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Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News and daily briefing on stand up comedy comedians in the comedy industry. A phraeze that apparently if you stop saying, your Spotify numbers go down. Apparently that phrase works, And I’m gonna try and keep it light today. I’m looking ahead to tomorrow’s script.
I’m gonna dive in tomorrow about Andrew Schultz a little bit. So tomorrow’s gonna get a little political. I’ll keep it silly today. I want to dive into this Kermit gait. Have you heard Kermit the Frog’s current voice.
We got a whole problem with that. We’ll get to that in a second. Briefly political, you know this Epstein stuff is pretty serious when Jimmy Fallon is cracking jokes about it. Fallon said, well, guys. The fallout from the latest Epstein files release continues, and President Trump’s Justice Department said that it’s not a crime to party with Epstein.
Falon said, did years to come up with an excuse, and that’s what you went with. If someone said that to you, what a super Bowl party? And slowly back away and call the police fallent again in a Trump impression, said partying with Epstein doesn’t make me a criminal. The thirty four criminal convictions do fallen s data, and this one’s a little hacky, but on point. Yeah.
They said it’s not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein, which is pretty much like saying it’s not a crime enough brunch with Jeffrey Dahmer. Jimmy Kimmel said, that’s right. It’s also not a crime to borrow a bottle of baby oil from Diddy.
Our first story today, I’m doing cold.
I came down to the studio right around noon and check my phone and I had a note from one of the listeners who told me I might want to check out Bill Burr’s Facebook page, and I’m like, hmm, I’m intrigued. Well, it seems here that Bill Burr has announced some dates he’ll be playing some shows, and I was told to check out the comments section. Let’s see common number one, how many Saudi princesses will be there for the show bill Someone posted Bill Burrd did the math. I figured it would be worth losing ten million dollars to make one million dollars. Dennis posted, sure, hope they have a Chili’s near these venues.
That’s very good, Dennis for the win there. Peter, after he did his free Luigi on a chat show, a call was made and he hasn’t been the same since. Dave went with bonesaw Bill coming at you get your tickets. Ray wrote, I’ll bring my Saudi funded nine to eleven shirt. Liam called him the Prince Harry of comedy.
I like that one, and Matt went with Texas Are you sure? Bill Burr may have had the worst year of any of the comedians of twenty twenty five. Our big topic today is Kermit Gate. I can’t decide if this is either going to be the thing that gets more downloads than any episode I’ve ever done, or if I’m making a total mistake. A lot of new listeners joining on this week as I’m running some advertising.
Hello new listeners, I appreciate you, hope you stick around. But this Kermit thing is bothering me. Have you seen this. There’s a new Muppet show and someone is doing the voice of Kermit the Frog. I brought some audio.
Let’s go all the way back to nineteen seventy one. The original voice of Kermit the Frog Jim Henson. This is very early in the Kermit the Frog universe. Jim Henson, here is a guest on Dick Havevitt’s TV show. I just want to share this with you quickly, and I want you to remember this when we get around to Kermit the Frog on Jimmy Kimmel’s show some forty five years later.
But here’s Jim Henson performing Kermit the Frog. Hell yeah, hi, oh yeah, well how do you do? It’s nice to be here, you know, and hello out thereon you left. But he’s his whole body has changed a great deal since you know, the early one. Why did it change?
Is it a matter of diet or yeah, well it’s not really diet. No, same matter of progressing, you know, in the direction of you know, better looking frogs. I suppose. Get a little bit more modern. This is the Kermit the Frog in your head if you were of a certain age, say fifty six years old, recording a podcast in your basement.
This is what Kermit the Frog sounds like. This from the nineteen eighty six oscars I Got I Got You? Yes, Unless or not. Animated short films weave their magic unrestrained by the limitations of human actors. True, an animated character can defy the laws of gravity.
Mmmm, move from place to place without regard to space or time. Woo, and continue to amuse generation after generation without growing older or asking for a raise. Yeah. In short, and we are animated characters, and these short films, they appear and can do absolutely anything the imagination can conjure. Sadly, Jim Henson passed away in nineteen ninety, Kermit the Frog did not.
Kermit was voiced by others. And I’ll get back to that. Here is two thousand and two. S it’s a very very Muppet Christmas movie. And this still kind of sounds like Kermit the Frog.
Jay, I could sure do with a little star power around your triumph. Here’s any way you can help me out. Muppet movies are always debased. You mean, not for me to pop on. Right right?
You got me again? Uh huh, bye bye.
And now here’s Kermit the Frog in twenty twenty six.
