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The Shark Deck. Happy birthday Carol Burnett, who is ninety years old. I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. I had the pleasure of meeting Carol Burnett once. We did a serious XM town hall with the cast of The Carol Burnett Show.
Amy Schumer was the moderator of that. I will throw a link to that clip in the show notes about turning ninety, Carol tilled people and can’t wrap my head around it. I still feel like I’m about eleven. But I’m amazed. Sure went fast, but I’m glad because I’ve got all my parts, got my hips, got my knees, and I’ve got my brains.
I’m happy about that. NBC has a two hour special featuring Amy Poehler, share Ellen DeGeneres, Julie Andrews, and Steve Carell. Actually Steve is an improp performer. Really good choice there, Carol said. As a kid growing up in LA I used to pretend to be on a radio show.
I did that too. I would yell out the window. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have a young girl who’s going to sing here without any musical accompaniment. One time, a man next door said we had turned that gust durn thing off, and I thought, I’m a hit. They think it’s a real.
Carol added, I was pretty much a quiet student all through grammar school, Junior High, and Hollywood High. I’d get around with my friends and abored kids stuff like that, but I never really thought about it. So I got a UCLA and I was in an acting class. A lot of the kids in the class were doing heavy dramatic stuff, and I thought, I can’t do that, so I picked something light and they laughed. That’s when the bug bit.
Carol headlined The Carol Burnett Show for eleven seasons, then Carol and Company for another two. Started as Miss Hannigan in nineteen eighty two’s version of Annie She Wants her Legacy to b Then I made people laugh, made them feel good when they might have been down. My fan mail, many say it was the only time the family we’d get together to watch and laugh, and that sometimes they were lonesome and we’re cheered up by our show. That’s a good feeling. Yeah.
I remember watching that show live on CBS as a young child. As for tonight show eight o’clock Eastern NBC, Carol said, it’s a two hour show, and we were done in about two and a half. It was filmed in front of a live audience. She said, I want people to feel like they’re seeing a Broadway show, not sitting around waiting for scenery or costume changes. It’s a little bit tar eyed.
At one point we pay homage to late co stars Harvey Corman and Tim Conway and Lyle Wagner. It was just unbelievable how many people turned out and spoke, but they were mostly just very, very funny. Julie Andrews flew out and sat with me the whole evening. It was the best kind of birthday party I could ever have. Carol says, I don’t mind talking about the past.
That’s why we’re here, and I remember it all very well. Somebody details if he asked me something I don’t remember. It’s probably because it didn’t stick with me very long on the first place. In nineteen sixty two, she signed a ten year deal with CBS. Carol said, I had a very good agent.
It was ten years where I would be required to do an hour long variety special each year and two guest spots on some CBS shows. The big thing in the contract is that if I wanted to push the button, CBS would have to give me thirty one hour variety shows a year that have to put them on the air, whether they wanted to or not. At the end of the fifth year, during the holidays, Carol said, I made a phone call to one of the vice presidents at CBS New York and I said, I’m calling to push that button. I’m sure he got a lot of lawyers out of Christmas parties that night. The next day he called back and said, Carol, Comedy Variety is a man’s game.
It’s Sid Caesar, it’s Milton Burled, Jackie Glees, and it’s Dean Martin. It’s not really for you gals. They didn’t want to do it, but they had to put us on the air. I never felt any pressure. We had a well oiled machine from the very beginning.
We know what we’re doing, and I just told everybody not to think about the future. If we had fun, the audience would have fun. The network didn’t expect us to pass that first season, but I got in two hundred and seventy episodes in eleven years. They didn’t do it live, but Carol said, I never wanted to reset and retape anything. We taped a show in an hour and fifteen minutes.
The Q and as all would cut and trim. I never wanted to keep the audience waiting. I used to have a bet with the stage hands that I could do a skin out change faster than they could move a couch across the stage. I’ve been a guest on some sitcoms where it’s a twenty two minute episode and they take five hours to tape that sent out for pizza for the audience, and there’s this more comic cup. They’re trying to keep everybody happy.
