🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media, and there are another bonus episode. My guest is Jason Zenniman, friend of the show from the New York Times. Jason is critic at large for the Culture section of The New York Times. If you listen to this podcast, you hear me regularly cite him. I’m gonna flip overrom my cards here.
Of all the podcasts I’ve done over the last seven years, I think this is my favorite episode, and I said it to Jason at the end of the interview. We just had a fantastic discussion, respectful, deep dive, serious issues, disagreed as friends do. I just want to be clear, we both had a big smile on our face throughout the entire thing. Everything here is friendly, even if sometimes we get into a little jousting. But this was a fantastic, smart interview.
As I host this podcast, and you know, answer the question, well, why do you thank you hosted? You’ve heard me talk about what my resume is, and I always say I know more about comedy than most people. But the people that know more about it than I do know a lot more about it. And I will put Jason in that camp. I respect all his opinions, as you’ll hear me say during the interview, and I’ve said in the past he always helps me sort my feelings about things.
So in this discussion we sure get into the kimmel of it all. We get into some other comedy topics at the end, like John Marco Siasi. But I asked him first hear about the comedy Festival that maybe, like a lot of things, I’m the Ralph Kiner of comedy. I apparently mispronounced a lot of things. But let’s jump in.
Hey everybody, it’s friend of the show. Jason’s innoment from The New York Times, how you been tired? Good time to run a Daily Comedy News podcast. You’ve picked the right line of work. It’s been incredible.
I’ve been putting out two three a day, and I just I’ve learned. Yesterday I spoke with Mark Malkoff from Inside late night, and I deliberately time stamped it because my spidey sense was telling me that the news would change five times, and it did before I even could publish the darn thing. So I just want to let everyone know Jason and I are speaking on Tuesday at around ten thirty a m. So if we say something, you’re like, how cub and I are responding to the thing. That’s why so much going on.
We’ll get into the kimmel of it all, but that you know that new story has changed. Even since I booked you, you have helped me in the past sort my feelings. And I don’t know how I feel about the Rio Odd Comedy Festival. I know I’m making crinkly face, and usually when I make crinkly face, something is troubling me. But to catch the audience up, there’s a big festival starting on Friday.
Some big names performing at the Riodd Comedy Festival, including Bill Burr, Mark Norman, Kevin hort Sebastian Manascalco, Dave Chappelle, Luis ci K, Gave Iglesias, Jimmy Carr, Whnney Cummings, Tom Sigora, Andrew Schiltz, and Jim Jeffries. Normally I wouldn’t qualify somebody with their sexuality, but it is interesting to me that Jessica Curson is performing there. Tim Dillon was booked there and was uninvited, and you know the Pete Davidson is appearing there and his father notably killed on nine to eleven. I don’t know how I feel about this thing. I like a good paycheck and I’m trying to buy a property up at a lake.
So I’ve been joking with my business partner that right now, you know, Daily Comedy News is brought to you by insert horrible joke here. So I don’t want to be holier than now. You know how much Dylan money? How much money were you offered to go and podcast at the Rahadi Comedy Festival. Oh wait, you’re pronouncing it better than me.
Say that again. Well, I’m proud of wrong. I’m sure. I’m sure that at the I’ll be there. How the it is?
It re odd? That’s how I say it. But I get half the comedian names wrong. So what do I know? Saudi?
Let’s all, It’s called Saudi. Yeah, you know? So what is my price? I don’t know? And I think that’s what I’m struggling with, is the first of all, should you even have a price?
Is it wrong that the comedians are going? There is a paycheck? A paycheck? This is I’m struggling with this. And I saw you wrote a piece about it.
You wrote that the optics were never great, but they’re and I’m paraphrasing. They’re very interesting now in light of everybody being a free speech warrior over the weekend. Yeah, the optics were never were never I mean, the optics are never great. But now that although you know, and now that free speech is the big issue that we’re grappling with, now they look even worse. At the same time, it’s sort of like, who I imagine what they could claim or the comedians doing this.
And I’m also not overly righteous about I think there’s these are there. It depends what you do. Part One thing is interesting is what they do once they’re there. But it’s also you know this, I would say, what’s happened in our country over the past you know, weeks and months could make some people say, who are we to talk the UH? And but I mean, of course the I mean for me, you know, the bones saw of a journalist who disagreed with him, you know, the Washington Post writer kashowge by the same people who are sponsoring this festival, would be a deal breaker for me to show up at this festival.
The they’re obviously the UH. These people are being offered huge amounts of money, and the broader context here is that the Saudi government has been doing a kind of full court press, not just with comedians, but with athletes and golfing events, sporting events. There’s all sorts of people there and they’re making solved. You know, there’s some movements that they’re starting to be you know, shipt a little bit in their policies. And so this is just an elaborate pr campaign where there is trying to use American popular culture and entertainment to you know, make people think of them not as the place where they chop up people who criticize the government and cracked down on minorities and limit women’s free speech, but as the new Saudi Arabia.
And so if you were offered a million dollars, I know Tim Dillon was offered, what he said, three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars for one show, one night, and I think he’s on the low end. So if you were offered one million dollars to go, would you do it? If you if you went and you criticized the Saudi government when you were there, would that change the calculus. I know you want some guidance from me, but I’m afraid I might just give you more anguish and confusion. But I think I think it’s I say I wouldn’t do it, but I’m not want to judge.
