🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Calorokashock Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Is gonna lead off today taking a look at Vulture’s best comedy specials of twenty twenty five. I usually don’t agree with them. It doesn’t mean that I’m right and there wrong, or they’re right and I’m wrong.
It’s just a list. My list is just a list. I will have my list for you on Saturday if you’re new to the show. When I do these list episodes, when I’m commenting on other people’s lists, I don’t look at them in advance. I like to react in the moment to things so twofold from my own list.
I want to make sure I didn’t forget anything. And a good way to make sure you don’t forget anything is to look at someone else’s list. So we’ll jump in the pool here. There are so many comedy specials I clearly, and if you listen to your list, I don’t see them all. If you include the YouTube quote unquote specials recorded to the chuckle hut, forget it, you’d never get through it all.
I do try to watch the majors on the bigger streamers. So let’s see what Vulture likes here, and they probably got some screeners that I haven’t been able to get access to. I tried to reach out to the HBO people to get a couple things and just couldn’t get anywhere. It’s so hard to even get through to a human. There was one website I was on.
It was like, who’s recommending you to even log into this press website? I was like, all right, relax, relax. Vulture writes many of this year’s best comedy special share a reflective sense of mid career reconsideration. The most striking of these is from Kamil Nanjianni, whose special Night Thoughts allows him to reassess his career and relationship with comedy after more than a decade away from regular stand up. Okay, here’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
It’s on Hulu and it’s not out till December nineteenth, and as we all know, the Hulu publicists will not get back to me. So that’s a good example of something that’s on a list that I haven’t seen. Apparently it’s pretty good, according to Vulture, they write for other comedians. The retrospective meditation is about grappling with existential dread rather than non Gianni’s focus on the trap of his external public persona. They name check specials by Berbiglia, Maren Cameron, Esposito, Bill Burr.
Then they write Otsko at Kotska’s Father on Earthquakes, joke telling Business are also reflections on their comedic identities, but they operate without the same wistful existentialism.
Meanwhile, Steph Tolev’s filth Queen and Jordan Jensen’s Take Me with You, or…
Let’s jump in all right, they have at number ten Jordan Jensen’s Take Me with You from Netflix. They write, no other comedy special this year accomplishes quite the same mixture of emotion that Jordan Jensen’s does. Jordan’s appeal is how transparent she can make the glass while peering into her own brain, and there’s no question that what’s going on in there is darker than most other comedians work right now, up to and including Bill Burr’s lengthy thoughts on death. Now I’m checking my notes. I feel like I had hit play on this and bailed on it.
But I also have in my best of list. Personally, I have a section called not on list, and I don’t see that I wrote this down. I do think I hit play on it and wasn’t feeling it again, these are just list so vultures. Number ten as Jordan Jensen’s Take Me with You. I’ve added it to my list of things to put eyes on.
At number nine, they have earthquakes joke telling Business. I did not hit play on that. You’ll find that on Netflix. Just earthquakes not really my thing. They write catchphrases or a high wire act.
They deliberately swim upstream against the current fashion for naturalism and stand up sets. But the catchphrase in Earthquakes Joke Telling Business is really canny. As he talks about his family, black fatherhood, marriage and immigration politics, he keeps inserting the same pivot line between each section. These ain’t jokes. Number eight Ian Edwards untitled on YouTube.
Okay, see, I’m glad I’m doing this list. This was not on my radar at all. Great and I love this description. Ian Edwards reinvents no comedy wheels in untitled. This is a YouTube special shot at the comedy store where a guy stands next to a stool tells jokes about relationships hotel check in lines and gender reveal parties.
I will add that to my checkout list. Good job so far. Vulture. Number seven, they have Bill Burr’s Drop Dead Years. Absolutely no, it’s Bill Burr’s worst special.
I’m not even going to couch. It is not his best, it’s his worst. This is a bad pick. This is one of the specials that makes me say, Hulu is where you go to do your comedy special when you’re on the way down. So that could be a warning for Kamil Nan Johnny as well.
I can’t agree with you here on Bill Burr Vulture Road. Is there anything better, sharper, more ticklish, or more thrilling than Bill Burr doing comedy about he’s slowly realizing that he and everyone else will eventually die. Yeah, I can name twenty five other specials this year that’s better than that. Sorry, I normally like Bill Burr specials. When that one.
