Nikki Glaser Apologizes, Taylor Tomlinson Explains After Midnight Exit  

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Featured: Nikki Glaser, Brielle Adams Wheatley, Yakov Smirnoff, Joe Rogan, Taylor Tomlinson, Stephen Colbert, Byron Allen

What’s in This Episode

• Nikki Glaser apologizes for joke about trans influencer Brielle Adams Wheatley
• Yakov Smirnoff discusses escaping Soviet Union via Jimmy Carter’s wheat deal
• Taylor Tomlinson explains decision to leave After Midnight
• Speculation on CBS late night show cancellations and butterfly effect
• Taylor Tomlinson regrets not calling Stephen Colbert before quitting

Questions Answered in This Episode

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Full Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.

Caloroga Shark Media. Hey there, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Now, if you’re watching on YouTube and you’re like, hey, John, didn’t you wear that outfit yesterday? Yeah, I might have taped these back to back. What’s it to you?

All righty. Nikki Glaser in a kerfuffle of sorts, but I think we have sorted it out. You see, influencer Brielle Adams Wheatley called out Nikki Glaser over a standup joke via Instagram stories as one does. Now, relevant to the details here, Adams Wheatley was born with no limbs and is trans. Stay with me.

A fan messaged Adams Wheatley on Instagram to say they had attended Nikki Glaser’s show in Ridgefield, Washington. And felt that Adams Wheatley should know that she was being referenced in the set. The fan wrote, Adams Wheatley asked what had been said. The fan described the joke according to the third party of the article John is cribbing from said the fan said Nikki Glaser said. So let’s put a major asterisk out here, okay?

But that version of the story has Nikki Glaser saying something like, She said that you already have a hard life with no limbs but still decided to transition. Then something about how you had to since you rubbed your penis off with the way you drag yourself across the room. Again, that is attributed to Nikki Glaser. I was not in the audience. That got booed during the performance according to the recap I’m reading from.

Adams Wheatley then posted the conversation to her Instagram story, tagging Nikki Glaser and asking, Why are you making comments about what is or isn’t in my pants? Glazer responded, apparently, it’s a dumb joke. In messages later shared by Adams Wheatley, Nikki Glaser apologized and said she should have reached out before including her in the routine. We were told Nikki Glaser wrote, Nikki also addressed the framing of the joke, writing, Nikki then ended her message saying she would remove the joke from her set moving forward. Very interesting.

I found this next clip super compelling. I kind of wanted to lead off with it, but the way podcasts work, you got to lead with the tabloidy stuff. This one is a little more serious, but I found it super compelling. This is Yakov Smirnoff on the Joe Rogan experience. The topic, Yakov’s father listening to the Voice of America.

What did he get out of listening to Voice of America? Like what was he, did he talk about it? Yeah, yeah. I would then start also waking up and listening and it would be just, standard American thing. Give me you’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re poor, something like that.

And, you know, and they would that there’s a Statue of Liberty waiting to greet you if you come to the United States. And he would always say, you know, this this would be something that I would love you to experience. And and my mom was she hated that because she was afraid that we’ll get in trouble. And so she didn’t want to even talk about this. So if I drew a picture as a kid, I would draw a picture of Statue of Liberty.

And she would like, don’t do that. Don’t let anybody see this. We’ll get in trouble. And when after I experienced the cruises and got to know this different environment, I came home and I go, mom, dad, I think we should consider tried to get out of, and mom was like mad at my dad. And my dad stood up, which was good for him at that time.

Normally he would just be quiet, but he said to my mom, Clara, don’t you, would you like your son when he is my age, sit there by the radio and listen to Voice of America, hoping, wishing that he would be doing something like that? Or would you like him to be in America doing this? And my mom kind of went, you know what’s gonna happen when we apply for a visa? People who consider your friends, they will cross the street and they will not wanna talk to you and be seen with you and you’re gonna go through hell. And my dad said, yeah, We will.

And she said, well, if you’re willing to do it, so am I. Smirnoff went on to say Jimmy Carter wanted to see some human rights in the Soviet Union and the Soviet leadership. They were starving. They didn’t have food. So they needed food from America.

So Jimmy Carter made a deal that we’re going to give you green and you allow people to get out. And that’s how we were kind of exchanged for some wheat. You know, that’s how we got out. Joe Rogan said, wow, sometimes you need to be reminded how fortunate you are. You know, Americans in particular are You know, it’s not our fault.