That’s a lot of money. Yeah, so several thoughts there at a personal level. When this was first announced, if they had come to me and said, hey, I heard you have this really awesome podcast, do you want to come cover it, I would have said yes and not thought about it. As I’ve gotten deeper into the story and talked about some of the news threads and pulling on those, I think I would be afraid to go now, even taking the money out of it. And I don’t know if that’s spic about the location personally, when I was at Sirius and million years ago when the Olympics were in China, there was light talk of us doing some radio work over there, and people were afraid to go to China.
And my attitude twenty years ago was I’ll go. They’re not going to lock me up. I’ll go. I’ll produce it. That’d be great.
You know, I get to go to China on your dime, that’d be awesome. As I continue to cover this as a story, I don’t you know, I don’t know, like, yeah, you’re some stupid podcaster who cares, or you know, when somebody look at me, you know, with a sad face. I don’t know if I would be comfortable going in terms of just pure finances of here’s a check, want to cover this comedy festival. You know, I’ll go to the Vancouver Comedy Festival. Yeah.
I like money, of course I like money. A separate story, I know, maybe like third party, but I know of somebody who was asked to work at I live golf event and the paycheck was crazy, and I said, you know what, hold your nose. That’s life changing money and you can pay off, you know, your college bills and whatever. So I’m not taking the moral high ground, but I’m finding I think you nailed it as usual. The optics are just interesting.
I don’t know what to do with this. I’m really struggling with what’s really fascinating about it is it’s so related to what we’re going through. Because on one level, you know this, there’s the government policies and the corporate actors who are being spineless in this country about standing up for speech or standing up for their artists. But there’s another level, and I know a little bit of this. You know, I’m the child of a foreign service officer.
You know I grew up someone in a qual and poor right next to Singapore, which has very different attitude towards free speech that we do. You know, I have Vietnamese members my family. There’s all sorts of attitudes about government censorship and crack downs are very different. That doesn’t mean I don’t go to the I haven’t gone to these places, but it makes you think, and we’re now here, what about from the point of view of the artist, of the individual, of the ordinary person who’s trying to get by is trying to figure out that do you try to play within the rules that set? Do you play along?
Do you cut a deal or do you push back? Do you fight? Do you fight? Do you draw a line? You know where do if you draw a line?
Where do you draw a line? These were once academic questions. They’re no longer academic questions. If you work for a law firm in this country that cut a deal with Trump, what are you going to do? If you work for a university that just took away research for cancer, are you going to put pressure on your administration?
Are you going to write a letter? Are you going to say nothing? Are you going to try to do what you can in a small way?
And now our little silly world of comedy, we have this great you know, the pi…
You have late night hosts. All right, Clearly there is an attack, you know, a government led attack against late night that is you know, I would argue unprecedented. You know, there obviously have been previous late night shows that have been you know, in Broiland controversy, but this is something new. And what do you do? Do you push back?
Do you do you criticize your bosses on air and fear getting taken off? Do you try to play along? Do you try to make your show more a political These are real question. We’re in it now and so this looking at what these guys trying to figure out with the Saudi Festival, it’s like a microcosm for what’s going on in our country. Yeah.
And I’ve worked at places like Serious where the we’re all sorts of radio stations that covered some things, and there might be a radio station that was not aligned with your personal views. Do you just not work there? Do you take the paycheck? I’m also looking at the individual artists. You know, if you’re Sebastian Manuscalco, you just go and you do your thing.
You’re gab Iglesias, you just go and do your thing. If you’re Dave. Chappelle, well, your thing kind of is political and you have been known to do a big chunk about LGBTQ plus are you doing it? Are you’re not doing it? What’s Dave’s act there?
You know? This is all This is just such a fascinating topic. It got a little covered by Kimmelgate, but I think this is going to be a comedy thing. Oh I would love to cover this festival. I mean, it’d be fascinating.
I’ll be honest with you. I was shocked that they I wasn’t shocked, but I was. I was surprised that they fired Tim Dollan because if on the Saudis let them say whatever they want to say, you get the pr win. You know, if you the fact that you get to show Dave Chappelle or criticizement, you could, I think. But it shows you how different it is that they that they fired Tim Dillon, and it does what I think, It puts more pressure on the Dave Chappelle’s and the Luisy Kays.
We should say, you know, you you were talking earlier about if you got to feed your family. These are not comedians strongly to feed their family. Yeah, Kevin Hart doesn’t need another paycheck. He’s got enough work. Like they did not, Like almost all of them.
I would say, it’s clear they did not need to do this festival. That is also plays into the calculus. I would say, And you know now that Tim Dillon got fired, does that change their thought about it? Do they not? I mean if that happened in the US, if Columbia University, you know, hired somebody and they told a joke and then there was protests and they canceled it.
And Dave Chappelle was showing up a Columbia university, is there any question that he would make the whole set about that, you know, the oppressiveness of of you know, the Columbia University cancel culture mob, etc. Right. I think it’s that the general public, even the comedy fans, just haven’t caught onto this. I noticed it during the summer. I’ve been mentioning on and off.
I truly did have it as my opener on Monday, and then as I was working on Monday Show on Sunday, I saw your piece. There are a couple of things CBS wrote about it. There’s been a few blogs about it, but I don’t think this has registered yet. Yeah. No, Well maybe when it starts and when these guys perform will be interesting to see what happens.