Listen to this disaster, and I will say to you, as a master of half ass impressions, most people’s half asked Kermit is better than what you’re about to hear. If I walked up to you right now, and said, do Kermit the frog. Your kermit would be better than this one. I don’t have a kermit. I know I have all my half assed impressions, but I don’t do a kermit.
I’m not attempting a kermit. You cannot bully me into doing a kermit. Unless you want to come to the brewery and buy me a couple beverages. Then maybe, but I’m not doing a half ass kermit for you now. If you want to hear a half asked kermit, here is official Kermit twenty twenty six, speaking with Jimmy Kimmel.
Thanks for having me. It’s great to have you, and I’m excited about the new project. Wondering how this happened or like you, was it difficult to get the other muppets together to come back? No, no, not at all, okay, I knowing you know what. They couldn’t wait to do them up at you again.
But then again, there’s not a big demand for a pig who sings, ain’t bear who tells jokes, and a bunch of dancing raps soue. Okay that’s there now. What were they doing though? During all this time? What were the other muppets up to.
Oh, well, not much involving a bait check. But you know, I was trying to get the special off the ground, which you know, it took a while. Jimmy. You know, it turns out that a lot of people in Hollywood say yes when they actually mean no. I have experienced that myself, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But you know, as far as the others go, Miss Piggy, she was on vocal rest, which actually we were all kind of okay with. That is unacceptable. They need to do something about that. The New Muppet Show is out. The Guardian watched it.
They gave it three stores out of five. Their subheadlines says, this story half hour anniversary special captures the spirit of the original TV show at points, but Kermit’s voice takes him getting used to. It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the Muppet Show. Disney, which now controls of the Muppet Show, got the old gang back together and added guest appearances from Suprise a Carpenter, Seth Rogan, who happens to be the executive producer, and Maya Roodolph for a one off half hour special. The Guardian writes, God bless everyone involved.
They’ve tried. You can feel it. They want to make it good for us. They know we deserve it, They know everybody at the moment desperately needs a brief, shining moment out of the darkness. But as Thomas Wolf so rightly said, you can’t go home again.
Look, it’s fine if you’ve never seen the original. It’s probably even good if you have. There are still moments that tease it taste and memory. But the bits in between their drab the script, including and most obviously Statler and Waldorf’s heckles, is begging for a polish Is this despite the half centuries notice they had a rush job, Or has the show’s time simply passed and no one can carry off exuberant silliness anymore. Well, let’s get to the point of today’s podcast.
There does remain the nagging problem of Kermit’s voice Your Mind is Henson played until nineteen ninety. Veteran muppeteer at Steve Whitmyer inherited the role and played it until he was dismissed by Disney for what they can called quote unacceptable business conduct. Matt Vogel now plays the character, and our dearest Frog sounds jurrently different to anyone born before Vogel’s tenure. It puts the magic even further out of reach, but maybe only to us and we’ve had our time. You’ll find all this on Disney Plus now.
Steve Whittmeyer, who was the second voice of Kermit the Frog, has a blog. Steve wrote, Kermit as Jim created him contains years of depth and growth without default attention to that. Do you really believe it’s Kermit just because it looks like him? Kermit is at the top of the Muppet pyramid, the spoke in the middle of the Muppet wheel around which all things Muppet revolve, and without Kermit being fully intact, there is no future for the Muppets, no new directions, no exploitative reboots, nothing that nurtures the historical connection to you, the audience. That connection as it was originally established, is vital.
Whitmeyer continues viewing the Muppets primarily as rolls began as soon as Jim was gone and altered the perception from seeing them as individual entered who exist on our own world to being a corporate owned puppet character franchise with people hired to play them skipping ahead. Corporate thinking goes that all the years of interior development done by an originator can be replaced by simply auditioning someone who could lip sync approximated voice and focus the eyes, even if that person has no true understanding of the reasons behind why the world has a solid and loving connection with the character. But I want you to know, from day one throughout nearly three decades, not once did I ever have the notion to make Kermit my own. On the contrary, was absolutely vital to my process to make certain that any egotistical notion of marking territory never happen, so that Kermit remained based solely upon Jim’s foundational original Kermit Gate Everybody, I love it. Dave Chappelle and John Stewart will appear together at a benefit for Yellow Springs Radio Station WYSO.
