🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. Hello Johnny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Hope you had a good Christmas. Did you see Aaron Rodgers name check Dave Chappelle. Recently, former NFL running back at Rashard Mendenhall has suggested an all black versus all white bull.
Aaron Rodgers was asked about it when he was on the Pat McAfee show last week, and Aaron said, I think, off the top of my head spitballing. We need to have a draft, and it has to involve Dave Chappelle. We should have a draft because there’s a couple of people we’re not sure which team they’d be on, so we need to have a draft. Mendon Hall had started a little mini Twitter controversy when he tweeted, I’m sick of average white guys commenting on football. Y’all not even good at football.
Can we please replace the Pro Bowl with an all black versus all white bull so these cats can stop trying to teach me who’s good at football. I’m better than your goat. Joe Coy is going to host the Golden Globe Awards. Those are on January seventh. Joe’s selling out Arenas, but that’ll make him pop in the mainstream a little bit more like Nateprigatsey has this year, So the regular folks will get to know Joe.
That is cool. He gave a statement which is I’ve stepped on to a lot of stages around the world in my career, but this one is going to be extra special. I’m so excited to be hosting the Golden Globes this year. This is the moment where I get to make my Filipino family proud. Esquire did a wonderful profile with Gary Goleman under the headline Gary Goleman can make absolutely anything funny.
They tell the story. It’s November twenty nineteen. Goleman is scrolling through his phone on Twitter, and a tweet from Jason Zenman from The New York Times caught his attention. Zenniman had asked, what stand up have you liked that is about class? However you want to define it.
That intrigued Gary Golmany realized he couldn’t think of a comedian who’d built a whole act around socio economic status. George Carlin had touched on the topic, certainly with riffs about how the ruling class operates to keep themselves on top. Gary says, but I hadn’t seen anybody who made the entire hour about class, and I thought, Oh, that’s it. That’s a great area.
And then I just started the article discussed about how Gary is well respecte…
I’ve met Gary a few times. Great guy. I tried to hire him at the place I used to work, but the boss didn’t get it. The boss wasn’t really that good at looking forty yards downfield. I kind of am good at that.
Oh well, sorry, Gary, I would have liked to have worked with you. We tried. You were there, you know. Jud Appatsol said, I think every comedian would agree that Gary is better than most everybody. There’s certain people you go, oh, they’re on another level.
Their artistry, their ambition, their willingness to try new things, how much they’ll open up. No matter how many comedians there are, only a few were working at the highest level, and Gary is one of them. Ryan Hamilton, who I love, shared an apartment with Gary and a couple other roommates in New York City in the early twenty tens. Ryan said, we’d’s just so special to Gary, and he really has a gift for finding just the right word that can turn a joke. Hamilton says having Gary for a roommate was inspiring because Golman was always writing and working on his craft.
The apartment effectively didn’t have a living or dining room because the living room had been turned over to one of the roommates for a bedroom, but Hamilton and Goldman would stand in the kitchen in the morning and talk comedy while eating seals. Ryan says he was constantly threatening to start a newsletter that was just for our apartment, you know, with all the big news of the day about who left what in the fridge. Seeing our apartment filtered through his comedical lens was really fun. Esquire writes, Goldman has a rare talent for making an esoteric topic funny in a broadly accessible way. But sometimes that means sitting on an idea for years until he figures out how to make it work on stage.
One of his best known bits centers on a made up Netflix documentary about the US Postal Services effort to give every state its own to capital letter abbreviation. When Goldman’s fictional team of abbreviators get stuck, they’re forced to bring in a contractor, a specialist that created contractions. Goldman said he scribbled the original idea in a notebook in nineteen ninety four, but it took him until around twenty thirteen before he figured out how to successfully incorporate it into his act. Wow Variety caught up with Robert Smigel. They gave Robert quite the wax job on Adam Sandler’s LEO, but I was more interested in the part about Triumph and would Triumph have a run for office?