And considering the climate here, it’s even more interesting. The name that it pops out that really jumps off the page for me. Well, well, we’re Tim and Jessica because of their sexuality, and Pete Davidson for the nine to eleven connection. As we’re recording today, what’s on my mind it is the it was my father’s birthday. He died thirty plus years ago from cancer.
Sure, and I’m not sure, you know, I’m not sure I would be at the Lucky Strike Comedy Festival despite the paycheck. That might just be a thing where, you know what, Johnny Mack loves money. But you know, I’m not reading live reads for AR fifteen’s and I don’t know if i’d be at the cigarette festival just as a personal thing. So I find Pete Davidson might just be a much better person than me, but that juxtaposition to me just keeps jumping off the page. Yeah, the uh I hesitate to go.
I mean there the I don’t know what the reason is and what his politics about that are. You know, there’s all sorts of things. I mean, the there’s also the problem, there’s a lot of I think a lot of these comedians are working for places already that they don’t support, and they probably get immune to it. And I mean, you know, you could take there’s people who certainly could take I’ve seen people who say, like, oh, if you’re if you you should you know, you shouldn’t appear on the Joe Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan has done the people who think that Joe Rogan has done irreparable damage to the country and the world.
As we you know, are recording this the day after we learned that Kyle Linoll causes autism. And what is the responsibility of the artists if they get you know, if if Jordan Jensen gets offered to be on the Joe Rogan Experience, should she say no? These are these are live questions, right and the you know where you draw the line says something about who you are and what you’re willing to do. But they’re also not easy questions. No, and we saw over the weekend when we all had Disney rage.
I pointed this out. John Stewart separately put it this on I’m not doing the John Stewart still what joke, you know, peril thinkings more people can sometimes come to the same line. But I was pointing out, Okay, we’re mad at ABC, which means we’re mad at Disney, So don’t watch Monday Night Football. Cancel your Disney plus, no more Star Wars, nor no more Marvel, no more Red Zone. Does your morality on this end at Monday night football?
Here’s the thing the uh, you’re exactly right. One of the issues we have that sort of all of these issues are related to, is is this one of kind of corporate consolidation. Trump is using all these levers that are wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the fact that like a handful of companies control everything. And so yeah, when you realize, yeah, boycotting Disney and ABC is gonna is much a much bigger ask than a lot of people probably think. That said, if there’s another thing we’ve learned.
It’s that Boycott’s work. I do think that Bob Iger changed course in part because of Boycott’s And I also think there’s a danger to this sort of neolis stick view that, oh, you know, it’s all complicated, so we’re not going to draw any line. You know, everything is you know, who ever, anyone who says they’re they’re not going to do something on moral principle is you know, a self righteous prig right’. I’ve really am kind of sick and tired of like five If you want to not take moral stands on this, I understand it. But to judge people who do, who actually are putting themselves at risk and in the process perhaps making a difference, that that sort of pisses me off.
And I think you’re seeing a really you know, in some ways, you look at what happened. Kimmel got taken off the air, and people sign petitions, the people that Santa Fleuve to mock actors, celebrities, you know, people wrote articles, people ordinary people cancel Disney Plus and posted and on social media, you know, the most mocked thing in stand up comedy virtue signaling posting something right, like how many times have we heard about the post George Floyd posting the Black squares and oh, these hypocrits screw you that really you have to also say that had an impact and sometimes getting politically being politically involved makes a difference and the and I think that we this is the case where part of the goal of authoritarian regimes is to scare you and to make you feel powerless. And I think one of the things that we’ve got to do now is not fall for this idea that we have no power. We do have power. We we have our voice.
We can speak out, we can stay, we can say what our line is. We can and it can vary. Maybe for some people it’s you know, they’ll go with Joe Rogan, but they’re not going to go to you know there, or they’re not going to go to Saudi Arabia, or they they’re not gonna cancel Disney, but they’re gonna sign a petition what they People have a voice in this country and they have to and they should use it and they shouldn’t feel like they have no control. And because of what if they do, then we’re in a really dark place. Well said, I’m trying to be a better host than actually building the break, So we’ll come back.
We’ll talk late night. Jason Zinnaman is with The New York Times. Let’s dive in on late night. Let me just throw a grenade to open it up to your fellow Americans. You weren’t watching Stephen Colbert anyway.
I know it was number one. I know you’re so upset about it, but you weren’t watching at eleven thirty anyway? Is late night over? Oh my god, is late night? It seems like it’s more relevant than ever Johnny.
This week, But you weren’t watching Kimbell either. I think Trump has made late night the tip of the spear. It’s it’s more important. People are gonna walk. We’re on Tuesday, eleven o’clock tonight is Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue.
You’re gonna be watching it, Johnny Mack? Are you not? Are you not gonna be watching it? Is everybody gonna be watching it? Is it the most important piece of comedy of twenty twenty five?
Probably? Probably? Probably? So let’s not get it twisted like there’s this other lie that gets spread. I hope we can talk about the substance of what happened.
There’s a lot of bs from people who don’t know what they’re talking about, and including from commentators who are like, no one’s watching the shows. Not true. Colbert had the high no one’s watching Everything has lower ratings than it did twenty years ago. Sitcoms, your show everything, that’s just a fact, right. The yes, it’s expensive and the economic models is not as good as it used to be.