People become accustomed to where they live, and they think this is normal, which is one of the reasons why this push towards communism among young people is so infuriating to me. But the solution is not to make the government decide who gets what, because they never decide the right way. Taylor Tomlinson has a new book. She’s making the rounds. We’ll be talking about her a lot as she does the publicity.

The Daily Beast zoned in on the part where Taylor Tomlinson tells Stephen Colbert, hey, I don’t want to do the 1230 show anymore. Taylor explains in the book why she chose to step down from, I’m trying to remember what the show was even called. John, you host a comedy podcast, can’t remember, later, later, after midnight, after midnight. That’s what it was called, after midnight. Taylor Thomas has said, I realized this wasn’t just a bad year, a tough moment, a difficult chapter.

It was the inevitable result of a decade of overworking myself. Quitting the show was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. Nearly 200 people worked on After Midnight. My leaving could jeopardize a job they loved. I almost stayed for that reason alone.

Let me jump in here because I have talked about this on the podcast before. But I’m heading somewhere with this. So here’s what I have floated as a theory. And before I float my theory once again, if you’ve heard this before, I am not blaming Taylor Tomlinson for anything. Did I say that clearly enough?

OK, but here’s my theory. All right. So CBS is sailing along. You may recall they had renewed the 1230 show with Taylor Thompson. They wanted it back.

And she had said yes. Then a couple of weeks later, maybe a couple of months later, she stepped down and then they decided, huh, what if we didn’t have a 1230 show? And my theory is because of that, that made them go, huh. What if we didn’t have an 1130 show, which led to Colbert’s demise? Because stay with me.

Assuming you take at face value that Colbert’s show was really expensive, etc. Etc. So what was the plan? Were they going to have Byron Allen at 1130 and Taylor Tomlinson off on an island at 1230? Or would they have moved Taylor Tomlinson to 1130, which is probably a less expensive show to produce than Colbert’s was, and Byron Allen at 1230?

So I think there might be a butterfly effect. Again, I am not blaming Taylor Tomlinson, but I think her decision to walk away maybe perhaps possibly led to executives who came to terms with the idea of not having a 1230 show and then somebody going, huh, what if we didn’t have an 1130 show? I’ve been in a lot of conference rooms with media executives, and I think maybe perhaps possibly that could have happened. Not blaming Taylor Tomlinson. Taylor says she didn’t talk to Stephen Colbert before deciding to quit, and she later regretted it when he called.

She said, I spent that call with Stephen, Mr. Colbert, not sure how to address him, crying and apologizing before I got off the phone, shaking with shame. I felt awful and guilty and yet again disappointing. Yeah, she probably should have called him if he was the godfather of the show. Yeah, that’s bad for him.

She continued, I understand why he was upset. He had told me to call him if I ever needed to talk about anything, and I hadn’t called him about this. I wasn’t trying to blindside him. I was just afraid to bother someone so important and busy. This is why we have agents.

Agents do this sort of thing. Taylor, you know this. Taylor, agents do this. Colbert discovered the star on social media, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2024. When she was just starting out, the algorithm started feeding her to me years ago.

I remember thinking, who is this special woman? Taylor said when Colbert got the news, it must have been infuriating and confusing. Watching someone you believed in, someone you would hire for what is objectively a dream job, throw it away. Nobody just walks away from a television show. Yes, Tomlinson wrote.

She wrote that the biggest change she needed was for CBS to allow a fill-in host when she was sick. She said, I was told CBS would just play a rerun and the crew would lose a day’s work. So regardless of my health, I never missed a day. She concludes, what’s the quote? You can’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.

Some days this comforts me. Other days, I think I should have gone up in flames. Wow. All right. So this brings us to I’ve Started Another Podcast.

It is called Is Late Night Dead? Hopefully the title tells you what it is. It debuts Sunday. In its own feed, it is called Is Late Night Dead? I will eventually repurpose the episodes as bonus episodes in this feed.

But for now, it’s its own thing. And I’m eventually going to explore the premise of Is Late Night Dead? But I’m using the punchy title to get people to sample the show. I’m waxing poetic about my love of late night. And my love of late night all starts with Late Night with David Letterman, the 1230 version.

And that will be this weekend’s episode. So this week, I don’t solve the question, is Late Night dead? This week, I wax poetic about Late Night with David Letterman. So please follow the podcast, Is Late Night Dead? Now, as for the Late Night franchise itself, the 1230 NBC show, hashtag make 1230 great again.

