Vaughn. His guest was controversial maggot comedian Nate Bregazzi. I didn’t last with it long. I know Theo’s show is super popular, but he’s just not smart.
That’s all I have to say on that. I’m still hung up on Rosie O’Donnell getting a late night show, which is just not going to happen. Rosie, 66 years old. The more I think about it, you may be familiar with Colbert’s show ending, possibly because of budget. You may be familiar with Jimmy Kimmel being suspended at one point because the people in Washington were not too happy with him.
Why would you go out of your way to hire Rosie O’Donnell and put the red flag in front of the wild bull? That’s just not going to happen. Plus, I was thinking, Netflix gave a quote-unquote late-night show to John Mulaney and couldn’t get people to watch it. Even with John Mulaney’s star power, the guest star power, which I’ll talk about in a second, and the algorithm, nobody was watching the Netflix show. So the guests on Mulaney’s show included David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Nikki Glaser, Stavros Halkias, Bill Hader, Wanda Sykes, Pete Davidson, Hannibal Buress, Marc Maron, Ronny Chieng, and others.
Now, sure, the show was misproduced, which I’ll talk about in a second. But, I mean, if Netflix couldn’t get people to click on that, how is anybody going to watch Rosie O’Donnell on, I don’t know, ABC at 1230 in the morning? That’s just not going to happen. Now, I had a long career in radio, and I worked on a show called Rambling with Gambling, which was actually the longest-running radio show. And I worked with John R.
Gambling, who was the third-generation John Gambling, to host the show. And I just remember one time in the mid 90s, I was asking him something about the format of the show. And he said, we’ve been doing it this way a long time and it works. Leave it alone. And he’s right.
So I felt with Mulaney’s late night talk show, it was misproduced because if you have Jerry Seinfeld on the couch, talk to Jerry Seinfeld. But what that show did was they were trying to be quirky and mix and match the various guests. But it just didn’t work because nobody knew. All right. Should I jump in?
When do I jump in? Is it my turn? If you’ve got Jerry there. Just go, hi, Jerry, and shut up and let Jerry be funny. I call that Johnny Carson theory is, you know, Johnny knew how to make his guests look good and would stay out of the way.
And then the next day, people would say, did you see Johnny Carson last night? I did tell you the other day that the White House had some comments about Rosie O’Connell. Well, she shot back. She shared a photo of Donald Trump from his golf resort from 2024. She captioned it.
This is the guy calling me a slob. Hashtag mirror mirror. And as I put together the show today, this from Cleveland dot com, the headline is, Arthur Treacher’s opens in Lakewood. Tap’s like, what? What is this?
The story is, let me tell you the big news story from Cleveland dot com. Arthur Treacher’s is celebrating a grand opening in Lakewood, marking its first location on the West Side. The new location at eleven seven five Madison Avenue. Hey, if you’re in Cleveland, bop on over. Officially open the doors at ten thirty a.m.
On Wednesday. The space, as you know, was most recently Joe’s Deli and Restaurant. But was previously home to an Arthur Treacher’s, so it has returned to being an Arthur Treacher’s. Where’s the comedy? Stay with me, Cleveland.com.
Who wants us to remember that the chain got its start in 1969 in Columbus and once boasted more than 800 locations worldwide. However, after bankruptcy in the early 80s, the Arthur Treacher’s brand dwindled down to just a couple local-owned restaurants. Now, why did this show up on the comedy tracker? Because of this next paragraph. Bob Hope, the famed comedian showman originally from Cleveland..
Loved fish and chips, and helped launch Arthur Treacher’s by suggesting that its founders hire the British actor as the public face of the company. Who knew? Arthur Treacher’s is best known for its fish and chips, fried chicken, clam chowder, hush puppies, and other comfort food favorites, and apparently the pool robot is not going to move today. All right, back in the morning with a normal episode.