But this is the highest rated program in its time slot, Stephen Colbert, and it got canceled. So it’s not about that, right, there are people watching. It’s about something else, right, it’s about the reason. The reason they’re being canceled is about something else. It’s about what they’re saying.
Right. So if you’re using this moment to say, oh, Late Night’s irrelevant and it’s no one’s watching it, one, you’re lying. Two, you’re missing the fucking forest with the trees. It’s the more relevant than it’s been in thirty fucking years. And so get with the program this.
You can’t choose where like the action is. The action is not on stand up specials to Netflix right now. They have not released a single special since this administration began that mattered remotely to ports politics in America, what has mattered are these late night shows. So we have to ask ourselves why is that. We both have fixed smiles on our face and while we’re doing this.
So I’m just gonna poke and do what I would do if we were doing this over beers, because this is what I would do it over beers. Sure, yes, Tonight’s Jimmy Kimmel Tuesday Night Jimmy Kimmel is super important. But a week from now, next Thursday, hey join me tonight at eleven thirty five, Jamie Lee Curtis and some band are coming by. It’s last week’s. News already, and we’re back to does late night matter in twenty twenty five?
I get what you’re saying about the importance of it, and I was talking with Mark Malkoff about it. I think there’s still something to be said for eleven thirty If you look at THEO Vaughn. Clearly influential, clearly making a lot of money, clearly selling a lot of tickets. But he’s a podcaster and so am I. It’s not as impressive.
It doesn’t have the statesmanship that eleven thirty five has, So I can argue it either way. It’s an important position, but Also, I don’t think people were watching it tonight to last night. I guess sure. I guess my brushing you is, if it’s so unimportant, why did Trump go after it? Because they’re making fun of him?
Okay, a lot of people are making fun of him. People are making fun of him on social media, people are making fun of him on in comedy clubs. People, But why did it go it? Like, you don’t go after something that does it matter? I think you have to question your assumptions now, like it is not.
Did you watch the Adam Frielan show every week? No? Okay, so that is a show that young people are watching in a way and you can make the cases relevant in a way that late night shows are not. Right And certainly it went viral for this conversation with Richie Torres about Israel. Right, there’s a there is a time and a place to say yes, shows on YouTube that like are like that kind of show are relevant to young people in a way that late night was in the eighties.
It’s not as late night is not as relevant to that. But that’s not now. Like if you’re still saying late night is not relevant now, you’re missing the point. They it maybe never been more relevant like we are now in an authoritarian moment. The Donald Trump has picked has gone after it was Colbert and Kimmel.
That’s the best piece of evidence for its relevance there. Now, if you want to argue about ratings, we can do it, and we could talk about numbers, right and I think there’s actually a case to be made. It sounds counterintuitive because so many people have been saying nobody watches late night shows. But you could argue that more people are watching some form of late night television than they have in twenty five thirty years or twenty five may twenty years. If you include like you, if you look at like at the end, you know, close to the election.
If you look at like what Seth Myers did online plus his ratings on the show, plus clips, and you compare it to the Letterman or to the Conan Letterman late nights period of that same thing, it’s not that different. That’s a different question. That isn’t making money. So it’s not making it’s making less money. There’s no question to that.
But so when you say it’s not relevant people are watching what you it’s not true. What you really mean is the econdog anog model is not there, and I don’t think you really want to be saying that. And the reason I feel very personally about this is what’s happened to my industry newspapers. There’s more people reading about like cultural news than ever before, but the economic model fell apart, and so all these new sapers fell apart. It’s not because no one’s reading them.
And to understand the economics. There’s a whole other question has to do with advertising rates and how digitally digital advertising rates are much worse than print advertising rates versus. And the same thing is going with going on in late night. But that’s a question of money, it’s not a question of relevance. So if you want to talk about money, but I just reject the idea that this is not relevant.
I think we have to now be like, okay, this is now very relevant, and you got and I do think people have to pick a side. Wait, like are you going to stand up? Are you going to stand up against government censorship? Which is distinct cancel culture. This is why I love having you on because you help me sort my feelings.
As I’ve used that phrase already, you point out I’m thinking one of my best birthday presents. Ever, when I was a teenagers, I got a VCR, and the point of the VCR was so that I didn’t have to stay up till one thirty in the morning watching David Letterman. I could then watch it the next day on tape literal tape, which really is no different than watching Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue the next morning on social media clip. It’s just a different form. So I think you make a good point there.
Let’s talk about the money, Stephen Colbert number one, it was that something else or it’s we’re losing forty million dollars. This makes no sense. I mean, I think when it happened, there was this debate that was the question, right and the uh I think now post this Kimmel thing, it seems like a silly thing to ask. Obviously, it’s not like something else is going on here and in another But at the time I suspect did it was a silly question, And the reason I suspected it was this. For the history of late night television, the metric for success was one thing.
Ratings right. If the show was doing well, ratings were good. If the show is doing bad, the rains. This is from Steve Allen, from jad par to Johnny Carson to Jay Leno to That’s how we did it? That all changed coincidentally the moment that Stephen Colbert got canceled Suddenly, CBS after eighty years or whatever it is of asting us to judge success or failure by ratings, asked us to judge by a completely new metric, budgets.