This benefit February thirteenth, that’s like a week from now. The general manager of the radio station says, we see them as aligned, even though they’re very different. They’re two of the most important voices calling out how dangerous it is that First Amendment rights are being trampled, that we’re seeing censorship of important voices and legacy media capitulating to the Trump administration. We are told the evening with Chappelle and Stewart will have a talk show Vibe. The GM said Chappelle has a list of friends he likes to collaborate with, and John Stewart is on the list.
In John said yes immediately. Jimmy Kimmel told his viewers during one of his monologues this week that he will demand to host the Oscars in twenty twenty seven if Milania ends up nominated in Best Documentary category. He said, mark my words right now, if Malania gets nominated for an Oscar, I will host that show. Whether they asked me to or not, I will insist on it. We’ll let Conan know.
Bobby Slayton is in the Epstein files. This from Syracuse dot Com, who report Bobby Slayton was regularly sending messages with Jeffrey Epstein. According to screenshots of text messages and emails, Bobby Slayton’s name appears in more than two thousand documents. I’ve done two thousand episodes of this podcast. I think I’ve mentioned Bobby Slayton twice, including dis mention some of the correspondents.
Thanks Jeffrey Epstein for letting Bobby Slayton stay at a New York City apartment while on tour. Now this caught the attention of Syracuse dot com, not for the reasons you’re thinking. Apparently upstate New York sticks up for itself. They are focused on September twenty fourteen correspondence in which Slayton wrote, wish I was in NYC having dinner with you and Woody in Rochester in the depths of comedy hell send Woodman my best. We are getting along here, but I left myself a note here that says, don’t bump these next two stories.
So okay, Johnny Mack from the past, I won’t. Craig Ferguson was talking about his podcast and says he’ll still do interviews, but only if they’re in person. Ferguson explains, I think I’m probably as good as anyone who does zoom call interviews, but in person, I think maybe I’m a little better than most people who do it. So I kind of feel like played your strength. I enjoy it much more when you’re in a room talking with someone.
So what I do now with the podcast is if I’m away on work, I’ll just record a half hour of me answering questions from people who watch the podcast, and then that’s the podcast. If I can’t have a guest in the studio, and I’ll just talk directly the people who watch it. Craig’s tour begins today. See that’s why I can’t bump. The story begins today in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The tour is called Pants on Fire. He’s not sure if he’ll make it a special. Craig says, I don’t know if I want to make any more stand up specials. I made one a couple years ago and it turned out okay, and I was happy with it. But the thing is about making special I always think you do it, and then if you ever look at it later, you go, ah, I could have made that better by doing that.
Jay Leno, who some think is the worst person who ever lived, Craig did not comment on that or not. Jay Leno has never made a stand up special in fifty years, and I don’t think he ever will. I kind of get it. I like the doing of stand up. I don’t know that I need to film it.
Maybe I will, I don’t know. I hope somebody jokes aside. I hope somebody has at least captured some jay Leno material, so that someday, one hundred years from now we could see what a jay Leno concert look like. Here’s another story that passed. Johnny Max says, I’m not allowed to bump.
British comedians Rob Beckett and Remesh Waggonnathan have tried their hands at Bob’s letting with Team Great Britain. Yes, it’s the Robin Ramesh first Team GB Winter Special in that the comedians squeeze into Bob’s lay suits as they get a taste of life in Bob’s lay. The two part special follows them in search of their very own winter sport. I have this dream that someday I’m going to hit up the Republic of Ireland and see if me and some friends of mine can be their beach volleyball team. I haven’t done anything about this, but someday I will.
Lance Corporal Taylor Lawrence, who was training for second Olympics, posted about the experience on social media. He said filming with SkyTV and Rob Beckett and Ramesh Reagon Ethan was a lot of fun, although I don’t think they should give up their day jobs. Great guys to be around, and jumped in with both feet. I see what you did there, bumping a lot of stories on the fly today. It’s always good when that happens.
That makes me happy. Tomorrow’s show, like I said, we’ll get into the Ander Schultz of it all a little bit. Then. Of course, it’s Friday, so Comedy stock Market. Saturday will be the super Bowl preview.
A lot of comedians doing commercials. I’ll talk about that someday. I have a fantastic interview with comedian Ismo. Ismo will be playing the Just for Last Vancouver Comedy Festival. I had a lovely half hour conversation with him the other day, So that’ll be Sunday’s episode.
Looking ahead to Vancouver. Friend of the show Mike Chisholm, you know him from the Letterman podcast. He’s going to act as the Vancouver correspondent. The nice folks at Just for Laughs hooked Mike up with some tickets. He’s going to hit some shows and report back to us.