I don’t know why they take so much time. It’s not necessary at all. It’s ridiculous. Happy birthday, Carol, all right. Yesterday I was sharing with you this thing from lidhub, where Jenner Friedman asked male comedians the type of questions that female comedians get.
Asked one of them, do you write your own material? Pat and Aiswald said, I really do. I guess it’s a compment when people tell me you could totally hang out with the lady comics. Jim Gaffigan, still not really getting the joke here, said well, yes, occasionally I write with my wife, have some fun, Jim. Next question, is all your material about being a dad?
Jim Gaffigan, No, have some fun, Jim. John Stewart. That’s a tough one because you could see that not being viewed through the lens of pure sexism, but somebody who actually knew the act and could be like, you’re just having children. To get another fifteen minutes, Eugene Merman said, if I hope to take my comedy to the next level, I’ll stop doing stand up about weird things that have happened to me and I’ll switch mostly to fatherhood. My comedy is a mix of what happens to me, which now incorporates fatherhood.
Good exchange with Fred Armis and Fred said, none of my materials about being a dad. I’m not a dad. Jenna Friedman said, I’m sorry. Just assume since you’re a man that you’re a dad. An Armis and said no.
Bobcat Goldway has an album out today. It’s called A Soldier for Christ, a mix of personal stories from childhood, family, old friendships, and touring with Nirvana. Ton Barry caught up with the Santa Fe reporter who said, hey, Ben City playing some Moraller markets. Do you prefer more intimate base. Todd Barry said, well, most of the venues that play are intimate, even a big cities.
I do like playing the smaller market, especially if they’re cool cities like Santa Fe. Well, Todd, do you think of yourself as deadpan? Todd Barry said, no, I don’t think of myself as deadpan, but maybe I am. But I’ve never consciously worked on my delivery or stage persona just kind of evolved or organically. His advice for younger comics right, and get on stage as much as possible.
Don’t bug people, don’t post a clip that doesn’t make you look great, don’t obsess with getting a manager or agent. Just get good at what you do and have fun. Parade spoke to Ray Romano out doing the rounds for his new movie Hey Ray. Describe the stand up comedy scene in the nineties. Ray Romano said, my class was like Chris Rock, Louis C.K.
Dennis Leary, John Stewart, and Dave Chappelle. Wow, all right, let’s rank that. Okay, here’s the list. Ray Romano, Chris Rock, Louis C.K. Dennis Leary, John Stewart, Dave Chappelle, let’s just rank them as stand ups.
Wow, okay, we’ll put the list into This is me talking, this isn’t Ray Romano. All right? So I think in group A we have Chris Rock, we Seek, and Dave Chappelle. In group B we have Dennis Leary, John Stewart, and Ray Romano. Ray is the best out of group B.
I’ll put Dennis Leary ahead of John Stewart. No dispect to John Stewart, but you’re in one heck of a class here with this list. All right. In the top group we have Chris Rock, Louis C.K. Dave Chappelle.
That is tough. Rock is one of the greats. C K was compared to Carlin before he admitted to doing some naughty things and no one likes him anymore. And Dave Chappelle is at the top of the game right now. Wow, you know what, Why don’t you tell me?
Go to the Facebook group and answer the question at f d S three Chris Rock, Louis C.K. Dave Chappelle. How do you rank them? So it’s Facebook Daily Comedy News Podcast group. That’s a really tough question.
Wow, Ray Romano said I’d see them night in Night out, of the clubs in New York City. I don’t know if I’m being naive, but I didn’t find it to be competitive. When Dave Chappelle got a movie, We’re excited about it. The only time I felt threatened was when I had to follow somebody in the club, like I’m following Chris Rock. It’s like, oh my god, this is gonna be our Ray, did you enjoy that life for you eyeing a bigger prize like Seinfeld?