It’s losing forty million dollars. We never been asked to do this before. And let’s be honest here, Johnny, we are ill equipped to judge it because we don’t have an answer. We don’t know how much money it costs ten years ago. We don’t know how much the Morning Show costs.
We don’t know how much an hour drama is cost or losing. So basically, they’re asking us to judge by this entirely new metric that we’re completely ignorant about. We have no context for. My conclusion is it is I call bullshit. I call bullshit.
There’s something. It’s politics. It’s politics right now? Do I know? Do I think that the Late Show was making money?
No? Do I think the Late Show is a healthy economic model? No? Do I think Late Night is gonna stay the same in the next ten years. Absolutely not like it costs too much money to put on a show in the ed sol of the theater.
And there are all these other models, particularly podcasts, that are much more financially viable. Now there are other examples of entertainment which are which lose money aka Broadway. Everyone knows you’re gonna lose money if you invest in a Broadway show. That forever for the astuery of Broadway. The majority of Broadway shows lose money, But people still do it because of other reasons.
Right, they think it’s good for the culture. They like to go to parties. It’s the prestige. They’re name and lights whatever it is, right, And there was a time when Maate Night was the prestige you had, like, Oh, this is the face of the network. It’s doing, it’s responding to the news, it’s being it’s reless.
That has declined. The prestige of late night shows has declined from the days of Conan and Letterman. The artistic ambition of these shows has declined, so that I think, in some ways is more important than the dollars and cents, because you’re not if the prestige is down you’re not willing to lose the money as much.
And then if the presceige is down and you’re getting attacked politically for…
Serious point. A second is I’m listening to you with your passion, your cadence, and your vocal range. If they ever make a John Stewart animated series, you can get the voice work on that. You’ve got that down. I apologize for yelling at you, John, I’m all mean to be yelling you.
I’m just just an Actually, we both have big smiles on our face. This is just this is what we would be doing at the bar and order another round now and go back into it. And this is the way I show love. This is the way Happy Russia, Shana Johanny back, this is the way Jewish family show love. And I’m doing my host job.
I don’t want to just go yes, I agree, Jason, great point. Next topic, like, I’m asking you questions and then shutting up because I want to hear what you think specific to Colbert and the money. Many people have made the point, do we need the Ed Sullivan Theater? Do you need two undred staffers? Can you do with one sixty?
Could we do the show four nights a week, three nights a week. Let’s double tape Wednesday and do two on Thursday. It’s interesting to me that they didn’t stop off at any of that and went straight to and you know what, we can’t afford this completely. Let me tell you, in every other show they’ve asked to make cuts. Some you’ve heard about, some you haven’t.
So that’s the first thing you do when you have an issue. They didn’t do that here, right, But let me just also answer that question. I do think they shouldn’t be in the ed Solvent Theater. I mean, here’s a controversial hot take. David Letterman got worse moving from thirty Rock to Ed Sullivan.
It was too big a room. Yep. Colbert got worse moving from a small intimate space in the Colbert Report to the ed Solvent Theater. I get the appeal to artists of doing work in the place where the Ed Solvent was, with a beatles porch played, putting on a big show. There’s something wonderful about a big show around Broadway.
Trust me, I understand that, but it doesn’t. It isn’t necessarily the best form for most kinds of comedy. Some kinds it is, But I don’t think it’s going to be a great artistic loss to lose the Ed Sullivan Theater. And I do think by the way network you might find is a big part of the calculus here is selling the Ed Solivent Theater. CBS is gonna maybe they’ll sell that to a you know, the Schubert’s, the Neederlanders or a Broadway landlord, and they can get a lot of money from that.
And maybe that’s the real economics of it. Again, it’s so oblique. We don’t know what’s what the calculus here is. But I think that I think that, you know, it’s worth saying that, Like there was this moment that ironically, I would say reached its peak with the Dawn of the Late Show, the Letterman’s Late Show, where they felt like, oh, we’re printing money. This is an incredibly cheap form, that’s what’s great about it.
So we can we can pay we can buy expensive theater, we can pay huge salary for talent. We can say and they and you know that time has passed what once the ads ad rates went down. They can’t do that. So now they’re stuck with this real estate, you know, in New York, it’s all real estate, you know, And they’re gonna have to downsize and adjust. And there’s nobody who’s better equipped to downsize and adjust than comedians.
Right. They don’t need a fancy theater. They don’t need like that’s the beauty of podcasts like it. The reason that the comedians have dominated that form is they don’t need the bells and whistles. They don’t need an orchestra.
It’s not like forty second Street, like you need a twenty piece orchestra and a long line of dancers, high kicking dancers to really do justice to one singular sensation and every little step we take. You don’t need that to do a great David Letterman monologue. I wonder if there was a Taylor Thomason butterfly effect. Now let me scream from the mountaintops. I’m not blaming Taylor Thomlinson.
I’m not blaming Taylor Thomlinson. But Taylor Thomason’s twelve thirty show had been picked up and then, as we’re told, she changed her mind. What was the plan there? Were you going to have a twelve thirty show but no eleven thirty show? That’s kind of weird.
Were you going to slide tailor up to eleven thirty that’s differently weird. That doesn’t add up to me. Although having been in corporate boardrooms with programming meetings, I could see a scenario where once the band aid was pulled off twelve thirty, I could see some Weisenheimer like me going do we even need eleven thirty? And that that starting thing. I don’t know if that’s what happened.