Number six, they have Otsko at Kotska’s Father on Hulu. I think I have that one in my middle tier. I mean check, yes, I have that as number two in my middle tier. And again I’ll do my list next weekend. It’s on Hulu.
I liked Otsco’s previous special better than this one. That seems to be the theme that I find with Hulari’s specials. They did pull out the best joke in the set, which always seems to get pulled out. Otsco tells it better, but she says, I asked my husband how to turn on the washing machine, and that’s how he realized that he’d been doing the laundry all these years, which is a great joke. And I got to take a break at some point, so halfway seems to make sense.
Be right back. Taking a look at Vulture’s Best comedy Specials of twenty twenty five, at number five, they have Mark Maren’s Panicked, which I’m I’m gonna have at number one. I don’t see what’s going to pass this. This is peak Mark Marin was an HBO special. Vulture Rights.
It’s not exactly Mark Maron’s fault that he’s become such a great comedian for this moment in history. At another time, a perpetually anxious comedian who can’t keep from ranting about his paranoid worries about the end of the world probably would not feel like such a helpful guide to life. Maren’s new special speaks to a national mood better than anyone else this year. I wonder why they have this so low. Number four, Cameron Esposito has Four Pills.
I do like Cameron a lot, but this one is on dropout and I don’t have dropout, so I haven’t seen it. Vulture says, calling Four Pills a special about the pandemic is unfair. Cameron’s New Hours about marriage, divorce to Spare ag retrieval’s mental health, and what it’s like to discover things about yourself after the age of forty. Number three, they have Mike Birbigli as the Good Life. I don’t really dig what Birbiglia does.
I do have it in my middle tier at number five, and I wrote civilians will like it. I’m a comedy snob and I don’t really like these shows that Birbigley does. It’s just not my style of thing. I get that people like it. These are just lists, but this will not make my top ten, Vulture says, given Birbiglia’s track record, it’s not exactly a surprise to turn a New Hour and discover a painstakingly crafted meditation on the meaning of life.
But it’s still a magic trick every time it happens, and by embracing a more casual mundanity, the good life sneaks its way into the top tier of Verbiglia’s work. See I think that magic trick line. They’re saying it as a compliment. That’s my problem. I just feel like it’s a performance.
And I understand all these things are a performance. But like when she and Gillis gets up there and I understand these are written jokes and he’s performing them, well, I just feel like he checking and driving these of the room. I always feel like Berbiglia is performing a stage played. It’s very, very crafted. It’s just not my thing, but fine.
On number two they have stef Toolev’s Filth Queen. You’ll find that on Netflix. I have that in my personal not on list section. The title gives it away. It’s just not my thing.
Vulture rights. Filth Queen does exactly what it says on the tin. It is proudly and thoroughly gross. Steff Toolev catalogs the many horrible qualities of the human body with the care and consideration of an obsessive collector. Each fort is treasured for its own uniqualities.
Et cetera, et cetera. Not my thing, not interested in that. And they have number one Kamil Nanjianni’s Night Thoughts again on Hulu December nineteenth. Haven’t seen it, Who’s not going to get back to me? Who knows Vulture rights?
He probably could have rolled up to an hour long standup special taping, delivered a half hearted life update, and walked away mostly on scathe. Instead. Night Thoughts slices deep into his last decade, carefully excavating how fame in the public eye have changed how he sees himself. Vulture has some other how many highlights from the year. They have listed Brent Weinbach’s Popular Culture on YouTube, Rosebud Baker’s The Mother Load on Netflix, and Roywood Junior’s Lonely Flowers are the other three they spotlighted.
Now, if you’re relatively new to the show, I could totally fairly imagine you right now going, John, do you even watch comedy specials? Because I mentioned I didn’t see a lot of the ones that Vulture liked, I’ll fly down my list really quickly. Right now. I have it as Marin, Kevin Hart, Riife, Jim Jeffries, Justin Willman’s Magic Lover, John Marco, Moe Ammer, Dusty Slay, Kreischer, Brett Goldstein, remember that one was real good. Michelle Wolf, Sarah Silverman, Matt McCusker, Mattelane, and Tim Dillon would be my fifteen top right now, and then I’ve got nine more in my middle tier and a whole bunch on my no thank you list.
But again, I will do that next week. It’ll be out on my substack, and it’ll be an episode or two in this feed. And that is your comedy news on a Sunday. Have a great day.