And Ray said yeah. I could see Jerry Seinfeld and Tim Allen Rosanne Barr were getting development deals. Was I thinking of that? I can’t say it wasn’t. I was happy doing stand up, but it’s not a great living.
The gigs came in spurts, and I was on the road when my wife was at home and queens with three little kids. There were times when I remember having to borrow money from my dad to pay bills because I was having a slow month. He was almost on news radio. He said, I’m thirty six, I’m wondering if it’s ever going to happen. And this audition came up for an NBC sitcom starring Phil Hartman.
I knew it’d get on the air and I got it. But at the table read I could feel that the magic I had at the audition wasn’t quite the same.
And then at day one at the rehearsal, I felt it even less.
By the second day, I was in over my head. Now I’m in La my wife’s New York at the kids. My phone rings at six thirty in the morning, so my manager telling me they’re going in another direction. I got fired and Joe Rogan took my place. The timing worked out.
About three months later, I happened to do my first spot for a letterman. I did five minutes. His producer called me at my house and Queens on a Saturday afternoon. He said, Dave loved my act and wanted to sign me to a development deal. And he goes, don’t sign with anybody else, and I said there is no one else.
That production company eventually put out Everybody Loves Raymond Create a Stirred Dot. CA caught up with Ali Hassan and Ali was thirteen years old when he developed a love of cooking. He said, I insulted my mother’s sandwiches as a young man. Mom said, then make your own. She get all the grudge she meant it, so off to the kitchen Ali went.
I started with sandwiches, then moved on a pasta and chili and that kind of stuff. So I’ve been cooking for a long time, and I made it my profession. For about twelve years, I was a caterer and a cooking instructor, and a chef, and a couple different restaurants, and a management a restaurant. So I have this life and food that I never explored. But then his career in stand up comedy started to take off.
He said, it’s my favorite thing to do because I’m so geared towards instant gratification. When I go a few weeks without stand up, I start to get very, very incomfortable. I love the pressure of figuring things out in real time. I’m a guy who can’t even figure out one side of a Rubics cue, but I loved this particular puzzle. I still like it, even w the joke bombs.
I even love failing. I love the challenge of figuring out why do I think it’s funny, why don’t they think it’s funny? And don’t I change it to make it funny. The connective tissue of food is always there. It’s this beautiful way of unifying people.
His current show is called Does This Taste Funny, which takes its name from an old joke about two cannibals on a clown think about It. One part of the show talks about his journey in and out of the Schwarma world. W Bure profiled Alex Edelman’s show, which is called Just for Us, Just for Us as coming to Broadway in late June. So what’s that show about. It’s about Alex Edelman’s decision to respond to an invitation to attend a public meeting of white nationalists.
He explains, as a comic, his job is to make audiences like him. The fact that this particularly intimate audience, you know, the white nationalists, has clearly identified Edelman’s ethnic community as responsible for the assault on their superiority may give him pause, but it makes him want to work harder to win them over. Some of the characters an older woman working on an impossibly large jigsaw puzzle, a young woman named Chelsea who figures in Edelman’s romcom fantasy Hey You Never Know, and Quartet as an attendee who remains suspicious of Edelman while Edelman watches the group non agreement about such shocking events as the marriage of Meghan and Harry and the erasure of white men. He searches for a way in offering his expertise on the meaningful contents a social media algorithm. While it signed the group’s ready to take a teminate break, Gentleman feels a sense of triumph and says, am I the hero we need these difficult and challenging times.
Sounds like a very fascinating show. And that is your comedy news for today. Follow the show for free on Apple, podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your show. See tomorrow. Once in the Generation I Knew You, British Royal Dynasty takes shape and I am Ent Francis host of A Palace Intrigue, a daily podcast about the royal family and the only place you can get all the news, gossip and updates from inside and outside the Palace, from Harry and Meghan in California to Kayton William in the UK, along with King Charles Quincamilla, Prince Andrew and the whole cost of characters.
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