I think it’s a very good theory I heard, I saw it. Maybe it was usaw make a footing this theory first, But I’m again, we don’t know. There’s some the reality is most And you know, I got very exercised earlier because I have strong opinions on what I think happened, and I think every piece of information that comes out I think supports my initial instinct, which is this is fundamentally taking a step back political But it’s a multi callsal thing. And yeah, Taylor Thomlinson was part of it, but that is as it’s clearly a weird It doesn’t make It doesn’t add up that they would make her an offer at the same time they’d be getting out of the late night business. Yeah, that doesn’t add up at all.
Let’s dive in on ABC because the greater issue, other than the specifical Jimmy Kimmel is, as you’ve pointed out, the important issue. The FCC chair goes on a podcast, has some things, then two hours later, Jimmy Kimmel’s pulled off the air. I mean that escalated quickly, you know, And that’s not a conversation where I was going. Now you know, we’re also losing money on Jimmy Kimmel. This was clearly the affiliates overreacting to what Jimmy Kimmel actually said.
He was the line they apparently have a problem with the front half about their trying to distance themselves. Probably could have been phrased better. If I’ve said, if you’d speak into a microphone long enough, you will say things you wish he had phrased better. I’m going to listen back to the edit of this show and go like, oh, I misspoke there. I wish i’d clean that up.
That’s going to happen, So maybe Jimmy could have made his point more clearly on the first half, but in essence that’s a Trump joke.
And then the FCC chair goes, I don’t know, you know, we can handle this the e…
And then the affiliates bail and then the strangest thing to me, having worked in the entertainment industry, even though radio is not Hollywood, but radio, it’s the entertainment industry, you back your talent. You always back your talent. Now we might pull you in the back room and be like, hey, Jason, you got to cut it out with the publicly. Hey, Jason’s been a great contributor to the Daily Comedy News podcast. He’s a recurring guest.
We love the guy. We’re going to have him back, and you know we’ve got your back. You always do that publicly to kick the face of your network out the door. Within two hours, the FCC chair could say whatever he wants. That’s a reaction to the government going you guys better cut it out, or you know, bad things could happen.
I think what you just said everyone should be willing to agree with that. You’ve got to back. You’re like the job, the core job. And I think, as someone who writes for a newspaper, I believe that incredibly strongly, Like I will, just like you’ve got to back your writers even when they’re wrong, right, even when they’re wrong. That doesn’t mean you don’t it don’t run corrections, we don’t come up with different points of view, We don’t admit we’re wrong.
But the you need to support artists and writers so they are willing to take risks. And that’s true in Late Night’s Hue in your business to my business, is true in for right wing left wing it’s true for that is how a large measure of how these people should be judged. Now, one thing I want to ask you, because I’m a little bit I’ve been sort of confused or I’m not sure how what I think about this. What Jimmy Kimmel actually said, Okay, what even some people who defend him, the Andrew Schultz, who I think has had like a tried to kind of do a both side on this, but all fundamentally defended his right to free speech right. But he also said, and I think some other people have said that when he said the killer of Charlie Kirk that the Trumps is trying to make it so the killer of Charli Hirk is anything but Maga, Right, Yes, did you think that what he was saying was the killer of Charlie Kirk is Maga.
As I listened to the edit here, I think this would be a good time to replay what Jimmy Kimmel said, and then I’ll go back and pick up with Jason’s question. We hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and everything they can to score political points from. And in between the finger pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the President is taking this. I condun’t have that a lot of your friend.
Charlie Kirk asked sir personally. How are you holding up over the last day and a half, Sir, I think very good. And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks they’ve just started construction of the new ball room for the White House. Did you think that what he was saying was the killer of Charlie Kirk is MAGA. I do not.
I believe Jimmy Kimmel was saying that the politicians or the conservative speakers were trying to make it clear that the shooter was not one of them. I think Jimmy was saying, that is what they are saying. I don’t think Jimmy was saying that the shooter was Mega. I think he was saying that the politicians are trying to make it clear to everybody else who might be misconstrued that the shooter is not Maga.
And then the funny part was the president’s reaction to how do you feel about…
Check out this beautiful ballroom. I’m building that that’s the joke. But I don’t think Jimmy was implying something. Could he have phrased it better? I think that’s clear, But I don’t think there was any malice there at all.
Well see that. I think that is looking forward to tonight where to see what he says, which everyone’s going to be watching. I think that’s going to be the thing to watch for because I agree with you, but clearly other people disagree clearly. I I you know, I don’t think I can say it’s all bad fate. I think some people really did take him to say that, and I think it was as you say it was.
It was clumsily put and it opened up this window for him to be misinterpreted. A lot of it is bad fait, clearly, But I think what he’s going to do is he’s going to clarify that. I think he’s good. I think he’s going to say I did not mean to play because I think that is first of all, it doesn’t seem to be. It’s not true, and speculating on that is is not a good thing to do, in my opinion and by all evidence, his first reaction to the assassination was to express sympathy and to say, can we just be all share a remorse, just feel just you know, not politicize this, but call this a tragedy.
So the idea that he was doing that seems like that’s not what he was trying to do. But that doesn’t mean that it didn’t come off sounding like that to some people. And one of the things that’s been frustrating about what’s happened to he got taken off the air. Is a lot of people. There’s a certain numb of people who saw what he said, but most people didn’t.