Smigel said, I thought about doing it, believe it or not, not run for president, but some office and just doing the entire campaign is trying. But part of it is campaign finance laws are really strange and strict, because I would want to chronicle it, and there are certain rules about how cameras can’t be following you unless there’s a separate documentary crew, and I don’t only want to do it if I could do it in a humorous way. I love covering the election as trying for Hulu in twenty sixteen, and it was one of the most well received things I ever did in my career. They asked, Smile, was there any sketch that you loved that he couldn’t get on the air at SNL. Smichael said, actually, there was one that Dina Carvey and I released.
Bob Odenkirk had written about it in his autobiography and talked about it on a show as the funniest sketch that never aired. There’s a host talking about early footage of Charlie Chaplin. Dina Carvey plays Chaplain and we see outtakes where he’s basically unrecognizable and not funny at all. Then this waiter character comes out and he’s dressed like Chaplain. Take after take, you see Chaplain slowly steal every part of his persona to the point where the guy ends up serving him in long underwear.
We did it at dress rehearsal and it never made it to air, but we put it online. Depress Enterprise caught up with Howie Mandell. He told a story about being in the casino and said there was a lady playing a slot machine, very focused on machines, so I thought it’d be funny to sneak up behind her just before she pressed the button, I said in her ear Deal or no Deal. She never turned her head. She just elbowed me in the chest, knocked the wind In and said, get away from me.
She didn’t know who I was. Now I like to approach them from the front. Howie says he has a slot machine version of Deal or No Deal in his LA office, but he says he’s not much of a gambler. He added, if he were on Dealer No Deal, he’d take the first offer and go home. All right.
I got a couple more of those end of the year lists for you. This from Decider, the ten best stand up comedy specials of twenty twenty three. I’ll have mine for you later this week. I wanted to watch Ricky Gervais and you know today’s December twenty sixth. No, I didn’t tape this on Christmas Day.
I actually recorded this on Friday, So at this time I haven’t seen Jervais nor Goldman yet, but looking forward to it and hopefully in the real world I’ve watched it both buy now, but we’ll get to that later in the week. You know, these lists are hard, Decider wrote, when the calendar year finally ends, we’ll have seen several hundred new stand up comedy specials in twenty twenty three, at least seven hundred counting hours and a half hours. They have a list of fifty seven that they reviewed. That’s what I’m saying. Like, I know, sometimes I sound crazy here when I’m like, I haven’t watched that one.
I haven’t watched that one. Like I love doing the podcast, but you know, sometimes I don’t want to watch comedy. All right. This is Sean McCarthy who made this list. He knows what he’s talking about.
Let’s see who he liked here. He is number ten, Greg Warrens, the Salesman. I started to watch that one and I felt like they had added artificial laughter to it. You know, I do this for a living, and it just didn’t sound right to me. And that made me go, I’m out.
McCarthy writes, close your eyes. You might just imagine hearing what almost sounds like Mitch Heiberg if only he could do corporate gigs. And I don’t know if I can roll with that one. Number nine Ralph Barbosa’s Cowabunga. I have that on my list pretty low, but okay, eight my name is Monique on Netflix.
That one didn’t grab me. Seven Jim Gaffigan’s Dark Pall. I’ll have a lot of great things to say about Jim later in the week. This particular special did not make my end of the year list. Joe paris slow and steady.
I will comment on that when I do my list. Number five Gary Golmans Born on third Base, tied with Maria Bamford’s Local Act. Why is there a tie for Barbiglia the Old Man on the Pool. As I’ve said, I think you’ll like it, and I’m a comedy snob. Three want of psychs.
I’m an entertainer. I didn’t feel that special at all. Two Beth Stealing. If you didn’t like me, then I didn’t feel that special at all. But I see that at a lot of people’s list up top.
Wow, he has Mark Maren’s from Bleak to Dark at number one. I’ve been on a Maren kick and I don’t even have this on my list. Not my favorite Maren special at all. Wow. All right, we’ll agree to disagree.