I have many times spoken about how I just don’t feel like Seth Meyers is the worthy successor to David Letterman. And Conan O’Brien. I’ll leave Jimmy Fallon out of it. He had a cup of coffee there. But I just don’t feel like Seth is late night-y, you know?

If Seth was doing his thing at 1.30 or on another channel, fine. But it just doesn’t feel like the late night franchise to me. I want somebody who’s out there, like a Chris Fleming or a Robbie Hoffman would be amazing at 12.30. Come on. Anyway, Seth Meyers is back to work on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Hashtag make 12.30 great again. He’s also working on a new project with NBC called The Game Room. It’s a half-hour workplace comedy called The Game Room, and we’re told the log line is under wraps because, you know, you wouldn’t want that to leak out. And over at Colbert’s Old Haunt and David Letterman’s Second Haunt, or Third if you want to count the morning show, CBS has taken down Stephen Colbert’s name from the Ed Sullivan Theater. The marquee that had said Late Show with Stephen Colbert now says Ed Sullivan Theater, which people are outraged about, but I don’t think that’s crazy.

I am tremendously excited about this. If you watch Last One Laugh in UK, you know how funny Bob Mortimer is and you know how funny Richard Ayoade is. Now, what if we put them together on a show called Hot or Cold? This is heading to Netflix of all places. Hot or Cold is set inside a mysterious institution where contestants tackle challenges with no obvious logic.

That’s a lot of fun. The premise takes the classic childhood guessing game and hands it to adults who Netflix says really should know better. Players get no instructions. Their only guide is the room itself, which glows red when they’re getting warmer and blue when they’re getting colder. I love it.

Bob Mortimer said, Spending time with Richard Ayoade is one of my all-time favorite things to do, closely followed by playing hot or cold, so this has worked out brilliantly. Love that quote. Ayoade, best known for the IT crowd and the former host of Travelman, which is just a.. If you’ve never seen that, go on Amazon, look up Travelman. So basically, Richard Ayoade goes somewhere, usually in Europe, for a long weekend.

And is not impressed by any of it. It is one of my favorite pieces of television. I love him so much, and he should be the next Doctor Who. Can we all agree on that? How do we make that happen?

Richard said, although I prefer mild temperatures, it’s been instructive to participate in something as binary as this. Okay, that sentence alone, if you’re ever like, what kind of humor does Johnny Mac like? That’s it. That sentence about hot or cold, although I prefer mild temperatures. That is wonderful.

Right there is everything. Hot or Cold, coming soon to Netflix. James Acaster has suggested that having a lot of comedians on UK Celebrity Traitors could become a problem as the comedians could become obvious suspects. Hmm. Celebrity Traitors on BBC One and on the Pirate Ship, if you know what I mean.

I might go out to sea and watch an episode or two, just saying. Although I think Peacock actually shows those. So no, no, no Pirate Ship. Sorry. Subscribe to Peacock like a good, honorable citizen.

That’s all you have to do to watch UK Traders. Anyway, I’m all into it. Episodes will air, at least in the UK, two nights a week on Thursday and Friday. Some of the comedians include James Acaster, Joanne McNally, Joe Lycett, Rob Beckett, Miranda Hart, and Romesh Raganathan. Acaster joked about the odds being stacked against the comics.

He said, even though it could obviously easily be three people who aren’t comedians, meaning the Traders.. I don’t know how it works out, but if math turns against us, we’re in big trouble. So here’s my question to you guys. Who would be good on American celebrity traders? So I put some thought into this.

And I think you need a specific kind of comedian. Like the Austin guys, even if you got them to do it, they’re not going to take it seriously. Like Tom Segura is not going to take celebrity traders seriously. So I’m like, who would take it seriously? So you need somebody like Jim Gaffigan, I think would be great at celebrity traders.

Mulaney might actually buy into it. Controversial manga comedian Nate Borghese would probably be really good at it. So I think you need that type of comedian. Let’s hear when Carlos Mencia, too. He’s been very interesting in the press.

I don’t know. So go on the Facebook group, Daily Comedy News Podcast group. Tell me who would be good for American celebrity traders and comedians. And that is your comedy news for today. I’m going to go change outfits, even though I’m recording a bunch of these in a row.

So those of you watching on YouTube aren’t like, hey, does he ever shower? I shower, just not during a marathon recording session. See you tomorrow.

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