And there’s a lot of people who are saying, oh, I disagree with what he said, but I support his right to say it, which is better than saying nothing or not saying you support is ready to say it. But I think it’s also I think I think unfair to him because I think it’s more accurate to say he didn’t put this well and he was confusing in his delivery. But his intent, which is clear to me, was not to say that. It was just it was that he was commenting on the politicization of the killen. Now around the same timetable on the Fox News channel, Brian Killmead on live television made a comment about I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist of it was involuntarily lethal injections to the homeless.
Excuse me what now. He apologized for it pretty quickly, but he wasn’t removed from air. There’s no outrage about that. But you know, we should round up the homeless and inject them and kill them. Excuse me what?
To me, that’s far worse than even if we think Kimmel was saying what some people think he was saying, and I don’t. I don’t think the let’s round up people and shoot them with lethal injections is far worse. I mean, obviously I agree, but even the fact that we’re discussing it is sort of a concession, like this is not fundamentally my interpretation is this is not about I don’t think Among the good faith readings of that comment are includes Brendan Carr from the SEC like he was looking for something to take out late night talks to us because Trump wanted it, which he said explicitly. This is Sherlock’s Holmes mystery. This is couldn’t be more obvious.
Me kibble your next. It’s like, it’s so maddening that we have to sit around. I mean, it’s interesting to exp from like a craft point of view, to be like, well, did he say something that was actually he said is quickly. But the bigger picture we should not lose sight of is he was he got shut down because of the governments wanted to shut up its critics. This is government censorship and it’s and it’s clear as day, and if it could happen to him, it could happen to you, and it’s He’s not the first either, He’s I mean he’s not or the most important.
Look at the universities, look at the law firms, look at companies. This is now what life is in this country and we need to figure out. You know. Obviously, I think it’s like, I think he’s going to clarify it tonight, But I think that the problem with the Disney response is Disney started, Disney starts to treat this attack as a good faith concern over you know what he said, They’ve already kind of lost the plot. I do want to say, as somebody who’s been a manager at broadcast companies, you do back your talent.
There is a line in all situations. There are exceptions. So what might be an example of where you might not back your talent? As a total hypothetical, And I always use the example of the Martians for a reason because I’m not trying to do hate speech, but it’s the way I illustrate hate speech. If on the Saturday Night Live premiere, one of the main casts loses their mind and goes into a taia tribe about the Martians, those green skin antenor freaks are horrible and they’re eating the cats.
That might be a situation where NBC and Lord Michaels might say, you know what, that performer is no longer part of the SNL cast. That might not be a situation where you’re going to go in and back the talent. It might be a situation where you do back the talent and go obviously, so and so is having personal issues and lost their mind on live TV, and we apologize to the moortion community. That could be a scenario. But that also could be a scenario for a dismissal where we’re not going to back hate speech, which is not at all what we’re talking about in any of these cases.
I agree, but let me say something that let me give you, let me compliment a network an exec. Okay, I didn’t like a lot of the Dave Chappelle specials about the obsessive focus on trans stuff. I said so in print right more than once. But I also think that then Ted Serandos standing but not pulling the special, not you know, standing by him was the right move that even I think, and I think she deserves he deserves credit for that. The in the same way.
You know, also, he could be like you can also say I disagree with him, which which is what happened, by the way, with HBO. Once Eddie Murphy got a protested for his for his Delirious where he made incredibly offensive remarks that age HBO president. They eventually apologize it, and so did the corporate did, but they didn’t take it off the service. And I’m not saying there’s never a time to take someone off of service, or to take someone off the network, or there’s no line you can’t cross to get you fired. Of course they’re you know that, I think, and their boycotts are away for people or another form of speech.
But as somebody who cares about artistic freedom, I would like the suits or my editors are the people who run your podcast video to err on the side of letting people say what they want to say, even if they disagree with it, even if it’s even a you know, obviously there’s a line that goes too far, but I think they The Kimmel thing didn’t even come remotely close. The Chaffellevee came closer, and I still think the right response is to fight it with boycott’s speech criticism. That’s the way a healthy democracy works. And so the people who don’t like Jimmy Kivel had many many forums to express their dislike of him. They have Magnum before.
They can also not watch them, but they also could put can boycott them where they can create. And I’m sure they’re goynew you know, they have many, many ways to do it. That’s not what happened here. That’s the difference. You know.
I’m excited about the reverse boycott because I do have shows to make it a cast of beaeff. And to that point, let me get in one more break with Jason Zenmann from The New York Times. Jason, we’re losing Mark Marin at the wrong time. He just peaked, I think with his last comedy special as the Best. I feel like he’s the right guy.
He was, you know, not being shy about his opinions about some of his fellow podcasters. And I think he’s bothered that his fellow podcasters became podcasters because of the success of the medium he helped build. And here we are as we head into October, and Mark’s gonna walk away from us. Don’t leave Mark. How do we convince Mark Maron to stay?
We need Mark Mann. I wouldn’t be shocked if he does come back in some form, don’t you think. I don’t think the guy can stay away. He’s like, yeah, he’s on Instagram live, he’s kind, you know, he likes being in the mix, and he’s at the at the height of this. I mean, his podcast run was an all timer for in support of this new special.