Cratt wrote the ten comedy voices that mattered most in twenty twenty three. Ten Sabrina Bryer, Johnny mack Goes, who may write your annoying roommate is slaying on TikTok, proclaimed The New York Times. That’s Briar, whose TikTok following has nearly doubled since our national newspaper of record wrote about her in the spring. Briar’s secret is her willingness to be hateable and yet relatable. Nine Hasan Minhaj, Right, we know about his little kurf luffel with the New Yorker writing the xpos A news stories not being all that true.
Eight Diane Morgan from Kunk on Earth. Good call to jwatch Kunk on Earth. You had that was probably my favorite thing of the entire year. Seven Pedro Pascal what In addition to killing it on HBOS The Last of Us, Pascal also became the unexpected MVP of Saturday Night Live. I don’t know about that, guys, really really all right?
Move on? Six Fran Dresher, Okay, yep, she was involved with the strikes. Fine. Five John Mulaney crack right. So if you’re getting tired of Mullany, it’s only because the story has been everywhere in the past year.
Baby Jay Drew deserved comparisons to Richard Pryor’s Live on the Sunset Strip for its ability to generate huge laughs whiles telling harrowing stories of drug addiction. You know, I never thought about that at all. I guess that’s not a ridiculous comparison. Four George Santo’s crack You’re trying two hard three Matt rife Well discussed on this podcast. Two Greta Geri cracked rights.
Let’s shower Gerwig with her well deserved flowers. Barbie obliterated Box office records, et cetera, et cetera. And they have number one. Elon Musk. No one wanted to be funny in twenty twenty three more than Musk.
In fact, it’s what he’s always wanted. Paste Magazine the ten Best Comedians of twenty twenty three. They were deciding who were the best comedians of twenty three is admittedly a really difficult task by what metric? What counts as a comedian always a good question. Let’s see who they have.
Nate bergatsy Well discussed Io at Aberri. She had a really good season on The Bear Great show, Okay. Joe Firestone interesting pick. With the release of her debut novel, Murder on Sex Island. The year brought an exciting new venture for Joe Firestone and a clever marketing tactic.
Firestone released each chapter to audiences for free via audio streamers, building intrigue and momentum with listeners in order to boost book sales. H Robbie Hoffman, Paste writes what makes this comedian so special as her candor mixed with her sincere curiosity and compassion. You’ll find her on Netflix’s verified stand up pace, continuing to throw deep. Next up, Micky Leaper, They’re right. Whether you thought Jury Duty was a stroke of genius or an unethical project in the relentless pursuit of laughs, you have to admit it was a phenomenon.
Leaper wrote for Jury Duty and stars as Naive Drew or Noah, Okay cool good pick May Martin, I just don’t get it. A partner in on Churla. Good to see her back. I’ve been a fan of hers for several years. Paste writes for The Nervous among Us, A partner in Trilla sings your tune quietly in the back.
Actually, she wouldn’t be caught singing out loud at all. Instead, you can find the anxiety written expert in deadpan delivery on back shelves everywhere. With the publication of her debut memoir, Unreliable Narrator Me Myself an imposter syndrome. Sarah Sherman. I love Sarah and I’m glad everybody’s getting to know her through Saturday Night Live.
She crushes every time she’s on. Just she’s fantastic. You know, they could build a pretty good cast. They’ve got Sarah Bowen Yang who hopefully sticks around for a couple more years. He crushes every time as well, Jostin Chay.
Just leave them at the desk for another ten years. Yeah, Sarah’s fantastic and I see I scroll down by two. They do have Bowen Yang on the list. Okay, we’re on the same page there. But before bow and Yang they have Jess.
Tom Pace is a big fan of Jess’s show Less Lonely. Less Lonely digs into love at the end of the world, change and a lot of weird sex. That’s your comedy news for today. Now tomorrow, we’re promoting the Top Eleven podcast. That’s a new podcast where every week you’ll get the top eleven things on a single topic.
The topic can be anything, could be album covers, movie moments, quirky hobbies. You’ll find the Top eleven wherever you get your podcasts. So, as part of promoting the top eleven. Tomorrow I will give you my list of the top eleven most powerful comedians of twenty twenty three. See you tomorrow.