Plus he’s going to see David Letterman. And I told Mike if he can come up with a David Letterman interview, I will send him one Canadian dollar via Venmo. Get it done, Mike. It’s been such a busy week. I really haven’t commented too much on Comedy Survivor.
Now, if you’re a new listener, we’re playing Comedy Survivor. We put sixteen comedians on Comedy Island, and each week the listeners are voting off one comedian. What you do is you go to the Daily Comedy News podcast group. You’ll find a picture. This week’s picture is me extinguishing the torch of Ron White, and I love that.
The listeners are like, hey, you should have had Ron have a cigarette, or you should ad him some potato salad, and like, Okay, I don’t know how much time you guys think I spend on these bits. Voting ends at end of day today so I can record the episodes on Friday. The results of Comedy Survivor come out Monday’s at noon. Easter. And let me just skim here and just see how things are trending.
I see one vote for somebody whose name hasn’t come up before. H This seems to be a couple of votes for Jay Leno. Leslie Jones’ name seems to be yours. I scrolled down. Okay, looks like it’s a tight one.
Some people are hanging back to see which way. The group is going to see if they can help vote someone out or perhaps steer the conversation away from someone they don’t want to vote it out. Very fascinating. Comedy Survivor. Go to the Facebook group Daily Comedy News podcast group.
Write down the name of somebody you want off. Please make it super crystal clear so I don’t write like I was kind of thinking maybe somehow I’ll vote off Joshmo. Let’s just write Joshmo out that way. It’s nice and easy. We don’t need a controversy over Comedy Survivor.
The last thing I want to get is like a note from Dylan in the Facebook group on the side, be like, hey, bro, you said Schmoe had six votes, it’s actually seven. I think we’ve got. That’s a last thing I want for this bit. This has kind of scary From Reuters, a Russian stand up comedian was convicted of inciting hatred and jailed for nearly six years. This over a joke the comedian made about a legless war veteran Artemi a stan.
It has been sentenced for five years and nine months, also fined three hundred thousand rubles that’s around thirty nine hundred dollars. I’m no expert on the law, but it seems to me like the fine and the jail time are very out of sync. Astanin was also convicted of offending the feelings of Christians with an off color joke he made about Jesus, which angered Orthodox nationalists. The crux of all this show last year in March, the comedian joked about how an impoverished war veteran who had lost his legs after being blown up by a mine was now forced to get around on a skateboard, and the crux of the joke being that the veteran had run over the comedian’s foot. Apparently, there is video of the joke’s punchline, which shows fellow comedians remaining straight faced and the sound of several audience members laughing.
A stun In tried to flee Russia last year, but was arrested by police in Belarus and returned to Moscow to face charges. He was asked by the judge on Wednesday if he understood his sentence. A stun In is quoted as saying, to hell with your judicial practice. No, I don’t, and I’m gonna leave you with this one, because we could all use a laugh this week. This has nothing to do with comedy.
This is just I’m on the internet all day and I’m looking up stories for this and for Palace Intrigue, the podcast I write where we cover the royal family. And you know, I’m just on the internet all day because this is just it’s what I do. I saw this one again, has nothing to do with comedy, but it might make you smile. From the Daily Mail, a man sparked an evacuation at a French hospital after doctors discovered an eight inch long live World War One artillery shell in the man’s rectum. That’s right, the man was in the hospital.
He had an eight inch World War One artillery shell in his rectum. The twenty four year old man was described as being in a state of extreme discomfort. Emergency surgery was carried out to identify the large object in the man’s rectum. They figured out it was an artillery shell dating back to the First World War. But here’s the money quote quote Worse still, it had not exploded, so bomb disposable experts had to be called in to diffuse the shell.
With the fire brigades standing by. Explosives are no jokes. Staff and patients were evacuated from the hospital. A security perimeter set up around the accident in emergency unit. The man is set to be interviewed by police.
They are investigating the charge of handling Category A munitions And here is I’m gonna read it verbatim. I’m gonna read it from the article and I’m trying not to laugh. I’m gonna just try and read this. This is from quoting directly from the Daily Mail article, and they wrapped it up with there was no I can’t this is too funny. Oh, let me try again.
I could edit this out, but I want you to hear that. I think here, okay from the Daily Email. The final sentence of the article is I can’t. Let me have a sip of my iced coffee here, m okay, try this again, John, and I could edit this up. That’s no fun There was no Oh boy, I might have to go record another episode and come back just to do this tag or have the AI do it right?
Why more try. There was no initial explanation as to why the shell ended up in the man’s body, but local media speculated that it might have had something to do with his social life that as she copy news for today Bye,