I think he you know, I can’t think of a more successful podcasts, you know, just let get a great example of like criticizing all these people and starting conversations, getting pushed back, having back and forth, going on their shows to some of them, you know, going to talk about Howie Mendell bad friends. These It was interesting to see like a genuine conversation about and to see what their reaction to it was. So I don’t know, we’ll see, we’ll see. I agree. I think it’s an odd time for him to leave, because I do think there’s like a huge lane for like that kind of outspoken liberal political comedy voice, and it’s going to be filled.
It’s going to be filled, we’re bother by Marring or somebody else. I could see the him being burnt out on prepping for guests and doing that. But maybe do something like Bird doesn’t just pop on Monday morning and do twelve minutes about whatever’s on your mind and doesn’t have to be fancily produced. Just open up the mic, rip and go. But yeah, weird.
Time to walk off. Couple of things I want to hit. I know you’re on the John Marco SIASI train. That special was fantastic. Yeah, he’s been one of my favorites.
I feel like this is a really jerky thing to say, but I’m just being honest here. So on my show. I saw him for the first time at the Montreal Comedy Festival New Faces, and I have been saying like, no, this is the guy. He’s amazing, and I feel like he’s making me look good. And that’s such a jackass thing to say.
Well, I’ve been there, I’ve been there, I know, I know the feeling of it, and yeah, you look good. I think it’s a it’s a great special. It’s doing really well. I see it’s like past half million views, and I think he’s a good example of somebody that does all the nonsense that you need to do in twenty twenty five, the social media stuff, the crowd work, politics and what you see in this special is he also works hard at the craft of comedy, at refining jokes. It’s a it’s a punchline, dense set.
It’s I mean, it’s actually what’s really exciting about it is I think it’s a step up from his previous work. But I don’t think it’s actually I think he’s got another gear because he he is, you know, a very thoughtful guy that has things to say, and this special is not you know, this special is more about jokes. I would argue, and not to say that there’s not things to say in it. And he talks about his dysfunctional family and he talks about but he I think he actually has a lot of range as a comic, which is what I think maybe you were seeing, is that he can do all these different things. He’s he’s act out’s physical puns, you know, the you know, crowd work.
That he has all this rate. How he can be like a political comic. He could just be a straight up potical comic. The he could be club he can be all tis. He’s obviously theater obsessed, so he blurs a lot of lines.
And I think what’s cool about this special is it’s him showing off his sort of Club Comic Chops. I’m just gonna move on because we’re tight on time. I did two more things I want to hit coming off the Emmys. Can you help me talk Nate pergetsie off the ledge that he’s going to stop being a stand up and he’s going to build a theme park. Because I’ve said this, I’m going to ten years from now be like, remember when nateer gets he thought he was going to build a theme park.
Nate, you got it. You’re at the peak, man. Just play the theaters. It’s all good. I think we’re now thirty seconds past peak.
Nate. They pulled out the cherry host of the Emmys. I don’t think it went well, and you’re a great stand up. Just do that, dude, I mean it’s I do wonder what he thinks. Let me just for the sake of fun podcast clashing disagreement, let me play Devil’s Advocate.
Ratings were up eight percent, I think, even though all all the critics seemed to dislike it, even though he seemed uncomfortable and he seemed we can debate for another time. The central bit of the Emmys, which I actually think I’m a little bit of an anomaly on. But I do agree he was the wrong person to deliver that bit, but it reached. It was judged by the success we mentioned earlier, the sixth secta metric that we’ve always judged by ratings. It worked, and I’m sure the Emmys are gonna want him back next year.
Now, he also was this guy who had gotten great reviews and until this Emmys were suddenly a lot of people who didn’t know who he was had maybe a bad feeling about him. So I don’t I’m not sure he saw that as a success, but so yeah, I agree. Will he stick to doing theme parks and movies? We’ll see. Maybe after a movie comes out and it doesn’t do well, he might have a change of heart.
Last one, I’ve started a segment called comedy stock market. I won’t have you do any sales because you’re a positive kind of guy. But in the comedy stock market, who should we be buying a proverbial stock in comedy? Oh my god, I don’t know. I mean, I think Siasi is a good is definitely a guy to buy stock, and he’s on the he’s on the ascent, and there’s too many people.
But right, but this week, since the special came out. He’s somebody who is on the rise. I think, you know, I’ll just shout out another one who I liked, Dusty Sleigh. Oh, yes, absolutely, who’s a great comic and is in the the Nate universe. But somebody who who’s special I think deserves more attention.
All right, Jason Zenniman. You can read him in the New York Times, especially if you want to prechape a Saturday. You can read a couple of paraphts. And thank you for that. I’m gonna say this on air.
This is the best hour of this podcast ever. This was just a wonderful conversation. It was thoughtful, it was respectful, We let each other speak, We had smiles on our faces. There was nothing antagonistic. Don’t at end of the text.
This was a good, healthy discussion. Always great to have you on. I appreciate it, man. I am flattered to hear you say that, because, as you know, I am a fan of this podcast, a regular listener. So I’m very flattered and I appreciate do you giving me a fortune to get some irrational anger off my chest?
Man wasn’t that great? And I forgot to record a proper clothes. I’m sitting out on the back deck trying to get some fresh air for the first time in a week, and cleaning up the edit, and I’m like, oh, I can’t just knock out like that, So this is the proper close. See you later.